Goals & Planning

How do you know what your small business website needs?

Whether you’re just starting out and need a brand new website for your small business, or you already have a site up (but it doesn’t seem to be doing anything for your business), you could benefit from determining what your website actually needs. Just having a site is not enough. Remember, a website is your most important digital asset and should be your central, online marketing piece. So putting some extra thought into that is [...]

What Do You Do and Who Do You Do It For – Uncovering the Keys to Your Brand

Brand can be a really fuzzy concept. Plenty of small business owners think that brand = their logo. They’re not necessarily wrong, since a logo is part of an overall brand. But what many don’t know is that their overall brand is a whole lot more. What I hope to break down in this article is explain a little bit more about what is included in an overall brand as well as how to get [...]

How to Determine Objectives for Your Business Website

Putting up a website for your small business without having clear objectives for that website is like wearing a blindfold while trying to throw darts. The odds are, you’re going to miss your mark and not be as successful as you could have been. With websites, a little bit of planning and mapping out the purpose of each page can go a long way. The simple, 2-step process explained below can help your business map [...]

How to Determine Goals for an Effective Website Project

I think we’re finally to the point where almost all business owners know that the internet is pretty important and that they should have a web presence. For some, this is where it stops – they know they need it and that’s it. 

Like most marketing (yes, your website is marketing for your business), it’s important to have a strategy in place to help you with defining your goals. Without this, your website will not be [...]

How to use Information Architecture to Make Website Better

I recently read an article in a popular design magazine. It was a discussion of information architecture and how it relates to building websites. Information architecture, in a nutshell, is the organizing and labeling of websites to support usability. On a website, you are presented with options (for example, links or buttons), you make choices, and then you are presented with what you were seeking. In so doing, you're completing a series of steps that were all laid out by a designer.

50 Helpful Tips for Working With Designers

"It is our responsibility as designers to make sure our clients understand the basic principals of what we do for them during a project. This gives them a level of comfort and understanding about their project that will allow them to answer questions later."

This free ebook is a quick read of 50 solid tips on how to ensure success while working with a web or graphic designer.