As you may have noticed, I’ve rebranded this blog and myself as “The Optimization Strategist”.
I realised that a lot of what I do is optimizing a web presence to achieve better results.
I’m hoping the new positioning will make it easier for people to remember me, and what I do. I’m looking forward to writing content more consistently, and to take a more focused approach to what I write about. From here on, I’ll be writing more about business and marketing and less about freelancing and issues that face web designers.
What experiences have you had rebranding yourself or your business?
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To be honest, and I’d love to be proven wrong, but personally I think it’s a wrong move.
Firstly, I think that the new name has no personality, which I believe is vital in positioning yourself as a pro-blogger. Sure, it tells me what you do (in a broad, buzz-wordy kind of way), but it doesn’t tell me who you are. Also, the spelling tells me you are an American. I love your writing style, and your ability to put things into basic terms without dumbing it down. However, I think you deserve better in terms of branding what you’re all about: getting results.
Using broad terms such as “optimisation” and “strategy” also doesn’t help you to stand out among the bazillion other strategic business advisers, social media experts and synergy-weilding technophiles I see every day trying to get my attention on Twitter and elsewhere. I think I’ve become “banner-blind” to those kind of buzz-words. I think branding can help a lot, but in this case I feel it just sounds like one of those made up job titles that you see all too often in the industry.
If you can catch attention with clever, catchy, and dare I say it, viral branding, and follow it up with the kind of knockout content that I’ve seen you deliver, I think you’d be much better for it.
After reading my comment again, I feel I may have came off a little harsh which was not my intention. I was rambling from the perspective of a bitter, old web cynic rather than looking objectively at your new branding from the perspective of your intended audience, and for that I apologise. With that perspective in mind, I actually think your re-branding will help you to reach an audience who would benefit greatly from your advice, however I think there’s a lot that you can teach us old cynics well.
I stand by my belief that the name could have more personality, but on further reflection, a brand is so much more than just a name, and I think that your personality will shine through in not only your writing, but in the design and presentation of this site as the brand builds over time.
All this jibber-jabber and I just realised I STILL haven’t answered your question!
I remember way back when I decided to register a business name to to replace my name as my brand. It was probably one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make. So much thought went in to how I wanted to represent who I was and what I could do. I think I put more effort into this than naming my daughter (who is named after a video game hedgehog – simple!). I wanted a name that was fun, didn’t take itself TOO seriously but showed I had the chops to get the job done. Thus, Mad Web Skills was born (my second choice, as I couldn’t get the domains for just Mad Skills).
But over the past couple of weeks I’ve become sick and tired of the burn-out associated with working a full-time job during the day and freelancing until 1-2am. While it helps pay the bills, I’ve been feeling lately that I’m now at a turning point in my career where I’d like to shift my focus away from the daily grind and concentrate on my own goals instead of just the goals of my clients; and a lot of this has to do with my brand and the direction I take it over the coming months.
Unfortunately for me, I’m much more practical than I am business-minded, so I’ll be keeping an eye on this blog to help me with the balance I need to make sure my ideas become profitable. Keep up the good work, Luke.
(Man, I wish I wrote this much on my OWN blog…)
Hey Mikey thanks for your well thought out comments, I really appreciate this kind of feedback.
I have to disagree with you – I’m quite a fan of the name. I should point out though, that my target audience for this blog is “people that I can help”, rather than “people that I can do work for”. There’s a distinct difference.
People I can do work for includes agencies and subcontracting work. The work is mainly implementation work and it’s the type of work where I waste my skills.
I’d much rather help people decide what goals a website can help them achieve, what should be on their website, what marketing they can do for their website, and then bring it all together for them and make it happen. It’s what I do best, and it’s what I find most rewarding. It’s also a much harder goal.
The goal for this blog isn’t to become a problogger (I don’t even have ads on here) or become well known in the industry, but to have a collection of articles that my current clients find useful, and articles that would be useful to people that could benefit from my services.
I think that the name “Lukevdp” is something that’s very easy to forget, because I’m just another person out there that does web and marketing stuff. The Optimization Strategist isn’t a job title or anything like that. It’s a name that’s hopefully going to help people remember me by.
The freelancing part of this blog I’m going to shift over to Freelance Total (which is going through a redesign), where I’ll continue writing about freelance issues like selling, collecting bills, etc.
I am curiously looking forward to your upcoming changes!
All great points, and well made. I guess I wasn’t entirely clear on the change of direction/goals as well as the branding changes. You’re right that while the implementation side of things can be quite lucrative, you can waste a lot of time doing it when you could be making better use of your abilities. I’d love to write more, share what I learned, but find I never have the time/drive because of “the daily grind”.
Anyway, all the best with the new direction. I’m also glad that the freelancing articles will continue at Freelance Total (which just keeps getting better, BTW).