We’ve never built Project 03 before

The last three to four weeks have been as exhausted as I’ve been in awhile. That good kind of exhausted. Not that kind where the weight of the world is on your shoulders and it’s looking to recruit any and all comers to add to the misery. I don’t need to take a load off, Fannie – yes, Wolf, that’s the lyrics.

It’s that kind where every time I think I have finally grasped the amount of work it’s going to take to get it running, the scope redefines itself and sends me further down the rabbit hole. It’s okay. I’ve been down this before. They’re called Books of Blues. It’s getting to the point where I’m shutting down every other aspect of my life but gym, family and Project 03 because I want to write.

Reviving Project 02

A lot of that is focusing on Project 02, which feels like there’s more damns in the well than I have fingers with which to plug. We’re merging Project 02 into Project 03. It was always the plan. It’s the long term goal to make Project 02 a testing ground for Project 03. A playland where we get to play with Search Engine Optimization Tricks (there, Di, I wrote it out).

Interlude – Last Friday @ Blackbird Cafe

Last Friday I had lunch with a couple old friends – Stackert & Di – two gracious ladies with spirit and pizzazz and thoughts of others before themselves. Beauty in every since of the word! The three of us hadn’t been together since Di’s wedding on Fourth of July two years ago. Man has the time gone bye – to the point where I’m solving that issue with Google Calendar reminders – but after 5 minutes it felt like we were as close as we were back in the Old Agency days. Back story: they were account execs left to work without a net and the only one left in the place who had done AE / PM work there was me so for a while 1/3rd of my job was teaching them on the fly.

One of the things we talked about – after the catching up – were some of the plans The Wolf & I have for Project 03. They were looking it over and Di pointed out an issue.

“Write out SEO. None of your case studies will know what SEO means.”

I tried to argue that it was more for notes to talk about when talking face to face but before I finished she started asking everyone in Blackbird Cafe if they knew what it meant. Stackert & I just looked at each other and shook our heads and chuckled as Di finished up proving her point with a smile.

Thankfully, some things never change.

Project 02 – Issues to Overcome

While the Wolf & I have associated the project with the desired online communities, project 02 still has trust issues with Google they need to work out. How do I know?

1. Traffic is still down. Granted the project has been neglected but it shouldn’t take as much effort
2. More competitors are in the niche than when the Project started
3. Google doesn’t index any latest updates from Project 03 until 24 hours after the changes are made. Now that’s faster than the 4 days it was taking to get the changes updated back when I fixed project 03 back in November, but if Google fully trusted Project 02, it would index my changes and additions within mere moments thanks to Google’s near two-year-old updated platform – Caffiene.
4. Google Penguin – Google’s latest pet project to piss me off  and shotgun out listings they don’t like. To me, it’s a blatant attempt to force people to rely on Google Adwords instead of SEO to get traffic because Google only makes money off Adwords and not other’s SEO, and all the solutions posted by “experts” are redundant, generic and non-descript. It’ll get fixed. It’s just gonna take months to do it whereas it used to take days.

In fact, other case studies we have lined up in Project 02 might work better than the first case study but over time, all of them will be worth it.

It’s just learning to go without for awhile longer than I anticipated.

What we’ve learned so far…

We’re learning that I need to skill up in a couple more development areas to cover slack and that we have to be a little more firm with our case studies. Not mean, but in that way were if there isn’t a defined project, things get neglected and nothing gets done and our efforts go for naught. So we’ve been re-writing process on the fly. That’s why we’ve done case studies before announcing anything.

September 03 is coming. We’re still thinking of telling everyone what it is in.
But first, The Wolf’s got some friends whose collective asses need bailed out, again. It’s been like watching an accident unfold and not being able to do a damned thing about it. It might back up our plans, but so it goes.

In the end, we’ve never built Project 03 before.

Bare with us, please.