If you’re blue and you don’t know
where to go to why don’t you go
where fashion sits
Puttin’ on the [YWL Looks] Ritz
Like all other YWD Looks, Ritz can be applied to your website with one click. Then upload your own banner image – the "Ritz" and 1.800 number you see there is just placeholder – and you're done. And you can customize it as much as you want, no coding required.
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
I'm reading the Steve Jobs biography. You know the guy? He started Apple Computers? He's had so little press I'm not surprised you haven't heard of him. I think I'm supposed to put a smiley face here, or something.
As an entrepreneur and small business guru, in my own right, I've always counselled that the success of others is meant only to sell business magazines and is not necessarily a roadmap for anyone else to follow, but reading the biography there are some good lessons for small business owners. I'm only part way through but here are some key learnings from the book so far:
Sometimes it's better to be stupid than right.
Don't think you are successfully hiding the fact you are crazy from your employees. They know, but for many complicated reasons are still willing to follow you. Hopefully, one day, you will learn to be the person they always hoped you'd be.
Just because you are searching for enlightenment doesn't mean you are enlightened.
You will hire and fire many people along the way even with the best of intentions.
Keep moving forward.
Standing still is not an option (see item 5).
There is no logical, business school prescribed, method for success. The rules for creating a business are not necessarily the rules for creating success. There are many people who will equate being at the right place at the right time with the right people as brilliant business strategy.
If you find a guy in your lobby, unshaven, unkept, smelling of body order yelling, "I won't leave until I get a job here." Would you hire them? Nolan Bushnell of Atari fame did.
Seriously, this Jobs guy was an ass.
More as I read further into this tome.
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: As you might have seen, we launched a new look for Your Web Department's website we are all about helping SMBs (small and medium businesses) do well on the internet. Our help doesn't stop with your website, we can help with design, mobile and social marketing as well as branding and content strategy. Keeping in tune with the pitch above this week's tweet picks are all about making your business life easier.
Google has the potential of becoming a great social hub for business. Google isn't really competing with Facebook, but LinkedIn should worry. LikedIn has made great progress in becoming a true social network for business, but it cannot compete with Google's suite of applications already available.
Just having a website for your business doesn't cut it anymore. Your website at the very least needs to pay for itself. HubSpot 25 must-have list is dead on; and YWD can help with each one of them.
If you just started blogging don't expect to have lots of traffic yet. The formula of success is simple: Stay on topic, promote your post to the right audience and post consistently.
Another analysis of Google's search result rankings. This time projecting the impact Siri (and all voice activated interfaces that will come) will have on search results.
I have always felt that banning sites or social media activity at the work place was counter intuitive. This article just proves that your employees will do it whether you like it or not. Best option let them do it and create a guideline for social media in the workplace. Who knows, one of your employees might learn something new while surfing Facebook that can help your business.
A picture is worth a thousand words, imagine that at 24 frames per second. If you are going to the trouble of producing videos why not give them the maximum exposure possible?
Next Friday I'll have another round up, in the meantime you can follow me @ywd or on facebook
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 clean YWD Look to get you started, Concrete is a great option for business websites. Apply it with a single click, then select your own banner image and you're done. Or keep customizing it until it looks just the way you want.
“Concrete grey” features a subtle textured background that creates a nice contrast with the content area above it.
These other flavours of Concrete are also available:
Concrete plain
Concrete blue
Don't know YWD yet yet? Start building websites with the Your Web Department platform for free.
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
Your website can now have a transition effect in which pages fade in as they're loaded. This feature is utilized by Firefox, Chrome and Safari, but is currently ignored by Internet Explorer.
For example our own public website now uses it. Navigate through it and you'll notice the fade in effect. In that case we're applying the fade in to all pages; you can also choose to do it only for your Home page, or just for images.
For our Help website we chose to apply the effect only on images; they fade in as the page loads.
This option is set in YWD Designer / Layout / Page / Advanced layout settings. The default is to not have the fade-in effect. Simply choose whether you want to apply it to the whole content area of just the Home page, the whole content area of all pages, or only to images.
The effect will be ignored by IE and mobile devices.
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
About a year ago I came up with the "Treat your website as if it were an employee" concept. The observation being that most companies put up a website and just hope for the best. Their prime motivator being that their competition had one. Taking this to its logical conclusion I thought that if companies hired employees this way, didn't give them goals, didn't evaluate their performance on a regular basis that would be really bad. So, why don't they give their website goals and evaluate its performance on a regular basis?
Out of this came a method to evaluate a website called, Interview your Website. It goes beyond just looking a website and telling clients, it's crap. The Interview your Website session reveals things about your website, your brand and the audience's expectation of your brand that a mere technical walkthrough would not do. It also does it in a way that's fun. I have been doing this for large groups and individuals. Here is a quote from Dana Aubrey who's site was recently interviewed.
"I loved the idea of having my website interviewed. What a brilliant idea. The insights that YWD offered were pretty darn interesting and insightful. In fact I'd go so far as to say it bordered on psychology 101. It was like my website went to see a therapist and the therapist noticed some key internal struggles that I had no idea were even visible. A great experience and highly recommended. Thanks YWD!"
Last week I did a quick 4 minute demonstration of Interview your Website. Have a look and if you're interested in having me do this for your group contact me.
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
