Archive for the ‘Technical Tips’ Category

Can You Make My Logo Bigger?

Tuesday, January 31st, 2012

Nearly all my clients, upon seeing the first mock-up of their new website, ask this question. My knee-jerk reaction is to say “No”, but there’s probably a bit of designer’s ego in that. I’m effectively a modern publisher and people love seeing their name in print, so I can’t be too rude.

The reasons why I don’t encourage a big logo are usually pretty simple.

If I make your logo bigger, it will push content down. And great content is the sole reason why you have visitors coming to your website.

A logo isn’t really a part of your navigational hierarchy. By making it bigger, headings, sub-headings, some associated graphics and page text will also probably have to be adjusted. Minor site changes affect other items on the page and I’m trying to cram as many things as possible into just 900 x 700 pixels (the size of your site when viewed on a small monitor such as a tablet).

Perhaps the main reason is this. Nobody really cares about your logo in the same way that nobody cares about small men who drive big cars. The bigger your logo, the more insecure your company looks.

Well, maybe that last one was a bit harsh.

In short, when you ask your web designer to make your logo bigger, also ask yourself if it’s the best possible thing for the page. They don’t really care about your logo and it may affect content position on the page, pushing it below the fold, or the position of Important news items. Making you logo smaller might give you more page real estate.

When one considers that the average time spent on any home page is about three seconds, can you really afford to have that third news item or product special drop off the bottom of a laptop or tablet’s screen?

It’s not your logo size that matters. It’s how it affects your pixels. ;p

Tags: Logos, web design, www
Posted in Beginner, Design, Technical Tips, Usability, website | 2 Comments »

Resizing Images for the Web

Sunday, January 22nd, 2012

When sending images over the web (or attaching one to an email) you’ll need to re-size them. Images taken with modern digital cameras are usually too big to attach to emails or upload to a website page. Often they are 20Mb+ (or 20,000,000 bytes). Many email servers today only allow up to 5Mb files to be sent as attachments. If I’m sending an image to a friend, or preparing an image to build a website, I’ll rarely use anything over 1Mb (1,000,000 bytes). Your camera assumes you want to print the image, so it includes a lot of extra detail that you just don’t need if forwarding family pics to a friend or uploading your profile pic to FaceBook.

Image Resolution

Printing companies talk about resolution in terms of dots per inch. A 300dpi image means there are 300 dots (pixels) every inch. It’s the resolution you need to print a high quality photo.

Images on the web are mostly optimized at 72dpi. On the web we usually talk about how big an image is in terms of pixels. For example, this website is less than 1,000px (pixels) wide. It’s easy to work out that, when building this website, my pictures only needed to be 1000px wide. Shrinking a big picture will retain (and sometimes even enhance) image quality. Enlarging an image can do the opposite.

Take the man with the bird on his shoulder (pictured right). He is 173 pixels wide. It doesn’t matter how tall he is as the image width is all I really needed to worry about. The space he was going into is only 210px wide. Most websites scroll down, so image height is rarely an issue.

Below is what the same bird man looks like when forced into a 500px wide area.

Notice how blurred he is? That’s what happens when small images are enlarged.

As a general rule, images sent over the web (not intended for printing) need only be about 1,000px wide.

How to optimise an image for the web

If I wasn’t already using Photoshop, I’d probably use Pixlr to manipulate my images. In fact, Pixlr is very much like Photoshop and can do most of the basic stuff that Photoshop does. It allows you to upload an image, manipulate it if you wish and then save it as a smaller version. It also does a whole lot of other things to images. Once you’ve uploaded an image, you can apply a myriad of effects filters before saving.

Let’s have a bash…

Using Pixlr.com to resize images for the web & email

• Step 1
• Step 2
• Step 3
• Step 4
• Step 5

You can also upload images from Pixlr to Facebook and Flickr.

Just remember that, as a general rule, any image that is wider than 1,000px is probably too wide for most websites (unless it’s a background image) and too big to send attached to a passing email.

The images coming out of your camera are high resolution because printers are much higher resolution than monitors.

Tags: cropping, doctoring, images, manipulations, optimising, resizing, resizing images
Posted in Beginner, Design, Technical Tips | No Comments »

7 Website Tweaks for Non-coders

Wednesday, December 7th, 2011

This Christmas, I’ve decided to send some business-related “gifts” to clients and potential clients. The gift is really a simple list of tips on how they can improve their website without too much emphasis on the code aspects of what they are doing.

I send such gifts to potential clients or “business friends” with whom I do little or no major business, but who usually go on to recommend my work to others. It’s my way of saying thank you for past recommendations and goodwill they have sent my way.

More often than not, it leads to sales further down the line, so being nice often translates to good business sense.

Below is an assessment I sent to Ross at Canning Bridge Cycles. He’s become both a friend and associate over the years, but even he admits there’s a lot more he can do with his virtual business. The following is printed here with his permission.

I find a lot of physically oriented businesses like Ross’ tend to neglect their online obligations, when, in a perfect world, they’d love to spend more time at the computer, working “on their business” rather than “in it.”

As a web designer, I have the opposite problem, but that’s another story . . .

A “Happy Christmas” Website Asssessment :

Dear Ross,

You recently asked me to give your website a critical once-over. Here is a list of simple changes you could do to improve your existing site without too much effort. Feel free to send these on to your webmaster.

Have a very merry Christmas and hopefuly we’ll meet again early in the new year . . .

People don’t like to write, but search engines love to read. The Canning Bridge Cycles web site has about three blog posts written over a 4 year span. I don’t need to tell Ross that this suggests major on-line inactivity but more importantly, it could give some people a sense that the site is “old” or the business a bit “outdated.” One page invites (more experienced) riders to join a weekly group peloton around the river. I know that Ross still organises these rides because only a few weeks ago, he nearly knocked me off my own bike when riding to work.
 
 

. . . Keep up the blog, Ross. Old posts make your site look old and irrelevant. Why not spend 20 minutes writing once a week after a morning ride? 300 words is probably enough. More words means more “conversation” and a higher search engine ranking, more custom etc. etc. Search Engines read. It’s actually all they can do. If you are constantly feeding their robot scouts with relevant and up to date “chat” about cycling, it’s only going to help . . .

A few years ago I built a site for the Bicycle Transport Authority. I’m pleased to say they now have a thriving and very active community of cyclists with 2,000 unique vistors every month and a lot of two-way (customer / client) “conversation”.

Which brings me to my next point . . .

Harvey Norman got into a bit of hot water early in 2011 when he (and a consortium of like-minded retailers) placed a full paged ad in the West Australian asking the government to charge GST to overseas companies. By doing this, it was perceived that Harvey was experiencing a bit of sour grapes because his sales were low and he was blaming online, cheaper retailers.

We need to engage customers and potential customers in a conversation. Shouting at potential clients using an expensive newspaper ad as a soap-box is not “conversation” and will probably lead to (as it did in the Middle East) a little “civil unrest”. Most of us can’t afford one page shouty ads.

. . . You’re using WordPress which allows people to respond to your posts. Why don’t you switch on the comments facility? Presently people can’t leave comments on your posts (even the few you have up there). When clients (or potential clients) comment, try to respond to feedback in a meaningful way (within about 48hrs). Gone are the days of one-way advertising. The Harvey Norman strategy didn’t play out too well for him. Rather than writing in the newspaper margins, people responded to Gerry’s ad in an embarrassingly public way using Twitter, Facebook and online forums. There’s a moral to the Harvey Norman story. Business need to listen to their customers and not talk so much (ie. “sell”). The latest (annoying) term for doing business is “conversation marketing” but starting that conversation is really more about customer loyalty than it is about old ideas about “marketing” . . .

Allowing people to comment on your website gives them a bit of power. Plus, it’s kind of like seeing your name in print. Who doesn’t like being published?

In short, clients and potential clients are more likely to talk directly to you instead of talking behind your back on say, Iinet’s Whirpool forums.

Some buttons on the Canning Bridge Cycles navigation sidebar take users to another site.

As a general rule, main navigation should always link to on-site pages. Why not include a Useful Links page with brand decals linking off to company sites.

It’s also a good to not open outbound links in a new browser tab or window. It’s a bit like saying good-bye to a customer in your shop, but when they turn to leave, they find your hand in their back pocket. So it was great NOT to see this common practice.

. . . Rather than having a Brands button – call that page Links or Useful Links. Visitors assume that all links on your site will take them to on-site pages unless you tell them otherwise. When I clicked Brands I was expecting reviews, pics or a bit of research into the brands you supply. Linking to a company web page is fine if you politely let your visitor know what you are doing. Linking to other sites is fine, but try to be clear when you do it. If you need to link to other sites from within main page text, perhaps you could indicate this by drawing a small image with upward pointing arrow just to the right of the link . . .

It’s not unusual to link to another (separate) site where credit card payments can be made securely. In fact, setting up a secure server with real-time bank transacting is an expensive business and – y’know what? It’s probably not worth it. Google and PayPal have really simple to use payment systems, some of which can be built into your site.

Let’s face it. Your Bikes link is really a link to your shop.

Sometimes people have a button called “Shop” – which will takes us to some kind of shopping cart with paypal gateway, but it’s a good idea to provide a separate link, and as with point 3, let them know they are going off-site. Your shop is on a different server – which is common practice – but you should really have a shop button that is not a main site navigation button.

What I mean by a shop “button” – is a graphic, in a prominent place somewhere in the margin or on the main page of teh site that links to the off-site shop.

If you’ve managed to create an onsite (or offsite) community, then you’re winning. The web is all about community. It was originally designed for people to communicate. Because we monkeys love to trade, we’ve all stuck our businesses up there and it seems to be about commerce. But that’s just an illusion.

Your “Rides” page is great. It could use a few more images, but it’s a great idea to have such a page. Good also to tell your customers how fast and how far they will be expected to go on their bicycles. I know I’m not too happy going more than 30kmh on my bike, so I can see that these rides aren’t for me. I wanted to see guys (and gals) having coffee and fun at the Cottesloe cafe you talk about. Shots of long macs with bike helmets, rows of bikes, clippy shoes etc. Gimme the fantasy and maybe I’ll pick-up my pace.

The web is and always worked best as a connector, a community creator. I remember stumbling across a community of used teabag collectors. They were spread out all over the world. In any one city there probably wasn’t enough people to fill a small scout hall, but across the world, I found a virtual scout hall meeting in full swing.

One valid way to use your website is to “field” phone calls. It’s a repository of all those repeat questions one gets asked on a daily basis. An FAQ is the sign on the door which says, “Must read before entry”.

It’s good that you have Frequently Asked Questions. Well done there. People need to know this stuff. Go crazy and tell them more. Collect questions while you’re in shop and them upload to your website during that one hour per week when you update your blog! ;)p

I’m sorry if this sounds offensive, but we are all really a bunch of perverts. That’s right. What other animal has devised a system where it can watch repeatedly, the days of lives of other animals in a public forum? I’m talking about TV. And if you take just the evening news into consideration, you’ll get a sense of just how obsessive we are. People love images. They are more likely to look at images than read. So give them images. Just make sure to tag them correctly for all the search engines to read.

I mentioned pics before, but you really should have really good, big images (as wide as your content area at least) throughout your site. PLUS a gallery! Some companies pay me to add this sort of stuff for them for them. For example, I recently created these pages for an Air-conditioning company.

• Air Conditioning
• Advantage Air

Pics, images, bike music. Anything that you feel could help bring your virtual presence out of the screen a little and into the viewer’s world.

I know your industry is pretty physical, but you might consider making it less physical and more “virtual” as time goes on. I don’t see why you can’t make your business work for you more – instead of you working “for it” like I suspect you’re doing.

All the best.
Edwin

That’s pretty much a summary of the message I sent Ross and it’s certainly going to give him something to talk about over the Christmas break. I normally charge about $250 dollars for a full, 20 point website report. But if you are reading this, for January only, I can do a proper report for your existing website for $175. But only if you’re reading this. Knowing how these things go, you’ll probably get me to update a few pages on your own website.

Hopefully you got something out of this. I know Ross did. I bought a bicycle off him!

PS. Thanks for the bike, Ross. It rides like a dream.

Posted in Business Practices, Communication, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, Technical Tips, Usability, website | No Comments »

How to Measure the Effectiveness of Your Website

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

This 1hr, in-depth video is from our friends at www.hubspot.com

It’s probably a bit advanced for the newbie, but it covers and explains a lot about Search Engines and how they work. Perhaps this may not seem important to you today, but tomorrow, Search Engines are probably the only way we’re likely to get found.

Tags: inbound, Website Marketing
Posted in Business Practices, Internet Marketing, Technical Tips, website | No Comments »

Welcome to 2010

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

Well, I don’t know about you, but it’s off to the gym for me. My main New Year’s resolution is to lose 10kgs. to this end, I’ve joined the Como Health & Fitness Centre and I’m looking forward to trying out their 6am, 3 day-per-week Bootcamp. I’m looking at three websites which have to be up by the end of this month.

www.narellebelle.com
www.cavepictures.net
www.ccpwa.com.au

You’ll notice that there’s a new, stylised “site coming soon” placeholder on the first two sites. This is to give clients an idea of how their site is progressing over the 4 weeks it takes to build. If you have a twitter account, you can also link it to that so that there’s not just a big blank space staring potential customers down. Remember that you need to do something on your site every day in order to drive consistent and regular traffic. This might be a simple BLOG message like this one – or a competition where you give something away.

If you’re looking for a website, be quick as January is already booked up and now that I’ll be working closely with my friends at www.itomic.com (doing interface designs) – February is starting to fill, too. Looking forward to meeting you in the New Year. Let’s get 2010 on the road, as I feel that 2011 is much closer than we think.

Posted in news, Technical Tips, Twitter, website | No Comments »

Update your website

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

There’s nothing worse than a site which was last updated in 2002.

It irks me to say this, but I’ve had about 500 clients over the years and the ones who are making money are also the ones who regularly update their website. I don’t make any money when someone updates a site because they usually do this via a content management system. It’s just mostly … I dunno … a shame. By providing real, up to date and useful content, you are also providing a service and building confidence in potential customers (who are following your site).

I read a book once – not a best seller and it had nothing particularly to do with the web. It was called, “Customer Loyalty – How to Earn It How to Keep It” by Jill Griffin. Great book. In it she points out that it takes 7 times the effort to get new customers as it does to service an old one. She used cinema advertising as a result. One poster for a movie doesn’t sell the movie, but; a poster, an article, an interview and a free bag of popcorn did. Well, seven things. I think you get the picture.

Imagine your website. One page won’t get you a customer. But 7 articles written over time, a search engine result via google adwords and a banner ad about your product or service might lead to sale. Not much has changed. Think traditional advertising – and then, laterally – think of the web equivalent. Because teh nature of the internet is chaning all the time, you might actuallly get ahead of technology if you experiment with some of your marketing ideas.

Case Study

watch 007 quantum of solace in HD download dan mccafferty into the ring

One of my favourite clients (I won’t mention any names) has a BLOG-style (WordPress) site. It took a bit to convince her to use a BLOG interface, but this particular person was pretty keen to have a News section and update it regularly. Like with all my clients, I told her to update the site as often as possible. Every day is fantastic, every week is good and every month is okay. She started with regular updates and finally settled on updating every month. Out of all my clients, she is the only one who updates her site that regularly and, sure enough, she also happens to be the one who is making money and creating leads directly from the website.

In Conclusion

Update your site!

That’s all I have to say. :)

Tags: websites updating traffic seo marketing
Posted in Business Practices, Technical Tips | No Comments »

Updating Your Website

Thursday, March 12th, 2009

Many of you already have a website and that’s a good thing, but keeping it up to date is better – particularly if you want to be found by search engines. Google rewards sites which are fresh and relevant by pushing them higher in search results.

Tags: updating
Posted in Technical Tips | Comments Off

Having fun with RSS!

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It is a web feed

format. Am I losing you?

It basically means you can have all sorts of news delivered right to your browser or email or feed reader software. Stuff like news, latest product offerings or even the content of this site.

Firefox calls the feed bit of their browser Bookmarks and IE stores feeds in its Favourites Center (probably a trademarked term – ugh!).

If you ever see the feed symbol (right) click on it and your browser should do most of the work for you. In Firefox, all my feeds are listed in one row across the top of my browser. Clicking on one shows me a list of stories or BLOG entries or software product updates produced by that company / blogger.

Try subscribing to this site’s feed by clicking here. You can always delete it.

Tags: bookmarks, feed, latest, news, rss
Posted in Communication, Technical Tips | No Comments »

Vertical Vs. Horizontal Menus

Saturday, March 29th, 2008

Which is best?

While horizontal menus may look neat, you are limited to how many items you can have due to page width. These days that’s usually 960px. You can use sub-menu pop-ups beneath main menu items, but strictly speaking – this means that you have hidden options for the user. You’ll get funny looks from expensive usability experts like Jakob Neilsen, but sometimes it’s the best way and after all, your client has final say.

Sidebar or vertical navigation menus (like those to the left on this site) allow you to have many menu items. Adding pages to a site with a vertical menu structure is a breeze. Something to consider when future-proofing your site. You simply add another list element or graphic in the sidebar, pushing all other buttons down the page. There’s plenty of space vertically – but it may mean that some menu choices disappear below the fold (above the fold refers to the website stuff that appears on the site without using the scroll-bar). It could also mean that there are too many options for your user. I like to giuve a user no more than 6 top-menu choices. The user can dig down through the sub-navigation structure to find more information if they really need it.

Horizontal navigation menus always appears above the fold.

In a world where the average site visit is 3 seconds, it’s good to get your message across as quickly as you can. You don’t want juicy content linked low down on your front page. It’s mice to see all the (main) links at a glance so that you attract relevant people to your site while not frustrating those who didn’t want the information.

People don’t like too much choice. Just checkout the sudden plethora of 100g tuna variety tins on a supermarket shelf. Mango salsa, red curry, spicy tomato? I don’t know about you – but all that choice of tuna just makes me want to buy pink salmon!

In other words, don’t link to everything in your site. It’s confusing. Clear navigation menus are a rarity on the web, so keep it simple. You can reveal new elements as the user digs down through the site heirarchy.

Tags: Better Navigation, horizontal menu, menus, vertical menu
Posted in Technical Tips, website | 2 Comments »