Posted on January 28th, 2012 by John
Lean Startup Machine recently featured an article by Karan on our LSM DC experience in its Success Stories section: “Keeping Our Wits Through Two Pivots“. Thanks LSM!
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Posted on January 23rd, 2012 by John
Last week at Marketade we:
- Finalized information architecture for new Winn Design site — based on card sort and tree test findings
- Finished initial customer development interviews for new Urban Igloo service
- Interviewed over 30 more people for our SEO/SEM consultant position
- Learned a lot about Google’s First Click Free program
- Ran trial remote usability tests for financial services client and refined scenarios and tasks based on results
- Created a minimum viable product (MVP) for a Marketade side project (stay tuned …)
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Posted on January 16th, 2012 by John
Here are a few things we did last week at Marketade:
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Posted on January 10th, 2012 by John
Here are some of the ways we kicked off 2012 at Marketade:
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Posted on January 6th, 2012 by John
We’ve begun recruiting for an experienced SEO/SEM consultant to help us with the new client projects. Proximity to DC is a plus but not a requirement.
Here’s the full description and application form. Please help us spread the word.
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Posted on January 2nd, 2012 by John
As we say goodbye to 2011, here’s a look at many of the 25+ clients we worked with last year, along with the types of projects we did with them:
Web Services & Technology
- AdJuggler (Ad Server Software): SEM
- Aptaria (Cloud Computing): SEO/SEM, Web Design, Copywriting, Analytics & Social Media
- OneID (Online Digital Management): Web Design
- StoryDesk (iPad Software): SEO/SEM
Real Estate
- Urban Igloo (Apartment Finder): Strategy, Web Development/Design, Usability/UX, SEO/SEM, Copywriting, Analytics & Social Media
- Winn Design (VA Home Remodeler): Web Design, Usability/UX, SEO/SEM, Social Media & Analytics
Health & Fitness
Financial Services
- GEICO (Insurance): Usability/UX, SEO & Mobile App Development
Professional Services
News & Information
Other
Thanks to all of our clients for making 2011 a great one. We learned a ton and are especially excited to be taking on more projects in the areas of user experience (UX) and Lean Startup strategy as we enter 2012. Stay tuned …
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Posted on December 27th, 2011 by John
We’re excited to now offer standard packages for small businesses wanting help with SEO and SEM. Writing SEO/SEM proposals for startups, non-profits, and other small businesses has been my least favorite task since we started Marketade. It takes time away from more productive work, and it always felt like a guess in terms of the hours and cost we quoted.
No matter how many projects we do, we don’t seem to be able to accurately predict how long a new one will take — because SEO and SEM projects are inherently unpredictable. Especially because these have been projects for budget-strapped businesses, we tended to err on the low side in our quotes, which meant we often ended up working many more hours than we got paid for.
Our new packages attempt to solve all these problems by providing a structure that’s both clear and flexible — and gets us out of the custom proposal writing business for small search projects. We …
- offer a discounted hourly rate of $150
- use a not-to-exceed structure where clients pay only for hours we work
- don’t provide custom quotes, instead leaving it up to clients to set a max budget
- provide minimum, maximum, and average hours/costs to give clients an idea of what to expect
We realize clients would prefer to know, ahead of time, exactly how much an SEO/SEM project will cost. But given that we can’t predict how long these projects will take, we feel strongly that the approach we’ve come up with is the best one.
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Posted on December 27th, 2011 by John
Last week at Marketade we:
- Kicked off work for natural gas news publisher Intelligence Press. Based in Sterling, Virgina, IP has been a leading source of news and pricing on the North American natural gas industry for over 30 years. We’ll be helping them improve their overall web presence, including SEO, conversion optimization, usability, and more.
- Launched new Philadelphia apartment finder website for Urban Igloo, which has just expanded to the City of Brotherly Love. Also implemented live chat/help desk functionality and numerous other additions to Urban Igloo’s DC site.
- Ran online tree tests for Falls Church home remodeler Winn Design to validate information architecture. We’d previously used in-person and online open card sorts to create a new information architecture — using Optimal Workshop’s OptimalSort for the online part. Here we used one of Optimal Workshop’s other tools: Treejack. Tree testing is a fairly new usability technique and we found it to be very powerful at testing the site’s proposed organization and navigation terminology. We could identify areas of confusion and quickly create a new test with a tweaked label or part of the structure — and see if that fixes the problem. As with online card sorting the only challenge we faced was quickly and cheaply recruiting representative testers. Below is an example of how people navigated for one of our tasks.
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Posted on December 19th, 2011 by John
The holidays have been busy this year at Marketade. Here were some of the interesting things we did last wee:
- Kicked off learning management system (LMS) web development project for health care group in the DC area; began with lean startup customer development
- Started SEO project for the Law Office of Regina DeMeo, a DC family lawyer specializing in divorce mediation
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Posted on December 12th, 2011 by John
Some highlights from last week:
- Ran online card sorting exercises for VA home remodeler Winn Design to complement in-person card sorts done the previous week — in preparation for information architecture overhaul. Used OptimalSort from Optimal Workshop (excerpt below); it was easy to set it up and participants found it easy to use. The only challenge was recruiting; used Twitter, Facebook, Craigslist, friends, and Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.
- Started testing live chat on Marketade.com. Using SnapEngage for help desk functionality and proactive chat (see below). It integrates easily with Gmail chat. Hoping to implement it on a couple of our clients’ sites soon.
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