Do you need a designer or a code-monkey?

It’s an important question. Consider the following:

• Do you need a professional to help you design a great web presence?
• Do you expect the person or company you hire to make the decisions regarding the best layout and presentation for your site?
• Are you willing to pay for their expertise regarding standards and accessibility?

or

• Do you have a specific design planned?
• Do you have your content exactly the way you want it, including all text?
• Are you wanting your plan implemented exactly with no deviation?

If you answer ‘yes’ to more of the first set of questions, you’re looking for a designer. If you answered ‘yes’ to more of the second set, you’re looking for a code-monkey. The difference? You hire a designer for their professional expertise regarding design, layout, and standards, you hire a code-monkey to make your idea work on the web in any way possible.

Before you start firing off a 3 page missive about my use of the term “code-monkey”, please let me explain: I have no problem being hired as a code-monkey. I’m in a small business, in a small community, and if that’s what my customer wants, that’s what I’ll deliver. I also make sure they know my opinion concerning their chosen design/content. Usually, they listen and I can work with them to deliver a better site.

Every now and then, I can spend hours straight with a client, and they will still insist on me implementing a site with bad layout, bad color, and even worse…bad grammar. I had this happen very recently. I couldn’t even convince the client to use correct grammar in their text. I tried for hours begging for simple changes to their content alone. In the end, nothing changed, and I wasted 4 hours that I can’t bill for because all this client wanted was a code-monkey to deliver their idea in an online format. In a perfect world, I would have walked away in the first 30 minutes after having told them that perhaps I was not the best company to work with them. But I feel more strongly about helping my clients, and my community, than I do about wasting non-billable hours, and fought for as long as the client would allow.

What can you learn from this? When you are working with your designer, please value their expertise and opinion. You hire your accountant and trust their knowledge in making decisions about your finances. You go to a physician and trust their knowledge concerning your health. You hire a plumber and trust he/she knows which pipe to replace and how to do it to make everything work right.

Trust your designer to help you deliver a great web site. And if you know right off that you want a code-monkey to implement your plan exactly as presented, then please, please tell your chosen design company this FIRST.

While a business web site can be a very modest investment in advertising and customer service, it packs a powerful punch. The availability of your business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to an unlimited audience is a valuable marketing opportunity. BUT…it’s not an overnight success. Building credibility, and search engine rankings, and repeat visitors, takes time, patience, and quality content on the site. You can’t just put up a one-page virtual business card and expect to have thousands of visitors the moment you go live. BUT, if you incorporate your site into your existing marketing plan, and are patient, you, too, may be telling a story similar to the Marathon Motel, in Marathon, Texas. This article illustrates how a web site can impact your business…. Read the rest of this entry »

A web site is a very cost-effective way to offer up-to-date information about your company to a very wide audience, 24 hours a day, every day of the year. No matter what kind of company you own, retail or service, you will benefit from the information people can find out about you online. For example:

• Business hours
• Menus
• Contact information
• Specials and sales

Imagine being able to answer frequently asked questions for your customers at any time:

• Product specifications
• Information about how to initiate returns and refunds
• Instructions for using products or services

Your web site is also a great place to help your customers compare your business to your competitors. The more information you provide about your competition, the easier you are making it for your clients to choose the best company for their needs (which should be YOUR business if you stack up to your competitors well enough!)

• Press releases
• Price comparisons
• Client testimonials
• Awards, degrees, specialized recognition in your field

Your web site can open your business to a whole new market

• Travelers researching available services and stores in the places they will be going through or staying at
• Customers from around the world to purchase your products
• Targeting specialized markets such as hobby enthusiasts

You can scale your web site to offer services based on your company profile.

• Sell your products online
• Offer product information to entice customers into your store
• Offer more information about your service so customers will know what you offer
• Schedule service calls
• Initiate quotes
• Answer frequently asked questions
• Receive feedback and suggestions from customers

These are just a few of the benefits you’ll receive from a business web site. It’s great tool to provide better service to your existing customers, and a wonderful way to win new customers.

Later, we’ll look at how web sites can help social and civic groups and even individuals.

Todays links include online training for small business owners, and learning more about today’s web technology, such as Web 2.0 and RSS. I hope you find something to entertain, enlighten, encourage, or empower you and your business. Happy surfing!

SBDC Online Training: Free online business courses from the South-West Texas Border Small Business Development Center (SBDC). From starting your business to managing your finances, they offer many quick beginner courses. Examples of available courses: Advertising, Building Your Brand, Valuing a Business, Balance Sheets, and Legal Structures.

RSS: Really Simple Syndication provides a method for you to get the headlines, or even the full text, of all new content from your favorite sites and blogs. This web site explains RSS in a non-technical format, with links to resources to get you started using the many feeds available on the web.

What Is Web 2.0: by Tim O’Reilly. “This article is an attempt to clarify just what we mean by Web 2.0.”

Better Invoices for Better Business: by Kevin Potts. Invoices that obfuscate information, incorrectly state terms or arrive incomplete can be a massive headache for all parties. Strategic timing and attractive presentation are also important, as they can help “soften the blow” by making your invoice seem less like a stale demand for money and more like a friendly letter.

UC Berkeley web casts: Listen to free lectures from Biology through Sociology from UC Berkeley. Subscribe to your favorite course and get the latest lectures delivered to your podcast software. If you love to learn, here’s higher education at no cost.

Creating Passionate Users: Who’d You Make Smile Today? Going beyond the text-book formula of customer satisfaction and actually making them smile.

Free Fonts: Download hundreds of open-source font styles for free.

Texas Gas Prices: Monitor and submit gas prices in your area. Great resource to find the cheapest gas, and to avoid the gougers. Free.

LibraryThing: Create and maintain your own library catalog. Easy to use, easy to search, easy to share. Great for all bibliophiles. Free.

Texas Best Cowboy Culture: Artists, poets, real cowboys and more. All the best people, places, and things in Texas.

Web 2.0 Design Style Guide:  Describes various common graphic design elements in modern web design style and attempts to explain why it works,as well as how, when and where to use, and not use, these design styles

That’s it for today’s web tour. I hope you find something to entertain, enlighten, encourage, or  empower you and your business. Happy surfing!

I apologize that this post is a couple of days later than I promised. But, here it is none the less. Before you, or your chosen designer, can begin designing and building your web site, you should answer the following questions and gather related information. This will help determine not only how the site should look, but what should be included.

Read the rest of this entry »

There are a number of things for you to consider when the time comes for you to choose a design company for your web site. A great list of questions to ask yourself and the prospective company can be found on Paul Boag’s web site. Paul is a founder of the UK design company Headscape and has many resources for beginner web designers, and those considering outsourcing their web site. He co-produces a free podcast I highly recommend you listen to, as well. Don’t worry - the information he provides is very low-tech and easy to understand, and is helpful to anyone with a web site. You will also get some good ideas about what you can do with your web site. Here are just a few of the questions he suggests you ask:

Read the rest of this entry »

westXdesign has changed the pricing structure of our web hosting, starting at $10 per month, and we’ve added new domain registration services starting at $11.75 a year. If you aren’t sure what hosting or registration services you need, please call or email and we’ll help you decide what services best suit your needs.

The newest addition to the westXdesign portfolio is Darwin Harrison Photography . To showcase his stunning photographs, Mr. Harrison knew exactly what he wanted. With the design already planned and a very clear idea of how the site should interact with visitors, he was well prepared to get his business on the web. Having a clear idea of what you want, or at least what you do not want, is very helpful when you work with a web designer. Working to make Mr. Harrison’s idea a working web site was an easy process, because he provided continual feedback during the entire process, and had the site tested and reviewed by his acquaintances, as well as the testing we were doing on the design end. The end result was closer to his conceptual design than I could imagined. And in no way is that credit to me as a designer. The credit goes to Mr. Harrison for his communication with me during the process, already knowing what he wanted, and working closely with me to reach the desired final product. I’m proud to have this gorgeous site part of my portfolio.
The lesson here for you? Before you decide to hire a designer, think about what it is you want your web site to accomplish, what goals do you have in mind? If you envision your business web site before you begin, not only will the site have a more tailored appearance, but you’ll save money on the design. When a designer starts with a concept of their own, then presents it to the client, that’s often when the client finally begins to visualize their site for themselves. And then they’ll like this part of the design, but not that, and keep this element, but get rid of that, and hate the whole color scheme and want something…brighter. You can imagine that this process can go for quite a while before the client is happy with the site. And the whole time, they are paying for designs and programming that the end up throwing out the window. Don’t let that happen to you!