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When Alice first arrives in Wonderland, she's faced with a dilemma: she wants to enter the beautiful garden, but she can't even fit her head through the door. By drinking the little bottle marked 'Drink me' Alice is able to shrink down to a size where she can fit. Realizing she's now too small to lift the key, she eats the small cake marked 'Eat me' and grows again. Alice continues to shrink and grow…
Once upon a time, our company really built up the ease and advantages of using a content management system (or CMS, for short). As with much in our industry, however, it didn't take long before views started to change, which in turn led to a shift in the way we work. A number of our clients have excelled at using their content management systems and have been able to manage and update their sites successfully…
The look and function of the Internet has changed dramatically within the last decade, and since it initially rose to prominence in the mid 1990s, there have been massive advances that we can't even really comprehend because they've happened so quickly. From slow, noisy dial-up to DSL and cable. From white, bulky desktops to sleek towers and flat-screen monitors. And from old, hefty cell phones that couldn't do anything but call people to hand-held computers…
What does your website say about your business? Or better yet: what does your website say about your business... after someone has left it? It may seem like a dumb question with an easy answer, but there's more to it than simply "we sell and install car stereo equipment." Sure, if someone visits your site and that message makes it through, that's a step in the right direction, but not it's not everything. The internet…
Since May of 2011, I've written over 31,000 words on this blog. That may seem like a lot of content, but in the grand scheme of things, it's not very much. The average novel is 60K - 100K words in length, meaning I'm only halfway to my first book. Break it down and I've averaged just 89 words of content development per day since January of this year. Obviously, the actual creation was much more…
As someone who works on a computer all the time, I have quite the fondness for PDFs. We use them constantly in both web and print work, and they allow us to accomplish different things depending on the situation. On the web, PDFs are ideal for sharing documents with visitors that might need to be printed or downloaded, and they can even contribute to your SEO goals, if created properly. As with almost everything, though,…
Before anyone got their news online, before 'online' was even an idea, newspapers ruled the game. Because of their size certain aspects of the layout became hugely important. Headlines and images drew people in to the most important articles, and quick highlights of what lay inside enticed readers further into the paper. As the daily medium of information delivery for hundreds of years, newspapers have had a huge effect on the way we design for…
It's been a long time since we've talked about best practices and web conventions, so how about we make up for lost time with a collection of them for e-commerce? Whatdya say?! A few weeks ago we covered a number of elements that can hurt your e-commerce site's search engine rankings, even if you don't know it. While it's always a good idea to optimize your site for the search engines, in the end it…
Today at BK is akin to an Oreo cookie: good things, sad things, and more good things. Now, I'm in no way implying that the filling of an Oreo is sad (quite the opposite) but it's the basic sandwich concept, OK?
There are a lot of websites out there, which makes search engine optimization so important. For those businesses that rely on their websites to sell products, especially those that can be found elsewhere online, out-ranking the competition is vital. There are multiple pieces to any successful SEO push, a lot of which are beyond the everyday business owner (and the lowly blogger too!), but there are certain things that even you and I could deal…
Depending on your industry, there's usually a season that provides for a bit more down time... a relative breather. For us, that season is summer. Last week we talked about planning ahead for the holiday season to make sure everything was in order... The same approach can be taken for your business as a whole. When business is busy things change, stockpiles get depleted, and it can be tough to keep track of everything. Take…
In the southern hemisphere, Christmas falls in the middle of summer. It can be tough to have a white Christmas in the sweltering heat, so in some countries it's not uncommon to experience some Christmas in July celebrations. Here in the northern hemisphere, Christmas in July provides a perfect excuse for a retail holiday. The two month period between July 4th and Labor day (the first Monday in September) is devoid of any holidays and…
Even if you've never designed a website yourself it's possible that you've heard of the "3-click rule" which states that all of your content should be accessible to a visitor in just three clicks. If a user cannot find what they're looking for in three clicks or less, the rule says, you will lose them. The web design community has a strange relationship with this "rule." While it's widely believed to be false, it still…
We didn't have a blog last week, in part because I was out of town. Yes, the internet extends further than the confines of our Longmont office, but I was sufficiently occupied away from the computer. Friday through Wednesday I was traveling and working at the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) conference for a client in Hollywood, FL. Over the course of the show, I was constantly on the floor viewing the different displays, looking…
Twitter has become very popular in recent years which has led to an increased use for both personal and business use. Unfortunately, there are some specific ways to correctly use Twitter (more so than on Facebook) that many people don't seem to understand. This post won't make you a great Twitter user, but it will make you a Twitter user who uses the site correctly.
Mother's Day happened recently (hopefully you knew that, or you owe Mom a phone call at the very least), and one of the things my mother asked my sister and I for was a gift card to a certain store which I won't name, for their sake. The entire process, beginning to end, was ridiculously complex and vague, and struck me as a great example of ecommerce gone wrong.
If you've been keeping up with our series, I hope I've made it abundantly clear just what a landing page is and how/why to use it. For those who might not know, I'll boil it down to one sentence: Visitors are coming to a specific page on your site that is designed to capture their information in exchange for an incentive you provide. Of course there's so much more than that, but for this week…
We've been talking recently about what landing pages are and the things you need to consider before tackling a custom landing page project. Assuming you've figured out who you're targeting, where they're coming from, what you want them to do and all of those important questions, what's next? What kind of elements do you use in the creation of a landing page to reach your goal?
Last week we talked at great length about just what a custom landing page is, and the main reasons behind using one. As with any project it can be easy to look past the small–yet important–details and focus on the end goal. Doing so will leave you having wasted both money and time; there are certain things that you need to consider before starting a custom landing page project.
If you've ever sat down with an internet marketer, it's likely that you heard one of two terms (not to mention myriad acronyms) over the course of the conversation: Landing Page and/or Squeeze Page. Odds are you smiled, nodded, and let the conversation continue for fear of opening up another can of worms by asking "wait, what does that mean?" To be honest, we can't blame you… we've had meetings with us, too.
Last week I wrote a blog detailing an apparent obsession with purple and teal in the world of professional American sports during the 1990's. (That, or I'm a graphic design conspiracy theorist.) While the color schemes of our favorite sports teams are very important to us fans, they can and do change; most of the time they are what they are solely out of tradition. Color can play a very important, if only subconscious role…
Fads come and go. In my life, I saw corduroys, Tomagotchi, DigiMon and pogs blow up, and then fall by the wayside… and that was just in elementary school. Our tastes, no matter what topic we're talking about, are always changing. As a designer, one of the things that I have always paid attention to is color, and the 90's were a special time for sports in that regard.
Facebook can be a great tool for businesses of any size to build community and reach their customers and clients. What many people don't realize is that it's constantly changing. Yes, every so often the site undergoes a major face-lift which is usually ill-received at first, yet the outcry is just as loud once the next update hits. But more often than these major overhauls, little things are changing all of the time.
Websites can be beautiful, and a well-designed site can definitely make an impression with visitors and customers. But when you get down to it the content on your website is much more important than those color blocks and images. Content is so valuable because it's not just read by those visitors, it's also read by search engines to determine what your site is about and when to show it. The problem is all that content…
Last month I wrote a lengthy post on the importance of writing good headlines, the idea being that it's often the only shot you have at convincing people to read your content. While the headline is the important first step, there obviously has to be some content to read within, whether it's a post or page on your site or an email. A well designed email is great, and even something we've come to expect,…
