I've just posted a Tweet announcing the launch of the newly re-designed website for The Dgial Academy www.digitalacademy.co.za
I though it would be good exposure for the company if I allowed Twitter to post the update to my Facebook timeline as well and of course it's a bit of a brag for my web developing expertise :)
Posts to FB usually elicit some sort of response from folk who know you well enough to speak their mind and that's what I love about real time conversations online.
What I didn't expect was a short and sharp (if a tad sarcastic) reply from an ex client who failed at an attempted online venture, wishing me luck and hoping it does better than his failed online business.
Having had a crappy day anyway with no power since midday and backlog piling up and tons to do before my long weekend getaway to our coastal retreat, I took offense to his apparent stab at my ability to succeed at an on line business. It was his business not mine.!
A very common failure factor when people have great ideas for online ventures is that not enough research, planning and budget is considered for the business and invariably the web developer gets the flack if it doesn't generate revenue in a flash.
Creating a beautiful site isn't worth much if you don't treat it like a new product that requires marketing and persistent advertising both off and on line.
Would you print a truck load of glossy full color brochures and stick them in the stationery cupboard? No of course not. You would look for as many channels as possible to distribute them and probably research who you will target, when best to make them available, and how to get them out there. You would no doubt see these as great tools for generating interest around your product or service.
There's nothing different about a website - it needs the same care, attention and above all exposure. And it costs money too.
So don't dive in to an online startup venture with an iffy vision - do your homework, research your competitors, research your audience and online market, set realistic goals, make available a decent budget for marketing after the fact, and you'll acquire a great business tool.
1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the English.
2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the English.
3. The Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than the English.
4. The Italians drink a lot of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than the English.
5.The Germans drink a lot of beers and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than the English.
CONCLUSION
Eat and drink what you like.Speaking English is apparently what kills you.
Nou praat ek maar Afrikaans!
If you're a social media type and use Twitter and other social media platforms, you will have come across shortened website adresses. Twitter's limitation of 140 characters means there's no room for long-winded converations and certainly not for lengthy website adresses. So you're not just micro-blogging but micro-linking too, to get all you want to say into the 2 rows available.
But there's anothr great use for this...
Have you ever wondered how safe your hard work is on the web?
Some years back I ran a Google search for a very specific sentence in an article I wrote. It was quite an eye-opener to find that a young aspiring web desinger, to whom we outsource work on an ad-hoc basis, had formulated most of his own web copy on my hard work.
Your website content or blog posts take quite some reasearch and planning, let alone writing, editing and checking for grammar. Then you proudly hit that publish button knowing you've done a great job.
But what are the chances you've put all that effort in for others to use as they please?
I receievd instructions to a really funny look at Google Maps the other day and thought it worth sharing. It was posted to my FaceBook wall and drew my attention immediately because of its reference to Google Maps. For a good chuckle read on...
Personally I think that business is so mobile these days - and laptop sales out-weigh desktops - that I feel safer developiing for max 1024 which can be accommodated by the majority of laptops without forcing horizontal scrollbars. The templates we use and design are usually no more than 980px wide.
As developers and designers we make use of wide monitors for purposes of seeing as much as possible on-screen. And because we can see so much of the page on screen, a mistake often made by template designers is to have a substantial amount of eye-candy in the header section, which on a laptop screen will obscure a lot of main page content until scrolling starts.
I prefer fixed width body width as opposed to fluid for a number of reasons.
Research Your on-line Business - a few ideas for planning your new Website
Be your customer
One of the effective ways of brainstorming the usability for your new website, and to help determine what would be good features for your website, is to put yourself in your customers' shoes.... um, make that in front of your customers' connectivity device!
The first time I heard the word BLOG, I thought “Ok, what the devil is a BLOG?” Not wanting to look like an idiot, I “Googled” the word and came up with no less than 3,510,000,000 results for the word blog! I felt really silly. If billions of people knew what a blog was, why didn’t I? I might have felt stupid, but I wasn’t phased and decided to click on the top result, which gave the Wikipedia definition as follows:
A blog (a contraction of the term "Web log") is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.
Come to think of it, Wikipedia and Google are pretty wierd words too, but I digress….
