Wow! It’s not every day that your business is nominated for an award but for us, today is one of those days!

Our company, Bergan Blue (@berganblue), has just been nominated in the 2009 Central Coast Business Achiever Awards! In order for us to proceed, we need to have votes. Thats where you come in. We now need YOUR help!

Please click here to vote for us and you could win an indulgent weekend at the newly transformed Crowne Plaza Terrigal. You will enjoy 2 nights in a new Pine Suite including full buffet breakfast, a three course a la carte dinner in the Seasalt Restaurant, a relaxing treatment in the Tea Tree Spa, a bottle of sparkling wine in your room and complimentary parking.

So, please place a vote for Bergan Blue! We’d absolutely love it if you did!

Rgds,
JB

One site I must point out before we push forward is http://www.fujinonbinos.com/. I must insist that you visit this site first, right click and view source and take in the pure awesomeness of this markup. I’m sure it’ll put a smile on your face.

Anyhow, on to the links!

Awesome Design

• 8 Pivotal Developments in Web Typography - This is a great article! Definitely have a read!
  
• 10 Important Traits of a Great Blog Design
• 50 Really High Quality Photoshop Navigation Menu Tutorials
• 77 Excellent Photoshop Tutorials For Designing Posters
• 65+ Illustrator Tutorials, Tips and Resources
• Website Design Tips Using Photoshop CS4
• Typography in Public Spaces - Typography is everywhere. Do you always notice it?
  
• 5 Light and Grungy Paper Textures
• A Showcase of Sites Displaying Twitter Feeds
• 10 Awesome Videos for Designers
• Ways and Links to improve the Typography of your Wordpress site
• Guide to CSS support in email clients - CSS3 is slowly being rolled out to email clients. Will you roll it out so soon?
  
• Building Faster Websites with CSS Sprites

Awesome Development

• The Definitive Guide to htaccess Techniques: Do’s and Don’ts
• Evolution of the WordPress User Interface (2003-2009) - It’s amazing to see how far the UI has come.
  
• Drop-Down Menu: 30+ Useful Scripts to Enhance Header Navigation
• Things To Remember While Coding A Website To Make It Search Engine Friendly
• Getting Into Computer Science and Programming - Interested in getting into web development?
  
• Easily Implement A Live Search Effect
• Open Source Web Analytics Framework in PHP

And The Other Stuff

• Blind Search - The Search Engine Taste Test
• How To Create Popular Blog With Keyword Research, Heatmaps And SEO?
• SEO Is Not Really That Complicated - Really .. it’s not.
  
• Optimising The Page Search Results Snippet: On-Page Tactics
• 60 Websites To Promote Your Articles On
• Brand Building and the Love Strategy
• 100 Websites You Should Know and Use - From ted.com’s TEDblog!

Keep your eyes glued to JonBergan.com as I’ll be posting an article in the next few days titled How To Build An AJAX-powered User Registration Form From Scratch. So, for all you junior developers out there who are interested in coding an AJAX-based form from scratch (without using a library such as jQuery) - stay tuned!

Anyhow - that’s it for this week! Got a link you’d like to see here? Be sure to leave a comment!

Rgds,
JB

Awesome Design

• 5 Step Style Sheet Weight Loss Program
• Super Awesome Buttons with CSS3 and RGBA - I’m completely loving CSS3 and where this is heading. Can’t wait for full browser support in the coming months.
  
• Custom Buttons 3.0
• List of 10+ usability-conscious link styles - Some great styles for front-end designers especially!
  
• Cufon - Fonts for the People - This works great. It’s no CSS3 font-face implementation, but its still kinda cool!
  
• Accessibility Color Wheel
• CSS3 Embedding a Font Face
• CSS Gradient Text Effect - This uses an image overlay so it’s not the best but the end result is pretty neat.
  
• 35 CSS-Lifesavers For Efficient Web Design
• How to Spot Quality within Web Design: Examples & Tips
• 20 Tips on How to Write for the Web
• DD_belatedPNG - Medicine for your IE6/PNG headache!

Awesome Development

• Improving Your Process: Faster Front End Development
• 10 Rules of Front End Coding
• The First Few Milliseconds of an HTTPS Connection - Always good to know exactly whats happening in the background.
  
• 30 More Helpful Video Tutorials For Web Developers
• Ultimate A/B Testing resources by Brian Cray
• Best free PHP learning resources for beginners
• Model-view-controller on Wikipedia - Getting into a framework like CakePHP? Read this!

Hope you’ve all have had a great week!

JB

Forget about magazines, flyers and brochures for a minute and consider what life would be like if you could touch base with each and every one of your prospective and current clients for next to nothing. I’m referring to eNewsletters.

eNnewsletters are quickly shaping the way businesses market themselves in the online arena. Having a funky looking eNewsletter that is branded to your business is one thing, but it takes a well structured newsletter which communicates at a level appropriate for your readership to really be effective. With this in mind, it goes without saying that slacking on such a simple task can be the sole reason that your newsletter isn’t working for you.

Before we dig too deep into the many ways you can improve your newsletter, we should look at some of the key mistakes people often make when developing a newsletter from scratch. It really comes down to the basics. It’s the simple mistakes that cause the reader to lose interest and click away from your email. Remember, the sole reason for writing an eNewsletter is to gain the readers’ attention and interest. If you can’t do that, then no matter what you write or what images you include, you’ll always be left behind.

Some of the most common mistakes made by business owners and those developing their first newsletter are:

• Bad English – It’s amazing to think that people send out newsletters to thousands of people with spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and issues with their punctuation but it happens all the time.
• Lack of consistency – Throwing any type of content in an eNewsletter is never a good idea. So many newsletters lack any real structure thus making it hard for their readers to find the content they like reading on a regular basis.
• Use of big words – Using big words that nobody understands is never a good thing if it means your audience isn’t going to understand what you’re saying.
• Misuse of colour – Placing green text on a red background and making links in your newsletter flash might have looked good after a few quiet wines the night before but your readers definitely won’t agree with your choice of colour when they open up the email first thing the next day.
• No external links – Refusing to link to other content in an eNewsletter is a sure-fire why of ensuring the reader doesn’t visit your website.
• No support for HTML-based email clients – Finally, some eNewsletters get sent as plain text and this really does not aid the reader in distinguishing what is important in your newsletter’s layout and what isn’t.

There are many different elements you can look at when developing an effective newsletter, however most of these are useless unless you’ve got the basics down. The three most important elements to focus on though are structure, communication techniques and external links. These three elements alone will determine the fate of your newsletter as they will ensure you’re providing a level of consistency for your readers, you’re communicating on their level and you’re providing them with additional information should they choose to read more.

So, how can we go about incorporating these three elements into our newsletters? It’s quite simple. We basically need to follow the three rules below.

1. Establish a consistent structure for your eNewsletter

The most important aspect to a newsletter aside from its copy is its structure. Think of it this way. When you read a magazine you like, it often has the same sections usually on the same pages of the magazine. This way you instantly know where to flick to in order to find the content you’re after. The same thing must happen with your newsletter. Without a consistent design, your readership won’t be able to quickly and easily find the content they’re after.

The best way to do this is to establish a few sections for your newsletter that you plan on repeating every month. Such sections may include Company News, Latest Products, Client Testimonials, Article/Tips and Recommended Affiliates. You will also need to work out what order these sections will appear in. In other words, you don’t want to change the order of these sections each time you send out a newsletter, otherwise what’s the point of having them? Your readers will start favoring different sections and will instantly know where to find them if they’re always in the same place.

2. Communicate effectively in your copy

Once you’ve come up with your newsletter’s structure, you need to piece together some effective copy. The main goal here is to write copy that is concise yet interesting. The rule of thumb here is to keep things simple and don’t waffle on. You want your readers to stay interested and ultimately to read your entire newsletter. If you feel they may be losing interest, you may need to review your copy and/or hire a copywriter to weave some magic into your words. After all, their job is to turn your copy into something interesting and also something your readership will understand.

That brings us to our next point. Try to avoid using long words or words your readership may not entirely understand. Although they might seem great and you may feel good knowing what they mean, they’re useless if your readership cannot understand them. The best bet is to have someone read your copy who has no clue about the industry you work in. If they can still understand everything and don’t have any further questions, chances are you’ve hit the nail on the head.

3. Always Link to External Resources

Finally, a good newsletter will always drive the readership back to your website or to other relevant external resources. The best way to do this is with the use of links embedded in your copy.

One good way of achieving this is to introduce summaries or lead-in paragraphs into your newsletter. These seem to work especially well as they raise interest in your reader. If they want to read more, they have to access your website to read the full article. The main purpose of this is to have the reader access your site again and hopefully browse some of the other content you have on your site. It not only builds awareness and exposure but also raises credibility for yourself and your business.

Links to other external resources, affiliates and recommended websites are also great. They show your readers that the newsletter isn’t just all about you and you genuinely want to provide them with other relevant information that they may find interesting. Remember though that links you provide in your newsletter should be relevant to your readership. For example, a newsletter focusing on baby clothes wouldn’t want to provide a link to a car hire website as it wouldn’t be relevant.

At the end of the day, the primary goal you have in developing your newsletter is to keep it consistent, to the point and always relevant to your readership. If you achieve this, you’ll gain a database full of loyal readers who will gladly forward your newsletter to their friends and family and with word of mouth being the best form of marketing we could hope for, you’ve just achieved this for next to nothing.

Moving right along, I’ve decided to start a weekly roundup of links which I have appropriately titled Awesome Links of the Week. Afterall, I am and these links are quite awesome. So, without further adieu, welcome to the first Awesome Links of the Week for the week ending 28/02/2009.

Awesome Design:

• A fresh new icon stock site where you can purchase either a single icon or a collection
• 15 Beautiful Web Designs Empowered with AJAX Techniques
• 100 Killer WordPress resources for blog designers and developers alike!
• 30 Most Wanted WordPress Comments Page Hacks - How can you improve on these?
• Web Design Trends for 2009
• Whats Your Favourite Colour?
• 50 Awesome Blog Designs - Part 1 - There’s more?! Awesome!
• Will the Future of the Web Be More Like the Present? Lets hope not!
• Learn Illustrator CS3 in 30 Days - Is it possible to learn Illustrator in 30 days? Probably not!
• 15 Ridiculously Good Graphic Design Portfolios
• Design a Fresh Blog Theme on the 960 Grid - See Development links below for more info on the 960 Grid
• 10 Great Photography Blogs
• The Slow Lingering Death of IE6
• 21 Stimulating Color Palette Tools For Designers

Awesome Development:

• Diving into PHP - A video series (Currently up to Day 10 - Click here for more!)
• Six Signs of Adaptive PHP - Some good advice in here and definitely worth the read if you’re a developer.
• 10 Useful Tips for Ruby on Rails Developers - Sure, I’m not a Rails fan, but there are people out there who are!
• The 960 Grid System - The premise of the 960 Grid System is ideally suited to rapid prototyping, but it would work equally well when integrated into a production environment.
• Semantics in HTML 5 - Although this could be placed under design, I figured developers would probably be a little more interested at this time!
• Code samples and code snippets for new php programmers
• 7 Interface Design Techniques to Simplify and De-clutter Your Interfaces
• Controlling Proxy Access with HTAccess - Interested in knowing how to Block Proxy Access using HTAccess? Click here
• 5 CSS3 Techniques For Major Browsers using the Power of jQuery
• jQuery’s DataTables zero configuration example
• 80 Excellent and Useful AJAX Solutions

And the Other Stuff:

• Bears, Beets and Battlestar Galactica T-Shirt - Awesome. Too awesome. For fans of The Office (US) and more importantly Dwight K Schrut, you’ll sure love this shirt.
• Wondering why your important tasks aren’t getting done? You probably aren’t managing your to-do’s all too well. Remember the Milk can help!
• 15 Tools for monitoring a website’s popularity
• 10 Excellent Open Source and Free Alternatives to Photoshop
• 5 Ways to Promote Yourself as a Freelancer
• Social Media for Business: The Dos & Don’ts of Sharing
• 7 Habits of Highly Innovative People
• 10 seeeeeriously cool workplaces

My #followfriday Twitter Recommendations:

• @marnieb - MarnieB is an Australian based graphic designer and business owner worth checking out! She’s also my wife!
• @db - Damien Basile is always up to exciting things and has a lot to post about.
• @damnpenguins - Web Dev. Consultant. Mad keen Rugby fan. Husband & Dad of 2 wonderful girls. Rails / Merb coder, Expression Engine dev. Front end code Ninja. Mac Geek
• @JohannaBD - Australian-based Writer and PR consultant
• @swhitley - Just a man, with a man’s courage. Into programming computer apps for HR and PR/Marketing types. Microblog Addict.
• @druey - Mr Twitter 2009, 24, Gay, Podcaster, Web App Designer, MCSA trained, EVE Player, Born/Bred Newcastle AU, Practically Married but looking for friends, 160 yet?!
• @steelkey - Australian-based Graphic Designer, Web Designer, Artist, Illustrator, Painter, WAHM
• @dictates - Tech at IBM Australia~Director of Dictate Australia Pty Ltd supplier of Olympus digital voice recorders
• @sarahjbray - Web designer slash writer. MaTweeps.com is my latest project. Go tweeps!
• @theleggett - 20 Year Old Blogger / Designer. Founder of Tutorial9.net. Co-Founder of UXBooth.com
• @wbaustin - Bill Austin Ramblings and News from Phoenix Arizona. SEO SEM Internet Marketing Social Media Advertising Public Relations Strategy Search Engine Optimization.
• @adellecharles - Principal, Creative Director at the Fuel Brand Group (fuelbrandgroup.com & fuelbrandnetwork.com) Designer & Editor of Fuel Your Creativity
• @transcribe - Director of Australian based outsource transcription business with clients located across Australia, USA and the UK. Married to @dictates
• @behoff - Graphic Artist, Blogger, Visual Communicator, Professional Mouse Clicker
• @ambermacarthur - Tech journalist. Web strategist. Professional speaker. Mom.
• @myinkblog - Designer, blogger, twitter’er, wordpress’er, silverstripe advocate & soon to be father!
• @dani - Web designer/front-end web developer who hugs trees, loves animals, and is totally addicted to social media.
• @andysowards - Professional Web Developer, Programmer (primarily PHP, Javascript and Actionscript), Family man, and All around advocate of all things Tech
• @nicholaspatten - Video editor - Graphic/Web designer
• @problogdesign - Web designer, specialising in blog design

As I was crawling over the many blog sites that I read on a regular basis, I came across an article by Jacob Cass titled Fake Logo Designs and it got me thinking about the same issues us web designers face on a regular basis. That is, the use of website templates in a professional business environment and whether this is actually fair on the client.

Okay, so website templates have their place and if you’re a small business owner and you go online and buy one for twenty bucks, you’re not really out of pocket. You can add your logo and set up a website for next to nothing if you’re willing to invest some time and patience. But if you approach an established design firm and they’re charging you hundreds or thousands of dollars for a website, would you expect to have your design completed using a template? It’s amazing but take note that this actually does happen!

In my opinion, I somewhat detest the use of website templates in any professional environment. If you think about it from a business perspective, such templates do not offer any unique image for your client’s online presence, they usually do not compliment their branding as much as they should and chances are they’re not going to be easy to modify should you want to incorporate such elements into the design.

Some things we need to take into consideration

As mentioned previously, website templates do have their place in the web design industry. So, what things do we need to consider before making a call on their use as a business website?

• Even though templates do bring down cost, are they still worthwhile for a business to use when portraying their image online?
• Does the increased speed and reduced cost of developing a site based on a template outweigh the need for a custom developed website that truly compliments a business’ corporate image?
• What about the effects such templates have on the web design industry? Will their use potentially put other web designers out of business?
• Many other industries use templates as a means of getting the job done. Is it about time the web design industry followed suit?

What others are saying

Here is a post on Whirlpool posted by GroovyJames covering the use of Website Templates:

Although GroovyJames does raise a good point in that such templates are good to use if you’re going to hack it to pieces and only use it as a base for your site, however how many small business owners actually have any idea of how to do this? Auxide responded with a great answer but yet again, it’s not really for the average small business owner:

Getting back to the point of using a website template in business, Aspark Andrew raises a point we have already mentioned in this post:

However, Mental as Anything has suggested that us web designers should use them as a means of providing an efficient service in order to get paid on time.

Me personally, I’m not just about the money. I prefer to provide a custom solution that meets my client’s needs on time everytime, but some do choose a different approach. Sure, business is about making money, but whats the point in providing a service that is somewhat below par?

Some other opinions - For

Some other opinions - Against

Comparing the two approaches to design

Obviously we need to look at both sides of the coin and the best way of doing this is to actually take a look at some real quality designs. Below are some links to portfolio pages of some high quality web designers who only develop sites from scratch and also some galleries containing website templates.

Web Design Portfolios:

• Bergan Blue
• SydneyWeb
• Fortyseven Media
• Mayhem Studios

Web Template Portfolios:

• Template Monster
• Template Factory
• Website Templates Australia
• Template Box
• Web Templates Gallery

So, what are your thoughts on the use of website templates in a professional/business environment? Would you use them? Are you a designer who develops sites using them? Please post your comments below!

For many new freelancers and even many existing design firms, it seems to be the norm to simply plod along designing logos, websites and other works without spending all that much time focusing on their actual business. To me, this is ridiculous. After all, there is a huge difference between simply designing logos and getting paid for it to running a successful business and one of the biggest differences is actually taking notice of what you’re doing and how well you’re performing.

The best way to keep track such information is to conduct some data tracking. This essentially involves the tracking of numbers (whether it be hits to your website or hours spent on a project) to determine how well both you and your business are performing. This practice can often be neglected by many business owners due to the large amount of time that must be invested into it or simply due to the change of workflow for most designers. It is important to note though that this simple task can play a huge role in your business by determining key areas that need improvement.

In my opinion, it is important that every designer who is trying to make a living out of the design industry (whether by freelance or by running their own established design firm) should track the following data variables on a regular basis. This list is not exhaustive so be creative when you piece your list of variables together, however you should also remember that the longer the list, the longer it will take to actually record and review this data.

Variable(s): Quoted Hours, Actual Hours
Relates To: Project Management
How Often: Per Project/Job or Weekly
Reason: This is probably the most important piece of data to track. If you don’t track anything else, I would strongly recommend you track this. Tracking your quoted/actual hours allows you to determine whether you’ve quoted too little/too high and why. It also will ensure you quote more accurately in the future. The other added benefit is that you can actually work out how much you’re charging per hour. For example, say you charge $100/hour but you’re constantly underquoting yourself, you’ll quickly see that your hours are actually only worth about $80/hour or less!

Variable(s): Quote Requests Received, Contact Form Submissions Received
Relates To: Sales
How Often: Monthly
Reason: Most websites for freelance designers or design firms will provide their users with the ability to submit a quote request or a contact form. It is important to track these as it determines how well your website is performing as a marketing tool for your business. If you’re not getting enough quote requests coming through on your website, perhaps you need to look into your online marketing efforts such as SEO, external link building, blogging and whatever else you’re into.

Variable(s): Total Unique Hits, Newsletter Subscriptions Received, RSS Subscribers
Relates To: Website Statistics / Online Marketing
How Often: Weekly
Reason: With each month that passes, you should hopefully be attracting more users to your website and ultimately more users who subscribe to your e-newsletter or RSS feeds. Tracking such information allows you to determine how many potential/existing clients are hearing about your business on a regular basis. Building your e-newsletter or RSS subscriber count is one way of ensuring that your business name is gaining maximum exposure at little cost. I would suggest that you set some goals for these variables. Aim to increase the amount of subscribers by 10 every week and then build from there. Having small goals relating to these variables will help your business grow.

Variable(s): New Potential Customers, New Customers, Returning Customers, Market Source (How did you hear about us?)
Relates To: Sales/Marketing
How Often: Weekly
Reason: Another important set of variables to track are those relating to your customer base. A successful business will have a lot of returning customers. If you do not have a lot of clients coming back to you for repeat-business, you need to stop and work out why. If you’re providing a high quality product with brilliant customer service and people are confident that they’re receiving value from your business, then there should be no reason that clients wouldn’t come back to you for more work.

Variable(s): Incoming Sales Calls/Emails, Incoming Support Calls/Emails, Incoming Complaint Calls/Emails
Relates To: Customer Service
How Often: Weekly
Reason: Finally, you must track variables relating to customer service. These are utterly important. You need to be able to see if you’re receiving a lot of complaints or too little sales enquiries. If you’re receiving a lot of support requests, you need to be able to quickly determine why. These are all crucial variables to track to ensure your business is providing the service it promises.

As you can see, tracking such variables not only gives you a clear indication of how you’re performing as a designer and as a business owner, but it also provides you with important statistical information relating to your clients, your market, your quoting system and more thus improving your pricing structure and the way you quote whilst allowing you to get a much better understanding of your potential and existing clients.

So, what data do you track? Have I missed anything that you think is an important variable to track? If you’re not currently tracking such data, why not?

Please leave a comment and let me know!

I would like to introduce you all to Twit It Up - a new WordPress 2.7 plugin I have recently developed for the blogging community. We all know how much we love microblogging, right?!

What is Twit It Up?

Twit It Up is a simple AJAX powered WordPress plugin that allows your visitors to tweet/retweet your blog posts quickly and easily directly from your blog.

This is the first version of Twit It Up and obviously it still has some room for improvement, however I have tried to incorporate some initial customisable features into this initial release. I am also confident that any remaining bugs experienced during beta testing have been resolved. If you have any feedback, suggestions or issues, please contact me.

Feature List

Twit It Up offers the following features without any customisation to any code or script:

• Full AJAX powered web-form to ensure your visitors never leave your actual post/webpage.
• Provides your visitors with the ability to modify the tweet before submitting it to Twitter.
• Automatically shortens your URL structure using http://is.gd/. Other URL shortening services will be added shortly.
• Shortened URL’s are cached in the local database to reduce future load times.
• Ability to show Twit It Up on all posts or just single posts.
• Ability to completely customise wording on the web form and other design elements as well as modify the default tweet message.
• Every design element can be styled with CSS

For more information on Twit It Up, please visit the Twit It Up Homepage. Also, stay up to date with news and announcements by following @twititup on Twitter!

I hope you find this plugin useful!

I was reading an article written by Brian Hoff of The Design Cubicle titled Marketing Calendar for Beginner Freelance Designers and it got me thinking. Inspired designers are always popping on to the scene starting their own freelance business or creative design firm, but how many of them actually succeed? How many of these great individuals make one too many mistakes and are forced to close up shop before they’ve even had a chance to show the world what they’re capable of?

It is widely known that a huge percentage of start up businesses end up closing permanently within the first two to five years of operation, however I am a firm believer that if you have a high quality product/service, a nice dose of perseverance and some good old fashioned elbow grease, just about any idea can flourish into a successful and thriving organisation.

As designers though, we can often get caught up simply trying to find clients whilst burying ourselves knee deep in our Adobe applications, blogs and other creative outlets. This may be what we’re used to, however to run a successful design firm, you have to start thinking and treating your business idea seriously. This is your bread and butter after all and it’ll either put food on the table or will be the reason you’re working long hours for some other Company.

So, for all of our fresh freelance designers aspiring to start successful creative design firms, I have attempted to list a few common pitfalls many newbie designers make when they first hit the scene. Take heed and ensure you do not fall into any of the following categories!

1. They undercharge for the amount of work they’re completing
Under quoting is the bane of every service-based business and can either make or break the bank. Many design firms and other service providers are forced to throw in the towel simply from under quoting themselves over and over again. Start tracking your time for every bit of work you do and compare that to your quoted hours. You’ll quickly correct any discrepancies and will become far more accurate at quoting in the future.

2. They undercharge for the value of their work
If you’re a designer that has been around for awhile or you’ve positioned yourself in the market by producing some extremely high quality work, you need to realise this and charge appropriately for it. Clients will pay the difference if they believe you’re worth it and sometimes charging that little bit extra will actually ensure you attract the clients you want to attract and not the ones you don’t.

3. They do not charge for project variations
Are you often finding that your clients are asking for one thing but then expect another? Are you being a little too accommodating for these modifications? Don’t be. Deciding not to charge for variations to a project’s scope is a huge mistake and can potentially be the sole reason why your design firm is going down the gurgler. Charging for these variations not only shows your clients that you’re actually running a legitimate business but they will also take you more seriously.

4. They use website/logo/other templates as a basis for all designs
Templates definitely have their place in the design world, however if you’re charging premium rates and developing sites using templates then the only thing you’re doing is cheating your customers and ultimately cheating yourself. Your clients will pick up on this and as they say, bad rumours always spread faster than good ones.

5. They do not network enough
Business networking is a must for all start ups. It not only allows you to meet and greet with the local business community but it also allows you to start measuring what people think of the product/service you have to offer. Above all though, networking is definitely a great way to form strong long lasting relationships with other business owners and these will be the building blocks to a truly successful design firm.

6. They network with a view of making sales and not building relationships
Although some entrepreneurs understand the importance of networking, they unfortunately fail to see the real point of it. Business networking is not about making sales. It is about building solid relationships with the businesses around you. The networkers who are focused on simply making sales will find that they will actually have to work twice as hard to find the work they’re after as opposed to the others who understand the true reason for business networking.

7. They are far too competitive and do not understand the importance of working with competitors
Similar to building relationships at networking events, it’s also important that you build similar relationships with your competitors and other businesses in similar industries to you. Forming such alliances can actually open many doors to future work, new clients, new opportunities and more. Don’t be afraid to knock on your competitor’s door and ask them if they have any work they could send your way.

8. They do not understand the importance of an e-newsletter, a blog and other online marketing efforts
Marketing your business online not only exposes your products and services to a much larger audience but it can also streamline the way you stay in touch with your potential and existing clients. Using eNewsletters, blogs and social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, you’ll quickly understand just how powerful these tools are to you and the success of your business.

9. They do not think outside the box when it comes to their branding
For some reason, many designers and business owners alike try and play it safe when it comes to their own branding and marketing vehicles/materials. They seem to be a little too concerned of the consequences of trying something a little different. Thinking outside of the box when it comes to your branding can often have a huge yet positive impact on your business and can position yourself exactly where you want to be in the market.

10. They do not provide adequate customer service
Last but not least is good quality customer service. This is the bottom line. There is no point in being able to draw really pretty pictures if you can’t follow through with some rock solid customer service. Clients want to feel important. They want to feel looked after. If they don’t feel warm and fuzzy after dealing with you, then you’re doing something wrong!

At the end of the day though, business owners will always make mistakes and will always learn from those mistakes. It is making these types of errors that allow us to grow and become better business owners. Hopefully by pointing out some of these common pitfalls, you won’t have to deal with these issues and can carry on doing the things you enjoy most – designing fabulous designs!

As a bit of an introduction, I’d like to point out that this is actually an old article of mine that was originally published in the Bergan Blue Library. Due to its popularity, I decided to make it my first actual post/article on my blog. I hope you enjoy it.

Websites are quickly becoming one of the most popular ways of advertising. Whether it be a business, its product or service or something completely different, everyone of all ages are turning to the web as a method of getting their message out there. With the popularity of this marketing medium increasing and the number of websites always growing, it is obvious that everyone wants to appear at the top of Google’s search engine rankings. Achieving such a task is never an easy feat, however with a bit of perseverance, one can definitely increase their chances of reaching that glorious first page result.

Given that there are a heap of websites out there who are on the first page, what is their secret? It is a little industry term called SEO and it stands for Search Engine Optimisation. SEO basically consists of the customisation of your website, its content and its internal and external links to assist in the overall indexing and ranking of your website in popular search engines. There are many contributing factors that are used in determining a website’s ranking and every search engine is different. This makes trying to optimise your site for Google, Yahoo, Live and the many others quite a pain staking task.

As most of us are aware, Google is currently the most popular search engine for the majority of Internet users. As such, it is only normal that we’d want to focus our sights on achieving a higher ranking within Google first with a hope that the rest will follow. To do this, we must start a journey that could potentially take months before we start seeing any real change, however we have to start somewhere.

Our journey begins by defining some of the key contributing factors that Google uses to determine a website and webpages ranking within its results. These factors range from keyword use to manipulating internal and external links and the list goes on. To get you started, we have listed the top twenty factors that you should focus on in order to help get your website that little bit closer to the top of the search engine results listing.

Keyword Use Factors

The following components relate to the use of the user’s search query terms in determining the rank of a particular page.

1. Keyword use in Title tag - placing the targeted search term or phrase in the title tag of the web page’s HTML header
2. Keyword use in Body text - using the targeted search term in the visible, HTML text of the page
3. Relationship of Body text Content to Keywords - topical relevance of text on the page compared to targeted keywords
4. Keyword use in H1 tag - creating an H1 tag with the targeted search term/phrase
5. Keyword use in domain name & page URL - including the targeted term/phrase in the registered domain name, i.e. keyword.com plus target terms in the webpage URL, i.e. seomoz.org/keyword-phrase.

Page Attributes

The following elements comprise how the Google interprets specific data about a webpage independent of keywords.

1. Link popularity within the site’s internal link structure - refers to the number and importance of internal links pointing to the target page
2. Quality/relevance of links to external sites/pages - do links on the page point to high quality, topically-related pages?
3. Age of document - older pages may be perceived as more authoritative while newer pages may be more temporally relevant
4. Amount of indexable text content - refers to the literal quantity of visible HTML text on a page
5. Quality of the document content (as measured algorithmically) - assuming search engines can use text, visual or other analysis methods to determine the validity and value of content, this metric would provide some level of rating.

Site/Domain Attributes

The factors below contribute to Google’s rankings based on the site/domain on which a page resides.

1. Global link poopularity of site - the overall link weight/authority as measured by links from any and all sites across the web (both link quality and quantity)
2. Age of site - not the date of original registration of the domain, but rather the launch of indexable content seen by the search engines (note that this can change if a domain switches ownership)
3. Topical relevance of inbound links to site - the subject-specific relationship between the sites/pages linking to the target page and the target keyword
4. Link popularity of site in topical community - the link weight/authority of the target website amongst its topical peers in the online world
5. Rate of new inbound links to site - the frequency and timing of external sites linking in to the given domain

Inbound Link Attribute

These pieces affect Google’s weighting of links from external websites pointing to a page and ultimately will assist in the ranking of that page.

1. Anchor text of inbound link
2. Global link popularity of linking site
3. Topical relationship of linking page
4. Link popularity of site in topical community - the link weight/authority of the target website amongst its topical peers in the online world
5. Age of link

Negative Crawling/Ranking Attributes

There are also some points we should make before you start getting your hands dirty. With any type of SEO marketing, there are some things that can actually have a negative impact on your ranking. These following components may negatively affect a spider’s ability to crawl a page or its rankings at Google.

• Server is often inaccessible to bots
• Content very similar or duplicate of existing content in the index
• External links to low quality/spam sites
• Duplicate title/meta tags on many pages
• Overuse of targeted keywords (stuffing/spamming)

It’s now time to get busy! Start prioritising your tasks, modifying your content and building your internal and external links to meet some of the above guidelines. Keep in mind that improving indexing is mostly a technical task, improving ranking is mostly a business/marketing strategy, what might work now may not work in the future and finally, it takes time. Loads of time. Still, with a bit of trial and error and a good dose of persistence, you can achieve the search engine ranking you’re after.