August 11, 2010

Funny proofreading errors

Filed under: Internet Marketing 101, Tips for a good website, Web design/Internet Marketing — Tags: — Carolyn Griswold @ 11:43 am

I just got back from a long road trip. While traveling, I noticed a few proofreading errors in marketing materials that were worthy of a Jay Leno spot.

1. A truck stop billboard ad said. “EAT HERE! (Get Gas Later).”

2. A road service billboard ad: “24-HOUR TOE SERVICE!”

3. A menu at a major hotel chain restaurant offered “A side of fires“. The embarrassed server reported that it was the 2nd printing with the error–when they changed the menu they missed it again!

The moral of this post: Remember to take the extra time to proofread your marketing copy to make sure you mean what you say and say what you mean.

Anyone else have any funny proofreading errors? Feel free to comment.

June 21, 2010

A 9-year old website that still works

Filed under: New websites launched, Tips for a good website, Web Design — Carolyn Griswold @ 4:09 pm

Screenshot of JanetsPlan-its.comI was on the phone with my client Janet Booth today and she asked me if her website was still listed on my portfolio page.

“It’s kind of old to be listed in my portfolio,” I said.

“What are you ashamed of it?” she said.

“No, actually it still looks pretty good,” I said.  “I’ll have to put it back on the site.”

The conversation got me thinking about why this website is still working.  After all it was designed in 2001, which, in human years is only nine years ago, but in website years is probably equivalent to about 90 years.  Coding standards have changed, design preferences have changed, browser and equipment choices have changed and user’s expectations have changed in nine years. Heck, even I’ve changed. I’d like to think I’m more skilled now than I was in 2001.  But this website is still doing the job.  Why?

Over the years we’ve added a shopping cart and we’ve updated the menus, but other than those two upgrades, the design hasn’t changed much.

I think the main reason why this site continues to work well is Janet.  She’s a proactive website owner.  She has, over the years, continued to build upon that initial website by consistently adding content and tweaking the site.  She works hard to give her clientele a useful website filled with content that’s informative, current and relevant.

She understands that content is what makes a website successful.  The design, while important,  is really only there to support and present the content.

So congratulations Janet for building a great website and for having the vision in 2001 to know what you wanted and for staying true to your vision.  And thank you for being a fun client and working with me for the past nine years.

More about JanetsPlan-its.com.

June 4, 2010

Top ten considerations for web design

Filed under: Tips for a good website, Uncategorized, Web Design, Web design/Internet Marketing — Carolyn Griswold @ 4:45 pm

This week, I saw a LinkedIn discussion that asked “What do you think are top 10 considerations for web design?”

Interesting question.  The first response I saw said “usability, usability, usability”. I agree with this response…but I think there are at least 10 things that make a site usable, usable, usable.  So I’ll try to focus my list on what makes your site visitors want to use, use, and use your site again.

1. Beauty.

First your site has to be beautiful, or at least look professional, because if it’s not, people will leave it before you have a chance to show them all the other elements that make your site worthy of their time.

2. Navigation.

It must have logical navigation that is easy for users to follow.  You must lead them through your site; help them find the nugget of information they seek, by providing clear, simple navigation.

3. Well-written content.

Never underestimate the power of a well-written phrase to draw people in, to coax them to delve deeper.  Follow that phrase with clearly written content that’s organized and written to be understood by your site visitors.  Write first for your visitors, not for your cronies or for search bots.

4. Match content to design.

Use the content to help define the design. A serious subject should look serious.  A fun product should have a fun website.

5. Composition.

Use a writing style that is conducive to online viewing, scanning and reading.  Use short paragraphs with headings, bullets and graphics to draw the eye easily to specific ideas.  And give the user’s eyes a break with a healthy dose of white space.

6. Demographics.

Know your market.  Choose your colors, your styles, and your language depending on who will visit your site. Are they old, young, adventurous or sedate?  Are they likely to be using a ten-year old home computer or the latest smartphone  or IPad to browse your site?   Use  typography, color and design that will appeal to your users.

7. Style commitment.

Define  your styles and stick with ‘em. Maintain a cohesive design.  Whether you use a jazzy heading font with a high contrast color scheme or a traditional type with monochromatic scheme.  Commit to it.

8.  Accessibility.

Don’t discriminate.  Make your site usable to all folks, bots and beings.   Although it’s not always necessary to comply with  Section 508 standards, it’s a good idea to understand what your web pages will sound like using a screen reader.   And it’s wise to use text that the user can size to their preference — even if it does make your site design look a little funky.   Validate your code so you won’t trip up miscellaneous bots, browsers and other beings who might be perusing the web.

9. Optimize for search engines.

Use best practices for SEO.  Write code that doesn’t obstruct or deter the searchbots.  Write unique and relevant keyword rich titles and headings for each and every page.

10. Create a call to action.

Understand the goal of the website.  Is it to sell? To inform? To communicate?  Define the goal and then make it easy and safe for people to complete that task.

November 17, 2009

Stay safe on social networks

Filed under: Internet Marketing 101, Tips for a good website — cg @ 10:03 am

Is there a danger to accepting  unknown blog subscribers and Twitter followers?  The short answer is yes.  But if you have a blog and you are communicating via social networks, presumably one of your goals is to spread your business or organization’s message.  So where do you draw the line?

I received this TWITTER Question from a client: “Is there a danger to me in being Followed by someone who rarely tweets, follows a lot of people, has few followers? Do I need to block these people or is it sufficient to not follow them back. Sometimes, I can see that Twitter has suspended them for improper activity. What is the danger? What are they doing?”

If you suspect danger, trust your instincts.  You can set your Twitter settings to restrict access to only those people you approve. Consider how you use your Twitter account — if it is used to communicate with a business community and the goal is to build community you probably want to attract as many followers as possible.  If your account is of a more personal nature you probably don’t have the need to allow unknown followers access to your account.

If you see that Twitter has suspended someone for improper activity it means they have violated Twitter’s rules.  It could have involved impersonating someone else, spamming, threatening someone, copyright issues or any number of other issues that Twitter includes in their Rules.  I would probably block anyone that Twitter has suspended or that you suspect of being involved in any of these activities.

I’ve put together a list of basic safety tips to help you stay safe while communicating with virtual strangers online through your website, blog or social networks.

1.  Don’t give away personal information.

  1. Don’t provide home address or phone number on your website or in your profile
  2. Don’t tweet or post that you’re away from home — don’t post vacation photos until you return home — no need to inform the world that your house is vacant
  3. Don’t include personal information like your birth date in your profile.  Birth dates are helpful to idenity theives.

2. Be careful with social networking “apps”. When those Facebook applications tell you they need to access your personal profile in order to work — you might think twice about how important it is to use that application.  See Facebook Application Privacy for details and set your limits based on their information.

3. Watch out for “Phishing”.  Whether a social network post or an email, always assume that the identity of the poster could be an impostor–especially if the message seems out of the ordinary.  Be suspicious!  Assume any link that leads you to a login page to be suspect. See “Fraudsters Target Facebook With Phishing Scam”.  If you receive a message from a “friend” that you suspect is a “phishing scam”, both you and your friend should change your account passwords.

4. Do NOT use the same username/password combination on all your accounts.  If a thief obtains your username/password to your Facebook account, make sure it doesn’t also give him access to your bank account, Amazon or Paypal accounts.

5.  YOUR BLOG: Review your blog’s user and discussion settings.  If using WordPress the subscriber level by default allows them to read, comment and subscribe to your RSS feed.  There doesn’t seem to be too much danger in that.  However, I think it’s wise to review your subscriber list frequently and delete any suspicious addresses.

More information about online safety can be found at the following links.

Web site safety building safer websites

11 tips for social networking safety

August 25, 2009

Keep consistent styles in your Wordpress posts

Filed under: Tips for a good website — cg @ 9:42 pm

pastetextThere is nothing that screams amateur like a website with a mishmash of fonts and styles.  Sometimes people copy and paste posts from a document they’ve already created in Word.  Unfortunately that can also copy the Word styles and fonts into the WordPress document.  In order to keep your styles and fonts consistent in your WordPress posts,  click the “paste as plain text” icon in the toolbar.  It will delete all the Word code and paste nice clean text into your post that will use the styles in your WordPress theme and keep your blog looking well-designed and professional.

June 22, 2009

Free Shipping Closes Sale

Filed under: Internet Marketing 101, Tips for a good website — Tags: , , — cg @ 10:35 am

A couple of weeks ago, I received an e-mail Father’s Day reminder from a store where I’ve bought gifts from online before.  Since I typically put off holiday gift buying to the last minute and end up paying extra for shipping, I was grateful for the reminder.

Lesson one to online merchants: EMAIL MARKETING WORKS!

With over a week before Father’s day I thought the ample lead time would save me some cash on shipping. I clicked through to the website and browsed to find some sweet treats for dad. I quickly found a nice gift of sweet snacks at a reasonable price and clicked through to the checkout page.  Where I stopped.  The shipping charges nearly doubled the price of the goodies.  Call me cheap,  but if there’s one thing I learned from my dad growing up on his farm in Minnesota it’s the value of the dollar.

That reasonably priced gift now seemed tremendously overpriced. If I was going to spend that kind of money – it had to be a better gift. So I abandoned my shopping cart and Googled “Free Shipping Father’s Day gifts”.  Multiple stores came up and I quickly found a gift.  It was much nicer than the original gift.  I did end up spending the same as the other gift would have cost with it’s shipping charges,   but I now felt like the gift I was sending was worth the money I was spending.

Lesson two to online merchants – FREE SHIPPING WORKS! Consider the value of your product.   If shipping costs make your item seem extraordinarily overpriced you will lose sales.

Lesson three to online merchants.  CLOSE THE SALE! If your e-mail marketing campaign is driving traffic to your site but you’re not seeing corresponding sales, make sure you look at the value you’re offering to your customers.  It’s a shame when something like high shipping costs causes them abandon their shopping cart when you’ve successfully drawn them to your store with your e-mail marketing campaign.

June 4, 2009

Choosing a merchant account provider

Filed under: Tips for a good website — Tags: , , , , — cg @ 4:51 pm

With merchant account providers raising processing rates and charging annual fees for security (PCI DSS compliance) it makes sense  for small business website owners to review merchant account providers carefully before choosing or changing a provider for online credit card processing.

I’ve had an account with the same merchant account provider for several years, but recently the rates have been creeping up, in many cases to over 4% per transaction.  Add the monthly fees and the new annual PCI DSS compliance fees together and the account is  costing about $500 a year before a sale is even made.  That’s alot for a small business to pay in account fees.   Combine the increasingly high rates with the surly customer service and it has become clear to me that it’s time to review other choices.

The criteria for my business may differ than other small businesses, but here is what I looked for when reviewing  my options:

  1. Monthly fees
  2. Transaction fees (percentage and flat fee per transaction)
  3. Contract commitment – avoid early termination fees
  4. Compatibility with existing website and accounting systems
  5. What are the company’s  procedures for compliance with PCI DSS? What are the costs and the procedures?
  6. What online method of payment is most desired by your website customers?

There are many merchant account providers to choose from, among the choices, Paypal and Google Checkout are becoming increasingly attractive to small business websites.  They are PCI DSS compliant, their monthly costs are minimal or free and their transaction fees are competitive for small business transactions. A contract is usually not required and  they are easily integrated into most shopping carts and websites. 

I’ve set up many sites with Paypal but I had not tried Google checkout yet, so in the spirit of testing the product, I removed the encrypted client payment form that I used with my old merchant account on my website and replaced it with Google checkout.  Set-up and installation was simple.  Client approval is yet to be determined.

My perception of Google checkout vs. Paypal is that it’s a newer product and fewer people are familiar with it.  Therefore, people may be less receptive to it or more receptive depending on their experiences with Paypal and with the Google brand.   I’ve used it a few times when making purchases on websites and I found the purchasing process to be simple and user-friendly. 

But that’s just my perception.  I’m currently running a poll on LinkedIn to find out what other people prefer. Please take a minute to take the poll.

In addition to testing Google Checkout, I’m also testing the Intuit merchant services.  Their rates were lower than my old account  and their interface with QuickBooks makes processing transactions and accounting for them a breeze.  I’m currently just using this account for offline payments as I haven’t set up a payment form on my website yet for use with this provider.   But I expect if I’m happy with their product I will set up a payment form on my site to use with this account. 

I’m interested in hearing about your experiences with merchant account providers — from a merchant point of view and customer point of view.

March 10, 2009

Bold is not bold when it's all bold!

Filed under: Tips for a good website — cg @ 10:03 pm

5 quick style tips for website managers and blog newbies:

  1. Use bold only to accent selected words or phrases
  2. Use italics for publication titles, quotes and other phrases as determined but be consistent
  3. Stick to left justification in most cases – avoid overuse of center, right or full justified text
  4. Don’t be afraid of white space – it’s beautiful and makes reading easy on the eyes 
  5. Resize photos appropriately for screen viewing and make sure they’re not stretched or fuzzy. It’s good practice to size images in a photo editing program before uploading to your site.

February 25, 2009

Do you know where your domain is registered?

Filed under: Tips for a good website — Tags: — cg @ 3:30 pm

“Do you know where your children are?”   Do you remember that PSA that used to run in the evenings?  As a web developer whose seen some unfortunate clients lose their domains or get scammed out of some cash, I’ll ask “Do you know where your domain is registered?”

It’s important to know where your domain is registered and to monitor the contact information on the domain to ensure that you retain control.  In many cases your domain name is closely tied to your brand so you should be very protective of maintaining that domain.   I’ve seen customer’s lose  domain names because they changed their e-mail address and didn’t receive the renewal information.  And I’ve seen domains transferred to different regsitries in response to unscrupulous sales techniques.

Most domain registries handle renewals with automatic credit card billing and e-mail notices.  If your credit card expires and the e-mail on account with the domain registry is no longer in effect the domain will expire and you may lose your domain permanently if the problem is not caught in time.  Make sure you keep your contact information current and do not ignore renewal notices from your domain registrar.

There are a few unscrupulous domain registry companies out there whose practice is to send transfer solicitations that look like domain renewal invoices to domain owners.  Domain owners sometimes miss the text that says that by sending a check it authorizes them to transfer the domain to their company. And since the domain owner doesn’t remember who is their domain registrar, they assume the invoice is legitimate and they pay the bill.  The company doesn’t transfer ownership–you’ll still own the domain–but why change your domain registration company and pay a higher rate in the process?

In closing, if you don’t know where your domain is registered,  find out now, before it’s too late.

January 31, 2009

Ten-Point Web Content Evaluation

Filed under: Internet Marketing 101, Tips for a good website — Tags: , , — Nancy Simonds @ 9:02 pm

Is your Web site an effective marketing tool?

The New Year is a perfect time to evaluate the effectiveness of your Web content. Use this checklist to review your written content on these ten important points:

  • Does the content clearly and honestly describe your product or service?

  • Have you presented your core message concisely and effectively?
  • Do you use meaningful page titles, sub-headings, and other techniques that help visitors find what they’re looking for as they scan the page?
  • Are your Web pages viewable in a couple of screen views, without too much scrolling down?
  • Does each page have a strong call to action?
  • Are there key words and phrases that help potential customers find you through a search engine?
  • Do you review your site statistics to see what page visitors enter on, what page they leave from, and whether or not they take any action?
  • Does the content match the design in terms of tone and personality?
  • Is the type in a size, style, and color that make it accessible to the widest possible audience?
  • Is your content free of grammatical, spelling, and punctuation errors?

If you’re not sure whether your current Web content is clear, easily “scannable” by the visitor’s eye, and truly descriptive of your product and services, take advantage of our evaluation and consultation services.

Older Posts »

  • Share on Facebook

    Share

  • Recent Posts

  • FYI: News & Information

  • news & tips archives

  • Pages