ARRiiVE: All the Best on Alltop Marketing

ARRiiVE is now listed as one of the best blogs in Marketing, as listed on Alltop in their MARKETING TAB.

SUBSCRIBE to ARRiiVE and find out why!
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Copyright © 1999-2008 by ARRiiVE Business Solutions. All Rights Reserved.

Trading A Stethoscope For A Blog

Want an inspiring story about a blogger who entertained so much success he recently quit his M.D. practice to blog full-time?

This is a story first published on July 21, 2008 in the New York Times about Dr. Arnold Kim, the founder of MacRumors, a leading gossip and technology rumor site about Apple, indicating he hung up his stethoscope to focus on growing his blog's success. What blog is it? MacRumors.com.

MacRumors is not an ordinary blog:

By the numbers:

Traffic: 4.4 Million visitors per month (source: Quantcast.com)
Page Views: 40 Million Page views per month (source: Quantcast.com)
Value: Over $25 Million.

(Note: Quantcast tends to estimate traffic numbers LOWER than actual real numbers I've witnessed. Therefore, as of this posting, MacRumors probably has well over 5 Million visitors, making it high enough traffic to easily justify over $10K a month in ADS ALONE!)

According to the NY Times article about Dr. Kim leaving his medical profession to focus on MacRumors:

"The site placed MacRumors No. 2 on a list of the “25 most valuable blogs,” right behind Gawker Media and ahead of The Huffington Post, PerezHilton.com, and TechCrunch. Two of the other tech-oriented blogs on its list, Ars Technica and PaidContent, were sold earlier this year, reportedly for sums in excess of $25 million."

Get this: MacRumors has more traffic than either Ars Technica and PaidContent combined, therefore making worth easily more than $25 million in possible value!

Dr. Kim's secret? TRAFFIC.

On his personal blog, last month he posted this answer to how his blog makes money:

“It boiled down to one simple accomplishment: building traffic. That’s it. If you have a site that attracts a lot of visitors, you will be able to make money. On the Internet, traffic equals power, which subsequently equals money.”

So, if you're wondering how to do this yourself, I'd suggest the following:

1. Find a topic many people will care about. Rumors about Apple, a private company that guards secrets with a loyal following in the millions, clearly is one of those topics.

2. Write well. MacRumors articles are extremely well-written..

3. Write often. MacRumors posts 2 - 4 articles PER DAY. His articles use the short, couple of paragraphs-type format, which makes it easier to post more often.

4. Stay with it. MacRumors started in 2000. That's about the same time I started AspireNow.com. I think if I'd posted as much content to AspireNow as Dr. Kim posted to MacRumors, I'd have a website worth a lot, too.

5. Build a solid website structure. MacRumors is logical, and covers a WIDE variety of sub-topics related to the core - everything from iPhone to MacAir, from WebCam to Earnings Releases.

6. Cultivate a following. MacRumors has an active comment section: some articles get hundreds of comments within just a month or two.

7. Post ads in logical places. MacRumors posts a banner ad across the top of the blog. Another set of Google image ads run smack dab in the middle of his articles. I counted two block image ads that also take a lot of space up. He places Amazon and MacMall ads as his "Mall" in the upper right sidebar - a prime spot on his page. He's gone pro: more than that, MacRumors' advertising is now professionally managed.

Considering Dr. Kim invested over $200,000 in his education and enjoyed practicing medicine, clearly he had to have a lot of success with the blog to justify that switch.

What other ideas do you have for building a website or blog into such a huge success that you can leave your professional job behind?

Comment below to share your thoughts!
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Copyright © 1999-2008 by ARRiiVE Business Solutions. All Rights Reserved. SUBSCRIBE.

Top 10 Articles for 2007 at ARRiiVE: Innovations In Business

Here is a list of ARRiiVE's Top Ten Articles in 2007, as of July 2008:

1. Top Blogger Template Sites
2. How To Launch A Website
3. Demise Of The Dreaded Office Cubicle - Modern Approaches To Office Design
4. Top-rated Website and Blog Designs
5. What Is Collaboration?
6. How To Build A Successful Sales Team
7. Top 10 Ways To Increase Customer Retention and Lower Turnover of Valuable Clients
8. The #1 Best Sales Copy of All Time
9. Team Selling In Enterprise Environments
10. How To Build More Creative and Collaborative Teams
    

You'll notice that these articles represent a cross-section of topics we write about at ARRiiVE: Innovations In Business, ranging from sales tips, interactive marketing, website and blog design, to team building. Of course, these articles are related to services offered by ARRiiVE Business Solutions, and provided free of charge to provide an introduction into the way we think and how we help you increase your success.

Do you want to contribute your opinion and help me direct future topics towards your level of interest?

Which article or type of article is most useful to you? Why? (Comment below.)
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Copyright © 1999-2008 by ARRiiVE Business Solutions. All Rights Reserved. SUBSCRIBE.

How Bloggers Make Money On The Net

Have you been reading about bloggers making money online and thinking about jumping on the blog bandwagon?

Before you do, consider this:

Less than 1% of blogs make any significant money.

Okay, now that you know this, you might want to know what the successful bloggers do to break free from the pack of other bloggers and make more money.

How bloggers make money from web blogs:

1. Successful bloggers use a clean and simple design.

With a design that is easy to navigate and makes it easy to (a) subscribe, (b) follow, (c) read, and (d) drill down into articles, a blog is highly more likely to keep the visitors they attract longer and also draw more repeat visitors.

2. Successful bloggers provide high quality, original, and unique content.

If you're providing information on video cameras, you might provide a series of articles reviewing cameras. Other times, you can provide information comparing one type of camera to another. In other blog posts, you might highlight how people capture images using new techniques. You may engage bloggers by holding contests. You could request a guest post. Or, you might ask other people for feedback about an idea. The more interactive you make your blog, the higher the traffic you'll receive.

3. Successful bloggers publish consistently and often.

I've noticed that the most successful bloggers publish between 5 and 20 articles per week. That's a lot of writing. They are also consistent. I think there are ways to boost production twofold that won't take that much more time, by writing more reviews of books, technology, and techniques. We'll see how this technique pays off in the upcoming months.

4. Successful bloggers optimize by spreading the word.

You can spread the word for your blog by burning your feed to various feedburning engines. Another technique is to post into forums and other blogs, and link back to your blog. Last, you can also use technology, like blog rolls, or directories, like Stumble Upon, Digg, Blog Carnivals, Facebook and other means, to promote the traffic to your blog.

These are the tenements of the blogs I've seen that make money. Most bloggers don't get immediately success. The most successful blogs I've seen took months to build. Some of the best blogs took years before they took off. And, the rules of the game have changed. Many new blogs are taking longer to reach the tipping point because so many more people are blogging. Commit to a long-term strategy and follow your plan regularly, and your blog is much more likely to enable you to make money from your blog.
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Copyright © 1999-2008 by ARRiiVE Business Solutions. All Rights Reserved. SUBSCRIBE.

Leaving Keywords as FROM on Blog Posts?

I recently reviewed comments on a debate whether or not to leave keywords on blog posts over at ProBlogger. As someone who cares about methods to help clients grow their traffic, link back strategies are a vital component to that strategy. And, leaving comments on other blogs are a method to create link backs.

Have you noticed how some people will leave their site name, name and site name, or just name (see image - left).

Now, there are different reasons for each. Many people get ticked off when you just leave a keyword phrase. Such as "top chinaware" as your name. It is considered SPAM by many bloggers and they might edit out your post.

Therefore, I recommend against this strategy, even though it does give you a keyword link to your site.

Regarding the name, a poster, Tim B from Wordjot Newsletters, had this tip, which I recommend highly:

Use "Scott from AspireNow" as the name.

• Gives a name so you know who it is
• It indicates where the link will go, so it’s not such a mystery meat experience.
• Gives a hint of your experience.
• More memorable than just a full name.
• Links the name with a website.
• You can still reply to just the name. eg Scott@

I believe the best strategy is to put your name first, and site name second, or just your name. If you feel you MUST post a keyword, I would at least list my name first.

So, that's my feelings around this sensitive topic. Try not to SPAM people without adding any value to your post. I learned that lesson the hard way when I posted into a very active comment forum on a web design blog. Comment SPAM will get your traffic, but it might backfire into very negative traffic that will do nothing for your site. It is better to get specific traffic from a well-written post.

Take the high road when posting on other blogs, remember that content of your posting is STILL king when it comes to this type of activity.

Note: We provide a service at www.ARRiiVE.com helping companies gain organic search position in search engines. We include strategies for keyword phrases, backlinks and utilize a combination of old-school and new-world tools and strategies to accomplish our objectives.

If you're seeking help to get more traffic and convert more of that traffic, we can help. Contact a representative at ARRiiVE for more details.

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Copyright © 1999-2008 by ARRiiVE Business Solutions. All Rights Reserved. SUBSCRIBE.

Blogging For Business

Want to learn why more and more businesses are jumping on the Blogging bandwagon?

Scott Andrews, CEO of ARRiiVE Business Solutions recently spoke to a group in California on this subject. This is a talk that Scott normally charges $30 per person to attend. For a short time only, Scott is offering the talk here for free:

Visit Talkshoe for the recording of the talk on Blogging For Business:
http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/audioPop.jsp?episodeId=106803&cmd=apop

To View the Blogging For Business related Slides:
http://www.slideshare.net/ARRiiVE/blogging-022408-344962/ or just click here:

View Upload your own

Please let us know if you have any feedback regarding this talk, or contact http://www.arriive.com/ for assistance with your own business blog.
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Copyright © 1999-2008 by ARRiiVE Business Solutions. All Rights Reserved. SUBSCRIBE.
Follow the ARRiiVE: Innovations In Business Show at http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/37798.

Blogs In Plain English

Are you interested in blogging? One of the best introductions to blogging I've found is through Common Craft, who in this short video demonstrates the simple power of blogging and ways to get started:



What's great about this intro is how Lee shows you the various ways you can start blogging, and pretty much directs you to either blogger, which this blog currently uses, or WordPress, which many established bloggers use. Both services are free and get you up and running with minimal hassle (blogger being the easier of the two, WordPress offering more robust features).

If you're seeking additional techniques to jump into the Blogging foray more quickly, you may be interested in my upcoming teleconference on Blogging For Business. I'm sharing secrets and proven techniques that may help you make a lot more money in a lot less time from your blog.

Learn more by Googling in "ARRiiVE" and "blog" or if you want the robust system of how bloggers make money I've been developing, visit http://www.howbloggersmakemoney.com

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Copyright © 2008 by ARRiiVE Business Solutions. All rights reserved. Video Copyright © 2008 by Lee LeFevre (the CommonCraft Show). Thanks, Lee (no infringement intended).

ARRiiVE Business Solutions helps executives improve sales, launch products and services, and build dynamic, cross-functional collaborative teams. For more information, contact info (at)ARRiiVE (dot) com or call us at 1 (805) 459-6939.

Blog Better Now: SUBSCRIBE to boost your blogging success. See also Profitable Business Blogging.

Widgets, Widgets, Widgets!

You may have seen the cool way of sorting tags called a "cloud" -- basically a clustered group of titles or label titles grouped in varying degrees of bold & size based upon the frequency of posts into that label title. See the right side-bar cloud in the http://arriive.blogspot.com/ blog? This widget came out of some trial (and error), and not without growing pain and loss of traffic.

The reason for this is I first tried the "easy" way to implement a cloud on my blog, by using a widget provided by Technorati. I originally experimented with the label cloud widget by Technorati to create my label cloud structure in my blog sidebar. After about a week, I started noticing my traffic was actually going DOWN for the blog -- something that hasn't happened yet upon the launch. In addition, I lost Google Ad revenue, too. Both of these results are not good, obviously. The problem? Technorati's Label Cloud Widget redirects users to the Technorati.com website. And, from there, the users will stay at Technorati and search THEIR post feed, rather than YOUR post feed. This, for me, was a bad thing, because I'm still not ranked as a top 100 power site at Technorati. Upon discovering that Technorati's cloud redirected traffic onto their site, I realized the problem, removed their cloud, and created a cloud structure of my own.

As a result of this experience, I've created FOUR RULES to better widget management:

1. Widgets must add value
2. Widgets must improve traffic if they do not provide high value to the end-user.
3. Widgets must provide value equal or superior to the real-estate cost of placing the widget.
4. Widgets must visually appeal within the design of the website.

Here's more detail on these four rules regarding boosting value in using widgets on your website or blog:

1. WIDGETS MUST ADD VALUE. A widget must provide additional functionality VALUABLE to users at your site. For example, I'm seeking ways to make my blogs more interactive. To that end, I'd prefer having a box talk to you when you drop by the site. However, this may not be the way my blogging audience wants to be interacted with. So, as a test, I'm trying out Meebo's live chat widget in the meantime.

Many widgets can add functionality to your site. From a calendar to weather station, there are many types of widgets you COULD add to a blog. The question is: does this functionality benefit your visitors in the way they want to interact with your site? If the answer is yes, then try the widget out and see how it plays out for you.

2. WIDGETS MUST IMPROVE TRAFFIC. You MUST be careful with widgets. When I installed the Technorati cloud, I lost a significant stream of visitors to my blogs. When I corrected the problem, my visit/page views continued to grow as they had been before loading the widget. Not a bad lesson to learn for a week's worth of traffic, but you can bet on it I won't need to learn this lesson twice: a widget shouldn't direct people off of your site, unless you're getting a return value equal or superior to the lost traffic. In the case of Technorati's Cloud Label widget, I couldn't see the value, and replaced the cloud with my own Blogger cloud (by the way, I used this code: http://phydeaux3.blogspot.com/2006/09/code-for-beta-blogger-label-cloud.html). If you use the code approach, make sure you back up your template, first! I had a problem installing on one of my blogs that cost me an hour to fix because I didn't back up first.

Other widgets that I've recently tried out that did not provide an equal return on the lost traffic (or lost real estate cost on the blog) included: Amazon widgets, A-Store Widgets, and a blogroll that I disconnected.

Getting traffic directed away from your site is not usually a good thing, if there is no reciprocal value. However, gaining traffic through a widget can be a great thing:

A widget I really like is one that draws traffic TO my site, such as this cool widget by SpringBox, which you can click on the "get this widget" on the lower right of my side bar in this blog to pick it up for your own website. What's great about the SpringBox widget is that people who load this on their blog are redirecting their site visitors to my blog and my blog-posts. It is a nice way to share blogs without redistributing the RSS FEED (which, to me, is piracy). The best way to avoid piracy is give people a way to syndicate your content, with the exchange being that traffic can come back to you. This is essentially what I'm doing with Springbox's widget. I'm still experimenting with these types of widgets; however, the general rule I've come to adopt is: when in doubt, remove it.

3. WIDGETS MUST RETURN (EARN) VALUE WORTHY OF THE REAL ESTATE COST. Putting a widget on my sidebar is essentially giving up landscape that could be used for other purposes. I have plenty of information to share with readers, but I will put a "language" translation widget up because this will result in more eyeballs staying on my page - especially those who cannot read English. In addition, I'll put a Google search box widget in my sidebar, because then people can search the blog more easily and find related articles fast. I'll include Google Adsense, because it's making me money.

Note: The best location for Google Adsense is under the header bar, not the sidebar. I found that my earnings through Google went up 50% when I added my link across the top of the blog, versus only listing it in the side bar and at the bottom of posts. That seems to be the #1 most important place to advertise for ads: under your header bar, text link 4 across the top. These links are the ads that get clicked the most. Many readers IGNORE the sidebar, so remember this, too.

4. WIDGETS MUST NOT DISTRACT OR NEGATIVELY IMPACT YOUR DESIGN. As with any website function, also make sure that a widget does not distract from the visual appeal of your website. All items ought to flow naturally and look as if you could have designed them and put them there yourself. Sure, a widget name in the corner makes it obvious that it's a widget, not custom-designed tool, so you've got to decide if installing something that ugly is acceptable for your blog.

I'll discuss monetizing widgets in a future post. I believe widgets are going to be increasingly important to websites, as people seek unique ways to interact, provide value, and relate to each other through the web. Consider this: Rockyou's volume is over 100M a day with their widget offerings, so there is volume in widgets. Just make sure the value your readers get back is worth the volume you're giving up.
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Post by Scott Andrews, CEO of ARRiiVE Business Solutions. ARRiiVE Business Solutions helps executives improve sales, launch products and services, and build dynamic, cross-functional collaborative teams. For more information, contact info (at)ARRiiVE (dot) com or call us at 1 (805) 459-6939. Copyright © 2007 by ARRiiVE Business Solutions. All Rights Reserved.

Widgets gone wild: SUBSCRIBE to our feed to maximize your website marketing.

Top Blogger Template Sites

How To Make Your Blogger Blog Look Unique.

Obviously, 16 templates, divided between 16 gazillion blogs, is going to create a problem for you if you're serious about blogging for business. Primarily, your blog won't look very unique. I've been putting together modules like this one to help provide the maximum value with my Profitable Business Blogging course.

What's the solution? A unique template! As with any format change, BACK UP your data completely prior to making any change. Trust me, you'll be glad if something goes wrong. Okay, that said, I'm not responsible for what you do with your blog. To get your own unique blog template, where can you look? I've put together a list of resources to get you started.

First, before you even change templates, consider changing the HEADER IMAGE, which gets inserted as a write-over of the existing blog header.

There are layout options in the blogger menu that enable you to change your image. I did this first, then tweaked it more and more until I had a graphic that looked almost like my regular site. I wanted the Blog to look a little unique, although I may tweak it more in the future.

The Top Ten Places To Find Blog Templates:

1. Finalsense.com. - Quite a few choices here, including coffee, restaurant, luxury car, strawberry, and more. These are slightly less popular than the Blogger layouts. You'll get a lot of three column choices here and they're pretty easy to load.


2. blogger-templates - There's not as many designs here, but what they've got is good. I like Grey Press and Deep Blue and have only seen each of those a couple of other places.


3. mashable.com - I personally like the Neosapian red, white, and black design. Very hip.


4. GeckoandFly - 23+ templates, easy to install: just download and upload to Blogger.


5. blogcrowds.com - You'll find both new designs and retreads at this site with quality design and layout that makes you want to browse more.


6. SuckMyLolly.com - Here's some nice, clean templates for blogger (don't let their name stop you!) They've got designs by color, retro designs, and more. I especially liked their retro designs for people with those types of businesses.


7. BloggerTemplates.org - These templates are clean, with some interesting variations. Since this site is highly ranked, these have also been downloaded 16,000 - 32,000 times as of the time of this writing. I personally like the simple one on page 2 the best.


8. kaushalsheth.com - These aren't free, but they're good. You'll find a huge assortment of both Blogger and WordPress templates.

Just In Case You DON'T Use Blogger

1. TheStyleContest - This offers some interesting themes for other blog software besides Blogger, specifically: Moveable Type, Typepad, and Live Journal.


2. Ehsany.com - For PersianBlogger, Blogger, Moveable Type, and others, especially those who speak Farsi, there are some options here.

Feel Guilty Getting It For Free?

For those who like to pay for their software, there's Elegant Themes. Nice themes, you will find these are definitely unique and not used as often as free themes.

BYOB (Build Your Own Blog) Create Your Own Template:

Want to get truly creative? The coolest tool I've found for blog templates is this one, where you can literally customize and create your own blog template for Blogger (or other Blog hosts):

1. http://psyc.horm.org/ - what's great about psyc.horm.org is that the format is W3C (ranks higher in search engines) and requires little or NO HTML experience. Here's a groovy example of a blog originally in Blogger, but where the blogger got sick of blogger's look and wanted three columns: http://www.crazykinux.com/.


2. Ahh. Thank you. - Pam Blackstone doesn't really offer TEMPLATES, per se. What she does offer is easy way to change the fonts and spacing in your existing template. Which, frankly, is all I wanted to do, anyway (I have my own graphic for the header).

Template Sites That Require A Second Look:

1. Stop Design - These are the blog templates contracted by Google for the Blogger Platform. I'm going to recommend against them if you're serious about BUSINESS Blogging or making money from your blog.Let's start with where to find your blogger templates. Don't get me wrong (or flame mail me Stop Design!) because I'm not saying don't use Stop Design to design your custom blog, I'm just saying if you're serious about blogging for $$ that you might want a UNIQUE design. Stop Designs are VERY common, with thousands and thousands using them. If you commission them to create a unique template, you'll be in good hands.


2. http://blogger-templates.blogspot.com/ - These are more templates by the Blogger team. Again, free, but they'll be used by many... if you want unique, you'll like the others better. There is a cool i-phone theme, for anyone geeked up on the new Apple i-phone. The reason I'm listing this is because they post widgets and "how-to's" for blogger here. Also, I noticed they're coming out with seasonal themes here, as well as movie themes, like Pirates of the Caribbean.

And, last, but not least, for those of you who want to remove the pesky navbar, there's a whole page dedicated to this, with some simple code inserts. Before you freak out and say HTML Code - uh oh - don't worry. This is not that complicated. It's as easy and copy, paste, for the most part: http://blogger-templates.blogspot.com/2005/01/remove-navbar.html.

A secondary way to test after backing up:

What I recommend to you is to set up a "trial" blog first, using a random, useless name (don't use anyone else's real name or a name someone else might want, just make up something so it is a polite test). Then once you have that blog, insert the same theme as you have now. You might want to also copy a couple of your widgets over, just to see how it would go through the transfer. THEN make your switch to the new design, see how it works. If everything goes well, you'll know how your new design looks without risking your current blog design or data.

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Want to kick-start your blog? See how bloggers make money at Profitable Business Blogging.

Copyright © 2007 by ARRiiVE Business Solutions. All Rights Reserved. Blogger is a trademark name of Google. No infringement intended. You may republish this article only if you publish in WHOLE with the COPYRIGHT and ALL ACTIVE LINKS intact.

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Top Rated Website and Blog Designs

Why I Like Designers

Have you ever noticed a website that you really liked, but couldn't put your finger on it? In fact, I'm pondering what to do with the design of the ARRiiVE: More Customers, More Cash, More Quickly BlogTM. Frankly, I like simplicity. And, I also have a lot to say. Putting those two things together in one site creates the challenge to appear PROFESSIONAL, SLICK, and HIP -- while avoiding sounding like an elitist snob. This type of work might just call for a professional designer.

Do you ever worry about your website design? The reason I study designs (and hang-out with artists and designers) is, well, first-off, because I find they think a little differently than I do. I'm very auditory, somewhat visual, and like to put my hands on things to feel them. That's how I learn. I have to write it down, or it just might get forgotten.

Designers are VISUAL. They think in pictures. I enjoy the company of designers, because they help me see the world in new or different ways than I might see it with my own eyeballs. Now, in case you're saying, "What does design have to do with building teams, increasing sales, or improving my marketing?"

ANSWER: Design has a lot to do with sales and marketing success. I'll get to team-building in a moment. But, yes, if your marketing is good, your sales ought to follow. Then, it is up to you to deliver the service that matches the marketing.

How can I say this without blinking an eye? Because, while on a search for the TOP BLOGS in the world today, I came across a post that features some very hip and smooth blog designs. Not surprisingly, these blogs were built mostly by photographers or graphic designers. But, what impresses me most, is these site designs are not only sexy web designs: they also draw HIGH TRAFFIC, too. Google PR 7, Google PR6, Google PR8, Google PR5, and so-on. Those kinds of numbers are worth money. So, yes, sales follow good design (a component of excellence in marketing).

Here are some of the examples I chose to share with you:

Odd-and-ends.net Clean & Nice. Excellent navigation. Not too slick, but you definitely get engaged to want to view the portfolio. And, if I'm selling photography, that's important. I had to take away a point from my 9 score on design for the CafePress products (I dumped them years ago for being too greedy and too expensive). I was touched by several things at this site. My Score: 9 for Design, Google PR5. Overall 7.

abriefmessage.com
Design: Clean, simple, with tons of white space. Large Fonts, bright, smart use of simple color-scheme. Black, white, and red links always has a cutting edge feel, to me. This site exemplifies one way designers think about presenting information. This blog is not yet getting what I call "Google Juice" but it sure has potential. They're getting a lot of comments on their posts (add mine to the list). My Score: Design 9, Google PR4, Overall 7. I wouldn't be surprised to see this go up...

A List Apart. The best of the lot. Not just visually attractive, but totally rich in content, without overwhelming me by any means. There's a lot any person developing a website could learn here from this site, alone. Simple control and navigation. Beautiful use of primary labels. Small, focused ad box. They pay for publication contributions, which encourages other authors to submit content. So, this is a collective - not a one-man shop, from what I can tell. I even like their shirts. Scores: Design 9. Google PR 8. Overall: 9.

SIDE NOTE: A List Apart featured the web's first ever panel of web designers, called The Web Design Survey, which surveyed almost 37,000 designers and came up with quite a large compilation of tips (over 33,000) that might serve as a somewhat bloated guide for many aspiring web designers. Kudos, again.

gizmodo.com. I know, I know. It's a geek site. But, you know what? They're probably the number 1 blog in terms of geek traffic. Every time I go there I find something new and cool that I like. Yeah, I like gadgets. And gizmodo is the king of online gadget info. They provide easy feeds, as if almost begging you to feed content off their RSS, which many, many tech sites, take advantage to gain cutting-edge content. They use a wide-format design which some users like and others don't. For their format, it seems to work. Design 7. Google PR 9 (traffic is off-the-hook). Overall 9.

Speaking of Google, how can you question the appeal in the massive use of white space and simplicity in their home page design? But Google also delivers on their promise: fast, quick, highly efficient search results. Google has captured the search market because of their site design. Sixteen words plus the search box is about as basic as it gets. It's what happens behind those words/links and the search box that matters most. Google's design is as much in their words and layout of the words and multi-colored logo. The layout conveys an inverse-pyramid (and implied pyramid underneath). This is a similar model to my own Diamond-Circle. Design: 10 Google PR10. Overall 10.

The Morning News. Clean design. Get out your reading glasses (small print). Black & White with some Red. Wide format makes me think "newspaper" when I read it, although they claim to be an "online magazine" published since 1999. Has an old-time feel in a modern approach. A pretty damned good site for what I think is a two-person shop. Succinct at what it's trying to do. Design 9. Google PR? Overall 8.

SimpleBits. This site is SIMPLE. They hit the nail on the head with their name and visual appeal. The logo I saw that they designed was nice. They've done work for MTV. Totally a pro shop. The bits are actually little fragments of articles, snapshots, books, speaking, and so forth. I don't quite understand why some of the elements are where they are... perhaps they can explain to me if I email. Design 9, Google PR2 Overall 7.

Where can you find a site where you might find a good designer? Well, any of the design-oriented sites I just mentioned might have resources for you, and if that isn't enough, here's another possibility: www.cpluv.com/.

I've used more than a handful of designers over the past eight years and don't regret any of them. I've gained designs or design ideas from each of them that I still use at AspireNow, Body, Black Market Trio, and ARRiiVE Business Solutions. Hopefully you can see the merit in shelling out some duckets to get a higher quality site and designer eyeballs on visualizing what you are doing with your blog or website. Your image might be the first (or last) thing your site visitors remember. What do you want to leave them with?

OH. One last thing: I bet you thought I forgot about teamwork, right? Remember the question? "How do designers impact TEAMS?" Simple. You gain someone who thinks in terms of elegant simplicity. You gain a visual thinker. Every team ought to include at least one designer. You're bound to see your project in a whole new light. And, who knows, maybe you'll get a new product design, logo, or website concept from them that boosts your team's results from survive to THRIVE.

Post by Scott Andrews, CEO of ARRiiVE Business Solutions.

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