Are you treating your customers like they want to be treated?

If you are like most of the people I meet, we all have the best intentions and we always want to do the best we can for those around us.  But somewhere along the way, be it increased workload or stresses outside of our control, things sometimes start to breakdown.

In business, if you aren’t careful this can really impact your bottom line and lead you down a slippery slope to losing business.

I know.  I’ve been on both sides of the coin.  Personally, as my business started to pick up last year, I started to feel the crunch of time.  Activities that I didn’t enjoy as much but were necessary for my clients started to get less and less of my time.  I thought I was doing well until one of my customers commented to me,

“I feel like we don’t have your time any more.  Maybe we’re just not that important to you any longer.”

Woah!  This was a really big eye opener that I was missing something major here.  And despite my best efforts, the relationship between me and this client had deteriorated to a point where we eventually parted ways.

I share this painful experience in hopes that you don’t fall into the same pitfalls I have.  The key is really simple:

Customers want to be treated like they are #1

No matter who the customer is or where they are in the relationship, they will respect you even higher if they feel like they are the most important person to your business.  They want to know that when they need you, you will be there for them.  They want to be #1 in your books and priority.

So when a business tells me, you aren’t a priority and we’ll fit you in when WE get the chance, I’m immediately turned off.

Reality is, though, we can’t jump at every customer’s call.  We do have priorities and we do need to assess and deal with the most critical ones first.  So here are some simple concepts and ideas to follow that will help you establish and maintain that filling of the customer is #1 without giving up your ability to control your own schedule.

1.  Establish Expectations

This step seems so simple and yet it is so easily missed by most people.  In talking with your clients, have you clearly stated what the expectations are (or as we call it in the techie world, “Service Level Agreements”)?

It doesn’t have to be formal either.  Simple things like, set an auto-responder on your email which states, “I’ve received your email and will get back to you within 24 hours.”

Establishing clear expectations helps to alleviate many of your customer’s fears that they aren’t being heard and won’t receive attention.

2.  Give Them Your Full Attention

When you do get around to working on their issue, don’t simply stuff it in like some side job.  Give it your utmost attention and treat it as if it’s the most important project to you at that moment… because it is!   Even if it’s something small, give it your best effort and strive to do your best job ever.

That also means when you’re talking to them, face-to-face, are you really talking to them or are you looking down at your Blackberry texting away?  Or if you’re on the phone with them, are you really clicking and responding to another email while they are trying to talk to you?

Customers will feel that sincerity, or lack there of, and respond accordingly.  And if they don’t respond positively to you giving them your full attention, you may want to question if that person is the right customers for you?

3.  Provide realistic timelines and stick to it!

Nothing calms people down more than knowing there is a plan and they know when they can expect action.   Regardless of if your project is small or large, you can propose a timeline to the client as to when you expect to work on their project.

Be realistic with yourself and your business!  Don’t overbook or double book yourself, thinking you’ll fit it all in.  If you propose reasonable timelines that ensure you can meet steps 1 & 2 above, you will find your clients will appreciate your dedication.

And stick to it!  Nothing breaks down a relationship faster than missing deadlines.

4.  Communicate. Communicate. Communicate.

We’re humans, not mind readers!  For God’s sakes, communicate what’s going on!  The last thing you want your customer to be doing is guessing what’s happening.  They grow uneasy and start to doubt your competence.   Keep those lines of communication with your customers open all the time.  With so many ways to interact these days:  phone, email, cell, text, skype, facebook, BBM… there’s NO EXCUSE to not reaching out with a quick note and checking in or providing an update as to how things are going.

So next time you approach your customer, take a moment to think, how can I make this customer feel like they are #1 Most Important customer I have?

I’d love to hear your thoughts or experiences below. Have you had similar experiences as I have?  Have you been on the giving or receiving end?  How has following any of these steps made a difference for you?

Leave me a message!  And if you think this article can help someone else, please feel free to share it with them!

So you have a website… now what?

I find it curious how many people put all this time, energy and effort into creating a spectacular website and then never do anything else with it. And I don’t mean social media or getting your site linked to various resources or other sites. What I mean is within the site itself.

Many small business owners think that creating a website is a “get it done and forget about it” activity. If you’re one of them, here’s some food for thought.

• Are you doing EXACTLY the same thing as when you started your business or website?
• Is the future of your business exactly where the future of your business was say a year ago, 2 years ago, 5 years ago?
• Will your business be exactly the same as it is today 5-years from now?
• Has technology stopped progressing since you created your business or website?

No doubt you answered ‘No’ to one or more of these items. If you’re like most business owners, you’ve answered ‘No’ to all of them.

Let’s face it… business keeps moving… technology keeps moving… so should your website.

But wait a minute! It took way too much time to get my website up in the first place. I don’t have time to spend looking at it all over again.

The reality is we all have businesses to run and most of the time our top priority isn’t some website that is supposed to be helping us generate more business.

The Balance

Ultimately, there is an elegant balance that most small businesses can do which will not only help keep their website fresh and relevant, but can help them attract more attention. It’s a 1-to-3 approach (pun intended).

Yearly Website Review

When you’ve completed the work on your business goals for the year and drafted up your business plan, make a part of your closeout activities a review of your website. Don’t do yearly updates on your goals or plans???? Well, that’s a whole other discussion but consider at least every year taking a moment to figure out where your business is at.

This yearly review is primarily for assuring information is still relevant. You aren’t going into nitty-gritty details. What you want to focus on is:

• Are the products I offer still relevant and described accurately?
• Are there any new products I’m looking to introduce?
• Are there certain products I want to highlight over others? Conversely are there those that I’m looking to phase out?
• Is my “about” or “bio” information current? Has anything happened in the last year that’s noteworthy of adding?
• Do I need to tweak or change my welcome message at all?

That’s it!

If you do this on a yearly basis, your website will retain fresh information and correctly reflect the type of business you do. In addition, giving a “fresh face” to your product pages might highlight some inaccuracies you originally had or help you emphasis the right messages to your potential clients.

Every Three Years – Total Review

Let’s face it. Technology is changing at such a rapid pace these days it’s hard to keep up. Only just a few years ago, we were all focused on trying to figure out how to get things more mobile because the screens on mobile devices weren’t capable of handling most of the information. Now everything is about tablets and mobile devices are as clear, if not clearer, than many computers.

Not only is technology changing, but so too is the environment around you. For instance, if you’re in service base industries like construction or lawn care, the changing climate in the economy and neighborhood can impact who you’re marketing to. Maybe you need to extend your reach? Maybe you need to reach out to a different age group or demographics? The environment also changes in terms of your competitors. Who is still out there? Who is new that has come along? It is important as a small business to know your competitors and what they may potentially be doing.

I recommend every 3 years for an in-depth look at your website. This is a far more detailed scrutiny of the website and really gets to the heart of the question – “Do I need to update my website?”

Step 1: Start by reevaluating why exactly do you have a website and what you intend to do with it.

You can use our nifty Client Ready Checklist to get a sense of where you’re at.

Step 2: Investigate what others are doing, both within your industry and outside. Is there something neat that maybe another site is doing that you’d like to see on your own website?

Step 3: Do a page by page review of the content and really look at what it is saying. Is the page focused on the right content? Do you say what you mean to say here? Get a friend to help even review the content and make sure they understand what you think you’re saying as well.

Step 4: Get in touch with the industry trends. What are other companies like you talking about? What are people who refer to your business talking about? Are there obvious trends or things you see happening.

Step 5: Update your language. Last time it was called “pink” but now it’s referred to as “blush”. Language changes over time and if you’re trying to attract a certain demographic or client you have to use a language that they understand. Even if your clients are most established, what words they are using to describe certain things will be influenced by things happening around them. It’s important to be in touch with those language changes so you can properly reflect them on your website and used them for SEO.

Step 6: Take a hard look at colours. Not that long ago, it was a definitely “no-no” in the web space to d strictly blank texts on white backgrounds because it was thought to be too harsh and too plain. Today, most people do exact that. Colour not only conveys a mood but it also alerts people to the idea of being fresh and new. Just like you might put a new coat of paint on your office space to change the atmosphere, so too will you want to take that into consideration when you do the more in depth review of your website.

Step 7: Update pictures. I know we all want to stay young forever. But the reality is we do age and change… and so too do the places where we work. You erode away at the client’s trust if you aren’t depicting yourself or your business as realistically as possible.

Now before you balk at all the work, take note:

NOT ALL STEPS NEED TO BE EXECUTED

What I’m calling for is for you to review all the content but that doesn’t necessarily mean you will make a change. Use it rather as a gauge to determining how close you are to what your business is today. Ultimately your website should stay in synch with what your business is all about. If you can accomplish that without spending money on doing an upgrade, then go for it. But be honest and don’t be shy if you really do need to spend the time and effort to make that change. You and your business will be rewarded in the end!

Web design and web presence maintenance has become critical for any serious business these days. The first place any of your potential clients may go to find out more about you is the Internet. That is why it’s crucial for business owners today to stay in touch with what’s happening with their web presence.

What is web presence?

I use this term very specifically to my clients because I need to make sure they understand that web presence isn’t isolated just to having a website or being part of a social media.

web presence :: the total picture of your company as seen through the eyes of an Internet viewer

That includes a review that someone may have put on a website about your company or a reference from a news article that appeared online. It also includes an understanding of what your competitors are doing and how you rank in relation to them in searches and content.
When thinking about web presence, one must consider:

• Content I produced:
  • Websites
  • Social media uses
  • Emails / forum posts / conversations
• Content produced by others:
  • Reviews
  • References made by others directly relating to my company
  • Link sharing / directories / Chamber of Commerce pages
• Content in direct conflict with ours:
  • Competitor’s websites / articles / interactions
  • Trending topics and themes
  • Changing vocabulary
  • Updated information

The totality of all these components helps to make up what is an individual company’s web presence. So even if you don’t have a website for your company, you still have web presence. It just may be very negative and completely uncontrolled by you, the business owner.

Too much to keep up with!

Sometimes, the amount of information out on the Internet can be overwhelming. And if you, as the expert, find yourself overwhelmed, what do you think your potential clients feel? The most common reaction from potential clients when they are confused is to simply give up and try a different avenue.

The most common reaction from a business owner is to do what I call “setup and forget it”. They invest good, hard money into pushing something forward, be it setting up a website or putting forward social media efforts or advertising on different websites. Then they expect that one action becomes a magic bullet and they can forget about any other work or effort towards the Internet for a while.

Unfortunately, the web presence doesn’t work that way. Sure, the initial investment will result in a positive blimp. You may see a sudden surge of activity. But if you don’t build continual momentum in this space, you might as well not have entered.

Now that I’ve properly scared you, there is some relief in all of this for business owners.

You don’t have to care about everything.

Gone are the days of trying to be everywhere and care about every stream of information. Quite frankly, if you’re a business owner you don’t have time in the day to invest. Instead, today’s savvy business owner knows how to maximize their efforts by placing them in the right areas and continually monitoring and adjusting to meet the changing needs.

The Plan

To build an aggressive plan that will work in bringing you online web presence, follow these steps:

Identify the right ideal client

Any business owner who says their ideal client is “everyone” is naïve. Not everyone is the same. Even the most common devices, like toilet paper, comes in a variety of styles and qualities because people have very different needs. Someone who buys NoName brand toilet paper is not going to be the same clientele that looks at Quilted Northern.

So if you’re thinking that everyone is your ideal client, then you really need to take a step back and rethink your business model. Take a look at your current clientele. Who are they? How do they live? What are they like?

Get specific. Stereotyping has gotten a nasty connotation to it over the last few decades but it has its place and purpose. In this instance, it’s very helpful in identifying the key characteristics you need to have for an ideal client.

And don’t limit yourself to just one bucket. Often business owners try to lump all of their clients into one big mass. Unfortunately, most businesses don’t work that way these days. There are normally subsets of groups that come to a business for help and they have very distinct needs and characteristics.

For instance, in my business here, I have 3 distinct clientele groups:

• small business owners who don’t have time to do it all themselves and are looking for that extra help to get their web presence working for them
• small business owners who have the where with all to handle the day-to-day aspects of their business but is looking for that little additional help in making their content look more professional
• small business owners who are looking for skilled resources to handle various complex programming needs
  I can take these and break them down even further to even more distinct groups based upon specifics of what they are looking for. How far I break down the distinctions depends upon what efforts I want to put towards the group. The more focused the message, the smaller the audience but the more likely they are to convert.

Identify the right outlets

Once you’ve identified the clientele, spend some time getting to know them. What are they interested in and where do they look for information online? You will find that there are trends upon your different groups.

Using that information, you can focus your energy on a select number of areas. For instance, perhaps you find a lot of your clientele are coming to you from Kijiji or some review board but none are spending time on Twitter. Then don’t start up a Twitter campaign. Focus your efforts on building up a Kijiji reputation or direct more of your happy clients to the review board to leave messages.

But focusing your energies on the right areas, you reduce the number of outlets you need to work on and increase your success rate.

Analyze and adjust

No one just magically appears online and becomes an instant hit. There’s always trial and error, changes and adjustments. That’s the nature of marketing and sales. It is an ever-changing environment that you need to keep analyzing and adjusting for.

If you don’t spend the time to do this, you simply setup and forget it, you will end up being in very dead space very quickly and all your previous efforts, identifying the right clientele and outlets, will be for not. Trends change, people and interests wax and wane, even the clientele list you identified may be altered over time.

Don’t be afraid to adjust and change. The worst thing you can do for your business is to stay stagnant.

What are your thoughts and experiences? I’d like to know. Leave me a comment below.

Recently, I’ve been working with a few clients where they’ve tried to translate information from one marketing media to another. Normally it’s either from print to web or vice versa.

The issue is that most people’s approach is to take things very literal. I often hear, “I want this to look exactly like that”. The underlying reasons are often a factor of:

• effort:: Let’s face it, creating a new campaign, regardless of the media, takes a lot of effort and work.
• money:: We have a limited budget or we may have already spent a great deal of money on the other media and don’t want or need the extra expenditure.
• time:: As business owners, we’re already strapped for time. Making extra time to handle details such as this doesn’t directly equate to the bottom line.
• … and sometimes if the owner is marketing savvy, I may also hear branding :: When you develop a brand, you want to keep things as consistent and relatable as possible to keep the brand recognition.

Unfortunately, what many of these owners don’t consider is that all media aren’t created equally. While it is always ideal to reuse as much of your work as possible, there are certain situations where it may not make sense. Getting to understand and know each media you’re about to step into will help in making that determination.

Understand strengths and weaknesses of a media

First and foremost, you need to gain an understanding of what you are capable of and what is expected in each type of media.

For instance, websites are a great way to get your message out on the Web. They provide a unique location to hold information that relates to your company. Don’t, however, treat your website as simply a brochure copy of your print material. Websites offer a unique way to interact with your potential and existing clients. They also allow for more complicated navigation and linking of materials and interactive components. Learning how to utilize these items will help to drive leads.

On the other hand, traditional paper marketing, such as ads in newspapers or flyers, contains focused messages. They need to first catch the eye of the reader and then convey some level of urgency to get in touch with your company. Even if you’re given a full article-length ad, there still is limited space to convey your message in a meaningful fashion and very little direction interaction.

In today’s technology, there’s also a melding space, notably that of online newspapers. You can see them commonly on your iPad or iPhone under Newsstand. They are, in essence, magazines that have been converted to a format which can be read by these devices. What is unique is that while they require the focused messaging of traditional print, they offer some level of direct interaction through links and various “button” features.

Even in social media, understanding each different type and the strengths and weaknesses of each will greatly help to improve your performance.

Understand your audience

It goes without saying that you have to understand you audience in order effectively sell to them. Now, let me clarify by saying you sell to someone without truly understanding them. In fact, sales men have been doing it for centuries.

But if you really want to be effective in today’s market, you have to take the time to understand your audience. Get to know what are their pain points, what are they struggling with. Get to know what are their interests and what do they spend energy doing.

Beyond this, though, you also have to know a bit about how they spend their time. I get asked a lot if or what social media outlets should be used for small businesses. The answer is actually quite complicated and depends on the audience. It’s like the old saying goes, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, it doesn’t make a sound.” Well, in the marketing business, “If you advertise in a media where your audience is not present, it will not make any sales.”

Identify clear objectives

The last bit is perhaps the most important and one often missed by many business owners: identify clear objectives.

Many business owners jump headlong into marketing and advertising with the very broad objective of “I want my product to sell.” Who doesn’t?

The reality is that objective is too broad.

People come to different media for a reason. What is unique about today’s world is that advertising and marketing is becoming more and more consumer driven. No longer can we simply force content on people. In fact, most forced content, like those annoying pop-ups or ads before a YouTube video, are greatly frowned upon.

So people are coming in contact with your marketing material, whatever the media, for a reason. They are at some stage in the “buying funnel”. If you can correctly model what this funnel looks like and how each of the media play into it, you will build a better marketing system.

Translating media from one platform to another can be accomplished. And in order to make it effective, one has to consider the strengths/weaknesses of the media, the needs and patterns of the audience, and the objectives of the media. Without a comprehensive understanding of all 3 areas, the translation will merely be an ineffective copy that will become a waste of time, effort, money, and branding.

… that is the question.

If you deal with Websites at all, you are dealing with cache. It can be a blessing or a curse and quite frankly drives me up the walls most nights.

What is cache?

The traditional definition is:

noun: A collection of items of the same type stored in a hidden or inaccessible place.
verb: Store away in hiding or for future use.
~ Dictionary.com

This is an appropriate description of what’s happening when we speak of Internet cache. Somewhere, all the files that have ever been viewed in the world are being stored, “hidden” from plain site, but accessible when needed.

Why do this?

Caching is not a new concept, nor was it just invented for the Internet. The idea behind caching is to store commonly called items in such a manner that they can be retrieved again. This concept is used a lot in programming to help reduce processing time.

For example, let’s say you just went through and did this long calculation with lots of functions and hard mathematical terms (okay so it’s been a few too many years since I had to do any math… ). Now, let’s say you have to use the results of those calculations to do even further calculations. Or maybe you want to use the results in several tables and text that you’re about to write. So… if you were doing this manually you’d jot that number down somewhere on a piece of paper. Now, whenever you need to refer to those results, you look down at that piece of paper.

That’s analogous to what the Internet is doing. Every time you (or anyone) pulls up a website, the Internet tries to take a snapshot of what it sees and stores it somewhere. That way, if it needs to pull that page up again, it can simply look at the snapshot and not have to go through the whole process of regenerating the page.

Sounds good. So why does it frustrate you?

Cache is great until you try to make changes to your website. Suddenly, you don’t know if you’re looking at something that got stored away or something you did. If you’re doing minor changes or tweaks on a site and you want to know if what you did made a difference, this can get very frustrating.

But I don’t code so why should I care?

Unfortunately, cache can still affect you. It makes website appear “differently” to different people depending on if the cache is local or remote. If you’re an owner of a site, this is very important to you. You lose control over what your audience is seeing of your site and potentially could appear unprofessional.

The situation gets more complicated because the cache can be in a variety of locations. As wonderful as the Internet is, it’s sometimes a Frankenstein when it comes to understanding what’s happening. Changes have come and gone. Different people and groups have chosen different standards. What this has resulted in is a big melting pot of ways to do things.

Cache is no exception. It can be stored on your computer locally. It can be stored on the server/gateways you use to access the Internet. It can be stored on some interim server along the way. It can be stored on the server itself. It can be stored by some program on the server. But regardless of where the cache is stored, it ends up looking all the same – the page doesn’t change regardless of what you do to it.

Sounds like a pain. So why cache?

You may have already guessed the answer to this, but by using cache, the performance of a website is drastically improved. Not only is the webpage delivered quicker to the audience but it causes less strain on the server. In some cases it can it can result in less bandwidth calls and that means less cost for your website hosting.

Programs that attempt to generate dynamic content, like WordPress, often add a lot of bloat to the code that needs to get processed in order for a page to show up. That bloat translates to a lot of added process time which can blog down your website drastically.

When was the last time you went to a website that took a long time to load? Did you stick around?

Chances are you answered ‘no’. In today’s world of instant access, speed is almost as important as content.

So… the question remains. To cache or not to cache? What do you decide?

When I first started up, I was told by a client that there’s nothing sexy about what they do. I didn’t complain at the time but I should have. If you don’t find what you do as sexy then why the hell are you doing it?

Seriously??

Being sexy is about being excited. If you’re passionate about what you do, then it shouldn’t be difficult to find that excitement. And that excitement should propagate to every aspect of your business.

Now, before you call me crazy, I have a confession to make. I love reality TV shows. In particular, I love stories that are looking at other professionals doing their craft. Lately, my guilty pleasure has been watching reruns of Kitchen Nightmare with Gordon Ramsay.

Watching these shows, there are quite a few gems any business owner can use regardless of their industry.

Passions needs to be shared

One of the biggest messages from Kitchen Nightmare is to care what your customer thinks. All too often I see many chefs who have lost that connection to their customers. They’ve turned bitter and angry, letting their frustrations run the kitchen rather than their passions. Ultimately, that ends up with a failing restaurant and costly debts.

Be passionate about what you do and share that passion with your clients. Connect with them and share their excitement over what you do. And if they aren’t excited, take the time to find out why and how you might improve what you do.

Individuality speaks volumes

In every reality TV show, the draw is much more about the personalities than what the person does. If it were just about what they did or created, the shows would be fairly boring. Likewise, we aren’t just our products. We are each an individual and with that comes a powerful marketing tool.

Let your personality shine in all you do. Don’t be afraid to be yourself. People can by a product from anyone, but people want to do business with other people, not other products.

Play on emotions

If you look at certain shows, their whole drive is playing on emotions that the audience can understand. Shows like Extreme Makeover help to highlight people’s struggles in life and achieving that great “wish come true”.

Don’t make up the emotions but if there is an emotional pull to your product, a problem you can resolve for something, highlight those emotions.

Anything can be made sexy

And the final lesson I’ve learned from watching reality TV, ANYTHING can be made sexy. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at the TV guide. Majority of the reality TV shows aren’t really about glamorous jobs, at least not what we would have traditional thought of as glamorous.

• Storage Wars is a show that highlights auctioneers opening up abandoned storage units
• American Pickers is about guys who drive around and look at other people’s junk.
• Apprentice is about people trying to make it into upper management and that “corner office.”
• Deadliest Catch is about a bunch of fishermen in extreme conditions.
• Ice Road Truckers is about truckers who have deliver in some of the most icy and deadliest roads.
• Clean Sweep is about a team of organizers that help get a person declutter.
• The Biggest Loser highlights personal coaches, psychologists and nutritionist/dieticians.
• Dirty Jobs a show highlighting some of the dirtiest jobs out there.

How to make your business sexy

Okay, so if I’ve convinced you at this point that any business can be made sexy, it’s time for you to figure out how to get sexy back into your business. It’s actually not as hard as you might think. Consider these questions:

• What problems are you trying to solve for your clients? What will happen if you don’t solve that problem?
• What drove you to start your business? Reconnect with the passions that inspired you and share that story with your clients.
• Who are you as an individual/personality? Remember: People buy products but people do business with other people. Do you just want to sell products or do business?

Still struggling? Drop me a line or leave a comment below and I’d be happy to help you find the sexy in your business again.

People are always amazed at how quickly I can spot CSS and javascript issues.

The secret is that I have special glasses!

No, really! I’m not kidding here.

My special glasses is called “Firebug”.

What is Firebug

If you haven’t heard of Firebug and you design websites, you’re missing out on a tremendous and FREE tool. That’s right. It’s 100% free. To get it go to http://www.getfirebug.com. Now one quick note: It works BEST in Firefox. So do this in a Firefox browser.

So, let’s get to the basics. Firebug is a plugin that allows you to see, in real time, what the browser sees. With this, Firebug will alert you when a javascript is having an issue, what error is being generated, and what line is causing the problem.

But what I love about Firebug even more than the javascript view is the ability to pinpoint CSS issues. CSS can be a bear to deal with, especially when you are dealing with WordPress templates where there are layers upon layers of CSS that might be called.

With Firebug, I can scroll through the page and show exactly what line and which CSS attributes apply. I can even on the fly change the CSS temporarily to see what impact such a change might have on the website.

Check out my quick video to see how I could test out different CSS on my website without actually impacting or hurting my website.

Downsides to Firebug

Of course this isn’t a Cinderella story entirely, there are things that annoy me with Firebug.

Random Firefox crashes

After installing Firebug, I had a few situations where bad code on most WordPress cites crashed Firefox. Now, I know it’s not Firebug’s fault and the changes to WordPress to stop that from happening seemed to have fixed the issue but I seemed to crash far more than others (on the order of every 2-3 minutes). The only thing I have different from others is Firebug. Knowing that Firebug picks up on errors in code, it is possible that the errors in WordPress were causing the program to hang.

Firefox optimized

While Firebug does say it has modules for IE and other browsers, I don’t find them as intuitive and simple to use. To get the most out of Firebug, you really do need to be comfortable in operating within Firefox. This becomes frustrating because sometimes the CSS issue isn’t a Firefox one but how a particular CSS was interpreted by another browser. Investigation of these types of problems require you have a descent handle of what CSS code could be causing the issues.

Javascript errors will pause site downloads

Because Firebug is SO good about detecting Javascript errors and alerting you, it may actually prevent the website from completely downloading. You may have seen that at the end of the demo when I reloaded my website. The error messages popped up at the bottom and if I didn’t hit “Continue” or “Disable” the website would not complete loading and you’d essentially be stuck.

That’s it. Have questions about Firebug or need help? Drop me a comment below and I’ll be happy to reply and see if I can help out.

You’ve heard of “love at first sight”, right?

Well this is what I call “Love at First Page”.

Majority of your potential clients will make assumptions about your business within the first few seconds of viewing your website.  Those assumptions shape how they do business or if they will do business with you.

What does your first page say about your company?

Spend time to make that first impression of your business and your website as clean and clear as possible can make a huge difference when trying to attract business.

So what make a good first impression?  Well let’s take a look at a few examples of what does work.

I’m a strong believer of practice what you preach or STFU {if you don’t know what that acronym means, please send me a private message… there are little ones here}.

• Creekside Creative Solutions
• Amy Porterfield
• Tim Hortons

{If you’d like to have your front page evaluated for FREE, drop me an email at caroline@creeksidecs.com or use our contact form.  I’d be happy to evaluate your front page and add it to the list above.}

How do I evaluate my own site?

Hoping some of these sites give you ideas on how you can make a really killer first page for your website that will attract new clients.

So how do you evaluate your own website?

In business, we’re often told to make sure we have an “elevator pitch”.  For those unfamiliar with the term, the scenario is if you ran into someone influential in an elevator, could you within 30-seconds tell them what you do and entice them to learn more about you?

If you can, then you have a clear understanding of what your business is about.  The same litmus test can be used on your website.

Step 1: Open up your website on your computer.  Now, close your eyes to clear your mind and start thinking like a new visitor.

Step 2: Start your stop watch to countdown 30 seconds (or use one of those handy apps on your smartphone).

Step 3:  Open your eyes and within the 30 seconds and first page, identify:

• What is your business about?
• Who is your target audience?
• What value can you bring?
• What is unique about you and your business?
• How can someone connect with you for further information?

If you’re still uncertain, ask a trusted friend or existing client who is willing to be honest with you to do the test as well.

Recently, there’s been a big stir over the fact that Facebook made a change which now displays a @facebook.com email address on your profile page.  Before you panic and think the “sky is falling”, let’s explain a bit what that email is and does.

@Facebook.com Email Direct Messages

The @facebook.com email accounts are nothing new.  In fact, you’ve probably had one since you’ve had a Facebook account.  What they do is allow someone to send you a message directly through Facebook.

The address is almost always based upon your unique username. This is great because if someone were to type that same name into Facebook they will find you (i.e., http://www.facebook.com/{username}).

To find your username, simply click into the “Account Settings”.  You’ll see your username located on the “General” page.  You probably have one setup by default but if you don’t or don’t like what’s set there, you can try to change it here.  As long as that username isn’t taken already, you can rename yourself and both your facebook profile page and email at the same time.

Use the General section to setup your Facebook username and email address.

Now that your username is set, you will be able to receive messages from people emailing you.  You no longer have to give out your private email address if you want people to contact you.

Test it out!  Email your {username}@facebook.com.  Then log into Facebook and look at your Messages area.  You’ll see the email appear there!

Remove the Email

Okay, okay.  So you haven’t been convinced and you still want that email gone.  Well there’s no way to totally remove this email address.  It’s been with you since the time you created the account and probably an integral part of the Facebook architecture.

But you can hide the email from others.  There are 2 ways to hide it, both accessible from your ABOUT page.

First, when you’re on your NEWSFEED, click on your name in the upper left-hand side.  This will take you to the Timeline view of yourself.

Click your name in the upper left-hand side to view your Timeline

Now under your Cover Image, you should see the ABOUT information and link to click here.  That will take you to more details about yourself.

If you look along the right side, near the bottom, you should see a “Contact Info” box.  Click EDIT and you’ll be able to make the necessary changes.

Contact info where you can see if you have a @facebook email account.

After you click EDIT, you can then see to the right of the @facebook email account 2 boxes.  The first sets the permission (and who can see the email).  The second sets if it is displayed on the timeline.

Edit permissions and viewing to remove @facebook email from your ABOUT page.

Either of the 2 below actions will remove it from being visible:

• Set the permissions to “ONLY ME”
• Set the view to “Hidden from Timeline”

That’s it!

Facebook email still there

One final word of caution, if you’re expecting this to remove the email addres, you’re mistaken.  The email is still there and if you have someone savvy enough they will still be able to mail you there.

Engagement is the game these days and anyone who wants to succeed with their website needs to consider social media. However, many websites still miss the boat when it comes to these important interaction points. There are many myths that should be dispelled when it comes to these all important connection points.

Myth #1: Social Media Icons Don’t Do Anything

This is half true. In and of themselves, social media icons don’t do anything for your website. It’s like the tree falling in the forest, if there’s no one visiting your site to begin with, having social media icons (or anything for that fact) will have no impact.

However, once you do have those visitors, social media icons allow your potential audience to connect with you. The more they interact with you, the more likely they are to share your information with others and spread your exposure. The more exposure you gain, the higher likelihood you have of connecting with your ideal audience and eventually closing a sale.

Myth #2: Social Media Icons are Hard to Add

Quite on the contrary. For someone who knows how to program, adding in social media icons are a no brainer. But even some of my clients who don’t have any experience coding at all have been able to add their own icons with minimal guidance. Almost all social media outlets today provide many helpful guides and auto-code generators that all you have to do is cut and paste information to get your icons. And if you use programs like WordPress, there are pre-built plugins that make it even easier to add. Some of my favorites include Shareaholic, Facebook for WordPress, and Really Simple.

Myth #3: Social Media Icons Don’t Suit My Design

There are a lot of creative people out there, far more creative than I ever could be. These wonderfully creative people have created millions of icons out there that could fit into any design. Check out some of these FREE Social Media Icon Examples. I’ve even taken some of these and modified them further to suit the needs of the client. The options are truly endless.

Myth #4: I need to have all Social Media Icons on my site

On the contrary, when I’m doing social media icons for my clients, I think in terms of two questions:

• Where will my client be most active
• Where might her visitors share information

It’s important to distinguish the two because they may not necessarily be the same. Most people only have so many hours in the day to spend on social media. Therefore, I always encourage my clients to pick which ones they want to truly focus their time and efforts. These are the ones that I would highlight the most on the page.

However, the people that come to visit your site may choose to share your information with other sites that you don’t participate on yet. Thus, it is a good idea to allow them to share this information easily with their friends. It then becomes an opportunity for you to reach a new audience.

Myth #5: Social Media Icons are Only for Websites

This is a big one that I see out there. Social Media Icons should be placed on anything you deliver: business cards, flyers, email signatures, presentations, and anywhere else people interact with you. Think of it just like sharing your email address or telephone number. If you feel like you need to place your email or phone number somewhere, add on your social media information.

This is just another opportunity for people to connect with you and the more times people connect with you and engage, the better the relationship you’ve developed with them. Better relationships ultimately lead to more sales. And at the end of the day, that is why we’re doing business.

Adding social media icons to things like email signatures is not hard either. If you use Outlook, Microsoft even created a step-by-step guide to Add Facebook and Twitter icons to your email signature.

Hopefully this has dispelled some myths for you and encouraged you to consider using social media icons. If you need any help or looking for some icon ideas feel free to drop me an email at caroline@creeksidecs.com and I’d be happy to help out.