If you are like most of our clients, you need a great web presence, and you have better things to do than figure out how to do it yourself. So you hire great companies (like factor1) and you end up with a great looking site.

But now what? How do you manage content? How do you edit and crop photos? How do you track your traffic? The list goes on and on.

In this series of weekly posts, we will share some great tips, resources, and ideas specific to managing your presence online. Lets get started!

Week 1: Content…Quality Content

Your website has a purpose. It may be to generate leads, sales, present information, communicate services and expertise, etc. Regardless of that purpose, content is driving it. Sure it may look pretty, but after the first 5 seconds, your visitor stops admiring and starts reading. They begin in the upper left, and generally scan left to right, top to bottom, looking for what they came for. When you planed out your site design, we probably discussed the user flow, what are the big directional elements on the home page, what navigation is there, and how do we use graphics to help that user flow from one thing to the next.

We use headlines and graphics on the home page to draw that user in. View that service, product, or mission statement. Eventually they go deeper, and dig in. We want them to read your content, find what they are looking for.

My challenge to you.

Answer the following questions. On every page, Yes every single page. Think about your typical (not perfect, not current customer, but typical) visitor.

• What are they here for?
• What single concept do you want them to take away from this page?
• What is a next action for this visitor? (contact? next product? directions?)
• If this is the first page they saw, will they understand us? (remember, not everyone comes in through your home page)

I feel that if every page on your site has this kind of thinking and purpose behind it, you are off on the right foot. Now there are still some fundamental tasks you must take into account on your content.

• Good content is free of spelling and grammatical errors. Trust me, this one is tough, I’m a big picture guy and typos plague me often. Hire a copywriter as needed.
• Good content is keyword rich. We’ll talk more about basic SEO in the coming weeks, but using words that are search terms, relative to your page of course, are important. Give the search engine something to find.
• Break up content with headlines, lists, and images. While you don’t want visual road blocks, creating content that is easy to follow will help readers flow down the page, or jump to what they are looking for.
• Avoid the run on sentences or paragraphs.
• Use bold and italics formatting sparingly, and have a reason or pattern to using them.
• Don’t underline text for emphasis. Users expect underlined text to be a link, and are frustrated when its not a link.
• Read, re-read, and have others read your content.
• Cross link your pages. Is something on your page relevant to your other content? Link it!

Anything I missed? Please share your tips for good content!

Do you have a topic you want covered? Ask!

Often we are contacted by potential clients that have little to no money. Just yesterday we had an up and coming actress inquire about a site, and only had $300 to spend.

This is hard on me. I love to help people, and I really love the web and marketing. In fact its why I love my job. I really wish I didn’t have bills, I would probably sit around, and help people for free or cheap all day long, and still love my job.

So back to my story. I thought to myself, I wish I could help this actress out, but for $300, there was little we could do. So I had an idea that would get her started on a site, help her out, and not use her entire budget.

Wordpress!

Wordpress is a blog. but it has pages. and you can flip wordpress around to be pages first, blog secondary. Thus turning it into a sweet little CMS anyone can use. Here are the steps.

1. get hosting set up that doesnt have any advertising headers.

Personally I love Liquid web, and we use LW for our dedicated servers.
or wordpress.com works. If you go this route, skip step 2.

2. Install wordpress.

Most big hosts can do this for you, or give you a simple install button in their control panel.

3. Pick a classy theme

there are great free themes and paid for themes.

free:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/05/18/100-amazing-free-wordpress-themes-for-2009/
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/08/100-excellent-free-high-quality-wordpress-themes/

Or there are paid themes: woothemes.com

4. Add in your pages as needed.

wordpress is traditionally a blog, but with a few tweeks, it can look more like a website, with a news page, than a blog.

Learn more about using wordpress here

Now while this is a good cheap and dirty set up, its no substitution to a great designer building something custom.

Dont forget – your organization, product and services are unique, and so are your customers, so you still need to custom tailor the site experience to fit those factors. This is merely a quick patch for a no money situation. A real website will do 10x for you that a free template can.

The number one concern in any organizations quest for a new website is the cost. Everyone generally wants the best work for the cheapest price. I would say we see 4 out of 5 clients base most of their decision on the price. Sure some things like features, quality, and experience come into play. It just seems price always outweighs the others for many clients new to professional web design.

I wanted to take a chance to openly discuss how we come up with our prices.

Good web design costs good money. There is no way around it. Just the other day we picked up a new client, who thought our first proposal was too high, and went with a friend of a friend for a fraction of the price. You know this person, its your mom’s-co-worker’s-son’s-friend’s-cousin. They always swear that they can do $3000 worth of web work, for $500 and a smoothie. Here is the issue we hear time and time again, they get started, the project gets rough, and they walk away.

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Gimp
This image editing program has been compared to Photoshop with all it’s tools and editing capabilities. However, the good news is that it’s completely free. The program comes with tons of cool stuff and allows you to crop, resize, and retouch photos. The bad news, is that it’s not geared toward those that haven’t used a program like this before so the learning curve may be steep. Nonetheless, it’s highly recommended by Factor 1 as a good image editing program that will help out with many image tasks.

Cyberduck
This ftp program is great for our apple friends. If you need ftp access to your site, or if you need to upload images or other files to the Factor 1 ftp, this works great! The user interface is clean and easy to use, making it a great choice, especially for a free ftp client.

Filezilla
This ftp client works well for our PC friends. Logging in to your site through ftp can come in handy, and this will certainly help out.

Audacity
More and more clients are podcasting, and this program allows you to record and edit sound on your computer. It’s pretty easy to use and very helpful when compressing audio or editing clips that you’ve already recorded. Audacity comes in Mac & PC flavors.

Any free programs that you’ve seen that clients may love?

Typography plays a large role in any website. Large typography is certainly eye-catching and while you don’t need large type for a big impact, it certainly does the trick. In these sites, typography is used as an art element, catching it’s audience’s attention and focusing it on what’s most important.

Planning a big project is like planning a trip. The bigger it is, the harder the plans become. 

Recently (okay this week), I spent some time packing for my trip to Ethiopia. We have been slowly planning for many months, and it all seemed to be rolling smooth. That was until it came time to pack our luggage. See I am in a unique traveling situation, where my wife and I are not just traveling to Ethiopia, we are traveling to bring back our adopted twins. The issue: I have to plan, and pack for not only myself, but two 6 month old boys as well. Basically once we arrive, they are all ours. So we have to bring diapers, clothes, and all the kid junk that goes along with it. Being first time parents….woah it’s a lot of stuff. 

So what does this have to do with web or marketing?

I know what it feels like to step into something new and big. If you have never had your own web site, from scratch before, or are just starting a marketing plan, it can feel like a lot. Sure at first it looks easy, but we all know getting from start to finish on a large project may have hundreds of tasks. 

So breathe. look at the list, “pick off the low hanging fruit” as Ryan likes to say. Work on it, set goals, and react as needed. 

Me, I’m back to trying to pack and stick to the plans / packing lists we laid out.

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!

Great content is certainly the most important feature of any blog, no argument here! But a good design can help feature your content in the best way possible. Different blogs require different things to make them efficient and targeted toward the right users. Some blogs use advertising to gain revenue and give exposure to companies that offer services that would be of value to its readers. It doesn’t work for everyone though. The secret to a good blog design is figuring out what you need and how to best organize it so that people can easily read your content. Here are some great blog designs, targeting different audiences with a multitude of styles.

Think about your favorite blog. I bet the design plays a big part in why the content seems so good to you. Have you seen some great new blog designs lately? Share your favorite ones.

When you think of websites with white backgrounds you probably think of search engines, news sites, and plain designs with lots of crammed in content. Many people want color, texture, and bright vivid designs. White is often overlooked, but many things can be done with just a white background. White offers the ability to add lots of contrast, allows your images to pop and there are many possibilities that you might not have considered before.

Here are some great sites that use lots of white to achieve a great look.

Typography is one of the most standout parts of a website, affecting the overall look and feel. It’s something we certainly take into consideration when designing a site. Which fonts work best with the style and feel of the site, does the information flow easily, is everything legible and easy to navigate through? Typography is a design aspect in itself and needs careful consideration in order to make a site top-notch. 

Here are a few great sites that use great typography, making their content stand out and their design shine.