Brian Carter is Director of Search Engine Marketing (PPC), SEO, and Social Media at Fuel Interactive, an interactive marketing agency in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Visit her personal Web site at http://www.briancarteryeah.com/ (great URL, right?).

Four tools you might consider are Campaign Monitor, MailChimp Inbox Inspector, Litmus, and Email on Acid. (Also, refer to these handy resources to help you make sense of the vagaries of email client CSS support.)

Which Is the Best Email Testing Tool?

It depends on you. All of these tools are robust, easy to use, and reasonably priced. I have had positive customer support experiences with all but Email on Acid (I have not had any contact with their support team). Campaign Monitor and MailChimp are campaign management/delivery services with a built in testing tool. Litmus and Email on Acid are dedicated testing tools.

How often do you test? Do you require spam and content testing, or are you only concerned with email design issues? Do you have team members who need to share the tool?

If you are looking to manage and send email campaigns, you might prefer Campaign Monitor or MailChimp. If you only test, then it might be a pain to have to set up a campaign first, so you might prefer to go with a dedicated testing tool like Litmus. But don’t take my word for it—try them all and then decide. (And if you have a favorite testing tool that I haven’t mentioned, let me know what it is and why it’s great!)

For instance, while writing this article, I almost overlooked the fact that MailChimp has a code analysis tool in my excitement over sharing the good news about Email on Acid. Reason being, I need a dedicated testing tool, and I run so many design tests per day that, for me, using MailChimp for testing is not feasible.

Campaign Monitor

Campaign Monitor provides simulation screen shots of your email in the following email clients:

Desktop Email Clients

• AOL 9
• Apple Mail 2.1
• Apple Mail 3
• Lotus Notes 6.5.4
• Lotus Notes 7
• Lotus Notes 8
• Outlook 2000
• Outlook 2003
• Outlook 2007
• Outlook Express 6
• Outlook XP
• Thunderbird
• Windows Mail

Web-based Email Clients

• AOL Web
• Gmail
• Mobile Me
• Windows Live Hotmail
• Yahoo! Classic
• Yahoo! Mail

Mobile Email Clients

• BlackBerry
• Windows Mobile 5
• Windows Mobile 6

Cost: $5 per test; pay as you go. Set up a free account to get started.

Campaign Monitor design test

This is a good, solid tool that I like to use. And I really like the nice folks at Campaign Monitor. Campaign Monitor’s design and spam testing tool was the first I ever tried, which was in 2007. It’s pretty straightforward: after you upload your campaign and before you send it, you click a button. My one complaint at the time was that sometimes too many screen shots would fail (I got a “screen shot could not be produced” error), which made my test a bust. This is really annoying when you’re on a tight deadline! However, on the few occasions that this happened, I wrote to Campaign Monitor’s excellent, friendly, and helpful support team, and they always cheerfully refunded my money.

That said, when I ran a Campaign Monitor test last month, it was fast and complete.

Campaign Monitor also runs your email through popular spam filters and lets you know which ones failed and why.

Pros

• Fast and easy
• Smoothly integrates with your campaign development process
• Tests in lots of clients and spam filters
• You don’t have to commit to a subscription or contract
• Super-awesome customer support team

Cons

• Not as convenient if you want to test code but not send campaigns (because you have to set up a campaign before you can test your code)
• Can get expensive if you routinely run lots of tests
• Retesting is not as convenient as with other tools, plus you have to buy another test

Overall, a great, reliable tool that is probably best for those who test less frequently and/or also need a service for managing/sending campaigns. I worked at a company that sent two to four emails a month, and this was perfect for them.

MailChimp Inbox Inspector

MailChimp‘s Inbox Inspector is also for design and spam testing. Like Campaign Monitor, MailChimp is primarily an email campaign sending/management service, so you have to set up a campaign in order to run a test. MailChimp says they check your campaign “by sending it to real ISPs and email services all over the world. These are not simulated screenshots.” I’ll admit my ignorance here: I’m not sure if that is any different from what the other services do. (If someone knows better than I about how these tests work, please write in and share!)

Inbox Inspector checks your email in over 25 desktop, web-based, and mobile clients. Frankly, I found the list overwhelming—nothing wrong with that! But I personally did not find some of the more obscure clients useful. I need to test in major clients used by folks in North America, so I did not derive value from viewing simulations in European and Asian clients.

Inbox Inspector also performs spam testing, content analysis, and code analysis. It identifies which lines of code are kicking up compatibility problems, which is vital for any email designer. It even makes suggestions for rephrasing your email content!

Cost: $14 per 3 tests; pay as you go. Set up a free account to get started.

Pros

• Easy to integrate into your campaign management workflow
• You don’t have to commit to a subscription or contract
• A good value if you don’t run frequent tests
• User interface makes navigating through results easy
• Code analysis tool
• Super-awesome customer support team

Cons

• Robust testing might be overkill for some people; for instance, I do not need all of the clients included in testing, nor do I need any of the spam or content analysis tools
• Can get expensive if you run frequent tests
• You have to set up a campaign in order to run a test

Litmus

Litmus provides simulation screen shots of test email in the following email clients:

• Live Hotmail
• AOL Mail
• Yahoo! Mail
• Outlook 2000
• Outlook 2002/XP
• Outlook 2003
• Outlook 2007
• Lotus Notes 6.5
• Lotus Notes 7
• Lotus Notes 8
• Apple Mail 2
• Apple Mail 3
• Gmail
• Yahoo! Mail Classic
• Thunderbird 2.0
• Thunderbird 3.0 Beta 3

Cost: Free limited testing (2 clients, 50 tests/month); $24 day pass, $49/month single user (unlimited browser and email testing, spam analysis), $199/month team (up to 10 users, unlimited browser and email testing, spam analysis)

Litmus email test

Litmus is not a sending service, so to get started you just copy and paste your code (or email it to them), and off you go. The user interface lists the email clients in the right-hand column so you can tab through your results quickly instead of always having to return to a main screen. You can retest an individual client or the entire batch with one click and tab through the versions you generate. You can generate compatibility reports for your coworkers. Litmus will even email, tweet, or IM you when your test is complete. This puppy is packed with features!

Pros

• Subscription pricing is a good value if you run frequent tests (no contract required)
• Easy to retest
• Great sharing tools
• Includes browser testing (if you need it anyway)
• User interface navigating through results easy
• Receive email, IM, or Twitter notice when test is complete
• Super-awesome customer support team

Cons

• No code analysis tool (though you can view your source code with one click)
• Maybe too expensive if you don’t run frequent tests
• Does not manage and send the email campaign (if you need that)

Overall, a very impressive tool with the most features I’ve encountered. I am using Litmus at a company I work for currently. I run many tests per day, which makes this a great value.

Email on Acid

I found this brand-spanking-new service while doing research on email testing tools last month. Email on Acid is still in beta, but I find myself gravitating there every day to run their Acid Tests. I am using Litmus and Email on Acid in tandem, in fact.

Email on Acid simulates your email in 15 popular email clients. The nifty tabbed interface lets you rotate quickly through the results. But what I love love LOVE about this service is the code analysis tool. For each client, you get not only a screen shot but a list of HTML/CSS errors. You can scroll through the source code to see the errors, highlighted in red, to identify which HTML or CSS declarations the client does not support. I did notice a difference in the rendering between Litmus and Email on Acid, and I can’t say which screen shot was inaccurate or why. But I am singing Email on Acid’s praises because it’s streamlined, code-oriented, and doesn’t have extra bells and whistles I don’t need.

Email on Acid design test

Email on Acid code analysis tool

Cost: Free testing while product is in beta. Help these folks out by trying an acid test and sending your feedback, will ya?

Pros

• Code analysis tool
• Free (for the time being)
• Testing tool only; you don’t have to set up a campaign to run a test)

Cons

• Product is in beta; not well established
• Doesn’t test in as many email clients as the other services
• Not a campaign sending tool (if you need that)

Overall…WOO HOO!! Email designers everywhere should be rejoicing over a tool that puts so much emphasis on code aalysis. I may be getting ahead of myself here, but this service looks extremely promising.

Resources

• Doctype (Q&A site for CSS issues): http://www.doctype.com
• Campaign Monitor Guide to CSS Support in Popular Email Clients (PDF and Excel spreadsheet available for download): http://www.campaignmonitor.com/css/
• MailChimp email marketing blog
• Email Standards Project blog (reports on email client compatibility issues): http://www.email-standards.org/blog

IMU is sponsored by internet marketing company Hubspot. It’s billed as “a free marketing retraining program for marketing professionals—as well as marketers between jobs—looking to gain new skills to get ahead in the competitive workforce.” However, I recommend IMU for anyone, regardless of employment status, interested in learning about social media marketing or in stepping up their social media marketing game.

IMU debuted in June with a weeklong series of webinars that culminated in an online “Certifed Inbound Marketing Professional” exam. Two new webinars will be broadcast on August 11 and 12, and all past webinars are available on-demand. New and former participants will have the opportunity to take the certification exam.

• PR for Inbound Marketing with Todd Defren (SHIFT Communications)—Tuesday, August 11, 2009, at 1:00 pm EDT
• Twitter for Business with Laura Fitton (Pistachio Consulting, author of Twitter for Dummies)—Tuesday, August 11, 2009, at 1:00 pm EDT
• See a complete listing of past IMU sessions.

I attended most of the IMU webinars in June. A few were too basic for me, but all of them contained solid, useful information. My favorite sessions included:

• Viral Marketing and World Wide Raves with David Meerman Scott, author of New Rules of Marketing and PR and World Wide Rave
• Advanced SEO Tactics: On Beyond Keyword Research with Rand Fishkin (SEOmoz)
• Social Media and Building Community with Chris Brogan (New Marketing Labs)

IMU was also valuable because of the interaction it fostered. Participants kept in touch with the presenters and one another via Twitter. I found myself asking questions, answering questions, and making new connections with marketers from all over the country. In fact, between listening to the webinars, taking notes for my blog, and following both the IMU hashtag and direct replies to myself on Twitter, the experience was stimulating bordering on manic. There was a healthy and exciting exchange of ideas going on through and around the presentations.

Also, in case anyone is wondering, yes, I took the exam and am now a Certified Inbound Marketing Professional. I suspect that and a dollar fifty will get me a McLatte, but I never turn down an opportunity for free, high-quality training. Neither should any of you, so reserve your spot soon!

Shawna Coronado, author of Gardening Nude—and a down-to-earth kind of gal

I have to admit that I showed up for her presentation feeling skeptical—what could she possibly have to say about greening that I haven’t heard before, and what does it have to do with marketing anyway? (Sorry, Shawna!) But Shawna quickly made me a believer, and by the end of her speech I was as jazzed as the rest of the audience. I walked away with loads of ideas—for my business and for my personal life.

Shawna Lee Coronado is an author, locally syndicated newspaper columnist, energetic speaker, and environmental and health correspondent. She is the author of Gardening Nude, a common sense guide as well as a motivational self-help book teaching individuals and corporations alike how to achieve greener and healthier living. Shawna’s goal is to inspire the world, with her dynamic personality and infectious enthusiasm, to get off the couch and get out into the natural environment to improve physical and emotional health!

Shawna, you g(r)o(w), girl!

Travis Skweres

Key Takeaways

• Get to know your target demographic before launching a community site.
• Don’t rush your site launch; be prepared to address technical and usability issues.
• Online commuities are also developed through offline, real-world interaction.
• You’ll likely have to demonstrate the value of your site before monetizing it.
• Be available, approachable, and authentic at all times!

First of all, what is Werkadoo? How did the idea for Werkadoo come about?

Werkadoo actually started as a brick & mortar service in Houston, Texas, called House of Talent. H.O.T. had a group of freelance professionals whom we would match with businesses to create their “remote back office” and get whatever they needed done, from admin support to full scale large projects. We also had an actual house where we leased out cheap workspace to our freelancers, giving them another place to go to be productive. We had a great reputation and were growing very quickly, and we didn’t want to buy a bigger house, so we decided to take the concept online!

Is Werkadoo intended to be a direct competitor of bidding sites such as Elance, Guru, and Rentacoder; or are you envisioning a different business paradigm altogether?

We do currently see eLance and Guru as our biggest competitors, but Werkadoo’s vision far exceeds what these guys are doing, and our ultimate goal is to become something far different. We’re giving businesses the ability to hire entire remote teams and manage them all effectively online, like a virtual office.

Unlike eLance, on Werkadoo you can hire 10 different people and assign them all to the same project, allowing them to all share documents, communicate, live chat, and do everything required to get the job done. In addition, when you hire a freelance professional through Werkadoo, you never have to hire them again, and they’re always in your talent pool. If they did a great job, this allows you to continuously give them projects as needed, creating more stability for the business, and more revenue for the freelancer.

In the end, we want to foster long-term relationships between our freelance professionals and our businesses, making them more like remote employees and less like one-time contractors. And ultimately, we don’t want to be a “bidding site” either. We want to be focused on quality, not quantity. This stuff will have to get ironed out as we go, though, because we’re still getting feedback from our users to define the optimal business model!

The bidding sites I just mentioned do not include many social elements (Elance and Guru have blogs, and Elance has special interest groups), but Werkadoo Beta features a blog, forums, groups, and personal dashboard for each registered werker. I consider this to be an important differentiating factor, which is why I asked you to let me interview you in the first place! How does the concept of community figure into your business model: how do you plan to leverage community to make your customers more successful?

The concept of community is extremely important to Werkadoo for a lot of reasons. For one, when doing our preliminary research, we found that one of the biggest objections to hiring freelance workers was: “I don’t know who this person is. How do I know they’re good at what they do?” So we decided to add a community section to the site, where freelancers and businesses could get to know each other and interact before actually doing work, which reduces the ambiguity that comes along with remote working. The community will make both sides more successful by lowering barriers, increasing interaction, referrals, and so on. Also, we’re all about transparency and listening to what our users have to say. At the end of the day, without them, we don’t exist! Through our community section as well as blog, twitter account, Facebook, etc, we try to stay as connected to our users and crowd as possible, allowing us to take their ideas and feedback, and make our product work better for them.

Building up critical mass on a community site that is subscription based or ad revenue driven seems like a tricky venture. How do you convince people to pay to join and/or advertise on a community site before a healthy-sized community develops? Any advice for those seeking to create a community site that generates income, be it ad-based or subscription-based?

When Werkadoo first launched, we had a subscription based model…silly us! We received an enormous mass of emails telling us basically that “Hey, we’re not going to pay for a beta site!” And it makes sense: we have to prove our value to our customers before they’re going to pay.

Based on our research and feedback from the community, we decided (for better or worse) that we wanted to go with a subscription based service as opposed to our competitors, who charge a commission on all projects through the site. We want to do this for two reasons: Freelancers hate to have an enormous commission taken out of their paychecks (and they’re right, that sucks!). And two, charging commission for projects through the site forces Werkadoo to police our community. If we charge a commission, people will try to find ways to work around it and contact each other outside the site to avoid paying the commission. We don’t want to deal with that, and we don’t want to be the police, so we decided that a basic subscription fee for access to the community or tools would be best.

The problem with that, though, is people need to REALLY be convinced of the value of something before they subscribe, so that’s our challenge now. Being a new site that’s under 90 days old, we have to show that we’re here to make them more successful in the long haul, and that we’re worth it.

So as of now, the site is still free to use, and we’re playing with different subscription tier ideas and other business model ideas submitted by our community members, but we have still not found an optimal business model to go with. We’re taking it one step at a time.

As for advice for forming a new online community, depending on what business you’re in, to build critical mass you most likely have to be free. It’s becoming harder and harder to be supported by ad revenue, especially these days, but right now that’s the only real proven way to reach critical mass because of the low barriers to usage entry.

How did you prepare for the launch of werkadoo.com?

We did a lot of research and spent a lot of sleepless nights. We began development of the website in late January, and went live on April 1st, which means we pushed out the beta site from nothing in only a few months!

Can you elaborate on the kind of research you did in preparation for the launch of werkadoo.com, specifically as it relates to building out the community component? Any lessons learned?

Most of our research in launching Werkadoo was based on freelancers, the types of freelance work being done in the US today, the size of the market, the competitors in the space, and the quality level of service to the market. We found that no other site out there had a social media component, and so that was our reason for implementing it on Werkadoo. Plus, we just like being social ourselves, and we have seen the real value of social media in staying connected with your customers.

Did you set any specific goals to define a successful launch?

We weren’t sure what a successful launch looked like. We knew we would have bugs and just wanted to get the site out there in the hands of the people. We spent the first few weeks just monitoring feedback and finding bugs. We’re still finding bugs!

How effective do you think your pre-launch preparations were? Any important lessons learned?

We learned not too rush too much, and perhaps do more testing before going live. We put a self-imposed deadline of April 1st, but we could have probably waited a few weeks longer, ironed out more of the site problems, and went live at a later date, with less issues.

What tools/methods have proven to be the most effective in building the Werkadoo online community? The least effective?

Twitter and Facebook have been extremely valuable in building the Werkadoo online community, especially Twitter. It allows us to communicate instantly with our fans. We can tweet about new jobs posted or new werkers joined, changes to the site, etc. It’s all about getting in on the conversation, participating, and being reachable. We currently have no advertising to speak of, but our registrations are growing 30–40% a month, mostly through social media and word of mouth.

I know the Werkadoo staff put a lot of effort into being visible at events such as SXSW Interactive. How much do you think “offline” promotion figures into launching and maintaining a successful community site?

Live events are extremely important to us. It goes back to being transparent and involved in the community. It’s so much more valuable when a user or a fan of Werkadoo can put a face with the site, and know the people behind the scenes. At the end of the day, we’re people just like you, trying to make a site that makes freelance professionals more successful. We don’t want the image of being a “corporate entity” or a huge website behemoth; we want to know our crowd and have them know us!

If you could give others looking to launch a community site one piece of advice, what would it be?

The cardinal rule is you have to be genuine. If you’re just trying to screw people or make a buck, they’ll find you out, and you’ll soon be left alone. If you truly believe in what you’re doing, and truly want to use what you’re doing to help others, then you can leverage the community to get involved, join the conversation, get feedback from your users, and participate in discussions. This will ultimately contribute to the overall success of your business.

Thanks, Travis!

Many thanks to Travis Skweres for taking the time to answer my questions. Questions or comments for Travis? Find him on LinkedIn or follow Werkadoo on Twitter.

Search Engine Ranking: It’s Not All About the Content

The content on a Web site is not nearly as important to SEO as the context that site inhabits on the Web: Which other domains link to it? How many other domains link to it? What is the quality of those links?

According to a survey of 70 SEO experts, your site’s search ranking depends much more on external factors such as inbound links than on onsite content.

Expert opinion: Relative Importance of Algorithm Components in Google

See that purple slice? The content on your page is about 15% of what Google considers when ranking your page. Anchor link text (the green slice) also affects SEO, but inbound links and host domain authority (does Google have reasons to “trust” that your Web site is legitimate?) are by far more influential.

Inbound Links Trump Onsite Keyword Usage

The very large, very bright orange wedge in the following image represents the overwhelming influence of link popularity—the number of other domains that link to your site—on your search rank.

Relative Importance of Algorithm Components in Google - link popularity predominates

What About Keywords?

Aw, shoot. You just spent 6 months researching the best keywords for your site. Now you need to go do some link building. But since you’ve got those keywords anyway, where will they do the most good?

Keywords in your Domain Name Really Matter.

Keywords in H1, H2, H3 tags? Not so much.

So you’d think that if site content is not the most influencing factor in your search rank, it should be second, right? Nope. That honor goes to your domain URL. Keywords in your domain name (www.yourdomainname.com) exert nearly twice as much influence on your search rank as keywords in site content.

Correlations between Web page data and search ranking

When it comes to site content, your title is one of the most important elements on the page, so be sure to use keywords as close to the beginning of the page title as possible. (Good: Used Cars for Sale | Thomson Motors; Not As Good: Thomson Motors | Used Cars for Sale).

Heading elements exerted little to no influence on search rank, according to Fishkin’s data. That doesn’t mean that you should stop paying attention to headings. Fishkin recommends sticking with best practices. You are creating pages for people, not search engines, and people appreciate a clear, descriptive header.

Alt Text Rules

I was very surprised to hear that high search rank is closely correlated to the use of alt text on images. The alt attribute contains a brief description of an image. When you view a screen with images disabled, you’ll see the alt text in place of the image. Search engines are blind and deaf, so the only way they can recognize an image is by its alt text.

Alt text is revealed on a Web page when images are disabled

One webinar participant asked if this correlation was due to the fact that anyone who includes quality alt attributes is already on the ball when it comes to SEO, and Fishkin conceded that this might indeed be the case.

In any event, it is always a good idea to include alt text for images. Purely decorative images (such as spacer gifs) should contain a null (empty) alt attribute.

Key Takeaway 1: Focus on Link Building, but Don’t Abandon Best Practices

I know that I, for one, will be redoubling my efforts at link building for SEO. It’s important, however, to continue dotting those i’s and crossing those t’s in our Web development practices. Code correct HTML markup, write good heading text, and concentrate on delivering high-quality content to your audience.

Key Takeaway 2: Links Trump Content, but Content Earns Links

(or, Great Content Is Useless Unless It Compels People to Link to It)

This clever tweet came from Rena Bernstein during the IMU Webinar

Key Takeaway 3: No Site Is an Island

A large part of how easy you are to find on the Web is reliant upon your relationship to others. Are they interested in you? Do they talk about you? Do they link to you? When someone runs a Google search using a keyword, Google looks for the best, most relevant results to deliver. One way it decides if your Web page is a good-quality search result is how popular it already is. If others found your page useful, then the searcher might as well.

See the Presentation

If you care about SEO, you need to see this presentation. The webinar has been archived and is available for on-demand viewing (You may have to register in order to see it). You can view the slide presentation on Slideshare.

Recommended SEO Reading

• searchengineland.com
• seobook.com/blog
• seoroundtable.com
• searchenginejournal.com

First Things First: What the Heck Is Inbound Marketing??

If you’ve ever fast-forwarded through a TV commercial, screened a sales call, or lined your birdcage with newspaper ads, you know intuitively that the traditional advertising model is broken. The hot topic of the day is “inbound marketing,” and it represents a huge opportunity for us as marketers and as consumers. (We are, after all, both.)

• Outbound Marketing (aka “The Hammer”): Traditional radio, TV, newspapers, magazines, mass emails, telemarketing; one-way communications a company broadcasts that customers are unable to contribute to or avoid. We are getting more and more adept at ignoring this kind of advertising (Tivo, caller ID, spam filters, etc.).
• Inbound Marketing (aka “The Magnet”): Leveraging blogging, search engine optimization, and social media (like online video) to help customers find you and then entice them to learn more about you, like you, trust you, and—eventually—buy from you.

30 Tips for Marketing with Online Video

1. There are two basic types of video: Entertaining (music videos, spoofs, TV mini-shows) and Informative (Webinars, interviews, tutorials). Leverage both types for your business.
2. Publish your video everywhere! You are not penalized for duplicate content when it comes to video, so post it wherever you can, and especially on your own Web site.
3. Focus on the first 10 seconds. Attention spans these days are not impressive, so you must hook your viewers immediately.
4. Use action, humor, and mystery. Prompting a little curiosity (“What the heck is this about?”) can entice viewers to keep watching.
5. Camera shy? Try screen recording. It’s excellent for tutorials and demonstrations.
6. Be yourself and don’t over-script. The video can come out sounding stiff. Outline your presentation instead of writing it out word for word. Spontaneity is valuable; it adds interest, a human touch.
7. Don’t break the bank. You don’t need a $5,000 camera for your online videos, but you do need an external mike jack. Don’t rely on the built-in mike. Cheaper microphones are okay, though. Hubspot uses a $40 clip-on mike that came with the camera. Finally, a tripod is the best $40 you’ll ever spend.
8. Shooting for wide screen format is a good idea.
9. HD quality is not necessary for videos posted online.
10. Prioritize how much editing time you’re willing to devote to a video project. You’ll probably want to spend less time editing informational video and more time on “viral” videos.
11. Don’t shoot video in front of a window. The quality will be awful.
12. Publish your movies as Flash for best compatibility. Otherwise you’re likely to get complaints about incompatibility.
13. HOWEVER, you need M4V format for iTunes, iPhones, and iPods. Flash is not supported (thanks, Apple).
14. Make file formatting easy on yourself with this simple shortcut. Record video in any format you want, and upload to a site such as YouTube or blip.tv. These sites convert the format for you. Then you can use the embed code they generate for posting to your own site.
15. Optimize your video for search engines. Use keyword-rich titles and descriptions. When you post video to your own site, add a text transcript or program notes.
16. Sometimes SEO conflicts with your need to maximize the social/viral element. Obscure titles can make videos fun, enticing, or mysterious. For example, compare Hubspot’s videos “Optimize Your LinkedIn profile for SEO” and “Dude, cold calling is for losers.” You may want to publish a video with an “enticing” title at first and then change the title to a keyword-rich version later on.
17. Optimize for YouTube. Promote your video to get more people to link to it or embed it. Encourage ratings and comments. YouTube features “most discussed” videos, which can significantly increase your Web traffic.
18. Publish a controversial or shocking video. Sex, religion, and politics are always good bets. This tactic is dangerous for businesses, but the rewards are ample if you pull it off successfully.
19. Optimize for iTunes. Use descriptive titles and descriptions, and include an attractive image. Promote your video to increase its popularity rank.
20. Promote your video everywhere—Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, etc.
21. Tweet your video. It’s even okay to tweet it a few times on the day you publish it. (Don’t forget to use a URL shortener like tinyurl.com!) Add a “Tweet This” button to the video on your Web site.
22. Facebook promotion: Post the video URL to your status (the handy Twitter app will forward your tweets to Facebook). Add the video to your profile and business page. Encourage your company to post it on its business page.
23. LinkedIn promotion: Add the video URL to your status. Use one of the blog apps to add your blog post to your LI profile. Send a link to your video to your LI groups. Ask your company to post it to their profiles and group.
24. StumbleUpon promotion: Submit the Youtube link as video.
25. IMPORTANT: Play around with StumbleUpon before you start promoting your own material. You need to participate and contribute to this tight-knit community first, or anything you post will be suspect as spam.
26. Promote the video on your blog. Be sure to describe or transcribe it for SEO purposes. Respond to any comments. Encourage your company to blog it as well. Again, search engines do not penalize you for duplicate video content. Just make sure that anyone posting your video does not also copy and paste your supporting text.
27. Make it easy for your whole company to promote the video. Email everybody to let them know about a new release, provide a short URL, and provide a “lazy man’s tweet” (a blurb they can copy and paste into Twitter).
28. Paid promotion is not usually worthwhile.
29. Try ending your video with a call to action. Using a custom URL as the landing page will help you identify incoming traffic from videos.
30. Measure traffic, leads, and customers from your videos. This is the reason you’re making and promoting videos to being with. YouTube Insights let you see viewer activity. Blip.tv also provides statistics. And, of course, Hubspot does a great job of helping you track these metrics with their software products (surprise).

Other Online Video Marketing Resources

• Examples of online video Web sites: YouTube, blip.tv, Google Video, justin.tv
• Tracking and analytics for online video: Visible Measures, tubemogul, Hubspot
• 12 free and commercial screen recording software tools
• Slides from Hubspot’s How to Use Online Video for Inbound Marketing Webinar

Did I mention that registration is free? Don’t pass up this opportunity to learn from industry leaders such as Chris Brogan (New Marketing Labs), Mike Volpe (Hubspot), and Rand Fishkin (SEOmoz). The class schedule includes:

• How to Blog Effectively for Business
• Advanced SEO Tactics: On Beyond Keyword Research
• Successful Email Marketing
• Successful Business Uses for Facebook and LinkedIn

Sign up for Inbound Marketing University today!

As an independent Web designer and strategist, I wear a lot of hats, one of which is a firefighter’s helmet. Sometimes, despite your best efforts, a project explodes in your face. Whether or not you are at fault, you have a seriously unhappy client on your hands.

How do you put out the fire effectively, professionally, and in a manner that yields a fair resolution both for you and your client?

1. Clearly Explain What Went Wrong

Give the client a concise summary of the issues that caused the problem. I recommend a bulleted list. You probably don’t need to include every last detail (excepting developer documentation you provide). The client is already overwhelmed (and, more often than not, unversed in technical issues). Just tell him what The Point is.

2. Don’t Point Fingers at Anyone (Including Yourself)

Avoid blaming others, but don’t admit fault if you feel you acted with due diligence. Think of it this way: even if you did not cause the problem, the hot potato is in your hands, and your client is counting on you to help him out of a jam.

3. Always Propose a Solution

Identifying what went wrong is a great start, but it doesn’t help a whole lot if you don’t follow it up with an action plan for fixing the problem. Do everything you can to avoid leaving a client hanging. You don’t want to be remembered as the problem causer; you want to be remembered as the go-to guy (or girl) who saved the day.

4. Empathize

Acknowledge the client’s anger, frustration, worry, or disappointment. Express your concern for their success. You may not regret anything that you did, but it’s always appropriate—and kind!—to express regret that someone is feeling rotten.

Should You Fix the Problem for Free?

To take a hit to your bottom line or to walk away while you can; that is the question. Remember, you’re holding the hot potato at this point, no matter how the problem was actually caused. As far as the client is concerned, you’re responsible. You may want to continue working with the client at low or no cost until she is satisfied.

Is this an exploitation of your services or an investment in your business? You have to weigh the immediate loss of profit against the potential payoff of making that client deliriously happy.

5. Consider your reputation

Your reputation needs to stay golden. Will fixing the problem mean the difference between the client (a) badmouthing you all over town versus (b) becoming your biggest cheerleader (or at least keeping his mouth shut!)?

6. Consider the Potential for Future Business

Will salvaging the relationship with your client bring about future business with him and/or referrals? If so, you might want to go the extra mile for him and consider that effort an investment.

7. Is This a Client You Want to Work With?

Face it, some people are nightmare clients—narcissistic, controlling, impossible to please, or extraordinarily high-maintenance. If you feel that you simply cannot resolve the situation, or if you would rather chew on broken glass than spend one more minute with the client, it might be better to cut your losses, accept whatever consequences come your way, and move on.

What Clients Really Want

Every firestorm presents the opportunity to win a new fan for your business—IF you always keep in mind your core obligation: to fix the client’s problem and take away the pain.

The trouble is that business owners usually don’t know enough about the Web to hire wisely. Asking a friend for a referral often doesn’t help because that friend is probably equally clueless about the distinguishing characteristics of a reputable Web professional. (I’m familiar with this phenomenon as well.) What’s a business owner to do?

Ask the Right Questions to Find Your Dream Developer

You don’t need to become a Web expert to recognize a good designer from a bad one. The following 10 qualities are what I would look for were I hiring a Web designer.

1. She Hand-Codes Standards-Compliant XHTML and CSS

If the designer doesn’t know what this means, run. Look for someone who writes her own code and does not rely on a WYSIWYG (“what you see is what you get”), or visual, HTML editor. (NOTE: Dreamweaver does include a WYSIWYG interface, but many designers do hand-code with it, so apologies for taking a dig at it before.) The designer should know what the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) is and that this entity creates the protocols we follow when building Web sites and applications. She should know what valid code is. The designer should code semantically correct XHTML and not rely on layout tables.

2. He Understands the Importance of Web Accessibility

Your designer should know about or at least appreciate the value of making Web content accessible to as many people as possible regardless of physical capabilities, situational factors, or the type of device they’re using to browse the Web. This designer will also know that when we make Web sites accessible for human beings, we are also dramatically improving SEO (search engine optimization). Familiarity with WCAG and Section 508 is also a plus.

3. She Has a Basic Understanding of Organic SEO

A Web designer is not necessarily an SEO expert, but a good designer will appreciate how Web design influences search engine optimization. Your designer will probably be adding metadata to your Web pages for you (unless that’s not part of your service agreement). She will know that standards-compliant, semantically correct code is much more search engine-friendly than table layouts bloated with deprecated HTML.

Big plus: She offers to integrate Google Analytics or some other metrics gathering application into your site (and email campaigns, if applicable) so you can measure performance instead of just guessing at why your site does or doesn’t bring you business.

4. He Knows You Can’t Design a Web Site without Content

How can you design a layout when you don’t know what kind of information is going on the page? Particularly with templated sites, you must plan the content and site architecture first. I would be leery of a designer who wants to jump into visual design right away without considering content.

That said, you shouldn’t necessarily expect your Web designer to write great copy or be familiar with content strategy. Just look for someone who recognizes the key roles content development and site planning play in the design of an effective Web site.

5. She Doesn’t Confuse Being an Artist with Being a Designer

Some artists are great Web designers, but many Web designers are not great artists. I’m including this tip because every time a prospective client has called his former designer “artistic,” it meant that the site was constructed poorly. Several times I found that each page on the site was just an image map (invisible to assistive devices, text-only browsers, and search engines, as I demonstrated in my article on the importance of Web accessibility).

Web design is a specific discipline that requires specific creative, technical, and marketing expertise. There are established criteria by which to judge good design. And there are many other factors that determine how effective a Web site will be. Being a good artist alone doesn’t cut it.

“Artistic” also seems to be a code word for petulant, but, again, that’s only anecdotal evidence….

6. He Has a Great Portfolio

I’ll admit, I’ve been interviewed for a number of freelance and fulltime gigs where the client did not look at my work before talking to me. But you should look at your prospective designer’s past work. You may not be able to judge the quality of the code, but at least check to see if the work examples (not to mention the designer’s own site) looks clean and professional.

7. She Has a Great Blog

I’ve become a customer of several companies because of their blogs. For example, when I got (unexpectedly inherited) my first email marketing job, I had to do a lot of research to train myself. Campaign Monitor’s blog invariably provided the answer. By establishing itself as a trusted adviser, CampaignMonitor was first on my list when it came time for me to choose an email delivery service for my company.

No blog? I wouldn’t necessarily count it against her. But if she does, I’d consider it a sign of commitment to and deep interest in Web media–not just building it for others but being an active participant. Check out the blog if there is one. Does she seem knowledgeable about her topics? Does she write about Web design and marketing? Is she engaged with the Web design community? Does she seem able to help you launch your own blog (if that is part of your project)?

8. He Focuses on Your Business Goals

Your designer should be asking you about who your audience is and what you want them to be able to do on your Web site. Your site development should focus on achieving your business goals. Does he ask you about these things up front before tackling the visual design?

9. She Can Provide a CMS

If you want to make updates to your site without the help of a developer, you’ll need a content management system, which is software you use to create a dynamic, database driven site that includes a WYSIWYG administration area. CMSs also add lots of functionality to your site that most businesses want these days, such as blogging, calendars, social networking features, and so on. If this is part of your project, ask which CMSs the designer uses.

10. He Is Prompt, Polite, and Respectful

No client should be treated with disrespect. If you have an ooky feeling about someone, don’t hire him. If you don’t feel like he is taking your project seriously, don’t hire him–or at least ask him why. Sometimes designers have to prioritize, but he should be able to explain his reasoning respectfully.

No Need to Settle for Less than the Best

Assuming that you are willing to pay the going rate for a professional developer (it varies, but it’s not cheap), you should insist on these qualities because there are too many people who have them for you to settle for less.

I live in Austin, and I am bowled over by the talent I see in my friends and colleagues. We’ve all worked very hard to learn our craft. Moreover, we continue to work at it all the time as technology and the Web design industry evolve relentlessly.

What will the future bring for Web design professionals? I don’t know, but I hope it will include better accountability for us and a higher level of service expected by (and delivered to) our customers. Any thoughts?