But why would I need a Website when I have Facebook anyway?

The topic of this blog is actually a question that comes up quite often when discussing the idea of Designing a Website with Small Business owners, and frankly it's a valid question.  Websites cost more to create, they take more time to maintain and they may not have the same social network viral sharing quality that Facebook has, but there are also some very valid reasons as to why it's a wise move to have both a dedicated Website AND Facebook.

First there is content.  Content is the energy that powers an effective website, but there are times that content can actually risk knocking your entire Facebook page offline and in accessible to your Customers.  For this lets use a Comic Book Shop as an example. 

Lets say our shop has a practice of scanning in the covers of each week's new releases and uploads them to their Facebook page, and we happen to get a controversial cover released for an issue.  If that cover either violates the Facebook Terms of Service or gets enough complaints about being offending, it's quite possible for Facebook to remove the post, suspend the account or even delete the account over all.

Now, if that same edition's cover is on the Shop's stand alone Website, any complaints about it are going to be addressed to the Shop's ownership, who can handle each one personally and deal with their own policy on what is posted on their Webspace.

The next detail that a Business Owner needs to take into account is that Facebook, like all Businesses, is in the business of making a profit. This is done through allowing Businesses to purchase promotion for their Facebook posts.  This causes a two tier post system called Organic and Inorganic Reach.  

Organic Reach is your post's reach just on it's own, and is simply the number of screens your post crosses and is seen in the timelines of without it benefitting from Paid Promotional Status. Inorganic, of course then means the number of people who have seen your post as a "Sponsored Post" or side bar ad.

There has been some problems with this method of promoting one's page, as the video, Titled Facebook Fraud,  linked below goes into detail about

Youtube: Facebook Fraud

Taking all this into account, a Small Business Owner needs to also remember that not everyone has, or wants a Facebook page, but they may still use computers to research out a purchase before hand.   Having a dedicated Website, properly formatted to return results based off location (Done through the use of Meta Data in the HTML Code of the Website) can produce a Site that returns high results in the Google and Bing rankings, without having a person needing to access the Facebook platform first.

I hope this brings some insight into the question of "Why Do I need a Website when I have Facebook?"

Planning a Trip? Technology is your Friend

Over the past few months, I have been tasked with planning for a routine business trip to Vancouver BC. Now normally this trip is about a a week and a half and I have stayed with the existing Grocery Stores and restaurants that have served me well on previous trip.

This trip, however, will actually be much longer in length, and it got me to thinking about options which will allow me to stay with in the budget AND not get a constant feed of the same meals the entire time that I'm away, and this is where Technology came into play.

Armed with the tools of Google Search, Google and Apple Maps and of course Yelp for reviews. I set out to locate a website which would give Me estimates on Taxi Fares in the City, this being very helpful as on average I would like to keep the cost to around $10 each direction.

The next step was to locate a Starbucks, because everyone needs a "Mobile Office" when on the road.  With the Mobile office located, I turned the task to places where I can eat a quick meal at a low price, and of course quickly had the usual suspects of McDonalds, Wendy's and Subway mapped.  From there, I decided to flip over to the Television, where Food network programs (and my trusty old blackberry Playbook) allowed me to find a few local to my location yet off the beaten path places to eat, and of course back to Google Search for Websites and PDF Menus in order to gage prices and hours, along with Yelp for reviews.

The final results of the search so far have proven very effective in creating a spreadsheet in Numbers (for access on the iPhone / iPad when on the go) of locations, distance from where I'm staying and the estimated Fare per direction.

As you can see, Technology has made what could have been a dull trip into something with some adventure.  Well Designed Websites allows a traveler to pre-plan their adventure prior to departure,and can actually bring new customers into your Business from out of town, Customers who will recommend places to their friends, like how I found to search for one Dinner.  Throw in apps for things like your Alarm Clock, navigating the Airport,  managing the budget with a good Spreadsheet software and a Scanner app,  and the traveler is pretty much set

if you are a Traveler What do you use to plan for a trip, any Favorites? If you are a Business, how helpful is Your Web Presence for those outside the City Limits? Leave your comments below

The pros and cons of the Digital Download

This past week, I had the event no computer loves to see happen, a software issue that can only be corrected with, yup you guessed it, the dreaded system reinstall.

While modern technology has made things a lot easier to keep the important details in tact (like not losing the media collection or any important business document...remember people back ups and external storage are your friends), I found myself hitting the tedious task of pulling programs back down from the app store (Apple's Mac App store specifically) and that's actually been a multiple day trek as the connection to the app store has been running painfully slow.

Slow speeds were not the only problem, there is also the wonderful realization that, for what ever reason-afterall we the customers are not given a notice and a chance to get an offline installer- a program gets fully removed from the digital store front.

The pros of a web based App Store make for a very convienient, one stop place to get very useful software, usually in a quick manor, but without the ability to back this type of stuff up offline an App Store can also become a factor of great disapointment when you lose things you like and use with no access.

While the concept of App Stores are clearly here to stay, how do you feel about them, what changes would you like to see made in how a digital storefront works? Please leave your comments.

duckduckgo...is it really worth it?

I’ll have to admit, that until  Nixie Pixel shared up this article  that I had never even heard of the search engine Duckduckgo.com.  

Duckduckgo is purported in the article as a search engine that is gaining traction with the growing concern of privacy issues in the online world, in fact the article states that 

“Many people are looking away from major search engines like Google and Bing and moving to Duckduckgo, a service that guarantees it doesn’t save your search information.”

Duckduckgo even goes as far as producing Websites that use info-graphics to explain how they are different from Google and Bing (both of linked in the above article by itworld, i’ll leave it up to you to read through them if you want)

But the big question is just how are the results with this search engine anyway.  Well to give things a try I decided to try a search for My Web Design company Inertial Zen Designs, the results, delivered quickly, saw My company’s website at the top of the list, the Google Plus page in second and rounding out the top three My page on Facebook.  A little further down the list were returns for My linkedin profile and an outdated link to My personal website, which I moved off of webs.com a few months ago.  These results can be seen in the screen capture below

The next thing I noticed prior to even looking at following any of the links was a little message actually asking me to make an exception in adblock to actually allow their advertiser’s ad reach me,

a detail that frankly threw up a red flag for me due to the fact that the entire promise of the site is Anonymous searching, and yet here they are trying to serve up an Advertisement that I can only presume is being generated off the query of my initial search.  However a full look in the cache and cookies did not find anything specifically placed on My local machine as far as cookies, a step in the right direction.

Overall, what’s your opinion of this search engine, which it appears has been around since 2010 by the looks of the article? Leave your comments below.

The “Soundbite” Society

The Sound byte, that little line stated in an interview or comment, that causes people to instantly turn their heads, to pay attention to a topic and hopefully look into things further.  Media has been using it for as long as media has existed, the bullet point from a President, statements like “No one ever expected this…” usually along with some sort of image to increase the attention of the masses.  There’s just one problem with the SoundBite, it’s becoming the expected norm when it comes to communications.

As society’s daily pace increases, and we have Technology managing our lives more and more, the trend has been for us to consume information in quick, short bursts.  Sites like Facebook, Google Plus and Twitter have lead towards the concept of getting the world to you in 140 Characters or less becoming common place and people screaming out responses like 

“Did you have to put your answer in the form of a text wall?

Communications were designed to get information across to another party, a sound byte being the point that brings the other party’s attention to a matter so that the situation can be discussed and investigated.  and the Soundbite, in it’s brevity usually results in an overshadowed broader  context leading to it being considered misleading or inaccurate.

How does this effect Website design you may ask? It’s said that content is key when it comes to a Website, that the content of a a site is what keeps the user there for longer than the time it takes to type in a new URL address.  Keeping this in mind, when the content for a Website is being created it should remember to take into account just why it is being put into existence.

Should content creators use the soundbite to get the consumers of said content to their Website? Without a doubt the answer to that question is a resounding YES! However once you have the consumers there, it’s always best practice to offer them a fair, informed and balanced representation of the content you are presenting, after all Customers do value honesty in those they deal with.

Happy Holidays Everybody

At this time, I am placing the Blog on a temporary Hiatus for Seasonal Holidays, but before I do, I would like to take a moment to thank everyone who has taken the time to read this blog and wish you and your families a very festive Holiday Season, no matter how you celebrate.

Have a Wonderful remainder of 2013, Be safe when welcoming in the new year and see you all in 2014

Sincerely 

David

Make a List, Check it Twice, is your Website Naughty or Nice?

One would think, with the time of year and the title of this Blog posting, that this is a tongue-in-cheek holiday posting, and if One thinks that, then someone has Another Think Coming !

Making a list, prior to seeking out a Designer for your Website, can be all the difference between having a Website that users find “Nice” or one that they avoid because it’s “Naughty”

The best way to start is to create categories for your Website, besides the Homepage or “Index” file, what other areas do you want your Website to Cover.  What information do you want it to convey to your visitors?  The usual result of asking yourself this question is you come up with something much like this (we’ll use page in place of each category after Home )

Home<—>Page 1<—>Page 2<—>Page 3<—>Page 4

So now that we have each category mapped out, the next question to ask yourself is “What Content do I want in each category?”  This is where you can make bullet points for each category and the information you want, much like this

Home<—>Page 1<—>Page 2<—>Page 3<—>Page 4

|_Intro |_point 1   |_point 1  |_point 1    |_point 1

|_point 2   |_point 2  |_point 2    |_point 2

And so forth, so now lets say you want to include specific images with each point (we’ll use Home and Page 1 for this example to save some space)

HomeHome<—>Page 1

|_Intro           |_point 1

      |_img 1

      |_img 2

  |_point 2

As you an see the process becomes fairly straight forward, as you get everything flowing how you want it to lay out.  A Site map project like this, actually helps your Designer see your vision more clearly and allows you to focus your thoughts on what you want to see listed content wise