How to Not Drive Your Web Designer Crazy
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- Published on Friday, 10 February 2012 16:05
This is a topic near and dear to my heart. As you probably know, I do Online Marketing and Website Design for a living. I generally love my clients, but almost universally they share one common belief that will drive me and every other web designer to drink. What is this terrible myth, this disastrous misconception? Very simple. They think I know what they do.
Now that may not sound like much, but in practice it means that they often don't understand why I can't just create content for their sites out of thin air. I do my best with what they give me. Often I CAN spin straw into gold (or at least silver). But I do have to have some straw to start with.
So here is a short list of the things your website designer will need. Not everything here applies to every website, but you will need most of them.
- Basic Contact info, such as address, telephone, email (if the designer did not set it up for you) and Fax if you have one.
- A description of your business, including what you do, how long you have been in business and why a customer should choose you over one of your competitors.
- Some information about the key players in your business. You need short bios of at least the owner or officers.
- Picture of anything that is specific to your business that you want to show your customers. I can get generic clip art, but I need pictures from you of your business location, products, completed projects, etc.
- Product specifics for anything you are selling. People come to your website to get in-depth info, and they will go elsewhere if you don't give it to them.
It may not look like a long list, but it usually takes weeks or months for clients to get everything together. So get started now. Remember, a designer can make you look good, but you are the only one who really knows what you want to say. By the way, don't be afraid to insist on having it done the way you want. A good designer will always try to accommodate a clients requests unless some important consideration (such as using keyword phrase to get good search engine results) is in conflict.
Social Media Made Easy
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- Published on Monday, 12 March 2012 11:47
Social Media is a Pain
Let's face it, trying to do Social Media Marketing is a lot of work. You need accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Linked In, plus a blog on your website. Then you have to keep generating new content for all of these places. Frankly, very few small business owners have the time to keep up with it. Heck, i've seen major corporations that couldn't manage to get it done. But there is a simpler way. In this post I'll show you the secret of using Twitter as a "feed" to you other social media destinations.
Twitter is the Answer
Now let me say something right up front. I despise Twitter. The idea of "following" the random thoughts and events of someone else's life, particularly someone I don't know personally, seems to me like turning life into a spectator sport. I have lots of better things to do.
Having said that, it turns out that Twitter, almost accidentally, has become a free and easy way to regularly feed new content to your website, Facebook and other social media sites. Here is how it works.
Twitter Feed Integration
Use Twitter as a feed engine to push small snippets of content to other destinations. It's just that simple. Let me show you how it works.
- Obviously, to get started you need a Twitter account. If you don't already have one, set it up now. It's free and easy.
- Now add a Twitter module to the appropriate page (usually the Home page) of your website. Modules that take whatever you Tweet and show it on the webpage are easy to find, usually for free. For an example of what this looks like visit http://cuephoria.com/ (one of my clients) and look in the lower-right corner of the Home page. The owner of Cue-Phoria finds it relatively easy to post at least one Tweet a day, keeping the content of his Home page fresh and the search engines happy.
- On your Facebook account (again, if you don't have one, get one now), add the widget to post Tweets on your Facebook wall. Now the same content is updating two separate locations.
- On Linked In and any other social media sites to which you belong, also add the Twitter feed. (If they don't support it, you have to ask if they are really worth belonging to.)
You can now add fresh content, in small, easy to create Tweets, to your website and all of your social media sites at the same time. Add a Twitter app to your smart phone and you can do it at any time and from any place (but please not while you're driving).
What Is This Place?
The Giant Killer is dedicated to showing how old ideas combined with new technology can "level the playing field" for small businesses against their larger competitors, both locally and online.
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