Free Learning About Business Online

In the past weeks we saw that Search can lead to Instant Answers, effectively reducing the amount of information we're exposed to.

The people involved in that behavior are key parts of our economy: Informers, Decision Makers, Students and Consumers.

These key people at best expose themselves to a maximum of 30 entries per search. In general through they "see" none but the first 3 entries for any given search.
The Big Deal

This majority share of attention for a minority portion of information, combined with the illusion of relevance through ranking of results, constitutes their main impression of you, your company, your brand.
Here's What That Means

After a Google search showed that published psychotherapist Andrew Feldmar had used LSD in the late 1960's, he was rejected entry into the USA and is no longer welcome in that country.

Says a USA Customs and Border Protection agency spokesman; "If you are or have been a drug user that's one of the many things that can make you inadmissible to the United States."

One: are you sure about that early afternoon Vodka tweet you just published?

Two: how difficult is it to rank you as a drugs pushing kingpin?

In 2007 a man who had been missing for years mysteriously reappeared, having no recollection of what had happened.

While police and other investigators were still flabbergasted a single mother typed "John Anne Panama" into Google. The first image that came up is the one that solved the case and got John Darwin behind bars.

One: which photos of you are out there on the net? Do they support your story (whether the story is private or corporate branding is irrelevant).

Two: which of those photos could be made to harm you?

If you're one of the world's largest technology companies and people search for the scanning software you bundle, what are they to think when out of the first 5 results only one is positive? (Compare with K Mart, Tim Hortons and Purina who do better job of trying to control the conversation; top award goes to Nescafe which apparently has never ever done anything else but make great products, support faraway places and in general, page after page, has been nothing but a swell company...)

Here's What It Could Mean

The "3 first results" view we have on search is the Internet's equivalent of the 10 second sound bite.

Right now Obama's and McCain's results are quite clean, partly, I believe, because these searches are monitored for quality. Certain crap spam won't make it into these results until the election is well behind us.

But highlighting certain things from the past by making them come up through certain searches; this, I predict, will become common place.

Offensive SEO, so to say, will become common place. It will be sneaky and hard to trace as you can't monitor nor investigate every single search.

Matching good or damning "3 first results" to key and fringe searches will become as common place as buying AdWords for those searches is right now. Only AdWords is easily traceable, this isn't.

The key here is that you don't need to own the "conversation", you don't need to have every single blog post under control. You need to control the top 3 entries.

The task to build or destroy, improve or damage, might be much easier, much simpler, than we thought.

But before we talk about freelance web designers lets just have a think about the companies at the other end of the scale for a moment, that big glossy web design company that you drove past the other day.

You would have to agree that their shop front usually looks very good. Flashy graphics on the window and a nice metallic and neon sign may adorn the front of the shop. When you glance through the window there may be an impressive large plasma screen on the wall and a futuristic looking layout. There is probably a receptionist looking pretty at a desk just inside, and you may start to wonder how they can afford to pay for all this? It must cost a fortune to set up, not to mention the premises and staffing overheads. Well keep that thought in mind for a moment while we consider a similar situation.

Imagine that you need a workman of some kind, anything you like. Perhaps you want a gardener or someone to decorate your home, or even a plumber to fit a new bathroom. So you grab a directory, or perhaps you do a search on Google and you get a list of big name companies. They provide you with a quote, it seems to be a tad on the expensive side, but you think to yourself: “Well a quality job is worth paying for”.

So you get the company to start work, they send “Joe” a nice chap who works hard and does a really good job. During the course of his work day, over a coffee break you ask him how long he has been working for the company that sent him. He replies that he has been doing jobs for them on and off for a few years. He says that he works for himself when he can and the company call him when they need him to do a job for them. Knowing that you had agreed to pay £100 a day for the work to be done, you ask Joe what he would normally charge for a job like this when he works for himself, “around £65 a day” he replies.

And the extra 35 percent that you would have to pay over the top when you gp through the big company is what pays for their flashy shop front, and extra expense of the website design companies premises overheads.

It doesn’t buy you a better service, or a better quality website, in fact sometimes quite the reverse.

Speaking as a freelance website designer that has been paid by other web companies and design agencies to build websites for their customers, I know that what I charge for the job is much less than what the customer has to pay. Yet the actual website they get, is the same one I built for half the price they paid. If the customer had gone to the actual freelancer in the first place they would have paid far less, and often got a better job.

Why a better job? Simple, communication. When you rely on someone else to tell another person what you want, you can guarantee that something will get lost or distorted in the process. However if you can speak direct with the designer yourself, you can ensure they know exactly what you require.

Freelance web designers often work from an office at home. They don’t have to pay for staff, or pay high rental fees for a commercial premises. Their overheads are far lower than the company you drive past in the high street. This means that they don’t have to charge as much to earn the same as the big name companies, and that means that you get a top quality job done for much less.

So in summary, make sure that you talk to the designer yourself and that he understands what you are looking for. Take a look at his or her portfolio and ensure that the quality is good. Finally make sure that you are provided with a contract that states clearly how much the job will cost, and how long it will take and then sit back and treat yourself to something indulgent, you can afford it now that you have just saved so much money.