Online Marketing Consulting

I lead an online-marketing group at a Boston ad agency, Baldwin/Clancy/Rogan Advertising. Larger clients prefer to work with me in this venue because of our integrated-marketing strategies combining online and offline marketing programs.

In my free time, I operate an online-marketing consulting business. I help improve the Websites of friends, relatives and smaller firms.

When I tell people I work on Websites, they often respond with something like, “Oh, you’re a Web designer?”

I smile and say, “No…” (Can’t you tell from looking at this site?)

“I actually don’t do the graphic design. The truth is, I don’t have much design sense. What I do is ‘produce’ sites.” (I often use WordPress as a CMS). This is what producing a site generally entails:

Strategy: What is the goal of the site? Selling something? Promotion? Lead generation?
Information architecture: How is the site going to be structured? Where are people going to expect to find different types of content and tools on the site?
SEO: What can be done to generate more leads/sales from people using search engines? Technical factors, editorial focus and convincing reputable sites to provide inbound links.
PPC: I design and manage pay-per click campaigns for small businesses, financial institutions and B2B companies, as well as ones for myself.
Content development: I started out as a journalist, so I love to be able to focus on the actual words on the pages of the site. (You can see some of my published writing or broadcast writing.)
Project management: A complex commercial site involves a team of extremely bright people with expertise in areas a manager often knows little about. I have done a lot of project management, both in the Web world and as a TV producer. The skills are similar. In both cases the PM has to lead a team without stifling the creativity and contrary ideas…and while sometimes (though not in your case) navigating egos.