web

Lately I've been reading a lot of articles online about how to use Twitter to build your freelance business. I do a small amount of website work in Michigan, so I fancy myself a closet freelancer specializing in web design. I also think of myself as a web developer.

As I go along, I'll update this post with my progress. The goal is to pick up work through my Twitter account.

Here's the plan:

1. Find people on Twitter I think can help me or lead to leads.
2. Interact with other Twitteres, Tweeters, or whatever you call Twitter users.

I finally had a chance to go back and read some magazine article's I've ripped out the past few months, and one of them from Entrepreneur Magazine had some really simple, but really great advice.

The article talks about how users navigate websites. Most of what's written is common knowledge:

• Users like a familiar layout and easily become confused with non-standard layouts.

I just found a simple solution to an issue I've been having for a long time. Many times, I create a wrapper element that contains nested columns in my web designs. For example:

You just worked for a week straight developing THE killer website. You love it. You think the world will love it. You want to shout the address form the mountain tops!

But will anyone hear you?

Will they see your latest creation?

Check out this list of places to get your website recognized. Just submit your URL, and some contact info, and wait for the adulation to be showered down upon thee!

If you're any good, that is...

Brian Cray wrote an interesting post on his site a while back, titled "Estimated reading time in web design". In the article, he documents an attempt at getting readers to actually read more of his content. Estimates have the average reader only reading 18% of average web content.

So as I'm brushing up on my SEO knowledge, I came across a Google tool called Page Speed. It allows you to test the speed of your web pages right through your browser. As I'm finding out, page load speed is now factored in to Google page rankings. Google is all about making the web experience as good as possible for the user. Faster load times equals happier users. Happier users equals a more quality page. More quality pages equals a better ranking.

Since one of our designers at work, who happened to design our website, left for another company we felt we should redesign the site again. We feel it's important to show what our current staff can do. Because we are a creative company, we have the luxury of being able to redesign at will. We maintain our branding through our logo. Our corporate identity is tied to our creativity, so keeping things fresh is actually very important.

As a general rule, I try to avoid using Flash in my websites as much as possible. Does Flash have it's uses? Absolutely. I just don't think you should EVER develop your site entirely in Flash. I just read an article in Entrepreneur magazine confirming my thoughts.

In a nutshell, here's what the article says:

So this morning, I headed over to Lynda.com for some refresher training on CSS. There were a couple things I could figure out. I'm still working through those issues, but learned something really cool, and something really useful to know...

A better way to position columns

In my recent surfing, I came across a quote on a site that really struck me:

Content informs design; design without content is decoration.

I find this to be very profound. You can have the most beautiful site on the web, but if you don't have content, it doesn't matter. Sure, people may drop by to see your visual feast, but they won't return, because you have nothing to say.