I *almost* did this last year, but allowed myself to get talked out of it. This year, however, is going to be different.

A lot of people tell me I’m going to lose business. Honestly, the leads I’ve gotten from the Yellow Pages have ended up being low-to-no budget, so I feel that it’s running at a loss for me right now.

And then I think, “when was the last time I picked up a phone book?”

Further Reading:

• Small Biz Marketing: More Bad News for Yellow Pages
• Yellow Pages Usage Stats Are Likely Wrong

And then, this link made the rounds last month:

• http://www.yellowpagesoptout.com/

For the DIY types among us: Four fonts are too many for the content area of your website. Two is the rule of thumb.

Remember, the more fonts you use, the more it looks like a ransom note.

You may have read the news in passing this week; JCPenney got busted by the NYT & Google for black hat SEO techniques… meaning they were using a paid link campaign to get higher ranking search results. This is a big no-no in Google’s book.

But, here’s the thing:

JCPenny, like many of us, had hired someone to do their SEO and were unaware of what was going on. I’m sure they were thrilled at first about their traffic and sales before the smackdown from Google came hitting hard.

Life Lesson: Know who you are hiring for SEO and their methods. Yeah, there’s going to be some “trade secret” specifics, but they should be able to discuss their plan in general, and any mention of link-building needs to be discussed in-depth as it is the #1 way you can get into trouble.

If you’re unsure of where to start, Google’s SEO starter guide ( http://www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf ) is a great place to launch off and get a basic understanding of the industry.

Fortune has an excellent behind-the-scenes article on Conan O’Brien and how social media changed and kept his career alive in the days after he walked away from the Tonight Show. (link via @MikeAdamsNC)

It’s a inspiring story on several fronts, but here are some points that I walked away with.

1. Conan & his team used social media to communicate directly with fans in a non-traditional way.
2. Fans initiated the “I’m with Coco” campaign as a grassroots-type effort without any prodding from Conan & his Team
3. They took immediate steps to position themselves both online and offline (the “Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television Tour”) to take advantage of the growing fan reaction.
4. Conan’s production company owns his new show and they are constantly looking for ways to take advantage of non-traditional points of distribution.
5. In the end, he realized that what he had become was greater than what he always dreamed he wanted.

And all of the above is great, and there are lessons to be learned from his experience.

But–

None of this would have been happened if he wasn’t open and honest through the whole situation. Beginning with his letter, he showed his true colors and we all identified with him. If he had been bitter & angry or manipulative in any way, I think very few of us would have bought it.

Strategy is important and I’m not discounting that. However, all the strategy in the world isn’t going to give you long term success if nobody wants what your selling, or (worse) they don’t like who you are.

What does this have to do with web design? Probably not a lot. Websites & Facebook & Twitter & [fill in the blank here] are all great things to have. Broadcast & print are both still relevant no matter what people would like for you to believe. All these things are really secondary to you and your business. Done well, they tangibly reflect what your business is about.

Not the other way around.

Typical Phone Conversation:

Client: “Yeah, did you get the pictures I sent over?”

Me: “Um, yes I did. A lot of them are kinda small. Where did you get them?”

Client: “I got them from Google. You can just make them bigger, can’t you?”

Me: “Well, not really. I can make something bigger smaller, but going the other way usually looks pretty bad. I can’t use these pictures, tho. They belong to someone.”

Client: “No they don’t. I got them from Google. They’re on the internet, so they’re free, right?”

Me: “Not exactly. Google looks at websites and pulls the search results from websites. When you use Google Image Search, what it’s showing you is images from other websites that are owned by other people. It’d be kinda like someone finding a picture from your website and using it on theirs.”

Client: “oh…”

To the more web-savvy of you, this might seem like a dumb conversation, but it happens a lot. Many people assume that just because you can find it online means you can use it for whatever you like. If you’re one of those, it’s no fault of your own, really, but now you know.

Say it with me: “Google Image Search is not a good source for stock photography.”

Copyblogger – Will Your Site Survive the Google Shrink Ray?

Over at Lifehacker they’re saying that Google Product Search is returning local inventory results for searches, which is really cool.

What would be awesomely cool is if they could include a way for locally owned businesses to get in the mix, instead of just the 70 national retailers that they include in the search.

It’s not a matter of Google leaving out the little guy out o spite. There’s logistics to consider. Haw do you get the info to them and keep it updated with a reasonable amount of fuss?

Ah, well. Maybe someone will come up with an idea on how to do it without breaking the bank.

Update: The always on top-of-things @WilliamLang points to this:  Google Merchant Center

Today I ended a self-imposed 30 day exile from Social Media. At first, it was hard to keep away from Facebook & Twitter and I won’t lie and say that it got any easier as time went by. However, I did learn a few important lessons.

• I rely on social media for information
  I really felt out of the loop. I still had my feeds that I checked up on in Google Reader, but it wasn’t the same. I have a lot in common with the people that I follow, so I get a lot of important  information from them that I wouldn’t normally see otherwise.
• I missed the interaction
  Working from a home office isolates you quite a bit. Sometimes, those status updates are subtle reminders that there are other people out there that aren’t sending you emails wondering where their updates are.
• I was crazy productive
  I took a lot of pictures, blogged a lot more, and got a lot of work done. I think a lot of my creative-whatever gets slowly poured out 140 characters at the time. I was able to put a lot of that energy into personal creative projects.
• I had more personal time
  Instead of walking around checking Twitter constantly, I was more present with my family.

Social Media takes up a lot of time, but I think the payoff is worth it. I used the time off to streamline my workflow so I would be more efficient when it came time to participate in the online world again. I also greatly reduced the number of people I was following (from 930+ down to 290-some) so I could cut down on the noise to signal ratio and make it easier to hear the voices that were important.

This last culling of the following was the hardest step. I started with the larger, national-type people and eventually had to drop some local people as well. That killed me. I believe in the importance of “Local”, but I also realize that I can’t put my energy into *everyone* that considers themselves that without considering what messages they are putting out there.

All in all, I’m glad I took a month off and I think the changes I’ve made will pay off immediately.

ReadWriteWeb points out that it’s Android’s 3rd birthday today and celebrates with a brief recap of the history of the platform.

I’ve had a Droid X as my main phone for a little over a month now. Having never used a iPhone, I’m not really qualified to give you a good comparison between the two, but I can tell you that I love my Droid on Verizon. I actually feel lost without it. But, that may be more of a personal personality quirk (addiction *cough*) than anything else.

I only have a few complaints:

• Apps can crash the phone. This is not cool.
• Battery life leaves a bit to be desired.
• My thumbs aren’t long enough to reach the other side of the screen (which is massive, btw)

I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to miss seeing these things all over the place. Altho, I did enjoy where Pantano’s swapped his name for “America” and “Service” on some of his signs.