Design vs Art

Most business people understand that today your website is your new lobby.  It’s design gives people an impression of your organization; often a first impression.   Surveys shows that more than 80% of people do research on line before making any purchase of a product or service.  Potential members, customers, patients, clients, or donors, make that initial judgement about your organizations within about 30 seconds of landing on your site.  If it appears inviting, easy to understand, and simple, they’ll stay and give you a chance to tell your story.  If you fail, they are gone in a mouse click.

Someone said great art speaks to each person differently, while great design speaks to each person the same.  Design makes the world easy to use, while art is a personal taste and changes from person to person.  There has long been a debate between art and design:  Which is more important, effectual, and desirable?

Andy Warhol’s painting of a soup can sold for $11 million at auction in 2006.  However, in 2011 Campbell’s Soup Co. sold $778 million worth of soup.  So, does good design sell more than good art?

Good and bad design is all around us.  It makes everyday things easy, or hard, to use.  Consider the car.  All cars have a steering wheel, not a choice of steering wheel, joystick or navigational stalk.  When you jump into the drivers seat of the latest model or a vintage car from ‘40s, an experienced driver can figure it out pretty quickly.

The design aspect of your website is critically important.  Good sites have clean navigation, and a well thought out menu of choices on the top or side, but not all over the place.  The titles are clear, concise and accurately describe their content to easily guide visitors along.  Bad web design can be frustrating for the visitor and drive away business, wasting the time and money you spent on getting traffic.

Most designers agree that Amazon is one of the best sites on the web.  It’s design is clear and simple to use, it’s easy to find what you want, and above all, easy to shop.  It looks nice, but its not a work of art.

WebsitesThatSuck.com highlights what you shouldn’t do, and demonstrates that organization size doesn’t inoculate anyone against stupidity.  Using a common sense driven check list, each year they select the worst sites on the web.  2011’s list includes big names like Xerox, Sony and Symantec, along with some not so famous companies and people. Check out the list to see the worst of the worst.   If your site looks at all like any of these, get some new web people.

John D Barry wrote “Only when the design fails does it draw attention to itself; when it succeeds, it’s invisible.”  Design well and prosper.

Once Upon A Time…

“Once upon a time”… some of the most powerful words in the English language.  We sit up with anticipation for the story that’s about to begin. Whether it’s Little Red Riding Hood making her way past the wolf to grandma’s house, or Luke Skywalker joining the rebellion and destroying the Death Star, we all love a good story. When stories have been used to teach moral lessons, such as the parables of Jesus in the Bible or Aesop’s fables, we remember the stories and their lessons.

Stories have such impact because our brains are programmed to think in linear terms, with a beginning, a middle and an end.  We don’t do as well with facts and figures without context.

Several years ago, while working for a credit union core software vendor, I visited a small credit union in New Jersey.  And I mean small.  The CEO told me they were the primary (or ONLY) financial institution for over 90% of their 5,000 members and he was fiercely loyal to them.  He cared about one thing: delivering the services his members wanted and needed.  His loyalty came from the roots of the organization.  It started as part of the local Russian Orthodox Church, and only parishioners and their families could join.  The credit union was open every afternoon from 2 until 4 in the basement of the church.  They would throw a blanket over the bar and transact credit union business at a table.  Everyone there heard and knew of each others’ business, kept it confidential, and supported their efforts. After the credit union closed, they would put the books away, remove the blanket from the bar and have a drink.  Every credit union member knew the story even though their roots are far in the past and the founders have long since passed.  A story of loyaty, of “as a member, you’re one of us!”.  It’s not about the number branches or their assets.

Ponder this important question: How well does your website tell your story? Does it clearly articulate, in a story form, why someone should do business with you, or is it a confusing mashup of links, images and text?  Here’s a test.  Ask someone who will tell you the truth to look at your site and relate the story it tells.

In the Oscar winning movie “The Usual Suspects” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114814/  the main characters sit a New York City jail after what seems to be a random police line up. One of the suspects, Roger ‘Verbal’ Kint, appears partially paralyzed on one side of his body.   Todd Hockney questions  who he is and why he’s there by asking “So what about it, Pretzel Man… what’s you story?”.  Ironically, Verbal’s story is the key to the entire mystery that unfolds in the film.

You story is key to your success.  So what about it…what’s your story?

Prepare for Changes to Facebook Pages

Facebook has rolled out changes to the layout of pages. The changes can be made now or if you want to put it off, all of the pages will be updated March 3. The changes align pages to look more like profiles with the addition of the timeline.

Highlights of the changes include giving admins the ability to add milestones, cover photos, customize the page with pertinent information, message privately, view activity logs, and have more admin tools than before.

Admin’s can add a cover photo, just like on profile timelines. Another valuable tool comes with the ability to make specific posts achieve greater visibility or be pinned at the top of the page. When selecting a star button on the post the width will increase to draw more attention to it. If an admin selects the pencil icon the post will be pinned to the top as the main post.

Important info will be across the top, the about information can be found there. Photos will remain in the first spot, but up to 12 additional spots can be filled with more information. Tabs are missing, so customized tabs will have to be pinned onto your timeline.

For more information about the changes to pages, read Facebook’s Official Release.

Coppermoon is a full service Web Design & Technology firm which aims to help businesses compete in this digital age. Follow us on Twitter or Facebook for updates.

Will Google Always be Top Dog?

Google has become synonymous with “look it up on the web” but believe it or not there are other search engines out there. Bing is constantly trying to get their market share. Yahoo! is also still a biggie as well as many little guys. One of those little guys made huge strides this week, DuckDuckGo hit over 1 million daily searches. Google reports over a billion searches daily, but why this is remarkable is where DuckDuckGo was just one year ago, as of February 14, 2011 DuckDuckGo reported  211,669 searches, on February 14, 2012 they reported 1,019,602 searches! Quite an increase, over 500% growth.

Here are DuckDuckGo’s claims according to their “About DuckDuckGo”:

• Way more instant answers.
• Way less spam and clutter.
• Lots and lots of goodies.
• Real privacy.

So what do you think about DuckDuckGo, could the Duck topple the Google? Could the new kid compete? Tell us what you think!

Coppermoon is a full service Web Design & Technology firm which aims to help businesses compete in this digital age. Follow us on Twitter or Facebook for updates.

 

SOPA and PIPA Aren’t Just About Piracy

I am so glad that 1/18/12 is over. I can’t tell you how many websites I regularly visit weren’t functioning normally due to the SOPA/PIPA protest. These bills heading towards congress next week, SOPA and PIPA are supposed to help stop internet piracy, but their are written in such a way that it could hurt the rest of the internet, and the web would perpetually look like it did yesterday. There is a potentially good alternative to SOPA and PIPA called OPEN, check out this chart below that compares the bills:

A Full Explaination of SOPA Can Be Found on SearchEngineWatch.com

TheOatmeal.com was blacked out yesterday, but had a video running instead of their usual website (if you are easily offended do not proceed to the video in question) in the video they said “This is like dealing with a lion escaped from the zoo by blasting some kittens with a flame thrower!” There are better ways to deal with piracy than by passing a bill that is so poorly written that it could potentially shut down any website accused of copyright infringement without due process.

The lawmakers writing these bills did not have a solid understanding of the ramifications. As it has become more clear to them with the outrage over the last several days that it’s a bad thing, the SOPA train has been losing steam. Many of the supporters, even co-sponsors of the bill have withdrawn their support. Many of the Hollywood companies, Time Warner and such are backing it because they are losing millions to pirated material, they deserve a good bill that protects them and their intellectual property, but not at the cost of millions of websites and blogs that would be censored under this new legislation.

If you are in favor of an open internet without censorship make sure that your voice is heard, sign the petition and call or write an email to your congressman asking them to oppose the bill, or if they already oppose it tell them thank you.

Coppermoon is a full service Web Design & SEM firm which aims to help businesses compete in this digital age. Follow us on Twitter or Facebook for updates.

Why are SOPA and PIPA so Bad?

SearchEngineLand.com along with other resources have been helping webmasters and SEO firms prepare for today’s protest of the proposed SOPA/PIPA legislation. Wikipedia and Reddit are some of the biggest names going black for the day.

WordPress and Google’s hompages have been altered to show their solidarity.

Google’s Pierre Far, Webmaster Trends Analyst announced that they would be slowing down GoogleBot’s crawl activity to reduce the effects of the blackout on a sites SEO standings.

Pierre Far posted the following on his Google+:

Hello webmasters! We realize many webmasters are concerned about the medium-term effects of today’s blackout. As a precaution, the crawl team at Google has configured Googlebot to crawl at a much lower rate for today only so that the Google results of websites participating in the blackout are less likely to be affected.

Floating around Twitter, Facebook and accessible from Google’s homepage is a petition to tell congress that we don’t want this kind of censorship on the web. I’ve seen online people saying “Well shouldn’t Wikipedia and Google want to stop piracy?” All of these sites and those supporting this want to stop piracy, but the legislation needs to be rewritten, as it stands it could cripple the internet with far too much censorship. This post from Stumble Upon’s blog gives a good overview of why so many websites are against SOPA and PIPA.

Coppermoon is a full service Web Design & SEM firm which aims to help businesses compete in this digital age. Follow us on Twitter or Facebook for updates.

Website vs Blog

There has been a trend in the last few years of small businesses just using their blog as their website and some people have asked if they need a website if they have a blog. It’s about knowing your audience, and what product or service you are trying to sell. It also doesn’t have to be one or the other, blogs help your SEM efforts and can be an important part of your marketing model.

Website:
Static Information
Corporate Information
Professional Tone
Basic Info about Business
Relevant Business Information
SEO Friendly
Visitors and Potential Clients 

Blog:
Fluid Information
Creative Information
Light-Hearted Tone
Changing News
News About Industry and Business
SEM Helpful
Users and People looking for Info on a topic

For a business such as a realtor you may want to have a professional website, you need to instill confidence in potential clients in order for them to trust in you. It also will help in branding your name to have an official website where if someone is referred to you can Google your name and find you. A blog may pair well with the website, keep it updated with relevant industry information and success stories from your firm. If your business is making and selling dog coats a blog may be all you need. The business is more light-hearted, you still need to instill confidence, but the investment in comparison to a mortgage is small and photos and success stories are more of what clients may be looking for. Though even in that scenario having a website where customers can place orders and pay for the goods could help your business as well.

Coppermoon is a full service Web Design & SEM firm which aims to help businesses compete in this digital age. Follow us on Twitter or Facebook for updates.

Small Business Saturday

I posted yesterday that Black Friday is gaining the social media edge. Here’s another piece to kicking off this holiday season for your small business, checkout this Facebook Page is all about keeping shoppers in the small businesses. If your Facebook page isn’t listed for the appropriate zip codes you can list it on there.

Coppermoon is a full service Web Design & SEM firm which aims to help businesses compete in this digital age. Follow us on twitter or Facebook for updates

Black Friday

Black Friday the annual day after Thanksgiving event, which officially kicks off the holiday shopping season in the U.S. has become a marketing frenzy. Not just the ads you hear and see in regular media, but retailers are utilizing social media as well. For instance, the last three years Target has had pre-black Friday ads featuring their Christmas Champ, an overly enthusiastic shopper portrayed by Maria Bamford, now interacts with customers on Twitter. @ChristmasChamp tweeting ads and offering advice, such as “Make a list, check it thrice” or “Use a utility belt.”

If you are trying get your piece of the Black Friday action consider how to interact with your customers and appeal, think big, even on a shoestring budget (remember you can tweet for free!)

What are your creative Black Friday promotion methods?

 

 

Coppermoon is a full service Web Design & SEM firm which aims to help businesses compete in this digital age. Follow us on twitter or Facebook for updates.

Web Browsing Helps Productivity

Web browsing can enhance productivity and refresh workers, as compared to other activities like making personal calls or sending personal emails. According to a study conducted by the National University of Singapore when people browse websites they enjoy and search for something that interests them they return to work refreshed and more productive.

Surfing the web on breaks is like taking a coffee break. Based on the study, web browsing is a rejuvenating and enjoyable activity that helps employees be more productive and effective as compared to others who did not take breaks or did other things during that break.

As browsing is shown to increase productivity corporations may want to reconsider their policies on banning certain website, such as YouTube and FaceBook.