News from Two Trees Media

It's so easy and tempting to do. You're trying to get some new content/pictures up on your website and you can't come up with anything good. But you remember when you were browsing the web earlier in the day, you came across something you really liked.

After thinking for a while, you copy over the content/picture to your own site. Now it's perfect.

No it's not. Before you hit "Save" or "Publish" stop for a moment and think about what you're doing. You're stealing someone's work, without giving them credit and passing it off as your own. It's called copyright infringement - and it's illegal.

If you're caught, and if you're lucky, you'll get a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) takedown notice. This usually comes in the form of a letter stating that you are illegally using someone's content/pictures and they need to be taken off your website ASAP. If you comply, usually not much else will happen.

If you're not lucky, you could be facing a legal nightmare that will cost a lot of money and time. If it's obvious that you heavily profited from someone's work without giving proper credit and/or having their permission, you could be sued by the original copyright owner for damages.

With so much at stake, why do people continue to violate copyright laws on their websites and blogs?

I think the answer has to do with ignorance. A lot of people who aren't web savvy and don't produce a lot of their own content (i.e. websites that are static, such as sales sites) feel that whatever the content they find on the web is free for the taking. They just don't think about the fact that someone else worked hard to produce that content. I see this time and time again with clients who want their website redesigned and/or new and fresh content.

What's the solution? There are several resources online where you can get high-quality photos/graphics for free - and it's legal! One of those sites is called Creative Commons (CC). Most contributors to CC only require that your credit them on your site (CC even gives you a link to make crediting extremely easy).

There are other online services like Creative Commons where you can get pictures/content for free to use on your website.

Another option is to hire a graphic designer or copywriter. The benefits of this approach is that it will make your site unique and customized. It will tell visitors that you invested in your site for that added touch of professionalism.

The downside to this, of course, is that hiring a professional will cost money. The price will vary depending on your specific needs and the rates of the person hired. But for most businesses who want an online presence, the price is well worth it.

Whether you decide to find free and legal pictures/content for your site, or hire a professional to develop a customized solution, as long as your not illegally using someone's work, your website will gain credibility and help your business grow.

When I visit a website to check out its products/services, the first thing I look at is the homepage. The second thing I look at is the content on the homepage. And more often than not, I'm disappointed. This is not because of a poor site design. And its not even because of bad web content (although it's highly related).

The biggest mistake I see on the homepage of a lot of business websites: The content does not give the visitor a clear idea exactly what the business does.

This why I say it really doesn't have a lot to do with the actually writing. The content can be very well written, engaging and follow all the rules of good online writing. But all that is meaningless if the visitor has to dig deeper into your website just to find out the basics about your product/service.

These websites with vague homepage writing are often filled a lot of fancy marketing jargon and seemingly enticing claims as "The most revolutionary product/service on the market" or "Sophisticated and highly technologically advanced". Of course, these are just examples. However, I don't care how revolutionary the product is or how advanced it is. What is the product/service?

The most effective way to avoid this problem is to write your homepage content in clear, easy to understand English. Tell us what your product is and what it does, giving visitors a clear idea of your product on the homepage. Most visitors will move on to a different website if they don't understand something and will rarely dig deeper into your site. I include myself in that group of "short attention span" site visitors.

Summary: Write your homepage content for the layman who has never heard of you or your product/service before. If a layman can easily discover what your company does from quickly scanning your homepage, then your content is on track to attract and retain more visitors.

One of the most frequently asked questions we get from new clients is: Why are you estimating/billing so many hours? The client will then go on to say that it's a "quick project" that should only take a few hours. This is a perfectly reasonable question for a new client to ask, and each client deserves a clear answer.

Since my focus is copywriting, I'll give you a writer's perspective on the process I go through when writing copy for a client. Writing copy, even for a simple website, is not as easy as sitting down and starting to write (although I wish it was that easy).

When I take on a project to write web content (for example), I'm usually not familiar with the business/industry I'm writing for. A large chunk of my time is taken up by doing research. I study similar websites, industry websites and any other information I can find. This helps me get a clear picture of what you do so I can write content that is accurate and authentic.

Then I take into consideration the goals you have for your website, your unique identity, the tone you are looking for and so forth. Finally, I start writing. Usually just getting the rough draft written takes a lot of trial and error. I experiment with different wordings and styles, trying to find one that will fit your website.

When I think I have a substantial rough draft I send it to you for your review. Once I get your feedback, I'll revise (and revise some more) so you can receive your final copy within the timeframe we agreed upon.

For clients that require web development/design, the process is a little different. After you tell us what you want, we try to give you feedback and offer suggestions based on your project goals. These suggestions might include tweaking your web design to make site navigation a little easier. Integrating third-party applications to give your visitors a more seamless experience. Or, on the more technical side, your website might require the code to be cleaned up for a better functioning site (faster) and for improved SEO results.

The main thing to remember for website development and design is that both can be very tedious. We want to do the best job possible for your project, so we'll take the time to get it right and exceed your expectations.

For all projects we take on, whether it's copywriting, web development or graphic design, we never use templates. All our work is customized to meet your needs. Thus, it's going to take more than just a "few hours" to do a quality job.

Email is so widely used that most people have several email address just to keep the madness to a minimum. For example, it's normal to have a work email, personal email, and a "junk" email that you give out when doing so will most likely result in unwanted spam and solicitations.

And, with all this email flying around, how many emails do you actually open and read? How many do you just delete? These are important questions, especially if you regularly send out email for your business.

Whether it's a monthly newsletter or a "sales" email hitting up past clients for more business, you don't want recipients sending your email to the trash bin. Worse, you don't want to get flagged as a spammer, so make sure you're familiar with the CAN-SPAM act

Here are a few Dos and Don'ts of email subject lines:

Don't

• USE ALL CAPS TO TRY TO EMPHASIZE A POINT. Nothing says spam like a subject line written in all caps. Yes, it stands out, but it's a guaranteed way to get your email deleted.
• Overuse exclamation points!!! In fact, try to avoid exclamation points altogether.
• Use buzzwords like "free","discount","special offer","click here","XX% discount." These words can trigger spam filters and your message won't even make it into your recipient's inbox.

Do

• Keep your subject line concise and to-the-point.
• Be honest about the content of your email. Your subject line should reflect what your email is about. This might seem obvious, but there's a lot of people out there who think trickery and "creative wording" is the only way to get their messages opened.
• Add a benefit to the recipient, giving him/her an incentive to open your email.
• Make your email about them, not about you.
• Keep your email subject lines consistent, especially if your emailing a newsletter. Consistency will familiarize your readers with your email. They want your newsletter, so make it easy for them to identify it - this starts in the subject line.

Writing good email subject lines that get your messages opened and not sent to the trash bin is more of an art than a science. The best way to improve is like anything else; practice, practice, practice.

Another way to improve your email subject lines is to go back into your email archives and look at which subject lines entice you to open the email. Make sure you go through your spam folder as well to see what makes a subject "spammy". By learning what email subject lines entice you and which ones make you cringe, you will write much more effective subject lines.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be a can mean good business for your website by pulling in a lot of visitors without paid advertising. SEO is optimizing your website so that it ranks higher on Google, Yahoo!, etc. This increases the chance of visitors to finding your site via a search engine because your website will show up in the top search results.

Bad SEO means that for a keyword search related to your business, you website is buried on page 13 of Google (for example). Most people don't click that far into the results. For a ranking that bad, your website might as well not show up in the search results at all.

The good news is that you can improve your search engine rankings with proper SEO techniques. Beware, however, there is a lot of SEO "snake oil" out there. That is, people peddling methods, techniques and services that will guarantee you top search results. As a rule of thumb, anyone who makes such a promise is lying.

The worst part is, some of these nefarious techniques can actually get your website banned by Google (and others). You will also suffer the embarrassment and a ruined reputation of trying to cheat in order to gain a few more visitors to your site.

Here are 3 easy ways to improve your SEO:

1. Quality, relevent content. The content on your site should be crisp and clear, letting visitors know exactly what you do without the use of too much jargon. Keywords in content are important, but don't oversaturate your site with keywords - it might bring you up a few notches in the search engines, but it will turn visitors away.

Also, your content should be dynamic. This means updating the content frequently (example: a blog) and keeping it updated.    

2.  Using headlines and breaking down long paragraphs. Search engines like headlines because they consider them more important than regular text. And breaking down long paragraphs into smaller ones will help visitors quickly scan your site and find what they are looking for.

3. Clean website design. This means avoiding the use of frames, Flash, and text-in-images. Search engines cannot read any of these things, so they are just wasted space and doing nothing to improve your SEO.

There is one more piece to the SEO puzzle that you don't have a lot of control over: The length of time your website has been up and active. Search engines love sites that have been around for a while.

Good SEO is something that will happen naturally if your site is designed properly with good content. It should not be forced. There are many more ways to improve your SEO, I just wanted to touch on a few so you get the idea.

Copywriting is much more than sitting at a computer and pounding out a few pithy lines of advertising material. Any copywriter will probably tell you that research is an integral part of his/her job.

No two companies are alike. Writing copy for a small pizza parlor is quite different than writing copy for a large industrial manufacturing company. Yet freelance copywriters take on such diverse jobs all the time. So what's the key to writing quality copy that is personalized to your specific needs?

The answer is research.

Whenever I take on a new client, I spend a large chunk of the quoted time involved in research. Here are a few areas you should be concerned about before writing any copy:

• The client's overall business
• Products/services
• Competitors
• Previous advertising/marketing material
• Industry-specific information

Unless you specialize in a specific industry, one needs to be familiar enough with the client's business to write like an "insider". This is even more important when writing detailed product descriptions, white papers, brochures, newsletters and even press releases.

All the copywriting tricks we use to grab attention and impress clients is worthless if we don't know what the heck we're talking about. Even if you're an in-house copywriter, doing a little extra research won't hurt. Just knowing what your competition is up to and the latest industry news will make you a more valuable asset to your team and give you the upper hand.

I hear this a lot: "We need to be more like Apple." This is understandable since the computer maker has been wildly successful with their products and their brand. Everything from Apple's easy-to-use computers, iPhone, and iPods to their packaging of their products is very simple and clean - yet it evokes Apple's own style and unique identity.

A big part of Apple's branding success comes from their being different. Imagine how Apple might be today if they had tried to imitate Microsoft. A big marketing disaster.

There is nothing wrong with a business or freelancer wanting a clean and simple branding philosophy. But when they say "I want to be more like Apple," they begin to enter the 'danger zone' of being a copier, not an innovator.

When a business begins a conscious effort to be more like Apple, they start looking fake and their branding becomes forced. The public will see right through this and your business will suffer as a result.

So how do you create a unique brand for your company? This involves looking at your company, what it does and how you want to project that to the public. For example, let's pretend you run a gift basket company. Customers order custom-made gift baskets that can be sent to a loved, friend or anyone else they choose.

Gift baskets are usually filled with all types of candy, cheeses, meats, jellies, jams, maybe even a bottle of wine. You want to reflect that in your marketing. You don't want your brand to mirror an accounting business, for example. Your logo might be a gift basket with your name on it. Or maybe a horn of plenty with your different selections spilling out.

Your website might feature photos of gift baskets with lists of all the different products that can fill a basket as well as the different styles of the baskets themselves. Maybe you even offer free shipping on orders over a certain amount - that's something to definitely promote on your site.

You get the idea.

The brand of a gift basket company should be one of joy and cheer and the virtues of gift giving. So if your website is designed like an accountant's site, business-like and formal, you will probably confuse and turn customers off to your business.

The same goes for your print marketing material. Your brochures, newsletters, advertisements should all project a common theme and compliment one another so that customers can instantly recognize your brand. And more importantly, your print materials should also compliment your website.

Therefore if your brand is unique, personalized and reflects what your business does, then customers will remember you better and will be more likely to give you their business. Be yourself.

Pantone, the uber authority on all things color, has announced its Color of the Year for 2010: Turquoise 15-5519.

Combining the serene qualities of blue and the invigorating aspects of green, Turquoise inspires thoughts of soothing, tropical waters and a comforting escape from the everyday troubles of the world, while at the same time restoring our sense of wellbeing.

Expect to see this shade of Turquoise pop up in everything from clothing to home interiors to cosmetics to web design. Though let's hope blue lipstick doesn't become the spring's hot fashion.

Previous colors of the year include colors with fun names such as Mimosa, Fuchsia Rose, and Tiger Lilly.

2000 - Cerulean	2001 - Fuchsia Rose	2002 - True Red
2003 - Aqua Sky	2004 - Tiger Lily	2005 - Blue Turquoise
2006 - Sand Dollar	2007 - Chili Pepper	2008 - Blue Iris
2009 - Mimosa

(Images courtesy of Pantone and the New York Times.)

More and more people are becoming a "hobbypreneurs" - taking their hobby (product and idea based) and making it into their career. This can be done with crafts, blogging, cooking and just about any other hobby people pursue. An advantage for hobbypreneurs is making money doing something you love, and not working at some corporate job you hate just to bring home a paycheck.

Those who make a living from their hobby are at the forefront of changing the way the world does business. A blog post from the Small Business United Blog entitled New Intuit Future of Small Business Report - Hobbypreneurs says:

Hobbypreneurs will continue to grow in numbers and influence, creating new niche products and markets in the U.S. and abroad. These frugal, techsavvy, green-oriented, out-of-the-box thinkers are creating new business methods, models and processes. And along the way, they are spurring growth and innovation.

Furthermore, the start-up money needed for this kind of business is minimal. Most start working from their home with no employees. And while hobbypreneurs might not have the million-dollar advertising budget large corporations have, they can still make a sizable income by focusing on a niche. The internet has become 'the great equalizer' for hobbypreneurs, giving them a platform to do business and reach people all over the world.

But to do business online, you must have a web presence that draws visitors to your website and makes it easy for them to find out about you, about your business and buying your products. This requires a well-designed, functional website, which includes everything from e-commerce, blogging functionality and good SEO. A site with those features allows a hobbypreneur to sell their crafts and keep customers updated on new products/offerings.

Marketing is another important part of being a hobbypreneur. While search engines can bring traffic to your website, you still need to reach out to others through advertising campaigns (i.e. Adwords), direct advertising and social networking. Vary your approach to marketing to see what works best for you. Be patient, and before you know it, your hobby will become your career.

In working through our 2009 holiday card and promotion, I had to create a 2010 calendar in vector format. Since the holidays are a time of sharing and I am in a festive spirit, below is a zip containing a 2010 calendar in Illustrator, EPS, and PDF format for anybody to use in anything they wish.

Weeks go from Sunday to Saturday, and everything is fully editable. Enjoy!