There are lots of shark tanks out there. The Merchant Banking sales tank that small businesses have been forced to swim through for the past 20 years is a notorious one. But not anymore.

If you’re a small business — maybe one that only transacts a few payments a month — Paypal has a solution for you. No contracts. No flat monthly fee (unless you want to accept credit cards over the phone – then it’s $30/mo). And the transaction fee, at the low transaction volumes many small businesses are at, is very competitive: 2.9% + $.30.

As an Internet marketing company, my clients often want to start projects last week and finish up yesterday.  Sound familiar? Unfortunately, paying the down payment by check easily added a week to many project start dates. Now clients can just send money to me at Paypal and they don’t even need a Paypal account to do it! Of course, if they have one, it saves me the transaction fee, which is cool too.

Thought about making it easier for your customers to pay you?  Learn more here.

In the post, “20 Tips for Marketing Professional Photography Online”, I talked about the importance of site architecture in the development of a successful photography site. Here’s a site I developed over the weekend to demonstrate an example of what good architecture might look like:

This site is based on a css template by Dieter Schneider of Norway and here are the top 5 things I like about the architecture:

1. The Photography takes center stage
2. Details are hidden below the fold and on inside pages
3. Navigation is simple and intuitive
4. Audiences are separated into 3 categories (Photo | Studio | Print)
5. Pages are light and optimize well for search — No heavy, expensive Flash

I said “5 Things I Like”, but here’s a sixth worth mentioning: The Galleries are incredibly easy to browse.

Most of the small businesses I work with are not professional photography studios, but many of the strengths of architecture in Dieter’s design still apply.

Comments?

Chad Takenaka, owner of Design Models of California, has an approach to his work that really resonates with me:  Blending the latest technology with old school hand crafted values.

Chad Takenaka, owner of Design Models of California

After reading today’s LA Times article by Cyndia Zwahlen, I felt compelled to do something to help Chad’s business prosper. So, with a cup of coffee at my elbow, I sent the following email to Chad Takenaka, outlining 5 Steps he could take to improve his internet marketing:

Chad,

Enjoyed the Times article and hope it brings you lots of business. I’m particularly attracted to your concept of blending “the latest technology with old school values.”

As the owner of HandPickedTomates, I wanted to share a few quick (albeit unsolicited) thoughts about your website.

It looks professional, clean, simple, well organized, and (forgive me) really dull. Here are some suggestions to improve it to drive more business to you:

* 1. Improve the architecture
* Improve the impact of the landing page (you have 3-5 seconds to connect, don’t expect visitors to drill down to do it)
* Separate your audiences on the landing page
* Message to each audience individually (I’m guessing Mattel and Disney speak differently and have slightly different needs than Northrop and Boeing?)
* Enable zooming on all photos. (Imagine trying to communicate the beauty of Hawaii using only thumbnail images)
* Tag all images, links, and urls for better search engine optimization (SEO)
* Replace the email us link with a simple form, .e.g Contact Form
* 2. Name drop
* Your client list gives you instant cred. Yours more-so than most, so don’t hide it.
* 3. Make Social Networking work for you (Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter….)
* Your work is hip and interesting. Take the time to capture it and float it out onto the social networks.
* Use professional grade Photography and Video to tell the story
* Upload photos and video to YouTube, Flickr, etc. Make sure every post is well tagged for SEO.
* 4. Leverage Email Broadcasts
* Add an email subscription form to the site
* Send periodic email broadcasts to clients and other subscribers to keep your name in front of them
* 5. Post a Calendar of Events
* Consider offering regularly scheduled tours of your facility and post the date and time (see my Wednesday Free Consult for example)

This just scratches the surface. I hope you find some value in it. Please contact me if you ever decide to offer the facility tour.

Best,
Stephen

What do you other small business owners think about these steps. What others should be on Chad’s list?

Creating a top URL shortener has the bling chasers in Silicon Valley coding like mad. One of my favorite’s is ”ow.ly“.

Why ow.ly? Two reasons:

1. the ow.ly url itself is super short.

Twitter power users know the importance of limited link size in a 140 character world.

2. ow.ly’s innovative.

By taking 30 seconds to set up a free ow.ly account, my ow.ly shortcuts become branded to me.

How? Ow.ly places a thin ”HootSuite” toolbox at the top of the visited page with a recognizable version of my Twitter profile image and a link to my full Twitter profile. The toolbox also includes uber convenient widgets for users to Follow, re-Tweet, Share,  or see Top Tweets. This helps me extend my “web_tomatoes” branding, is helpful to my audience, and way, way viral.

Since we’re talking about Hooters and Owls, let me end with this ow.ly link example:  http://ow.ly/oSyp.

Wow and uhg! These are just two common reactions I’ve observed to the recent Google Wave announcements. 

As we evolve into NAS’es (No Attention Span) creatures, there’s a higher risk of frustration as big technologies demand more time and attention to convey the what and the why. I’m not a marketing maven but I imagine this litmus test: Can it be said in a word or an eye flicker? No? Times up!

It’s Warp speed out here. Give us FAST, CLEAR, DONT BORE ME DEAR instant understanding (preferably via tweets to the mobi).

So how does Google net/net something as mamouth, nebulous, and incredulous as the Wave? How can they convince the consumer it’s the next big thing and not just some lame and freaky cobbled together thing that they’re foisting on us?

They can take a clue from Mark Warr’s invention, the Warr Guitar, below.
This video doesn’t answer the question, “what is a Warr guitar”. But it compels the viewer to want to know.

More about Google Wave in another post. Can’t wait? Check out this developer conference video – demo starts at about minute 6. (Google Wave Developer Preview at Google I/O 2009)

Wow!

Sometimes highly functional simplicity isn’t immediately obvious… but in the end it’s always remarkable.

Know of a better domain research tool? Tell us about it.

If your company is looking for good examples of web architecture to emulate, stalk topLingo’s new website.

This well known leader in custom web development has just relaunched their corporate site in response to rapid changes in the industry.  As a 20 person company in its ninth year of business, you’d expect the makeover would be well designed. After all, topLingo’s clients range from mega bank JPMorgan/Chase to high flyer Air New Zealand to the site of  iconic jazz virtuoso, MilesDavis.com.

By way of full disclosure, I should mention that I worked for topLingo for a little over a year - helping them acquire a small chunk of their 400 plus projects. In that time, I developed a lot of respect for their creative and architectural chops. So naturally, I was curious to see what their new site would look like.

topLingo Tour | Take Our Exit! from topLingo on Vimeo.

Here are the top ten things I like about their re-design:

1. Fast Loading: The use of standards compliant coding, AJAX, optimized images and other techniques makes the site super lite and fast loading.
2. Instant Attraction: The graphic design is appealling, contemporary and immediately communicates professional competance.
3. “Am I in the right place?”: If you’re looking for a top web development firm you get that you’re in the right place within about 3-5 seconds which is well within the impatience threshold of most users.
4. “Am I in the best place?”: Again, within seconds I see a client list of names I recognize, an intro paragraph that states concisely what topLingo does, and a portfolio tab for learning more.
5. Obvious Call to Action (CTA): Sure topLingo wants you to contact them or request a quote – both CTA’s are easily accessible from anywhere on the site – but for most first time visitors it’s too early in the relationship for that. Instead, the clear CTA is to PLAY the “Take Our Exit” video which allows you to get to know them better first.
6. Entices Viral: The “Stalk Us, We Don’t Mind” section in the footer is a clever way to get visitors to share info about topLingo with their network via many of the top social sites. Another viral enticement is the ability from any portfolio page to easily share the information via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and a slew more social sites.
7. Optimzed for SEO: The site is rich with search engine optimized words and phrases, without having copy that reads like it.
8. Love Means Never Getting Lost:  The site architecture uses a consistent workspace and dynamic screen slide action that keeps things simple yet interesting as the visitor navigates content. The entire site is accessible without ever feeling like you’re leaving the landing page.
9. Relationship Cadence: First of all it’s important to note that this site has one primary audience: prospective clients. And like most of us, prospective clients want to know ”are you for me?” before spending a lot of time getting to know us.  Information Architects and Marketing types talk about “messaging to the target audience” and “funnelling” audiences from the summary to the detail. The topLingo site does this by consistently burying details on deeper inside pages.
10. Manage Content From the Blog: It’s a given that content changes rapidly in the world of web development.  But why implement an expensive Content Management System (CMS) approach for every page? For many text heavy pages, much of the content can be handled by free blog software like WordPress.  For example, low level content rich pages like this page about .NET are easily maintained in the blog Admin area with a minimum of setup and fuss.

Seen other Web 2.5 sites you like? Leave a comment and share. Or just stalk your network with one of the buttons below.

 If you’re not a guitar enthusiast, that’s okay. This post is really about the technology, marketing, and monetization behind the content.

Here’s what’s kick ass about this video – it’s not only an excellent guitar instruction vid - it’s a model for how to  monetizing free content online. First of all, British guitarist Sam (Samantha) Murray lays down a beautifully concise, clear and complete showcase of Stairway to Heaven – undoubtedly one of the great guitar songs of the past 40 years.

But let’s talk about the underlying business model and technology: In laying down this lesson, Sam picks online instructional video platform Life Videopedia to publish it (5min.com). 

5min.com is an Israeli company that attracted over $5 million in angel and venture capital back in 2007. It provides unique video controls like Slow Down, Zoom in/out, Stop Frame, and Storyboarding that help learners accelerate their learning and stand it apart from insanely larger mega funded sites like YouTube. (I particularly appreciated the Slow Down and Freeze Frame features during Robert Plant’s frenetic lead breaks at the end of Stairway.)

From a business standpoint, 5min.com is a model for how to monetize free content: Step one, provide a solid hook (targeted high value content), Step two, play an ad up front to pay for the bandwidth, Step three, attract quality content providers by making it easy for them to add their own call to action within the video, and Step 4, add all the viral features that let viewers easily share and embed the videos.

From an online learning viewpoint, 5min.com is a cool find. And in a very real sense for musicians, a virtual Stairway to Heaven.

If you’re the least bit interested in how the information age evolved to its current state, check this cool video out:

IBM used to be the company that everyone wanted to work at. Or Xerox.  Today, for many, it’s Google. Case in point, there’s been almost 1,000,000 views of this “Life at Google” video since June 14, 2007:

The marvelous thing about Google for me is not the technology. Sure it’s innovative and way dominant – but it’s the company’s ability to maintain a highly positive image in the marketplace despite a decade of overwhelming commercial success that’s the real wow factor. They’re right up there with “Newman’s Own” in brands we trust.

Why do I find this remarkable? Well, as humans, we like success and we like winners… but only to a point. Past that, we take great pleasure in the over achiever’s downfall.  But so far Google’s avoided any real threat of wide spread schadenfreude.

Kudos to Google. It’s amazing they’ve pulled that off and a bit of a paradox really. Just think about their rival up the coast in Redmond and the negativity that’s dogged Microsoft for decades. For example, as consumers and businesses we spend billions every year on anti-virus protection because hackers have relentlessly targeted Microsoft products for decades. Yet Google, who surely has unleashed its share of disruptive technologies, is widely respected in the business and developer community. The contrast in public perception between the two competitors is striking. Add to this the fact that Bill and Melinda Gates long ago committed to giving away their entire fortune within their lifetime to fund worthy causes (and have been doing so for years) and the differences are hard to fathom.

So I watched the video above for some insight. I came up with this psychographic fact: Google’s got its mojo running. And as everyone knows, a good Mojo trumps bad Schadenfreude.