34Top 7 Reasons to Hire a Large Design Company
This post is in response to Calvin Cox’s Top 7 Reasons Why It’s Better to Hire a Freelance Designer or Small Design Firm Than a Large Design Company. Let me state up front that I agree with everything Calvin said. This post is not a rebuttal, just an attempt to keep things balanced. Continue Reading Top 7 Reasons to Hire a Large Design Company »
10Republican & Democratic Convention Website Review
Update: Read the comments below. I totally blew it and reviewed the wrong Democratic Convention website!
Personally, I’m sick and tired of the convention coverage already so I thought I’d put my own twist on it and take a detailed look at the convention’s websites. Continue Reading Republican & Democratic Convention Website Review »
16The Secret to Painless Google Website Optimizer
For me, Google Website Optimizer (GWO) has been the best new tool or service launched in the last three years. It has literally created tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional revenue for my company and my freelance clients. That said, I initially found GWO very difficult to implement. Essentially, GWO works through code such as this: Continue Reading The Secret to Painless Google Website Optimizer »
6This Post is Guaranteed to Boost your Conversion Rates
I’ll be honest. A year ago, I was an unbeliever. The idea that something on your site could influence me to buy or not buy was hogwash. No stupid seal or testimonial was going to change my mind. Let me tell you, if you’re not doing everything you can to boost the conversion rate of your website - you’re either losing your money or losing your client’s money (and your client should probably fire you). Over the last year, my eyes have been opened and I’ve begun to realize how much power I have over website visitors to squash their fears and nudge them toward making larger purchases. Here’s an overview of three of the tools at your disposal: Continue Reading This Post is Guaranteed to Boost your Conversion Rates »
54599designs.com: a warning to freelancers.
Kevin Potts recently did a review/critique of wundersite www.99designs.com - which appears to be a simplified spin of other such sites like Elance and what Kevin calls it’s “malignant brethren”. The site, which uses less than ideal techniques to get designers to connect with businesses, requires spec work and encourages horribly low prices. In his article, Kevin removes the usual sales pitch and business jargon and brings out the underlying truth: Continue Reading 99designs.com: a warning to freelancers. »
7How to Improve the Client Experience and Charge More
At my last job, we worked right above a hair salon. Growing up, my mother always cut my hair, then my wife when she had time and lately, a local barbershop. But since the salon was a client and it saved an extra trip, I got my hair cut after work. The difference between the salon and the barbershop was unbelievable. At the salon, I was treated by an attractive stylist who remembered my name and how I liked my hair. She talked with me about subjects I was interested in and even remembered our discussions from the my previous appointment! The stylist make recommendations for my hair based on current trends and my hair’s personality (red and very thick). My hair was shampooed, conditioned and I received a very relaxing neck massage. She only used the trimmer for the edges. The salon was impeccably clean and had a very modern decor. It was a little upscale and I liked it. It made me FEEL important, stylish and trendy. Continue Reading How to Improve the Client Experience and Charge More »
27Three Ways of Writing Valuable Content for Your Web Design Blog
When I look around at web designers’ sites these days, I am a bit surprised when I come across one that doesn’t have a blog. Web designers seem to understand that having a blog can be helpful in marketing themselves. Unfortunately, when I look at the content of those blogs, it often becomes apparent that they don’t know exactly why a blog is helpful. Continue Reading Three Ways of Writing Valuable Content for Your Web Design Blog »
10Information Architecture 101
What the heck is Information architecture?
Information architecture is the art of organizing information on a website in a way in which it is easily found. That’s the one sentence version, anyhow.
Information architecture (IA) is the art of organizing content into a logical structure. In websites we need to organize all the information logically and put it in together for it to make sense to our users. Continue Reading Information Architecture 101 »
5Misconception: the freelancer’s #1 enemy.
Something like 75% of businesses bust in the first year of operation. Who knows why? It could be a myriad of things: bad timing, no business plan, improper marketing (or worse–none at all), or maybe what they thought was a good idea really wasn’t. All of these could end a freelancer’s career, too.
But more likely, none of these things will. In my career as a freelancer I’ve watched numerous other freelancers rise and fall, step out and immediately lose their footing, or get off to a bumpy start. I must admit, I’ve made the same mistake a time or two: misconception. Continue Reading Misconception: the freelancer’s #1 enemy. »
3Don’t make me think!
Sure, we all have faults, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from them. Like Jim Wideman likes to say, “I never make the same mistake twice, there’s enough different ones I can make every time!”
Sometimes, it takes awhile for a mistake to become a mistake. When the internet was still in it’s infancy, not a lot of people had an email address. The phone book was still pretty popular, and usually, the easiest way to get more information on a particular company was to call them. As a result, there weren’t a lot of contact forms on websites. A simple mailto: link would suffice. As another supporting factor, not too long after email got popular, so did spam. Junk emails flooded our inboxes to the extent that we quit seeing email as a huge step forward in communication and began to see it as a necessary evil.
Thankfully, that’s changed. New steps taken by Google and others in their email services have put spam in it’s place for the most part and made it fun to have email again.
And still, the mailto: link hangs on. It’s everywhere.
Why? It’s outdated and inefficient. When you click on the “contact us” link of some site that is coded with a mailto: link it will open up that user’s local email. Or at least, it will try to. For those of you like me–who keep their email on the internet–it may not respond at all or may even freeze up your browser.
Now you, the business-owner who owns that domain name–what sort of impression do you think you just made on that potential client/customer?
Many of you might think this is just a rant against substandard code and my personal experience on certain websites, but underneath it all lies the single principle that we all need to remember.
Harvey MacKay had an interesting way of showing ties at the mens suit store he worked at: He picked the three that would look the best with that suit and let the customer pick from the three.
Keep it simple, folks. Make every decision as easy as possible for them and their decision to hire or buy from you will be just as easy.
8Web 2.0 in Six Easy Steps
It’s really quite simple…
5. Get a subscribe-to-beta-launch-e-mail-list button
That’s all there is to it folks!
1Does your web design business have goals?
Are you merely wandering around looking for clients or do you have goals and targets for your company? For your team? The importance of goals has been covered many times as well as methods of goal creation. Here are some specific areas to create both short-term and long-term goals for: Continue Reading Does your web design business have goals? »
