Category Archives: Web Design, Web Development, Website Redesign

Web Design, Web Development, Website Redesign info, news, and tips useful to small business owners and entrepreneurs.

The Importance of Good Design (Miss Universe 2015 Mishap)

Leave a reply

The importance of good design cannot be stressed enough. Bad design will cost a business money.

A popular topic in the news right now is the Miss Universe 2015 mishap where Miss Colombia was mistakenly announced as the winner (instead of the first runner up) then later corrected to announce Miss Philippines as the winner and Miss Universe instead.

Let’s look at the card design that caused the confusion:

Miss Universe 2015 Card with Bad Design

Now let’s look at one redesign card created my Marco Leong to show how the card could have been made clearer to avoid the mistake:

Miss Universe 2015 Card with Improved Design

As you can see, the changes make the card so much more organized and easy to read.

This is to highlight why it is so important to hire and use professional designers to create your business material. Whether it is a website, Web graphics, brochure, menu, advertisement; use a good designer. You will make the most of your investment!

The video is available if you would like to watch the scene of when this happened:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9aRmmWX5XI

 

Roles in a Web Design, Web Development Firm

Leave a reply

There are different roles in a Web design, Web development firm. Understanding his can help you make a better selection when you are searching for someone to make that new website or when you need to update your existing one.

Have you ever noticed that some websites look and work better than others? You can look at two websites from two similar business (same industry, same size, etc.) and they can look worlds apart. Websites that are created by teams often come out better than those that are worked on by one person or one individual. Often, a person with strength in one area will be weak in another area. A Web designer good at designing the look-and-feel of a website will likely not be an expert in coding or programming, what a Web developer does. And the opposite is often true.

Let’s take a look at the different positions you typically find in a Web design or Web development firm:

Sales Staff – The sales staff are often the the individuals that are responsible with initially interacting with the clients, making the sale, and servicing them.

Project Manager – A project manager oversees the projects for the client. This is the person in between the client and the Web design(s) and Web developer(s). The project manager assists in creating the project blueprint, passing the instructions to the Web designer and Web developers, then ensures that the project is progressing as it should.

Web Designer – A Web designer often focuses on the graphics of a Website, the elements that make up how a website looks and feels to the user. When you see a how nice a website looks, it’s because a Web designer worked on it.

Web Developer – A Web developer often focuses on the codes or the programming. The results of the his/her coding or programming will determine how the website will function.

IT Staff – The IT staff are the ensure that the equipment that runs the operation are working. This includes the servers that host and power the clients’ websites.

In summary, no one individual can be an expert the different areas and have all the skill-sets that are required of all the different roles.

Good Web Developers Are Hard to Find

Leave a reply

Web Developer Ad

Recently, we came across a great article “Where are all the good Web developers?”

“my experience has led me to believe that bad developers outnumber the truly great ones by a hundred to one”

Finding good Web developers isn’t easy. Many of our clients ended up coming to us because they’ve either had bad experiences with their projects or they needed something fixed after their other Web developer did not correctly complete their project. It is cheaper and faster to build a car correctly the first time than it is to build it incorrectly, tear it down and rebuild it again.

According to the article, there are a few reasons as to why you cannot find a good Web developer:

  1. You’re cheap (as the article put it)
    Solution: Be realistic with the level of sophistication in the website you are looking for and be realistic with your budget. You probably budget and allocate a certain amount of money towards advertisements and marketing, periodically. You need to also consider your website and online presence. It is also apart of your advertising and marketing and it needs to be treated the same way.
  2. You don’t know what you want or what you’re doing
    Solution: Spend some time to decide what it is that you need your website to do. Surf the Web and find a few websites that you like and find a few that you don’t like. Write down what it is that you like/dislike and why. While this information is simple, it can help during the Web development process tremendously.
  3. You’re just seeking someone to clean up someone else’s mess
    Solution: Get it done right the first time! Don’t try to “save a few dollars” today by going the “cheaper” route. Often, good developers aren’t cheap and cheap developers aren’t good. You save the most money (and time, and headache) by doing it right the first time.

The article’s conclusion and advice was clear and to-the-point; know what you want and be able to pay for it. An extra piece of advice we can add is start early. Work that is rushed often comes our sloppy and poor. You will also add/give unnecessary stress to your Web developer and yourself. There is nothing to be gained through procrastination so start early.

3 Steps to Online Success: Step 3 – Managing and Maintaining (Websites & Online Campaigns)

Leave a reply

This is Part 3 of a 3-part series “3 Steps to Online Success”. In Part 1, we discussed getting the right website. In Part 2, we discussed online marketing. In this article, we’ll discuss managing and maintaining (your website and online marketing) and why it should be apart of your business operation.

There are three steps to online success:

    1. Getting the right website
    2. Marketing online
    3. Managing & maintaining
3 Steps to Online Success

3 Steps to Online Success

There are two things you need to maintain or online success:

  1. Your website
  2. Your online marketing

Many (and we emphasize “many”) website owners and business owners make the mistake of neglecting their websites and not updating them. They have the “set it and forget it” mentality. If your website is to be a live marketing center for your business, you can’t just “set it and forget it”.

Here are a few reasons why you will want to manage and maintain your website:

  • Readers, customers/clients and any interested party that care about or has an interest in it will not read or look at the same content over and over again (how many times can you read the about us page of the same website?)
  • New content is interesting, it gives a reason for your interested parties to return to your website and pay attention to it
  • Your business’s environment and industry is always changing and evolving
  • The Web and the online world is always changing and evolving
  • Content such as textual information or even pictures/images can become outdated or look outdated, if left untouched for a while

Routinely updating and maintaining your website is not expensive. Losing customers because you don’t, can be very expensive. Maintaining  and managing your online marketing is also important and necessary. Here are the reasons why:

  • Different points-in-times require a differently tweaked message that is different in order to be effective
  • The world evolves so your message and how you’re distributing that message needs to also evolve
  • The Web is constantly evolving (and quite rapidly, we might add) so your message along with your choice on marketing channels needs to evolve
  • Managing and maintaining your online marketing helps you maximize your investment in online marketing. (Imagine if your favorite store decided to run the same holiday ads over and over throughout the year to “save money”. That would not only seem ridiculous but it is probably a poor use of their marketing investment and it’s probably not “saving” them much money.)

It is likely that your business is already constantly changing to adapt to the competition and challenges in its environment (you probably didn’t just “set it and forget it”). Make sure you don’t “set it and forget it” for your website and your online marketing. Follow these three steps, be persistently and patient. Over time, it will help your business reap the rewards the online world has to offer.