"Business Creative" Web Design

Stu Macik, Broken Sky Studio Web Design & Development, Branding, Marketing, and Technology Solutions

Another new project launch from Broken Sky Studio LLC this time for Linda Lupatkin of  The Imagemakers, Ink! LLC in Denver, Colorado. This project is a unique visual design with 3D style custom graphics and entirely hand coded with valid, semantic HTML5.

On the sites “Accolades” page a very cool background hover effect is utilized to highlight each testimonial from the others to make it easier to read since we had to use a smaller font size on the testimonials to fit them to our preferred page height.

Thanks Linda!

-Stu

Another new project launch from Broken Sky Studio LLC this time for Jo Myers of Jo Myers Real Estate in Denver, Colorado. This project is a clean custom design with custom graphics and entirely hand coded with valid, semantic HTML5.

One interesting aspect of the project was that we wanted an easy way for Jo to be able to add her listings to the site herself as she needed without using a CMS (content management system) which would have been overkill on this site. We did a little “out of the box” thinking and came up with the idea of using Tumblr for her listings since Tumblrs “photo” post turns a set of photos into a very nice slide show. Add a text post after the photos and the listing is complete.

If you’d like your next website project to use some out of the box” thinking. Give us a call at 303-800-7617, we’d love to hear from you.

Stu Macik, Broken Sky Studio Web Design & Development, Branding and Marketing

A couple of posts back I talked about how we, here at Broken Sky Studio, are making the move to HTML5 for all of our front-end website design and development going forward. I wanted to explain, without getting all geeky on you, about how this can benefit your business vs. developing on one of the older standards such as HTML4 or XHTML.

The biggest, and perhaps most compelling, reason that we’ve moved on from the older standards is because of what is known in the web development community as “progressive enhancement“. This simply means using a “forward looking” approach to design and development that takes into consideration new and upcoming technologies.

There are so many exciting technologies and improvements to existing web languages (html, css and javascript) coming along, that it’s essential we make every effort to ensure the sites we design and develop are capable of being easily upgraded and maintained as the shift occurs. In this respect HTML5 is not really a single entity but rather a collection of new and improved technologies that are not only in the works, but in many cases already in practical everyday use.

How this benefits you is that, first off, you can get a lot of the goodies right now. The semantic flow of HTML5 coding alone, which provides Google, Bing and other search engines a more efficient way to crawl your site, is worth the price of admission and can help improve your site’s organic search rank.

HTML5 also offers video to mobile and tablet devices that wouldn’t otherwise be possible with the older standards and technologies. Of course there are many other benefits, really too many to list here, but certainly among them is the fact that your new HTML5 site won’t need any cosmic shifts to stay up-to-date, easy to maintain and relevant for many years to come.

-Stu

Stu Macik, Broken Sky Studio Web Design and Development, Denver, Colorado

I just wanted to wish all the small and medium businesses (and business owners) out there a very happy and prosperous New Year in 2011.

At Broken Sky Studio (our web design, development and technology company) 2011 will the year that we will fully embrace the new HTML5 front end web development standards as an everyday “best practice”. We’ve decided to go in this direction because we believe, that with the pending release of a stable version of Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) early this year, that we want to give our clients more choices by giving them access to all the wonderful benefits that HTML5 brings to the table. HTML5 video (which is the video standard supported by Apple’s iPad and many other mobile devices that do not support Adobe’s Flash) being just one of the “becoming necessary” benefits of HTML5.

We also feel that by developing with HTML5 we’ll be able to build in superior progressive enhancement (easier to update and stay relevant in the future) in the sites that we design and develop even if the client doesn’t need all of the goodies that HTML5 provides right away. Of course, we’ll still build in backwards compatibility for older versions of Internet Explorer (all other browsers already support the new standards) but hopefully the day will soon come where all the older versions of IE become obsolete (as IE6 recently has) so that we as designers and developers can “move on” so to speak from having to support outdated technology that stifles what’s possible on the modern web.

At any rate, here’s to your business growing and prospering in 2011 and beyond!

-Stu

Stu Macik, Broken Sky Studio Web Design and Development, Denver, Colorado

This is a question that every business owner has to face these days as a web presence has become a “must have” expense in today’s extremely competitive business environment. Most businesses simply can’t afford to forgo a website knowing that the web is where a great majority of potential customers are seeking out information about goods and services.

The most important aspect of bringing your business to the web and what you should pay for it is to understand that, as with any product or service, there are different levels of quality, competence, expertise and service out there. Today’s pricing for a website runs the gamut from inexpensive “do it yourself” services (google sites, intuit, etc.) to the “$500.00 website guys” to “professionals”. Here’s a quick breakdown and what kind of pricing you’re likely to find.

Do it yourself websites
Do it yourself websites mostly fall into the free (google sites) to very cheap (intuit) range and there are quite a few out there who will gladly take your spare change. Intuit for example has a cheap $4.99 a month “starter” plan for a do-it-yourself template website that they themselves describe as being able to “put your business on the Internet for about the price of a sandwich!”. As you might guess, this is not a professional solution in any way, shape or form. Ugly templates and “build it yourself” is the business model here along with volume and trying to a la carte you into other services. This is the “fast food” of the website world and the fact that they equate their pricing to a sandwich tells you everything you need to know.

The $500.00 website guys
When I say $500.00 website guys, I’m really talking about any person or company who attempts to sell that they can do a complete website for you “on the cheap”. These can be amateurs who do websites on the side or even a company whose focus is, once again, on volume. Custom design & development and customer service aren’t a part of this business model because it takes a lot of $500.00-$1000.00 websites to make a living. What’s important to remember here is that there has to be some reason as to why their pricing is so much less than a professional. Is it competence or quality? Is it expertise or service? Rest assured, like any other product there IS a reason they work for less which is why using them goes into the “proceed with caution” category.

Professionals
Professionals who accomplish custom design and development always get much more for their services than either of the above alternatives. The reason for this is that they offer a significantly higher level of experience and service. Their business is not based on volume but rather expertise and customer relationships vs. the lower priced alternatives.

Professionals will almost always have additional experience in other marketing and technical areas including branding, social network marketing and blogs as well as mobile design and business integration services such as Google Apps For Your Domain. With a professional website design and development company you can expect to pay anywhere from $500.00 per page and up depending on the difficulty of the design, technical requirements of the site and level of integration with outside services.

While some might believe that a website is a commodity, in truth it’s anything but. Just like any other product or service you get what you pay for and a professionally conceived, designed and developed website can help grow your business in ways that cheaper alternatives simply cannot.

-Stu

Stu Macik, Broken Sky Studio Web Design and Development, Denver, Colorado

I had a new client ask me the other day if style and aesthetics really matter on a website or whether it’s more important to have a “good sales pitch” (i.e. well written, effective copy).

After some thought, I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t think there’s really any way to quantify whether aesthetics or good copy is more important for a small business site because my experience has been that they’re both equally significant for success.

The problem lies in the fact that you have (on average) around 4 or 5 seconds to help a visitor to your site decide to stick around and find out more about you. This is where I believe that style and aesthetics can have a huge impact in that a great looking professional design can draw the visitor in to learn more about you.

It’s just a fact that “ugly” can spell doom when we’re talking about small business websites. Think about it, how many times have you clicked on an ugly website, thought “man, this site looks like #&@%” and left. It happens all the time.

The point is that having something that looks and feels clean and professional can buy you a little extra time to get someone to actually read about how great your products or services are.

So having a great looking site makes a huge difference right?

Well, only if your copy is solid as well.

Another fact of life on the web is that poorly organized and written content can confuse and drive away potential customers. If you can’t quickly, clearly and concisely make your case for why someone should do business with you, then any advantage you’ve gained by having a great looking site goes straight out the window.

This is a difficult lesson to learn because writing effective ad copy for the web can be a different animal than other forms of advertising. The constraints of time and space are completely different than say a print ad and so a lot has to be considered when writing your copy. It’s why having a solid Information Architecture (IA) and Visual Hierarchy as well as a firm grasp of your businesses strengths (in comparison to your competition) is paramount for gaining conversions and growing your business.

The bottom line here is that you really need both great aesthetics and solid copy to make the sale. The best way to do this is to hire a pro but if you’re doing things yourself I think the key is to not rush either aspect (design or the copy). Take the time to learn about what constitutes good and bad aesthetics (and copy writing) so that you don’t wind up creating an “anti-site” because…well because that’s NEVER a good thing!

-Stu

Stu Macik, Broken Sky Studio Web Design and Development, Denver, Colorado

I like to be honest about where I sit before I espouse where I stand so I want to be up-front with the fact that at Broken Sky Studio (our website design, development and technology company) we perform custom website design and development (from the ground up) as opposed to some other theme driven CMS alternatives.

I mention this because I’ve been asked several times lately about how the kind of custom design and development work that we do is different from CMS (content management system) alternatives using WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and others that have come to the web over the past few years.

In a nutshell, CMS based websites are the “fast food” of the website world. That is to say that sites built on these platforms can generally be accomplished quickly and cheaply by just about anyone with a computer because they’re “ready to eat” (so to speak) right out of the box. In fact, all of the CMS’s I mentioned above are free to download, install and use by anyone.

Any novice can have a basic, pre-themed website up and running within a couple of hours by following some fairly simple set-up instructions and cutting and pasting in content. In fact, Go-Daddy has a “one click” set-up for WordPress, Drupal and Joomla that will even install a database for you. So you see, it just doesn’t get much easier if you want a “do it yourself” website. This is great for anyone needing something simple and cheap and can make a lot of sense for a very small business or start-up without a marketing budget to spend on a professional site.

On the flip-side however, while a CMS may be cheap, fast and easy the downside can outweigh the upside if you’re a small to medium sized business looking for exceptional results from your website.

Why? Compared to custom built websites, CMS’s use themes that determine the look and feel of the websites they create. This means that you’re stuck with the look of whatever theme it is that you use and while there are a lot of free themes out there, you get what you pay for in that there is absolutely nothing about any free theme that can approach the effectiveness of a site that was designed and developed by a professional specifically for your business. In the case of Drupal and Joomla many of the available themes are downright ugly and look like they were designed six or seven years ago. They really do look “out of place” when observing the aesthetics and usability of more modern looking websites. Also you have to consider that because all of these are themes, they’re available to anyone and so you could wind up with a website that looks exactly like the many others who have chosen the same theme.

Another downside to CMS’s as opposed to custom design and development is that the code base of all of the CMS’s have been designed to cover functionality that you might never use which, in plain terms, means that there is a lot of what developers call “bloated code” associated with a CMS site that can slow down page load times and make any kind of customization very difficult even for those with experience coding sites.

I can say from personal experience with Drupal and Joomla that bloated spaghetti code is indeed the norm with CMS’s although I have found WordPress to be much more streamlined and usable from a code perspective. In fact, I think WordPress is an excellent blogging platform and I use it occasionally for that purpose. The idea of using it to create full websites though just doesn’t make sense to me when a custom, tailored design can actually be implemented from scratch much more efficiently than going in and changing existing code. It’s one of the reasons why we don’t “fix” existing websites at Broken Sky because it’s much more difficult to work with (someone else’s) existing code than it is to build a new site with a predictable, solid code base from the ground up.

At any rate, with custom design and development you get the unique look and feel that you really want for your business along with the exact functionality and code you need, nothing less and nothing more. This, in my opinion, gives custom design and development a huge advantage for businesses with the budget to hire a professional to build their site from the ground up, rather than relying on an out of the box product.

-Stu

Stu Macik, Broken Sky Studio Web Design and Development, Denver, Colorado

One Waterloo of business web design that I’m very careful to avoid is the cram, jam, thank you mam website. We’ve all experienced websites with so much “stuff” on them that our brains experience information overload and almost immediately go into shutdown mode.

What happens next is entirely predictable in that we go back to the Google search results page and move on in the hope that we’ll find a business who’s site doesn’t remind us of Barnum & Bailey.

The reason for this problem, in my opinion, is that business owners have a natural tendency to believe they need to tell EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING in the smallest space possible. They’re (rightfully) proud of their business so they think that if they can tell a potential customer everything about them that they’ll be sold on doing business with them and pick up the phone.

The reality though is that TMI (too much information) on a webpage works about the same as it does when your neighbor comes over and TMI’s you about their latest visit to the doctor. You really just want to run away. The difference being that when you TMI someone with your website they’ll just move on to the next one which could be your competition across the street.

Take your homepage for instance. In my mind the goal of any well thought out homepage can be narrowed down to just three things. What, Why and a “Call To Action”. That is, WHAT is it that your business is does (in exact terms), WHY should I choose you to provide this good or service for me and, of course, some type of call to action i.e. “Call Today To Find Out About This Months Specials”.

Since many visitors never get past your homepage what and why become the only information that really matters. Don’t get caught up thinking you need to reveal details that are better left to another page. That’s where a solid IA (Information Architecture) comes in and that’s a subject that I’ll be writing more about soon.

In the meantime, think basics (for all your pages) and you’ll be well on your way to increasing conversions and growing your business.

-Stu

Stu Macik_Broken Sky Studio Web Design and Development, Denver, Colorado

I had a client ask my opinion the other day if I thought that his business needed a mobile version of the website that we had done for him. We design and develop mobile sites at Broken Sky (which is why he asked) but that led me to thinking about what kind of businesses could really benefit from a mobile site and which ones perhaps not as much.

It’s been estimated that by 2015 nearly half of all internet traffic will come from “mobile” devices in the form of smart-phones and other devices running some flavor of mobile OS (operating system). Besides smart-phones this would include tablet devices (such as Apple’s iPad) as well as netbooks running the upcoming Chrome OS that Google is reported to be releasing later this year. There are also reports that Google’s Android OS will be deployed on some tablet devices from other manufacturers that would compete with the iPad.

In my view, tablets and netbooks are still able to view “normal” websites so I think what we are really talking about here is “smart-phones” and the need to accommodate their smaller displays…not necessarily all “mobile” devices.

So, keeping in mind that 2015 is still five years away, I think a simple rule of thumb is to consider how it is that your customers do business with you. The most important question to ask is, do my customers come to me for my goods and/or services or do I go to them?

If your customers come to you, then my belief is that you would absolutely benefit from having a mobile version of your website. That way people on the move could find, contact and get to you easily using their smart-phone. A map to your business on a mobile site is just one way that you could benefit from “going mobile”.

If you’re a business that only goes to your customers home or business to deliver goods or services, then my thinking is that you probably won’t benefit quite as much from a mobile site. Your customers are probably going to find and contact you from their home or place of business using their traditional computer/laptop and so in this case I think that a mobile site would be more of a luxury (to cover all the bases) than a necessity.

At any rate, I hope this helps some of you small business owners out there thinking about a mobile site. Oh, and as for my client, he fell into the “goes to his customers” camp and so we decided that his marketing budget would probably be better spent in another area. Not great for me as far as another project goes, but an honest assessment…something I really believe in.

-Stu

Stu Macik_Broken Sky Studio Web Design and Development, Denver, Colorado

When I’m considering “content” in relation to a potential customer’s attention span on a site, I like to think of the situation using a “billboard” analogy. Your potential customer is a driver making their way down the highway (in this case the information superhighway) and your site is the billboard. When they see your “billboard” it’s only going to be a few seconds before they pass it and so the way your message is presented is critical to making them slow down and stop to take a more in-depth look.

When you think about it this way you begin to understand the fact that you only have a few seconds to get the “driver’s” attention before they’ve moved past your “billboard” and on down the road to your competitor.

The question then becomes how do we grab their attention and make them slow down and stop at your site so you can interest them in your goods or services. Well here are a few ideas that I take to heart with every site that I work on that may help you as well. Remember that we are talking about business websites here, not artists sites or other non-business sites, we’re talking about branding and growing your company.

First off, have a professional looking logo that invites attention. Not only is this important as an overall branding practice but I feel that it can be something that very quickly says “hey, this site feels professional, maybe I need to check it out”. It’s been shown that most site visitor’s attention goes to the top-left of the page initially so that’s always a good place for your logo although I have used a top-centered approach as well with good results.

Second, have a concise statement telling what you’re all about offset in some way from the other text/content on the site. Remember you only have a few seconds so don’t make it too long. Make sure it stands out by either using a larger font size, a different color or by having plenty of “white space” around it but make sure that its the first thing the potential customer notices and reads after seeing your logo.

Also, make sure that the site is clean and uncluttered with plenty of white space and a general feel of having some sense of order to it. This is very inviting and professional to customers but is also one of the hardest things to accomplish in design because the natural instinct is to try to cram as much content as possible into the available space. Resist it though and you can get that internet “driver” to park and stay for awhile…and that’s half the battle!

-Stu