This week in Online Office Hours, I’ll talk about the fundamentals of search engine optimization — organic search versus paid search, what PageRank is, what matters to search engines and what doesn’t, simple steps to make your website friendly for search engines, and more. Continue reading
“What does a bill like PIPA/SOPA mean to our shareable world? At the TED offices, Clay Shirky delivers a proper manifesto — a call to defend our freedom to create, discuss, link and share, rather than passively consume.“
As you may know, there have been two bills proposed in the U.S. Congress to combat online piracy. One, the “Stop Online Piracy Act” or SOPA, was proposed in the Senate; it has been tabled. The second, the “Protect Intellectual Property Act” or PIPA or PROTECT_IP, remains under consideration in the House and will come up for a vote later this month.
This is a bad piece of legislation. As written, it fails to create tools that will meet its goals and it creates a too-easy way for anyone to block websites, effectively creating a powerful form of censorship. Even the White House opposes it.
The video below eloquently explains what the bill intends to do, why it fails, and why it would be a terrible thing for the Internet and society. Continue reading
“Giant e-commerce companies like Amazon are acting increasingly like their big-box brethren as they extinguish small competitors with discounted prices, free shipping and easy-to-use apps. Big online retailers had a 19 percent jump in revenue over the holidays versus 2010, while at smaller online retailers growth was just 7 percent.
“The little sites are fighting back with some tactics of their own, like preventing price comparisons or offering freebies that an anonymous large site can’t. And in a new twist, they are also exploiting the sympathies of shoppers like Dr. Pollack by encouraging customers to think of them as the digital version of a mom-and-pop shop facing off against Walmart: If you can’t shop close to home, at least shop small.”
From “Online Shoppers Are Rooting for the Little Guy,” by Stephanie Clifford and Claire Cain Miller, New York Times, 1/16/2012.
Beginning this week, we’re starting a new feature here at Big Big Design: Online Office Hours. (That’s OOH! for short.)
Each Wednesday at 11am EST, I’ll hold a short webinar to share new ideas and information, and to answer your questions about issues on the web. Continue reading
Big Big Design wishes you the merriest of holiday seasons.
This week, writer/director/standup comic Louis C.K. released his latest standup special online through his own website, charging just $5 for anyone to download the video with no rights management restrictions.
That means, if you purchase and download the video file, you don’t have rights to redistribute it, but you can make as many copies as you want, write it to DVD to watch there, store it on as many devices as you want, that kind of thing. It’s a very open way to release a video, more generous than the right you receive in purchasing the average DVD.
Four days later, he’s announced that this experiment in online video production and distribution is a success.
I spoke today with the Slippery Rock Business Association about social media and how they could use it to build business. Here’s the slideshow I used as a framework:
Key questions you might ask
1. Where can social media make the greatest impact for your business?
2. How can you blend social media into your existing communications and operations?
3. What social media and networks are your customers, stakeholders, employees, and competitors using?
This excellent video by SEOmoz explains, in everyday terms, how Google changed the way it ranks websites for search results, and how this affects your web strategy.
View original post and transcript: How Google’s Panda Update Changed SEO Best Practices Forever – Whiteboard Friday
I am a big fan of this new ranking philosophy and strategy, because it puts the focus of creating and maintaining websites on building sites that are interesting and valuable to their audiences, fun or at least easy to use, and well-made.
The more that Google and other search engines emphasize user experience, the harder it becomes for people to game the systems in the hope of getting big returns on low-quality web content.
I’m a fan of Harto, aka Hannah Hart, whose My Drunk Kitchen videos are a hilarious counterpoint to traditional cooking shows and videos. Recently she asked me for advice about selling MDK merchandise, and since I’m often asked about online sales I got Hannah’s OK to share her question and my answer on the blog.
Q: I was wondering how one goes about selling/shipping their own promotional goods (t-shirts, mugs, etc.). Any thoughts?
–HH
A: How you go about selling online depends on what you’re selling and why you’re selling it.
I’m going to assume you will be selling shirts with the goal of making a small amount of money (it’s hard to make shirts a big revenue stream) and of raising awareness of the shows.
You have more options with shirts than you do with other products. You can:
Mugs and other non-clothing are much the same except you don’t have to worry about sizes and colors. They tend to be bulky and may require a box to be able to ship, which adds to the cost. There are fewer services that do mugs on demand; CafePress is one, but I’ve heard complaints about their quality.
If you are selling just a few items, you can use the Buy Now buttons that PayPal makes and just put them on a regular page in your blog or website. If you’re selling 10 or more items, it would be worthwhile to look into a simple shopping cart.
If I were going to sell t-shirts, here’s what I’d do:
I’d have one design to start, and I’d offer it for 30 days. I’d let people pre-order, then when the 30 days were up I’d stop taking orders and have the shirts printed; I’d throw a shipping party and ask friends to help with shipping in exchange for beer/pizza/undying affection. Then two months later, I’d create a new design and go through the same process. Each design would be a limited edition, and I’d set aside a few to bundle together as a special premium prize for a future use or big fundraiser. I’d just sell them on my own site using a basic PayPal button, maybe with an automatic countdown thing to make it all a little flashier, and with a gallery of past shirts visible to make people wish they’d been around earlier. Maybe I’d bring back a really popular older design now and again in a re-issue.
The guys at United Pixel Workers do something along the lines of what I described: http://www.unitedpixelworkers.com/ They’re using a fancier checkout method, because they’re web programmers and have time & skills to set stuff like that up. But a PayPal button and a really big photo of the proposed shirt could work just as well.
What thoughts do you have on selling merchandise online, for a web video series or online comic or other work? Which services and vendors would you recommend?
