Selk Communications Blog 2.0

Building Your Own Website

2009-07-15T12:25:00.000-07:00

How much of building a website can you take into your own hands?

How complex do you want your website to be? What tasks do you want the viewer to do at your site?

iWeb to the rescue ... if you have a mac ...

With iWeb (part of the iLife/iPhoto 09 suite), Apple offers a simple, WSIWG (what you see is what you get) web development tool.

Plus: You can easily build a simple website with drag-and-drop, working with the small library of templates. Like many programs for the Mac, it's intuitive, easy to figure out, easy to update.
Minus: Only works on one mac computer (i.e., the laptop or desktop where it was built). A work-around allows you to export the file for a particular site or client, so they can update the iWeb file on their computer. After you've posted the site online (or exported it), if you make HTML changes on line, those are not reflected in the iWeb file (so you'd need to update the iWeb file also, if you want both to stay current).

If that's not for you, these are the other leading contenders:

WordPress - for a website. Known as a blog site (and great for that), WordPress allows you to build a pretty strong website, working from hundreds of templates. You can set pages up strictly as web pages, with no blog function, or you can allow postings and replies. A designer/programmer can make the most of a design that's not 100% within the template framework. A novice can update content, once the design is set. (Blogger can be used in the same way, though it seems to be less popular at this moment.)
Sitoo - simple web builder for those with PC's. New to the scene, has won some awards...
Drupal - full-scale open source content management system, when you require a multi-faceted or expandable website. Modules for everything from a static web page to interactive pages and shopping cart. Requires a designer and programming expertise for set up. A novice can be instructed to update content.

Look for me on Twitter

2009-06-21T10:40:00.000-07:00

Discovering Twitter - where you can make your mark at 140 characters maximum.

Look for my comments on Twitter at @MerrySelk. (You'll see some to the column on the right of this page.)

You're invited to become my "follower" on Twitter (and see my occasional posts there, when you look at your own postings). One goal (for some) is to follow lots of people, and to be followed by alot. You'll see some people and organizations with hundreds or thousands of followers.

I'm presently trying out two desktop ways to keep track of my Twitter comments and who I follow, without overwhelm:

TweetDeck
Seesmic Desktop

The trick is to balance one's professional demeanor with the comments made on Twitter. It's interesting to see how various people I follow are managing that: Tom Bedecarré of AKQA (@tombed) who is a great Twitter fan; and Mac evangelist Guy Kawasaki (@GuyKawasaki)

Inspiration from Leonard Cohen

2009-05-15T15:17:00.000-07:00

"Ring the bells that still can ring.

Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything,
that's how the light gets in."

- - Leonard Cohen

Make it very very easy for people to respond

2008-11-11T17:29:00.000-08:00

Make it very very easy for people to respond and to take the action you want. Too often, it’s a real effort to find the contact info on a website - when that should be the first thing you think about about when you're developing a website.

Imagine yourself at the keyboard of the visitor to your website. Remember -- you have about 30 seconds to get and hold their attention.

Check your own site to see if there's a very obvious “Contact Us” link, that tells visitors how to reach you by phone, address and email. Or a button to “Subscribe” or “Click Here for more information.”

What do you want your visitor to do (and why)?

• Donate? You need a big "DONATE HERE" button.
• Let you have their name and email for future contacts? You need a FREE giveaway (a newsletter? a list of tips) and an easy way for the visitor to sign up to get it.
• Send you information? Consider a survey? Or a quick email form?
• Buy your product? Can I find the product I want in 3 clicks or less? Is there a search feature?

One more thing: Please don't make it so hard for people to sign in that it's a huge effort. My bank makes it pretty easy for me to get on-line at their site -- so please try to do that too! I want you to protect my information, but I just need a small level of protection if I'm making a comment on your website, and if I'm making a purchase or a payment, I'd prefer to do that in 3-4 clicks, rather than having to break into the vault at Fort Knox.

I know, it can be overwhelming if a site gets unexpectedly busy and there is an onslaught of emails or phone calls to deal with (we should all be so lucky). But (especially in Web 2.0) site visitors expect to be able to respond, and it’s far better if you give them an easy way to do so.

Just remember the last time you tried to contact customer service at your local airline office, and how long it took you to find the right phone or email contact on their website. And be nice to your visitors (like me) who want to stay in touch.

Finding an Extra 15 minutes

2008-06-03T14:13:00.000-07:00

I’ve just discovered an extra 15 minutes — every time I have an appointment.

What a difference! Now, instead of gripping the steering wheel and driving too fast, I’m calmly moving at the pace of traffic and uncomplaining about a red light with 6 cars ahead of mine. And I arrive, cool and collected, at my appointment, with time to take things out of the car, smooth my hair, order the items in my briefcase, and appear at my appointment a few minutes early.

What an amazement that the extra 15 minutes could make such a difference.

It’s deceptively simple. It started with my haircutter, who was disgruntled that I kept showing up 5 or 10 minutes late to appointments. So I wrote my next haircut appointment in my calendar 15 minutes earlier. My 4 pm haircut became 3:45.

To my amazement, even knowing that the appointment was at 4 pm, I aimed to get there at 3:45. So when I did leave the office (with just a few minutes to spare), I arrived at 3:55 instead of 4 pm — calm, cool and collected.

What a discovery!

Then there was the client who was clearly unhappy when I showed up 7 minutes late (after I’d driven to their office at 80 mph). I’d figured any time less than 15 minutes late was OK.

So I put in the next 10 am appointment with the client as starting at 9:45. Same astonishing results. A bit of traffic, a slightly late start, and I arrived at 9:52, with time to walk slowly up the stairs to the office and show up comfortably before the appointed meeting time.

Next: every appointment is 15 minutes early. And another stressful moment disappears.

Figuring Out RSS

2008-04-23T19:13:00.000-07:00

RSS = Really Simple Syndication

Seems intimidating, but it’s really easy, once you get the hang of it. The result is a single page that headlines all the items you might want to look at during the day on one web page — your very own RSS page — without having to go to other blog or web pages. The list is constantly updated, automatically, and then you can click-through for a closer look (or not)!

I’m excited to share this trick, since I’ve just figured it out, and it makes my ‘web scanning’ life so much easier.

To begin with, you need an RSS page, where your RSS “subscription” downloads can “live” until you’re ready to take a look. http://www.google.com/reader is easy to use (though there are others).

Google makes it simple to set up RSS, using some of their suggestions: You can select a pre-packaged “group” of sites, like “Thinkers” or “News” or “Small Business,” and see which websites show up on your page.

Here are some favorites I discovered (and have now ‘subscribed to’) and now I see new postings, without going to their pages, whenever I open my daily Google Reader RSS window:

Gladwell.com (New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell wrote The Tipping Point)
http://www.ducttapemarketing.com (Simple, effective and affordable small business marketing)
www.marginalrevolution.com (“small steps towards a better world”)

And you can add new subscriptions.
- Look for the “RSS” icon in the window where your favorite web page is listed (ie, http://selkcommunications.blogspot.com/).
- Click on RSS and a new RSS-friendly web address appears (or maybe it’s the same, like http://selkcommunications.blogspot.com/).
- on the left side of your Google Reader page, just before your list of subscriptions appears, is an Add Subscription + link. Click it, there’s a window to past-in your RSS-friendly web address address, and voila, you’ve included a new page for your RSS feed.

One small Google Reader hint: You can’t change the “folder” names for your subscription pages, which appear in alpha order (“News” before “Small Business”). But you can add a new folder with a name early in the alphabet (“Ace” for instance) and put your hottest pages there (there’s a “Manage My Subscriptions” link at the bottom of the subscriptions column that lets you add folders and move pages from one folder to another).

Get Ready to Be Inspired @ TED.com

2008-04-07T10:40:00.000-07:00

It takes only 20 minutes to see this talk at TED.com by the head of an international NGO on financing profit-making ventures in third-world countries.

Or this amazing discussion by a brain scientist, recounting her extraordinary observations of her own brain after she had a stroke.

Or this lecture by a photojournalist on the smart and talented people who live in shacks in shantytowns he has visited all over the world, living in what he calls the shadow cities of the future.

Then you can bookmark TED.com to see hundreds of other extraordinary talks on hundreds of topics, by amazing people -- most of whom you’ve probably never heard of. Chris Anderson, who was a publisher of Wired Magazine, created TED, which now draws a selected list of over 1000 people to an annual conference to discuss "ideas worth spreading." And they have now put those talks on the web for all of us to see.

Every year, people (including the not-so-famous, and luminaries like Stephen Hawking, Bill Clinton and Goldie Hawn) put in applications for the opportunity to attend (or to speak for 20 minutes) at the TED Conference. Now in Long Beach, CA, applications are already closed for the 2009 Conference, at $6000 per person, with some reduced price seats and 30 free fellowships. TED is run by a 501(c)3 private nonprofit foundation, The Sapling Foundation, established in 1996 by Anderson.

The goal of the Sapling Foundation (and TED) is to foster the spread of great ideas. It aims to provide a platform for the world's smartest thinkers, greatest visionaries and most-inspiring teachers, so that millions of people can gain a better understanding of the biggest issues faced by the world, and a desire to help create a better future. Core to this goal is a belief that there is no greater force for changing the world than a powerful idea.

The Sapling Foundation selects people to attend the TED Conference who:

+ are curious, passionate, open-minded
+ have done something fascinating with their lives
+ show evidence of creativity, innovation, insight, or brilliance
+ would be wonderful to sit next to at lunch and have a conversation with
+ are well placed to help make a difference in the world
+ have made a contribution to the TED community (for example, by supporting a TED Prize wish)

Profits from the TED Conference are used to advance TED's philanthropic goals:

+ to fund the growth of the TED website and distribute TEDTalks free to the world
+ to support the TED Prize and the projects that come out of it
+ to invest in other TED conferences, such as the TEDGlobal event recently held in Africa
+ to support philanthropic organizations that leverage technology, media or entrepreneurship to make lasting social change.

You can sign up for a TED newsletter, to nominate a prospective speaker, or you can nominate someone you think is extraordinary for the TED Prize -- $100,000 to help change the world.

How to Make a Better Website

2008-03-31T15:15:00.000-07:00

Your website is pure potential. That means you can use it to show your wares, as an "on-screen resume" -- or you can take advantage of Web 2.0 and turn even a small website into an interactive dynamo.

The rules have changed! When was the last time you bought something because you got a direct-mail appeal? Or saw a newspaper ad? You probably checked on-line before you made that purchase, didn't you!

Our customers have changed! (Don't miss this funny video about our new customer expectations.) Price is no longer the major factor when we make a purchase. We want quality, and we want information.

Turns out that 80% of us visit a website before we make a purchase (whether we’re buying on line or at a store).

What's more, we want to give our opinion about products and services, and we want to see other peoples' opinons, too. For example, as Petco discovered -- on-site reviews make sales go up, and returns go down.

Basic things to make your website better:

• Visitors expect to contact you. We expect to get contact information on your website within 20 seconds -- so be sure that your email and contact information are obvious to the first-time visitor.

• Visitors have something to tell you (that’s the whole point of Web 2.0). We want to ‘talk back’ and let you know how you are doing, how you can improve. Consider a blog, product reviews, a survey.

• Simple is better. Most web visitors are 'browsers' who will stay at your site for a very short time. Make it easy for visitors to find out what they want (and to learn that one thing you want to tell them about your company/product/service).

• The 3-click rule: Make it easy to get from one place on your site to another. A visitor should be able to get the most important/ most interesting information on your website by searching and/or by clicking less than 3 times.

Seth Godin is cool. For more tips on How To Make Any Webite Better, look for Godin's book, The Big Red Fez

Made To Stick: When Ideas Take Hold

2008-02-09T14:34:00.000-08:00

Just when you thought that you understood how to write the best copy for marketing communications … along come Chip and Dan Heath with a terrific new book.

Made to Stick is a New York Times bestseller. That’s because the authors have figured out how to create “sticky” messages -- the ones that make you take a second look and remember what the point of the message is. And they’ve presented their findings in a breezy, well-organized style that helps their message stick!

Think about the ads and ideas you remember, and discover how that info was communicated. Southwest is the 'Low Fare Airline.' Nordstrom provides 'outstanding customer service.' And some “sticky stories” that you remember that aren’t even true. What about the Kentucky Fried Rat (never happened) or the Great Wall of China being visible from outer space (sorry, not so!).

Now you can replicate success by following the authors' 6 principles (this is the list, but you want to check the book to get the details. And remember these words all stand for SUCCESs):

Simplicity (1 sentence or less)
Unexpectedness
Concreteness (a single, clear image and avoid the Curse of Knowledge)
Credibility (asking people to think your way)
Emotions (getting people to feel something)
Stories (it happened to someone like you)

Check it out: madetostick.com

Blogging for Non-Writers: The Rule of 3

2007-12-19T13:14:00.000-08:00

Blogging is the easiest type of writing because it’s short, informal, and meant to show the writer's ‘personality.’ . But it’s still alarming to sit down at the blank screen to put down words that represent YOU.

So use the Rule of 3 to get a quick start on your blog. (It works for other kinds of writing, too.)

You only get to say 3 things in your blog (because people remember 3 things more easily than they remember 5 things, which makes your blog more fun to read). Your job is to figure out which 3 points you want to make.

Here’s an example of the process (my 3 things for this blog entry):

1. Decide what you want to talk about.
o Choose a topic that you know something about (I know about writing). Or choose something you want to find out about (I want to find out about using a wiki, and will write about that next).

2. Make a list of your 3 things.
o My list is the instructions you see numbered here.
o Numbering your 3 things helps people remember what you’re telling them, so they don’t get lost in the details.

3. Write 3 sentences (or less) about each of the 3 things. (Or 1 sentence and 3-5 bullet points.)
o Bullet points are nice because you don’t get lost in a long paragraph of text.
o Notice how you can read only the numbered points in this blog entry (1,2,3); or quickly scan the details below a numbered point. Makes it easier to read.

One final tip: It’s usually easier to write if you imagine that you’re writing to (or talking to) someone you know. Imagine your best friend, Loreli (or Jerome), is sitting across from you and is very very interested in what you are about to say.

Now write it down. Even if it’s bad. Then put it away for an hour or a day; it’s always easier to edit than to write it in the first place. Send it to a friend to edit. Or give it a final once-over yourself. And post it on the web. You’re done!

Add a Matching Blog to Your Website - A Few Quick Tips

2007-11-23T17:30:00.000-08:00

If you have a website (or are planning to set one up), it's easy to add a matching blog to the pages.

The trick is to set up your blog page so that it looks like your web page, and link to the blog as if it were actually your own web page.

1. Create your blog so it looks like your website.

o Select a blog template that’s close to your webpage layout (or a layout to match a future web page).
o Add your own web page graphics (like your logo) in the layout header or sidebars. Just follow the instructions to upload the graphics, etc.
o Put your own website address in the ‘links’ sidebar. Thus the name of your website (e.g., Selkcommunications.com) becomes the ‘name’ of your links list. Then link to the pages of your website, one by one, so your reader returns to your website on one click).

2. Double-check your settings. Do you want your blog to be public (eg, listed on google and blogger.com, etc.)? Comments from visitors? Spam protection?

3. Consider hosting the blog on your website. To set up a wordpress blog at your site, you need: access to your web server; a text editor; an FTP Client (if your site is on a remote server); and your web browser. You may want a tech expert or a teenager to help.

You can use this template to set up a blog if you’re working in wordpress.

Start a Blog (4 easy steps)

2007-11-09T13:00:00.000-08:00

In case you're a blog beginner, here are quick steps to set up a blog so clients, friends and relations can find out what you have to say.

1. Choose a blog provider. That's how you access your blog. Register with a few to see if one ‘feels’ better to you than another. (I like Blogger.com, so that’s what you see here.)
Blogger.com (through Google)
WordPress.com
Squarespace.com

2. Set up your blog on the blogsite. It’s easier than you think.
Sign in and follow the on-line instructions to set up your blog:
o Select a blog template
o Add your own web page graphics in the layout header or sidebars. You can change color and text size.
o Add sidebar text including the name of your blog page; purpose of your blog (5-10 words).
o Save your website often and preview. If you like it, you’re ready to go.

3. Choose your settings. Do you want comments from visitors? Will you control spam with moderated comments? Should visitors recognize ‘coded’ text (like random letters and numbers) to prove they’re human before posting?

4. Look for more tips on the web
o http://www.wikihow.com/Start-a-Blog
o http://www.simplydigital.info/episode-5-weblogs/
o http://www.windley.com/essays/2004/how_to_start_a_blog
o http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/04/the_120_day_won.html [How to Evangelize a Blog]

(Just watch what you say — because your blog may live on, long after you’ve given up your current inspirations.)