tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51480057499484498932024-03-06T12:00:01.598-08:00SmartyTruckInformation for entrepreneurs, small companies, nonprofits and associations looking to brand, design, develop, or market a product or service online and offline.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04035653257646082847noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148005749948449893.post-46366110277243174322016-07-28T22:31:00.004-07:002016-07-28T22:36:04.002-07:00CovergenceOr, why I'm committing to <a href="https://www.toptal.com/designers/visual" target="_blank">Toptal Visual designers group</a>, a marketplace for the top companies to find the top visual designers for their projects.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXMavQdkr-PA7YHxRBY7CF6glus8SwaD_LKRDc2yxU6yn5FA74dzAmbumBQGZgo0IOUuBGKRz0dpawYwSZ_OzCzX2-1Vy1afUM3aYaOb86vzcIjly7SUoXlkF1DLrOZI405nL10Cv1pLNe/s1600/CinderellaMan1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="James Braddock teaching his son a life lesson about integrity" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXMavQdkr-PA7YHxRBY7CF6glus8SwaD_LKRDc2yxU6yn5FA74dzAmbumBQGZgo0IOUuBGKRz0dpawYwSZ_OzCzX2-1Vy1afUM3aYaOb86vzcIjly7SUoXlkF1DLrOZI405nL10Cv1pLNe/s1600/CinderellaMan1.jpg" title="" /></a></div>
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<br />
I was watching Ron Howard's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlbHzcH4VJY" target="_blank">Cinderella Man</a> with my two sons, 9 and 12 years old. It was troubling, on one hand, unbelievable on the other, watching the main character, a man of integrity, struggle to buy milk and keep his family warm during the Great Depression.<br />
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His struggles and ultimate victory against poverty, famine, and financial security during a period in history that I haven’t seen or experienced were grounding.<br />
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Introspective</div>
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When it’s too cold in my house, I turn up the heat. Fresh water comes easy. Everything comes easy in fact. The three grocery stores within 5 miles from my house have shelf after shelf of fresh food. Heck, we have apps to find a ride, someone to park our car, delivery said groceries and most everything we can want or need.<br />
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Seeing Mr. Braddock fight (literally) for the things my sons and I take for granted was again, grounding.<br />
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Not only that but the path he took to get to financial security all happened for a reason. Even the Great Depression.<br />
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As I watched, I could see my path to reach the point where I’m committing myself to join a global marketplace of top-notch designers.<br />
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Commitment doesn’t come easily. Just like the money James J. Braddock earned to turn the heat on in his home, or give his children milk.<br />
<br />
My wife made a commitment to me 11 years ago when she gave me the opportunity to chase my entrepreneurial dream. After years of bad luck and failure in the Silicon Valley startup scene, I learned the design and development skills that gave me the opportunity to work for Apple, Facebook, Google, Walmart Big Data, and Kaiser Permanente. Through good and tough times, it all happened for a reason.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>The pre-AirBnb collection of Washington, D.C. homes and B&Bs helped me refine my:</li>
<ul>
<li>Visual design skills</li>
<li>Art Direction and photography techniques</li>
<li>Front end development abilities</li>
</ul>
<li>That subscription-based library of videos for parents of children with autism taught me:</li>
<ul>
<li>How to create user-friendly interfaces to filter and search complex hierarchies</li>
<li>The meaning of user-centered design from having my initial concept trashed during user-testing</li>
</ul>
<li>That printed book containing thousands of herbs I designed a web interface for users to access the information taught me</li>
<ul>
<li>How to deliver the information at the right time making an experience delightful</li>
<li>Grids using a double-strand modular scale for readability and harmony</li>
</ul>
<li>The e-card startup taught me:</li>
<ul>
<li>Agile methodologies</li>
<li>User-centered design</li>
<li>How to design a brand and a marketing strategy</li>
<li>Carry out Information Architecture tests like card sorts and tree tests</li>
</ul>
<li>The search engine for millions of electronic chips startup helped me understand:</li>
<ul>
<li>How to design Enterprise level UX</li>
<li>The true meaning of user flows and customer journeys</li>
<li>How to plan and run design sprints</li>
<li>I can solve complex problems creatively</li>
</ul>
</ul>
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Realization</div>
<br />
And tonight, I did a Google search and found Toptal through an Entrepreneur.com <a href="https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/245953" target="_blank">article</a>. Toptal's 'why' of helping the world's leading businesses accomplish their goals resonated with me. I have the chance to work on meaningful projects with great clients. I have the opportunity to use my interdisciplinary skills in design and development to help people do what they want to do on a website efficiently while helping companies accomplish what they want to be done effectively. UX Design win-win. This is why I want to commit to Toptal – convergence.<br />
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<i>Photo courtesy of Universal Studios</i><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04035653257646082847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148005749948449893.post-60690440264760812932015-09-03T08:20:00.000-07:002015-09-03T08:31:33.830-07:00Dear Google, please tweak the kerning of your new logo. :)Disclaimer: I know the Google designers are amazing and this is just my own optical preference.<br />
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<img alt="Google's logotype kerning exercise" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMp6RRBLhmlCYCTJBtQ9veY5VTxLkkpio679g9vtk-t2JLRlFToEUwDgJ6p-VOMlKrRmhxuE0B8fdEByZYXljT4We0nLAFrsxoYUpd-TosqwngpFOJ5drfGF3v8Tjz1Tx7UN4gRlrrCIvx/s1600/Google-rebrand-kearning-tweak.gif" title="Please kern the logotype!" /></div>
<br />
I'd love to see the kerning tightened between the "G" and the first "o". :)<br />
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See my before and after tweaks.<br />
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Do you agree with me or not? Leave your comments below!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04035653257646082847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148005749948449893.post-81461716566522720762015-06-24T21:12:00.000-07:002015-06-24T21:14:36.618-07:00Scam "topfarmproduce.com" targeting web designersMy hope is by writing this I can spread the word and help fellow designers avoid being scammed.<br />
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<div class="postSubheader">
The bait...</div>
<br />
I received this email from my website's contact form:<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 6:46 AM, Smarty Truck </i><webmaster lrtico.com=""><i> wrote:</i> </webmaster><br />
<webmaster lrtico.com="">full_name : david</webmaster><br />
<webmaster lrtico.com="">email : davidlewis957@gmail.com </webmaster><br />
<webmaster lrtico.com="">Message : Hello, i would like to know if you do web design and do you accept credit card for payment??</webmaster><br />
<webmaster lrtico.com=""></webmaster><br />
<a name='more'></a><webmaster lrtico.com="">After my quick reply basically saying yes, I received this email:</webmaster><br />
<webmaster lrtico.com=""><i><br /></i></webmaster>
<webmaster lrtico.com="">
<i>On Tue, Jun 23, 2015 at 8:42 AM, David Lewis <davidlewis957 gmail.com=""> wrote:</davidlewis957></i><br />
<davidlewis957 gmail.com="">Hello,
Here is the job details
I have small scale business which i want to turn into large scale business now it located in usa and the company is based on importing and exporting of Agriculture products such as Kola Nut, Gacillia Nut and Cocoa so i need a best of the best layout design for it. Can you handle that for me ?. so i need you to check out this site but i need something more perfect than this if its possible</davidlewis957><br />
<davidlewis957 gmail.com=""><br /></davidlewis957>
<davidlewis957 gmail.com="">Here is the Site themeforest.net..... the site would only be informational, so i need you to give me an estimate based on the site i gave you to check out, the estimate should include hosting and i want the same page as the site i gave you to check out and i have a private project consultant, he has the text content and the logos for the site.</davidlewis957></webmaster><br />
<webmaster lrtico.com=""><davidlewis957 gmail.com=""><br /></davidlewis957></webmaster>
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<div class="postSubheader">
The catch...</div>
<br />
The scam is the person sends me "his/her" credit card number which I then run and proceed to send a chunk to the person who is holding the content.<br />
<br />
<div class="postSubheader">
The illegal part...</div>
<br />
The credit card is stolen, running it and sending money to someone is laundering essentially. So while the job seemed to be fairly easy and a nice chunk of change, like Lietenant Aldo Raine from the movie "Inglorious Bastards" said to Col. Hans Landa, "I've done my share of bootlegging. Up 'ere, if you engage in what the federal government calls 'illegal activity,' but what we call 'just a man tryin' to make a livin' for his family sellin' moonshine liquor,' it behooves oneself to keep his wits. <i><b>Long story short, we hear a story too good to be true... it ain't</b></i>. "<br />
<br />
Luckily my spidey sense went off and thanks to Zachary Ball at <a href="http://www.hgstudio.com/">http://www.hgstudio.com</a> who confirmed my suspicions, I avoided doing any business with this scammer. Shame on them for wasting designers time and money.<br />
<br />
More proof courtesy of Google:<br />
<webmaster lrtico.com=""><davidlewis957 gmail.com=""><a href="http://blog.ihenix.com/nearly-got-scammed/" target="_blank">http://blog.ihenix.com/nearly-got-scammed/</a><davidlewis957 gmail.com=""><jpowell lrtico.com=""><davidlewis957 gmail.com=""><jpowell lrtico.com=""><davidlewis957 gmail.com=""><jpowell lrtico.com=""><webmaster lrtico.com=""><br />
</webmaster></jpowell></davidlewis957></jpowell></davidlewis957></jpowell></davidlewis957></davidlewis957></webmaster>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04035653257646082847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148005749948449893.post-53276357204800056602015-04-08T22:26:00.000-07:002015-04-08T22:42:28.279-07:00What does SEO mean?<b>SEO</b> stands for search engine optimization, which is a fancy word for ways you can make your website easier for search engines (Google) to find.<br />
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<img alt="Chocolate chip cookies SEO example" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ-_90FcGOUWT9BEL7dPkrdJEarCxJP6GtUOyoMbUILpAbZf5c3bZJPNSy34jt-uVrfm3GiLps50v3Q6rwyjoEc9Hj3l88QHixwfEpdpg1VJhmkzSZ0UqJRjCfyW9ar6bZNI32xDHtnW-9/s1600/chocolate-chip-cookies-recipe-seo.jpg" title="chocolate chip cookies seo analogy" /></div>
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Google is a software program that has a bucket full of the world's websites. When someone searches for something like "Chocolate chip cookie recipe" Google looks in its bucket of websites and finds all the sites that have those words in it.<br />
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There are millions of sites that have those words, so Google has a way of ranking them in a numerical order.<br />
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These ways can be learned and then used on your website to help Google put your chocolate chip cookie recipe before some other website.<br />
<br />
Simply put, place the keywords "Chocolate chip cookie recipe" in the actual name of the page, the page's title tag, the page's description (called a meta tag), the HTML heading tags (H1 and H2), in the beautiful and inviting image alt tag of a chocolate chip cookie you have on your page, and as bold and italic text in the body of the recipe one time.<br />
<br />
You're probably thinking, that doesn't sound right, it doesn't make sense, how can you repeat that phrase so many times on the page and not sound like a Dodo?<br />
<br />
It's not easy, but with some creative copywriting it can be done and done right - without abusing the system. The key is to use the keywords smartly and in a relevant manner. The page's title tag could be "Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe | Homemade | Organic". The meta description could be "Follow these steps to make the homemade chocolate chip cookies your Mom would be proud of." The page's H1 tag could be "The best chocolate chip recipe in the world according to my 6 year old".<br />
<br />
I'm sure somewhere in the recipe instructions or details you can fit in the phrase "<b>chocolate chip cookie recipe</b>" in bold and once in italics.<br />
<br />
That's the basics in a crash course, but not the whole story to SEO. Now that you've created this amazing piece of cookie content you need to optimize it with backlinks. Backlinks are links pointing to your recipe from other sites.<br />
<br />
This tells Google's program that hey, other sites are making these cookies so the recipe must be good. I better share this recipe with people who ask my bucket for how to make a chocolate chip cookie.<br />
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I'm over simplifying this process but from a helicopter view that's what goes on. There's more complicated things related to SEO but if you can master the basics plus link building and do it over and over again with other pieces of content you'll be doing good.<br />
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If you have any questions or want to know more leave a comment. If you don't like my making Google out to be a giant bucket let me know.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04035653257646082847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148005749948449893.post-71216889222865780492015-04-08T21:27:00.000-07:002015-04-08T21:27:33.993-07:00The best BBQ ribs I've ever hadImagine coming home from a long day's work and welcomed by a wave of deliciousness so good it makes you close your eyes and smile? Or how cool you'd be in your children's eyes by making dinner time a memorable aromatic experience all day long?<br />
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Throw these ingredients into a crock pot, hit the 8 hour button, and forget about it. This is a go-to meal for my two growing boys.<br />
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<b>Prep time</b>:<br />
15 minutes<br />
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<b>What you need</b>:<br />
3 lbs. of baby back ribs<br />
1 medium onion<br />
Dash of salt, pinch of pepper<br />
1/2 cup of water<br />
1 clove of garlic (if fresh isn't available I've liberally poured garlic powder in with good results)<br />
<br />
1 baking potato per person<br />
Sour cream<br />
Bacon bits<br />
Chives<br />
Monterey cheese<br />
<br />
Sweet peas, asparagus, carrots<br />
<br />
1 bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce<br />
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<b>How you make the dish</b>:<br />
Place the ribs in the crock pot. Dice the onion and sprinkle it around the ribs. Add a dash of salt and pinch of black pepper. Press the time that works best for you.<br />
<br />
That's it. Seriously.<br />
<br />
Preheat your oven to 375º F. Take the ribs out of the crock pot, put them on a cookie sheet and smother them heartily with the BBQ sauce. Place the ribs into the oven and cook for 10-15 minutes.<br />
<br />
Prepare the potatoes as you prefer. If it's winter time I'll place them in the oven 1 hour before the ribs are ready. I usually nuke them for 4 minutes before to soften them up and shorten the baking time. Sometimes I'll change it up and make Amy's organic cheddar macaroni and cheese.<br />
<br />
Get the veggies ready and set the table with the meal. Sit down and dig in!<br />
<br />
If you're feeling ambitious, top off the meal with an ice cream cookie sandwich or a slice of blueberry pie. Bon appétit! (pop!)<br />
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What's your favorite go-to meal? Please share it in the comments below. :)<br />
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<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04035653257646082847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148005749948449893.post-12817102053650431672015-03-15T13:38:00.000-07:002015-03-15T14:00:05.624-07:003 ways to use LinkedIn from Scott KlososkyScott Klososky is a serial entrepreneur who is a guru in the digital marketing space.<br />
<br />
<div class="postSubheader">
3 quick tips for using LinkedIn are:</div>
<ol>
<li><b>Crowdsourcing</b>: Utilize your LinkedIn network when you have a question about something. In one click you can reach out and receive great resources, tips, and advice on your problem.</li>
<ol>
<li>MosaicHUB is another crowdsourcing resource you can receive education on a variety of topics on.</li>
</ol>
<li><b>Warm leads</b>: LinkedIn was originally made for this purpose - find people who can introduce you to someone you’ve identified as a prospect.</li>
<li><b>Surveillance</b>: Monitor your connections' status changes so you can be the first to know of any important contacts that change jobs. Let's say you have a past client that you're on good terms with. Through surveillance, you're able to pitch them and their new company. Another way to use this tactic is let’s say you sell houses, and you see a status update that someone retired or changed jobs. That’s an opportunity for you to reach out to them and offer them something of value and create more of a connection which ultimately may lead to them choosing you as their real estate agent.</li>
</ol>
<div>
For more great digital marketing and social network advice from Scott check out his video on YouTube: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez8yA7wgZdk">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez8yA7wgZdk</a></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04035653257646082847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148005749948449893.post-60455873046902201502015-03-07T10:49:00.002-08:002015-03-07T10:54:09.313-08:004 questions to help you revisit or create your personal elevator speech.Recently I was asked what I do in a great networking situation. I failed miserably! Since I've changed my professional focus I wasn't prepared to clearly explain what I do to this person and probably failed to make an strong impression.<br />
<br />
Imagine you're waiting in a long line at your bank. The person in front of you turns around and you two start chatting. After some pleasantries, they look at you and ask "What do you do?".<br />
If you aren't prepared, you could stumble as you try to explain this memorably in less than 15 seconds.<br />
<br />
You never know when someone might turn into a client, or a lead to a client, or a friend.
If you haven't revisited your personal elevator speech in the last 12 months it's a good time to take 10 minutes and go through this exercise.<br />
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<b>What's your summary label?</b><br />
Think about what you call your job title.<br />
<i>My example</i>: I’m a website optimization agent. I figure out why a website isn’t converting and go about fixing the problems through UX/UI design, content marketing, and technical know-how.
<br />
<br />
<b>What's your professional background?</b><br />
What have you done or where have you worked?<br />
<i>My example</i>: Currently I have my own company, Little Red Truck Idea Co.<br />
<br />
<b>What's your current position/situation?</b><br />
What projects are your working on now?<br />
<i>My example</i>: Right now I’m working with two clients who are trying to position themselves as experts and sell their how-to products online as monthly subscriptions.<br />
<br />
<b>Where you are going?</b><br />
What are your goals, or what do you want to do in the next 1 year? How about in the next 5 years?<br />
<i>My example</i>: I love working with small businesses and entrepreneurs to help them be more successful by reaching their online goals. This allows me to reach my goals of supporting my family financially and giving my wife the option of staying at home with our two children.<br />
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<br />
<div class="postSubheader">
Conclusion</div>
<br />
An elevator pitch is not a sales pitch. It's a quality introduction to build a connection. Remember to follow your pitch with a question about their work.<br />
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What's your elevator speech? Leave it in the comments and we can all learn from each other!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04035653257646082847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148005749948449893.post-60433370434980583382015-02-24T10:12:00.000-08:002015-02-24T10:15:12.055-08:00Good design has plenty to do with trial and error - or it should for your brand to be successfulUnless you're business is giving away gold bricks for a dollar, you'll need a well designed site to explain to your target why they should choose you over another business.
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<img alt="Handlettered "A"" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHO8ASdn-NM3X7mRWAf5Ibyvj7TQCAeMZSw9qWSoewKiZoRVd-LnzKnpOLEisCCXuhIiBW1Yyyuw_MTwHp5oCk43VfyELItbejmyGQmsAsh7rNnyLOerGU0BozuKLGBlPRzETO1AMwy3VE/s1600/handletter-A.jpg" title="An example of a designed letterform" /></div>
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<div class="postSubheader">
What Is Good Design?</div>
<br />
Designers who are good at getting their client’s message across in a strategic way are part researcher, part historian, part analyzer, part observer, and part mad scientist.<br />
<br />
<b>A Good Design…</b><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>should never be boring</li>
<li>takes into account the user’s wants and needs</li>
<li>separates a business from it’s competitors</li>
<li>is easy to understand</li>
<li>engages the viewer and gets them to think and feel</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="postSubheader">
How a Designer Creates</div>
<br />
My first creative director would be smiling...there isn’t much mystery to good design. You know it when you see it, and it can take all sorts of forms and styles. A designer when staring at a blank white space has to decide what to fill it with and how. Sometimes she or he might have a strategist to help guide the creative task with a creative brief. Sometimes the designer has to determine the strategy for the project and write the creative brief.<br />
<br />
She or he puts on the researcher and analyzer hats to fully understand what the message means. What the company stands for. How the company wants to be perceived (note: this is how a designer begins to select a style for the design). How the company’s competitors are positioning their messages. How the competition is presenting its image. The historian designer will take a look at their inspiration notebook to see how other designers have solved a problem similar to what they are trying to solve.<br />
<br />
<div class="postSubheader">
Time to Make the Doughnuts</div>
<br />
At some point the designer will put pencil to paper and start to generate ideas to solve the problem. This is when she or he becomes a mad scientist and tries multiple variations of a solution. This is also where the client should have negotiated in the agreement that the designer not stop with the first solution in the exploratory phase. I believe the best designs are validated by trying other solutions. If a designer stops at the first solution they may miss a better one. This equates to increase in the budget and is well worth it in the hands of a capable designer.<br />
<br />
As a study, here is a single letter designed 8 different ways.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<img alt="8 designs of the letter "A"" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUEPO7ZuyfVraVleymwoOCqkGC9aKn8wxgL8vlErIYEuhDTYBS1B3J3EGeGtV3kedF3vy3buPbnntxcH7r9s_y1_T6wH5rc6ODPAmnId92mGAYF60PxmEoFCcf2ajgkA5H6AvDyRCynFB0/s1600/what-makes-good-design-good.jpg" title="" /></div>
<br />
Each solution gives a certain feeling, especially when color is introduced. Subtle color with an elegant lettering conveys sophistication. A bright candy colored background combined with a vintage lettering style gives an interesting contrast. The same colored background with a geometric letter form conveys a boldness and energy.<br />
<br />
This post isn’t meant to be a how-to course or even an in-depth analysis of what makes good design. More of a quick dive into what designers do with their time. All opinions are welcome. Leave a comment about how you see design and what you think makes a good designer.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04035653257646082847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148005749948449893.post-50202003451731430672015-02-23T20:23:00.000-08:002015-02-23T20:23:06.118-08:00Do you know if your site is user-friendly?<br />
<div class="postSubheader">
What does user-centric design mean?</div>
A user-centric design process means incorporating your users' way of thinking into your website’s user experience and user interface (UX & UI).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<img alt="User-centered design sprint" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilL1UoCYxiQW-jAp0DY18TaMSGAV7aaju5DaJUniRM5WthXSu3C3f0KSZUYEPPH_rsh9FK0WfSHS75h9R3yo5X1aNz-Dy3hzgI9tekeXRlKAROtdEXguXoKjKPn65yN5_xDJYF_YgJiHjA/s1600/user-centric-design-process-ux-design-sprint.jpg" title="Design sprint" /></div>
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
UX is how your user feels when using your website. How easily your user finds the information they’re looking for. Is your user frustrated at your site’s organization? Are they pleased at how easy and logical it is to find the information they want?<br />
<br />
UI (User Interface) is the actual layout, content, buttons, widgets on your website your users interact with and use.<br />
<br />
At an amusement park, the UI is the actual roller coaster you ride. The UX is how you feel when riding the roller coaster.<br />
<br />
<div class="postSubheader">
Why should you care about UX and UI?</div>
Because good UX and UI can lead to conversions. If your website has a goal to convert, investing in a good UX will lead to sales, emails, leads, traffic or any website goal.<br />
<br />
"Delightful content" is part of a great UX. As Jared Spool explains, this is giving your user the information they want exactly when they want it. An example he uses of delightful content is Crutchfield’s decision to re-write the manufacturer’s product descriptions for the products Crutchfield sold on their website. They found that their writing a more user-friendly description of the product led to more sales.<br />
<br />
<div class="postSubheader">
Incorporate user-testing in your web design process</div>
Ways that we’ve found lead to delightful content are card sorting, tree testing, and prototyping.<br />
<br />
<b>What is card sorting?</b><br />
Card sorting is giving your target audience a set of tasks (30-50 tasks) you expect them to do on your site. The participants (10-30 participants) organize these tasks into groups, then are asked to name these groups. This becomes your site's tree, or information architecture. This can be referred to as the navigation.<br />
<br />
<b>What is tree testing?</b><br />
Tree testing makes sure the content is organized how your users expect and want it to be. You do this by creating a set of tasks (8-10 tasks). You ask your participants (30-50 per test) to read each task, then indicate where they would expect to find the answer on your site's tree. For example, you might have a task like - you want to send your best friend a birthday card on a greeting card website. Where would you find a funny birthday card for a woman? You would have a simple outline of your site to present to the tester, and watch as they indicated how they would go about finding that card on your site.<br />
<br />
<b>What is prototyping, user testing, or usability testing?</b><br />
Prototyping is when you put the elements of your interface design in front of real people in a way that simulates what they would see on the computer screen. If you use prototyping as a part of your design process, share your experiences in the comments below. Prototypes can be paper or low fidelity versions of your site using a mockup tool like UXPin or even a PowerPoint. Running usability tests with paper prototypes are valuable for any project where user experience is important because:<br />
<ul>
<li>Paper is inexpensive</li>
<li>You do not need to learn a software tool if you choose to use paper prototypes</li>
<li>Making changes are fast, so fast you can make them during the test session</li>
<li>During the tests problems with your design can be identified early which will save you money</li>
<li>Also during the tests you can get some feedback on your business idea which can be helpful in determining product market fit</li>
</ul>
If you choose to create digital prototypes, there are many prototyping software tools available that have pre-built functions and interface elements that will save you time and money in development costs as well as:<br /><ul>
<li>Potentially save you from spending time and money on a redesign because of poor site organization problems you didn't identify early on</li>
<li>You'll get an early glimpse watching users engage with your simulated website to learn how they think and what pains they have you can solve</li>
</ul>
UXPin, Proto.io, and Keynote/Powerpoint are a few of our favorites digital prototyping tools<br /><ul>
</ul>
<b><br /></b>
<b>Benefits of a user-centric design process:</b><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Reduced development costs</li>
<ul>
<li>Find problems before they’re built into the code</li>
<li>Fixing usability problems later costs three times as much compared to getting it right the first time</li>
</ul>
<li>Increased revenue</li>
<ul>
<li>There are many cases of redesigns where user testing and prototyping increased the company’s revenue</li>
<ul>
<li>After the breastcancer.org site was redesigned following a user-centric design process, they saw a 41% increase in paid memberships</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<li>Improved customer effectiveness</li>
<ul>
<li>Since you’re listening to what you customers want, even at a small sample size of 5, your site should be easier for them to use</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<br />
Jacob Nielsen, a well respected usability guru, performed a study that proposed more than 5 users is a waste of time. His conclusion was that the amount of beneficial data drops off significantly after testing 5 users. And furthermore, running as many small tests with 5 users as you can afford will give you the most useful data on your website's usability gaps. He does state that most websites need a minimum of 15 users to find all the errors. He believes running 3 tests with 5 users is the most efficient way to find the usability errors (and best to fix errors after each test before retesting).
<br />
<br />
<b>The startup dream plan: </b><br />
We’re going to build this thing as fast as we can. We’ll launch and then we’ll learn a lot, adjust, and figure out what we need to do next.<br />
<br />
If you learn sooner you save time and reduce risk. The way you learn is bringing in users early and often during the design process.<br />
<br />
Jake Knapp has written extensively about his experiences testing design ideas while designing for Google and most recently for Google Ventures, Google's venture capital investment arm. He's even outlined his take on the 'design sprint' by writing articles detailing each day of his 5 day design sprint. Mr. Knapp's writing style is a joy to read on top of being extremely useful.<br />
<br />
Have you used a user-centered design process? Do you have process that you have found success using? Please share your thoughts below.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04035653257646082847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148005749948449893.post-51593367087848791552015-02-04T16:13:00.000-08:002015-02-04T16:18:18.025-08:00Darodar and 'ilovevitaly' link referral schemeI found 35 referral links with a 100% bounce rate the other day in one of my Google Analytics properties.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<img alt="Why not to worry about Darodar referral links to your site" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeQSxTQkaCgE1yLUEF9rdQiRi7T5d05GT8RRwyKoa9eYZi7qdr9WXqmFk_BR2hAKt6tsBppDaemz_seB6H_8tEqdzkfdXw_ydsEFLuccfZxuY4FydBgThU1D5k3AJHUhRTzpT_mxtIqS6T/s1600/Google-analytics-referral-spam-affiliate-marketing.jpg" title="" /></div>
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
I was worried so I did some digging. I found out that the referral link was “forum.topic58231229.darodar.com” and I had no idea who this site was that seemed to be sending my site traffic. The first thing I did was click the link to find out. <b>Mistake #1</b>. Luckily it’s not a costly mistake, but it’s one you shouldn’t do if you see a “darodar” or “ilovevitaly” string in your referral links traffic report.<br />
<br />
This scheme is a nuisance more than anything for your analytics and optimization efforts.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>The link has no effect on your website, there isn’t anything to be fearful of</li>
<li>There is currently no way to stop this referral spam from happening</li>
<li>Some suggest changing your .htaccess file on your site, but this won’t do anything since the bad guy never visits your site</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="postSubheader">
What does this mean for you?</div>
So why is this happening and what does it mean? The best you can do is understand this, so I’ll explain briefly.<br />
<br />
This bad person is collecting Google Analytics Tracking IDs or trying IDs sequentially. He uses your ID to ping Google Analytics directly without ever visiting your website, and sends Google Analytics a specially crafted URL for the referral.<br />
<br />
This shows up on your report and since you’re the optimizer your are, you click the link to see who gave you an external link. If you like me, you’re praying to the SEO gods that somehow this link will give you link juice on steroids and make your site rank #1 on any SERP ever delivered. Did I write that out loud? I digress… ;)<br />
<br />
Back to the clicking part. This is right where the bad person wants you. You click and go to the some affiliate site this bad person has joined. Something like Amazon, Aliabab, or Aliexpress. You get redirected to a shopping page most likely, and any purchases you might make (odds are you won’t) this bad person gets a cut.<br />
<br />
He/she isn’t trying to hurt your site. They are trying to make themselves money. The head-banging part for those of us hit by this spam is we have this referral traffic showing up in our data that we have to deal with. We need that like we need a 200 pounds weights strapped to our ankles. Even a small number like 35 visits in one day at a 100% bounce rate has a big impact on the data for this property.<br />
<br />
You could set up a custom filter to exclude this spam from future data collection, though it might not be worthwhile because of all the variables you’d have to account for. It’s probably more hassle than just knowing the percentage of traffic that is spam and accounting for that in your analysis.<br />
<br />
As G.I. Joe said, knowing is half the battle.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04035653257646082847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148005749948449893.post-57843397305322947132015-01-25T09:10:00.000-08:002015-01-25T09:11:51.847-08:00Productivity tip: Save Marketing and IT time with Google Tag Manager<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<img alt="Productivity tip: use Google's Tag Manager for your website data collection" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFJddFmIqh8rMbq1QDiECfWnteIcjvi2zStq0ts66wSOEy4RI5lp9RDt7XCq2wCfbqlW_m-lpz5IAHUwS8visVElxcFx7NiPBucMxi0YiecJ0-V2nisxosifCh0h0MCZdHZh-V7166ZnZL/s1600/productivity-save-time-google-tag-manager.jpg" title="" /></div>
<br />
<div class="postSubheader">
Who should care about this?<br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
<br />
Anyone that wants to improve their company's marketing efforts, conversion rates, traffic driving efforts. Anyone with a website that wants to know more about their users and how they can attract new users. Anyone that wants data on their traffic driving campaigns so they can analyze the results and make business decisions.<br />
<br />
This is from Maria Hwang, a lead on Airbnb’s online marketing team.
<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #d2232a; font-family: 'Old Standard TT', serif; font-size: 2em;"><b>“From a marketer’s standpoint, it’s way easier than ever before."</b></span></blockquote>
<div class="postSubheader">
What does it help you do?</div>
<br />
Using this online application you can add marketing and analytics snippets to your site or certain pages on your site quicker than adding individual snippets to the HTML pages of your site. Adding or removing tags can be done in one place and in one line of code rather than multiple places and multiple lines of code. Google even has popular tags you can choose from and add in a click of a button. That’s time-saving awesomeness!<br />
<br />
<div class="postSubheader">
How does it work?</div>
<br />
You go to Google Tag Manager and create an account. You set up your tag manager and it gives you the single snippet of code to add to your site once. Add that snippet to your site, save the HTML file and upload the HTML file to your hosting provider. That’s it from the HTML side of things.<br />
<br />
The rest is done through Tag Manager’s interface. Say you want to track analytics on your site. Click the Google Analytics button (or add the snippet for the analytics tool of your choosing) to add the analytics you want on your site. Add and remove any tag through Tag Manager, it will automatically collect the data you want.<br />
<br />
<div class="postSubheader">
How do you get started?</div>
<br />
Google makes that easy with their get started page - <a href="http://www.google.com/tagmanager/get-started.html">http://www.google.com/tagmanager/get-started.html</a><br />
<br />
Do you have time saving tips like these you would like to share? Leave a comment below!<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04035653257646082847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148005749948449893.post-72419120262200825722015-01-19T15:25:00.001-08:002015-01-19T18:41:27.881-08:00How to get Apple's "Messages" consolidated into one thread on multiple devicesI recently solved a small thorn in my communication’s side involving sending and receiving apple messages across all my devices.
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<img alt="Apple's message app" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1SLJwnUctme3dnt0aTp-Slw3nKK2NX0mSgn24x2NnZHsnO9FlvK-Iv-DViavZwkMjVViGrjrZAwSTSqVNYv1o2uF8uzDm2oZGNcPfC3K8oNZkM4h4O0tRSPKOgcjHW4eI23AwsY7URO81/s1600/apple-message-fix.jpg" title="Apple's message app" /></div>
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="postSubheader">
The Problem</div>
I was having was multiple message threads with the same person on my laptop, iPad, and iPhone.<br />
<br />
For example, Jane would send me a message from her phone and I would get it on my Macbook pro, but not my phone. Or she would send me a message from her laptop and I would get it on my phone but not my MacBook pro.<br />
<br />
This would lead to me having multiple thread conversations for the same person which is confusing. Also, I might miss a text if I’m on one of my devices and don’t have the other near me.<br />
<br />
After spending some time to figure out a solution I thought I would share it.<br />
<br />
<div class="postSubheader">
The Solution</div>
Configure the “start conversations from” message preference on all your devices to be the same.<br />
<br />
After I did that, all messages I sent going forward went to one thread all of the person’s devices. No more threads with different titles.<br />
<br />
The same went for the person on the other end. Once they configured their settings, all the messages they sent to me came to that same thread all my devices.<br />
<br />
For example, if I am at the grocery store and a client sends me a change request that I receive on my iPhone, I can reply from my phone and my reply will appear on all my devices in one thread. So when I get home and add to the reply from my laptop, my reply gets added to that thread and can be received by my client on any of their devices. So if they sent it from their phone and went home, they could see my reply from my laptop along with all the other messages in one thread. Whew!<br />
<br />
I hope this makes sense and is useful to others. Leave a comment below about your messages' thorn in the side story. Let me know how useful this article was to you (good and bad).Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04035653257646082847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148005749948449893.post-22786470936166092802014-09-10T17:00:00.001-07:002014-09-10T17:06:59.868-07:00Local SEO - how it can help your business's bottom lineWhat is Local SEO? It's combining your business's keywords with your locality. 'San Francisco organic bakery' for example.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<img alt="Local SEO could generate more sales leads if set up correctly" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxxpzGQ_AGcrED1hVtXBejucZidXJ9Dj0CoaaAK7JTpqO6XCHNsRihRpkBpGtASC__0RpIDdoBw-maDzAFySBWBTHqMfLON9Jr3e03_jZxRvyZhtAtcNVXD9xt89OSNzKm53D_j9DApfAQ/s1600/local-seo-helps-increase-web-traffic.png" title="Local SEO tactics help your business get found" /></div>
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Local SEO for companies that rely on generating leads and sales locally is an important SEO tactic to consider because of the results it produces. Restaurants for example, could benefit by Local SEO. Service providers with a physical location could also generate more sales leads and ultimately sales.<br />
<br />
Local SEO involves a focus on three key areas:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Citations</li>
<li>Online reviews</li>
<li>A presence on Google Places and Google+ Local</li>
</ol>
<br />
One of the main reasons for starting a local SEO campaign is the fact that local searchers are ready to make a purchase. Meaning they've often done their research, and are in 'buy now' mode. They are looking for you. Making sure you are visible when they do can lead directly to sales.<br />
<br />
<div class="postSubheader">
Citations</div>
<br />
This strange sounding word (in relation to SEO) refers to websites that display your company's contact information. Some of these are Google Places, Yahoo!, Bing, Foursquare, Yelp, Localeze, and Superpages.<br />
<br />
The key is to make sure all your citations are the same information that appear on your Google Places and Google+ Business pages. And yes, if you don't have either of these pages you know where your next website visit should be.<br />
<br />
If you have a website, check your site's citations by going to www.moz.com/local and entering the company name and zip code. You're looking for sites that have different contact information. Correct these variations to help optimize your website.<br />
<br />
Setting up citations on sites like these are usually free. They can take some lead time to validate you are the owner of the domain. This can take weeks sometimes, so plan accordingly.<br />
<br />
<div class="postSubheader">
Online Reviews</div>
<br />
More and more buying decisions are pushed one way or the other by online reviews. When's the last time you wanted to try a new restaurant? Or you needed to find a mechanic in your local area perhaps? When presented with two businesses, often times a higher rating can make the difference.<br />
<br />
Make asking your clients for reviews part of your post project strategy. Make it as easy as you can for your customers to create reviews. A successful strategy we use is to make our customers aware that we appreciate their feedback and include links to our social sites in emails.<br />
<br />
We'd like to hear your thoughts on Local SEO in the comments below. Have you found an effective way to get reviews from clients?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04035653257646082847noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148005749948449893.post-74941637242010260652014-08-19T20:31:00.000-07:002014-08-28T08:28:31.534-07:00What businesses can do to optimize their websitesRead a transcript of an interview with Andy Greider of Linked Insight where Jackson Powell from Little Red Truck Idea Co. talks about some DIY tactics to optimize your website.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
Andy: Hello and welcome to <i>Ask The Expert</i>, a LinkedInSite and Marketing production. I'm Andy Greider and each episode we interview another expert in their field, to help you expand your personal network and grow your business.<br />
<br />
Join us now and add another expert to your network this week.<br />
<br />
Andy: Hi there this is Andy Greider with Ask The Expert, and we have with us Jackson Powell today with Little Red Truck. Very very excited to have with us Jackson thank you for taking time out of your schedule to be here, and looking forward to talking about web design today.<br />
<br />
Jackson: Woah, thanks Andy, I'm excited too. Let's jump in.<br />
<br />
Andy: Yeah, absolutely, I know a lot of designers out there have background in either just design, or they have background in print, or they have background in web design or things like that. One of the things I love about you is the myriad of things you've done throughout your career that get you to where you are. So before we talk about web design, let's talk about why someone wants to listen to Jackson Powell about web design. What is it that you bring to the table that's a little different and a little about your background.<br />
<br />
Jackson: Well thanks that's very kind. So I studied Art History and Graphic Design at the University of Maryland, and I was able to focus on the Italian Renaissance and able to study Art History and Art in Florence, Italy, which was pretty amazing. After my undergrad I went to study computer animation at the Vancouver Film School.<br />
<br />
Andy: Excellent. And you've worked for various design firms and marketing firms as well as owning your own design firm today correct?<br />
<br />
Jackson: Yeah, that's right, so I got my feet wet in print, at a few print shops, learned about inks, papers, printing techniques, varnishes. Then at advertising agencies in interactive as well as print, got exposure and experiences in both of those.<br />
<br />
Andy: And these days you own Little Red Truck, which is a full service design studio and branding juggernaut, so, it's always exciting, today we're going to take one aspect of that we're going to talk a little bit about web design and discuss some things that businesses can do to help build their websites, with tips that you can start on today, and I guess there are really two sides to this, is that right Jackson?<br />
<br />
Jackson: That's right, there are two sides. There's the design led thinking, strategy, and then there's the technical execution.<br />
<br />
Andy: I guess let's start with the technical stuff and I know you and I have talked before about some tools you can use and there's just an amazing amount of stuff out there. Do you want to start with some things people can do that help them out to get their website ready that are technical, again DIY do-it-yourselfer types of things?<br />
<br />
Jackson: Sure, sure, definitely the first thing you want to do is turn on analytics. If you don't have analytics currently being collected on your site, do that, so there's a free service called Google Analytics which is powerful and robust. It's great, free being the keyword. You'll get a snippet you put on your site and you'll start to collect data. It's great.<br />
<br />
Andy: Excellent. Now I know there are ways to go look at keywords, there are ways to look at SEO tools as well, can you talk a little bit about keywords first?<br />
<br />
Jackson: Sure, keywords are the backbone of search engine optimization. The algorithms are changing, Google changes their algorithm constantly, but keywords are still relevant, and still important. The way to figure out which words people are using to find your product or service. The way to do that there are a lot of keyword tools. Google Adwords has a keyword planner that's associated with Google Adwords. It lets you search on keywords [in Google's database], it's really targeted towards figuring out keywords for adwords. You can use that data if your looking for it, not so much the keyword [search volume] but the ratio of search volume amongst a number of related keywords. It's a comparison exercise that's true for most every keyword tool whether it's a paid tool like Trellian's Keyword Discovery or WordTracker which is a paid tool. You're really looking at what are people searching for, for your product or service, and just comparing by creating a spreadsheet to look at all the numbers to see which words have the highest volume and the lowest competition.<br />
<br />
Andy: Awesome. I know there's a lot of things that people are looking at nowadays that allow them to do different sorts of tracking or different sorts of optimization of their pages. Are there any tools you have for optimizing your pages for SEO?<br />
<br />
Jackson: Great question. Start with Google again, they're Google for a reason. They have a tool called Google Webmaster. Once you verify you own the site, they will give you great information on your site. Things like keywords people are using to find your site which is a great nugget. Any errors they have when they crawl your site and you'll be able to see and jump on those right away. That's a great tool. As well as WooRank, which is a paid tool that has a free hook to get you in there they let you enter one website and they'll generate a report for SEO tactics that you want to look at. WooRank.com.<br />
<br />
Andy: I was going to say that WooRank gets a lot of reviews and is certainly a huge nugget for anybody listening in because, while it is a paid tool, at least for the upper end of it it is, it certainly is something that again, gets you moving in the right direction. Now, all these things that you're mentioning Jackson are all on the technical side of things, and they're great for behind the scenes upgrades, they're great for people to do on their own and get started on their own, but let's talk a little bit about the design side because that's something that is not as easy for a lot of people. There's not a lot of plugin tools for design for people. They're are some general rules for design though and I know you know a lot of those, could you share a few of them with our listeners?<br />
<br />
Jackson: Sure, I'd be happy to. I mentioned I was trained at art school, taught the principles of design, those rules being shape, line, color, form, and others. Apart from that, I would say, to me, and to us at Little Red Truck, design with a purpose. To start out, figure out what are the objectives of the website, or the campaign, or the page. From there you branch out, or hone in on what the messaging should be. Once you have a firm idea of the objectives of the site, the page, and the messaging, you start to work on strategy and you hand that off to someone like myself or take a stab at it, and start to ideate, go through some ideation, creative ways to present that vision, strategy. The best design for me comes from when I have a clear understanding of the problem I'm trying to solve.<br />
<br />
Andy: Excellent, I think that's top notch advice, is knowing the problem your trying to solve, who your audience is and what they're looking for before you actually start to design. Obviously not all that many people are going to design their own site as far as building their own graphics and building their own look and feel, and template for the site. There are a lot of great templates out there these days, but for someone that wants something custom and wants to go to somebody who's as qualified as you are, again one of the reasons we asked you on here to <i>Ask The Expert</i> is because of your background. If somebody wants to reach out and touch base with you Jackson what's the best way for them to do that?<br />
<br />
Jackson: Thanks, the best way is our website, we have a contact form on the website, which is www.lrtico.com. You could go on Skype and search for Jackson Powell or Little Red Truck Idea Co.<br />
<br />
Andy: What's your main phone number Jackson?<br />
<br />
Jackson: Sure, that'd be 650-731-0070.<br />
<br />
Andy: Excellent. Jackson thanks so much for taking the time today, it's always a pleasure to talk to you, your a fountain of knowledge when it comes to web design, design in general, marketing, and branding, and thank you very much for taking the time to be on the show.<br />
<br />
Jackson: You're welcome, thank you for having me.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04035653257646082847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148005749948449893.post-4538166305472549722014-07-12T18:57:00.000-07:002014-07-17T21:44:47.947-07:006 questions to ask before a website redesignRedesigning your website, not a minor fine tune-up, can be a time consuming task. Before investing time and money in such a significant overhaul, one should do some research in order to make sure such an undertaking is in the best interest of the business. This is harder than taking the easy road and starting to find vendors or agencies to do the work. The ideas and thought you put into why you’re redesigning your company’s website will help you have a successful outcome later. Put in the hard work planting the seeds now, reap the benefits later when they grow.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<img alt="Planting the seeds of a successful website redesign now reaps rewards later" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVcvCnNI9VKJGbEZR1jPVuL4wiBmFUo132Tvlmv0dkcpUn6ToeFHRTF-1UCijduDkJZpoJs2DOzECMGBn3KoQb9cbB45tgoGUJvxsu9wPqcIzS4uj8fXFBYc3iyx7gLYIrzf7iByMsBjtx/s1600/6-questions-to-ask-before-a-website-redesign.png" title="A successful website redesign" /></div>
<br />
From a high level you want to start asking questions and documenting the answers as to what’s wrong with your website now.<br />
<br />
<div class="postSubheader">
1. What’s my website not doing currently that it should be?</div>
This could be visitors aren’t understanding what you want them to do on your site now. For example, if you’re website is part of your marketing strategy in that you want it to generate leads for your sales, are there clear calls of action to join your CRM database with value in return for signing up?
<br />
<br />
Another problem is user-experience. Do visitors understand how to navigate your website to find what they want? A heuristic evaluation of your website (Thanks to Ms. Pepper Moore for the correct wording!) is a great way to answer this question if you think your users are getting lost in your site. We like to think of navigation as a grocery store. When you go to the grocery store you know what you want to buy. Let’s say eggs. If you aren’t familiar with the store, you probably look to the signs that are hanging from the ceiling to direct you to the right aisle. Or maybe you know the eggs are in the dairy section of the store so you look for visual cues or signs of dairy products or related imagery. These visual cues are part of the UX and it’s how we’ve been taught how to navigate our way around the world.<br />
We find the best way to find out if your site needs a UX redesign is by talking to people that use your site. That could be easy if you have a database you can tap into. Even if you don’t have a database of users you can find them by reaching out on craigslist for UX testers and give them a $20 gift card to Starbucks. You could also ask people you know if they wouldn’t mind helping you by visiting your site with a few small tasks to do and letting you know what they thought. Even better is if you could watch them perform these key tasks while you take notes. The key here is being an observer, staying quiet and taking handwritten notes (the computer is a distraction) of what they do and how they do it.<br />
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2. What are our competitors doing?</div>
This is very important. Having a website can tend to keep business stakeholders in a bit of a vacuum. A great way to keep on top of your competitors is to put yourself in your customers shoes and google what your product or service is. Every time I do this exercise it’s a humbling and motivating experience at the same time.
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Let’s say you sell website design services. When you find competitors, look at them as if you were a company looking for website design services. You have all these companies to choose from. Ask yourself honestly, would I choose my website design company over all these other choices? The answer maybe tough to swallow. Once you get over your initial feelings and accept the fact that there are other choices for consumers, you’ll begin to research your competitors and have a better understanding of how you can stand apart from them. This could be seeing an opportunity to carve out a niche and modify your messaging. It could be learning how they are communicating and go after that company’s keywords and find out where that company is placing links to improve their SEO ranking. There’s nothing wrong with putting links to your website on the same page and bringing some of your competitors traffic to your site, with a clear call to action like signing up for a white paper on how to optimize their website in 15 minutes or less.<br />
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3. Is our site working?</div>
Technology changes rapidly, and with that comes the need to take your website into a mechanic for a tune-up and health check every year or so to make sure it’s working properly.
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We recently had a client who didn’t realize their Google Site Search was broken and had been for many months. It was a simple fix, but they lost months of very valuable keyword research data.
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Another prospect was using flash for their technology stack. Flash isn’t supported by Apple, and since mobile internet usage becoming more and more the norm, they were missing out on a large percent of traffic and leads because their site didn’t work on iPhones, but they’re competitors did.<br />
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eMarketers estimates that over 70% of Internet users in 2013 accessed the Web from a mobile device.<br />
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WordPress sites are great because they are open source and are very inexpensive to set up. WordPress releases updates regularly though that are in the best interest of WordPress, and not your site. If you have a WordPress site, you want to make sure to update your backend with the latest release and check to make sure that release didn’t conflict with a third-party plugin you have installed on your WordPress site. Part of the problem with WordPress are these open source and inexpensive bits of code that are great for saving you time and design/development costs need to be maintained and updated with the changing technology. They usually don’t do so automatically.<br />
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4. Who’s going to do the work?</div>
Your website is probably an important part of your business and having a website that attracts organic traffic as well as convert that traffic is not an area to cut corners costwise. Hiring a trustworthy and talented person or agency is important to the success of your business. If you genuinely have someone in-house that can carry out a website redesign from requirements to building to quality assurance and everything in between that’s great.
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If you don’t, find a person or firm that can work with the stakeholders to define what’s important and required, understand the industry you are competing in, come up with the big idea on how the requirements will be met, creatively design visuals to persuade visitors to complete the requirements and developers to allow visitors to actually complete the requirements on the website, and detailed-oriented analytical people that can make sure the design and the development was carried out properly and to spec.<br />
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5. Do we have a new product or service?</div>
These need to be added to the website in a carefully planned way. This means blended in with the current content strategy and brand, yet with enough exposure to get visitors to do what you want them to do with the new product or service.
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Real estate on the homepage of your site with visual cues to lead the visitor to your desired outcome. Product pages explaining the product as well as the ability to reach your goals for the page. Measurable SEM campaigns with landing pages to get the visitor to buy the product or sign up for a free trial.<br />
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6. Do we know how to save our site’s search ranking?</div>
Have you ever seen a website traffic line graph plummet? If you have, then you might have experienced loss of SEO due to a redesign. If you haven’t, you’ve either taken steps to avoid losing rank or consider yourself lucky you haven’t experienced this sudden drop in traffic to your site.
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To avoid any SEO disasters when planning a website redesign, make sure the team understands the website structure so that if any URL’s change (for example are renamed), you inform the search engines by setting up 301 redirects using Google Webmaster Tools so that all that SEO data isn’t lost. 301 redirects will safely transfer all the SEO credibility a page has accrued to the new page.<br />
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Also, analyze your inbound links to make sure you don’t destroy any links from highly regarded sites passing SEO “juice” to your site via a link pointing to one of your web pages.<br />
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Have you went through a website redesign and have some experience to share? Please leave a comment!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04035653257646082847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148005749948449893.post-65695997272381702922014-06-08T22:56:00.000-07:002014-06-10T15:09:23.425-07:00How to give your project the best chance to succeed when hiring outside resourcesIf you’ve ever asked yourself, “Where can I find a vendor?" or "What should I do to find a reliable company?”, <b>the answer is write a Request For Proposal (RFP)</b>.<br />
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An RFP is the best way to lay the foundation for your project. Here's why.<br />
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Why RFPs lead to successful projects</div>
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What would you do if I asked you to draw a square? If you know how, you’d draw a square. You’d start, draw some lines and end. Completing a task with efficiency feels good. It makes us happy. RFPs are that good feeling. They don’t draw the square, they are the blueprint for how to successfully draw a square. Applying this to projects, RFPs find companies that know how to draw a square. You’ll get better squares which leads to feeling good and more importantly, saving your company money.<br />
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How to write an RFP</div>
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Start by asking yourself why? Why are we creating this website? Why are we adding this feature?<br />
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The answer should be a clear statement, also known as an objective. I like to use the acronym DUMB to remember what objectives are. <b>Objectives are Doable; Understandable; Measurable; and Beneficial</b>. For example, a company’s objective is to sell more electronics online. This is doable, after all, ecommerce is very possible to set up without knowing how to code. It’s understandable, selling electronics online help the company tap into new markets, or maybe it’s just their business model. It’s Measurable, with Key Performance Indicators (KPI), like the average order size, using analytics software. It’s Beneficial, as it could increase a company’s bottom line.<br />
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When a company is deciding whether or not it should undertake a new project, they should ask themselves these five questions:<br />
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<ul>
<li>Will it increase revenue?</li>
<li>Will it decrease costs?</li>
<li>Will it increase new business?</li>
<li>Will it increase existing business?</li>
<li>Will it increase shareholder value?</li>
</ul>
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<b>The proposed objective should impact one or more of these properties in the proper direction</b>.<br />
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We’re well on our way to writing our RFP. We know why we’re undertaking this project. We know what the end result is: an e-commerce website; or a site that attracts and converts users to subscribe to your service or product; or whatever the objective is for your project. We can start to break down the big task into smaller, more manageable components.<br />
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Breaking the tasks down</div>
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Ask yourself, <strong>what does the site need to do in order to achieve its purpose</strong>? Does it need a registration system? Does it need to accept and process credit card payments? Does it need an automatic e-mail system to remind members of new promotions or that their order is been shipped? Does it need content based on the brand’s positioning to showcase the value of the product and entice visitors to complete a task on the site?<br />
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How to handle what you don’t know</div>
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Use the “black box” technique for an element you don’t know what you require. <b>Have a “black box” page where you list all the features or points you would like clarification on</b> or aren’t sure how they work. That way you won’t be held back and can move forward. For example, you don’t need to know how you’ll integrate your database with an e-mail marketing tool, just that you want to is enough for the RFP.<br />
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Breaking the tasks down even further</div>
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Keep breaking down each task as much as you can. The time you spend doing this will translate directly into <b>how accurate the bids you get are</b> and how you'll more likely get exactly what you need to reach your project’s goals. For example, you might have a task like "get customers”. Spend time breaking this down into smaller tasks will help your company get specific bids and even recommendations on how this can be achieved.<br />
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Rounding out the proposal</div>
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Part of the RFP should include the reasons why you’re undertaking this project. Perhaps your website is outdated and no longer usable on smartphones. Perhaps your company is launching a new product and needs to update its brand. Firms bidding on your project need to know why this proposal exists. They also need some background on your company’s vision, meaning, purpose and positioning. If you have a timeline, for example a trade show you'd like to have the project completed by, include that in your RFP. A budget is also very helpful and time-saving for both you and the vendors.<br />
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Conclusion</div>
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When you put all of this together, you’ll have a detailed list of requirements coupled with a description of why this project exists, who your company is, what you believe in, and how you want to be seen by the rest of the world. An RFP gives your project a good chance to be successful, which can translate into you looking like a hero to your stakeholders.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04035653257646082847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148005749948449893.post-35535032088121524622014-04-27T18:56:00.000-07:002014-06-08T22:33:32.336-07:00One of our biggest lessons learned helping people get from an early idea to a successful business<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<img alt="A big mistake is not validating your product is solving a "hair on fire" problem for your target market" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicG1GXF1MCZnwd4aoALwndLO4LW3NpsKKZ6Sm8oOdQ32Ci-5QRP5C1O_QVU2NT95fpOGZmRrz9NTp5sQrZ4cVyAYtVht7CtWTzTaVDenVlmNzhOLjOuRyTW-g0Nu3LE2MKPj_KDn2VRt6g/s1600/mistake-entrepreneurs-make-when-starting-a-business.jpg" height="429" title="Mistake entrepreneurs make when starting a business" width="800" /></div>
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<a name='more'></a>The mistake that leads to wasted time and money</div>
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When Entrepreneurs have an idea they think is viable they have a few options of how to proceed. Some set on the path of creating the infrastructure needed to build and sell their product or service, using a “Waterfall” approach which entails creating a business plan to attract investors. The problem with this approach is the business plan is full of untested and unproven guesses. And spending 1-3 years of your life on your idea without knowing if your idea is sellable is a larger risk than first finding out if your idea is something people want. Then testing your solution and hopefully ultimately finding a proven business model with which to write that business plan with proven facts.<br />
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Common Sense</div>
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Yes, it does sound simple. What amazes me in my recent past is how many entrepreneurs I come into contact with that don’t buckle down and figure out if they have something that solves a big pain, or gives its users a very satisfying gain. Let alone testing their solution with a “Minimum Viable Product”, or MVP. It seems so much easier for them to spend their time and money building a the vision in their head in a bubble so to speak.<br />
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Typical scenario</div>
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What has happened recently is this: Entrepreneur Jane comes to Little Red Truck Idea Co. with an idea for a website to sell their new product or service. On paper it sounds great. We tend to hear talk of market size, features, and potential. All wonderful.<br />
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When we ask what are the top three pains this idea is solving we might get them...we might not. When we ask how many potential users have they sat down with and discussed the problem and their solution with we tend to find out they haven’t. They’ve talked to someone here and there, but not with a methodological approach.<br />
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When we suggest the idea of Lean methods their ears tend to perk up. Lean Business Models are terrific for this day and age of web-based startups like Zappos, Vimeo, Nextdoor and many more. Google “Eric Reis”, or “Steve Blank”, or “Dave McClure” and you’ll find a wealth of new ideas to get you started on how you can take an idea to a successful business. <br />
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Case Study</div>
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We have a client that wanted to help parents of children with autism by giving them ways to improve their child’s social inclusion. Great cause, great idea.<br />
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We built what our client thought they wanted. A year after no customers were acquired, we helped them figure out what their target market wanted. What we learned through this process is entrepreneurs have to get out and talk to the people they are building their product for. Listen to what they struggle with and what they use to solve their problems. Present your solution and ask them what they think about it, would they buy it, and how valuable is it to them. Next, build the simplest tool to test that you have a solution your target market will use or buy. Give it to them to try out, then get in touch with them for valuable feedback on what worked for them and what didn’t. Iterate. Find your early adopters by understanding what a typical day in the life is for them. Where is it that you can put your product in front of them? Get feedback from these early adopters, then continue to iterate, or pivot.<br />
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Changing your product based on feedback</div>
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Pivoting means you find out what you thought your customers wanted isn’t what they really want. If you sell oranges and after talking with the customers who bought your oranges you found out they really want a frozen orange smoothie, that would be a pivot.<br />
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Next steps</div>
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Here are some great resources to get started learning about Lean:<br />
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<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"><span id="goog_288064813"></span>Udacity’s free online course</a> for starting a business using Lean</li>
<li><a href="http://www.spikelab.org/" target="_blank">Spike Morelli</a>, a wonderfully insightful Lean evangelist, shares his time and experience through his blog and even free consultations</li>
<li><a href="https://leanstack.com/" target="_blank">The Lean Canvas</a> by Ash Maurya</li>
</ul>
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Have more resources you’d like to share? Please leave a comment below.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04035653257646082847noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148005749948449893.post-58648753035589959032014-03-31T10:05:00.000-07:002014-03-31T10:06:18.309-07:00Inspiration for Monday: DreamWorks' Animator/Dad turns son into an action hero!My wife is an Animator at DreamWorks in Redwood City. She sent this to me and I wanted to share it with my network. It inspired me, and was very entertaining. Hopefully it gives you the same boost for the beginning of your work week!<br />
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https://www.youtube.com/user/theActionMovieKid</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04035653257646082847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148005749948449893.post-55774264792874759032014-03-17T00:42:00.000-07:002014-03-17T00:43:49.262-07:001 Sentence Elevator Pitch FormulaI recently took the charismatic Mr. Bret Waters’ “Getting from an Early Idea to a Business” class at Stanford. Among the many useful pieces of information he shared during the class was a short and sweet way to get others interested in hearing more about your idea. Here’s that formula:<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<blockquote>My company, <i>(company name)</i>,<br />
is developing <i>(a defined offering, the product)</i><br />
to help <i>(a target audience)</i><br />
<i>(solve a problem)</i><br />
<i>(with our Unique Selling Proposition (USP), what makes us different, our special sauce)</i></blockquote><br />
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Bonus: if you can liken your product to a well known product, do it...A successful venture capitalist from a well-respected growth fund said so...i.e., “we’re the [blank] of [blank]”Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04035653257646082847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148005749948449893.post-86820664299085278042014-02-21T12:02:00.000-08:002014-03-02T19:32:59.733-08:00Questions Clients Should Ask Web Design Firms<div style="margin-bottom: 20px;">
Web design is possible from so many different avenues these days that it can be hard to know what to look for. I’ve put together six critical questions you should be asking of any Web design company when you are asking for a proposal. All six elements<b> are likely missing from DIY platforms</b>, in case you were wondering. So, what are the six questions companies should ask Web design companies when looking for a proposal?<br />
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<img alt="Make sure you ask these questions before you get a Website proposal" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYXBxBmuIfCPd_sOGto-5HDEHbRYZ6EZ6tSoySDJrKA8fls2wNLWpuOR6RVASObVIBImC-wMFk0nYzpZ9JQ8NvmD_mksIDFQ_wFwCmUlWd5LwcRoR5Qx9WKHiJbn5UJPMqjOX0jcxpnucT/s1600/6-qustions-you-should-ask-your-web-design-firm.png" height="284" title="Six tips to ask before getting your next Web proposal" width="640" /></div>
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1. How are you going to optimize my Website for search engines?</div>
Having your Website programed in a way that makes it easy for search engines to do their job is important. There are best practices that should be followed when building a Website. <b>Ask the firm what on-page SEO tactics</b> are they going to use in developing the content for your site?<br />
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2. Are you going to use HTML5 semantics to structure the pages?</div>
Following HTML5 semantics gives your site the best chance to render properly on modern browsers. HTML5 also gives the search engines a clearer picture of your Website; it’s cleaner code, easier for robots and humans to understand with elements such as <header> and <nav> instead of non-descriptive <div> tags. <b>HTML5 has also made a big difference to the at least 15.5 million potential internet users</b> with hearing or sight impairments.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoxs5Lv89to3ia7YMmydbYSrOTHSF-yQTGy526BqMHOVh0yi6KQbbOvZ5-RuVuSLL_WwaPOKA2XBtWfqs0jVA3kW9GRnaLbH_hiUe_XHfFczJnC0ZO3qCVS2zPbAEhxBxzz5fQQKnR1bEe/s1600/micro-data-example-search-results-page.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoxs5Lv89to3ia7YMmydbYSrOTHSF-yQTGy526BqMHOVh0yi6KQbbOvZ5-RuVuSLL_WwaPOKA2XBtWfqs0jVA3kW9GRnaLbH_hiUe_XHfFczJnC0ZO3qCVS2zPbAEhxBxzz5fQQKnR1bEe/s1600/micro-data-example-search-results-page.png" /></a></div>
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3. Are you going to use Microdata?</div>
Microdata is most useful for businesses that can help their search results page listing stand out and be more valuable than their competitors. For example, a local bakery can include Microdata in their Website that <b>displays the store’s hours on a search page</b>. This saves the potential customer time and hassle of calling to find out the hours. Microdata also helps search engines understand the Web page’s content, which in turns helps the search engine do a better job delivering the best results to every search. This in turns helps the site in the long run.<br />
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4. How are you going to make my site responsive?</div>
Websites today are seen on all kinds of devices and screen sizes. TVs, laptops, smartphones, monitors, tablets. Giving each visitor a delightful experience has to be part of the Website deliverables. And that means making sure the site is understandable and useable on the most popular devices and screen sizes today. <b>Be sure to have in writing</b> which screen resolutions your site will be designed for. Keep in mind the more screen sizes the site is designed for the more programming time is needed, which in turns equals a higher budget.<br />
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5. Which operating systems are you going to ensure my site works on?</div>
Just making the site’s layout fit into a certain size screen is half the battle. The other half is making sure your Website is <b>compatible with the major operating systems</b> of today. OS X, Windows, Android, and iOS. Get this in writing. This will affect the budget.<br />
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6. Are you going to build my site with Google Analytics goals in mind?</div>
If you’re wanting to set up goals to track a Website measurement plan like how many users downloaded a white paper for example, you can save yourself some money by making sure your designers have a page the user lands on after downloading that pre-sales activity. For example, if you have a javascript overlay for confirmation that a user downloaded a key metric, <b>tracking this download is a bit more tricky</b> than if you have a “thank you for downloading” page.<br />
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Do you have an experience to share – maybe another tip to keep in mind from your experience? Please share them below in the comments.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04035653257646082847noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148005749948449893.post-91074536188869073362014-02-05T11:46:00.001-08:002014-02-05T12:00:43.905-08:00Sugar Chemistry: Delicious Baked TreatsMs. Khan, having left the world of Statistics for the world of cakes, pastries, and pies, is a wonderful person and entrepreneur I'd like to help. <br />
<a name='more'></a>Having tried her blueberry pie and cake pops, I can vouch for her talents in the art of baking. I'm no expert, though I believe if one can make a pie crust that is tasty with a flaky texture, they've won half the battle.<br />
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She left a career in IT and HR behind for her passion and dreams. Eram has a Masters in Statistics, which makes her story more interesting and appealing. Her heart wasn't in technology, so she decidid to follow her childhood dream and love, going to England and a well-known culinary school. The proof is in the pudding (sorry, I couldn't resist!).<br />
<br />
I met Ms. Khan at a Stanford Continuing Studies course "Getting from an early idea to a real business."<br />
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She's a smart cookie who on the first night offered to bring a snack for the class...mini-cupcakes with buttercream frosting. Classically simple. I was an easy fish to catch.<br />
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If anyone in the Bay Area would like to have a special treat for a special day, or cater their next event with something different and scrumptious, have a look at her offering below and send her an e-mail.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0zhyphenhyphenVLv3NTgee8vvHLsk21ujHkeYtvjKCyHMKTIIw9ENOo46Dk2ioSkysyG7z0lHYp-BvJRiDrKiYeHlovN5U7F9L4VgKz9rbsUqBnT5J1SZp-t_D6A2HgE1HxCcfPOUY5fH_K9sUR2Sh/s1600/Sugar-Chemistry-Menu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0zhyphenhyphenVLv3NTgee8vvHLsk21ujHkeYtvjKCyHMKTIIw9ENOo46Dk2ioSkysyG7z0lHYp-BvJRiDrKiYeHlovN5U7F9L4VgKz9rbsUqBnT5J1SZp-t_D6A2HgE1HxCcfPOUY5fH_K9sUR2Sh/s1600/Sugar-Chemistry-Menu.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04035653257646082847noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148005749948449893.post-43739375357894350652014-02-03T20:35:00.001-08:002014-02-04T10:37:07.574-08:00How to turn a printed book into a subscription-based Web site applicationIn this video we'll look at how we designed and developed a Web app for the Botanical Safety Handbook.<br />
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For anyone who has a paper book or ebook, this video will show you the benefits of transforming that information into a subscription-based Web site application.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="553" mozallowfullscreen="" src="//player.vimeo.com/video/85622997?byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="634"></iframe> <br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/85622997">How Do You Turn a Printed Book Into a Web Site Application?</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/smartytruck">Jackson Powell</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 17.77777862548828px; line-height: 28.000001907348633px;">Do you have an opinion or question on this? Please leave us your comment below.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04035653257646082847noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148005749948449893.post-8291480823407189292014-01-21T14:12:00.000-08:002014-01-26T21:46:21.423-08:00How To Conduct A Link Audit (bonus: Link Building Techniques Inside)Are you worried about getting a penalty letter from Google? Would you like tips to help your website’s PageRank? In this post, we’ll be looking at auditing your site’s links as well as ways to build natural back links.<br />
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With Google focusing more and more on cleaning up back links, or links pointing to your site from other websites, it’s important to do a link audit of your site and make sure you won’t be hit with a penalty.
In this article I’ll walk you through a 15 minute backlink checking process.
This process is ideal for small companies without a budget for SEO/SEM expert analysis. If you want to go straight to the link building tips to improve your website's PageRank skip to the bottom.<br />
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To get started, go to <a href="http://majesticseo.com/">majesticseo.com</a> and register for a free account. You can google “link checker” and find other tools, there are many to choose from.
Right now, I like Majestic SEO because it’s free and they give you a lot for creating an account.
Once you log into Majestic SEO, verify you own the domain your checking so you can generate the backlink report. Do this by clicking on “Tools > Webmaster Tools” and follow the prompts to verify ownership or admin rights to the domain whose links you’d like to check.
After you’ve done this, click on the “Tools > Site Explorer” link in the primary navigation. On the page that appears, enter the domain you wish to check. Within a short time, you’ll see a page like this:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-_35wJLbaREFDZn0UjeQb-qu3WeUAbuqRQ0NBWvynNIKQWyfnucXPXqOaQqq9ugLt0VeeOevkSGGNBH8X4hyphenhyphenlpLdVEoXeZmRMXUFA5c07yGVtFCnPGJyeZwraFr9U2o84VH0dR2P-1Lwo/s1600/majestic-seo-help-video.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-_35wJLbaREFDZn0UjeQb-qu3WeUAbuqRQ0NBWvynNIKQWyfnucXPXqOaQqq9ugLt0VeeOevkSGGNBH8X4hyphenhyphenlpLdVEoXeZmRMXUFA5c07yGVtFCnPGJyeZwraFr9U2o84VH0dR2P-1Lwo/s1600/majestic-seo-help-video.png" /></a></div>
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There is a nice video explaining all the tools and features. For now, click on the “Backlinks” tab.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoQl5i1RJAV_iijmFWKB7oPeodfTwthpvIiaCDjnlKz-XiNW6hFC_xQLuNwNEvjNhsZLlrxSJZM-Unu9nh7jNlDC_0BhOgjAO1ed1AgS3vS3uEGuH12quhZajkO5aYGFTvCP46AQ_Tpmd2/s1600/majestic-seo-backlink-tab.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoQl5i1RJAV_iijmFWKB7oPeodfTwthpvIiaCDjnlKz-XiNW6hFC_xQLuNwNEvjNhsZLlrxSJZM-Unu9nh7jNlDC_0BhOgjAO1ed1AgS3vS3uEGuH12quhZajkO5aYGFTvCP46AQ_Tpmd2/s1600/majestic-seo-backlink-tab.png" /></a></div>
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Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click “Download data”. Choose Excel or CSV and import the spreadsheet into your favorite application.<br />
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<b>What are you looking for?</b><br />
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1. Look for links that might get you in trouble with Google:</div>
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<ul>
<li>Links that aren’t indexed by Google</li>
<ul>
<li>If you see a suspicious looking link, type site:domainlinkhere into a Google search field</li>
<li>If the site isn’t indexed, you’ll see a message the domain you entered don’t match any documents</li>
</ul>
<li>Check the link by clicking on it</li>
<ul>
<li>If you see any malware or error warnings, mark this back link as suspicious</li>
</ul>
<li>Links pointing to your site that appear alongside links to spam, porn pills, unrelated links</li>
<ul>
<li>If you find that the link pointing to your site has other links to unrelated sites or sites that are spammy, mark this back link as suspicious</li>
</ul>
<li>Paid links with exact match keywords</li>
<ul>
<li>Don’t take any chances, remove these links now</li>
<li>For example, “Best SEO company San Francisco"</li>
</ul>
<li>Have a good mix of different kinds of back links:</li>
<ul>
<li>Brand links - yourDomain.com (no more than 40% of your inbound links)</li>
<li>Exact-match anchor text keyword links - these should point to the relevant page to the keyword (no more than 50%)</li>
<li>Partial-match keyword link text</li>
<li>Generic links like “click here” or “read more”</li>
<li>Page title links</li>
</ul>
</ul>
Now that you have the back links organized, contact the webmaster of the links that you flagged as suspicious and request that they remove the link pointing to your website from their site.<br />
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To improve your chances of the webmaster removing the link, use a "polite request for help" tone along with the details of the page's URL where the link is located, the URL of the page on your site that is being linked to, and the anchor text of the link.</div>
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You could also add a message that if they don't remove the link, you'll have to use Google's "Disavow Links" tool. Letting them know you're concern is that Google may flag their site and send them a penalty for not being in compliance. </div>
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<b>What's next? Why not boost your PageRank the natural way?</b></div>
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2. Look for natural and useful link building opportunities:</div>
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<ul>
<li>Put links on sites you own</li>
<ul>
<li>Blog</li>
<li>Social media (even if they’re nofollow, traffic could lead to conversions)</li>
<li>Friends and family’s sites</li>
<li>Google+ (at the time of writing this article, these are follow links passing juice)</li>
<li>Twitter (follow links)
Profile pages</li>
</ul>
<li>Submit your site to ubl.org</li>
<ul>
<li>This service will take your key worded links and submit them to search sites, mobile services, and social networks in a natural manner</li>
</ul>
<li>High Authority sites</li>
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<li>Do you best to get a link placed on an .edu or .gov website that is relevant to yours (or two, or three…)</li>
<li>Newspaper sites are also great for improving your PageRank</li>
</ul>
</ul>
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Do you have an opinion or question on this? Please leave us your comment below.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04035653257646082847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148005749948449893.post-81402093234151988302014-01-02T23:23:00.002-08:002014-01-26T21:45:44.289-08:00Do you know about Google Alerts as a marketing & SEO tool?One of the important ways one can increase their web site’s search ranking is to deliver relevant content to Google and Bing.<br />
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Another important way is to increase the number of key-worded links pointing to your web site, aka <a href="http://smartytruck.blogspot.com/2013/11/how-to-improve-seo-backlinks.html" target="_blank">link building</a>. There is a pro-penguin way to do this, so be careful to learn how before you dive in.<br />
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<a href="http://www.google.com/alerts" target="_blank">Google Alerts</a> can help you mine for relevant content to write about as well as find sites that make sense for you to put a key-worded link on. Of course not every site you put a key-worded link on will be a follow link passing juice back to your site. In the event that the link you post is a no follow link, there’s still possible benefits like increased traffic to your web site. Start by going to <a href="http://www.google.com/alerts">www.google.com/alerts</a> and entering a search query you think is relevant to your target audience.<br />
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Google will show you a sample of the matches it found for the day you searched right there on the screen. If no matches were found, a sample of the type of matches will be displayed. You can quickly see how this tool can help you find new content you can use to share with your target audience, or perhaps take a position, or use to start a dialog. Now that you see a sample, you can set the preferences and activate your alert.<br />
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<img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1TlgalVTvo3AY496NZh8fHSFxrXCKSajlejo4XPU2-VWjoIlKvcGt0swj1dpMbP5oJSCHzwcphC-AqW8Q9832nO-npQri9Z0bTFvxe4JL1RE1qTK7dKCL45rF_4UGZrG28qJDHkHWxjYa/s1600/using-google-alerts-to-mine-for-link-building-opportunities.png" /></div>
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For example, let’s say you’re company makes organic dark chocolate bars. You could set up an alert for any news on “chocolate is bad for your health” and potentially find discussions where you could respectfully interject your opinion that when used moderately, pure organic dark chocolate has been proven to improve cardiovascular health and blood flow to the brain of people with baseline impairments.<br />
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This is an <b>excellent opportunity to position yourself as a trusted expert</b> by providing useful and relevant content about your product to your audience.<br />
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Another way you can use Google Alerts is by <b>finding new ways to reach your audience</b>. For example, let’s say you developed a home based teaching method for parent's of children on the Autism Spectrum. These training videos give parents tools they can use to teach their children social and physical skills, in order to participate more in everyday activities.<br />
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You could set up an Alert using the keywords “activities for autistic children." The results you’ll receive could show you new sites you can research for link building opportunities. You might find discussions where you can help others by pointing them to your product, if it makes sense to do so. Be careful here, going around to forums and posting links to your site where the topic isn't relevant to your product or service isn't helpful and worse, is a bit annoying.<br />
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Another benefit is learning about some latest research you could write a blog article about, sharing knowledge and helping your network stay current with latest trends and information.<br />
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Using Google Alerts is a fast way to mine for ways to improve your site’s PageRank, find new content to write about, drive traffic back to your web site, and more.<br />
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Do you have an opinion or question on this? Please leave us your comment below.</div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04035653257646082847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148005749948449893.post-43680169600945695262013-12-17T20:50:00.001-08:002013-12-18T13:56:11.673-08:00Part II: More useful Google App tips that can help make you more productive<div style="margin-bottom: 20px;">
In part II of our series of Google Apps tips and tricks, we'll be focusing on moving around a large Google drawing (say, a flowchart for example), creating a newspaper-like layout with columns in a Google document, and more...</div>
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1. Zooming in and out of Google drawings</div>
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Hotkeys are a great way to save you time and energy. Hold down <i>control + shift</i> (<i>command + option</i> keys on a mac) and press the left arrow on your keyboard to zoom out. Hold down <i>control + shift</i> (<i>command + option</i> keys on a mac) and pressing the right arrow on your keyboard will zoom in.<br />
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2. Use tables to create columns in google doc</div>
Does anyone ever find themselves wanting columns in a google doc? They could set up tabs, but if they want true columns of text, tabs on every line aren't the best way to do this.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKVLQvWl46WbxPrUAURPEwRuYIYNsnVg085etAZvFyn0DmDkv7Uek7YkA4iRQijCOwgP2tE7MQdpqOFAH6XRP3cUH-f8qDY6TWfi69AB6sJS4e9o-mIb0B2ClpULEWtQf86rk4O_4mES4j/s1600/how-to-add-columns-to-a-google-doc.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKVLQvWl46WbxPrUAURPEwRuYIYNsnVg085etAZvFyn0DmDkv7Uek7YkA4iRQijCOwgP2tE7MQdpqOFAH6XRP3cUH-f8qDY6TWfi69AB6sJS4e9o-mIb0B2ClpULEWtQf86rk4O_4mES4j/s1600/how-to-add-columns-to-a-google-doc.png" /></a></div>
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By inserting a table in a google doc, and setting the border to 0 pt, one will have a nice grid of columns they can flow their text into. Click the "Table" menu item, then click "Insert table" and select the number of columns and rows needed. Click into one of the cells and click on the Table > Table properties menu item to open the table properties dialog. In the window that opens, enter "0pt" for the border to remove it.<br />
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3. Color code your drive folders</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU9Ds0xQ0GeDDcPg4xTN4UvyAQDq5A7Nux1cVPjueaQFFxLajq_vCjSQehVwJEfXUWkZJUyP-J4KXoMkEjMafwsPl0Pd3aX5eYVD5BV4GZvLElShNxqUajI0amhrWiaEUuarBP6XcZSCYL/s1600/how-to-color-code-google-folders.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU9Ds0xQ0GeDDcPg4xTN4UvyAQDq5A7Nux1cVPjueaQFFxLajq_vCjSQehVwJEfXUWkZJUyP-J4KXoMkEjMafwsPl0Pd3aX5eYVD5BV4GZvLElShNxqUajI0amhrWiaEUuarBP6XcZSCYL/s1600/how-to-color-code-google-folders.png" /></a></div>
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This allows you to organize your google drive folders, making them easier to identify. You can do this a few ways. If you have the sidebar navigation open on your drive homepage, move the mouse over one of your folders and you'll see an arrow pointing down appear. Click on the arrow then scroll down the pop up contextual menu's choices to "Change color". A fly out menu appears where you can choose a color.
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4. Text anchor links</div>
A great tip for creating better user experiences in google docs is using "Bookmarks". For example, Ms. Jones writes a scope document in google docs, a lengthy document with many sections. Would having the sections linked to a table of contents would be useful to her readers?
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If the answer is yes, the way to create text anchor links within a google doc is to set up bookmarks. You do this by first selecting the text or image that is where the user ends up, or the destination, and clicking on <i>"Insert > Bookmark"</i> from the google doc menu. Next, you select the text or image you want to act as the trigger, or what your users will click on to go to the destination you created. Use the hotkey <i>control + 'k'</i> (<i>command + 'k'</i> keys on a mac) to make the selection a link.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwDzqlw2pva-9fRykglPqc3Ogsd3HhAod2ElK4ri41bsxbYB66FbbMX7rh3aSOyHs0-sFUE3D_n8lQbBnMu2EL90OUP8k36ZfNZBMSE3t-jVx7uWeJQXI8lXV_Ww_lY6eRuux1G05zDKUH/s1600/how-to-create-bookmarks-in-google-docs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwDzqlw2pva-9fRykglPqc3Ogsd3HhAod2ElK4ri41bsxbYB66FbbMX7rh3aSOyHs0-sFUE3D_n8lQbBnMu2EL90OUP8k36ZfNZBMSE3t-jVx7uWeJQXI8lXV_Ww_lY6eRuux1G05zDKUH/s1600/how-to-create-bookmarks-in-google-docs.jpg" /></a></div>
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A dialog window will appear asking you to create text for the link and a destination. Under the <i>"Text"</i> field in the dialog window is an option to select a <i>"Link"</i>. Click on the black triangle next to the word <i>"Bookmarks"</i> to expand the available bookmarks to choose from. Choose the bookmark you want and click <i>"apply"</i>.<br />
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<i>Bonus tips...</i>hotkeys in google docs:<br />
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<ul>
<li><i>Ctrl + b</i> = <b>bold</b></li>
<li><i>Ctrl + i</i> = italics</li>
<li><i>Ctrl + Shift + m</i> = insert a comment</li>
<li><i>Option + Shift + 5</i> = strikethrough</li>
</ul>
List of <a href="https://support.google.com/drive/answer/179738?hl=en" target="_blank">google doc hotkeys</a> from google. Happy googling!<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04035653257646082847noreply@blogger.com0