Website to Wonderful, 6: Embrace Diversity
I recently bought my first Mac. There are many things to love (OMG, the screen). And there are some decidedly different things to get your head around. In an average day, I’ll work on the iMac with its massive screen, and then look at stuff on the desktop PC or laptop PC with widescreen monitor in the evening. It’s…interesting. Here’s what I’m noticing about my website viewing experience. 1. Text always looks better on the Mac Fonts that look perfectly acceptable on the Mac may look like wobbly spider poo on the PC. Fonts that look a bit iffy on the Mac look...
Read MoreInterlude: Get Over Yourself. Get Out There.
One of the most common website issues I see is, well, utter lack of personality. The site owner has bags of personality. Trouble is, she (it’s usually a she) doesn’t let one tiny bit of it creep onto the website. Instead the web content is stuffy, over-formal or just somehow lacking anything that would really draw the passing reader in. There’s another extreme, too. That’s the website where you know everything about the site owner’s struggle with depression/ongoing house renovation/gnawing fear of getting old…and that’s before you buy any of her...
Read MoreEverything is figure-out-able
When I was 15, I couldn’t do maths. It was utter gobbledygook. I sat there every lesson and wrote notes diligently, but nothing connected, however hard I seemed to try. The moment of truth was my mock ‘O’ grade, the January before we took the real ones. I knew that I’d done badly, but when my teacher handed back my paper, I couldn’t believe how badly. I’d not so much failed as crashed. My teacher (a kindly man with a bald head, a walrus moustache and a degree in maths) told me that some people simply couldn’t do maths, and I was clearly one of...
Read MoreOnline trust clues
As I wander the far-flung corners of the internet, I’m interested to see what factors I’m unconsciously weighing up as I make decisions about connecting with people. Usually, when I add people to Twitter or my RSS reader, I’m interested in connecting with them at some point down the line. Or, I may be reading a blog and thinking about buying a service from the blogger concerned. The persona communicated by the blogger over time is incredibly important to my decision-making. Sometimes there are little personality clues that will sound an off-note. I came across a...
Read MoreHall of Shame
I don’t usually do this but the South Bank Centre emailed me a questionnaire today which was stunningly awful. My prize for Most Unanswerable Question goes to this pair of lovelies: What would you put? No, I still have no idea. On the last page of the survey, after countless other difficult questions, there was a two-part Brand Price Trade-Off question – this question, repeated for the other type of memberships. IDEK, as they say. Hard enough to answer when there’s a lady with a clipboard tapping her pen, but a downright brainteaser as an online question. Please,...
Read MoreOver to you
Pro tip: Never advertise something as part of a two-part series unless you have both parts already written. Sigh. You can triple this if Thing 2 is slightly harder to dash off than Thing 1. (It will come, but I’m in lockdown at the moment what with project deadlines and the upcoming End of Term). I’m reviewing the blog and what I write here as part of a massive review of my online er, empire and so I’m interested: who are you? why do you read this blog? Are there things you’d like me to write about more? I could write more: - anguished personal insights -...
Read MoreManifesto
Some of us find it quite simple to put our real organisations and authentic selves online.
Others - well, let's just say that some of us can't bear to look at our own websites.
My mission is to help you transform your online presence so that other people understand and appreciate what you really have to offer. So that you can achieve what you want - whether that's better engagement, more readers, or more sales.