Brainstorm Design Blog

Over the last few months, I have been inundated with emails from offshore web development companies suggesting we outsource work to them. The emails usually start "Hi" or "Dear Sir/Madam". None of the emails are addressed to me as none of these companies have bothered to find out what my name is. Several of the companies have sent me repeated emails during the last few weeks that say "awaiting your response", clearly surprised that I haven't replied - Well, I'm not going to reply because I don't respond to unsolicited emails. Surprisingly, one of the companies spamming me claimed to be an ISO9001 registered company. 

You may not already know it, but unsolicited emails (or "spam" as they are better known) have been illegal under UK law since 2003. Unfortunately, the law doesn't apply to spam sent to business email addresses. Nevetheless, this doesn't change the fact that unsolicited email is both unethical and irritating. Spam is impersonal and it also cheapens your brand. No one is going to take a service provider seriously when they haven't bothered to find out the name of the person they are emailing. And you have to question the ethics of a company that send out unsolicited email. Would you trust them to handle your clients privacy?

 So if you want to be taken seriously by potential clients, follow the following basic tips:

1. Only email people you have been in touch with before. i.e. by phone, by email or in person
2. Ensure your contacts opt in before you add them to your mailing list, that way you’ll only be mailing people who want to hear from you.
3. Just as you avoid sending “cold” emails, avoid cold calling wherever possible and network instead. It's a lot more cost effective and wastes a lot less time. Someone introduced by a friend or business colleague will be much more willing to talk to you than someone who you contact out of the blue. We all know an average of 1,000 people. So if you network with the people you know, and they in turn introduce you to the people they know, you are potentially linked to millions of people.

Do you want to know how to network, we can show you how show. Call us on 020 8953 8820 for a free consultation.

One of my clients this morning forwarded me an email that they received from iBusiness Promotions guaranteeing them a #1 placement on Google. Their website states that:

"we guarantee that your website will be found in the regular (unpaid) top 10 results on Google for the keywords of your choice. No catch, no strings attached"

• Rule No.1: No one can guarantee you a #1 position on Google. Google themselves make this clear in their own guidelines.
• Rule No.2: Don’t buy from anyone who promotes their services via an unsolicited email. Spam is unethical as well as illegal. Would you trust a company to promote who uses unethical business practices to promote your website?
• Rule No.3: This is probably the most important rule of all. Getting to the first page of Google doesn’t mean your website will get more visitors of even more business.
  

Companies that guarantee you a first page ranking on Google normally achieve this focusing on a keyword that is uncompetitive or irrelevant to their business. That way, they achieve their objective of getting you to #1 but with zero benefit to your business.

Lets take gardening as an example. If I’m a gardener in Hatfield, and I’m looking for more business, I may get approached by an SEO company guaranteeing me a #1 position on Google. They will achieve their guarantee by promoting me for the keywords: “gardener Hertfordshire” or “landscaping Hertfordshire”. There’s one little problem: Most people don’t search by county, they search by town. So someone in Bushey will search for “gardener Bushey”. Someone in Radlett, will search for “gardener Radlett”, but they are unlikely to search for “gardener Hertfordshire”. As a result, I will get to #1 on Google as few of my competitors will be promoting themselves on a county basis, but at the same time, I won’t get any visitors.

So before choosing an SEO company, keep to the following guidelines:

1. Don’t buy from anyone who has contacted you via an unsolicited email.
2. A reputable company should be chosen on the basis of previous experience, not guarantees. The SEO company you approach should be able to demonstrate a proven track record and give you some case studies as well as references.
3. It’s not enough to get you to #1 on Google. The SEO company also need to get you more visitors, and the right kind of visitors! E.g.If I’m promoting vegetarian food, there’s no point in attracting lots of visitors who are looking for meat products.
4. A reputable SEO company should be doing far more than just getting you more traffic, they should be helping you convert those visitors into customers. There’s no point in having hundreds of visitors to your website if they don’t end up doing business with you.
   

The most important rule of all when choosing an SEO company is to ask around. Speak to other companies you know who have used SEO services and find out how they got on. And before you sign any contract, always make sure you ask for references.

There was a time when setting up a business meant setting up a website, yet more and more small businesses are doing without a website altogether and using LinkedIn to promote their business. The reasons are simple:

1. The most effective way of finding business is through networking. Customers ultimately buy from people rather than from companies. LinkedIn caters for this by providing a free web presence combined with the ability to link to literally thousands of friends and business colleagues who can view your business profile online.
   
2. LinkedIn has a number of features that you won't necessarily find on your website: the ability to upload photos and videos, online discussions, the ability to share your thoughts with thousands of others, and the ability to post online polls for your contacts to take part in. If your clients are happy with you, they can even post testimonials to your profile.
3. It is relatively easy to become visible on LinkedIn: If you have a detailed profile,  a lot of testimonials from clients, a lot of online contacts, and if you regularly take part in the online discussions, people will notice you. For your website to become visible on Google, you have to spend lots of time and money on search engine optimisation. On LinkedIn, you just need an active profile and to interact with other users.

All this doesn't mean that websites are entirely redundant. If you are selling goods or services online for example, you still need a website where people can shop from. If you are publishing online, you need a website where people can go to read your articles. And most importantly, the unique design of your website is part of your branding. But regardless of what business you're in, and even if you already have a website, LinkedIn will help you promote it. Because people buy from people, and if they like your LinkedIn profile, they will feel more confident about buying from you.

I have taken my iPhone abroad for the first time and have made a few observations.

1. When you arrive in a new country, you get a text message from O2 warning you to switch off data roaming if you want to avoid high roaming charges. I don't know if this warning is something they were forced to do, but it's a good idea.Lord knows how many people forget to switch off roaming.
2. The moment you enter the passenger terminal of Israel's Ben Gurion Airport, you get free wifi access. This is quite unlike the rip-off BT Openworld you're forced to pay for when using Heathrow or Gatwick.
3. I try and avoid making phone calls on my mobile whilst abroad, but as I use the iPhone for everything other than phone calls, I hardly notice the difference.
   
4. I can't use any of the roaming apps such as Google Maps or the Compass, but this is more than compensated for by the fact that you can pick up wifi just about everywhere. And it's usually a lot faster than the patchy 3G access you get in England. Just the other day, I took a bus through the centre of Jerusalem and was able to pick up wifi hotspots throughout the journey.

Spending time in Israel makes you realise just how backward the UK is when it comes to the internet.

I have just arrived in Israel for a two week trip. I switched on my phone after we landed and was surprised to see a network message welcoming me to Palestine! After a couple of minutes, the phone adjusted itself and gave me a signal from Orange. Is this another of the iPhone 4 glitches?!

In fact, there was nothing wrong with the phone. Because Israel's main international airport is so close to Palestinian territory, it's not unusual for you to pick up a signal from there. It's a reminder of just how small Israel is, you're never very far from the border.

Carphone Warehouse called me out of the blue on Thursday. My contract was up for renewal. Would I like a new iPhone 4 they asked? Who can say no to a new iPhone? Especially when it’s costing you only £29 to upgrade and you pay the same monthly fee as before.

Well, I received my new phone just 24 hours after the call, and four days later, the novelty has already worn off. Firstly, I don’t care for the new design. I liked the rounded design of the old phone, whereas the new flat backed design looks old fashioned. It’s how I would expect an early version of the phone to look, not the latest version. Secondly the battery life (or lack of it) as almost as bad as the old phone. Fortunately for me, I carry a Mili recharger with me wherever I go.

And what do I like about it? Well I like the front facing camera (unfortunately I know only one other person who has both the iPhone 4 and wifi that are necessary for videophone calls). I like the camera flash, and the sound quality is noticeably better.

I am also benefiting from the fact that I can enjoy all sorts of benefits denied to me on the iPhone 3G such as augmented reality, and the ability to shoot movies. I have also been able to enjoy the benefits of OS4 (which I was never able to successfully install on my old phone) such as the ability to run multiple apps and group apps in folders.

But my overall impression? I would say that if you’re running an iPhone 3GS, there's not enough new features to justify upgrading to an iPhone 4. Hold out for the next version.

Website designers seem to be two a penny these days. Whenever I go to networking meetings of any description, there are a few financial advisers, a few accountants and just about everyone else seems to be a website designer.  If you are considering a career in website design, be aware, the jobs market is saturated with them.

But what exactly is a website designer? All the most skilled website designers I have come across are actually graphic designers with a background in print. They sometimes need assistance with making the transition as design elements that work with print won't necessarily work on the web. This is not a problem as a user experience consultant can help them bridge that gap by explaining what the constraints of a computer experience are. Generally speaking, website designers are from a creative background rather than a programming background, whereas the person building the site, the web develop is from a programming background. The developer will usually have experience of web programming languages and website usability.

Unfortunately, website design has a rather bad name these days as anyone who has a copy of photoshop and dreamweaver and a PC in their spare bedroom thinks they can design a website. Unfortunately, they can't, and I see the results every day. Websites that are impossible to navigate, text that is difficult to read, and code that has not been optimised for the search engines. Using an unqualified web designer may not cost you a lot of money, but they will cost you your reputation: a site that no one visits and that puts off existing visitors is not exactly an advertisement for your business. If you are looking to hire a website design company, make sure you follow the following three rules:

1.  Does the website designer have a graphic design background? Make sure you see their portfolio before making a decision.
2. Does the website designer understand the issues of website usability? Is there a user experience consultant available to test the website and  ensure it conforms to minimum usability standards?
3. Does the web developer have a web programming experience or are they just someone who knows how to use dreamweaver? A qualified web developer should understand how to optimise a website for the main search engines and ensure that it follows Google's guidelines.

Remember, your home page is the shop front for your business, so it's worth hiring a professional when building your website.

This morning I participated in a forum discussion on a recurring subject: Should you exchange links with other businesses?

It's a well known fact that a large number of inbound links to your site can improve your search engine ranking. Google views a high number of links as a "vote of confidence" in your site. What is less well known is that Google also looks at the relevance of the links to your site. e.g. If you are a construction company, it may be helpful for you to have inbound links from an architect and surveyor. But it won't make much difference if the link is from an online jeweller.

My advice is that ultimately, it is quality rather than quantity that counts. Better to have a few high quality relevant links to your site than a large number of random businesses linking to you. So be wary of those spam emails that offer link exchanges.

I found the following brilliant tip on www.bmyers.com about how to exploit Google Adwords in order to get noticed by employers. I thought I'd share it with you...

Alec Brownstein had the same problem, but found a solution.

He purchased Google adwords with the keywords being the full names of people he wanted to get interviewed by.

For example, he purchased a google adword for the name 'Ian Reichenthal'.

The ad cost him $6.00, and if Ian Reichenthal searched Google for his own name, this ad would appear at the top of the search results.

"Hey Ian Reichenthal - Googling yourself is fun.  Hiring me is fun too"

If the ad were clicked on, it went directly to Alex's web page, telling why he would be a great hire.

Alex purchased five of these google adwords - one for each person he wanted to interview with.

Four of the executives who Alex bought adwords for, contacted him, resulting in four job interviews.

And one of them hired him.

Total cost to Alex - $30 for the Google Adwords.

It was recently reported that Google has started ranking webpages by the speed with which they load.

If you're serious about selling online, be sure to make it easy for the customer to make the buying decision

You may think this is all common sense, but so many web sites miss all six of the items on the above list.
 
They have too many distractions on their sales pages, they have complicated offers, they leave questions unanswered, they  surprise you with hidden charges, then require you to fill out a multipage order form.

Make no mistake, the new iPad will change the face of wireless computing. 

Bill Myers has recently highlighted a website called http://www.peopleofwalmart.com - not much to this site, just photos of people shopping and a comment about their choice of clothing.

But the site caught on, and now gets almost 4 million page views a day.

Following on from this, Bill Myers has now created a short 4 minute video showing the step by step process to duplicate the http://www.peopleofwalmart.com web site, using free software and $7.95 monthly hosting.

Using the free website, http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com , just enter a web site address and you quickly discover if the site is really down, or whether it’s something else that's causing the problem.

Another useful (and free) resource is the Internet Traffic http://internettrafficreport.com/

This is an edited excerpt of a longer article that appeared on Bill Myers online - http://www.bmyers.com/

It may be only 2 days into 2010, but anything on your web site with last year's date (2009) can already appear old and outdated. Make sure copyright dates on your site are up to date. The same is true with any files containing dates.

Go through the date references in all your online articles, sales pages, press releases etc. and make sure they are up to date.

If you are running an e-commerce site, make sure the selection list of credit card expire dates has 2009 removed.

These small changes can freshen the look of your entire site - and keep your site from becoming stale.

This is an excerpt of a longer article that appeared on Bill Myers online - http://www.bmyers.com/