Brad Halcrow

YouTube – BOOTSY’S BASIC FUNK FORMULA

Brad — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:31:11 +0000

Search Engine Marketing: a recent experience.

Brad — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 04:12:11 +0000

Some of you may already be aware that less people are looking to traditional directories for businesses in their immediate area. So where do they look? You guessed it, they ‘Google it’. Local Search is becoming increasingly popular. Let’s face it, how many enquiries have you had through the Yellow Pages lately? How much are you spending with them?

Of 2,866 people surveyed, 70% had used the Internet to search for a local business such as ‘accountant’.
49% used a regional term (eg: “accountant in Ashgrove”)
Source: Greg Sterling of Search Engine Watch.

I recently embarked on a campaign to a) attract more customers for my own Web Design company and b) find a reliable search engine expert I’d be happy to for my own clients.

“But you’re a web designer” I hear you say. Exactly, I strongly believe in specialists. ie: Specialising so you become focused and guru-like at your specific field. Web Design covers a lot of fields.

Unfortunately I didn’t find the right company right away. As the saying goes, I learnt the hard way. One particular company, a big, Australian player in the industry, were, what I thought, ‘efficient’. I mistook a simple ‘Sign up and we’ll get you visitors’ for ‘Give us your money and we’ll catch you later’.

I soon realised when 2 weeks had gone by and I hadn’t heard from them, nor had I heard from any prospective customers either.

I did more research. Armed with more information, I gave them a call. It was the single most buck-passing, lack-lustre attitude you could possibly hope to encounter. The more I learnt the more I realised their practises were not so much lazy, as downright dodgy.

Luckily, I soon found Gary from Small Business Internet Marketing, an accredited Adwords Qualified Professional. The difference was immediately obvious, as have been the results.

The Comparison

The first company had a ‘can-do, good old fashioned sales guy’ attitude. I asked him if they could help optimise my landing pages, he said their CEO would contact me to help with that – Great! (He never did) By the time he asked me to ‘reach for the plastic’ I did so.

Gary instead, insisted we meet. He explained everything. I realised just how much there is to know and why it’s so important to hire a specialist (not just your local web guy who ‘can do it all’).

He’s also an accredited Business Consultant. We met again to run through a 2 hour process to help me better understand my business and therefore create an effective marketing strategy and to ensure an outcome was achievable. Even before proceeding with the campaign he was focused on achieving an outcome, not getting me to ‘reach for my plastic’.

Company A = 17 visitors in 2 weeks || SBIM = 3 visitors in 3 hours.

If you’re serious about generating enquiries through your website, I don’t want you going through what I did, just contact me and I’ll put you in touch or you could even contact them directly at Small Business Internet Marketing.

How Twitter flattened the playing field.

Brad — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 01:47:46 +0000

In a day when it was only true blue computer geeks who were able to build a website it was only they or those who could afford to pay them to publish content. For the average schmo to contribute anything to the interweb could be likened to scaling a cliff. Not many people had the gear or the knowledge. Along came blogging and web 2. With free services such as Wordpress & Blogger anyone is able to publish. Here, the ability to contribute exists using comments but the publisher is still King of his domain. Enter Twitter. Completely flattening the publishing playing field Twitter’s effortless publishing platform enabled everyone to share the podium. Follow or unFollow whoever you like. All posts created equal. Good content, Bad content. That’s the decider. Immediate, real-time conversation. No waiting for people to write a post, to upload, for Google to find it, for us to find out about it so we know to search for it…

Jay leno – Merc 6.3L AMG SLS

Brad — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 21:23:45 +0000

Discovering Paul Rand

Brad — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 02:05:15 +0000

Wild Animal Photos of the Year – Photo Gallery, 20 Pictures – LIFE

Brad — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:52:07 +0000

Exploring Ancient Rome With Google Earth – Education Week

Brad — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:33:51 +0000

Exploring Ancient Rome With Google Earth – Digital Education – Education Week.

Omm Writer

Brad — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:55:58 +0000

It’s crazy – who would thought we need another, of all things, Word Processor. But I’m in love. Please novelty, don’t wear off. I think I’m finally inspired to write more than a few paragraphs… Check out OmmWriter Here. (Mac Only so far)

Omm Writer

Twitter Lists – A Quick Start Guide

Brad — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 23:03:12 +0000

First you’ll need to navigate to a person you’re following. You should be able to see the ‘Lists’ option. Click on ‘Lists’. A drop down list of check-boxes appears. This person can be added to as many lists as appropriate. Here is where you can also add a New List. A benefit of lists is that you can not only organise and categories the people you’re following but name of the list will appear in the URL which assists search results. eg: you/inspiration-people/awesome-person Services such as Listorious are popping up to enable people to publish their lists publicly. You can even recommend people to be added to the list. List options also appear on your Twitter Home page and People’s Profiles pages.

Fastest screen capture and image sharing ever!

Brad — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:41:32 +0000

It’s not often you come across software that will directly change the way you work. Occasionally there’s a ‘Skitch’. It makes you realise how occasionally technology really can improve your work flow. Through brilliant UI design this app makes the process of capturing an image, editing and posting as easy as poking yourself in the eye (without the regret).

The process:

One click to take a screenshot
Next you can grab a circle, an arrow, text to annotate
Literally grab the corners of the image to resize (!!!)
Then you have the option to save it locally, drag it into another app, or post it to one of many remote options including your own FTP account. Again, one click to send it, one click to copy the link.

All we need now is for Jing and Skitch to tie the knot.