Archive for the ‘Business’ Category

CMS – Salvation or Enslavement?

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

In the ‘bad old days’ you commissioned a website, agreed the content and then had to pay your website designer when you wanted changes to your content (either via a one-off payment or via a regular maintenance fee).  Nowadays lots of clients are avoiding this by insisting that their site be created under a Content Management System (CMS) framework.

CMS sites are easy to create and can free you entirely from a web designer – total emancipation, imagine that!

But are these people freeing themselves from the yoke of tyrannical website designers or unknowingly burdening themselves with a maintenance nightmare?

There’s no doubt about it; CMS is here to stay.  Quite simply the lure of being able to change anything about their site without having to pick up the phone or email their webmaster is too great to resist for many business owners.  This is not a bad thing, it can liberate the site owner and improves the turnaround time for fixing those minor niggles.

As with all things web-related, there are, however some pretty serious downsides to using CMS too.  So, should you go down the CMS route?  Let’s discuss the pros and cons.

There are many different CMS frameworks.  Some are free and some are not.  Does your site need to go to the extra expense of paying, or would one of the free ones be adequate.  Generally if your site is going to be viewed by many thousands of visitors simultaneously you should consider one of the frameworks for which you have to pay, they ‘scale’ better.

The main advantage of using CMS is that you have total control of your website content.  The main disadvantage is that you have control of your website content.  You have to learn how to use the CMS framework (it differs depending upon the supplier chosen).  Having learnt how to use the CMS system you are then responsible for all of the changes to the site (or indeed the initial setup of the site).  Many people underestimate just how much of their time is going to be taken up by this.

By default, all CMS sites of the same type (using the same framework) look the same.  If you want to stand out, you need to have a custom template (or more than one if you want your pages to look different from one another).  To do this you need to either spend time learning the skills of a web designer or to involve an actual web designer (again!)

To get more than just plain, vanilla, pages you will need to use plugins of some type (e.g. photo galleries, secure areas or blog comment tools).  These can be free or can cost money.  You will need to think carefully about which plugins are going to fit in with the overall look and behaviour of your site or you’ll end up with a dog’s dinner.

Most of the most popular CMS frameworks have a very active development and user base (Joomla and WordPress for example).  This means that the range of plugins and the level of support is good.  However, the public-domain CMS frameworks, being non-commercial, have no dedicated help desk that you can phone if you suddenly find that your site has been ‘disimproved’ by some action that you’ve taken.

The responsibility for your organic placement in the search engine rankings is solely yours.  You have elected to become your own SEO expert!  There are many, many articles on the internet that can help you here, but expect it to use up a lot of your time and become an obsession!

The picture I’ve painted so far is a rather gloomy one, highlighting just how much time a CMS site will leach out of your life and how you can easily make a mess of your site.  It doesn’t have to be this way, here are some suggestions as to how to minimise the burden:

  • Get a web designer to design your site and implement the framework for you.  They can help you choose which CMS framework to use, do all of the design work (so that your site doesn’t look like all the other CMS sites), choose the plugins and set the basic framework in place for you.  As part of their fee they should provide you with rudimentary training as to how you use the framework they have put in place.
  • Consider a hybrid site which is partly static and partly CMS.  This isn’t an option that works for everyone, but, sometimes, upon reflection, clients realise that they really only need certain areas of their site to be regularly changed (blogs, the home page or the ‘about us’ section for example).
  • Get advice from a web developer as to what you can do to ensure that your site doesn’t suffer in the search engine rankings.  If you’re taking the advice above, and employing them in the first place, this is something that they should do for free.
  • Talk to your business buddies.  Find out if their sites are CMS based and learn from their mistakes and successes.

So, should you use a CMS framework on your website?

If you’re happy that the pros outweigh the cons for your organisation then it’s a resounding ‘YES’.

If you’re unsure, ask a web designer for their opinion (this should cost nothing).  Ask your business acquaintances if they use CMS and find out how much hassle it is for them.

If you don’t have the time right now, then CMS could still be the way but you may want somebody to set it all up for you so that you have the flexibility later to alter your content.

If you’re totally afraid of the whole thing or don’t want to have anything to do with your site, then you probably want to go down the “traditional” route of fixed content and a fee to change it.

Posted in Business, Website Design | 1 Comment »

A beginner’s guide to buying a website

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

If you’ve never bought a website before, the task can be somewhat daunting.  We all know, or have heard about, somebody who has been badly burned when buying a website.

Arm yourself with a little bit of knowledge and prepare a few questions in advance however and you should be able to avoid becoming the leading character in a horror story.

The basics – what’s in a website?

When you purchase a website, you are essentially buying three things:

A domain name.

The domain name is how people identify your website, it is generally the same as your business name  e.g. www.cheekyfrog.net

There are various types of domain name: .com, .co.uk, .net etc.  Which you choose is less important than it was 10 years ago, but certain types are more expensive than others and each is supposed to have a meaning (although this isn’t always honoured anymore).

There is a recurring (generally annual) fee that is paid to continue owning your domain name.

A hosting package

The hosting package is a service that is paid for with a recurring fee (generally yearly or monthly).

The hosting company (or provider) provides you with disk space on their servers so that your website has a location into which a website developer can copy the files that actually comprise your website.

Different hosting packages offer differing levels of service and differing features (databases, mailboxes, scripting languages etc) for differing prices. 

The website code

The website code is the bit that you are actually paying your website developer to provide.  The code forms the pages that the visitors to your website see.

In addition to your web pages, you should be asking your web developer about the following, which (I believe) should be provided as part of the quoted website creation:

  • Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
    Simply put, this is where the developer does their utmost to ensure that your site is as close to the top of the search engine listings as possible for agreed search phrases.
  • Site usage statistics
    Your developer should be able to provide you with statistics about who is visiting your site, how they got there and how long they were there.
  • Compliance to standards
    The developer should let you know to which standards they will be adhering whilst creating your website.

So what am I paying the web designer to do?

As mentioned above, your website developer should be providing you with more than just the pages on your site.  When you agree to hand over your hard earned cash to a developer you need to be sure of the following:

Who is purchasing the hosting and domain name?

Is the developer doing this for you?  If so, how much are they charging you for it?  If you are doing this, do you know what the developer needs in terms of disk space, in-built languages and database support etc. to provide the site that you want?

In whose name is the site domain name going to be registered? If you need to switch to another provider or if you have a disagreement with your developer what happens?

Will I be able to see the design before it goes live?

Not all developers will allow you to see what it is that you’re buying before it goes out live.  You need to ask at what stages you are going to be able to see a prototype of the design and ask for changes.

What standards will my site adhere to?

If your site adheres to W3C coding standards then there is a greater chance that your visitors will get the same experience visiting your site no matter which browser they use.

Will my site be in line with legal requirements regarding access by the visually impaired?

If not you are, technically, breaking the law and could be prosecuted (although I don’t know of anyone who has been prosecuted).  Will your site be in line with guidelines regarding colours used?  Certain colour combinations will be invisible to people with different forms of visual impairment.

What about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?

Your site developer should be able to explain to you what needs to be done to best allow your site to be found.

How do I know who’s visited my site?

Your developer should be able to tell you what measures they intend to put in place so that you know how many people have visited your site, how they got there, how long they spent there and whether or not they were a returning visitor.  Again, you should be told in advance whether this is a service that is provided as standard or at an additional cost.

What happens if I want to change my site content?

Depending on how your site is created you can change your content to a lesser or greater degree.  Your site developer should be able to advise you on whether you need a Content Management System (CMS) based site, where you can change all of your content, or a more traditional site where changes need to be made by the developer

 

What ongoing costs will I incur?

After you’ve paid for your site you will still incur additional costs.  At the very least, if you want to keep your site up and running, you will need to pay a recurring fee to keep your domain name and pay your site hosts.

In addition to these fixed costs, you may want to agree in advance with your developer additional fees for such things as updates to your site or continuing SEO.  If you don’t want to pay a recurring maintenance fee, you need to have some idea of what costs will arise if you need to make changes to your site once the initial fee has been paid.

So what do I need to do?

Simply put, most people get stung when commissioning a website because they don’t ask enough questions.  The above are the bare minimum that you need to ask.  If something’s bothering you – ask!

If a potential website developer is not keen to answer your questions (for free!) then find another one.  If they try to bamboozle you with buzzwords or seem evasive – find another one.  If their costs seem unreasonable – get another quote.

Posted in Business, Website Design | 7 Comments »

Consistency is the key to success – in business

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

“Consistency is the key to success” is an oft quoted aphorism.  But is it true?

In business why should we care about consistency?  What does ‘consistency’ actually mean within a business framework?  Is your business consistent, is mine?  How do we go about achieving consistency?

In a business context consistency could be defined as “giving each customer the same experience and level of care”.  Now if you deliver a tailored service you may be thinking “OK, let’s move on, there’s nothing to read here”, please bear with me; I think you’ll find that there is something to be gained for you too.

Giving our customers a consistent experience is important…

Imagine that ‘customer A’ gets fantastic service from your company and sings your praises to all of their friends, colleagues and acquaintances .  This is great, word of mouth is the best form of referral that you can possibly have.

Now imagine ‘customer B’, the customer that didn’t get the quality of service that you normally provide; the exception to the rule, the one where something was missed.  What kind of word of mouth is given by this customer, what reputational damage does your business suffer from all the ‘customer B’s?

The key to getting repeat business is to treat ALL of your customers well – we all know that, right?  But what’s the key to making sure that we can do this consistently?  The key to eliminating those little errors that turn our customers from evangelists for our business into prophets of doom?

The answer is: documented processes.

Now that you’ve finished groaning out loud, let’s stop and think for a while as to what we mean by this and why it’s so important.

Everything that we do in our businesses follows a process; from how we keep on top of stock levels to how we deal with clients on the phone.  How nice a cup of tea you get in the morning is also governed by a process (albeit one that is possibly of less importance to the business than the other two).

The only way in which we can ensure that our clients receive a consistent quality of service is if these individual processes are carried out in the same way every time.  A simple example of this is how the phone is answered; it’s a very different customer experience to hear: “Good morning, Bloggs Corp, this is John speaking how can I help you?” compared to “Yes?”

The only way in which we can control how our processes are enacted is to document them and to make sure that everyone follows the documentation.

Now here’s where things get subjective; only you, as a business owner, can know how many processes you want/need to document in order to ensure consistency in the key aspects of your business.  The size of your business is immaterial, the key here is to look at the areas that are important to you, it’s your business; be honest with yourself.

Start by documenting what happens now for the ideal iteration of a process, for example how you perform invoicing or ‘goods in’ or answering support calls… whatever it is that’s important to your business right now.  Document how it is that this should be done for all of the ‘customer A’s

Repeat this documentation task with each important process within your organisation and you then have the basis of an operations manual that everyone in your business can follow – thereby giving your clients a consistent experience no matter who they are dealing with from within your business.

Simple huh?

If you need help with documenting these processes ask your business improvement/process improvement specialist to help you.

Now that you have your processes documented so that you are providing consistent service to your customers you are in a position to take the next step….

Improving and automating your processes… but we’ll leave that for another article.

Posted in Business, Process Improvement | 1 Comment »

Prototyping – good for customers good for business

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

All software solutions providers want to provide their clients with the perfect solution (at least I hope they do).  And all clients want to give their solutions providers as much help in achieving this as possible (again, or so I hope).  Yet it seems that often neither of these aims is achieved.

So what can we do to maximise client happiness and the provision of perfect solutions in the shortest possible timescales?  Well one answer is to employ prototyping.

Prototyping at its simplest is where the solutions provider gives the client a glimpse of what they’re working on.  The client then has the opportunity to give feedback to the provider letting them know how close they are to what the client wants.

In an ideal world, of course, prototyping wouldn’t be necessary.  The solutions provider and the client would have been able to express to one another all that needed to be expressed about the project and this would be written down in an immutable specification.  This specification would unambiguously state exactly what was required for the client to have what they wanted and so would give enough information for the provider to create the code or website.

Ahh to live in an ideal world!

Of course what really happens is that the “specification” (if one is written) is full of ambiguities, as is anything written by humans.

The solutions provider, unaware of this, creates their magnum opus, based upon their interpretations of the ambiguities and confidently delivers to the client.  Upon seeing this work of beauty the client promptly, and unreasonably, has a hissy fit screaming about how this is nothing like what they asked for.

The client, unaware of the ambiguities, patiently waits an eternity for the slothful solutions provider to finally deliver the simple piece of work that they need.  They are then dumbfounded when what they are given is plainly wrong.  Moreover, the provider becomes ultra defensive claiming that this was what exactly the client had asked for.

Enter ‘the prototype’.

By agreeing in advance that the provider will prototype the work (be it a website or a suite of applications) both parties have the opportunity to find out if work is progressing in the right direction.

This prototyping can take the form of showing design work to a website client (yes there really are people out there who don’t do this!) or giving the client access to new web pages or areas of functionality as they become available.  The key here is to do this often and with the understanding that this isn’t the final product.

From the perspective of the provider, the sooner a ‘problem’ is identified, the less the problem is compounded (think angle of divergence).  This reduces the time lost to rework and so reduces the likelihood of slippage.

From the client’s standpoint, the more often they can see the work the more assurance they have that things are progressing as they would want.  They also get the opportunity earlier in the project to identify things that have been forgotten.  OK, so these forgotten items may still incur an additional cost as they weren’t part of the original scope of the project, but better to find that out when the missing items can be worked into the project rather than finding out on the day when it all “goes live”

If you’re a client looking to get a website or some bespoke software, ask your provider how often they intend to prototype.  It they don’t intend to do so, look for another provider.

If you’re a provider working with a new client, ask them how much prototyping they would like to see.  If they don’t want to see any – insist that they see some (as a bare minimum the basic design for a website).

Posted in Business, Software | 7 Comments »

Are you a collaborator?

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

It’s strange isn’t it how the meaning of words changes over time?  In wartime years being called a collaborator was tantamount to being called a traitor.  In the business sense though, collaboration is a noble thing!

With the current economic climate, we’re all looking for ways in which we can maximise our bottom line.  One way in which we may be able to achieve this is through collaboration.

Businesses collaborating is nothing new, of course.  To a certain extent we’re all doing it with networking events and chambers of commerce, trying to help one another along as best we can, offering recommendations for our business buddies.  The kind of collaboration that I’m talking about in this piece though goes deeper than that, I’m talking about full-blown, no holds barred, hardcore collaboration!

When we think of collaborating we often think of working with other similar businesses, effectively pooling resources to make a larger version of the kind of business we already have.  Maybe dealing with overflow from another business when there’s too much to handle (we can all dream!)  But what about collaborating with totally different spheres of business?

Think for a minute of what this kind of collaboration could bring.

If you’re creating websites, how powerful is full collaboration with a PR company?  You both deal with promoting your clients.  By combining your skill sets you effectively move into the realms of much larger, more diverse, organisations who have departments who can co-operate.

We’re not talking about mutual recommendations here, where the guy running the printing firm agrees that he will give you a mention when he’s doing a run of business cards for a customer in return for you promoting his firm.

We’re talking about the kind of collaboration where there’s a genuine benefit to your customers by joining forces with another business.  Where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.  Where there’s a real opportunity to pull in more leads and clients than if you were going it alone.

Moreover, collaboration may allow you to spread your promotional costs.  It will certainly introduce you to potential clients to whom you would not have been exposed otherwise.  It will offer you another sounding board from which to bounce ideas.  Think what other opportunities such a collaboration could bring.

Why stop with a single collaboration, why not form a collaboration consortium?

Have a think about your business and those local to you.  With a little bit of lateral thought I’ll bet that there are profitable local collaborations simply waiting to be made.

Posted in Business | No Comments »