As you may have heard, we here at ProspectMX are sending Matt Cutts to space.

Well, ok, not the REAL Matt Cutts… and not really into space, but…well watch the video if you haven’t heard.

ProspectMX is Sending Matt Cutts to Space! from Dave Conklin on Vimeo.

That’s right, we had a doll of Matt Cutts made and we’re going to send it on various adventures in the coming months. Hopefully, other prominent members of the SEM community will be on their own adventures, too.

Joe Latrell, a fellow employee, also happens to be a Rocket Scientist (isn’t everyone?). He volunteered to build us a 10 foot rocket to help Matt on his journey.

But there was one critical piece left that we didn’t have for the launch next week.

A name.

So, we polled the community and got a couple great suggestions as to what to call this magnificent beast of a rocket. After much deliberation, crying, voting, and tallying – we have reached a consensus. The rocket will be called…

Drumroll please…

SPAM BLASTER!

Yes, the rocket will be called Spam Blaster. And what better name for the rocket-fueled-speed-machine that will hold Matt Cutts on that fateful day? A phrase that not only encompasses a giant rocket but also Matt Cutt’s day to day responsibilities at Google?

We’re quite pleased with the name and would like to thank everyone that suggested names and voted.

So it’s the final countdown. We have a rocket. We have Matt Cutts. And we have a name.

There’s less than a week left until the launch, so we hope to see you all back here next Monday at 2pm to see how it all goes down.

Comment Below To Name The 10 Foot Matt Cutts Rocket That Sends Matt To Space In April

OK, not to space. BUT, we are indeed going to launch a rocket… and Matt Cutts… really freakin’ high.  The flight should last about 2 minutes and will be videotaped with both on board and exterior cameras.  If you’ve never see an on board rocket cam, you’re going to be in for a treat.

For those of you who don’t know (many of our readers are not actually in the internet marketing world), Matt Cutts is the spam engineer for Google. He’s kind of the “face” of Google at search conferences and the like.

We Had A Company Make A Custom Matt Cutts Action Figure

Last year, our team decided that we were going to spend a few bucks to have action figures created of different SEO’s and do some crazy videos and things with them throughout 2010.  Of course, it seemed appropriate to start with Matt being that he is the Greenspan of the search world.

Joe Latrell, a rocket scientist who works on the ProspectMX team with the top portion of his custom made rocket that is set to send Matt rocketing to space this April

Understand that when we ordered the Matt Cutts “doll,” Matt had just shaved his head and was looking extremely buff. So, you’ll notice that the action figure is that of a “ripped” Matt Cutts with a shaved head.  haha… We love you, Matt. 

After debating in our meetings about what we should do with him, we finally decided the obvious:

Build a 10 foot rocket and launch it into the air, with video cams on board.

It just so happens, that Joe Latrell (who is a rocket scientist… literally) works on our team and has been lauching enormous rockets (some the whole way to space) for years. While this one isn’t going to go to space, it will go about 1 mile into the atmosphere.

Matt Cutts relaxing in his ergonomic chair inside of his custom made rocket

So, the launch date that we’re shooting for is some time in April. But we have a problem. We need a name.

We Need Your Help To Come Up With A Name!

Soooo… All you have to do is comment below with what you think the name should be. Then, in a later blog post, we’re going to allow you to vote for the winner from the best 5 (as decided by us). The final name selected will be placed on the rocket.

We will keep you updated with the progress of our rocket as it’s assembled with videos and pictures right here on the ProspectMX blog.

So… go ahead… What should we name the rocket?

One of my biggest struggles as a writer is keeping my copy concise and to the point. I am the queen of long winded copy, because it allows me to let loose my thoughts, opinions and knowledge. But I realize that just because I find my “flow of consciousness” style interesting, doesn’t mean my audience does.

So the last time I wrote copy for a website I made it a point to be as concise and to the point as possible. And you know what? That stuff STILL came out longer than I wanted! So I’ve come to the conclusion that I suck at concise copy, and it’s something I need to work on.

The Web Copy Light at the End of the Tunnel

Then I came across a guest post on Graywolf’s SEO blog about how much you should be willing to pay for good copy. The post is a great read (nice job Malcolm!) and it opened my eyes to things that have been in the back of my mind, but I never wound up giving voice to.

People love to preach about “short” copy on the web, because people only read 18 words out of a 100 and you only have so many words to catch their interest, blah, blah blah…but the bottom-line is that if your writing is compelling and your tone engaging, then there’s a good chance you’ll keep the reader’s interest and get them to read exactly what you want.  In other words – your web copy can be as long as it needs to be!

The Littlest Tweak Can Make a Huge Difference

In reading that post, which was full of linky goodness, I clicked through to read Dustin Curtis’s “You Should Follow Me on Twitter.” It’s basically a case study on how just a few tweaks to a very short sentence increased his clickthrough rate by over 170%.

Literally, by changing the call to action at the end of his posts from “I’m on Twitter” to “You should follow me on twitter here.” he saw a 173% increase in clickthroughs to his account.

It’s amazing to me the power a few words can have…. He took a rather static, dull statement, added some persuasive force and voila! A veritable flood of clicks!

Writing Web Copy that Achieves Your Goals

There’s no right or wrong answer to writing copy on the web (IMO)…it’s all about who you’re writing for and what your overall goal is – what do you want those people to do. That’s what should determine how you write your copy.

For example, when I think of the 3 main types of web writing I do, I realize I have a different tone/style for each.

SEO Copy – this is typically for ranking purposes – I’m trying to optimize the copy to rank for as many long tail keywords as possible. My writing tends to be more professional, but can get a bit long because of my method of optimizing content. Of course, I’m ALSO trying to write copy that will help conversions, so there’s a fine balance to writing good SEO copy and making sure it’s persuasive to the reader.

Landing Page Copy - this is usually for PPC campaigns, and so my biggest focus is writing copy that will convert (or sell) visitors – or at least draw a clear and persuasive picture of the path and actions we want them to take on the site. I don’t have to worry about rankings, so this copy tends to be a bit shorter in some cases.

Blogs – there’s pretty much an infinite number of purposes or reasons for blogging. Your style should change depending on your purpose. For example, I tend to write blogs jut to share my opinion – so I kick back and write in my own voice, the same one I used to breeze through my Creative Writing courses in College. Does it work for a blog? I don’t know…but I sure have fun writing it!

I’ll Say It Till I’m Blue In The Face…

Web copy is IMPORTANT! Muy, muy importante! And yet so many people don’t think they should pay top dollar for quality writing. After all…everyone can write, right? Um yeah… I guess that’s why an experienced freelance writer can make over $50 and hour….

We are often asked to speak at business events on the promise of internet marketing. Through our association with Dave Wolf of Vistage International – a leading CEO mentoring organization – we were recently invited to speak at Homestead Structures during one of their distributorship meetings.

Homestead Structures is a manufacturer of quality sheds and gazebos. Their distributors are predominantly located in the Northeast. Steve Stoltzfus is the President of Homestead Structures and was the host of this recent event.

He is also Amish.

My career in sales for technical and professional services solutions does not provide me many opportunities to interact with the Amish. In fact, my experience to date with the Amish is zero.

Until yesterday.

Our demonstration to Steve’s group of distributors served as our first foray into business with the Amish. Business as usual it was not. During my time here, we’ve been in some state-of-the-art conference rooms of Fortune 500’s complete with all the bells and whistles. Impressive stuff. Costly too. It makes you wonder where all the money is coming from.

Steve’s company is completely different though. Simple, plain and comfortable is how he rolls. Steve sells the steak, not the sizzle. It’s one of the reasons for his success and why Amish goods are always in such demand.

Our meeting on Wednesday with Steve and his distributors was a rare and privileged look inside a world built and run upon the basic tenants of business:

• Genuinely deliver a quality product or service
• Provide product or service at a competitive and fair price

Their approach is as much about what they do as what they do not do. They do not buy expensive art for the lobby. They do not buy expensive imports (or cars in general). They do not give themselves $2 million dollar bonuses.

Their rewards are met each day through sharing in fellowship, enjoying their families and practicing their faith. It is a full day. It is a full life.

To keep the candles lit, they produce a quality product at a fair price with the assurance that you’re getting the best.

I think we all could learn a little lesson about business from Steve and his team. Thanks for the opportunity.

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Jodi (my wife) asked me tonight if there were any new pictures from the breeder we’re purchasing our dog from. The dog was born on New Years Eve and we are picking him up in February, so we like to get photo updates.

So, to be funny, I googled “world’s ugliest dog“… and BAM!

The reaction was great.

There are just SO MANY ways to build links… I just may have to do a “World’s Ugliest [whatever]” contest…

What “worlds ugliest” ideas do you have that could generate links for your site?

I’m a big fan of just browsing sites and examining their logos. I guess it’s a bit geeky but I think it’s a pretty normal thing to do if you’re really into something. So this weekend I was clicking through some design sites and some non-design sites and saw some pretty good logos and some really bad logos! Unfortunately a good cross-section of the bad logos have been designed over the last 5-10 years while logo standards have somewhat dropped off.

The standards I speak of are pretty simple. Readability, clean, appropriate fonts and colors and the ability to be recreated for black and white usage.

Right off the bat, the first (and often biggest) offender has been the recreation in black and white factor. I attribute this primarily to the internet age. More and more often you see marketing being geared strictly to the world wide web, and since you don’t see many black and white computer screens, there isn’t much need for a black and white logo. Well, that is just craziness, you still need your logo, your brand, to be usable in color AND in black and white… even if you go green and don’t use paper, chances are that prospective clients still do, which means you must still design for print as well as web. It’s a simple concept but very true.

I think the rest is pretty self explanatory. Obviously you want your logo to be readable, else why would you have a name? If your logo looks sloppy, guess what that says about you? And if you use odd font combinations and strange colors… again… what does that say about you, about your business… and if you happen to be dealing with visual advertising and marketing, what kind of vision are you portraying with such nonsense?

So I say to everyone who would happen to come across this post, in your opinion, what are some examples of good logos and examples of bad logos? Of course this is all your opinion, but please give some backing to your candidates and why you feel they are good or bad.

The general consensus is that “web designers can make a site, but they can’t make it look good. Graphic designers can make it look good, but can’t make it work.”

I say, bollocks to that!

When I was a design student there was a clear-cut difference between Graphic Design and Web Design. You would think that the differences were easy to determine, i.e. graphic design is print and web design is internet. But that was not the case. (more…)