Part II - Search Engine Optimization, Austin

Part III: Another Search engine optimization Metaphor

Dear Austin – Thank you for asking advice from LAL – here’s Part III of my advice:

Okay, we’re still thinking of ourselves as a website that needs search engine optimization, Austin. Now we’re going to focus on the putting ourselves out there part of the metaphor – social networking.


Social networking in love vs. Social networking in Search Engine Optimization, Austin:

In love, social networking means networking with people with similar interests; in search engine optimization, Austin, social networking means networking your site to potential visitors with similar interests.

If you’re working to optimize for teens, you’re lucky; Facebook and Myspace have zillions of users, mostly teens; creating a page on those sites will put your site out there in a big way.

Other social networking sites, such as delicious, StumbleUpon, Digg, YouTube, offer plenteous opportunities for search engine optimization, Austin.

YouTube is an amazing tool for search engine optimization; searches will almost always take a minute to watch a video; users can exchange comments on videos, post video responses, and in general create the kind of community that spreads in a viral way when working towards search engine optimization, Austin. Nowadays, with webcams, videos can be created pretty quickly, and if you have something worthwhile to say, you’ll get an audience.

To summarize, when working towards search engine optimization, Austin, you need to clean up shop, be yourself, and get out there and mingle. Everything your mom always said, in fact.

Check out SEO Austin expert company JCJ Interactive for more information on search engine optimization.

Franchises Can Get a Bad Rap

Franchise and Undeserved Bad Raps

Unfortunately, it’s true that sometimes the notion of franchise will have connotations of boring, vanilla, too-plain.

Franchise in the Movies

Like in the movie “Empire Records” where the fab small record store fights to resist becoming a supposedly evil franchise. The kids in the movie are missing a big point – most franchises are individualized to a degree; it’s certainly possible for a cute store to become a franchise of a big chain without losing all personality.

Advantages of Franchise:

· Name Recognition: I mean, “Empire Records” could be a data storage service, couldn’t it?
· Lower risk of failure: a franchise can build on the successes of the franchisor
· Training and management: a franchise reaps the benefits of a much larger knowledge base.
· Bulk Purchases: a franchise gains from corporate numbers – volume buyers get better discounts.
· Marketing – This is a big one – corporations can afford to design and implement the marketing for all its franchises, taking a huge responsibility from each franchise location.

Franchise Reality

While it is true that some franchises will straight-jacket all the individuality out of a concern, the sheer volume of available franchises means that, with proper research and care, it’s possible to find a franchise situation that suits your personal degree of franchise-individuality / franchise-personality / franchise-crazy swinging style.

Franchise, Franchisee, Franchisor

Don’t forget to consider turning your own business into a franchise for others to buy into – maybe businesses should be copying You!


Check out marketing assistance, direct mail for franchises for more information.

Part II: Another Search engine optimization Metaphor

Part II: Another Search engine optimization Metaphor

Dear Austin – Thank you for asking advice from LAL – here’s Part II of my advice:

Okay, we’re still thinking of ourselves as a website that needs search engine optimization, Austin. Now we’re going to focus on the searching part of the metaphor.

Metaphorical language AND search engine optimization, Austin:

If a website manages to achieve really high search engine optimization, Austin, it means true love for searchers; they find exactly what they’re looking for. But, even if the site gets millions of hits but no purchasers, the whole search engine optimization process has failed.

If you’ll follow: search engine optimization, Austin, in the love arena, will only be successful if your “search tags” reflect who you really are.

I’ll use an example geared toward girls – countless teen girls decide to find love by attracting the lowest common denominator: by bleaching their hair, going bulimic, and wearing tacky, revealing clothes.

This search engine optimization technique, Austin, produces attention for the girl, but not attention from guys optimized to who she really is.

And the same will prove true for you – metaphorically, in love, search engine optimization, Austin, requires both soul-searching and honesty in what you put out there for searchers to find.

Check out SEO Austin expert company JCJ Interactive for for more information on search engine optimization.

Another Search Engine Optimization Metaphor

Another Search engine optimization Metaphor

Dear Austin: Thank you for asking advice from LAL – here’s my advice about the encroaching Valentine’s Day:

If you’re still searching for that special someone, I’d give the same advice to you that I’d give to a website: Be Yourself.

Search engine optimization = Personal Best

If you think of yourself as a website that needs to be optimized for the right people to find you, it becomes clear. Search engine optimization, Austin, is a lot like prepping for a relationship – be yourself, and be your best self.

You can achieve beatific perfection in the search engine optimization arena, but if your website is a mess when people get there, you’ve wasted the universe’s time. If you are the website in this analogy, then before you even aim for search engine optimization, Austin (marketing yourself), you hafta clean up shop. And I don’t mean drastic temporary weight loss, either; bait and switch makes for bad romantic karma.

Just the way webmasters work to ensure their site works when visitors arrive -- do pages load quickly? do the menus make sense? Ensure your life is in working order. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people who finally fix the one thing they’ve been putting off and instantly find true love. Character is the first of three variables in finding and keeping love, but that's another blog.

Search engine optimization, Austin -- be the website. Optimize yourself .


Check out SEO Austin expert company JCJ Interactive for for more information.

Marketing Yourself

Marketing Yourself

You are not unskilled, okay? Think of yourself as a product that a marketing firm is taking on as a client -- stand back and look objectively at everything you do for the world – your family, house, church, community, yard, even your pets.

Don’t edit, just free-flow; make a list of what you’re good at, what you most enjoy doing. Don’t be modest, be marketing firm objective about your client, yourself.

Marketing analysis for instance:

This 50-year old man has a 20 year history of solid employee traits –
dependable, resourceful, creative.
He’s the official photographer for his kid’s activities and always volunteers his skills for family weddings and events….

While performing your marketing analysis, keep in mind that the Internet makes dreams possible now that weren’t when you were a rash, crazy kid. Why shouldn’t you be able to sell your photography online? If creating a marketing website seems beyond you, then start with tutorials on how to sell on ebay.

Marketing, say, original photography, art, handmade crafts, to the entire planet is suddenly quite possible.

Marketing Mantra to Live By:

When life hands you a lemon, create an ebay marketing plan that hypes lemon interest to the point of hysteria.

For help with marketing and direct mail for franchises click for more information.

SEO and the Average Searcher

Adventures with Search Engines

Hey, sometimes I volunteer out at libraries in “at risk” Austin neighborhoods with kids and computers – something I recommend to all geeks, by the way. And I was helping a kid with his search engine travels. He had a favorite rap star who sported a “grill,” and he decided to find him with this search: “grill”

So, okay, that search will bring up about 89 million hits in the search engine. The kid, blissfully unaware of search engine optimization rules or basic logic, calmly began clicking on each link and bouncing back. Hmm. Like many intelligent people, this kid unconsciously assumes search engines magically intuit his wishes. What I’m trying to say is that when it comes to search engine optimization and marketing your website, you should take a moment to think about how average AND below-average searchers search.

META Tags and SEO

While debate rages about the search engine optimization efficacy of META tags, with opinions ranging from zero to absolute, it’s still the case that META tags play an important role. SEO cannot occur without them.

It’s easy to get caught up in the SEO game – the SEO Austin game if you’re like me – and have algorhythmic probabilities haunt your sleep, but in the search engine optimization reality, creating actual content with actually contextually relevant META tags cannot be overlooked.

SEO Tricks

And although it’s suspect to load up your ALT tags with overloaded search engine optimization tag tricks, it’s still important to ensure that the kid looking for a cool picture of a rap star with a grill will be able to find it. Plus, hey, go volunteer at the library and help that kid -- you'll learn more from him than he'll learn from you.

Check out SEO Austin expert company JCJ Interactive for more information.

Franchise Issues for Women

Franchise Issues for Women

It’s odd to realize that my mom was raised in an era that produced Mildred Pierce, perhaps the earliest film female franchisor.

And Mildred’s story is fairly standard when it comes to franchising; she rose from being a waitress to support her family on her own, to being an owner, to being a franchise owner, ruling over a sea of franchisees, all in a woman’s area of expertise – food.

Mildred's Marketing Expertise
Marketing and branding, along with building and expanding her franchise, come as second nature to Mildred – her restaurants are called “Mildred’s” – and the franchise seems to expand practically effortlessly.

Franchise Issues Nowadays
Statistics nowadays for female franchise owners are difficult to come by – though female franchisees seem to be keeping pace with female business owners in general – around 38% -- statistics for female franchise owners are more difficult to come by. Speculation is that, quite often, the husband’s name appears on the franchise finance papers because, surprise! Banks still prefer men when they’re doling out money.

And, it’s still true that the path to franchise for a woman is fraught with difficulty – developing, marketing, branding, franchises is time-consuming, and something else is time-consuming – what was that? Oh, raising children!

...And What About Marketing?
A franchise owner has to develop marketing and promotional plans that will work in varying markets, as well as be an expert in the business itself, in franchise contract law, in franchise training and administration – it’s a big task.

Mildred Pierce was successful with her franchise but failed – spectacularly – with her children – and for women today it’s still a legitimate fear – running two parallalel franchises – a business and a family – is still a fabulous prospect.


Check out marketing assistance, direct mail for franchises for more information.