When considering a website for your business, it’s important to think about everything your website will be doing for you. Many small businesses just want a website that they can point potential clients to, but if their website is just a couple of static pages, those clients will quickly forget about that website. So what should you be looking for in a website? Let’s look at some quick tips and important points that you should always consider before your website ever hits the internet.

1)Web Design(er)s and your pocketbook

So you think you found someone that can do your website for under $1,000. That’s all well and good, but what exactly do you expect out of this? Most college students or beginning freelancers will gladly charge you their bare minimum for a site because they need the cash and you’re interested. But you’ll definitely get what you pay for.

Consider going with a reputable web design firm. You should expect to pay 10,000+ depending on how big your website actually needs to be. The important thing to understand is a good web design firm will spend every working moment dedicated to your company until the website is up and running. A great web design company will have also made sure to factored in upkeep time in their quote and continue to maintain your website for a pre-determined period of time after your site is live.

2)Time: How long should I expect to wait for my site to be finished?

A quick way to find out if you’ve got a great web design firm is how long the website will take to finish. The average website should take between two to three weeks to complete. If your web designer guarantees that your site will be done in under a week, ask them when they expect to take the time to find out what your company wants and what you are looking for. Conversely, if you’re paying someone and they offer you a discount because your site will take more than a month, do they really care about you or your company? Chances are they’ve got someone else that’s paying them more and they’re bumping that company in front of yours.

3)What exactly goes in to a web design?

A lot of companies have a hard time paying someone $10,000 just to design their website. Well let’s look at what all goes into making your page look and function as it does.

The first phase should be spent solely in understanding your company and in deciding how the website should function. This time should also be spent in major conversation with you, the client. Discovering what you want out of your website, what types of colors, font faces, design elements and number of pages are just some of what a web designer does before the actual design even starts. Next a series of mockups that show the full design in image format should be produced. This gives you the opportunity to understand exactly how your website will look. At this point, the design team will be entering the later phase(s) and are barely halfway through the process. *Check out our process at RM*

Now comes the coding. This is by far the most misunderstood part of what goes into web design. Chances are if your looking to have a site designed, you haven’t even thought about what goes into the coding process, you really only care that your site looks great and works the way it should. Well let’s try and understand what it takes to make that happen. Great code can easily take more than 200 hours. Why? Well think of the number of browsers that are out there. Internet Explorer currently has three major versions (IE6, IE7 and IE8) that all have minor tweaks that a coder has to pay attention to in order to get the website to look the same in each one. Then you have your emerging web browsers (Firefox and Safari) that a coder must pay attention to as well.

Those are just the basic elements to coding. Let’s say that you have a blog on your website. Depending on the CMS platform, a coder must then convert your base code (HTML and CSS) into a different type of code (usually PHP, but varies based on the platform used).

Now let’s imagine that you have a fancy header that has images transition (like a slideshow). A coder must add scripts (i.e. javascript, ajax) to make everything function properly. And that’s just the easy coding. There are many more indepth coding processes used for fancier websites like you might see on an eCommerce site.

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So today I’ve talked about what goes into a website before you ever see it live. Tomorrow I’ll talk about what you, as the client, need to do to help the process along and keep your website updated with fresh content.

                 Experienced graphic designers understand the importance of typeface.  The shape, grace to leading and kerning, compatibility, and legibility are key characteristics to consider in selecting the proper typeface for a print ad or website headers and body copy.  The carefully selected typeface can define a piece of design, sending a message to the viewer beyond the words they represent.  Despite the complexity of typeface design, the creativity has recently been expanded into a rapidly growing art form.

                As the title of this blog so curiously hints at, this entry is about type faces (link to the 45 images below).  These incredible works use typefaces to create profiles conveying emotions, famous people, and powerful messages.  Through their word choice and typography selection, the words and typeface used as much define the image as the image formed from the words.  The way the typeface and image integrate seamlessly shows a maturity in design and comprehension of typeface.  I highly suggest taking a quick glance through the images in the link.  Surely one will impress.

                With the monopoly that is McDonald’s, it would prove difficult to avoid its advertising campaign, whatever medium being used.  Clearly the fast food chain has never struggled to have effective marketing, but a new campaign for McCafe in the form of billboards reaffirms the statement of their dominance in advertising.

                Primarily copy, the billboards target financially exhausted Americans weary of the struggling economy and disgusted with the price of coffee growing exponentially like oil.  Like music to their ears, the billboards present lyrics that sing into the heart of any distressed American dying for a cup of coffee but not at the price of a precious limb.  Satirically serenading about the expensive prices of café chains like Starbucks, McCafe proudly competes with quality found with affordability, in another word, value.

                One such billboard of the aforementioned McCafe campaign states plainly, “I’m a coffee lover, not a millionaire”.  This is a powerful message for the early morning commuter looking for a cup of consciousness that won’t make the first few hours of pay a written check to the nearest coffee shop.  The sardonic humor in the single sentence says so much to the consumer.  The economy may be down, your wallet may be tight, but that doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice your morning caffeine, or the taste.

                There aren’t many opportunities to take advantage of a suffocating economy, but if one company could pull it off with a single sentence, it would be McDonald’s.

Twitter. Even Buckingham Palace is on board.

A spokeswoman for Buckingham Palace announced, Friday, that the Royal Family's is now on Twitter.  She said that Tweets would serve as a news and information service used to share lists of engagements and website updates.

"The Queen has been advised that it's up and running but there won't be any members of the Royal Family tweeting," she said.

On 12 Jul 11:00: Changing the Guard at Buckingham Palace http://www.royal.gov.uk/G.

Gallery: The Princess Royal chats to a guest during a garden party in the grounds of Buckingham Palace to... http://www.royal.gov.uk/Dfabout 1 hour ago from Royal Household

On 9 Jul: Prince William - will watch the British Women's Team play Slovakia in the LEN European Nations... http://www.royal.gov.uk/DW

Interested?

You can follow the Royals @BritishMonarchy, but don't expect The Royal Family to follow you. As of date they have 6008 followers. They are following zero. Hmmm, maybe the Queen needs a lesson on Twitterquette.

Open up your daily paper and you might see a full page ad that reads:  Tylenol- The safest brand of pain reliever you can choose. 

On June 30th, a panel of experts gathered to discuss the risk of acetaminophen consumption and its toll on the liver.  The FDA proposes to tighten current dosing instructions and control the number of acetaminophen products on the market.  Citing that after only two weeks of daily use, livers tested show signs of damage.

In light of the FDA investigation challenging the current market of over-the-counter acetaminophen, Tylenol has launched a campaign to protect its brand.  Johnson and Johnson is promoting the product worldwide, but has added a tag line:  you take more than the recommended dose … you can cause serious liver injury.

Over the years, Johnson and Johnson has been a leader in crisis management.  Johnson and Johnson's handling of the 1982 Tylenol crisis has become a staple in public relations education.  It exemplifies the power of proactive public relations.  Johnson and Johnson was on cue and on target.  Though they pulled their product temporarily, the Tylenol brand was saved and, in fact, stronger than ever before. 

Is Johnson and Johnson's current campaign proactive or reactive?  Are they doing what is right or are they looking out for number one?