Another great session I attended at the DC Week conference was “Search & Social Media Integrated” by Janet D Miller of Search Mojo & Katherine Watier of Ketchum PR.

Kathy and Janet started off the workshop by sharing their 4 Steps to Improve SEO (search engine optimization):
1. Choose keywords your audience uses
2. Label your site copy to reflect those keywords
If you choose keywords that you want search engines to associate with your site but your content doesn’t reflect that site, your keywords won’t perform as well. Make sure keywords appear in page titles and meta descriptions (see below for more on that).
4. Get links
Outside links to your website are really important for SEO. “However, it is not simply the sheer quantity of inbound links that matters — the anchor text of inbound links is just as important.”
3. Socialize
When you share your site’s content on sites like twitter, facebook, and other social media platforms, you’re gaining inbound links!

image from SEO Moz 10 chapter Beginners Guide to SEO

Since I don’t know that much about SEO (and things change by the minute), I thought it would be most helpful for me to include my session notes, along with some good links:

• Sign up for google analytics and google webmaster tools! They’re free and enormously helpful.

• Get social profiles like google+ and scribd

• Set up a google profile for your company (new as of last week!)

• Start a blog! You’ll be adding regular, new content, will show your credibility for your subject, and will be creating great content that people want to link back to. Right?

• Add a facebook like button, a tweet button, and a google+ button to all your site pages/posts to see an immediate jump in traffic. The google+ button doesn’t currently affect search engine rankings, but Watier and Miller believe it will down the road.

• Expand your social reach and network. Keep in mind that tweets are probably not showing up in your follower’s feeds after about 3 hours. Use hootsuite to maintain social media pages without losing a ton of productivity.

• Follow journalists and important people within your field. Follower Wonk lets you search twitter for people who will be relevant to you, and track/analyze your followers.

• Make sure you can edit your meta descriptions (WordPress users: see this SEO plugin). Your meta description is what shows up in search engines under your page link, and each page of your site should have a unique description and use keywords in that description.

• If your site publicizes events for your company, use sites like Craigslist and other free event listing sites.

• Have videos and images associated with your site. Images and videos now appear on the first page of a Google search, and get good click-through rates.

• If you want to “ride the trends” to increase site visits, check out Google Trends. They allow you to search for trends by keyword, so you can see what topics are trending in your industry and write posts around those trends.

• Having an XML site map is really important. WordPress has a plugin for an XML sitemap, which tells Google every time you update your content.

• rel=”author” tag connects authors to their content (WordPress users, see this post about rel=”author” and rel=”me”). Search engines now give people weight, rather than just sites or pages or content.

• Work on your mobile site this year. Not in the next two years, this year! By 2013 Google predicts that mobile traffic will surpass PC traffic, and there’s been a huge increase in ad spending and clicks (especially on tablets like the iPad). check out GoMo from Google for help in thinking about your mobile site, or templates to create a temporary free mobile site (and see what works for your biz).

• If you have a brick and mortar, register with Google Places today! It only takes a second.

• SEO Moz is a helpful tool. It’s $99/month so you might not want to spring for it, but there’s a 30 day free trial and it’s a great starting place for you to analyze your site’s performance in search engines and figure out what to do to make it better. SEO Moz will take Google personalization off of your results, so if you’re in New York you can see how your company does in California searches, for example.

• read “digital marketing evangelist” Avinash

Thanks Janet and Kathy!

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Howdy Do It came from “how do you do It,” the question Ellie & Margot found themselves asking about their freelance lifestyles, and so Howdy Do It was born, a column about the things we do to keep ourselves organized, inspired and on track.

Last week I attended the DC Week conference (and recommend it to you for next year!). While many of the sessions were geared toward developers and non-profits and didn’t apply to my business exactly, topics like social media, search engine optimization, tax and legal tips, and managing companies drew me in. So this week I thought I’d share a little bit about what I learned, starting with one by Clarity Law Group titled “Top Ten Tips for Staring a New Business.”

The Washington Post interviewed presenters Sue Wang and Leah Goodman for this article, which is a great summary of the session. I thought I’d also share my own notes… a combination of things I learned last week and things I learned while incorporating my business this summer. This is by no means an extensive list, and y’all know I’m not a lawyer. So get one and talk to him/her to get the facts. Lawyers are expensive but necessary, and can help prevent big problems.

INCORPORATE
You might not own a business where people are likely to trip and fall, and in my case a paper cut is probably the worst that could happen to my clients. But as designers, it’s important to protect ourselves against the complicated world of intellectual property law (see this recent Design*Sponge post), and for that reason (and other really important reasons, like protecting your property and assets), incorporating might be a really good idea. I mentioned you should talk to your lawyer, right?

GET A CORPORATE BANK ACCOUNT
It’s important to respect the difference between the company’s money and your money, especially in the event that you have to prove that in court to uphold your “corporate veil” (basically, to protect your assets regardless of your corporate status). This will also prevent total meltdowns come tax time. Trust me.

KEEP RECORDS
Another way to respect the difference between the company and yourself, and respect your role in the company, is to hold annual meetings where you elect officers, have official annual reports, and document big changes like shareholders or a change in your business location (not an extensive list, I’m sure). All of this should be held in a notebook, preferably the fancy leather embossed ones your lawyer can order that make you feel legit. This applies even if the company simply consists of you.

INVESTORS/SHAREHOLDERS
I’ll be the first to admit I know nothing about this one, but I learned a few helpful tips at last week’s conference. If you’re accepting investors, including family and friends, remember that you don’t want to be stuck with bad business partners for life. Shares in your company should be closely held… if you think a 1% share is a nice and small thing to give a dedicated employee, for example, think twice! You’ll have responsibilities to your shareholders regardless of what percentage of the company they own, and getting rid of them is easier said than done. If you do want to give someone equity in your company, talk to your lawyer about investment schedules.

GET IT IN WRITING
Always! Whether you just hired a friend to do a few hours of work, your first full time employee, or started a project with a client… make sure you’ve got it all in writing. You’ll want to sign contracts with the company name, not your name, and your official title.

CONTRACTS & GETTING PAID
One thing I’ve learned from experience: don’t sign a contract without having a lawyer look it over. I’ve made this mistake once, and won’t be making it again! You know what they say about assumptions.
As far as payments, be sure to split them into deposits or advancements, so if things go south you won’t be out the full contracted amount. Have an invoice policy in your contracts, listing due dates and what happens if they are missed. Explain late fees and interest policies, and if a collection agency is required, your client should have to pay the collection costs.

ASK FOR HELP
Think lawyers, accountants, business people, and mentors. Help is good! And not everything you read online is true.

A big thanks to Sue and Leah, not to mention my own lawyer, who allowed me to feel super proud last week when I realized I already knew the “top ten business tips,” and more.

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Howdy Do It came from “how do you do It,” the question Ellie & Margot found themselves asking about their freelance lifestyles, and so Howdy Do It was born, a column about the things we do to keep ourselves organized, inspired and on track.

How do you do wholesale? Well. I wouldn’t know. But Katelyn (who helps me out with Hello Tenfold and Mint) and I have been digging for resources so we can find out.

Books:
The Crafting an MBA Guide to Wholesale and Trade Shows (e-book)
Craft, Inc.
The Handmade Marketplace

Online:
Modish Biz Tips: Wholesaling Insider Interview with Jess LC
Modish Biz Tips: Wholesale & Consignment Basics, Part 1
Modish Biz Tips: Wholesale & Consignment Basics, Part 2
Make Under My Life: Getting Into Stores
All Things Littleput: Tips for Selling Your Work Wholesale
Design*Sponge Biz Ladies: How to Price Your Work
Design*Sponge Biz Ladies: 7 Steps to Wholesaling Your Craft

Looks like we have some reading to do!

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Howdy Do It came from “how do you do It,” the question Ellie & Margot found themselves asking about their freelance lifestyles, and so Howdy Do It was born, a column about the things we do to keep ourselves organized, inspired and on track.

Photo: Candi Mandi for A Beautiful Mess

In a time when many graphic designers are heading toward freelance (either because they want to, or because design jobs are just scarce), handbooks like this one become invaluable. Especially, I think, for recent grads hoping to take on projects while they look for full time employment. A Print Handbook was written by The Media Collective, and covers topics like Pantone versus CMYK, paper sizes, overprinting, trapping, different kinds of folds, and more, to take you from an on-screen project to printed piece. Says The Media Collective: “We really wanted something that was compact and included a lot of the questions we had about printing. There’s a lot of advice around about different areas of printing, but we wanted to see it in the flesh. For example, we had questions like ‘we know using a rich black with 40% cyan is often recommended by printers, but does this give you a black that is too cool in colour?’. So in the handbook we’ve got some examples for comparison.”

You can read more about it or pick up a copy right here.

Thanks TMC!

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Howdy Do It came from “how do you do It,” the question Ellie & Margot found themselves asking about their freelance lifestyles, and so Howdy Do It was born, a column about the things we do to keep ourselves organized, inspired and on track.

I certainly never intended to run three four little businesses under four different names. For design projects, I just go by my name, then there’s Mint of course, Hello Tenfold for stationery and then West + Plum for the vintage stuff. I don’t know how that happened. Well I do, but it’s a boring story so I’ll spare you. I like this splash page for Lori Andrews, where she brilliantly (and cutely!) links to multiple projects. Anybody else have other ideas/examples for linking all your sites and social media pages?

Speaking of design/work/projects, I’m a bit busy with wedding season and all. I hope you’ll forgive me if my posting schedule gets off track! Life’s hoppin’ and hooray for that.

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The past week or two, I’ve been switching back and forth between clients more than usual, up to several times a day. Which gets annoying having to remember to record it right all the time. Also, my usual M.O. for managing the details of a project is to keep an open Text Edit file for each one that is a running list of hours, to-dos and notes. Throw in more than one client and it’s pretty messy and hard to navigate sometimes. So I tweeted about suggestions for a time-tracking, billing, account managing software and I got way more responses than I expected. I don’t think I’d ever had so many people @reply to something I’ve posted before, which is pretty awesome. It gave me the idea that I should actually look into all the suggestions and come up with some reviews.

Specifically, this is I’m looking for:
- I need to know how to use the thing in less than 20 minutes.
- I’m not going to love it if it doesn’t look nice and work even better.
- Please… Can it be at least a little fun to use. No one wants to do boring admin tasks like invoicing, so the more fun it is the more likely I will use it.
- Pricing is a big issue (when is it NOT for a small-business??). I want either a flat-fee or very small monthly payment that doesn’t leave me hankering for the more expensive plans that my business can’t afford.
- Add-ons are huge plus. They’re what allow me to customize more to my taste. Plus, I’d prefer not to have to be tied to my browser entering in stuff all the time.
- Whether or not it will sync to my phone whether or not that adds additional fees.
- Needs to have some kind of timer function.

You guys suggested: FunctionFox, TimeNet, Freshbooks, Harvest, Billings, and Supernova as possible options. On first glance they all sound pretty much exactly the same, so I spent a few hours researching and downloading the trials just to get a sense of them. Here’s how they stacked up.

Overall, I want Supernova, followed very shortly by Harvest. They pretty much tie for the best bets as far as ease of use goes. But with Subernova, I like that the full program is available for a single decent monthly price, because then you never have to worry about upgrading. Also! You can schedule emails for the future, which I always want to do too. After that Harvest is a stand-out because I trust the name since so many people I know use it, and it does seem like a super solid program to boot. Honorable mention goes to Billings which I really wanted to like and go with, and I may still do it since I was so taken with it, but their pricing seems fishy. Everyone else has their pricing laid out easily and with Billings, I didn’t find it right away. AND there’s weirdness between the plans too. Dunno, maybe I’m dense but the all plans seem like the same thing, so it’s strange there are 2 different payment options. Also, minus points for such crappy reviews on iTunes for the app.

But the Oscar goes to (oh come on, they were just on last night, I couldn’t resist)…Freshbooks because it’s got the best free app. I just wish it was more fun to use and the mobile add-on had better reviews. I think I will start with there though just because I’m specifically looking to use their timer widget for now. It’s likely that I will revisit this decision whenever it is that I eventually outgrow the free version though.

Anyone care to chime in? I’m also wondering if I’m being cheap by choosing the free app first. Like maybe it’s time to pony up and spring for one that might actually be a real time saver. I mean really, $12-$14 per month isn’t all that much if it’s actually going to make a difference in my process. And it’s a write-off 100%…Tricky, tricky.

What would you do?

Click to read Ellie’s post on battling the freelance blues

Hi there Mint! Margot here again with Howdy Do It and I’m really excited this week because I got a bit of an unconventional post for a design blog. I asked buddy of mine, a writer, who’s only seconds ago joined our freelance ranks. Steve’s recently been published on the AV Club (both nationally as well as for Chicago) Variety, and works with the Just For Laughs festival. He’s also former comedy editor at Time Out Chicago & has long been enmeshed in the legendary Chicago improv scene. So, he’s penned a funny piece on his first week solo so far. I’m sure guys can relate and I hope you enjoy his wit. Also, he is almost entirely responsible for getting me hooked on Arrested Development way back when, so that’s pretty awesome too.

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FREELANCING WEEK 1: I AM A TERRIBLE BOSS
By Steve Heisler

It’s 5am Saturday night, and I just got home from a night of old person bingo, $2 Old Style, Ides Of March’s “Vehicle”, and a guy with fake braces, a fake mullet, and a very real fanny pack. My head is throbbing; every muscle in my body is in pain; I barely have enough energy to hold up my toothbrush, let alone squeeze toothpaste on it and, unrelated, later change my pants. Every fiber of my being is shutting down, but I can’t turn off my brain. I haven’t been able to all night, actually. I have a flash of an iota of a thought: “I should probably transcribe that Nick Offerman interview at some point over the next few days.” Oh shit. I freak out. There’s just so much to doooooooo! Fuck. Work. God, if I could just finish that one thing, then I’d be able to relax. Ugh, it’s 5am. I open my computer, compromise with myself and make a to-do list for today, a Sunday, that’s five items long. I go to bed feeling like a failure for the eighth night in a row.

Welcome to freelance writing, I tell myself.

About a month ago, I made an important decision. After three-plus years of working as a part time writer/editor for various local publications, supplementing my income with part-time freelance work, it was time to take the full-time plunge. I was toying with the idea of a move to New York after next summer, so I needed to spend some time pursuing what I’ve only recently realized is my passion: national pop-culture journalism. I’ve done a fair amount, mostly for my wonderful friends at The A.V. Club; I needed to do more. So I gave my notice, and as of November 13, I was no longer working for “The Man,” but rather “the man,” and that man is me.

Problem is, I’m not a very good “man” (nor am I “the man,” as in “You’re the man now, dog”), and after only one week of freelancing, I’m getting scared that working for me isn’t going to be all it’s cracked up to be. Observe the many examples of my shortcomings as the boss of me:

1) Clocking in
To celebrate my newfound freedom, the first thing I did was turn off my alarm. I realized I’ve got all day to work on things, and I was willing to cut into evening hours if it meant waking up at whatever time nature intended. My usual office wake-up time of 9am immediately became 10am, then 10:15, followed by, oh, noon. There’s nothing like waking up in a panic with only roughly four hours of daylight left to really motivate a person to calmly work through his day.

So the goal for week 2: Try to, I don’t know, go to bed at a decent hour. I love the silent time when everyone else is asleep and I’m being productive, but I’d hate to turn into my weird cousin who sleeps all day and is up all night alone. He also has a scary beard.

Tax Day: Bend Over and Take It

2) Time management
When I started, my biggest fear was that I’d be too distracted by my DVR and strikingly specific video game selection to get much work done. Turns out, it’s surprising how easy it is to push bigger, deliberate distractions out of my mind. It’s the little things that are getting to me, like compulsively refreshing my email when awaiting a response to a question about a pitch, or refusing to write another word of a story until I think of the perfect opening sentence—a one-hour process that mostly includes compulsively refreshing my email. Also, I’ve found pacing around my apartment and/or changing seats every five minutes to be an addictive alternative to working.

Goal for week 2: If I’m not getting something, I need to give up after 10 minutes or so and move on. Ideally various projects will inspire one another. Even more ideally, someone else will just do the work for me in my absence. Even more ideally, it’s suddenly Halloween and only adults are allowed to trick-or-treat.

3) Leaving it in the “office”
At least when I went into an actual, physical building for work, I could convince myself that, at the end of the day, I would be leaving and whatever got done would be what I got done, and leave it at that. Simple. This isn’t just about me needing to get out of the house, because I do; almost every day last week I forced myself to go to a different coffee shop or friends’ workspace to preemptively relieve cabin fever. But I found that no matter where I go, the work follows. The simple act of me having a thought is enough to get me wondering about the status of my many little assignments, and begin freaking out. It’s like spending a day off with your scatterbrained boss, who every once in a while shares a random work thought or task he or she’d like you to do once you’re back in the office. And without that mental wall of where the “office” ends and my life begins, those little reminders force me to forget everything else. Three days ago, I made myself coffee at home and drank it at my desk. The mug is still there. Will I put it in the dishwasher? Maybe once I finish this blog. Probably not until I get that other draft out of a piece I’m performing live, send an email to a client about a time estimate, research story ideas for early 2010 for a national magazine I’m close to getting an assignment from, do that TV review from last night, and finish watching The Prisoner—yep, I’ve gotten to the point where I have convinced myself that pleasure is a part of work, just so I know it will get done. Meanwhile, that coffee cup sits there, my jacket is on the floor of my living room, and I still don’t know what time I’m meeting a friend of mine tomorrow. There’s just so much to doooooooo, I wish I hadn’t woken up so late.

Goal for week 2: Set a time to stop working, and stick to it. Even if I’m in the middle of a sente

Love it Steve! Thankssss! You’re a real Mensch. Also, this is the last Howdy Do It post until January, sorry guys! Ellie & I are both feeling a wee bit crazed trying to wrap up projects during the madness of the holidays. But I’m really excited to come back and write for you then; I’m already planning some really neat things to post! So until then, friends. Good luck everyone and I’ll miss you!

Image credits: All from Jessica Hagy’s wonderfully hilarious site, thisisindexed.com.

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Howdy Do It came from “how do you do It,” the question Ellie & Margot found themselves asking about their freelance lifestyles, and so Howdy Do It was born, a weekly column about the things we do to keep ourselves organized, inspired and on track. Margot will be here on Mint each Monday, and Ellie will be over on Pitch Design Union at the same time.

Where did the week go?  Here are some links (and events!) to keep you busy this weekend.

+ My husband launched his paper goods shop! If you haven’t checked out Bigwig & Silver yet, you should!

+ Danni of Oh Hello Friend wrote up a great post on business cards, which Whitney of Darling Dexter and I participated in. Click to read our thoughts on why business cards are important and how to get one that speaks to your business. Of course, Danni found some great business card inspiration, too.

+ I love everything about this font. Aren’t the colors great?

+ On Howdy Do It this week, I wrote about why I’m giving myself a pat on the back, and Margot was here writing about how to decide if a freelance job is right for you.

+ OK Great is going to interview the amazingly talented Eduardo Recife. Or, I should rephrase that… YOU are going to interview Eduardo Recife. Leave a comment with your question and he’ll answer it.

+ Also on OK Great is my You Can Afford it Friday post, with 9 great pillows and pillow covers under $50.

+ I love the 2010 Frankie calendar!

+ 25% off everything in the Two Brunettes shop from now until Christmas. Go!

+ This weekend the Triangle area of NC is arts central. Check out the grand opening of the new boutique Furbish in Raleigh on Saturday (10am-6pm, 1020 Glenwood Avenue). Tonight, visit Golden Belt in Durham for the arts mixer and then make your rounds for Third Friday. On Saturday & Sunday, get your fix with the semi-annual Durham Art Walk. My photographs will be on display in Heather Garrett’s shop! Woohoo!

+ This afternoon I went to Chapel Hill to see the Vamp and Tramp handmade book show in the UNC printshop. Beautiful stuff, and I can’t wait to show it to you next week! Here’s a peek.

[beautiful photo credit: sprout & flourish for furbish]

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Hello my friends! How are you this week? I got a real kick out your comments, and a new idea from Kate Miss’s suggestion on Pitch that I’m going to try. She says to tidy your work area at the end of your day, to which I slapped my forehead with astonishment. I can’t believe I totally never considered how important that is! And I know it will help me get in the groove faster the next day. So, high fives for that!

So, this week I’d like to talk about saying no. (Don’t worry, this isn’t some creepy lecture on morals, hahaha!) It seems to me that everyone has a different response on what they do when faced with a somewhat undesirable project, budget, client or due date. I don’t particularly have any hard and fast rules for this either. I seem to just say yes to everything that comes along in the interest of making money or if it’s a cool project, regardless of the client OR my existing workload. I’m still trying to decide if that’s the right approach for me. This interesting book I just picked up in New York, Art/Work, Everything You Need to Know (and Do) As You Pursue Your Career in Art offers a set of criteria which seems interesting:

1. Is the Money Good? (Let’s be honest, it can suck.)
2. Does it bring anything new to my skills or body or work? (Probably at least a few lessons.)
3. Is it personally fulfilling? (Seems to be either extremely fulfilling, or…meh)

The book says ideally you should try to strive for at least 2 of these when considering a new project. By this logic I’m pretty much operating off only one of these at a time. And there have definitely been some moments with clients when I regret the work a little, or I know I’m being way underpaid (grrr). I’m thinking I’ll slowly get better at gauging situations when this could occur, but I’m curious what your take on this is too. Maybe it’s best to do projects for free or only charge full-price? Have you experienced circumstances with a client that you’d now consider a deal breaker? Have you ever way overbid on a project thinking they’ll balk only to score it for a decent budget? Do you follow the “fast/good/cheap” model? Any other approaches that I’m missing?

Until next week, keep on keepin’ it real dudes. Real, real…

{Photo Credits: Oh How I Love You and Untitled from flickr user 9000.}

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Ok so this is week 4 of Howdy Do It! And while we’re still early in this journey, I will say I’ve had a couple small breakthroughs. Ok, so my piles are still in stacks everywhere, worse than they were last week. But because of this column, I have a whole new perspective that has really helped me feel like I’m more on top of things. Before this I honestly thought I just wasn’t always so good at handling the many spinning plates, finances, demanding clients, wacky hours, etc. But all of you, dear internet friends, you KNOW. We are in the same shoes. Frankly, we are even the same damned size. Finally understanding this lets me cut myself a little more slack, which has made everything a little easier. When I stopped to think about this, I realized there was a pretty big core issue behind it. Which brings me to this week’s topic: Guilt.

Julia Stotz Photography

Somehow still, the 9-5 lifestyle is completely ingrained in my brain. If it’s between 9-5 on a weekday I feel like I owe it to the world to be ON and available every-where-all-the-time because that’s what most people do. Forget that I work as much and mostly more than 40 hours/week, at odd hours and intervals, through the weekends, and sometimes for entire days straight. Even if it’s a Wednesday and I’ve already logged a whole slew of hours on something that week and I want to take it easy for a day, I feel guilty. Which is pretty darn lame. At times when I’ve ignored this, my brain starts leaking out of my ears. I grind to a halt. Forced to not work anyway. More guilt. Ish.

By Aqua Velvet

So now I’m taking a little more of a relaxed approach and, surprise! I’m getting just as much done. Here’s some of the things I’ve tried that have helped:

- I don’t start working immediately when I wake up. If I were working in an office, it would take at least an hour to get out the door in the morning, plus commute time. So I think it’s fair I give myself a little of that time BACK before I break open my crack-top. Make breakfast, do laundry, generally ease into the day.

- Minimize/close all open windows before bed. The last thing I want to see first thing is what I was working on before bed.

- Quit or close email for a couple of hours. I will never forget to check it at some point later, but it really does help quiet things down so I can focus.

- I’ve been slashing my email blast subscriptions. I haven’t read some of them in YEARS and if I do open them, I scan and delete

- Separate my to-do list into parts: the HAVE to-dos, and the Should-dos. There is a huge, huge difference there.

- Cooking. It’s immediate gratification for me and it still feels like I’m doing something creative, even if it’s not fancy food. I think it helps my brain re-charge. I’ve had some great ideas lately when I’ve been cooking. My friend Jeremiah says the same thing about playing music.

Ordinary Eggs by Nea

So? What do you guys think? Do you have any other ideas or thoughts on this? I so enjoy your comments, it’s really nice to observe & be part of this conversation we’re having!