Our mates from See Saw signs have expanded their operation and have opened up an office and workshop in Lismore. The new location is right in the heart of downtown Lismore on 72 Conway Street. Bush Marketing and See Saw have a long standing working relationship dating back, way back to the start of See Saw in 2004 when we shared a little farmers cottage together in Coorabell on Coolamon Scenic Drive.
There are almost as many sayings, philosophies and processes about how to best translate a clients web wants and desires into something they are happy with and more important willing to pay for then there are questions below. If you are considering briefing us on a web project please take the time to read the following 72 Questions to Ask Your New Web Design Clients–written by Douglas Bonneville of bonfx.com. Thanks Doug I hope you don’t mind us making some additions and revisions to your great questions–they will be noted so as to not confuse.
1. How does your company handle email?
2. Do you need any password protected areas?
3. Do you have the Pantone numbers for your current
company colors?
4. Did you take a look at our portfolio? BBM Portfolio
5. What is your time frame? (then multiply it by 2)
6. Is this a brochure site, blog, forum, shopping cart or mash up?
7. Who is your audience?
8. Do you have any specifications?
9. What are the website addresses of your competitors and 3 websites accomplish what you are after in terms of look and functionality?
10. How many other companies have you talked to? (If we are the first please talk to at least 2 more)
11. Do you need a business card and letterhead?
12. What is your main message (what is the one essential thing you want to say)?
13. Did you or someone else register the domain? (do you have pass words to manage the dns)?
14. How familiar are you with search engine
optimization and best practices?
15. What are several websites you like? (and why)
16. Do you currently have a website? (what is the web address)
17. Do you or anyone on your staff have Photoshop or
other image editing software?
18. Do you need search engine help?
19. Does the site launch need to coincide with a
product launch or any other important milestone?
20. Do you need a content management system?
21. How long have you had a website?
22. Do you have photos you need to use?
23. Will several people be editing the site?
24. How many pages do you need?
25. Do you have a catalog or brochure?
26. How do people find your current website (do you understand and have access to web stats)?
27. Do you have a newsletter?
28. Are you in touch with the orginal designer?
29. Do you have access to the web server?
30. What are several websites that you like the look of?
31. Do you have control over the domain?
32. Do you need any other promotional material?
33. How familiar are you with usability studies?
34. How important is search engine ranking to you?
35. Is there any specific functionality you need?
36. Will you be providing creative direction?
37. Do you have your content done?
38. Will your IT person be involved?
39. Do you have a logo? What format is it in?
40. How familiar are you with graphic design best
practices for web designs?
41. What is your current hosting company?
42. Have you been through the complete web design
and development process before?
43. Who are your competitors?
44. How often do you need to update the site?
45. Describe the style of website you are looking for?
46. Is the orginal developer still available?
47. What is your budget?
48. What is compelling about working with us?
49. Do you need an image gallery?
50. Are you are anyone on your staff familiar with
HTML and CSS?
51. Is your logo in Illustrator format?
52. Do you need this to integrate with your existing
identity pieces?
53. How are you going to maintain the site?
54. What software do you have?
55. How did you find us?
56. Did you read any of our blog?
57. What bugs you the most about websites?
58. Do you need any other graphic design help?
59. Do you need social media tools built in, like Digg,
Facebook, Twitter, Stumble Upon, etc.
60. How familiar are you with web standards and web
design best practices?
61. Do you need the website to tie into any particular
3rd party applications?
62. Do you need a contact form?
63. Do you have a domain?
64. Do you have any proposals from other design firms?
65. How important is customization to you?
66. Will you want or need help in making changes? If
so, would you need help routinely?
67. What do you need your website to do?
68. Do you need ecommerce?
69. Have you considered redesigning your logo?
70. Do you have hosting?
71. Have you considered taking a fresh look at your
corporate identity? This a good time to consider
refresh or an entirely new identity.
72. When is the last time you updated the site?
You know you are going to have a good day when a client gets in contact with you via facebook and sends you a link to a clip that takes the piss out of clients. Thanks Chari from Hampton & Larrson for making our day. If you are a prospective BBM web client please watch this and if you don’t smile please don’t call.
It has been a long time since I have graced a library. But here I sit in the Byron Bay Public library working hard researching for a client marketing meeting. Here is some interesting information I just gleaned from Google Insights.
Better get stuck back into it. Next stop the new word tracker.
We have just done a very soft launch of a new product for a great Bush client Ivan of IVANiTY SHAVE.
The launch is as soft as the natural bristles on the shaving brush because we are waiting with excitement for the final samples to arrive so we can photograph and video for the website and further branding and marketing. The pictures above were taken today while Alison and I were out doing some location scouting. Turns out we only had to go as far as Karl Gould’s hair Studio in Byron Bay for the perfectly manly location for a shave shoot.
This morning I let Andrew Bleakley know our property on Mill Rd in Goonengerry (Byron Hinterland) was going to Auction in early December and I needed some help on promoting the listing. As the day is coming to a close here is what we have got done. Firstly, Andrew did some on the fly SEO work and found out that horse property is searched for way more then horse properties. Good to know. I have been working away on one of my pet community projects (goonengerry.com.au) and have got a joomla property plugin loaded up and working. You can see the listing in our horse property section.
This just in straight from the horse’s mouth. Andrew has bought www.horse-property.com.au–no wonder we get along so well the Bleak is as impetuous as I am. Great score getting that domain name I reckon.
A few weeks ago, Kaleigh and I were winding our way down the green hills of Goonengerry into Ballina. We noticed a haze coming from the South, but wrote it off as a side effect of the high winds and the construction at the Ballina bypass.
I recently read an article on the Globe and Mail website that discussed Canada’s dear old Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, and his lack of internet domain awareness. The article titled “Harper Not Master of His Own Domain Names” was taken down shortly after it was posted, not too sure why, but it made it quite clear that Stephen Harper doesn’t have the best internet identity.
Harper doesn’t have control of stephenharper.com or stephenharper.org, and as far as I can tell, he doesn’t have stephenharper.ca either. The article mentioned that the .com site is actually a portal to escort services while the .org site is an anti-Harper site. Not a good look Harper.
You gotta get your hands on those domain names, people. As General Greg says, it’s one of the first steps you should take when setting yourself up online. It’s better to secure it now, than get embarrassed later.
Speaking of embarrassment, here is my favourite photograph of the man in charge of my home and native land.
The Bangalow Show is just around the corner and I wanted to help people who use the internet to find information to have some up to date information about this years show. Its’ not too often now a days that you can’t find out what you need with a simple google search. When I searched for the Bangalow Show in google I got page after page of old information and nothing about this year.
Finally I got a phone number and have volunteered to help the show get online. Here is the information I have so far:
Bangalow Show-November 20th and 21st, 2009
Banglow Show Ground.
For more information contact:
Karen Ryan
66871033
email bangalowshow@bigpond.com.au
For the record here are the current google search results and I bet you a round of beer that I can get this blog and other listings I am going to work some Bush Magic on the first page.
update 11 October: do a search we are now on the top of page 2–here we come page 1 and some more news to share soon.
update 2 November: forget page two how about three… 3rd listing on page 1 that is. Well done Andrew and thanks to the local sites for linking to the Bangalow Show.
update 12 November: sorry Bangalow Show Society we were only trying to help. Andrew took the site down and I have withdrawn from the facebook page I created.
Show more results from www.totaltravel.com.au
105th Bangalow Show For 100 years this has been a not to miss Bangalow tradition
www.bayweb.com.au/…/bangalow-show-19th-and-20th-november-vt488.
Add a signature to your email
All major email software supports this in some way. Include at a minimum your company name and URL, don’t go overboard and list your life story and the names of all your pets, you want people to be able to clearly see your website and realise it is clickable. If you have a token green message (you know the one’s that tell me to think before I print) move it right down so that you don’t crowd your website out.
Create a domain email address
If you expect people to take your online business seriously, you need to take your online business seriously. Using a free, hosted email account for business communication is like sending out press releases on Mickey Mouse stationary.
There is no valid excuse to use a Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo address to conduct business. I have heard them all and they are ordinary to say the least. Any good hosting partner will provide a web based email client for you to use, or setup your domain email to use the Gmail interface with Google Apps. Any 14 year old will tell you how to redirect your old free email to your new domain email address and automatically send out a note to tell people you have grown up, so to speak.
If you need a more compelling reason than Mickey Mouse, every time you tell someone your email address you are telling them your website and inviting them to take a look – you are turning every email contact into an open invitation to look at your website – genius!
Setup your Google Local Entry
Allows people to see you on a map when the search for your type of business in your area. Google have made it very simple to do or get your web developers to do it for you. Properly crafted and established a Google Local entry will sit at the top of the search engine results and deliver highly qualified, highly motivated buyers to your website.
Add your website to your business card
I admit this can sometimes be costly but it is a must. Looking through my draw I see that about a third of the business cards there are missing email or website details. How do I find out more about them or research a purchase? I could Google them but if they don’t have any respect for their URL I will almost certainly find one of their competitors. Another lost sale.
Make your website address clickable
It’s instinct these days, if someone sees a website URL they will try and click it. If nothing happens the love stops there. Visitor lost, sale lost. Almost all email and document creation programs these days support making text clickable – how each program does it is beyond the scope of this article – try selecting your address and right clicking – if that fails call a 14 year old.
It doesn’t matter if you are sending and email, a presentation or a memo if it contains your website address it needs to be clickable and it needs to work – always test it, please, for me.
Next week we will look at how you can attract new customers yourself
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