Sandstorm Design SEO website grade: 99/100

I love taking tests. Sounds weird, I know, but I love learning, and tests are a quick way for me to discover what I don't know and immediately pinpoints an area or two that I can improve on. And I found a website SEO tool that tests your website and gives you a grade. Sandstorm Design got 99/100!

When it comes to SEO and marketing your website, the high level concepts don't often change (write strong original content, continue to add to that content, attract quality links, etc). What does change are all the new things you can do to increase your odds that people will come back to your website and promote your content, which in turn drives more traffic. Of all the website SEO tools, I like Website Grader. (an no, they didn't pay for that link). When I find a tool I like, I share it. And what I like most is that Website Grader put together in a very organized fashion what they look for in the analysis, what you can do to improve your website, and if you want more help, where to go. And it's free.

How marketing takes companies from silver to gold

Zak recently emailed me an article about why bronze medalists are happier than those who win silver, with a small note that read "reminded me of you". I didn't even have to read the article to know what he meant. I hate the B+, the second place, the silver, the most defeating words from a potential client, "We really struggled with this decision, the two companies we narrowed down to were so great..." you know the rest. You get the B+, the 89%, the race through your head if there was anything else you could have done, had a stronger pitch, shown more expertise, presented a more cohesive plan, a better demo, etc.

For years we have been working on going for the gold, striving to make that emotional connection, and helping our clients do the same. Strategic marketing and strong branding can't necessarily help silver medalists, but it can help companies who are tired of hearing from their sales team that a competitor just won their business, again. With strong positioning, a consistent brand, and a strategic message, marketing can bring a brand to life, clearly demonstrate added value, and in the end, be that one "gut" feeling that makes your company win the gold (over and over again). Ready to start training for that gold medal?

Web Design Firm Adds Senior Interactive Web Developer

Welcome David Powers, Senior Interactive Web Developer - the newest addition to the Sandstorm Design user experience and technology team! We are so excited to have David driving our interactive web development with his unique skill set of flash and flex application development, database development, php, ajax and his X factor - SEO optimization! And even better than that - David is a professional piano player and musical genius.

Welcome David. We can't wait to work with you.

Sandstorm is Hiring! Senior Interactive Web Developer

Hello world! Sandstorm Design is starting the year off right and our Chicago office is hiring! Our ideal candidate is a senior level interactive web developer with flash, flex, php, jquery, ajax, and database skills. After you have all that, we want to hear about what else you have up your sleeve? Do you dabble in facebook applications? Mobile apps? Are you interested in what Adobe is doing with Cold Fusion? Or do you prefer to edit video in your spare time?

At Sandstorm, you have the job you are hired for, and then you have your X factor.Whatever your X factor is, we want to hear about it! The senior interactive web developer we are looking for must be brilliant, innovative and fearless. I know it may seem like we're asking for the world, but we're asking the world to find us our senior developer.

Interested in applying? Contact us and send us your resume, sample urls, and your X factor.

Copywriting jobs in Chicago: Marketing company looking for an SEO copywriter

Are you an overachiever? Sandstorm Design is hiring! Our interactive agency in Chicago is seeking a part-time Interactive Copywriter to join our team with an entrepreneurial spirit :) We want to hear from you!

Candidates must have a minimum of 2 years of Interactive Copywriting experience in an agency environment, with a heavy background in SEO copywriting. We are looking specifically for web sites, articles, press releases, e-newsletters, and blog entries that really capture the personality of the client you were doing the copywriting for. (We don't need you to have any CSS or html skills as we have a web development team on staff.) If you have link building experience, that's a plus!

Our dream candidate for this job is a quick and sharp copywriter, with exceptional writing skills and attention to detail who understands SEO and internet marketing. A copywriter who is ambitious, driven and a self-starter to come up with your own ideas, conduct your own marketing research, and be comfortable researching new SEO opportunities. Your deadlines will be your responsibility in our fast-paced environment.

To apply for this copywriting job, please submit resume, hourly rate, writing samples/urls and hours you are available to jobs@sandstormdesign.com. Resumes without interactive copywriting samples will not be considered. Please NO phone calls. If you have any questions, please comment to this post and we will respond for all to see.

Sandstorm Design's Expansion Featured in the Chicago Tribune!

We are starting 2010 with a bang by being featured in the business section of today's Chicago Tribune. The article, "Small Businesses See Good Omens for 2010," talks to small business owners anticipating new opportunities and significant growth in the coming year. In addition to a few key quotes, the Tribune also took a photo of us in the office during construction. I love that during this "economic time," the news is printing stories of hope, optimism, and growth. And I am honored to be a part of that story. Thank you Ann Meyer for such a great article!

It was a fun morning waking up to a series of emails from friends and family that had seen the paper before I did. And the best phone call was from my grandparents (ages 87 and 88) who not only had a copy for themselves, but asked all their neighbors for theirs so now they have a collection of their "famous granddaughter." I have an incredible family, and am so grateful that my grandparents have not only seen the birth of my two children, but the growth of Sandstorm as well. My grandma asked me today what we do at Sandstorm, so I explained that we build web sites and interactive web applications, then gave her an example of what an interactive web application is. After a few silent moments, she finally said "so you work on computers?"

Showing gratitude for random talents in the office

Sometimes at Sandstorm your day at the office is nothing like your job description. Here's a few people that have contributed in big ways this week. I really appreciate that all of these things got done without a hitch. (deep sigh of pure appreciation for your random talents and strengths)

- Thank you Alma for stuffing, sorting, organizing our mailing list, buying stamps and mailing all of our holiday cards. And an extra thanks for going to IKEA with a fever and cold so we could get our furniture delivered this week!
- Thank you Zachary for building all of our IKEA furniture.
- Thank you Jon for moving all of the heavy bookshelves across the office floor.

I am positive that I miss opportunities to thank people every day, but I will work on that as a new year's resolution :)

Interactive and marketing firm expands footprint - the big reveal

Our big reveal - Sandstorm Design has officially expanded. We took down the plastic barrier to reveal our new addition. IKEA delivered all of our furniture, so I can imagine we'll have small teams building out the desks, tables, and chairs all day. Our current space is still cluttered, but we'll work all week on organizing our chaos. It's a proud day here at Sandstorm as our interactive/user experience/marketing/web design agency expands our footprint! (Clearly we're still working out what adjective best describes us. We struggle just like our clients.)

The blue huddle room that you can see lit up is what we call our 'fish bowl' because of the large amount of windows and the deep blue interior. By tomorrow we should have our table and chairs in there ready for some official Sandstorming (i.e. our marketing term for brainstorming)! If Zachary is around, I am sure he'll take more photos. He has been our photo journalist on this rehab adventure.

Chicago Tribune photoshoot today

Merry Christmas to all and to all a half day! The Chicago Tribune was here to shoot some photos of the office for an upcoming story in January, and the painters are finishing up some of the trim. They got some great shots of our sweeping plastic drape and cluttered space. We've got the holiday shopping spirit and are doing some group online shopping at IKEA to get new desks, conference room tables, and chairs. Our plan is to take down the curtain on Monday to do our formal unveil of the new addition, and of course we'll have photos!

We're taking a half day today to start the holiday weekend early, so Merry Christmas everyone!

Online video shows all... of the wall that is. Thanks Jon!

Chicago marketing firm is making some noise today!

Starting bright and early at 7am this morning, the metal studs were cut to unite our two spaces. When I first called the office, Zak answered the phone "It's a loud day here at Sandstorm" which made me laugh "out loud". If you call Sandstorm enough and are fortunate to get him to answer, he's always got a witty and generally funny phrase for the day. I could tell in the background that the noise was annoying pretty much everyone, so to thank them all for their patience and tolerance through the noise today, I took the Sandstorm team out to Jury's for lunch. Yum!

Now it's nearly 4pm and our construction crew is gone. We finally have some peace and quiet to do our interactive and marketing magic, and the huge draping plastic wrap is a unique creative inspiration. It's actually so eerily quiet in here that it feels a lot like a serious corporate environment... I can actually hear the hum of my laptop and the slight clatter of a few keyboards.

The rise and fall of our south wall: our marketing and interactive design firm is in growth mode!

Our new neighboring space was painted today (whoo hoo!), and has such a creative, fun, lofty yet still marketing and interactive agency look to it. The old walls were gray and electric blue, which was interesting, but didn't have our more signature sandstorm look. Plus the gray made me sad, so I just love the new shade of blond that replaced it.

In addition, we are introducing "the fishbowl". It's one of two new huddle rooms with tons of glass windows, with interior walls painted blue, so it kind of feels like you are in a fishbowl when you are working in it. It's going to be great to reduce the sound of the trains on conference calls, and is a great brainstorming room. Jon is donating some old floor lamps for ambiance. Thanks Jon!

And I can't forget our newest lunchroom. Ah... no more having to clean up the conference room or usability lab last minute because a group decided to grab lunch together, and leave random things behind. Now we have a large, bright space that will probably always have hot sauce packets on the table or tables - we haven't decided if we want a few smaller tables or one big one.

So right before Christmas we're going to get just the greatest gift... A new and improved, much larger space for 2010! Thank you to my fabulous and dedicated staff and to our clients for making this possible as we continue to grow as one of Chicago's emerging boutique interactive agencies. :)

another interactive and creative tradition is in the works: the "jammie bake-off"

We're still working out the details, but it looks like we're finalizing on our very first "sandstorm jammie bake-off". Maybe it's the competitive streak in us, or the crazy creatives at the office, or the random baked goods that some of us bring in, but it appears just one guac-off a year is not enough for us. We're thinking February, when the snow has fallen, the ice is cold, and we're all ready for spring to get here. Why not celebrate with a baking competition? Now the jammies, yes I mean pajamas, are a requirement to enter. And the dessert of your choice? Well, we're still working on the rules there (and we're not sure if we need them yet).

Making progress on our rehab next door

The new huddle rooms sure went up fast! It took only 2 days and we were able to walk in and experience the basic layout of our new space. Very cool! We are all anxiously awaiting our two new brainstorming rooms so we can hold internal meetings, conference calls, and additional research work (for when we are doubled up on our usability lab). They will also be a great place to get some quiet time when the crew gets a bit rowdy - usually near the end of the day. And it's been said that Sandstorm is one place is the morning, and a totally different place after 4pm :)

We're also getting tons of new space for new workstations, and will have the room we need for growth in 2010.

Interactive and Creative Traditions at our 5th Annual Holiday Tapas Party

Here at Sandstorm, we take being creative and interactive pretty seriously. Even our holiday party is interactive and ultra creative, but I don't mean the technically-savvy, online kind of interactive. We share tapas for hours, play "dirty santa" and have developed our own traditions...

All staff and significant others are invited to a tapas feast at Cafe Ba Ba Reeba (open bar, open table of unlimited tapas - this year we had 8 plates of bacon wrapped dates . We get our own room now because we kind of need it so we don't bother the other patrons). Anyone who wants to play buys a gift and wraps it up all fancy. My gift wrapping ability is poor, so I blamed it on my 3 year old son.

Anyway, gifts are piled on a table while we sip sangria, scope out the size/shape/wrapping of the gifts, and prepare to draw numbers to see who gets to go first. Number 1 goes first, and gets to select any gift from the table. He/she opens it, and then the second person gets to either steal #1's gift, or make a new selection. This process of swapping and unwrapping goes until all the gifts are open. Then #1 gets to see everything and get the gift of their choice. Holly has some how been #1 two years in a row... hmm.

Somehow along the way we all manage to eat hundreds of tapas, and still have room for desert. Due to everyone's schedules, we have our holiday party on a Sunday night. So we give everyone the day off that Monday. Yep, a free Monday during the holiday shopping season. This year we had it over Thanksgiving so everyone got 5 day weekends. And we might just add that to the tradition next year.

The coolest part about being a small company is that we can build traditions, and we learn each year how to make them even better. Happy Holidays everyone! And to my staff, thank you for an incredible and memorable holiday party 2009!

Enhancing our user experience: Demo day for the Sandstorm expansion

Today they started the demo in the space next door that we are taking over! They are doing a really great job as it's not too loud nor disruptive. Thanks Hugh and Joe Hayes! We've decided to add a larger lunchroom and kitchen area, along with two huddle rooms for brainstorming, conference calls, quiet meetings, private phone calls and some more work space as we continue to grow - all to enhance our user's experience (which in this case, our users are our staff).

It's a really fun and exciting time here at Sandstorm as we continue to grow with our user centered design methodology, creative facebook applications, and strategic interactive tools. We are all looking forward to a busy and exciting 2010.

Sandstorm is making major break throughs! (to the office next door)

It's a major break through moment for us. The tenants next door to our office are moving out this month. This is pretty exciting. This is our chance! This is our moment... to break into that space and commit to our explosive growth. It's our opportunity to embrace change, and start to design the newly added space. (which is the really fun part).

So I am printing out floor plans of our current loft office and of the office next door for all of the staff to draw up what kind of space they need as we continue to grow. Do we finally need a full lunchroom? Do we need a game room? A creative brainstorm room outside of our kind of cool conference room. Someone mentioned huddle rooms? Do we need quiet rooms? Or maybe a nicer place for the fantastic contractors we know and love so they don't have to work so close to the microwave and micro their brain waves out...

When we moved into this space 2 years ago I always envisioned that we would knock out part of the wall and make a curved archway into the new space. But after visiting the layout, I think the entire wall is going to have to go to really break through. My friend Ron told me that companies are the most efficient after a move, I'll let him know how it goes.

Marketing and User Experience Design Firm makes TOP 50 Gen Y Employer in Chicago

We made the list - the top 21 list that is! We are so proud to be in Brill Street's Top 50 Generation Y Employers Chicago. Yep, we're #21 (hence the top 21 list). And they wrote a nice bio about our company on their site that really exemplifies who we are as a company, and what it's like to work with us, and for us. They even mentioned our guacamole contest!

This recognition means a lot to me - and has easily become one of my favorite highlights of owning a business for the past 11 years. I am honored and proud that Sandstorm is a company and has a culture that people want to work for. That's why I started Sandstorm, to build a place that I would want to work at too.

Web Design Firm Adds Technology Director

Welcome Jon Stahler, Technology Director - the newest addition to the Sandstorm Design user experience team! We are so excited to have Jon heading up our technology team with his unique skill set of savvy project management, application development, database development, and information architecture skills - not to mention his ability to fix our server issues on day 1! And even better than that - he can translate developer languages into human speak for the rest of us.

Welcome Jon. We can't wait to work with you.

So how did we find Jon? He found us... from a blog post which turned into a phone call which turned into a few interviews. The untold success stories of our blog - recruiting.

Chicago Green Design: Web Marketing Association's WebAwards

The Web Marketing Association has honored us with the 2009 WebAward For Outstanding Achievement in Web Development and Design for National Association of Realtors' Green REsource Council web site. The Green REsource Council was founded to make the knowledge of green real estate practices available to everyone and is the only environmental real estate designation addressing multiple specialties for agents and property managers.

We are very proud to be recognized for our green design work, and continue to strive to build intuitive online user experiences.

WBE Interactive Agency attends Chicago's Womens Business Development Center Conference

Today Lisa and I attended the Women's Business Development Center's Annual Conference at the Navy Pier. There was a lot of buzz in the room, the attendees were really friendly, and the exhibitors were exceptionally helpful and unbelievably willing to introduce us to marketing and interactive directors, as well as pass along contact info. Wow. It was a really terrific conference and networking event, and we both left quite exhausted. The big question is if the leads will turn into sales...

I learned something about Microsoft today. They spent over $1 Billion on WBE/MBE businesses and worked with 1200 WBE/MBE businesses in the past year. $1 Billion... Impressive. We'd be happy with .1% of that :)

SEO Marketing Tip: How to quickly build SEO traffic

If you want to build organic SEO traffic, the traffic you don't need to pay for each time someone clicks on your link, then you need to build marketing content everywhere. I'm talking on your web site, adding press releases, adding articles, writing regularly on your blog. And you need to build content elsewhere on the web by submitting your press releases, writing marketing articles, and commenting on blogs. And here's the real deal - it has to be unique content. You won't get the same results copying and pasting the same content everywhere.

My personal favorite for adding articles is with Ezine Articles. For submitting press releases, try i-newswire or PRlog.

SEO: A long-term internet marketing investment

When it comes to investing, it is often recommended to “ride out the market” to achieve the most rewarding results. History has shown that patient investors are often the most profitable, not to mention the least stressed out.

Now think of SEO as an investment…for your business. But unlike mutual funds and other financial investments, an SEO marketing investment will require a significant amount of work - not just time. (the work can be done by yourself, your staff or an SEO marketing consultant). But before you get started on all that content, you need an SEO marketing strategy.

Your SEO marketing strategy will help you define:

• who you want to attract
• what web site goals you want to achieve
  
• which keyword phrases you need to work for
• which keyword phrases are easy wins
  
• how competitive your SEO landscape is
  
• what tactics you will need to achieve your results
• which baseline web analytics are important
  
• what kind of maintenance and support you'll need to retain your rankings

After your strategy has been refined, you are ready to work on marketing and refining your web site. Then you'll most likely find out that a few of the keyword phrases you felt were exactly the right fit, are actually driving traffic, but the wrong kind. It's funny how marketing works. Sometimes you have to be careful what you ask for :)

Chicago web design company's Client Spotlight

The Client: National Association of REALTORS, Real Estate Buyer’s Agent Council (REBAC)
The Goal: Create a user-friendly web site that addresses the needs of multiple user groups.
The Solution: After conducting usability testing, user research, and establishing personas, we identified what type of information the different user groups required, and what features and functionality they were looking for. We designed a clean web site design and navigation that organized information by user group, and tested the navigation to ensure key tasks could be completed with ease. Important information and tasks were called to attention in the form of graphic callouts to engage users and ensure that they found what they were looking for. Cool blues and greens were added to round out their color palette, and subtle textures were incorporated throughout the design to add dimension. A coordinating advertising campaign, brochure, and tradeshow were launched in conjunction with the new site to drive traffic to the site and brand REBAC consistently across all mediums.

Marketing and Design: Why Powerpoints fail

Oh, powerpoint presentations can be so painful. And just for the record, they can be just as painful if not more so for us designers as well. We want to build a brand experience, convey a message, and shout to the audience that we are not boring!

So I heard a presentation about how people learn: kinesthetic learning, auditory learning and visual learning. (I am a kinesthetic and visual learner - go figure). While in the presentation, it dawned on me that powerpoint fails for most of us because it relies so heavily on an auditory learning style, and some ridiculous low percentage of people are auditory learners.

Marketing and blogging instead of writing proposals

Ok. I admit it. I am stalling today. I have three proposals to write and I am blogging instead. I tell myself that blogging is marketing and it's part of our social media and SEO strategy so it's just as important, but I know in my gut that I should be writing those proposals. I should be grateful that I have proposals to write (and they are really cool ones from facebook application ideas to some web site interfaces utilizing our user-centered methodology) but I am struggling to actually write them. So how does one find inspiration in writing proposals? I already ate my bag of skittles.

The meaning behind the brand names

How much effort goes into a brand name? Sometimes millions of dollars and hours of user research and analysis. Sometimes it's a random employee who comes up with the idea through a contest (think Accenture - accent on the future). We do a lot of naming for our clients whether it be for a new initiative, a new product, a renaming of a company, an internal program, and there really is no one way to go about it. From a brainstorm to all the legal intellectual property searches, I wonder how many hours really went into some of the most well known names out there?

Many people ask me where Sandstorm came from. I should come up with a highly conceptual meaning, but that's not how it happened. Sandstorm was a nickname of mine from college so I went with it because it was fun yet strong, spontaneous and energetic. Plus my maiden name was very difficult to pronounce, spell and remember. When I started the company in 1998 I had no idea that someday I would have an incredible agency filled with Sandstormers. Still wows me today.

Marketing YouTube videos - a diary in the life of Sandstorm

So we're starting to play around with the idea of posting some videos of us around the office on any given work day. We tend to laugh a lot around here, we keep a random quote board, and it seems like there's always this energy unlike any place I've known. The question I ask myself is if anyone wants to get a look into what our work life is like at Sandstorm? So keep posted as we explore a video diary concept of our lives at Sandstorm as a social medium.

persona development - how much is too much information?

Part of our user-centered web design process includes the development of personas through research and analysis. Persona's have a noticeable advantage over traditional demographics because we (you, me, clients, etc) can relate to a person far more naturally than a list of stats and demographics. It's human nature to bucket information into a way that you can remember, that you can relate to, that you can engage with - and a persona literally puts a name with a face on a fictional character that we can all discuss and create an amazing experience around.

So my big question is how far to go with the persona? How much detail is necessary to tell the story and paint the picture?

Free user research for web site hosting companies

I would like to personally offer a free user research opportunity here for web site hosting companies - for those web site hosting companies that question what their customers want, need and feel. For those web site hosting companies that are serious about growing their hosting businesses by listening to their customers.

At the end of the day, what we value most, is the most simple of requests - that you please please please keep our web sites up and running. What we fear the most, is that you are going to take our web sites down for any number of reasons (fixing a bug, fixing a hack, server down for no particular reason, cold fusion crash, windows crash) and not let us know, and not have an answer to when it will be fixed, and quite frankly, move on with your day as if this is and should be expected. Many web site hosting companies brag about their up time, but here's the catch. It's not the uptime of our web sites, it's the uptime of your servers, which doesn't protect our web sites enough. This makes us (your users) not trust your hosting company.