Create the Bridge

[createthebridge]

Several colleagues and I went out to a nice lunch today in memory of 2015.

We talked business, personal development, and relationships. During our conversation, I couldn't help but think how much fun my work life has been this year.

I started working at our digital creative agency only a few months ago, but I feel like the people I've met have been my long lost friends.

Those of you with agency experience know that the relationships you have with colleagues can be either really good or really bad.

When you work at an agency you often work long hours, operate on tight deadlines, and run on coffee or XYinence. It's easy to get annoyed with one another when things aren't going so well, so you have to find ways to chill and remind yourself to have fun.

I'm thankful for the leadership at our agency for incorporating fun elements into the daily grind.

This year we:

Ate fancy lunches.. just because

Closed down a restaurant on a random Tuesday night

Took some afternoons off to watch movies

Threw a huge party

Danced the night way

It's the little things we do in daily hustle that keep pushing us forward to do great work.

I've had a lot of fun at work in 2015. I'm committed to making 2016 equally enjoyable.

Hustle hard and have fun while you're at it!

http://www.createthebridge.com/blog/why-work-at-a-digital-creative-agency/

[createthebridge]

Wow, 2016 is here and my life is already going 100 MPH.

There is so much to do already: hiring, scaling processes, strategic planning, intelligence gathering, sales optimization, etc. Although I don't have to do all things by myself a lot of it still falls on me for the initial stages.

For those of you in business, I think it goes without saying that college can't possibly prepare you for business, much less start-up life.

So what in the world does college do??!

Here are 5 things I've personally learned:

Stats 101. In start-up life we talk about "hacks," which is a way of doing things faster and more effectively. One of the key strategies I use is testing my methods via experiments. I remember learning about experimental methods back in college. These principals helped me understand the power of data. I use my stats skills EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Psychology 101. Business is 10% technical skill and 90% people skills. How so? Dealing with people is the primary means of driving business forward. This year alone I've conducted over 50 face-to-face meetings, over 500 phone calls, and 10 or so interviews! The basic principals in psychology apply: what is the buyers true motivation? What is the root of their fear? Heck, I even throw down a Likert scale survey... "So on a scale of 1 to 1o" -- it works, folks!

Speech 101. I do a lot of talking. Some might even go as far as saying that I talk for a living! One of my biggest take aways from college was learning how to speak to large audiences, small teams, and personal relationships. I learned theories of conflict communication, as well as family communication theories that have helped me understand to a small degree why people talk the way they do!

Health & Wellness 101. Anyone that works at a start-up knows that work can have a toll on the body. It's not good. The weight gain, lower back pain, hurt wrists... ring a bell? I remember talking a wellness class in college that taught me principals of health, including stretching, proper posture, and breathing techniques. I don't think I would have picked up on these so soon if I didn't have to put these in practice for class!

Theology 101. Start-up life can be chaotic to say the least. In theology class I learned to think about chaos vs. order -- good vs evil -- beginnings and ends. Those nights when I think about work, life, and the universe, I'm glad I have a basic framework to work with. Something to help navigate the big questions. What about you? Any big take aways from college that you apply in business / start-up life?

http://www.createthebridge.com/blog/what-i-learned-in-college/

[createthebridge]

We live in the age of blogs, tweets, and snaps… and I love it.

I love being able to send a quick message and be heard by potentially thousands of people in a matter of minutes. That’s huge! The amount of information we consume on a daily basis is truly amazing. But I wonder: how much am I actually learning and growing based on the type of information I consume?

As a young professional working at an early stage startup, I don’t have the luxury of being mentored by a more experienced industry leader. I have to push myself to grow and learn by consuming the right type of information.

I am at a point right now where I need to start investing in my own training.

I’m struggling with questions like:

How do I scale my team?

How can I optimize my sales process?

How do I structure incentive plans?

What software exists to make the life of my team easier?

How do I navigate a complex sale?

How do I negotiate with large companies?

I realize that there is a lot of readily available materials free of charge, but I’m finding out that the real gold is in high-quality training programs, niche conferences, and 1-on-1s.

One small problem: They are not cheap.

First-rate conferences are expensive. Private coaching is expensive. High-quality training programs cost money.

In my personal experience, there comes a point in your professional life where you feel stuck. You feel like you've reached your limit. It's a sucky feeling. It can feel like defeat. More so if you are a young professional.

When you reach this level of self-awareness you know its time to look for avenues that can help reduce your knowledge gap.

My solution is investing in high-quality training opportunities.

For 2016, I am:

Attending 1 regional conference and 1 national conference.

Finishing a high-quality training program based on the recommendation of my industry peers.

Finding a mentor / coach that can help me think more clearly and strategically.

I've already begun this journey. The results so far have been exactly what I've been looking for.

Training is expensive, but worth it!

http://www.createthebridge.com/blog/training-is-expensive-but-worth-it/

[createthebridge]

There is an electrifying buzz around the office.

My team and I are on the hunt to fill several key positions at our company.People are walking in and out of the office inquiring about positions, interviewing, and showcasing their talent. It would be an understatement to say that the optimism around the office is overwhelming.

I’ll be the first to admit it: I love this energy!

In early start-up life there are a few things that founding members and employees get excited about: revenue, profit, and momentum. Sure, money is great. Who doesn’t need money? You can pay your bills on time and continue to pay employees. And of course, when the company turns a profit everybody wins. Momentum is the next best thing.

Momentum is the electrifying feeling and knowledge that growth is happening right before your eyes.It’s the little things like making a run to Office Depot to buy more desks and chairs. It’s buying tools to mount white boards and other objects onto your bare walls. Most importantly, it’s on-boarding new team members to the team.

Building a company from scratch is a difficult endeavor. Seeing it grow and prosper is a blessing.

http://www.createthebridge.com/blog/momentum-in-start-ups/

[createthebridge]

My First Year As A Web Developer

The latter part of 2014 wasn't so great for me, but it did give me the motivation to pursue something that I always wanted to do. In hindsight, quitting my job and dropping out of college to dedicate myself to web development seems crazy and risky - and it admittedly was - but it was one of the smartest moves I've ever made. January of 2015 I sent out some e-mails to some web design companies in my area, a few days later I met with Create the Bridge, and a week after that I started my internship.

That was a year ago now, and I've since moved up the ranks from intern, to paid intern, to getting hired as a full-time full-stack junior developer. To say that I've learned a lot in a short amount of time is an understatement. I am writing this with the intent of sharing some things I've learned along the way, that will hopefully help out other green developers.

1. Get comfortable with failing

You know that thing you call an ego? Get rid of it. You're probably not going to be good at writing code from the get go, and that's ok. Ain't no shame in your Google game. You'll still be using Google and StackOverflow at the senior level, so don't beat yourself up over constantly having to do a Google search to solve something. Chances are you're not the first person to have the problem you're stuck on, and chances are someone else has already found a better way of solving it. Study (not copy) their code and learn from their problem solving. Think better.

Adapt.

A month into my internship I thought I was doing such a horrible job that I decided to quit before I got fired. I was so afraid to fail that I wanted to beat them to the punch. Imagine my surprise when I got pulled into a meeting and was told that I was actually doing really well and encouraged to keep at it. If you're the type of person who is drawn to development, you're probably also the type of person who likes to solve things and doesn't like the feeling of being bad at something. That's ok. But don't get in your own way.

I had no way of gauging my performance, and I had a huge case of imposter syndrome. Check in with others more experienced than you - ask them how they think you're doing. Not just in your first month, but whenever you start to doubt yourself and your abilities. You might be surprised to hear that you're doing a lot better than you convinced yourself of. And if you're not, then ask for constructive criticism and work on being more efficient. I cannot stress enough how important it is to drop your ego and just focus on being better and more efficient.

2. Define your problem before attempting to solve it.

A well defined problem is most of the way solved

A huge pitfall for me at the beginning was attempting to solve something that I hadn't thought through all way yet. I'll use an example that I heard on a podcast and funnily enough, was actually a problem I had already stumbled upon about a month before listening to this particular episode.

Say you are trying to validate e-mails against a regex. So then the goal is: I need to come up with the correct regex to validate an e-mail. However, if you take a step back and get to the root of what you're trying to accomplish, your goal then is: I want to prevent someone from signing up with a fake e-mail address. Once looking at your ultimate goal from this perspective, a more efficient way of solving this problem would be to send an e-mail to that person, and having them click a validation link.

Don't overcomplicate what you're trying to solve. Get to the root of what you want to do and figure it out from there. A good way to help you get to the root of your problem is to articulate it to someone else. Even if they don't have the answer, usually defining your problem to someone else will help you better understand it and ultimately solve it.

3. Documenation. Documentation. Documentation.

Documentation was written for a reason. Read it. There are times when you'll come across some poorly written documentation, but honestly, that is rare. I've only come across that once in an entire year.

4. Don't stress yourself out.Take inventory and get organized

Knowing everything you have to get done on a project can be stressful if you look at it as a whole. Break up all those tasks into smaller tasks and start there. We use Trello to stay organized throughout the lifecycle of a project. Add a card to the board per task. It makes a difference when you can visually track your progress and know that you're crossing things off the list.

Treat each day as a fresh start

Didn't crush it yesterday? That's ok - there's always tomorrow. It can be really discouraging if you're behind on a project and it's all you can think about. While it's good to ask yourself what you can improve on and try to diagnose where you lost time - don't dwell on it. It can linger in your mind and really hinder your productivity. Just trust that you'll do better tomorrow.

5. Take breaks.

This one seems simple and maybe obvious, but it's a lot easier said than done. If you're hacking away at something for 12 hours with little to no breaks, chances are you could've gotten the same amount of work done in 8 hours if you would've just taken more breaks and let yourself recharge a bit.

It's happened to me several times - I'll be stuck on a problem for a while, finally just give up, and as I am walking away from my desk I solve it. Or I'll literally have a dream about the problem and solve it in my sleep. If you're burnt out all the time, then you're not going to be very productive. If your mind is focused on something else, you're also not going to be very productive. It may seem counterproductive to take a break instead of putting more hours into solving something, but just trust the process.

Get meta with your productivity

I am a data nerd. Numbers, data, stats - these things don't lie! I've recently started tracking my progress when working on tasks. I'll record the complexity of the task, and a start and end time. Some questions I ask myself after: Why did this take longer than expected? Did I have anything else other than work on my mind? Did I get distracted or waste time at any point? What was my mood/energy level during this time of day and during the task? Once you look back at the data, you'll usually notice patterns and be able to adjust. I found out that I was least productive after taking a long lunch, and when there was a lot going on in the office (Skype calls with clients, loud phone conversations, etc.). So I adjusted by taking shorter lunches so I wouldn't completely lose focus, and if need be, step out to lunch somewhere quiet where I could recharge in silence. Now I've noticed that I actually get more work done in a shorter amount of time. Adjust. Adapt. Profit!

You don't have to get really anal about tracking and recording your work habits, but at least take a step back and try to see any patterns in your productivity.

6. Start a passion project.

If you have time, build something on your own time and revisit it every few weeks or months. Refactor your code and see what you've improved on or picked up in the past week(s).

7. Follow other developers on social media

Join the conversation - see what other developers are writing/talking/reading. Learn from them. Ask better questions. Two podcasts I enjoy listening to are Shop Talk and Developer Tea.

Some people I recommend following on Twitter:

Eric Meyer

Brad Frost

Trent Walton

Paul Irish

Jeffrey Zeldman

Chris Coyier

Dave Rupert

Ethan Marcotte

8. Share what you know.

One thing that I love about the industry is that it is built on a foundation of sharing knowledge and resources. If you're just starting out, you are (hopefully) literally learning something new every day. Document this, no matter how small you may think it is. Explaining what you learned will only help you understand it more yourself and might even help out others. It's a win-win for all. (I am actually really bad at this one, but one of my new year resolutions is to write more blogs and be more active on social media.)

9. Have fun!

Kinda cheesy, but also true. You get to sit at a desk, put on headphones, and solve problems using code. How cool is that? It still blows my mind that I get paid to do this, when truthfully I'd be doing it for free anyway (just don't tell my employers that). And it definitely doesn't hurt that I'm part of a team that creates some really amazing work.

http://www.createthebridge.com/blog/my-first-year-as-a-web-developer/

[createthebridge]

There is a certain level of pain involved in growth.

Yes, I said it — pain.

In early stage start-ups there are no “rules” per se. Things like IF x THEN Y. Repeat. Ha, I wish things were that easy.

I lead the customer development efforts at our start-up and every day brings a new challenge.

For example, one day you crush one vertical with one approach only to find out that approach doesn’t work with another vertical. You find out that mornings work better for one group of people, but late nights work best for other groups. Everyday brings a certain level of headache.

You didn’t think start-up life would be easy, did you?

Despite challenges and obstacles you have to decide that you want to overcome. You have to choose to win. You have to feel that loosing is not an option.

Here’s how to accomplish that: push, then push harder, harder, harder, harder, HARDER.

When you want to grow except a certain level of discomfort. It could be a mix of emotional and intellectual pain. It’s the feeling of figuring out why you can’t figure it out. It’s those nights where you can’t sleep because you want to do things faster and more effective. Start-up life ain’t no joke.

So why am I saying all of this?

I’m writing to let you know that if you’re serious about growth this year expect a little pain and discomfort.

Growing pains are part of start-up life…and life in general.

Don’t be scared. Toughen up. It’s OK to feel a bit overwhelmed. It’s means your doing something right.

http://www.createthebridge.com/blog/pain-in-growth-2/

[createthebridge]

You Think Too Much - Make It Happen

I’ll admit it: I love to think about thinking.

I went to graduate school what can I say??

Planning, strategy, new ideas are important to stay relevant in a fast-paced business world, but too much of it can hurt you.

What do I mean?

Have you ever spent a whole day brainstorming about an idea? Maybe it was a business idea. Maybe it was about your future. Maybe it was about your relationships. Maybe it was about your job. All of these things are great to ponder, but what good are these things if we don’t plan to put them in practice?

In business, time is a valuable commodity. Every hour that passes by is an opportunity to push the business forward. You have to use your time wisely.

Recently, I’ve been tasked to iterate some of our processes. I’ve been tasked to do a few things: grow a team, make them succeed, test new methods, document outcomes, tap a new market, among many other things.

I take my job very seriously so I spent days brainstorming, thinking, writing, talking, debating with myself to the point that I was thinking more than doing… but I didn’t realize how bad it was until a friend asked me what I’ve been up to: I said "thinking."

My friend immediately said: “Stop thinking already- make it happen.”

It hit me right in the face.

I didn’t realize I was over-thinking. How could I? Thinking consumes you. It’s work… but in business and in start-up life you have to balance thinking AND doing simultaneously.

Don’t get carried away with thinking too much and forgetting to do what you have to do.

I’ve learned my lesson.

http://www.createthebridge.com/blog/you-think-too-much-make-it-happen/

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For a recent client project, I was tasked with building a form that would need to asynchronously update the options on display according to the user's selections. With this post, I'm going to put together a small test app that...

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You’ve probably heard of Google Adwords by now, but you may not be sure how to use it for your business. Even though AdWords may seem difficult to set up and confusing, the benefits are tremendous. By using AdWords...

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Pay-Per-Click Ads: Writing Effective PPC Ads

February 1st, 2015.

You’ve probably heard of Google Adwords by now, but you may not be sure how to use it for your business. Even though AdWords may seem difficult to set up and confusing, the benefits are tremendous.

By using AdWords, you will be advertising on the most popular search engine: Google. Google's platform allows your advertisements to be displayed in front of the biggest potential audience. These ads are strategically placed to entice visitors into clicking on them in hopes of finding the most relevant information related to your search.

Understanding how to use Google AdWords is vital to your online marketing efforts. It is an essential component of search engine marketing (SEM Guide to ORGANIC (SEO) AND PAID (PPC) Traffic). There’s a reason SEM has become a multi-billion-dollar industry, and that reason is because it’s one of the most effective forms of advertising.

It’s true, to an extent, that search engine optimization (SEO) is long term strategy because you’re not going to get immediate results. On the other hand with PPC, you can instantly see the increase of your website traffic through advertisments.

The trick with PPC is that even though it is insanely easy to set up, it is also risky and fairly difficult to get a good return of investment (ROI). Because with poor management, you can spend a fortune, generate many visits, and end up with nothing to show for it.

PPC is a terrific addition to the inbound marketer's toolbox, but if you've not used paid search much, it can be expensive and inefficient.

PPC consists of a headline, a couple of brief lines of text, and a link. Now, whether or not a person clicks on your ad depends on how powerful your message is and how relevant it is to what they searched for.

AdWords generates near real-time statistics, so you can quickly evaluate your ads’ performance and measure a searcher's intent. This might seem like a lot to keep track of, but search advertising on Google AdWords is not overwhelming.

In this post we are going to inform you on what is actually involved in PPC optimization so that you can make the best business decisions with your marketing budget.

Low hanging fruit

Choosing the right niche before you start your PPC campaign is very important. It can literally make the difference between the success or failure of your PPC campaign.

You want a niche that people are actually searching for because if no one is typing your niche into Google, you won’t get traffic no matter how good your product or service is.

Don’t pick a niche with a lot of competition nor keywords that are too competitive, however. It is actually easier to pick low competitive niches and make money from the low hanging fruit. To ensure that people are in fact searching for your niche, you can use a keyword tool. Keyword tools allow you to type in a word or phrase and see roughly how many times that word or phrase is searched for each month.

The first step in creating an effective AdWords campaign is to identify a broad range of keywords potential customers might use in search queries for your type of service. All PPC campaigns must begin with extensive keyword research because choosing the best keywords to bid on will most likely result in a lot of clicks and high conversion rates (Our New Year's Resolution for 2015: Higher Conversion Rates).

Developing a list of keywords, however, takes time and patience. In order to create and develop a comprehensive set of keywords, plan on spending at least 6 hours of work, if not more.

Also, before you start doing web or internet based advertising, you need to have a robust web analytics software set up for your website. Web analytics is a type of software that allows you to see how people get to your site and what they do when they get there (Read more about Google Analytics).

You need to have this up and running before even thinking of starting your PPC campaign.

Write an Attention-Grabbing Headline

Hopefully you already searched the keywords you want your ad to target, and have Adwords in place.

The first thing you need to look at is the headline. It is the main and first thing people see. Users decide to click your ad in a matter of seconds, so you want to make it short, and to the point. The more successful headlines incorporate the keyword that people are searching for in their headlines.

Your headline is the most prominent aspect of your ad, and you only have 25 characters of space to capture your reader’s interest.

Make sure your header contains the relevant keyword at least once, and that the customer has clear idea what the company offers and what their products are. This reinforces the relevance of your ad to the searcher and will help them see the value in your offer.

Write a Relevant Description with a Call-to-Action

Below the headline are the description lines. This is where you want to get out your main point and your biggest offer.

Descriptions should be specific, relevant and explicitly useful for the user. Continue to test new descriptions to learn what is most valuable to your customer and what catches their attention. You have 35 characters to do this and again, you want to make it short and to the point.

You can run the first description line onto the second one, but optimize it the most by separating the messages between the two lines.

Make sure you close the deal with a compelling call to action (CTA) in the second description line. Including a call to action in your ads is crucial because it will help increase your click-through rate. So don't underestimate the power of your call to action. Effective CTAs include: LEARN MORE, SHOP NOW, ORDER TODAY OR (for mobile) CALL US!

Write An Easy-to-Read Display & Destination URL

Your ad will need to have a display URL and a destination URL. The display URL is a clean, easy-to-read URL shown at the bottom of the ad. The destination URL is what it directs to.

It is important that the domain for the display and destination URL are the same or else Google will disapprove the ad. Also, make sure to build a ultra-specific page to send the search traffic to (called a landing page).

The landing page must be fully functional and relevant to the keyword. It should look professional, and above all offer them what they were looking for in the first place.

Experiment with Ad Extensions

Search ads are no longer just about headlines, description lines and display URLs. Google offers plenty of tools to make your ads more compelling and ad extensions now also play a huge part in the appearance and success of our ads.

Ad extensions are a type of ad format that show extra information about your business. These extensions can help improve the click-through rate (CTR) of your ads.

Traditional extensions include call, location, product, and social extensions as well as site links; Google strongly promotes the use of these extensions. There's no cost to add extensions to your campaign, but you're charged as usual for clicks on your ad.

Test, Test, and Test Again

Compelling, targeted text ads are crucial to a high-performance PPC campaign, and you should test these ads regularly so that you're continually trying to improve your CTR.

If you’re not testing, you’re missing out on possible progress that can be made. Don't be like many advertisers that fail to update their ads regularly and have their messaging, promotions or prices are out of date.

PPC advertising has the potential to deliver large amounts of targeted traffic and the ability to boost your business’ online profits, but it takes technical know-how to do it properly.

Even marketing veterans can make mistakes when they enter into a new market, or start selling a new product with PPC.

Do you have an active AdWords account but need help managing your PPC budget? You're not alone! Let Create the Bridge manage your PPC campaign, and let us save you money and work. We will manage your PPC campaign and identify the areas that can drive the highest ROI for your business.

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Out with the old, in with the new — 2015 has just kicked off, and that means a whole new year of new trends in the small business world. Today's technology is becoming more powerful and affordable than ever and with...

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The ULTIMATE 9 Step Guide to Creating an Optimized Blog for Search Engines” [Infographic] 

Download Infographic  

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xxf9jr7lb6yql12/INFOGRAPHIC-BLOG_6._ra_v5.jpg?dl=0