Members Section and Interactivity

I have been working hard at re-designing my current website to include more features. The most important is the members section. By logging in, members can enjoy some features like articles that I have written on website design and management, get information on specials and recent updates to services, and qualify for periodic sales and offers.

Now, is a members section necessary?

These days, the problem with websites is how static they are. Visitors come over once in a while and even if they return only six months later, nothing has changed. Not only nothing has changed, there is nothing for them to experience or benefit from the website.

If they feel that their presence is important enough that they are asked to sign in, which then allows them privileges from the site, that is one way of providing service to your visitors which isn't directly based on your actual business. In my case, I may not be building their website, but I am offering my (potential) clients special articles, reduced prices, and information on new and improved products.

The same with a blog. By keeping an active account on relevant information, your services to the clients and visitors becomes more than just a website that lists your services. You can actually provide a service, free or with minimal input like membership, that will help you interact with your clients and keeps their needs as your primary goal.

Excerpt from article: "Cutting Website Costs with Client-Centered Options"

Website design services that provide pre-designed web templates

Website designers often provide pre-designed web templates to jump start your website. Eventually, they will provide other services to enhance your template and site. They can vary from simple Html sites to templates which include some Flash animations.

Examples

• Fortune City has several hundred samples of static and animated templates
• World Wide Webdesign.ca includes web hosting, design and template services

What are the benefits?

• The templates are usually unique and original
• Some templates can be customized moderately with colours, fonts and backgrounds without extra charge
• For an additional, usually small, fee, you can add more customization
• Many of these sites are available with full web design services, which you can upgrade to
• Lower cost than full customization

What are the disadvantages?

• You may not find the design you like
• Upgrading and adding more customization may be increases the costs
• Usually, it is only a limited number of pages that are part of the template.

Excerpts from article: "How to make the best of your webiste"

[Please contact me for the full article.]

Here is a section from the article "How to make the best of your website."

For the complete article, please email me. This will also put you on the monthly newsletter, for updates on specials and newer articles.

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How will a website help you promote your work?

One of the most advantageous things about a website is you can say so much more than you ever could just by talking to someone.

- A website allows someone to view all your work in the comfort of their home or office, at their time and leisure

- You can simply give your card with your website address to anyone, at any time

- Your website becomes your 24/7 portfolio

- Your website is your portfolio

- You can make all kinds of promotions and advertisements on your website

Blogs and Websites

Several blog software are providing possibilities to seamlessly customizing your blog with your website. Typepad is probably the most versatile, but you have to pay to download the software. You can start a pre-designed blog with Wordpress and pay for extra services, including customizing your blog. So far, I think Movable Type is the most versatile for the small "personal" type website. Blogger is pretty good and simple, but you need to go into some complicated html and css coding to get some functions like menus running.

Time's Worst Websites

I recently posted on the Bloggers Awards, which is a popular vote for the best blogs out there.

Well, let's try the worst websites, according to TIME, at least. You can review them here.

But, here is someone who did spend quite a bit of time gleaning through the internet to come up with his yearly list of top the 10, or bottom ten, websites - and why.

He bases his decisions on this list, amongst others:

• Websites meet organization's needs (more sales/ contributions) rather than meeting the needs of visitors.
• It takes longer than four seconds for the man from Mars to understand what the site is about.
• The site doesn't make the organization or individuals look like credible professionals.
• The site's navigation is Flash-based.
• The site uses Mystery Meat Navigation.

Read more of his views, seriously tongue in cheek, here.

Web Humour

"Web publishing is no more about HTML than book publishing is about type fonts."
- Henri de Toulouse-LaTech

"Although art can be created with a chainsaw, this is hardly a justification for giving every would-be artist a chainsaw."
- Vincent van Gui, - commenting on some of the newer "extensions" to HTML

"In a successful advertisement it's the graphics that grab you, but it's the text that does the selling."
- Pablo PigCasso

"Before you put a really dark background on your web page, ask yourself this:
Why is it so much harder to drive at night than in the daytime?"
- Henri de Toulouse-LaTech

"Where were you when the page was blank?"
- Truman Capote

From: Art and the Zen of Websites

Bloggers, Awards, and the Main Stream Media

Bloggers' awards are an important way to validate information available on the internet. But that begs the question. Are blogs the best way to get information?

Yesterday's TVO (TVOntario) guest Andrew Keen doesn't seem to think so. His point is that professional media or Main Stream Media (MSM), like newspapers and television, spend time and research in order to produce their information. Blogs are the product of amateurs and not to be really trusted, is his conclusion.

But, it is interesting that some of the most important stories on the MSM were broken by bloggers. And one of the the US' most unlikely candidates, Ron Paul, is making headways because of the internet.

The 2007 Weblog Awards have given out their prizes according to categories. This shows you just how varied bloggers are, and that they can't really be put in a convenient niche of "amateurs". A gossip blog hardly rates the same as a technology blog.

There is a tendency, I agree, for blogs to be pop-culture oriented. There is no "Arts Blog" category in the Weblog Awards, and the Music Blogs finalists are all pop or rock. But, that just happens to be the choices that the Weblog Awards committee chose. Of course all those blogs are out there, but they now appear on a third tier - MSM, MSB (Main Stream Bloggers) and The Rest. But, unlike CBC or TVO, you don't have to wait for the media channel to bring you your favorite story, you can find them just as well yourself.

Still, like my previous post, video didn't kill radio, and blogs aren't going to replace MSM too soon. They just provide the choice and alternate interaction that makes news, hobbies, businesses, and any subject that you fancy, more interesting.