Pay per page?

A 10 page website does not cost 10 times that of a one page website.
Let me say that again just so I’m clear, A 10 PAGE WEBSITE DOES NOT COST 10 TIMES THAT OF A ONE PAGE WEBSITE.
Almost every small business that I speak to about designing their site asks me about the number of pages they can have on the site and how much extra pages cost and it reminds me of a conversation that takes place during an episode of “The West Wing”.  A meeting is being held with pharmaceutical companies to ask why they are charging African countries so much for HIV drugs.

TOBY: The pills cost 'em four cents a unit to make.
JOSH: You know that's not true. The second pill cost 'em four cents; the first pill cost 'em four hundred million dollars.

If the company you have designing your site is any good, the first page on your site is going to take 80% – 90% of the development time to put together after they have listened to what you want, put a couple of ideas your way and got to the final draft.
The second page will look slightly different but will be based on the first and the rest of the pages on the site will be based on page 2.  Interactive elements (such as contact forms) may take a little while to put together but the rest is just copying your content into the design that’s been made for you.
If you’re being charged per page it probably means the page was designed already (i.e. the company is using a template) so it wasn’t designed for you, it just fits into what you want and there’s a strong chance that another company will have the same design on their website.

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It’s been an awful long time since my last post but this is due to the volume of work I’m currently working through.  It’s time to start making the marketing of my own company a higher priority so there won’t be as long a wait for the next one.

The best sales pitch in the world

After telling you the worst last week, it’s only fair (if only so I don’t look totally negative) to give you the best sales pitch in the world (in my humble opinion):

“Do you want fires with that?”

I’ve a lot to say about McDonalds (alright, negativity for a little bit longer), none of it good.  I don’t like the food, I don’t eat there and I have a real problem with them taking over the way they have.  I’ll say no more except buy yourself a copy of  Fast Food Nation and see if you still eat there.

Anyway, I may not like the company but I do like the fact that even once they’ve sold you something (you’re standing at the checkout after all), they’ll still try and sell you more.  Other companies try this although some don’t quite get the idea.  I was in a branch of W H Smith recently buying .net magazine and a bar of chocolate.  When I went to pay for the items I was asked:

“Would you like to buy a bar of chocolate?” and was shown a few bars that were sitting beside the till.
”I’ve already got one.”
”These are on special offer!”

They were £1.50 each so they weren’t that special and if I’ve already got something, don’t try and sell me exactly the same thing!

So what has this got to do with websites?  Well, every website out there should have a “Contact Us” page, this gives the visitor to your site two reasons to get in touch with you that they wouldn’t have if you didn’t have one:

1. They can get you to call them.  Nobody likes to call a company, they don’t want to appear too keen.  If they get you to call them, it gives them a small sense of power over the transaction ahead.
2. They find out how good your customer service is.  If a company isn’t quick to get in touch with a potential new customer, how are they going to treat them once they are a customer.
   (interestingly, most companies don’t realise the 2nd point but for me it’s the most important point of all).

Most website contact forms simply ask for a name, a telephone number, an e-mail addresses and in some cases a box for the visitor to fill in giving more details.

The “Do you want fries” moment comes if you give a list of the services you offer and ask them to tick off the ones they want to discuss.  it’s fair to say the visitor would have had a good look round the site but would they have looked at everything?  if you can show the visitor everything you do at the point they want to talk to you, maybe they’ll see something they didn’t know you did and ask for more details (they may also look around your site again to find out more).

For bigger companies this is even more handy as they can make sure the right person contacts the company from the start as they already know what they want to talk about.

As an example, have a think about what I can offer to clients as a website designer, now take a look at the contact form for Trembirth Design and see what other things a website designer can do.  Some are offered by me, some are offered by companies I work with but if I don’t tell people that I can do that sort of thing, how are they ever going to know?

The worst sales pitch in the world

With many thanks to E-myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It

As I travel a lot by bus and train (I don’t drive) I get time to read.  On a journey a couple of weeks ago I read  about how a business’ communication with it’s consumers is more important that what it sells.  So how do you interact with your consumers?  Staff in retail and those working on trade stands at exhibitions have the worst sales pitch in the world:

“Hello, can I help you?”

It’s friendly, it’s helpful, it shows that they want to talk to you.  How do people always, ALWAYS, reply:

“No thanks, I’m just looking.”

And the salesman leaves them alone because they don’t want to be seen to interfere, forgetting that they were trying to interfere by starting the conversation in the first place.

10 years ago, I visited China.  We went to Beijing, Nanjing, Shanghai and a host of other cities.  Everywhere we went there were market stalls selling stuff to the tourists and as you’d walk by, the stall holders all shouted the same thing:

“Just looking!  Just looking!”

They knew the answer before asking the question and were quite happy with that.  Why?  Possibly because they had the next question they wanted to ask, they know that “Just looking” isn’t the end of the conversation.

What’s your next question?

When people come to your websites, surely they are “just looking” aren’t they?  So don’t ask if you can help them, you already know the answer.  What’s your next question for them?  What are you going to ask them on your home page that’s going to make them talk to you because until they talk to you (by clicking the e-mail link, filling in the contact form or, if we’re really lucky, calling you) you know nothing about them, they’re just looking and the conversation ends there.

Great Opening Lines

There are some great opening lines in literature:

“Call me Ishmael” - Moby Dick
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” – 1994
”It was a pleasure to burn.” - Fahrenheit 451
”My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip. “ – Great Expectations*
”A SQUAT grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words, CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING CENTRE, and, in a shield, the World State's motto, COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY.” – Brace New World

 

Setting out from the start to make a good impression is important in anything whether it’s meeting people or making a proposal.  What does your opening line on your website say about your company?

For too many small companies, the feeling is the first impression needs to be loud, brash and animated.  The only problem is that the first line people tend to see is

“Loading…”

or

“Please Wait…”

It’s the Internet equivalent of being put on hold.  If you’re Porsche or Ferrari or Microsoft or Apple then people are coming to your website to visit you not a company like you so people will stay on the site and wait to watch the animation (incidentally, none of these companies use Flash on their homepage – neither does Adobe, and they market Flash).  If you’re one of many companies doing what you do, people will come to your website, will decide not to wait on hold for you to tell them about yourself and will go back to Google to find the next alternative.

Animations have their place when they are explaining things or showing an example but to base your Internet home page on something people don’t want to wait and see is a pointless exercise.  By the way, Google doesn’t recognise the text in Flash so it won’t help your search engine rankings either.

Sure, have a small advert that draws the eye but don’t make your visitors wait, they won’t.

 

* Ok, not the greatest opening line but as it’s my favourite book, I felt I ought to include it.

The year ahead

So, firstly, it’s been far too long since my last blog post.  No excuses other than time management issues and the launch or update of a number of sites over the Christmas and New Year period.

That’s in the past and it’s time to look at the year ahead.  I’ve already planned my goals for the year but I’ve not planned specifics, there are no “New Year’s Resolutions”, they’re too easy to break and most are so vague that they mean nothing.

Also, in the field that I work, things are changing all the time and not only is keeping up with them all impossible, you never know which one of them is going to change the way you work completely.

The only thing I do know is mobile is going to be big this year, bigger than it’s ever been before and it’s just going to keep getting bigger.  Access from mobile / smart phones and tablets like the iPad are going to make it so that more people can access the Internet from more places than ever before.

One aspect of this is making sure I develop websites that, when viewed on these devices, look and work as well as they do as if you were accessing them on a desktop or laptop computer.

Another aspect is one of my goals for the year, something I need to take time out and think about.  If staff in a particular business had the ability to access a private area of their website what would they do with it?  If they could view items, what would they want to view?  If they could contribute information, what would it be?  If they could use Internet technology to help their company from an internal viewpoint (rather than the external viewpoint of most websites i.e. getting more customers for the business), what they want to do?

For example, I’ve converted a fairly complex sales order process (20 steps, with 5 tasks in each, involving at least 10 members of staff at each stage) from a paper based system completely over to a full online system.  This helps the company keep track of where there orders are, makes sure staff keep up to date with the work they have to do, helps management find any bottle necks in the process and helps their customers who can call the firm and find out straight away where in the process their order is.  Things like this only scratch the surface of what is possible though.  As usual, it’s the imagination of people using these sorts of systems that limit what they can do.

That’s part of what I’ve got going on this year, there’s plenty more though…

IE problems? A quick fix

I’ve had a few problems running Internet Explorer recently (I still use it as most of the people looking at my websites use it).  It would crash for no reason or pages would stop working but there wouldn’t be one thing that I know would cause it.

So I did a quick search and found this link:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949220

Now there is a link on this page to Microsoft’s (fairly) new “Fix it” service.  Look for this logo:

Clicking on this (on the page linked to above, not here) will open a nifty download that runs various checks on IE and will fix any problems it finds.  Considering the alternative is 5 lengthy processes to go through manually, this is a great idea and one Microsoft is starting to roll out for all it’s software.

So if you’re having IE problems, I can thoroughly recommend the “Fix it” route, I’ve not had a crash since.

Note: Incidentally, the problem wasn’t with IE.  The Spybot add-in I had installed didn’t like something so now I know what caused the problem, I’ve installed the update!

The global audience

There is one irrefutable fact about the Internet, it’s everywhere.

Estimates suggest two billion people now have regular access to it via their computers, their phones, their games consoles, their TVs and various other appliances around the house.  This is obviously great for business, there is an audience out there that’s waiting to find out about you and your products and services.

What I’ve loved about the Internet, since I started using it full time in 1997, is the way it’s given creative people an outlet for people to see their work.  Far, far more people than ever would have been able to in the past.

OK, there’s a lot of crud out there that you would never want to see but finding one exceptional idea, video, image or website can make up for that.  I thought I’d take the opportunity to point out some of my favourites.

monkeehub.com

I can’t remember the first time I saw this animation but it’s a very long time ago.  I dread to think of the time it must have taken to put together but it is absolutely superb.

The same guys were also responsible for the superb video to the JCB Song.

The sandpit

I’m not going to explain how this works, just watch and enjoy.

You can find out more information here.

Words

Just clever

Microsoft concepts

There’s also a chance for big companies to show off what they are thinking.  Microsoft Research has an “envisioning” lab where they try and guess where technology is going to take us and it’s a pretty good place.

http://www.officelabs.com/projects/productivityfuturevision/Pages/default.aspx

The only thing on the video they don’t think we’ll see?  That much legroom on a plane (about 50 seconds in).

Spread your ideas

Even if you’re not technically minded, you can spread your ideas via a blog and get people noticing you.  There’s a big audience out there waiting to hear about it.

I’m going to post more of these at a later date but if you find any particularly good video clips, animations or anything else, let me know.