Erich Stauffer

Author: Erich Stauffer

  • Introducing a Brand New Way to Market Your Business

    Grow Your Business Organically

    A lot of SEO companies market how they will promote your business online using Internet marketing and online advertising techniques, but Erich Stauffer noticed a gap between where promotion stops and business begins and so we used social media management to not just promote your business, but grow your business.

    Digital Marketing Strategy

    We’ll work with you to create a comprehensive strategy to marry your business brand, vision, values, products, and services with traditional outdoor, radio, TV, and yellow page advertising alongside social networking and social spaces like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and other technologies like apps for the iPhone and Android phones.

    SEO is Not Enough – Content Marketing

    It’s no longer enough to have a top-ranking website in Google if your web site is not converting traffic, your story is not consistent, and you are not creating lasting relationships with customers. Erich Stauffer can help you to do all three with content marketing.

    Social Media Management

    We are excited to offer social media management to help your business organize and streamline their marketing efforts with a consistent message that is in-line with their mission, vision, and values. We believe so strongly about this product that we would be happy to take you out to lunch to show you how it works in a one-on-one session. Are you interested in learning more?

  • The 8-Bit Generation

    The 8-Bit Generation are those born in or around 1980 who knew a time before Nintendo, Nickelodeon, and personal computers.  Their favorite video games are The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros, and Final Fantasy.  Their technology’s performance could still be influenced by blowing harder on the controller or by demagnetizing the tape deck before use.  If you said, “I don’t know,” you were likely to get slime dumped on your head.  In 1986 Double Dare debuted and the Space Shuttle Challenger blew up.  We knew technology could fail us and that we were all still human after all, but we all still had land lines and it was expensive to call long distance.  900 numbers ruled late night television when Nick at Night was still playing My Three Sons.  Nowadays it plays past episodes of Full House, the same show that played when the 8-Bit Generation was in elementary school.

    Some elementary schools had Apple II’s, but by the time they got to middle school, public schools had begun buying personal computers (PCs) running DOS and the first versions of Microsoft Office.  By high school they would have PCs running Windows 95 and the Internet.  They would be the last generation to grow up without having the Internet their entire high school career and the last generation to not have cell phones in the class room.  The closest any of the 8-bit generation had to a cell phone in high school was a beeper because most cell phone’s batteries were so large you could only use them in your car.  Most Internet connections at home were dial-up and AOL ruled the land with it’s floppy disks.  The first CD-R drives cost $400, more than some computers cost today.

    The 8-Bit Generation went to college in the middle of the Dot Com Crash and 9/11.  They graduated with less hope of finding a job than their immediate predecessors, Generation X.  They still dressed like they did in high school.  They think a Polo over a t-shirt and some stone-washed jeans is cool and if you swap the pants for some khakis and add a sweater they’re dressed up.  They believe white shoes are for dorks and prefer leather shoes like Dockers or Doc Marten’s.  They think of Angelina Jolie more of a Hacker than of Salt. They believe the future is possible and that it is here.  They don’t want to work, but they will.  Not everything was handed to them, but they did have it easier than their parents, but their children may not.  Those children, the sons and daughters of the 8-Bit Generation are now in kindergarten and elementary school.  They are using iPhones and iPads to communicate and play games.  They’ve never known anything other than always-on broadband Internet, streaming movies, video games on cell phones, and text messaging (they don’t even know or care what AOL is).  They are the 64-Bit Generation.

    Other Signs that the 8-Bit Generation is Now Running the Show

    This year (2010) we’ve seen Toyota recall vehicles for sticky accelerators and engines that randomly stop.  We’ve seen cereal from Kellog’s and medicine from Johnson and Johnson recalled for weird smells and tastes. And we’ve seen a steady stream of just downright bad-for-you stuff from China including cadmium-covered glasses at McDonalds.  All signs point to the Nintendo generation being in charge of quality control.  With their “80% is good enough” mentality, most of the stuff we drive, eat, and drink out of is good alright, but it’s that last 20% that is questionable.  Is this a sign of things to come?  What happens when the 8-bit generation takes over the power grid, the water system, and air traffic controls? I guess having power for 80% of the day is better than Baghdad, and that’s good enough for me.

  • Sell the Hole

    Merchants who sell drills are in fact selling pieces of mechanized metal, but the actual reason for the drill’s existence is to make holes. What the merchant is really selling is the hole.  The person buying the drill either wants to make a hole or drive a screw.  That’s it.  If they didn’t need one of those two things, they wouldn’t need the drill.

    So how can we relate that to our customers? Are we trying to sell our customers “the drill”? Are we helping our customers sell the drill or sell the hole? Why are our customers customers buying their product? Is it because of the product or the result they get from the product? Of course it is the latter.  We help customers identify what the “holes” are, what the end results of their products are and sell the solution, not the tool.

  • Geek Hand and The Settler’s League

    Hate the Game, Not the Player

    I set out to create a new “Home” brand of technology consulting so that I could offer Indianapolis computer repair in homes without damaging the brand I was establishing with business customers.  I came up with “Professional Technology Consulting at Home,” but the domain was taken so I started looking around and trying different keywords.  I found that “codageek.com – The last geek you’ll ever need,” was available, but I kept looking.  I eventually stumbled upon “geekhand.com” after looking up synonyms for ‘friendly’ (handy).

    I liked “Geek Hand” enough to consider grabbing it, but I wanted to do a little bit of research on the name and domain first.  I found that it had been used prior by another person for personal use and had since been abandoned.  I liked that there were already a lot of backlinks to it from other sites, but because much of the links were from sites about gaming, I wondered if it was the right fit for my in-home computer repair business product I was developing for Indianapolis business consulting firm, Watershawl, Inc., where I was CEO.  It seemed like it might be better off as a part of my blog network at Cost Publishing Media Group as a board game micro-site.

    I went ahead and picked up the domain, setup WordPress, the theme, the plugins, and the SEO.  I created a logo for it which consisted of a 0 and 1 which has both game and binary code meanings.  I used this logo as a background on Twitter and as it’s icon.  By the way, I don’t hardly purchase domains unless the username is also available on Twitter.  In this case, both were available and I took that as a sign before purchasing the domain.  While all of this setup is going on I’m thinking about content and products to sell or promote.  I did a quick search on Amazon and determine that board games, video games, and card games would be my primary products with the “news” of the site being centered around the geek culture of movies, television, and conventions like Comic-Con.

    To promote the site automatically I did two things: I setup a Tumblr account to pull in WordPress posts automatically push tweets out to Twitter and a Facebook page to push out to Twitter anything I post there.  So I only really have to post in WordPress, then copy the link to the post to Facebook to post on what is now the ‘Settler’s League’ page there in order to have coverage to Tumblr, Facebook, and Twitter all at once.  Sometimes I’ll bounce those around on my Facebook wall and on other Twitter accounts I manage for different brands.

    The next step was to add content and put the promotional procedure into place, which I did.  I had a minor problem with links overflowing in the footer, but a quick CSS tweak fixed that.  I have a WordPress theme that I use as a base for most of my Cost Pub sites.  I also make custom WordPress themes and do web design and SEO for the Indianapolis area using Watershawl’s Growmotion marketing where we Growmote web sites–first we build them then we promote them; don’t just promote your business, grow your business with Growmotion.

    Update: I have since converted Geek Hand into more of it’s original role of personal computer repair, but with a slant towards mobile phones – a play on the ‘hand’ in the title.  Here’s the link to the new Geek Hand Facebook page in case you’re interested and a link to Settler’s League’s home page.

  • Newspaper Delivery

    Top 5 Reasons People State as Reason for Stopping the Paper:

    5. I can’t afford it.
    4. I don’t read the paper in the summer.
    3. I don’t have time to read it.
    2. Paper quality.
    1. I never ordered the paper.

    Top 5 Estimated Reasons Why Someone Would Order the Paper:

    5. Coupons.
    4. TV listings.
    3. Local sports coverage.
    2. Delivery service.
    1. View their name in print.

    Top 5 Estimated Actual Reasons Why Someone Stops the Paper:

    5. They realize everything in the paper is also on the Internet.
    4. The coupons are all for things they don’t really want to buy.
    3. It increases the amount of garbage they have to take out.
    2. The writing is Bush League.
    1. They have yet to see their name or anyone elses name they know in print.

  • Twitter Deactivation

    I just got a little scare when I clicked, “Sign out,” at Twitter and got the message, “Your account will be deactivated, Bye!” I logged back in successfully, but am still unsure of what is going on. Hopefully it’s just a glitch at Twitter and will be fixed soon.

  • The First Day of the Rest of My Life

    While the title of this post sounds a little dramatic, today I did turn in a resignation letter to my day-time job.  The job was well paying and secure.  I had friends and freedom there, but it wasn’t what I was passionate about and the moment I thought I could get away to do what I was passionate away, I did.  It wasn’t an easy decision though.

    A week ago I asked God how I should be spending my time to create revenue.  I decided to fast for 7 nights, skipping supper each night to pray instead.  By the end of the week, my wife and I both came to the same conclusion.  It was time to leave.  After that, our ideas of how things should go slightly differ.  She wants me to spend some time looking for another job and I want to take care of my current customers and build my own business, but I have a feeling I’ll do a little bit of both.  I’ve already informed a couple of old jobs I had that I would be willing to work for them again when needed.

    My wife is pregnant with our fourth child.  We don’t yet know what the sex is or how many there might be or whether or not we’ll have insurance.  My hope is that the path God led us down includes provisions for all of that and as long as I continue to pray and follow that path.  I have goals and plans to focus on the Indianapolis web design business, Growmotion, and Cost Publishing, my blog network, while doing contract work for an Indianapolis computer repair firm and Watershawl [a web design and SEO company I ran from 2007 to 2012].

    I don’t know what the future holds, but I have just under four weeks left at my current job to start finding out.  I have to figure out how I’m going to structure my day working at home, how much time I’m going to spend with my family playing, teaching, and eating, and how much time I’m going to spend resting and reading.  There are a lot of unknowns, but one thing is for sure, today is the first day of the rest of my life, but then again, every day is.

  • My Media Heroes

    I’d like to share who some of my heroes and inspirations in the publishing business (bloggers, media moguls, and Internet marketers) have been and are:

    • Nick Denton: President and founder of Gawker Media, an online publishing group which puts out titles such as Gawker, Gizmodo and Lifehacker. Nick has been involved in internet media since 1996, first writing on the subject for the Financial Times of London, and then founding two companies in the late 1990s. First Tuesday, an internet-era events business with branches in 80 cities, was sold in 2000. Moreover Technologies, which is headquartered in London, provides news search technology to Fortune 500 companies and portals such as MSN. After graduating from Oxford University, Nick began his career as a foreign correspondent for the FT during the revolutions in eastern Europe. Later, while investment banking correspondent, he co-authored All That Glitters, the definitive account of the collapse of Barings Bank.
    • J. Michael Arrington: Founder and co-editor of TechCrunch, a blog covering the Silicon Valley technology start-up communities and the wider technology field in USA and elsewhere. Magazines such as Wired and Forbes have named Arrington one of the most powerful people on the Internet. In 2008, he was selected by TIME Magazine as one of the most influential people in the world. Wired magazine also included him in a flowchart of “internet blowhards” citing his obsession with “Web 2.0”.
    • Walt Disney: During a 43-year Hollywood career, which spanned the development of the motion picture medium as a modern American art, Walter Elias Disney, a modern Aesop, established himself and his product as a genuine part of Americana. David Low, the late British political cartoonist, called Disney “the most significant figure in graphic arts since Leonardo DaVinci.” A pioneer and innovator, and the possessor of one of the most fertile imaginations the world has ever known, Walt Disney, along with members of his staff, received more than 950 honors and citations from every nation in the world, including 48 Academy Awards and 7 Emmys in his lifetime. Walt Disney’s personal awards included honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, the University of Southern California and UCLA; the Presidential Medal of Freedom; France’s Legion of Honor and Officer d’Academie decorations; Thailand’s Order of the Crown; Brazil’s Order of the Southern Cross; Mexico’s Order of the Aztec Eagle; and the Showman of the World Award from the National Association of Theatre Owners.
    • Rupert Murdoch: An Australian-born American media magnate and the founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of News Corporation, often called News Corp. Beginning with one newspaper in Adelaide, Murdoch acquired and started other publications in his native Australia before expanding News Corp. into the United Kingdom, United States and Asian media markets. Although it was in Australia in the late 1950s that he first dabbled in television, he later sold these assets, and News Corp.’s Australian current media interests (still mainly in print) are restricted by cross-media ownership rules. Murdoch’s first permanent foray into TV was in the UK, where he created Sky Television in 1989. In the 2000s, he became a leading investor in satellite television, the film industry and the Internet.  Murdoch and News Corp now own MySpace, Fox, and the Wall Street Journal.
    • Alan Webber: An award-winning, nationally-recognized editor, author and columnist, he launched Fast Company, the fastest growing, most successful business magazine in history and winner of two national magazine awards, one for excellence and one for design. He was named Adweek’s Editor of the Year in 1999, along with co-founding editor William Taylor. Webber understands the important characteristics of a “fast company”: the ongoing competition for the best people, for great ideas, and for the right way to think about leadership.
    • Biz Stone: Co-founder, Twitter Inc. Stone helped found things besides Twitter: Xanga, Blogger and Odeo. He worked for Google with Blogger. He once won a debate at Oxford Union.
    • Mark Elliot Zuckerberg: An American entrepreneur best-known for co-founding the popular social networking site Facebook with fellow Harvard classmates, Dustin Moskovitz, Eduardo Saverin, and Chris Hughes where Zuckerburg is now CEO. He is currently one of the youngest billionaires in the world with personal wealth of US$4 billion in 2010 due to his 24% share of Facebook.
    • Matt Mullenweg: The founding developer of WordPress, the blogging software that runs much of this site and millions of other sites around the world. He wrote the foreword to WordPress for Dummies and the French WordPress book. Matt worked at CNET Networks, but left in 2005 to found Automattic, which is the company behind WordPress.com, Akismet, Gravatar, bbPress, IntenseDebate, and BuddyPress. Matt is or has been an adviser to Sphere, WeGame, Rescuetime, and Foodzie.

  • About Google Caffeine

    Google Caffeine is the latest version of the search engine’s algorithm, or method by which they search and index the Internet. One thing that hasn’t changed is that backlinks are still important, but other things have.

    One major change is that the search engine now can update it’s index in seconds, instead of days, which means that anything you post on your website, blog, or Twitter will be updated in Google’s search results within seconds as long as its in the index of results already. This is powerful because it means that the search engine is extremely up-to-date at almost every moment.

    The other big change is how it views relevance. Relevance is how Google determines whether or not your page is worth ranking at the top of the search results. In the beginning Google used a mathematical formula that took into account the number of pages linking back to your page, the content on your page, the content of the pages linking to your page, and the links from your page to other relevant sites (based on content). That core feature is still in the algorithm, but it’s been added to and tweaked over the years.

    No one except the Google engineers know what the algorithm actually looks for, but we have hints from its behavior and from Google’s blog that lead us to believe that a new feature of Caffeine is that the search engine now takes synonyms used on the page as a factor in determining relevance. This means that a site that uses a keyword of “web design” should also have related terms like “web hosting, SEO, and web development.” If you think about it, it makes sense as it builds context around a term. For those who have built their web sites around a primary keyword, this can hurt, but if you write naturally and really know what you are talking about, this should be okay. Just keep in mind that internal and external linking to relevant sites with similar content will help your site have relevance and get better search engine rank results.

    If you need help getting better results, contact us.