10 Things You Need To Create A Successful Website

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The Web Design ProcessThis week over at Global Wire Associates, we launched our annual New Year, New Digital You campaign.  Now is a great time to design or redesign your website.  Many clients that approach us don’t usually have any idea what it takes to create a website.  This Saturday we are hosting our ever-popular “Extreme Website Makeover” webinar, where we showcase a “before and after” of two websites we redesigned recently, as well as give tips on how to create a new website or redesign a current website.

In the meantime, I created this quick checklist of issues to consider when you hire a web designer.  It also makes my life easier when clients think about these things before embarking on a design project.

Title for the domain name: If you are starting a new business, you already know that the company title is very important.  The domain should be the same as your company name.  If it isn’t available, make sure the domain name closely reflects your brand and is easy to remember by users.

Purpose/Mission: What is the mission or purpose of the website? To advertise products or services? Expand your brand? Increase conversion rates?

Content: I say this all the time: It really doesn’t matter how fabulous you website looks or how many social media tools you use.  If you don’t have great content on your sites, most people will not only not care about your web presence, but they will also not care to learn more about you or your organization. Having high quality content on your web presence is a top priority for establishing both your credibility and your brand.

Audience: Who are you trying to reach with your website? When you know who your audience is, it is easier to build content and a website to cater to their needs.

Competitive Advantage: What makes your website different from your competitors?  The best websites are those that are unique and stand out from others.

Responsive Design: A responsive website adjusts to different browser screen sizes, rather than to different devices, without compromising the quality of the content and site design.  Over half of all web traffic comes from mobiles and tablets today.  Most importantly, today’s users expect your website to be mobile-friendly.

Fonts: Are you using legible fonts? Typography is very important today.  Most users don’t stay long on a website where the content is hard to read.

Colors and Layout: The look and feel makes a difference in how users react to your website.  Whatever color and layout your choose, make sure it is simple, professional and easy to navigate.

Advertising: Do you plan to sell advertising space on your website? If so, be conscious of how it affects the look and feel of your website.  Too many ads might turn off users? Ever heard of AdBlock?

Ecommerce: If you plan on selling products or services online, make sure you have a complete ecommerce plan that includes how you will handle fulfillment and security matters.

Again, this is just a quick list to help get your started.  If you have any further questions, contact us!  

Happy New Digital You!

2015: My Year In Review

2015This has been a great year for me on both a professional and personal level. My biggest achievement this year was making it ten years with Global Wire Associates. I never thought a decade ago that I would be an entrepreneur, let alone one with a company with such longevity.

I want to take this time to thanks those who have been with me since day one – Marjane Nakello, Maria Ferrara and Philip Lee – great colleagues and lifelong friends I will always cherish. I want to also thank all the clients I have had over the years. A great business idea only flourishes when you have supportive customers!

I think I have learned a lot about myself, especially over the last year, about patience, humility and tenacity. And I am still learning and hoping to grow even more in the future.  I am really looking forward to a new opportunity next year where I will do more STEM instruction for youth.

On the journalism side, my Caribbean business and economics newsmagazine had a rough start at the beginning of the year. But now that we have the right people in place, we hope to officially launch it in 2016. I also have a couple of other projects in the pipeline, prepping to launch in the new year or 2017.

At the beginning of 2015 I challenged myself to better balance my work and personal lives, which includes exercising more and spending more time with family and friends. Life is too short to work all the time. I’m happy to say that I have achieved that … and then some!

In the new year I hope to continue with the work/life balance by reading more books. I have dozens of books sitting on my bookcase, waiting for me to discover. I usually get so wrapped up in work that sometimes I forget to let my mind breathe. I also want to take up hand drawing again for pleasure, and not just for graphic design business contracts.

I need to watch less television in the new year, mainly because of all the negativity happening in the world. Just when you think the world is moving forward on issues like marriage equality, then you hear stories about Ahmed Mohamed and Laquan McDonald.  Then Chapel Hill happened. And then Charleston happened. And then San Bernadino happened. And then Paris happened – twice.

Maybe less time on trumped up Benghazi hearings and more on why there are still Confederate flags flying on public grounds in this country is needed.  I don’t consider myself a staunch Hillary supporter; she is the lesser of the evils…

With all the mass shootings, ISIS terrorism, plane disasters, political and cultural divisiveness, killings of unarmed black people and Donald Trump, I feel really stressed when I watch the news. And all the garbage reality shows don’t ease the tension either.

There were some glimmers of hope this year.  Pope Francis and Malala Yousafzai continues to inspire me.  Last week in Kenya Muslim women shielded a group of Christians on a bus from an Al-Shabab attack.  Just yesterday I read that Muslims are openly mocking ISIS on Twitter.

American media coverage of all these issues was horrible this year, and it will only get worse with the cartoonish US presidential election next year.  I find myself going to Al Jazeera, BBC News, France 24 and the Intercept for my news more often these days.  Less CNN and Faux News and more real news, reading, writing and drawing in the new year.

For the next week I am just going to veg out a little, read a book, relax with some good music, and prepare myself for the new year.

I hope you will take some time out to do this too!

See you in the new year!

Give The Gift Of Literacy

My Librarian is a CamelI recently purchased a book for a young family member called My Librarian is a Camel: How Books Are Brought To Children Around The World by Margriet Ruurs.  Living in a Western country, we tend to take for granted our public libraries, where you can easily have access to millions of books.  This is not the case in most parts of the world, where access to literacy is far and few in between.

This children’s picture book shows how books are uniquely brought to different communities, whether by boat, bicycle, wheelbarrow, and, yes, even by camel.  In Thailand books are delivered by elephant in rural areas. In many countries like Australia and Azerbaijan, specialized library trucks go into underserved communities and also act as classrooms with built-in computers with WiFi and air conditioning.  For many users, this is the only way to access the outside world.

According to UNESCO, approximately 781 million people worldwide are illiterate, and many schools in the developing world have few, if any, books to use for educating students. Better access to books not only improves literacy, but also opens up more doors for social and economic mobility.

The gift of literacy is the best gift you can give someone. Worldreader is an organization that provides e-readers and digital libraries to children in developing countries.  If you are looking to make a donation to a worthy cause this holiday season, please consider them!

Top Blog Post of 2015

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blogpostThis year my blog was a mixed potpourri of news, politics, history revisits, entrepreneurship, design and book reviews.  I write this blog both for my own personal enjoyment and possibly to help provide new information or a different perspective on many of the issues happening in the world today.

If you missed any of them, here are the top 10 blog posts based on web traffic metrics, as well as some I thought deserve another read.

  1. Bandung, Identity and Media Perceptions
  2. Ota Benga, Race and Human Zoo
  3. The Pre-9/11 Hijacking Era Revisited
  4. 10 Lessons I Learned About Running A Business
  5. The Pros And Cons of Bootstrapping Your Business
  6. Why Going Car-less Is Really Better
  7. America the Flawed
  8. Time To Embrace Web Diversity
  9. Branding For The New On-Demand Economy
  10. How to Make Exercise Part of Your Daily Life

Thanks for enjoying my blog.  There will be more to come in 2016!

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