While the journey has been arduous, we have made it through!

For those of you who didn't know, just two weeks after we moved into a brand new office and launched a virtually "new" Poetic Systems, Hurricane Ike hit Houston and our building.  Wind tore off the building's roof and the next day rain did the rest.  The entire building, including our office space and furniture, were ruined.  We had no option but to go back to designing websites at home.  For about a month, employees worked right off my kitchen table.

We were eventually blessed with an opportunity, and our good friends at Creative Switching Designs took us in.  Meanwhile, we wondered for months when on earth we would ever be back in our office.  Well, we finally have a date!

We have been given February 1st, 2009 as the day our building should be like new.  The wait has been irritating and frustrating, but it has also been healthy.  We now view the hurricane as a mixed blessing, because we have proven just that much further that we can make it through quite a hit.  From mail-forwarding issues to clients thinking we were out of business to some random missing office chairs, these past few months have definitely been a test of patience.

We would like to thank our clients for putting up with us and for being supportive.  We could never have made it through any of this without them.

As of this moment, we are hoping to be back in in the Kirkwood Atrium by mid-February at the latest.  Despite the disaster, we have been growing in knowledge and experience and hope to continue to bring you the latest in web design and search engine marketing techniques for your Houston business!

 

I have been asked to explain what makes a good blog post, or at least how to effectively blog, write well, SOMETHING to help with bloggers' issues.  What style, format, length, etc. is appropriate? And for which situation?  I intend to touch on a few things in order to point the lost in the right direction.

What to Blog About?

What moves you?  Or what do you think will move other people?  What is useful?  What is relevant? What is interesting?  If you don't know the answer to any of those questions, then don't try.  Fitting any of those categories can be enough to qualify, but without that qualification, you have made your post a burden and an annoyance.  News, tips, and personal thoughts are all perfectly acceptable as long as they fit with one of those questions.

What Format?

Aside from a few exceptions, begin with some sort of introductory paragraph or sentence.  This keeps readers from wasting their time, so they know if they've found exactly what they're looking for.  Whether you make it epic or to-the-point is completely up to you.  Either is fine.

This all depends on the content, but just be logical.  If you are sharing a short story you came up with, write in traditional format.  Most posts, like news will be similar.  Break sections and use headings properly.  Before you begin think about what pieces of the post go together well and clump them accordingly.  If you list features, use bullets.  Number instructions.  If you have a big quote, block it out.

Closing is also completely up to the content and writer.  Most choose to take a final summarizing stand, in a way bringing the post all together.  Some choose not to waste their time closing at all.  No one will rebuke you either way.

Which Style?

The more formal and distant a post can be, the cleaner and easier it will read.  This does become a problem as blogging does have a personal aspect to it, with writers having their own opinions.  First person is perfectly fine if it is relevant.  If you are describing an experience you had, go right ahead.  Your readers may know you personally anyways.  Second person is extremely difficult to avoid and can be a pain because of that darn personal feel.  The key is to be consistent.  Don't switch from "one" to "you" in the middle of a post.

Personal writing style is an issue of its own.  If you represent a company or organization, try to curb it as much as possible.  If you aren't the most eloquent of speakers, please don't write like you talk.  Personal blogs are truly their own animal and can be dealt with however the author deems, with no questions.

No-Nos You May or May Not Know and Other Pointers:

• Don't begin sentences with "and" or "because".
• Plural words that end in an "s" do not use apostrophes.  Correct: "dogs" Incorrect: "dog's".  (See title of this section and refer to proper format of "No-nos".
• "Its" is possessive.  "It's" = "It is".
• When a non-plural or plural word that ends in an "s" is possessive, it looks like these: the puppies' tales, the Smiths' house, Jonas' hat (My friend Jonas has a hat.  It's Jonas' hat).
• Spell and grammar check.  Just do it.  This goes for personal blogs as well; people DO notice, even if you don't.
• The only way to punctuate properly is to just learn.  Do you know how to use semicolons correctly?  If you missed that day in English class, Google it!
• Check your word repetition with Command+F (Ctrl+F on Windows).  Did you use the word "dynamic" in three sentences in the same paragraph?
• "Alot" is not a word.  "A" and "lot" are both words.
• Spell out single-digit whole numbers as well as simple small fractions (like "two" and "one-half", respectively).  Also, be consistent with number formatting.

Writing Effectively

This is important to understand for the sake of readers and that of search engines.  The most important thing to remember is to write for people.  Key-word stuffing to the point that it impairs readability is absolutely unacceptable and actually detrimental to search rankings.  Writing solid, useful content is what makes a blog worth visiting, and readers respond to that.

On a related note, using adjectives in desperation as an attempt to sound smarter or fill in space does not fool readers.  If there is little to say, say little.  Less room for fluff means more room for teaching and/or learning.  This is of course not to say that adjectives aren't cool and don't effectively convey thoughts.  Just please don't abuse them.

Length

To close, I touch on length.  Just get the point across!  If there's a lot to say, go ahead.  If not, don't waste readers' time trying to bulk up.

Yesterday, Matt and I hit up the Houston Interactive Marketing Association’s Interactive Strategies Conference at the Angelika Theater downtown.  The event ended up being an awesome learning experience, which means good news for our clients.

We stayed in the SEO/SEM track for the entire day and heard four top search engine-marketing gurus spill on vertical search, SEO for sites, tech tools, web design for ROI, and more.  We plan on taking our new knowledge and giving it straight back to clients by making our web sites even more findable and user-friendly.

By far, our favorite session had to be the SEO Site Clinic, in which Tony Wright of Wright IMC looked at audience members’ web sites and ripped them apart from an SEM expert’s perspective.  We offered up houstonnewcomerguides.com and were luckily chosen.  Even better, Tony had a hard time finding something wrong with the site… at first.

He gave Matt some great pointers on internal things that will speed up load time and on ways to use title tags to target search terms we weren’t grabbing.  These pointers of course were not exclusive to houstonnewcomerguides.com, and we will now be keeping them in mind on every site we build.  Other than those few pointers, we got lots of praise on the design and content as well as for reaching the number 1 spot on Google, which should tell us and you that we are definitely doing something right.

We were very excited to attend the conference and will definitely continue to learn.  With the ever-changing dynamics of the web in mind, the fundamental philosophies of Poetic Systems push us to never get stuck in a technological rut and to keep flexible with the times.  The only way to know where to go next is to stay in the loop.

On a sort-of related note – look for our booth today at the Houston Area Real Estate Convention at the Reliant Arena.  Observation of irony: I can’t seem to find the convention on Google!