Small business owners or site owners who can’t afford to hire a custom designer will sometimes purchase template websites. A template can be considered a pre-made website. A good template design should allow for easy customization. This is a cost effective solution that can work great if the design is handled and molded into the company/site’s brand. Here are some simple tweaks that can be used to reshape a template to give it a little bit more customization and personality.
When you are working with a layered PSD, it is easy to modify design elements such as font, color and overall layout and composition. The template should be broken down and labeled as layers for the main components like header, navigation, content and footer.
Logo
This may be the most important element that needs immediate attention. Most templates give you a generic graphic. If you have a logo, some simple resizing and good placement is all you need. If you do not have a logo, creating one can be as simple as buying stock imagery and some fonts to go along with it.
Most of my website design starts with the logo as the jumping off point. If a company or site already has this part of the process complete, I move forward with the logo’s color, feel or mode to layout the page.
Color
If you have a logo that is going to be used for the template, figuring out the color scheme will be simple. This color scheme will then be used to direct the header, text and content color to some degree. ColorSchemer Online v2 is a great color picker/scheme tool that can be downloaded to your computer (PC and MAC). ColorSchemer also has a great blog that covers various color topics, as well as tips and tools for how to design with color.
Favicon
“If you create a favicon, they will bookmark it.” Ok, all Field of Dreams references aside, favicons are a great way to reinforce your brand. Everything is a brand. Creating a favicon is simple. When a visitor sees one, it can be a strong indicator that they are in the right place. Here we took the ‘e’ that is in the 10e20 logo and used that as a favicon. Favicon.cc is a simple, easy to use tool that creates favicons, then allows you to download them for easy implementation.
It is cost effective to use a design template for your site, but try to make it your own so you’ll stand out and look professional. Some things are obvious and simple to do while others require more resources and time, but keeping with the idea of a brand and sticking to that brand’s ’style’ will make the design look cohesive and not picked off the shelf.
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As part of my job duties, I help clients brainstorm different content ideas for linkbait and viral spread. Oftentimes I’m brainstorming for the same niche, meaning I have to come up with dozens of ideas for one industry. This process can get tricky, as it’s often hard to come up with fresh ideas for one topic week after week. I thought I’d share some things that I do to try and get the creative juices going.
- Check social media sites for inspiration. Sometimes I’ll check Delicious, Digg, Reddit, etc. to see what sort of similar content has been submitted and how well it fared. I think whether I can come up with an idea that’s similar to or inspired by a successful submission, or whether I can improve upon an idea that was good but somehow failed to go viral.
- Tie in current events. I check a lot of news sites to see what’s going on in the world. It doesn’t have to be any sort of monumental news event like the unveiling of Apple’s latest gadget — even local news stories inspire me.
- See what people are talking about. Check your network of friends and colleagues on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc. See what they’re talking about and whether you can leverage the discussion. If something slips through the news crack or isn’t on your radar, there’s a good chance your friends will notice and be talking.
- Ask someone else. When I’m temporarily stumped for ideas, I’ll ping a close friend on IM or turn around and throw something at my boyfriend (who also works from home) and ask for their input. It’s always nice to have a fresh perspective, and oftentimes I’ll receive ideas that are great on their own or that inspire me to go down a new brainstorming path and come up with something good.
- Check the website for inspiration. Oftentimes the client’s website has a good deal of information that can be used as the basis for something great, whether that’s a blog post, an interesting picture, an informative study, etc. See if there’s preexisting content that you can polish up and present in a new and interesting way (via a video, list, infographic, etc).
- Do some “point of origin” research. I’ve often looked up general topics in Google or Wikipedia (yeah, yeah, I know) to get an idea of their history and to see if anything in particular stands out. It’s a great way to learn a little bit about the topic I’m brainstorming for and usually helps me come up with ideas based on its history/origins.
All of the above are usually good starting points for me. If you have any other tips on brainstorming content, feel free to share them!
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Reviewing Sass, a Dynamic CSS Language
Jan 27, 2010 by Victor Murygin | Design, Tutorial, Web DevelopmentDynamic features such as Variables and Functions in CSS have been a hot topic of debate for a while. On one hand, programming-oriented people have been begging for these to be included in the next CSS installments, while countless others are pointing out the difficulties of including these inside CSS rules themselves. One of the main arguments against the Variables use is that it will be much harder to learn and decipher other people’s CSS if developers start naming their own variables for everything.
However, I think languages like Sass make a great compromise. Sass is a higher level language floating above CSS that allows Variables, Mixins (aka functions) and more readable code, while spitting out regular CSS code in the front-end. Visitors to your site can still see regular CSS code, but you can organize it by using a higher level language like Sass on your end.
Here are some of the main ideas behind the Sass language:
table
padding: 2px
td.p
text-align: left
#content font: family: serif size: 1.1em p line-height: 1.5em
This would generate the following CSS:
table {
padding: 2px;
}
table td.p {
text-align: left;
}
#content {
font-family: serif;
font-size: 1.1em;
}
#content p {
line-height: 1.5em;
}
As you can see, the Sass version groups and nests elements for easier readability and less size.
Define Variables in the beginning, like this:
!fontColor = #333333 !padding = 8px
You can then use these variables going forward like this:
#content
color = !fontColor
padding = !padding
p
padding = !padding / 2
If you’re not familiar with variables in programming languages, the main advantage to using variables is to define them once in the beginning and then use them throughout the code. This is useful if you are using the same colors or spacing sizes over and over. Later down the line, it makes it easier to just change the value of the variable in the beginning, than to change 20 different CSS rules.
Also, as you can see in the above example, Sass allows you to use basic math functions for further customization.
Mixins are equivalent of functions in programming languages. While variables let you reuse one property at a time, mixins lets you reuse whole sections of the code at a time.
First, you define the mixins like this:
=tableDesign
table
th
text-align: center
font-weight: bold
td
text-align:left
font-weight: normal
or even specify arguments:
=left(!space) float: left margin-right = !space
Then you can use mixins like this:
#content +tableDesign +left(5px)
This will produce the following CSS:
#content table th {
text-align: center;
font-weight: bold;
}
#content table td {
text-align: left;
font-weight: normal;
}
#content {
float: left;
margin-right: 5px;
}
Overall, Sass gives you a smaller, more readable code, as well as the power of reusing code with variables and mixins (something many developers have asked for) while at the same time spitting out regular CSS code in the end.
Now, there are still some issues of using these higher-level languages, and I just want to point a few things out.
1. Don’t use these languages unless you know how CSS works inside and out.
I wouldn’t advise for someone new to bypass CSS and just start with a higher level language like this. You should really know what goes on behind the scenes, similar to how Dreamweaver and other WYSIWYG tools can be detrimental if a person doesn’t know basic HTML or what goes on under the hood. However, if you know how to code HTML by hand and know how Dreamweaver works, you can use it to your advantage for HTML content formatting to save time. Similar rules apply here.
2. It may get slightly problematic if you’re sharing your work with other people.
If you’re a sole developer, you should have no problem using your own code. Even if you work within a team of developers, I believe Sass can be utilized for everyone’s benefit. Even though some may loathe the idea of learning yet another language, if you know CSS and basic concepts of variables and functions, this should take you about 5 minutes to pick up. If you’re not familiar with programming concepts of variables and functions, it may take 20-30 minutes but overall this should be easy to grasp for a developer.
The only way this may cause problems is if you’re sharing your work with other developers, or if you’re transferring your site to another developer outside of your team and they just don’t want to deal with anything new.
3. While Sass seems to be a relatively supported language, beware of others that may be more buggy.
As far as I know, Sass seems to work just fine. However, there are many other dynamic languages and implementations out there without any standards or support. It’s important to do your research and beware of buggy platforms. You want to use these languages to simplify your life. If the platform itself is buggy (i.e., generates wrong CSS code at times), there is no point of using it, as it will cost you more time and headaches.
Other Platforms and Examples
Sass runs on Ruby. I don’t believe they have made it to work on PHP yet, but here are some other dynamic CSS implementation examples:
- xCSS framework – This is an object-oriented CSS framework that runs on PHP5 and has limited overhead.
- “Supercharge Your CSS with PHP” tutorial – Even though I’m not too crazy on this one, as it does not make the readability better, you can basically use PHP to dynamically write to CSS.
- Variables in CSS – Here’s another way to introduce variables in CSS via PHP. I find it better for readability than the above example. Although this one still doesn’t have the Nesting or Mixins ability like Sass. It is also developed by one person without any community support.
Who knows, perhaps in the future Variables and Functions will become part of the next CSS standards. But for now, these higher level languages can be useful in the right hands.
If you have any other good dynamic CSS implementations, please feel free to share!
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This morning I attended a Business.com webinar about B2B Social Media. While much of the information was fairly introductory in nature, there were some interesting tidbits that I thought I’d summarize/share.
Nowadays, social media seems to be about trying to keep your head above water and staying updated with the latest marketing trends in order to help your business and reach a relevant audience. The webinar shared a quote from a small business owner who stated, “At the end of the day, if we have spent a lot of our time tweeting, facebooking, and ‘me’tubing, I’m afraid [individual productivity] is on a rapid decline. What really gets done in a day that helps improve the bottom line?”
Below are the main social media challenges cited by small businesses:
It’s no secret that social networking usage among adults has grown rapidly in the past few years:
If adults are turning to social media and social networking sites, isn’t that a good opportunity for businesses as well? Absolutely — in fact, many businesspeople are using multiple social media sites and resources for business information:
However, there is a difference between B2B direct media and B2B social media.
B2B direct media:
- Tends to evolve slowly
- Is comprised of established best practices
- Is reasonably predictable
- Has a clear optimization path
B2B social media:
- Evolves extremely rapidly
- Can be comprised of temporary best practices
- Can be frustratingly unpredictable
- Has a shifting optimization path
A lot of B2B social media “half-truths” and myths have been floating around:
Myth#1: Nobody Uses Social Media for Business
A lot of business owners feel that Facebook, Twitter, etc. is just for keeping up with friends. The fact of the matter is that social media resources are broadly used. Businesspeople are using multiple resources and investing aggressively in different media channels.
Keep in mind, however, that the perceived importance of using social media for business depends on the industry. This chart illustrates that different sectors regard social media marketing to be more important than others:
Myth #2: Community is the Core of Any Social Media Strategy
The word “community” itself is often misunderstood — it’s the core spirit underlying social media, but there’s a difference between “community ethos” and “community creation.” Social media provides the opportunity, but not the obligation, to interact with others. The webinar shared this Venn diagram to help illustrate the point:
Myth #3: Metrics are Difficult to Measure
Social media is very measurable. Its success is no more difficult to measure than other online marketing, as long as you’re clear about business goals and make measurement a priority. In fact, B2B companies are usually better at measurement.
The important thing is to identify your main focus areas:
- Where is the real opportunity? Make sure your target audience is clear. Use 3rd party sources like Comscore and Nielsen to investigate target audience participation in social media. Survey your customers, look into which social media sites are driving the most traffic to your website, and find out where your best leads come from.
- Immerse yourself in key channels. Each social media channel has its different nuances. Immerse yourself and commit to finding out how these sites work and what matters most for your business.
- Do less with more. You won’t have the resources to execute effectively on everything, but you can do less (social media) with more (resources).
- Stay organized to stay focused. Carefully target your initiatives for specific target audiences and objectives.
- Focus on business metrics, not social media metrics. Business metrics are more important when it comes to benefiting your bottom line.
The webinar concluded with a POST analogy:
People — Understand how your target customers use social media during the business buying process.
Objectives –Align social media and activity with business goals.
Strategy — Determine how your objectives will change your relationships with customers.
Technology — Choose the appropriate tools and tactics to deploy.
Overall, the webinar shared some interesting stats about B2B social media adoption. Hopefully you found the information valuable!
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How to Use Social Deals Sites to Help Sales
Jan 25, 2010 by Greg Finn | Business, E-commerce, Social Media MarketingOne of our biggest mantras here at 10e20 is to test out various social media outlets for clients and find what work, regardless whether or not it’s currently a “hot topic.” Believe it or not, social media is more than just Facebook and Twitter, and one of my favorite sectors (for buying unwanted gadgets) is community deals sites. A week or so I posted over at Search Engine Land about how to use these deals sites to help your business. I broke down how you can use this to help your sales and talked about the following items:
- Don’t be too promotional
- Make sure the deal is easy to see from the submission
- Offer affiliate commission
- Use coupon codes
- Have a really good sale
If you want to read more (with full details), head on over and read the full post!
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This week at Affiliate Summit west there was a Women of SEO site clinic. The site clinic was no different than the previous day’s SEO Site Review clinic with Greg Boser, Michael Gray, Michael Streko and Rae Hoffman except for the fact that it had 75% more estrogen (on the high end, anyway — the two Michaels were on the panel, after all ;P). Rae has expressed previous sentiments about the whole “Women of SEO” hoopla and balked at the idea of being asked to be on a female-only panel (via this post at WhoisAndrewWee.com):
“I personally would have been offended to be asked to be on that panel. I’m on a panel because I’m good at what I do and not because I wear a bra. I’m not knocking the skills of any of the ladies appearing on that panel…[but] find the whole idea of the panel a bit gimmicky and a bit of a put down, as if there needs to be a “all female panel” to get smart women on stage.”
I see her point — I mean, it’s not like organizers would go out of their way to have an all-black or an all-Asian panel unless the session specifically marketed their point of view as a selling point (e.g., “How Female-Friendly is Your Website?”). It is a bit gimmicky, and I can see how some females would be offended — it’s hard to be treated equally if you’re singled out for being different.
On the other hand, I understand that conferences need to get butts into seats and take various measures to pique interest, whether that’s by having a “Smackdown,” a “Black Hat vs. White Hat” panel, or an all-female lineup. Plus, it’s not like these women wouldn’t have otherwise spoken or presented if there were no “Women of SEO” panel — conferences usually assemble talented, savvy females instead of just plucking three or four people with the required anatomy (or lack thereof) out of the Expo Hall and shoving them towards the stage.
So is it offensive to have a female-only panel at a conference, or to specifically require X-number of female speakers at at event in order to create more of a balance, or is it not a big deal? I pinged Kristy Bolsinger, Christa Watson and Kate Morris, three of the participants of the Women of SEO site clinic panel (along with Carolyn Shelby and Jane Copland — poor Lyndsay Walker got denied entry into the US), for their input. Check out the brief video interview below:
Kristy, Christa and Kate — Girl Power at Affiliate Summit West from 10e20 on Vimeo.
Personally, I’ve seen an increase of females in Internet marketing in the past four years of my career, and I think it’s great that the industry’s becoming more diverse. I don’t really mind the “female” angle at conferences so long as they’re featuring the best possible people (instead of females for “females’ sake”), whether it’s for a women-only panel or if there’s a mix of men and women speakers. What do you think about the treatment of females in the Internet marketing industry (or other male-dominated industries)? Are we on equal footing, or are we given special treatment?
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Looking for a new widget for your site or blog’s sidebar? New apps and ideas spring up all the time and lots of them disappear just as fast. Let’s take a look at five options for your sidebar.
Flickr Slideshow
These third party websites let you use the Flickr URL address of the user, photo set or group and tags to customize a slideshow to the dimensions you desire.
FlickrSLiDR allows you to easily embed the classic Flickr slideshows on your website or blog. All you need to do is enter the Flickr URL address of the user, photo set or group you would like to embed along with some options. You’ll receive the HTML embed code in return. Flickr Slideshow does the same thing.
Twitter for Wordpress
Twitter for WordPress displays your latest tweets in your Wordpress blog. Check it out to the right of our site!
Wordpress Widgets
There are so many great (and some not so great) widgets in this list.
Follow Me
The Follow Me Widget allows you to display links to all your social media profiles in one easy to access button or window.
Retaggr
Retaggr creates a central location for your personal info and a gateway to all your online profiles and networks. Your own content from those sites are automatically included.
What other great sidebar widgets do you use? Share your favorites in the comments!
Bridging the Social Gap: Are Site Blogs Your Missing Link?
Jan 20, 2010 by Jake Matthews | Blogging, Social Media MarketingOne challenge some companies face in social media marketing is how to bridge the gap between stale corporate or e-commerce sites and social networking websites. What is the link between your site and social networking sites? How do you get people FROM social sites back TO your corporate site and visa versa?
Some “experts” posit the best solution is to just to slap badges on your homepage saying “Follow us on Twitter” or “Find us on Facebook.” Or “make sure your site links are on all your social profiles” so people will see your link, click on it and visit you. These are foundational points, but there’s more to successful social awareness for your company than showing your site visitors where your official socials account are.
The important and missing link for some marketers may be adding a blog to their main site. Why?
Online social media users are constantly looking for new and fresh content. A site blog provides an opportunity to reach these users with fresh content related to your business. With ongoing, strong and effective content creation – and sharing of the site blog content into social – you can create a tremendously effective link between your social networking presences and your main company website.
To demonstrate, here’s a graphic:
Site Blog Influence in Social Media (click to enlarge)
Though a blog on a corporate or product site is not a new idea by any means, it’s often overlooked for its added social sharing and conversion value. If you are not a publisher, you’re simply not producing a lot of content that can be shared in social media. Blogs provide this platform. A blog provides an opportunity for visitors from social sites (who saw the content you fed in from your blog) to click back to the blog and then be only one click away from areas on your site where they may convert for product purchase, inquire for service or RFP, or perform another action such as CPC, email sign-up, RSS subscription, etc. And though social is not about selling all the time, all marketers have a responsibility to make their efforts pay off at some point. Being able to access more opportunities for conversion is a true benefit with blogs.
There are deep considerations as to what type of content goes on a site blog, the technology to use, what the editorial schedule will be and who will contribute, but if you can settle these questions and a few other key strategy issues, a blog can be a fruitful effort and a core link in your social strategy. It can drive deeper connections to your social profiles, sending traffic from social back to your blog and main site, and can provide greater reach to new audiences in search, social news, other blogs and mainstream press.
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Top Tips from the SEO Site Clinic at Affiliate Summit West
Jan 19, 2010 by Rebecca Kelley | Conferences and EventsYesterday at Affiliate Summit West I attended an all-star SEO site clinic featuring some of the top SEOs in our industry. Rae Hoffman, Greg Boser, Michael Gray and Mike Streko were all on the panel and politely eviscerated audience members’ websites, dishing out invaluable information and giving great advice. Below I’ve compiled some of the top tips and tactics every webmaster should keep in mind:
SEO Site Clinic panelists
- Stay on top of those status codes! Make sure you’re checking your status codes so that your site is returning the proper codes for appropriate situations. One man’s site page was returning a 400, and Michael Gray urged him to look into what was causing the 400 and fixing the bad request.
- Move that site off Blogger! Greg Boser said that “serious” sites need to move off Blogger and other hosted service sites. You’ll bring traffic and links to your own domain rather than the parent domain/host, and it’s just more professional and better for business to have a separate set up.
- Make sure your Javascript/CSS is on external files. Greg also said that so much can go wrong when Javascript/CSS is on the page, so keep them external to avoid any issues.
- Linking to unrelated sites can raise red flags. All of the panelists noted that one attendee’s site was linking to a poker ad at the bottom of the page. The site they were analyzing wasn’t poker-related, so this link could potentially be harmful since Google could see it as being unrelated and possibly spammy or a paid link. Indeed, the woman noted that her page’s PR had dropped 2 spots and the panelists said that a good start would be to remove the questionable link.
- Check your site for canonical issues. One man’s site had multiple copies — the www and non-www version of his site was resolving, and he also had his domain with no dashes and the domain with dashes (e.g., 10e20.com vs. 10-e-20.com). Make sure that you’re sticking with a canonical version of your website (e.g., www.nodashurl.com) and 301-redirecting other versions and iterations to this central version.
- Be aware of what your webmaster is doing. During one man’s site review, the panelists found a few one pixel by one pixel links on the homepage — holy 2001 spam, Batman! The site owner had no idea these links existed and said that he has a webmaster/programmer who handles everything. After urging him to fire his webmaster, the panelists all pointed out that you need to make sure you’re aware of what your webmaster is up to and check his work to make sure that he’s not doing anything shady (either intentionally or otherwise).
- Use a theme pyramid for information architecture. Rae suggested a “theme pyramid” approach for your website content (e.g., home page –> main categories –> sub-categories –> content), as it’s the most logical and best layout for users and for crawlers.
- The faster the server, the better. The faster your server responds, the quicker your site can get crawled and the more content will get indexed.
My absolute favorite piece of advice came from Greg Boser, who suggested that you monitor questions that pop up on Yahoo! Answers, and instead of answering them right away, pay attention to which questions seem to pop up over and over again, then author up relevant blog posts that address these questions. That way, you can cite your blog post as a reference which can drive traffic to your site and establish yourself as an expert/relevant resource. Awesome tip!
The site clinic was definitely a success and was one of the best I attended at ASW. I hope you all enjoyed some of the tidbits I shared from the panel!
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Letting Fans Create the Product
Jan 14, 2010 by Stephanie Weingart | Contests, Social Media MarketingWhen a huge brand creates a Facebook fan page that generates an audience of more than 1 million fans, how should those fans be utilized and stimulated? Vitamin Water recently took advantage of their huge community by having them create and vote on a new flavor to be sold in stores. The contest took place on a tab within their fan page called the “Flavorcreator”. The application located on the tab required fans to create a unique flavor combination, name the flavor, write a witty description, and create a bottle design. This is Audience Participation at its finest.
However, as we commonly see on Social Media platforms, even the best contests need to be set free. Holding a contest for fans of Facebook eliminates the avid YouTube browser. This is where it becomes hugely important to Know Your Audience before asking them to participate.
5 Questions Before Asking a Brand’s Audience to Participate in a Social Media Contest
- Can the contest/ campaign be fluent on all social media platforms?
- On which social media platform does the average consumer most often spend their time?
- What is in it for the consumer?
- Will the consumer want to promote their participation on their social media profiles?
- What is the longevity of the campaign?
If all of these questions can easily be answered, it could be possible to allow a fan base of over 1 million people to choose a brand’s new product.
5 Benefits of Consumer Participation
- Consumer approval
- High ROI potential
- Increased awareness potential
- Brand Appreciation
- Increased Fans across Social Media profiles
Vitamin Water flexed their Social Media muscle by knowing exactly what their fan base wanted. The majority of the campaign existed on Facebook, while promotional videos existed on YouTube with celebrity appearances by Steve Nash and 50 Cent. However, voting for the new flavor took place across multiple levels of Social Media platforms. Every tweet, image, blog post, etc. on Twitter, Google Blog Search, FoodGawker, and Flickr were weighted as a form of voting for the winning flavor.
As a result, Vitamin Water was able to achieve popularity and recognition on huge news sites declaring them as the brand taking chances. Whether or not Social Media masses agree with the flavor choice is another question.
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