Online Marketing Advice From Me And My Dog, Charlie

Let’s hypothesize. Let’s just say it’s a new year. Let’s say, further, that one of the things people do when faced with a new year is to make resolutions. “This year I’ll stop eating twelve servings of bacon a day and lose 25 pounds.” “This is the year I ignore the new season of ‘Metalocalypse’ and, instead, write that novel.” Etc.

Now, I could go all faux-philosopher on you and start blabbing away about the calendar year being an artificial construct and, as such, what difference does a new year make, but, yawn, who needs to hear all that? Plus, duh. All I know is this—there’s no better way for me to ensure January is a month filled with disappointment than to make even marginally far-reaching resolutions. Unless my follow-up resolution is to fail to keep any previous resolution, well, I’ll fail. I blame my lizard-brain, the lump on the top of my brain stem that basically just needs whatever regardless of any consequences.

I see the power of the animal urge evidenced every day in our dog, Charlie. Charlie knows, for example, certain things are off limits. Like, say, the fish food. For the most part, Charlie’s dog-conscience, paired with our vigilance, enables him to keep himself from trying to get the fish food. Charlie’s dog-conscience is of a tentative nature, however, because it sure didn’t stop Charlie from eating an entire bag of algae tablets after they fell on the floor. Was he ashamed? You bet. Did he feel guilty? In the way dogs feel guilt, which is to say, fleetingly. Will he refrain from eating another bag of bottom-feeding fish food if he finds it within reach and he’s not being watched, despite the fact that they’re made of freaking algae? No way. Were Charlie to make a resolution, any resolution, it would be broken before he knew he was breaking it.

Our (“our” consisting of me and Charlie) gift to you this year, then, is this advice: make your online marketing resolutions those of the shooting fish in a bucket variety. Kill multiple birds with one rock. Reassess the tree from which you’ve plucked the low-hanging fruit, and see if you missed some. (I’d resolved to use fewer cliches this year. See how that went?) Given the fact that we’ve either just been through or are still enduring a relatively serious recession, it’s not unusual to need to make every marketing dollar count. Plan accordingly. If you’re planning a site redesign, take advantage of the fact that you’ll have the hood up and schedule a usability assessment—it’s way easier to make changes when the IT team’s already dedicated. If you need your SEO spruced up, keep in mind that title tags are at once relatively easy to construct while still being one of the most powerful on-page ranking components. As long as you’re working on those, make sure your meta descriptions are compelling and, more importantly, aren’t getting cut off on the results pages. Make sure your copywriting best practices are up-to-date before you add a bunch of new copy to your site.

Even better, admit to yourself that your valuable time is better spent elsewhere and hire Oneupweb to keep your online marketing resolutions for you (even the difficult ones). We’re the equivalent of a drill sergeant, personal trainer and  constant dog-watcher—all in one.

And thus, I break another resolution (to avoid the use of the flimsy metaphor).