There are a number of systems to create you blog including WordPress (this blog uses WordPress), Blogger and Movable Type.

Here are some of the reasons for adding a blog to your Web site:

• Google likes to see Web sites that are updated often.
• Blog posts are usually rich in key words that help your search engine ranking.
• You can provide valuable content that attracts links from other Web sites (and again increasing your search engine ranking).
• It allows you to interact with people through the comments.
• You can show your expertise to potential new customers.
• You can provide extra help, advice and support for existing customers.

Blogs normally use a fairly simple editor to allow you to add your posts through your Web browser. You might need a Web designer to set the blog up for you but after that you should be able to update it yourself.

If you want to make the most of your blog, here are a few tips:

• Publish your posts regularly (once a week, once a fortnight or once a month).
• Keep your posts fairly short (about 250 to 500 words) but informative.
• Although most blogging systems offer a free blog address, use your own domain name and hosting to improve the control you have.

Most of what I’ve shared so far applies to traditional written text blogs, but there are also other ways of blogging.

If you don’t fancy sitting down to write your blog, how about an audio blog. Services like Audioboo allow you to record and publish your blog as audio. You can even download apps, so that you can record them on your iPhone or Android phone and publish straight away wherever you are.

If you’d like advice about your blog or help setting up or making your blog fit the rest of your branding please get in touch with TwoLittleFishes.

Social media generally refers to Web content that allows people to collaborate, share and comment. It’s a 2 way thing. Traditional Web content is published by the Web site owner and people then read (or look at) that content. It’s a 1 way thing.

Social media tends to be broken into a number of categories:

• Blogging (e.g. Blogger, Twitter, WordPress). Blogs allow you to publish articles which people can leave comments on (just like this one).
• Document sharing (e.g. Google Docs, SlideShare). Share slide show presentations, spreadsheets and other documents with people who can share, make contributions or leave comments.
• Forums (e.g. phpBB, PunBB). People can post subjects on a forum and others can then reply to those posts. Most forums are divided into categories.
• Geosocial networking (e.g. foursquare, Gowalla). Similar to social networking (see below) but is aware of where you are and allows you to share your location with friends.
• Music sharing (e.g. Last.fm, MySpace). Similar to document sharing, you can upload music to share with people and allow them to make comments.
• Photo sharing (e.g. Flickr, Photobucket). Share photos and allow people to comment on them.
• Social bookmarking (e.g. Delicious, StumbleUpon). Create a list of bookmarks that you can access from anywhere and share with anyone.
• Social networking (e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn). Lets you become friends with people and then send status updates, share information and make comments.
• Social news (e.g. Digg, reddit). Lets you post news stories and also vote on other people’s news stories.
• Video sharing (e.g. blip.tv, YouTube). Share videos and allow people to comment on them.

In future articles I’ll take a look at how you can use social media to help your small business. I’ll also look at some of the categories and services in more detail.

Are there any other categories or social media services that you’ve used, or would like to know more about?

• The site was not visual enough
• None of his most recent work was on the site
• He couldn’t track visitors to the site

After looking through the site, there were a few other things I noticed too:

• There was a sculpture menu link, which although revealing a drop-down menu couldn’t itself be clicked
• None of the pages had definite headings, making it unclear which page you were on
• The links between sculptures were previous and next instead of the titles or locations of the sculptures
• Hovering over any text made it change colour

Planning the new site

Many of the visitors to the site will be from the local authorities that commission these pieces of Public Art. Most of them will visit the site after having been sent a proposal from Richard and his team. The main aim of the site will be to show examples of Richard’s work as much of the other information will also have been sent to them in the proposal.

As the main focus of the site was a visual showcase of Richard’s work the first stage was getting the photos together. This stage was a pleasure as Richard has a wide range of high quality professional photos for each of his commissions.

We also used some of the text for the old Web site alongside writing information about the newer pieces of work.

Home page

Richard wanted to showcase more of his work on the home page, as the old site only showed a single piece of work.

The new home page features 9 images from some of Richard’s favourite commissions. As soon as visitors see the home page they can see a wide range of the work he does. Each of the photos also link to the details of that commission with more photos of the commission.

Commissions page

The original site’s commissions page did a good job of showing the logos of companies and organisations that Richard had done work with, but didn’t let visitors see a range of his work.

The new site, doesn’t show the logos any more, but instead shows some of Richard’s actual work.

As well as adding more images, the new site design solved a problem with the navigation on the original site. The individual commission pages were listed under a “Sculptures” heading that couldn’t be clicked and the summary page was listed as “Commissions” in the navigation.

Sculpture details page

The details pages were the place where Richard wanted the biggest changes. The original site had a single photo of each commission with some text describing the commission. Richard wanted to reduce the amount of “filler” text while adding more photos of each commission.

The new site designs give much more of the page to photos of the sculptures.

The footer

You might have noticed by now the footer on all the new pages.

The new footer includes links to all the pages on the site, removing the need for a separate site map page. It’s useful to have a site map, but on a relatively small site it seems a waste to have a whole page for the site map when it can be made available on every page.

The footer (and the header) also include all the contact details that were previously on their own page. If you want to provide more contact details or a map then it’s useful to have a contact page. If the only details on your contact page are an email address and a telephone number then it’s more effective just to include them in the header and footer of every page.

You can also read an extended version of this case study on Google Docs.

The 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.

5th place: Windows Internet Explorer 8

If you are using an older version of Internet Explorer then the least you should do is get the latest version.

Internet Explorer though would always be my last choice for a browser.

The first reason is security. The French and German governments have recommended using an alternative browser due to security flaws in Internet Explorer. While IE8 is not affected by the latest flaw, it’s only a matter of time before the next security hole is found.

The second reason is speed. In performance tests, Internet Explorer 8 is the slowest of the major browsers by a significant margin.

The final reason that I would avoid Internet Explorer is that it doesn’t support the latest standards. Many Web sites use style sheets to add effects like rounded corners, drop shadows and transparency. However as Internet Explorer doesn’t support the standards you’ll never see how much better the Web could look.

4th Place: Opera browser

Opera has great potential, it’s got a good reputation for security and it has very good (in fact possibly the best) support for Web standards.

So why does Opera come 4th?

Firstly Opera is the second slowest browser after Internet Explorer.

The other problem with Opera though is the relatively small number of users (about 2% in February 2010). This means that many Web designers don’t bother testing sites in Opera and so there are sometimes display problems and even problems using sites at all.

3rd Place: Safari

So now we reach the final 3.

Safari (by Apple) is a good browser. Safari is secure, it’s joint second with Firefox for speed and has good support for Web standards.

However Safari uses the same engine for displaying pages that Chrome does, so they are very similar. However Chrome wins out as it is significantly faster.

That leaves us with the final 2.

2nd Place: Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox is the most used browser (about 30%, in February 2010) after Internet Explorer (about 55%, in February 2010).

Firefox is a secure, fast (joint second with Safari) browser with great Web standards support and has a huge number of add-ons available. So why is Firefox second?

While the add-ons provide extra features, they also slow down performance. If there is a particular add-on that you will find really useful then Firefox may be the best browser for you. However for most users you’ll probably either never use the add-ons or you’ll download loads of exciting sounding add-ons. You’ll probably forget about most of the add-ons you install and never use them, but wonder why Firefox has become so slow.

1st Place: Google Chrome

So that leaves us with Google Chrome as the winner.

For most users, Chrome is the best browser because it’s secure, fast and supports the latest standards.

Chrome is the most basic browser, which is what makes it fast. The streamline approach affects the whole interface so more of your screen is used for actual Web pages instead of menus and buttons.

What do you think?

So what do you think, which browser would you recommend? It would be great to hear your thoughts and opinions.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.