A short break while I work on a new site

March 3rd, 2010

You might have noticed, I’m a little late updating the blog. That’s because I’m busy working on a new Web site. People sometimes comment that the TwoLittleFishes Web site and TwolittleFishes blog both look totally different, well that is going to change.

New TwoLittleFishes Web site previewThe new Web site will have a totally new look and style and the blog will be getting the same look and style too. Have a look at the work in progress version on the right and let me know what you think.

They will both be using something called “progressive enhancement”. This means that browsers like Chrome, Firefox and Safari get lots of enhancements like rounded corners and drop-shadows while less capable browsers like Internet Explorer get the same site, just with a little less polish.

While I’m working on the redesign I won’t have time to update the blog. When the blog returns with the new Web site there will also be a new section on case studies, looking at how businesses benefited from a Web site or the redesign process they went through. The first of these case studies will be about the newly redesigned site for Richard Thornton Sculpture. I guess I should also do one for the TwoLittleFishes site redesign, and maybe you’d like me to write one for your Web site?

I’m hoping to have the new site ready by the beginning of April, ready to tell you all about it in the next Small Business Web sites newsletter. If you’re not already subscribed, then do it now so that you don’t miss out. If you want to keep up to date between newsletters, follow TwoLittleFishes on twitter.

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Accessibility rough guide

February 2nd, 2010

Web site accessibility usually refers to the ability of people with a disability to be able to use (access) a Web site. Any good Web designer should take accessibility into account right from the very beginning of creating a Web site.

Why should my Web site be accessible

The first reason is that morally, it’s the right thing to do.

The next reason is a financial one, if your Web site is not accessible to people with disabilities you will be losing their business.

Disabled people also have enormous spending power as customers – around £80bn a year in the UK alone. (Disability facts – Employers’ Forum on Disability)

Do you really want to turn away all that money?

If your Web site is not accessible to people with disabilities then you could also be breaking the law. In the UK the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) states that Web sites should be accessible to users with disabilities, and other countries have similar laws.

Finally it’s interesting that many of the guidelines for accessibility are similar to Google’s guidelines for improving your search engine ranking. So an accessible Web site should also be more search engine friendly.

How do I know if my Web site is accessible?

There are a number of ways to test the accessibility of a Web site.

The best is to get users with disabilities to test the site themselves, this is usually done by asking them to perform tasks on the site, such as finding a telephone number or ordering an item.

While testing with real people is the best way, it’s not always practical, so there are also a number of guidelines that can be followed. The most widely used are the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) produced by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) who produce a number of Internet standards and guidelines. The WCAG has a list of guidelines rated as Priority 1, Priority 2 or Priority 3.

To be considered accessible, Web sites:

  • must meet all Priority 1 guidelines (Level A)
  • should meet all Priority 1 and 2 guidelines (Level AA)
  • may meet all Priority 1, 2 and 3 guidelines (Level AAA)

Very few Web sites reach Level AAA accessibility and a Web site reaching Level AA is generally considered to have good accessibility.

However be careful about just ticking boxes on a check list. Some of the guidelines can be interpreted if different ways and they are no excuse for real testing or someone with experience in accessibility.

How much will it cost me?

If a Web designer wants to charge you extra for making a Web site that is Level AA accessible then look for another designer. Making a Web site AAA accessible can often involve extra work so charging extra for this may be reasonable.

If you already have a Web site that isn’t accessible then there is often no easy way to fix it. The best option is usually to start again with a new Web site.

So what now?

If you’d like to find out how accessible your Web site is then TwoLittleFishes can set up user testing of your Web site or put together a report on your Web site based on guidelines and first hand experience. Please get in touch to find out more.

TwoLittleFishes can also create a totally new accessible Web site for you, see how the process works.

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Is updating your own Web site a good idea?

January 12th, 2010

Many people decide they want to be able to update their own Web site, but is it really a good idea for you?

Here are 4 short stories about people who want to be able to update their sites themselves.

They all get their Web designer to set their Web site up with a Content Management System (CMS). The Web site costs more to build because it takes time to set up the CMS but they figure that updating the site themselves instead of paying the Web designer will save money in the long term.

David, the creative writer

David is a creative writer and he wants to update his site with events he is attending and the latest information about his writing. David is pretty computer literate and although he could probably manage to create his own Web site using free tools he wants a more professional design and layout.

David works very closely with the Web designer to get the pages just right and make sure that his content integrates well with the design.

As a creative writer, David knows how to write compelling content and he’s studied how to write for the Web.

As time goes by David builds a successful Web site filled with fresh and compelling content that helps to promote his writing.

David is really pleased with his Web site and very happy with his choice of a CMS.

Lynne, the event organiser

Lynne organises corporate events like launch parties and awards ceremonies. Lynne knows a little about computers, she does shopping online and uses her computer to enhance and organise photos she takes with her digital camera. She wants to add photos from the events to her Web site.

The first couple of events have some great photos and Lynne spends half a day after each event sorting the photos then enhancing them and giving them useful descriptions before uploading them to her Web site. Her gallery idea works really well and Lynne soon starts to get lots more work. In fact she is soon fully booked for the next 6 months.

She gets so busy with more events to organise that next time Lynne uploads photos she doesn’t have much time so doesn’t bother enhancing them and adding descriptions, she just dumps them straight from her camera to the Web site. The same happens after the next event, but soon she’s really busy so doesn’t have time to upload photos at all.

Oddly though Lynne doesn’t seem to get many more bookings after the 6 month rush. She goes back to look at her Web site and notices that the first few events have a hand picked gallery of photos showing how great her events are. The next few events though are a long list of mostly dark or out of focus pictures, and there is nothing at all from the last 3 months. Anyone looking at the Web site gets the impression that Lynne arranged a few great events, but the quality slipped and now she’s not done anything for the last 3 months.

Lynne realises that she’s too busy to keep the Web site updated herself and regrets paying extra for the CMS. If she had paid the designer for a few hours work each month the Web site would stay looking fresh with hand picked and enhanced photos showing how great her events are.

Carl, the artist

Carl is an artist who creates wonderful oil paintings. He is keen to have a Web site where he can update the gallery as he paints new pictures and add details of where his work will be on show. Carl doesn’t know much about computers but his daughter, who lives nearby does, and Carl thinks she’ll help him out with the Web site.

Carl works with his Web designer to create a great Web site showcasing his work and showing details of where it will be displayed for the next 6 months. The designer shows Carl how to update the site and Carl has a go at adding a couple of images to gallery and editing the page with the list of shows, it doesn’t look too hard and anyway, his daughter can help out. The Web site gets lots of visitors and helps Carl sell paintings and get more visitors to the exhibitions.

Carl paints new work and arranges more shows for the next few months, so he decides to update the Web site. The problem is Carl can’t remember what to do and his daughter has a new job and now lives on the other side of the country. When Carl sees her, he wants to talk about how she’s doing and not bother her with the Web site. He’s too embarrassed to call the Web designer because he said it was really simple and Carl doesn’t want to sound stupid.

So Carl’s Web site becomes more out of date and gets less visitors. Anyone who does visit the site thinks Carl is no longer painting as all the shows were several years ago and nothing has been updated. Carl’s Web site dies a slow and lonely death.

Carl regrets paying for a CMS as computers are just too complicated. He wishes that he had paid the Web designer to update the Web site instead.

Sarah, the massage therapist

Sarah is a massage therapist, who provides luxurious massages. Sarah knows how to use a computer, she keeps in touch with her friends on facebook, but doesn’t know how to set up a Web site. She wants a Web site so she can tell people about the benefits of massage and she wants to update it with new prices and monthly offers.

Sarah works with her Web designer to create a tasteful Web site showing the restfulness and luxury of a massage. There are tasteful photos of hot stones and towels, it looks very professional. The site gets quite a few visitors and brings in new customers.

Soon Sarah decides it’s time to add her first offer. She has no problem using the CMS, it’s just like using a cross between facebook and a word processor. Sarah adds the information about her new offer but decides it needs an image to make it look better. Sarah doesn’t know where the Web designer got the photos from, but she does remember that the word processing package on her computer has clip art. Now the page is complete it’s got the offer details and a funny cartoon duck wearing a towel that Sarah found in the clip art.

Soon Sarah is adding more pages to her site, she was really good in school at essay writing so she creates lots of long pages with clip art from her word processing package. In fact she even found an animated cartoon dog running across the screen, she wasn’t sure how it fits in, but it is funny.

Eventually though Sarah finds that her Web site is getting less visitors, and the customers she finds from it are not really the kind she’s looking for.

Sarah asks her friends on facebook what they think of her site. They say things like:

“it used to be classy and professional, but now it’s a mess”

“it’s got too much boring text that doesn’t really say anything”

“it looks like a dog threw up on it, maybe it was the cartoon dog running all over the place. Why does your Web site have a cartoon dog running around anyway?”

Conclusion

These stories are a little exaggerated, but hopefully you should be able to identify with one of the characters enough to help you decide if updating your own Web site is a good idea.

TwoLittleFishes can offer a custom built CMS to help you update your own Web site and also a number of support packages that include monthly updates and reports for your Web sites.

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New domain name and hosting plans

December 29th, 2009

Since I started TwoLittleFishes in 2004 I’ve been using the same company for providing Web hosting and domain names. They have always provided a pretty good service (although not perfect), so I’ve stayed with them. But some time ago they were taken over and now things are changing (for the worse).

The Web hosting packages have now completely changed and not in a good way. The cost for some Web sites would increase by 400%. It’s time to move.

What is going to happen?

Early next year I’ll be starting to move Web sites across to new better quality hosting but without a big increase in prices. Yes it does mean that there will be some price increases, but they will be less than the price changes with the current hosting company.

I’ll be in touch with you before your site moves across to the new servers to give you more information about what is going to happen and if you will need to do anything.

Price changes

There will be some price changes although they are not finalised yet. Most small sites will pay about the same, medium sized sites will pay a little more and large sites should pay a little less. However domain names will no longer be included in the price and will have to be paid for separately, costing around £10 to £15 per year.

Benefits

The new servers should speed up your Web site, although if it’s already quite fast you might not notice. Google however will notice even very small speed increases. Early in 2010 this will become very important as Google introduces a new system for ranking search results. The new system will take into account Web site speed when it shows search results, so a fast site will be even more important than ever.

If you would like any more information about the changes or would like TwoLittleFishes to look after your Web site hosting then please get in touch.

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Why you should pay more than £99 for a Web site

December 15th, 2009

There are many adverts around offering Web sites for less than £100 and some of them even free. Can a Web site costing this little really do your business justice.

If you pay under £100 for your Web site, you can probably get a good looking site and you may be able to create a successful site but you will have to do a lot of work yourself.

Free Web site builder tools

There are a number of free online tools to build your Web site. These offer you a number of templates to build your Web site from. Providing you can find a template you like, you could create a good looking Web site (although you might find it difficult to put your business logo at the top).

These online tools give you the design framework to build your Web site. You are still left with the hard work of building and planning the content yourself

Cheap Web designers

With the best will in the world, cheap Web designers can’t allow the time to do little more than push content that you create into a Web page design. They may have time to design a pretty good looking template including your logo and branding but you are still left with the hard work of planning the site and creating the content.

DIY (Do It Yourself)

So this leaves you with a number of important jobs to do yourself.

  1. Planning your Web site
  2. Setting goals
  3. Creating content
  4. Measuring success

When you pay more for a Web site designer then they will be able to help you with these tasks.

It’s quite easy to just create a free or cheap Web site and add a few pieces of information about your business. But if you want your Web site to be successful then you need to put in a lot more effort to plan it, create content and then measure success. You could do this yourself, but paying a Web designer to help will save you time and money. Plus you’ll also have their expert knowledge on how the Web works and how people use Web sites.

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Portfolio (choosing a Web designer)

November 18th, 2009

Although accessibility, usability and content are more important than appearance, design style is the first thing to look at. There are a huge number of skilled Web designers that can create accessible and usable Web sites who have a wide variety of design styles.

Do you like what you see?

The first thing to do is look at the designer’s Web site and their portfolio. This will give you an idea about the style of Web sites they design and you can see if they create the kind of site you want.

No matter how good they might be otherwise, if you don’t like their style then it’s not going to be a happy relationship. Either they will create something they don’t like and you won’t get the best from them, or they will create something you don’t like.

Previous client types

As well as the look of previous sites it’s worth investigating the kind of Web sites the designer has previously designed.

Some designers tend to get a look of work for similar businesses like for example photographers. If you are a photographer then this means the designer should have more of an understanding of Web sites for photographers than a designer who mainly works for accountants.

Search engine optimisation

To find out how good the designer is at search engine optimisation, pick a client and try searching for them in your favourite search engine. Don’t choose a search that’s too general though as it can take a lot of time and money to get high rankings for general terms.

For example if one of the designers sites is a bakery, don’t just search for bakery. Try searching for bakery and the area where the bakery is, e.g. bakery nottingham. If the site doesn’t appear in the first page of results, then people probably won’t find it from a search engine.

Standards

Good professional Web designers build Web sites to follow a set of standards. You can easily test to see if a Web designer’s site and sites ion their portfolios follow these standards.

There are two tools for checking Web sites:

  • Markup validation – this checks that the main structure of the page is correct.
  • CSS validation – this checks that the settings for how the page should be displayed are correct.

Both these tools just need you to type in the Web address and press a button, they then tell you if the pages have any errors. You don’t need to worry about all the other technical details in the results page.

Making sure that pages follow these standards means that they will work better on a wide range of computers.

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Experience (choosing a Web designer)

October 20th, 2009

Creating a Web site is easy, but creating a great Web site that helps your business is hard. Sadly too many people create poor Web sites that damage businesses and lose customers.

General business experience

It’s pretty easy to create a Web site these days by copying and pasting the text and pictures from a leaflet or brochure into a pretty looking template. An experienced professional Web designer thinks about a number of things when starting to create a site including the site’s goals and who it is aimed at. See the previous post on business skills for more details.

Specific business experience

Once you’ve decided on the goals for your Web site, the next step is to find a Web designer that has experience in creating a site that can reach those goals. If you want to sell stuff on your Web site then you need a Web designer with experience in ecommerce (selling stuff on the Internet), while if you want to make use of facebook and twitter you need a Web designer with experience in those. It’s also worth considering if they have created Web sites for similar businesses, if you are an accountant it might be worth looking for a designer with experience in creating sites for accountants. They will have a better understanding of your business and will know what kind of things will work for your Web site.

Print versus Web

Many print designers have moved into creating Web sites. I’ve encountered quite a few of these that sadly don’t realise the big differences between print and Web.

The first big difference is page size. In print, the designer knows the size of the page they are designing for, on the Web you don’t know the screen size of your visitor. This means that the site often looks great (print designers are good at making things look pretty) if you have the same screen size as them. The trouble is they usually have big screens, so the site looks great for a few people but looks horrible for everyone else.

The second is browsers. Many designers who’ve moved from print to Web don’t realise how different sites look in different browsers. There are at least 5 major browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera and Safari) and they all do things a little different. In fact the same browser usually does things a little different on a Windows PC and a Mac. Don’t forget that somebody might also see your Web site on a Blackberry, iPhone, Palm Pre or other mobile phone. Your Web site needs to work on all these different browsers and a Web site that is great in one browser could be totally broken in another.

The third is download speed. When you print something you don’t need to worry about using lots of big images. On a Web site all these images need to be downloaded. If your Web site has too many large images people won’t wait for it to load and will go elsewhere.

Web standards

There are a number of standards about how the code behind a Web site should be written. A Web designer with experience in these will create a Web site that is more stable and robust. Standards based Web sites separate content, appearance and functionality which helps them reliable on a wide range of devices. The most common standards are HTML (HyperText Markup Language) or XHTML (eXtensible HyperText Markup Language) which is used for content and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) which is used for appearance.

Accessibility

The Disability Discrimination Act in the UK and other laws around the world state that your Web site should be available to people with disabilities. Your Web site should be made accessible as it is being built, Web sites can be made accessible but this takes much more work. Make sure your Web designer knows about the guidelines for creating accessible Web sites and if they charge extra then look for someone else.

Usability

The ideal situation to make your Web site easy to use is to actually test your Web site with real people. Many simple Web sites don’t have a budget for doing this testing so there are several guidelines that can be followed based on previous research about how people use Web sites. If your site is very complicated or has innovative features you should carry out actual user testing. A good Web designer will know about these guidelines and how to carry out user testing (or know someone else who does).

Search engine optimisation

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is actually a skill in itself, but a good Web designer should have a grasp of the basics. This includes knowledge about using metadata, titles and headings.

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Communication, personality and trust (choosing a Web designer)

October 6th, 2009

I talk to many people who’ve had bad experiences with Web designers in the past. So it’s really important to make sure that you can trust your Web designer and you can work well together.

Good communications

One of the first steps of choosing a Web designer should be to contact them with a question or two to find out how they respond. The question itself doesn’t matter too much, just get in touch in the way you are most likely to when dealing with them in the future.

If you are not happy with the way they communicate now while you are a potential customer waiting to give them money, it won’t get any better once they have your money.

Personality

You will probably spend quite a lot of time now and in the future working with your Web designer so make sure that you can get along with them. If you get along well then you are more likely to find them helpful when you need help in a tight spot. It also makes the whole thing more fun.

Trust

You also need to be able to trust your Web designer. Web sites can be complicated and so you often have to trust that your Web designer really is working in your best interest.

If they are looking after hosting Web site too then it becomes even more important.

I recently heard about a company that changed a customer’s hosting service and in the process lost all of the customer’s emails and contacts. The customer had been using the Web to access their email, so moving the server lost all their information. The reaction of the company was tough they should have been using Outlook.

A good Web designer should have checked this before moving the server and helping the customer to set up Outlook or backup their information in another way.

It’s hard to know if you can trust a Web designer, but the way they communicate can give you some idea. The best way to find out though is to have them recommended by somebody else. After that try talking to some of their current (or past) customers to find out their experience. It’s worth checking the Web designer’s site to see if they have any customer testimonials.

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Budget/cost (choosing a Web designer)

September 29th, 2009

You could spend anything from nothing to thousands of pounds on a Web site, so it’s a good idea to set a budget early.

I’ll discuss free and cheap Web sites in another blog post and why they are not a good idea. As this post is part of a series on choosing a Web designer, I won’t discuss that here. I’ll give you an idea about what kind of Web site you can get for your budget (or how much you should expect to pay for various types of Web sites).

Initial Web site design cost

Simple brochure Web sites (under £600)

This is probably the starting point for many small business Web sites. A Web site that provides information about your business and the services/products it offers. Usually between 5 and 10 pages, expect to pay from around £400 to £600 for a clean simple style. If you want something more complicated then expect to pay more, but certainly no more than £1000.

Interactive Web sites (£600 to £1800)

If you want something that allows customers to be more engaged then expect to pay a little more. The kind of interactive features you might include are:

  • Blogs,
  • Custom build options (e.g. choosing colours or designs for a product),
  • Detailed quote request forms,
  • Links with social media sites like facebook or twitter,
  • Maps showing your location or other places of interest,

These kind of Web sites usually have between 10 and 20 pages. Expect to pay around £600 to £1800 for a Web site like this and maybe more depending on how complex the design is and how many interactive features you have.

Online selling (ecommerce) (over £1000)

If you want to sell products online then expect to pay at least £1000 for a secure well managed Web site. You might also have to pay a monthly fee (see below).

Ongoing costs

It’s also worth finding out what future costs there will be. Some companies charge a very small fee to create your site and make their money by charging large monthly fees. There are several standard things that you might need to pay for:

  • content management systems
  • domain names
  • online shopping carts
  • Web site hosting

Watch out for any other charges, and ask your designer how much they charge for making changes or updates to your site. Some designers might also offer you a monthly package including a number of hours work or other services. Before signing up for a monthly package make sure it includes things that you will actually use.

Content management systems

This is a feature that lets you update your own Web site using a simple Web interface. There are open source (free) systems that you can use, but these are often complicated and many Web designers use commercial systems that have monthly or annual costs.

Expect to pay up to £20 a month or £200 per year.

Online shopping carts

There are usually two types of costs involved with selling from your Web site.

The first is for the shopping cart software, this may not have an ongoing cost, but you could pay up to £20 per month or £200 per year.

The second cost is for processing payments, just like the fees you pay when taking credit card payment in person or over the phone. Some systems (e.g. WorldPay) charge you a fee and then pass the transaction to your usual credit card processor (who will also charge you), while other systems (e.g. PayPal or Google Checkout) process the payment themselves only charging you a single fee.

Domain names

A domain name is your Web site’s  address on the Internet. These are usually bought for between 1 and 10 years.

Expect to pay between £5 and £20 per year.

Web site hosting

Hosting is space on a powerful server (or even a whole server to yourself) that is connected by very fast connections to the Internet and managed in a secure facility.

Expect to pay between £5 and £40 per month or between £50 and £500 per year. Bigger Web sites require more powerful servers, you should probably pay between 10% and 20% of the cost of your Web site per year for hosting.

When setting your budget don’t forget to include these ongoing costs or you could end up paying much more than you intended.

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Business skills (choosing a Web designer)

August 21st, 2009

Some Web designers spend a lot of time on the appearance of a Web site, but not much time thinking about the business objectives. They are more interested in creating award winning Web sites than business winning Web sites.

Award winning Web sites

While it’s nice to win an award for a Web site, for most small businesses (in fact most businesses) the main purpose is to increase sales.

I was talking to a potential client this week about Web sites that focus on appearance over business objectives and he said:

Yeah I don’t want a cup, I want a commision.

Many small businesses have a limited budget for Web sites. This budget is better spent on a clean simple Web site that helps them make more sales (or get more business). Simple clean designs don’t have be to ugly or boring.

Business winning Web sites

An important part here is to decide want you want your Web site to achieve. Too many people build Web sites without any idea what it is there for. Your Web designer should work with you to set out the goals for your Web site.

There are many different goals your Web site could have such as:

  • providing information to potential customers
  • selling your product to potential or existing customers
  • after sales support to existing customers

There are many more goals, but these are the most common general goals. Each requires a different Web site approach, and a larger site might include 2 or even all 3 of these goals.

Without deciding what your Web site should do though, it’s hard to make it effective.

All flash and no trousers

How many times have you visited a site that looks fantastic but doesn’t have the information you are looking for. I’ve blogged before about why content is so important, so I won’t repeat myself here.

These sites seem to promise so much, and yet leave you disappointed. A simple, clean site with clear information promises little but delivers much.

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