These words came from one of our current clients, during the early wireframe phase of his first website. And although we make the process as easy as possible for our clients, it remains a valid point. Your website is your company’s public face after all, so you really do want to make sure that each and every detail is just right.

The process can be overwhelming for the uninitiated. If this describes you, read on. What follows is a basic, plain-language checklist for getting your organization online.

1. Purpose

Before you do anything else, you need to create a plan… and this plan needs to be centered around the question: What purpose do you want your website to serve?

In essence, you need to develop a proper job description for your website. What do you want it to DO for you? Will it be a simple informational marketing tool and point of contact? Will it serve as an online community, gallery or forum? Do you want an online storefront with e-commerce capabilities? Do you want to position yourself as an authority in your field through the provision of news and resources? The requirements for every website are unique, so you will need to decide which functions best serve your organization’s specific needs.

2. Web Host

A web host is not the same as your Internet Service Provider (ISP). Your ISP simply provides access to the internet. If you want a website of your own, you will need to effectively “rent” the space for it on a hosting company’s server.

A hosting company owns and maintains X number of servers. On each server, X number of websites is stored. With that in mind, there are three common options for hosting:

• • Shared means that you share a server with several other websites, and is the cheapest.
• • Dedicated hosting gets you a server all to yourself, and is the most expensive.
• • Semi-dedicated reserves a server for a very small number of clients.

For most websites, shared hosting with a quality hosting company is more than adequate. If you anticipate high volumes of traffic or bandwidth, however, you will want to look into dedicated or semi-dedicated hosting options. Keep in mind that servers are just like your own computer… if it is overloaded, outdated and neglected, it will perform slowly and inconsistently at best, and crash and fail at worst. Most bargain-basement hosting companies are able to offer cheap rates simply by squeezing as many accounts as possible onto a single, often outdated server. And then there’s the human element… when your email and website are down, quality customer service suddenly becomes very important.

Bad web hosts are a dime a dozen. It is imperative that you do your research, and choose a hosting company based on reliable measures of quality rather than gimmicks, sales or ad campaigns. Widely advertised does NOT equal quality. We both use and heartily recommend the pros at Fused, but always encourage clients to do their own research before deciding on which host best suits their needs.

3. Domain Name

Now that you have a home for your website, you need a relevant, easily identifiable address. The domain name (DNS) is the address that appears in the address bar in your web browser, excluding ‘http://www’ (e.g., our domain name is ‘sagemedia.ca’). Unfortunately, nobody owns a domain name for life. You need to register it (usually through your web host) to start, then renew it every year. If you don’t, someone else can and will buy it up, and your site will be rendered both nameless and inaccessible.

Choosing a domain name is a frustrating, but important process. It is frustrating because of the simple fact that if it is a recognizable word, chances are someone has already registered it… even if they’re not using it. There exists a scourge on legitimate online businesses everywhere known as domain squatters… these people buy up thousands of domain names, and simply sit on them until someone comes along who wants a name so badly that they are willing to pay an exorbitant price to buy it from the squatter. Squatters also buy up versions of existing business names and fill the pages with pay-per-click ads (known as link farms) so they generate ad revenue for themselves by capitalizing on well known companies. Your choice of domain name is nonetheless important – it needs to be relevant to your company (containing your company’s name), easily remembered, and easy to spell. Once you’ve committed to a name, you’ll want to stick with it.

4. Target

Further to your initial plan, it is important to decide exactly who you want to communicate with online. Your target audience should already have been established in your business plan. In planning your website, you need to keep in mind what THEIR needs are. Are they looking for information; Do they need a problem solved (hint: the answer is always yes); Do they want to be entertained, educated, or simply served? Combined with your purpose (and as you’ll see, intertwined as well), a sharp focus on the target audience is central to your website strategy.

5. USP

Following from the previous items, your website will need to emphasize and reinforce your USP, or Unique Selling Point. This is the reason why people will choose to come to your site (and your company) rather than your competitors. Note you can’t get to this point without first developing an understanding of your target audience. The USP is the answer to your customer’s problems.

6. Budget

As the single most important online marketing investment your company will make, you will need to determine a realistic and appropriate budget for the design and development of your company’s website. Plan to invest well into four figures for a properly planned, well designed and expertly executed business website. Rates vary wildly between providers – the web design field is largely unregulated, so be sure that you look for qualifications, reviews and referrals, and know exactly who you’re hiring. This includes confirming precisely who will be doing the actual work, as many ‘design’ companies are simply middlemen outsourcing contracts to unqualified overseas labour farms.

7. Content

Given this article is being written by a designer, it may surprise you to see content weighing in first. The fact is, effective design relies on high quality content to provide context, depth, and relevance. If you think of your design as a restaurant, your content would be the food. Note that content is also not limited to the text within your pages; it also refers to images and brand materials (like your logo, for example). These are things that your designer should be provided with upfront, so they can move forward with context and purpose.

8. Persona

Refer back to the parameters covered in previous checklist items – namely your purpose, USP, and target audience. These items will help guide you in narrowing down a personality for your website. As part of a more thorough consultation, any reputable designer will ask you fairly early in the process to provide them with a mood-board, or a selection of exemplar sites that portray the sort of image you want for your business (in addition to industry relevant examples of what you explicitly do NOT feel represents you). Obviously, the purpose is not to find something to copy, but rather to better define the mood and theme for your online presence.

9. Website Design

This is the fun part, though it doesn’t quite start out that way. Clearly, you’ll need to research and choose a qualified, reputable designer. Find someone you feel comfortable with, review their portfolio, look for customer reviews, learn about their company and philosophies, and enter their name into a search engine. Finally, be sure to review the design company’s terms and conditions. There are many designers whose terms specify that they (not you) retain ownership of all materials in perpetuity, placing restrictions on your usage. Remember, you will be investing a significant amount of time, trust, effort and capital in creating your website, so it is most certainly worth your time to ensure you really are choosing the right professional for the job.

Following your initial consultation and scope development, your designer will generally develop a wireframe for your approval. This serves as the skeleton for your site, establishing general placement/layout and structural presentation of site elements. It’s boring, but it is important. Spending a little time here now will save a lot of time later on.

The wireframe will be followed by a visual concept presentation for your homepage. If all of the preliminary steps have been covered thoroughly and thoughtfully (by both the designer and yourself) and communication has been clear, this will generally serve as the starting point for your site. Of course, you may want to tweak some colours, graphic treatments or images to make the design perfect in your eyes. Remember though, your eyes are not the important ones… it is the eyes of your customers you really need to consider. And it is your designer’s job to communicate your message with your target audience squarely in mind.

The design phase finishes with your visual layouts contained within PSD files. If your designer is also your developer, the transition to the next step will be seamless.

10. Website Development

If your website designer and developer are the same person, they will already have been provided with the required functionality and content for your site. If you are going with a separate developer, you will need to provide them with PSD files for the site (provided by your designer) as well as a detailed outline of exactly what you want each part of the site to do, and an outline of your content. They will then turn your visual design into a fully functional, working piece of communicative art (in code).

Like designers, web developers are not created equal. Not by a long shot. Web development is a rapidly changing and ever-evolving field, with different technologies and techniques being created, updated, and rendered obsolete on a daily basis. Web standards are important to ensure that your website looks and works as it should for the maximum possible number of visitors, though even that is no guarantee. Your developer will also need to test the site for cross-browser and cross-platform compatibility (because not all browsers follow standards). The way your site is coded is incredibly important for usability, accessibility, and will have a strong impact on how your site ranks in search engines. So choose someone who really knows what they’re doing.

11. Launch

While there are certainly other considerations insofar as pre-launch marketing goes, at this point your website is technically ready to deploy. Your developer will want to migrate your site onto your server for you (the one that your domain name points to, provided by your hosting company), and then complete one final set of tests to make sure that everything continues to work the way it should in its new home. This is another reason your choice of hosting companies is important – the software installed on the server needs to be up-to-date so it can support the latest standards in development.

12. Corollaries

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is an entire industry unto itself, with intricacies that extend far beyond the scope of this article. At minimum, if you want anyone to find your website on a search engine, your developer needs to employ best practices in organic, white-hat search engine optimization. Organic simply means that the optimization is contained within the code, content and build of the site itself. White-hat means that the methods employed are not prohibited or frowned-upon by the search engines themselves. Google et al WILL blacklist any website it finds that tries to circumvent the rules through unscrupulous SEO techniques.

There are additional SEO tactics you can (and should) employ yourself to maximize your exposure. Search engines rank sites higher if they have regular updates with new content, and a good number of quality inbound links. This does not mean link exchanges necessarily, as search engines often penalize sites that offer little in the way of actual content. Basically, the more high-ranking websites you can get to link back to your site, the better.

Social Media

These days, everyone and their mother has a profile on Facebook and Twitter. Professionals will also have a profile on LinkedIn. Setting yourself up with a presence on social media can draw visitors to your site, IF handled properly. In order for this to work, you will need to invest time into keeping your profiles up to date, and you will need to make sure your contributions are relevant, appropriate, and suitably engaging for your visitors.

Offline Marketing

The web is an incredibly important medium for marketing your business. However, you should not make the mistake of ignoring classic offline marketing techniques and resources. Be sure to update all of your promotional and corporate materials to include your website address and branded email. This includes just about everything that has your logo on it, including your business cards, stationery, signage, advertising, packaging, etc. If a customer sees an ad on the side of a bus as it rolls by, they will be significantly more likely to retain a website address than any other method of contact advertised.

Your Browser

While your website will have been tested and developed to function in older browsers, it cannot be optimized for them. Current best practices and up-to-date techniques are simply not supported by many obsolete browsers, requiring secondary options and workarounds. So, open whichever browser you prefer to use, and update it to the latest version. It’s free, it’s easy, and it has the potential to improve your online experience exponentially.

Although this article has been fairly lengthy, it really is just a primer on the most important fundamentals of launching a new website. If an effective result is to be expected, the process becomes an involved one that requires considerable investment and effort on the part of the client and the designer/developer. It also requires a high level of expertise. As always, research is important. Hopefully this checklist will have you well on your way.

Even if you have no interest in design theory and fundamentals, for the sake of your business there is one point that should never be forgotten: the purpose of design is communication.

Communication Demands Relevance

Each industry has a unique audience, with unique needs & expectations. What works for a law firm website will not necessarily translate well to the design of a catering company website. In an industry flooded with generic templates and unqualified or (worse) apathetic service providers, this simple fact is often overlooked. For this reason, we present to you the first in a series of Web Design Anatomy articles. Motivated by the short and frustratingly familiar script referenced here, our first article will deal with Restaurant Websites.

Why Does a Restaurant Need a Website?

We’re not talking generalities here – in today’s marketplace just about EVERY type of business needs an online presence if they want to stay competitive. More specifically, we are asking the question: what is the purpose of a restaurant website?

The reductionist answer is twofold:
• To create an attraction between diners and your restaurant
• To provide the information they need to spend their money there

Attraction

This is the point that far too many restaurant owners get caught up in, at least superficially. It’s no secret that we are not supporters of Flash to the detriment of accessibility or functionality. How can you attract when you can’t be seen? It’s best to consider Flash as just one specialized tool in a very well stocked toolbox… it serves a niche function, comes with a ball of strings attached, and with advancements in the capabilities of JavaScript is quickly becoming obsolete.

It is important to present an impressive online image that represents everything great about your restaurant. But in order to make that impression, diners need to be able to actually VIEW your website. If they are out driving around, browsing for a restaurant on their iPhone, they will not be able to view your Flash website. At all. If they are using a search engine to find a restaurant, yours will likely be way down the list, as search engine optimization techniques for Flash sites are crippled, at best. There is also the issue of not being able to copy/paste, or bookmark individual pages. Statistically, Flash sites have an exponentially higher abandon rate than XHTML/CSS based sites.

Information

Following is a short list of requirements that every restaurant website should have in order to provide customers with the information they’re seeking:

• Restaurant Overview
  A basic introduction to your restaurant is a must. Even if you think the name of your restaurant is self-explanatory, people still like to see how you describe yourself. If you have any unique selling points (local-sourced or seasonal ingredients, fair-trade, vegetarian options, etc.) this is a great place to mention them.
• Location
  Diners need to know where you are, and how to get there. You don’t need to provide directions from every corner of town, but an address, basic map, and link to a direction-giving site like Google Maps is very helpful indeed. BONUS: include a photograph of the front of your restaurant, so first-time visitors will recognize it easily from the street.
• Hours
  Basic stuff, here. And this is very near the top of the list of priorities when a diner visits your website. Make them easy to find.
• Menu
  Your food is your business! If ever there were an influential and unique selling point, it would be a mouth-watering menu. Words paint a picture, here. Don’t just scan your paper menu into an annoying PDF file, either – invest in having a digital menu designed to complement your physical one. This is the page people will want to bookmark.
• Photos
  A picture surely does speak a thousand words. Show what you’ve described in your menu, and make the imagery so vivid that it elicits a Pavlovian response in your visitors. Show your food, show your restaurant, your staff, and your dining room. The food is the star, but the experience is the whole package.
• Reviews
  This is not a must-have, but it certainly is nice. Reviews are the first thing many people look at when considering a new restaurant to try. If your restaurant has been reviewed in print, you definitely want to boost the influence that press affords by including it in your website. If you’re not in print, patch in reviews from consumer sites like UrbanSpoon or Restaurantica, or any of the other dozens of options available in any given city. And if you’re brand-spanking-new, include a reviews page with a simple request and link for people to visit a chosen review site, and let the world know what they thought of their experience with you.
• Reservation/Contact Info
  This area can be the deal-closer in many cases. If you make it easy and painless for people to book a table, guess what they’ll be more likely to do? Provide an easy-to-find phone number, of course, but also consider bookings by email, or requests via a form on your website. You can even program in live reservations through services like OpenTable.

How to Annoy Your Customers

Some food for thought, straight from the horses’ mouths:

“I’m always taken aback when music emanates from my speakers when I’m viewing a site”

“Flash required. Biggest irritant of a restaurant website. Even more so if they have an “Intro” graphic/animation. Two of my fav places use flash for their sites and it’s very very annoying. Even more annoying with flash is not being able to copy/paste phone numbers.”

“Can’t stand it when a site starts with music or that stupid talking character/video. I’ve got my own playlist going already, thanks. I don’t want your music. And when I’ve opened a ton of tabs at once, skimming through to find a cool place to eat, it’s always a pain to figure out which ones are making the noise.”

“I have my windows set up so that everything is sized and positioned the way I want it. Nothing bugs me more than when a website takes over your browser and forces it to fill the screen.”

“Flash, flash, flash. I don’t care about your intro. I don’t want to watch a video of leaves unfurling. Atmosphere is nice, but I usually end up closing these sites before they’re even done loading.”

“Where’s the damn menu?! I scour the site for ages, then when finally find it, it’s a crappy PDF.”

Who Does It Right

Here are just a few examples of restaurants with websites that walk the walk in terms of design, attractiveness to their own target customer base, and serving their purpose through the provision of convenient, easy-to-find information.

Each of these sites has a design that appeals the demographics the restaurants are trying to attract. They look great. They work the way they should. And information is very easy to find.

The central lesson in all design, whether it be for print, digital distribution, or the web, is that (the right kind of) communication is king. The goal for any company’s website is to sell a product, service or idea. Obviously you want to look good doing it, but dressing up for a job interview will do you no good if you can’t communicate with your prospective bosses. And let’s face it… the customer is the boss.

It is important to note that web design projects can range from the very basic (e.g., PSD deliverables for under a grand) to the mind-twistingly complex (some website budgets can reach seven digits). If you don’t provide a clear picture of what you need, there’s no way a design company can quote on it.

Perhaps just as frustrating are the manuscript-sized RFPs that land in our inbox, obviously the product of committee-think run amok. If your designer needs a lawyer to decipher your RFP, and twenty working hours to compile a response to your specs, you’re doing it wrong. In general, we don’t even respond to these. Not because we’re afraid of work, but rather because the RFP sets the tone for the entire project – if you can’t be concise and respectful of our time now, it’s not likely going to happen in the thick of the project either.

In order for a designer and client to determine whether and how they’re going to be able to work together, a clear definition of the project requirements and expectations is needed.

A good web design RFP neatly and clearly lays out what you are looking to accomplish with your site, and helps to align your designer with your goals and objectives. Writing an RFP may seem a bit daunting at first, but it doesn’t have to be – taking a moment now will save countless hours down the road, and will ensure that your designer can develop an accurate proposal for your project.

So, before you even get to the point of contacting a designer, you’ll want to take a moment to write up a proper Request for Proposal. To help you in this task, we’ve put together a simple guide to walk you through the process.

The 10 Essential Components in a Web Design RFP

1. Company Overview
This section introduces us to your company. As such, the content should be fitting for an introduction (not a thesis). Briefly tell us who you are, what you do, size of company, current url, and what your overarching corporate vision or mission statement is.

2. Project Overview
Describe in plain English your current web site situation, and give us an overview of what the project is going to entail. Don’t try to be too formal or politically correct here… oftentimes corporate semantics can muddle the message. Write in precisely the manner you’d describe the project to a friend.

3. Project Goals and Objectives
This section is the spot to list your short term and long term objectives for the project, as well as your motivation for investing in your web site. It aims to answer the question, “why are you here?” Is your website outdated? Have you expanded your services/product line? Are you marketing to a different target audience? Are you trying to attract job candidates? Or are you finding your existing site isn’t converting to enough sales? Tell us what you want to achieve.

4. Technical Parameters
Here’s where the client’s eyes begin to glaze over. If you know what the technical requirements for the project entail, this is where you tell us. These parameters range from the basics (how many pages and unique layouts do you need; do you need hosting; do you need a domain name) to more advanced questions (do you require programming in one specific language over another; is your current site in php, .net, asp, cold fusion etc; do you need databases; do you have license or preference for a given e-commerce platform). If it doesn’t matter, tell us that too – giving your designer the option to work in their preferred language will save you money and time.

5. Usability Requirements
Usability testing is a frequently overlooked step in web site design and development. Just as companies will put new products through focus groups as part of the R&D process, a web site should be put through at least a basic round of usability testing to determine how well the design and build works in practice. If you’re interested in developing a persona or having us perform user research as part of the development process, tell us here. If not, you will still need to tell us about your audience. If you have relevant statistics about the demographics of your current web site visitors, refer to them here. If you have a specific flow you would like your visitors to follow, run through it with us.

6. Functional Parameters
In layman’s terms, this section asks the question, “What do you want your website to DO?” We need you outline the features and functionality you’ll be wanting to see on your site (this could be things like a secure members area, contact forms, file upload functions, database development to store lead info, content management system to edit your own content, custom admin area, newsletter opt-in form, blogs, news sections, discussion forums, faq or knowledgebase, or e-commerce to sell products).

7. Proposal Directions
This is where you ask questions of us, and tell us how you want your proposal laid out. For example, many RFPs will ask designers to describe their experience, show sample work, outline a process plan for the project, provide bios of key personnel, or provide a list of references. A lot of this is basic stuff that should be available on your designer’s website to begin with, and similarly is probably already a part of their proposal boilerplate. But if you have special questions for us, throw these in here too. We recently responded to an RFP asking us to list our top ten favourite music artists – the project was run of the mill, but the question was so entertaining we just had to respond.

8. Contact Information
Here you should include the name, email, billing address and phone number of the project leader. Indicate how you’d like the proposal submitted (email, fax, post, courier) and give a timeline.

9. Budget
This is another item that a lot of clients skip over. We understand that you want to get as much as you can for as little as possible (it’s human nature), and we also understand that a small proportion of unscrupulous designers will pad their quotes to max out your budget. We’re not in that group, and we don’t play that game. Be honest about what you can afford, and we’ll be honest and respectful about what we can give you within those parameters. Even if your budget is a little lacking, there are usually compromises that can be made here and there to accommodate you. If you don’t have a budget set at all, then you’re not ready to be undergoing this step – your business plan should already include budgets for marketing and corporate identity development.

10. Timeframe
This is an easy one – if you have a rough date by which you’d like the project done, let us know here. Similarly, if you have specific deadlines, we’ll need to know those as well. Remember, most designers will charge a premium for rush jobs – you’re bumping other paying clients out of queue when you request priority status.

At the end of the day, every RFP is going to be different. This list is simply meant to be a guideline to help you get the most accurate, thorough and honest project estimate from your designer. You may want to adjust your RFP to suit the scope of your website, but you shouldn’t need much more than what’s outlined here.

Whether or not you ultimately choose to go with us, we’re always happy to help should you need help assembling your RFP.

Already have an RFP? Send it our way.

What follows is a recounting of one man’s frustration at the restaurant industry’s infatuation with Flash. Enjoy.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

A conversation I have every month or so

Me: (tries to visit a local restaurant’s website via iPhone)
Restaurant website: I require Flash. F**k off.
Me: I just want to know how late you’re open.
Website: Nope.
Me: But I’m on my phone. Don’t you have a little “HTML Version” link up in the corner or something?
Website: I’m ignoring you.
Me: What if I’m on my phone because I’m out, looking for a place to eat? Didn’t that ever occur to you?
Website: F**k entirely off.
Me: (gives up, switches to computer)
Website: Oh! Hi! What can I help you with today?
Me: What are your —
Website: Hang on, I’m loading the music.
Me: Really.
Website: You’ll love it. It’s “Girl from Ipanema” arranged for steel drum and keytar.
Me: No, you don’t have to —
Website: Loading…
Me: All I want is —
Website: I SAID DOT DOT DOT.
Me: (drums fingers on desk)
Website: There we go. Isn’t that nice? It’s… what’s the word. Ethnicky.
Me: What are your hours?
Website: Take a look at our menu! It’s a PDF of a screenshot of a scan of a Word document printed on a dishtowel. With fonts!
Me: I don’t care. What are your hours?
Website: Don’t worry, the menu loads in a new window so the music won’t stop. Can I show you some broken images?
Me: What. Are. Your. Hou. Rs.
Website: I… I don’t know.
Me: (goes to Denny’s)

Visit the Source: Venomous Porridge
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

As much as I might be tempted to rail and ramble on about the detriments of Flash to concepts like website usability and UX (user experience), it somehow seems folly to think I could be quite as succinct or relateable as Mr. Wineman’s script above.

If you’re a restaurant owner, the next time a designer tries to sell you on an overpriced Flash site with all the bells and whistles… take a moment and think about the purpose your website actually serves. And think of Mr. Wineman. He could have been one of your best customers.

Effective strategic design is somewhat like a composition written for a symphony orchestra, in that it requires several instruments working symbiotically in order to achieve the desired result.

What is User Experience? Dozens of definitions and formulas have been put forward over the years, but what they all have in common are the premises that (a) the customer experience is the ultimate loyalty/sales motivator – for better or for worse, and (b) that a positive user experience depends on the correct ratio of a number of different elements. It is only the labels given those elements that differ between theories.

For example, Robert Rubinoff’s definition contends that the user experience is made up of four factors:
* Branding
* Usability
* Functionality
* Content

Rubinoff argues that none of these factors in absence of the others can make for a positive user experience. While originally intended for the context of web design/development, this formula can also be extended to products and services.

Branding is at the forefront of what we do at Sage Media. Your brand is your identity – not only the aesthetic or visual elements of your business materials, but also the messages your company projects. It is your ethos. It is you.

Good branding provides customers with an engaging and memorable (positive) experience. Visually, it has a strong and instant impact that is consistent with your company’s brand identity. All of the graphics, collateral materials and multimedia used in your materials are carefully considered and tailored to your specific audience, adding relevant value to the experience.

If your branding is strong, it makes clear promises that your company consistently delivers on, and your materials all leverage the capabilities of their respective media to enhance or extend your company’s brand.

Usability has become a buzzword in the world of web design and development, yet I’ve found its execution to be somewhat less than elegant in most cases. There are thousands of web sites, newsletters, brochures and other business materials that are just as easy to use as they are useless, because the “designers” responsible simply stopped at usability, without consideration for appeal, aesthetics, connection, content, message, functionality or relevance.

Materials must be accessible to be effective. However, I see too many companies hiring separate ‘usability experts’ (because their designers don’t understand usability), and sorely unqualified designers (because they’re cheaper). What this causes is a perpetual war between someone who doesn’t understand design, and someone who doesn’t understand usability, which inevitably costs the company untold amounts of money and wasted time, and results in (at best) a product representative of a begrudging compromise.

Functionality should be a rather obvious requirement for any product, service or marketing piece. If it doesn’t work, doesn’t do what your customers need it to do, or expect it to do… it is bound to fail. This is kindergarten level stuff.

It can even be an issue as basic as cross-browser/platform compatibility for your website. Your visitors do not all use the same browser you do. They do not all use the same screen resolution that you do. Nor do they all use the same operating system or type of computer. Crafting code that ensures your website works and provides a consistent experience to the widest possible range of visitors requires a lot of extra work, but it is a requirement. If your developer tries to convince you that a given feature you want on your website requires you to block visitors not using, say, Internet Explorer… start looking for a new developer. Seriously.

Content, finally, is often said to hold a regal position when it comes to creating brand materials. While I might not necessarily go so far as to crown it as King, stellar content is indeed a crucial element in strategic design. Overlook it, and your brand becomes that initially gorgeous creature who makes you want to turn and run the second they open their mouth.

By the same token, content alone won’t get you far. The same words coming from a clean, impeccably dressed, attractive person behind a podium will have far greater weight, impact and credibility than they would coming from an unkempt, unpleasant looking person on a street corner.

Think of your content as the closer. If you’ve branded your company right, you’ll have their attention. Now you need to choose your words very carefully. Your credibility and your bottom line depend on it.

All said, this is just one of many formulas floating around in the ether. I like it because it’s clean, and easy to explain to my clients (most of whom are neither experts in design, marketing or psychology, though all very nice people).

The amount of psychology that goes into the design of everyday things would amaze most people. What I find amazing is the fact that so many people think they can create effective, influential design without understanding what motivates the people they’re trying to influence.

The issues are alarming, to say the least.

On the one hand, we have the dime-store design trend chipping away at the integrity of the industry, and the amateurs passing themselves off in the marketplace as legitimate professionals, who happen to think that $100 is a fine price to charge for a thoughtless, conceptually barren logo, assembled from clip-art on stolen software. This is all exacerbated by the actual professionals who succumb to pressures to lower what was a fair market price, in order to compete with contenders whose qualifications, process, and quality of work are not nearly in the same league.

And at the other end of the spectrum, we have the monolithic “big boys” who pad their rates so egregiously it would make Donald Trump cry. I’ve heard far too many stories and anecdotes about companies who have paid six figures for a finished product that wouldn’t pass mustard as a first draft coming from a junior designer here. And of course, we’ve all heard about a certain governmental organization paying over a million dollars for a slight logo redesign.

In the middle, we have the rest of us: the quality-driven, honest design companies trying to fight the damaging effects of these two extremes.

Most recently, the website for the State of Wisconsin’s Campaign Finance Information System was brought to my attention.

It was brought to the attention of others too, but not principally due to its outrageous price tag. An article in the Dec/08 Journal Sentinel casually mocked the site for featuring a photo of the wrong city on its homepage. But though the article claimed the site cost the state’s taxpayers “nearly a million dollars” to build, documents obtained by Open Records Request showed the actual price to be more than twice that.

Let’s take a look at this fabulous, two million dollar site…

Really?

Putting aside the student-level design for a moment, I thought, maybe there’s some ground-breaking, reality-defying technology going on under the hood. But no, it’s your run of the mill, standard build.

Thanks to Dan Cody of Wisconsin (who made the ORR), we were able to take a closer look at the actual proposal data. For a rather standard website with an already well-defined plan and set of criteria, the awarded firm quoted such numbers as the following:

• 120 hours to write their own project plan
• 280 hours to code MSWord document upload/download functionality
• 1900 hours for project management

And obviously, this is just one slice of the pie. What I’m left wondering is, who was responsible for making the decision to hire this firm? And where is the oversight?

What’s truly upsetting here is the fact that had the company not used the wrong skyline image, this would likely have never come to light. Honestly, this is only one example of many.

The quoted cost for this specific website should have been a fraction of what it was, but the dishonesty of one vendor combined with what can generously be assumed to be the incredible lack of knowledge on the part of the client has resulted in a situation of which both parties should be ashamed.

In general, you do get what you pay for… but only up to a point. Beyond that, you’re just a chump. Corporate services is very much a buyer-beware arena, in which not many buyers are as aware as they should be.

It has also become an uber-brand that represents intangible, un-buy-able values (peace, love, joy, family, selflessness) simultaneously with supreme commercialism.

I love Christmas: hot cocoa, a roaring fire, home cooking, decorated trees, lit up streets, friends around, and the overall heightened consideration of other people (which really should be more present year-round). And of course, the unavoidable and remorseless spending of money we don’t necessarily have.

I like shopping as much as the next red-blooded woman, and I love choosing gifts for people I care about, BUT I loathe the chaos that is the holiday shopping experience. Firstly, running a fully booked design firm means I am impossibly busy, and it’s hard to find time to brave the traffic, find parking, and wait in obscene lines at the counter. So I shop for a lot of gifts online, which doesn’t seem particularly festive to me. Something is lost.

Smart online retailers are starting to catch on. In the same ways that a brick and mortar store would decorate their shop for the holidays, internet based companies are learning to create a more festive atmosphere for their customers. We all know that emotion sells. And the experience you’re providing for your customers online can be just as lucrative as one you might create in your physical store.

Now, my customers aren’t looking for the same thing as holiday shoppers. You’re business folk, and it’s not likely you’re going to hire a corporate designer as a gift for a loved one. But, I still felt like I should give a subtle little nod to the holidays… so I created a festive little holiday variant on our logo in the upper left corner. Even for those of us who aren’t selling a product, small efforts like this one show a human side that customers often appreciate.

If your business does happen to be one that caters to holiday shoppers, there are a few things you can do to improve your customers’ experience, and boost your online sales this December.

Intelligent Use of Colour
Humans are deeply and predictably influenced by visual stimulus, particularly the experience and use of colour. If you’re going to ‘decorate’ your website for the holidays, do it tastefully. Blinking flashy strings of rainbow christmas lights as text separators are not going to help your cause. A rich feature area with two or three cohesive colours in a consistent palette will create a pleasing experience, which will make your visitors want to stay and browse around.

Good Bone Structure
If your website design sucks, then no amount of tinsel is going to save it. Before you even think about holiday branding strategies, you need to make sure your base materials are solid. You need an impressive and credible visual image, a strong homepage with obvious calls to action, a simple and clean interface, an intuitive navigational structure, and a minimalist shopping process. Your visitors should not even have to think about how to use your site – you want their focus on your products, not your overcomplicated shopping cart software.

Holiday Sales!
This is a no-brainer. It’s the holidays. People expect special price offers. And if you’re not offering any, it’s nearly guaranteed that your competition is. On a recent trip to Home Depot, my husband noticed there were a lot of two-for-one sales on power tools. He wondered why one might need two of the same tool, but it was actually a pretty obvious holiday sales tactic… buy something you might have wanted for yourself anyway, and get another one free so you can tick a name off your holiday shopping list. It’s a double incentive on high value purchases that might otherwise be put off. His reaction? “That’s brilliant.”

Know Your Market
If you’re catering to a niche market, then your promotional decor should be appropriate to their tastes. A sporting goods retailer would take a vastly different approach to a high-end jeweler. Acknowledge the reasons people come to your website, think about what they want to get out of their visit with you, and adjust your design accordingly. Remember, this is about THEM, not you.

Time For Change
In Q4, users give advertisers 30% more of their time when compared with any other time of year. If you’re going to roll out a new product, new campaign, new feature or benefit announcement, now is the time to do it. On December 31st, advertisers get an additional minute overall to engage their audience. You have their attention. Don’t waste it.

Decorate Tastefully
Cut the clutter. If you have something important to say, don’t drown yourself out with background noise. In trying to say too much, too many end up saying nothing. Focus on a few big drivers, and organize yourself thoughtfully. Your customers come to your website because they want something specific from you, so make it easy for them to find.

Flash is Overrated
A little bit can be nice, but usability is much more important from a shopper’s point of view. The trick is to combine ease-of-use with a visual atmosphere that gives your visitors a good feeling about shopping with you.

The number of times a client has uttered those words to us (or a close variation on the theme) is somewhat staggering.

Sure, we all want it. And for certain parameters, we can get it for you. But while Search Engine Optimization is a very important component of both web development and your overall marketing platform, it cannot stand alone.

Like anything worthwhile, coming up in the fiercely and tirelessly competed-for number one spot for any search word or phrase requires work. It requires quality setup work upfront, and it requires consistent maintenance work down the line. What many people don’t realize, is that it also requires support.

Imagine a scenario in which you’ve invested countless hours and considerable expense into getting your site into the number one spot on Google, to the exclusion of other online marketing endeavors. That’s fine, but now Google has decided (as they often do) to change a simple filter in their algorithm. Poof. Your site has fallen to page number two thousand or so. You’ve put all your eggs into one basket, and the basket’s fallen.

How will people find your company’s website now?

It’s always best to take a multi-faceted approach to marketing your services or business… an idiom as true in the virtual world as it is in the real one. You wouldn’t take out a single ad on one street corner and trust it to bring in all of your business… would you?

It’s more important to build a strong brand presence that people will recognize and trust than it is to simply be visible on page one. We all know there’s just as much garbage on that page as there are quality sites. In addition to building a strong search engine presence, you should spend an equal amount of time pursuing partnerships with other non-competitive sectors of the internet.

Supplementary Internet Marketing Options

• Press Releases
  While these are reserved for newsworthy purposes (new product/service announcements, acquisitions, events and trade shows etc.), they are a great way to introduce visitors to your website who are looking for information directly related to your product or service. Press releases also an excellent way to build your brand name, and to establish yourself and your company as an authority in your field.
• Directory listings
  This is one of the easiest ways to get your site indexed by search engines. There are many free directories that you can get your site listed in, and there are many fee-based directories that are worth the price of adding your site. The added value is that since your site is listed categorically, it helps to re-enforce what your site offers, since it will be found with similar sites.
• Articles
  Share your expertise. While writing quality articles can be time-consuming and challenging, it is an extremely valuable asset to your site. In so doing, you are creating unique content that isn’t found anywhere else – a very specific criterion that search engines will reward you for. It also gives you an alternative method for explaining your product or services, without putting on the hard-sell. Finally, writing relevant and unique articles on a regular basis will naturally grow the size of your site, and will establish it as a hub of relevant information within your industry.
• Newsletters
  This is an often-neglected approach that requires a bit of work, but pays off consistently. Your site should have an option or area in which visitors can sign up to receive a newsletter from your company. The people who do sign up feel that your site is worth their time, and that you are offering something interesting and valuable. Your newsletter is an outlet to promote new products and services to interested users without the risk of being intrusive, so if combined with the right amount of valuable content, it is one of the best places to make a sales pitch.
• Blogs & RSS Feeds
  While sharing the same benefits outlined in writing your own articles, having an up-to-date blog with RSS on your site gives people a reason to check you out, and enhances your visibility since RSS keeps your prospects in sight without requiring them to find you first. RSS lets you initiate contact. There are many areas to get your blog listed, and in addition to the SEO benefits a blog offers, it also provides an insider’s point-of-view into your company or personality, offering yet another way for users to identify with you or your site.

It’s safe to say that search engines will always be around, and will likely remain the primary source of direction for people on the hunt for information, but for your company to focus on them exclusively could be a costly business mistake. Just remember there are a variety of marketing resources at your disposal that will not only better establish your brand online and bring you quality leads on their own, but will also contribute in a significant way to achieving and keeping that number one spot we’re all fighting for.

Maybe not to “ruin”, so much… being busy is good. It’s fantastic, even. I love what I do, and the fact that so many people come to us on their own or through referrals makes me feel great about my work. But in periods like this, I do come to miss things like human contact, sleep, exercise and healthy food.

That’s one of the reasons I was so surprised this weekend to find a notice telling me that we’d been nominated and chosen to receive a CWA Design Award. Nice!

I don’t think I’ve entered a design award competition since our first year in business. At first, I thought winning design awards would get the word out, and get us recognized as legitimate and worthwhile. After a while though, and after having won several of these little accolades, I decided it really wasn’t a meaningful investment of my time or money. Sure, winning is an ego-stroker… but it offers little else. Aside from a lucrative profit for the companies collecting the often exhorbitant entry fees, of course.

I had a look at the CWA structure, and they represent one of the few independent design awards that are actually free to enter. The nomination made a bit more sense, now. These award programs that are free to enter (or have a realistic administrative fee) are much more representative and accessible than their largely commercial counterparts. Honestly, no freelancer, independent designer or small studio has thousands to spend on their own ego every year, regardless of how worthy their work might actually be.

A design award means quite a bit more in my mind, when it hasn’t been bought.

I have no idea who nominated us, but to that kind person who thought we were worth some of their own precious and dwindling free time, I sincerely thank you.

It’s been several years now, and we’ve gone through several different hosting companies. Each one was slightly better than the last, but in the end, they all let us down in one way or another. The last host we used let our site and email go down for a whole week, all the while trying to convince me the problem was on my local machine… I’m not an idiot. Needless to say, we dropped them in a hurry.

The point of this entry isn’t to badmouth any one particular company, or even hosting companies in general. Fact is, there are a lot of good, quality service providers available. No, the reason I’m writing this is to try to educate people who are now where I was all those years ago.

Lesson number one and one hundred: All hosts are not created equal.

Of course, this goes without saying. But how are they different? I’m going to go over a few of the big points, but will skip the really obvious things like number of email accounts, ftp accounts, storage space, bandwidth, setup fees and price. I’m not here to insult your intelligence. So, here we go…

Ownership: who’s really running the show? A lot of hosting companies don’t actually run their own equipment, but are merely reselling marked up services they’re buying from a bigger wholesaler. This leaves a huge potential for issues, particularly when it comes to service should anything go wrong (and it will). You’ll be dealing through (at minimum) one middleman who might or might not have any technical expertise, and playing a frustrating game of telephone tag.

Crowding: too many chickens in a tiny cage. Most hosting packages you’ll come across are on what’s referred to as a shared platform, or shared server. This means that one server holds several different accounts, different websites, and so on. The more accounts a hosting company can squeeze into one server, the bigger their profit margin… and the bigger the likelihood of server overload, slow websites, blocked up transfers, email problems, server failure and a myriad of other issues. You might pay a few bucks more per month for a plan with a company that doesn’t overload its servers, but it’ll be worth it. Room to breathe.

Service: your site goes down at midnight… who do you call? Our previous host didn’t answer their phone, which wouldn’t have been a big deal had they actually had an answering service. It just rung and rung. Email support was lacking at best – it took a few days to get back to us, and even then, their responses indicated they hadn’t even read the original email. By comparison, our current host is available by phone 24/7, and their phone number actually goes to them and not a call center overseas. Even better, the people on the other end not only speak fluent English, but they know their stuff, and they’re onto problems like sticky on rice. Emails are returned usually within five minutes, and actually contain useful responses. We get regular server status updates. Most problems are fixed before we even know they exist. That’s service.

Control: CPanel who? Okay, I would have listed this in the “really obvious” camp, but we’ve had clients whose hosting plans did not include a control panel, of any kind. I didn’t even think plans like this existed, but here we are. So, if the plan you’re looking at does not include a control panel, look elsewhere. You need this. Don’t let them tell you that you don’t.

Linux or Microsoft? Linux. Linux, Linux, Linux. We all know Microsoft. It’s familiar, it’s everywhere, it’s monolithic… and it is the bane of the web developer’s existence. Microsoft is a huge fan of proprietary technologies that blow raspberries at things like web standards and the like. If you want your site to work with all the latest bells and whistles… and without need for a pile of workaround hacks… go with Linux. For that matter, do us all a favour and ditch Internet Explorer in favour of one of the standards compliant browsers like Firefox or Opera.

The Acronyms: SQL, PHP, FTP, POP3, SMTP and SSL. Long story short, you want all of these. SQL means you get at least one database (generally I would recommend having three available). Databases are important if you want to run any dynamic content like news or blogs, or even if you just want to keep track of people who’ve signed up for your newsletter, or filled in your contact form. PHP is pretty much as important as HTML – it’s just another language, but similar to SQL, you need it if you want to do anything dynamically. FTP allows you to get files onto and off of your server with ease. POP3 and SMTP are your incoming and outgoing email acronyms… if you don’t have these, you’ll be limited to webmail, which is no way to do business. Finally, we have SSL. If you want any secure area on your website, particularly if you want to sell anything or process payments online, you need SSL and you’ll want a dedicated IP address. This is what makes your site secure.

Backups: just in case. Your hosting company should, as a matter of routine, provide nightly backups which can be restored should anything go wrong either at their end, or yours. Think of it as insurance.

Redundant Network: one instance where redundancy is a good thing. One connection just isn’t enough. Your hosting networks should be powered by multiple different carriers, which helps to ensure your site stays up.

Transfer Services: Getting from here to there. Switching can be a daunting task. You’ve got all your email accounts set up, your FTP program is sorted with your current settings, your website has a ton of pages and a database and you wouldn’t know how to go about moving all of it without breaking at least a few lamps. Not to worry. A hosting company worth their salt will provide a free site transfer service – in other words, they’ll take all of your stuff, and move it carefully and professionally for you. No fuss, no muss.

Guarantees: what’s too good to be true. This is a multi-part item. Guarantees can be good. If you’re not satisfied within a certain time period, the company should have a policy that allows you to get your money back. If the site has a 99.9% uptime guarantee, they should be able to back it up. Guarantees can be misleading too, unfortunately. The company may guarantee that you get some ludicrous amount of storage like, say, 30 Gigs… but for this example you could see the crowding item above. Everybody’s sharing that space, and don’t be surprised if their protocol cuts you off repeatedly when you’re trying to transfer files, or if you can’t access the files you’ve already uploaded.

So the bottom line… who should you choose? That’s not for me to say. Everyone has different needs, and what’s good for one company may be not enough or too much for another.

As for us, we switched to Fused Network in 2007, and they have really blown us away. They tick every box above, and more… and I recommend them to just about everybody who asks. So long as they stay the course, I’ll never switch again. You’ll see their banner ad in the sidebar, with an affiliate code in the link… we participate in their Fused Together program, whereby you can also choose to contribute affiliate shares to charity.

If you’re in the market for a new hosting company, I’d suggest you start your search there. Check out the tiny link to Hosting Reviews at the bottom of their site, and you’ll see I’m not the only one.

Sage Media is an international corporate design firm based in Ottawa, Ontario.