Would you let your customers see a showroom / lobby / office in a complete mess? Piles of paper on the floor and desk? Broken lights, missing ceiling tiles, stained floors? No! You dress your best, your employees dress their best, and you keep your showroom / lobby / office in tip top shape. Or at least I think you should. Your website should be no different.

The demand for good web design is increasing, revealed a recent Webcopyplus online poll. Almost 25% of web users indicated “poor visual presentation” as the number one element that drives them away from websites. Only 6.6% of web users who participated in a similar 2007 online poll indicated “poor visual presentation” as the main reason to abandon a website. That equates to a 267% increase during the two-year period.

From Webcopyplus:

Our web content specialists believe the increased desire for quality design comes from the fact that Internet users have become increasingly sophisticated. Consequently, more of today’s Internet users understand that a well designed website makes it possible to achieve more, with less time and effort.

A total of 318 web users were asked what’s most likely to drive them away from a website.

• 50.9% indicated “slow load times”
• 24.8% noted “weak web copy”
• 24.2% specified “poor visual presentation”

In the 2007 poll, 51.2% of 258 participants indicated “slow load times” and 42.2% noted “weak web copy” as their biggest turn-offs.

 

So what does all this mean?

A website won’t fix your slow business. UNLESS your site is well done. Work with your designer / developer to address all of the above issues. Your website is often the first thing a potential client / customer sees. They are judging the quality of your organization, products, service, and reputation based on 30 seconds of face time online.

So make those precious page views count!

This is NOT one more post about the tough times… you can get that negative talk anywhere. We all need some inspiration, motivation and ideas to move forward and upward in our pursuits. —- One of the most foundational contributions to my personal leadership & business development was being pressed by a friend to read “The E-Myth Revisited” by Michael Gerber. A key principle from the reading,

“work on your business, not in your business”. 

Translation: On good days most of us small business owners slave away trying to keep up with all the items that are going on. We run form one urgent item to another following the squeaky wheel axiom. On bad days, we moan, groan, have lunch with buddies and hope that our yellow page investment will finally pay off with the phone ringing in new work any minute.

Every day that you are in business that you don’t invest in working on the development of your business or organization is a wasted day. QUIT wasting your days! Take at last 30-60 minutes every day to look ahead into areas where you need to do something better, different, more efficient, etc. Build your business, don’t just work in it.

Start by picking up a copy of this particular book and reading — it will inspire you to grow!

today is blog action day.

I think my part of this movement, should be to discuss marketing, entrepreneurship, and how to tie them to action.

In reading a new book, Brewing a business, Sam Calagione states that any good invention is tied to a passion and a dream. Thomas Edison did not want to simply create a light bulb. His desire was to create a safe, affordable light solution so that more families could have light. Candles and oil lamps where costly and dangerous.

In this thought process, it is very clear, that Blake Mycoskie of TOMS shoes, was to make life more comfortable. He truly believed that people of all financial situations needed the basics of life, one of those being shoes. In its first year of business, TOMS shoes sold 10,000 pairs of shoes, and last November, more than 50,000 pairs were delivered to children in Africa. TOMS matches donations dollar for dollar.

This year TOMS plans to distribute 200,000 shoes around the world.

Now I dont yet own any TOMS. Maybe I will have to, Since I have always believed in their cause, and the way they go about their business.

So my question is this. How can you take your business, organization or ministry, and make a difference in the world. How can you effect poverty?

Here at factor 1, we do a number of things both locally, and internationally with finances. But on a bigger note, we dedicate a large portion of our time and work load to non-profits. Because my passion to create effective websites for the greater good, and to aid other companies in their marketing efforts, we have been able to partner with, and assist great organizations. People like Food for the Hungry, Hope for Adoption, Hoops of hope, Golf fore africa, Amy’s hope, Because Justice Matters, CURE, and others.

Last night I was able to attend a local AIGA round table on communication. We had a great discussion about some hurdles we have. Some of the great things discussed were:

• Stop assuming things
• Covering all the details
• Get things in writing
• Be clear about action items (what you are saying you will do, or what you expect)
• Emailed commitments are legally binding, and will hold up in court
• Storing and archiving all email communications can be a life saver, do it!
• Always have a contract
• Limit how much you communicate, and what is acceptable communication (a text message or Instant message proof approval is not the same as an email

We had the privilege of having a former art director from the early 80′s with us (sorry i dont recall her name). Because she was around before email, she offered some great insight about what could be the problem with todays creative professionals. Too much communication. Phone, Cell, email, Instant Message, text message, mobile email, twitter, etc. We have 15 avenues of communication, and not 1 single most effective one. She made the comparison that we are becoming a jack of all trades, master of none.

How true this can be. I feel that we are pretty good about sticking with the few main stream lines of communication, i will admit i have dabbled with twitter, and other forms of communication, but after last nights discussion, i think I will keep what I have.

What hurdles have you found in communication? horror stories to share?

I’ll start with my horror story.
In a past career life, i was the marketing department for a real estate developer. We printed signs to go on properties announcing future tenants (target, home depot, etc). We wanted these signs up asap, because they were PR for getting the smaller shops sold.

On all projects in the past, the project manager would approve a sign, which meant print, and get the sign shop to install asap. On this project, a rather large one involving a super target. The Project manager approved my sign verbally, in a hallway passing. Great! print and install right.

Bad things. We later found out that super target was not yet a done deal, and they were pissed at our announcement.

Lesson: Have a proof approval process involving 2 check boxes. Art approval & Sign install date. No verbal approvals.

To this day, we ask for email approvals that are clear in order to move on.

What do you have? lets hear some awesome stories!

So a lot of our clients love the flexibility we give them on their websites. They can add images to pages or blogs, and often a nice marketing / promotional type image to their home page. Here is the catch. Most of our clients dont have a solid resource for these small graphics. We dont always have the time here at factor 1 either.

So here are some great resources I have seen that will allow the average, non-photoshop user to crop, edit and rotate images for use on anything print or web related.

PicNik

Picnik is pretty cool. I actually really like using it. It can even be fun. Their interface is quick, and very intuitive. It also has some great auto enhance effects that rival photoshop quite well.

Adobe PhotoShop Express

Coming from adobe, this is not as much like photoshop as you would think. While its all flash, and pretty quick, I found it somewhat limiting. Still, a great resource, and solid tools for free.

FotoFlexer

This site felt a lot like myspace, photo bucket, and flickr to me. I found its tools to be pretty good. It does feature layer, and the ability to edit some adjustments after you complete them (think Undo, and photoshop smart filters).

Pixer.us

This site i liked for quick edits. you can upload and edit a photo immediately. No accounts, no sign up. But because you dont have an actual account, your changes are gone once you leave the site. No saving and finishing later. Also no text editing / adding. So its pretty basic.

What other free, Mac & PC tools do you like for editing photos sans-photoshop?

I have been thinking about the value of high milage cars. And something I find funny, is sometimes the balance between usability and actual MPG is so vast, that I fail to see the point, yet many consumers are hooked by the car companies that have created hype and value.

3 cars for comparison

The Smart car
Honda fit
Toyota Yaris

The Costs:

The Smart car: $11,590
Honda fit: $13,900
Toyota Yaris (2 door): $11,550
(costs are based on 2008 models costs, and dont include tax, title, license)
Due to the demand, these prices may vary at dealers. My brother-in-law was looking for one of these, and most dealers had inflated prices.

The MPGs:

The Smart car: 33/41
Honda fit: 28/34
Toyota yaris: 29/35
(City/highway – manual cars, based on EPA estimates)

So here is what find really interesting. I have been seeing more and more of the smart cars on the road recently. If you have ever seen one in person, you’ll know this, but they are about the size of a small golf cart.

So i guess the question is: is the value of that extra 6 mpg worth the smallest car on the road? No back seat, barely a trunk. The yaris at least has a back seat, and a larger trunk.

The math on 6 mpg, for a 15,000 mile a year driver, at current gas prices ($4.25 gal) comes out to a $267 dollar savings. I better not forget to factor in the $40 cost savings of the yaris purchase price.

Maybe this is me, but the value of a trunk and back seat is worth the $267 per year. So I clearly place my value in biggest space for the buck. But is the created value of the smart car, for the smart car buyers that $267 savings per year?

So I get a lot of spam. I mean a lot. Probably 300 – 500 a day. I assume its because I am awesome, but its really because my email is listed as the registered owner and tech contact on about 25 domains.

While Apple mail rocks, it still has to sort the spam to my junk folder, and spam is still in the way when I check my webmail.

Enter solution:

Now Google bought out part of (maybe all of) Postini, and made it cheap. $3 per user, per year.

I have implemented this on my email account here at factor 1. Let me tell you, in the past few days, my spam has dropped to 5 or 10 a day. My Apple mail catches those.

This is the same system google uses to filter the amazingly spam free gmail. So I essentially have the gmail filtering system, on my commercial hosted email account.

I would recommend this to anyone with an email address. I have had good success so far, and very limited legit email caught in the filter (which I can check online)

https://www.postini.com/postini_solutions/email_security.php

Eighty-five percent of respondents agreed that the quality of a business owner’s website is an important factor in earning the consumer’s trust. Over 75 percent of respondents said they were more likely to make a purchase from “an unfamiliar business with a quality website,” than “a poor website from a known business.”

This is from a Study by Nielsen and WebVisible as reported by Peter Krasilovsky

How does your site hold up? Would 85% of people trust you based on your site?

Warning: This is a technical, website coding post. Not really marketing related.

So I was coding a site today while waiting at the dentist office (I am a geek I know). And I decided I would name one of my Div IDs “960wrapper”, to indicate that this div was 960px wide. Makes sense right? After doing this, and some other code the issue arises. My html is not seeing this div. at all.

I added a border stroke to outline it
nothing.

I added a background color, and a min-height.
still nothing.

Keep in mind I have no internet, since I’m in a waiting room. So no google searches, no CSS xray tool.

I am about to pull my short hair out.

In some playing, tweaking, and overall trying to do anything to make this simple div wrapper to work, I re-title it to just “wrapper”

And BAM it works. I think I let out a little victorious battle cry in midst of the dentist office.

So what I figured out:
Div ID’s seem to not like names starting with numbers.

I did a few google searches back at the office. Nothing. I cant find anything related to this issue. Can any web CSS geeks point me to where I can learn why this method wont work?

So I just needed to say, that if you search for “awesome websites” on google. Factor 1 is number 16. I’m pretty stoked about that. I have been seeing traffic come in from it already.

The SEO behind it.
What i did:
1. Changed my site title to “Factor 1 Creates awesome websites, brands and marketing materials”
2. I started titling all incoming links “awesome websites” or “Awesome church websites”, or something along those lines. I keep them somewhat random.

Thats it. Thats all I did. I was not ranked at all for this just 2 or 3 weeks ago.