25 tips for building your own agency

These are the 25 tips I gave at my SearchFest presentation today. These are from the heart, based on my own personal screw-ups over a 16-year career (so far) running my own agency.

TweetRunning your own agency is like wrestling with a s–t-covered be…

Book giveaway tomorrow at Searchfest

I’m speaking tomorrow at SEMPDX Searchfest. My topic: Building your search agency. I figure someone should learn from my pain.

If you’re going to Searchfest tomorrow (and you should be), come up to me and say ‘hi’. I’ll even bribe you to do it:

I’ll…

Trash the web sites: What Gawker (probably) said

Update: Read to the end for a graph that Rishil sent me, courtesy of Sitemeter. The data is hard to ignore: Gawker is literally designing themselves out of existence.

Gawker. Media.
TweetNeed I say more?
They launched a new design for all their sites…

11 signs you’re not ready to run your own company

So, you want to run your own company? Check this list first. If you fit more than 4 of these, you might want to wait a while. You still have some growing up to do:
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Your ego is bigger than you are. You just have to be the smartest person in the…

Groupon’s days are numbered

Yesterday I wrote about how discounts are addictive, and can kill your business. The addictive nature of discounts is why I think Groupon should’ve sold to Google. Most of the businesses that use Groupon have no idea how to handle discounts as a…

Discounts: The Vicodin of internet marketing

Discounts are the Vicodin of internet marketing
I’m not a fan of discounts as a core marketing strategy. Use them once in a while? Sure, that’s fine.
Use them too often, though, and they’ll kill your business.
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See, they’r…

5 instant internet marketing upgrades

I’ve made a bet with myself that, by adding ‘instant’ and the number ’5′, I will get triple the normal traffic to this post. If I win, I have to buy myself a chocolate bar.

No fun intro today, so I’ll just get to it—five utterly random but simp…

Companies need tension: Avoiding the ‘You Go’ effect

I had a discussion yesterday with Ed Lopit, one of the most insightful businessmen I know. That discussion led to this blog post. If you want to learn to master this stuff, talk to him
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I’ve been called a lotta things over the years. Most …

Don’t be a literary prude: How to write with personality

I’m reading Writing with Style by John R. Trimble. If you want to learn to write with personality, this book’s a fantastic place to start.
My favorite chapter so far is titled “Superstitions” and begins “This chapter conc…

10 phrases that mean your blog post is worthless

I’m guilty of these myself. But I’m starting to see them show up more and more, on big sites (you know who you are) that are supposed to know better.
Inevitably, these phrases are followed by a stock photo and 250+ words that basically rep…

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