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“175 professional suggestions, tips and ideas from some of the best web-developers all around the world.”
I found this practical and instructive article on Web design tips and techniques from respected designers via Roger Johansson’s excellent blog.
1 comment April 29th, 2007
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The Logo Blog has a post with some logos that are truly outstanding in design concept and execution. Some of them I see every day without giving thought to what went into their creation. Take a look at the logos.
April 25th, 2007
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Attitudes Towards Web Based Marketing Strategies
Let’s face it, most of us are followers. As such, our ideas are a reflection of our associates. Nowhere does this seem to be more true than in our attitudes and behaviors related to advertising and marketing initiatives. So what are the trends in attitudes towards Web based marketing these days? I’ll make some observations based on my experience, and welcome you to contribute to the discussion.
Mediocre: It seems to me that most “normal” (companies outside of new media) small medium size businesses view online marketing as something that, like newspaper advertising, must be done but cannot be expected to produce results. These companies half-heartedly use a small portion of their budget to maintain a neglected Web site and may spend a small amount on mis-managed pay-per-click campaigns. As expected, they get no little or no return on their investment.
Zealots: A less common and more transient group of businesses are searching for a magic bullet. This group spends a great deal of money buying links from Web sites, running poorly conceived pay-per-click campaigns that direct large amounts of traffic to a single landing page that doesn’t continue the conversation started by their pay-per-click ads. They also keep an eye out for the latest trends and adopt them all, one by one. This group gets some results, but because they are frenetic in pursuit of a magic bullet, their ideas are never fleshed out. The return rarely pays for the investment.
Let’s face it. I’m over generalizing. Nobody really fits into a “camp.” At least only a few. I’ve taken both approaches mentioned above. I’ve gotten both manic and discouraged about online marketing. Is there a better way?
I think so. Here are a few components of a successful online marketing strategy:
These ideas are a start towards a coherent online marketing strategy. Do you have any to add? Please comment below.
April 24th, 2007
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Squidoo offers an exciting set of tools to help novice Web site owners and writers get their ideas in front of a broader audience. If you have a well developed concept that you want to share with the world and an offer on your Web site that you want to promote, Squidoo will give you plenty of room to pull together resources and show your expertise.
And here’s the good part … When you get traffic to your site from your Squidoo Lens, you can be sure that those visitors are interested in your offer. In general, they will fall into two camps: Prospective Customers, and Interested Competitors. Your chance of gaining a new customer from this group of visitors is much higher than general search engine traffic.
Give yourself several hours to repurpose writing you’ve used elsewhere or create new content, pull together a list of links to resources you think will add value, and you’re on your way to a decent Squidoo Lens.
Have fun testing Squidoo as a marketing tool and let me know how it works out for you. Also, don’t forget to tell others about your Lens. 
Mine is here.
April 21st, 2007
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Over the last few years not-for-profit and membership agencies have become more tech savvy and have been moving services to their Web sites. These Web sites often include a membership area that is password protected and a membership directory all entered by office staff into the office then transferred to the Web site.
Everything works well for an organization that maintains a database independent of their Web site as long as members cannot edit their own information on the Web site. All this works fine for a couple years until the office staff realizes that members could log in on the Web site and change their passwords and even update their directory listings. The minute that functionality is put on the wish list, the old model of editing the database in the office and uploading becomes increasingly impractical.
These questions need to be answered:
There are other alternatives. Here are some elements of what I believe an effective strategy contains:
My thinking is that a database solution for the wired membership organization involves using something like Drupal or other content management system that includes tools to manage members along with an interface that allow remote connection to retrieve data for reports. All data maintenance tasks are performed through a Web browser and there is no difficulty in synchronizing user entered values with owner entered data since all data is entered into the same database.
March 2nd, 2007
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Recently, the topic of design process came up in conversation and I submitted rather sheepishly to a friend that I didn’t begin my design process in Photoshop or an image editor, but in CSS. I have always felt a bit unsure about my approach, but cannot feel confident and oriented to a project without getting a feel for the actual content.
I have always needed two elements to create anything beyond the threshold of boring and predictable: clients who like to talk about their dreams and business … perhaps also a bit about design, and samples of actual content with which to work. Anything else provides no real-world grounding for design. It appears that my ideas about the process of design are not as radical as I thought. Andy Clarke’s book, Transcending CSS, makes an excellent case for the “Content-Out” approach.
Anyone who has jumped feet first into CSS design and had some success will find this book a refreshing re-orientation to the basics of where we’ve been, the reasons we’ve been there, and where we should be heading as a Web standards design community.
The technical content and practical advice alone are enough to recommend this volume, but the part of the book I read with the most gusto deals with finding creative inspiration. On occasion, designing for the Web can become somewhat dry, constraining, and predictable. Thankfully, Andy Clarke points out a host of sources for design inspiration as well as many approaches to structuring content and presentation. There is enough here to break a designer out of a creative rut.
This is the most significant Web design book I’ve read in 2006; it has the potential to remain the most significant Web design book of 2007 as well.
January 1st, 2007
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According to Wordtracker.com, one secret to getting more purchases from your Web site visitors is to target more specific search phrases. This strategy assumes that a potential customer who searches for a product or service with more specificity is closer to making a buying decision. The good news is that it is much easier to rank well in search engine results for highly specific phrases.
Be careful not to go overboard with this strategy though, because you could get so specific your customers never find you. A mix of highly specific and more general key phrases seems best.
1 comment December 30th, 2006
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St. Lawrence Chocolates opened in Potsdam recently, and has been so busy that the staff are burning the midnight oil to keep the custom chocolates they create on the shelves.
As a small part of their launch, I have had the privilege of installing and customizing a Zen Cart shopping cart and creating a new Web site for their business. There is still work to be done on the site; only a few products are listed yet, but it’s worth looking at the Web site and keeping an eye open for new products as they’re added.
The modified Zen Cart ecommerce system has several modules installed and is customized to use search engine friendly urls for the product catalog. Hopefully, this will help St. Lawrence Chocolates get some relevant targeted search engine traffic. Time will tell.
1 comment December 17th, 2006
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I recently completed work on a new Web site for the Richard F. Brush Art Gallery with the goal of making the site more easily navigated, maintained, and archived. In the next week or so, I’ll have a press release ready, but I wanted to get the word out.
2 comments December 17th, 2006
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Jonathan Snook published an insightful critique of what’s been happening with the production of HTML as a commodity in the last year or so.
I’m guilty of contributing to the trend with my own offering, CSS Sage. However, my very simple offering was not an attempt to undercut designers since I am also a designer. CSS Sage is intended to provide a service to those who for one reason or another feel they can design their own Web interface. Whether they actually can or cannot design is not the issue. There’s a need for image to HTML conversion, and someone will provide that service.
1 comment November 28th, 2006
CSS Web design, e-commerce Web design, and internet marketing issues from the desk of Harvey A. Ramer at Design Delineations.
