April 18, 2005

Now With RSS Feed! Kung-Fu Grip Coming Soon.

Thanks to Conrad (aka DJ Medieval ), this weblog now has an RSS feed, via LiveJournal here .

What is RSS? RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication".   It is a way to easily distribute a list of headlines, update notices, and content to   a wide number of people.   It is used by computer programs that organize those headlines and notices for easy reading.

This means if you have an RSS reader software program, or a web browser with RSS support built in (like Firefox ), an XML reader, or a LiveJournal account, when you subscribe to this feed, you can now be automatically notified of when this site updates, without having to check back here constantly.

Thank you again, Conrad.

April 18, 2005 in Web/Tech, Weblogs | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 23, 2005

Lawyers Just Want A Watch.

DJ Medieval wrote a rant so good, I'm reprinting the entire piece below.

Imagine getting a degree, majoring in art and minoring in engineering, from a fairly well-known college. Imagine then creating a fairly simple wristwatch, shiny yet simple, which can optionally speak the time to you if tapped just right, and which can recharge its batteries via a small solar panel in the face. The perfect, useful wristwatch.

Then, you decide that you can improve upon this design.

You add a meat thermometer, closed-circuit TV, an FM tuner, a 65 year battery, 802.11 wireless, a theft alarm, a sonic mosquito repellent, a storage compartment for moist towelettes, a golf ball cleaner, a high-definition flat panel screen, portable AIM client, toothbrush, 101-key qwerty keyboard, MP3 player, laser pointer, universal remote, a DVD changer, a fishfinder, a small cache of nuclear armaments and just for the hell of it a live armadillo.

The art major in you decides that what it needs to really shine is some spinners and post-cubist influence.

You give each of your friends a prototype, and become distraught when they ask tough questions like "Why does the battery come in its own suitcase and weigh 65 lbs?," "Why is my watch taking forever to do anything?," and hard-hitting questions like "Does this thing actually tell time?"

Now, imagine that instead of wristwatches, you design websites.

You are this person.

The web is filled with people just like you, and I hate you all.

This is an excellent lesson in web design, especially web design for legal services selling to lawyers. Keep it simple!  Keep it easy to read! Keep every part of your web site focused on the next step and make it easy to use.

It may not be as cool as a website that can do a zillion different things.

But you website needs to do just ONE thing.

SELL.

March 23, 2005 in Web/Tech | | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

February 25, 2005

Web Designer's Eye For The Sales Guy

            Clever domain name? Check.

Web Site Strategy? Check.

Web Site? Check.

Web Page Title? Check. And then check it again to make sure you don't make the biggest and most common sales website mistake...

... stupid title tags! [*]

Your web page's title is your greeting to your prospect. You wouldn't insult your prospective audience with the first sentence out of your mouth, would you?

If your title beigins "Welcome to YourCompany", "Welcome To YourCompany.com", or, worst of all, "Welcome To The YourCompany Website", you are insulting them. You're telling your prospective audience that you think they aren't smart enough to figure out that your site is a web site about you while they're looking at it.

In my experience as a web designer, I always reccommend client looking for me to "tune up" their existing sites to get rid of the "Welcome to..." part altogether. Not only is it condescending, but it wastes space, and makes any browser that bookmarks your site alphabetize under "W".

Instead, try making your web page title, the name of your company, followed by a powerful value phrase that describes your business. Let THAT be your welcome.

[*]A title tag is HTML that creates the words that appear in the top bar of your Web browserl like so:

The HTML code for a title tag like in the example would look like this:

<HEAD>
<TITLE>Shawn's Li'l Corner of Cyberspace</TITLE>
</HEAD>

February 25, 2005 in Web/Tech | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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