You Get Out of it What You Put In To It

by CWD

in Website Design

All too often I see websites that have great potential. These are well-run companies with successful business models and they don’t understand why their websites just are not performing.

You Get What You Put In

Your website is like any other business asset. If you put a lot into it, you will get a lot out of it.

Effort

Websites take effort. There’s no other way around it. You need to keep them up to date. You need to make sure they work. You need to test them, fix them, promote them. I know, it sounds like a pain in the ass. But trust me. Once you get that momentum started, it becomes a lot easier!

Price

Yes, websites cost money. Personally, I charge thousands of dollars to build a new website. That website will make your business significantly more money than what I cost – or else what’s the point, right? Remember that more often than not, you’ll get what you pay for. Yes, there is a chance that you will over pay if you go with a no-name developer. There is a much greater chance that you will pay a few hundred dollars first off for an awful website, become disenchanted, and then end up either abandoning your web strategy or, more likely, paying a top designer like myself several thousand dollars to build your site the right way. My best customers are those people who have been burned before.

Time

Rome wasn’t built in a day. Neither will your website. Neither will your Google rankings. But I’ll bet that neither was your business. I’d bet that your business was built by you hammering at it again, and again, and again until finally something clicked. Your website may be the same way.

Hard is No Excuse

A former employer told me that “business doesn’t understand ‘hard.’” He was right. Just because something is hard or difficult or tedious, it doesn’t mean that it is not worth doing. Likely it’s exactly the opposite.

Having a great website is hard. It doesn’t have to be impossible. Put yourself on the path to success by putting commensurate effort to your website as you do the rest of your business. You’ll reap the rewards that your competitors are missing out on.

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Should You Have Ads on Your Small Business Site?

by CWD

in Website Management

Yesterday I talked about using Google AdWords advertising to test to see what Google thinks of your site. Since then I was asked if a small business owner should put ads on his site. He was wondering if the ads would be helpful or if they would appear as tacky. These are my thoughts on the subject.

Personally, I think the Google ads distract from the message you are trying to send as a business owner. You are trying to convert traffic to customers, not sell ad space. All an ad will do is direct your traffic to another site in return for a penny or two.

A better secondary monetization approach would be to put in affiliate links. They pay better, are always under your control, and end up being a complementary service, not a distraction.

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Backdoor Google Testing

by CWD

in Website Management

Need a quick way to see if Google can actually read your site? Here’s a great quick, cheap, and easy way to find out if Google is interpreting your site the way you want them to.

Ready?

Just add Google AdWords

Google AdWords is part of the big G’s advertising arm. This is code you put on your site that lets Google show contextually-relevant advertising. The ads are a good way to test if your site is scan-able by Google. If Google displays ads, congrats, they can read your site!

Are the ads relevant? Great! You have good SEO.

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Header and Logo Contest Results

by CWD

in Graphics

As you know, I just finished up a header and logo contest for this site. And, well, if you’re reading this page on my site, you already know the winning entry – Matt Dougan’s logo carried the day. Congratulations, Matt!

Of course, since the other designs were so close in the contest, it would be a shame to waste that kind of talent. Julie has graciously allowed me use of that header for my Twitter and Facebook accounts. And Mithril’s entry will be bound to be another company’s logo in the near future (hopefully on a website I design!)

This was a very strong and close contest. Well over one hundred people voted – mostly people I don’t know! There were of course the wonderful comment entries that people entered on the bottom of the post. That provided wonderful feedback for both me and the designers. My big hope for 2010 is that I can create a few more non-contest articles that generate that kind of buzz and excitement.

Speaking of the effects of the Header and Logo contest, I highly recommend that anyone in any business of any kind have a contest immediately! My hope for this contest was to meet some great designers that I could work with in the future (CHECK on that one!) and of course to get a killer header image (double check!)

But there was so many more great effects in terms of traffic, exposure, connections made (or re-connections), technology learned, interaction, and even a new client (and several new prospects)! More on all of that later. You may have noticed my new thesis – experiment based blogging. I will write up a comprehensive analysis later for anyone who may be interested at what lay beneath the surface.

Aesthetically, you can see the new logo up above in my header. This logo will now be the face of my business and provide a bit of branding consistency as I port that image over to my social media accounts. The logo spawned a complete re-design of my website that will be occurring in small increments over the next few weeks. You can already see a bit of that now with cleaner lines and much more white space. Again, more on all of that later, bu for now, what do you think?

For now, thanks to everyone who voted and a HUGE thanks to the competing designers. I am truly in your debt.

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My Random Content Experiment

by CWD

in Blogging

Just before Thanksgiving I started a website experiment. I know that content is what makes or breaks a website and I had been sitting on a bunch of half-written articles for some time. The idea was to take all of those half-baked articles and just throw them out there on my website and see what would happen.

This is the first example in my new Experiment Based Blogging project. Like any good experiment I should list my thesis, materials, assumptions, results, and analysis.

My Random Content Experiment Thesis

Materials

  • Self-Hosted WordPress Blog / Website
  • Thesis Theme
  • Many unpublished psuedo articles

Thesis

So, why publish so many articles?

Articles are content. Websites are made to share inter-related content. That content was doing me absolutely no good just sitting in my head, on random scraps of note paper, or in my WordPress Drafts mode. I thought these articles would do much better out on my site – no matter how ‘good’ they were – than they did not being published.

Assumptions

Many of these articles were Search Engine optimized. I did the research to see that a lot of people were searching for specific industry-related terms so I wrote about those topics in the manner they were sought after. The assumption was that those search numbers – the number of people searching for those terms remained constant.

Procedure

I wrote 38 new articles in 2 weeks. I didn’t spend much time at all clearing out my drafts box. I translated the raw notes that I had in to barely-intelligible articles and pressed the submit button.

What I didn’t do is as important as what I did do here. I didn’t waste time with paralysis through analysis. I didn’t style the posts. I didn’t optimize images. I didn’t do any linkl building campaigns. I just published.

Results

143 new unique pageviews, 1 hr, 20 minutes of page views.

Google now indexes my site everyday.

Analysis

  • Quotes and Cross linking posts with trackbacks had the most views.
  • How-tos and definitions had the longest average times, lowest bounce rates and lowest exits.
  • Local links, my news summaries (not the ones doing a digest, just local news) performed the worst with the highest bounce rates, highest exit rates, and lowest time on page.
  • Google loves frequently updated websites with lots of content.

So, what do you think about my experiment? Do you have a bunch of half-written articles or other marketing materials? Have you ever quieted your pursuit fo perfection and just said, who cares? Let’s just do it? Let the world know by sharing in the comments section below.

For those who are interested, here is a definitive list of all of the content I published as part of my random content experiment.

Articles Added as via My Random Content Experiment

Website Development

Website Design

Writing

Blogging

Hosting

Local to Charlotte

Social Media

SEO

General Business

Craigslist

News

Scemantics

Technology Definitions

Marketing

WordPress

Website Maintenance

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Experiment-Based Blogging

by CWD

in Blogging

I’ve had a website for years. Most were for hobbies, others were to help me sell stuff. This one, Charlotte Web Development, is ostensibly for my website design company. It helps my business that I can show off some technical skill and business acumen by having a complex website up myself that generates sales. After all, why would you buy a website design from a guy with an awful website? That would be like getting an out of shape personal trainer. You want to know that they practice what they preach – and get great results from it!

Well, I’m making a big change in how I do this.

The Big Website Change

I’ve always maintained that you should add pages to your website in order to get more traffic. That works because as search engines learn about your site and index your content, each of those new pages end up in search results. If you’ve written 300 articles, all of a sudden you have 300 ways for people to enter your site, to learn more about you and what you do. 300 more home pages and significantly more chances to attract customers.

Well, I’m not changing that. I’ll still add as much content as I can, when I can.

How I Used to Write Articles (aka How I Used to Blog)

In the past I have written blog posts and articles on anything that came to mind. Occasionally I would try to take some emails that I wrote to prospects, clients, and friends on how to do something and post that. A few times I would write about something in the news or a local event. Most of the time I would do research on what people were searching for on the Internet, see if there were any articles like that out there (and ranking well) and then write an article to fill that need.

These strategies to write articles are all well and good. They generate traffic to my site. And occasionally I make a sale off of that traffic. The problem is that this isn’t ’sticky’ traffic. People come to the website because they find me in Google, Bing, Yahoo or elsewhere when they are searching for a way to do something. They come, they see my post, sometimes they ask me questions. Most of the time they leave and I have no idea if they completed their task successfully.

This kind of result doesn’t help me – I don’t make any sales at all PLUS I don’t get that rewarding feeling that I’ve helped some one. All I know is that I have written an article that has become popular for some kind of search and that a lot of people come to my site to see that article.

How This Blog Will Change

These past few months I’ve analyzed what I like to read and what turns me into a loyal fan, and perhaps even a paying customer. It really boils down to the The Three C’s.

The Three C’s

Conversation

Sure, I’m writing to an audience to solve problems but it’s a one-way street. Unless you leave a comment or use the contact form, we’re not communicating. I’m talking AT YOU, not with you. And that’s no fun. Even a guy with an ego as large as mine can only talk to himself for so long. I am going to change my writing style so we can have a conversation.

Context

Looking at my website I had to ask myself ‘Why in the world would anyone ever come back anyway?’ After all, there are thousands of website designers. If they used Google to find an answer to a specific need (ex Google brought them to my website) why would they ever come back to my site? Google found the answer for them. Why wouldn’t they use Google to find the next answer? To their minds, if Google brings them to my site, fine. If not, just as good.

To solve this, I need to provide Context. Hey, you may have stumbled across this website by serendipity, happenstance, or whatever. But hey, here’s a whole bunch of things you are probably interested in, too, you just didn’t know that you were looking for those kind of things.

I can’t tell you how many times I landed on a website to find something but ended up really getting invested in what was going on there because of this other great material I came across while I was there. If I can provide my content in the context of ‘other really good stuff that you didn’t know you were looking for’ so much the better!

Community

It’s the interaction that creates a community. Sure, you can have a conversation with one person, but it’s when you can relate that one conversation in context to another group of people in a way they find helpful and interesting that you start to build a community.

Also, I find that communities are formed through shared experiences. Think about your college friends, or about your favorite team or athlete. Chances are that you feel that connection because of a series of shared experiences. Sure, I don’t play college football, but I am a die-hard member of the Virginia Tech Football team (Hokie’s) fan base. While I don’t participate in their games, I go see them, cheer at them, read about them on-line, in newspapers, and follow their achievements and disappointments as I can.

Introducing Experiment Based Blogging

While I wouldn’t expect anyone to follow this blog as much as you would a favorite football team, I think there is a lot of work that can be done to foster a community via conversation and context. The main way I plan on achieving this is via Experiment Base Blogging.

Here’s the idea. I’m going to choose an experiment, introduce it, and then blog all about it. I’ve already kind of started with my Random Content Experiment and my Logo / Header contest. Those sort of events seem to interest people and provide the results I’m looking for. People get interested in experiments and like to offer their opinions, ask questions and share them with their friends. Experiment results foster new learning, new teaching, and are really entertaining.

Well, that’s the thesis anyway. Let’s see how it plays out. Any website development experiments you’d like to see run? Have I built anything that you’d like to learn about? Let the world know below in the comments.

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Charlotte, North Carolina Photographer

Interview with a Charlotte, North Carolina Photographer

by CWD

in Graphics

The following is an interview with Charlotte, North Carolina Photographer Jill W Lang. I met Jill through LinkedIn and she is another person who uses WordPress to run part of her site. You can find her blog here – it’s regularly updated with awesome photographs from all around North Carolina (like the one right above this post!) Even better, you can purchase those photos here.

Q. Jill, I’ve been browsing through your work and it really is amazing. How did you get started?

A. It seems like I’ve always loved photography but didn’t start getting serious with it until a few years ago. I “retired” from my previous job as marketing manager for a food broker and started my new adventures in photography. I love it!! It’s allowed me to tour the state and see the sights that I may never have seen before.

Q.How do you see photographs progressing in the digital age? I know some photographers who see this as a dilution of their work. I sort of see it as an increase in demand. Business / web demand, for sure, but an increase in demand nonetheless. But then again, I’ve never tried to sell photos online before.

A. As with most “older” photographers, I’ve had to convert all of my equipment from film to digital. Once I started working with digital, I’ve grown to love it more than film and have not looked back. Camera manufacturers are improving their cameras and accessories with each new release and it just keeps getting better and better. Personally, I have grown and improved in my skills because of it being digital. I can instantly see my exposure mistakes and correct it right then or instantly work on some creative shots to see how they turn out.

No doubt, the demand for photos is increasing with the ever growing presence of the web. Site owners, designers, bloggers, etc. need photos for their site or they’re just boring! There’s definitely an increase in demand for good quality digital photos but there’s also been an increase in photographers entering the market making things very competitive. That’s why you have to be better, more creative, etc. than the next guy.

Q.It drives me crazy when people “borrow” my work whether it was a clever piece of programming or a turn of phrase for an article or as in some cases, the whole thing! How do you protect yourself against getting copied or license violations?

A. It’s very frustrating to see your work getting “borrowed”. Yes, it is flattering but I think most people don’t even think about how that hurts people who are trying to make a living at it. (But in turn, I’ve also had a lot of people asking permission or wanting to know if they can buy the photo/rights.) There are some things you can do to prevent the borrowing. Watermarking on the image is the best way. Disabling the right click is another. You just do what you can to prevent it… that’s about the best you can do.

As to specifics to promote…. I’m concentrating a lot on Charlotte. I’ve discovered that there’s really not a lot of places out there that people can instantly download a Charlotte photo for their designs or purchase a print easily. I’m also concentrating a lot on the state of NC. We have so many great places from the mountains to the ocean… it’s a lot! The Raleigh area will be my next focus.

Thanks to Jill Lang for the great interview! This folds in nicely with all of the image, logo, and general graphics discussions going on in the wake of my header image and logo contest.

Do you have additional questions for Jill? Who would you like me to interview next? Let the world know in the comments below.

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Vote in My Logo & Header Contest!

by CWD

in Graphics

The Logo & Header Contest is now Closed! Thanks to all who voted and gave feedback! A HUGE Thanks to the designers!

It’s time to vote in my Logo & Header contest. Some very talented designers answered my call for help and submitted headers and logos. They are all great. I wish I didn’t have to choose one. Well, in fact, I don’t have to choose anything – that’s your job!

The field has been narrowed to the top 3 submissions. Let’s take a look at the finalists’ examples first.

The 3 Finalists

Entry 1

Julie Jancen, One Twin Design @OneTwin, julie.jancen@gmail.com

One Twin Design Header

One Twin Design Header

Entry 2

Matt Dougan

Matt Dougan's Logo

Matt Dougan's Logo

Entry 3

Mithril. He actually submitted a whole sheet of letterheads, business cards, headers, logos, etc. You can see his whole submission here.

Mithril's Logo and Header

Mithril's Logo and Header

How to Vote

There are a few ways to vote:

  1. Leave a comment below with your thoughts and your vote.

    (Be professional, I reserve the right to delete anything inappropriate.)

  2. Click here and to take this survey. (Update: 12/14 Survey removed)

    (In fact, I’d love for everyone to take that survey.)

  3. Contact me privately.
    Try me on Twiter, Facebook, LinkedIn, the contact form, or call me!
  4. Tell me in person.
    In the street, at the bar, at the Lake Wylie Chamber of Commerce’s business after hours, at Friends in Business, etc.
  5. Take the Survey!
    Again, here’s the link: Click here to take survey.  (Update: 12/14 Survey removed)

Voting Rules

  1. Vote early!
    Votes end when we get a quorum of responses or December 25th, 2009. Whichever comes first.
  2. Vote often!
    Ex. Email, + survey link + comments section below + Twitter + Facebook + LinkedIn, etc.)
  3. However, only one vote will count per medium.
    Ex. If you vote 100 times on Twitter (which might be awesome) it only counts as one vote. This is to prevent abuse.

THANK YOU to Each of the 3 Designers!

I want to thank each of the designers that submitted work. Each one is great and I am incredibly lucky to have met each of you. I am certain that we will be working together in the future.

In fact….

Would You Like a Logo or Custom Header?

You don’t have to run a contest. All you need to do is to contact the designer you liked best and they’ll build you one for a very reasonable fee. Let me know and I will put you in touch with any (or all 3) of these great designers. Obviously, each is incredibly industrious, hard working, and very, very talented. They were willing to put time in and take a chance on working with me and it was a great experience. I recommend each very highly.

Thank you so much for taking the time to vote! If you’d like to see the results of the voting, please sign up for my free newsletter and/or add CharlotteWebDevelopment.com to your favorite RSS reader.

If you have other time available, please check out some of my best articles here.

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Social Media Motorsports Summit

by CWD

in Social Media

My friend Andy Kaplan is hosting a Social Media summit for the Motorsports community on January 28th, 2010 here in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Social Media has of course, taken the small business world by storm. Clients can, and will,  Tweet about your company if they are unhappy. After all Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc are certainly not a waste of time. 

Since many companies tend to have difficulty with social media, why not attend a conference that could help you out?

10 Items To Be Covered at the Social Media Motorsports Summit

  1. Why is Social Media changing the rules?
  2. How do you measure Social Media ROI?
  3. How do you control the message and track your reputation?
  4. Where do you find creative ideas and developers?
  5. Where are Facebook and Twitter heading in 2010?
  6. How do you build and grow a vibrant fan community?
  7. What is the right mix of traditional media and Social Media?
  8. Why mobile devices are powerful Social Media delivery systems?
  9. How do you leverage your brand with Social Media?
  10. Insert Your Question Here – You will get to ask the experts!

Andy asked me to be part of his team but sadly, I will not be attending. I’ve got a wedding to go to – mine! But I definitely suggest either you go or get started on your own Social Media Marketing Strategy. Especially if you are wondering if things like Blogs are worth the ROI for Small Business.

My Social Media Strategy

I have been working on my strategy ever since being accepted as a Duct Tape Marketing Beta tester and it has paid great dividends. If you cannot go to the Social Media Motorsports Summit, I can very readily recommend John Jantsch’s Social Media course.

If you’d like to sign up for the Social Media Motorsports Summit, click that link. There’s a $50 off deal if you sign up early!

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Hosting Horrors

by CWD

in Web Hosting

Around Halloween, I asked the web development community about the worst problems they ever had with web hosting. I made my list and sent it out for comparison. Here are my notes in relation to my network’s insights.

In short, I’ve hosted websites for over a decade and I’ve settled down to a few good hosts. I’ve also worked on many, many client’s hosts into the wee hours of the night and I’d like to spare you that pain. Here are the top issues I face when dealing with web hosts.

1. Unresponsive or Inattentive Staff.

Unable to Contact Host Provider

Nothing drives me more crazy than when I am trying to work on a client’s account and the host team is unavailable either by phone or by email. We all know how many things can go wrong with hosting – from DNS pointers to email to latency – getting hosting set up can be a nightmare. Having an unresponsive host can make a bad situation worse.

In a market as fiercely competitive as Web Hosting, often the first pawn to go is the customer service department.
Sean Nicholls, Lead Software Developer at Logicswarm

Endless Phone Trees

Sometimes you can’t self-provision and you need help. Maybe you’ve encountered an issue you have never seen before. Maybe you have a question on the service level you purchased. Either way, you want to have a real-live person on the phone.

Redirected to Voicemail

By the time you call a Web Host, you are likely already pretty irate. You have some issue that you can’t solve for yourselfe and you need help. After navigating the phone tree you think you may actually reach a human that can help you the height of Web Hosting Horrors is being redirected to voicemail! It’s even worse when you discover that voicemail is full!!!

Incident Tickets Stay Open Forever.

Again, in an effort to reduce the costs of interacting with humans, some Web Hosts will implement an incident ticket service. This is where you go online and dutifully enter your issue, select a couple of categorizations and submit the problem to a queue for the host to address. On the surface, this seems like an efficient and elegant solution. That view dims considerably when those tickets have been opened and unworked for days, weeks, or longer.

Confusing literature.

In an effort to bring customer interaction down, companies have put a ton of support content on the web. A FAQ page should help with basic questions, not replace customer service all together.

2. Poor or Unresponsive Technology

You can tell that your host is really a cheap reseller account knock off when you see a slapped-together, old version of cpanel and a cut-rate mail program on there. Squirrel Mail, anyone? This drives me nuts. A word to the wise, try to preview any host setups that you can.

The Web Hosting Cycle of Suckage

Randall Goya had a good way to describe this phenomenon:

I think that budget shared hosts go through a cycle:

  1. They upgrade their equipment and pipes and get a good reputation.
  2. Success brings many new customers, things get crowded.
  3. Service begins to flag – discerning and demanding customers leave.
  4. They reach some kind of attrition rate and upgrade.
  5. Rinse and repeat.

Slows or Erratic Web Page Speeds

This is largely a function of bargain basement webhosts. You can’t really expect to get consistently good website speed when you are paying $8 / month. Still, there are certain service levels you should be able to expect.

Unsupported Technology

It drives me nuts when a web host advertises a certain bell or whistle that I want (Ex. 1 click WordPress installation or Free transfer) but they don’t support the technology they have. You have just signed up and paid for a certain kind of service or web hosting ability but it doesn’t work. Especially iritating when

4. Business Shenannigans.

That’s right. I said shenannigans. And Web Hosts have been known to do more than their fair share.

Unethical Practices

I’ve had hosts that have violated contracts, stolen my website address or otherwise prohibtited me from transfer to other service .

Remember, your $6 a month host may not be bound by the same laws and customs you yourself are in your country. You get what you pay for.

Bait and Switch

This is usually accompanied with the technology note listed above. You think you are getting one kind of experience and then you get another. Insanity.

Another one that scores high on my list, is not actually performing backups. I make all my backups myself nowadays, but I’ve had clients that had web hosting providers that claimed they would backup daily. Then they would get attacked and all files+databases would get deleted. Of course, the host didn’t actually make the backups they promised and you’d completely have to start anew if you didn’t make your own backups.
Leroy Gerrits, Owner at Tuvai webdevelopment

Other Shenannigans

I haven’t personally encountered these issues with web hosts but others have. Worth keeping in mind!

How about “going out of business” — that’s the worse experience to date, though I have experienced your top 10.
James Null, Owner of LongviewNET

It’s All Our Fault

The fault dear Brutus is not within our stars but within ourselves.

Rajan Urs reminded me that “The worst problems of web hosting is actually customers who do not want to pay for quality hosting.”

Why We Make these Mistakes

Mike Sisk, and Jason Detar, web hosters themselves for years and years brought some sanity to it all:

When the decision makers see prices of $5 a month it’s hard to explain why your offerings cost 10X as much. Sure, you can tell them you have backups, up-to-date real server hardware (that you actually own), personalized service, etc., but at the end of the day all they see is a savings of $45 a month.
Mike Sisk, Owner at TCPIP Ranch

When web hosts have these low cost services they are sacrificing something, and usually more than one thing which is why your top ten list exists. Is it the Data Center? Staff? Network? Equipment? Software? Security? Preventative measures? etc? They can’t have the best of everything, and charge $5/mo for the most features, the most resources, and still make a profit. In 12 years, I’ve never seen it. I’ve seen some get pretty good, but even then it doesn’t last.
Jason Detar, President, Elite Internet Communications

The Bottom Line

So with this all, what’s the bottom line?

I think the bottom line is, you get what you pay for. And if you pay $5 dollars a month, you have to expect that entire list.
Dan Antonson, Founder, the Revived Group

Have you experienced these hosting horrors? Have you found any places that are better than the others? Let the worldknow in the comments section below.

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