Being that March is the month of Mardi Gras, we thought it was a good time, translating the title of this article, to “let the good times roll.” Mardi Gras, among other things, is a good reminder of the value of a little fun in your web project. While business objectives are number one, an unexpected and fun 404 error page, less formal calls to action and subtle/unexpected design elements can put a smile on your customer’s face and give them a warm feeling about your brand.

Why must we have fun?

There is a neverending stream of data that all points toward making sure your website is FAST. Optimize the load time. Optimize the information architecture. Optimize the speed at which a visitor can find what they came for, interact with it and get on to their next web adventure. This often means stripping your site down to the bare essentials, removing anything that doesn’t serve a direct business objective. In many cases that’s just fine – take a look at Google, craigslist, reddit, etc. But where’s the fun in that?

Emotion is one of the foundations of advertising. As long as there have been products to sell, there have been advertisers trying to elicit emotion. Sometimes it’s nostalgia, other times it’s fear, and in rarer instances it is surprise. Surprise often comes in the form of whimsy, a playfulness that serves no real purpose other than to provide a bit of entertainment – or more simply, just fun.

How do we have fun?

One of the best places to inject a little fun is when something goes wrong – for instance if a visitor attempts to view a page at the wrong URL and is confronted with a 404 page. Take a look at these examples of how a potentially frustrating experience is made enjoyable with a little surprise and levity:

MailChimp

GitHub

NPR

All three of these examples are still functional – they all present you with an easy to use search feature to find what you’re looking for. All three also give you an emotional response: MailChimp gives you humor, GitHub gives you nostalgia and NPR gives you light-hearted education. A 404 error page is often overlooked, and these are great examples of taking a little time to surprise and delight your visitors. Check out this fun 404 we did for a local client.

One of the best examples of having a little fun comes from the royal family of keeping things simple and optimized – Google. You can spend hours swimming through their Google Doodle archive. The first Doodle appeared in 1998 to celebrate Burning Man and in 2010 they released their first interactive Doodle – a playable Pac-Man game. While these Doodles help to highlight and celebrate events and occasions, their true purpose is to entertain – and it works, many of the individual Doodles have gone viral and done great things for Google’s brand.

Those are neat ideas, but don’t really apply to me.

Sure, we’d all like to be Google (and have Google’s budget), but the reality is that we are in wildly different industries with much smaller sites. So let’s take a look at some lesser known examples of letting the good times roll.

Hovering Pies

Having a little fun with your hover state can do double duty – revealing additional information about a product while also providing a little eye candy. Check out Emporium Pies’ hover effect.

Animated Animals

Animation can go a long way, but it is best when kept simple. The overall design of the Chester Zoo site is a lot of fun, but the subtle animated animals in the background give you that little pop of unexpected surprise.

Illustration and Color

Sure, they’re selling ice cream, and that’s already fun, but Desert Chill went all in with their ice cream themed design. The colors, typography and use of illustration bring you right back to your childhood.

Tell a Story

Every site needs an About page, which incidentally is a great place to have fun telling the story of you and your people. Check out how The Neighbourhood combines fun photography, color and subtle animation while introducing their team.

OK, fine, I guess I’ll have some fun.

So we’ve convinced you to have a little fun, and that’s awesome because if you create an unexpected and fun experience, your visitors are likely to remember you and share their experience with others. These are huge wins in the vastly competitive world of the web – a pleasant and memorable experience goes a long way in ensuring your success.

So what are you waiting for? Go have some fun!

Yes, we love beer.

So it comes as no surprise that we are proud of our local beer scene and knew we had something we could bring to this community as web developers. We realized that there was no consolidated, easily filterable list of all the breweries in the area. People visiting the Tampa Bay area have no clear way of determining what brewery to visit – and we know there are a lot of craft beer fans visiting with places like Cigar City Brewery knocking out high quality beers like Hunahpu and Jai Alai. Even locals have a tough time keeping up with all the new breweries opening on what feels like a monthly basis.

Why we did it

Making a list is one thing – but just like in the brewing process, filters are where the magic happens. Why would you want to filter a list of local breweries? Well, let’s have a look:

• Heading out with your family? Wouldn’t it be great to have a list of the breweries that are kid friendly – with games, outdoor spaces and other amenities for the little ones?
• Love going places with your dog? Sure would be nice to see all the breweries that are happy to welcome Fido up to the bar.
• Hungry? Want some live music? Interested in a brewery tour? You love beer, but you’ve got other needs, wouldn’t it be swell to know where to go?

What started as a side project between two of us grew into a project with the entire team contributing … and The Brewery Bay was born.

How We Did It

We knew what we wanted the site to accomplish when we started building it, but the end result was an evolution of ideas. Here’s how we did it.

We chose ExpressionEngine core as the content management system, as we’ve been building a lot of projects with it and it’s a preference of mine. EE allows us the flexibility of adding new functionality and building out additional features in the future – no matter the complexity.

We chose Mapbox for the map showing the locations. Mapbox is easy to work with and the designers love it, too. We knew the true usefulness of this little directory would lie in making it mobile-friendly, so our awesome design team made it gorgeously responsive. The rest of our standards followed: jQuery, SASS, and Grunt.

I definitely refactored code quite a few times to account for additional approaches, features and functionality. With the whole team involved, new filters were added as everyone had a different way they’d personally want to be able to sort the breweries.

Once the framework was in place, it was just a matter of adding geolocation data, descriptive information, RateBeer and BeerAdvocate links, and then categorizing each of the 30+ breweries – a much more daunting process than we’d probably envisioned.

The end result is the most comprehensive and useful list of all of our many breweries here in the Tampa Bay area.  Save it to your home screen – it’s mobile-friendly too!

In order to remain useful, we’ve committed ourselves to the tireless task of “research” as we continue to scour the area in search of the next brew.

Be sure to check out The Brewery Bay and follow the Brewery Bay on Facebook for the latest news and updates.

Watching video online is a pretty old habit in internet years (which are sort of like dog years but instead of 7/1 it is more like 6,000/1). The ’90s were owned by the Quicktime, Windows Media and Real Players. Drawbacks included specific codecs needed for each, painfully slow internet connections and extremely low quality. The rise of Flash and proliferation of broadband made video consumption much less painful and much higher quality, opening the door not only for user-generated video sites like YouTube, but also the reality of watching television shows and movies online. Fast forward to today and online video accounts for more than 50% of all internet traffic.

That popularity is well-deserved, video is one of the most compelling forms of online content whether used for advertising, entertainment or education. No doubt you’ve struggled with whether video content is right for you, so we thought we’d take a moment to walk through some basics.

In short, people love their video. And in video, people love them short.

One big mistake with video is length: your video content should only be as long as is absolutely necessary. The December 2013 comScore U.S. Online Video Rankings find that the average duration of video content continues to drop, currently hovering at 4.2 minutes. Keep in mind that this is an average, meaning most videos are considerably shorter but the average is tweaked upward by full length television shows and movies. This means your sweet spot should be in the sub 2 minute range – any longer than that and you’re apt to lose your audience.

This isn’t the ’90s, dude.

Poor quality was just par for the course in the early days of online video, but now there’s no excuse. In fact, your iPhone has spawned a whole new brand of cinema. Poorly shot and poorly edited videos are going to be interpreted as a reflection on you and your product, so factor that into your decision whether or not to include video in your content mix.

Hey, I have an iPhone, am I a cinematographer?

Video has a million moving parts and getting them all right is not easy: from scripts to audio to lighting to acting to continuity to production to color correction to editing – there is a lot that can go wrong. Depending on what the goal of your video is, you may want to call in the experts. Posting a quick blog update on the new coffee maker you got at the office? iPhone it up. Introducing your new flagship product? Get a crew. Determine the goal and potential reach of your video content and then do it right – investing in high quality professional video is rarely a bad idea.

Keeping up with the Spike Jonzes.

In this day and age there’s a dangerous sense of needing to keep up with what everyone else is doing on the web, and if video is what’s driving traffic, you best get your Ron Howard cap and hop into the directing chair, right? Nope. While video is indeed a compelling way to tell a story, it isn’t necessarily right for your story. If you’re considering video, make sure it has a place in your overall content strategy and is not a one-off gee-whiz shot in the dark.

The recap montage.

We’re all familiar with montages that save us countless hours of plot development and boil it all down to a few minutes with a sweet soundtrack. Feel free to open this Rocky training montage in another tab while you read the recap:

• Video is a huge part of the internet
• Keep it short and sweet
• Make sure it is quality
• Call in the experts when necessary
• Ensure it has a place in your overall content strategy before you dive in

Playing cards with Twitter.

About a year and a half ago the good folks at Twitter created a really awesome way to extend your content on Twitter. The “attached media experiences,” called Twitter Cards, let you put a little bit of code on your website that will be attached whenever someone tweets a link to you and it is pretty darn cool. What wasn’t too cool was that there weren’t any analytics available to help you understand if it was worth the trouble (spoiler alert: it is totally worth it, check out the getting started guide).

If clicking on those links is too much work, here’s a visual for you. Here is a standard tweet containing a link to your content:

And here is a tweet containing a link to your content with a dash of Twitter Card magic:

I’m sold, But, do they work?

Awesome, right? Well it gets better. Yesterday Twitter announced Analytics for Twitter Cards and just like that we’re in the future (or rather the past, because seriously, how was this not already a thing?). Regardless, you can now not only take advantage of Twitter Cards, but you can also track how they are performing and tweak them as necessary to make them work their hardest for you.

So, are you using Twitter Cards yet? If not, let’s talk, we can help get you looking your best when your legions of fans are sharing your awesomeness.

*Cat by Danial Ryan

All of those visitors are looking for one thing: content. If you back up even further, all anyone is ever looking for on the web is content – be it for education or entertainment, in the form of long reads or cat videos – we are all seeking content.

Let’s talk about that content.

These days you can’t throw a rock without hitting some buzzworthy phrase like crowdsourced content, sponsored content, content marketing, user-generated content and on and on. Social media and social networks (the difference between the two is an entirely different post) have been building an unimaginably large pool of content, albeit in a far less permanent form than traditional web content.

Clearly content is still king, but it doesn’t look quite like it did when Bill Gates wrote an essay on the topic back in 1996, saying “content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet, just as it was in broadcasting.”

To get a good look at the new content landscape, we need to ask a few questions:

What is content? If someone posts a Yelp review on your business, does that become part of your content strategy?

We have some potentially overwhelming news: Yes, that Yelp review (and everything on the web related to your business for that matter) is content you need to be aware of.

The trick is prioritizing – determining where you should spend your limited time and resources when it comes to content. Social tools are an amazing way to foster two-way communication with your customers, but don’t get bogged down in building 48 Pinterest boards to tell your story.

Focus first on the content you have control of. This means starting with the basics: your website. Once you have that in order, use analytics to determine where the majority of your customers are interacting with you and focus secondary efforts there. You don’t need to respond to every Google review; be strategic about where you spend your time.

Most importantly, create goals – all of this work is for nothing if you aren’t working toward a set of attainable goals. Are you looking to sell more products? Educate your customers? Build yourself as an expert in your field? Engage existing customers to keep them connected to your brand? Set realistic goals and targets based on what you’re trying to do and gear your content toward those ends.

Whose content is king?

Let’s return to  Wikipedia for a moment, a repository for content not generated by the Wikimedia Foundation, but by an enormous network of contributors. It is easy to see how the question of content ownership arises. The same can be said for the comments, reviews and conversations started by others about your business – whose content is this and how do you make sense of which content is the most important?

Content ownership is a hot topic, and typically the answer is that it belongs to whomever is making money from it. Complicating this is the fact that content marketing, or sponsored content tailored to users of social tools, is now competing (heavily) with your messaging.

As mentioned above, your primary focus should be on content you control. Your role in content that isn’t created by you is to monitor and interact when necessary to add clarity, correct mistakes or provide further depth to a conversation. Be careful, though, hijacking an organic conversation about your business, even for legitimate reasons, can be perceived as unwelcome advertising.

Is the quality or quantity of the content more important?

With the abundance of content outlets, people often fall into the trap of thinking that quantity is key. This issue is exacerbated by the availability of tools that will automatically post your blog to your Facebook to your Twitter to your Tumblr to your Pinterest to your mailing list ad nauseam.

The most important thing to remember when creating content for channels other than your own website is to tailor the content to the readers and/or viewers.

Quality is always the most important goal when creating any type of content. Frequency is certainly an admirable goal, and a regularly maintained blog can do wonders for your site’s search rankings, but never sacrifice quality simply to appear in as many places with as much content as possible.

Help, I’m drowning in content!

So how do you have time to manage the ever-growing barrage of content development and maintenance in a vastly more complicated world than Bill Gates predicted in 1996? Here are a few tips:

• Set clear and attainable goals
• Be concise and focus on quality
• Post where your customers & clients are

Most importantly, don’t be swayed by the fervor over the latest and greatest new technology or content platform. If you focus on the above three tips, you’ll be able to develop a content strategy that puts your content to work for you and do it with your sanity intact.

But what about your website?

It’s time to refocus on the face of your business, much like you do on your body and finances.  Resolve to tackle a few simple but vital improvements to your website that will help you increase sales, engagement and conversions.

If you did nothing else this year, we’d be happy to see you accomplish the following:

1. Get ready for mobile.   2014 is the year analysts project that mobile traffic will surpass desktop. I’m sure you’re familiar with what “responsive” web design is, and why it’s important. But I’m not sure if you quite understand just how important it is for your site to be not just accessible, but beautiful and strategically considered on all screen sizes.
   • Mobile-friendly sites make your visitors 67% more likely to make a purchase (source).
   • 50% of people said that even if they like a business, they will use them less often if the website isn’t mobile-friendly (source).
   • More than half of customers shopped using a mobile device during the 2013 holiday season. (source).
   • Mobile is expected to overtake fixed internet access in 2014 (source).
   • Google rewards responsive websites (note: not mobile versions of websites) with higher rankings and increased crawls (source).



2. Commit to quality content.  We’ve all heard the phrase, “content is king,” but it’s not just any content.  Good content includes great copy, clever and useful videos, even well-organized image libraries. Google no longer cares about your keywords; instead, rankings are rewarded for good, relevant content.  The latest Google algorithm change (Hummingbird, released in fall of 2013) goes even farther to be able to understand and interpret “real” search queries in an insightful way — finally killing off the old “keyword stuffing” myth for good.
   • Use video liberally (and well).  Adding a video to your page increases your odds of appearing on Google’s first page by 53 percent (source).
   • Aggressively optimized pages (pages stuffed with keywords and phrases) will be affected negatively (source).
   • Unique designs and custom code are rewarded (source).
   • Paid AdWords are cheaper if you have great content (determined by your site’s Quality Score) (source).
3. Make a plan. It’s time to get your site organized. William Faulkner said it best when he told us to “kill all your darlings.”  Sure, he was referring to literary writing, but we like to use the phrase to mean that you have to get rid of your most precious and especially self-indulgent ideas for the greater good of your website users. Use this year (and especially, the next few months) to do a thorough content audit of your site and determine what users are looking for, what they’re skipping over, and what’s really working for you.
   • Perform a content inventory to find out what you’ve got, what needs to be removed or revised, and what needs to be moved or migrated (source).
   • Look carefully at your analytics to determine what’s useful and not.  Get rid of anything that’s not working hard for you (that’s not being visited or converting customers). (Some ideas on how …)
   • Browse through your blog and organize your posts into useful, hierarchical categories.  Remove any categories with fewer than 3 to 5 posts; clean up the structure and determine what you need or want to write more about.
   • Create an editorial calendar for the year to make sure you stay focused and committed to content creation for your blog.

2014 is going to be a big year for the web as all of these crazy new ideas settle into normalcy with users, search engines and owners.

Need help with any of the above?  Give us a shout.  We’re ready.

It’s one of our favorite platforms, for sure.

On December 12, WordPress outed its latest iteration, version 3.8 (codenamed “Parker,” because jazz! and codenames!). Whether or not 3.8 constitutes a major update is matter of perspective; pro developers waiting for WordPress to reinvent the wheel will find a few new bells and whistles to get excited about, while less code-savvy users are more likely to enjoy the enhancements to the system’s already baked-in usability. But let’s take a look at what’s new, and you can decide for yourself.

Design Changes

Many of the new changes coming with WordPress 3.8 are aesthetic. They don’t mess around with the core functionality–they just make the overall experience more pleasant.

The Dashboard has seen a fairly major overhaul that follows Apple’s lead in adopting a flatter, less cluttered look. There’s an updated font, Open Sans, in attendance that lends things a cleaner feel, and larger type and a heightened sense of contrast reinforce the idea that the entire Dashboard is roomier and more navigable. In addition, admins now have eight new color schemes to choose from.

Cross-Platform Optimization

The designers at WordPress have also (finally) followed the shift toward mobile use, and updated accordingly. Version 3.8 takes advantage of responsive vector-based graphics rather than static images. The Dashboard loads more quickly on phones and tablets than ever before, so you can get to the tools you need faster, eliminating frustration when you just want to get something posted on the go.

New Theme Management

In keeping with the goal of making 3.8 faster and easier to use across multiple devices, WordPress has also refined its approach to displaying theme options. Now, Navigation through the system’s many available looks is a breeze, and more information about individual themes is just a click away.

Widgets, Widgets, Widgets

For many WordPress users, widgets are the key to creating a robust web experience without spending hours inspecting lines of code. In the past, management could be a pain for folks who employed a lot of widgets on their site. But 3.8 eases the burden with a new protocol that automatically stacks new widgets to allow users with large monitors to see more on one screen. What’s more, Parker has optimized widget management for tablets–if you’re working on the back end of your site with a touch screen, just tap on a widget to add it to your site’s arsenal.

New Year, New Theme

With the launch of 3.8, WordPress has included a new theme, “Twenty Fourteen,” that departs from the usual blog look to include some of the big images, swiping and other magazine-style elements currently trending in site development.

Grid display, image sliders and more automatically create the kind of visually appealing layout that previously required custom work.

WordPress 3.8 isn’t a groundbreaking iteration of the CMS. But then again, they’ve got one of the simplest, most user-friendly backends going, so why fix it if it ain’t broke? If you’re a WordPress user, you will probably find these updates handy–just be sure to check your plugin and widget compatibility before upgrading.

Images courtesy of WordPress.org.

As Big Sea has grown from the little 3-person shop I started in 2005 to the 10-person team (plus a few amazing friends who pitch in all the time) we are now, the processes and management of projects have become considerably more complex and far more important. Coming from a traditional agency environment, I’d always been inclined to manage projects in the same way I was taught.  But that just doesn’t work.

We don’t just create something then send it to print and walk away.  There are so many more moving pieces in the process that prevent that traditionally linear approach:  the interactions of plugins/add-ons in ways we didn’t expect, new browsers and device sizes to test (often changing mid-project), the addition of *real* content that changes our intended layouts, the design modifications that need to happen once the limitations of development and/or budget are realized – to name a few.  Add the often enormous QA/testing process and of course, endless iterations, enhancements and issues accordingly.

The process of building a website or web application is a constant and steady blender of incoming information, assessment, management, development and output.  It’s messy, it’s interactive and it’s all fairly new.

When I saw the announcement for the Digital PM Summit hosted by our heroes at Happy Cog in Philadelphia, I knew I had to go.  I’ve been evaluating our processes for a few months now, having taken an inventory of our current approaches, tested dozens of SaaS products, and put together lists of must-haves and must-nots. I went to the conference with a long list of ideas of how I want to change our approach to project management.

What I realized while there though, is that it’s not about the tools and processes. It’s about managing expectations, feelings and being honest as much as it’s about making sure the work gets done. Here are my key takeaways from the conference, in no particular order.

1.  Clients don’t want to drive.

This seems obvious, but when we get really busy, it’s difficult to find the time to “drive” a project the way it needs – to stay on top of who needs what before they need it, to send thorough status updates and keep my inbox in check. We become reactive instead of proactive – and our work and relationships suffer.  The addition of a full-time project manager to the Big Sea team this summer will definitely make huge strides in filling the gaps, though (and allow me to refocus too), so I’m making this our motto until it’s thoroughly hammered home.  Thanks to almost every speaker for reminding me of the core duty of a good PM.

2.  Be honest and direct.

In fact, that’s what our clients are paying us for. I do this fairly well when it comes to feedback and assessment, but I definitely shy away from difficult conversations about issues and problems.  I often blame myself for overcommitting or not scoping properly rather than outlining the true issues that might affect a project success – and many times, those issues are out of our control.  Brett Harned told us to  make sure to initiate the difficult conversations; Rachel Gertz gave us all kinds of ideas on exactly how to do that.  Sam Barnes reminded me to sell directness as a differentiator.  Carl Smith talked about owning our mistakes and addressing issues early.

3.  Never email when you should call.

Thanks again to Carl Smith for this one.  I resist the phone like it’s tuberculosis, yet every time I have a quick five minute call with a client, we resolve more than any string of 10 emails would have.  It’s so much easier to pick up on tone and intention over the phone than shooting non-emotive messages back and forth.  I will pick up the phone.

4.  Don’t oversell or overcommit.

My team will tell you that this is probably my biggest weakness.  I know what we can do as software developers – we can do some pretty amazing things.  But amazing things take a decent amount of time and effort – especially in this age of browsers and devices and interactivity. I have a habit of telling clients that things are possible and over-promising, then having to eat the cost of developing those amazing things just to make good on my words rather than clearly explaining the complexity and work involved.  I  want to do great work regardless of the financial compensation, yet I’m running a business and need to balance that.  No one wins if we’re working for free – it’s unsustainable and foolish.

5. Anything can be managed with enough communication.

We build a lot of features and functions that perhaps haven’t been done before – or at least, not in the combinations we’re asked to develop them. Those tasks and projects are incredibly difficult to estimate and scope – and we run into a lot of issues along the way. By communicating these issues early and often,  I can better prepare my clients for the eventuality of either an increased timeline, budget or ditching the approach all together. Yes, it’s a difficult conversation but shedding light on things up front and as soon as they’re aware will make all of us a little more comfortable with it.

6. Educate and guide your clients and your team.

Never send anything without rationale (thanks again, Carl), tell clients how to give useful feedback (thanks, Brett), give meaning to tasks for both your clients and team members (thanks Nancy Lyons and Meghan Wilkins), and most importantly, always send thorough weekly status updates (thanks every single speaker).  No one teaches you how to be a client – so that’s up to us, as project managers.  Communicate effectively so that clients feel empowered, involved and informed.

7.  We cannot solve problems for our clients based on their personal preferences in color, typography and texture.

I couldn’t think of a better way to phrase this, so there it is, verbatim. Thanks to Jared Ponchot for it, and everything in his inspiring talk about designing on purpose (slides here – worth a browse).  Every design process needs to focus on purpose and content, then inform the style.  Always ask “why” instead of “how,” and don’t ask design questions of your clients.  Instead, use metaphor to unearth the adjectives and traits they want in their project design.

I could go on and on with tiny lessons and snippets of great information, but the above are a pretty good list for me to really focus on for our projects and management process going forward.  The tools are useful – but they can only support, not create an overall project management approach.

Thanks again to Happy Cog and Brett Harned in particular for putting on the first conference in years where I felt among my people.  Made some great friends and had an awesome time – and I’ll be back with our PM next year.

Why is that?

simple: Expectations are higher.

Today, people and businesses want options, customization, and the ability to manage their own content — and rightfully so.  Users (and site owners) have expectations for highly-interactive functionality, for mobile (or responsive) design, for bells and whistles and personalized experiences.   Demands and requirements are more complex and expectations are much higher than they were as recently as two years ago.  This makes our process far more laborious.

You’re probably used to (and enjoy) the experiences you have on million-dollar websites like Apple.com or Facebook or eBay – and you expect similar experiences for your own site’s visitors. Unfortunately, this comes with a larger price tag.  This level of “simplicity” is difficult to achieve and takes time to plan, code, refine, and test.

We love this InspiredMag article that compares building a website to building a new home. If you think about it, that’s exactly what you’re doing with a website…building a new digital home for your business.  You can choose the contractor-grade laminate or the finer granite countertops – but it comes at a price for our time and consideration.

Not to mention that there are so many more design choices available today. Let’s take a look at the essential (and some of the not-so-essential) elements to creating a highly-functional website that will still be relevant two+ years down the road (unlike many others)…

DESIGN IMPLICATIONS

The design elements that comprise the aesthetic face of your site are not just happy accidents.  We spend time finding, creating and experimenting to arrive at the perfect textures, shades, palettes, flourishes and design treatments that will communicate most effectively.  It is a designer’s job to consider details such as branding, themes, concepts, design flow, user interface, image manipulation, typeface selection, and more.

The elements that our design team spend more time on include:

• Initial concepts.  These include research into your industry, exploring your existing brand elements and/or creating new brand aesthetics.  We have to dig through libraries with thousands of typefaces to find web-friendly fonts, palettes with subtle, nuanced color shifts and layout elements that number in the dozens.
• Revisions.  The design team will have revisions from the project manager and creative lead before we present them to you, and you’ll have revisions.  Just how many revisions you want will influence how much time we need to spend.  Sometimes, what you think is a “little change” actually involves many layers and masks that need to be altered.
• Multiple screen sizes.  If we’re designing a responsive site or app, we need to design not just one – but 3, 4 or 5 (or more!) versions of each page so that the developer understands how the site should react on various browser and screen sizes.  Don’t even get me started on retina displays.  We’re not just designing down any more – we’re also designing up.
• Interactivity.  Because websites can move and change when you hover or click, we need to consider what happens from an aesthetic perspective for each button, link, image, or element and design those too.
• Page layouts.  Every site needs a homepage, but unless you’re looking for an off-the-shelf generic WordPress theme, we can’t make every other page look exactly the same.  Your blog post shouldn’t look exactly like an event calendar page, for instance. The designer needs to create page layouts that help tie the copy and imagery together visually, in a creative and useful way.

Development considerations

There are two components to website development: front-end and back-end. The front-end is what visitors see in the browser: it is the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) they interact with, comprised mostly of CSS, HTML, images, copy and Javascript.

The back-end is where the magic happens. It is the software behind the content management system, the e-commerce platform, and any other function you can think of. The back-end is what connects your database to your website. Each different web application connects to a database through programming languages such as PHP or Ruby. Each feature of a site can require anywhere from five to hundreds of files, and hundreds to thousands of lines of code, which must be crafted to perfection.

Some elements that influence the cost of development on your website include:

• Hosting. There are a variety of options here and it’s a crucial decision as it often determines the security and speed of a website.
• Project objectives and scope. What is the purpose of the site? What does the client hope to accomplish? Who’s using the site, who should be using it? These are all questions that need to be thoroughly thought out and well-defined before even getting started on a concept.
• Choosing device support. How important is it that your site is accessible (and enjoyable) across all devices and screen sizes? We need to consider, plan, design and develop for many, many more screens, browsers and visitor settings than ever before, using responsive website design.  (You can now surf Facebook from a screen on your refrigerator, folks.  The future is now.)
• Choosing a content management system (CMS). Will the site be created on WordPress or ExpressionEngine? Magento or Shopify? This decision is based on our research for your project, how much customization your project requires, and how well the platforms fit your needs.  Which one we choose will determine how much integration and custom code we have to write.
• Third-party integrations. Do we need to integrate with your merchant account and gateway processor to accept payments?  How about a calendar of events? Google maps or Facebook?  Do your users need to login and be remembered?  We can plan for our own code, but when we are relying on third-parties, we are dependent upon their documentation and ability to integrate in the way you want them to – which can drive up the time we need to spend to make it right.

Content and Optimization

Your site is beautiful and functional, but chances are it isn’t finished yet.  You need content – and you’re usually looking to us for that too.  Copywriting, photography, videography – all elements of creating useful content for your website that take time and experience.

Content is a very important component of your site that is often glossed over.  Telling your story is what ultimately sells your product or service. We’re not talking any plain old words here: this copy needs to be optimized so that your site is shown in search engine results. This involves keyword research and careful incorporation of the terms that are relevant to your audience. And like all other elements of a custom site, this too takes time and effort.

What’s With The False Perception?

Well, with SaaS (software-as-a-service) offerings such as WordPress out there that remain sustainable by selling a high volume of sites built on automation and templatization, people now think it’s “easy” to build a website… and that’s probably fine if you’re Joe the Plumber or Sally the Seamstress.

In reality, an effective, modern website requires a lot of planning, time, attention, effort, and skill. If you’re looking for a branded site that tells your story, reaches your target audience, and is easy to manage, then you should be ready to pay a little bit extra – but keep your expectations in check as well.

Next time you find yourself staring blankly at your computer screen and you know you’re likely not getting much done (let’s face it, it happens to the best of us), take some time to discover new content.

You may use it for your next blog post or that piece of research you’ve been working on, or for content curation to share on social media, which can lead to new followers.  At the very least, content hunting can be a productive way to spend rainy Saturday mornings.

I’ve been a victim of both procrastination and rainy Saturdays, so I’ve learned to ease that nagging voice and go looking for valuable content every time I’m feeling unmotivated. Along the way, I’ve discovered some ways to streamline this process and tools to help.

1. Make Twitter and Facebook Lists, Then Use Them
Both Twitter and Facebook allow you to organize people and companies into nicely categorized lists based on anything — their expertise, interests, the content they offer, etc. This makes it easy to focus on your search for specific content, rather than scrolling through the weeds.

For example, I’ve created Twitter lists for  “design inspiration” that I use when I’m embarking on a new project; “social folk” who keep me updated with social media information, and other lists for industry conferences, startups, and web design, and of course, my local friends and resources.

You can also find and follow public lists that other people have created by going to Facebook Add List. First, you’ll see lists created by your friends or lists on which they’re featured, then you’ll see lists based on your interests identified on Facebook. If none of those meet your needs, you can simply search lists for the topic of interest. You can also create a new list on this page.

Remember, creating a list is one thing; using it is another. Your time is valuable, treat it that way.

2. Follow Your Influencers’ Influencers
After you’ve identified some key influencers on a topic of interest, take a look at who they follow and interact with in their daily conversations. This is a great way to discover the originators of some really valuable content — and by following someone new, they’re likely to follow you back, potentially building your network and expanding your audience.

3. Set Up Google Alerts
Visit google.com/alerts and create alerts for the keywords of topics you’re interested in. Make sure to put the exact word or phrase in quotes to avoid irrelevant results as much as possible. For example, try “content marketing” instead of content marketing. You can set the alerts to send to your inbox daily, weekly, or as they come. Unless you’re looking for time sensitive information, I suggest setting them to weekly so they don’t become a distraction.

4. Subscribe and Review News Aggregators
There’s a lot of content available on the web today. Use an aggregator or two to browse headlines on topics of interests from top news sites. You can customize your results based on topic or outlet.

Among my favorites are Alltop and Popurls. These sites also show you what’s trending on other popular aggregators such as Digg, and Del.icio.us, as well as the top news sites and blogs like LifeHacker, Mashable, New York Times, Wired, Gawker, and many more.

5. See What’s Trending
Check out what stories are popular that day on LinkedIn Today or see what’s trending on Twitter. On your Twitter homepage, you can adjust your trending settings to show you what’s hot worldwide, by region, by interests, among your followers, etc.

I find it helpful to look at the comments of the day’s top stories and see what people are saying about them. It’s a great way to conjure ideas for blog posts and articles — “Why XX Product Launch Infuriated Its Fans” or “The Science Behind Why XX Story Went Viral,” for example. Same goes for the comments on your own blog and guest articles.

6. Crowdsource Your Content Ideas
I’m a huge fan of crowdsourcing, especially for content ideas. Who’s better to ask what they want to read or hear about than your actual audience? You could pose a very broad questions like, “What about digital marketing puzzles you?” or something more specific such as, “What’s your favorite RSS reader?” or “What’s your number one tip for staying on track?”

For the latter, you can combine the replies collected into a “master list” blog post and give each of them credit for their answers. Not only have you created a killer piece of useful content, but you’ve also recruited several people willing to share the article with their networks because they’re featured.

7. Create a Running List of FAQs
We tell this to every client:  Whenever a customer, friend, or business partner asks a question pertaining to your expertise, write it down! If they’re looking for the answer, there’s likely to be other people out there looking for it too. This way, you’re providing content that’s tailored to your target audience on a broader scale.

Remember, people love lists. Take the question that you’re asked most frequently and create a post that lists potential solutions. Kind of like the post you’re reading right now or “30 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself” (note the number of tweets).

8. Join Pinterest
Yes, it can be a huge distraction. A giant time warp of prettiness. But it can also be a fabulous (and fun) content creation and curation tool. Do a search for your key terms, find a few influential people or companies, and create an “inspiration board” for when you’re fresh out of content ideas. Peg Fitzpatrick does a great job of this.

9. Conduct an Interview
It’s nice to feature a fresh perspective on your blog. Take some time reaching out to some of your favorite writers to see if they would be interested in contributing or ask to interview someone of influence for a post. This is another effective way to tap an influencer’s network and build a broader (and relevant) audience.

10. Look at Your Analytics
Take a look at what’s working for your audience. Examine Facebook Insights and other social media analytics using HubSpot, SproutSocial, Simply Measured, or any number of other tools out there. See what posts are grabbing your audience’s attention and spurring creativity. Also look at your Google Analytics and see which links are seeing the most clicks, how much time visitors are spending on which posts, etc. Discover which topics interests them the most and build on them, find new ways to approach that subject with valuable solutions.

Of course, these aren’t the only places or ways to discover new and interesting content. There’s a ton of resources available on the web…which leads to bonus tip 11: Spend your day doing research! Do a search of how-tos: how to find valuable content, how to keep your audience engaged, etc. You may be surprised how many new ideas arise!

Do you have a favorite tip for finding content? Please share in the comments below!

]]>