CMG Brainstorming Blog

Is Your Web Site Full of Cobwebs?

2008-04-20T12:00:00Z

Finally spring time has sprung in the South. I always get in the mood for that fresh start, that spring cleaning mode every year right when the dogwoods are in full bloom in the woods behind the office . Just like we spring clean our homes, change the smoke detector batteries and clean out the cobwebs, when was the last time your cleaned out the cobwebs from your website?

When was the last time you changed any content on your present site? ...yesterday? ...last week? ...last month? ...don't tell me it was last year! We hear things like, "You mean you can do that!" A recent survey reveals that while many site owners understand the need for frequent updating, a good portion still do not, with 37 percent of respondents saying they update content daily, 16 percent weekly, 16 percent monthly and a whopping 31 percent annually.

While many Web sites keep their content fresh and alive, updating links and content often, many do not. Look I know your busy, but this month would be a great time to carefully evaluate your site's content, run maintenance programs to check for broken links (with a plan to do this regularly), and overhaul any of your outdated content, images or applications that are not being used. Fresh content that is updated regularly is key now a days in improving your rank in the search engines as well. The easiest way to do that is to add a company blog to your site where you can share customer success stories, talk about trends in your industry and share information with potential customers that builds their trust in your comapny.

Does your site appear fresh, or does it need some updating? Sometimes bringing your site more current is as simple as adding some fresh content and archiving the old, while other times you may be getting due for a redesign or complete overhaul in order to stay competitive. Your Web site is the most cost effective marketing tool your business can use and the easiest to respond to your customers demands.

Have some friends or colleagues look at your site for you and ask them for honest critiques. Often times we can't see the forest for the trees, so to speak, so asking others to take a look can bring a different, fresh perspective. Ask them to tell you if your site is easy to navigate, if they find any dead links, if the content is helpful and interesting, and if they have any ideas that might improve your site.

Here are some tips to ensure a fresh and vital website:

Establish a regular housekeeping schedule. Determine how often you will introduce new content on your site.
Remove or refresh stale content. Remove all expired offers, products or services and update information that has changed. Be sure to update featured articles and archive that old articles in a separate section in your site for reference.
Make your presentation current. Even if your product or service is fairly static, find a way to show that the site is up-to-date.
Periodically test all the links within your site to be sure they work properly. This is especially true if you link off to other sites. They sometimes change where they place their content or remove the page completely.

Cleaning the spring cobwebs out of your site can often time revitalize your Internet results for the remainder of the year. For additional ideas on refreshing your site for the spring contact us at 770.717.0837 to talk to one of our website engineers.

What Are Your Basic Expectations Of Web Designers?

2008-04-09T15:24:20Z

I was at a networking function for the International Business Academy, LLC recently and part of our speaker's table top exercise was to go around the table and each person ask this question, "What expectations do you have of a ____________ that you would do business with?'. As we went around the table it was very revealing to me as to what the business community thought of each others industries. When it was my turn I asked the question, "What expectations do you have of a web development firm that you would do business with?" I have to admit that the answers were very to the point and interesting enough riddled with emotion that was prompted from many bad experiences with so called professionals in our industry. The strong emotionals revealed in their answers was something I was surprised by. Here are some of their comments:

• I like to get a website that works! This person was on her third web developer and interviewing a fourth after our breakfast meeting in hopes she could find someone that would get her site to function properly and her shopping cart to at least take orders consistently. You could tell from her voice she was frustrated to say the least since her company's future growth depended on her website working 24/7.
• I would like to find someone that I can depend on for support and ongoing ideas to help me grow. That seems to be the general consensus of those at the table. They all wished they could get prompt support when they needed it. Many commented that when they went back to their original web person they were no where to be found. As to getting new ideas to help them grow, many designers are notorious for the statement, "Tell me what you want and I'll create it!" What's the point? If all our clients knew what they wanted they wouldn't need us. Most of the time our customers have no clue how all of this technology works nor do they care, they just want ongoing ideas that will drive sales and grow their brand online. In our opinion that the fun part of our job, helping companies grow by discussing how you can use technology to create an affinity with your brand!
• I'd like to have a design that was unique, simple and clean instead of some template? While templates are good for those on very, very tight budgets, there is nothing like having a custom designed site done that is specific to your needs, customers and is simple in design and navigation. We have found that with our simple, clean designs we can make any company look like a million bucks for far less than they might think.
• I'd like to find a developer that will design my site so it's flexible and expandable as I grow. Great web development firms always make this a priority. If you don't hear that your new website will be flexible and expandable long term from your current web development company's lips when it's time for a strategic makeover, run to get help immediately!! As a business owner myself, I have to get long term value from every investment I make. I'm drive to make sure our clients get the same.

I was surprised to hear these complaints from the various companies at the table but what they were concerned and frustrated about most are the sort of services we commit to do every day with our customers. Our mission is simple! "Make sure that your company's brand is IN demand 24/7 on the World Wide Web." By creating simple and compelling websites that work all of the time, constantly sharing unique strategies that build relationships with your site visitors and your company's brand of products, we make sure you get a great return on your investment long term.

By the way, over coffee after breakfast we all got to talking and sharing about some really great ideas that all of us have been using successfully to grow our brands online. If you 'd like to find out more about those ideas just email me at mark@csmediagroup.com and I'll send you a copy of my notes.

What Features Do You Needed On A Blog Site?

2008-03-07T13:35:29Z

With the incredible popularity of 'blogging' over the past few years it is becoming easier and easier to enter the world of social networking. If you haven't already entered this space on the Internet you need to consider what essential features are needed for a successful blog. Here are just a few:

Flexible Layout. It seems if you've been to one Blogger blog you've been to them all. Having the capability to make your blog look different to the other estimated 27+ million blogs out there is a good thing. Take the time to investigate the many free templates that are available with so many different blog solutions. It will help you stand out!
Browser Based Editing. This makes getting content online easy as well as makes any edits, changes or additions a simple task.
Automated Publishing. FTP Who? You shouldn't have to mess with complicated file transfers; you want to simply click a button and your posts appear. Having text formatting and spell checking is a real must have feature!
Categories. This feature makes it easy for you to split your entries into categories that will make it easier for your site visitor to find them.
Search Engine Optimized URLs. If your written a post, you don't want your URL to be something like www.myblog.com/4586972.html?myleftfoot. You need to be able to squeeze every ounce of search engine optimization (SEO) out of your post. So having a URL that includes keywords about a post is a useful tool in getting your posts ranked.
Comment Systems. A critical feature. The comment system is the number one way your blog site becomes sticky (how likely a visitor will return). The free for all commenting is something bloggers have embraced and has contributed to the explosion in its popularity. Many corporate sites that have blogs are afraid to go down this path. In some ways it makes sense but in others if you make a great product let your customers comments spread the word about how great you are.
Syndication Feeds. When you go to a site you see the RSS icon. This is an application that pushes your posts onto other RSS readers. Some email clients such as Thunderbird come with RSS readers, as do personal sites like Yahoo. The interesting aspect of this RSS feed is that a website can read a RSS feed. Which means your posts can appear on other websites automatically. It's a great way to syndicate your blog in real-time the will get you even more readership. Best part, its automatic!
Email Notification. When you make a post, wouldn't it be great if you had an email list that got notified every time you made a post? Granted this is another subject beyond blogging involving SPAM.
Search. The more you opine, the more your archive of content will grow. Having a robust search tool helps your website visitors find your post related to the topics they are interested in. Face it, on the web you are either a searcher or a browser when you land on a page. Some visitors will automatically look for a search as the first thing they do when they go to a blog or website.
Trackback. This is where it can get complicated. Simply put, you read a post, and you comment about it on your blog. You place the URL to the post in yours and the blog picks up your post and leaves it as a comment in the other's post.

Just remember that your blog isn't about widgets and gizmos; it's really all about the quality of the content. You need to make sure you have a tools that can help you organize and present your blog posts as easily as possible. If you have any questions or need any additional information how a blog and super charge your business give us a call. There's nothing we love more than sitting down with our clients and collaborating on innovative strategies that produce the results you're looking for.

Technology in Combination with a Handwritten Note Creates Results

2007-12-15T14:47:33Z

Here's an interesting low tech idea on sales prospecting in what has rapidly become a high tech world.

Sales 2.0 is focused on using technology tools to reduce sales cycles and increase productivity. New and improved technology will only get you so far — at some point you must create a warm connection.

With over a 99% open rate, a handwritten note is a dynamic tool in combination with new technology to warm up a targeted prospect and get in the door. Use technology on business networks like LinkedIn to research and target prospects. Then connect using a handwritten note as a first contact and see the results of a dramatically warmer reception when you follow-up by phone.

A Profits in Progress client saw a 500% increase in set appointments by warming his prospects with a handwritten note for the first contact. “As a way of generating a warm reception to a cold call, I created a campaign using Profits in Progress note cards and a custom leather coaster. I handwrote a note to the CEO of my targeted client, including a leather coaster. I followed up with a phone call to make sure he received his 'gift'. As a result of the first 100 mailed, I was able to personally talk with 30 of the recipients, set up 6 appointments and close 4 sales. As a comparison, prior to this campaign, it was considered a success to set 1 appointment for every 100 calls.” – Jeff M.

The Note-Working Success System makes it easy to put your pen to paper and get noticed every time. With beautiful note cards that are exclusive to subscribers of the system the month they are released along with sample messages and tracking sheets to measure results, this system is designed to help you write a note in only a few minutes and make a dramatic connection that produces results.

Vanessa Lowry is a connection expert and owner of Profits in Progress, helping businesses integrate the dynamic tool of handwritten notes into their marketing strategies to get noticed and make their recipient feel valued. She can be contacted at vlowry@profitsinprogress.com or 678-521-8820. www.ProfitsinProgress.com

Four reasons to upgrade to Flash Player 9

2007-12-14T20:02:02Z

If you have experienced rich media on the web, including the likes of fully animated websites, interactive video, or even video chat rooms, then you are experiencing the power of Flash. As many of you know, having a Flash player installed in your browsers will allow you to enjoy these fruits of the net. With Adobe constantly upgrading their software it’s good to have the latest and greatest Flash player installed. The best part of the installation is it’s free! Here are some reasons to upgrade to Flash Player 9 from Adobe:

1.    Flash Player 9 builds on improvements from Flash Player 8 to execute content and applications faster. That means quicker downloads of Flash media.

2.    Improved security for user’s sensitive data, and URLs to help ensure safer browsing.

3.    Improved video compression technology. Bringing the users low-bandwidth and high-bandwidth video quicker downloading times.

4.    HD quality web video and audio. Flash Player 9 now includes H.264 standard video support, the same standard deployed in Blu-Ray and HD-DVD high definition video players, and High Efficiency ACC (HE-ACC) audio capabilities.

With Flash installed on over 820 million Internet connected desktops and mobile devices it’s no wonder the upgrades keep coming. Don’t get left behind.

The Importance of Web Standards

2007-12-14T16:39:46Z

Web Standards is generally defined by a set of principles that are meant to make websites more accessible, more usable, more findable, and easier to update. There are many factors that contribute to web standards and there are a few different organizations or groups that attempt to define them. For the purpose of this article I'm going to focus on a few of the most common and important implementations of web standards.

1. CSS Instead of Tables - For years websites were built using tables. This was because many early web developers came from print design backgrounds and tables provided a familiar way to layout a page. As the web evolved and websites became larger and more complex a new way of building sites was needed. That's where Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) entered the picture. CSS provides for more flexibility in a design. It allows you to place any element at an exact point in a design rather than having to fit the element into a series of boxes, which is what tables required.

2. Less Code = Less Load Time = Happier Users - One of the benefits of using CSS instead of tables is that CSS reduces the amount of code needed to generate a page. Previously a complex site would require hundreds and hundreds of lines of code in order to create enough tables to fit the content into. CSS requires very little code to accomplish the same goal because of the freedom the designer has in manipulating the elements in a design. Moreover, the CSS is kept external from the main HTML page which means the browser has less code to load which results in the page itself loading faster. Internet users have short attention spans and anything you can do to make your site display faster is a good thing.

3. Accessibility and Usability - With more and more users viewing your website in ways other than the standard monitor on a desk it becomes necessary to build sites flexible enough to display properly in many different formats. What if someone wants to view your site on a cell phone? With CSS you can create a separate stylesheet that is only visible to those types of browsers. What if a blind person comes to your website? At least 1.5 million blind people use computers. That is a sizable audience. Web standards requires a site to be built using code that can be read by screen readers. So if a blind person views a web standards site they won't be bogged down with too much unreadable code and the imagery on the site will be replaced by a short description of that image. This results in a more pleasant browsing experience for everyone.

4. Findability - A website built using web standards is more easily indexed by the search engines. This is an important part of Search Engine Optimization. You can fill your site with keywords but if Google chokes on the code then it won't matter. Using less code, by using CSS and following web standards, will help you on your way to becoming number one in the search engines.

Conclusion - If your website is more than a few years old or was created by a firm unfamiliar with web standards then it is likely holding you back. As we've said before in this space, there are many different factors that contribute to a successful website and following web standards is an important one.

For more information on web standards:

Webstandards.org

Rockwood Materials Handling Website Launched

2007-12-12T22:41:11Z

Cornerstone Media Group is pleased to announce the launch of another successful website project. We recently launched a new website for Rockwood Materials Handling.

For Rockwood we created a new design to better describe what services they offer and what industries they work with. We did this by incorporating interactive Flash imagery into the home page as well as descriptive page titles and file names. Also, using more descriptive files names and page titles helps to increase Rockwood's visibility in the search engines. We also incorporated various other industry standard Search Engine Optimization techniques to make the Rockwood name more visible throughout the internet.

Hendrick Law Firm Website Launch

2007-11-29T22:17:06Z

Cornerstone Media Group is pleased to announce the launch of our latest website for Hendrick Phillips Salzman & Flatt. HPSF is a leader in construction law in Atlanta and it was important for us to communicate visually their experience and personality. We accomplished this through imagery related to both the law field and the construction field. A color palette of dark blue and brown was used to complement their logo and to indicate professionalism and trustworthiness.

Organic SEO vs. Pay Per Click (PPC)

2007-11-26T06:59:35Z

For the past few months we seen a heated debate rising as to which is better - organic search engine optimization or pay per click. Both organic search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click (PPC) search are important just as public relations and advertising co-exist. It really isn't an either/or situation for both of these methods of creating awareness about your company. The relative sucess of public relations and advertising is different for every company. Similarly the mix for SEO and PPC varies from marketer to marketer.

So what is Organic SEO? It's making sure your site is optimized to aquire link popularity to gain more view results. This translates into a higher ranking on search engines related to your choosen search terms and keyword phrases.

What is PPC? You are buying clicks or site visitors from a search engine. At the end of the day PPC is a broad market place where you are buying and selling eyeballs for any given website. Pricing varies on what you pay per click. It really depends on how popular your category is such as real estate, fishing and automobiles. The more popular the category the more you will pay per click through to your site. The higher the margins of profit you have on a product will allow you to determine how aggressively you will be able to dominate your market. The more money you have to bid for placement will speed your results.

No matter if you use Organic SEO or PPC you need to be able to get access to your site statistics, analytics and metrics in order to know what sort of return on your investment you are getting on both methods. It really boils down to how soon do you need results? While getting your site ranked nationally through organic methods will take time, you should consider local search engine rankings since often times your competition hasn't. Right now over 20% of the searches being conducted online are local in nature. That number will rise in the next two years significantly.

One fundamental question you need to ask yourself is how soon do you need results? Understand that organic results will take 2-6 months to get the sort of results you want. The more resources, time and money you can spend on either will increase the number of eyeballs coming to your site. It should be noted that organic results are felt to be more trustworthy by your potential visitor.

Next week we will discuss some of the factors that will effect your success or failure in growing your sites traffic. See you then

What Is The Web Saying About You?

2007-11-19T22:54:50Z

If you were to go the web now and search on your name you may get bits and pieces about who you are, your professional successes and what your business is all about. But the information is often time fragmented and often time not quite accurate.

Have you ever wanted to just add a line or two to a posting on the Internet about you related to you to make it sound better but were unable to to get in touch with the one that posted your information to make some changes?

What if you could have complete control of what you want the web to say about you? In your words and with your facts! By having control of what the Web is saying about you it is the only way I know you can build your own personal brand the only other way would be to go through the time and expense of building your own personal website. as busy professionals we don't necessarily have the time or the knowledge to create such a site. Now that has all changed!

Cornerstone Media Group and qAlias have team up to provide you with a way to get your name number one in Google and Yahoo that combined is being used over 75% of the time by people wanting to know more about you before they do business.

A real advantage of qAlias is that you can send a personalized bulletin that presents a focused, effective message to your family, friends and more importantly customers right from your profile about anything you want, as often as you want. This is a great way to stay in touch with your customers when your business has an announcement. Depending on the size of your company (50 person minimum) we can even customize the background to reflect your brand and company's image. From your own personal bio to your business card online you are taking control of what the Web is saying about you at qAlias.

If you are a soon to be college grad or looking for a new job you can post your resume for downloading 24/7 from your profile on qAlias. It can be downloaded by anyone searching for innovative people they are looking for to fill some of the best jobs in the world.

For more information visit the qAlias website. Hey! Just Google me, Mark Treager to see just a small sample of the sort of personal results you can achieve using the amazing technology from qAlias.

The Benefits of a Professional Logo

2007-11-12T22:53:09Z

Surprisingly many companies today still do not see the impact that their company logo has on growing their business. They don't realize that it...

Establishes Your Identity
A strong identity will help your business attract new customers and keep existing customers coming back.

Reinforces Your Brand
Familiarity is vital to growing your business. Logo design is a primary factor since your company logo is the cornerstone of all of your marketing and promotional material. A unique logo will not only tell people what and who you are but it will set you apart from the competition.

Create a long-term impression with your company logo design
Nike, Mercedes, Samsung. Each of these companies created a long-term impression with their logo. An effective logo design can help turn your business into a household name. Apple reinvented itself with a new version of their logo design. Burger King did the same so did Adidas, and UPS. They did not spend millions for a nice looking design, they did it for one simple reason, a logo design defines a company’s direction and character.

Professional corporate logo design increases credibility
Competition is fierce in today's economy. Business owners, small and large, need to gain credibility in order to contend with existing industry leaders and gain market share. A corporate logo design properly used will allow you to create your brand and effectively market your product or service. We will not only design your new business logo design but we will show you how to use your logo design effectively.

Hiring The Perfect Salesman!

2007-11-06T22:50:29Z

Any business owner will tell you that there is no such thing as a perfect salesman! If you listen long enough you'll find that many salesmen are often categorized as lazy, arrogant, self centered, over paid, hired guns that get to do nothing but entertain clients and play golf three times a week. Sound pretty darn good! As a matter of fact where can I sign up for a job like that?

What if you could hire the perfect salesman for your company? Wouldn't you agree that the perfect salesman should have some if not all of the following characteristics:

- Always shows up for work on time
- Works late and on weekends
- Has a great work ethic
- Only needs to be paid once a year
- Doesn't need any benefits
- Never takes a vacation
- Never calls in sick
- Never needs personal or sick days
- Never talks back to you
- Never wines or complains about his work
- Never asks for a raise
- Does what you tell them to do immediately
- Hangs on your every word
- Constantly giving you feedback on your customers
- Provides you with a completed activity report every day
- Grows your bottom line growth by at least 10% a year
- Is always willing to travel the globe to tell your story and to close deals

You would have to agree that finding such a salesman like that would never happen or could it be possible? In reality you could have such a salesman like that in a well designed, professional website. A well engineered website will do all the things a perfect salesman can do and more.

It always surprises us to hear that over 60% of small businesses in America have no web presence at all. And the remaining ones don't realize that an effective website is the single most critical business marketing tool they should have! Long before you hire a real flesh and blood salesman hire, train, develop and invest in your virtual salesman first.

Most business owners don't realize that the moment their new website launches their company just went global. No amount of advertising will give that far of a reach for just a few thousand dollars invested in your business.

If you are looking for that perfect salesman you really don't have to go to far! Be sure your company is working with a well established Internet marketing and design firm. It will ensure your investment in that 'perfect' salesman keeps growing your bottom line.

How do I get started in building an online store?

2007-07-16T21:46:20Z

There are two primary tasks involved in building and opening a Web store: planning and implementation.

Planning
Having a successful Web store involves much more than just an "If you build it, they will come" mentality. You aren't ready to get started until you've done a significant amount of planning.

Decide What to Sell
The products that you offer for sale are - of course - a critical factor in ensuring the success of your store. Here are some questions that you should consider when evaluating your product offerings:

1. Uniqueness - Are you offering unique items for sale, meaning that they are either one-of-a-kind or are not offered for sale anywhere else? Or are the products in your store easy to find in other Web stores?

2. Competition - If your products are also available from other Web stores, have you spent time browsing in those stores? Have you compared their prices with what you plan to charge? What is it about your store that will draw customers away from competitors' stores?

3. Profit Margin - For products that you buy at wholesale, is your markup enough to provide you with some profit? For products that you make, will you earn a fair return on the time that you invested? Most merchants aren't trying to run their Web stores as non-profit organizations!

4. Organize Your Products
The ease with which customers can find the products that they're looking for is a critical factor in sales. If you are planning on selling more than one type of product, you need to have planned out the organization of your store prior to building it. You should categorize your products in ways that your customers are likely to look for them, and then plan to place them on pages that reflect those categories. Obviously, a store with thousands of products will require a more advanced organization.

Even great advertising can't replace good organization in helping your store to succeed.

A Picture is Worth...
Your store will be more useful and appealing to customers if you include pictures of each product. You should also consider having an appealing logo on the first page of your store, and perhaps a smaller version of the logo on all other pages. Pictures must be in jpg or gif format. If you have the ability to scan and edit images yourself, you can simply create the images and store them for later. Otherwise, hire a graphic designer to take photographs, or use photographs that you supply, and use them to produce images in jpg format. When you receive the images from the graphic artist, store them on your computer. You'll be able to upload them to your Web store when you're building your store.

Gather Product Information
Knowing what you're going to sell and having pictures of those items is a large part of the preparation for building your store, but you should also gather other information about your products. Having product information on hand will make building your store much faster and less frustrating. Specifically, you should have:

- Product names
- Product descriptions
- Product pictures
- Product prices
- Product SKUs or other tracking numbers if you use that information for inventory and shipping
- Product shipping weight, if you intend to charge for shipping by weight
- Planning Payment, Tax, and Shipping Policies

Once you've planned your products, you need to plan for transaction processing and fulfillment. Specifically:

1. What types of payment methods will you accept in your store? If you're planning on accepting credit cards, how will you process those payments? You can perform offline credit card processing, such as with a POS machine, or you can perform online credit card processing with some e-commerce plans. Any method of credit card processing requires that you have a merchant account and an account with a transaction processing company. Your Verio sales representative can help you sign up for those accounts.

2. How much tax do you need to collect, and from whom? If you are not already an experienced merchant, you need to consult a tax expert who is familiar with tax laws in your jurisdiction. Sales tax on Internet sales is still debated and misunderstood, but generally you need to collect tax from customers in states where your store has nexus - which is defined as a physical presence - even if it is just your office or warehouse. You may also need to collect at a higher rate from customers in your home city or county. You generally do not need to collect sales tax from customers in states where your store does not have nexus. These are just general guidelines and may not apply to your situation-consult a tax professional to make sure that your store complies with the laws of your location.

3. What shipping methods will you offer and how much will you charge? 3000 and 4000 level plans offer real-time UPS shipping charges, and all plans offer many other methods of calculating shipping charges, such as shipping by weight, shipping by currency (price), and charging a base rate plus an additional amount for each product. You should register or contract with a shipping service and find out what you need to know in order to charge the correct amount for each product and shipment.

Implementation
Once you've completed your planning, you're ready to get started with the implementation. Study our hosting plans and find the plan that best meets the needs of your store. Remember that you can start smaller and then upgrade your plan when your business grows, but the additional features in the higher level pans can help your store to grow more quickly. After you've picked a plan, call a CMG sales representative and sign up for that plan. Your account can be active in just a few hours, and your sales representative can help you apply for merchant accounts and credit card processing, too. You can start building your store while you wait for your application to be approved.

Once your account is set up, you'll receive an e-mail message that has a link to the back office of your store. Click on that link and log in with your username and password, and then the store building wizard will walk you through the steps of setting up your store.

Why Should I Bother with Usability?

2007-07-14T03:54:50Z

(Part 2 of 2)

As we discussed last time, in the eyes of your user (i.e. customer) usability is a very important aspect of any website. Despite this fact, so many websites out there fail to address usability in their design. Why is this? There is pretty much one reason, heard far and wide from companies large and small:

Usability takes so much time!!

Without a doubt, creating a usable website is a slower process than creating an unusable one. When creating a usable site, a lot of planning goes into the early stages of the project to ensure that the final result meets the goals of not only you, as the client, but also of your users. This can make the first few weeks seem unproductive because you don’t get to look at any pretty pictures (or, what the design department prefers we call them, “comps”), or click through any websites. All you see are long documents with information about goals and requirements and process flows. Yawn.

Of course, when we talk time, we also talk dollars; the added time usability research adds to the bottom line. Because you don’t get to see any of that fun stuff that comes later in the process, usability seems like the best place to cut costs.

However, by skipping ahead to the fun stuff, you miss important work that ensures that the fun stuff actually meets your goals! If you rush into putting a poorly researched site on the web, you will find yourself getting complaints from all sides. Internally, you will find that you don’t have the pages to add the content you need to have on the site, or that you didn’t build in the backend functionality that will make site maintenance easy. You will hear from your customers that they are unable to find the information or complete the process that brought them to your site. Before you realize it, you will have to completely redo your website from the ground up because it wasn’t done right in the first place. When you think about the time and cost associated with a whole new website, it becomes pretty clear that usability is worth it in the long run!

You can always find people out there who will give you a website quick and cheep. However, here at Cornerstone Media Group, we would much rather take a little more time and money to give you a site that you and your customers will be happy with for a long, long time. Your customers will increase your revenues when they find that visiting your site is a pleasure and accomplishes their goals with a minimum of effort.

Why Should I Bother with Usability?

2007-07-13T22:02:28Z

(Part 2 of 2)

As I discussed last time, in the eyes of your user (i.e. customer) usability is a very important aspect of any website. Despite this fact, so many websites out there fail to address usability in their design. Why is this? There is pretty much one reason, heard far and wide from companies large and small:

Usability takes so much time!!

Without a doubt, creating a usable website is a slower process than creating an unusable one. When creating a usable site, a lot of planning goes into the early stages of the project to ensure that the final result meets the goals of not only you, as the client, but also of your users. This can make the first few weeks seem unproductive because you don’t get to look at any pretty pictures (or, what the design department prefers I call them, “comps”), or click through any websites. All you see are long documents with information about goals and requirements and process flows. Yawn.

Of course, when we talk time, we also talk dollars; the added time usability research adds to the bottom line. Because you don’t get to see any of that fun stuff that comes later in the process, usability seems like the best place to cut costs.

However, by skipping ahead to the fun stuff, you miss important work that ensures that the fun stuff actually meets your goals! If you rush into putting a poorly researched site on the web, you will find yourself getting complaints from all sides. Internally, you will find that you don’t have the pages to add the content you need to have on the site, or that you didn’t build in the backend functionality that will make site maintenance easy. You will hear from your customers that they are unable to find the information or complete the process that brought them to your site. Before you realize it, you will have to completely redo your website from the ground up because it wasn’t done right in the first place. When you think about the time and cost associated with a whole new website, it becomes pretty clear that usability is worth it in the long run!

You can always find people out there who will give you a website quick and cheep. However, here at Cornerstone Media Group, we would much rather take a little more time and money to give you a site that you and your customers will be happy with for a long, long time. Your customers will increase your revenues when they find that visiting your site is a pleasure and accomplishes their goals with a minimum of effort.