Design for a better world
Designs for Living supplies high quality furniture for retirement villages and private residences.
We used a speedy development process to get the website up and running in 1 week.
The WordPress website was created in collaboration with a virtual team across town and across the world.
With simply navigation focusing on finding products easily, the website contains high quality images of chairs, tables, sofas and more.
Check out Designs for Living.
As I said in don’t kick sand part one, web content is better communication. This needs to be good because the web doesn’t forgive bad communication.
Last time I talked about ditching your newsletter. This time: concentrating on the key tasks to reduce your effort (and thus money) and increase your customer satisfaction.
These are the most important things most people want to do on your website most of the time. For everything else – use the phone.
Have you ever asked? No – why not?
May be you don’t know how.
Write down all the things you think people would want to do on your website. Limit it to the top 15.
Ask a few customers and friends which 5 of these things are the most important to them. Take notes.
(Don’t ask them what they would like to see on your site. Why? You might not be able to provide it and it might not really be what they actually do on your site.)
Now work out your key tasks.
Doesn’t matter how you do it. Small changes can make a big difference:
Focusing on key tasks will save you time – not as much content to maintain – and increase satisfaction for your visitors. It shows that you really want to make business with you easy.
You need people who know web content because they also know new media – you need to be good at new media.
Not just because it’s mean.
If the internet were an economy it would be the size of (per-financial crisis) Spain. As we all know, the internet is set for world domination. You should make it your business to get better at web writing – not treating it like a 99 lb weakling at the beach.
How? There’s lots of ways to get better at web writing:
It’s probably an example of pre-internet thinking. Why?
Strangely enough, actual news happens all the time – not to a schedule. What’s the point in telling your customers about a new product 2 weeks after launch? Write a news blog: tell everyone about that.
In one organisation I worked for, the newsletter came out fortnightly. It took the editor the whole two weeks to write it. It was “drudgery squared” involving finding the person with the news, extract it from them, get sign off. It’s enough to drive people to switch jobs and, in this case, the editor did after 6 months.
That might be a very personable CEO as in one place I worked. If you’re not that lucky, delegate the authority for them to release the news and then step back and enjoy the rewards. They may stuff up once in a while, but what useful experience.
A side benefit is that it will improve organisational culture; setting an example for more open communication which is desirable. (Believe me, it’s desirable.)
Not only does filler content mask the useful information, it also makes it harder to find at a later date.
So, make sure you blog to a topic. These guys do it really well: Life Hacker. Follow them on twitter and learn.
If the reader’s not interested, then the poor buggers don’t have to slosh through the filler content.
Metaphorically or literally. Web posts do. They’re great for feedback on your products and services (only if you want to hear it and others to hear it).
A blog post will promote traffic to your website. You can track it better, too, with analytics.
There are circumstances when newsletters are effective. Your newsletters is really part of your overall communication culture. Which is why you need to…
I look at another way doing it on the web saves money and satisfies web visitors: simple online tasks. Oh yeah.
Orana Health Services Director, Tracey, on Red Bridge Web:
[I] really appreciate your input & direction with this web stuff. You are helping to make my business more real… What you mentioned & articulated reflects my work and where things are at.
Set up by an accredited, practicing Social Worker and launching later this year, Orana Health Services will offer counselling services, care coordination planning and online resources. Orana is ready to begin business and needs an online presence.
First steps… Red Bridge Web is working to help out, starting with everything people might want to do on the Orana website. This will also help Orana focus on how to market its services, who to and what’s important to its clients.