There’s nothing wrong with your website.

How many times have you watched a forum discussion where participants can “hide behind the screen,” turn into something, well, destructive? Try asking for constructive criticism on your website on a forum or open discussion board and it’s a safe bet you can count the posts on one hand before the “authority” shows up. The authority that tells you you’re terrible, that they’re awesome, and so on. We love that guy.

In the web world we are all experts. Knowledge is one Google Click away.

You, as a small business owner, KNOW that your website can be better. You have areas you want to see grow, things changed, pictures updated, etc. Whatever it may be, your hyper-exposure to the content on your website leaves you in rare company.

There is nothing wrong with your website. This is, admittedly, a different perspective on the photos from 2002, the stock photo guy with the blue-prints in his hand, the hands “collaborating” on something we don’t really get. You get the point.

Improve your web presence by taking a systematic and simple approach. Refresh the things that bother you. You know in your gut as a business owner what is or is not representative of your business for May of 2010. Make changes.

You shouldn’t need to spend $65 / hour for every change. Find that Web Developer that will work with you. Nathan Lyle and his Team at the Web Maestro often work on quarter hour rates, and are ridiculously efficient.

Perhaps it’s time to jump in and take ownership of some Google Search real estate.
Well, that’s what we do, and we offer our thoughts for free.

And we’re constructive. Remember, there’s nothing wrong with your website. We just want to change a few things.

Clean up your Facebook Wall.

So many things to complain about, so little time. Well, to clarify, this isn’t really a complaint, more-over a suggestion to help you regain a bit of anonymity in your Facebook Lifestyle.

Let’s talk about your wall, and the story it tells. Sure, we’re all friends on Facebook, right? I mean, we all know each other so well. Why shouldn’t we leave the last 4 years of our Wall Posts up for all of our Friends to see? If you haven’t done so recently, go take a look at some of your friends’ walls. For one, I don’t feel too comfortable with Facebook leaving EVERY MOVE I MAKE available for my entire Friends List to see.

Simple, yet effective for keeping things a little less “public” would be to delete the wall items that are no longer relevant to your “social circle”. Unless you truly trust all 450 of your “friends” it might not be a bad exercise to get your wall history in check. Sure there are other ways to monitor and control this information via Facebook, but the reality is, no action is more definitive than deleting the stuff that no longer needs to be posted for all to see.

Click on your name next to your profile picture in the news feed and scroll over all the line items on your wall (to the right) and you’ll see the “remove” button. Click it and confirm the deletion.

May the cleanest wall win!!!

Spokeo and You.

Everybody calm down. You’re going to be ok.

So my latest string of Facebook News Feed Panic is all about “Spokeo” and the personal information that we all of a sudden can’t believe is on the web!!! Really? Are you REALLY; a) that surprised, and b) that threatened? (seriously, think about the people you know who have been harmed by the availability of their basic information)

First off, yes, sites that are built to make money off of sharing information we’d rather not have shared rank uber-high on the lame scale. But to break into a Social Frenzy over the realization that our information is out there, is, well,
out there.

Some food for thought:

When you go to Spokeo to remove your “name” you have to do a couple of things:
1. You type in YOUR NAME. Now, why would you do that? The probability that any of the information they have about you is accurate is very, very low. If anything, you might consider Googling yourself. The fear mongering will lead you to believe that they (Spokeo) know your credit score (they don’t) and that they know where you live, what you do, what you earn, etc. Newflash friends: this isn’t new information. Just another site causing a News Feed hiccup.

2. You have to enter in YOUR EMAIL to remove your name. Well, let’s hope you have a few alias emails you can use and get to effectively enough to validate “post name removal”. Don’t give them a good email, please!

Point is, everyone is really taking all of this privacy stuff a bit too far. Please, protect yourselves. Be smart. Common sense can go a long way. Ultimately you should accept that if someone really wants to find information about you, they might do so with a few more utilities than Spokeo.com.

Now, go clean up your Facebook Wall you sloppy heathen!! I can see everyone and everything you’ve interacted with over the last 5 years and my have you been busy.

A few recommendations to follow for basic, common sense Facebook Security:
1. Don’t put up your full birthdate (think Identity Theft)
2. Don’t list out your day to day operating schedule!
3. Clean up your wall.

And whatever you do, don’t go typing your name into 123people. You might actually find something about yourself.