We got the first batch of numbers late last week for our national television commercial spot. And the client is thrilled- sales are up 20% since the ad began its run.
We’re working with the client on an expanded campaign. And we’re integrating the spot into their website and other corporate marketing materials. This is good.
There’s a lot of really bad websites out there, and it’s understandable- a lot of clients don’t understand what their web company is doing. And really, a lot of web companies have no idea what they’re doing, either.
It’s especially hard for clients to understand what they’re getting from a web company when a lot of really poor design practices can easily be hidden. See, a lot of what makes a good website happens in the code. And people don’t look at code so much. It’s time consuming to work at the code level. So most web design companies don’t bother.
That’s a mistake, and the client who chooses a web design company without understanding the design and development process is almost certainly destined for failure.
We’re currently working on a new website for a client. Let’s call them Zelda’s Bakery, because we signed a nondisclosure for the client. Zelda hired us to take another web shop’s work and well, make it work. We’re not particularly fans of the look of Zelda’s site, but she loves it, and more importantly her customers love it.
The problem is, her old web design company implemented Zelda’s design in a really cruddy way. Sure, it looks like Zelda’s design. And it sort of works like she’d like it to. But the entire website consists of images and very little text. Additionally, her navigation system uses a ton of javascript that junks up and bloats the filesizes. Since so much of the site is image-based it’s really hard to update. And finally, they’re getting really bad search engine rankings. Google can’t “see” images.
Enter us.Zelda’s new website will look an awful lot like her old website. Which is what she wants. But it’ll now have a nice database back end. The extraneous javascript will be removed in favor of CSS for her navigation menu. We’ll use CSS tricks to minimize the amount of images used throughout the site, too. Some of those tricks involve really cutting-edge things like CSS Sprites. The site will be a lot easier to update, too.
Most importantly, the guts of Zelda’s new site will be extremely search engine friendly. Which, it turns out, makes it extremely friendly to users from all sorts of computing platforms- iPhones, Blackberry users, disabled users, etc. In fact, by taking the time to program Zelda’s website using standards-based solutions we’ll be making her site much more friendly for any user.
Which is really the first step towards making the website successful.
Technorati Tags:web standards, web design
I found a place to live, finally a decent house in a great neighborhood. It’s close to everything I need, and it is more convenient to my friends like Yoji who live on the Westside. It’s good having a garage again. And, it has a view.
I think I’m moving out just in time, since the Fire Department has been using the warehouses next to my apartment as practice rescue buildings, coming in at night and ripping out the roofs, etc. This means it’s just a matter of time before all those buildings- almost a whole city block- will be demolished. The dust and mess will be incredible.
Also, as mentioned here before, my building is going ghetto. Things aren’t being repaired, amenities are being closed (it is very frustrating to see the 50 inch plasma and the couches in the common room and know none of us can get in there to enjoy it). The new management company, from Arizona, is pretty horrible. One of my neighbors calls them Nazis. And finally, their rents are going up. It’s just not worth staying, anymore.
Still, it’ll take me a couple more weeks to get fully moved out. I’ve been so busy at work lately, finishing up a video project and currently working on 4 web projects, that I can’t spend all my time packing boxes and running back and forth. I don’t mind that it’s taking a while to get moved. It helps me enjoy the process.
Today was also the day we finally ended our association with a client. The client had been having problems for over a year- they’ve lost over half their staff, and many of the departures were very acrimonious. They also fired or lost all of their other vendors. We hung in there, but eventually things got to where working with them just wasn’t fun or profitable. It was time for us to go, too.
Change is a part of life. It isn’t easy, whether it’s saying goodbye to a place you’ve lived, closing the door on a bad client, or ending a relationship and moving on. There’s been a lot of changes in my life lately, and looking around I notice that there are many sea changes taking place in those around me. We live in uncertain times. But they’re still interesting times. I don’t see the world as bleak.
I am looking forward to life becoming more interesting, more vital, more alive. There’s a lot of potential out there right now. And I have to think that it’s definitely time to move onto bigger and better things.
