Archive for the ‘Web Design’ Category

Do you know what a favicon is? This is that little icon or logo that is displayed in the address bar of your browser and on the tab for tabbed browsing, which I believe is most of them today. Here are some examples where you can see each company’s favicon to the left of the URL in the address bar and in the tab to the left of the page title:

This little white “f” in the blue square is highly recognizable.

The Microsoft butterfly is no surprise here.

And finally, here is one without a favicon.

Why do you need one of these? This goes back to building your brand. You want that image to stick in your customer’s minds so they know this is your site and and trust you. What feeling do you get looking at my last example above? The white page icon. I changed the URL to protect the ignorant and uniformed. At best, it doesn’t do anything. At worst, you wonder how professional this company really is and plants a seed of doubt. It doesn’t take much to knock that person off the fence. Let’s not take anything to chance. Make sure you use a favicon. Here’s how to create your own:

1. Use your favorite graphics program to create a 16 X 16 pixel image that you want to use as your favicon. This is super tiny so make sure it isn’t too much crammed into a tiny space.

2. Convert your image into the .ico format using a free online converter such as http://converticon.com or http://www.favicongenerator.com.

3. If it isn’t already, rename your image favicon.ico and then upload to the root directory of your site. For most, this is all you will need to do.

4. If it does not appear you may need to add <link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”/favicon.ico” /> to the Head section of your site or template. From here, things will vary depending on how your site is created. In WordPress, for example, the easiest thing to do is search for favicon plugins and choose the one you like and use it to ensure your favicon is displayed properly for WordPress.

Do you use a Favicon in your site? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Are there any recovering SimCity addicts out there?  Maybe even some current addicts with all the newest editions that are available. Well, when constructing a website for your business just imagine your are playing SimCity. For you hopelessly deprived people out there here is a brief description courtesy of Wikipedia:

The objective of SimCity, as the name of the game suggests, is to build and design a city, without specific goals to achieve (except in the scenarios, see below). The player can mark land as being zones as commercial, industrial, or residential, add buildings, change the tax rate rate, build a power grid, build transportation systems and take many other actions, in order to enhance the city.

It is both easy and hard to do. Just about anyone can put up some sort of website just like even a child can construct roads and buildings in the game of SimCity. There are plenty of free templates and tools to get something online. That’s the easy part. However, there are no clear cut definitions on what your website should look like nor is there a specific goal that you do x, y, and z then you will win just like you cannot win SimCity by beating the big boss or reaching a certain level. So the hard part is creating the vision of what your city, or in this case your business site, will look like next week, next month, or even next year.

Wikipedia goes on to say:

Also, the player may face disasters including flooding, tornadoes, fires (often from air disasters or even shipwrecks), earthquakes and attacks by monsters. In addition, monsters and tornadoes can trigger train crashes by running into passing trains. Later disasters in the game’s sequels included lightning strikes, volcanoes, meteors, and attack by extraterrestrial craft.

Likewise, while constructing your business site you may face disasters like accidental deletion, server downtime, upload and download errors, javascript errors, Internet Explorer display issues (if we all just used Firefox we could eliminate one set of problems), and on and on.

Here are some things to keep in mind, though it won’t guarantee you “win”, it will go along way toward constructing a powerful site:

• Constantly build – just like in SimCity where you are always adding new roads, buildings, and developments you need to be adding new things to your site. Your site is not an individual project that reaches completion. It is like a city that is constantly growing, developing, and evolving. What do you add to your site? Content. Publish new content regularly so people have reason to return to your site, share your site with friends and coworkers. A blog is a great way to do this.
• Variety is the Spice of Life – Think how boring your SimCity would be if you only built one kind of property over and over and over. Add variety to your site with eBooks, video trainings, and audio trainings. It will help you not get bored and more importantly your prospects won’t get bored either.
• Interact – Find ways to interact with your customers and prospects. Link to Facebook and Twitter accounts that are natural places of interaction. Add a forum to your site with restricted access to your customers where they can interact and learn from each other and where many questions can be answered easily and minimize frustration.

As always, I’m here to help and would love to hear your comments below.

Looking to make some changes to your business site, but not sure where to go from here? Or, dare I say, you have finally decided to get your company online with a nice, professional site? Here are three things to consider before moving forward:

1. Build on your Brand. Think about what your company represents. Is your logo and tagline appropriately placed on the site? What about the color scheme, text, and graphics – does it adequately represent your market and make your visitors feel like they are in the right place?

2. Don’t Hide Behind Your Company! Make sure to include photos and bios so your prospects can see the person behind the business they are considering. You’ve probably heard that people need to “know you, like you, and trust you” before they’ll do business with you so help that along. Be sure to include links to your social media accounts like facebook and twitter to provide other ways of interacting online.

3. Call to Action! Engage and direct your site visitors. A website is not simply an online brochure or product catalog. You need to tell your visits what to do next. A clear, concise call to action will do exactly that.

Remember that content is king online so don’t take your website lightly. When in doubt hire a competent professional. NOTE: competent does not mean expensive so do your homework. And as always, I’m here to help. Leave questions and comments below or contact me directly here.