Oliver Tani

The First 24 Hours as an Independent Consultant

Oliver — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 17:47:21 +0000

I’ve been working with interactive agencies, online marketing companies and even served as the in-house internet marketing person for the better part of a decade now. I have recently made the move back to being an independent consultant. By recently, I mean it’s been exactly 24 hours. In order to be successful, I knew that there were a few things I would have to do. Below are some ways that I know that I’m going to need to do in order to remain successful and on my own.

Treat each day as a normal work day.
This doesn’t mean get up, fight traffic and hate the entire world before you get to the office. What I mean is that it is very important that while you’re just walking into your home office or living room, or back patio, you should still treat it as you’re walking into a working environment. I would never walk into an office setting in shorts and flip flops, so I made sure that when it was time to work, I was dressed and ready for the day. If you don’t do this, you’ll surely find yourself in the same shorts and flip flops when the end of the work day rolls around.

Keep your reputation strong.
One thing I have done over the last few years is create many positive working relationships with people. I have made sure that I have always had my best foot forward when it was important and that I always gave more of myself than I did the time before. You want to make sure that whenever you put your name on something, that it is the best thing you’ve ever done. If I’m not proud of my work, I won’t put my name on it. Your reputation, especially in the online marketing world is like a viral resume of sorts in the fact that you can be recommended for jobs and consulting work without even knowing it.

Stay Organized.
Calendars definitely help, whether it’s Outlook, Google, or even one of those hideously big desktop calendars that your teachers had in 3rd grade. Merely writing down appointments, calls, and meetings chronologically has helped me tremendously. On my first day out on my own, I had about four meetings that I had to make sure I was ready for. I make sure that every single meeting invite I have is synched to my Blackberry and I set the meeting reminders for 30 minutes ahead of time. This helps me never miss something important. The other thing that I do is keep lists. When I first sit down to work, I always create a list of things that I should do, and things that I have to do. I know it sounds so simple and elementary, but it has really helped me.

Create Goals (and see them through).
I have a few goals as far as how much new business I need to bring in to get to a good client load and how much money I need to make to live comfortably. Everything I do and work on, I make sure somehow ties into either my short-term and/or long-term goals. You have to know what you’re working for or you may not always see the value in doing something.

Stay Connected.
Probably the most important thing for me to do would be to make sure I’m staying connected in the industry. Staying connected can mean three things to me. First is the internet connection. Seriously, in this day and age, how many internet outages should we have!? Nothing’s more frustrating than having emails that you can’t get to when you’re on a tight deadline or not being able to access your online tools etc. Secondly, staying connected to me also means that I’m current in everything that’s going on in the industry. In my business, I have to know what’s happening, when algorithms shift, when best practices change and any other relevant news. The last thing, but most important is staying connected to people. If it weren’t for the people I’m currently connected with, there’s no way I would’ve been able to make such a smooth transition to working on my own. Most of my contract work and consulting gigs I’m working on right now are because these people that I’m connected to have referred them to me.

Well I know this was quite the post, but I had to make up for not posting in about a month! I guess now I’ve got nothing but time on my hand, so this blog is yet another way for me to stay connected!

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Staying connected with my BlackBerry, unfortunately

Oliver — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 20:13:09 +0000

So it’s become totally apparent to me that I am unable to stay away from the internet for even a day. I just got back from a trip up to northern Arizona for a friend’s wedding where my fiancee and I ended up renting a cabin, wanting to make a nice relaxing weekend away from any computers, client stuff, or anything that even resembles work. I even turned my email notifications on my BlackBerry off to try to help out a bit. So after being up there for about 6 hours and with the night coming to a close, there we are getting ready to go to bed, when I get this itch to go snooping around on Digg, check out some of my favorite forums and even browse some freelance gig postings on Craigslist. Now this wouldn’t be too bad if I didn’t end up sitting outside on the porch of our cabin for almost three hours doing this! By the time I was done, my eyes were burning from staring at my BlackBerry and my thumbs were starting to cramp from trying to type so damn much.

At the very moment I noticed what time it was, I caught myself falling asleep at the wheel, so to speak, so I decided to call it quits. I was exhausted the next morning, getting about 1/2 the sleep my fiancee did, but I sure did get my fix in! Maybe next time I’ll leave the BlackBerry at home.

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Free Social Bookmarking Script

Oliver — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 22:22:56 +0000

David Leonhardt from Happy Guy Marketing contacted me last week about the new tool on his website, called The Bookmarketer. It’s pretty sweet. We all know about the power of social bookmarking and are all well aware that one of the most sure-fire ways to get an insane amount of traffic is to get something on the first page of Digg, or the top of Reddit. There are often times when you may have a great idea or tool as David does and the only thing it’s lacking is exposure. Come on… I’ve been there. Trust me, I know the woes of having something to say with no audience. Social Bookmarking can not only bring you an audience, it can bring you an audience the size of Woodstock in your own backyard! David’s tool just makes it easier to reach your potential Woodstock.

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First SEMPO AZ Event a Great Success

Oliver — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 23:43:34 +0000

Last night, September 6, 2007, was the very first SEMPO AZ working group’s networking event held in Scottsdale, AZ at Cantina Laredo. There was a great turn out of some of our industry’s leaders as well as representatives from many local prominent companies. iCrossing, Inc. had a great turn out, as did Elixir Systems, including Fionn Downhill and crew. There were many people there that I have worked with or spoken to prior this event, but was finally able to shake hands and greet eachother face to face. In this day and age of emails, web conferencing, and conference calling without any actual phone lines, being able to shake hands with someone you enjoy working with goes a very long way.

On a side note, I will be developing the SEMPO AZ website, which I’m very excited about. So if anyone has any suggestions, let me know! The site will go live the middle of next week, hopefully no later than Sept. 13, 2007.

Looking forward to the next SEMPO AZ working group event and only hope that it was as successful as this one!

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Why can’t we have Aloha Friday everywhere?

Oliver — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 20:30:16 +0000

Friday. It’s supposed to be a happy day because we’ve got a 3 day weekend coming up and I’m going out of town to relax. Only problem is sometimes when you’re sitting in an office, working your butt off, you forget to stop and breath. Growing up in Hawaii, we had what’s known as “Aloha Friday”. This doesn’t just mean that we all put on our favorite Aloha shirt and start doing the Hula until our Spam and Poi are ready to be consumed…

No, Aloha Friday was more of a feeling of joy and happiness that all your stress and endless days that you’ve endured throughout the week will soon be over. Although you may have the same amount of work on a Friday that you would on a Monday, or Wednesday, there’s a calming sensation that has entirely consumed you. There is no more stress, no more people driving to work, pissed off because they’d rather be at home. Instead, you have people in the office in high spirits, bringing in foods to share for breakfast and invites for a spirit-lifting team lunch.

On days like this, I wish we could institute Aloha Friday into every company throughout the world. While I know this is never going to happen, I can still don my favorite Hawaiian shirt and let my mind float back home to the islands for a little calming getaway. A little Israel Kamakawiwo’ole always seems to help…

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The search for a good online shopping cart solution

Oliver — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 17:50:24 +0000

So I’ve been doing a lot of research online for shopping cart software to install on one of my client’s sites that until now has been using Paypal’s very basic solution. I’ve found a lot of the open source ones to be good, but not quite as “packed with peanuts” as we were hoping for. What we needed was supposed to be pretty simple:

WYSIWYG Editing
In-Depth Reporting
SEO Friendly URLs
Built-in Image Handling and Resizing
Customizable Templates

There were of course a few other things, but I’ve installed and uninstalled about ten of these before I found the one my client and I both liked. The online shopping cart I ended up choosing was from ashop Commerce. I was able to get it loaded up very easily and even had some assistance along the way from a member of their very friendly staff. If I could remember their name (I apologize as I’m very forgetful!) I would’ve sent a thank you email. We went with the light plan which is less than $40/month. Great deal in my opinion as it made my job easy and made my client happy. Check them out.

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Thank You for ‘Thank You for Smoking’

Oliver — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 20:56:51 +0000

So I finally had the chance to rent “Thank You for Smoking”, which is a Satirical comedy follows the machinations of Big Tobacco’s chief spokesman, Nick Naylor, who spins on behalf of cigarettes while trying to remain a role model for his twelve-year-old son. The movie was absolutely brilliant. As smart as this movie was, there were so many factors that I hadn’t caught which is why I was glad I went with some of my friends. It was pointed out to me that throughout the entire movie, ironically, no one was seen smoking a cigarette.

Rob Lowe’s character was great. When Nick Naylor (played by Aaron Eckhardt) asked him when he sleeps, Lowe replied “Sunday”. That’s exactly how I feel sometimes.

I guess I’m just glad how intelligent movies can still prove to be. In a world of Stick Its and Fast and Furious 3’s on the rental shelves, it’s refreshing to see that people are still capable of thinking when it comes to making some of today’s movies.

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AJAX Rocks

Oliver — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 21:06:46 +0000

Ok, so I’ve decided. I love AJAX. No, not the cleaner but rather the new web technology that seems to be engulfing the internet and combines two older technologies to bring a web user an experience similar to a desktop application. AJAX uses JavaScript and XML in conjunction with one another and queries a remote data source, thereby being able to change the content of a page without leaving said page and without using frames. If you ask me, that’s pretty sweet stuff, as long as it’s used right.

AJAX is intended to add to the user experience, but from a Search Marketing standpoint, we must keep in mind that not all visitors will be able to experience AJAX and those visitors are just as important as other visitors. An alternate experience is recommended not only for search engine friendliness, but for usability as well.

Here is a good list of sites using AJAX.

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Keyword Tools

Oliver — Wed, 03 May 2006 17:58:48 +0000

Digital Point - Wordtracker and Overture Results
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

Overture Results - MUCH Faster
http://www.webconfs.com/keyword-playground.php

HUGE Overture KW List Builder
http://www.enteryourkeyword.com/index.php

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BackLink Analyzer

Oliver — Wed, 03 May 2006 17:18:58 +0000

Aaron Wall has really outdone himself here… This tool is awesome. The Backlink Analyzer is a desktop program which will grab backlink data from Google/Yahoo/MSN and displays the anchor texts, IP Addresses, Alexa Data, Page Titles, and Number of Links on each page. Very friendly spreadsheet style layout.

http://tools.seobook.com/backlink-analyzer/index.htm

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