websense

If you’ve read here for very long, you know that finding talent is always a challenge. We’re lucky to have a couple of great tech schools nearby who churn out some gifted folks, but we are always on the lookout. This week Fox News has an article on three ways to find the talent you need for your business.

The article actually cites Akron, Ohio as potentially having fewer job candidates than other techy hotspots, at least, this was the case a decade ago. As technology has grown, so has the ability to recruit from anywhere in the country. Fortunately for TKG, we have not had to look much past our own backyard for great people. Besides the tech schools in the area, TKG has offered training in the form of the TKG Institute in the past. This gave us the ability to train and hire from a group of people with skill sets we needed – and we knew what they could do, because we taught them how to do it. I think this sort of training is going to become more and more popular. We have an employee who also teaches at the premiere university, Full Sail Academy in Florida. He says that the students know that if you go after a four year degree in any sort of computer related technology, your degree will be outdated by the time you hit your junior year. So, faster, more flexible training needs to be taking place for people to have the skill set they need to find a job when they graduate. I think this is going to mean that at least these particular degree programs are going to have to change and become more flexible – 18 month degrees, and so on. Get in, get the skill set and get to work.

Anyway, back to the article – the steps given are as follows:
1. Making use of the Human Cloud – hiring freelance worker who work from home – programming, copy writing, etc.
2. Become proficient at managing workers both in your office, and potentially, across the country or globe. TKG has employees in several states. We make that work by many methods, but utilizing so many forms of instant communication – texting, messaging, email, etc. enables TKG to have a presence in several states without the need for an actual office in several states.
3. Being a good manager means knowing how to create a relationship with people you might never meet in person. Knowing how to compile enough information from various platforms to make a hire, build trust with that individual, etc. are all going to be skills needed in this new business world.

The article was pretty good – give it a look if you’d like more information. I think what it all boils down to is that employers are going to have to be ready to get creative if they want the best folks working for them. Fortunately, the Web makes it possible to find the best person for your business anywhere in the world. You are no longer constrained to your own backyard…but sometimes, that’s where you find the best folks. My advice? Check the backyard – it will often have everything you need, but if necessary, be ready to branch out. It’s a strange new world out there, but it’s exciting.

Hopefully you’ve been wondering where I’ve been for the last few weeks. As you are probably aware there was a global cyber attack a few weeks ago and millions of sites were affected.

Apparently some evil folks with not enough to keep them occupied found ways to put malicious code onto literally millions of websites. For the most part, this code was spammers trying creative ways to get links to their products or services (to mainly reputable sites whose owners have apparently employed more black hat SEOs – You’d think they’d learn after the whole Overstock/JC Penny fiasco). So, TKG has taken opportunity to greatly improve network security and believe that we have eliminated the threat entirely (at least for us and our clients).

(The following is from the email TKG sent out to clients, letting them know the steps we had taken.)
Here are the steps we’ve taken to ramp up security: (Warning: what follows is a bunch of geek-speak. For those not fluent in “geek,” the short version is that we did a bunch of stuff to make our websites much more secure):
• Put more stringent restrictions on FTP access to the server resources
• Tightened security on “open source” site management (WordPress, Joomla, XCART, OSCommerce)
• Implemented site-by-site security screens for current sites
• Performed file system audits to ensure file access is reduced to it’s most common operational denominator
• Performed data audits to ensure sensitive data is not being maintained on our database system
• Implemented server side application firewalls that evaluate and eliminate known threats
• Changed procedures for incoming site transfers to include audits on all of the above (TKG created sites were already secure)

The TKG blogs, being WordPress blogs, were among the sites affected. And as we say so often around here, TKG’s sites and blogs are like the cobbler’s children – they wait to get new “shoes” until after all client work has been taken care of.

WordPress has holes in it’s programming, and if you know how to work around the programming, you can spam the living daylights out of a blog with Trackbacks and spammy comments. When we got Websense and the other blogs back up, they were immediately SLAMMED with tons of spam – some of which was not family friendly, if you know what I mean. So, we took the blogs down again, added some of our own tweaks to “harden” the blogs and now we should be back in action!

Glad to be back! What have you been up to?

While Social Media as an online marketing strategy is a great idea, it should always be secondary to search engine optimization, primarily the organic optimization that should always be a number one priority with any site. Things like selecting keyphrases, writing and optimizing great copy, tags, anchor texts, what have you – is going to give you the best ROI.

That being said, social media is good, too, and should be a secondary consideration. Jamie Turner over at Mashable has a pretty interesting post about the Social Media ROI Cycle. According to Jamie’s post, there are three stages of a social media ROI cycle: Launch, Management and Optimization. A bit backwards from the way we do and SEO strategy, at least from a web developer’s best practices standpoint. We would, depending on what the client wanted to undertake, recommend for a new site, while the copy is being developed, optimization going forward would be a great thing – ready for the search engines at launch. Any social media strategy should be on top of a traditional SEO campaign.

This is of course the best case scenario, but it makes the most sense. Once you launch, you manage, or analyze and tweak your on going SEO efforts, which might include some social media. Regularly re-examining your strategy will help you decide if social media is a good fit for your company. Regular tweaking of your ongoing SEO is a must. Good copy, a well developed site, and carefully constructed SEO is always going to give you a good ROI. Social media is great, and has been the icing on many cakes so far, and it will continue to be a major part of any online marketing strategy. But SEO is the cake, it’s fundamental.

Here’s a pretty good idea of what you probably shouldn’t do, no matter how tempting. Mashable’s Jolie O’Dell has a post today profiling one web designer’s decision to go public with an old account who had chosen not to pay the bill. In a big way – the designer, who had hosted the site for free, replaced the copy on the homepage with copy describing his troubles getting his client to pay for the work he had completed.
The designer’s actions were certainly childish (his words), though understandable, as no one likes to get stiffed, but really, really unprofessional. I think many web design firms have had trouble collecting on outstanding bills in the last several years because, when it comes right down to it, a website isn’t rent, or lights. Things you have to have – at the absolute bare minimum – to survive. Especially if you are a chiropractor or some other entity who does not rely on e-commerce as your main source of clientele. So many companies had to go on austerity programs that in the end, probably lost them business and ended up losing money – but it was survival mode. I think in the end, this web designer probably understood that, as he took the site down of his own accord. As the economy rebounds, and business is picking up for many folks, maybe he’ll get paid after all. Then again, after what he did, he’ll probably never hear from the guy, ever. He may have even scared off potential clients, now that they see the lengths he was willing to go to collect.

I think a marketing budget is one of the last things that should be cut, right along with the rent and the lights. Marketing is what keeps clients coming through the door. This chiropractor either didn’t know that, or was in such deep financial trouble, that there was nothing he could do about it. I hope, for his sake and that of the web designer, that this thing doesn’t sour people for both of them. Makes for interesting reading, however.

I own a small business, and many of my clients are small businesses. They are what helped me build my company, and I am always on the lookout for ways to help other small business owners make the most of the web. It’s the essence of TKG – it’s just what we do.

Small business is all over the news these days. With unemployment down, folks are starting to understand that it is small business that employs most people in our country. Small business dictates the way our economy fluctuates. When you overtax or otherwise hurt small business, it has a huge and lasting impact on the country. Many small businesses need all the help they can get just to survive right now, so I have included below a few posts that I think will be particularly helpful to small business owners.

1. 5 Ways Small Businesses Can Use Tech to Save Money

2. Make Your Web Site a Daily Destination

3. How To Boost Your Business on the Cheap

Running a small business can be a challenge, but really a rewarding one. I love the ability to tailor my business to what our clients need. I can offer a service that will benefit the business and livelihood of others. But, the best thing about this job is making the web useful to my clients, and helping their business thrive. That’s what I get a kick out of everyday. I hope you found the posts helpful and as always, if you have one to share, leave it in the comments section. Check out the video – another little pointer for ya…