After you have worked out (to your satisfaction) exactly what it is you want your website to accomplish, then how do you tell if it is working? Or, in other words, how will you measure success?

Let’s suppose that what you really want from your website is to increase sales and find new sales leads.

If you have set a goal for your website to increase sales, then you must implement some method of tracking sales coming from the website.

If you have set a goal for your website to find new sales leads, then you must implement some method of knowing the source of sales leads.

Basically, you need analytics. If you know that you were getting 20 sales a day prior to adding the new product catalog and now you are getting 30 sales a day, then you can demonstrate an increase of 50%.

If you know that marketing was receiving 50 inquiries a week before the website and now they are receiving 150 inquiries a week, then you have 300% increase in new leads.

If you have no method of tracking sales or of counting new sales leads, then you have no method of determining changes in stats.

This seems very obvious. But until you sit down to actualize the process it may escape your notice that the  current invoicing system doesn’t have a data field for source. Or, you may not discover that it will become necessary to expand your reporting software to sort on sales source. And, it is not that impossible to imagine   your sales people don’t even collect information about where new leads are coming from. They could be so happy to have a new lead they don’t even bother with “where did you hear about us.”

All of the above you most likely are very familiar with, and should not need to be told. The part that may have escaped your attention is the importance of going through this process as early in the website design as possible. The reason is: your webmaster may need to revise the structure of the site to facilitate tracking of your goals.

Heard that expression before?

Lately that’s been my experience — except in addition to be the “caught” I’m also the “rock” and the “hard place.”

I can hear the knowing chuckle of a few forest monks wafting through the air. [Note to self: haven’t used waft in a decade or so, better look it up.] [Subsequent note: yep it means what we thought — to float or be carried, esp. through the air. Ah, the wonders of dictionary.com]

As always the trick is in the attitude. Can’t change the being caught between a rock and a hard place. Don’t really have control over that. But I do have a choice in attitude I adopt.

That is a question that should be asked by every website owner — maybe not in that form. But it still needs to be asked. Other versions of this question could be:

• Why Do You Want A Website?
• What do you want your website to do for you?
• What do  you think a website can do for you?
• How will you measure success of your website?
• What changes in your life (or business) do you expect after getting a website?
• If you don’t do this website how will that change your situation?

The above questions are more or less the same. However, like the five blind men feeling an elephant — each question will give a different perspective on the same animal. In this case that animal is the expectations you have for your website.

Those expectations can be reasonable or they can be totally unreasonable. That is not the point. Before you can even begin to assess the appropriateness of an expectation you really need to know what the expectations are.

These expectations for your website are very important. If you can confess to your web designer what it is you want the website to do you will make life and the development of your website so much easier.

Armed with knowledge of your expectations the web designer might suggest splitting your proposed website into two or more smaller websites. How could this be? Well, let’s suppose your expectations for your website are to establish better customer relations, support your sales staff in their marketing campaigns and explore your family genealogy.

An odd combination of expectations for a single website. But very valid expectations for two or more websites. One website could be created devoted to the family genealogy. Another website could be created to handle the customer support with a sub-domain devoted to sales staff support. Or, perhaps you could benefit from three separate websites — two public domains and one running on an intranet devoted to staff issues.

Each of the above goals (or expectations) were equally valid. However, it could be very difficult to design one website to do all of the above. Thrusting personal and family topics into a business website is just a bad idea — unless of course you are in the business of genealogy. The language and topic appropriate to a frank and open discussion with your sales staff might be a little off-putting to your customers. Or, perhaps not. Depending on the nature of your business, you could very easily use public communications to sales staff as a back-door method of speaking to customers about topics that might be more difficult straight on.

There is no single solution. However, until you confess your expectations for your website it is very difficult to even start the process of getting down to it.

Those you watching the past two weeks may have noticed the appearance then sudden disappearance of several blogs on SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Well, they are not gone. I’ve started a new blog: made-easy-seo.blogspot.com

Click on over there if you’d like to find the missing SEO blogs that were here, and several new ones besides.

Get Maximum Results By Optimizing Communication With Your Webmaster

Seven Simple Steps that will increase effectiveness of website development and decrease costs by optimizing communication with your webmaster.

• Have a List
• Ask For What You Want
• Email Confirmation of Phone Conversations
• Single Topic Emails
• Expect Confirmation
• Expect Milestone Deliveries
• Freely Confess

These hints for better communication were not invented just now.
I expect you may already be very familiar with many of these suggestions. They are just being stuffed into one common location for perusal’s sake. Admittedly this is not a complete list. But these should get you headed in the right direction.

Have a List

Lists are wonderful — Christmas lists, todo lists, shopping lists, lists of all types. They are great
tools. If you are preparing for a phone conference with your webmaster create a list of points you wish to
cover. This list can include points that must be discussed today, and also include points that just need to be
discussed at some point — not necessarily today.

If you have friends, family and/or staff doing usability testing of your new website collect their observations
into a list. By having a list you can check off items as they are covered and make certain to not become distracted by topics of the moment. Seems obvious, but I really could have used such a list last week when speaking to my tax accountant. These recommendations come from a combination of things we have benefited from doing *and* from things we really wish we had done.

Ask For What You Want

Admittedly, it is not always possible to know what you want.
But if you do know what you want, then ask for it. Don’t be bashful. Do not think that the current
status quo is the only way it can be. Don’t fall into the “good enough, we’ll wait and see.”
The current status of a project is simply the current status of a project.
If you suddenly decide that you really want the background
for the site to be black not white, ask. If you realize part way into the project that
you need more in the way of social media integration, then ask for it. Problems do not improve with age.
The sooner you communcate the better. This is after all your web design project. The webmaster just
happens to be someone skillful enough in html, css and other programming to help you with your website.

Email Confirmation of Phone Conversations

After a phone confersation email the webmaster with your understanding what transpired. Include requests for
changes, specification of additions, and perhaps acknowledgments of points that were completed.
This type of email confirmation does not need to be massive or ultra detailed. Just include enough detail
to confirm whatever the specifics were.

Who knows… after sending such an email you might get a reply such as: “Thanks so much for the heads up,
I thought we discussed dropping the one thing and doing the other thing instead.”
The fewer the number of hours your webmaster works in the wrong direction the better for all concerned.

Single Topic Emails

Whenever possible dedicate each email to just one topic or a set of closely aligned topics.
For example, if you have several graphic issues to discuss in addition to a pile of content corrections,
write two separate emails. In one email address the various graphic image issues. In the other email enumerate the various content modifications you want done.
Why? Because, graphic manipulation and content correction are different types of activities. When
a webmaster is working on graphics they will tend to continue working on graphics until all known graphic
issues are handled. And, when a webmaster is making content corrections, he (or she) will continue
making content edits until they are complete.

So, if you send the instructions in two separate emails the webmaster can break your job into two
separate work sessions without fear of letting anything fall between the cracks. And, they can hit the
email reply button to acknowledge completion of all items in an email. This type of focus has many benefits. Not the least of which is ease of tracking completed and open items.

Expect Confirmation

Make it clear to your webmaster that you expect confirmation on each aspect of your work together.
If you give him or her a list of todo items for the website, expect one email confirming that your requests
have been received and understood and a separate email confirming completion. This may seem like too much
communication. But, it can be so invaluable for detecting lost emails and misunderstandings. The savings
in time and confusion are well worth the few extra clicks.

Expect Milestone Deliveries

I’m a big believer in Agile Programming — basically reviewing results periodically during development
so that adjustments can be made when changing status of the project suggests them. It makes a
world of sense to have your webmaster design and present a rough template of your pages before
spending hours or days creating those pages. Let the webmaster use latin gibberish to fill in
paragraphs and clip-art as placeholders for grahics. In this way you can see where the page is going,
and make adjustments before a dozen pages have been created based on a bad design. Granted no web page is carved in stone. Design can be adjusted quite easily. But it will still cost time to move paragraphs around.
It would be silly to have a printer produce 10,000 brouchures before you have a chance to review and approve and proof. And typically you will be shown a mockup before the printer invests time in typesetting.
Use everything you know from standard business practices.

Other types of milestones might be related to functionality. For example, it could be useful to
view a slideshow widget in basic operation before having it fully programmed. Basically make sure you are
in the loop and get to see what is happening in smaller chunks so that you can change directions
when your newly educated vision dictates.

Freely Confess

Everyone runs into speed bumps and even road blocks. If you have tasks on your plate that you are
finding difficult or impossible to complete, then tell the webmaster. For example: “Just wanted to let you know
that I am not going to be able to deliver the graphics in a timely manner. I just can’t find the right program
to convert the tiff files to jpgs.” The webmaster upon hearing this should instantly reply: “Not a probem at all
just send me the tiff files and I will convert them. Will just take a few minutes.
Or perhaps you can’t find the sales brouchure from last falls marketing campaign. Tell the webmaster: “Just letting you know it may be a week or two before I can get you that brouchre we discussed.” At this point the webmaster may reply: “Perfectly fine. I was hoping to use the brouchure as a way to develop an appreciation for your standard look and feel. But after last weeks meeting I think I have everything I need.”
Or, perhaps the webmaster will reply: “You idiot how can you expect me to do this project without that.” This will tell you two very important things. 1) It is important to find that thing (whatever it is) and 2) You need to get a new  webmaster that has more respect and is a little more flexible and creative.

That was my question. How often should one post to a blog? What is the recommended frequency. So, I went to google (still prefer google over ask, bing, yahoo, and all the rest). In google I did a simple search on the expression “How often should I post my blog?”

One (less than helpful) article suggested not posting too much and not posting too little. I kinda think that bloglet was posted to meet some daily quota.

Another article suggested the following pattern:

• 3-5 times a day for your super bloggers
• 1 (once) a day for good steady growth of your blog
• 2-3 times a week if you are serious at all
• less than 2-3 times a week for someone that is just playing around (i.e. not serious about traffic)

I didn’t see any listing for once every couple months.

So, until further notice, based on the dozen or so articles I’ve looked at I think trying for once a day with a few days missed because of god only knows what interruptions will be a good plan.

Okay, now let’s see how that goes……

Or, at least they intend to be sincere

“About What” you ask? Here I am referring to the following comment found on their Webmaster’s Guidelines page.

Quote: “Google’s goal is to provide users with the most relevant results and a great user experience.”

“That’s nice” you say, “But what does this have to do with me or anything else for that matter?”

Here’s the deal. There is much said about Search Engine Optimization. And, there are many, many folks out there trying to make a buck by either swindling you or serving you in the area of SEO.

Again you say, “That’s nice… But what does this have to do with me or anything else for that matter?”

Well, 90% of all search engine optimization falls under the category of “Do whatever it takes to give those readers of your webpage a quality experience.”

That means,

• provide good content
• make sure the page html is valid
• test your links
• keep the page fast
• organize your site well
• make sure you contribute something new

Basically be sincere about your own desire to provider users with a rich enjoyable and rewarding experience when they visit your website.

To quote further from Google: “Webmasters who spend their energies upholding the spirit of the basic principles will provide a much better user experience and subsequently enjoy better ranking than those who spend their time looking for loopholes they can exploit.” (the bold is my subtle way of making sure you caught that part. Google is actually striving to create search engine algorithms that will reward webmasters that give good content.

The shysters and tricky loop-hole exploiters will win in the short run. But if you are building your website for the long run concentrate on content first. You will do better.

However,….. (note there is a however here) there are very specific recommended actions that go beyond anything you would normally do when creating just content.

Here’s an example: “Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.” This is not something you would normally do when just writing content for your own webpage. At this point you are being recommended to stop, think about what some stranger might type into a search window when looking for your website. Then, deliberately insert those keywords into your webpages. This is an artificial, contrived action that is specifically designed to increase the chances of a stranger finding your webpage. This is not only allowed, it is specifically recommended.

So, first things first: create great content. Then second things second: take those steps necessary to make sure strangers have the best opportunity of finding your great content.

Poking around the web looking into the basics of SEO (search engine optimization) you’ll soon discover many articles professing to give the basics of SEO. After reading a few of these page you should soon notice something interesting, they all cover the same basic points AND they cover the same basic points in the same order.

If you know how to do a little behind the scenes prodding, you’ll discovered that Google has published a pdf file called Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide. This is the source of most if not all of the so-called basic SEO guides on the web.
Do yourself a favor. Before doing any general research on SEO read the Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide. Since they are the original source of this document you can get it straight from the horse’s mouth — so to speak. And, when you do further research you will be better prepared to identify new information.

Javascript is a powerful and useful language for adding interactivity and functionality to your web page. This is a good thing.

However, if you have been paying attention over the past few years you will have noticed that from time to time javascript was used by hackers to attack systems with hit-and-run viruses. Sometimes the javascript was the core attack. And sometimes javascript was simply the mechanism used to load the core attack.

In any case, during these times of attack it was recommended by security type experts to turn off javascript except for trusted websites. In fact a rather popular addon for Mozilla called NoScript was written to administrate this function of allowing and dis-allowing javascript on individual websites.

What does this mean to a website developer?

Does this mean that we should not be using javascript?

This does not mean that one should not use javascript. However, unless you happen to work for a 900 pound gorilla of a website it does mean that you should guarantee that navigation and other critical components of your website will function even in the absence of javascript.

Amazon can insist that all viewers allow javascript before opening the first page. This is because they are that well known and have that much clout.

However, if you do not have that much clout, if you are not that well know, it would be a good idea to let viewers poke around on your website before insisting they allow javascript.

In practical terms this means that fancy java run drop-down menus can be a problem. However, a left-side vertical system of accordion type menus can work just fine. Just make sure that the default state is open.

Just for the heck of it I created a system of expanding and contracting sub-sections on one of my web pages. That page is Review of Programming I do for Galaxy Website Design.

If you look at this page with javascript turned off you will see a bunch of headings and associated descriptive content — fully expanded.

If you look at this page with javascript turned on, you will see a bunch of headings in a list type form. If you click on a heading it will expand to reveal the associated text.

I do this by keeping the default state of the content as visible. AND, then with javascript I hide the content. That means the content is visible to those who have chosen to turn off javascript.

However, for those with javascript the page is made a bit more fun and perhaps easier to digest.

Following yet another computer death I’ve been forced to seriously reexamine my perspective on computers. I know to many my previous treatment of computers will seem quaint and perhaps mildly amusing in my naivete.

Once upon a time, at a workstation far, far away, my computer was a work environment established through hours of installation and configuration.

I do a lot of different things. Write books, edit video, create websites, program Flash, Flex, C++, write games, and create graphic/sound resources for video games. Each of these functions requires its own special program(s). And, each program seems to require some form of special configuration.

Putting my computer work environment together is a many hour job that could stretch over the course of several weeks.

The approach to setting up my computer is not unlike the approach of an organic gardener may take with a parcel of land. The gardener would add mulch and nutrients to the soil over the course of years to build it up. This same gardener may balance the pH, monitor and improve the local fauna — such as worms and other soil friendly critters. It can take a gardener many seasons to get the soil just right.

Taking this type of approach makes the notion of selling the farm and moving down the road a few miles a bit daunting.

For me it is the same. Given the amount of time that I put into setup and configuration of my computer environment it is easy to assume the posture of investment in the computer as a parcel of tilled soil. With digital mulch and binary nutrients turned into the bits and bytes.

However, after yet another computer death, it has become painfully obvious that I need a different approach to the computer.

As of now I am taking the tack that any computer I use is rented and subject to repossession at any time.

Previously configuration was a “by hook or crook,just get the job done” type of affair. Now it is more important to document the configuration and create mechanisms for reestablishing the configuration should the need arise.

The first C++ environment I created required several years — adding custom components bit by bit over the course of many project.

The second C++ environment was created over the course of several very painful days as I strained my meager mental resources to remember where and why and how I stuffed the various components around on my computer.

The third C++ environment was created over the course of a single (slightly less painful) day. On this occasion, I spent most of my time normalizing the component installations so that I had easy to capture and easy to re-install folder mappings. I gave up on the notion of putting my source on a d drive or e drive or any other drive than c. Why? Because I could not be guaranteed that whatever new computer I was forced to use would be partitioned.

Speaking of partitions, I have given up on the notion of working within partitions. That whole view came from ancient computing when it mattered that certain functions were on separate (physically separate) drives. This would optimize the trashing and access. Now I just put it all in C. This way I am not put into the position of needing to run Partition Magic and re-create folder arrays every time I start to use a computer. This is especially important on computers and I’m more or less “renting”. It may not be possible to partition. Thus, it is simply easier to work on one big C drive.

I have affirmed and doubly committed myself to working in patterns. All of my Flex 3 projects live in a folder called c:\flex3. This way, when I move projects from one computer to another I don’t have to worry so much about updating search path parameters. The project used to look for a class in c:\flex3\something-or-other, and by Gadsby that class has been moved into the same folder on the new setup. If I was smarter I suppose I could do something wicked clever with the search paths. Sigh. Maybe in a different incarnation.

This kind of nomadic approach to computing has given me renewed respect for applications that don’t embed themselves into every nook and cranny of the registry. Pegasus (my email client) is a wonder to behold. Copy that puppy onto a new drive and it just flat out runs. Now if only I could get the programmers to let the drive localization be stored in a single setup file, then I could put this application into any drive and let it run.

I believe there is going to be a migration of more and more applications into a nomadic friendly form. (Egads what a pun.) Even so, it will be a good move.

It would be so sweet if each application had a single configuration file (or small set of configuration files) that would hold all the special information, AND, then allowed for easy export and import of this information.

It would be doubly sweet if more and more applications where thumb drive friendly. Let me have Maya on a thumb drive. Then when it comes time to create a 3d model I just insert the Maya USB drive and work away.

I have several programs that each time I migrate from one dead hulk of a computer to a new computer I am forced to call the manufacture and ask special dispensation to move the application. Believe it, this is influencing my purchase decisions. If the manufacture is tracking which computer is “home” to the installation and, if they get all uppity when I am forced by ram, motherboard, or power supply to move to a new computer, then that manufacture goes on the “dump it as soon as you find a replacement” list.

I anticipate the time when my programs and data are stored on a memory device with no moving parts to fail (along with a backup of said device). Then when I want to do anything, I insert that bugger into the appropriate compartment on my “computer” then work away. When I done, I remove the storage device and move along. Basically my data and applications need to be as removed as possible from any of the riff-raff imminent obsolescent computer components that are just a matter of time away from going up in smoke.

Heck darn, I can even see a Raid like array of non-volatile ram with automatic checksums and a little repair light that brightens when I need to excise a ram chip and insert a replacement.

But, then I would be back to the same situation of building a “home” where the gigabytes roam. While the above vision of transportable environment would be nice. One day I can “rent” time on a computer optimized for video rendering, the next day I could “rent” time on a computer optimized for program debugging. Ah sigh, would be nice. But it is still heavily involved with the notion of an established home base. And that concept itself is flawed.

What’s really required is for me to develop the ability to find myself in a new situation, quickly establish a working environment from pieces readily available in that environment, then get down to work.

The process of establishing a “working environment” is partly a mechanism for imposing one’s view of what one was — rather than creating a way to be the way one is — or needs to be.

So while I believe it is worthwhile to work out mechanisms to more quickly re-establish my programming/working environments, I think it is even more important to exercise my ability to mutate with the flux.