Archive for August, 2008
Impressive Links of the Week (August 27/08)
Wednesday, August 27th, 2008Search Engine Optimization Tips For PDFs
Excessive texting ‘damages your health’
Mozilla shows off Aurora browser concept
5 Ways to Turn Off Website Visitors
Tuesday, August 12th, 2008After reading 5 Ways To Turn Off Customers (for Brick and Mortars) on smallbusinessnewz.com, I thought I would write my own version of this article using the same sub-headings applied to websites. The advice given in the original article is solid and can easily be adapted to online businesses.
1. Bad Location
While a “bricks and mortar” outfit will have trouble in certain areas depending on competition and other factors, the same problem can occur if a website is not properly “located” when it comes to search engine findability, domain name, and hosting.
It’s sad to see that many businesses today still need to be reminded that free hosting packages, bad keyword density and poor choice in domain name can all have an effect on whether or not people stumble in during their online shopping. So website owners should invest the time, effort and money necessary to ensure their “location” on the web is suitable to staying competitive in their market.
2. High Prices
Due to the nature of the web, and an increase in online competition, it is harder for companies to markup prices exorbitantly. But sometimes overhead costs force prices to stay relatively high. Website owners should try to battle this by offering online promotions, coupons, returning-customer deals and other sales techniques that will make the high prices not seem so high in the long run.
3. Dirty Store
Yes, a website needs to be clean just as a brick and mortar store does. Make the investment to ensure your website’s code is standards-compliant, cross-browser friendly, and accessible to users with disabilities. Also, ensure your online business has easy-to-use site navigation by means of site maps, site search, and breadcrumb-friendly page structure.
4. Pushy Salespeople
Your web page’s content can be just as intimidating as a pushy in-person sales person. So hire a good copywriter and keep your pages friendly and informative. Don’t make the users feel that they are stupid if they don’t buy your product, and certainly don’t insult their intelligence. You can still tell them how important your product or service is by being tactful and insightful, and by displaying a good knowledge of the industry.
5. Poor Customer Service
Your website’s forms and shopping cart functionality should not alienate the user from your company. Site visitors should always feel that you or your representatives are available to help them at all times in case there is any problem, or if they have any questions. So make sure you provide a good FAQ page, a help section, a toll free number to call, and an easy to use contact form — and follow this up with a fast turn-around on all customer service and sales inquiries.
Bricks and Mortar or Online — the principles are the same
So, if you have a standard “bricks and mortar” business complemented with an online store or brochure website, follow the advice found in the original article for your bricks and mortar, and apply some of these tips mentioned above for your online business and you’ll be sure to reap the benefits.
Impressive Links of the Week (August 11/08)
Monday, August 11th, 2008Free PDF download: Firefox 3 Revealed
Search Engine Optimization Tips For PDFs
10 Tips For Being A Greener Web Designer
Easy Equal Columns with CSS
Thursday, August 7th, 2008In a previous article I described (in principle) a method using JavaScript to get equal columns in a two-column layout. Of course, that’s not always the most elegant solution. Another solution, which is much easier to implement is completely CSS based. I’ll describe briefly how this is done and what possible effects it could have on your site’s layout and code. Here is the demo page, if you want to jump ahead.
The Key — The columns are not *really* equal
The only way to do this without using a very complex CSS layout is to essentially create the illusion that you have equal columns. But don’t worry — although the result is not really equal columns, it looks and acts exactly as an equal column layout would.
How to mimic the columns
To describe the method, I’ll just use a simple example: Two DIVs side by side representing the two columns; and one DIV containing the two. From there, it’s quite simple — just wrap your containing DIV with another DIV then apply ”overflow: hidden” on that outer DIV to ensure it doesn’t collapse in Firefox. Then, add a background image that repeats on the Y-axis (vertically). So, if you have a drop shadowed border, or even a simple 1 pixel border, you would create the image in your image editing program (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.) and then just adjust the background-position of the image in your CSS to place it exactly where you want it. Since this DIV is essentially behind your two columns, holding both of them, you cannot have a background color on your columns, as it would block the image from showing up.
Keep in mind
You might think this could be done with a one pixel-border on one of the columns, but remember, one of the columns is not going to extend to the bottom, so the border method won’t work without some serious CSS hacks and workarounds. You’re creating the illusion that the short column is extending to the bottom by positioning the background image in a place where it mimics the short column’s border. Except, unlike the short column, your outer container (the container holding the container, if you will) is always going to extend to the bottom, thus creating the illusion of a two column layout where the columns are always equal, regardless of content. And best of all, either of the two columns could extend larger than the other, and the illusion would still work.
Overall, a very easy solution with limited drawbacks
This really is an easy to implement solution that can work on many CSS layouts, and doesn’t have too many drawbacks, other than adding some non-semantic code to your markup and (somewhat) complicating your DIV structure.
So if you’re in need of a hack-free quick fix to a two-column layout, this is a good solution and will work in virtually every browser and platform.
View the demo page, to see this simple, yet effective, solution in action.