Screen Resolutions and Website Design

On many of the self-updateable sites we build I often receive the following question:

The site isn't "wide"...it's not taking up my whole screen. Will it be wider? (Referring to our 800 x 600 resolution design layout)

Here is where we currently stand on the issue of website width.

When last I checked, statistically, 30% of the screens out there are still the old 800x600 format. (This is changing fast) We can go to the next size up but that means that 30% of your audience will have to scroll left to right. We do not recommend this at this time.

The second option would be to create a site that fills the entire screen. Since most of our sites have the capability to be updated by the customer an expandable site can create some issues with text formatting. In other words, the page may look full on some screen resolutions but on others my have large empty spaces or weird spacing.

The choice is ultimately the customers but at this point we recommend building to the lowest common denominator.

MSN.com is still designed at 800 x 600:

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Lumpy EmailWant to get your email marketing message opened? Make it lumpy!

A few years ago I was at a marketing meeting and had the privilege of listening to a promotional marketing guru discuss how to get your direct mail piece opened. The basic point of his whole presentation was that if your mailing piece looks like junk mail people will just throw it away. His number one suggestion was to put something in the envelope that makes it "lumpy". A pen or something like that stuffed in your direct piece has been proven to get your direct mail piece opened. When I think about this in my own office we throw away allot of mail but i always open the mail that feels like it has something in it. Since you can't put lumps in your actual email how do you make your email lumpy?

1. The From Address

• Always send your email marketing message from a personal email address- If your email marketing piece comes from an address like sales@yourcompanyname.com it looks like junk. When sent from yourname@yourcomapnyname.com it has much better odds of getting opened.
  

2. Subject Line Basics-

• Keep It Short - Short and to the point subject lines have been proven to have better open rates then long subject lines and most email clients wont display subject lines longer than 50 characters.


• Write a Very Specific Subject Line - Let them know exactly what the email is about. Don't waste valuable real estate on vague subject lines


• Make It Personal - Talk directly to the recipient. "You can save money on your next toner purchase"


• Write Like A Real Person - Avoid subject lines with all caps, exclamation points, and words like "free" and "sale.
  

For more information on email marketing services from Foremost Media please visit our email marketing services page

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Get Listed in 48 hours Guaranteed

So today I got another one of those spam emails from a company called wpromote (email address seo@seo-news.com). It was a nice looking email and they are claiming that they can get my site listed on Google, Yahoo, AOL and Ask Jeeves in 48 hours all for the bargain price of only $99.95.

Not only that but they will re-submit every 30 days there after, then I get a detailed report on which search engines they submitted my site to. WOW! All that for only $99?????

So What's The Catch? First of all, if you read the fine print they are using PPC marketing to get your site listed on the search engines. Anyone can do this. Just go to the search engine you want to run PPC adds on and set up your account for free. Save your $99 for running add words and you will be much further ahead.

Next- "resubmit every 30 days" What a waste of time. Every quality SEO professional will tell you that it is not necessary to resubmit your site to the search engines on a regular basis. Think about it, search engines like Google and yahoo have a huge interest in serving up the freshest content and best results for their surfers. How long would you continue to use Google if every time you did a search the results it served up linked to pages that have been removed or updated and the content didn't match the search results any longer.

The top search engines will revisit your site on their own on a regular basis once your site has been indexed. Don't waste your time or money having a company resubmit your site every 30 days.

The last point I wanted to bring up is the Testimonials on this email marketing piece. Like this one "I just wanted to tell you how happy I am with the service." Bradley, Utopian Universe" Let's do a Google search for Utopian Universe and see what comes up- I don't see anything even closely related to Utopian Universe pop up.

So right now you are thinking does Jon think pay per click is bad? and Do I need to resubmit my site every 30 days? The answer is no and no. Pay per click is a great form of advertising. I guess what I would say in response to this company's ad is, "What are they doing for me for the $99." Pay Per Click accounts are free to set up and can be running in less then 48 hours. Point 2, why pay to resubmit my site every 30 days when the search engines do that automatically. I guess the whole offer just seems a bit shady to me. I'll take your $99 if you are just going to throw it away any way. I could even give you an hour of search engine marketing consulting for that $99.

By the way, Here is the ad:

Until next time!

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Why Janesville Wisconsin

People ask me all the time, why is your website design company based in Janesville Wisconsin?

Great question. Janesville is not known as a hot bed of internet technology but we aim to change that. So why is Foremost Media located in Janesville, WI?

Reason #1- Janesville is close to everywhere!
Janesville is close to Madison, Wisconsin as well as Rockford, Illinois and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In fact, most of these larger WI and IL hot spots are within a 1 hour drive of downtown Janesville.

Reason #2 - Low Cost Of Living
Janesville has a relatively low cost of living when compared to other major cities in the area and that allows us to attract great Web design talent at a much more reasonable rate. In other words, a website designer in Janesville makes about 25% less then a web designer in Chicago and we pass that savings on to you. Wages are just the beginning. Office space is much cheaper in Janesville than downtown Chicago and not all Web designers and programmers want to live in the big city. Are you seeing a theme here?

Reason #3 - UW Whitewater has a great MCS Program
UW Whitewater (about a 15 minute drive from our offices in Janesville) has one of the best Management Computer Systems programs in the country. Out of our 6 full time web designers 3 of them are UW Whitewater MCS program Alums. Whitewater also has a great graphic design program as well.

Reason #4- Janesville is a great place to raise a family
Janesville offers great schools, and a safe and friendly place to raise a family. A real plus for young talented website designers to raise a family.

So do you only build websites for businesses in Janesville?
No, although many of the top Janesville businesses trust us with their online marketing, we work for businesses all over the country, from small family businesses to a fortune 200 company, Foremost Media can design a website for your business that will accomplish your online goals and fit within your budget.

Give us a call today- 608-758-4841

Or if you are in Janesville Stop in:

1339 Excalibur Dr. Janesville, WI 53546

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Blogging for business- Facts and Tips

I was doing a bit of reading tonight and came across a few interesting stats I though I would share on blogs for business.

Shop.org and Forrester Research Inc's report 2006 The State of Retailing Online Shows-

In 2005 6% of respondents offered either blogs or community forums

In 2004 9% of respondents offered blogs or community forums (Hmmm? Why are less people using blogs to promote their business???)

In this same article they had some "blogging basics" do's and dont's for a guy who is interestingly enough right in my back yard of Madison Wisconsin.

Anyway, his first do was "Plan on 10 to 15 hours a week for blogging activity...".
Holly cow, 10 to 15 hours a week????

First Tip under Don'ts- "Don't try to fool readers by using a ghostwriter pretending to be someone from the company..."

So let me get this straight, I can't get someone else to write for me and I need to spend almost 15% of my time at work working on my blog????

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Improve Your Website Position!

Every week I get at least 100 emails just like this:

Dear info

Your site is strong enough for top placement on Google! and Yahoo! With your permission, we would like to show you how we can make a difference in your online business. There is no charge for the site review and results are backed by a 100% guarantee. Email us at tammy@speedy.com.pe today and we will give you a free web site review. See how you can change the landscape of your online business. Include the site(s) you want us to look at and how you would like us to contact you.

Sincerely,
Client Care
Rocket Media

My Reply:

Tammy,

I am looking to get better rankings on my site. What do you recommend?

Jon Ballard

For my next few blog posts I am going to be contacting these unsolicited people that care so much about my site and see what they are recommending. Stay tuned!

I will analyses their responses and see if they are offering good advice or just trying to get a dollar from me. In addition I will be keeping them busy so hopefully they will stop sending you those annoying non solicited email AKA Spam! By the way, if you need good spam filtration services check out our New Spam Filtration Product.

Until Next Time!!!

Jon Ballard


Foremost Media Web Design

Janesville, WI
608-758-4841

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A article in favor of blogging for business from google

Here is a great article from google on blogging for business:

http://www.google.com/adwords/newsletters/q207/techbtob/page4.html

Why should you blog? It's an easy and informal way to keep people abreast of company activities and perspectives. While website optimization should remain a core part of your communication strategy, blogs can help you get the word out as quickly as possible. If you think you're ready to jump on the blog wagon, check out Blogger,

Google's free blogging tool. It features drag-and-drop template editing, activity reports, and privacy controls – and it only takes minutes to get started.

Here are a few best practices for all the newly minted bloggers out there:

• Educate current and potential customers about your business – how you got started, what your philosophy is, who your employees are.
• Post breaking news about your products or services when it's hot off the press.
• Make the experience more engaging and interactive with photos, videos, and RSS feeds.
• Feature links to other blogs about your industry – they may even return the favor.
• Include a link to your blog on your website (and vice versa) so visitors can
  access the full range of available information.
• Use Google Analytics to keep track of how visitors are finding your blog and where they're coming from.
• Stick to a regular update schedule.

I think these are all great ideas. I guess the point of my previous post (http://foremostmedia.blogspot.com/2007/05/to-blog-or-not-to-blog-is-blogging-for.html) was do this after you have done all of this on your site. Most of the marketing managers and business managers we deal with barley have time to update their own sites.

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How safe is your domain name?

About once a month we seem to be helping clients sort out issues they have with their domain name registration. Typically their domain name was registered with their previous webmaster and the webmaster set themselves up as the administrator.

Many of the webmasters that from the old days are no longer in business and so the clients domain expires or they need to edit DNS and they can't because technically they don't own the domain.

I guess the point of this whole post is:

If you pay someone to register a domain on your behalf, make sure that they make you the Primary Registrant and the Admin Registrant.

If you don't, you may have to pay a guy like me to help you sort it all out.

Don't wait until your domain expires or you need to make a update to your DNS info. find out who the owner of your domain is today.

You can look up the records of the domain by doing a WhoIs look up.

Here are a few links:

http://www.whois.net/
http://www.dnsstuff.com

You wouldn't purchase a building and put the deed in the contractors name. Don't build a online business that you don't own.

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Adding PDF Documents to your site (File naming structure)

I get this question alot:

I need to load some .pdf files onto the website and currently the files can only be one word and no special characters.
Example: TB030107ADaylightSavingsUpdate(2)[1].pdf

Is it possible to see if the website creators can allow us to use spaces in the file name?
Example: TB030107A – Daylight Savings Update.pdf

I think this would really clean up the look of our file download capability. Please let me know your thoughts.

Here is a great response:

Because there are many variables including different browsers, operating systems, query strings and documents being stored in databases, standard practice is to leave out special characters and spaces from actual file names.

In summary, if you wanted to try uploading files with spaces, we obviously can’t say no. Just keep in mind that erratic behavior in communication between all the different computers, browsers and databases is a possible outcome.

Also, keep in mind that you can change the Titles/descriptions that appear on the front end of the website however you see fit.

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To blog or not to blog- Is blogging for a business a waste of time?

I bet 2 or 3 times a month I get a question like this posed to me-

"I would like to start a blog site on my website. Another company told me they are having a lot of success. Is this something that you can help me with? What are your thoughts about such a thing in B to B??!"

or

"I just went to a seminar and one of the mini sessions was on blogging. They told me every business should have a blog. How do I put one on my website?"

I am sure I will get a bunch of greif for this but here is my take on blogging (Keep in mind most of the websites we build have a complete CMS (Content Managment System) in place that allows the site owner to make changes quickly and easily in a WYSIWYG editor (What You See Is What You Get).

Personally I think it is a waste of time for most businesses.

NOW BEFORE YOU BLOGGERS GET YOUR PANTIES IN A BUNCH AND LEAVE ME A BUCH OF HATE MAIL CONSIDER THIS-

If it were my site I would just assume spend the time updating the content and performing SEO on my current site then trying to maintain a blog. Most companies don't update their website very often and that is the where I would start. Most of what you put on a blog can be put on your website. If you have all that in place and still have time to blog then blog away. It can't hurt.

This is just my take on it but the primary benefit of a blog is the ease of use. In other words it is easy for non technical people to add content quickly. When you have the skills to add content or you have a site that is easy to maintain, I believe you are better off adding it on the site itself.

I may be wrong and I am sure that some businesses have acheived great results but if you were to compare the time spent improving your site and adding content to the time spent blogging I would propose that the time spent improving your site would offer the best return on investment.

The exception to that rule is if you have a product or service that warrants discussion. Blogs have the ability for people to leave comments (which can be good or bad) but it does add some layer of customer interaction.

(I get this question allot. Perhaps I should post it on my blog or maybe just in my FAQ's on my website)

(Just my 2 Cents)

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