Tom Cash's Blog Feed

Remembering Steve Jobs

6/10/2011

Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple and one of the world's most innovative and inspirational men has died at the age of 56 on Wednesday the 5th of October 2011.

The world has begun to pay tribute with figures such as Barack Obama, Mark Zuckerberg, Eric Schmidt, Bill Gates and even Arnold Swarchenegger making public statements such as "Greatest Tech Entrepreneur in history" and "The world has lost a visionary".

Furthermore and despite previous conflicts, Google have also paid respect with a tribute to Steve on their homepage. It simply reads "Steve Jobs, 1955-2011" with a link to the Apple website where they are currently presenting a tribute of their own.

Steve will be sorely missed by the world as spokesman of Apple and I do not think I could say it any better than Barack Obama:

"There may be no greater tribute to Steve's success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented."

How being cheeky saved me £1700 per month

20/4/2011

A few months ago, I was in emails with someone I wanted to buy link space from. We had a short email conversation which saved me approximately £1,669 per month for the price of being a little cheeky.

Dear Mr Tom Cash,

Thank you for your inquiry.

I am able to offer you the following ad solution:

One 240x240px advert space in top right corner of each page, linking to your website.

This space will be only yours, doesn't rotate, and will always be visible. Last month we have had 34,000 page views in total.

This will let your website reach more of your industries professionals and extend your companies reach worldwide.

This I am able to offer at £1,676 per month.

This price is negotiable, if you have another rate in mind.

Please send me your feedback.

Best regards,
Joe Blogs

----------------

Hey Joe,

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.

How much would you charge for a text based advert?

Kind Regards,
Tom Cash

----------------

Hi Tom,

For a text based advert I could offer you £877 per month.

Please inform me on your target buying price or your available budget.

Maybe we could work-out a deal for our mutual benefit.

Best regards,
Joe Blogs

----------------

Hi Joe,

Typically, for a website similar to yours (with a Google page rank of 1) I would pay $10-15 (USD) per month.

For £880 per month, I honestly do not think my client would receive a return on investment with a link from your website.

Would you consider moving on this price and maybe coming down to my level, at all?

Kind Regards,
Tom Cash

----------------

Hi Tom,

10 USD per month for 1 text-link on the home page sounds good for me.

Please send me your link text and destination and I will send you a recurring payment option via PayPal.

Best regards,
Joe Blogs

I know!... I didn't see that one coming either, but I was very happy with the result. I was surprised Joe even replied to me after my email, let alone, moved down to my level.

That is it; I moved the price from £1,676 to £877 to £6.10 in less than 24 hours and 6 emails.

Do you have any thoughts or comments or even a story of your own to share? If so, please feel free to post them below.

Google "Tilt" on your iPhone

6/4/2011

iPhone users have been pleasantly surprised when they have discovered a neat little Easter egg on Google recently.

If you have yet to see this for yourself, go onto Google on your iPhone and search for “tilt”; your search results will be displayed at a slight angle to the right:

As you can see, the tilted Google results are nothing drastic but are certainly enough to catch your attention.

It has also been rumoured that this trick does't work on the iPad but does on particular Android devices.

Have you tried this? It would be great to get some feedback on where this little trick does and doesn't work.

The Client Questionnaire

21/2/2011

Similar to my web design resource and tools list, over the years I have accumulated a healthy set of questions that I ask potential customers when I want to prepare an accurate quote and/or project proposal. Some of them are very generic or very specific and not all of these questions will suit you, your business or all of your potential customers. This list is purely to inspire and give you some ideas for making a questionnaire of your own.

Basic Information

What is your company name?
What is the address?
Who is my contact for this project?
What is their email address?
What is their phone number?
What is their preferred method of contact?
How available are they to answer questions during the course of the project?
Do you personally use any social media and may we connect on them?

Company

What is the main activity of the company?
What does it sell or promote?
How long has your company been in business?
What is the size of your company?
What is your company's reputation?
What market is your business in?
What is your typical customer like?
Who are your target market?
What are your company's strengths and weaknesses?
Do you have an existing website?
What do you like about it?
What do you dislike about it?
Do you have any existing marketing materials (logo, brochure, posters, ads and other documents) and can I have access to or have samples of these?
If necessary, will I have access to (your website/company-specific information/etc.)?

Competitors

Who are your largest competitors?
Do they have websites?
What do you like about them?
What do you dislike about them?
What are their strengths and weaknesses?

Project Specific

What is the purpose of this project?
What do you want visitors to do on your site?
How technical is this project?
Describe how you envision the finished project?
How many pages/screens are needed?
What do you not want on your website?
What sort of keywords / phrases do you want to be found for?
Are any specific colours required?
Can you provide a logo in digital format?
Who will be required to update the website?
Will you have any content that requires updating, i.e. a blog, gallery, etc.
Are there any specific project instructions?
Who will provide the copy for the website?
Do your customers have any special requirements or needs to be met by this project?
Can you show me an example something like what you have in mind?
Is it necessary to have any special software to complete this project?
Do you envision any potential problems with this project?
What are your long-term plans for your site?
What email addresses will you require?

Extras

What TLDs will be required?
Do you require hosting - If so, how much?
Do you wish to have Google Analytics?
Do you wish to do some social media marketing?
Do you wish to make use of Google Adwords?
Do you wish to start a link building strategy?
Do you require business card print and design?
Do you require flyer print and design?
Do you require letterhead print and design?
Do you require compliment slips print and design?

Work Agreement

What is your budget?
What is the deadline for this project?
How will you be making your payments?
Who should invoices made to?

Follow Up

How do you think the project went?
Do you have any suggestions?
Do you anticipate having any other projects based on this one?
Will this project need to be updated or revised at some point?
If the project needs updating, do you consider the updating or revisions to be a separate project?
Are there any other projects that I can do for you?
Would you be willing to give a testimonial on my work for my web page?

There you have it, 70 something questions to ask your potential customers before writing up a detailed proposal and/or quotation. I hope there's something for everyone to take from this.

If you have questions of your own that you think I've missed off, I would be more than happy to see your input and I may even add them to this list!

80+ Free and Useful Web Design Resources and Tools

6/2/2011

Over the years I have accumulated a healthy list of websites that I abuse on a daily basis. From analysis tools, to image search engines, inspiration websites and more. Below is a breakdown of my well organised list of resources (in no particular order).

Inspiration Resources

Pattern Tap
Designspiration
Patternry
MephoBox
Selected Webdesign
Colour Lovers

Site Optimisation Tools and Resources

W3C Unicorn Validation Service (RSS, CSS and X/HTML)
W3C X/HTML Validation Service
W3C CSS Validation Service
Robots.txt Validation Service
Web Page Analyzer
Pingdom Tools
http://site-perf.com/

Free Stock Photography Resources

Not all of these are great, but it's nice to have a varied selection:

Veezzle - A free stock photo search engine.
http://free-images-etc.rb-d.com/
Free Range Stock
Free Digitial Photos
PhotoGen
StockVault
MorgueFile
Stock.xchng
Photos8
FlickR Creative Commons
Every Stock Photo

Design and Development Tools and Resources

Wordmark It - Test a piece of text in all your computers font, simultaneously.
Frame Box - A simple wireframe tool.
Adobe's Browser Labs
Font Stack Tester
Support Details - A great tool for finding out your clients computer specifications.
Resize my Browser
Minify Javascript
RegExr - A very handy tool to help you write Regular Expressions.
Launch List - A checklist tool for launching websites.

SEO Tools and Resources

Bing Webmaster Tools
Google Webmaster Tools
XML Sitemap Generator
PopURI - A tool for checking your Google page rank, Alexa rank and more.
Google Keyword Tool
What page of Google am I on?
Yahoo! Site Explorer - Track inbound links and more.
Backlink Watch - Another useful backlink checking service.
Keyword Questions - What are people really searching for?
WooRank Website Analysis Tool
BuiltWith Website Analysis Tool

Free International Proxies

These are great for simulating the user experience as if from another country. These often come and go making it quite difficult to maintain a steady list of up to date proxies.

iBypass (French Proxy)
German Proxy
American Proxy

Free Photoshop Brushes

Brush King
Brusheezy

Free Font Tools and Resources

Wordmark It - Test a piece of text in all your computers font, simultaneously.
Font Squirrel
DaFont
What Font is - An awesome font recognition service that can name a font from an image.
Identifont - An amazingly accurate service for recognising fonts based on your description of them.
FontFuse - A cool font pairing site.

Free Icon Search Engines and Resources

Again, as with the stock photo collection, not all of these are great but it's nice to have a good selection.

Iconfinder
DryIcons
IconsPedia
Find Icons
iconlet
Very Icon
Icon Scan
Free Icons Web
Icons SEARCH
Icon Seeker
Icon Archive

Graphic Resources

365 PSD
Design Kindle
Premium Pixels

Websites I Visit Daily

The Next Web
Mashable
Smashing Magazine
Web Design Ledger
Search Engine Land
SEOMoz
MightyDeals - The GroupOn for web professionals.

Other Webmaster Tools and Resources

Google Analytics - Obviously...
Notable App - A website feedback and annotation service, great for compiling inspiration.
ASCII Table
URL Encoded Characters Table
Special Characters in HTML Table
The Dynamic Drive Favourite Icon Generator
CopyPasteCharacter - A quick and easy solution to writing special characters.
Name Checklist - Find out if your brand name is available as a domain, on twitter and more.
DomainR - A tool for finding available short URLs.
The Noun Project - A selection of simple pictures that describe pretty much anything and everything your interface requires.

Do you have resources that I have not mentioned here? If so, please feel free to share them.

28 Websites using Texture or Grain [INSPIRATION]

23/1/2011

1. United Pixelworkers

2. Tony Geer

3. Themes Kingdom

4. Ten by Twenty

5. Suki

6. Stella Projects

7. Simon Corry

8. Sergio Oliveira

9. Pointy Design

10. Open Source Design Network

11. New Adventures in Web Design

12. MetaLab

13. Amazee Labs

14. Larkef

15. Kean Richmond

16. Jan Mense

17. Hugs for Monsters

18. Hey Indy

19. Herrenausstatter Braun

20. Haäfe & Haph

21. Free Agent Central

22. Foundation Six

23. Doodle Pad

24. David Hellmann

25. Coda Coza

26. Ally Creative

27. Brian Wilkins

28. Brent Hartmann

7 Websites Using Big Background Images [INSPIRATION]

16/1/2011

1. Twelve Restaurant

2. Raven Golf Club

3. Medis

4. LogicSource

5. Christopher Meeks

6. Chipped In

7. Ally Creative

8 Tips for Choosing and Registering a Domain Name

6/8/2010

Choosing the right domain name can play a key role in the success of your website. So what should you take into consideration when choosing and registering your domain name? Here are 8 useful tips.

1. Keep It Short

The domain name is something people are going to need to remember and type in on a regular basis. Keeping domain names short is always a good idea.

FAQ: How long can my domain name be?
- Approximately 63 characters depending on where you register it.

2. Keep it Simple, Stupid (KISS)

Choose a domain name that is relevant to your business or business area. Do not confuse people with irrelevant domain names. Additionally, do not join words with the last and first letter of each word; for example warsawidgets.com is a bad idea, unlike warsawwidgets.com.

Furthermore, unless it is your business name, try to avoid using misspellings of words or replacing words with numbers; for example 2kool.com is probably not the best idea.

Finally, try to avoid using additional padding such as "company", "agency", "ltd" and "the".

3. Avoid Hyphens

Try not to use hyphens in your domain name as a lot of people may assume your-business.com probably doesn't use one.

FAQ: What characters can I use in my domain name?
- Domain names only allow for the use of letters, numbers and hyphens. Additionally, they are not case sensitive.

4. The use of Keywords

A lot of people recommend using keywords in domain names. I, however, personally feel that these URLs look a bit spam-like in most cases; for example, manchesterwidgets.com

Additionally, if your business is likely to change direction in a few years you may need a little leeway and therefore, I personally do not recommend tying yourself to keywords. Furthermore, if your online marketing strategy is good enough your URL should not make too much of a difference in your search engine ranking.

However, you cannot ignore the argument that keywords will always help people in understanding your website before they visit.

It's a tough choice!

5. Don't Buy Trademarks and Other Business Names

Before you register your business name it may be worth checking companies house to avoid registering another businesses name. There used to be a time when people who wanted domains badly enough would pay you big money. These days they just call their solicitors.

6. Be Unique

If you are going to register a domain name similar to another popular website this is a recipe for disaster for many obvious reasons.

7. Be Patient

Unless you have an idea that you think may get snapped up, be patient. Ask your friends, family and colleagues what they think. Ask if they can spell it, how easy it is to pronounce and, most of all, does it make sense?

8. Purchasing a Domain Name and Covering your Options

So now you are at the point of registering your well chosen domain name. I always recommend that people register both the .com and .co.uk for a few good reasons:

If you tell someone that you have a website and they only catch the name, the first thing a lot of people try is the .com.
At an online marketing seminar that I attended in July 2010 it was mentioned that people from the UK are 60% more likely to click a .co.uk over a .com in search engine results.
Finally, if a competitor purchases your alternative domain name you could face losing a lot of business to them if they do not offer to sell it to you (for quite a substantial fee).

It can never hurt to have too many domain names. It merely increases the number of ways people may find you. Some companies have even been known to buy the misspellings of their domain name.

FAQ: Does this mean I need to have a website on each domain name?
- No, you can host your website on your favoured domain name and point the rest to that.

5 Reasons to get a Website

15/7/2010

Some great questions that I am frequently asked are "why get a website?" and "what benefit would a website have for me?"

Well, let me tell you that in this day and age customers expect businesses to have websites. Below are 5 of the benefits to owning your own website and how it can help your business grow.

1. Expand your Market, Globally

A website can be seen from anywhere in the world, meaning you have the potential to sell to anyone, anywhere.

2. 24/7 Trading / Expanded Availability to the Customer

Just because you close your shop doors at 5pm it does not mean you have to stop trading. With an ecommerce website you can trade 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

3. Cut Costs

Think of a website as an online, interactive brochure - a 24/7 advertisement of your products and services, perhaps a shop and maybe an FAQ's page. All this for the price of keeping the website online, which is cheaper than printing brochures, advertisements and the large bills that come with a business premises. Not to mention the cost of staff time saved when customers use the FAQ rather than phoning you directly. A website is a self service medium. Without you ever having to lift a finger, your customers will be able to browse and learn about your products, before buying them.

4. Promoting Your Physical Presence

Perhaps you prefer to deal with your customers face to face in a more personal manner. You can use your website to inform your customers of their nearest store and even show them a map or provide them with contact details. You can also keep customers up to date quickly, so if you ever change your location or contact details, you can update the website immediately, rather than having to wait for the latest telephone directory to be released or for new media to be printed.

5. Cheap Market Research

Using the features of your website, such as the statistics packages I provide, you can track what time of the day you get most visitors, what day of the week and what month of the year. You could also monitor the average time spent on your website, what websites people are coming from, what search terms are used to find your website and what geographical location people are visiting from. I can also provide bespoke analytics to help you monitor customer details such as age and gender to help you shape your business and marketing strategy to further improve your sales.

Mobile Websites

10/6/2010

The mobile web is undoubtedly the future of the internet and browsing. There are currently over 500 million people accessing the internet from their phones on a regular basis and it is said that by 2015 there will be over a billion. [1] However, another source indicates that the rapid growth of mobile technology looks at causing mobile web users to exceed a billion by the end of 2010! [2] Moreover, it mentions how mobile phones will eventually eclipse the desktop PC, which is not incomprehensible when you think about the rapid growth of mobile technology in the last decade or so.

These are only some of my findings. After weeks researching this topic I have decided to push mobile websites myself and I am now offering a mobile website package from only £150 plus VAT. Below are three of the mobile websites that I have recently created:

I believe that becoming an early adopter of this revolutionary technology will give you a substantial edge over your competitors. So if you think this is something that may interest you please feel free to get in touch.

References

24/04/2010 - MobiThinking - Latest Mobile Stats
03/12/2009 - ReadWriteWeb - Analysts Predict 1 Billion+ Mobile Web Users by 2010