1. Learn something new. Maybe you have wanted to learn how to play an instrument, speak another language or a unique skill like web design for some time now but have yet to give yourself permission. No time like the present to present yourself with the opportunity. Who knows? This new skill just might reveal a fresh avenue of your life.
2. Turn your leaning lucrative. Everyone has some card up their sleeve that they have yet to play. Use that knowledge (and maybe that something new you’ve learned) to find an idea surrounded by dollars. Money may not bring happiness but it can sure come in handy. And if you are fortunate enough to not need that extra buck pass it off to your favorite cause.
3. Find your niche of happiness. No matter the idea, in today’s market specificity is key. If you are going to turn your learning lucrative, identifying a unique product or service will assist in taking direct aim at your target audience. Speaking of assist here is where we come into the picture of your new year!

Let’s face it folks. No matter how you decide to turn your new skills lucrative while finding your niche it is going to involve some online presence. That said, why not make that online presence awesome? Most people will agree that looking at a creative site is preferable to the alternative. Would you rather have a flat, pallid, impersonal template or pages with spiffy, original design, complementing colors and easy to navigate menus? Let us help you have the latter and just like a crazy infomercial host pitching their product, we “won’t stop there!”

With our branding package you will have a fantastic logo design, a business pack with business cards, printed stationary, electronic stationary, envelopes and look at all these ad-ons!

And look for more creative resolutions this year at Andiamo Creative.

While shaking thoughts of conventional wisdom and offering what some consider to be controversial data, these authors tie everything up with the thread of incentive, the why leading to the how one gets what one wants. Prepare for fascinating comparisons from the rogue economists!

Chapter one discusses the similarities of sumo wrestlers and teachers! What? Cheating is across the board both in the classroom where teachers use a number two pencil to change their students’ answers and during a match when wrestlers find themselves in a 8 vs. 6 scenario. Caution! Claiming sumo to be rigged is more than taboo for some. Two men were killed for just that.

Chapter two relates real estate agents to the Ku Klux Klan. Now, you might be thinking at this point, what radical comparisons. You haven’t read anything yet! Both parties use fear tactics and specific language. Is the property “granite” or “spacious” and what are the meanings behind these euphemisms? If you are in the market for a home it would be wise to know what information asymmetry means (and stay away from “Klaverns!).

Chapter three introduces us to another familiar name, Sudhir Venkatesh, author of Gang Leader for a Day, as the authors delve into why gang members live with their mothers, while chapter four focuses on reasons for the lack of criminals. Some points of discussion include capitol punishment, innovative police strategies and the aging of the population. The core of the argument is Roe vs. Wade.

The final two chapters elaborate on parenting and name trends. Here’s a favorite line:

…anybody who bothers to change his name in the name of economic success is–like the high school freshman in Chicago who entered the school-choice lottery–at least highly motivated, and motivation is probably a stronger indicator of success than, well, a name (pg. 189).

Readers living in Chicago should know that Steven D. Levitt teaches at the University of Chicago. Find out more about him by clicking here or you could click here to visit the Freakonomics blog.

In short I ask, topics aside, what make a book a good book? A good book will keep you turning to the next page. I enjoyed every turn the writers created in this highly recommended read, Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.

Thanksgiving, for me, brings to mind crafts, festive decorations and everyone coming together to sit around a table to eat until they are stuffed. It also evokes the image of my grandmother sweating in the kitchen all day while creating a ridiculous amount of food amidst six grandchildren running wild in the house. It was easy to calm everyone down with a little paper crafts project. Remember making those fun little turkey hands as a kid?

Well, now that you are all grown up you might be looking for a print design with a little more flair than a turkey hand. If it is delightful, artistic packaging you are interested in then click here to see samples of our very own. I think my favorite is the one featuring Halvorson and Partners. What amazing feats of engineering they have achieved! However, let me not get distracted by the beautiful designs but focus on how you will be the architect of your own holiday happiness… and less stress. That is something else we all create during these busy times.

No blog mentioning what we create on Thanksgiving would be complete without mentioning stress. Do you know the cure? We suggest yoga, pilates, dance and meditation, specifically with a local Chicago company, and past client Chaturanga Holistic Fitness. This leads us to one more thing that we all, like it or not, inevitable create around the holidays.

You may inadvertently create a few pounds.Those pounds you create during the holidays are a sure reason to tackle a new hobby or physical activity to design your new body (maybe with a little help from Jenny Schatzle, an Andiamo Creative website). And just as we have shown in this article time and time again if it is the body of a web page you need assistance in creating or redesigning, we are your company!

This season we extend a warm thanks to all our clients for welcoming our business as a Chicago web designer. There is more to come as we will still be creating on Thanksgiving. Happy Holidays from the team at Andiamo Creative.

Reaching midway in my POA for SEO it is time to integrate what I learned from Groundswell and share some thoughts on making a swell website. Aside from looking swell a well developed website will (A) allow for easy navigation, (B) offer the viewer continuing reasons to visit and (C) show up in direct and related online searches. I will be using a couple of websites to illustrate my argument the first of which is the new finished work, More Yarn. Breaking it down here, we see this meets the criteria:

• (A) Three easy tabs across top, multiple options to reach your shopping cart including footer quick links, and the main header logo returns you to the home screen
• (B) Offers Rewards program, numerous brands and daily specials
• (C) Returns on page one in Google search for company name

Strengths of this site include the pleasing design and overall web-layout and the simplicity of navigation. Now if the owner of this company meets a potential client and happens to be missing his or her business cards they can simply say, “Just search More Yarn Chicago on Google.” Now let’s consider a site offering something other than a material product, my company page, Awesomonster. Another breakdown follows:

• (A) Static homepage encouraging navigation, plenty of clear tabs, search box, footer categories, pages and archives, also main header logo return
• (B) Three out of Ten pages receive regular RSS updates including new photos, podcasts and blog entries
• (C) Listed as a page one return in Google search for both company name and current live production

One might ask at this point what a good site has to do with my reading the Groundswell. Easily answered, your website is your core tie-in for all social media outlets including Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Yelp, etc. How does this element link to SEO? Consider the “talking” strategy presented in the book. Online forum and social network engagement is the direct way of talking with the groundswell yet there is one more method. I value SEO development as the indirect way of communicating with the groundswell movement, the underlying subtlety or nuance to a page if you will. The longer you have done it and the more specific your keyword development, the richer your conversation with the web will be. Specificity is key.

While a sample list of relevant words for my comedy webpage include different venues and performers of Chicago comedy a sample for this page is very different (way to go captain obvious). Seriously though, I just wanted a transition into a list I’m focusing on for this page including but not limited to the following:

Chicago web designer, creative branding, web layout, branding package, graphic design firms, creative websites, design firm chicago, etc.

In close, coupling these broader categorical keywords with others specific to the article in question remain at the heart of my SEO POA for Andiamo Creative where we help you build a swell website.

Should you find yourself waiting for “proof” of ROI linked to participating in this growing digital age of connection, this is your book. A number of case studies are shown here with big name companies attached, such as Procter and Gamble, Best Buy, and Dell. The book is divided into three clear parts (and if you want winning pages like those linked we are here to create).

Part one, Understanding the Groundswell help you do just that. See a successful website launch like Kevin Rose’s Digg.com evolve as a perfect example of how quickly growth can occur when this source is tapped. But you cannot hope to “tap” it unless you first know what this whole thing is about or to quote a favorite jujitsu-related chapter “If you understand it, you can work with it or even thrive in it” (pg. 17). You will find the names Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MetaCafe and Dailymotion here, how they are transforming institutions and the ways you and your company can participate (don’t forget RSS). Finding those ways means moving into part two.

Tapping the Groundswell begins with POST: people, objective, strategy and technology. Some companies will find it highly beneficial to be “listening” to the groundswell while others will move forward into “talking.” Basically, this part will offer instruction on how to engage the swell with your brand in mind. “‘The value of a brand belongs to the market and not to the company’” (pg. 79). The meat of the book is here and you will find examples of how even very low conversion rates involving online traffic transform into huge dollar values. In addition to the worthy words of online wisdom you will see hard facts offered in the marketing funnel and various social technological profile graphs containing data spanning our great transforming globe.

That word brings us to part three, The Groundswell Transforms. After all these facts of changing brands, molding new consumer relations and responding to concerns one must still face the reality that change will continue as we  all learn how to better participate with the online community. Take for example Dell’s case in responding to harsh critics and a quote from Bob Pearson, “That level of transparency at the company–well, we weren’t used to sharing at that level” (pg. 209). Get used to it.

Change will continue across the net of information and transparency is an aspect that once embraced will only contribute to a positive shift in product creation, target markets and brand development. Fortunately, since you landed on our site you are in a prime spot for your new branding package!

In close here is yet another favorite quote succinctly expressing why this market exists:

And yet there is something fundamental to the drive to be social– something that touches or will touch all of us. A need to connect (pg 60).

Your place for such, in part, is the Groundswell, Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies.

Now, taking into account these last few months and an almost dozen articles later we figured it was time to have a little one and one update with Rochelle Weiner. As tradition, we met at Emerald City Coffee to sip coffee and touch base over development thus far. “I like what you’ve been doing,” Rochelle says “and now we want to take it one step further.”

Initially, my goal was simply to have more people popping onto the site. After all, more web traffic leads one to correlate such with potential clients. Not always the case. Together we reviewed Google Analytics to discover key word searches used to find our page, the location of the searches, the bounce rate and plenty more helpful data. In short, good SEO will bring your page link listed on higher on return results from engines such as Yahoo, Google, AOL, Ask Jeeves (or the now Ask.com), MSN and so forth.

“Yeah, it doesn’t seem entirely helpful that someone found our page by searching for ‘big boned BBQ,’” I say and we both laugh. Then again, the content was highly relevant at that point during the Windy CIty Ribfest and went hand in hand with my personable approach of getting more people in the community to hear about the company, but it simply did not prove overly advantageous as an SEO strategy (more of a word of mouth strategy, after all I interviewed 100 people). So, this particular person landing on our page with this particular search decided to “bounce.” Our customers are more likely to be interested if they review more than one of the pages or services offered through Andiamo Creative. Now on to my plan.

Over this next span of time I will focus my keywords to remain within highly relevant circles coupled with the company’s product (as it is here “This is our Work”), while working in concert with data from analytics and Google AdWords (and in future articles, I’ll even share some of the words that prove highly helpful). Pairing that with my own SEO self-learned tips while continuing advertising across social media and more tips from our own Robin Angell Caroll in “How to Write for SEO” will result in a refined, handy strategy in helping the right people find us and our creative service.

Speaking of creative service, I’m giving a quick kudos to Rochelle for her new finished work with MoreYarn.com!

So whether you find yourselves in need of a brand update, an email campaign, Uptown copywriting or print services we have all that and more to offer you (not to mention you can continue to sneak a peek at my stretch into a POA for SEO!). Take a look at what we have and don’t bounce to soon or you might just inhibit your own creative plan of action.

MoreYarn.com home page

It’s been a while since I’ve posted to the blog – mostly because it’s been crazy busy around Andiamo the last couple months (yay!)

There are two big websites about to go live and several other smaller jobs are in the works too. I just posted several new logos to the “Our Work” section and updated the home page gallery as well. But to give you a peek, here are a few things I’m particularly proud of:

MoreYarn.com – we just went live with the new site for More Yarn. A new, hand-drawn logo was created, and a totally revamped website. The brief was to look more professional while still being fun and warm and approachable. I love this new site.

Of the logos I’ve finished recently, I am particularly proud of the following:

If you ever question “why them” or “how come they,” I recommend this book. Divided into two parts the first focuses on “opportunity” and the later on “legacy.” One guess as to which we visit first.

Opportunity can arrive in disguise or as plain as the nose on your face yet we do not all seize the day as fast as some. Gladwell brings light to the subject with simplicity. He relates a number of success stories to something as simple as a birthdate. This is made highly evident with a brief look at a hockey roster and all the January/early-year babies. A similar conclusion is drawn when viewing a list of American billionaires. We are shown the difference of practical vs. analytical intelligence and how various circumstances within link straight to class. It is also here in part one where we are introduced to the rule of 10,000 (pg 40) and how it relates to greats such as the Beatles. While this achievement of “expertise” is based on the notion of practice and effort one quote stands out to balance this notion:

[W]e cling to the idea that success is a simple function of merit and that the world in which we all grow up and the rules we choose to write as a society don’t matter at all. (pg. 33)

Legacy lands in part two wherein Gladwell notes various patterns and barriers; following is one more section summarizing quote:

The question for the second part of Outliers is whether the traditions and attitudes we inherit from our forebears can play the same role.

A “culture of honor” is discussed, meaning there is meaning in where you are from (pg. 166). Lessons on mitigation are laid out in the distressing and personal favorite chapter seven. This leads into a highly relevant term known as PDI or the power distance index which illuminates the consequences of culture (pg 204). Speaking of culture, the author does a fun job of getting at roots of Asian children excelling in mathematics and closes the section with a chapter on KIPP schools (for those less inclined to read learn about KIPP schools and their success from the fantastic documentary Waiting for Superman).

I know the season is still distant enough for comfort but this book makes an excellent holiday gift idea.

The long and short of these stories of success wrap up into words like timing, family, surroundings, motivation, and determination. These qualities fuel a person’s own story toward “meaningful” work defined as “autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward” (pgs. 149, 150). Knowing your opportunity and legacy are but parts of understanding what it takes to become one of the true Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell.

Upon being hired the first task I gave myself was simply reading all the blog entries. This gave me a sense of the content Rochelle and staff already created and revealed opportunity to improve upon existing content. Not to mention, it also taught me a thing or two as in Content is King When it Comes to SEO, Learning to love black jelly beans, 6 Essential points to a good logo, etc. Moving forward, I brainstormed legitimate topics and whittled ideas down to the most relevant categories including but not limited to community events, local businesses and book reviews. Now onto the one, two three:

1. keywords: these are very important words within your article which if optimized lead to an increase in rank from search engine returns, limiting these to 10 per article is recommended
2. sharing: this includes embedding hyperlinks within your post to “share” other relevant links, “sharing” across the social mediascape and “sharing” via word of mouth
3. regularity: something we all strive for in old age, but seriously, in the blogging zone posting new content at least once a week is critical

You can read as many books on marketing as you want and they will each offer tricks of trade but if you stray away from basic principles the specific details suffer.

It has been about two months and this is my 9th article for the company so I thought it was time for a little self-review. It is time to see what has worked, what has worked better and why. Regarding number one, relevant keyword density I believe the best method is none other than book reviews. Reviewing books highly related to your business allows for seemless creation of legitimate tags while demonstrating knowledge of your field. When you have a page literally stuffed with the right tags you get a masterfully high-ranking page such as Google, Wikipedia or Fandango. In addition, a bonus keyword can be added to the caption of the book photo which can be hyperlinked to a site selling the book. This is excellent and gives us a smooth transition into number two, sharing.

“Sharing” can be made easy at least the time around by linking your blog to post automatically to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc and can be managed through a nice find of mine, www.socialoomph.com. Yet, in this age of digital speed do not forget the importance about word of mouth. A lot of my articles involve a sense of outreach: going to events, interviewing local business owners & helping it all connect.

Lastly, number three, regularity, remains self-explanatory and couldn’t have been more personally proven to me than as during my absence from my personal blog during these last three weeks. I’d show you the decline in traffic, but you know, it’s personal. And on a personal note of thanks to Rochelle thank you for taking a page from Timothy Ferriss and outsourcing some work. I enjoy it.

And thanks to you all for reading SEO self-learned tips from your leading Uptown creative, Andiamo Creative.

Deemed appropriate for a local business blog, I have chosen a book from indicated “World’s #1 Small Business Guru,” titled the E-Myth Mastery, The Seven Essential Disciplines for Building a World Class Company by Michael E. Gerber. Quite a lengthy read; nonetheless here is my review whittling and pinpointing its contents down to the core.

Broken into two distinct parts the first focuses on an inspiring entrepreneur, Sarah of All About Pies. Here we see her inspired, faced with downward doubt and despair, turned once again towards a taxing path up the mountain of success. Peaking at points and faltering at others we witness Sarah’s continual reluctance balanced by techniques offered through tutelage from the author (for more Work/Life Balance, read here). Gerber helps Sarah unveil her inner-entrepreneur fueled by passion with skills focused on clarity such as with the “Stop Exercise” and another called “Seeing Through It” (pages 56-59). Once the author witnesses her growth into a “trustworthy climber” he agrees to “guide” her along the creative way towards a “World Class Company” (pg 66). Now, the two move into the seven essential disciplines.

Preceded by a brief epigram, part two breaks these seven disciplines into one chapter each which correspond to distinct roles which are as follows:

1. the Enterprise Leader
2. the Marketing Leader
3. the Financial Leader
4. the Management Leader
5. the Client Fulfillment Leader
6. the Lead Conversion Leader
7. the Lead Generation Leader

Each chapter begins with needed introductory elements followed with assignments, beefed up with summarizing charts; they often conclude with case examples from various companies. All-in-all is a good thought to keep while reading as Gerber, while detailing thoroughly, reminds management that if you are running only a part of the business you are simply not running it. One must focus on the whole picture at once, or in his own words, “each of the disciplines is the most important one… They are all One Thing” (page 280). You need to work on your business rather than in it. While most chapters remain centered on outside cases and Sarah’s own development The Discipline of the Financial Leader is presented on a more personal note and follows an autobiographical account of Michael’s times of trying legal battles.

One point of reference that I feel deserves a line of its own is “innovation, quantification, and orchestration” (page 296).

While an overwhelming amount of data is presented it is broken down well and contains notable through-lines. There is always a process whether it entails key indicators, innovation techniques, increasing productivity or you name it… a flow is always present. Often illustrated as an arrow chart we see boxes or “benchmarks” (see chapter four) which progress in a rational, predictable fashion: observe the situation, identify the problem, offer a corrective action, evaluate effectiveness of given corrective action, refine action if needed, distribute solution. These are given as “box and arrow diagrams” and while the bold description is my own words it’s a pretty good generic sum-up of this applaudable process with the  ”black box” of ideas (pages 299-300).

The long and short, if you undertake this read prepare to be patient. Take it slowly. Download the suggested checklists and worksheets provided at www.emythmastery.com. Doing this will allow you to begin your own stretch towards the seven essential disciplines, just like Sarah with All About Pies, reaching for a World Class Company with the E-Myth Mastery by Michael Gerber.