Keeping it simple - a manifesto

We've always been fans of keeping things simple.

In fact, we view complexity as a red-flag. Is there something we are not supposed to notice? Is there confusion about the central message?

We came across a tract written by our friends at 37signals - famous variously as being the developers of Ruby on Rails, a development environment, and such amazing products for business as Basecamp (project management) and HighRise (contact management).

Getting Real
...is a wonderful manifesto that can apply not only to software development, but any structured endeavor.

Declarations like 'Make it Smaller' and 'Be Relentlessly Truthful' give clues as to how these guys turn out crackerjack products - and still manage to write a book about the process!

Recommended reading.

Landing pages: people aren't stupid.

I'm reviewing the results from a recent Marketing Experiments on-line 'diagnostic clinic' of some submitted test websites. They talk about a formula that encompasses visitor 'friction', 'anxiety', propositions ... all well and good.

What really stands out is the potential upside of paying attention to where you have people land on your website. And what they see when they arrive - 'Landing pages'

So there's the diligent research into keywords, phrases, categories and segments (right?), then the up-front come-on of the PPC ads, tailored to those categories ..... then .... pphhhht (that's the sound of those deflated expectations).

People aren't stupid. They expect the promise (ad) to deliver - with content that is not only relevant, but engaging to *them*. Not configuring landing pages to dovetail with the finely tuned visitor categories ... well, that's just silly. And wasteful of marketing dollars.

So really, how do you implement a landing page strategy?
What if you are using a CMS? Problem?
Who can best create / publish / test / the pages so they can be weeded out, just like an Adwords ad?

Stay tuned. We have some on-the-ground experience to pass on...

DIY research: Google Search Insight

If you had an Adwords account, you might be able to patch this all together - but NOW, Google trending, searches, geo-targeting, categories and some actual numbers are all on call for the public.

Imagine that I sell tickets to the public in Ontario, and want to measure the pulse of public searches:
http://www.google.com/insights/search/#cat=590&q=&geo=CA-ON&date=today%203-m&clp=&cmpt=geo - Here is a pretty compelling list of Top Searches and Rapidly Rising.

I know, it's all cribbed from the formats of other providers - but that's what Google does best. Like the Japanese with technology, only everything is free. (I think I just dated myself there)

A good tool for an overview - but not a comprehensive tool. Still, Google is letting us peek under the hood more than ever before.