I have been writing things in one capacity or another for almost 30 years. I don’t even really consider myself a writer because I don’t write for the love of it. I write because I want or need to communicate something and happen to be decently good at it.

What I found works

There is a caveat here. This is not meant to be an Oxford Dictionary compendium of all the writer’s block remedies in the world, but just those few things I have found personally to be successful for me. They may or may not work for you. But I have a sneaking suspicion they might.

It was going fine until…

To get to the nub of the matter, there have been times, just like you, I have been sitting at my desk, staring blankly ahead, thinking about going to Starbucks and just not getting my work done.

What to do about it?

The usual scenario is that I have been merrily writing that letter or that article and all of a sudden in the midst of a paragraph or at the beginning of a sentence, I stall. I know where I want to go, have all the information I need, but what I was going to write doesn’t seem so good.

I am sure this has happened to you. You start and stop a few times, but it doesn’t get any better. After five minutes, you are frustrated and think you should get up and get something to drink or walk away. Then when you come back, you still don’t get anywhere. Sound familiar?

The solution is simple.

Write what you were going to write initially. Write that stupid sounding sentence and continue on. You are self-editing too critically.

If you just write that sentence, you will find your writer’s block will magically disappear. Usually, when I do this, I look back a few sentences later and find that that sentence wasn’t so bad after all. Or it dawns on me how I could word it better.

This has been a life saver for me. So much so, I can genuinely say I don’t get this type of writer’s block anymore.

I can’t get started!!!

While this scenario is generally what I consider writer’s block, there are three other situations that might prevent one from starting to write when one has some writing to do. So I will share my solutions to those as well.

The first situation is that I find I am not interested in the subject.

I have to write something. I don’t want to or I put it off. For instance, I was thinking about writing something for our company blog, but couldn’t come up with a helpful marketing idea to go on about. So I was going to leave it. Then I realized I was more interested in something about writing and came up with this article. And it has just flowed.

The second is I don’t know enough about the subject

Generally to write about something, you have to know a lot more about the subject than just what you are going to write. So if I sit down and I am interested in the subject, I have to review if I actually know enough about it. This is quite simple to diagnose. If I can’t explain the subject to myself, I know I have research to do. When I get more information, I can then write about it. Situation solved.

The last is attributable to procrastination.

Sometimes I just have to take myself by the scruff of the neck and sit down and do it. Usually it comes down to necessity— there is a deadline and it takes that extra pressure to get onto it.

No help for it, mate. Then the job gets done.

There is one more reason for not writing. But it is not writer’s block. I will leave it to another blog article.

I hope you found the above helpful.

But unforeseen problems can sometimes arise that take a bit of cunning to resolve.

A new building, built on new land with brand new address

One such circumstance occurred with a client of ours – an expanding dental practice.  They were opening an office in another city and had built a new, state-of-the-art facility on the access road adjacent to the main highway.  It was a totally new structure, built where nothing had existed before.  So it had a totally new address.

Several weeks prior to the clinic’s opening, we were given the new postal address and went to add the location to the practice’s Google Places for Business account so that it would be listed on Google Maps in time for its grand opening a number of weeks down the road.

Setting up the new location on Maps

When you add a business to Google Places for Business, in order to verify that the business actually exists, Google sends out a verification card to the address.  The card has a PIN code that needs to be inputted back into the online application before Google will fully list it.  This card can take a week or so to get delivered but our experience was that it arrives pretty fast.  You can also verify by phone but as no one was manning the new clinic’s phone, this method couldn’t be used.  We had two or three weeks so we could afford to wait for the card.

The verification card never arrived, twice

We used the new postal address in the online setup and, low and behold, Maps apparently had it in its system.  The street number was there with only a slight change of wording for the access road.  No error messages that the address didn’t exist or anything. Happy day, smooth as silk!

Except the card never arrived.  A week later, because the phone was still not manned, we had another card sent out.

It never arrived either.

We couldn’t understand what was going on.  Google apparently had the address for the clinic but the card didn’t get there.

Oh, oh, the Maps address was wrong!

Then realization dawned – Google’s address, even though similar, wasn’t compatible with the postal address.  So the post office couldn’t find the clinic. Agh!

Immediately, we called Google.  Yes, you can call Google and it isn’t that hard.  You just have to know your way around their Google Places for Business interface.

How to phone Google Help

This is how you do it (this assumes you already have a Google Places for Business account set up for your business.)

1. Go to the Google My Business Help Center and logon to your Google account.
2. Click “Contact Us” near the upper right. (see image below)
3. Request a call and follow the instructions and fill out the form to leave your phone number.  Google will ring you back almost instantly.  Their staff are typically very helpful.

This was done for our client and we spent almost an hour on the phone getting it worked out.  Actually, it took two phone calls and, as the new clinic’s phone was now manned, we were able to get the address verified without waiting for a card to be mailed.

Getting it right

In the end, the client’s new business had the proper address on Google and was finally set up on Google Maps to be found and is being found today.

All is happy!

It just shows that what you think should be a simple and straightforward matter can evolve into a problem of magnitude.  Who would have ever thought that Google would have an address in their system that didn’t agree with the post office?

But the way things are going, perhaps in the near future, we’ll be phoning the post office to adjust their address because it doesn’t agree with Google!

Get Found In Local Search

We excel at helping local businesses be found. Get started by filling out our online form.

Yes, apparently Google hires people to do various searches and then have them look over and rate the results to see if the webpages and websites that come up in those searches are the best result for the search query. This is not the first time a version of this document was leaked and there have even been interviews posted online in the past with such reviewers.

What is unique about this document is that it gives a definitive outline of what constitutes “high quality” and “low quality” webpages and websites for Google. And whether it is truly from Google or not, it makes good sense.

What This Means For You

The document is wide ranging but we just want to focus on one item – because if you don’t have this, you haven’t got a chance of first page results in the long term.

It is a good reputation!

Here is what Google had to say on this topic because their reviewers are supposed to do reputation checks on websites.

• Reputation research is important when giving Highest ratings. Very positive reputation is often based on prestigious awards or recommendations from known experts or professional societies on the topic of the website.
• Wikipedia and other informational sources can be a good starting point for reputation research.
• For some topics, such as humor or recipes, less formal expertise is OK. For these topics, popularity, user engagement, and user reviews can be considered evidence of reputation. For topics which need less formal expertise, websites can be considered to have a positive reputation if they are highly popular and well-loved for their topic or content type, and are focused on helping users.
• Reputation research is required for all page quality rating tasks unless you have previously researched the reputation of the website. Extremely negative, malicious, or financially fraudulent reputation information should result in a Lowest rating. Credible negative (though not malicious or financially fraudulent) reputation is a reason for a Low rating, especially for a YMYL page.[YMYL – Your Money or Your Life pages – information about health, finances, ecommerce that one would rely on for high quality, trustworthy information]
• Please exercise care when researching the reputation of businesses. Most businesses have some negative reviews, especially for customer service. Try to find as many reviews and ratings as possible and read the details of negative reviews and low ratings before inferring that the business has a negative reputation.
• Important: Negative reputation is sufficient reason to give a page a Low quality rating. Evidence of truly malicious or fraudulent behavior warrants the Lowest rating.

So How Is Your Reputation?

Bet you haven’t checked recently. Bet you haven’t taken thoughtful action to improve it. Maybe you just haven’t thought about it.

While this article so far has been about Google, enhancing reputation goes far beyond the Internet. It is an excellent basic business practice.

Many business people take their reputation for granted and usually don’t see a need for doing anything about it until something bad happens – a worker gets hurt, the house falls down on a client, a bad batch of ketchup hits the market. But when things like that happen, if nothing has been done previously to create a business that is very well thought of, the job to fix that reputation can be hard.

A proactive approach is best and the solution is simple. It has to do with implementing an honest but effective public relations campaign for your business or yourself. Public relations is ultimately about reputation and trust. So you need to know if people think well of you or they don’t.

External viewpoint is best

Remember it’s not what you think about yourself or think your reputation is. But what OTHERS think about you that counts. And maybe they haven’t told you or don’t want to.

That’s why an external, experienced public relations person is an asset. They bring an external viewpoint which can look clearly at the situation and not be prone to a skewed view of things that might occur if only done inhouse.

The first thing an expert would do is to find out from a wide variety of people what they think about you. These would represent the key groups you deal with – customers, employees, suppliers, industry partners, regulators, the media, etc.

Tailor-made PR program

Once that is known, a tailor-made public relations program can be developed . That program will be based on one of the key definitions of public relations which is “good works well publicized.” Any program developed for you will help you define what good works you are doing or should be doing and then getting the good word out about those things. This enhances reputation.

Keeping a good reputation and bettering it is easier when it is good. Then when you need it, it is there for you.

If you would like to talk to someone at Target Public about enhancing your reputation and having a tailored public relations program to do so, please email me or fill out the form above.

Truth be told, the gab on the web so far is that not many webmasters have seen any real change despite the fact that a Google representative said on Friday that the update has now fully rolled out. It is still best for the user to access a mobile responsive website and, as mobile traffic is climbing, ultimately this is what this is all about. .

This past week in their official blog, Google posted some tips for businesses and webmasters about their #mobilemadness campaign.  So we are republishing those that aren’t too technical so you get it from the horse’s mouth:

The original is at http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.ca/2015/04/mobilemadness-campaign-to-help-you-go.html.

Again, if you have any questions or would like some help with your website or local search marketing, you can contact us.

Maximize your online strategy & search performance

In this presentation, learn to create an online strategy for your business, measure your search performance, and choose the right partner to design and manage your mobile website.

The 3 topics are:
1. Choosing the right online channel
2. Webmaster Tools
3. SEO as a long term strategy

Basics of a mobile website for small and medium businesses

If you own a small business, this series of short videos will show you how easy it can be to make your web pages mobile-friendly. The 4-part series include:

1. Learn the tools: PageSpeed Insights, Mobile-Friendly Test and Mobile-Usability
2. Bring it in: Viewports, zoom and plugins
3. Focus on the user: Tap targets, margins and font sizes
4. Set it right: Redirects and canonicals

Q&A session

Here are answers to questions you asked about the mobile-friendly ranking change. Check the comments section here for answers to questions we weren’t able to get to during the live event.

Results from audience polls

Thousands of people participated in the 3 polls below. What are your thoughts on the results—surprising or predictable?

Mobile-friendly tips

These tips highlight specific resources to help you go mobile-friendly.

View the entire #mobilefriendly collection here.

Mobile-friendly one-sheeter

Download the one-sheeter so you can access and share these 5 steps to mobile-friendliness on-the-go.

Google announced that on April 21st lack of a mobile-friendly website will hurt

Google announced back at the end of February that starting on April 21^st “we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results.”  The tech press have labeled this “Mobilegeddon” because websites that haven’t been made mobile-friendly will definitely be affected in a negative way in Google mobile search results.

April 21^st is tomorrow.

Now, just to be clear, this Google update will only impact mobile search results, not laptop or even tablet search results.

But as mobile use has climbed close to and over 50% on some of our client websites, the lack of a mobile responsive website for a business will hurt their local search results.

Potential opportunity to get ahead if you have a mobile-friendly website

However, rather than looking at this in a negative way, it also presents a significant opportunity to get a head of slower competitors who are not so tech savvy.

The change Google is bringing means that potential clients searching for products or services on their phones will not be able to find businesses easily if they do not have a website that is phone-friendly.  If a business is currently on first page of search results on Google’s mobile search, they will in all likelihood lose that first page advantage if they do not have a mobile responsive website.  Those that do have mobile friendly sites will probably move up onto the first page reap the advantages of being there.  So your website should be mobile friendly, shouldn’t it?

Okay, what is mobile responsive anyway?

What is a mobile responsive website, you ask?

Very simply, it is a website that automatically adjusts how it looks to the size of the screen that a viewer is using.  This is so that the site not only looks good but is functional no matter the screen size.

It is very easy to tell if a website is responsive.  Look at the TPM website, for example.  Take the browser window and make it smaller and larger.  Watch how the website display changes to suit the size of the window.  If a website does that, it is responsive.

Screen-size responsiveness makes for a better user experience.  There is nothing more frustrating than trying to navigate a full-sized website on a 4” or 5” screen.

Ultimately good for mobile users

So Google’s push to have websites responsive is a good one ultimately for users. But it can be hell for business owners who don’t really understand these issues.  It also presents an opportunity for those that do, to jump ahead.

TPM has been on the mobile-friendly bandwagon since its beginning.  We started installing customized mobile responsive WordPress sites using Studiopress’s search engine-friendly Genesis framework back when they first came out a few years ago.  We then went on a program last year of upgrading our older client’s legacy websites to full responsiveness.  With that completed, all our clients are prepared for “Mobilegeddon” and ready to be at the head of the pack.

We can help you out

You can be ready too, if you are not already.  We can help you with that.

If you would like some more information or direction or a quote on making your site mobile-friendly, just call us at 888-788-5124 or use the handy contact form.

Last month travelling through southern Colorado, heading up Denver way, I was amazed to come across a sign on the highway that I had never expected to see. I had never been that way before so I had no idea I might run across it. In fact, if someone had told me it existed, I wouldn’t have believed them. The sign was a simple one. It said “Ludlow Massacre Memorial, Exit 27.”

Undoubtedly tens of thousands of motorists and their passengers, probably more, have passed that sign since it went up in 2009 when the memorial was recognized as a national monument and had no idea what that was all about (The memorial had been there since 1916.). But I did.

It was the place where modern Public Relations was born. And a bad birth it was too.

I had to stop. I was compelled. Never have I been so interested in going to look at a landmark.

And it was there. A tiny plot of land with an aging building and a tall monument, all fenced in. A dusty and almost empty parking lot beside. An old, etched wood sign with “The United Mine Workers, District 15” welcomed me. To my surprise, there was another person visiting the site. But it was not surprising that it was a labor relations historian doing the same as I was, although our purposes and backgrounds were different. We talked.

The Ludlow Massacre? You can research it online.

In late 1913, the Rockefeller-owned Colorado Fuel and Iron Company locked out about 9,000 striking miners who were demanding better working conditions and pay. Not only out of their jobs but out of their homes as well. The workers set up a tent camp at the location of the memorial and lived there throughout the winter and all the next year until they finally caved in to the company’s demands.

Per the United Mine Workers website, “The date April 20, 1914 will forever be a day of infamy for American workers. On that day, 19 innocent men, women and children were killed in the Ludlow Massacre… The massacre occurred in a carefully planned attack on the tent colony by Colorado militiamen, coal company guards, and thugs hired as private detectives and strike breakers. They shot and burned to death 18 striking miners and their families and one company man. Four women and 11 small children died holding each other under burning tents. Later investigations revealed that kerosine had intentionally been poured on the tents to set them ablaze. The miners had dug foxholes in the tents so the women and children could avoid the bullets that randomly were shot through the tent colony by company thugs. The women and children were found huddled together at the bottoms of their tents.”

Naturally, accounts vary.

Regardless, a devastatingly cruel and inhuman action had occurred and it was picked up by the national press and rightfully inflamed hatred against the Rockefeller name and other corporate business interests across the country, eventually leading to hearings in Washington.

What could be done about such bad personal and company public relations?

A modern PR would say a “crisis management” plan needed to be implemented. Truly, an invidious beginning for a new management specialty – trying to make up for the lack of management scruples in firing bullets at and burning workers’ families.

And thus PR has been tainted throughout its whole history as simply trying to justify and whitewash corporate misdeeds.

For the Rockefellers, to the rescue came one Ivy Ledbetter Lee, a Princeton graduate and former newspaper reporter, who author and muckraker Upton Sinclair eventually deemed “Poison Ivy.” Lee started representing the Rockefeller interests shortly after the massacre. Lee had already made a name for himself in representing coal companies which had been hit by strikes.

But, too, let’s not be churlish, he had enunciated some fine PR principles in his Declaration of Principles that were published in 1906. But he didn’t always seem to live up to them. He seemed to bend them for his clients.

It should be mentioned as well, that at this time Lee also worked alongside future Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, who as a former Minister of Labor, was hired by John D. Rockefeller Jr. and helped change Rockefeller’s worker policies for the better. So its hard at first blush to tell what King did and what was Lee’s idea. But I have to say that Mackenzie King became Junior’s best friend and also the longest serving Prime Minister in Canadian history. Perhaps the two are not unrelated.

Was Lee successful in changing attitudes towards the Rockefellers regarding Ludlow? It appears to be.

If the documentary done in 2000 by PBS on the Rockefellers is any indication (see video above, set to start at the section on Ludlow – an interesting few minutes), it was wildly successful and lasting. With that much money brought to bear, it is remarkable that it shouldn’t be. Didn’t old man Rockefeller become well-known for handing out shiny dimes to children? Even the sympathetic portrayal of the family and the “hardships” of John D. Rockefeller Jr. about Ludlow in the PBS special is quite PR in itself. Those poor bastards certainly came across well 86 years after the massacre.

This is only my opinion and I have not tried to do an in-depth research and analysis here. But for those that care, my sympathies lie more with workers and families freezing in the Colorado snow, being shot at and burned by minions of those too wealthy and disinterested to care. All because they wanted a few extra pennies for risking their lives in the mines. How reprehensible.

My grandfather was a coal miner.

As a PR, the truly interesting thing is that neither the PR industry nor even sadly the United Mine Workers of America, as far as I could find, did anything special to commemorate the Ludlow anniversary this year – its 100th. No press release even.

Out of sight, out of mind. Now a lonely couple of signs on the John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway. Lee certainly did a good job.

One of our clients ran into a bad problem a week or so back that they didn’t even know about. So we wanted to share this information with the rest of our clients and others because it is something that might affect them and they would have no idea they were hurting themselves by doing it.

Website traffic down

What had occurred is that on a routine check of their website traffic, we noticed that their traffic had abruptly dropped. There was no apparent reason for this so we looked around and found that they had a large number of new links, over 60, pointing to their website from a university athletic program.

When we contacted the client, we found that they had entered into a sponsorship arrangement to support the athletic program and the university in appreciation had placed a large number of sponsorship notices acknowledging the support on their website.  Each notice had a link back to the client’s website.  Now that should be a good thing, shouldn’t it?

How can ads and links back to my website hurt me?

Well, the problem is those links violate Google’s Terms of Service in several ways. Without getting complex (if you want technical details, email me), basically Google views this type of link as spam and an attempt to improve a website’s search engine rankings by paying for the links, no matter how noble the contribution.  Google’s search engine automatically looks for such link schemes and without any warning or notice when found, traffic drops to the website that is the beneficiary of the links.

What to do

Now, it is totally possible to keep the links without incurring the Google penalty.

We contacted the university athletic program’s webmaster on behalf of our client and asked them to add a bit of code to each link so Google’s search engine would ignore them for search ranking purposes.  The coding tells the search engine to “no follow” the links.  We suggested they do this for all their sponsors because the negative value of these links would also be hurting their websites.

While these links are now useless for SEO purposes, the links are still there so people can use them to go to the client’s website which was the intention to begin with.  This makes Google happy, our client happy, the athletic program happy and us happy.

Shortly after implementing this, we noted that the traffic to the website went back up to its higher range.

The lessons learned

The major lesson here for others:

1. DO NOT fall prey to anyone emailing you that they can increase your website’s search rankings by having you purchase links. This can actually destroy your website’s traffic from Google and make it practically impossible to recover from. We’ve seen it happen.What may have been a workable practice a few years ago is now deadly.  SEO changes constantly.  Don’t take matters into your own hands unless you are up-to-date and knowledgable.
2. This same trouble can occur with online ads you purchase for your business. Although I hate writing it, even one bad link like this can be a problem from some of the expert articles we read daily on this subject.If you are doing an online sponsorship or buying online ads, all links to your website must be “no follow” and you should ensure this with the people you are doing the deal with.
3. If you are a client, you can consult with us before you do such a thing so we can make sure it will be beneficial for you and your website traffic.

The moral of the story is don’t let your website traffic get tackled by Google!

But public relations techniques can help leverage that word of mouth into reaching more potential customers. Those techniques can also help mend a business reputation when a product or service has not been up to snuff. It can make you a force for good in your community, which also helps you with your business goals whether you realize it at first or not. It is at least good for the soul to do something beneficial for others.

It’s all about people

Business is about relationships with people whether they be employees, shareholders, suppliers or customers. Even competitors. Public relations is the art of handling people through communication of various types – press, brochures, letters, etc. It exists as a business specialty to help increase goodwill with these various groups of business people to the end of helping a business succeed. A good definition of what PR does is “good works well publicized.”

So if we strip it all back – it simply comes down to persuading people to better like and trust you, your business and your products or services.

If the Rockefellers could go from the most hated men in America in 1914* to being viewed only a few years later as kindly and philanthropic with the old man being renowned for giving children shiny new 10 cent pieces, public relations can work for you too.

A word of warning though, the backbone of good public relations is truth. It is fatal in public relations to over-exaggerate or use untruths in making claims unless you are doing some sort of publicity stunt in which such hyperbole is acceptable.

Simple PR actions to do

Here are some simple PR actions you can take to increase your business’ visibility and goodwill.

1. Send out an email newsletter to your clients or customers every so often with good news about your company and products – not as a sales action but just to provide positive information. Make yourselves human.
2. Survey your customers, suppliers or employees to find out what they like most about your business and what they would like to see improved. Then reinforce the good points and correct the bad points. Let them know what you did.
3. Find a local community event and donate your product or service as a prize. You generally will get advertising in their promotional materials.
4. Find a relevant charity or cause that you would like to support and become an active member in promoting it.
5. Create a recognition award for customers or employees or suppliers. Make a big deal about it. Let your community press and industry press know. Send them some information about it and some photos. If they are interested, they will help you with this.

Target Public Marketing also supplies PR services. If you want to know more about what we can do for you, call us at 888-788-5124 or fill out the online form above.

* In April, 1914, coal miners at Rockefeller’s Colorado Fuel & Iron Company were on strike and living in a tent city outside Ludlow, Colorado. They were attacked by company security and National Guard. 18 men, 2 women and 11 children died – the Ludlow Massacre.

Back in 1994, when I began in an upstart internet firm in Toronto, the big conversation about the Internet was whether businesses should be on it at all. It had up to that point in time been the preserve of academia and a handful of geeks who wanted to see cyberspace continue to be unsullied by commercialism. Wild and wooly time.

Fortunately for myself, I helped to produce some of the first Internet banking sites on the web, a few of which won Internet banking awards. I fondly remember the time we set up the first website, at least that we were aware of, that did an online credit check and loan approval. There was a lot of excitement around the office when the programmers got it to work. Ah, Netscape Navigator was the browser of choice and the first budding of Internet Explorer happened around then.

Search engines? I used Alta Vista. I could usually find something on something within the first five pages of results. Fade to black.

Today, it is a different story
The net is no longer a novelty where people just “surf” for hours on end looking for new virtual experiences. It is a huge economic engine, helping to drive our economy. In the 2nd quarter of this year, e commerce accounted for $64.8 billion of sales according to the Department of Commerce and now represents 5.8% of all retail sales. It is growing fast too – up almost 5% from the first quarter of this year.

Every business needs to be on this bandwagon.

But it is not just e commerce as maybe your product or service is not e commerce friendly. It is about being on the web and being found by consumers or businesses interested in your product.

Hence we get back to Google and Bing – today’s search engine heavyweights. And really it is primarily Google which accounts for the majority of the traffic.

The point I want to make in this article though is that the size of today’s Internet is truly awe-inspiring and daunting.

Let’s look at the statistics
In the month of July 2013, in the U.S., there were 19.4 billion searches done.

How many is that? Well, if I gave you $1,000 a day, seven days a week, how long would it take you to collect 19 billion dollars? Um, around 52,019 years.

And Google handled 67% of those per comScore.com. Statcounter now puts it closer to 80% for July to August.

Last year, globally, Google handled itself over 1.8 trillion searches.

How many pages of the Internet has Google indexed (meaning has in their database and can be pulled up for a search request)?

It is estimated by worldwidewebsize.com to be just under 36 billion. Over a 100,000 years to collect that amount if I gave you $1,000 a day.

Awesome, eh? Pretty big elephant!

That’s what is sitting in your office and accessed by your computer.

If you want some help wrestling with that elephant, we have some expertise that might be able to help you out. I suggest you give our office a call.