SEO is hard.

It’s hard because it seems easy, like yoga or being a racecar driver. Companies can spend a lot of time and money carefully crafting keyword copy only for Google to change its algorithm and boom: you’re on page 18 of search results with an unreadable site.

The positive news is there’s a straightforward way to improve your SEO. It’s not easy, but it’s clear:

Be good at what you do. [Bonus: be REALLY good at what you do.]

The first step to SEO success is defining what exactly it is that your site is supposed to “do.” It can generate revenue, it can improve your brand, it can spread information, it can do anything, really. But before anything else, its purpose must be defined.

Let’s say you want to spread information. For some sites, getting the most people to view the page is the ultimate goal (think sites like about.com). For other sites, you may only want 50 people in the world to visit.

When we created the Navistar Defense website, we didn’t try to target the content to every single user; we targeted it toward the handful of people who have the authority to invest in military vehicles. If we had gotten thousands of hits on that site but missed those key people, we would have missed our goal entirely.

After you’ve defined what you want your site to do, figure out ways to make what you do specific. It’s hard to be number one for the search term “cars.” It’s much easier to be number one for the term “rental cars at O’Hare.” Specificity is your friend. Google’s keyword tool will help you find what people are searching for and how well your site relates to those words.

You should also be paying attention to Google Analytics, which will show you exactly which keywords are bringing in the most traffic and the best traffic.

Sites meant to generate revenue have a built-in indicator for what traffic is the best: revenue. If your website traffic is way down but your revenue is way up, you’re winning. Don’t worry about a low page view count as long as the visits are generating enough revenue to keep the company growing.

In the end, companies should care about only one thing: are we better off than we were before? Are your revenues higher, is your brand image better, and yes, maybe your site has had more visitors. Define “better” and then set off to achieve that goal.

Build your field, know who you want to be there. They’ll come. Sometimes it’s a whole town, and sometimes it’s just Kevin Costner’s dad. But if you build it well and pay attention, they will come.

A new iPad App conceived and developed by Manning is part of a campaign that goes on the offensive against a CareerBuilder Superbowl ad that uses chimpanzees.

Our app, Chimps Should Be Chimps, is being used as part of the The Lincoln Park Zoo’s protest against CareerBuilder’s upcoming ad.  The story was picked up by NBC Chicago, the Chicagoist and the Chicago Sun-Times.

This CareerBuilder ad reminds us that the message of Chimps Should Be Chimps remains timely. The app allows us to reach a widespread, targeted audience and easily update and distribute the content. For fans this Sunday: if the big game is a blowout, and the commercials seem stale, there’s a another option to turn to.

NBC’s Chicago business blog, Inc. Well, did a story on us and our upcoming iPad app, Chimps Should Be Chimps. Check out the story, leave a comment, and make sure to download the app December 1st!

As the launch date for Chimps Should Be Chimps approaches, we’re taking a look back at our development process. For our first installment, we talked to the story’s illustrator about research, favorite characters, and collaboration.

Can you tell us how you developed the artistic style for the character illustrations?

Natalie Sklobovskaya:   For Lulu and Poe, there were many ways I could have drawn them. They could have been a drawing for National Geographic or it could have been a drawing for some nature textbook, but we were dealing with a digital children’s book. So for that there needs to be a lot more research done both on how children’s book chimps are drawn, and how to draw a chimp, because I have never drawn chimpanzees before in such an intense fashion.

For the character design portion, I took trips to the zoo to learn how to draw chimps. I spent hours sketching and learning how they live, where they hang out and how they move.  I also tried to figure out how to depict them with regards to where on the gradient of animal to human they were going to lie. We wanted the reader to relate to the chimps. So within that it was a lot of push and pull, bringing in little characteristics of humans – you know, whites of the eyes, and maybe less furry or a little bit furrier… finding a good balance until it looks like something that’s friendly and real at the same time.
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Meet our newest Project Manager!

We’d like to formally introduce our newest interactive project manager, Laura Nash. Laura joined us mid-September after completing a cross-country move from Seattle, Washington. She’s got years of experience producing digital media from concept development through post-launch strategy. Her production background includes work for Random House, Disney Online, Penguin Books, and Discovery Networks. In her spare time, Laura loves directing and stage managing theater.

As Interactive Project Manager at Manning, Laura will provide leadership on individual projects as well as overall creative vision and direction. She is especially well versed in app development and promotion. Oh, and if you aren’t sold on her yet — Celine Dion once sang her Happy Birthday. You’ve got to admit that’s pretty cool.

At Manning, we believe that good work comes from a very simple formula: hire talent, plan well, work hard.

Good work comes from good planning. Good planning comes from the right questions. Take our current bundle of fun for Project ChimpCARE.

First question: “What do they want?”

The Lincoln Park Zoo wanted to make a piece promoting Project ChimpCARE .

Next question: “No, what do they really want?”

ChimpCARE wanted a piece that illustrated how chimps were mistreated in entertainment, showed why people shouldn’t support chimps in entertainment, and showed how zoos are integral to rehabilitating those chimpanzees.

So we pitched an iPad children’s book.  It was a different way to get to the target audience and achieve all the goals of the project. Even though it wasn’t what they had originally envisioned for this project, the zoo embraced the idea and let us run with it.

That freedom allowed us to throw ourselves into crafting something that both reflected the objectives of ChimpCARE and let us demonstrate what we could really do as a company.

We started pitching story outlines back and forth. Versions and versions later, we had our outline.

We started writing. Seventeen drafts later, we had our story.

We started storyboarding. A hundred chalkboard drawings and digital sketches later, the book was starting to take shape.

We had a solid month of illustrations (24 illustrations in 25 days. Keep an eye out for Natalie’s post about exactly how much work that is.)

Then, after all of that, we can get to work on the iPad. All of the interactive design and development that goes into turning a story into an app is, according to our estimates, about a million hours more.

That’s a lot of work.

Every single step of the process was deliberately planned, everything was approved by the zoo as we went so there were no surprises, and every person on the project knew exactly what was happening and who to ask if they had any questions. Most importantly, we kept the project goals in mind while we worked through each part of the process.

Last question: “Was all that work worth it?”

Absolutely.

One of the hardest things to do when you work in a creative field is to allow yourself to veer from a direct line of thought. New ideas come from unexpected places, and it’s hard to find the time to check those places when you’re on a strict deadline.

Looking back on our linear timeline of history, innovation seems obvious. Of course the Earth revolves around the Sun, of course we can fly, of course we’ll use cell phones to check Facebook on a daily basis. However, there is nothing more intimidating or terrifying than being sat down and told to be innovative on command. Businesses need to be increasingly creative to stay competitive in the current market. Often, this happens when someone from marketing is forcibly grabbed from their desk, locked into a room, and told to come up with the next biggest thing on the FaceTube.

This is hardly fair to the poor chap from marketing.

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