We have had a long and rewarding relationship with the Anchorage Cottages.  We’ve had the pleasure of working with several managers over the years, designing business cards, brochures, rate cards, postcards, and their original website.   That site was rockin’ back in 1998 when we built it!

In 2008, however, it was clear that the site’s time had passed.  Manager Lynette Dowty, who has an outstanding eye for design and a keen mind for business, committed to the process of starting from scratch with the outfit’s online presence.

Many of our clients come to us thinking they can throw money at us and *poof* they’ll have a website.  They’re right, but we’ll fight them tooth and nail about it.  Anyone can put up a web page with some text and a photo or three.  But it takes strong collaboration between the owners, managers, marketers and designers to build a good website that has a strong return on investment.

For small businesses, the owner, manager, marketer, designer, chief cook and bottle washer are all the same person.  Trying to find time to develop effective site content, carefully crafted text and photos, while also running the business and working in it…is daunting.  And so, despite the best of intentions, the site build took longer than any of us anticipated.  Wisely, Lynette made a commitment to quality over speed and we restructured the production schedule accordingly.

Keleigh was designer on the project, with Sabrina doing most of the build, with a little help from Karl and Kathy heading up search engine optimization.  Lynette provided the writing and photos.  We used a flash-based slideshow tool to run the cottage slideshows as well as the photo changing throughout the site.  Google’s inline maps make it easy for visitors to find the motel.  A full-service email newsletter rounds out the technical aspects of the build.

Here’s a little-known secret:  Anchorage Cottages are one of the most-booked vacation properties on the Peninsula.  In our business, we always meet information like that with a big “why?”.   The cottages have a vintage charm, while being updated, crisply clean and with all the amenities you’d expect to find at a flag motel.  Each is unique and a little funky, which is true of most “beach construction” of the era.  But the thing that really sets them apart from other properties is the FEEL of the place.  It’s akin to walking onto the set of Dirty Dancing; there’s a feeling of having arrived at the summer resorts some of us remember and most of us wish we had known.

There is a ball court, tennis, volleyball, lawn and dunes, a path to the beach.  They’re close to downtown activities, but far enough out of town that the quiet is blissful.  The staff is friendly and genuinely cares whether  you have a good time while staying with them.  They’re attentive, yet stay out of your way.  Dogs and kids are welcome; family reunions are common and the rates are downright reasonable.  It’s a place to gather.  It’s a place for a retreat of solace.  Kitchens, fireplaces, books, games–the R&R of the vacations of our childhoods.  All these things combine to make the occupancy rates of the Anchorage Cottages incredibly strong.   What that means to visitors is:  BOOK EARLY!

Check out the site.  We’re proud of it and welcome your feedback!

Then came the babies.  In the last year or so, eight (yes, 8) infants have entered the Schwartz world.  Their parents post pictures on MySpace.  One of the mixed blessings of sites like these is that you have control over the information you post insomuch as it can be visible only to friends, or to the world at large.  These parents are wisely not making the photos available to the general public, so I had to sign up for an account, and become an online friend, to see the babes.  I soon found a number of our friends and family members were using the online tool to easily stay connected and I found myself doing the same.

“Professional Research” I called it.  I really should find out more about the ins and outs of all these sites.  Thus, my FaceBook, Digg, YouTube, Blogger, WordPress, LinkedIn and other accounts.  Overwhelm is an understatement.  Each of these sites take a unique spin on the same general concept: connecting people easily. Here’s a short, to-the-point, explanation of social networking:

Most of our friends and colleagues received a request recently to become a member of Linkedin.com, the social network for business connections.  Why Linkedin?  Because LinkedIn, Digg, and BusinessWeek’s Business Exchange offer good search engine optimization opportunities. Unlike the purely social MySpace and FaceBook, linking between these sites and your business site actually does your search rank some good.

To get the full value, it’s important to participate in these online communities on a regular basis; the more you participate the more “popular” your profile will become, which will only help your search engine optimization efforts.  So start with LinkedIn and spend a little time there every week.  If you have time and interest, add Business Exchange, which you can sync with LinkedIn.  Try Digg.  Just remember that you have to participate for the links to be very useful.  Just signing up won’t help much.

So, enjoy MySpace or FaceBook for fun and check out LinkedIn, Digg and Business Exchange for professional networking.  It won’t take long and it might just help your business.

P.S.  Comment on this post if you want me to write about how to use sites like Twitter to ramp up sales.  Twitter is a social service for communicating and staying connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

Such is the case with Homespun Quilts.  When we first built Lydia and Thor’s site in the spring of 2007, we included a blog as a standalone application.  While it was integrated into the site, it wasn’t the backbone.  Lydia has been editing their site using Contribute, a great choice for editing html-driven websites without having to learn, well, html.

Recently, Karl and Sabrina converted the site to being completely built with WordPress.  Now Lydia can manage both her blog and her website using the same online interface.  Updates are simple and in real-time, making editing the site even easier for her–and no more costs in updating editing software.

Better still, there is some search engine advantage to having her site built using a social networking tool like WordPress, if she uses it well.  Regular posts, attention to key words and a few other tips will undoubtedly increase the presence of Homespun Quilts on Google, MSN, Yahoo! and the like.

The fun part of this upgrade is the variety of plug-ins available for WordPress 2.7.  Take Lydia’s New Year’s Survey and notice her whirling tag cloud.  These are just a couple of the new ‘toys’ she has in store for her customers.  Stay tuned!

Expecting out-of-town guests in 2009?
The Beach Vacation Planner shipment was delayed due to snow but is due to arrive at the Visitors Bureau on December 30th.  Stop by and pick up a copy.  We’re really proud of this year’s Planner!

Do you recognize that young clammer on the cover?
That’s the Peninsula’s own Laurel Kirsch, somewhere near Ocean Park in 1947!  Click the image for a closer look, then close that window to return here.

All members are invited for some nibbles and to cast their vote in the Board election.  There will be a State of the Shelter address (by President Keleigh), so it’s a good time to find out what’s going on at the Humane Society.

Join us!

What is Kwanzaa?  (part 2)

1. Don’t use misleading sender or subject lines.
2. Add your postal address to every email you send.
3. If your email list isn’t opt-in, include a clear notice that states the email is an advertisement or solicitation.
4. Include a clear and visible ‘unsubuscribe’ mechanism.
5. Be sure you handle unsubscribes within ten days.  Your website should do so electronically but you also need a process in place for handling those that come by fax, telephone, regular mail and in person.
6. Offer recipients a way to receive some types of email from you while blocking others.  They also need a “global unsubscribe” option which stop all future email from you.
7. Don’t share the address of a person who unsubscribed with anyone.
8. Don’t harvest email addresses or use automated means to generate addresses randomly.
9. Remove any sexually oriented material from your messages. (read more if you want to send sexually-oriented broadcast email)
10. Don’t use fraudulent transmission data, such as open relays and false headers.  In other words, don’t try to fake anyone out about where the mail came from.

2008’s version of the law brought a lovely perk to site owners: If you want to protect email addresses on your site from being harvested, add a notice you don’t “give, sell, or otherwise transfer” these addresses to “any other party for the purpose of initiating, or enabling others to initiate,” email messages.  It’s not fool-proof, to be sure.  You’re going to have spam if you publish your address.  But at least they won’t be from folks bound by the laws of the USA.

Interested enough to read more?  This article on clickz.com is good and links to all the pertinent documents.