Would you give someone you didn’t know access to your bank account?  Probably not.  And while you might think it is not as important that it be secure—your website should be just as secure as your bank account because your site is your public face!  And you can’t have fraud protection on it, you have to protect it yourself.

Here’s my 2 cents:

• Your website should not have an easy-to-guess password.  If your password is your website URL, change it.  If your password is your company name, change it.  If your password is password1, change it.  Don’t use your address, company phone number, zip code, or anything else that is an easy guess for the public.  I’ve also seen passwords that are the main product you sell—so if you sell phones and your passwords is phones—probably not the most secure.
• Know who has a password.  I’ve seen it happen where someone doesn’t know who has a password to their site and a disgruntled employee logs in and make their own “modifications” to the site—normally they’re not the most tasteful or truthful.  Not to say that will happen with any disgruntled employee, but it is a possibility.  When someone leaves, remove their access or change the password they knew.
• Control who can edit what parts of the website.  Your Cirrus ABS developed website can allow you to be specific on which users can see what when they login.  If someone should not have access to something, do not give them the access.
• Create passwords that are secure enough not to be guessed.  Replace an ‘E’ with a ‘3,’ or an ‘S’ with an ‘$,’ and so on.

Hope that helps…good luck creating your passwords!  For any assistance with password requirements for your Cirrus eBusiness solution, contact our support department.

Other blogs with tips for your website:

• Just Don’t Do It
• A URL You Can Be Proud Of
• Leave My Browser Alone

Just don’t do it!

Does the size of your logo on your site matter?  It matters a little…in that your logo should be there.  But it shouldn’t be the focus on the page.  Do you want me to come to your website and just stare at your logo and not read any content?  No, doubt it…the point of your website is to drive me to an action, to pick up the phone, to learn more about you or to buy something.  Not to be hypnotized by your logo!

I’m only going to say this once…please, listen!  YOUR LOGO IS NOT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING ON YOUR WEBSITE!  If you didn’t catch it the first time, re-read that…and again…and again…and again.

Why am I harping on this enough that I’m writing an entire blog dedicated to it?  Because one of the most common requests we hear as web designers is, “Can you make my logo bigger?”  Yep, we can.  No, you shouldn’t.  It does not “need to stand out,” in fact, it shouldn’t—at least not as the most important thing on the page.   It does not “need to draw extra attention,” again, it shouldn’t.   A giant logo on the page does not need to re-reinforce “who you are,” they already know who you are.  They came to you, remember?

Who is your logo most important to?  You.  That being said—your logo IS important.  A good solid logo goes a long way to good solid branding.  A few tips on logos:

• It should be on your website.  It does not need to be the focus on your website, nor repeated over and over again on your website, other than in places like the header and footer.
• It should be on everything else—your business cards, marketing pieces, company clothing, etc.  (on that note, if you do have a website, your website address should also be on every piece of marketing, emails, business cards and clothing—you name it, as well)
• It should always be the same.  The colors shouldn’t change with the seasons.  You should not re-brand every other quarter because you’re bored with your logo and you just want to spruce it up.  It should always be the same aspect ratio…meaning your logo proportions should be consistent.  You will obviously have different sized logos; that is fine as long as the shape is the same.  You should not size a logo down for something and decide to reshape it to make it fit somewhere better than its normal shape would.  If you saw the Nike logo and it was a really short, fat swoosh, you’d probably wonder if you were buying Nike or a knock-off Niko.
• If you do rebrand, because let’s face it, it does happen: be consistent.  Don’t keep some things with the old logo and some with the new.
• Your logo should be visible. Don’t tuck it into a corner and make it invisible–it SHOULD be seen because it is important.

Moral of the story?  You need to have a logo on your website.  It is not the focus of your site.  Think about even going to Google and doing a search.  You probably barely acknowledge the logo there—you already know who they are—you went to THEIR site…so the logo just kind of blends in as part of the page.  You would probably notice if it wasn’t there, but the size of it would not be a big deal…their logo is not what makes you go back to their site…and a bigger logo is unlikely to convert your site users into “business.”

I’ll stop you on the argument you’re probably posing already, “Yeah, exactly Google does it!  They change their logo with holidays and seasons and days of the week and colors, etc.”  Are you Google?  When you have the brand recognition of Google, go to town.  We won’t stop you.  In fact, do you want us to help design the different logo versions?  Otherwise, until you have the kind of brand power (or budget) Google or Nike has, “just don’t do it.”

If you have six minutes of your life to waste…watch this video on YouTube—at least the beginning!  Make My Logo Bigger Cream.  It’s a spoof sales video, exaggerating a common misconception that the bigger the logo, the better.

“BUT I DON’T WANT TO!”  Yeah, yeah, I know.  I’ve heard ALL the excuses as to why someone says they can’t do social media…literally, all of them.  I don’t have time.  I don’t have anything to say that anyone cares about.  I don’t care what other people have to say.  Social media is too complicated.  I don’t understand it.  It isn’t relevant to MY industry, but I get why it makes sense for EVERYONE else’s.  My kids understand it better than I do and it’s just so frustrating.  My clientele is too old to be using any type of social media outlet, like Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.  My dog ate my social media.

Enough with the excuses already!!!  I wish I could use the parental stand-by and say “Do it.  Because I said so.”  But since that won’t work…let’s talk fact.

As of the moment that I’m writing this blog, there are 5,367,117 people on Twitter.  There are over 12 million professional users using LinkedIn.  I just tried to find out how many people are on Facebook, and I’m not sure anyone really knows, other than to say A LOT—I am seeing numbers around 410 million, some higher, some lower.  There are approximately 400 million people in North America…not just in the US—all of North America.

Let’s just say for examples sake, I am extremely busy (okay, is that an “example” for anyone?), and I own a company but I’m a one-man show.  To make it interesting, let’s say it’s a fairly obscure company—I breed and sell horses.  I personally know nothing about horses…so if I say anything ridiculous about this, please forgive my ignorance…

If I told you that you could get your name in front of people who are actively looking for horses…how many people does that need to be for it to be worth your while?  One?  Ten?  One hundred?  5 million?  410 million?

Just to give you an idea, I jumped over to Facebook while I was writing this and searched “Horse Sale” and I found a livestock company with 1300 fans…would you be a fan of a company that gave you poor service, or in this case, a poor horse?  Looking at their fan page, I can see “testimonials” from past clients—from last month, all the way back…months! 

Now, like I said, I know nothing about horses or where to buy them in Fort Wayne.  So if I did want to buy a horse (I do not)—social media is probably where I’d start.  Not necessarily just searching for a company, right off the bat.  But I might go on Twitter and say “Anyone in Fort Wayne area know where I can buy a horse?”  I’m sure people are going to reply with companies I should and shouldn’t go to—along with links to their websites or social media pages.  And, if I have to Google them and find their social media feeds or the website—that’s okay, I’m going to look you up before I spend money on something like that. 

Do you look things up before you make a large purchase or hire a service company?  I do—every time.  You can find anything online, including reviews, and if I need to spend money with you, I want you to prove to me you are legit and others have been happy using your company.  Search engines now return social media results in the normal results.  When I just Googled a local company, I got their website and their last few Facebook and Twitter results in my results listing. 

To all you who say your clientele is too “old” to be using any type of social media, let alone assuming they don’t know what social media even is—you know what they say when you assume…  Just this weekend, I was at a concert in Fort Wayne and the MC came up to the mic and said “Now, for all you young folks on Facebook and Twitter, follow us by going to #bandname.”  My dad was with me, who happens to be on both Facebook AND Twitter—and he looked at me and said, “Young people?”  Dad, don’t kill me, you’re not THAT old…(kidding, he’s really  not)  Many of my friends parents AND grandparents are on several social media outlets simply because their kids and grandkids are…gotta keep tabs on us somehow, right?  All joking aside, they are not online just to stalk our busy daily activities—they are using it too, sometimes more than normal because they’re retired and have time to do it.  It may not be the norm yet, but we’re getting there—social media is growing for a reason.  In fact, the fastest growing market on Facebook is women, aged 55 and older.  According to one poll I saw, over 50% of all social media users are over the age of 35, with most being over 45 (*disclaimer: I do not think 35 OR 45 is old, please don’t hurt me!).  My point is not to say you should market everything to the older crowds, but don’t discount them either.

If spending a few minutes to create a Facebook fan page, LinkedIn profile or a Twitter account—and updating each maybe a few times each week is too time consuming—please weigh the potential benefits with the least amount of effort.  Would it be great if you could push news as frequently as Fox does?  Sure, but that isn’t realistic.  It doesn’t have to be too time consuming…even ten minutes a day—shoot, ten minutes a week if you’re doing nothing currently.  You can find time for that, even if you got one new client in a year, for ten minutes a week?  That’s 8 ½ hours over a year—one work day.  Seems worth it to me.  You could have set up a few social media accounts in the time it’s taken to read this blog.

If you don’t understand social media or don’t care to, call your kids—they’d probably be able to do it pretty quickly.  Call your grandkids, they can probably do it even faster.  Call Cirrus, we can help you with the strategy.  Sorry to step on Nike’s toes, but JUST DO IT.  And keep Rex away from your computer.

If you’re a non-profit, you likely have 1 of 2 goals, if not both goals. 

1:  You want to spend as little money as possible, while bringing in as much funding as possible to support your organization. 

2:  You need volunteers of time or talent in some way. 

How can you achieve these goals through your website?

Having helped a lot of non-profits organizations, both on the website side, and as a non-profit employee and volunteer, there are a few things you can do on the web to maximize your efforts.

Email campaigns:  I have several clients that send out mass emails to their volunteers, boards, and others in their groups.  It is a great way to spread the word, and the best part is—the online services that we recommend often offer a non-profit option.  If you can prove you are a 501c3 organization, they will give you a free account with free email credits.  Otherwise, this is a service most organizations have to pay for—and it is definitely a better option to use an email management tool rather than just sending a bulk email and having it end up in their spam box.  Services offering non-profit email management that we would recommend are Vertical Response (free) and Mail Chimp and Constant Contact (discounted).

Volunteers:  Need volunteers?  There are a few things you can do using your website to attract volunteers.  First of all, you should collect information from anyone willing to be a volunteer—just using a simple form can achieve that.  What kind of opportunities are there—are they regularly scheduled?  If so, post a calendar online with upcoming events and the need for each one.  Email the calendar out.  Post news items with the latest volunteer needs.  Tweet about it.  Facebook about it.  Collect phone numbers and text about it (something you can do online, for free, often).  The means by which to promote your need are endless!

Donations:  I am not sure that there are any non-profits that do not take donations or gifts of some kind.  You can easily integrate with Google Checkout or PayPal (both with non-profit specific products) and accept donations on your website.  These are some of the common solutions our clients choose to use to accept donations online. 

I recently took a trip to Guatemala to help out at an orphanage called Casa Guatemala.  They are in the middle of the jungle with only a few working computers and power in only one of their buildings (the one with the computers).  Yet they understand how to utilize the web for volunteers, donations and other needs—including Twitter, Facebook, their own website, blogs and donation sites and subsites.  One thing they did was set up a donation site (separate from their current site, though really, they could be integrated—and probably should be), which allows potential volunteers and donators to set up sub-sites—a new concept to me.  In other words, if you get people passionate about what you’re doing and set up something like sub-sites—your needs can be spread virally by SOMEONE ELSE—allowing them to share why they are involved and what the need is and then market it to their friends.

As with all things WEB, the more you get it out there and give the people a way to be involved, the more likely you are to have positive feedback and help spreading the word.  Non-profits, whether its your church, an orphanage, Haiti relief organizations, or a rehabilitation program for ex-convicts, serve such an important role in the world and trying to make it a better place, I think it is important that you know there are many options that are low cost or no cost to help you do what you’re doing.  And Cirrus, as well as its employees has a lot of experience with non-profit organizations just like yours!

Twitter isn’t a bar.  And it’s not a car.  (I’ll stop rhyming now…)  Twitter will cut you off though, alcohol and crazy driving jokes aside (though hopefully the two aren’t related…).  If you don’t keep the character limit in mind, your messages can be just as obnoxious.

You only get 140 characters on Twitter—that’s it.  If you can’t fit your message in the allotted space, you’ll need to re-write or blog about it and then link to it from Twitter.  Twitter is meant for short blasts of information and if your tweet is too long, it will get cut off.  Anyone who gets your tweets on their phone has a 160 character limit (normally), and they may not see your entire message. Long tweets decrease the likelihood that people will read them.

Twitter Tip of the Day:  Make sure RT @yourtwittername will fit within the 140 characters before tweeting it.

Why? So people can retweet you!  For example, if I tweeted the following from Cirrus ABS’ Twitter account:

“Free Social Media Seminar on March 2 at Cirrus ABS, RSVP on our website http://bit.ly/9P9QrS to save your spot in one of two seminars”

That tweet is 133 characters long.  If someone wanted to retweet this, Twitter will add “RT @cirrusabs” to the beginning of the tweet, which is 13 additional characters for our username.  It would look something like this:

“RT @cirrusabs Free Social Media Seminar on March 2 at Cirrus ABS, RSVP on our website http://bit.ly/9P9QrS to save your spot in one of two seminars”

The red portion of the text signifies what Twitter will cut off.  Anyone who wants to retweet this message will have to edit the original post, re-word it (and likely not give @cirrusabs credit), or just get annoyed and not re-tweet it at all.

If you tweet on behalf of a business—there is endless information you can be blasting into the Twitter-sphere.  If you post news on your website, have an upcoming event or seminar, giveaways, promotions, press releases, or anything else that is relevant to anyone—let everyone know through Twitter.  However, always keep in mind that what you’re sharing is going to be of interest to SOMEONE else, and they might want to help you spread the word.

Never forget re-tweeting is free viral marketing and advertising, so don’t miss out on an opportunity because of a few characters!  Leave the extra characters at the bar…

Alright, alright, we get it!  This text is more important than the other text around it.  But if you put every other sentence in bold, you just “cried wolf.”  I don’t believe you anymore.  It can’t ALL be important enough to be bold, so I’m going to start ignoring your boldness (no pun intended).  And when it’s time for me to really notice something, I’m going to miss it or ignore it because you cried wolf too many times.

At Cirrus ABS, we have an internal saying we all use, “If you bold everything, nothing is bold.”  It’s not just bold text either.  I’ve seen websites get very creative when trying to draw attention to certain copy. 

Note:  Rainbow text is never okay unless you are an 8 year old little girl, Rainbow Bright, or a Skittles commercial.  It is hard to read on the Web, if you’ve ever tried—when every letter in a word is a different color.  I’ve heard arguments like, “But it catches their attention!”  That may well be true, but is that how you want to draw their attention?  If you have a professional website, rainbow text is not the way to go!

If your website has a black or dark gray font color (something neutral), it is okay to color a word or bold it to show it is important.  But when you have an entire page or sentence that is red, another that is green and one with larger font; sadly, it makes your website look sloppy.  Be consistent.  Across the board, be consistent.  If something is important, bold it; only it and not everything around it.  Keep the end user in mind—and think about it like this: If I was reading this website, would this make sense to me?  Typically, the things we write make more sense to ourselves than they sometimes may to someone else—especially if it is your forte and not your reader’s.

In the same vein, it is like sending all of your emails with high priority.  If every email I receive from you is high priority, I’ll start ignoring that high priority mark.  As with high priority emails, bolding and colored text should be used sparingly only when something truly is important.  As a co-worker of mine just said, “If you bold everything but a sentence or two, you just made those un-bolded sentences the bold part of the page, because it’s the first thing I’ll notice and read.”

Cry wolf too many times and your readers may start missing the point.

It’s time to break up with your phonebook.

Seriously, if you don’t spend time together, I think you should probably dump it…in the garbage.  Okay, that might be a bit excessive, but it is time to take a look at phonebook advertising. 

When’s the last time you cracked open a phone book and spent time perusing it for a phone number or address?  Been a few years?  Bet most kids don’t even know how to use a phonebook anymore.

Most people are using the Internet…and the really tech-savvy ones are using the Internet through their phones…in other words, I don’t throw a phonebook in my purse before I walk out the door, and 90% of the time I need a phone number, I’m on the run.  I suppose you could keep one in your car.  It could come in handy if you need a tow truck or maybe you could use it to ward off an attack…but you probably don’t use it often, if ever, to find a phone number.

So this begs the question: WHY is anyone spending money marketing in them?  Who is going to see those ads?  Need car repairs done—where will you look first, for the company who paid the most for the biggest ad in your phonebook, or the company online with the best reviews from people who have actually used their services?  I’ve heard tales (horror stories, in my opinion) of companies who spend thousands each month to have the biggest, most well placed, strategic ad in the local phonebooks.  What’s the point if no one is opening them; isn’t that kind of like flushing money right down the drain?

By now, you’ve probably heard the term, “Go where the people are,” and that’s true for this, too.  If you aren’t using a phonebook to find information—you are not an anomaly.  There are many struggling phonebook companies right now because people are pulling advertising money and going “where the people are.”  I heard a statistic about a company cutting their phonebook printing by 99% and that they distribute them by request only now.  (I don’t think this is true for all, at this time.)  Fox News (http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/02/04/green-legislation-targets-white-pages/) did a blog last week about how phonebooks aren’t green, (which is not what I am debating) and mentioned that there are many “green requests” to distribute phonebooks by request only.  Would you pick up the phone, call and request one?  I wouldn’t.

If you want to spend marketing dollars—go where the people are.  The people are on the Web.  Get found online by search engines and you will get found by the people looking for what you offer or services you provide.  Spend your advertising budget somewhere where you can truly advertise who you are and what you have to offer.  And the best part about this?  It’s MEASURABLE!  You KNOW how many people find you, what steps they take, and what you are being found for, which are all things a phonebook can’t tell you.

Not to say no one EVER uses a phonebook, because it’s true, there are people who do still use them, and see it as a valuable tool.  (The best argument FOR phonebooks, in my opinion, is “what if the Internet goes away?  A note to that: It won’t…and if it does evolve into something better that we no longer call the Internet, I think phonebooks will already have been used as kindling to keep you warm long before then)  I think you could argue an industry-specific case for phonebooks being valuable…to a select few.  So target the mass millions and market online!

Don’t think of it as cheating, but in the Internet era, it’s time to move on!

But still serves a purpose…

When is the last time you picked up a paper and looked through the ads? When did you last reach for a phone book to look up a business for a service you needed, or for that matter, anything at all?  If you’re looking for a service, who is more likely to come to mind—the business that has an ad on the back of the phone book or the business that regularly sends you an email advertising their services?  The one with the billboard on the side of the highway or the one that comes up first in an online search?  Truth be told, when I receive ads by mail, I don’t read them. 

Email is the new priority mail.

If you’re like most people, you probably haven’t picked up a phone book in years…if you have kids, they might not even know what a phone book is.  That form of advertising is becoming more and more obsolete.  Should you be listed in a phone book?  Sure.  Should that be your main outreach to potential clients? 

No.  It’s not how they connect with you. 

Think about it.  In a given day, we all get work-related emails, personal emails, and some emails that come to us from other companies—emails we may not have specifically asked for, but when we get them—we delete them, and sometimes we file them.   Why?  Just in case.  Just in case you need that service or you liked something you saw… you want to be able to reference it later.

After a website, it is potentially one of the best ways to market your company: sending regular emails to a massive list—an email campaign. 

It is not as easy as opening a new email, pasting all your contacts into the “To” line, tapping out an email and hitting send.  Here are a couple of tips to a successful email campaign:

• Only email those who have subscribed or requested your emails.  We all saw the mess when a political email went out to people who didn’t subscribe to receive it.  It’s not pretty. 
• NEVER do a mass business email and just dump the email list into the “To” line—you can get yourself black-listed by the search engines.  If I can see who else your email went to, there is a problem.
• Always give them the option to unsubscribe.  If they don’t want your emails and think they don’t need your service—but can’t get away from you, you’re not going to be on the top of their “go-to” list anyway.  They can also report you as a spammer if you don’t allow them to unsubscribe.
• Avoid the text-heavy emails.  If anyone sent me a 3 page text-only email about something I wasn’t even interested in right then, I’d hit delete.  If there were images throughout and it was broken apart by topic—there’s more of a chance that I’ll skim it for something of interest.
• Make sure there is some sort of call to action in every email you send.  If you’re sending out a lot of information and someone happens to come across the email and IS interested in what you do—then what?  Be sure to always give them a path that leads them to the next step—your website, the phone, your location.

There are a lot of tools out there that you can use; they are all worth looking into, depending on how much you want it to do.  If you use a CRM, sometimes the email management systems can integrate with them.  Most of them allow you to import your mailing list as well.  Non-profits can often send so many free emails per month depending on the service, but otherwise, it does cost a few pennies per email.  Services include Constant Contact, Vertical Response, and Mail Chimp.  These tools force you to send out emails properly in order to avoid breaking any of those standard email campaign “rules.”

Happy emailing!

Cirrus Site Tip:  If you have a Cirrus site and we’re collecting data for you, we can dump any email addresses you collect right into your email service—without you lifting a finger…contact us to learn how!