A client asked me the other day if they should drop their website and go “100% Facebook”. I’ve had enough people asking about this that it’s really time to address it in a FAQ.

The short answer is, “no”.

No, you should not fully entrust your virtual presence to another organization. If they go out of business, so do you. If they change how their system works, it’s possible that your business will suddenly become invisible. Don’t think that can happen? Well, recently Facebook did just that by tinkering with users’ newsfeed display options.

More importantly, you should always have direct access to your customers and clients. Don’t get me wrong- I like Facebook, and it should be a part of many companies’ digital marketing plans. Yes, use Facebook as a way to meet and cultivate new clients and for turning fans into evangelists for your brand. But you should always have your own company website, blog, and so forth that are completely under your control.

As always, your website is your company’s most important digital marketing asset. Going 100% Facebook is lazy, shortsighted, and stupid.

We’re happy to announce that we’ve completed a major overhaul and redesign of truckaccidents.com. The new website is based on web standards, and uses a state-of-the-art MODx CMS, with WordPress blog integration. The website also includes a bunch of new video content, shot on RED and posted at our edit suite in Los Angeles.

The website was a huge team effort, and we’d like to thanks our awesome teammates Amy Gallaher-Hall (lead designer), Jen, Gradiva, Crystal, Corinne, Tyler, and of course Jeff.

You can view the new website at www.truckaccidents.com.

We won an IMA Outstanding Achievement Award for our website we created for MPAC- the Muslim Public Affairs Council. Usually these awards go to much larger creative/design firms who have much larger budgets. So, we’re kind of stoked. It’s nice to be in the company of bigger agencies like Happy Cog and Huge, Inc.

We had a great team for this project, hats off to everyone! I’m especially happy that this award goes to our first collaboration with Collabpad, and that we chose MODx as our Content Management Framework.

Sure, we’re prepping a proper press release about all this. But in the meantime, here’s more about our award:

Congratulations! We are happy to announce that your entry into the IMA competition, the Muslim Public Affairs Council Website, under the category ‘Nonprofit’, has won the IMA Outstanding Achievement Award with an overall score of 462.

To win an award your entry had to successfully pass through our comprehensive judging system. Our judges utilize a points-based scoring system which allows each entry to receive a maximum of 500 points. By adhering to the specific guidelines and criteria of this system our judges are able to maintain the highest degree of fairness, accuracy and integrity; competently and effectively evaluate entries; and, deliver clear results.

Our individual scores were as follows:

Design: 91
Content: 95
Feature Functionality: 98
Usability: 92
Standard Compliance & Cross-Browser Compatibility: 86

Welcome to Website Design Wednesday. It’s a new thing, I’m hoping it catches on. Today’s topic: what is a good website redesign? I know a lot of people wonder about this subject. Well, I do at least. Here’s some things that a great website redesign should get right:

Don’t screw up your audience’s expectations.
Oh, sure. I bet you were thinking I’d talk about CSS or web standards. We’ll get to those, someday. But first, you need to keep your audience in mind. If they’ve gotten used to using your site one way, you better have a very good reason for making huge changes to that experience. I’m not saying you shouldn’t make wholesale changes to your site architecture. But if you do make huge changes, you should really make them with your audience in mind. Anticipate their needs. How can you do this? By spending a bit of time with your Google Analytics or whatever website stats app you use. Learn how your audience is using your site today, before making changes that could mess them up.

Simple is good.
Many times in a web redesign project, we’re asked to have a billion huge buttons screaming and competing for attention. That’s just nutso. Don’t fill up the pages with billions of competing messages. Settle on a few key actions you want people to do when they visit your site. If you do that, I’ll stop exaggerating. Truth is, we’re not asked for billions of huge, competing buttons. It’s usually in the low millions at most.

Consistency is better.
Websites that don’t work the way you think they should ruin the experience and make customers hate you. A consistent user interface throughout the site is best. But it’s not just the UI I’m talking about, here. A certain consistency in the tone of the written and visual content of your website goes a long way towards a successful website redesign.

Make sure the new design fits your brand’s image.
Every once in a while, a potential client will tell us they want a website that’s nothing like any of their marketing or advertising materials. Something that doesn’t truthfully reflect the company. This is almost always a mistake. Your brand is something that needs to be nurtured and carefully protected. It’s OK to extend your brand or identity by stepping out a little with your website. But the best websites are readily identifiable as representing the brands and organizations they were created for. There’s a reason for this.

That’s all for today- happy Website Design Wednesday!