Published on April 17, 2013 by Alex Houg

Google Drive Down

For the second time in a two month period Google Drive has been reported down by thousands of users on Twitter. This was first discovered at about 5AM Pacific Standard Time. It also appears that there are reports of Gmail, Apps admin panels, and Google product forum outages as well. Unfortunately at the time of this writing the Google app status page isn’t reflecting that the service is down.

UPDATE (6:01AM PST): Google has now reported the outages of Gmail and Drive on the app status page.

UPDATE (6:13AM PST): Outages of Documents, Presentations, and Spreadsheets are confirmed on the app status page.

UPDATE (6:43AM PST): The Google services have come back to life. Whew!

I will continue to update this post as new information is available.

Published on October 1, 2012 by Alex Houg

Five Action Steps To Be More Enthusiastic In Business

Over the past several weeks I have been on numerous sales calls, nothing unusual, but something I have found to have great influence and correlation to positive results is enthusiasm.

If you can show that you are super excited about what you are talking about or offering that will go a long way. I can say that as both someone who is very enthusiastic and someone who has listened to salespeople with that same mindset. Enthusiasm can also position you expertly, in ways knowledge alone can’t. If you can blend knowledge, expertise, AND enthusiasm, you will have more fun during sales calls and so will your prospects.

Now, I will give you a few action steps to help you nail this at your next meeting.

Action steps:

  1. Enjoy what you are doing. If you don’t like what you are doing or presenting, it will be extremely difficult to actually be enthusiastic about what you are talking about. This is critical and that is why it is the first step.
  2. Sit up tall. It will allow for you to have more oxygen in your lungs and it will display more confidence.
  3. Study your material. Knowing what your are presenting will help you flow through your presentation and give you the confidence to maintain your enthusiasm.
  4. Relax and let your personality shine through. If you stay true to yourself, you and your personality will shine through and that will make enthusiasm pour from you.
  5. Be happy. This may be obvious, but in my opinion, enthusiasm won’t happen without happiness. It will also send a good vibe from you.

Well, that is all I have for today. Leave a comment if you have any other tips you have found to be useful!

Published on September 21, 2012 by Alex Houg

Why you should think about real business practices, when doing SEO.

Let’s be honest here. If you do SEO, you probably ramble on about PageRank, domain authority, 500 word articles for $20, blasting thousands of links with one button, etc. That needs to stop.

I apologize for the hostility, but it really needs to stop.

Search engine optimization should be a part of a marketing plan that helps generate revenue for the business. At the end of the day when you are talking about online strategy to an executive, they don’t care about “link juice”. They want to know if this will increase their brand and make them more money.

If you want to be taken seriously, think about how you can increase the company through unique strategies that provide value to the community of interested prospects. This value you provide as a brand, will create raving fans, people that love what you offer, and ultimately people that buy what your company sells.

Use real company activities such as charity, events, conferences, and use those things to create unique content. That content is what will get the precious links you are after, all while amplifying the true nature and culture of the business.

As an SEO, get your mindset thinking about more than just the link, and you will find more success that way.