Asking these questions often means stepping outside of our role as designers and putting on a marketer’s cap, because ultimately that’s what a lot of this information is all about. Marketers focus on helping clients communicate with their customers, and that’s exactly what a successful website does.

People sometimes rely on our expertise as web designers without understanding that marketing is also an important part of what we do. If information about the target audience falls through the cracks, sooner or later the client might come to realize that their website isn’t doing as well as it should be. In their mind, that’s a reflection on your product and work as a web designer.

So put on your marketing cap, and ask your clients some of the following questions in order to design a website that will truly meet the needs of a particular target audience.

Demographic information

The most basic information you can get about a target audience is their demographic information. While it’s important that your client is happy with the website, you need to take into account basic demographic information in order to create a design that will make the website more successful.

Here are some basic demographic questions to ask about a target audience:

• What gender are they? – Knowing whether the target audience is male, female, or both makes a huge impact on your design decisions, mainly in what colors you choose. Men and women react differently to colors, and colors symbolize different things to age groups, professions, and ethnic or social groups.
• How old are they? – Generally speaking, different age groups may be more computer savvy than others, have different familiarities with finding or doing something online, and have different expectations about what functionality they’ll find on a website.
• What keywords are they searching for? – Knowing what keywords people are using to find the product (specifically) or search online for (broadly) is useful for SEO purposes. Ask whether the website is geared towards businesses, individuals, etc., and then use keywords based on their answer.

Content information

Visitors are coming to your website for some purpose, whether to find information, make a purchase, etc. While the colors and functionality of the website are important, the content is what they’re really looking for.

Here are questions that I ask my clients about the content expectations of their target audience:

• Why are visitors coming to your website? – Websites for businesses, organizations, and news media all have very different purposes. People come to each type of website looking to do something specific. Knowing what people are most often looking for will help you, as the designer, know what content to emphasize, how to structure the information architecture, and more.
• Why should they come back again? – Designing a successful website means that you’ve convinced people that it’s worth their time (and/or money) to visit the website again in the future. That means communicating some incentive to them, either through your products or through the information they can find on the website. Getting them to visit once is great, but getting them to come back is even better.
• What should they see on the homepage? – It’s always tough to prioritize what information should be seen on the homepage. Focusing on your target audience and understanding what they want quick access to should help make those decisions easier. Also keep in mind what the purpose of your website is, and what people are coming to your website for, to help prioritize what content should go on it.

Technical information

If I’m being hired by a client to redesign an existing website, I always check with them to see if they’re using an analytics program to track their website usage. Most of these programs also offer you information about the website’s visitors, which would be very useful to know when making some design decisions.

Here are a few questions that you should ask if you know that data is available from the current website:

• What kind of browser are they using? – What proportion of your visitors are using Firefox? Internet Explorer? Safari? This information might be especially useful to know if the target audience is largely using IE 6.0; if they are, then chances are you’ll have to find some workarounds for the inevitable programs with how your design will display.
• What are the most common screen resolutions? – Are they using 1280 x 1024? 800 x 600? Something in between. This information is useful because it will give you a sense of not only how wide your main content area can safely be, but of what proportions you can use in your design in order to let most people be able to see it so that it still looks nice.

Thoughts?

What other questions do you ask about a website’s target audience when you work with clients? Share your thoughts with everyone about this topic and anything else that comes to mind by filling out the comment form below!

The best way to sum up these changes is by saying that they let you better communicate with your fans and non-fans alike. You’ll see what I mean when I go into more detail about what’s new. So without further ado, here are some of the biggest changes that have been made, and how they can benefit your marketing on Facebook.

Change #1: The improved wall is more prominent

Before these changes took place, Facebook pages used to look like the old version of a profile, where everything was on one page. You had to scroll down to see everything; on my old Facebook page, the wall was much further down the page and difficult to see.

Now, the wall is the first thing that people will see when they visit my page, and I think that will be a big benefit. Why? Because as someone who writes new content quite often, it will make it easier for people what I’m creating.

A great example of this is my RSS feed, which I currently import onto the Facebook page through an application. I write on this blog at least once a week, so with the greater prominence on the page, people who are fans of my Facebook page but who aren’t subscribed to my blog are now going to be more likely to see what I’m writing.

Other things relating to this change that I like include:

• Status updates – I can now give people a status update about what’s going on with my business, although this does seem very Twitter-ish in nature. As a business owner though, this might be a great place to do some informal polling by asking people some questions for them to comment on.
• Shared links, photos, etc. – I can use this as another way to keep people updated on what I might be reading or find interesting. It might also be used to share resources with fans that they might benefit from. Again, very Twitter-ish in nature.
• Comments on RSS feed updates – I’m sure people could do this in the past, but I might just not have noticed it. In any case, it’s another way for people to interact with what you’re writing. Does it really make a difference if someone comments to your post directly on your blog or on Facebook?

Change #2: Tabbed content makes for easier browsing

It’s almost counterintuitive that spreading your content out over a few tabs will get it more visibility than having it all on one page, but I think it is definitely a change for the better – much as was the case when this format first appeared for profiles. And the nice thing about these tabs is that people will see them right away, since they’re at the top of the page in a very noticeable location.

Why are these tabs an improvement over the old page format? In most cases, you don’t want to make people scroll down too much on a website to find the information they’re looking for, because they generally won’t. On the previous page format all you could do was hope that people scrolled down to see your content. But with the placement of these new tabs, it makes it easier for them to find your content.

This change leads me right into…

Change #3: Multiple landing page options

Now that Facebook pages have a tabbed layout, you end up getting unique URL’s for each tab. Why is this a good thing? Because you can now send people directly to specific information on your Facebook page, rather than sending them to the page as a whole and hoping they find the information..

As another added benefit, while your fans will see your page’s wall as the default when they visit, you can edit the settings to specify what you want non-fans to visit when they visit your page. This might be useful if you want to have, say, your Extended Information set as the first thing that people see. I’m personally debating whether I want non-fans to see the “Boxes” tab as the first thing they see – since it’s on this tab that I have reviews from former clients – or if they should be directed right to my wall.

Change is good, but…

Overall, I think the ways that these changes make the pages more dynamic is a good thing. But at the same time, with them there also come a few points you should be aware of:

• Keep your content fresh – Because people see the wall tab as first, you want to make sure that you post new content here on a regular basis. Otherwise, it will start getting stale quickly – and if people don’t think your page is worth becoming a fan of or visiting, then they’ll stop coming to it.
• Make guidelines for status updates – If you’re a small business owner, you might want to consider setting yourself some guidelines about what should and shouldn’t be posted in these updates, as well as how often you want to make a status update here. Again, you want to keep things fresh, but you also don’t want to write something inappropriate.
• Set permissions – Because fans can now share something on the wall, you need to monitor what gets posted there carefully and set your permissions accordingly.

Thoughts?

You can see all of this in action on Addicott Web’s Facebook page. Facebook has also published a document detailing all of the changes that might be worth reading even if you’re a veteran user of them. If you’re new at using Facebook pages, then I would definitely recommend reading through it.

Now some questions for you. If you have a Facebook page of your own for your business, what do you think of some of these changes? Are they an improvement and you plan to take advantage of them, or do you wish you could stay with the old page format? Share your thoughts by using the comment form below!

My business is almost entirely dependent on word-of-mouth referrals, so making sure that as many my friends and contacts as possible know about Addicott Web is crucial. The vast majority of my social network is on Facebook already, so it’s the perfect way for me to reach a broad audience.

What are the two approaches?

There are two tools that Facebook offers that can be used to market your business: groups and pages.

The differences between groups and pages are subtle, and average Facebook users probably don’t notice how they are different. In fact, I didn’t realize the difference myself, even after I started looking into which to use – which is how I ended up creating a group before I realized the error of my ways and created a page instead.

So why did I ultimately decide to use a Facebook page instead of a group? Simply put, because pages offer more flexibility to post such things as:

• Customer reviews of my work
• Recent blog posts through the RSS application
• Connections to pages of my clients

But groups can have their benefits too – just not for my purposes. Here is a quick table that summarizes the differences between the two tools:

Facebook Groups

Facebook groups can be created for just about anything. They are typically used as gathering places for people who share a common interest, support a common cause, or participated in some program or event together.

Why might you want to use a group to market your business?

• Administration – As the group administrator, you can easily send messages to group members, making it easier to communicate with them about your business.
• Familiarity – Facebook pages are relatively new, only having debuted in the last year or so, but groups have been around since the start. Because of that, people are a lot more familiar with groups and how to join and use them than they are with pages.

But there can be some drawbacks to using a group, such as:

• Not widely accessible – Groups are only visible to Facebook members, so someone who’s doing a search on Facebook won’t be able to see it unless they have a profile and are logged in.
• No extra applications – You can’t extra features to Facebook groups – what you see is what you get, which is generally the bare-bones stuff such as discussion boards, a wall, photo gallery, and basic administrative features.
• Need to visit regularly – If you post a message to the group’s wall, you won’t see if or when someone responded to what you wrote unless you go back and visit often. This can be a big drawback if you want to facilitate a flowing conversation.
• Less visibility on people’s profiles – When you join a group, it gets added to a long list of the other groups that you’re already a member of – and one that isn’t bulleted and lists the groups in no particular order to boot. If someone has a lot of groups that they’re a member of, it’s not easy to find yours amongst everything else.

Facebook Pages

As I detailed in another post on this topic, pages were created to allow people to connect with brands or famous artists. Pages can be created by anyone for any group, person, or business, although generally only an official representative of that business or person is allowed to maintain a page for that group or individual.

One of the biggest differences from a group is that you don’t become a “member” like you do of a group; rather, you are a “fan” of the page.

There are a lot more benefits to using a page versus using a group, such as:

• Are widely accessible – Pages can be seen and found on the wider Internet to people who aren’t members of Facebook, so you do gain wider exposure in that sense. But even so, you have to be a member of Facebook to interact with the group.
• Applications are available – As the page administrator, you can add applications to your page, similar to the way you can add applications to your Facebook profile. For example, on Addicott Web’s Facebook page, I’ve added an application that imports my RSS feed from my blog and displays my new posts whenever I post something to my blog.
• Tracking – Facebook has provided page administrators a tool that lets them know how many visitors that they’re getting.
• Better visibility – On your profile page, groups are displayed at the bottom with an image associated with that group next to it. The presentation and use of an image means that you get better visibility on their profile, making it easier for them (and others) to find your page.
• Actions are documented – If a fan of your page takes action on it, such as writing on your wall or posting a video, their actions will be documented on the news feeds of their personal pages. Their friends will see the news feeds and if curious, check out your page – giving you more exposure.

There are still a few drawbacks though, including:

• No mass invitations – If you want to invite people to become fans of your page, you can’t send invitations to large groups of people like can with a group. I’ve encountered this problem myself and it is quite frustrating.
• Less familiarity – Longtime Facebook users might still be less familiar with pages than they are with groups. In general though I think this is becoming less of a concern, so I wouldn’t factor this into your decision between the two.
• Messages might get less attention – As the page administrator you can send an update to your fans, but they might not notice it. Rather than appearing in their inbox, it gets displayed on the side of a user’s homepage – a less prominent spot that is unlikely to grab their attention.

Thoughts?

So now that you know the difference between Facebook groups and pages, which would you use to promote your business, or that of a business or organization you work for or with?

If you’re a small business owner and already use a Facebook group or page to market yourself, which approach do you use and why? Is it working for you?

Share your thoughts with everyone on both of these questions and more by filling out the comment form below!

Yes, you read that correctly.

Barack Obama ran for office using arguably the most technologically-committed campaign ever. The new look of the White House website is no surprise when you keep that in mind – although I must say that I actually was a bit surprised to hear about it. Considering everything else that is being talked about this inauguration day, honestly, who was even thinking about the White House website?

Thoughts on the new design

The new look of the White House website picks up where his campaign and transition websites left off. In fact, if you go to Change.gov now, there is a note saying that the “transition has ended and the new administration has begun. Please join President Barack Obama at Whitehouse.gov” – so you do get the sense of continuity from one phase of his election and presidency to the next.

Macon Phillips, the Director of New Media for the White House and a contributor to the White House blog, writes that the new website is “just the beginning of the new administration’s efforts to expand and deepen the online engagement” that many Americans used to help play a role in the election.

I think what I’m most impressed with the most is how Obama’s calls for transparency and communication in government were carried over to the website. What those two things translate most readily into in web design terms is what I talk about all the time – a commitment to site usability.

What’s done well

What are some features on the new website that make it very usable and that I really like?

• Intuitive navigation – The top navigational bar has only a few simple choices, and the drop-downs that appear when you hover over a link provide links to all sorts of information about his agenda, the administration, the history of the White House, the government, and how to stay informed. They’re simple to use and look great – what more could you ask form.
• E-mail updates – This is a standard feature on many websites, but this is downright genius the way it’s incorporates here – not to mention groundbreaking. But it comes as now surprise to see the administration use this, considering Obama’s use of other technologies during his campaign, such as text messaging.
• Functional footer – This is also a commonly found design element nowadays, but again, it’s use here really fits well with the openness and accessibility that the website and administration are both trying to convey. It makes it even easier for people to find the information that they’re looking if they don’t want to use the drop-down menus at the top – again, a hallmark of usability.

Of course, the snazzy Web 2.0 design really does wonders in tying eveything together, and the web designer in me can’t help but wonder if it’s running on WordPress!

What could be fixed

I know I’m probably being a bit too nit-picky here, but there are a few small touches that I would have done differently:

• Styling the text links – The text links are the same color as the text, and aren’t underlined either, so it’s hard to tell what is a link and what isn’t. I would have done this a bit differently, since styling them properly helps with both usability and accessibility – something I detailed in another post I wrote on the subject.
• Page title tags – The page titles on pages throughout the website are very basic: “Contact Us” is all it says for the “Contact Us” page, for example. I’m sure that the White House website doesn’t have search engine optimization forefront on their mind, but it wouldn’t hurt to include some more information in them. People who use tabbed browsers would be appreciative of that!
• Breadcrumbs – Once you get into the sub-pages on the website, there is a well-styled breadcrumb bar that appears at the top of the footer area. I just wish that they would have done the same at the top of the page where it would be more visible.
• Form fields – Eye-tracking studies have shown that it’s best to put the labels on top of input fields on website forms, but the Contact Form on the website has them reversed. I would switch this up and it will look a lot better.

It’s a great start

Overall though, this is a great website that I’m very impressed with. I’m curious to see how the website grows and changes over time as more content is posted to it – pending legislation and executive orders, for example – and new features come online – such as the RSS feeds, which aren’t quite ready yet.

From a marketing angle, I think it very accurately reflects the message that the new administration wishes to convey about itself. And as I’ve written elsewhere, if the design of a website is able to help convey the right message about an organization, then that truly a great website.

Please keep in mind that I’m not trying to brag here about anything I’ve accomplished. I’m writing this to give me a chance to reflect, but also to give people the sense that anything is possible when you work hard and put your mind to it.

That was then…

When I started Addicott Web, I had only designed very basic websites before, and it had been a few years since I had created those, so my knowledge of how to create a website using modern techniques was lacking. For the most part my experience until then had been maintaining and working with websites that other people had created.

At the time, I didn’t know whether this new business would make it or not. But I had a sense deep down that I could do this – although admittedly, my confidence at the time was still a little shaky.

Want a brief snapshot of where Addicott Web was when I first started it? I didn’t:

• Have many clients, let alone a portfolio – Back then I was still primarily known for the site maintenance work that I was doing for the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. I had only begun to talk to CityPAC about their website, who would ultimately become my first client.
• Have much of a website – Addicott Web’s first website was very basic and used mostly stock images and text that no one really read anyways. I remember spending so much time pouring through the content on it too, trying to fine-tune everything. It had almost no focus on usability or SEO, but it was better than nothing, and at least it gave me something to refer people to.
• Know what anything about blogs – Starting a blog was the furthest thing on my mind a year ago, so I definitely had no idea about how to write for blogs, how to promote your blog, or that I had a particular voice for how I wrote.
• Know how to communicate and interact with clients – I had no formal documents or processes set up for how to work with clients, and was doing everything on the fly. As an example, I was still using invoices that I typed out in Microsoft Word each month, and e-mailed from my personal Yahoo! account.

What a difference a year makes…

Initial learning curves are always steep, and mine was definitely no exception to that rule. Although I feel that I’ve learned and grown a lot as a web designer and a businessman, with only one year of business under my belt, I know that I’m only in the middle of that curve and still have a lot to learn.

It’s taken a lot of work to have come this far. I try to learn as much as I can about anything and everything related to web design and being in business for yourself from wherever I could. And it’s beginning to pay off. I’m feeling more and more accustomed to these concepts from seeing them so often – to the point where I can now talk and write about them with confidence, and in the case of how to interact with clients, actually implement them with my own clients.

Amongst everything I’ve accomplished and learned, I now have:

• A good-sized portfolio – I’ve worked on 8 different websites in 2008, which includes all the projects in my portfolio, as well as Addicott Web’s website and one other that is launching imminently. This gives me quite a selection of work to show prospective clients, and reassures them that they are hiring someone who other people have worked with successfully.
• Standardized ways to communicate with clients – I’ve created a whole range of materials to help me work with clients easier, more efficiently, and more professionally. I use Freshbooks for my invoicing, and I have web design questionnaires, letterhead, CD labels, envelopes, form letters, contracts, and much more all ready to go when I need to use it. And of course, all of them are nicely branded with the Addicott logo and contact information.
• A website that I’m proud of – I went through two intermediate designs before I finally settled on the current one. That was back in July, and since then, I’m really comfortable with it overall. I don’t foresee making major changes any time soon, other than slight usability or SEO-friendly modifications here and there.
• Started a successful blog – It took me a while to find my voice and focus in on specific topics that I could write about and provide useful information on. I’m also still learning such things as how to write a blog post, how often to write, etc., but those will always be a work in progress. I did have a few bright notes to the year – three of my blog posts got a ton of attention, which is definitely helping me to get the Addicott Web name out there even more.

Most importantly of all, over the past year I’ve finally found my sense of purpose and direction. I now know that this is my profession, and that based on how this year has gone, I can be successful at this. I’m hoping I’ll be successful enough so that I can turn Addicott Web into my full-time job, which is my long-term goal for the business.

Knowing both of those things is what continually fuels my confidence that I am offering a unique service to people. This is essential in everything that I do, from marketing to client interactions to actual design implementation.

Looking to the Future

Where do I want to be a year from now?

I want to have learned new things. I want to have written even more about the topics I do. I want to have helped even more clients make great websites for their business or organization. And most importantly, I want to look back and say that I have gone even further down this path towards making Addicott Web successful and towards being in business for myself.

I hope that you’re able to do the same things – either personally or professionally, or both – and that your 2009 is just as successful as well.

Happy new year!

What is my goal in doing this? Simply put, it’s just another way to help people – either in my network, or on Facebook in general (since pages will display in global search results within Facebook) – find out more information about my business, which in turn might hopefully lead to new clients and new projects.

What Is a Facebook Page?

For those who aren’t familiar with pages on Facebook, the help section on the topic describes pages like this:

“Facebook created Pages when we noticed that people were trying to connect with brands and famous artists in ways that didn’t quite work on Facebook. We created Pages to offer you a way to accurately represent on Facebook what’s important to you in real life. Facebook Pages help you discover new artists, businesses, and brands as well as connect with those you already love. Not only can you connect with your favorite artists and businesses, but now you also can show your friends what you care about and recommend by adding Pages to your personal profile. Please note that only the official representative of an artist or business is allowed to maintain a Page for that figure.”

How to Create a Facebook Page

It was actually somewhat confusing trying to find information on how to go about creating a page. I ended up doing a Google search about it – since Google has the answer for everything – where I found the right page right away. (For those of you who would like to create a Facebook page of your own, you can visit their “Create a Page” tool.)

When you create a page, there are all sorts of fields, widgets, and applications that you can use. Here are the ones that I think are the most important:

• Information – You can enter in basic information in this area, but there is also an application called “Extended Information” that allows you to fill in much more detailed information. I have yet to do this on my page, but I’m planning on doing it. The “Information” field as is doesn’t give you much room to work with, and I’d like to be able to put some more information about Addicott Web for people to see it.
• Photos – This was particularly useful for me because it is basically serving as a portfolio of my work. I posted screenshots of the websites that I’ve designed, and copied the details about each project into the caption for the photo.
• Notes – This section is useful as well because I can import my RSS feed into it, so that any blog posts that I write are automatically updated here as well. Again – it’s just another opportunity to read what I’m writing, comment on it, and get exposure to Addicott Web.

I’ve also left some of the other standard areas up on the page, such as the Discussion Board, Reviews, etc. A number of my clients are in my network on Facebook, so I hope that these areas will come in handy either when working with them, or to help continue our relationship once the project is complete.

Here is what Addicott Web’s Facebook page looks like:

Do You Have a Facebook Page?

So now that I’ve shown you how I’m promoting my business on Facebook, if you have a business, would you create a page as well? Or do you already have one, and have any insights or tips for improvement that you would like to share? Use the comments form below to share them!

The short answers I’ve given to those who have asked are that it:

• Gives the impression that I actually know what I’m talking about
• Helps me gain exposure to others within the design community, which will hopefully help me attract new business

The folks over at Vandelay Design wrote something on this topic earlier this year, which sums up perfectly how blogging can enhance business for web designers. They include the two points that I mentioned above, but their list also includes some of the other benefits as well.

To summarize what they wrote, there are ten reasons why designers should blog:

• Increased exposure
• Improved name recognition
• The learning experience
• Networking
• Helps customers find you
• Improved site content for search engines
• Improved communication skills
• Demonstrate your knowledge
• Potential promotion when needed
• Variety of work

You can read the full post here if you’re interested in reading more of an explanation on each point.

So now that I’ve helped answer your question, let me pose two questions to give you an opportunity to add to the conversation. Are there other benefits to blogging that aren’t mentioned above that should be? Do you think blogging would benefit people in other industries in the same way as it does for web designers?