I'm bringing Yahoo! back

Whatever happened to Yahoo!? Why is everybody obsessed with Google? From where I see it, everyone loved Google because they were the alternative. They provided good, free services. They were sticking it to the man!

So now that they are the man, why does everybody still use them? I know plenty of nerds and geeks who love google, run google groups, use google talk, blog on blogger, post on flikr and watch youtube videos. I propose to them to use Yahoo!, post media on independent photo and video hosting sites, keep using blogger (I love blogger!) and set your default search engine to Yahoo!. Stop supporting the new Microsoft!

I will now address Yahoo!. While stalking my search engine indexing status, I have noticed that You! do not have nearly as many current pages indexed as google does. Can you work on that? You are #2 for a few reasons, but this is probably the main one. I believe in you, now you need to believe in yourself.

I'm adding three side notes since I wrote the draft for this blog.

1. Yahoo! just added a fabulous new online magazine named Shine. Shine is one of those websites that you can go to when you need/want a break from work and want to read other people's opinions. It's kind of like Slate magazine or WoWoWow.com

2. I found a cool internet stalking tool that you can use if you are as obsessed as I am about traffic rankings. It's called Compete. I have it on Firefox and every time you go to a website it will display the traffic ranking of that site in the lower right hand bar...very out of the way, but available to view when you want it.

Click here to read more on their site: www.compete.com

"Compete" is how I know Yahoo! is number 2...a very bad number to be.

3. A few other reasons to love Yahoo!: Yahoo! groups are better and they host Freecycle Groups which are in itself fabulous, Yahoo! hosts Dear Abby every day of the year, Yahoo! let's you read your local news on Yahoo!


Good Luck and God Speed.

Click here to search on Yahoo! now.

How to: Choose the RIGHT web designer or developer

There are sooooo many different web companies or freelancers to choose from, it is overwhelming to try to pick the right one, especially if you don't really know what you want or you don't know the inside scoop.

Let me fill you in on some helpful ways you can choose the right man or woman or company for the job.

Make a Plan

First, you have to know what you want out of the project. You want a website...Why? You want people to be able to search your website...Why? You want the font size on your site to be 14px...Why? If you don't know what you want, people will tell you what you want. Then you get a product that may not necessarily work for you and you've probably overspent yourself.

It's good to have a plan. I have a worksheet you can use to hash out the details...click here to go to my web design page. You can download it from the right hand side of the page in Word or .pdf formats.

If you call a designer or post an ad online saying "I need a website for my business" I guarantee you that you will get exorbitant quotes from many people!

Sometimes this can be taken overboard as well. Some people know exactly what they want, but the designer knows it won't accomplish the goal. Your goal might be to sell sleeping bags and you want to do this with a Flash video, but the designer might have other options that would work better. Keep an open mind.

Do Some Research

Once you have a plan of what you want and know why you want it, do some research about the different options. Say you want an event calendar on your site. You can do this by having a list of events that people can view by clicking on the month. Or you can have a visual calendar that has the whole month on it with some dates filled in. Which one is cheaper? Which one fills your needs?

If you have 1 event per month or less, the visual calendar will look pretty silly and take longer to load. Why? Because a visual calendar will probably utilize a table structure, php, or both.

Do some research on different languages as well. There's HTML, PHP, CSS, ASPX, and the list goes on. You can mix and match these languages, and each one produces something different. But if you want a site that loads fast, you want to go mainly with HTML and use CSS for styling, not tables!

There are three ways your browser displays websites:
1. Through code that the browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc.) can read and display after it downloads it from the website. This is the fastest way to display information.

2. Through code that the website's server displays after you go to the site. Your browser tells the server you are there and then it sends the browser information. This is the slowest way of displaying information.

3. Through plug ins like javascript and flash. This is kind of like sending the information through a server, but the server is your computer. The browser reads the website, the website tells your computer to bring up your javascript plug in and then that displays the information. This speed rates in the middle of the road depending on how fast your computer is.

Ironically, the slower the site, the more expensive it is.

Get To Know Your Code

Here's a good horror story:

One of my clients approached me at a trade show I was exhibiting in. They had a huge website with a large shopping cart function, but the company who designed and built the site made some errors that made the shopping cart function completely broken.

I told her I would help her out and look at it. I almost went into cardiac arrest when I looked at the code! First of all, some pages were formatted with CSS and some pages were formatted with tables. Second of all, there were so many errors within the code that the only conclusion I could come to was that the coder was high or drunk when they were writing the site.

There were table cells that remained unclosed, attributes without quotes, quotations that weren't coded, formatting tags that weren't closed. I shudder thinking about it.

This could all have been avoided if she had known what to look for. When you are looking at different designers' web sites, check out their client sites. You can easily view the code in your browser window with the following technique:

If you are using Firefox: Go to "View>Source Code"

If you are using Internet Explorer: Go to "View>Source"

Click "ctrl+a" and "ctrl+c" to select all of the text and copy it to your clipboard. Head on over to the World Wide Web Consortium html validator and paste (ctrl+v) the code into the "Validate by Direct Input" window.

This website will review the code and show you how many errors there are in the code. Granted, there may be some errors that are inherent with combining two different languages on the same page, but if there are over 10 errors, I would say those people fail.

For instance, if you copy and paste the code from my home page and take it to the validator, I'm proud to say there are no errors. Mostly because I'm obsessed with standards.

Now take a look at this link: http://www.e-tique.com/

If you validate the code from that website (made with Microsoft Office by the way) you will see that it has 279 errors in it.

Do you really want to pay someone $1000's of dollars to make you the crappiest site on the web??? It might look pretty on the outside, but it will be slow, get low traffic, and will be unworkable by other designers.

Stay Within Budget

Here are some options you can use to stay within budget when negotiating a price for your website.

1. Create a website progression plan. That way, you can get your site online with the bare minimum of options you need/want. Then over the course of months or years, you can grow your site to have the functionality and dynamic content that brings return visitors.

2. If you like the price of a developer, but the style of a designer, ask the developer how much they will cut the price if you got a PhotoShop file of the site design you like from the designer. This might save you some money and you won't have to settle for a design you don't like.

3. Shop around and do your research. Like my dad always said, "A fool and his money are quickly separated."

In Conclusion

While I'm growing my business and putting myself out "there" it amazes me to find people who shelled over a few thousand dollars to someone who is so incompetant it's not even funny. I want to find someone who wants to shell out a few thousand dollars and I'm offering something of quality!

If you are looking for a designer and you look like "the dumb client" you will most certainly get ripped off. Do some research so you at least know what questions to ask for your particular project. Then research their answers.

Good Luck.

How to: Make your own website

Soooo, you want to get your business or personal life online? Good idea...probably.

The first thing you need to do is create a plan. I know this sounds boring. Everyone I come in contact with despises the planning stage. But this will seriously reduce the amount of time you will spend creating content and making the site look pretty.

I actually created a design plan worksheet that you can use in .pdf or Word format. PDF if you want to print it out, Word if you want to work on it on your computer. When you go to that page, the downloads are in the right hand column. The planning process could take 10 minutes and save you hours. Plus, it helps to have your original thoughts written down when you are entrenched in the work and forget why you're doing this in the first place.

So, once you know what your goal is, what your functionality requirements are and thought about the colors and design you want to use, you have to create a navigational layout plan. You can easily create a hierarchy plan with pen and paper.

Most people start with "Home" at the top and have pages radiating from this: About, Contact, Products, Help, etc. These are called second level pages.

Third level pages could include a "confirmation" page after people submit a form. If you are creating a small ecommerce site with paypal, you can also create a "order cancellation" page, a "checkout complete" page and a "product sold out" page. Some hosts allow you to create a custom error page to direct users to when they hit a wrong link.

Try this: www.marykatecreate.com/monkeys.html

That's my custom error page!

So, now your planning stage is complete. Ta Da! Congratulations. That was half the job.

Now, from that plan you can decide how to create your site. It helps to get your domain and hosting plan set up. I highly recommend godaddy.com. It's CHEAP, super easy to set up, they have automatic free downloads, and the options grow with your expertise. Some people I meet are spending upwards of $800/year for hosting, when they can get it from godaddy for under $100 for the cheapest plan. I have no idea why these hosting companies are so expensive...it's a phenomenon I would like to study.

Setting up hosting in itself is a learning experience! So get that out of the way.

Now you need some type of software to create your site. If you buy a hosting plan with godaddy.com you can use their "Hosting Connections" page to automatically download a number of free open source content management systems onto your account that will create a beautiful site for you.

DO NOT USE MICROSOFT OFFICE TO CREATE YOUR SITE!

Pretty, Pretty, Pretty please, do not do this to yourself or others. I even hate Frontpage! Here are some good reasons not to use Microsoft Office or Frontpage:

1. It will create horrible, ugly, disgusting, non-standard code which will make search engines and web browsers shy away from your site. aka: You will get no traffic.

2. Frontpage requires you to configure its extensions on your hosting account...extra work!

3. If you ever run into trouble, no designer or web developer will ever work on your site without having to totally redo it.

Okay, so...now that I've got that out of my system, let's continue.

Use a free content management system to create your whole site. You can pick some out and test them at this website: OpenSourceCMS.com. Make sure you get a list of what is available already on your hosting account and that will seriously help you narrow down your options. There are hundreds to choose from.

To give you a heads up, there will be a learning curve when you start using these CMS's to build your site. It's okay to learn, your online life will be so much better!

So, there you have it. In a nutshell, these are your steps:

1. Create a plan
2. Buy a domain and hosting plan (start with the smallest and upgrade if you need more)
3. Download and learn how to use an Open Source (free) Content Management System.

Here are some other hints:
1. Get a google analytics account so you can track users and visitors...it's free
2. Optimize your images for the web. If you have photoshop, fabulous! Set the image to 72 dpi and save for the web. The rule is no image should take more than 8 seconds to load on the slowest dial up and that is for main images like headers. If you have Microsoft Picture Manager installed on your computer, go to "edit" and "compress" photos, and choose "compress for web."
3. Don't publish your site until it is complete. Sometimes you need to publish your site before you can install and configure setups online. Wait to do this until you have enough time to work on it immediately.

Got any horror stories about building your own site? Those are my favorite, email them to me or leave them in a comment.

Do you have a Websty?

I don't know if this happens with you, but as I am a frequent typer, I will sometimes get in the habit of spelling the same word wrong over and over. This month's word is "webstie," a misspelling of "website."

Since I have been seeing this pseudo-word more often, I have come to adopt it as a real word. Every time I read it I think of my mother yelling at me when I was younger: "Your room is a mess, clean up this pig sty!" So, now every time I read "webstie" I think of all the messy websites I have seen along my travels. Thanks Mom!

There are many reasons why some websties exist. Some people want to make their own websites and end up choosing the wrong software. This results in UGLY code and poor layout and navigation.

Some people don't research enough and choose bad companies to work with. This is even more ugly. I've worked on websites that people spent thousands of dollars on and the code is beyond ugly. It get frustrating to have to work on these sites, especially when the client already feels like they have been cheated.

Some people just want a cheap website and make bad decisions. I love all of those posts on craigslist.org that want a 'student' or 'starving freelancer' to put together a cheap website. All I have to say is you get what you pay for. Either the cheap designer doesn't know what they are doing, they are beginners or they'll get frustrated working for dirt and give you a less than ideal end product.

My next series of blog posts will cover these topics, from building your own website to hiring the right company or freelancer to build the site for you. Why am I doing this? Because I'm sick of getting queasy when I see websties.

I got a blackberry...

...let the browsing begin!

Some of the things I find useful about using a blackberry:

1. I no longer have email anxiety when I leave my computer at home.
2. I actually hang out with my daughter more! We went to the park and the mall.
3. I can view the weather channel faster on my phone than I can on my computer with dial up.
4. I love the free themes.
5. I love synchronizing with my Outlook account and being able to download all of my pictures onto my computer.
   

Some of things I think need improvement:

1. The browser, where I get data coverage, is kind of slow.
2. I can't read my emails from ebay...perhaps this is because I have html enabled.
3. I can't like all of the application icons all over the place.
4. I want to be able to delete unused themes from my phone.

Of course, some of the cons could be because I don't know what I'm doing yet.

In the meantime, here are a few links to some cool freebies for your blackberry:

www.eveek.com

www.freebbthemes.com This site not only has a cool design and layout, they seem to have good resources for designing your own themes.

www.bplay.com This site doesn't have a lot of free stuff, but you can get a free theme, ringtone and game if you sign up for a newsletter. I love cell phone games.

I Heart Blogger!

In celebration of what I think is the best blogging engine out there, I'm running a special on blog design and integration, but only if your blog is on Blogger!

Normally, this service would cost $250 for the design and $100 for the integration. But, if you mention this blog post, I'll get 'er done for $250.

Sure, many blogger templates are fabulous. But don't you want to be different, unique and have the design suit your needs?

Take a look-see at some of my other Blogger designs (That includes this blog you are reading right now).

Megan Lally: This is a new blog, so no posts yet. But we are patiently waiting for this up and coming writer to strut her opinions.

Dorit Brauer: This is a blog about meditation and is integrated into Dorit's site.

Pathways to SmartCare: Another website/blog integration, this is a blog about wellness, with guest bloggers and health and wellness event updates.

American HealthCare Group, Inc.: Another website/blog integration, this blog is for the more corporate types: white papers, health benefits, wellness programs, etc. If you have heard these buzz words before, you will enjoy this blog.

Sweetland of Quilts: This is another website/blog integration. Sharon Sweetland pieces, designs and finishes fabulous quilts! She blogs about quilts she has made, quilting events and little stories that she picks up being in the quilting world.

Throw me an email and we will get started right away!

Spelling + Grammar = Email Etiquette

Here's a little free advice: Before you send out an email, check your spelling and grammar!

I've actually received emails in the past few months where the author misused the words "to, too, and two." This is violating a pretty basic rule of grammar. However, some people get two casual.

Oops! I meant to do that. Seriously though, the person who sent that email to me was actually college educated. So I'm hoping against hope that he or she didn't mean to do that. This is why you have to re-read your emails.

Also, when you are using a text-based email editor, such as a blackberry or online email editor, please follow basic rules of creating a readable document. This includes creating paragraph breaks after 3 or 4 sentences, putting bullets next to several points you are trying to make, and including a subject in the subject line.

I keep getting emails that are pages long of no paragraph breaks and monotone font style. Now, I may be uptight about utilizing a visual hierarchy myself, but I'm a designer. So nothing will ever be 'good enough' unless it's perfect (in my fantasy world). But as soon as I took a look at that email my brain blanked out.

If you use a text based email editor or a blackberry, forward a message that you would usually send to someone else to yourself so you can see what the other person is reading.

Also, you need to use proper capitalization throughout your communication and marketing materials. I say "proper" because the style of your business could make "proper" capitalization mean that everything is in lowercase. However, people can't read long areas of text without any capitalization very easily.

All of your emails and marketing materials should remain consistent. I find it extremely annoying when someone sends me what looks like a text message from their blackberry but it is really an email. I have to translate what I think they are trying to say. Then something that is supposed to improve communication ends up making it worse. If you can't figure out how to write a correct sentence using a blackberry, don't use one.

I'm not going to spout off any exact rules of grammar in this post, I don't know them well enough to tell you what they are. I'm hoping though, that by just getting people to re-read their emails it will help cut back on some of the things that should be obvious.

Also, as a tribute to someone I frequently email back and forth with, I am listing a great overview of simple email etiquette rules found on this website: emailreplies.com

I'm only listing a few of my favorites, but please feel free to read the rest on that website. It's the best that I've found so far.

2. Answer all questions, and pre-empt further questions
3. Use proper spelling, grammar & punctuation
7. Do not attach unnecessary files
8. Use proper structure & layout
9. Do not overuse the high priority option
13. Read the email before you send it
14. Do not overuse Reply to All
15. Mailings > use the bcc: field or do a mail merge
19. Do not forward chain letters
20. Do not request delivery and read receipts
24. Use a meaningful subject
26. Avoid using URGENT and IMPORTANT
28. Don't send or forward emails containing libelous, defamatory, offensive, racist or obscene remarks
29. Don't forward virus hoaxes and chain letters
32. Use cc: field sparingly

I would like to say that there are some funny or cute emails going around that I like to get, especially from my hilarious Uncle Rick. But most of them just give me the pleasure of pressing delete, especially after reading how I'm going to burn in hell if I don't forward it to 10 more people. Hell must have been a lonely place before the internet sprung up!

I haven't received any chain emails from people in my professional life, but I do still think it's rude to send anything pertaining to your religious, political or racist views. You should know that what you are sending might not reach a person that agrees with you and it is offensive. Just don't do it.

Got anything else to add? Put it in a comment!