Archive for the ‘Website Design’ Category

Your domain name could be expiring and be dead, gone and buried unless you follow a few simple directions.

Today I lost a friend. She expired with little warning after a few years of vitality. What did she die of? Neglect!  She was not the first of my friends to expire this way. Others I know have suffered the same fate. You, too, could expire in exactly the same way.

Protect Your Domain Name

I’m making light of a very serious subject—keeping your domain name intact. I can tell you many stories of websites that have cost hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars and which have all vanished in the blink of an eye, all for want of auto-renewal.

Don’t let squatters and domain pirates purchase your valuable domain. Protect it by making sure you have it set to auto-renew. Most people’s domains lapse because they don’t keep an up-to-date credit card correct (current) e-mail address on file with the domain name registrant.

Domain Name Renewal Process

Normally, within 90-60 days of your domain name’s expiration, you will receive a notification from the registrant about the upcoming renewal. Your registrant sends the renewal notification to your e-mail address of record. *Read that sentence again!* If you don’t have an up-to-date e-mail on file with your registrant, you will not receive your notification and if your credit card is not current, your domain will expire. It’s that simple. There’s no mystery to it.

Registrars commonly allow people to search for expiring domain names. Here are results suggested when I searched for CharlestonRealEstate.

And when it expires, there are pirates lurking. Even now, domain registrants are promoting the resale of about-to-expire domain names. If you don’t think this is big business, think again! Once your domain has expired, some will buy it and then if you want it back, it will be held for *ransom*.

Prevent Domain Name Loss

When you purchase a domain name, you are securing your brand. You have the option of registering it for one or more years and to protect it by associating the domain’s renewal with your credit card.  Select multiple years or if you must purchase only one year’s registration, set a calendar reminder for 60 days prior to your registration renewal, so you’ll be prompted to go ascertain all is in order.

When registering, you also are asked for an e-mail address. Make sure you use an e-mail address that is based on your domain name or one that is associated with your Internet Service Provider. People change Internet Service Providers and forget or trash e-mail addresses. Use a webmail address, such as a Gmail or Yahoo account e-mail, but make sure you check it regularly and add your registrant to the list of “safe” senders.

Check Now!

Have I made you paranoid enough? Go check your domain registrant’s files now. Make sure they have a credit card that will still be valid come your renewal date and that they have a valid e-mail address with which to communicate with you.

By taking these few precautions now, you will prevent the expiration of your brand

**Gravestone image credit: flickr user Martin Pettitt

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As you plan your website, you will take inventory of the images of your staff, your products, your office or facility. You will be examining each of them and considering which can be used in the development of your site.

You may be tempted to take your own photographs.  Many people assume that because they have a high resolution digital camera, that they can easily take shots suitable for use on their website.

While this is true in fact, it is often not true in execution. Taking photos requires patience, planning and persistence. Understanding just how to light, or frame the shot, or which angle will yield the most pleasing composition are challenging if you don’t shoot professionally. It’s not that you can’t do it, it’s just that someone who shoots for a living brings years of knowledge and understanding to a shoot. And they often bring professional quality equipment to a shoot as well.

If you decide you want to take your own photos for use on your website here are a few guidelines that may help you get better results:

1. Set your camera for the highest resolution you have. More digital information is better.
2. Shoot in RAW or lossless format, choose that setting. Your website designer will be able to enhance the images more easily if you can do this.
3. Scout your shooting location in advance. Know where the sun is. If you are shooting near a window, make sure the sun is not pouring through the window “blowing out” one half of the room.
4. Don’t shoot in the middle of the day, if you are shooting outside. Plan your shots for early morning or late afternoon when the sun is not straight overhead. However, if you shoot in the morning or evening, make sure you are not shooting towards the sun. The sun should be behind you. Even better is shooting on a cloudy day. Your colors will come out brighter and more crisp.
5. Use natural or ambient light if possible. And if not, use indirect, even light from both sides unless you are trying to achieve shadows.
6. Avoid reflective surfaces that bounce back light. An “onboard” flash (which is what most point and shoot digitals have) will put too much light in the center of your shot, washing it out.
7. Frame your shots so there is not anything distracting in the background.  You don’t want extraneous items to take attention away from what you are focusing on.
8. Take test shots and review them to be sure you have lighting, framing, and composition planned well.
9. Don’t get too “tight” on your subject. Leave the web designer enough room to crop the shot as needed for use on your website.
10. Use a background. For products, you can set up a simple background of black velvet or light colored paper to achieve an isolated product shot.

And if this all seems overwhelming, ask your web site design company to recommend a local, professional photographer. The expense will improve your website and it will be worth the money.

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This video gets to the heart of what I want to discuss today.

When your firm or company hires a creative agency to design a website, advertisement or marketing materials to support your business goals, I hope you do so because they are professional, experienced, and knowledgeable.

Then, when you’ve selected your professionals, hopefully you’ve provided clear direction and then stepped back so they could “work their magic.” Unfortunately, those of us in the creative world all too often experience the dreaded “Design by Committee.” It can be either a challenge or a curse. Often what happens is the creative team brings back solid work that gets MUNGed (Messed With Until No Good) to death.

That adage came to mind today when reading the Smashing Magazine article on design by committee.

Dare to be different

Just last week we presented a concept to a client. The concept was designed to be different from his competitors. It incorporated a generous use of white space, and had an open feeling. It was elegant just as their product is elegant, but it was distinctively different from their competitors. Upon first viewing there was a resounding “We love it” and as we progressed through options for other aspects of the project, we were all feeling good. At the end of the meeting however, the client began second guessing himself and the open, unrestricted feeling of the concept. He said, it “didn’t look like a webpage.”  The client proceeded to point out how all his competitors had website pages that looked more like pages of paper lying on a surface. He then suggested that he might show it to a group of up to 20 people and get their input. Our questions and response, “Why would you do that? What would it achieve? We know you want to stand out, be interesting, be different. And we agree you also need to love your website. But you don’t need a committee to each add their 2¢ and MUNG the idea.”

Know what works

I champion usability research and understanding click patterns, heatmaps, gender differences, trends and other insights informing us how people behave when interacting with websites. We expect our clients to know their brand promise and we expect to bake that into our concept. We prefer not to have concepts chewed up and spit out of the mouth of a committee like so much chewing tobacco on the sidewalk.

Know that when your designer brings you an idea that they’ve torn up way more than you are seeing, that they’ve tested, vetted and destroyed the weak ones and have brought their very best professional recommendations.  And isn’t’ that why you hired them?

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Are you using excuses to keep you from doing what needs to be done?

“You don’t have any idea of how much money you’re losing by not having a professionally designed website.” ~Mary Cantando

I’ve been receiving The Woman’s Advantage Newsletter and have really come to enjoy the words of wisdom from Mary Cantando. In her recent newsletter she referenced the video below and I found myself nodding in agreement.

I’ve been on all sides of this argument; as a client; as a representative of an agency and as an entrepreneur. Mary’s right. There are things on which you must spend money. One of them is professional website design.

Here is an excerpt from her video that she shared in her most recent newsletter. She urges us to stop making excuses for why are aren’t successful.

We can all make excuses as to why we don’t do the things that will help our businesses thrive, but really, there is just no excuse!

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One of my colleagues and I were recently discussing creating websites for our clients. She related the first question she usually asks her clients, “Are you text ready?” With her question she shows that she expects the clients to have done much of their planning when they come to her.

photo courtesy of flicker creative commons/alancleaver_2000

As a first step, we often focus on the client’s expectations for the site; customer experience, business and sales goals for the site and who will update the content. My colleague’s focus on “Do you have content?” is also one of our primary questions.

Many of our clients want a website and they want it fast. We hope to have them hit the pause button for a bit so that they follow a careful, thoughtful planning process. Part of the planning process is understanding what you want to communicate and why. Ask yourself, “Who will be reading this copy?”  The next question you should ask yourself is, “Who will be writing our website’s copy?”

Many of our clients feel they are so familiar with their products and services that they can write their own copy. Some do an excellent job of writing their own copy, but many have difficulties.

If you are planning to write your own copy, here are a few things to consider:

1. In the past, how successful have you been writing copy for your company newsletter or advertising?
2. Do you have the time? Time spent writing is time spent away from management, sales or doing the work you are most frequently paid to do.
3. Do you know the core points you wish to make?
4. Will your team members or staff help you write the copy?
5. Have you researched your competitors to understand how to differentiate your company?
6. Do you know what keywords are important to include so that you build in SEO from the start?

Some customers may balk at paying a professional copywriter for their services, but a professional is held accountable for their abilities and time. Instead of thinking you can just write something during your weekends then struggling to write and ending up mad with yourself, use a professional copywriter. The expense is worth every penny.

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Most small business owners want a website, but aren’t sure of how they’ll use it. Knowing the purpose of your business’s website is important to understand before you start building it or assign a budget to your project.

One type does not fit all

There are so many ways you can use your site. Most want a website to help promote and publicize their business. Some want it to function like a “Yellow Pages Directory Ad;” providing contact information. Some may want to use their website to sell their most popular products or services. Others may want to use their site as a customer service portal. Most, however want to use their web site as a brochure—and often don’t realize that there are many other options.

Brochures and more

A static brochure website functions like a printed brochure, sharing information about your business all day, every day. It usually features your products and services and a call to action. Additionally, you can offer free samples; white papers or valued added items that can help you convert your prospect into an interested customer.

This is a very simple type of site and if you don’t plan to update it too often, you probably won’t need a content management system (CMS) to help you change content, but it may mean that you pay your web developer to update your content for you. If you are somewhat computer savvy, using a CMS, you can keep your site’s information current and help you avoid the expense of content changes.

Avoid Flash

A couple of “web generations” ago businesses hoped to impress their customers with sites that use Flash. Many opened with a “splash” page which delayed the customer’s ability to see your products and services. It’s common that customers don’t want to wait and will abandon a Flash based site before they realize the full experience. With the use of iPhones that don’t support Flash, you may wish to avoid using Flash except to display small or embedded elements. There are many ways to use CSS (cascading style sheets) to provide motion on a page that may be preferable to Flash.

Add interactivity

Given the interactivity of the web today, you can have so much more than a static site. Adding interactivity, such as comments and product evaluations or ranking as well as social media connections to your site helps people know more about your business, creating a higher feeling of trust.

Use a content management system

A website that is active and updated often may produce better results in search engine rankings. Google favors fresh content and connections from various kinds of rich media (audio or podcasts and video.) If you want the best rankings in search engines, having fresh varied content is primary. So, you’ll need a CMS to manage your data. There are many Open Source platforms that provide CMS functionality. These include Drupal, Joomla and WordPress. Usually one of these solutions is more than adequate for most small businesses. All allow for rich media, interactivity and easy updating.

E-commerce doesn’t equal a whole store

If you sell products as opposed to services, you may want an e-commerce website. Most small business owners don’t want or need a site with all the functionality of Amazon’s robust store, but there are ways to sell your business’s most sought after items. This is a good idea if you operate in a large geographic area. You can save them travel time while maintaining your relationship and get product evaluations too.  Selling a limited number of items using Google Checkout or PayPal provides inventory tracking, the capture of customer information and even a way to refund money should you ever need it. Integrating either solution into your website is simple. Both solutions function well for small business websites.

Be sociable

If social media is part of your marketing communications plan, you should link to your profiles, feature your Twitter stream and demonstrate your social media activity on the website. Let your customers find you on Twitter, LinkedIn or your business’s Facebook page. These communication channels allow customers to know your business in an informal way. Truly, we are all busy and customers don’t often have time to linger in the store getting to know you. With social media you can share your personality to support your brand.

Adding chat functionality into your site provides people an immediate way to contact you if you are online when they wish to talk with you. You can also add a Google Voice widget that connects directly with your business phone so that people coming to your site can make a connection easily and for free.

Free is good

If you have expertise in a particular area, you can provide e-books or white papers on topics that will develop credibility in the minds of your customers. You can also put downloadable value added coupons on your site to stimulate a buy now attitude.

Know your goals

Knowing your goals for the website lets your web developer make efficient use of their time and yours, choose the appropriate tool-set to implement your site, while achieving your business objectives.

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At CBS Web Designs we’ve found ways manage website development costs. You can categorize website development much as one does at size classifications for cars:  Economy; Mid size; Full size. Knowing which size fits your business will help you get exactly what you need.

Our website design and development options allow for shared responsibility that helps control costs.

Our three levels are:

Fully Developed Solution: A website that includes

• Custom graphic site design supportive of your brand identity
• Search engine keyword rich site copy written for your site
• Professionally produced photography to illustrate your site
• Registration or listing in all major search engines
• Content management system

Collaboratively Developed Solution: A website that includes

• Custom graphic site design supportive of your brand identity
• Client supplied copy minimally edited by CBS
• Professional stock images to illustrate your site
• Registration or listing in all major search engines
• Content management system

Basic Solution: A website that includes

• Semi-custom graphic design built upon a commercially available template or framework; The template colors are coded to support your brand and your logo is added to the theme.
• Client provided website copy
• Client supplied photography
• Registration or listing in all major search engines
• Content management system

Our website design firm wishes to provide you with the greatest number of features at a reasonable cost. Understanding what you can afford and what will work well takes planning and preparation. We can help guide you through this “pre-design” work so that the design and installation of your site goes seamlessly.

**For more about how we work, please download this overview document.

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“What does a website cost?” is the first question we often hear from someone in need of a new site for their business. Frequently the people who ask this question are those who are just starting their business and fear spending more than they can afford.

Our response is most always, “What do you want to accomplish?” This key question is the foundation of the development of a website for your business. As the business owner, you need to answer these basic questions:

• Who will be the primary audience for your website?
• What experience do you want your site’s users to have?
• What actions do you want your users to take?
• What level of interactivity you wish for your site? Will you provide them opportunity for feedback? Customer Service Chat? Downloading of white papers or instruction manuals?
• Who will produce the site’s copy / content?
• Where will the images come from to illustrate your site?
• How often will the site content be updated and who will do those updates?
• Who will maintain the site?

We use this questionnaire to help our clients in the development of their website. We find it focuses everyone’s thinking during the critical planning process.

Website templates abound, and while cheap and quick, they may not be the right tool for your business. You may spend far more time trying to cause one of them to fit your corporate identity than if you’d started from scratch.

But the bottom line is that you as a business owner must know is what resources you can allocate to the development of your web presence;  not only the dollars you allocate to pay for services, but the time you have available to be involved. Will you write copy? If so, expect to spend a very significant amount of time writing it. This takes time away from your business and may not be the best use of your resources. Do you want to take all the photos of your products or facility? If you want to do this, do you have the right equipment to produce the finest quality images that will represent your business well?

As with most designers and developers, CBS Web Designs works with you to provide as much of what you need and stay within your budget. However, you also must have realistic expectations. Ask other business owners whose websites you admire what they spent. Ask your CPA or business advisor or banker what they’ve seen as a typical expenditure for a business with your projections.

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Have you noticed all the ads on television for Intuit’s simple website service? Can you "click, click" and build your website tonight?

What a great idea you think, why don't we do that? Whoa! Not so fast! Building a website can be accomplished with programs such as these, but ask yourself these questions:

1. Will a template selected from a group represent my business well?

2. Will it have my branding and approach to doing busienss or will I just have to go with what's there hoping that my branding fits?

3. Will it be easy to add on to as my company grows?

4. Will my website be compatible with mobile devices such as the iPhone?

5. Does my business own all the site graphics, design and content?

6. Will I be helped to understand what keywords, terms and tags will help position my firm in search engine results?

7. How can I be certain my site is registered with search directories, search engines and can be found by Google?

If you are unsure of how to answer any of these questions, you owe it to yourself to do a bit of research on what constitutes a good website, how to create strong keyword centered copy that properly describes your business and gets you found in search engine results. Yes, small businesses need to have a website, especially one that will be viewable on mobile devices.

Can you get a website that is a customized fit for your business without breaking your budget? Yes you can. There are many companies like CBS Web Designs in the greater Charleston area that can create a custom site for you that meets your business needs, doesn't break the bank and is done on time. In these days of realizing that local is the new green, support your local web design firm. It's just good business for you, your community and for your business.

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