There is often no need to ‘reinvent the wheel’ when it comes to features you might want to put on your website. Time IS money when you’re thinking about how to get those special features on your website. This is why I often recommend a variety of 3rd party products and services and even have a Reviews & Recommendations section (more to be included) rather than ‘custom programming’ every option that someone wants for their site. If you can get the feature you want by purchasing an existing product, this almost always saves you money over having someone program the same feature.  Generally it also offers a more stable (tried and tested) platform as well as gives you features you may not have requested but could use.

Many clients and business colleagues have heard me use the term “Above the Fold” as well as quoting stats for screen sizes and resolutions. Why do I care so much and why should all web site owners care about this?

I care because it can mean the difference between success and failure.  If your most important sales tools are hidden, you are unlikely to make the sale. Its a dog eat dog world and you have about 5 seconds when someone comes to your website to grab their attention.  If attention grabbing details are not on that first screen, bye bye- your prospect is gone.
We’re a little bit lazy- we web surfers.  We don’t like to scroll.  So pitch your most important stuff up at the top of the page.  Make it easy for us to find.  And no, my screen is not the same size as your screen.  Just because you have yours set up to fit an entire encyclopedia volume, doesn’t mean the rest of us do.

Current stats:  78% percent of web users have screen resolutions of 1024×768 or less.  How big is that?  Well, if you have 10 icons or more down the left side of your computer desktop on your monitor– you are in the minority.

Screen resolutions obviously continue to advance as new technology and bigger screens comes out, but you might notice- there is still a practical limit. We can only read words that are so small! In fact, if your target audience demographic consists of people of more advanced age, they will be skewed toward the bigger elements and larger fonts– therefore LESS fits on their screen- maybe an 800×600 resolution (16% of web users).

So keep this in mind when you’re writing web copy, placing promotions, placing your contact information– anything that is necessary to make the sale!

In addition to launching the new site design this weekend, I got a jump start on organizing my office. You know, when you’re entrenched in one or more intense projects, you – like me – may let the cleanliness and organization slide.
So finally I was able to put away the stacks, file away old projects, and make more room to just move around. Its amazing how having a Clean and Open space can help clear the clutter from your mind as well.

Okay, so after more than a year of telling myself I would redesign and restructure my site, implementing some of the new and not-so-new web technologies that I am constantly recommending to my clients, I finally made myself my #1 client and started down a new road.

Its hard to prioritize ourselves, but if we, as people and businesses, don’t occasionally step back and really look at where we’re at and look towards where we want to be, we will never move forward- just mostly in circles.

So my journey begins here- a journey towards where I want to be with YNot Web. I am finally practicing what I’m preaching. This past year was particularly educational for me as a business owner. I will be sharing some of those lessons with you along with strategies and methods, tips and tricks. I expect to continue learning what works for me as I go, sometimes from successes and sometimes from mis-steps.