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11 ways people ruin their online presence
improve your presence online
Get in touch: 020 7036 0560 / team@topleftdesign.com / www.twitter.com/topleftdesign
Why is it that people say the following about their websites?
1.
We have to have this website as a temporary measure.
2. I know it’s not great, but we had to get something up there.
3. Don’t look at our website! We still need to get it done properly.
4. I haven’t had time to look at our website in a while.
5. Yeah, it’s .com. Or .co.uk – actually I am not sure!
6. I found a free template and used that instead.
7.
What do you think of my website? I think it’s ok, but I don’t really love it.
8. My website designer moved to Australia .
9. We don’t really need a new website as we had one done a few years ago and it doesn’t really give
us much business, we get our business from word of mouth.
10. My nephew did my website for free but I am still waiting for him to finish it.
11. We outsourced our website to an offshore country because it was so cheap but I don’t really like
the result. Oh Well!
Come on!
This is your website!
The core marketing tool of your business!
It’s how people see your business
These are extreme cases. There are many people who are more or less happy with their site. But if a
website hasn’t been looked at for 6 months then it’s time to really look at it. This is the way people
see your business. It’s got the potential to encompass your business aura, your brand, the service you
provide, how your clients/customers feel about you. It can inform, show examples, tell stories, and
keep you in touch with others. Your website has all this potential power!
I am not saying that all you have to do is have a fantastic website and you can just not worry about
your new business development, marketing, awareness raising or brand building as your website will
do it for you while you sleep or have cocktails in the Riviera or take your kids to the park or whatever
else you would rather be doing.
Think about how people first come to your website:
1.
Someone sent someone a link to your site – perhaps in an email introduction
2. They clicked to your site via another website
3. They found you via Google or another search engine
4. They found your website via your social media activity
5. They heard about you via some other form of advertising or PR (print ad, flyer, radio etc.)
So, in this case, your website has to do a lot in terms of giving the right impression. It should be a
website you are proud of, that you would WANT to be spread over the internet.
The other way is:
1.
They meet you in person and then they check out your website.
Hopefully when you met this person you were so charming they will see beyond anything that may
speak otherwise about you and your website.
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It’s how people see your business cont.
When it comes to people whose websites are NOT up to scratch, I would divide them into two main
groups.
1.
Those who know their websites are badly designed or out of date – they use excuses like time,
money and not wanting to insult their nephews for why this is.
2. Those who don’t know. They think they have good websites – and they don’t.
The second group are obviously harder to convince. And the sad thing is that many of them are
actually really nice people. They are otherwise good business people. They work hard for their staff,
they appreciate their staff, they pay their suppliers on time. These people deserve our help!
This e-book is hopefully going to help change this. My mantra as a website designer, ever since I
started Top Left Design all those years ago, is to clean up the internet.
Now, the internet has become more than just websites. We help to design blogs, email newsletters,
downloadable PDFs, email signatures, Facebook banners, ebooks Twitter backgrounds, and Slideshare
Powerpoint Files. All these are part of the information which is on the internet.
Misuse of Templates
Templates have been around on the web for ages. People don’t want to spend money on having a
website professionally designed and they see this template and they think “that doesn’t look too bad
and they decide to go for it. Usually the cost is so low that they see it as a low risk strategy.
Think about how people first come to your website:
1.
The code behind the template isn’t very well written, so it’s actually hard to use, and sometimes
not very well optimised for search engines or for different browsers.
2. Sometimes people use these templates and they get over-excited by the flexibility to change
fonts and put in their own images, or they put things in that don’t fit. Even the template designers
might cringe or roll over in their graves.
With the advent of blogs and social media, I am seeing an improvement in the overall web presence.
Wordpress does give you some good templates, and some people are getting the hang of it. But others
are trying to shoehorn the wrong kind of content into these templates. If you choose a template, you
have to think carefully about it.
1.
How many boxes are there on the homepage? Will I have those main areas I want people to link to,
or the same number of main messages I want to highlight?
improve your presence online
Get in touch: 020 7036 0560 / team@topleftdesign.com / www.twitter.com/topleftdesign
1
Relativitis
What is Relativitis? Sounds like some sort of a disease right? Well in a way it is. It
basically is the syndrome where you have a business and your nephew or cousin or uncle
is quite good at the computer (self-taught or learned it at school) and so you get them to
design and build your website.
What they often lack is the skill and experience to do a truly professional job. If they are
doing this in their spare time what often happens is they don’t understand the process
of getting to the right design and structure for your business - to communicate the most
important messages on screen about your business or organisation while still creating
a really eye catching design. This takes a combination of skill, talent, marketing and
communication knowledge and an awareness of current trends and tools in modern
online marketing.
Disclaimer - occasionally people’s relatives do have all the above! But if you are using a
relative to cut costs, chances are it’s a spare time job and will end up looking TERRIBLE
and you will just have to do it all over again properly.
2
Cheesy, Badly Chosen, Images
How do you choose the right images for your website? The problem is, it’s actually quite
a skill and so many people get it wrong.
They choose “cheesy” images where business people are shaking hands. Or images
which or stretched one way or another. Or images of charts and calculators which really
are taking things too literally. Or “clipart” style images.
Images need to be carefully chosen for a few factors.
1.
How the colour looks with the design.
2. The composition of the image.
3. The meaning of the image – they can be metaphoric you know!
4. Whether it has “copy space” so a headline or a phrase can be used with it.
How do you choose the right images for your website? The problem is, it’s actually quite
a skill and so many people get it wrong.
Action: have a look at your website’s images. What do they say about your company?
Are you taking things too literally?
Need some help with finding images?
There are several great online image stockists which include many interesting and
dynamic images.
Some of our favourite stockists are:
www.istockphoto.com | www.dreamstime.com | www.shutterstock.com
Other great FREE stockists are:
www.flickr.com/creativecommons | www.morguefile.com | www.sxc.hu
You can also read a blog post written by our very own Nichaela Thompson which talks
further about interesting uses of photography and what to look out for.
improve your presence online
Get in touch: 020 7036 0560 / team@topleftdesign.com / www.twitter.com/topleftdesign
Here are some examples of well-chosen images:
www.flawlessfeet.com
Here are some examples of badly chosen images:
improve your presence online
Get in touch: 020 7036 0560 / team@topleftdesign.com / www.twitter.com/topleftdesign
3
Too Much Copy, Badly Written, and in the Wrong Place – YUCK!
As a design company we obviously want to have all of our websites looking fantastic. In face we
often design our websites using “Lorem Ipsum” which is the placeholder text that designers use to
design with while we are waiting for the real copy.
But knowing what the key messages of the company are and how important they are means we
can design much more intelligently. So, if we take our hairdresser client as an example, their key
messages are that they are:
•
Award Winning
•
Experienced stylists
•
Great Service
•
And a wonderful atmosphere
These 4 key messages have then been used in their “slider on their homepage.
Having these key messages written in simple headings with just a little line of text or a couple of
lines means that the messages stand out. But so many people insist on writing their homepage
copy in 3-4 long paragraphs, which makes all the messages get lost and the page look too text
heavy.
Even on the inner pages of the site, it’s much better to keep the content short and focus instead
on good headlines, clear sentences, and punchy writing style. As people are most likely to read the
website on their screens or on handheld devices, they will not want to read lots of text, and the
text should be broken up with subheadings, bullets and even images with captions. You can always
have a “read more about such and such” leading to another page with more explanation.
I speak to a lot of people about this. If I ask an audience do you like websites with lots and lots of
text they say “NO!” – the majority of people prefer a small amount of well written text and if they
want to click on to find out more, then they can.
Remember when you are writing your website to cut out all extraneous text, and if you are a
service based business you are there to sell not your product but rather the chance to talk to you.
If you go on and give TOO MUCH information then the message gets lost.
What about SEO?
Yes, I know that for SEO you have to have a few instances of the word or phrase that you have
written. This is true – and you might even get websites with lots more text than is comfortable for
the human eye to process coming up quite high in search engine listings.
But remember the website is there also to convert, so each page that you write should be ultraclear. Think of the different pages as “landing pages” and ask yourself, “If someone just arrived at
this page, would it be clear what I do? Would they feel compelled to click around more” – and you
can just have 3-4 paragraphs of text, broken up with subheadings, bullets, and well-chosen images
– and these pages can be well optimised for the search engines as well.
But I have so much to say!
That’s a good thing! This is where you can repurpose all that great information into your blog!
Take all that content that you have written for the products and services pages of your site, cut
out anything that isn’t ultra-powerful, and repurpose it into advice articles and case studies which
you can use in your blog!
Your blog is a hungry machine, you need to feed it regularly so it becomes a thriving hub of useful
information about your business. When people come to your blog they can then see an archive of
posts, all helping to build a good reputation about what you and your business are good at.
So, hone your copywriting skills, practice writing headlines and short paragraphs, and create lots
of extra great content for your blog.
improve your presence online
Get in touch: 020 7036 0560 / team@topleftdesign.com / www.twitter.com/topleftdesign
4
Browsers
More and more there are browsers being launched to make the work of website designers more
“challenging” – it’s an open market. If we had only one browser, it would be easier for us. We
have to worry about IE, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, iPads, iPhones, Blackberries and Androids. But
as statistics show, these are all commonly used devices and it would be a shame to spend ages
working on a website which for example only 20% of the people actually see.
This point relates to point 1 – Relativitis. You’d be surprised how many websites are put live
without being properly tested in all the available browsers – and if you don’t secure the services of
a professional, you might find that while your site looks fine in Firefox, it could all fall to pieces in
Internet Explorer. There are many standards to adhere to when coding up a website, and if you use
an amateur programmer, you might end up with some nasty cross-browser surprises.
As many of you will no doubt be aware, Internet Explorer is somewhat the ‘problem child’ of
the browser world. There are often a lot of extra things that need to be done during a website
build in order to make features compatible with Microsoft’s browser. We make sure that all of our
websites are thoroughly tested in all browsers, and that they are built from the ground-up to be
cross-browser compatible, as opposed to fixing bugs in hindsight – one of the benefits of having
experience!
5
Updating Mess
Do you really need a content management system? I am not trying to be controversial here but a
lot of website companies sell these to clients under the words “you want to be able to edit your
website yourselves, don’t you? You don’t want to have to keep coming to us every time”
Well that’s all fine, but sometimes people spend a lot of time and money on Content Management
Systems which they then find clunky to use.
Tips for Content Management Systems
Find out what type it is – is it Joomla, Drupal, Magento, Wordpress, a bespoke system?
Ask is it PHP based or ASP.net based? Depending on which one it is, it may require a special
server.
We really do like Wordpress so if you have a normal website without anything really fancy planned
on it, then Wordpress would be a great option for basic updates. There are many other benefits of
using Wordpress – including:
- Great for SEO
- Easily integrated with social media
- It comes with the blog technology built in, and with that there are lots of plugins
We’ve found that Wordpress is a highly versatile solution to a common request from clients.
Whilst not traditionally used as a CMS, the above features make it an extremely practical method
for allowing clients to log in and make text changes to their websites. Not only that, but as the
framework is already built, we can offer cheaper CMS’s to our clients, as we only need to code the
theme to match the rest of the website design. These type of packages have been hugely popular,
and clients have reported the system as being very easy to use, even for novices!
We have had a lot of clients who have approached us to take over their web design services,
following bad experiences with other suppliers – some of the bespoke content management
systems we have come across have been horrendous! Not only are they clunky and visually
confusing, but they often are not “future-proof” and require a rebuild in order to allow the client
to make what should be a simple change.
If you are shopping around for a good CMS website, make sure to request a working example of
the login area before you sign anything! You might end up wasting a lot of time and money on
something which you find a pain to use – if it even works at all!
Only go for a bespoke solution if you have bespoke requirements – most of the time an existing
platform exists which will cater for your needs.
improve your presence online
Get in touch: 020 7036 0560 / team@topleftdesign.com / www.twitter.com/topleftdesign
6
Broken Bits
It’s actually shocking to me to see how many websites have really obvious bits missing – images
which are broken, links that go nowhere. After looking at your website for such a long time in the
development stage, perhaps you don’t see all the bits.
To help with this, I have compiled handy “cut out and keep” checklist – how nice am I!!
•
Click through the site. Are all the main pages there?
•
Now do the same with the footer links
•
Are there any broken images?
•
Any pages that don’t come up?
•
What happens when you deliberately go to a missing page – is there a 404 error page in
keeping with your site’s design?
•
Try filling out the forms on your website. Try filling them wrong. How do the error messages
look? Can they be written in better English (or whatever language your website is in)?
One thing we’ve found that is all too commonplace is that amateur designers will happily launch a
new website without first doing some basic checks. We have a checklist that we adhere to before
any of our sites go live – meaning that nothing gets chance to slip through the net. Make sure
your designer has done a checklist before your site is launched – and if you think they might be
skimping when it comes to bug testing the site, test it yourself and demand that any issues are
fixed before you sign off on the finished product.
7
Social Media Misuse
An overview on all the key points on social media success.
Social media tools are brilliant and free ways for companies to consistently market themselves.
But this means companies need to learn a lot of new things about marketing and about how to
use the tools. Once you are past this initial learning curve it’s a matter of keeping your messages
out there, continuing to interact, grow your network, build your reputation and nurture new
relationships. This in turn creates much wider opportunities for referrals, new business and
additional publicity.
LinkedIn – being “on it” isn’t enough.
When I speak to business owners they either often say one of these 2 things:
“I don’t need to network as all my business comes from my website”
Or
“I don’t really get my business from my website – as our business comes from word of mouth”
In either case the answer seems simple – you need to consider Linkedin seriously – it’s a way to
enhance both your word of mouth referral opportunities, and your traffic to your website.
Business is built on reputation and LinkedIn allows you to build on that. If you take the time to fill
in your profile, upload your picture and describe your current and previous roles properly, then
you will be on your way to ensuring that when people come across your LinkedIn profile, they get a
good sense of who you are, why you are good, and why they should know you.
A tip – don’t use LinkedIn initially to connect with lots of people you don’t know. Start with those
you do – build on your existing network – you will be surprised how many people you know who
already are on LinkedIn. Many don’t use it properly, and haven’t even put up their picture but you
can still connect with them. Hopefully your invitation will be the one that prompts them to get
more involved. The more active you are on LinkedIn, then more you will benefit from it. But at the
very least, spend 2 hours on it updating your profile.
improve your presence online
Get in touch: 020 7036 0560 / team@topleftdesign.com / www.twitter.com/topleftdesign
Twitter – it’s magic if you use it right
I don’t think EVERYONE should be on Twitter – and this isn’t due to the type of business they are
in. In fact, any business can benefit from someone representing that business being on Twitter
– whether that business is in B2B or B2C, product or service led, small or large. Twitter is about
people, and people need other people for their businesses to succeed. But it takes consistency
and commitment, it’s not meant to be a one way conversation. So if you are considering Twitter
– realise that you can’t just “tweet once a day” and think that’s enough. You can’t just broadcast
messages about your sales offers and products and promotions – people will just think you are
being too salesy and unfollow you.
Twitter has its own strange language as well – RTs and “hashtags” and @replies. I regularly train
people in Twitter for business and it takes around 1.5 hours of 1-2-1 training for them to get the
most out of it.
A really handy resource for learning Twitter is the Mashable Twitter Guide
– see www.mashable.com/guidebook/twitter
For those who don’t know about it, Mashable is an online blog and resource about Social Media,
Technology and Gadgets. It’s fantastic and you can learn huge amounts by regularly reading and
subscribing to Mashable.
Facebook – where your customers are
Half a billion people use Facebook and spend many hours interacting with each other on it on a
regular basis
For business I would recommend setting up a Facebook “Page” for your practice – not a Group or
a Personal Profile Page. You can be the administrator of the Facebook page without anyone else
knowing about it.
Facebook also takes commitment, and the trick here is to keep posts regular and visual and
encourage engagement and interaction.
See www.mashable.com/guidebook/facebook for the Mashable Facebook Guidebook.
One thing to note – Facebook makes changes all the time so you might find some things on online
How To guides not working quite as described. Be patient with these sources – and if you would
like to have one to one training we are available for this too!
Another tip - Don’t use the same information you put up on Twitter on Facebook. Some people
make the mistake of feeding the same information to all three social media platforms (LinkedIn,
Twitter, and Facebook) but in actual fact doing so can be damaging to your brand.
Each post can have a little image or thumbnail attached to it, you can comment on posts and other
people can too, and every time anyone does something on Facebook this comes up in the news
feed. So their friends see them interacting with you and may join in.
For every industry there is a unique way to use Facebook – consider before after pictures, pictures
of your practice, and pictures of patients. You can also use your page to showcase new equipment
and techniques, and link to articles on your blog. If patients write on your wall thanking you
publically then you get the benefits of public endorsement and their friends seeing that.
If you do post images of people on your Facebook page, make sure you get permission and if you
can, then tagging them would mean their friends see your image and the rest of the gallery.
As with all social media, I would recommend taking time to learn the platform and using common
sense when deciding what to post.
improve your presence online
Get in touch: 020 7036 0560 / team@topleftdesign.com / www.twitter.com/topleftdesign
Blogging
Blogs allow people to get a sense of your business brand or personality. It’s an easy and quick way
for you to keep your audience up to date on your business news, industry thoughts, useful tips,
case studies, interviews and reviews. The best blogs are varied with the size and type of posts but
consistent with the brand and overall messaging.
You would be best placed to start reading blogs in order to understand how to write your own. If
you are new to blogging there is a learning curve to get up to speed. I would recommend checking
out www.problogger.com and www.copyblogger.com – these are 2 blogs which both have fantastic
collection of posts all about blogging successfully.
Blogs increase the traffic to your website – if you have a blog on your site, especially a Wordpress
blog – it’s designed to help with SEO. Every new post you add to your blog means another page on
the internet. And if you continue to consider keywords and phrases in your headlines and text then
you can make your blog even more powerful .
Its worth learning about
Social media and blogging are tools that are becoming integral to the marketing of any business.
Website presences which don’t incorporate this look more and more out of date. Anyone in
business needs to take the time and learn about it as this is where their referrals and introductions
are likely to come – there is so much evidence that it works and helps businesses grow their brand
and reputation - when it’s done right.
Below are some links for you to continue learning.
www.socialmediatoday.com
www.socialmediaexaminer.com
www.mashable.com
www.problogger.net
www.copyblogger.com
This article was written by Keren Lerner from Top Left Design. Visit www.topleftdesign.com for
more info.
8
Bad Design
We recommend taking a good hard look at your website and answering these questions:
- Does the website have the look and feel accurately represents you and your business?
- Is the information on it up to date
- It the information on it all true – or are there parts that don’t accurately reflect your business?
- Are you proud of your website?
- Is there fresh content on the website on a regular basis?
- Do you know if your website is optimised for Search Engines?
- Are the images on the website the right type of images for your business?
We have our own rules for what makes a good website for a business.
These include:
- No more than 7 navigation links in any group of navigation
- Clarity in the values of the business
- Modern and fresh design
- Well chosen images
- Easy links to other parts of the website
- Regularly updated blog
- Links to social media where possible.
improve your presence online
Get in touch: 020 7036 0560 / team@topleftdesign.com / www.twitter.com/topleftdesign
9
Attitude
“we don’t get that much business from the website”
“I paid so much money for my website”
10
improve your presence online
Email Address
You may think this is a bit silly. I mean when you are talking about websites, what does it matter?
But I often get given people’s email addresses on business cards and they don’t match the
website address at all. I was actually telling my cousin about this and she was confused this was
even an issue. Then the same day I bumped into an old neighbour of mine who had started his
own business. He had a website and then his email address was a gmail email address. I am not
saying to get rid of the gmail address, as this can be very handy. But if you have gone through
the trouble of buying your website domain name and putting a hwole website, then you may as
well be using the email address that comes with it. If your website is for example www.abcwidgets.
com and your name is Frank, then your email address should not be abcwidgets@gmail.com,
abcwidgets@hotmail.com or abcwidgets@yahoo.com – but rather – frank@abcwidgets.com. You
can also use hello@, info@, service@, sales@ etc and the other people who work at the company
should also have the same format. At Top Left Design, we have everyone’s email addresses match.
The team also have their own personal email addresses but the one they use at work is the one
ending in @topleftdesign.com. Much more simple and effective, and the email address then even
serves as a little advertisement for your website!
Get in touch: 020 7036 0560 / team@topleftdesign.com / www.twitter.com/topleftdesign