Focus on Passion and Not Specifics

Having passion is better than having a specific skill set.  With general knowledge, it can land you a solid job with a good career path.  But, passion can take you far beyond that.  Passion can drive you to new ideas, inspire you to try new things, and push you through challenging times.  Focus on your passion, and it will guide you to the specifics you should focus on.

A Great Partner

Like a good business partner, strong passion will work with you to build on something phenomenal.  Passion is the single most important element to a successful businessman. Like a business partner, if it walks out on you unexpectedly, it could severely damage your plans.  Make sure your passion sticks with you.

Passion is key.  Passion is necessary.  Passion is a must.  

Let passion be your business partner, and your business relationship with any endeavor your involved in will be a successful one.

Here are 5 ways to create a stronger homepage:

1.  Logo and brand tagline -  It’s important to have a prominent logo with your brand tagline directly underneath.  You do not want visitors to wonder what your company name is and what your main principle is all about.  This should be placed in the top left hand corner for best visiabilty.

2.  Structured Navigation - There should be two parts to your website navigation:  Main navigation and supporting navigation.

• Main Navigation - The main navigation consists of your primary website pages.  They should be ordered by importance from left to right starting with the page you want to draw the most traffic to.
• Supporting Navigation - The supporting navigation are the items that you want to bring less attention to but still provide important information (i.e. Contact Us, Home, Sitemap, etc).  Make sure your supporting navigation doesn’t overpower the main navigation.

When naming the different navigation links, be sure to use verbiage that someone who isn’t familiar with your services or products can relate to.  For example, if you have a product called ChrisMax LE 2.1 which allows a person to create widgets automatically, name the navigation link ‘Widget Automation’ instead of ‘ChrisMax LE 2.1′.  Your product names relate to your company, not to your new website visitors.

3.  Main Header & Power Phrasing  - A main header graphic with imagery relating to your product or service can help bring an instant connection with your company and the website visitor.  This, partnered with a strong power phrase with a short message you want to convey about your offerings can strengthen the connection.

4.  Well-Balanced Content - Your homepage should provide the strongest delivery among any other page of your website.  Having more than 4-6 lines of content will begin to clutter the homepage and take away from your logo, your power phrasing, and ways to make a purchasing decision.  Provide a short, introductory amount of content which will lead visitors to other pages in your website.

5.  Strong Calls to Action - Calls to Action are graphics that support items in your main navigation.  If your blog is your biggest attraction on your website, support this with a graphic of a person writing or typing with bold text that says ‘View Our Blog’.  If a visitor misses the ‘blog’ link in your main navigation, the call to action will provide another way for the visitor to visit that page.  Do not include more than three call to action on your homepage- more than three will give the appearance of spammy website.

These 5 basic homepage adjustments can radically tranform your website from an unstructured page of information to a dynamic tool to drive new business.  You want to convey who you are, what you sell, and a strong way to make a purchasing decision quickly and these suggestions will help you do that.

Market Yourself

You are your biggest asset, why not market that asset to help you gain more business and connect with people just like you for collaboration?  Years ago, the internet consisted mainly of interactive agencies with big portfolio’s without any emphasis on the individual creative members working behind the scenes.  Times have changed and you should put yourself in the spotlight.  Social media platforms, such as Twitter, can help promote yourself and connect with other professionals.

Market Your Business

There are a lot of businesses that still haven’t jumped on the social marketing wave.  Social Media is a great way to spread the word about what your company is doing on a daily basis.  Official press releases are slowly becoming a thing of the past with the growing popularity of blogs and micro-blogging tools.  People are attracted to information that is connected to social media websites.  Why?  Because they can easily skip to other information if they don’t like what they are reading.

Share Your Personal Life 

Why is this headline the last out of my three examples?  Because sharing your personal life through social media websites isn’t the big secret.  MySpace paved the way sharing information which has made a huge impact for business professionals.

Taking It to the Next Level

I don’t know where social media will take me in the future.  I don’t know if it will continue to be a source of popularity among the top marketing professionals in the world.  With everything changing so fast, I just know that it’s important to constantly share information with your peers, continue to read and learn from any internet resource available, and take risks on what will help promote you and your business.

Social media, for me, will continue to be an experimental tool to see where it leads me.  I will watch where it takes other people and gain ideas from the best in the industry.  I will continue to blog about my experiences, my habits, and my personal beliefs of the social media world. 

Without risk, there is no chance for a big reward.  Without passion, there is no sense of true accomplishment.  And without social media, there is no outlet to connect worldwide like there is today.

Social Media is the future.  Let’s sit back to see where it will lead us.

Education

It’s very easy for someone with little or no web experience to start talking about web 2.0. This is done by the same type of people who claim to be web designers after they set up their first MySpace page. Not being educated can only lead you to trouble. So, please take a moment to learn Wikipedia’s definition of web 2.0. Now that you are well educated on what web 2.0 is, we can move on…

Here are some terms that can be called Web 2.0:

• Blogs
• CSS
• Datadriven
• RSS
• Ajax
• Widgets
• Wikis
• Standardization
• OpenID

First Impressions

I’ve heard many people in the online marketing field talk to customers about how they are fully involved with web 2.0 functionality. I’ve heard ‘we have great web 2.0 designs’ - but the websites are static. With the term ‘web 2.0′ being a popular buzz word, it quickly gives the client a good impression about you. But is it worth it?

Smarter Clients

If you’re creating simple website for a client, it’s best not to bring up this phrase since it doesn’t apply. Client’s are getting smarter by doing their own research. The last thing you need is a client correcting you for using improper terminology.

Why am I saying all of this?

It’s important to sound professional and lead clients in the right direction 100% of the time. Shady business practices or false information may help you in the short term but will kill your reputation in the long run. Know your stuff and present it properly. This will make you feel better, educate your clients, and will have your client’s talking great about you and your company.

THE GOOD

The first thing you’ll notice about this website is the user interface.  FI is the best out there in terms of a well designed user interface that is not only attractive, but user-friendly.  This is a huge plus for people looking to be part of a new trendy website.

The sign-up process was extremely simple and didn’t require a lengthy sign-up form.  This brought a smile to my face.

I love the dashboard layout where you can easily add new posts, upload your profile picture, and rename your ‘kontainer’. 

The media upload tool was extremely easy and fits well with the slick interface.

THE BAD

When I first heard about Kontain, which originally was Propod, I was very interested to see what it was about.  I was under the impression that it was a blog that you could easily integrate into your own website.  This intrigued me the most so when I found out it was a website (similiar to facebook and MySpace) where I post information to, I was a little surprised.  It may be a blog to customize on your own site but I haven’t found the feature yet.

So, is the purpose of Kontain to compete with MySpace and Facebook?  Aside from the user interface, what benefit does a user get from using this website? 

Kontain does include a nice list of new features that are pending but even with those, does this put it over the top for me to either switch from other social media sites or even add a new one? 

TO WRAP THINGS UP

While I don’t think anyone can dispute the fact that this is the best interface on the web, I’m wondering how many people will pick this service up long term.  Since it’s built with Flash, I’m wondering how well search engines will be able to pick the content to help benefit the blog aspect of it.

These thoughts are all with relatively little use of the service overall.  I will continue to use my new account and write and update blog with new feedback.

Great work FI - keep it coming!

What does it mean to create a tableless website?

The HTML that makes up the structure of a website can be coded in 2 ways: (1) Tables and (2) Divs.

Tables were the most common way to create a website because they were quick to setup and were not hard to learn. Most web designers were familiar with tables because other programs utilized them. Tables included both structure and styling (text, imagery, dimensions, etc.)

Divs are easily known as an empty container where information can be placed. Divs include only the structure of the website (content) and rely on an attached stylesheet to apply the styling to that content. This method separates structure from styling.

A tableless website replaces tables with Divs.

So, why not just stick with Tables since more web designers are familiar with them?

Well, this is what I originally thought in 2005. I was very comfortable creating websites using tables. I had a game plan each time I started creating a website. I increased my build-out speed with each new website I created.

The problem didn’t seem obvious until website updates and redesigning started happening. Since a website based on tables had the structure and styling mixed together, it took more time to update them both since they were intertwined.

A tableless design allows you to focus on either the structure or the styling, but not both together.

Are you a believer yet?

This information obviously won’t mean a whole lot unless you’ve developed a decent number of websites for clients. I’ve created over 200 client websites based on tables and over 150 built with divs and CSS and I will never go back to table designs.

Here are a few overall things to remember:

The Bad

• Tables generate more HTML code which requires more upkeep
• Tables mix structure with styling which will generally take longer to make basic updates as well as implementing a new design

The Good

• Tableless design separates structure from styling which gives you more flexibility
• Tableless designs are the latest trend which means you are up to speed with the latest technologies
• Tableless designs require less code which will help search engines crawl you content easie

In Summary

I speak from experience when I say that you should invest the time to learn how to create a website without tables. There are many sites that provide detailed tutorials on how to do this - just Google it!

Feel free to contact me if you need more information.

Our top 2 Awards were Gold winners:

Limelight Lodge - www.Limelightlodge.com

The Marshall House - www.MarshallHouse.com

To Learn More about the Adrian Awards, visit their website here.

Different offices have different policies on what you can and can’t do during work hours. I’m a believer that you can offer your team a creative environment allowing them to create videos like this. The time is priceless and the company rewards are huge.

Everything that I talk about going forward will focus on being creative. Creativity isn’t just for artists, it’s for anyone who has a passion for marketing. With every form of marketing, creativity is needed to continue to push the limit with new ideas to outperform competitors and make your client’s look like superstars. Being creative isn’t a suggestion, it’s a necessity.

Now lets get creative…