My Pagerank recently went up from a 1 to a 3 for You Design It practically overnight. I wish I knew why but I am not going to complain. For those of you who don’t know what that means; it’s a grading system that Google gives out for sites as they try to build up traffic. It is based on a 10 point scale and the only 10/10 that I know of is actually Google. Some examples of 9/10’s would be CNN, AOL and other behemoths.

The Pagerank system is actually patented by Stanford University (where Sergey Brin and Larry Page attended school) and there is a lot of speculation about the core components of the algorithm. Some include:

• Site Traffic
• Cleanliness of the site’s architecture, code, and crawlability
• Structure and Quality of content
• Amount of quality inbound links

There are many others factors and we know that the algorithm changes often to beat the search engine gamers out there. So what is Google’s advice to increase your Pagerank? Just run a quality site and the rest will take care of itself.

There are a few perks with my job when handling customer service. I know what you’re thinking…”customer service can have perks?” Not always, but there are few that just feel good after we get off the phone with a customer who has just purchased our products. We love to receive compliments and that is an obvious bonus but my favorite is one where we surprise the customer with service they didn’t expect.

Lately, we have been getting a lot of calls for express shipping or rush jobs. Our policy is that custom t shirts and apparel will be delivered to you in 10 work days or less. The truth is that 9 times out of 10 we routinely beat that timeframe. Most of our customers know this and expect to pay more because we post a 25% upcharge for 6 days or less. We don’t offer a faster option at check out because we know they will contact us to give the date they need them by. When they do and we tell them that we are going to make it on that date or sooner without an extra charge, we can just tell that we made their day.

In return, they make ours.

I have been writing recently about Content Management Systems and have finally chosen one. I am going to post much more about it later but the main reason I needed a CMS was landing pages. These are pages on a websites that are directed towards very targeted groups of your customers. For instance, it would be You Design It having a single page with a lot of information on it for Softball Teams or another page for Christian Groups or another for Houston Screenprinting, etc.

These landing pages are great for directing those specific groups to the exact information/products/designs they are looking for. I think they have a lot of use and are definitely handy when you have a lot of content on your website. However, there are some web companies who are abusing those pages to get higher in the search engines. These companies have caused a group to form named “No More Landing Pages” that is against targeted landing pages altogether. Kind of silly and a bit extreme if you ask me. I just hope they cool their jets and don’t get the ear of Google. I don’t want to be punished for hard/smart work.

Growth is an adjective, grow is a verb. We want to grow. We are putting a strategy in place that will either catapult us into another level or drop us flat on our face. We could continue to move at the pace we’ve been going, which has been impressive, or we can jump right in headfirst and take some market share. We have decided on the latter. To commemorate the decision there was nothing else to do but print a shirt. The artwork is below:

I am currently looking for someone who can help me out with You Design It and Defy Distribution. I need them to be a jack-of-all-trades and master of none. This person would be willing to work hard and think harder. Please let me know if anyone has any suggestions or referrals. You get a free custom designed shirt for giving me a good referral. I preferably need them to be well versed in the Web 2.0 space and the less training by me….the better. Here is a short list of my needs:

• Receptive to instruction and learning
• Organized and timely
• Intuitive Thinking
• Marketing Background
• Good at analyzing data and making changes
• Programming knowledge helps
• Design experience helps

This is just a simple list and our timeline is flexible because we only want the right person. This person would need to be located in Houston and that is a non-negotiable. Here are a short list of the perks:

• Solid compensation
• No sales
• Laid back attire
• Start-up atmosphere
• Free Clothes
• Chance at revenue sharing
• Quarterly and Year-End Bonuses

Let me know who you think would be good for this position….

I came across a pretty cool site called CMS Matrix that does great comparison work on Content Management Systems. You can select from over 100 different CMS and create a matrix of their features along with their costs. I just found a new contender in the CMS search but I don’t want to list it just yet until everyone has been given their chance. I was sold on a particular system until I was given the opportunity to look elsewhere due to poor first impressions. There will be more to come……

That new space we were looking into in my previous post will be decided on this Wednesday. I have to say that I am don’t want to post any pictures just yet. If we decide to go with this place, there will be plenty of before and after photos but not until the “after” is complete. This place is rough! We are about to get down and dirty with it. There will be more to come….