SEMPDX Blog Post: What I Learned from the PSU Search Engine Marketing Course | by Claire McEachern

What I Learned from the PSU Search Engine Marketing Course

First Published May 29th, 2013 by SEM PDX

Claire McEachern, the recipient of the of the PSU Digital Marketing Strategies scholarship, writes about her experience and learnings during the Spring 2013 course.

I think my head might still be spinning from everything I learned during the Search Engine Marketing Scholarship Course offered by SEMPDX & Portland State this spring. And that’s coming from someone who has a *decent grounding in the web and digital field. (*being a relative term)

Sure, there was mention of buzz terms, currently flying around today’s blogosphere, like “big data”, “content is king”, and the usual avalanche of industry acronyms. But what stood out as the biggest takeaways from the 3-class course were the details of fundamental skills and tools as well as an understanding of the big picture of SEO & SEM efforts.  Yes, you can go in and set up an Adwords account and make some ads or fiddle around with Facebook's advertising but you can very quickly waste a lot of money and time trying to just “figure it out”.

Graphic Design & Photography Work

We are pleased to see some of our graphic design and photography work, for client SustaiNext|EU, featured in the Sustainable Brands weekly communications bulletin.

Not only is this great news for a great event (being held in Dublin this October--for free!) but it also makes us here at 2 Miles Consulting smile to see our work amongst some of the best and brightest sustainable branding peeps out there!

Fun fact: 

The chairs you see in the background on the banner and on the site are the real ones from the auditorium where SustaiNext|EU will be taking place, the Helix Center!

Part 2 of 2: Retrospective On Our Renovations

Photo Credit: 2 Miles

June 16th, 2012
Claire McEachern

In a relaxed and calm voice, mixed with hints of jest, Van Jones greeted the assembled crowd by saying, "I may be preaching to the green choir, but I want to brag a little bit…"

From the Bainbridge Graduate Institute’s recent MBA recipients, to the local green industry veterans, such as Energy Trust, the Sustainable Industries Economic Forum (held June 13th, 2012, in Portland, OR) brought together a keenly interested and progressive audience. Every eye and ear was poised, anxiously awaiting a story of success. One could almost hear the mental buzz of global news, tweets, timeline updates, blog posts, and RSS feeds spooning out messages of doom and gloom into our collective sub-conscious.

Let us not forget to mention that Mr. Jones was also there to promote his new book: Rebuilding the Dream.

He began by reminding us how representatives in DC use the term “job killers” for environmentalists. But the statistics from the past several years show a very different reality. According to Brookings Institute, the green economy has created over 2.4 million jobs and includes the fastest growing sectors. This is in despite of a bad economy and a politically “stuck” world.

Curious then, that there still remains division within the United States and around the world on whether or not to fully embrace and integrate the green economy. How does this division persist when even the most skeptical among us have recently been heard to say, “The weather wasn’t quite like this before…”

Part 1 of 2: Retrospective On Our Renovations

Unions, Hippies, and Politicians - Oh My…

February 15th, 2009
Claire McEachern

Photo Credit: 2 Miles

Union Workers and Hippies.

Scratch that.

I mean “Joe six-packs” and granola-eating tree huggers.

Oh, dear!

What I am really trying to say is that the two most visible groups at the Good Jobs, Green Jobs Conference (held in Washington D.C. from February 4th to 6th) were the United Steel Workers and the Sierra Club. That fact has raised many an eyebrow of disbelief and curiosity. These two groups have even helped form an alliance, the Blue-Green Alliance that is, and are leaders in the movement to create a new economy based on energy efficiency, safe environmental practices, and jobs that actually “make stuff”.

Intro: Retrospective On Our Renovations

Before embarking on a trip to Dublin, Ireland, to plan for the rescheduled SustaiNext|EU Summit (October 11 & 12), we thought we'd publish a 2 part series that has us pondering the upcoming trip. How far has this 'green economy' come in the last 3 years. How is its implementation different in the international scene than here in the US? Who will we meet and what perspective will they give us?

Over the next week we plan on sharing thought in those areas and to introduce those queries are these essays. One composed three years ago and the others completed now in the present space and time of June 16th, 2012. Below is a bit more on the source of these writing....

When we saw that Van Jones would speak in Portland, OR for the Sustainable Industries Economic Forum, we gladly shelled out a couple bucks to go see him speak.

Gettin' Interactive With It!

Woah! 2 Miles now does interactive design work and we are super excited about it! This addition to our design services opens up a whole new world for communicating and educating others about sustainability. To us, this new capability is like bringing 'smores to a bar-b-que in Awesomeville.

The Not-To-Be-Missed Event of 2012

Check out the News Announcement we put together and released for the SustaiNext|EU Summit we are helping plan for this summer. This Summit promises to engage and inspire across the sector of Global Health, Global Society, Agriculture, Education, and Education while bringing together thought leaders in each field.

Here at 2 Miles, we are excited to provide services as Communications Director for this great collaboration of international leaders.

#1 Branding Rule: Consistency

Time. Change. Review. The process of "becoming" a brand with a clear identity and message is cyclical. You have the "thing" that currently identifies your organization, you sit with it for a while, then you decide you need a change, and then you review the changes you made. Then, you keep going until the itness of your brand exists. Easier said than done, right? Well, sometimes getting closer to itness, is just a matter of consistency and some simplicity. 

Take the facelift we did of the Sustainability Collaborative website. In preparation for a marketing push for their upcoming conference in Ireland this summer, we wanted to make sure that the style of the main  site matched that of the sister site, made specifically made for conference informational purposes. We didn't have to change any content to the site and just tried to make the site clean, crisp, and consistent with color and feel. The best part is that these types of changes don't take too long and go a long way to get an organization more bang for its buck. Take a look below to see what we did to the site.

Before....

...And After...

...To Match The Style And Feel Of A Sister Site... 

...Success!! 

Growing A Garden In Philly

Did you know that 2 Miles also does consulting that might get your hand a little dirty but also produces beauty, relaxation, and food? Yup, we do gardening and not just your regular old tomato plant and herb gardening. Quite the contrary actually with our emphasis on permaculture, soil engineering, garden bed construction, rain water collection, irrigation planning, and stormwater management. Heading up these efforts is Principal Consulting, Avery McEachern. Avery is an ISA certified arborist and has his Master's in Sustainable Design with a focus on the urban tree canopy, permaculture, and stormwater management.

We will continue to post updates on projects as they come in. In the meantime, we'd like to post this press we received for a project completed in the early days of 2 Miles. With our friends at postgreen (and a few fellow graduate students who helped us tremendously in exchange for pizza, beer, and an open invitation to challenge us to a game of corn-hole), we design-built this garden, its 9 garden beds, shed, 2 season compost bin, arbor, patio, sidewalk rain garden, additional side garden, and installed rain barrels. This garden not only inspired the owners and their visitors but passers-by in the notorious North Philadelphia neighborhood of Kensington, who informed their children, who called this 60' x 20' space a garden, that this was in fact a "farm".

Credits & Links:

The Week
Postgreen
ISA
Boutique Philly

Ad Placement for SustaiNext|EU

We are pretty stoked that the ad we designed is included in the Sustainable Brands newsletter. It's also inspiring, from the creative side, to see how other great brands are using a 200x200 px space to convey their message. In the live version, some of the other ads have used javascript to add some interactivity to their adds--pretty cool! 

The SustaiNext|EU Summit promises to be a great conference in Dublin, Ireland this summer by bringing together industry leaders in Global Healthcare, Agriculture & Food Services, Education, Transportation, and Global Society.  Speakers will present on topics that highlight global challenges and local solutions for creating, operating and improving sustainable business practices within these industries. For more information, go to www.sustainext.wordpress.com.

Hey! We've also got to give some credit to our friends at Bosha Design for their original logo design for the Sustainability Collaborative and SustaiNext|EU.

Simplicity & Purpose

When we begin to think about how to communicate through the digital world there is a complex web (no pun intended) of messaging techniques to keep in mind.  To figure out which ones to use, we must first ask the right questions; these will be the foundation that guide all further decisions about branding, images, style, language, color schemes, and audience.

Other items to consider when thinking about how to present a company, organization, firm, products, etc. in the digital world are:

• What is the point of the communication? For example, is the website being developed so that it can showcase a product, share information, or raise money for a foundation?
• Is the digital world your "store" or do you want to draw people in to a physical location?
• Are there supporters, partners, or sponsors of your organization that also need a presence on your digital space?
• How developed is your organization or project? If your business doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles (either from its nature or its stage of development), than neither should your website. The nice thing about the digital world is that there is a level of fluidity that is well adapted to the natural stages of organizational/project growth and complexities.

These are just a couple of questions to consider when starting to think about digital messaging. As an example of how this type of Integrated Design strategy (like that practiced here at 2 Miles), translates into a visual and digital presentation, take a look below at two different screen shots of websites we've designed.

This brightly colored website/blog was put together for a small, custom, woodworking shop located in Florida. The owner makes custom pens, bottle stoppers, and makeup brushes out of sustainably sourced wood. Still in its last phases of development, this website will serve as a portal to the Ebay store, an introduction to the small business, the types of products it produces, and its sourcing practices. The bright scripting of the background and logo help give the look and feel of the business location (sunny Florida) and the main type of products (high-end writing utensils).

This darkly themed site serves as online gallery and portfolio for artistic work. Its dark theme helps highlight the artwork presented through the site. Other than the images, and their titles, very little text is included on the site to ensure that the art is the main focus. There isn't even and "About Us" page for this very reason. Overall, the site is kept very plain but keeps a bit of whimsy with its name "-arooski", blog section named "caboodles", and the swirling background pattern. In addition to showing artwork, this site will serve as a portal to the artists' Etsy store.

A Little Exercise In Character Development

Well, we thought we would share the latest update on a side project: Mac 'N Cheesesteak PDX.

Before we start the real blogging and review of Portland's cheesesteak and mac 'n cheese dishes (we have about 5 reviews waiting in the wings), we have to create the foundation content for the site. On www.macncheesesteakpdx.blogspot.com, that foundation consists of the personification of the individual subjects (i.e. food items) and their cultural context in the societies that embrace them. Yes, we do mean the Psychology, Anthropology, and Sociology of these American food icons.

So far, we've infused our observations of both Philadelphia and Portland attitudes into the characters. We have also provided a "literature review" on the relevant culinary backgrounds of our subjects. No, this research will not stand up up to IRB Standards but it sure is interesting and informative nonetheless. It also provides some great factoids for social gatherings and water-cooler talk.

What's next on this project? Putting together the logic and data sets for the Metrics & Benchmarking section of the site. This will be used to judge each dish according to an established standard. We hope that the aggregated data will be (1) amusing, (2) informative for the culinarily inclined and (3) showcase how to create, organize, and interpret everyday statistics.

Watchya been doin?

Well, since last summer we've been helping the folks over at the Sustainability Collaborative with the communications strategy for their SustaiNext Summit series. These international conferences address the greatest challenges for businesses and society in the 21st century.

In addition to coordinating and creating newsletters, digital, and print materials, we are also really excited about a particular accomplishment. We've upgraded and redesigned the site for their next Summit (June 21st & 22nd, 2012 - Dublin, Ireland). It's clean, modern, and [we think] a pretty neat Wordpress.com site.

We want to know what you think about the ever elusive topic of "Sustainability".

Sure, people know what it means by now but there is always that pesky problem of incorporating the *stuff that this paradigm tells you to do. Why does it seem like the adoption curve (or The Diffusion of Innovations) on this one is so slow to kick of? Here are some answers we've come up with:

• Qualitative ROI metrics are still too elusive
• Not enough reliable communication & education resources
• Too much information/No cohesive resource
• People are afraid of change
• Tools for incorporation are not easily and/or readily available to the public consumer

To voice your opinion or comment, please visit our Facebook survey on the subject. We'll post the results on Earth Day and see what we can do to fix the problem.

*Stuff refers to things like re/upcycling, composting, buying more energy efficient products, choosing renewable sources, ensuring unused lights are turned off, making healthier choices, etc. You know, doing the right thing.

Announcing A New Side Project

Among other happenings at 2 Miles, which we will be sure to post about shortly, we decided to embark on a new and very fun side project. So, without further adieux, we are pleased to announce the beginning of Mac 'N Cheesesteak PDX!

We aren't sure where this blog will take us but it will undoubtedly tickle our senses and provide an outlet for expanding our capabilities through the lighter side of communication arts.

You may be asking yourself, "What does this have to do with sustainability?" Well, we hope to highlight the LOCAL food scene in portland, introduce readers to SMALL BUSINESSES & ENTREPRENEURS, and effectively prove that QUALITY of service over quantity has a lot to do with SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS OPERATIONS AND INTEGRITY.

SustaiNext Summit - East, 2011

Global leaders in sustainability converged in Philadelphia, PA on March 22-23 for the SustaiNext Summit – East 2011. The 2-day event, held in the Drexel University's Bossone Research Center, focused on how businesses and educators can help re-define America’s education, the economy, and society through practices based in the sustainability paradigm. The goal of the summit was to give participants real world examples on how to help create sustainable communities and a global society, while exchanging important research information.