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.

Ok, this is a really big deal. We’ve got some “thinking” to do here.

The content of your small business website is ultimately what’s going to determine if you’re going to have a new customer/client or not, so you need to have a well thought-out strategy as to what is most likely to “convert” a consumer who visits your site into profit for your business.

As is the case with most marketing this is not only not “easy”, it’s actually a big-time pain in the butt that most small business owners would rather not think about or deal with, but “think” you must. If you don’t have a strategy and a decent information architecture then you may be staring down failure when we all know you can be a success if you can just get the (right) word out.

Since failure is NOT an option for you, here are a few things to “think” about when putting together the copy for your website that have proven over and over again to increase conversions if applied in a calculated and consistent way.

First off, think about “pain points”. What exactly is your customer or client’s problem(s) that you can help solve? This is where it’s important to approach your website copy from the consumer’s point of view rather than as the owner of the business. If you can specifically state, in no uncertain terms, how you understand and can take away their “pain”…you can get their attention and be able to lead them into “stage two” of the strategy.

What’s stage two? Well, that’s when you answer the question…Why Should I Choose You?

I mean after all, there are ten other guys out there on Google that do what you do, what makes you so special? “Think” about it. You know your competition and what they do. Put that knowledge to use and explain, without going all nasty on the competition, how and why you can do what you do better.

Are you more experienced or skilled? Are you less expensive? Are you faster? Are you the better value (even though you’re not the cheapest)? Do you have a niche that perhaps the competition lacks? What makes YOU and YOUR BUSINESS different and better.

If you can communicate these things in a thoughtful and articulate way your small business WILL win on the web. That’s right…even in today’s tough market!

“Think” about it…and grow rich!

-Stu

I love WordPress. So much so that I decided a while back to use it as my primary blogging platform. It’s absolutely the best when installed on your own domain and I recommend it without hesitation to all of my clients who want to add blogging to their arsenal of web marketing tools.

I also love Twitter. It’s become a “must use” in my opinion for any small business because of it’s ability to “instantly” disseminate information to potential customers and clients as well as the fact that all those tweets are now being indexed by Google.

The problem that I was running into is that there are a lot of times where I want to post a tip or some advice for small businesses that’s too long to tweet and too short to blog.  What’s a Web Marketer to do?

Well, the answer my friend is Tumblr. Tumblr flat out rocks at being the “in between” Twitter and a full blown blog. I can’t say for sure if that’s what the Tumblr guys were aiming for, but what they’ve come up with is an incredibly useful tool that I’ve now started to integrate into my clients web marketing portfolios.

Tumblr’s interface is incredibly intuitive (not to mention gorgeous) and excels at getting you up and running with a “Tumblog” in a very short time. Just fill out a few information fields, pick your theme, and start Tumblogging. You can even host your Tumblog on your own domain, if you choose, just like WordPress.

The free themes for Tumblr are very nice indeed, much nicer than say WordPress.com or Blogger themes. The premium themes are some of the best I’ve ever seen for any blogging or CMS platform, check out my Tumblog for Broken Sky Studio to see one of the premium themes in action.

Bottom line? You’ve got to check out Tumblr as a marketing tool for your small business. In my mind Tumblr, along with WordPress and Twitter have become the holy trinity of Blogging tools for small businesses looking for exceptional results from their online promotional efforts.

-Stu

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

Ok, I know a lot of you small to medium sized business owners out there are still a little dubious about using social networking to brand and market your business. I mean, you’ve been doing ok without it so far right? Well, as Dylan opined, the times they are a-changin’.

Social Networking has become a powerful tool for businesses to brand and market their products and services and Twitter, in my opinion, has become one of the linchpins to success.

How is that you ask? Well, in a word Twitter is “instant”!

Instant product updates!

Instant services updates!

Instant sales updates!

Instant specials updates!

Instant customer feedback!

And if your Twitter feed is embedded in your website you can update your site with any information you want…well…instantly! In this last scenario, you don’t even need “followers” for Twitter to be an effective tool, it can simply be used as a mini content management system to update your website. You could even do it from your mobile phone.

The most helpful aspect of using Twitter now though is that Google search indexes Twitter posts almost immediately. What that means is that your tweets are searchable so that potential customers can find out about you and your business through a Google search that brings up your tweet or Twitter profile. This is very cool and powerful as well as a great way to expand your “footprint” on the web beyond just your website.

At Broken Sky Studio we provide Set-up and Consulting on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Buzz and others as well as Blogs (WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger and more) . We can develop a multi-tiered social network branding and marketing strategy for your business.

We can also incorporate social networking into your new website to help you realize all the benefits of these compelling marketing tools that can help grow your business. Visit us at Broken Sky Studio Web Design and Development today and give us a call. Let us show you what you’ve been missing.

-Stu

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

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

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

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