MikeyCampling

If you’re a web pro, then what I’m about to say will be obvious.  But if you’re just dipping your toe into the wonderful world of the web, read on.

Stage 1 – They’ve got one, I want one.

Stop. Take a cold shower.

Better now? OK.  Listen.  Web projects are complicated.  Yes, I know your nephew made a website for his rockband and he’s only twelve but then, just because I can make a pretty good macaroni cheese, I don’t claim to be a chef.  If you want your site to be effective, it’s got to be done correctly and that will take time.  And it will cost money.

I may be shooting myself in the foot here, but please stop and ask yourself if you really do need a website.  Will it be a worthwhile investment?  Will it actually increase your sales or make your life easier in some way?

If you aren’t ready yet, then please wait.  So many small businesses have awful websites and, as a consumer, I find that bad websites put me off.  By all means, register a domain name.  Many registrars will allow you a free parking page and an email address and both could be useful.

Stage 2 – I’m ready to go online.

Great.  So your business is going according to plan.  You have some cash to spend and some time to spare. Your site can be up and running by next Tuesday – right?

Wrong.

It’s time to think and plan. But not about websites – about people.

Who will be the stakeholders in this project?  Who will take responsibility for it?  How will your users interact with your site?

Get all your stakeholders together and get them talking.  Try to value everyone’s contributions.  Do your best to get everyone involved.

Try to pin down some measurable objectives for your site, e.g. we will increase sales by 10% over 12 months.

Stage 3 – Talk to the Pros

Research your local webdesigners.  Try to meet with a few of them. Do they seem willing to understand you and your objectives?

You’re going to have to build a relationship with your designer so consider if you could work with them long-term.

Avoid anyone who promises you the moon (i.e. a number one ranking on google) for a suspiciously low cost.

If money is tight, consider using a one man band; they’ll have lower overheads.  Also, be prepared to balance cost and time.  A large agency can charge more but will employ several people to get the job done quickly.  If you can wait, you could save a lot of money.

Stage 4 – Go for it.

It’s time to commit.  Agree a timescale and a budget with your designer.

At this stage, don’t forget those stakeholders.  Keep them informed and share progress with them.  Ask for their opinions but don’t let them derail your project – remember those objectives.

A couple of pleas here.

Don’t expect your designer to work without a contract (if they are – be suspicious).

Please don’t expect a designer to prepare any preliminary work for no pay.

Stage 5 – Test and sign off.

Don’t sign off your project until you’ve tested it with stakeholders and users.  A good designer will encourage you to do this – but don’t expect them to hang around forever.  A couple of weeks of intensive updates and modifications should cover it, but discuss this with your designer.

Stage 6 – Review

Some web guru said that websites are never finished, only abandoned.  Monitor your website, check your analytics (or pay a pro to do this for you) and be prepared to pay for any modifications that you request after you’ve signed the project off.  Look out for new opportunities as the online world changes and expands, e.g. social media integration, advertising, e-commerce, email newsletters.  If your site has been well-built, it should provide a solid foundation for your online future.

That’s it.

Very brief I know, but perhaps you can suggest some additions?

Google have produced a whole bunch of videos to get you started with adwords.  They’re generally quite useful and a lot more interesting than ploughing through the reams of online documentation that they also provide.  This video is a little twee, but if you’re not sure what adwords are all about, it may enlighten you.  Of course, you could always just hire me to set up and monitor your adwords campaign, and then you could relax and let me take the strain.

I’m proud to announce the launch of Edububble at edububble.co.uk.

Edububble is all about putting students, teachers and other educators in the driving seat of their online experience.  Having had the privilege of working with young people (as a teacher) for over ten years, I understand the constant pressure of time that staff feel; teachers want to create great online projects, they just don’t have the time.  That’s why edububble is a fully supported online solution.

Edububble sites are easy to maintain, but for a reasonable monthly fee, you get the security of knowing that I’m here to act as your Web Manager.

If you’re involved in education, then have your website the way you want it – have an edububble.

I know I’ve mentioned my web hosts (tsohost.co.uk) in an earlier post, but this time I’m proud to announce that I’m now an affiliate at tsohost.  They really do offer an excellent service and I have no hesitation in recommending them.  Their hosting packages offer outstanding value and their support is prompt, efficient and reliable.

So if you’d like to check out an excellent hosting provider, just click on the following link:

If, like me, you’re a compulsive trialler of software, you’ll want to head over to Livebrush for a twiddle with their awe-inspiring painting program.

The basic version is free, but has limited export capabilities.  Having said that, the pro version is only $10 (just over £6.00) so it won’t break the bank.  What it will do, is have you saying, “But that effect would’ve taken me ages in photoshop/illustrator/etc.”

Paying the £6 allows you to export your creations as vectors (svg format), but you can also export png files of the whole image, or just selected layers.

Unbelievably, you can work in pixels or vectors and play around with layer blending modes and a plethora of settings.

There are still a few niggles – e.g. you can import new styles from the forum, but the app doesn’t remember them.  According to their forum, they’re going to fix that soon, and it’s worth remembering that it’s still early days.

I think it has massive potential, and if you’ve ever spent hours carefully drawing a floral swirl or a light-ribbon, you’ll know just what I mean when you find Livebrush will do it in 2 seconds.

Go play!

It’s an Adobe Air application, so it should work smoothly on all major operating systems.

This is something that so many of us find hard – pitching the cost correctly.

So it’s brilliant to see this anonymous survey at the web design blog, that asked designers to report on their charges.

At the time I read it, the average hourly rate was £34, with the following average charges:

simple static website  – £362

basic CMS site – £1,110

e-commerce site – £2,867

I have to say that, as someone who spends a lot of time working in the education sector, I don’t charge that much.  But there’s more to life than money and we all need to take job satisfaction and work-life balance into account.

At least, that’s what we must keep telling ourselves!

Just a brief post today to say, ” I love Windows 7″.

I enjoy using my computer again.  It’s fresh, it’s exciting, it makes that awful nightmare memory of vista go away.

If you haven’t got it yet, then do your research, check your pc will run it, look for a good deal, and go for it.

My one regret is that I didn’t get that family pack for 3 pc’s in time.

But DO look for deals and promotions – Microsoft has quite a few out there.  Look for academic pricing, public sector employee schemes and the home user programme.  If you find agood deal, let me know and I’ll share it.

Thanks, as ever, for taking the time.

I’m proud to announce that Nikki Racey’s site has been successfully transferred to a new web host.  I originally built Nikki’s site some time ago, and many people have been kind enough to say how much they liked it.

Here’s a link: Visit Nikki’s site.

But in those days I was using a cheap host, over in the US and I’ve learned that in web hosting, like so much else, you get what you pay for.  So I transferred to a UK host,  hoping to achieve reliability and prompt support (of course there’s a time difference with US companies).

At first I tried UK2 – a mistake and a costly one at that.  They were unreliable, their support wasn’t even mediocre and I ended up paying just to transfer some domains away from them.  A stressful experience.

And then I found TSO.  What a relief.  TSO are not expensive and yet their service is superb.  One time, whilst I was trying to transfer a domain name that was still tied up at UK2, TSO even gave me a refund, although they were in no way to blame – how often do you get service like that?

I’ll just point out that I am not affiliated with TSO – I don’t think they even have an affiliate scheme.  They are a small company who take pride in what they do.

I’m just a very satisfied customer, so here’s a link to their site:

Visit TSO Web Hosting.

So which is better…

to tweet your blogs or blog your tweets?

And should you tweet and update your facebook status simultaneously with tweetdeck?

And what about your Linked In profile?  You can add your blog posts and your tweets to that – but what if they’re the same (see first point above)?

And what – horror of horrors – if you really don’t have that many interesting things to say?

Much is made of the marketing and communication possibilities of social networking, but you have to keep one foot in the real world.  Social networking can be a dreadful time-waster and it can be very hard to judge whether it has any real effect.  If my experience of using the internet has taught me anything, it’s that most people will click on just about anything – and then hit the back button.  Clicks and subscription numbers are no guarantee of success.

Sure, there have been carefully orchestrated campaigns that have successfully capitalised on these media – but we never hear about the countless number of efforts that have not amounted to anything.  I follow 6 tweeters.  When that number was only 2, I read everything.  Now, sadly, I hardly read any of them.

So by all means enjoy your social networking – I do.  But don’t let it take over your life.

And if you’ve got any thoughts about these ideas, then why not comment, subscribe to the RSS, follow the tweets, fan the facebook, digg it, stumbleupon it, link to it or, if you feel like it, just emit a hollow laugh.

Thanks for taking the time.

I’m looking forward to sharing some ideas with you, but I’m not quite there yet.

Come back soon and next time I’ll put the kettle on and open a packet of biscuits.

Nice ones too – not custard creams.