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One thing that I have come to love after living in Mountain Home, Arkansas is Sign Ordinances. We don’t have one here, at least not one I could find doing a Google search. Although the Google search did show that we had a proposed ordinance for Jack-Asses! The picture to the right shows what happens when a city doesn’t have a Sign Ordinance. The whole city/town is made to look trashy. One guy tries to outdo the next by putting up more signs or bigger signs. It’s a scary cycle that destroys the look and feel of the city. As you can tell I’m disgusted by this. Now, I understand people want freedom, but when people destroy the look of a public area then something has to be done. I figure it’s either kick all the stupid people out of town or create a Sign Ordinance.


I wanted to find out more about Sign Ordinances so I thought of the nicest town I had been to, which was Roseville, CA. I remember being amazed out how nice their city was and how great everything looked. I did a Google Search and sure enough they have a Sign Ordinance. It was the most beautiful and inspiring 47 page pdf document I have ever read. Here is a snippet:

The City Council adopts this Title based upon the following findings:
A. Signs are an essential element of any community. As such, their location, number, size,
design, and relationship to each other and to other structures has a significant influence
upon a community’s appearance and welfare, and a resultant effect upon a viewer’s
perception of the community. Signs serve a useful purpose in communicating a message,
whether commercial or otherwise.
B. Where signs are not properly regulated, they contribute to visual clutter, confusion,
aesthetic blight, and create an unpleasant impression. They may cause traffic hazards
and impede rather than enhance commerce. In such situations, signs may fail to achieve
their original objective of communication. Failure to appropriately regulate signs
adversely affects the public health, safety and welfare.

One of my favorite signs is shown in the picture below. Listen up all you cities with no Sign Ordinances: meditate, pray, or just take a look at your city and please put some thought into what you want it to look like.

Inspired by this advice from Robert Scoble:

Pick a niche and own it. This will definitely help you on search engines. Why? Because people visit Google looking for specific things. Google is like a billion niches. If you try to appear on all billion niches, you’ll probably appear on none of them. But, owning a niche, like “funny Silicon Valley stories” is a lot easier than owning a more generic “funny stories” search. Pick your niche carefully, though. You’ll want to do something you’re passionate and authoritative on.

and this from Hugh MacLeod:

It has never been easier to own a niche. But it’s also never been easier to be totally screwed without one. Just because you’re young, pretty and clever, does not mean you’re immune.

we went down by the lake to talk niche. We need your help on this, so jump in!