Recently I was asked to give an estimate for redesigning a web site, and the client asked an interesting question:

What is the lifecycle of a web site these days? How long should a web site last before it needs to be redesigned?

There is no one right answer about how long your web site will serve you. But for budgeting purposes it is helpful for small business owners to be realistic about the costs of redesigning a web site and how long until they will need to repeat the process.

How long will your web site last?

No, web sites don’t have expiration dates. But after a certain time, they seem to be irrelevant. They are no longer a useful tool for the business, and are no longer supporting the original goals of the web site. Without a redesign, a web site can actual begin to detract from the organization behind it.

There are several factors that may determine whether or not it’s time to redesign or redevelop your web site

1. Has your business grown or changed direction? When we talk about small business web site design, the driving force behind the web presence is the business itself. So, if your business has grown and is offering new products or services, or if you have streamlined operations and are not offering services you used to, your web site should reflect this change.
2. Is the content, and the structure for the content still relevant? If you realize that your offerings have changed, you may be able to make the updates within the current structure and design of your web site. For example, your navigation may say “widgets” and even if you’ve changed from orange to blue widgets, it can be integrated into the web site. However, if you’ve introduced “doo-hickeys” and that cannot be added to the main navigation bar, you may be making it difficult for people to find your newest services.
3. Is your message to prospects still relevant? There are many factors that determine what message resonates with your clients. It may mean working with someone with marketing experience to rework a message. Or, changing market conditions have forced you to adjust your positioning. You want to make sure that the web site design reinforces the same message as your text. If not, it’s time to update your web design.
4. Are you behind or ahead of the technology curve? Web standards change fast. While you can try and anticipate trends, it’s impossible to predict the future. What was a best practice (or at least reasonable practice) a few years ago may no longer be worthwhile. An example is adding a Content Management Software (CMS) to your site. Five or ten years ago, this type of tool was beyond the budget of many small business owners, and it made better financial sense to just send updates to their web developer when necessary. Nowadays, there are many economical CMS platforms and honestly, I can’t imagine recommending a web site without this capability built in.
5. Was the site well designed when it was new? Like all elements of design (including things such as industrial design, fashion, etc.) there are some designs that are classic and can stand the test of time much better than others. In general, if you haven’t invested in professional web site design, the unpolished look of your site will probably start to look worse and worse as time goes on.
6. What are the expectations of your clients and prospects? This is one of the biggest factors in web site design right now. Everyone is getting more and more sophisticated about web site design. While it may have been acceptable at one time, to “just have a web site,” now it needs to be more than just a poorly designed web presence. Your prospects may be looking for a professional brand identity to determine if they trust you. They may want you to offer e-commerce directly integrated into your site. They may be looking for you to be a thought leader as demonstrated by a well-written blog. If you are not stepping up and keeping your site looking fresh, relevant, well-designed and highly-functional, your competitors will fill that gap.

These are six factors that may help you determine how long your web site design will last and whether it is time to start thinking about a redesign.

Do I need to redesign my web site?

What is the bottom line? I’m seeing a lot of requests for proposals from organizations who are redesigning their web site after about three or four years.

A site that is well designed and using some of the best practices for development will last on the longer end of that spectrum. A site that skimps on either design or technology will likely expire more quickly.

On a personal note, we are in the preliminary phase of redesigning our own web site. We did our last redesign in 2008.

Unfortunately, I’ve been hearing the same scenario frequently from some potential clients who are requesting estimates for web design work.

We just had our web site redesigned recently, but we hate it! Can you help us redesign and redevelop it?

With prospects like this, we usually set up a time to talk and walk through their current site. We look at what they like (if anything) and what’s not working. These are some of the typical things we see:

• The design is just not working. These issues usually come back to the basics of good design. Making the most important things most prominent. Good, readable typography. Layouts that show balance. Color palettes that work together. Not using cheesy clipart or poor photography.
• The web site is not user-friendly. Sometimes the navigation is difficult to use (example: roll-overs that are twitchy). Or, the content is not organized well so it is difficult to find. Or, the names used in the navigation are not clear what content they refer to.
• The web site is supposed to have a Content Management System (CMS) but the client can’t figure out how to use it. The problem here can be caused by poor training, or poor expectations about what and how you should be able to update content. Or it may be that the developer chose a CMS that is not very user-friendly.
• They are not seeing the results they expected. Web traffic may not be increasing, or viewers are giving them feedback that they cannot find the information they need.

I have a poorly designed site, what should I do?

As I review the site with the prospective client, the conversation often then goes like this:

“We just spent $5,000 on this site, can you use any of it? Because we can’t afford to re do it.”

Unfortunately, they are often stuck because there are so many problems with their web site that we can’t really salvage much. The design is poor, so we’ll need to start over again. Which means we can’t use the HTML or CSS code as we’ll be redeveloping that in conjunction with the new design. And, they don’t like their CMS so we’ll probably be introducing a new one, which means we’ll need to move all their data to a new system.

Since they’re not getting the results they want, we need to look even deeper. They often need a copywriter to make the text clearer or more compelling. They may be relying on product photography that is unprofessional and needs to be re-shot. They may need to rewrite headlines and page titles to make them more SEO-friendly.

The harsh reality: You just wasted a whole lot of money.

What we are often finding is that they need a $10,000 web site solution. And they already wasted $5,000 on a version that is worthless.

It’s usually a case where they didn’t fully understand their own web site needs. Or, they tried to cut corners by using a web design firm that could not handle all the tasks that go into a comprehensive web site design: good design, content review, user interface creation, content management recommendations and implementation, etc.

What to do?

I wish I had better solutions to offer.

Sticking with the same CMS system, and receiving training on how to use it, will definitely make redesign process more cost effective. Sometimes we take that route (but it has to be a CMS platform we understand).

Other times, we plan a complete web site redesign and redevelopment, but we do it in a phased approach. We streamline and reduce content and functionality for the initial launch and then build it back in as the client can afford it. It is far better to have a smaller but more professional and more effective web site.

Sometimes we have to just put the project on hold until they can afford the whole package.

On nearly every web site, there is the ubiquitous Contact Us button. But what happens when you go that page? What should you include on your contact us page?

1. List a complete physical address. If you do not include a physical address people become very skeptical of you and your business. You may use a PO Box, but definitely provide a mailing address to show that you are legitimate.
2. Include all the details. Your contact page is also a great way to list all of the ways to contact you. As fax numbers become less frequently used, they are not necessarily included in web site footers or business cards. But if you have a fax number, include it here because it’s where people are looking for that type of information. The same goes for Skype or any other communication medium that you use.
3. Include social media links. The contact us page is a great place to list all of your social media channels in one place. You’re probably showing the icons elsewhere on your site, but this can be a place to explain how use use those channels. For example, is Twitter a good place for your clients to get a quick customer service issue resolved, or is it only live during week day hours?
4. Make sure all email addresses are links. It’s a very simple thing to make an email address into a clickable link that will launch someone’s email program. Don’t make the viewer copy and paste. If you are worried about people harvesting your email address, then don’t list it at all, and use forms (see next item).
5. Make sure you include a form. If you only include email links, you are forcing someone to launch an email program to contact you electronically. If someone is using a public computer, or prefers to access their email using a web-based program, they are stuck. Using a form allows an email to come to you without relying on the viewer’s email client.
6. Include interactive maps. If you have a retail operation or other business that has in person traffic make sure you include a map from Google or other source that people can immediately customize to get directions from where they are to your location.
7. Add descriptive directions as well. If there is anything tricky about getting to your store, finding parking, etc. write down some directions that will help. This helps to humanize you and your brand. It also gets the relationship off on a good foot, rather than having potential clients show up frustrated with the trek to your location.
8. Consider adding a photo. Photos of your building or sign are easily remembered and will help someone trying to find you while driving or walking in a new area. They’ll get that “aha” moment as they recognize the same thing they saw on your web site earlier.

Depending on the type of business you have, you may not need all eight of these elements. Adding local information such as your address and phone number may help with search engine rankings and local search.

Most importantly, remember that being helpful can be an important way for your customers and prospects to begin to like and trust you. It’s an easy way to start a relationship making the right first impression.

A critical piece of many web designs is photography. Photographs really can be worth a thousand words because they have the power to immediately convey emotions, give a sense place, describe a feature or product in detail, illustrate a concept or set a tone. All without having to read a word.

Professional photography can help make your whole brand looking more professional, while cheap, poorly shot photos can really make a bad impression.

If you cannot afford custom photography, you are probably going to rely on either royalty-free photos or the non-professional photos taken by you, your staff or your clients. Both of these options can save money, but plan to take some time to select the best images and to present them in a way that will add relevance and visual interest to your web site design.

Ten tips for using photography effectively on your web site.

1. Avoid cliched, overused images and ideas. Because royalty-free photos, by their nature, are not created specifically for your project or concept they tend to have very general concepts behind them: business, teamwork, global network, etc. Therefore low cost royalty free photo sites are filled with photos that are too cliched. Adding an image like that does nothing to distinguish your company, product or service from your competitors. And in many cases it really makes you look worse.
2. Make sure the people look real. Photographing your own team is always a great idea if it’s possible. However, you may not have the budget for a custom shoot, or you may not have the set-up to make it ideal. But if you turn to stock and royalty free photographs to represent either your own business or your clients, make sure you are realistic. Do all or your clients look like models? Do all or your employees dress like fashionistas? Probably not. There are plenty of more “everyday” looking models that are featured in photographs.
3. Beware of subjects smiling at the camera. Another way to help make things look a little more “real” is to avoid photos where the people are looking at, and smiling at, the camera. Once they start mugging for the camera, it takes away from the idea that you’ve caught them acting natural.
4. Crop images to focus on what’s important. As a graphic designer and web designer, I nearly always end up cropping a photo rather than using at exactly the size and shape that it is provided. Trimming the edges (cropping) allows you to focus on the part of the photo that’s most relevant. It cuts out any distracting background images or other parts to an image. It can also create a more unique look at the subject.
5. Try different shapes. Most photos come in a format that’s around 3:5. They are basically a pretty balanced rectangle. By cropping them into something different, they become more unique. You may want to try photos that are wide and panoramic, or tall and skinny, or square. You’ll need access to a photo software tool to do this.
6. Make sure the photos are crisp and not fuzzy or out of focus. Many small business owners use photographs that they take with their own camera or photos supplied by clients. This is a great way to have photos that are truly unique and feature your own products, people, locations, etc. However, if the photo is blurry and not in focus to begin with, it’s just not going to work. Immediately disregard photos that are out of focus because it’s nearly impossible to fix.
7. Do basic photo editing to clean up red eye and brighten if necessary. Poorly lit (dark) photos are also a problem when using non-professional images. Also, people can have red eyes. Both of these sometimes can be fixed with an editing program. Either fix them, or do not use them.
8. Make sure images are scaled correctly. There is nothing sillier than looking at photo on a web site and having it look like the people are standing in front of a fun house mirror. Sometimes, when adding a photo to a design layout there may be a predetermined size and ratio that the photo must be. If it does not fit that size and shape it is either cropped or scaled to fit. If you are working within specific sizes like this, make sure you size and crop outside of your web site’s CMS for the best results.
9. Keep the resolution low for faster loading. The content management system for your web site may allow you to upload a very large image file and it will scale it for you. However, the data behind that image is probably still stored with the image making it act like a very large file, even if you are seeing it small with in the web site’s design. If you are working with large images (and it can be a good practice to start with high resolution images) make sure you crop and bring the resolution down to avoid slow loading graphics.
10. Realize you can’t fix all photos; start with high-quality images. Many people have the mistaken notion that with digital photography and Photoshop you can just fix any image and make it look good. Unfortunately, it’s just not possible. For example, an image that is too dark and too out-of-focus to begin with probably cannot be salvaged because there is just not enough data there. Other times people want to photoshop out or photoshop in something in an image. While this is not impossible, you need to realize that you’re basically turning a photo editing job into an illustration job: you need to recreate whatever is missing in the photo. While something like some clouds and sky can be done easily, something complex like a hand would take some serious work.

Great photography can help tell the story of your brand, but poor photography just detracts from your professional image. If you decide to use photographs on your web site, make sure they are well-lit, in focus, and cropped appropriately. Also make sure they are adding to your message, not just using cliches that add nothing to your brand’s unique story.

Educational Endeavors has been one of our favorite clients to work with, and we’ve been working with them for about five years. When Educational Endeavors first sought us out, they had a professionally designed logo, but their brand identity lacked anything else. With their print marketing and web site we built a complete visual position for them that allowed them to stand apart in their field.

Educational Endeavors is a tutoring and educational consulting group and they compete against many national franchises. However, their personalized approach and local service appeals to many families who choose them over the other options.

Educational Endeavor's print marketing. Like any good branding system, there should be consistency from print to web.

Our initial branding work entailed creating a series of flexible, printed marketing materials. The look of the bright color palette, horizontal bands and silhouetted photographs was also picked up on the web site design. Creating a branding system for them finally made them look professional and legitimate; you may wish to read our case study white paper on how creating a professional brand image improved their bottom line.

Changes require change

Just because you have a solid brand identity system, doesn’t mean you’ll never want or need to upgrade your web site. Lots has changed in both the world of web site development and also with Educational Endeavors’ organization in the past 5 years and it was time to redo their web site. We took the opportunity to make changes to both the design as well as the functionality of the site. However, we made sure we kept the same brand identity, by using consistent, but not completely repetitious design elements.

Goals of the web site redesign:

• Add a content management system. We decided to use WordPress as it’s very easy to use and the client is considering adding a blog.
• Add a slideshow on the home page to be able to showcase more programs and make the home page more engaging.
• Update and reorganize content to make it more in line with their current offerings.
• Have more information upfront, and easy-to-find, on the home page

Before: Old design of Educational Endeavors home page

To help maintain the branding elements:

• Keep the brightly colored, horizontal bands and color palette, but made the homepage’s top area more content-rich. We continued to use one color for each section as this matched up with their printed materials, and we kept the dominant corporate color green.
• Keep the typography, but make it web friendly. We used the new options available through web fonts to use HTML typography, rather than graphics for the top links
• Continue to use the silhouetted photographs, but redesigned how they worked within the design. We also introduced more, real candid shots on the interior pages of the site.

After: Educational Endeavors redesigned home page

With the new site, Educational Endeavors has control over the updates to their content. We created a custom-designed WordPress theme for them. If you’re considering adding WordPress to your web site, you may want to read about our advice on getting a professional involved to help you get it set up.

We were especially happy to find a solution for the slideshow on the home page that uses live text. Not only is this text updateable by Educational Endeavors, it’s also SEO-friendly.

Everyone is happy with the fact that is more relevant content on the home page. The slideshow features their programs and offerings. There is more room for additional body copy below the slideshow. The navigation has stayed very clean and well-branded. There is a sign-up form right on the homepage to join the email list.

WordPress is a widely used blogging and content management system (CMS) that many people rave about because it is free and easy to use. However, there are a lot misconceptions out there about using the tool.

The idea for content management systems came as a way for non-techie people to be able to update their own web sites. In the past, if your web designer or developer created your site as pure HTML (or .asp or .php, etc.) you would not be able to make updates without also understanding the coding behind the pages. We’ve all heard horror stories of small business owners who need a simple update to their web site, but it takes their web developer two weeks and $100 to make the change.

Using a tool like WordPress empowers the business owner to make updates on their own. If they spot a typo or want to update information on the site they can do it themselves quickly and for free.

However, many small business owners seem to be taking this too far and try to set up their entire site themselves using WordPress. This can lead to all types of headaches, depending on the design and coding skills of the person involved.

Once you have a better understanding of these 5 myths about setting up, designing and using a WordPress site, you can more effectively use the tool on your own web site.

Myth 1: For best results, sign up for a free blog at WordPress.com

When I first learned about WordPress, one of the most confusing things was the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org If you go to WordPress.com you will have the option of setting up a free blog for yourself, using the domain name www.whateveryouchoose.wordpress.com This is not the ideal way for a small business to set up their blog or to use WordPress as a content management tool. It’s best to install the WordPress software directly onto your own domain name. To get that software, you can download it at WordPress.org, or many web hosts have self-installations available.

In the end, I think of WordPress.com as a tool someone might use for a personal blog, whereas WordPress.org is where a professional would go to implement WordPress on a corporate site.

Myth 2: WordPress is just a blogging software

WordPress started as a blogging tool, but can be an effective way to manage any type of content. We have built sites that use the WordPress software to run their whole web site, and not even include a blog.

Myth 3: WordPress is so easy to set up and use

This is where I see a lot of pain and confusion. WordPress is definitely easy to use. Our clients love the administrative dashboard where they can easily add, edit, and delete content such as text, graphics, documents and videos. They can add links and add in or take away pages. The interface is friendly and fairly intuitive. With minimal training, they are able to make web updates that used to require HTML knowledge and specialty software.

But, we’ve done the painful part for them… we’ve designed the user side of the site (ie the design) and we’ve set up the WordPress functionality. Our clients are just using the finished product.

There are people selling (and giving away) themes that do much of the design work for you. And there is loads of information from WordPress and from other developers about how to set up a WordPress site. But, if you don’t know anything about coding, I don’t think you’re going to find it easy to create a custom site for yourself.

Myth 4: WordPress is too basic for anything complicated

In the scheme of things, the amount of HTML, CSS and PHP you need to learn to make WordPress work, is fairly minimal. Therefore, I get the sense that some web developers feel it’s not a “real” development tool. However, as we continue to work with it, we realize it can really do a lot. The more you know about PHP and how it works with the WordPress system, you start to build in a lot of functionality that still works off the same admin dashboard that our clients love. Here a list of some pretty robust web sites and large scale brand using WordPress to power their sites.

Myth 5: You can recognize a WordPress site a mile away

As web designers, this one always surprises me. We are building more and more sites in WordPress and we continue to follow our motto: Don’t Let the CMS Drive the Design! We work out an ideal design solution outside of the bounds of WordPress and then work the HTML, CSS and WordPress configuration into it. Having said that, regardless of the CMS you are using, whenever you create things like dynamic navigational menus, you need to understand enough about the development side to create things that are possible.

What I think people are reacting to are so many of the free themes that do tend to follow certain design trends. And, there are some themes that have been used multiple times (without much customization) that certainly are recognizable. But there really are no limitations within WordPress that should stifle anyone’s design ambitions.

Here are a few examples from our own portfolio of WordPress sites.

Customized WordPress Design For NarrativePros

NarrativePros: This site is gritty, texturally-rich and lavishly designed. This is not out-of-the-box design or a free theme. Check out the live site: www.narrativepros.com

Customized WordPress Design for Global Citizenship Experience Private School

Global Citizenship Experience: Following the branding established by their logo, color palette and other visual elements, we created this web site design that is custom WordPress design. Check out the live site: www.gcechicago.com

Custom WordPress Design for ClaimVantage

ClaimVantage: ClaimVantage is involved with insurance claims processing and I included this example as a contrast to Narrative Pros. This design is light, clean and corporate. See the site live at: www.claimvantage.com

Just the facts

I think the main confusion with WordPress is that people think it’s sooo easy that anyone can set up a well-designed site by themselves. If you don’t have knowledge of design, CSS and PHP, you’ll likely end up with a pre-designed theme that will lack your brand’s custom identity and then you will frustrate yourself as you try to customize it.

If you work with the right design and development team, you’ll find that WordPress will be easy for you to use (as an administrator)… once it’s been set up by a pro.

I read an interesting post over at the Marketing Sherpa blog which I wanted to expand upon. The article, B2B Marketing: Calls-to-action and the business buying cycle, discusses four stages of the buying cycle and how to customize a call to action around each.

I wanted to give some practical and specific examples of how a small business owner can improve their calls to action on their web site, and how to integrate these calls into your web site design.

Why do I need a call to action?

First of all, in case you don’t know, a call to action is a place on the web site that is asking for the viewer to do something that shows their interest in your product or service. For example, you might have blog readers subscribe to an RSS feed, or join an email list. You may have viewers download a whitepaper or set-up a free trial of your product. It may be actually purchasing a product. Any of these are opportunities to convert web site viewers to real customers, or engaged prospects.

You probably have plenty of content on your web site that just requires passive interaction—your company history page or listing of calendar events. A call-to-action (CTA) requires the web visitor to do more than just read. The reason you want to have a call to action on your web pages is that it gives a chance for interested prospects to expand their connection with your organization. Without any formal CTAs in your web site design, you may still have people contacting you, but you increase the likelihood if you make it easy for them, and worthwhile to connect with you.

You need different types of calls-to-action depending on your business’ sales cycle

While a professionally designed web site will help any kind of business, having the right call to action helps you connect meaningfully with your prospective clients and customers.

• Short Sales Cycle. An example of a business with a short sales cycle is office supplies. While you may do some price comparison shopping, it’s unlikely you’re going to do a ton of research before restocking your pens and notepads. Calls to action in this case need to be direct such as a discount coupon or featured product.
• Medium Sales Cycle. Many professional services companies would be considered to have medium sales cycles. This might be anywhere from 30 days to three years. They need to stay in touch with prospects and prove themselves as respected experts when their prospect is ready to buy.
• Long (and Offline) Sales Cycle. A highly technical medical device or the architectural services necessary to design a large office building is never going to be purchased based on the whim of a discount code. Sales cycles in these businesses are long and more importantly,the final sales process takes place offline. However, these businesses would still benefit from a call to “stay in touch”.

Integrating your call-to-action into your web design

The urgency of your call-to-action (based on the shortness of your sales cycle) affects how you prompt people to act. If you look at the home page of any office supply web site, you’ll be bombarded with offers that have a limited time availability. However, having that same look on a professional services company’s web site can portray a very inappropriate feel. This is why some web sites feel scammy and untrustworthy—both of which can be detrimental to your organization’s reputation and brand.

The reason call-to-actions work is that people want to be directed to do something. Especially if they like what they see. If you are too reserved in your request for your web viewer’s contact information there’s no reason for them to share. However, if you give them a great reason to act (a pricing offer, a research paper, etc.) prospects will be eager to exchange their contact information for your offer.

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For years, any experienced web designer or developer relied on only a handful of web-safe fonts. These few typefaces were the only ones that were installed with every computer and therefore nearly universally available on any computer, any system, any browser. This meant that the majority of web site designs used: Arial, Verdana, Geneva, Georgia, etc.

If your design demanded something more elaborate, you had to create the typographic effect as a graphic, not as real text. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, read: Is the Text on Your Web Site Really Text? When type is a graphic, and not real text, it is not readable by search engines and therefore not ideal for SEO.

As a web designer, you learned to work with the limitations this caused and tried to use real text whenever possible and style your HTML text using CSS tricks like background images, etc. While it worked, it meant that web design never had the same rich design qualities as print design because typographic design was never used as fully as it is in print design.

New options for web fonts

In the past few months that has been changing. Within the past year or so there are not one, but two competing ways to include many, many more fonts into your web design. This is really exciting and welcome news to web site designers like myself.

As a web design studio, we’ve been following these trends and studying both Typekit and the @font-face way of customizing the typography on the web. Both technologies are quickly adding fonts to their libraries and it’s impressive to watch.

However, for us, we plan to go primarily with the @font-face solution and this is why:

1. We buy most of our fonts from MyFonts.com and as of this writing they now offer more than 30,000 fonts as web fonts. It’s been absolutely amazing to watch them convert their font library to the @font-face acceptable software. We already use MyFonts for our print fonts so it makes sense to go there first for our web fonts.
2. The one-time-fee pricing model just makes more sense for us. The Typekit model is a per-year subscription based model. So in addition to a web hosting fee a web site would need to pay a fee for the use of their fonts.

Let me talk about each of these in a little more depth.

The ability to choosing one font for both print and web

As a graphic design and branding firm, we often work on branding projects that include the development of a logo and a web site. In fact, we find these two elements are the most critical pieces for an organization’s brand identity. That means that we look at building a branding system that works in both print and web.

When choosing a typeface that will be the corporate font for an organization, there are several considerations. First of all, there is the look of the logo itself and the wordmark that is all or part of the logo. That typography is usually a derivative of a standard typeface. Then, when we develop business cards and letterhead materials we introduce additional type elements.

Depending on the client, it may be critical that they have access to these same typefaces, other times it doesn’t matter as much. If for example, we have a design that someone wants to be able to update in-house but they only use a PC, we need to find a font that is available on both Mac and PC. This is an example of how the technology of production affects our type choice. Typekit currently has about 500 fonts whereas MyFonts has 30,000.

The ability to also find a font that has font-face capability is just one more way to narrow our choices. But like I said, there are now thousands and thousands of choices so it’s great to feel that it will not be a severely limiting factor.

One-time pricing model

The other reason we prefer font-face to typekit is that it is a pay once pricing model. This just plain works better for us when we’re estimating and for our clients.

When we accept a branding project we don’t know if we’ll have to buy any fonts, and if we do, how many we’ll have to buy, or how much they’ll cost. I never want to tell a client that there will be an extra fee to create a design with a certain font. So the font costs become an expense that we pay for.

Note: If we recommend a font for a client for their own use, (ie they will use the typeface when typing their own letters on their letterhead), they will need purchase their own license and that is not included in our design fees.

MyFonts has package deals that make purchasing print and web-based editions of fonts together an economical deal. So, if I know we’ll be creating both printed stationery and a web site we’ll purchase the font for all usages together and the cost is minimal, and again it’s an expense that we do not expect our clients to reimburse us for.

The other reason we don’t like recurring fees for web fonts is that it’s another fee to sell to the client. When we estimate on a web design project, there is usually a discussion of web hosting. Either the client has a web host they want to continue working with (and we double check that the servers will work for our needs), or we have hosting partners who we recommend and use. These estimates provide the client with an idea of their recurring costs for the web site. If I were to add-on the cost of a web font, it’s going to be an additional fee (and a recurring one) that they weren’t expecting. I also have no control if this fee is going rise. Finally, to bill for it annually is just more trouble than it’s worth. Obviously, I have the option of purchasing the Typekit license myself and we may opt to go that route, depending on what fonts are available.

First of all, I’m really excited to even have two options to consider for web fonts! We may find applications for Typekit because the two competing groups do have different typefaces and foundries that they represent. But as of right now, we are using the @font-face solution in our web designs.

My hunch was right when I wrote two recent blog posts about the importance of good design to an effective web site. In previous blog posts, I wrote that more and more business owners and people from the general population are learning about design and the expectation of a well-designed web site is increasing. I also predicted that the most important web design trend of 2011 will be trust, which is often directly related to the quality of the web site design.

Now, my instinct has been backed up by a recent study that shows:

70% of consumers don’t trust websites with bad designs

Bad design can include many things. When people think about the look of a web site or the design of the web site they may initially think about the colors, the type size, the layout, graphics, etc. But the design also means how easy it is to use. Is the content well-organized and is the navigation intuitive?

Chris Winstanley, Head of Marketing at BaseKit, who created the study said:

A well considered website can dramatically add value to the business, especially if it provides customers with all the information they need to make a purchase. The research demonstrates that an unattractive site can detract from the effectiveness of a company and this lack of trust can seriously hit the business’ bottom line.

If your organization’s web site is making you cringe, you can bet that it’s affecting your business’ success.

As a follow up to my last post, 7 Questions to Answer Before Launching Your Blog, I wanted to suggest some alternatives to creating a blog as well as the pros and cons of each.

The reason to add a blog to a corporate web site is that it’s a perfect vehicle for adding new, relevant, search-engine optimized content. A blog can also help your business offline too. But the demands of writing a blog are challenging. Also, some people may feel that the term blog doesn’t fit their corporate brand personality. Many bloggers write about personal views and have an opinionated style. That doesn’t have to be how your blog reads, but there are some people put off by the whole blog category.

Each of the options listed below are alternatives that could be easily integrated into your web site design and marketing strategy.

What are the alternatives to starting a blog?

1. Create an articles or resource library on your web site. If you have meaningful content to share with your clients and prospects adding an article library to your web site can hold a lot of the same value as a blog. Generally, an article library would not have comments enabled, but otherwise a library could be developed using the same CMS to build a blog, such as WordPress. Articles are generally loaded with key words which makes them search-engine friendly, but don’t forget to announce and market new entries just as you would a blog.

Pros: Adds keyword-rich content to your site, which Google likes. Is more formal sounding than a blog.

Cons: Can take just as much time as a blog to write and keep current.

2. Write case studies. Like a blog or library, a case studies section of your web site can be created using any CMS. We like to design many web sites using WordPress. Case studies allow you to “toot your own horn” a bit more than some other types of content because you generally feature your own work as the case study. It can give a very in-depth look at the process your company uses to solve other people’s problems. It demonstrates your expertise. Like an article library, each case study is key-word rich and should be promoted via social media and news services.

Pros: Adds keyword-rich content to your site, and allows you to promote your own work.

Cons: Can take just as much time as a blog to write and keep current. May require gathering and organizing visuals.

3. Add a news section to your site. A news section can be an effective catch all for posting new information about your organization. Unlike a blog, it’s perfectly OK to promote your own events, and talk about things like new clients that you’ve landed and new hires. If done correctly, you can do a mix of different content types (ie invitations, photos, summary of recent work, etc.) and still have them all work together.

Pros: Readers have different expectations of a news section, it’s OK to have a mix of contents and to promote your own work.

Cons: Nothing looks worse than an out-of-date News section. Make sure you have a plan to keep it updated.

4. Use Facebook and/or Twitter. Many organizations are jumping onto Facebook and setting up company pages. Compared to other content management systems, it’s very simple, and you probably don’t have to train anyone very much to use it. It also can be great because, depending on your client base, you may already have connections established with “friends” who may be eager to like your brand and hear your news. But, one of the biggest problems with Facebook or Twitter is that there is no formal archiving system. Because your content is not posted to your own domain, you don’t fully own it and it’s not available at your finger tips. There is no easy way to search and share links to old content.

Pros: Easy to use. Easy to share content. Postings can be brief.

Cons: No archiving system, you don’t truly own your content. Some business owners struggle with personal vs. corporate identities and how to connect and share appropriately.

What about you?

I started writing this blog over two years ago. I’ve found it to be hard work, but very worth the effort. We use Facebook and Twitter as ways to share our blog posts with others, but we don’t use them as our primary publishing platform.

What are you doing? Do you blog? Are you thinking about blogging, but are considering alternatives?