Breaking the Branding Rules (and the SEO and blogging ones…)
I probably just broke a whole pile of Branding, SEO and blogging rules, all in one go.
And I did it by winning a competition !!
The competition was organized by David Shaw of www.Protycoon.com, who was giving away 6 free advertising banners on his site to the first 6 visitors who would either review his new blog design, review the blog itself, or promote the blog’s RSS feed.
Well, I actually won an ad! (and you can see it by going to his coooool site, with loads of tips on blogging)
Now I had to decide what to do with it.
My business is divided into two pretty equal parts: SEO (search engine optimization, for the uninitiated), and S/W QA (software quality assurance). Since I set up shop, about 5 months ago, I’ve been breaking my head about my Branding and Marketing message. Is it SEO? Is it QA? Is it some type of combination? Or should I drop one of them?
But they are both bringing in clients and cheques, so what to do?
| Since I didn’t think David would keep my ad space until I decided this weighty question, I prepared myself an ad that included both: |  |
But then it hit me - my blog didn’t actually say anything about SEO!
So, firstly, I updated my “About Us” page, included SEO in my bio (and subtle marketing message!), and added the fact that an SEO blog is in the works. Next, I wrote this post, so that anyone looking for SEO, after clicking on my ad, would actually find something about it.
What’s Next?
The next thing is to decide whether SEO and QA go into the same blog (Huh! as if I can work THAT one out in 10 minutes).
If yes, then I need to change my blog header, and change my blog URL, and redirect this one to the new one (so that none of you reading this will see the change).
If not, then I need to work out how I direct people who click on my ad, looking for SEO, as easily and quickly as possible onto my SEO blog…
Your comments, this time for sure, will really make a difference to my stategy! So, please comment away…
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July 8th, 2008 by debizyx
Posted in Branding
Tags: Blogging, marketing, QA, SEO, strategy
14 Comments »
Nice Ad.
Hope to send you some great traffic this month!
Me too
Well done!
It sounds as though you’re doing what you do best: multitasking and excelling at it. Reading about your new challenges and successes is thrilling (and makes me just a teeny bit envious). Keep up the fantastic job you’re doing and looking foward to hearing more good news from you!
Congratulations on winning!!! You rock!
[...] Remember my post on breaking all the branding, SEO and Bloggin rules? [...]
[...] Remember my post on breaking all the branding, SEO and Blogging rules? [...]
There is a new contest on my blog now!
[...] OK, at last I’ve worked it out … July 17, 2008 Remember my post on breaking all the branding, SEO and Blogging rules, about how I ended up with 2 blogs, and a prize advert that I didn’t know what to do [...]
[...] my post on breaking all the branding, SEO and Blogging rules, about how I ended up with 2 blogs, and a prize advert that I didn’t know what to do [...]
Branding – what a pain. Sarah and I had a vision of how we wanted the cattery logo to look so I got a very talented Low-vision cartoonist to draw it for me (cos I draw like he uses a computer
) (www.brentharpur.co.nz/) and we took it to the professionals who hated it – not to worry we were paying the bills so we went with our gut feeling and it works – the logo is personal and means something to us, it stands out amongst all the competition and we like it. Branding is important – too important to kludge. Go with what feels right to you.
Kev
I just looked at your cattery site (very Kool), and the site of the Foundation for the blind, so now I get the “accessibility testing” point …
I tell all my clients how important it is, and even if Google didn’t give brownie points for filling in alt, I would make sure it was done properly.
Good luck with the Cattery. What happened to the idea of the Pub?
All the best,
Debi
Cheers Debi – nice to see you busy. The email subs don’t seem to be getting through but no doubt that’ll be the evil firewall at work. It’s bizarre being the IT guru after NDS where I knew ‘not a lot’. Thanks for the kool by the way – we’re pretty proud of the site (but not the accessibility which is Zero so I need to get that sorted when I have time).
Hope the weather’s good out there
Kev
PS – the Pub wasn’t me – that was Shane McCarthy. I was going to get a job that just passed the time and paid the mortgage but seem to have got on the greasy pole again somehow.
I changed the mailing time of the email subscriptions so that they would catch my late night ruminations, that were otherwise being sent with a delay of more than 24 hours.
Now they get sent out early morning my time (today it arrived at 6:43am).
So, that should be between 2-3pm for you guys.
Don’t know why I got confused about the pub. Whatever. How is Shane doing? Did he open it?
Sharon , if you read this, I’m sorry that I’m taking away your lunch time reading …..