Will Work For Food: Portland Winter Farmers’ Market Desperately Needs Branding & Marketing

March 9th, 2010

I’m thrilled there is a new winter Farmer’s Market here in Portland, Maine. The summer markets on Wednesdays and Saturdays allow me to keep fresh, locally-grown, organic food on my table meal after meal. So when I found out there was a new indoor, winter market I couldn’t be happier.

Unfortunately, the mistakes that I see the winter market making are common for many small business owners. You need the basics of branding and marketing to survive. You are kidding yourself if you think you can do without them.

Some background

For those of you who are not local, let me give you some background information. Portland has two successful farmers markets that run spring through fall. They are dedicated to farmers only, meaning that bakers or fish mongers are not allowed under the current rules. Every winter, many of the farmers take time off from selling, others have started some small-scale direct-to-consumer sales where you can be emailed a list of what’s for sale and pick up at a predetermined location and time. Many of the surrounding communities have also started successful indoor winter farmers market and there was demand in Portland for something similar.

Without a lot of time for planning a group got together and found a vacant store front, worked out licensing agreements with the city and put together a group of vendors for the new farmers market. Kudos to them for getting it off the ground!

Obstacles and opportunities

Let’s outline some of the marketing obstacles and opportunities they have:

  • The unknown: It’s new, there’s never been a winter market before. However, there is demand, and a loyal clientele for the summer market
  • What food is available in Maine in the winter? Many of us realize that the winter vegetable choices are going to be slim, but with storage vegetables, green houses and non-farm types of vendors there is a lot to offer.
  • When: This is not a regular retail operation with standard operating hours. Visitors need to know the limited hours of operation.
  • Where: The location (unlike the summer markets) is new. It’s also just a vacant storefront, so there is a lot of confusion about where it is.
  • Not much time or money: The market is only running til April (then it will change over to the outdoor regular market), and so they need to act quickly to promote themselves. Also, the fees charged to the participants is low, so there is not much of a budget for branding or marketing.

The answer here is low-cost, quick-turnaround items that will quickly promote the market. They need to focus on the storefront itself and a very simple online presence.

Signage

Like many others, I wasn’t familiar with the address (85 Free Street). So when I was in the area I made a special effort to drive by and figure out where it was. Here is what the storefront looks like when you past mid-week:

Portland Winter Farmers Market storefront

The current storefront. Is this place in business?

There is nothing indicating that a farmers market takes place here on Saturdays. They need signs! Many of the vendors have their own signs, maybe those could get moved to the windows? At minimum They need to put a sign that shows pedestrians and drivers that they should remember to come back.

Sample signs for farmers market window

A quick sketch to show how signs could help identify their location and offerings

I put this quick sketch together to show how color and key words describing the time and offerings of the market would go a long way to attract potential shoppers.

On the day of the event, sandwich boards should be placed on the sidewalk. I realize there is neither time nor money to invest in a hanging sign. While I would recommend it for long term usage, it doesn’t make sense here.

Web site

Web sites can be very complex, but they don’t have to be. These guys should grab a URL and do a one-page web site that lists the time, location and vendor names. BTW, I just checked and portlandwinterfarmersmarket.com is available. Go grab it before a cyber-squatter does.

The reason the market needs a web site is that people who use the internet nearly always search online for answers. People in Portland are asking about the market. They are going to Google and look for the when, where and who. A simple site will answer these questions. Then you can refer people to your Facebook fan page for more up-to-date content.

Branding identity

Building a branded identity would be valuable to this group, but it not possible given the time frame. Instead, use your vendors brands to promote your own. [Full disclosure I designed the logo and web site for Cream & Sugar Bakery]. Use the logos and signage from the vendors to attract shoppers, by placing them prominently in the storefront windows and on your new web site.

Will work for food

I’m trying to connect with the management of the winter market. I want this to flourish and be successful for the vendors and for the city. How can I help? Maybe a barter is possible.

See you at the market!
Saturdays, 10:00 am – 1:00 pm
85 Free Street, Portland, Maine

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Make it Easy for your Volunteers to Build your Brand

March 5th, 2010

Today’s post can be read at Volunteer Maine’s blog.

If you rely on volunteers to help you run your organization, you need to make it easy for them to build and support your brand. The good news is that if they are donating their time, they are ready to be ambassadors for your organization. However, they may lack the knowledge and understanding of how your group works, and how to keep your brand identity cohesive. Read the entire article here.

About Volunteer Maine

Volunteer Maine logo

The members of the VolunteerMaine Partnership are state, non-profit, public and private agencies that have come together with the sole purpose of promoting volunteerism in Maine and meet the needs of the volunteer programs operating locally so they are able to effectively respond to critical local needs.

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Signs and Maps: Brand Yourself as “Helpful”

March 4th, 2010

I recently attended an event with the Maine Women’s Network group. It was held on a Tuesday night starting at 5:45 pm. As I scrambled to get out of the office to get to the event, I decided to double check the address.

Ugh. I realized it was being held Southern Maine Community College. I knew from previous experience that the signage on the campus is terrible and it’s very difficult to figure out where these public events are being held.

So, I stopped and went back to the MWN web site to get a specific address. Their web site said:

McKernan Hospitality Center
Southern Maine Community College
Fort Road / McKernan Road
South Portland, ME 04106

I started by typing that “address” into Google maps. Entering that intersection got me no where, but Google did show an address of 2 Fort Road. In fact, there does not appear to even be a McKernan Road, according to Google. However, it did find a point on the map which had me practically on a pier out in the ocean. Here is a screen shot of that, along with the actual location of the building.

Incorrect google map result

Incorrect Google map result

So, basically I drove around the SMCC campus multiple times. There is very little signage on campus. I stopped several pedestrians to ask about the building or the address and no one had heard of it. Apparently, it’s a building mostly used for rental purposes, so the students were not familiar with it. I actually parked my car twice before finding the right place.

I arrived late for the networking event, and was harried and frustrated by the time I got there. Later in the evening I spoke with several other attendees who had also been lost and confused by the location. Unfortunately, for MWN this negativity transfers over to their brand. I came away feeling a sort of overall negativity towards the event and therefore the organization.

Be Helpful

It’s easy to point fingers at Google, at SMCC and even at me for being unable to find the place. But the reality is this is an opportunity for the Network to foster their brand as being helpful. The group is a non-profit group that “is a statewide resource for building professional and personal relationships among women who want to connect and make a difference–in the workplace, in the community and across the state.” They need to put themselves in the shoes of the attendees.

Your typical attendee is not going to know this building, is likely to rely on Google maps for directions, and will not find helpful way-finding signs on the SMCC campus. Therefore, the Maine Women’s Network can preempt any problems by providing driving directions and a detailed map.

Let me show you how.

Driving directions

Turn by turn driving directions should be provided. Because the location is on a peninsula with only one main road in, you can start there.

The event is held at the McKernan Hospitality Center on the SMCC campus.

  1. Follow Broadway towards the SMCC campus .
  2. Turn Right onto Benjamin Pickett Dr. (also called Breakwater Dr.)
  3. Turn Left onto Fort Rd, (you will enter the SMCC campus)
  4. Take a right into the second or third driveway, there is parking on either side of the building. Please see map.

Informational Map

The Maine Women’s Network should include a map, like the one I created here, on their own web site.

Map to find networking event

Map highlighting location of the event. Click to enlarge.

Conclusion

No one likes to feel stupid, stressed out, or like they’re wasting their time. Not knowing where you’re going is going to make you feel that way. So, put yourself in your customer’s shoes, help them find where they need to go. Signage, directions, and maps all help your customers.

Graphic designers tend to get caught up in the look and feel of brand identity. And in this case, I would recommend the map itself be branded with the MWN’s unique look and feel. It should be created in their corporate colors (rather than red and gray), it should have their logo and contact information on there, etc. But more important that than is the offering of helpful information to put your customers or clients at ease.

I’m going to send this map over the Maine Women’s Network and I hope they are able to post it on their web site. Who else needs a good map?

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Web Templates: The Good, The Bad, The (Sometimes Very) Ugly

February 25th, 2010

Templates. It’s a word that gets thrown around a lot in the web development process, and it is often misunderstood.

At Visible Logic, we develop custom-designed, custom-branded web sites. That means that every web site has a unique look and feel that is designed specifically for the client. In contrast, many do-it-yourself web site tools offer web site templates that you can use. You may be able to insert your logo, and choose a dominant color scheme, but the overall design—graphics, layout, typography, etc. is not branded for your business.

This is something I counsel business owners to avoid. Choosing a stock template to build an online presence does not allow you to build your brand identity. You’re building one of your most valuable branding elements with a look that may not be unique to you and you may not even own the rights to.

However, the word template can also mean framework or structure. This is something we definitely use to build web sites. When you navigate through a web site there needs to be a repetition and pattern to the placement of content. What if the navigational elements were placed in a different position on every page? Or, what if the design was graphically different throughout the site? This would be confusing to your readers. A template in this case creates a framework for the elements.

Template for design = bad

Let’s use the example of e-newsletters as they are easy to analyze. Many of the newsletter tools out there boast hundreds of templates! A template for every industry! These are the worst kinds of templates. Frequently, they are unable to accommodate the branding elements you’re already working with; and they are forcing you to use a design that others, maybe even your competitors, could be using. Therefore, you’re not building a cohesive brand image and you’re not building a unique identity either.

In contrast, when we build an e-newsletter system for our clients, they are completely custom designed and custom branded. B2B e-newsletters are primarily a brand-driven marketing tool. They keep your company top-of-mind with clients, so to use a stock design template does not make sense.

This is also true if you decide to purchase a WordPress theme, or a web site template. The term refers to a pre-fabricated design for the site. Again, you may be able to make some changes, like placing your own logo, but you are ultimately building an online presence that sums you up as: cookie-cutter; unoriginal; cheap; undifferentiated, etc.

Template for structure = good

However, when we design a custom-branded e-newsletters for our clients, we do in fact build a template for our clients. But what makes it a template is the fact that certain types of content gets placed in specific areas. The template pulls in key graphic elements so that the e-newsletter is following the same brand standards as other materials (web site, marketing materials, etc.). The template is a structure, not a predetermined look.

When building a complex web site that uses a Content Management System, you will certainly be working with templates. But again, the word template here means a framework. It will help keep navigational elements organized and separate from changing content. It will provide a space on the page for all key elements.

Do you own your template?

Another major reason why you need to be careful of choosing a pre-fab template for your web site or newsletter design is that you may not own the copyright to that design. I’ve had this happen with several clients. Before working with Visible Logic, they used a free starter type of web site and used the hosting company’s templates and graphics to build their initial online presence. For many companies these days, their web site presence is their primary brand identity piece. So, by starting with a stock template, they’ve defaulted into a brand identity that was designed by their web host (probably not the best designer!). Then, as they outgrew the limitations of the site they could not transfer the graphic look because they do not own the rights to it.

So there are two major concerns with pre-designed web templates: 1) the fact that the design is not customized to your brand identity and 2) you may not have the legal rights to use the graphics outside of its initial usage.

But don’t confuse all usages of the word “template” because templates as frameworks to house information is an important part of making highly-functional web sites or newsletters.

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How Important is SEO to YOUR Web Site?

February 11th, 2010

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is a buzz word these days. You’ve probably heard over and over that you need to optimize your web site for the search engines. But is this really critical? Are there drawbacks?

People need to find you on the web

Research is showing that most people who use the internet visit a company’s web site before making a purchase. They may be looking at your products or services, reading bios of key personnel, reviewing samples and case studies, or checking the hours of a retail operation. So it’s clear that having a web site that’s easy-to-use is critical to any business, even one that is not internet-based. But is it critical that it be search engine optimized?

Referral-based businesses may be stressing out too much over SEO

People need to be able to find you on the web, but what are they searching on? If you are a business built on referrals, it’s more likely they’ll be Googling your actual business name, rather than a more generic key word. For example, the number one keyword for people coming to my site is “Visible Logic”. I’m not getting a lot of traffic from “graphic designer” or “web design”. Both of those terms are just too vast and filled with too much competition.

Let’s think about what would be involved to produce a lot of web traffic on the words “graphic design” or “web site design”. To get on the first page of Google with those words would take a lot of optimization of text, updating and maintaining content, finding referral links, etc. Now I’m not saying I don’t want to be on the first page of results, I just don’t think it’s worth the time and effort.

Graphic design and web site design both can be commodity services when they are offered at the lowest levels. Logos for $99 and web site for $200 are generally the first things you find when searching these types of general terms.

Set Goals and Prioritize

As with any part of your business, you need to have goals and priorities in mind. It is doubtful you have unlimited time or money to put into SEO, but you should follow some best practices that are neither expensive nor time consuming:

  • Make the most of the content you do have: Use h1 tags and alt tags correctly. Don’t overuse graphic images, fill in keywords, descriptions and other meta data on all pages.
  • Write content with the reader in mind: If you write with your ideal client in mind, it increases the chance your text will be relevant to both readers and search engines.
  • Keep your site current: Build a plan to update, add and maintain content. Use a CMS tool to make this easier. Consider adding a blog or article library, but realize this will take time and effort so make sure you’re up to the task.
  • Ask for links from groups and associates you are involved with.

What do you think, how relevant is SEO to your company? How much effort, time and money are you investing in it?

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How to Work with Royalty-Free or Low Cost Photos

February 8th, 2010

This post is a follow up to Royalty-Free vs. Stock Photos: Differences and Benefits

The reality of tight budgets is that many of us rely on low-cost images when designing brochures, web sites or other marketing materials. If you do find yourself working with less-than-perfect photos or illustrations, make sure you work carefully within the restriction of those images.

Make the Design Work with Low Cost Images

It may take more time to find a good image. There are many web sites boasting low-cost of even free photos. You’ll notice a large variance in the quality of these royalty-free photos. That means it often takes longer to sort through pages and pages of poor quality results. The larger, more reputable stock agencies offer free research, so they can do a lot of the leg work for you. Factor in the cost of your time. For example, does it make sense to search for 6 hours to find a decent $25 image or should you search for 45 minutes and pay $400?

Understand the resolution of the image. Most royalty-free sources charge based on the size of the image sold. A small, web-resolution image is going be less expensive than a large-scale, high-resolution image ready for poster-sized printing. Read this post, if you need more information about resolution. However, you will not be able to put a web-resolution file into a printed piece without it looking blurry, bitmapped or both.

Don’t make poor-quality images the focus of your design. What makes something less-than-great? Poor lighting, stiff actors/models, out-of-focus images, cheesey poses, trendy (ie soon to be out-of-date) clothing and hair styles, out-of-date looking people, places or accessories.

Examples

As a graphic designer, I have certainly found myself having to work with less than ideal images. Sometimes a tight budget only allows for royalty-free photos, other times one or two poor quality photos are the only images available.

Educational Endeavors printed marketing materials. When we worked with Educational Endeavors we had to rely on low-cost royalty-free images to stay within budget. Silhouetting all the photos helped to unify them graphically, and made the layout less boxy. Making the images duotones diminished inconsistencies of color palette, lighting, and style.

Print Marketing MaterialsCommunity Energy Cooperative printed marketing materials. When Visible Logic worked with the CEC on the Energy-Smart Pricing Plan, we used primarily all royalty-free images taken from just one or two photo CDs. Because all of the images were energy-related, it was easy to find images. But, they varied greatly in the angle, depth of field and color spectrum. So we kept them small, and enhanced them in photoshop through judicious cropping and some color effects.

Print Marketing MaterialsCambridge Human Resources Group Web Site. Finding low-cost, but high-quality photos of adults can be particularly hard. Clothing, hairstyles and accessories can look out-of-date quickly. Think of it like investing in a good suit: focus on timeless styles. For Cambridge, we purchased a group of photos and then made them duotones of gray and purple to work with their branding systems we were building. We made sure to purchase high-enough resolution versions to work in both their print and web campaigns.

Web Site Design Using Royalty-Free Photos

Cover design for Boycott. Boycott is about the athletes who were unable to compete in the 1980 Olympics because of the Moscow boycott. The stories were based on interviews with the athletes and we wanted to show the athletes at that time. So, we had to rely on images supplied to us by the author and publisher. Rather than use only the photos, we made sure major design elements and parts of the concept were made up of other graphics. In this case the red-white-and-blue motif and the distressed type.

Book cover design: Boycott

There is no denying that high-quality photos can improve your design. But if you know that there are limitations because of what is available or what you can afford, design around it. Make images small, use other graphics, manipulate and pull the images together with an effect like duotoning or silhouetting. In the end, you may decide that no photos is a better solution than poor photos.

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Royalty-Free vs. Stock Photos: Differences and Benefits

February 4th, 2010

Many people use the phrases “royalty free” and “stock” interchangeably when talking about photography but there is a difference, and it’s important to understand the difference when planning a design project.

History

It used to be that if you needed a photo, you hired a professional photographer who created a custom shot for you. There are still many times when a custom shot is the only real possibility—to take a photo of your new product, your facility, your employees, etc.

However, there are times when a photo is used more to convey a mood or set a scene. For example, a financial planning company shows a retired couple walking and laughing along the beach. This suggests a carefree retirement achieved through careful investments. These types of images, sometimes called lifestyle shots, are often generic enough that a financial planner in Maine, an insurance agent in Minnesota and a stockbroker in Florida could all use a similar photo in their promotional materials.

At some point, photographers realized they had a stock of previously shot, unused photos. Maybe they were extras from a custom shoot, or images whose usage rights had elapsed. On the other hand, a lot designers, marketers and ad agencies realized they didn’t have a the budget to fly to the Caribbean, pay a professional photographer and his assistants, and set up a custom shoot. So stock photos became a new product. Initially they were mostly bought directly from photographers, but then stock agencies compiled them together to make the research faster for designers and to help photographers with their marketing.

Stock photography

Stock photography is generally priced the same way a custom shoot is—the fee is based on usage. Obviously with stock images, there are no direct costs of getting the shot made. The fee is determined on where the photo will be used and for how long. For example, it could be running on the front cover of a catalog that is distributed across the U.S. during one holiday season. Or, it could be running inside a book at postage-stamp size on an educational flyer distributed only in the State of New York. When you buy a stock photo, you are only supposed to use it for that usage, so if you love the front cover of your catalog and decide to use the same image on your web site and your other marketing materials, you need to negotiate and pay for more usage rights.

Royalty free photography

By contrast, royalty-free photography allows you to pay one flat fee and you can use the image as much as you like. Generally, there are different costs depending on the resolution of an image. A low-res file that would only work as a small web site image costs less than a large-scale, high resolution image that could be used in both print and web. If you are thinking about building a marketing campaign around a key photo, it is appealing to just pay one fee. Once you’ve paid for it, you can use an image in any new circumstance that arises. However, there is a downside to royalty-free images.

Exclusivity

Another distinction between royalty-free and stock photos is that royalty-free images can be purchased over and over by people everywhere. The photo you’ve chosen for the front page of your web site may be the exact photo your competitors have chosen for their web site. As a designer, I’ve definitely see photos I’ve worked with, used in other places.

Traditionally, with stock photography, because you bought a photo for a certain usage, the stock agency could tell you who else was using the image. They would also tell you if there were restrictions. For example, an insurance agency in Maine could buy the rights to a stock image in a way that does not allow any other insurance companies in New England to use the image.

However, it seems like this information is not as readily available because of internet purchasing. When you go online to purchase a stock photo, you are required to give detailed information about the usage (this is not required for royalty free images). Therefore, that data is probably available on request, but it’s easy to just slide over those details and buy the image. Therefore, even though you are paying the higher price for stock photos we are often not getting the full benefit of exclusivity.

Quality and price

As I just mentioned, stock photos tend to be more expensive. The economics is that a photographer is controlling your usage with stock, so he or she can only resell that image a limited number of times. With royalty-free the creator of an image could potentially resell an image hundreds or thousands of times. Therefore they are less expensive.

But it is more than that. If you sort through the online catalogs of a stock agency like Getty, it’s hard to ignore that the quality is considerably higher than a low-cost, royalty-free source like iStock or Shutterstock. However, these two competitors are creeping closer together as Getty continues to add royalty-free options and iStock’s quality improves.

Conclusion

It’s important to understand the benefits and true costs of each type of file.

Royalty-free photos are definitely the most economical because they are less costly to begin with, and you can use the image any way you like. However, your competitors may be using the exact same image you are, because there is no way to control usage.

Stock images cost more upfront and any additional usages must be paid for separately. However the quality tends to be higher and you can pay for exclusive usage. Even if you don’t pay for exclusive rights, a stock image is less likely to be seen repeatedly because of the cost limitations for some clients.

Coming up the next post: How to design using low-cost images.

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“Simple” Does Not Mean “Not Designed”

February 1st, 2010

Nothing too complicated. Nothing fancy. Something simple, it shouldn’t cost too much.

These are remarks I’ve heard many times from people considering hiring me for design services. And they all seem to suggest that something that is simple is therefore easy and therefore shouldn’t cost a lot.

However, I’d argue that the cheapest design is all the stuff that falls in the middle. It’s not complicated, but it’s not simple either. It has the usual amount of fussiness and detail, and the usual amount of scale and proportion applied.

To do something simple and minimalist takes a certain design expertise (which you’ll pay for) and the ability to keep out all the extraneous details (which you’ve got to really be ready to embrace).

Some wonderful examples of minimalist design are many of Paul Rand’s logos:

Paul Rand's logos

Iconic logos by Paul Rand: ABC, IBM, and Westinghouse

Creating minimalist and simple design, is a skill that can separate a mediocre designer from the best. It’s that ability to strip a concept down to it’s essential meaning and simplest shape. Logos are the clearest example of this. But a great designer can help you follow this method by applying the same philosophy to your web site, your marketing materials, or your book cover.

I don’t want to compare myself to the legendary Paul Rand, but I do want to show that the ideals of minimalist design are alive in well even in this time period where swooshes, shadows, bevels and gradients seem to overpower too many design. Here are a few items from the Visible Logic portfolio to make my point.

Modern Epicure logo

Modern Epicure logo

BYOB Cover

Book cover design: BYOB Chicago

Next time you are looking for something simple, realize that you need to do two things:

  1. accept that some things will be “left out” of the design
  2. work with a highly skilled designer so that the end result is beautiful, minimalist design rather than boring, unfinished looking design.
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President Obama Promotes Web Site in State of the Union Address

January 27th, 2010
President Obama Talks about Web Sites during the State of the Union

President Obama Talks about Web Sites during the State of the Union

I did my civic duty and watched the State of the Union address last night. I was raised to believe it is my duty as an American citizen to listen to this yearly speech by our President, and I think I’ve watched nearly everyone since starting sometime in high school.

And I believe it may be the first time the President even said the word web site.

President Obama mentioned using web site technology to track earmark spending. He said:

“I’m calling on Congress to publish all earmark requests on a single website before there’s a vote so that the American people can see how their money is being spent.”

I found it fascinating that the President of the United States was talking about some of the same issues that small business owners face with using and maintaining their own web sites.

  1. You need to have a web site. Obama mentioned briefly that some politicians had already started posting earmarks, but that not everyone was following this protocol. So I was a bit confused if there is one central web site already. If so, anyone know the URL?

    For your small business, you absolutely need to have a web presence, and then make your web site known to potential clients and search engines. You need to see it as a business tool, marketing tool, sales funnel, etc.

  2. You need to have a way to easily update and maintain content. Obama is asking lawmakers to update this web site, which makes me wonder what type of Content Management System (CMS) is in place.

    Make it easy on yourself to make updates. Invest in a CMS that allows you to quickly and easily make updates. You (or whoever will be doing the udpates) should be well-trained on how to do regular content updates. If you’ve forgotten, get retrained by your web developer and document the process.

  3. You need a system for making these updates. My question to Congress is, who will actually be the one to write, edit, and post these details? Whose job is it? The senator, an aide, a web master, or who?

    Once you have a CMS or a blog in place, do you have some systems in place to keep you on track? Is there someone who has accountability for making posts and updates? Do you have an editorial calendar and/or a schedule for doing maintenance to double check and update content?

  4. Is your content relevant? I’m interested to see the actual web site in question because I wonder how useful it will be to the average American. Will it be searchable? Will it be written in a style that is readable?

    As you write text or add other material to your web site you need to be asking yourself a similar question. Will this engage my reader and get them to take the next step that I want them to take? That action may be to call you, or to read more, or to buy something. If your viewers cannot find the information they seek, or they do not find your site compelling, they’ll likely just surf on over to the next site.

I was quite surprised to hear, even in passing, the president mentioning how a web site can help with productivity. But that really is the reason behind so many web sites: they should work to help you achieve your goals, or your business’ goals.

Now who has the web site address that Obama is talking about?

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