What does this even mean?

I remember working on a project many years ago where people could locate the model of their car and be shown all the suitable tyres and a list of stockists with their best prices. The aim was simple, match people in need of new tyres with the closest and most competitive retailer. The site did not feature any e-commerce functionality and acted purely as a directory.

We had created a wireframe for the project which was approved by the client and we then started on the design side of things. Internally we came up with a few designs, but as usual there was one that stood head and shoulders above the others. We were very excited, feeling that we had nailed the brief. We were genuinely surprised when the client rejected the design within 5 seconds of seeing it.

His reasoning was that although we had designed a site which looked fantastic and would compare favourably to any existing tyre themed website in the market, it would not look right for his users. The existing sites in his industry were all manufacturers or retailers and his site was a price comparison directory. The look and feel we had delivered was completely inappropriate for his users and would send the wrong message to them.

After our initial disappointment we realised he was 100% correct. The design we had come up with was just not suitable for his business. It would have sent out the wrong message to site visitors the second they landed on his homepage. We went back to the drawing board (or in this case Photoshop) and came up with a much more appropriate design which was approved at once. Problem solved and a happy client.

What should I be looking out for?

A great design is never enough. It also has to fit the particular niche of the site in question. Most successful sites look the way you would expect them to look. As a site user you are no doubt making snap decisions about whether a site you have just landed on has anything to offer you.

• Does it look the way you expect it to look?
• If you want to buy something does it look like an e-commerce store? Are there clear prices, payments methods or other visual cues that this is a store?
• If you are looking to appoint a trusted service provider does their site visually inspire trust in you?
• If you want to do a search or perform some other discrete action is this option immediately clear to you and not obscured by complex or pointless imagery?
• If you are looking for a premium company does the site appear to be of a high quality and does it avoid visual techniques that make it look cheap or poorly thought out?

What’s the website design lesson here?

Sometimes you can get too close to a project, particularly if it is your own. If you are about to appoint a web design company then make sure that you take a step back from your project and think about what the end-user would expect from your site. Try to distance yourself from your personal tastes and your own expectations of the web in general and think about the real needs of your project. If you can match the expectations of your users with the look and feel of your website then you will be off to a great start.

2011 Video

We are attending Semi-Permanent 2012! As a company, TWS understands the importance of our Web Design team to stay inspired and keep up-to-date with trends.  As it is the nature of the industry to change and evolve, it is important for our Website Designers to evolve and learn with it. The creators of the event reveal that it was born from a wish to bring together the world's design communities.

According to the Semi-Permanent website, “Semi-Permanent is a world leading design conference that to date has hosted 29 events in 9 cities, covering 5 countries, with over 200 speakers and 50,000 attendees. In 2012, Semi-Permanent celebrates ten years of events – that's a decade full of stories and wisdom from industry idols.”

The 2012 conference, hosts speakers from many different genres in the design industry, including not only web design but also graphic design, film, fine art, illustration, interaction design, typography, photography, visual effects, animation, graffiti, motion graphics and more.  As a designer it is easy to find inspiration everywhere, especially in other creative fields.

As a third-time attendee of Semi-Permanent, I love the conference because it is a real world glance into the challenges and solutions that most people in the creative industry share. It gives its attendees new tools and ideas for solving creative problems.

What makes Semi-Permanent unique to other big conferences is that it is also a forum: throughout the event, Semi-Permanent’s social media platforms of Facebook, Google+, Twitter and Instagram enables its attendees to converse and share ideas with the wide world of design.

Speakers this year include:

This is also the first year that Semi-Permanent has teamed up with Google to host a Google+ Hangout Session, with Roman Coppola & Friends being webcast directly from the United States. Semi-Permanent has said,“Hangout is a new webcast system that Google has set up as part of its Google+ network. It’s an exciting new technology that allows for multiple video chats with up to 10 users.” The ways in which we communicate change and grow, Semi-Permanent has advanced with this, bringing together creative minds from across the globe.

So how have we set this up? When a user browses to one of our sites, there are a number of different content items that will be downloaded. Some of these are static content, such as images, and certain javascript and css files. Some content is dynamic, such as html code that is generated on the fly for that page. We are able to set certain rules for what we do and do not want to cache, and how long each type of content sits in cache before expiring.

As I write this article, this is a summary of the caching:

Thus, 44,000 of the available 100,000 entries are in use. These take up 890 MB of the 1.5 GB in RAM that we have allocated to the load balancer, and will each live in cache until they expire, or are specifically wiped from cache This would happened  when a user does a hard refresh (CTRL+F5) of a web page – any cached content for that page is removed from cache.

The cache hit rate of 39% means that 39% of all requests have been served from the load balancer cache without having to be passed on to IIS. This is a figure we’re happy with, given that there are certain types of content that we do not want the load balancer to serve

An example of this is images that are uploaded by site owners for their sites. Originally we did have these cached on the load balancer, but the effect of this was to take up rows in the cache that could be better used storing more complex content such as html pages.  You saw in the table above that 59% of the available memory was taken up. If this were to get to 100%, no new items would be able to be cached until existing items expired. We have found that when caching these images on the load balancer, we reach that 100% very quickly. So instead we hand these off to our image server, which manages this process very efficiently, given that this is the sole purpose of that machine.

Also not cached are some html pages. Depending on the type of site and the function of the web page, some pages will appear exactly the same for every viewer. These are a prime candidate for caching. Other pages may show different content. A shop department could show different departments depending on user permissions. A product may have different pricing. A search form will look different before and after it has been submitted. There are countless examples of pages that cannot be cached in this way. Even simple pages may contain widgets such as shopping cart summaries that change not just for each viewer, but throughout that viewer’s session. The way we handle this is by having code within specific functions that tell the load balancer not to cache any pages that call these functions. Similarly, site owners updating content will not see cached versions of their content, so they can see instantly the effects of changes they make.

You can see in the table below the type of content that is being cached. The first row is a page on a client site that appears the same for all viewers. It’s been requested from cache 5 times, was last requested 0 seconds ago, and will sit in cache for another 56 minutes. At the moment we are caching html pages for 1 hour.

The next row is css file on our home site that has been requested 2468 times and still has another 12 hours in cache. At the moment we are caching css for 24 hours.

And what does this mean for our servers? You can see here that in a five hour period earlier today this web server served an average of 4 requests a second. Prior to configuring the load balancer in this way, the average was 6.

So our web servers are handling about 33% less traffic than before. CPU usage is much lower and less erratic than before, database requests are down considerably, and browsing response time is quicker. It’s all good!

1. Our team of Website Designers and SEO experts are happier than ever to see me in the morning. I’m greeted with smiles, people running across to say ‘hi’ and occasionally a very small treat. Unsurprisingly, when I’m on my own, I can quietly slip into the office unnoticed.
2. Whoever Bronte chooses to visit on her office wanderings gets to feel good about themselves. There is something nice about a dog seeking you out for a quick pat or just to sit down next to you and watch you skilfully build a website or improve someone’s rankings in Google!
3. She’s also made some clients happy along the way. Building the perfect website can be stressful and Bronte has been more than willing to drop in on the occasional meeting to help people relax and get back on track.
4. We’ve had a little bit of extra publicity. Most people love dogs and the photos of Bronte that we’ve added to Facebook have been widely viewed and commented on. We’ve also had employees and contractors post photos of Bronte on their own website with positive comments about our workplace. A picture tells a thousand words…
5. It gets me and others (thanks Paul!) out of the office at lunch. Nothing like a walk in the park and Bronte is just the excuse we were looking for.

So how does a web design company benefit from having a dog at work?

Having looked into the whole dog-at-work thing, I was quite surprised to discover that it is something that has gathered significant momentum both here and abroad. High profile companies like Google have official policies that govern the rules around bringing your dog to work and there have been a number of studies that have shown that dogs in the workplace can:

• help reduce stress and lower blood pressure
• be a great ice breaker with clients or staff
• allow staff to work back if needed rather than rushing home to walk their dog

So, what started out as a couple of days a week for Bronte has now gone up to every day of the week. And even though she’s only a puppy and still a bit of a terror at home, she seems to know her place in the office and pretty much never misbehaves. Well, excluding the time she jumped all over the landlord the first time she met him… but it turned out that was because he owns 5 dogs and she could smell them.

That’s enough typing for now, time to take the dog for her lunch walk.

Firstly it is important to understand that there are 2 different types of sitemaps.

1. The page your site visitors see. This sort of sitemap is typically linked to via the footer on each page of your website. It is built with the intention of it being viewed by real people.
2. A page search engines see (important for search engine optimisation). This sort of sitemap contains XML and is formatted in a way that allows computer programs to easily view it and use the information it contains. More on what this actually means later.

Do I need one or both of these sitemaps?

For most websites having both of these types of sitemap is important to the success of the website. 

What’s important about the sitemap for visitors?

Some website users (particularly those that do not like browsing or searching for information) will go to your regular sitemap if they cannot quickly find what they are looking for on the homepage of your website. Even more importantly, a prominent link to your sitemap should be shown whenever anyone attempts to visit a page that no longer exists on your website. The technical term for these ‘page not found’ messages is a 404 error and it is important that your website automatically shows a ‘404’ containing a link to your sitemap whenever a page cannot be found. This not only helps real users know what is going on, but also sends the right message to search engines if they also stumble on a missing page.

This sort of sitemap should contain a list of all of the major sections and pages within your website. If your site contains hundreds of products or blog posts (for example) then you might want to just include an entry to each section of the website. It is important that this page is kept up to date. It will be very frustrating for a user who navigates to this page only to find that it contains out of date entries.

A small plug for our content management system… our CMS automatically creates a sitemap and keeps it up-to-date with all changes made on a website. It also automatically includes a link to the sitemap in any ‘404’ errors that are shown to site visitors.

What’s important about the XML sitemap particularly from an SEO point of view?

Firstly, XML (or extensible markup language) refers to a document (in this case a page on your website) that contains data which has been designed to be readable by computer programs.  If HTML is all about displaying information to site visitors then XML is all about carrying that information.

Most search engines will look for the location of your XML sitemap as soon as they arrive at your site. They will expect to find its location within your robots.txt file. Without an XML sitemap a search engine will rely on locating the various pages in your website by looking for links embedded within your site navigation or the text on each page. An XML sitemap makes the process of working out which pages to index much simpler. An XML sitemap also allows search engines like Google to learn a little more about each page on your website including things like when it was last modified and how often (in general) you expect it to be updated.

Once again, one of the advantages of using our highly SEO friendly content management system is that it automatically creates and keeps up-to-date the XML sitemap.

How do I get both types of sitemaps included in my website?

If you are a web design customer of The Web Showroom then both types of sitemaps will have been created for your website already. They will automatically be kept up to date with any changes you make to the pages on your website. If your website has been built using another content management system (CMS) then there is a good chance it will also look after these pages automatically. If not, you should ask your web developer how to get them installed as they are both important to the successful operation of your website.

We placed 56th out of 100. To have just made the list is a fantastic achievement for us, but to come in as high as 56 is an exceptional effort and reflects all of the great work we have done since 2007.

For this year’s list companies were ranked by 2010-11 revenue and also had to meet a strict entry criteria. Hundreds of start-up companies enter the list each year, and from this large group, the final 100 is narrowed down to the BRW Fast Starters. The BRW Fast Starters is one of a select group of respected lists published by BRW on an annual basis. Other lists include the Fast 100 list, Australia's Best Places to Work and the Young Rich list.

We would like to send a big thank you to all of our amazing clients who helped us place in the list, as well as all of the team members of The Web Showroom whose hard work has made this award possible.

A big thank you to all!

1. Internet Blockades were not as effective as Governments first thought:  

In Egypt as with Tunisia, the effectiveness and reach of social media took the government by surprise.  In a matter of weeks hundreds of thousands of Egyptians organised protests through communicating with each other through Twitter and Facebook.  The government quickly shutdown social media and then on 27^th of January they tried to shut down the whole internet.  But even this did not shutdown the activists as Google provided a service to Egyptians where you could call a number and leave a voice message and that message would be posted to Twitter.  By combining social media with traditional methods of communication, Google had formed an extremely effective method for people to organise and spread their message.

2. The Right Age:

As shown by the graphic on sizemoreletter.com the majority of Egypt’s population is under 25.  The largest demographic on Facebook are 18 to 25 years olds so this is a perfect fit with what the demographic the technology is built for.  In Tunsia the vast majority of the population is under 29 and in Libya they are under 25.  As any parent will tell you their son or daughter knows how to work their electronics a lot better than they do.  This couldn’t be more true for social media, and this combination of youth and social tools built for youth turned deadly for Muammar Gaddafi and disposed of Mubarak and Ben Ali.

3. Strategic Advantage:

In previous uprisings around the world governments were able to crush the protests by cutting off communication and then overpowering the crowds of people. Social media took away some of this advantage and even gave the protestors the edge in some situtiations.  Protesters were able to setup meeting points and then quickly change them if they saw authorities building up a presence.  They were able to warn each other if they noticed police vechicles heading into any one area. They were also able to share practical advise on how to avoid detection, handle teargas as well as coordinate sabotage of security apparatuses.  The strategic advantage of control and communication that governements once had was now removed.

With events continuing in Syria, it’s going to be interesting to see how social media effects the freedom of information and therefore the freedom of specific countries populations. Also as governments become better and better at cutting people’s access to these mediums, it’ll be interesting to see what the leading companies such as Google, Facebook and Twitter do to counteract this censorship.  

So, what Is Pinterest?

Pinterest describes itself as a “Virtual pinboard to organize and share the things you love”. In simple terms you create an account and can ‘pin’ media that you find around the net to a series of image boards. In essence image boards are categories of images. As an account owner you can maintain a range of boards on any topic of interest. You can pin images to a particular board either by uploading content from your computer, or using a Pinterest plug-in on your browser to pin content from any website you visit back to your board (provided you comply with Pinterests terms & conditions). These boards themselves can be viewed by friends, and other users, who can then re-pin media appearing on your board to their own.

Does It Matter For Businesses?

Pinterest is getting lots of commercial hype due to the way it engages users. After Facebook, it is the #1 social network in terms of the average time users spend on the network each month (89 minutes). But, like most new social media phenomenon the jury is still out as to what kind of real impact Pinterest can have to the bottom line of most businesses (especially smaller businesses). The visual nature of the network means that product companies, especially in creative spaces, should be able to leverage the network to have their content shared. In the USA, companies like Kate Spade, Whole Foods and Gap have quickly taken to the network and see large numbers of users follow their boards. We would advise business owners with great visual content to start engaging with the network, but certainly not to prioritise it over more proven online marketing avenues. For more conventional businesses (professional services, trades etc) we aren’t yet convinced in the merits of devoting any serious attention to the network. If you do engage, like with all social media properties, be careful to balance self-promotion with providing users with interesting and engaging content.

How Do I Join?

To join Pinterest you need to set-up an account. To do this you need to be either invited by an existing user, or join the wait-list at www.pinterest.com. During the registration process you will be asked to sign-up using either your Facebook or Twitter logins.

Doesn’t Pinterest Violate Copyright?

Pinterest’s biggest concern to date relates to copyright. Essentially users are ‘pinning’ content to their boards from all around the internet. Sometimes content is owned by the user, but in many cases the content is clearly owned by a third party. Stock photography website iStock has publicly raised an issue with this, whilst other prominent content generators such as Getty Images are believed to be in discussions with Pinterest at this time. The way these discussions and/or proceedings play out could have a huge impact on the long-term viability of the network.

What Does It Look Like

If you are interested in gaining a visual on what Pinterst looks like, and how to use the service, feel free to view this tutorial on YouTube:

As the General Manager of a fast growing company it is my responsibility to ensure that staff, old and new remains engaged with both their own role and the company as a whole. As a company starts to have department managers, teams of staff and very separate day to day routines it is easy for some people in the same company to have no idea what the person across the office does all day or how they contribute to the success of the business. We have always been a company that has regular one on one meetings with all staff to discuss an individual’s progress but towards the end of last year it became apparent that our 5 minute staff meeting every week wasn’t filling anyone with much enthusiasm and really wasn’t doing much except to address more mundane issues such as “who does the washing up” and “make sure you turn off the lights”. I decided to radically alter the weekly meetings to involve all staff and all teams and allow every department to have a moment in the spot light.

Every month we now have a specific meeting schedule mapped out in advance so everyone can prepare for the meeting and those listening know what to expect.

Week 1 is a monthly recap of the month just ended. Each department Web Design, Online Marketing, Web Sales, Online Marketing Sales, Development and Account Management takes a turn in speaking for just a few minutes on their month that was. It can include wins, losses, new staff, staff leaving, financial goals met or missed, great new designs launched or marketing campaign success stories. They have the opportunity to share with the whole company how they are going and this in turn allows the company to understand what “those people over there” do day in day out.

Week 2 is Online Marketing‘s week, they present “Campaign of the Month”. This is a presentation about the campaigns that are going well and the Online Marketing Manager picks out one campaign to highlight. It can be an SEO or PPC campaign, or a combination of both. They could be a web client of The Web Showroom or an external client just coming to us for marketing. To become campaign of the month the marketing has to be providing leads, increasing leads, improving rankings for keywords, the client has to be happy with the results and the campaign has to be managed well by the Online Marketing Account Manager allocated to it.

Week 3 is “Presentation” week; each department manager takes a turn to present about a subject in their area of expertise. Past presentations have included: the importance of Social Media on a website, what makes a good prototype, blog optimisation, landing page optimisation, what makes a good business logo, the list goes on.

Week 4 is the chance for Web Design to shine. Site of the Month is awarded to the designer and Account Manager on a job that ticks all the boxes: great design & usability, conversion effectiveness and client management.  Two other websites are given a mention in 3^rd and 2^nd place but 1^st place will go to the site TWS Management feel encapsulates everything that a website needs for success.

By the end of every month, every department has had a chance to get in front of the company and share their news. Every employee can talk knowledgeably about our company and everything that we do. No one can say “it’s not my department!”

If you are a business on the rise, and I hope you are, I encourage you to include your staff as much possible and make sure they understand what makes your business tick. If they don’t, it will be a much harder job for you as you try and grow your business.

With around 880 monthly searches in Sydney alone on mobile devices for Plumbers, I assumed most websites would have simple conversion optimisation completed to allow customers to easily reach them.    

1. HTML Phone Number in the Banner that actually Clicks to Call

• My first search today brought up a website with no phone number in the banner of the website.  Its 630am and my house is turning into a poorly built indoor swimming pool, I’m not going to dig around for your Contact Us page.
• I go to the second result, there is a phone number but it’s an image and it’s so small that I have to zoom in 6 times to make out the first digit, my plasma TV is floating past me, no time for that. 
• I go to the third result.  There is a phone number, and it’s actually large enough to read on my iPhone!  But it’s an image which means I have to memorise 10 digits and then press home go to my phone app to make the call.  After 3 consecutive failures to do this and calling the wrong number and the fact that my living room is attracting ducks makes me ditch this option
• I go to the fourth result.  Large phone number and it you can click on it!  I thought I had hit the jackpot of Plumber websites.  I click on the phone number and it takes me to a contact form.  I think to myself that I must have clicked on the wrong spot, so I go back and click on the button again. Once again I’m taken to a contact page where I need to fill out some form with 10 fields in it plus an annoying Captcha with garbled letters at the end.  Even if at that point my I wasn’t holding my laptop in my arms like a mother holding her child above flood water, I still wouldn’t have the energy to complete that ridiculous form.
• My 5^th attempt takes me to a simple homepage with huge click to call phone number that actually calls the company when you click on it! This lucky plumber was the recipient of a $1,500 payment when he picked up and saved my apartment.
  
  It’s simple. You’re a tradie, your website is not to generate email addresses, it’s not to sell products, it’s not to build your brand - it’s for getting people who need you right then to able to contact you as fast as possible.  All you need to do is make it easy for them to find you, and then make it even easier for them to call you.  After you have gone to their house/office and provided exceptional service then the customer will become loyal to you and you’ll get repeat business.

2. Tell People what you do - List your Services

• What caught my eye on the second website I went to (even though I couldn’t call them) was they stated in bold - HOT WATER REPAIRS.  Well, that’s exactly what I need so this is the guy for me.  Keep in mind that the majority of the public is proud to know the difference between a Philips head and flat head screw head – so we’re not the best at knowing exactly what tradie does what job.  If I want my new dishwasher installed do I need a plumber or an electrician or can either do it?  Make your major service areas clear to see on your homepage so the layman knows you’re the right man/woman for the job.

3. Do you serve my Area? List your Suburbs

• The only other criteria I was looking for when scanning websites was, do they service my area? This is particularly important for emergency jobs as the person searching wants someone immediately.  By the way there are 3,600 monthly searches in Australia for “emergency plumber” – so there are a lot of people looking for emergency service.  Now this can be difficult as there are a lot of suburbs in every major city in Australia. (if you’re bored http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sydney_suburbs or  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Melbourne_suburbs)  So what you should do is list the major suburbs that you serve or the ones that have the most demand.  Just go to the AdWords tool and list the suburbs to see what people search for.

With these three simple rules you can make it easy for your future customers to quickly see that you are the right person for the job and then quickly call you to get you to solve their problem! Now if you will excuse me I have to relocate some ducks.