Archive for the ‘development’ Category
Friday, January 2nd, 2009
If you ever have a link that says “Skip Intro”, then you need to remove the page that contains that link. There’s no question or debate about this. The ONLY time I would ever do that is if you are promoting a video game or a movie. The only time ever.
Have you ever heard anyone tell you about a really cool splash page?
What good does it do if your website has the most beautiful web pages ever designed, but it doesn’t convince people to engage with your organization?
They don’t happen as much as they used to, but there are still websites out there that are more of an art project than effective promotion tool.
I’ve seen some splash pages that were a just monument to the web designers Flash and CSS skills. Designers love this stuff, but it’s the users that you need to worry about. Have you ever heard anyone tell you about a really cool splash page that they saw?
Regardless of your designer’s technical prowess or if the pressure is coming from some management above you, resist the temptation to use a splash page.
Just say no.
Posted in SEO, Web Site Starter Kit, content, design, development, marketing, promotion, small business website | No Comments »
Thursday, December 25th, 2008
WOW! THIS is what using the Internet is about. Here is an organization that advocates spending less money on Christmas and giving more. This is what Christmas is all about.
This is what Christmas is all about.
Now, look closely. Their web site is hosted on wordpress.com, a free hosting service. This is what I advocate you do in my Web Site Starter Kit book. Look at the domain name of the site.
This organization has a free web site that looks great, works great, and has great results.
Yes, they did lobby displays and other, more traditional marketing efforts also, but the free web site was part of it.
Merry Christmas. Spend time, not money.
news: Back to the basics at Christmas
How did the movement generate such a massive response?
Church leadership sowed the seeds several months earlier. Beginning in October, the congregation, including children, repeatedly heard the Advent Conspiracy’s call to “spend less, give more, worship fully and love all.” Officials added a blog to the church Web site (adventconspiracy.wordpress.com) and created a lobby storyboard where churchgoers could share ideas on how to give creative gifts of time and relationship.
Read the entire article at news: Back to the basics at Christmas
Posted in Free Small Business Web Site, SEO, Web Site Starter Kit, church, content, development, domain name, free, marketing, promotion, web host | No Comments »
Saturday, December 20th, 2008
I ran into a situation where I had some old hard coded pages that I needed to drop into a Wordpress site. The pages can coexist with Worpress just fine, but getting them to interact was a little harder.
I added the bit of code that would then display the menu.
Each page already had a PHP include for a menu file, which at that point was a hard coded bit of HTML. At least I could change the menu for 20 pages easily by changing one file.
The next step was to get those 20 hard coded pages to use the same menu that I was using in the Wordpress theme. I needed to change the content of that included file.
Here’s how I did it:
I took the index.php file that Wordpress uses to do all of it’s magic. I copied that file over to the location of my existing menu.php file, replacing it. My new menu.php file now has the same content as the Wordpress index.php file.
<?php
define(’WP_USE_THEMES’, false);
/** Loads the WordPress Environment and Template */
require(’./wordpress/wp-blog-header.php’);
?>
<!–start meu–>
<tr>
<td colspan=”6″ align=”left” valign=”middle”>
<div id=”navmenu”>
<ul>
<?php wp_list_pages(’title_li=&depth=1′); ?>
</ul>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
<!–end menu–>
Where it says to “define(’WP-USE-THEMES’, true);, changed it to say false. This is where is can get all of the information, the variables, the values that Wordpress has to offer, without all of the themes and HTML stuff along with it.
I added the bit of code that would then display the menu. That is between the comments. It adds a <tr>, because this is going into old school table designed pages. This table row will have a div whose ID is “navmenu”.
The actual Wordpress tag for the menu will not have a title and it will only display the top level of pages; depth=1. Here’s the Wordpress menu tag that I used on the whole site:
When this whole file is included in the static, existing, hard coded PHP file, it will display the existing menu for the whole site. I can add a page or change the name of a page and it will be reflected on these static, hardcoded, pages that are not part of the Worpress theme world.
Pretty cool, huh? Saved me a bucket of work trying to convert all these existing pages into Wordpress with a new template for each page.
Here’s the method in work. Look at the “Portfolio” pages on this site:
http://www.flowerart.biz/
I also wanted the highlight to happen on that parent menu item. I couldn’t get the “child_of” to work, since these are not actually pages in Wordpress, so I had to look at the “page-item-14″ since that parent page will always have that class. I added this line to my style sheet: .page-item-14 { background-color: #DBE1BB; } It’s not the cleanest way to do it, but it works and I don’t know any other way around it without putting each of those pages into Wordpress.
Posted in Wordpress, content, design, development | No Comments »
Friday, December 19th, 2008
Back in the dark ages, the days before Wordpress, I created a site for a friend using the latest and greatest methods of the day, tables. I happened to be great at laying out and implementing tables for designing web pages. I even taught a class in how to do it for the large aerospace company I worked for back then. This was back when we were still afraid of the Millennium Bug.
I happened to be great at laying out and implementing tables for designing web pages.
I taught him how to replace images when he wanted and how to write a bit of PHP and HTML. He learned, but I don’t think that he ever made any changes, maybe a few images. This is a wedding flower site, so there are a lot of images.
Fast forward to a couple weeks ago. He wants to add some videos and a video page. I have just written a book on how Wordpress is so wonderful for everything, so I figure I really need to convert his old school web site into Wordpress.
Wordpress is great with CSS and I’m a huge believer in CSS myself, so it was particularly difficult to read this old code that I wrote years ago, using tables. One of the cool design features of his site is that every page is a bit different in layout. There are random images strewn about the place. I used multiple templates and passed variables to change the images.
To convert the old site to Wordpress, without having to recreate the whole thing, meant that I needed to create new template pages for each section, using the existing tables, then assign the templates to the pages.
I threw in a div in the middle for the content on most. The front page is totally custom, so I actually have the template as the entire HTML page, with no content displayed at all. It’s just an HTML page.
The tricky part was the menus. I learned how to do child menus for the Venues pages, so that each venue gets its’ own page with a submenu of all other venue pages, because they are children of the Venue page which lists them all. I’ll do another post on menus to explain that better.
It took a lot of tweaks, but I finally got it to work. The decisions had to be made on which data would be hard coded and what would be “content”. He’s got to have the freedom to make changes to a lot of it, but I didn’t want him to be able to make changes to other parts.
I think it turned out OK. Please don’t view the source on it, unless you want to see some ugly code. Ack. It all works though. It’s possible to convert an existing site into Wordpress.
http:/www.flowerart.biz
Posted in content, design, development, small business website | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 17th, 2008
Years ago, I set my browser’s default background color to gray, the shade of gray that the original Mosaic used. Since then, I’ve been shocked at how many sites don’t specify a background color.
Write this down. Specify a background color for your site.
Jeffrey Zeldman Presents : Is your (website’s) underwear showing?
It's astounding how many web designers forget to specify a background color on their site.
Read the entire article at Jeffrey Zeldman Presents : Is your (website’s) underwear showing?
Posted in design, development, small business website | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 17th, 2008
Dwight D. Eisenhower: “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”
This seems to sum up the essence of web project management. There are always plans and as long as you understand the plans, then you can change them when you need to, and you will need to.
In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.
It’s really important that you understand what you want to do with your web site. You need to know the content and how the content is organized. You need to know what the user is supposed to do and why they come to your site. You should have a site map, with little boxes and lines and arrows between them all. You should have a list of pages with the content written out for each page. You should have all that.
But…
As Pee Wee Herman said, there’s always a big but.
You need to know all of that stuff so that you can change it when you need to. Things will be different than you assume they will be. Something will come up. Something will break. Something will work better than expected.
Usually, when a client sees their site for the first time, even after they planned it and agreed to it in detail, they want changes. It happens every time. I have NEVER built a site to plan and had the client approve it without changes. Doesn’t happen. It won’t happen to you either.
Just be ready for it when it comes, because it’s coming.
Posted in content, development, marketing, small business website, web traffic | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 9th, 2008
SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources » Blog Archive » How to Convert More Website Traffic into More Customers & Sales by Inviting Prospects to Take Action
Here Are 3 Easy “Calls to Action” to Convert More Website Traffic into Sales on the About Us, Media and Contact Us Pages
1. On the “About Us” page, after your bio, add a powerful client testimonial praising your expertise and your measurable and specific impact on the client’s bottom line. Then add the line “Ready for these kinds of results in your organization? Click here to get started now!” (This links to the contact page).
This call to action, in fact, can be used for any page that does not have an obvious next step.
2. Your “Media” page should not just be a collage of logos. It should contain short videos of your TV appearances, audio clips of your radio interviews or featured-expert interviews on teleseminars. It should also include links to the articles where you were quoted or links to your articles that got published on the top websites. Let the world see what a sought-after, in-demand expert you really are.
With that being said, a simple, but effective call to action would be, “Sarah B. Marketer looks forward to being the featured expert on your next program. To schedule her appearance right now click here.” (This links to the Contact page.)
3. The Contact page, by definition, is a call to action. It needs to take your visitor by the hand and lead them through the next step.
It should not just be a page that displays your mailing address, phone number, and main corporate e-mail. Rather, it should lead with a paragraph that congratulates the reader for their decision to take action. Then, it should explain the process for getting in touch with you. It should also describe what someone should expect once they contact you.
Next, guide them through a simple web form that asks specific questions. This way you can do your homework and present prospects with a specific response and action plan. Make sure to keep this form as brief as possible, and only ask questions that directly inform how you and your visitor would do business together in the near future.
Having a web form, rather than just a link to your e-mail address, guides your visitor to take a specific action. This raises their level of commitment to you and increases your chances that they will buy from you.
Bottom line: Make sure that every page on your website provides a roadmap for your visitor with a specific call to action. This is the only way your prospects will reach the destination that you prepared for them. And, it’s the only way you will increase your website sales conversions.
Read the entire article at SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources » Blog Archive » How to Convert More Website Traffic into More Customers & Sales by Inviting Prospects to Take Action
Posted in content, development, marketing, small business website, web host | No Comments »
Saturday, December 6th, 2008
Web Site Starter Kit First Draft is done!
I need to go back through it all and review it, but the basic idea of using Wordpress.com to set up a free web site is a good one. I have all kinds of tips and tricks to make that the best possible web site you can get, including SEO and promotion of the site.
As an example, I created a free site aimed at 3 keywords. Within 3 weeks of creating it, it was number 3 in the search results for those keywords in Google. That shocked even me. This SEO stuff really works.
Of course, now that I’ve written it all out, Wordpress is releasing a new version and the admin interface is very different. It’s in production on wordpress.com, but the downloadable version is not available yet. It should be any day now.
When it is available, I’ll go do screenshots and the book will be ready to sell. It will be aimed at small businesses, really small ones, and in addition to background on general good web site ideas, it will have a “free” and a “cheap” method for creating web sites.
It should be all done and ready to go by next week.
Posted in Free Small Business Web Site, SEO, Web Site Starter Kit, content, design, development, domain name, free, marketing, promotion, small business website, web host, web traffic | No Comments »
Monday, December 1st, 2008
Here is the web guy at the NYT saying that their main costs for their web site is the manpower to build it. The software is cheap. The hardware is cheap. That’s basically the approach I take in the Website Starter Kit. Use Wordpress, which is free, and buy space on a cheap web host. Use their hardware for less than $10 a month.
The main cost to build a web site is the manpower to build it.
You be the labor. You do it yourself and save a ton of money. Using these tools, it won’t be that hard to do.
In my experience, even the building of the site is easy. The real time suck is politics. The meetings between marketing and well, marketing, seemed to drag out every decision. They needed to be sure everything was just right before we could move ahead. When you can tell a developer to “do it this way”, they can knock it out quickly. When you ask a marketing person which way they want it, have a seat and wait.
Don’t fall into this same trap. Just get the site up and out the door. When you build custom stuff, it will take a bit to make changes, but using Wordpress, it’s easy. Make all of the changes you want.
Make a decision. Make it happen. Bam. You’re done.
Old Media Interview: Aron Pilhofer, interactive guru, editor at The New York Times | Old Media, New Tricks
Everything we use is free and open-source… The cost here isn’t software, or even hardware, which is relatively cheap these days… The price most … organizations (and it’s not just small ones) seem reluctant to pay is for people…
Read the entire article at Old Media Interview: Aron Pilhofer, interactive guru, editor at The New York Times | Old Media, New Tricks
Posted in Free Small Business Web Site, Web Site Starter Kit, development, marketing, small business website, web host | No Comments »
Thursday, November 27th, 2008
One reason that I want the primary focus of my business to be helping people build their own web sites instead of building sites for them is that everyone needs to embrace their own web site. We should know what is the content and update it regularly.
Embrace your site!
I can’t stress enough that you should be personally involved in your web site. You would always keep a copy of the keys to your front door. You would always have access to your bank account. You should always be involved with, control, and manage your own web site.
Don’t pay people like me to build you a site so that you can forget it and get on with the important parts of your business. The web site IS an important part of your business and you need to treat it that way if you are going to be successful.
Web wise: Startup company’s website- Internet -Infotech-The Economic Times
So whether it is a small-time business setup or a larger brick and mortar entity you are launching, a website is like the screwdriver in a toolbox that you really can’t do without. Says Rajeev Karwal, CEO and founder of Milagrow Business and Knowledge Solutions, “Internet domains are the most cost-effective method of getting your message across to a huge audience.
In fact, it is a very personal way of connecting with them. Unfortunately, only one or two percent of small companies use their websites effectively today.” There are quite a few reasons: low connectivity, low awareness and a tendency to “outsource and forget” what is treated as a necessary evil. Also, a website is not just a one-time investment of time or money—it demands constant attention and upgradation. But as these entrepreneurs prove, an attractive and well-tended website can be a key pillar of success and growth.
Read the entire article at Web wise: Startup company’s website- Internet -Infotech-The Economic Times
Posted in content, development, marketing, small business website | No Comments »
Sunday, November 23rd, 2008
A lot of times, a developer will register your domain name for you as a service and charge you the fee every year to renew it. That’s great if they are honorable people and there are no problems.
The real owner of any domain name is the Administrative Contact in the whois record
The real owner of any domain name is the “Administrative Contact” in the “whois” record. They are the person or business that has the legal ownership. You can go to court and prove ownership with this.
If your developer is listed as that admin contact, then they are the legal owner. Again, this is nice that they are helping you out, but be aware that you are vulnerable to having your domain name held hostage, or worse, stolen from you.
This is the “whois” that I use. It’s from an old registrar that I no longer use because they quit responding to all communication from me. They were horrible. But, I still use their whois look up because they are no flashing ads or captchas to slow me down. I’ll share their secret look up page with you.
Check who owns your domain name here.
If you are not listed for your domain name, take steps to change that or have it changed. Make sure that your email address is also listed. If someone hijacks your email account, they can have your password sent to them, log in and change the admin contact to themselves and steal your domain name.
Send me email if you want any help with checking on this. Use the “Ask Me Anything ” form and I’ll help you out.
Posted in development, domain name, small business website, web host | No Comments »
Thursday, November 20th, 2008
I use Wordpresss for all of the sites I build, except the very specialized ones. Here’s an article that backs me up. I’ve used all of the editors and other CMSs and I think Wordpress is the most versatile and easy to use. If you want to keep your site updated regularly, and who doesn’t?, then you should be using Wordpress. I’m not sure you should ever pay for a theme, since they can all be customized, but it might work best for you.
WordPress - It’s Not Just for Bloggers Anymore - Premium WordPress Themes | How to Start, Build and Promote Your Online Business
Wordpress is the most versatile and easy to use.
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Premium WordPress Themes
I’ve been a webmaster for over 12 years. And in that time I’ve used just about every HTML editor, CMS and page generator that was ever released.
Today, I use WordPress to develop 99.5 percent of the website projects I work on. The SEO, Web 2.0 and content management features make it so easy to deploy and market websites there’s really no need to use anything else. Almost anything you could want from a website can be easily plugged into WordPress.
With WordPress you can edit your website from any computer with an Internet connection. Change and add content, navigation, interactive features or even modify the design of the entire site in a matter of minutes. You can do it on a Mac, a PC or even a Linux box. It doesn’t matter because it’s all done over the web.
No more hassling with expensive software and updates. Everything you need is built in.
You’ll notice I’m using the word “websites” and not “blogs”.
“But I thought WordPress was blogging software?” you ask.
It is blogging software. Arguably the best blogging platform in the known universe. But, it can also be used as a robust content management system with or without blogging features enabled.
Imagine being able to give your secretary or assistant the login to your WordPress site and him being able to update content, add pages and upload photos in less time than it takes you to go to Starbucks and back.
Do you know how many hours I’ve spent training administrative assistants and church secretaries on how to use Dream Weaver or Front Page to update their websites? More than I care to remember. The sad fact is that most of those sites were never really kept up-to-date and therefore never really lived up to their full potential.
Read the entire article at WordPress - It’s Not Just for Bloggers Anymore - Premium WordPress Themes | How to Start, Build and Promote Your Online Business
Posted in SEO, development, free, small business website | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
No matter what kind of web site you are creating, no matter what size or what content, it’s always best to plan out what you need to do before you do anything.
I always start with a planning document. It can be formal or informal. It just needs to have all of the information you need in a way that makes sense to you.
It's always best to plan out what you need to do before you do anything.
Start out with the technical, web hosting issues. What is the domain name? Where will it be hosted? Are there any other technical requirements like SQL or PHP? You may not know all of these right now, but be aware of them. They might cause problems later if you don’t plan for them now.
Once you have a handle on the technical issues, which will take way more time to explore, the next step is a site map. This might be called the site architecture or site plan. There are various names for it.
You need to have a list of every page on the site and a description of the content for every page. You also need to know the relationships of each page, which will be defined with the menus.
Most sites have a list of things that are exactly the same on each page, so we call this the template. These things would be the header and footer, the sidebars, and the logo. Whatever else you might have can be put into the template.
If your site has nothing common on each page, then you’re better off creating them individually. You still need to make the site map.
You can make this list as a text outline or as a graphic with little boxes and lines running between them. Use whatever tools you have that make sense to you.
Posted in development, free, small business website | No Comments »
Tuesday, November 18th, 2008
I’m a Project Manager when I have a day job. My skill is getting everything to come together at the same time and making it all work. That’s a skill that I’ve learned over years of building web sites.
I won’t tell you everything I know because you don’t have that much time and I have to go watch Fringe, but I will tell you a couple things to watch for when you’re trying to start a web site.
Things never go as planned. Never.
First, things never go as planned. Never. Always add some cushion. If you can ever get anything done early, do it. Always have a plan B or a way to work around the things that will go wrong. Never work to up to the deadline, work to a point ahead of the deadline, then maybe you won’t be as late.
I might be getting a consulting gig for a company that wants to get a store up on the web by Thanksgiving. I thought “No problem!” before I realized exactly when Thanksgiving is. Yeah, it’s days away. And you want to do what?
Second trick of the trade, do it in phases. The web can be changed easily. If you print up 10,000 catalogs and need to make a price change, your stomach is going to hurt. If you need to add another page on a web site, just add it and change the menus. Boom. It’s done. It’s just a matter of time and effort to make changes.
Figure out what the bare minimum is that you need to get your web site started. Do that, then add on features and pages later. Don’t worry about it. Don’t make it perfect. Make it now.
I told this new gig to have all of the design work done by the end of business yesterday. They said they could have by the end of business today. It’s after 10pm and I haven’t seen anything yet.
It’s going to be an interesting project.
Posted in development, small business website | No Comments »
Monday, November 17th, 2008
Do you want a web site, but don’t know where to start? You’re smart, but don’t have the information you need? That’s why I wrote the Web Site Starter Kit.
I've created a new site for the Web Site Starter Kit.
It will be an eBook that will walk you through everything you need to know to get a web site up and running, which is why I named it the
Web Site Starter Kit. It is written for people who know they need a web site, but don’t know the first thing about how to get one or manage it once it’s there. The
Web Site Starter Kit will tell you the technical background if you want to know the details, but it will also tell you the quick and dirty method.
Web Site Starter Kit will outline the step by step tasks you need to do to make a great site happen quickly and cheaply.
If you are trying to start a web site, build a web site, this will help. If you already have a web site, this will also give you a checklist of things to make it better.
We’ll talk about SEO, search engine optimization. That the general term for all the little things that you can do for free to get your site up higher in the search engine results pages. Build traffic to your site from the search engines. Web Site Starter Kit will give you all this information and more.
Posted in SEO, design, development, domain name, marketing, small business website, web host | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 5th, 2008
There are a lot of business owners out there who have a vague feeling that they should have a web site, but don’t want to learn anything about it or spend any money on it. Maybe times are tough, but marketing is the only way that business will get any better.
Here are the steps it takes to create a GOOD small business web site for FREE.
If you have a small business, and I mean like less than 5 people or less, then here are the steps it takes to create a GOOD small business web site for FREE. This will get you a real live, working site, that does the basics of what a business site needs to do.
It’s possible to do a GREAT site if you spent a little money on it. I am going to constantly berate you for being cheap through out this FREE process. Spend a little and get a lot. I figure that you’ll build the GOOD, FREE site now, realize just how effective it is and want to make it better. Then you’ll come crawling back to me, all crying like a baby, asking me to take you back and show you how to make a GREAT CHEAP site to replace your GOOD FREE site.
You go read the posts below. I’ll wait here.
Posted in Free Small Business Web Site, SEO, content, design, development, domain name, free, marketing, small business website, web host | No Comments »
