by eds on November 13, 2008
Steve Krug talks about how people actually surf the web versus how we think they should in his book "Don't Make Me Think".
Laying out the content of your website is a tricky balance. Many people over-think this process while others don’t think enough. One well researched fact of the average web surfer is that we don’t read web pages - we scan them.
Novice web designers believe we read web pages like novels. This is not the case and it has been proven that online readers don’t have the patience to read a website like a book.
The more experienced web designer might take this a step further and think people read web pages like they do a newspaper. This is also incorrect. While newspaper readers do scan headlines, the average reader is willing to open their mind to whatever content the newspaper will throw at them for the particular section they’re reading. They may try to find the scores to last nights game, but overall they want to see what the writers have decided to write about.
by eds on November 6, 2008
With the advent of small business owners writing and managing their own content, there are areas of online writing one can focus on to improve your website. These rules take minimal time to learn and employ.
1. Keep it simple. This doesn’t have to mean boring. But be sure your writing is terse. Be careful of excess verbiage. Readers want to see detail and specificity on the subject of interest but show little tolerance for anything else. This takes practice. I rarely write posts over 1,000 words. People don’t want to spend much time in front of their monitor reading. They want to constantly move on to different subjects and click new things. This doesn’t mean you should never go over 1,000 words. Just keep in mind people do not approach reading on a computer screen the same way as a novel. You will start to lose many readers if you drag on.
by eds on October 23, 2008
Web 2.0 is linked to many complicated standards of the WWW
I‘ve had many people ask about Web 2.0 over the last few years. There are plenty of websites to provide you with good details on Web 2.0. Unfortunately, most of these websites believe you already know the difference between Web 2.0 and everything else (ie Web 1.0).
Usually if a person asks you “Is your site Web 2.0?” or “What do you think of Web 2.0?” they’re either a programmer or (more likely) just following hearsay of a trend they understand little about.
Web 2.0 is a very broad term with many definitions. The best summation I can make is that Web 2.0 attempts to define the massive interconnectedness of the web design world compared to what websites started out with back in the 90’s. The first websites were not very interactive. They were more like electronic newspapers that allowed for some clicking. Today’s websites (at least the good ones) are dynamic. Programmers may disagree on this definition but to have a dynamic website means the site is interacting with the user so that the contents of the page will vary depending on who is browsing and the choices that person makes while browsing.
by eds on October 13, 2008
What results should I expect from my CMS/sitebuilder when I look to manage my own website?
This depends on what you hope your website will accomplish for your business. If you are new to the world of web design and haven’t used a website to promote anything before, you are not allowed to answer “make money for my company”. This is far too vague an expectation to be realistic. You need to break into details if you want to understand what’s going on.
Novices expect to pay a little for an AdWords campaign and then watch the sales role in. This is a foolish expectation that makes Google very rich.
Knowing what results to look for means realistically answering what you want your website to accomplish. Do you want to sell products directly through the website? Do you want to generate phone calls or sales emails? Do you want to promote your business in a way that compliments all your other advertising efforts like signs, TV, radio and print ads? Do you simply want people to be able to locate your store when they search online?
by eds on September 15, 2008
Go It Alone - By Bruce Judson
Go It Alone does a great job of showing small business owners how to keep from hiring new personnel. Don’t get me wrong, a good employees is worth their weight in gold. But hiring new people is always a risk.
Managers hope the employee will pay for their salary and more down the road. Far too often small business owners start looking to hire new employees or contractors when their are simpler solutions at hand. These solutions usually require less risk and require less capital and time then many conventional solutions. Why do we search for the more expensive option? Because we are trained to find solutions that claim to solve our problems perfectly when a 75% solution will do just fine.
