I have a section of my site and this blog dedicated to finding new sites on the web that I like the looks of. I enjoy using it to show my customers what is possible and can still really look good.
One of the criticisms that I have for many of these sites is that they are using images or javascript or both for navigation. I don’t like that because I believe that it makes it harder for the search engines to find your pages.
I found a good tutorial by By Rachel Andrew on SitePoint about how to use CSS and plain text to make your navigation both cool looking and also search engine friendly. It’s something that you can do that I believe really helps your rankings.
I often look for ways to promote a company’s website by using ideas that can be passed around by others. If done well it can give you great publicity that doesn’t cost much or anything at all. Many times that can be more valuable than paid advertising.
Because of that I tend to pay attention to what others send me with an eye more toward how this helps promote the original designer and/or the sender.
Most of what I get is just the usual stuff like jokes, prayers, urban legends and cute pictures, but every once in a while I get something that I really like. Usually because it’s something that can be a great promotional tool for the original sender and so for myself or one of my customers. Some of these sites make it in to my Friday Just For Fun Sites section and some of them inspire me in other ways.
This weekend someone sent me a link to a holiday greeting ecard that was designed by Ashland University. When I saw the card was for 2002 it made me want to check out this year’s card as well as all of the other years. I realized that these cards are a wonderful way to promote the University as well as the student designers. They got to show off their facility including all of their new improvements and to have this great promotion passed around on the web for free.
As I wrote in my article Lessons Learned from “Talk Like A Pirate Day” holidays come around every year. Even ones that you invent yourself. These pages will continue to be passed around every holiday season and the benefits will be renewed every year.
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I have a page on my site with some of my favorite new sites that are showing up on the web. These are not my sites, but they are the kinds of things that I like in a website. There are different reasons that I picked these sites, they all look good and are clear and easy to use. The graphics are good, but not overpowering. Sometimes I just like a picture or the name. Some of them are not in English and I still know what they are about.
The newest one is called FirstClass-Schools. I like the simplicity of this design. It’s crisp and clean with plenty of whitespace. I like the rounded corners they fit the site well and look smooth.
What they do and what they sell is right up front along with easy to find navigation. Overall the site looks and works well.
The one thing that I don’t like is the domain name. Their domain is firstclass-schools.com, but everywhere else on their site they just call themselves First Class. That makes their domain name less than memorable. Also FirstClass.com is a software company that is geared toward schools and firstclassschools.com is another different company. Any of these issues could get visitors typing the name into their browser confused and lost.
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Here’s something just for some fun on a Friday. (Not responsible if you get caught playing at work)
I know when I’m in a restaurant waiting to pay and they have one of those racks with the little booklets that have what happened in the year of your birth I usually open one to look.
This site has all of those and more. Have fun and enjoy.
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If you are using email to market to your customers you already know Internet service providers are blocking more and more of your messages.
There are some very good suggestions on the Email Insider Blog called “When ‘Best’ Practices Become ISP Law” for getting your mail through. They mostly have to do with your list of names. How to acquire them and how to manage them.
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One of the first things I did when I started this site was to write articles that I thought would be of interest to other site owners in hopes that they would post them on their site with a link back to me. Here are some of them.
I began to notice that they helped me at first, but less and less as time went on. I recently found a blog called Make My Blog Money and on it a post called “It’s Offical. Article Submissions Are Dead”. They explained that Google tries to find out who the author of an article is and to only give them credit for the content. If they can’t find the author they usually go with the first one to publish it. I did advise to always publish your content first, but that also that means that all of those other back links that you worked so hard to get are not worth much any more.
I do still write articles along with these posts, but mostly for my own use now. I use them mostly to answer common questions from visitors and customers. I also find them quite useful to pass out as promotional material at networking events.
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I like to advise my customers to use blogs of their own or write comments on other related blogs to attract visitors to their own sites. I keep seeing a new trend with companies and site owners paying blogger to write about their product or service. I have written before that I Probably Can Be Bought.
I was reading in the Wall Street Journal that Nestlé was trying this approach in Europe. Nestlé is a huge company and when you see something in the WSJ you know that it has become close to mainstream. The discussions of the ethics of this approach keep appearing.
I don’t know that I could write positively about a product that I didn’t like or approve of. If I was allowed to write my honest opinion I would do it, but if not I think that I would have to turn down the opportunity.
I don’t worry too much about this approach turning bloggers into paid spokespeople because I believe that if a product or service does not do what it claims bringing a light to shine on it will only bring out all of the facets both good and bad. I don’t think that the bad qualities will be able to be hidden. Even if the comments about the flaws are deleted from the original post there are many more bloggers who will be willing to discuss a product fairly.
Trying to pay people to speak positively about something that is not good won’t work in any medium for long.
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When I first started in business I was wracking my brain looking for a really cool domain name. I actually spend a couple of days doing nothing else. One of my friends gave me some very valuable advise. “You should at least own your own name. Then if you come up with something better you can always add it later.”
Luckily Lillicotch.com was available and I’m really glad that I did it. Most peoples last name probably is not available any more and the more that I use it the better I like it. It’s simple, pretty short and what better to describe me? I can also type just Lillicotch.com into any browser and go right to my site.
I found a site called goodurlbadurl.com and it’s very interesting. They talk about what makes a good url and ways to promote it, both online and off. It’s a site worth checking out.
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I have a page on my site with some of my favorite new sites that are showing up on the web. These are not my sites, but they are the kinds of things that I like in a website. There are different reasons that I picked these sites, they all look good and are clear and easy to use. The graphics are good, but not overpowering. Sometimes I just like a picture or the name. Some of them are not in English and I still know what they are about.
The newest one is called The Super Yacht Cup. It’s clear that this site is about sailing the world. Sailing is one of my favorite pastimes so I’m a bit biased. I think this site looks great, even their logo looks like a sailboat. I even like the way the globe fades off on the right side.
There are not many pages to the main navigation, but it’s right at the top and easy to use. Rounded corners are a bit more modern, but I like the way all of the square sections fit together.
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Here’s something just for some fun on a Friday. (Not responsible if you get caught playing at work)
Office Max has come up with a page that lets you put your face on a dancing elf and send it to your friends. It’s a great promotion for Office Max and great fun for you and me.
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