Jeff Woelker : Chicago SEO, SEM, and Online Marketing Consultant

Some pretty interesting things going on at the Tribune today as they redesigned the layout of ChicagoTribune.com. Compared to the previous layout, it’s quite different. Lots of white space, lots of easy to read text. Here are the things that I like:

1. CSS based layouts - Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! No more table nightmares. Thank you Tribune. Screen readers, search engines, and web designers every where applaud this choice.
2. Prominent Search - I like the prominent search box in the upper left hand corner. If I can’t find something within 10 seconds, boom, search.
3. Sectioned content - The old tribune page had LOTS of content all over the place and not really in any real organizational manner. This version at least makes an attempt at that.

Here is what I am not that fond of:

1. chicagotribune.com - That’s it? That’s the title of the site? No “Chicago News, Sports, and Weather - ChicagoTribune.com”? We’ll see how long that lasts when people start clicking on Paid Listings, Topix links, or CBS2Chicago’s link in search results because they don’t immediately see “Chicago news“. If I were another media company in Chicago, I would be ALL over paid listings to try and drive people over to my site before the Tribune changes this.
   UPDATE: So it appears that the Tribune has seen the light and added the “Chicago News, sports, …” back into their page title for the homepage.
2. Helvetica-ish logo - Really? Pretty first year art school if you ask me. No finesse my friends. Plus, the Chicago Tribune font itself is so classic. Why change a good thing?
   
3. Where’s sports? - The new tabbed navigation is nice in that it allows me to see a few stories with a few clicks, but what if I want to go right to sports. First I click on the Sports tab, then I click on either the story itself or click on the “Go to the Sports Section”. I can also access Sports by scrolling down the left hand side of the page. I understand from a business perspective that Classifieds are a money maker and you are driving people there for a reason, but people use this site for lots of reasons and a newpaper site should display the big sections above the fold immediately and within one click - Local News, Sports, Weather, and Traffic.
4. BLUE - Nothing else? Everything is blue. No gradients, no call out color, no subtlety, just white and shades of blue. Kind of boring.
5. All text / no icons - On each drill down page, the tribune has provided some easy to use tools to manage each content piece. E-mail, print, single page view (which I really like) and reprints (which I don’t imagine are they important, but ok). The one thing they missed though are easily identifiable iconography. Why not an envelope next to email? Why not a printer next to print? They could also provided the somewhat industry standard “A” and “a” for larger and smaller text instead of an up and down arrow. An up and down arrow indicates movement and not an increase or decrease in text size. Just my opinion.
   
6. Dead space on the top of the page - I understand the need for white balance and white space, but did the header bar need that much space for the logo and a small weather icon?
7. Old hat - Didn’t we already do this at least once? USAToday did it better than both, I think.

What else am I missing? Am I completely off base here? Let me know in the comments.

UPDATE: My brother in blogging, Lucas, has pointed out that this has occurred across multiple Tribune properties as well.

So I’ve been debating recently whether to ditch my car all together or not. Here are some of the pros and cons of both. Should be pretty obvious which is the better decision at this point:

Keep My Car:

1. Personal freedom - the ability to drive where I want, when I want and not wait for anything or anyone
2. Moving - Every so often I have to move this thing or that thing around for friends or family and it’s just nice to throw it in the car and move it, as opposed to having to think about getting a truck or having to borrow someone’s car
3. Travel - This really isn’t a big deal for me, as I prefer to take Amtrak or, as my sister is trying to convince me, the MegaBus back and forth to Michigan. But what about weekend trips or impromptu trips? I guess it just requires a bit of planning to rent a car or book travel ahead of time.
4. Supporting US auto makers - This really is the weakest reason I can think of, as I only got a Chrysler Sebring because of my grandfathers discount, and with Toyota and Honda opening more plants everyday in the US, what’s the difference anymore?

Lose My Car:

1. Car and Insurance Payments - This is really the biggest motivating factor. My car sits on the street 5 or 6 days a week and doesn’t do anything for me except suck up money.
2. I’m an enviro-hypocrite - I talk about fuel economy, environmental preservation, protecting existing resources, reusing, and recycling, but I drive a huge metal box that spews CO2? As my sister so eloquently puts it “Man Up!”
3. iGoCars - There is an iGoCar right around the corner from where I normally pick up the train every morning. So if I need a car, it’s just a short walk away and how can you beat these rates?
4. Car Rentals - There are several car rental places within quick riding, walking, busing, or training distance from my place.
5. Oil changes and upkeep - Since my car only sits on the street most of the week, it isn’t getting proper usage and is only going down in terms of resale value and money I’m going to have to invest in it eventually to keep it going.
6. Public Transportation and Biking - I have both a bike and easy access to numerous methods of public transportation to get to and from work.
7. Constantly moving your car - One great thing about living in a city that cares for the appearance of neighborhoods and streets is that there is constant street cleaning. As a result, I often have to play the parking game at least once a month and during the winters, I have to double check every time I park that I am not in a snow removal zone.
8. Cold hard economics - So the economics of my current car are $302 per month for my car payment (until Feb of next year), $160/month for insurance, and probably $10 in gas/month. That’s $472/month in sunk costs. If I were to take a cab to the grocery store and other errands, we’ll say 10 times per month (probably more like 3 or 4) for about a $10-15 cab ride on average, that costs $100. I could use an extra $370/month.

I think it’s pretty obvious. Anyone need a lightly used 2004 black sebring? 35K miles, original owner.

Any reasons I have forgotten either for keeping or getting rid of my car?

So I got my APTA buttons today. I’m such a nerd, but I love them. Many thanks to Mark Neuville for sending them over. I really appreciate it. Go visit the APTA website if you have a few minutes. It’s a great site with lots of information about how you can rediscover your city via public transportation.

There really is something nostalgic and community based about taking public transportation in that you get to see and meet so many interesting people you would not have otherwise met by driving by yourself in a car. So on that note, are you taking public transportation as often as you could? If not, give it a shot. It’s not as bad, dirty, loud, noisy, smelly, etc. etc. as you might think it is. Really it’s not. So enjoy Illinois!

Thanks for everyone who attended!

Please visit www.northsideartist.com for all the links and steps to set up a blog from the presentation on Tuesday, July 10th. Or feel free to contact me anytime at jeff@jeffwoelker.com for any follow up questions concerning blogs, online communities, search engine optimization, or bicycling in Chicago.

Hope you enjoyed it!

Here’s the listing for the workshop posting.

So I’ve been watching Live Earth today, which is absolutely fantastic. I really hope they release this concert on DVD, since they’ve only been showing bits and pieces from each concert.

What I don’t appreciate is Microsoft’s pompous move to put something like this up:

I assume they put this up because environmentalists tend to be more into big corporate solutions (IE) instead of home grown or open source programs (Firefox). Thank you Microsoft for reinforcing one more time why you always seem to screw everything up.

Happy Friday all. I was featured on the Gapers Block Rearview section today for my farmers market photos. Pretty cool for me anyway and only reinforces my desire to take a professional photography course.

Any recommendations?

So the other day, my friends at SmartUSA sent me a nice email about “Thank you for attending our Chicago event to test drive Smart ForTwo’s.” That was really nice of them I thought. But wait, I didn’t test drive any Smart ForTwo’s. In fact, I meant to attend that event, but didn’t have time that weekend to make it there at all.

Email marketing lesson #1: Don’t assume. It wouldn’t have taken very long to vet a list of people who DID attend and send them one email and send everyone else another, “Sorry, we missed you in Chicago. Maybe next time…” Although, I know what they were trying to do, it should have been more personalized/customized.

I also received an email from Kayak.com telling me about great summer vacation deals. Great I thought! Oh, cheap flights to SFO, Oakland, Miami, and Chicago? Wait, they knew my default airport is O’Hare. Why would they include Chicago in this email? Why not try and sell me on another destintation, NOT Chicago.

Email marketing lesson #2: You have the data - use it. Kayak knew well enough that my default airport was O’Hare, so it’s pretty safe to say that I live/work in Chicago or the surrounding area and probably do not need a travel deal to Chicago. Instead, they could have further customized the message to remove my home airport and replaced it with another sales message. I used to do this ALL the time at my previous employer. We used every little piece of information to customize email and print communications we sent out. Kayak should do the same.

Just a few handy tips to remember when implementing an email marketing campaign. There are tons more here:

• Tips and Best practices
• Constant Contact Learning Center
• Microsoft Small Business email tips

Anything I forgot? Let me know in the comments.