Posted on: June 26, 2009 by Jordan Hardy
Over the years I’ve done a lot of work for companies in regards to either helping them get the right Website built, or hiring the right vendor or team to do this. A website can cost in the thousands to millions to build, depending on a number of factors:
- Is this website being built from scratch with proprietary software?
- Is the website being built based on an existing CMS platform and code tweaked/customized? An example of an open source platform is Drupal.
- Has a team been hired just for this project?
- Is this project being done by a vendor?
- Have you or the vendor done a project such as this before?
To me, for a small to medium sized business the perfect website is based on existing tools and platforms but edited and tweaked to have:
- A unique look
- Unique content
- Necessary branding
- Updated content
This way, the Website will be affordable, in the thousands of dollars and not hundreds of thousands. The website should also be built on a platform where sitewide rollouts and navigation updates are easy and possible. The website can hopefully be updated by anyone with a login. And, of course the website should be built so that online marketing / SEO elements and keyword strategy can be worked throughout.
For larger businesses, this website style can still work well plus scale. Or, a large website can be built from scratch. If you have questions, let me know as I’ve dealt with hundreds of types of top performing websites, from thousands to millions of pages.
Posted on: June 26, 2009 by Jordan Hardy
SEO is a component of online marketing. Online marketing can include SEO, SEM, press releases, social media optimization, blogging, article writing, online promotion, website roll-outs, and more. SEO can include any of these items as well in my opinion, since almost any public change to an online website can affect SEO. Here are some examples below. In these examples, “you” or “your” stands for a random person I may have met here or there.
- A new version of your website rolls out. It is missing some pages or some code has changed. Search engines index the site differently based on better or worse coding and inclusion of pages.
- Blog entries are deleted. Google may have given your website a higher pagerank based on the dates and number of entries on your blog. Now things have changed and pagerank drops.
- People are talking about you on social media websites. Search engines note various information about this and include that in their ranking for you.
- Your website is coded with non SEO friendly elements. Your competitor has their website coded with well done SEO. Even if you are the better business, your competitor has a better chance of being crawled well by search engines and indexed better.
- You have a writer that decides to copy text and cut corners. Search engines find this and ping the website.
These are just a handful of examples, but they do show it is ever so valuable to have good SEO in place. I’ve done consulting as well as worked as an employee for companies, managing SEO /online marketing departments. To do it well is both an art and a science. It is necessary that one never tries to trick search engines, but rather understand what will help both users and search engines.
Posted on: June 3, 2009 by Jordan Hardy
One client I know had worked for years creating and building their online store before hiring me to consult.They made mistakes and took considerable time away from building their business to learn Web design, online store skills, and more. Since they spent so much time away from their focus of building their actual business and line of products, their business suffered. Once they hired me, business online grew fast. I was able to implement many tested as well as new techniques to gain traffic and convert that traffic. That insight, plus testing and more targeted research when needed has helped them become not only a successful online company, but they have also been featured with their Website on quite a number of Television shows. I addition they have become a top seller in many stores.
Posted on: May 24, 2009 by Jordan Hardy
There are quite a few kinds of sales positions, each with different drawbacks and benefits for employees and employers. This post discusses my observations on various types of sales positions a sales professional can choose from.
- Sales Manager – This position can be inside or outside sales. I’ve found this works best when I was a sales manager who was both out in the feld with clients, out in the field with staff, and at the company offices at times. This position is typically a base salary with flexible hours and location due to the range of client and company needs.
- Inside Sales with Base Salary and Commission – This is a good position for the employee as not only is there a base salary, but also commission. It is possible to build close internal business relationships, of course as well as client relationships. The drawbacks of this position for the employee are that it can be more about the hours than work done, and may include busywork at a desk. The drawbacks of this position for the company include extra time, training, and money invested in an employee that may or may not end up being good at sales.
- Outside Sales with Base Salary and Commission – This is an ideal sales position that can either be the one where a salesperson starts out, or a position the salesperson and company agree on after a trial period. My preference is that the employee start out commission only and then within weeks or months grow into base plus commission if things go well. The benefit here is that both sides can find out if the position is a good fit.
- Inside Sales with no Base and Commissio Only - I have not seen this often and do not feel it is a good idea for anyone.
- Outside Sales with Commission Only - This can be more ideal for a company than salesperson to start since only the salesperson is taking a risk. The company can hire a number of salespeople for similar positions and give each minimal training. For sure some salespeople will fail and others will do well. In my experience, it works best that after a couple of months, a new successful salesperson on commission only talk with the company they are working for. If they are doing well, it will be important to know future plans of the company in regards to territories and future hiring. It will be important over time that the salesperson and company have a strong trusting relationship so that everyone is appreciated.
- Telemarketing from Home – These days there are many people posing as companies, as well as companies looking to take advantage of people. If a person decides to do telemarketing from home, it will be crucial they they get proof of what will happen for calls that convert to leads or sales. It will be important that time spent is rewarded.
- Sales Assistant or Intern – Many companies or people these days may try to get someone for free or almost nothing as this may be first experience for the employee. If it is a good opportunity with a company of notable size or quality, this can be a good opportunity. If this is a small questionable business that is taking advantage of someone, then it may be time to think twice and ask more questions of the employer and what they do.
Click here to read about Jordan Hardy who wrote this.
Posted on: April 27, 2009 by Jordan Hardy
For more than 15 years, I’ve managed teams, trained and hired, and done public speaking. In that time, I’ve managed teams of 2 vendors to over 50 employees at each company. I’ve often asked myself if I managed because I’m good at it or I love managing. I believe the answer is both.
To be a great manager, I believe it is important to:
- Have experience
- Be open
- Care about people
- Like being around people
- Be able to sell, whether internally or externally
- Read and take classes about leadership constantly
My view on ideal leadership of a team is to lead by example. It is not to worry about an employee ever moving up and taking your position. I believe in training employees, and most importantly letting them have great quality of life. In my experience, if an employee wants to work late or on a Saturday rather than having to do so from guilt, there is a huge difference in the quality of work just from their mindset. It is important to be clear on goals, their next steps to take, and expectations. Having employees that all feel they have been given the tools to succeed, balance their lives, learn, and grow can bring ideal results.
I feel the least effective form of leadership is one of insecurity. Letting employees feel they may be laid off any day, or that they cannot move up over time, can very much change their motivation. Not being clear on what needs to be done for a project, or playing games with employees, can hurt morale and just isn’t fair to do to them.
In the past, my leadership has built teams that help grow a business and also start work in the morning refreshed. This isn’t just something I can do, but rather something so many leaders out there do when they are secure in treating others well, with integrity.
Posted on: April 10, 2009 by Jordan Hardy
About Managing
When I was young, I had the opportunity at the age of 14 to manage staff members for my parents. Ever since then, I have been in leadership positions, managing anywhere from a couple of vendors to teams of over 50 people. Now that I’m in my 30’s and many years ago graduated from college, management and building of teams and strategy is something I’m very familiar with. In the last couple of years I have become a VP, a temporary consultant for other companies, and a temporary director to help other companies.
If you would like to learn to manage, I would suggest getting started somewhere by reading, taking classes, locating a mentor, and most importantly putting yourself in a position to learn to manage people. It may just be that you start by managing one person, and even that may help get your foot in the door to learning.
About Sales and Marketing
Before and during college I had many opportunities to manage staff, sell to clients, and work with customers. After college I was extremely interested in selling and marketing. To bring this to a new level in my 20’s, I spent a lot of time reading books and magazines from experts, taking extra classes at local colleges, and most importantly selling and marketing my own products and services. Within months of graduating college, I was hired by the world’s largest Orchid company where I then managed, trained, advised, wrote for trade journals, and gave seminars to the public to sell Orchids and teach. A few years after that I grew to another opportunity and kept selling, marketing, and managing.
Posted on: March 14, 2009 by Jordan Hardy
UI (user interface) Design is closely related to SEO in my opinion in terms of results. Proximity of elements on a page, what those elements are, how SEO keyword strategy integrates into those elements, and which UI Design changes drive more trafic and conversion, all affect results. As I consult for companies, it is impossible to ignore UI Design when focusing on SEO as there are always UI design elements I find that can be improved.
Posted on: January 12, 2009 by Jordan Hardy
I’m often asked about my public speaking and training experience so thought I would just post the answers here. These are recent questions I’ve received in person, through email, and over the phone.
What is your public speaking experience?
When I used to work for Rod McLellan Orchid company, I gave over 250 talks over a few years to groups of 50-200 people. I was featured in books, newspapers, and live TV. I also did team trainings. After that, at Sybase and at Disney I did team trainings. In the last year, I have been doing public speaking for various companies, team trainings, and individual one on one trainings.
What is your team and individual training experience?
Training individuals and teams is truly enjoyable. One on one, there is the benefit of tailoring training for the employee. With team trainings, a lot of ground can be covered.
Do your think we should have you come in and teach our team? What is the benefit?
Hmm.. let me think… yes! The benefit of hiring me is my experience, patience, and clarity of throught in organizing the training materials. I think the benefit is that it can be quite useful to have a trainer who people can relate with and learn well from.
Posted on: May 20, 2008 by Jordan Hardy
The Google Factory Tour was a very interesting event, covering everything from Google search, to health to maps. Some of the topics discussed:
- Search Innovation at Google
- Google Search Media Types
- Image Search by Google, Face Recognition on Advanced Search
- Google Maps and Earth
- Google Core Search Quality
- New Google Products
- Google Health, Privacy Policies
- Go for Good campaign with the Cleveland Clinic
- Walk for Good iGoogle Gadget
This is the slideshow of the event.
This is over 5 hours of an excellent video.
This is the Google factory tour page.
This is the page about The Google Factory Tour on The Google Blog.
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