Some of the most prolific people utilizing our website management platform are designers who previously had little or no experience creating websites. If you’re print designer and in the past have avoided accepting Web work for whatever reason, I think you should reconsider.
Why the Web is for you
You’re already in business The mere fact that you have a business -- whether it’s struggling or not -- gives you an edge over geeky programmers. I bet you have much better people skills, can understand a budget and adhere to deadlines. They often can't.
It’s much easier now
You don't need to buy giant those think and confusing tomes on how to learn Flash, PHP, Joomla, etc. A website management system like Your Web Department lets you build a website yourself for free for your clients, no programming required.
You’re better qualified than anyone
The same overall design principles that you’re familiar with can and should be applied to the Web. It’s just a matter of making some adaptations. After all you’re a communications professional and can understand your client’s needs in that respect better than anyone.
Your clients expect you to do it
Gone are the days of clients spending thousands of dollars on a simple website, unless it has some really specific functionality. Most expect that in addition to their branding or printed material, you’ll also be doing their website and that they'll be able to update it on their own. In the past, you might have hired someone to "program it" for you. That’s not required anymore.
Simple tips
Design your websites and images at 72dpi
Work on your concepts at 72 dpi, not 300 dpi. High resolution images won’t look any better on monitors and only make everything load much slower.
Use RGB
Monitors work in RGB, not CMYK.
Scrolling is fine!
The days of tiny Flash websites loading in fixed-height rectangles with tiny type are over. Flash itself is dead. While you should keep critical information and calls to action above the fold, it’s perfectly OK for people to scroll down on long pages.
Web fonts
In the past you had to stick to the so called “web safe” fonts like Verdana, Arial, etc. But Your Web Department platform loads fonts on the fly now. So in addition to a few dozen built-in fonts, you can also select from amongst thousands of fonts from Adobe Typekit or the Google Web Fonts (free) library. And by the way, don’t use bitmapped/rasterized text for your headings and the like. Use live, editable (and searchable!) text.
So there you have it. Next week I’ll be introducing you to a studio that has successfully incorporated website building into their practice. In the meantime, you may want to check out Gustavo's related post about why a designer switched to YWD.
Flavio Mester is a graphic designer as well as a systems analyst (in a distant life he was an architect). A founding partner of Your Web Department, he's responsible for the design and development of all the YWD website management platform interfaces. Flavio Mester on Google+ | Twitter | LinkedIn
We like to think that Your Web Department is a better a solution than Wordpress, Joomla or Drupal, but it is even better when our clients think so too. This great Top 10 list was created by one of our long time clients and partners, Monica Yother.
Monica Yother has been designing since 1987, in that time she has been a Marking Director, a Creative Director, won local and national awards for her work and most importantly she has helped improve her customer’s businesses through great design. Monica uses YWD for her website, www.my-designs.net and has used YWD to deliver about 15 websites for her customers.
Monica encourages her web customers to use YWD, this is why:
Learning curve is very small for anyone using the system, especially for clients once the site is built.
Forget about updating the software every week or so, YWD does it for you! Count the time you spend updating Wordpress, Joomla or Drupal, PLUS all the Plugins and Widgets…which brings me to the next point…
Plugins and Widgets…forget about them too! Not only can these cause conflict with each other (anyone building a site with freeware will know that at some point a plugin will conflict with something on your site and create another reason to update, deactivate, reactivate a plugin). When YWD updates or adds something to their software they also activate it in your site
Security. While nothing is 100% guaranteed in life, especially the security of a website, the chances of having your site hacked is hugely reduced with YWD for a couple of reasons. I’ve never had a site hacked or compromised in any way with YWD, while I’ve had several instances of hackers on Wordpress sites.
SEO is easier in YWD. Most of the time, when I pick up working on someone’s Wordpress site, they have added some SEO packages along the way, and while some are good, some are not…and unless you spend time researching it you won’t know.
Support, Support Support. I have been working with YWD for several years now, and I know that I can call them on the phone and talk to them. Yes, a live person. Wordpress does not have that option, and if you go with a theme builder (Woo, Headway, Genesis, Elegant Themes, Theme Forest, etc.) you will not get a phone call…and most times the questions you post in their crowded forums do not get answered. Though, to be fair, Woo has a pretty good team, but still, no phone call).
Support. I have to say it again. I feel confident that YWD has my back, so if I tell my client I’ll check on something for them and get back soon, I can keep that promise because I know that I can email or call support at YWD and get an answer.
I teach Wordpress workshops to people because I have built quite a few sites with it, and without exception, the ONLY reason people want to use it is because they want to update it themselves. However, I run into the situation ALL the time where a site has been built with some obsolete theme, or one that is super restrictive, and my client cannot make any changes. Not only that but they have already paid a good amount of money (way too much to install a theme without customization) so they are stuck again. This is not an issue with YWD in any way….you can change the design of the site anytime.
E-commerce does not have to be complicated, while I have not built a large catalog sales type site yet, I do have paypal integrated with one site and am about to build another site selling items.
$49 a month gets you: backups, support, stability and an ever-improving system …and most of all peace of mind. And that is priceless.
Check out some of the great websites that Monica has created for her customers:
Interested in working with Monica on your next design project? You can reach her at:
Gustavo Jabbaz started his digital career as a designer and then became a developer and these days spends most of his time as a digital marketer. A founding partner of Your Web Department, he's responsible for day-to-day operations, marketing and development strategy. He is who you talk to when you need support with SEO and/or Social Media. Gustavo Jabbaz on Google+ | Twitter
A new entertainment series is bypassing all traditional broadcast mediums. @SummerBreak is going to be delivered over Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube and Instagram. Why am I writing about this here? Well, I'm not just a web guy, business guy, owner guy I'm also video, writing and broadcast guy. I was head of TV Comedy at CBC for a few years. Back in 1992 I was trying to encourage the Corporation to digitize their video library for the emerging CD ROM (yes, I know it's dead) revolution. The powers that be thought it was a waste of time and nothing was going to come of this new-fangled digital thing. They were sort of right because I was, frankly, too far ahead of the curve. Is @SummerBreak too far ahead of the curve?
It's going to follow a bunch of high school seniors from Los Angeles for eight weeks before they go to college. The series is going to happen live 24/7 as tweets and Instagram photos and I assume YouTube videos, though you can also Tweet 6 seconds of videos. Hey, isn't this what everyone is doing and sharing now? How is this going to be more interesting? They say it's going to be unscripted. Is it too far ahead of the curve?
Part of the fun of social media is that it's spontaneous. How spontaneous is this really going to be? We're comfortable seeing scripted content on YouTube but on Twitter, Instagram, etc? I don't know. Those mediums are all about not being fake. Yes, they claim it's going to be unscripted. Really? Why would that be interesting?
This doesn't mean they shouldn't try. There is a real production company behind it with bags of cash and I'm sure they'll promote the hell out of it. That will bring traffic but will it guarantee success? There are many stories of great ideas that were just too far ahead of the curve. Time Warner spent millions trying to get video on demand working back in the '90s. Total failure. Now we have the Internet and Netflix. The confluence of the Internet, ubiquitous high speed access, video compression codecs and cloud computing has generally solved the video on demand puzzle. Plus we can view it all in HD, which the old Time Warner experiment could not handle even with a dedicated local network. But this evolved over many years. The original idea wasn't bad, just the timing of it.
Being an entertainment guy I'm fascinated by these experiments. And even if I don't think they're going to work, someone has to do it. And someone always will. There are many points of failure when doing an entertainment product. Perhaps they will hit on the perfect distribution medium, but the product sucks. If it fails, what are they going to blame? I hated YouTube webisodes because the early ones I had seen were awful so I just assumed the webisode distribution system was awful. Lately, I've seen some great webisode series that are hugely popular. It's clear that breaking the tyranny of the time slot is a good thing.
The take away in all of this is that your website is not an island. There are so many things going on between mobile, social media and video that it does not make sense any more to think that you can just build a website and leave it. At the very minimum you need to participate in the health of your site and see what else is going on out there so you'll be aware of anything that might be useful to you.
Paul Chato has been many things: a graphic designer, programmer, comedian, head of network TV comedy, game producer, 3D animator, playwright, event host, director and anything else that matches his fancy. Most of the time he is a managing partner at Your Web Department and is most excited about LiveBuild™. Check out LiveBuild
This past week: Feedback on Facebook Home is coming back from real users (500K downloads in the first week) and it is not very good. There are many bug issues reported including not being able to launch other apps beside Facebook's. I'm sure with time Facebook will be able to iron out the bugs and give the user a better experience, Facebook style. On other fronts LinkedIn and Tumblr are now displaying ads on their mobile app feeds, this is good news for the SMB. More competition for your advertising dollar. So far the best marketing value for any small business is on content marketing, SoLoMo (Social Local and Mobile). Due to the nature of mobile technology and the fact that people prefer to consume social media on their phones it is shaping up to be the place to spend your marketing efforts. This doesn't mean other more traditional means of marketing won't work, it just means that mobile is capturing more eyes as time goes on. Without further ado, my list of tweets for this week; mobile, social and local.
Business with blogs get 70% more leads than those without-> How to Get Eyeballs on Your Business with a Blog
I've often share posts and blog about the importance of blogging for a business, this infographic reinforces that view. It is a good diagram on how to distribute your original content and how to increase engagement with it.
And it is more accessible-> Why Social Media Marketing Is More Effective Than PR
Social Media and content sharing are game changers for many industries, including PR. In a way small businesses now can manage their own PR campaigns using the tools available in social media.
Not a bad idea-> Theft: 9 Ways to Protect Yourself From Losing Your Data
We depend so much on our PCs for work and personal life; just think for one second if you were to lose your PC with all your contact, emails and documents you keep in the hard drive. If you don't have a plan to quickly replace it, read this article, it will show you a few ideas on how to protect your PC and other electronic devices.
Want more clicks? check one of these-> The 10 Most Clickable Twitter Headlines
We all want people clicking on what we share, learn how to make your tweet irresistible.
Start small build with time-> Social Media Marketing: Get Out Now... You're Doomed to Fail
Great guide for starting from scratch. It takes time to build a relevant audience, follow the steps in this post and you might shorten the time required.
Another place to where to advertise-> Tumblr rolls out mobile ads, appearing alongside posts in user streams
All these free social networks need to make money to support their massive operations. Tumblr is no exception and it seems that they are going after people's eyes, on mobile.
Original own content is still the best-> I Hate Writing Articles What else can I do?
Good alternatives to writing them yourself, but keep in mind that original content is still the preferred alternative.
Comparing Ad networks-> AdGooRoo Report Pits Bing Ads against Google AdWords in Six U.S. Verticals
This post shows Google AdWords is still in first place; but Bing is not the only place where you can advertise and reach thousands beside Google. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and now Tumblr have their own ad networks. Sometimes these could work better for some businesses than Google or Bing.
It easy to setup, and Google places is the best yet-> Why Local Search Matters to Your Business
While competing for search result rankings with big businesses can be futile exercise (deeper pockets for bigger businesses),for small businesses using Local Search going can help to level the playing field.
Content and advertising all into one?-> Selling to Cyborgs: Marketing in the Age of Google Glass
Now that we have the first wearable computer in the market (well for select few for now), many questions arise about this new medium. One of them is, how are we going to advertise on glasses?
Next Friday I'll have another round up, in the meantime you can follow me and YWD on the networks below:
Gustavo Jabbaz started his digital career as a designer and then became a developer and these days spends most of his time as a digital marketer. A founding partner of Your Web Department, he's responsible for day-to-day operations, marketing and development strategy. He is who you talk to when you need support with SEO and/or Social Media. Gustavo Jabbaz on Google+ | Twitter
Your Web Department includes a nifty Assets Manager so you can upload your images and place them anywhere on your website. But what if you’d like to insert images that reside elsewhere – on Google Photos, for instance? This way you can quickly add a picture without even having to download it to your computer and then upload to YWD.
It's quite easy to do it and you may already know it, but here it is just in case.
Uploading your photos to Google Photos
If you have a Gmail account, you can launch Photos simply by selecting the option under More. It’s pretty easy to upload photos to it from your computer, you simply click the big red UPLOAD NEW PHOTOS button and select them. Google Photos lets you create albums and place the photos there to keep things organized.
You can also upload photos directly from your mobile into Google Photos, you just need to download their free app.
If you have lots of photos on your computer, you can also download the free Picasa software from http://picasa.google.ca which lets you organize and share your photos directly with your Google+ account.
Google Photos has useful editing features that allow you to crop, resize and apply effects to the images. It does a lot of the things small business owners need to do in terms of basic image manipulation for their websites. And unless you have a ton of images, it’s completely free: no need to buy Adobe Photoshop.
Inserting a photo into your website page or blog
Easy. Locate the Google Photo image that you’d like to insert and click on it. Then right-click on the image and select Copy Image Location (that’s in Firefox; other browsers may call that option something else, like Copy Image Address for instance).
Assuming your using Your Web Department as your website managing system -- then again, why wouldn’t you ;^) -- edit any Word Processor content block, Content Slider slide, News Manager news item or Blog post – any type of content that uses our editor, really.
In the editor, click the Insert/Edit Image icon as usual, and in the URL field paste the image location that you’ve copied from Google Photos. The image can be right or left aligned, resized, etc. -- just like a “local” image i.e. one that you’ve uploaded to YWD’s Assets Manager.
That’s it! Once you save your change, the image will be displayed on the page:
A couple of notes:
This won’t work for the Image Gallery tool, because it can only use images stored in YWD's Assets Manager.
If the image is removed from Google, it'll also disappear from your page. That's because YWD is only using the image location, it didn't actually make a copy of the image file to your website.
Flavio Mester is a graphic designer as well as a systems analyst (in a distant life he was an architect). A founding partner of Your Web Department, he's responsible for the design and development of all the YWD website management platform interfaces. Flavio Mester on Google+ | Twitter | LinkedIn
Okay WordPress the gloves are off. Once again one of your pasty, zombie surrogates came after one of our customers. Your surrogate offered to 'host' our customer's site for 'only' $19/month instead of the $49/month we were charging them. So, is that the best you can do, offer a measly $360 a year savings? People spend more than that in one month at Starbucks.
There are any range of services out there if you want a website. Most domain hosting companies will let you drop your own html into their system for free. Many offer incredibly awful DIY web tools. There are services that charge several hundreds of dollars a month. The point is not cost, but value and frankly the difference between free and $588 a year is zero if your website is an important business tool. Hopefully you're planning on making more than $600 a year.
Our customer was nice enough to call us and ask why YWD is different from WordPress, which I'm happy to elucidate for you now:
When someone asks for WordPress it's usually code for, "I want a cheap website". Now, the truth is you can build really impressive websites with WP. No question about it. However, it's not a one-size-fits-all solution. If you pick a template and have no interest in altering it then it truly is a good, cheap solution. But, and there is always a but, if you want to change the template then you will have to do html programming and maybe even javascript if your changes go deeper, or the template requires jQuery tweaks. "Wait a second," you say, "I'm not a programmer." If you're not then you will have to hire a programmer to make these changes and suddenly WordPress is no longer free. Charges for these changes can vary from a few hundred dollars to thousands of dollars. Your Web Department is a 'no-code' system. That is why only YWD can offer the free LiveBuild™ website building service (fresh-not from templates).
Next. Maintaining the Your Web Department system and providing customers website support is all we do. It's what we do for a living. You can always reach us for technical questions, SEO questions, even questions on how to make your website do more for your business. As long as you are a YWD customer we will be there for you. When someone builds a WP site for you after you've paid them their done. They might entertain a few questions after the build is finished but any more and you become an annoyance. The company you are now paying $19 a month to is just hosting your WordPress site. They are not offering support for it. You can search the forums for help... wait, you're in business. You're trying to make a living. Do you have time to dive into geekland? And what if you want to make a design update four, six, nine months after? You will have to track down that programmer and if you're lucky enough to find them you will have to pay them for the changes. These changes are mostly free on YWD.
A cool new thing has arrived for websites. You want to add that cool new thing to your website. Once again, in the WP scenario, if you are not a programmer you will have to find someone to make these updates. At Your Web Department we are keeping up with the Internet so you won't have to. And all these feature updates are free to all our customers.
People who offer their WP services do so because that's all they know. Wait, you're thinking, isn't that what we do push YWD? In all honesty, if someone calls and they are a candidate for another system, or if all they are looking for is a few static pages then we will happily convey those alternative options and even where they can get it done. We are a service company. The Your Web Department platform is only the conduit through which we offer that service.
Your Web Department is easier to manage. We know because we have WP sites and we hear it from our customers. I won't get into the details here but trust me. YWD has much more powerful tools to manage the day-to-day updates without coding or having to upload specialized modules.
So, these are just a few things that make YWD different from WordPress. If the above are important to you then you are a great candidate for our system. And, by-the-way, the customer who called us, thought so too.
Paul Chato has been many things: a graphic designer, programmer, comedian, head of network TV comedy, game producer, 3D animator, playwright, event host, director and anything else that matches his fancy. Most of the time he is a managing partner at Your Web Department and is most excited about LiveBuild™. Check out LiveBuild
A new entertainment series is bypassing all traditional broadcast mediums. 
If you have a Gmail account, you can launch Photos simply by selecting the option under More. It’s pretty easy to upload photos to it from your computer, you simply click the big red UPLOAD NEW PHOTOS button and select them. Google Photos lets you create albums and place the photos there to keep things organized.
Okay WordPress the gloves are off. Once again one of your pasty, zombie surrogates came after one of our customers. Your surrogate offered to 'host' our customer's site for 'only' $19/month instead of the $49/month we were charging them. So, is that the best you can do, offer a measly $360 a year savings? People spend more than that in one month at Starbucks.
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