Musings

Keeping things simple with your website usually mean the best results. I have found that after being in the website design and marketing business for close to 10 years and trying virtually every tactic on the planet. I’m here to tell you nothing beats keeping things simple!

Simplicity can be a very complicated sometimes though, creating a website using friendly complimenting colors and tightening up your content so it’s working to the full potential without information overkill can be tough.

As a rule of thumb avoiding as many things on your website like scrolling text, flash, music, etc is a no-brainer but moving beyond that there can be a fine line to simple and boring or just plain cluttered.

So how do you do this?

First you want to keep your content focused on your target market just don’t overdo it. If it’s not making any sense leave it out!

Second, as I mentioned above, be careful with flash and images, you don’t want to bug your visitors.

The next thing relating to your content, keep it like a nice well kept salad bar, pleasant to the eye, easy to choose from and easy to digest. It needs to be appealing and compelling.

Don’t talk above people, you may be a geek but you don’t have to speak like a geek! Relate to your visitors, don’t belittle them!

Be original, be creative, be yourself! I know this is the internet and it’s easy to pretend to be something you’re not but don’t do it! People appreciate honesty and can relate to you if you shoot straight with them.

The last thing I would say is to make sure your website navigation is like a walk in the park, not a hunt for buried treasure. Make it super easy for your visitors to get where they want to go and they will appreciate it. Nothing is worse than needing a GPS to navigate a website!

Is your website too complicated? We can help you work it out, call us today at 276-791-6488 or use our contact form and we’ll call you!

I’ve started reading a new book not long ago but before I go on let me just say I am not a huge reader, I tend to scan for some reason and I have the attention span of a gnat.

This new book is something I can’t put down and it’s already changed my thinking about business and given me new insight on a lot of things. A friend and business associate told me about this book called “The 4-Hour Work Week” and suggested that I read it, my first thought was I would have something else sitting on the shelf collecting dust but I went ahead and purchased it, actually I bought a copy for my iPhone and the hard back.

I usually don’t endorse products like this or give reviews but with this fantastic book I just can’t help it because I know that whoever reads it will find the same golden information I have.

To sum the book up Tim explains how to take control of your time, how to work less hours and be more productive. He also explains how to enjoy your time now instead of waiting for the pipe dream of retirement.

Take my advice and get this book, read it, study it. I promise you won’t be sorry!

I’ve included the link below so you can get the book on Amazon, the book comes in several formats.

The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich

Owning a website design company for almost 9 years has taught me a lot of things about people, business and life in general but one common thing I see day after day are people with grave misconceptions about getting a website and that website being successful.

Creating a website and putting it online then stopping there is like buying a shiny new corvette and not ever putting gas in it. It’s great if you just want a pretty car in your garage or driveway so you can look at it but like a sports car a website is a vehicle that is meant to be used to its full potential.

I will go out on a limb and say that over 80% of would be website owners think that they will put up a site and people are going to flock to it overnight and they will become wealthy. Let me stress, THIS IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

Picking the right design company, the right colors, the great logo, the right layout are all very important for your website but the most important thing is your website marketing. You can have the best website in the world and if nobody ever visits your site you have wasted your money. On the flip side you can take a mediocre website, market the whiz out of it and be pretty successful.

Marketing a website takes time and money; don’t let anyone lie to you. I wish I had a magic bullet but if I did I would not be writing this article, I would be on the patio of my 10,000 sq ft beach house right now eating breakfast that my executive chef prepared for me. (By the way I’m not doing that)

You need to think long and hard about how you will market your website once it’s live, will you learn to market it or will you have someone do it for you? Do you have the time to do it your self? Do you have money in your budget to have someone take care of your marketing?

I don’t want to discourage anyone to not put up a website, I just want you to have a clear picture that your website is only the vehicle; the marketing is the fuel to run that vehicle.

I spent many years in the automotive business, ok, I was a car salesman and yes I know you just rolled your eyes. The video below brought back memories of my car selling days. It also sums up a lot of what designers deal with today. One of my designers sent me this video this morning when we were discussing scope creep. Scope creep is… well, just watch the video below.

I decided this morning with it being #followfriday on Twitter I would go about it in a different way. I see a lot of people putting several names and then the hash tag #followfriday and I have done this myself. There is nothing wrong with doing #followfriday this way, nothing at all.

My idea today was to do my #followfriday tweets one person at a time. I thought about it and decided each person is special and they all mean different things to me. Each #followfriday person has touched or impacted my life in a special way. I figured I could at least take the time to mention each one personally and give the reason why I think others should follow them.

I have to say with my (what I would call short) time on Twitter this has to be the best #followfriday ever. Not because I got several mentions but because of the reactions I got from other people. I know… I could not see them smiling but I felt it and that’s like a drug, no it’s better than a drug.

Pastor Jimmy told a story last Sunday about how sometimes he says before service “Stand up and hug some people to the right of you and to the left of you.” A lady told him she really loved that because that was the only time during the week she ever got a hug… that touched my heart and made me think.

Connecting and touching others lives is what it’s all about, I know sometimes I get so wrapped up in trivial things I don’t stop to take the time to tell people how much I appreciate them. I am very grateful for kind words and smiles and I am very grateful for the folks on Twitter that follow me and put up with my silly hillbilly ways.