Small Business Web Design that Works

Small Business Web Design that WorksSmall Business Web Design that WorksSmall Business Web Design that Works Campbell, co-author of Visual Marketing (Wiley, 2011)Designing your website to be all things to all people can be difficult. But the best website konzeptions successfully target the big three customers, job seekers and employees and create a small business web konzeption that connects to each of these groups in its own way.Website Design Tips that Appeal to CustomersWhile a good website conveys helpful information, is easy to use and meets your business goals, many business websites look and sound alike. They lack personality.Stand out Differentiate your business and brand. Images can play a huge role. Two Leaves and a Bud Tea Company, one of the case studies in our book Visual Marketing, does this by using stunning images of tea farms in exotic places. Lush landscapes and colorfully dressed tea farmers are splashed across the background of the site.The sites images help you instantly recognize that this company prides itself on bringing customers tea so fresh it tastes like its been plucked and steeped directly from the gardens. The site makes you want to buy tea.Gearing your website design to your customers will enable you to sell mora. It also keeps site visitors engaged, rather than turning them away with too many graphic elements or text that tires the eyes.My book co-author, David Langton, shares these website design tipsSimplify, simplify, simplify Keep your website offers as direct and minimal as possible and let your users go deeper as they self select the information that they want to learn more about. We call this progressive disclosure.Best Website Designs to Attract Qualified Job SeekersAs you set your business apart as one thats attractive and memorable to customers, it will likely stand out in the candidates mind, too.Your site is the representation of your company brand to potential new hires. You have an opportunity through your websit e to sell these visitors, who may someday be your customer, on your company.Your site is also a way to communicate your hiring needs. Many sites simply say Were hiring. Contact us. For most job seekers, this sounds like a waste of time. The more information you can provide about the specific job skillsyoure looking to fill, the more youll attract the right candidates.Alert job seekers that you are hiring, what positions you are hiring for, and how to apply. A good way to do this is to create a hiring page on your site with an enticing message and some basic information for job seekers. In turn, this page can link to job listings you have open on job sites.David says its important to know what your audience is looking for. Dont bury the link to job listings under three layers of pages people simply wont find it.To direct visitors to the hiring page, add a link in your site footer or in a box on your homepage or include it as a tab in your About section something like Were hiring or Work for Us or even Jobs. Job hunters quickly figure out where to look for such pages.The website Klout.comis an interesting example of these practices. Theres a link to Careers in its site footer, which takes you to a page with a gruppe photo that says Get a Job and a short paragraph suggesting that working for Klout is so much fun its like, well, not having a job. The image and the copy give the impression that its a rewarding and fun place, where important game-changing work is happening.Dont forget to write about hiring on your company blog. Amplify your hiring needs on social media, too. For example you can tweet out the link to your Careers page or share it on your companys Facebook page from time to time.Your next employee could be a social media follower.Web Design and Employee EngagementMany businesses forget to include their employees as an audience of their website. By connecting to your employees on your site, you can make them feel more valued. If you have a small compa ny, you can include team members photos and short bios on your website. This will increase employee engagement by showing that theyre part of the team in a visible way.The Karcher Group,a Web design firm, does this well by including a link to Meet the Group on its website. It includes employee photos you can click over to a dedicated profile page for each employee. Employees can have a little fun by personalizing their information with hobbies, little known facts about themselves and their favorite websites.I-Site, another website example from our book, also takes a fun approach to employee engagement. Each team member is dressed as a soccer player (the company is in England). Clicking on the images animates them.Focus on Whats ImportantYour company website will never fully appeal to everyone who visits it. The best you can do is hit the high points and focus on good design and appealing images. I agree with DavidWebsites that try to be everything to everyone lose out. Successful w ebsites designers and website owners spend a lot of time discerning the most direct route for organizing and digesting their content in accessible ways.Look at other websites to get a sense of what works well design-wise and for ideas to use on your own sites design.Author BioAnita Campbell and David Langton are the authors of the book, Visual Marketing (Wiley, 2011.)Anita Campbell (Cleveland, Ohio) is CEO and founder of Small Business Trends, an award-winning website reaching over 3 million small-business owners annually. She also is the CEO of BizSugar, a small-business social media site.David Langton (New York, NY) is a visual communication designer, blogger, and author on visual design. He has more than 20 years experience providing conceptual direction for Fortune 500 companies and small businesses. He is cofounder of Langton Cherubino Group, a communications design firm, based in NYC, dedicated to improving the way that businesses and their audiences interact.

Four great success lessons from the spectacular Oscars disaster

Four great success lessons from the spectacular Oscars disasterFour great success lessons from the spectacular Oscars disasterThe world collectively gasped at the Oscars as the Best Picture award welches handed off to the wrong film last night, in a spectacle some are calling thegreatest mixup of in the history of the event.If you missed it, it was spectacular As presenter Warren Beatty was announcing the Best Picture nomination, he was confused, and handed the envelope to co-presenter Faye Dunaway - who, in an epic stumble, didnt look very carefully and confidently announced that La La Land had scooped up the prize.As pandemonium started to break loose, with staffers scurrying onstage, one man handled the disaster with grace and authority Producer Jordan Horowitz took the microphone, grabbed the incorrect announcement card away from Beatty, and said firmly that Moonlight was the real winner of Best Picture.It was a bold move in what could have been an embarrassing moment for him, b ut Horowitz turned it into a moment in which he corrected an enormous public blunder with techniques that can teach everyone at work how to handle big herausforderungs.1) Take control and be transparentFirst, Horowitz described the problem clearly and didnt dance around the issue. He also didnt wait around for someone else to figure it out. He stepped up to the microphone, announced the problem, and even offered up evidence, holding up the card with the real winners printed on it.Contrast that with Jimmy Kimmel, the host of the show, who said he was totally confused and waiting for someone else to show up to fix the problem Matt Damon says, I think I heard the stage manager say they got the winner wrong. So you just kind of figure, well, the host will go onstage and clear this up. And then I remember, oh Im the host. Later, Kimmel had to look to A-list celebrities in the front row for guidanceEventually I figured out that Barry Jenkins, the director of Moonlight, is standing behind me and Denzel wanted me to get him to the microphone to make a speech, which makes sense, Kimmel said. Thank God Denzel was there to make sense.In a situation that could have been surreal, and in which absolutely everyone seemed baffled and without direction, Horowitz knew that the audience would tend to believe the mixup was a gag, and he addressed that subtext right off. This is not a joke Moonlight has won best picture, Horowitz said.Straight talk is a strong way for both managers and employees to handle a crisis. Radical transparency strengthens teams and confers authority on the managers who use it.2) Have empathyAfter Horowitz announced Moonlight was the true winner, he welcomed the cast of the movie to the stage and made way for them to own the moment. Horowitz seemed easily able to picture what the real winners wanted to be able to feel joy without it being diminished by the embarrassment of the mixup. He didnt just say Moonlight won, he said he was delighted that it won Im going to be really thrilled to hand this to my friends from Moonlight.As I said onstage, those guys are my friends, Horowitz told Good Morning America. I wanted to make sure they had their moment.That capacity for empathy and putting yourself in someone elses shoes to picture their emotional needs is a key skill for success. Empathy not only enhanced performance, but it also makes others see you as more effective - definitely the case for Horowitz, whose graceful moves were widely praised.3) Be humble and show generosity of spiritHorowitz did not grandstand He stepped aside when he needed to and promptly gave the golden Oscars statue to the cast of Moonlight, led by director Barry Jenkins. Impressively, he humbly declined when Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel joked about wishing both films could have won.I wanted to make sure that the right thing was done, because, you know, at that point it was not about me, he told Good Morning America. It was about making sure that Moonlight got the rec ognition it really deserves.Generosity, like many emotions, is catching Seeing a generous act causes others to adjust their behavior to meet it. That lift was visible in how thermisch and friendly the audience and La La Land cast became to the Moonlight winners Horowitz had set a tone of generosity and kindness, which shut down the mood of chaos and unease that could have easily taken root.4) Demonstrate sportsmanship and be a cheerleader for othersTechnically, Horowitz and Jenkins were rivals. But that didnt stop the La La Land Producer from bowing out gracefully and warmly embracing Jenkins. Horowitz did not whine about the loss or shift blame. He just gracefully handed credit where it was due, and made everyone feel comfortable afterwards.We kind of shared a moment, gave each other a hug, said, Wasnt that surreal? and congratulated each other on our work and put it all behind us, he told GMA. Well move forward and do more work together.Horowitz continued his public praise for Moo nlight on Twitter, where he wrote, And once again congrats to Moonlight. A truly beautiful picture made by some even more beautiful people.Overall, Horowitz showed strong social skills that saved a bad situation and made it, in the eyes of many, a beautiful one. Jenkins showed his appreciation and awe in a tweet Jordan Horowitz. Wow. Im slipping slowly into reflection, perspective. Much respect to that dude. If you follow Horowitzs lead, your colleagues can say that of you, too - even after disaster strikes.

Bank of Americas SEC Settlement Approved

Bank of Americas SEC Settlement ApprovedBank of Americas SEC Settlement ApprovedThe judgment is a huge win for BofA, which can now get back to business without worrying about having to sell the farm (a huge subsidiary or two) to pay for a huge fine/settlement that would have likely resulted had a judgment of negligence come in.Look for BofA to ramp up its executive hiring in the coming month, as bankers will now feel a whole lot safer toting around Bank of America Merrill Lynch cards now that the bank has been freed.