When designing your website for the first time or working on an overall redesign make a list of your most important goals. Then make a list of the most important content that supports these goals. The rest of the design flows from these two lists. The order of priority and the visual presentation of information on your site should always follow these three simple but crucial steps.

1. Clearly state what you do and the benefits to the user
2. Follow that with an impressive client list and client testimonials
3. Have a clear call to action to contact with you now

If a user is not ready to engage with you now, find a way to capture their details to continue the conversation and for future marketing opportunities by:

1. Include an email subscribe
2. Give a great reason why the user should subscribe
3. Give something away, a chapter of a book, eBook, or an article to encourage sign ups and build trust.
4. Remove the captcha on the sign up form. The few spam sign ups are worth the hassle compared to the leads you will lose.

Anything not on the above list should be removed or reduced in importance. Tighten up all spacing. Make sure the overall design is clean and clear, make it scanable and easy to find key information quickly.

The essence of a great redesign is “no time wasters please”. You don’t want to waste your time and money creating a site that will confuse and annoy your users. Secondly, you do not want to waste these users time. It is bad form. Nobody has time to thrawl through badly designed sites that do not give us the information we need.

Follow these few simple steps and your redesign will convert more and lead you and your user on a mutually beneficial journey.

Mary

Image thanks to StreetFly JZ

Comment [1] | Spoiltchild | 13/07/10 12:55 PM

I have been working on branding a lot over the last few weeks for clients, for Spoiltchild and for Toddle. I am intrigued with how people present themselves both personally and professionally and how great companies embody great brands.

On the other hand, there is lots of hyperbole out there. Everything and everyone is described as “ brilliant” “creative” and “innovative” to the point where I’m left feeling uneasy after reading the About sections in many Blogs and company profiles.

But more crucially, I don’t know whether I should hire you or your company as your profile does not ring true to me. So more research and find someone else. Not a good result for your business I’d say.

The question is how do you describe yourself and your company in a truthful way that gives me, the perspective client, an understanding of how good you are and makes me hire you now?
Here are my suggestions.

1. Make sure to highlight recommendations from your previous clients. They know you and what you do and can give concrete examples why I should hire you now.

2. Make sure your client testimonials are believable. Avoid words like “awesome” in the body of the recommendation. Check for the bull-o-meter before you hit publish.

3. Focus on the benefits. Did you complete the project on time? Did you bring it in under budget? Did you manage the project well? Have you worked on similar projects previously? Did you win any awards recently?

4. Be sincere. If your passion is helping people then state that. Your activities and achievements to date will back this statement up.
5. There is no problem selling yourself but be a little humble about it. We can all spot half truths a mile off.

6. Include a face. As humans we really relate to faces. Add a picture so we can see who you are and recognise you when we meet next time. It is a personal touch that builds trust.

7. It’s a conversation. Your profile speaks to your customers, colleagues and friends so why not make it a conversation starter.

8. Have a read of Brooke Green’s post “Block and Tackle” http://www.caskeyone.com/block-and-tackle/ on getting the basics right and building on good foundations.

Mary

| Branding | 06/07/10 10:54 AM

Myself and Mary Carty are in San Francisco this week at the Web2Expo conference. If you are around give us a shout. We love talking to new people and feel free to pick our brains about email marketing.
You can find us on twitter alanorourke and marycarty

Alan

| Business | 04/05/10 10:44 PM

We all know the importance of a good welcome. A great example we came accross this week, is our local bistro. Lots of families walk their dogs along the strand each day but it is pretty difficult to have dinner with doggie in toe.

The bistro owner has created a beautiful outdoor area where dogs can accompany their owners. Bowls are provided for water and food and doggie do do is taken care of with the placement of special bins located far away from the tables. Other diners along the strand actively discourage dogs (and their owners). What other café’s view as a problem; this bistro has turned into a selling point. Smart, effective and makes perfect business sense.

Are you making it easy for your customers to come back to you?

Image leelefever

| Business | 19/03/10 05:05 PM

We had a very busy, creative 2009 so I thought you’d like to see work we launched in December.

On time for the Christmas season we created a cross channel media campaign for SafeFood. The campaign featured a festive website, email newsletter, Facebook fan page, Facebook landing page,Twitter page and a quirky competition. First, we built a new festive website for SafeFood showcasing all their fantastic Christmas content. We integrated the “I still love turkley” campaign on Twitter and Facebook to tie into the safe cooking message and to highlight all the creative goodness leftover Christmas food can make. The campaign also ran on Boards.ie were SafeFood gave their expertise to help those entertaining friends and family to make the perfect Christmas feast.

See the campaign here Safefood Christmas

“I still love Turkey” on Twitter http://twitter

SafeFood Christmas Facebook fan page.

Overall the new campaign was very successful with great traffic through the site and hopefully a few less disasters in the kitchen! It is really good to see how an intergrated approach like this can grab the imagination of users and generate lots of attention.

The SafeFood team are busy, passionate people so along with the Christmas campaign we also worked on the redesign of Weigh2Live. Weigh2Live makes it easy for anyone who wants to make changes to their diet and lifestyle. You may have seen the TV ad campaigns running on RTE at the moment. It’s a great resource for new year resolutions and for the rest of the year as well. The site also contains handy tools that will help you stay on track and keep you motivated. A good positive start for the new year for all of us.

In December we continued to work with our friends over on Rehab Bingo. Over the Christmas holidays the newly redesigned Rehab Bingo site was launched with the addition of a few new characters and extra functionality to help playability.

Have a look at the right game sidebar and you will find our new feature game Barnyard Bill. With a colourful array of farm animals and our kindly farmer Bill we are delighted with the reaction to the new game with Rehab Bingo players.

Take a look at our other feture game this month Bee Mine just in time for Valentines Day. Good luck and happy playing.

With all that creative output in December we are busy putting the finishing touches to a few more projects which we will announce in February. Will keep you posted!

Mary

| Design-work | 02/02/10 12:37 PM

The Trinity Enterprise Network invited Marketing Consultant Paul Hayes from Beachhut PR to give a talk on building an international brand. And they very nicely agreed to let me come along.

Paul was previously Marketing and Communications Director at Havok and currently works with JoltOnline among others.

Paul had some brilliant advice and war stories from his time in Havok on how they, as a start up from Trinity, had go out and sell to the leading companies in games and film. Image it seams is vital but not that difficult… or expensive.

I got a lot of great points to take away from the day and here they are in no particular order.

PR

• Start your PR locally. Use it as your training ground to hone and practice your message before you move international.
• With everything showing up on Google do not underestimate local press. A Wired journalist rang up Paul after a story in the Tipperary Star popped up in his alerts.
Develop relationships with three key Journalists and publications.
• THE trade publication of the industry.
• A national publication
• One international publication.



• Wired is THE publication for a technology company and it took Havok a year from initial contact to getting covered in the magazine.
• The easiest way to get international PR is to get on a plane and go have a drink with a Journalist and start a relationship.
• Journalists do not write for their readers first. they write for other Journalists and their editor. Remember this when pitching a story.
• It’s easier to get coverage if you ‘promise’ to take out advertising in the future. Most trade magazines are run at a loss to maintain an audience for other business activities, events for example. So do not stress too much if you are unable to take out advertising for a long while.
• Third paragraph PR is better for credibility. The public are very media savvy. They recognise a PR piece about a company for what it is.

  However if your opinion is mentioned in an overall industry piece it lends more credibility to you being an industry expert.

• You are the best person to tell your story. Do not use a PR firm to be the middle man. It annoys Journalists.


Business


• The first sale was for $1 to get past the ‘First Customer’ credibility problem.It was a marketing deal in return for using the customer in PR, Marketing and Case studies.
• There is value in everything you produce. Watch out for opportunities. Havok had an artwork tool to help users of their main product. 3dStudio Max wanted this for their application and it generated $18 million for Havok over 3 years.
• Paul believes Tradeshow stands are a waste of money. Think smarter or of a ‘Meta Stand’.Instead of a stand Havok would organise wacky transport (with a bar) carrying VIPs from a tradeshow to the afters party and again at the end of the night back to their hotels. A fraction of the cost, and more memorable.
• One horror story in the early days of Havok involved spending half a million on a stand, intending to make a splash. They ended up wedged between Microsoft and Sony who each spent about $10 million to launch their next gen consoles. It almost broke them.
• At a tradeshow in Calais they rented a $20k Yacht and moored it outside the event instead of spending the $200k cost of a stand inside. They also got to save costs by sleeping 8 people and eating on it as well.
• For a tradeshow all you need is you and a laptop walking around. Just as effective.
• In most cases you are not selling your features. What you are selling is reduced risk.Customers assume that your product works. They want to know you will be around in 3 years and will not make them look bad to their piers and boss.
• And last was a question from the audience asking if the Trinity name helped them abroad when making contacts and selling. He said at the time no but after the very successful companies that have emerged over the years including Havok and Jolt Online it can open doors now.



Alan


| Business | 01/02/10 02:33 PM

For my second takeaway form BizCampBe here is the presentation from cofounder of myameise.com, Paul Geurts. Paul gave an inspiring talk about his strategies for staying alive as a start up. Lots of light bulbs went off for me listening to his talk. Paul is certainly not afraid to take chances and to prioritize the big stuff. His approach is a must read for every start up CEO. Go check out Paul’s company and see the promotional video they made on a shoestring budget; impressive.

How not to die (as a start-up)

1. Know when to pay and when to hassle
2. Don’t be afraid to spend money
3. Make decisions. Don’t think I should have had …
4. Act
5. Be creative with Banks, Governments
6. Lie, just a little
7. Do what you do best
8. The press is your best friend
9. Never lie to the media
10. Never lie to users
11. Mobilize your friends
12. Invest in Pizza and Beer
13. Be good
14. Understand the Art of War
15. Never attack the walled city

Let me know what strategies you use to keep moving forward as a startup. Would you agree with Paul’s list?

Mary

Image Hadassah28 (Martha’s Vine 90% done) (CC)

| Business | 08/12/09 09:52 PM

As tonight is Eircom Golden Spider Awards night we want to wish all the finalists the very best of luck. We are delighted to see so many of our clients making the shortlist this year. In all 9 clients have been shortlisted for 8 awards and well deserved they are too. We are honoured to work with such amazing people this year.
Drop by and say hello to us tonight. Looking forward to it!

Mary

| Business | 19/11/09 11:50 AM

Sometimes you work so hard you can’t see the wood for the trees. Thankfully, hard work pays off and this week certainly proved it for me. It all began last Thursday as we arrived in Brussels for BizCamp Belgium (more about BizcampBe later). We were greeted with the news that Spoiltcild has been selected for the prestigious Enterprise Ireland internet Growth Acceleration Programme iGap. We are really thrilled and very excited to be selected along with some of the best internet companies in Ireland. We are looking forward to learning lots from the programme and from our peers. We are more than honoured to be given the opportunity to learn, to push ourselves and to grow our business. You can read a bit more about iGap here. We can’t wait to get stuck in and will keep you posted on our progress.

If that wasn’t exciting enough for one week, Lee Munroe’s article ‘Showcase of Web Design in Ireland‘ was published in Smashing Magazine online last Friday. Alan was interviewed along with Ray Doyle, Eoghan McCabe and Sabrina Dent about the state of play of Irish design. It was a lovely article and covered topics like is a college education important for aspiring designers to the quality of work produced by Irish designers. Thanks to Lee and Smashing Magazine for such an informative piece. Keep reading the series on ‘Global Web Design’ as Smashing takes a look at the design industry worldwide. Interesting to see how designers internationally rate their design, quality, output and education in comparison to the Irish design industry.

And so the BizCampBe last Saturday. It was fantastic to discover that the start-up industry is alive and well in Belgium and has lots in common with the Irish community. We met so may amazing people who were more than willing to share their knowledge and share the benefit of their experience with the 150 attendees. Contributors from Belgium, Holland, Spain and the US gave flawless presentations on everything from ‘Partnering with the Big Boys, Marketing your product to my mother, ‘how not to die’ (as a start-up), the benefits of outsourcing, and how to sail round the world for twelve years while running your business. Fantastic talks every one of them and I wished I had the ability of bi-location Thankfully, the organisers have put some of the presentations up on Slideshare so go there now and be inspired.

As this was the first BizCamp in Belgium everyone was in agreement that it was a great success. Everyone I spoke to really took on board the spirit of the day, sharing, networking, learning and listening. The fact that the organisers had a small shortfall in sponsorship to cover the costs wasn’t a problem. Attendees gave generously and it was covered by the end of the day.

Alan and I were really proud to be a part of the day. It goes to prove that a good idea and the willingness to help others transcends country boundaries and languages and connects us all together. The BizCamp format has as much relevance and is as necessary in Belgium as it is here in Ireland. At start-up stage, no matter where you locate any advice no matter how small can have a major impact. To get this kind of information form those who have gone a similar path is better than gold.

I learned lots and arrived home with new friends and a penchant for Belgian beer! Hopefully, we can extend the welcome to our Belgian colleagues next year at BizCamp Dublin. Well done BizCamp Be team I will certainly be back for the next one.

To top it all of we arrived back to the office on Tuesday to the news that or long time client Rehab Bingo have been shortlisted for a Golden Spider for best entertainment and games related website. We are thrilled for Irene and all the Rehab Bingo team. These guys are a treasure to work with and deserve to be finalists. Their enthusiasm, hard work and dedication are really inspiring. Fingers crossed for Rehab Bingo at the Golden Spiders on the 19th. See the full list of finalists here. It will be a fantastic night.

So to sum up. It is lovely when things come together and when hard work pays of. Even better it is inspiring to share these positive experiences with others. Lots of management theorists tell us at the end of a project it is important to celebrate success, smell the roses so to speak. So smell the roses today and congratulate yourself on a job well done. To take a point from one presentation in BizCampBe, celebrate the fact that you ‘did not die’ in business this year and that you are here to learn and to share even more next month.
Happy Halloween everyone!

Mary

Comment [2] | Spoiltchild | 30/10/09 01:53 PM

We are known for a quite clean, crisp style of design so it was a lot of fun recently to break from that for a few design projects.
Michele over at Blacknight posted a few of his new magazine adverts today. One for Total Film magazine and the other for SFX.
I especially had fun with the movie one :)

Click to view larger.

| Spoiltchild | 06/07/09 09:20 PM