Wrong! Unfortunately, if that’s your business plan, then you’re not going to be very successful long-term. Taking any and all business that comes your way can – and inevitably, will – only take you so far.

Which is why I’ve decided that as I begin my second year in business, it’s long overdue to create a business plan around how I answer questions such as:

• What areas am I interested in?
• What skills am I good at?
• Who needs the services I can offer?
• Are there things I should know how to do?
• What kind of projects am I willing to do?

Why you should refine your focus…

Why do I think that won’t you be successful in the long-run if you do a little bit of everything?

Because if your business plan is to “specialize” in doing a little bit of everything, then what is it that you’re specializing in? Why should someone hire you over another business that actually specializes in what they’re looking for?

There are so many areas of expertise within the web industry. You have web designers, web developers, usability experts, web marketers, web developers, social media experts, SEO specialists, content developers – the list goes on and on. So how can you possibly specialize in doing everything that all of those people do? You can’t – and you won’t, even if you try to.

…but not refine it too much

Don’t get me wrong though – I’m not saying that you should have such a small focus that you don’t have at least a working knowledge of these others areas. In fact, you’ll often hear complaints along the lines of, “I wish the marketing people were on the same page as the web developers” – so having at least a basic understanding of other areas within the web-world is important when working with a larger web team.

When I started out, I knew that in order to be successful as a web designer, I needed to be very knowledgeable about web design and its components (colors, typography, etc.). What I’ve come to realize over the last year is that I also need to be knowledgeable about many other areas of expertise that make a big impact on my designs – areas such as usability, SEO, accessibility, etc.

Do I need to be an expert practitioner in each of those areas? No. But I do need to know enough about each of them to:

• Know how those considerations will factor into my designs
• Be able to answer questions about them when clients ask me
• Talk about them confidently and knowledgeably
• Offer tips on incorporating some of the minimum best practices

Know what services you can offer…

Once you know what your areas of expertise are, it becomes slightly easier to start defining the services that you can offer clients – or in simpler terms, what you can make money on.

If you’re in business for yourself, then this is also a matter of recognizing your strengths and playing to them. Are you really good at integrating databases into a website? Then become a web developer. Are you good at creating catchphrases and techniques to grab people’s attention on a website? Then perhaps web marketing is for you. You begin to see the picture.

…and who might need them

An important question that you’ll also want to ask yourself at this point is, where is there a need for these skills? What you’re doing here is trying to understand what your market is and who your potential customers are. If you can find a niche market, even better, but that can be very difficult to do.

Knowing who your clients are can also help you know what services you should offer, or if you don’t already, then what skills you should learn to do. If you get a lot of questions about e-mail marketing campaigns from your existing clients but don’t already offer that as a service, perhaps it’s worth learning about so that you can offer it. When you’re able to offer the services that your clients (or those in your market) need, you’re giving them even more of an incentive to work with you.

Know when to turn down work…

People who aren’t web-savvy often don’t know the difference between the various disciplines that web professionals work in. Within the last year I’ve had a lot of friends or family say to me, “you work in websites – so-and-so needs a website, you should talk to them”. While I definitely appreciate the referrals, just because someone is looking for a website doesn’t mean they’re looking for one that I’m able to give them give my skill-set.

What I’m getting at is that you need to know when you should turn down a project. I know it’s not easy to do, and I say that from personal experience. But if after talking to your clients and getting a real sense of what they want and need (and there’s a difference), if you can’t give that to them, then you’re wasting both their time and yours.

I worked on two projects this year that didn’t end up coming to fruition, and it wasn’t until afterward that I realized that what I was able to offer them and am good at wasn’t what they really wanted. I couldn’t say no. Instead of telling them I could do what they wanted, what I should have said to them was:

“Thank you for talking to me about your project. Based on our conversation, what you’re looking as I understand it is  something that I don’t specialize in and am not able to give you. Because of that, I’ll have to turn down this project.”

Being honest with a potential client never hurt anyone – and in fact, they might really appreciate it. Even if they might be annoyed at first that you met with them for an hour but can’t help them, they’ll be less annoyed than if you start working on the project and end up having to scrap it because you’re giving them what they want.

…how to recognize the difference between “want” and “need”…

Of course, part of my job is to help people understand their needs vis-a-vis a website – that’s why they’re asking me to talk to them about it in the first place. As a professional, I can make recommendations differently if what they describe their needs are doesn’t match up with what they want. (For example, they might “want” a sleek Flash website when they really “need” something more basic.)

People don’t always have an appreciation for the intricacies of websites, such as what might really meet their needs. So just because someone is talking to you about work you might not specialize in, it might not be worth abandoning before you really know why they want what they’re asking for.

This is especially the case if someone comes to you and says something like, “I really like that website – I want mine to be like that”. Then they clearly need some guidance, and it’s your job to help them clearly understand what really meets their needs and why. It might be that the website they like would do exactly that, which is fine – but if it isn’t, then you need to tell them that. You’re the professional, after all, and if they want a professional opinion, they’ll listen to what you’re saying.

…and what work you don’t want to do

Along the same lines, you have to determine what kinds of project you’re willing to take on. For example, I only want to work on website designs/redesigns, consulting projects, or maintenance. Within those specific areas, I want to do work such as:

• WordPress-based websites
• Static websites
• HTML newsletter creation
• Content consultation
• SEO – organic/keyword consulting
• Blogs
• Site maintenance
• Template design
• Redesigning a website

By starting to focus in on the type of work you want to do, if someone asks you “do you do this?”, you’ll be able to tell them right away if you do or don’t. For example, I know that I don’t want to do “busy work”, even if it does help pay the bills. It’s just not something that interests me, and I don’t feel that it will help me grow as a designer.

One thing to note: don’t be too quick to turn down work. Even if you know what you want to do and are being asked about something you don’t do, sometimes it can be a smart move to do something outside your comfort zone. You never know where it might lead to.

So before you make such decisions, think carefully about what you might get out of that work, and if the pros outweigh the cons, then it might be worth considering.

Success is a journey, so start walking

Everything that I mentioned are things that people and businesses are constantly thinking about, refining, and changing. For someone first starting out in business, the answers to the questions I posed aren’t going to come to you right away. But have patience – if you’re successful, then they will.

This can be a lot to think about, but these decisions are essential to the long-term growth and success of your business. Think about them before it’s too late, because otherwise, you won’t get very far at all.

Early web browsers used to have default styles for text links, which were usually blue and underlined. That’s why you most often see links with those characteristics, so it’s no surprise that this is how people expect text links to look like.

With the advent of CSS a few years ago, web designers began to assert greater control over how those links appeared. That’s been both a good and a bad thing, because with the greater control also came greater variation in how text links were styled.

With that in mind, here are some things to take into consideration when determining how you’re going to style text links on your website.

Contrast Against the Page Background

• On a lighter background (white, light grey, etc.), use either medium to darker shades of blue or red. Those options generally give the most contrast against the light background.
• On a darker background (such as black, dark blue, etc.), use very, very light shades of yellows, greens, oranges, blues, grays, or white.
• Try to stay away from light reds, pinks, etc., since those can be too jarring to the eye in contrast to the background color.

In either case though, the specific choice depends on the color scheme that the designer is working with, so we need to use our judgment about what we think looks and works the best to make the links stand out.

Contrast Against the Text

Most text on websites is either black (on a white background) or white (on a black background). So if your links are already underlined and are a different color than the main text, you’ve done the job right.

But when you’re picking the color of your links, please please PLEASE choose a color with enough contrast so that there is a noticeable color difference between the text and the link!

Using black text? Then coloring your links in navy blue is not going to cut it. At most “normal” font sizes on a website (around 12 pixels in height), the human eye can’t tell the difference between those two colors without straining – for example, can you tell this is a link? How about this instead? And at even smaller font sizes, forget about it.

Links Should. Be. Underlined.

A more recent trend in websites is to not underline text links. A lot of people feel that doing so gives a website a cleaner, more professional appearance. I agree with that result, but I disagree with the concept of not underlining text links.

Links should be underlined because when a text link is in the middle of a chunk of text (or as a headline), even if colored differently it isn’t always plainly obvious what is the link and what isn’t.

Think of people who are colorblind. They could look at a website and not be able to tell the links apart from the text if the links aren’t underlined. So from an accessibility perspective, underlining your links is a good thing.

And, when taken in combination with coloring your links the right way, it takes away any doubt the user might have about what is a link and what isn’t.

There Are Always Exceptions

Keep in mind that as with any particular element in web design, too much of a good thing can sometimes be a bad thing.

Yes, underlining and coloring links appropriately are the right things to do from both a usability and accessibility perspective. But I don’t go crazy having every link underlined on one of my websites if doing so means sacrificing the overall look and feel of the website as a whole.

For example, on the websites I design I usually have the text links underlined, but I don’t underline the main navigational links. When it’s obvious that the word is a link, as in the case of a link in a main navigational area, there’s generally not a need to have it appear underlined.

As a designer, my job is to create websites that are not only usable and accessible, but that look great as well. I have to take all of these factors into account and use my judgment when deciding how to style text links.

But, as long as I keep in mind usability and accessibility principles when making a decision, it’s guaranteed that the overall website will be that much more effective and successful.

My recommendations are based around the idea that a PDF file is, by nature, action-oriented. You want people to do something with the files they’re opening – and when PDFs are linked to properly, the intended actions can be one of two things (and sometimes both):

• Download
• Print

So, with that being said, here are my tips and recommendations for when to use a PDF and when not to use one, followed by some general tips for how to use them.

Yes – Use PDFs

• Forms – the US Postal Service, Internal Revenue Service, and other official government agencies are great examples of this. They all have the most requested forms available as PDFs for you to download. If you have forms that people need to fill out regularly and would be coming to your website to get, then posting them as PDFs is ideal. Just make sure that they are easy to find – but if your website is already designed with usability in mind, this won’t be a problem.
• Reference guides – Do you want to post information intended for distribution or for use as reference material? There’s certainly nothing wrong with that from a usability perspective, and posting that information as a PDF file is an ideal way to do that. Just make sure that if what you’re intending for distribution might also be useful as actual content posted on your website, then by all means do that – don’t bury it as a PDF.
• Menus – A lot of restaurants will post their menus as PDFs. Why? Because the menus change so frequently that it doesn’t make sense to have someone post the information as actual content on the page.

No – Don’t Use PDFs

• As a replacement for page content – My rule of thumb is to never, ever post actual content as a PDF file unless there is a very, very compelling reason to do so. Content should belong on an actual page on your website – that way, search engines (both internal and external) can find it and direct people to it. Making an actual page of your content also makes it as accessible as possible, since there are people who either cannot install the Adobe Reader on their computer, or who won’t install it, but can certainly see what is posted on your website.
• To show off your marketing material – Did your business or organization just have some snazzy new marketing materials printed, such as brochures, posters, etc.? It’s great if you want people to see them, but let them see those materials as they were intended to be seen. Besides, your website serves a similar purpose as marketing material anyways, and if people are already on your website, then your marketing material has already done its job. And to further complicate matters, often times marketing material is designed to get people to go to the website and do something, which they are already doing! The catch is that the “something” is most likely not opening up the very marketing material that brought them there in the first place.

Tips for the Best Ways to Post PDFs

If you are going to post a PDF file, then here are some general guidelines I use:

• Indicate that it’s a PDF file – By default, most people expect a link to take them to another page on a website. But if you’re linking to a PDF file, that’s not the case. So generally, I try to let people know that the link they’re about to click on is a PDF file – either by writing (pdf) after the link, or by using the little Adobe PDF icons.
• Have it open in a new window – Just by nature, PDF files tend to be dead-ends in the sense that when you click on a link to open one, there’s no way to incorporate another link within the PDF file to allow people to go back to your website. They have to use their browser’s “Back” button, and more often that not, people will just close the window entirely. So why have them close your website altogether just because they opened a PDF? Just code it so that the PDF opens in a new window, and that way, when they close the file, they’ll still be on your website.
• Make the PDF printer-friendly – This is a big one, especially if the file you’re posting is intended for people to print in some way. The contents should be in black and white only (skip the color), and absolutely must be formatted for a standard, 8.5″ x 11″ sheet of paper.
• Optimize it for the web – Newer versions of Adobe Acrobat allow you to optimize your PDF file for web browsers. Of course, if you have a lot of images and artwork in your PDF, it will take longer to load anyways when compared to a black-and-white document with nothing but text in it. So if you are posting something with a lot of colors, photos, etc. in it, make sure to optimize it when you create the PDF file in the first place.
• Include a link to download the Adobe Reader – I’m iffy on this one, only because the Adobe Reader is getting to be a pretty standard feature on most computers nowadays. But, there are still people out there who don’t have it installed already, so the easy thing to do is provide a link to the Adobe website, where they can download it for free.

Thoughts?

What do you think about this – do you have any ideas or best practices about this that you would like to share?