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The internet is the wild west and there are no-good varmits at the gates

February 15, 2013

Protect yourself from malware bandits

Traditionally, no one likes my technical posts. But please, listen.

The internet is not a safe place. And not just because of child molesters and mail order brides. Although both of those things are disturbing.

There is a whole class of people who get their jollies out of messing with you.

Annoyed by the people who use bots to submit your contact forms hundreds of times a year? That’s just the beginning.

These folks will inject malicious scripts (malware) into your site. They will wipe out all the code on your web pages, leaving your site standing, but completely blank.

They do this for fun. I know. I don’t understand it either.

Here’s what you can do:

1. Change your passwords.

Yes, it’s annoying to have to keep track of complicated passwords. But fluffy77 is a lot easier to crack than 4t7@CM21r. Use a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters. And change them regularly.

Yes, all of them.

2. Don’t use the same password for everything.

I get it. Lots of people have one password for everything. I’m sorry, but it’s just too dangerous.

Consider this: if a hacker breaks your password once, he breaks it everywhere. Terrified yet?

3. Back up your website.

Performing regular backups is an essential part of web maintenance. While some hosts perform incremental backups of your site files and any related databases as part of their service, you shouldn’t rely on your host, especially if you update your site often.

Talk to us about your options for backing up your site frequently and automatically.

4. Check your site for malware periodically.

Every once in a while, run your site through the scanner on this page: http://sitecheck.sucuri.net/scanner/

You can also use Google Webmaster Tools to alert you if Google finds malware on your site.

All this is probably not enough.

Even if you change your passwords religiously and back up and scan your site every day, you will probably wake up one morning and discover the dreaded “This is a attack site” banner on your homepage. Maybe not tomorrow, but someday.

And if you’re not ready, you are not going to enjoy trying to get your stuff back. I promise you that.

It’s not a threat. It’s just the way it is, as long as there are people in the world who will knock you down just because they can.

No pressure, but if you need help with this, you know where to find me.

Posted in Hosting, Programming, Running Your Business, Web Development | 1 Comment »

Your virtual shingle

January 8, 2013

The other day, my friend and partner in crime Janet Chiu posed this question:

“Back in the day, companies used to reprint their brochures every year, whether they needed updating or not. Why do people think ‘set it and forget it’ with websites?”

This observation bounced through my head when I got a call from a former client who said:

“I found your name on our website. I’m having some problems with it and I was wondering if you could help me out.”

I built that website in 2004. It hasn’t changed. At all.

I often say at networking events that a great client for us is someone who’s been around for a while. Long enough to figure out what doesn’t work. But the truth is, most entrepreneurs don’t really give it much thought.

They think of their web presence as a virtual shingle. Hang it and people will notice it as they drive by.

The problem is, nobody “drives by” on the internet. Nobody.

I challenge you to think harder about your website. Look at your analytics. Figure out how people are finding you (or not). Do something about it.

If you need help, you know where to find me.

Posted in Marketing, Strategy, Web Development | Leave a Comment »

X Marks the Spot

December 12, 2011

Photo by MontyAustin

Begin with the end in mind.

This has to be one of the greatest pieces of advice ever offered. Because if you don’t know where you’re headed, how can you possibly know when you’ve arrived? Or how to get there in the first place?

That goes double for your website.

The success of your website will be determined by the degree to which you ask yourself this one question:

(ready?)

What do I want people to do here?

Ask and answer this critical question and you will have the foundation for a winning site.

“What do I want people to do here?” gets at results. Here are some possible answers:

I want people to fill out this form.
I want people to pick up the phone and call me. (Are you sure?)
I want people to attend an open house.
I want people to register for a class.
I want people to make a donation.
I want people to buy my book.
I want people to gain confidence that I am the right resource for them.

Combined with a clear understanding of your target market (“What do people want to do here?”), you have everything you need to create a website that gets results.

Careful!

Uh oh. Is this you?

Ann, spot on as usual! Brilliant! Yes, I want people to do ALL of those things!

Danger, Will Robinson.

One objective per audience.

Websites get clunky in a hurry when you ask them to do too much.

Yes, it’s likely that you have more than one audience. And you want to appeal to all of those audiences. But you can’t do it all on your homepage. (Really, you can’t).

Example

Say you’re building a website for an educational institution. You have prospective students, current students, alumni, faculty, and parents all visiting your site.

Consider:

For each of these audiences, what is the one thing I want people to do right now? (Yes, of course it can change later).
Which of these things is most important to my institution right now?
Are there one or two others that are almost as important to my institution right now?

The most important call to action goes on the homepage. Maybe there’s a secondary call to action in a sidebar or near the bottom. Everything else goes inside.

And I do mean everything else.

For this to work, you’re going to have to be very tough. Because everybody’s going to think their thing is the thing that should be put right on the homepage. Don’t do it! Stand your ground.

You will be rewarded with a website that does exactly what it’s supposed to do and generates results everyone will be proud of.

Posted in Marketing, Strategy, Web Development, Writing | Leave a Comment »

The 7 x 3 rule

November 28, 2011

One of the earliest and most basic steps in planning a website is to define your navigation. How many main pages will you have? And how many sub pages? And how many sub sub pages?

Here’s a little rule I live by: 7 x 3.

Seven

Each menu on your website should have no more than seven items.

Why seven? Because, as a rule, seven is the maximum number of items a person can keep in his head at once. This is why phone numbers have seven digits.

Why does this matter? When a person interacts with your menu, he creates a virtual map of your site in his head. This helps him remember where he’s been and where he still needs to go.

“Okay, I’m in the About section now. And there are six other sections, and I generally know what they are.”

Sure, he probably doesn’t say that out loud. But he’s comfortable.

When you have 14 items in your menu, danger! Your user will forget where she’s been. She’ll get confused, nay, lost.

Three

Your website should have no more than three layers of navigation:

Main Menu
- Sub Menu
  - Sub sub menu

That’s IT.

Again, people like three. They can hold onto three. Three makes sense. Four, five or six do not make sense.

That’s not enough pages!

Really?

Seven items in your main navigation. Each of those has seven items underneath of it, and each of THOSE has seven items underneath of IT.

7³ = 343 items

What are you, Amazon.com?

If you are, thanks for reading my blog! Tell your friends!

If not, consider this:

Even Amazon lives by this rule. Mostly.

Amazon's Category Navigation

Nine departments. I can give them that, can’t you? They genuinely have a really big site.

Each of the departments has a manageable number of items underneath. Under books, we have six. Others have more, but they also have dividers in between to help you chunk items together in your head:

Home and Garden Nav

13 items, but they’re organized into 4 groups. Which is almost like a third level of navigation.

All of this is to say that, even if you’re Amazon.com, you still pretty much play by these rules.

You probably don’t browse departments like this when you use Amazon, but if you did, you’d have a reasonably happy time of it.

It’s Navigation, Not Pages

So you’ve got up to 343 items in your navigation. Remember, this does not necessarily equate to 343 pages on your site.

If you have an ecommerce site where you sell thousands of products, you’re going to have more than 343 pages. But while your departments may be in your navigation, each product won’t be.

And if your site’s really that complicated, you’re going to need to lean on your site’s search capabilities anyway.

This rule is for you.

I’ve never met a site I couldn’t fit into the 7 x 3 rule with a little creativity.

It’s well worth the effort to give your visitors the best possible experience.

Posted in Graphic Design, Marketing, Strategy, Web Development, Writing | 1 Comment »

On Momentum

May 6, 2011

Photo by Selective Focus Photography

QUIZ: What do these three things have in common?

A. A playground swing
B. A pole vault
C. A web development project

ANSWER: If you want to be successful, you need momentum.

Sam loves to swing, but he needs to practice the leg pump. No matter how hard he pulls on the chains, he still slows to a stop unless someone’s there to push him.

You can imagine what happens to a pole vaulter who doesn’t have enough momentum. (Ouch)

A major web development project is no different. Momentum will propel your project forward and help you generate more and better ideas.

In geek speak, momentum is a property of the project, not the team. There are things both you (as the client) and your web development team need to do to gain and maintain momentum throughout the project:

1. Keep your project on the front burner

Simply put, all parties need to be paying attention. Developing a website is a collaborative process between you and your writers, designers and developers, and the world is full of distractions. The more attention the team applies to your project, the faster it will get done.

2. Do what you say you’re going to do

If you say you’re going to write the content, then write the content. If you’re going to gather testimonials, gather testimonials. Nothing says “full stop” more than “I haven’t had a chance to do that yet.”

3. Apply focus time

Set aside a chunk of time every week to work on activities related to your web project. Spending fifteen minutes here or there, or letting weeks go by without thinking about your project, is a recipe for lost momentum. Basically, multitasking is the bane of creative work. Don’t try it.

When momentum’s on your side, you’ll find your web development project will not only get completed faster, but the whole process will be more enjoyable as well.

And, because I can’t leave the subject of pole vaulters without a Land of the Lost reference:

Dr. Rick Marshall: “‘If you don’t make it, it’s your own damn vault.’”

Will: “You mean ‘fault.’”

Dr. Rick Marshall: “No, I mean ‘vault.’ It’s from a poster with a pole vaulter on it.”

Posted in Marketing, Web Development | Leave a Comment »

BASICS: All About Bounce Rate

February 8, 2011

If you’re a website owner, hopefully you have Google Analytics or another web analytics program set up and running on your site.

If you don’t, go do that now.

Seriously, we’ll wait.

If you’re looking at your stats for the first time, you’re probably wondering,

What the heck is bounce rate?

Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing only one page.

Visitor Bob might click the back button (often to return to search results), type in a new web address, or close his browser window or tab.

What does it mean?

I get lots of questions about bounce rate because this metric is prominent on the Google Analytics dashboard. Frequently, it’s also uncomfortably large.

Google (and other search engines – we’ll just say Google for short) uses bounce rate to determine if people are finding what they’re looking for when they click to your site.

It probably goes without saying that, if your site is useful, people are more likely to click to other pages. And if they click to other pages, you deserve to be higher up in the search results.

That’s the theory anyway.

While the purpose of your homepage is likely to entice readers to continue exploring, you may have landing pages on your site that accomplish their jobs without any clicking.

Luckily, you can explore the bounce rate for each individual page to see which pages are performing according to expectations and which aren’t.

For example, over the last 30 days, my About page has had a bounce rate of 0% (awesome!), but my contact page has had a bounce rate of over 85%.

Now, interpret:

People who came to my site because they were looking for my phone number got their question answered on the first page they went to. I’m cool with that.
My About page filled my visitors with an insatiable curiosity and desire to learn more about yours truly. I’m cool with that too.

Keep in mind that your average bounce rate is just that: an average of the bounce rates of all the indexed pages on your site.

So, your overall bounce rate may be hurt by a particular page that’s just sitting there doing its job.

How to improve your bounce rate.

Google does look at bounce rate, along with click-throughs, time on site, what you had for lunch*, and other factors, when determining your position. So, if search engine results are important to you, you probably should be looking at improving your bounce rate. Here are some ideas:

Be intruiging. All you have to do is get them to click to a second page on your site. That’s it! So for god’s sake, be interesting. Add a quiz. Say something bold, or ask a thought provoking question and make them click to get the answer. These strategies will increase engagement on your site, which is what bounce rate is actually designed to measure.
Make a compelling offer. Tell your visitors what’s in it for them. Make a promise and then deliver on that process. (In exchange for a click, of course).
Get rid of the exit signs. Find us on Facebook! Great. Bounce. I love social media as much as the next self-obsessed, lonely, thirty-something solopreneur, but if a visitor lands on your site, then clicks a link that takes them to another site, that’s a bounce. Plus, you’re missing out on the chance to present your message the way you want it presented! Save your social links for the interior of the site. Make them work for it.

I really don’t want to overstate the importance of the bounce rate. It’s decidedly unhelpful to get blinded by one statistic, especially when the importance of that statistic is not always clear.

On the other hand, there are good reasons to pay attention to bounce rate, at least on specific pages. Make it part of your regular traffic analysis and see what happens.

* Just kidding about this one. They’re not rolling that out until next year.

Posted in Search Engine Optimization | 1 Comment »

Google Yourself!

September 2, 2010

Do you ever Google your business name? How many results come up? How high up are you?

Your internet address is just as important these days as your physical one, and visitors to your site are just like customers walking through the front door of your office or shop.

A search engine like Google is like Main Street. There are plenty of shops lining the streets, and you need to stand out if you want to sell. Nobody’s going to buy your stuff if they don’t know you exist.

So try it: Google your business name.

If you don’t show up at all, stop reading right now and go fix it. That’s just not acceptable.

If you’re not high up on the front page, you’ve got problems. On Main Street, customers don’t want to have to walk far to get to your shop. The same is true online. Don’t ask searchers to scroll to page 2 of a Google search. Most people won’t do it. You really want to make sure you’re there when the customers are searching for you.

If you find a page full of bloggers complaining about you, then you’ve got a serious clean-up effort on your hands.

The supermodel Kate Moss has had many unfortunate public dealings with drugs, so much so that it’s the first thing most people think of when her name is mentioned. But Google her name and see what comes up: her fashion label and very complimentary articles about her. This is no accident.

Kate Moss’ marketing team has skewed her search results in her favor and, if you’ve had some bad press, you need to do the same. Obviously the best defense is a good offense, and in this case that means not running a business that’s worthy of complaint. But if one customer happens to have a bad experience and then writes about it, you need to address it.

How do you do that? Stay tuned…

Posted in Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Web Development | 1 Comment »

Sorry, but your website sucks.

August 31, 2010

I hate telling people their websites suck.

Maybe I just have one of those faces. For some reason, people insist on hiring incompetent programmers, and when it doesn’t work out, they come to me. Like a girls’ soccer team at Panera Bread, these guys leave a big mess, and it’s up to me to clean it up.

You Get What You Pay For – Usually

There are some very talented, conscientious, relatively inexperienced web developers in the world. I know, because I used to be one of them. These folks are hungry and they’re trying to build a portfolio. They’ll do an excellent job for you, usually at a price that’s well below market rate.

Unfortunately, those developers are one in a million. The web market is overwhelmed by fly-by-night operations and kids who took two web development classes in college and are hanging around waiting to see if they got into the Peace Corps. If you’re looking to do something good, but cheap, how can you tell the difference?

The short answer is…you kind of can’t. Unless you have the money to do it twice, be very careful.

If you do decide to take a chance on a developer who has a limited portfolio, check references. Be sure to ask, not only about the work product, but about the experience of working with the developer. Did the client feel supported? Was work completed on time? Is the site getting found by search engines? Were the business aspects of the project – quotes, contracts and invoices – handled professionally?

Master of Your Domain

Think you own your domain? Think again. Your cheap-o web developer may have registered your domain in his own account, leaving you high and dry should he disappear.

This isn’t always as nefarious as it sounds. Sometimes developers do this because it’s easier and they’re in a hurry. They just want to get the site up, and they figure they can change it later. The problem is, they almost always forget.

The agony of having to recover a domain name that has been hijacked in this way cannot be overstated. I have a policy: any process that requires faxing anything, especially your driver’s license, is to be avoided.

If your web developer registers your domain name for you, make sure he or she lists your company as the registrant and that you are an administrative contact.

If you’re not sure about the status of your domain, you can look it up yourself here.

Passwords Are Your Problem

Many site owners don’t think they need to worry about their own passwords. They’re almost proud of it: “Heck, we don’t even know where our site is hosted! Our web guy handles that!”

That’s great, until he disappears. Sorry, but it happens.

I once had a colleague who had all her clients’ websites hosted with a local guy. She trusted him completely. She had no idea where the files were physically located or how to get to them. One day, he stopped answering the phone. She drove by his house and knocked on his door. He was gone, and so were all of her clients’ sites.

It’s not enough to get a copy of your website, especially if it’s updated often. You need to know who hosts your site and what the passwords are. Even if you don’t know what all that gibberish means, your next web developer will, and you just made her job a whole lot easier.

Pretty Isn’t Good Enough

I got a call from a new client about a week ago. “We love the look of our site,” she said, “but it doesn’t seem like it’s being found by the search engines.”

One quick look at the code told us why. The original developer was loading all the text content out of a database using Ajax, so none of her copy was exposed.

In other words, some hair-brained developer had used some fancy tech to render her site completely invisible. Why? We’ll never know.

Remember, your website is your brand. Don’t let the tech get in the way. Find a web developer you can trust, and make sure you ask a ton of questions. You’ll be glad you did.

Posted in Domains, Hosting, Programming, Web Development | 1 Comment »

Five ways to write better web copy

May 26, 2010

Believe it or not, I didn’t spring from my father’s skull a full grown, kickass graphic designer and web developer. I started my professional life as a copywriter, crafting sales letters, business plans, and proposals. I’ve written copy for print ads, brochures and websites. Even now, I spend my weekends consuming and composing fiction. As a lover of beautiful words, it pains me to say this, but say it I must:

Nobody gives a crap about your copy.

Let’s define our terms. I’m talking about body copy, e.g., you leading with five paragraphs of dense text. Seriously, nobody cares.

Leading with five paragraphs of copy, devoid of headings, bullets, and other scanning aids, is like asking a girl to marry you on the first date, and you’re not even that good looking. Her mother warned her about boys like you.

In much the same way, your visitors have been warned. They’ve been burned by too many websites that ramble on and on without really saying anything. They’ve learned to ask themselves: “Why should I read this? What’s in it for me?” But in your case, they won’t know what’s in it for them because you haven’t left them any clues. So they’ll hit the back button and click on the next site in the search results.

Here are some ways to make your web copy reader-friendly so, hopefully, someone will actually read all that stuff.

1. Color and contrast. I don’t really need to say this, do I? Lime green text on a puce background is disgusting, and it should be banned. Tasteful, coordinating colors, with good contrast between the background and foreground, are critical to getting your copy read by human beings.

2. Use headlines. People (and software) that consume the internet are called browsers for a reason. They don’t read; they scan. Give them a reason to dig deeper by writing compelling headlines and subheads that help your readers get their bearings.

3. Use bullet and numbered lists:

They’re easier to scan
They create white space in your page
They’re generally orderly

4. Keep copy simple. Antoine de Saint-Exupery said it best: “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

There’s a reason Twitter makes you a better writer. The 140 character limit forces you to choose every word carefully. Apply the same discipline to your copywriting. Every page should have a point. Every paragraph should have a point. Be ruthless.

5. WIIFM? As you write and revise, ask yourself, “What’s in it for my reader? Why will they care about this topic? How can I make this relevant?

We all know that writing is more art than science, even if you’re writing copy for the back of the soup can. But if you keep sight of these tips, you’ll be well on your way to writing web copy that’s informative, entertaining, and easy to consume.

Posted in Marketing, Web Development, Writing | 1 Comment »

Message first, design second

May 23, 2010

Recently, I had the good fortune of pitching a great prospect for a website redesign. The client came prepared with a packet of wire frames and site outlines.

“As you can see,” he began, “we’ve done a lot of preliminary work. What we’re looking for is an artist who can creatively communicate our mission, core values and competitive advantage.”

“Great! I’m your girl,” I replied. “Now, on which page can I find your mission, core values and competitive advantage?”

You guessed it. A whole packet on what it should look like, but not a word about what it should say.

This actually happens all the time. Usually, clients aren’t quite as organized. That is to say, I don’t even get a packet. But that’s okay, because to me, figuring out the message is the fun part.

In the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the first definition for communication is this:

1: an act or instance of transmitting

This implies that, in order to have communication, all you have to do is transmit the message, that is, stand on the street corner and shout. This is what we’re doing when we’re only thinking in terms of wire frames and site outlines but, intuitively, we know this isn’t good enough. I like the third definition better:

3a: a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or behavior

or even better, this one:

3b: personal rapport

Both of these definitions imply that communication requires a sender and a receiver. The transmission itself is not sufficient. So as you consider redesigning your website or brochure or blog, answer all three of these questions:

1. Who are you? What are you about? (Nobody struggles with this one).

2. Who are you trying to influence with your message? What do they care about? (Getting harder).

3. What will influence those people to do what you want them to do, i.e. become a subscriber, buy your product, sign-up for your seminar, use your service? (Ooh, that’s the toughie).

By answering all three of these questions in advance, you’ll give your designer the ammunition he or she needs to create a design that’s not only technically brilliant, but also gets to the heart of what you do and who you serve. And that’s how you get to great design.

There, isn’t that better?

Posted in Graphic Design, Marketing, Web Development | 6 Comments »