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TIMR Web Services
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In his blog Seth Godin noted:
Laying out the design of a page or a flyer so it looks like a pro did it takes about ten times as much work as merely using the template Microsoft builds in for free, and the message is almost the same…
To many small businesses are taking the "Quick and Dirty" road to website design. Hiring "Template Hackers" in place of more expensive web designers. While the initail cost is low – the ultiamte cost in lost sales is too high to even consider.
(more…)
I belong to a local business support group. At our last meeting the topic of iPhone apps came up. iPhone apps are getting to be like blogs – everyone thinks they need one, they just don’t know why. I mentioned that a webpage for mobile devices would be more appropriate.
After the meeting I was asked how they work – so here are the basics.
I will be conducting a workshop on "What Every Business Owner Should Know To Maximize Investment In A Website.". (And, no I didn’t pick the title.) With such a huge topic – I thought I had better write a resource list for the attendees. Then I thought – why not share it with everyone.
It is by no means complete – but it is a start. And, the blogs in particular will lead you to even more information.
Courtenay, BC— In the not-so-distant past, a professional business card was the primary first-impression piece—a necessity for a business to look legitimate. Now, it seems a website is the indication of legitimacy, as well as an incredible business tool that makes geography a non-issue.
Since websites open every business to a global marketplace and level the playing field for small businesses and big businesses alike, most business owners are considering or using a website, but often have questions about designing, programming and maintaining a good website to maximize their investments of time and money—to get the most out of their sites.
OK – I don’t normally listen to MC Hammer. His music has a good beat – but other than that it leaves me flat. But, were he to target the geriatric crowd – I am willing to bet he would do a good job. MC Hammer understands the value of analyzing his target market.
There is a new buzz word making the rounds – Friendly Fraud. It is the online term for the old practise of returning goods after you have used them. For the online merchant, this type of fraud now includes the customer saying they never received an item, stopping the credit card payment, and even returning empty boxes.
While the practice is probably as old as merchandising – it seems to be on the increase, due, in large part, to the declining economy. Some business blogs are reporting a 50% increase in this type of fraud.
This fraud not only causes losses of a sale but also the cost of bank chargebacks and handling costs. In many cases the items are, if they are returned, are too badly damaged to be resold even as used material.
While nothing you can do will eliminate this practise, there are somethings you can do to discourge the less aggressive fraudster.
These methods won’t deter the most aggressive fraudster. They will help deter those that may be looking quick way to get out of paying. And, in most cases, seeing a well defined returns policy will be appreciated by legitimate customers
I just got back from a short vacation and am getting back to normal – except normal around here is chaos just about every where else.
Of course, emails come whether you are on holidays or not. To deal with them I created a new Google gMail account and forwarded all my email there. gMail has an easy filter setup – so I was able to filter out all my standard emails, such as newsletters, and have only those from clients and the occasional SPAM left in the Inbox.
You maybe maybe wondering why I didn’t use my company’s webmail. I am paranoid!!
Like most of you, I use a laptop (in my case netbook) to connect through public ‘hot spots’. They have become so common that most of us take them for granted. However, they all have one major flaw – they aren’t secure.
While some webmail login pages are sort of secure – many are not. To check your webmail go to the login page and see if it says http or https in the location bar or look for the padlock icon at the bottom of the browser. Our webmail service uses https – but many don’t.
We have all come to believe that the lock icon and https means we have a secure connection. In most cases that is true. ISPs and other legitimate businesses handling Internet traffic go to great lengths to maintain the security of that connection. However, any time you go through a third party’s server you risk what is called a ‘man in the middle’ attack.
The easiest way to break any security encryption is to have an encrypted and plain text version of the same message. The more text, the easier it is to crack the code. In the case of your connection at "Joe Blog’s Coffee Shop" (the man in the middle) both the plain text version and encrypted versions of the login page are available to Joe’s server. Is the text on a login page enough to make it easy to crack the code? – Yes but it would take a while. But, like I said, I am paranoid!!
Why, is the gMail login more secure, after all it has more text? The text is not always the same – the little counter that indicates the amount of free space available makes the code harder to crack. Also, I deleted that account once I got back from my vacation.
BTW: Banks are the worst offenders for having plain text information on a https server. NEVER log into you bank from a public ‘hot spot’.
Over the years I have bothered anyone who would listen about the way forms are designed. Problems range from entering unnecessary information to forms that are hard to understand. However, I have always looked at the problem from the user’s point of view.
In this article Jared Spool looks at the cost of poorly designed forms from the businesses’ point of view. In particular he outlines how one business lost potentially $300,000,000 (yes – 3 million dollars) in sales due to one button.
Under Construction – NOT!
Finally, made it home from my holiday. Spent a LOT of time driving. This being spring, much of the driving was in road construction zones, constantly slowing down, speeding up and watching for flag people. All-in-all not very enjoyable.
We all know road construction is necessary. And, while we might not enjoy it – we all put up with it. However, ‘Under Contruction’ is something you should never see on a website.
Web page that waste their clients sites with links that go nowhere or to the all too common – “Page Under Construction” message have no place on any website – particularly a business website.
Keep your website professional – check that links still work and never – EVER – link to an “Under Construction” page.