There’s no such licensing and training required to be a Web site developer or a Search Engine Optimization expert. Anyone can setup a Web site and call themselves one.  I’m not advocating a law like there is for doctor’s, but sometimes it should would be nice! That would stop “so-called” experts from saying things that are factually wrong:

For example, one company features a service for $199/mo which lists the following service as one of the services they include: Meta tag adjustment  (this service was even spelled wrong on their site).  Meta tag adjustment is a waste of time. Don’t believe Curvine — believe Google – here’s what they say “Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking…we still don’t use the description meta tag in our ranking.”

Another “expert” offers to automatically submit your Web site to 300+ search engines for only $25! What a steal, right? The problem is that there are only 3 major search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo — which gets data from Bing) which make up 95.5% of the US search engine market.  The next two providers ( Ask & AOL) get data from Google and Bing. So it is a complete waste of time and money to submit your site to anyone other than Google and Bing. In fact, both of those services will likely to find your site on their own, as long as it is linked from another site that it knows about. So you’ll likely don’t even need to do anything, much less spend $25.

Save your money! Be careful when spending money on Search Engine Optimization.

It isn’t my favorite thing to do, but I do it all of the time. Apparently, not everyone does.

In the vast majority of cases where I get a non-disclosure agreement, it makes absolutely no sense for me to sign it. Instead of writing out my reasons to each one individually, I’ll post them here and link to this as the issue comes up.

Reason #1: It puts all the obligation on me and none on you

I have to make sure that I never reveal what you say or I’m (potentially) liable. But where’s your obligation?

Reason #2: If you don’t trust me, then how can we work together?

If you don’t trust me to be quiet about your ideas, how can you trust me with anything?

I actually see where he is coming from and he has some legitimate points (particularly about starting a relationship with a legal agreement — can you imagine dating this way?). But I can’t just not sign them — NDAs are often the beginning of a great relationship. Your thoughts?

Should you do it?

In a word, no.

Here are some reasons:

• The gold standard for advice in my field is advice that is self-evident. Have you ever signed up to “opt-in” to getting unsolicited email from unknown companies? Do you know anyone who has? Does it seem at all likely that anyone would sign up to receive such email knowingly? The answer to all of these questions is almost always no. So these lists must have been constructed without people’s informed consent. Now when you send an email to someone who isn’t expecting it, what will at least some people do with it? They will mark it as spam, which will have negative consequences (see below). It is self-evident that “opt-in” lists for sale can’t really exist.
• The next best thing in advice in the Web site development field is advice that comes from people or organizations that goes against their profit interest. For example, if Curvine said “don’t hire a Web site developer” that should mean a lot — as we are Web site developers and it would be in our interest to tell you to hire us. In this case, large companies that help small businesses send out emails all say the same thing:
  • MailChimp: Is purchasing or renting an email list against the law, or unethical? Not necessarily. But it’s definitely a waste of money, and will more than likely get you reported for spamming (not to mention it’s a violation of the MailChimp terms of use)
  • Constant Contact: you cannot use purchased email addresses with Constant Contact.  Constant Contact has a very strict permission-only policy, and it is a violation of our policy to use such lists with our service.
  • iContact: Purchased lists may not be used within the iContact system, regardless of the source or permission status.

I won’t even go into all of the reasons purchasing or renting email lists are a bad idea, as the evidence above is so convincing. Don’t buy email lists!

The decision to use PayPal or another payment processor is an important decision with pros and cons. When you only accept PayPal and your customer is redirected to PayPal’s site to make the purchase, it has a tendency to make you look small. There’s nothing wrong with PayPal and there’s nothing on their site that gives this impression. But since only very small businesses offer PayPal as the only option (usually to save money), just using PayPal on your site as the only option can group you in with those very small merchants. That might make your customer question the quality of your product or whether it will be delivered as they expected.

On the other hand, accepting credit cards using a payment processing gateway such as Authorize.net happens behind the scenes. That means that your customer stays on your site and sees no other brand but yours. It costs more (there are monthly fees that range between $40 and $60 per month) but often the extra credibility pays off. This is the approach we usually recommend to businesses and organizations.

There are ways to use both of these approaches. PayPal offers a service called “Website Payments Pro” which is similar to the payment processing gateway solution mentioned above. It uses PayPal behind the scenes and so the user never sees it. And you can often use PayPal as a secondary option in addition to a payment processing gateway. In that case, you get the best of both worlds, the credibility benefit of accepting credit cards through a gateway and the benefit of offering your customers a choice to use PayPal if they want.

- Right next to the Bellevue Transit center. Several of our staff members are now taking the bus to work, which makes our company greener. There’s also some great restaurants within easy walking distance from our new space.

- Conference room. Our new office has a small conference room that accommodates 6. That’s perfect for meetings with clients to show off new Web site designs, or to pitch a project to a potential client.

- Room for expansion. If we need more space, there are plenty of bigger offices in our new building for us to expand into, when the time is right.

We’re still unpacking, but we’ll be looking forward to having clients come to visit in the next few weeks.

To us, this isn’t a surprise — we’ve been advising clients to avoid Flash for most of this year. Even before this announcement, Flash sites didn’t work on Apple’s handheld devices. A few months ago, Microsoft announced that Flash wouldn’t work on future Microsoft tablets. And many Android devices that supported Flash didn’t have enough processing power to handle the sites well.

Flash will live on in certain PC-only Web sites and as a standalone program.  Though, the era of Flash on Web sites is over.

• When I start my business, people will start using my Web site without me having to do anything.
• There are some easy special things I can do to my Web site to attract a lot of new customers.
• I want to start the next Facebook, Twitter, Craigslist or eBay.

Answer: I’m not sure what the ultimate decision will be, but it is likely that a majority won’t be happy with whatever gets decided.

As Web site development professionals, we often are approached with committees of people who are tasked to make a Web site. Committees often operate on consensus, which requires most of the people to agree with a decision. This is a great approach for deciding what company to hire to make your Web site, but it often is not a good approach for actually making the Web site.

Take the above example. If you choose red, half of the group will be unhappy. If you choose blue, half will be unhappy. Try and compromise with purple and no one is happy. You’ve also likely exhausted your Web site developer in deciding all of this. Here are some tips to help to avoid “Web sites designed by committee:”

• Take the decision out of the committee: The best approach is for the committee to empower one person to be the decision maker.  That person should be someone with good judgement who the committee can trust, but also someone who can stand up to individuals and help move the process along.
• Have a clear decision making process: Without clear rules, one person on your committee can derail the whole process. By agreeing to a procedure for making decisions at the beginning, it will help make sure that the process is kept on track.
• Start Phase 2 early: A Web site is something that grows with your organization. Committees often come up with new good ideas during the process.  It is best to stay on the original project track, but to start a list of ideas to include in the next iteration.

Do I need a mobile version of my Web site?

In many cases, no. Most Web sites work just fine on mobile devices with no alteration. Mobile devices using Apple iOS or Android use browsers based on Webkit, which also powers Google’s Chrome and Apple’s Safari browser. There are exceptions: sites that use Flash will not work properly on many handheld devices.

When do I need a special Mobile version of your site?

In short, when you expect a sizable percentage of traffic from mobile visitors. Some examples would be restaurants, news sites and movie theaters. Businesses that expect visitors to purchase items from their site using a mobile device will need to do more — they will need to create a mobile shopping experience. But it is important to be realistic –few businesses at this time should expect a large number of mobile purchases.

Do I need an app?

Most smart phones allow users to install applications or apps for short.  Apps make access to your business easier for your customers, but installing a program on their device may take extra time and space on their phone. To determine whether you need an app, pretend you are a customer — would you want to install this app on your phone? It may help to interview potential customers.

Our lease is up in December, and I’m considering whether to move offices. In case you’ve never been, we’re in an office just across the freeway from the core of downtown Bellevue.  The office is fine. It meets our needs, which narrowly defined, are a space to fit our staff (4 people, with room for two more should we need the space). It has two private offices so I and my project manager can speak on the phone without disturbing others. There’s a conference room, but it is in another building and impractical to use.

The building’s location is good — just off the freeway. Appearance wise, it doesn’t make the best impression. There is no elevator to our 2nd story office and the entrance is outside. We have clients by our office once or twice a month.

I’m looking at moving our office to a higher-rise building that makes a better first impression. I’m looking in downtown Bellevue. Rents are a lot more expensive, but perhaps the office’s location and appearance might attract more clients. What do you think? Should we stay or go?