Andi's World, Web Design
July 20th, 2010
We don’t get many web industry conferences around these parts. Hell, we don’t get many conferences around these parts. So I’m supremely excited that Front End Design Conference is going to be right here in our own backyard this Friday, July 23 (at the downtown St. Pete Hilton).
What is Front End Design Conference? It’s a conference geared toward the design of websites. The visuals and aesthetics that make web-based communication possible. The ideas and strategies and thought processes behind why we click where we click (and how to make people click). The “why is this green” or “can we move that next to this?” of building a website. Believe it or not, good web designers don’t just throw things on a page and call it a day. There’s a why and how and a best practice schema to which we adhere in order to help guide visitors and influence click behavior. Gasp! So much to think about! 
Not a web designer? The Front End Conference line-up really encompasses web-based communication of all sorts – not just web design. The topics are relevant to anyone with a website who wants to learn more about how to use visual communication to get a point across or influence action. Marketers, bloggers, small business owners – there’s information relevant to all of you.
Topics include:
- Learning to love ideas: Brainstorming 101
- Taking your designs from wireframe to design
- The art of self-branding
- Design in the details
- CSS organization and workflow (ok, this one might be geared directly toward web designers)
- Fuel your brand (but this one is great for anyone!)
- Principles of UI design
Conference organizer Dan Denney put together a great lineup and an exciting weekend of events. There’s an awesome after-party planned at the Lobby in downtown St. Pete. On Saturday, stick around for a Tampa Ignite meeting at Studio 620. Sunday, he’s got a guided photo walk around downtown St. Pete – sure to be very cool.
Learn more and register:
See you all there! We’ve got a big contingent representing Big Sea (and their own amazing talent) so please say hello.
Posted in Andi's World, Web Design | No Comments »
Web Design
June 27th, 2010
You’ve got a sleek website with great graphics and intuitive navigation. (Right?) Now you need to learn how to replace all the lorem ipsum dolor sit with meaningful copy that speaks to your audience. Here’s what to avoid when writing for your business site:
Spelling Errors and Bad Grammar
Almost everyone makes typos. Most people misspell words or mistype them all the time. Despite the frequency, web users are quick to judge. They stop trusting you when they think you can’t spell or simply didn’t take the time to proofread. Have a professional or a trusted partner look over your web copy, especially if you’re selling something.
Marketing Buzzwords
Avoid writing copy that reads like a long advertisement. Basically, don’t sound like a slick-talking salesman. When web users come across clichés and overused sales terms, they start hearing the teacher from Snoopy. Write conversationally and try to be surprising. Be honest and straightforward, and save your marketing-heavy moments for important calls to action.
Too Many Words
Most of the time, you need to write at a fourth grade level. This doesn’t mean your writing should be childish or immature. It simply means that you need to make your points quickly. Use bulleted lists and fairly simple sentences.
- You can be cheeky and interesting, but you can’t write a novel.
- If you absolutely need to share a lot of information, make sure you break the content up with appropriate headings and navigation so that readers can skim to the meaty bits.
- Consider using a blog or newsletter to share ongoing updates and info in bite-sized chunks.
Still struggling? Try starting with a basic outline. If you absolutely hate writing or you’re uncomfortable with the task, take your outline to a pro who can flesh it out to fit the frame of your website.
Maria Mora offers friendly, down-to-earth social media consulting and editorial strategies. You can usually find her messing around on Twitter.
Tags: web content, web copy, writing for the web
Posted in Web Design | No Comments »
SEO, Web Design
April 13th, 2010
Let’s face it. A well designed, thoughtful website isn’t cheap. It’s an investment in your brand, your business and your self. It’s a leap of faith.
It’s also your best salesperson. The first impression a lot – if not most - of your clients have with your company. Website analytics are a way for you to hold your site accountable the way you would any other member of your sales team.
The beauty of the web as a marketing tool is that almost everything is trackable. Measurable. Countable. You can use Google analytics, for free, or pay services such as Omniture or WebTrends.
Here are five easy ways to use those website analytics.
1. To measure your clearly defined marketing goals. Before you start building your site, you need to define what exactly you’re expecting it to do for you. Make sure you identify clear and realistic brand and business goals so that you have numbers to optimize against after you go live. These goals can be simple (overall visitors, time spent on a part of your site) or more complex (increase brand recognition, client education about a specific topic). They are easily tied to behavioral actions on the website and can be measured as such.
2. To assess your search engine positioning. This is the easy one and probably the most familiar use of analytics. You can easily see the search terms for which visitors are finding your website. If you dig a little deeper, you can follow which keywords lead to behavioral events like filling out your contact form or requesting an online demo of your product. You can also see if certain phrases lead to people spending more or less time on your site (indicative of whether those terms relate directly to what you’re offering).
3. To make your site more user-friendly and navigable. Looking how how your visitors find you is important, but you can also use analytics to find out what they do once they get there. If they’re going straight to the FAQ, you know you need to step up your content to start answering questions right off the bat. If they are going directly from your homepage to your products page but then are detouring through your blog, you might want to figure out why they aren’t getting to the shopping cart.
4. To track bandwidth usage and bad links. Your analytics can help you find out what functions and pages on your site are bandwidth hogs and where visitors are encountering bad links so that you can make internal improvements. Now that Google officially uses site performance as a ranking factor, making your site faster is more important than ever. Bad links on your site are an instant “see ya later” to your visitors as they rarely click back to find what they were looking for, so use your analytics to get those fixed.
5. To plan your marketing campaigns. If you knew that all of your potential customers are at their computers at 1:30 pm every Tuesday, you’d likely want to send them your eblast at that time, right? Or if people from Buffalo, New York tend to buy 3 more widgets from your site than any other purchasers, you’d want to spend a little more on PPC campaigns targeted to that region. Your website analytics can help you see where your visitors are from and when they’re online so that you can target your campaigns demographically, geographically and by time of day.
If you’re lost when you log in to Google analytics or don’t even know if you’ve got them set up on your site, give us a shout and we’ll get you up and running. Decisions are best made based on actual data, and analytics are a free and easy way to make informed decisions about your website.
Tags: analytics, goal-oriented design, Google
Posted in SEO, Web Design | No Comments »
Social Media, Web Design
January 14th, 2010
I thought that 2010 would be the year.
And I tried. I really did! (Ok, I didn’t try that hard, but I gave it a couple weeks.)
This was going to be: the year that I went digital.
So idealistic was I: I’ll scan all of my documents! I’ll use iCal and Evernote and the ‘To-do’s’ in Mac Mail! I’ll put everything in Basecamp! No more lists and scraps of paper all over my desk, I thought.
I work all day on a computer and rely on my iPhone for everything – this will be easy!
First, there were client meetings. Added to iCal: check. To-do’s based on emails in my inbox: added to the To-do list in Mail: check. But wait – now where does it go? Where’s an overall list of ‘to-do’s'? And I have to remember to plugin my phone to sync my calendar. And there’s a totally different to-do list in iCal! Then there’s Evernote and learning to use it for the tool that it is. . . Desktop app syncing with iPhone app . .. and more lists. It started taking me as much time to add something to my To-Do list (and figure out how to sync it with everything) as it does to just complete the task.
Needless to say, I still have my scribbled notebooks on my desk, and I broke down and bought a day planner this week too (to add to my library of day planners I’ve had since 1994 – which make for neat scrapbooks and memory albums for me). I essentially scurried back into the hole from which I came, quickly. I guess I wasn’t ready to make the change, to commit.
I got to thinking about the ways this applies to building websites, building online businesses and social networks.
Whenever we build a new website for a client, we’re essentially building them a new way to interact with their clients or customers. We’re giving them a different voice, with different methods of publishing and creating information. We’re asking them to add these new methods to their daily routine – because the web, after all, requires that sort of dynamic interaction. We put everything on a CMS these days – and we ask our clients to change things, add things, keep it fresh.
I’m putting together a few social media packages for clients right now that include a blog, Facebook fan pages and Twitter accounts. They’re easy enough to set up, but I’m not sure my clients understand the commitment they require. We can’t just ‘build it and they will come.’
Successful online communication, if you’re not already doing it, requires a total change in the way you go about your day.
That’s the hard part. There are some of my clients who ‘get it’ – they understand and are ready for that challenge; they wade in slowly but with both eyes open, embracing the new opportunities the web can provide them. And then there are those who don’t fully trust what an online communications strategy can do for them. They balk at daily updates and laugh at Twitter’s value. I build those websites – but when I’m done, I’m not excited about the future of the new site. I’m sad, knowing that my new baby will sit untouched for months, maybe even years - well past it’s usefulness.
(If you’re going to invest in a website, make sure you’re ready to commit to using it.)
So how do you incorporate all of these new communication tools into your life? How do you make your investment really work for you? Stop thinking about your web presence as a brochure, and start thinking of it as a voice.
- You’re working with a new client that has a unique question: a blog post idea or FAQ question pops into your head! If one client has this question, others might too. Write about it!
- You see something interesting on an industry news feed: Tweet it! Share the link!
- You just sent out the biggest order ever – or one that’s a especially remarkable: take photos of the packing process and share them on Facebook!
- A client tells you how pleased they are with their new fill-in-the-blank from your company: add it to the testimonials page and ask them to write a review on your Google Local listing!
- You just signed a deal to provide something previously unheard of in your industry – the quickest installation or revamp or largest whatever it is – get out your Flip video camera and record it! Use your desktop movie editor (iMovie, Windows Media) to edit a quick video together and post it to your Flickr and YouTube and Facebook accounts. Add it to your website.
I completely understand that we are all busy people, and continuing on the path of least resistance requires the least amount of effort.
But the rewards that come from making these changes – the rewards of building your online presence, creating that online community and establishing your online credibilty – those rewards are worth the effort.
I’m not sure that the rewards of moving my calendar and to-do lists online are as great – so I don’t feel too bad about not committing 100% – but in an effort to show my clients that I get it – I am going to incorporate Evernote into my life as much as possible, and start getting used to organizing things digitally. Each day, I’m going to take a small step to changing the way I organize my life, so that maybe, just maybe, 2011 will be the year.
Tags: becoming web savvy, Evernote, going digital, social media, Web Design
Posted in Social Media, Web Design | No Comments »
Big Sea Projects, Web Design
October 20th, 2009
So much has been going on! What an exciting summer.
We’ve opened a new office on Beach Drive in downtown St. Petersburg – right across the street from the St. Pete Museum of Art and the gorgeous waterfront parks. Can’t beat the location – come visit!
We’re working on a new website (and yeah, yeah, I know I’ve been saying that for a while but it’s really underway this time).
We’ve launched quite a few new projects . . .
Posted in Big Sea Projects, Web Design | No Comments »
Big Sea Projects, Web Design
May 14th, 2009
I keep putting off posting more of the 7,000 projects I’m working on because I’m redesigning this site (finally). If you know me, you know I can’t stay in one spot very long (I’ve moved 11 times in the 9 years I’ve lived in St. Pete). I like to change things up!
Also, though, it’s time for something new.
We have so much going on at Big Sea. And I don’t just mean “I have so much going on.” I mean “we.” I’m proud to say that over the past year, I’ve amassed a team of web-geeks that puts other big-name agencies to shame. At least, in the Tampa Bay area. I’m quite proud to be working closely with folks who bring so many amazing talents to the table for our clients (who you’ll be hearing from directly on our new site!).
Designers, developers, a fantastic copywriter and social media goddess, her hubby the videographer – if it’s digital, we can do it. We’re just revving up, and the engines are humming, so stay tuned. There are big things in the works for Big Sea. (Of course, I’ll still be your go-to-girl for all things web – from simple to complex – but I now have a group of folks to bring to the table on the bigger jobs or those I might otherwise put off.)
Here are a few thumbnails of the things I (and we) have been working on . . . to whet your appetite as it were.
Posted in Big Sea Projects, Web Design | No Comments »
Big Sea Projects, Web Design
April 21st, 2009
We’ve been working on this for a month or more now, and we’re finally adding content and getting her ready for launch! UMC-SCC is a large church located in a mostly retirement-age community. They needed a site that will help them attract the younger families in the area to their congregation, emphasizing the enormous amount of energy and vitality of their community. We put together a sophisticated yet classic and easy-to-maneuver front end design, built on an even easier-to-use content management system so that the client can make updates and edits when they need.
This site features a calendar of events, online donations, easily editable photo slideshows and will also incorporate video and audio versions of their Sunday sermons.
Posted in Big Sea Projects, Web Design | No Comments »
Big Sea Projects, Interactive Design, Web Design
January 29th, 2009
Whew! It’s been quite a past couple months. I welcomed a new daughter into the world, and work revolved around me . . . Big Sea kept on trucking while I was able to spend a couple month getting to know my new little one. So much work, in fact, that we happily launched not one, but two brand new sites and a pretty complex online class also.
Aromahead.com was launched with a lot of help from our PHP king, Alex Vasarab. Alex stepped up to the plate while I was out to get the design implemented and also, to greatly enhance the registration and student accounts system at the site. We also launched the complex online Aromatherapy Certification Program that includes integrated video components, exams, references and learning materials; all administered by the client.
Also exciting is the launch of MannyPuig.com. You probably recognize Manny ‘The Sharkman’ Puig from MTV’s Jackass and Wildboyz. Through a tangled web, Manny’s new management team asked Big Sea to build something 1. fast and 2. well. We put together a comprehensive and scalable site that they can add to and edit at their leisure, and have big plans for the future. They intend to sell advertising and also, to add sponsorships to their videos, blogs and galleries. Stay tuned for a lot more cool features here – we’ve got some grand ideas.
Posted in Big Sea Projects, Interactive Design, Web Design | 1 Comment »
Big Sea Projects, Web Design
November 6th, 2008
A new site Big Sea launched in October, 5minutemystery.com, is getting a lot of buzz in the blogosphere and even some broadcast TV news airtime. We’ve been featured in Australia, Germany and Japan as well as numerous US-based technology and education blogs and websites.
Since we were expecting a soft-launch without a lot of hoopla, we were quite surprised and pleased at the immediate response. ABC.com asked for our ‘media relations team’ when they called – and were quite surprised to find out that we are but a team of 2 working on this project!
We’re really excited about all kinds of new features we’ll be adding to the site, making improvements and adding capabilities. Stay tuned!
Posted in Big Sea Projects, Web Design | No Comments »
Big Sea Projects, Web Design
November 4th, 2008
Referred to Big Sea through 5 Minute Mystery, ROK Brothers needed a new site that will be able to grow and expand with their business. A leader in fleet brake parts for police, municipal and commercial fleets, ROK has a goal to eventually start an ecommerce/retail side of the business on the web.
We set up a very easy content management system for ROK to be able to add new products and change their content. The site is structured with flexibility and SEO in mind so that adding retail capabilities in the future will be a simple add-on.
Posted in Big Sea Projects, Web Design | No Comments »
