We all know that Internet changes at lightning speed (could be faster) and that means, techniques and technologies we used 3 years ago are obsolete! You should be on your feet and keep up with these changes constantly. Luckily, there are some clear warning signs that tell you that your site needs an update. Here are the ‘red flags’ that will let you know.

1 – Your Site Looks Like a Coding Freak

How does this happen? You hired a designer to create the site, and then when you needed an overhaul, you hired another to fix it. And then another to fix it. Now, you’ve got ten years of bad code piled on top of bad code and your site’s design is a mess. A better idea is to make a fresh start.

2 – A Fancy Flash Intro Dazzles Your Visitors

Flash was so cool about ten years ago. Now, it’s ‘so ten years ago.’ I guarantee you that nobody’s impressed anymore when you’ve got a flash intro welcoming them to your site. People have no time for this clutter; your visitors want to access the information that they are looking for as fast as possible.

In fact, a flash intro may even keep them from viewing your site. On an older browser, it takes forever for the intro to load. While they’re waiting, they’re going to be clicking the ‘back’ button or heading somewhere else.

3 – You’re Not Being Social

We now live in the world of Web 2.0, and it’s all about communicating and networking. Your site isn’t a billboard or print advertisement; it should be an active part of a community. This means that you need to get out in the social networking sites and create some community.

The more you let your users get involved in your site, the more they’ll stick around. You can install Facebook widgets, ‘Tweet This’ buttons, and even user profile functions for your customers. You should at least have a comments section and be running a fan page on Facebook. These social networking sites are some of the most popular places on the web, so you should be there mixing it up!

4 – The Site Is Covered With Tables

Several years ago, tables were the main design used for websites. Nowadays, it’s totally a thing of the past. Tables are hard to read, and they’re just about impossible for search engines to find. In fact, they’re technically made with invalid HTML code. So, they’ve got to go!

5 – You Still Need To Go Mobile

The entire internet is now going mobile and if you’re site’s not set up for it, you’ll lose customers left and right. If your site isn’t mobile-compatible, it will take forever to load on their mobile devices and it will look like garbage.

Techie experts predict that mobile is the thing of the future, and the number of sales of smartphones is supporting this prediction. Get a mobile version of your site going so you don’t get left behind.

6 – You’re Hiring A Programmer For Every Little Change

These days, more and more companies are using a CMS, or content management system. This is an interface that allows anyone in your staff to make changes when needed. Things happen quickly in the world of the internet, so you’ve got to be able to make these necessary changes without having to hire a web designer again.

7 – No Inspiring Towards Action

Your site needs to have a simple, clear and effective call to action to get them moving. It doesn’t matter whether you’re trying to get them to sign up for a newsletter, donate to a non-profit organization or hit the ‘Buy Now’ button.

Everything needs a strong call to action to get them moving. For example, don’t make them sign up for a membership to buy your product; let them buy as a guest and you’ll remove one more barrier from them taking action.

(Via hongkiat.com.)

(Via Tybee Guy.)

1. Over-Posting – I see this mistake made over and over again. In most cases it happens because small business owners have great intentions and want to be active on the social networks, but they either don’t have time throughout the week or they just plain forget. When they do remember, or do have some marketing time, they jump on Facebook, don’t join any conversations or start new ones, but post about five status updates, links and news information in a 15 minute time frame.

2. Not Enough Time – Maybe 15 minutes is all the time that you have for Facebook, and if that’s the case then you might want to consider adding some help to your marketing team. By over-posting, you’re not giving followers a reason to be interested in your company, you’re giving them a reason to “unfriend” you. Take your time with posts. If you do only have 15 minutes on Friday evening to get your Facebook marketing done, put up your most interesting status update in the first minute, spend 12 minutes seeking out new friends and conversations, and in the 15th minute post your second most interesting status update.

3. Unbranding Your Business – Facebook is a great resource for keeping up your small business brand. It’s important to ‘stay in character’ and to ‘stay in business mode’ while spreading information about your business brand. Playing games, talking about personal issues, or posting inappropriate pictures will kill your brand. Spending time on Cityville and Farmville from your Facebook business pages will only show that you’re not professional and not concerned with how your business brand appears to others.

Google URL Shortener, aptly named Goo.gl, has been available for use for almost a year, and it finally has its own website. In the past, you could only use it through the Google Toolbar, or through specific Google products such as Feedburner, News, Blogger and Picasa. Now you can get all your Google URL shortening needs done on their recently launched webpage.

Google went about things in a somewhat back-to-front fashion, launching the service itself before the website. Now, with the new website, you can get access to statistics on all URLs you’ve shortened using Goo.gl, provided you’re logged into your account. These stats include traffic, referrers and visitor profiles.

As far as features are concerned, that’s pretty much all you’re going to get. Google have chosen to focus instead on stability, security and speed. According to their blog, their priorities are uptime and spam detection. They’ve also managed to double the speed of the service since its launch, and want to keep it that way.

There are a few unofficial browser add-ons already available to use with Goo.gl, like Chrome’s goo.gl URL Shortener and Firefox’s goo.gl lite, and Google will be releasing the Goo.gl API in the future, making it easy to incorporate their URL shortener in other third party applications.

Via Lifehacker

(Via MakeUseOf.com.)

A year after seventh grade teacher Elizabeth Delmatoff started a pilot social media program in her Portland, Oregon classroom, 20% of students school-wide were completing extra assignments for no credit, grades had gone up more than 50%, and chronic absenteeism was reduced by more than a third. For the first time in its history, the school met its adequate yearly progress goal for absenteeism.

At a time when many teachers are made wary by reports of predators and bullies online, social media in the classroom is not the most popular proposition. Teachers like Delmatoff, however, are embracing it rather than banning it. They argue that the educational benefits of social media far outweigh the risks, and they worry that schools are missing out on an opportunity to incorporate learning tools the students already know how to use.

What started as a Facebook-like forum where Delmatoff posted assignments has grown into a social media component for almost every subject. Here are the reasons why she and other proponents of educational social media think more schools should do the same.

1. Social Media is Not Going Away

In the early 1990s, the Internet was the topic of a similar debate in schools. Karl Meinhardt was working as a school computer services manager at the time.

‘There was this thing called the Internet starting to show up that was getting a lot of hype, and the school administration was adamantly against allowing access,’ he says. ‘The big fear was pornography and predators, some of the same stuff that’s there today. And yet…can you imagine a school not connected to the Internet now? ‘

Meinhardt helped develop the Portland social media pilot program after Delmatoff saw his weekly technology segment on the local news and called to ask for his advice. In his opinion, social media, like the Internet, will be a part of our world for a long time. It’s better to teach it than to fight it.

Almost three-fourths of 7th through 12th graders have at least one social media profile, according to a recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The survey group used social sites more than they played games or watched videos online.

When schools have tried to ban social media, now an integral part of a young person’s life, they’ve had negative results. Schools in Britain that tried to ‘lock down’ their Internet access, for instance, found that ‘as well as taking up time and detracting from learning, it did not encourage the pupils to take responsibility for their actions.’

‘Don’t fight a losing battle,’ says Delmatoff. ‘We’re going to get there anyway, so it’s better to be on the cutting edge, and be moving with the kids, rather than moving against them…Should they be texting their friends during a lecture? Of course not. They shouldn’t be playing cards in a lecture, they shouldn’t be taking a nap during a lecture. But should they learn how to use media for good? Absolutely.’

2. When Kids Are Engaged, They Learn Better

Matt Hardy, a 3rd and 4th grade teacher in Minnesota, describes the ‘giddy’ response he gets from students when he introduces blogs. He started using blogs in his classroom in 2007 as a way to motivate students to write.

‘Students aren’t just writing on a piece of paper that gets handed to the teacher and maybe a smiley face or some comments get put on it,’ he says. ‘Blogging was a way to get students into that mode where, ‘Hey, I’m writing this not just for an assignment, not just for a teacher, but my friend will see it and maybe even other people [will] stumble across it.’ So there’s power in that.’

Delmatoff says that at first her students were worried they would get in trouble for playing because they actually enjoyed doing activities like writing a blog.

‘But writing a blog, that’s not playing, that’s hard work,’ she says. ‘Karl and I started thinking we were really on to something if kids were thinking that their hard academic work was too much fun.’

Her students started getting into school early to use the computer for the social media program, and the overall quality of their work increased. Although Delmatoff is adamant that there’s no way to pin her class’s increased academic success specifically to the pilot program, it’s hard to say that it didn’t play a part in the more than 50% grade increase.

3. Safe Social Media Tools Are Available — And They’re Free

When Hardy started using blogs to teach, he developed his own platform to avoid some of the dangers associated with social media use and children. His platform allowed him to monitor and approve everything the children were posting online, and it didn’t expose his students to advertising that might be inappropriate. He later developed a similar web-based tool that all teachers could use called kidblog.org. The concept caught on so quickly that his server crashed in September when the school year started.

Many mainstream social media sites like Facebook and MySpace are blocked in schools that receive federal funding because of the Children’s Internet Protection Act, which states that these schools can’t expose their students to potential harm on the Internet.

Kidblog.org is one of many free tools that allow teachers to control an online environment while still benefiting from social media. Delmatoff managed her social media class without a budget by using free tools like Edmodo and Edublogs.

4. Replace Online Procrastination with Social Education

Between 2004 and 2009, the amount of time that kids between the ages of 2 and 11 spent online increased by 63%, according to a Nielson study. And there’s no reason, Meinhardt argues, that schools shouldn’t compete with other social media sites for part of this time.

He helped Delmatoff create a forum where she would post an extra assignment students could complete after school every day. One day she had students comment on one of President Obama’s speeches; another day she had them make two-minute videos of something on their walk home that was a bad example of sustainability. These assignments had no credit attached to them. ‘It didn’t get you an A, it didn’t get you a cookie. It didn’t get you anything except something to do and something to talk about with other students.’

About 100 students participated. Through polls taken before and after the program, Meinhardt determined that students spent between four to five fewer hours per week on Facebook and MySpace when the extra assignments had been implemented.

‘They were just as happy to do work rather than talk trash,’ Delmatoff says. ‘All they wanted was to be with their friends.’

5. Social Media Encourages Collaboration Instead of Cliques

Traditional education tactics often involve teacher-given lectures, students with their eyes on their own papers, and not talking to your neighbor.

‘When you get in the business world,’ Meinhardt says, ‘All of [a] sudden it’s like, ‘OK, work with this group of people.’ It’s collaborative immediately. And we come unprepared to collaborate on projects.’

Social media as a teaching tool has a natural collaborative element. Students critique and comment on each other’s assignments, work in teams to create content, and can easily access each other and the teacher with questions or to start a discussion.

Taking some discussions online would also seem to be an opportunity for kids who are shy or who don’t usually interact with each other to learn more about each other. A study by the Lab for Social Computing at the Rochester Institute of Technology, however, found that this wasn’t the case. The study found that using educational social media tools in one of the Institute’s courses had no measurable impact on social connections.

Delmatoff argues that with her students, however, new connections were made. ‘If you’re shy or you’re not popular or any of those hideous things that we worry about in middle school — if you know the answers or have good insights or ask good questions, you’re going to be really valuable online.’ she says. ‘So I started to see some changes that way.’

6. Cell Phones Aren’t the Enemy

69% of American high schools have banned cell phones, according to figures compiled by CommonSense Media, a nonprofit group that studies children’s use of technology. Instead, Delmatoff’s school collected student’s cell phone numbers.

Delmatoff would send text messages to wake chronically absent kids up before school or send messages like, ‘I see you at the mini-mart’ when they were running late (there’s a mini-mart visible from the school). She called the program ‘Texts on Time,’ and it improved chronic absenteeism by about 35% without costing the school a dime.

‘The cell phone is a parent-sponsored, parent-funded communication channel, and schools need to wrap their mind around it to reach and engage the kids,’ Meinhardt says.

(Via Mashable!.)

Although the number of people worldwide who are using social networking services and engaging with social media continues to climb, the number who describe themselves as ‘creators’ of content — those who publish their own blogs, create and upload videos, and so on — is falling, according to new research from Forrester. The research firm found that the number of content creators either fell or stayed the same in most of the major markets it surveyed for its latest Consumer Technographics study, including North America, China and Europe.

Although the decline in the number of content creators isn’t dramatic — the percentage of users who fell into that category in the U.S. dropped to 23 percent in 2010 from 24 percent a year earlier — it is still a concern, said Forrester analyst Jacqueline Anderson. ‘A lack of growth in social creation translates into a lack of fresh ideas, content, and perspectives.’ According to Forrester’s survey, one-third of those who spend time online in the U.S. regularly watch user-generated videos on sites like YouTube, but only 10 percent of online users upload videos they’ve created to such sites. ‘The traits required to create social content are unique, and at this moment, the consumer market interested in these behaviors has plateaued,’ Anderson said.

Forrester’s research classifies social-network users into a number of categories — including Creators, Conversationalists, Critics, Collectors, Joiners and Spectators — based on their responses to survey questions about what they typically do on social networks and services.

While most countries and regions saw continued strong growth in the number of people who fall into the ‘joiner’ and ‘spectator’ categories, Japan was the only country that showed a rise in ‘creators,’ growing from 34 percent in 2009 to 36 percent in the past year. The number of people who joined social networks grew fairly strongly in Europe and in China, but not as strongly in North America — where social networking has already made strong gains in usage. In August, research from Nielsen showed that the amount of time U.S. Internet users spent on social networking had climbed by more than 40 percent.

The fact that the majority of social media and social networking users do not create content is not a surprise — for example, Harvard research has shown that 90 percent of the content on Twitter is created by 10 percent of the users, and similar percentages of observers vs. creators can be found on YouTube and other sites and services. Although the web and social networking allow anyone to become a content creator and publish whatever they wish, it seems that a majority of users are happy to consume what others create.

(Via GigaOM.)

At the present time, I currently run about five blogs. I do it mostly because I love researching different topics. However, the single most annoying thing that I find myself being forced to deal with almost every single day are spam blog comments. These number from dozens to hundreds depending on the day.

Many bloggers or website owners that have commenting systems have to deal with this dilemma and I’m sure they share the same frustration. It seems that even if you’ve enabled comment moderation, that doesn’t stop spammers from automatically submitting garbage to your comments form. Last week, after spending a full 25 minutes deleting hundreds of spam comments from the moderation area, I decided that I’d had enough.
This is a dilemma that many website owners have to come to terms with. Do you require that commentators register to your site before commenting? That would completely shut down spam, but it would also virtually shut down commenting. Most people simply don’t want to take the time to register.

The only other solution that really works is one that many people are already turning to every day – using Captcha. There are a lot of decent Captcha script packages and plugins out there, but I think the best is one that was briefly noted in the MUO Directory a while back called ReCaptcha.

Use Captcha Or Not?

Now, a lot of site owners don’t want to use a Captcha system, because many of them are really annoying. Have you ever tried reading some of those ‘human-only readable’ text smudges? The reason I like ReCaptcha is because it is not only really easy to install on a blog or a website, but the challenge is one that your readers will be able to fly through in seconds – but it’ll stop those stupid spammers cold in their tracks.

This was my comment form before installing ReCaptcha.

As you can see – no challenge at all, just a simple submission form with a ‘Submit Comment’ button. Now, this wasn’t entirely my fault, because I downloaded a high-quality theme and this was the comments form that came with it – no anti-spam scripting included.

Because of that, the mess above is what I was faced with almost every week. Hundreds and hundreds of stupid, meaningless, annoying garbage comments. So, I decided it was high time for a Captcha system, and ReCaptcha is noted throughout the web as being one of the best ones out there. The real question is how difficult will it be to install, can I install the Recaptcha embed response in-page, and how functional is it?

The first step in setting it up is signing up and downloading the appropriate files for your situation – for WordPress that’s loading the wp-recaptcha folder into ‘wp-content/plugins‘. ReCaptcha is available for WordPress, PHP, phpBB, Drupal, Joomla, Coldfusion, Java and all sorts of other platforms and programming environments. Read the intro page to learn more.

In every case, you’re going to have to sign up with a ReCaptcha account so that you can obtain a Public and Private key.

In WordPress, once you activate the plugin and go into the Recaptcha item under settings, you’ll discover how functional ReCaptcha really is. You’ll first need to fill in your public and private keys so the plugin will work.

You’ll notice that you can make ReCaptcha a bit less annoying for registered users by hiding it. It’ll also secure the registration form. Best of all, you can enable the MailHide feature, where ReCaptcha will convert every single email address published on your site into a link with the actual email address hidden – preventing the email address from getting lifted by spammers that crawl the net.

This is great for WordPress users, but what if you have a website written in PHP? The Recaptcha website details simple instructions for just about every setup you might face. For example, inserting ReCaptcha into a PHP page is as simple as adding this element to your form submission.

<form method=’post’ action=’verify.php’>
<?php
require_once(‘recaptchalib.php’);
$publickey = ‘your_public_key’; // you got this from the signup page
echo recaptcha_get_html($publickey);
?>
<input type=’submit’ />
</form>

Obviously, you’ll need to have the code for verify.php and the recaptchalib.php file uploaded, but all of that is provided in the download package. It’s very simple to install ReCaptcha on any site and on any platform. It’s so effective in fact that it’s the app recommended on the official Google Webmasters blog.

So, now that I’ve installed it, this is what the comments area now looks like.

Type in the wrong response, and the page simply reloads with the following error listed over the ReCapcha box.

OK, it’s only been running for a little while, but while I used to receive dozens of spam messages a day, I haven’t received a single one yet. It is surreal. I have so much free time now, I might have to take up golf or something.

(Via MakeUseOf.com.)

When it comes to building a website, it helps to have a process to follow, especially if you are just getting started as a web designer. Good guidelines can help you work better by keeping forgetfulness to a minimum.

Every designer or company will develop unique components to their web design process over time, but the basics remain the same: learn, plan, design, code, launch and maintain.

In this article, I will share my process for designing a website.

Before we get into it, let me first share two parallel processes that should be taking place throughout your design process.

The first thing you should be doing continuously is seeking feedback. You’ll save yourself a lot of wasted time and effort by getting feedback at regular intervals.

The second thing you should do continuously is testing. Test the heck out of everything as you go to avoid mega-headaches down the road.

With that said, let’s get started!

1. Learn

What do you think is the most important step of the web design process? Planning? Designing? Coding?

Guess again.

It shouldn’t surprise you that learning — discovering and understanding what you need to build in the first place — is the most important part of the entire website design process.

Why? It’s simple, really. The more you know about what you need to accomplish, the better your chances will be of creating a successful website.

Think of it like this: If you are an archer, don’t you need to know where to aim your arrow? That’s what the target is for. The little red dot in the middle is the bullseye. Since it’s smaller, it’s harder to hit, but even if you aim for it and miss, you’re sure to get closer than if you aimed your arrow up into the air and hoped for a random direct hit.

So how can you score a bullseye as a web designer? Before you go any further, you need to define what hitting the bullseye in your project means.

As a web designer, hitting the bullseye is giving your clients what they want — it’s what they are paying you for.

What clients want varies widely on a case-by-case basis. Since you aren’t a mind reader (no, you’re not), you need to proactively find out what they want.

In some cases, they may not even know what they want, and in other cases, they may have a hard time verbalizing what they have envisioned because they don’t know industry terms and concepts like CSS, Ajax, or relational databases.

The Creative Brief

Fortunately, there’s a tool web designers can use to easily gather this information. It’s called a creative brief. A creative brief is basically a series of questions that you ask your clients so that you can understand the scope and goals of a project.

You can ask these questions during a face-to-face meeting or a phone call — or you can simply make a web form available on your website that handles the answers of your clients.

You should obtain this information in the way you and your clients are most comfortable with — but whatever you do, don’t skip the creative brief because it will become the lifeblood of your project.

What kind of questions should you ask in your creative brief? At the minimum, find out:

• The client’s target audience
• Their primary and secondary goals for the website
• Current branding characteristics
• Budget
• Deadlines they need to meet

I also like asking clients what websites they like and don’t like to give me a visual idea of where I should be heading and what I should avoid.

You might also want to find out if they need an online store, if they already have a logo (if not, you can make one for them), who will be responsible for maintaining the site once it goes live, and so forth.

You might have unique questions that you will want to include; use them and don’t be afraid to tailor your questions on a per-project basis.

2. Plan

Once you’ve learned what you need to build, it’s time to start planning how you are going to make it happen. Before you can start designing a website, you need to know exactly what, and how, to design it in the first place — and it all starts with creating a design strategy.

Your design strategy for each website you make should be handcrafted to fit the client’s vision (if you are designing a site for yourself, then you would qualify as the client).

So what factors will shape your design strategy? The creative brief will act as the foundation of your plan by providing you with some basic information, such as what your timeframes are and who the target audience of the website is.

It’s especially important to know your audience because it will affect where and how the site gets viewed. For example, will you also need to create a mobile version or an iPad-specific version that works with touch?

Research and Note-Taking

Whatever gaps are left in the overall strategic picture will need to be filled by doing some research of your own. Now is the time to visit competing websites and see what types of designs are already out there in the target market so you will know how to differentiate your own design.

See who comes up first in a Google search and try to find out why. Within 10 minutes, you should be able to start piecing together the beginnings of your design plan.

While you are researching, you’ll also start brainstorming about what colors to use, where to place the call(s)-to-action, what kind of fonts you should use and other similar details.

At this point, you should also be taking notes, snapping screenshots and starting a mood board.

Sketching and Mock-Up

Next, it’s time to create a mock-up and start letting your ideas take on more of a tangible state. I like to start by sketching out my ideas on a regular old piece of paper, as do many other web designers.

Other people prefer to use a wireframing tool like OmniGraffle. During this phase, not only will you want to start thinking seriously about the layout of the site, but also the structure of your site and how the navigation will shape up.

This is your chance to see what works best and a good place to experiment with different ideas before actually hitting Photoshop or Illustrator to create something more concrete.

Pick Your Tools

This part of the process is also the perfect opportunity to assess which tools you will need to use. You absolutely should not fall into a pattern of using a predetermined set of tools for each site you create. It’s a potentially hazardous practice for everyone involved, including the site’s end users and the client (not to mention how monotonous your portfolio would look).

Put some real thought into what content management system would work the best considering the site’s goals, whether or not including Flash at all is a good idea, and so on.

3. Design

Now I know there are many web designers out there who like to skip directly to the design stage without giving a second thought to learning or planning, but design is more than just the act of creating. You want to actually create something good and useful and you just can’t do that without first doing some preliminary work before starting to design.

If you’ve already done the legwork of learning and planning, it makes the actual designing much easier. When you don’t have to worry about the little details, it really opens up a whole new level of effectiveness and productivity because you can focus on more important things.

Once you are ready to start designing, keep in mind that you need to design more than just a home page. You’ll need a design for the sub-pages of your site as well. It can sometimes be easy to design a home page concept, slice it up and start coding only to get to sub-pages and have no direction. You may also need to design a mobile or iPad version of your site as well.

The design phase itself is straightforward. Just open up Photoshop (or your graphics creation tool of choice) and start bringing your mock-up to life. Sweat the details. Make it pixel perfect. Even if you feel like the project you are working on is more boring that staring at a wall for 24 hours straight, put your all into it. Your client will notice and you’ll be proud of the work you did.

You’ll have to decide at this point whether you want to use real content in your design or some dummy text (e.g. Lorem Ipsum). There are plenty of fans in either camp, but I personally prefer to use real copy and photos if they are available to make it as close to reality as possible.

During the design phase, it is incredibly important to seek feedback often to make sure all specified requirements have been met. If the client wants to make changes, now is the time to do it before the design is sliced and coded, making it ten times more difficult to make what would be a simple change if you were to do it during the design phase.

4. Code

Once you have a killer design, you’ll need to turn it into a real, live website. A safe bet, no matter what content management system you are going to be working with, is to start with a generic HTML and CSS template.

Start with a Base Template

If you’re like me, you’ve already got a set of starter HTML and CSS files ready to go that are already linked to each other and already contain some basic starter code (such as a CSS reset).

If you’re not like me and don’t have these generic files at the ready, go ahead and create some that you can reuse at this stage in the future.

Before you go any further, it’s a good idea to go ahead and add in your title, descriptions and meta tags, or at least make a note of what they should be if you are going to be using a content management system later on.

Lay Out the Main Sections and Content

Begin carving up your HTML/CSS by inserting the major sections (your main <div>s) for your header, footer and content area.

Next, begin adding your text and image content. The goal is to keep your markup as semantic as possible so that each element is meaningful.

Avoid divitis — the act of utilizing too many divs. For example, you don’t need a div just to contain the logo. Try using an <h1> or a <p> instead — it can be styled exactly the same way (e.g. making them into a block elements using the display CSS property).

Validate and Test

Don’t forget to make sure your code validates by using the validation tool provided by the W3C (but also understand that validation tools have shortcomings).

You’ll also need to do some browser testing to make sure the site looks and acts as intended and provides a uniform brand experience no matter how a user accesses it. You can use a tool like Browsershots if you have limited access to different types of computers.

Use Firebug and YSlow to debug your site and make sure your work is running at an optimal speed.

One last thing: don’t forget to implement Google Analytics or your favorite analytics alternative so you won’t miss out on tracking the stats during the big launch.

5. Launch

When you’ve finally perfected the site, it’s time to release it to the public. Launching can mean different things to different people, mostly because there are various content management systems and development circumstances out there.

For instance, if you are redesigning a site that uses a content management system or publishing platform, your launch may be as simple as applying a new theme.

If you are designing a brand new site in a sandbox or local development environment, then ‘going live’ means FTP’ing your files to the production server.

6. Maintain

During your planning phase, you should have determined who will be in charge of site maintenance. If a client is unable to maintain the site, you may want to suggest that they hire you on a regular or as-needed basis to manage and perform maintenance tasks.

During the hand-off/closeout of the project, it might also help to provide some guidelines and basic training to your client to make sure they understand how to properly maintain the site.

(Via Six Revisions.)

We already know that Facebook is the web’s biggest time sink. If you look at the average amount of time (according to Nielsen) users spend on the social network, Facebook is a clear winner over sites such as Google or Yahoo.

Now, according to comScore, Facebook is also first when it comes to the total amount of time users are spending on the site. In August, U.S. web users spent 41.1 million minutes on Facebook, which was about 9.9% of their entire web-surfing time in that month. In this same period, people spent 39.8 million minutes on all of Google’s sites, and those include another huge online timesink – YouTube.

comScore puts Yahoo in third place, with U.S. web users spending 37.7 million minutes on its sites, which was about 9.1% of their web surfing time in August.

The numbers are even more impressive when you consider that Facebook had just overtaken Yahoo in July, and in August last year U.S. web surfers had spent less than 5% of their online time on the social networking service.

Still, it hardly comes as a surprise: Facebook has been growing steadily in the last couple of years, and in July it announced it had over 500 million active users.

If Facebook keeps growing, a year from now Google may find itself far behind Facebook when it comes to web users’ minutes. But does Facebook have room for growth? Mark Zuckerberg predicts the site’s userbase might even reach one billion. The number doesn’t sound too far-fetched, given that Facebook still has room for international growth — for example in China and Russia.

Of course, comScore only counts users from the U.S., so the global picture is still blurry. But the facts show that Facebook users spend a huge amount of time on the site, and it’s a worrying stat for Google. Google’s many online properties (Gmail, Search and YouTube, to name a few) have vast influence and reach. But right now, without a large social networking property (Orkut doesn’t count as serious competition to Facebook anymore), Google will have a hard time snatching users’ time from Facebook’s hands.

(Via Mashable!.)

Yesterday I received an email from one of our readers, asking on what social media sites he should try to secure his name (which can be either his personal name, or his website/business name, depending on what brand he is trying to promote).

In my opinion there are two that are absolutely a must: Twitter and Facebook. All the others are optional. Depending on the type of business you have some niche social sites might be compulsory too. For instance, if you are a photographer you should try to secure your name/brand on Flickr too.

That being said, if you have time available it could be a good idea to secure your name on as many social sites as possible. This will solidify your brand and enable you to interact with your audience/customers on many different platforms.

There is a web tool that helps with this task. It is called namechk.com.

You just need to put the desired name on the search box and the tool will check whether it’s available on not on around 150 social media sites. You can also use it as a list of the sites where you can go and create a profile, as some of them will also let you place a backlink to your website.

(Via Daily Blog Tips.)

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

In a world where small businesses with corporate blogs receive 55 percent more traffic than small businesses that don’t blog, companies should be taking note on how to improve their blogs, attract more readers and get more results.

But still, a lot of companies with corporate blogs seem to be bogged down in uniformed policies and simply aren’t thinking outside the box. Afraid to take on colorful personalities or step a bit outside of their company’s happenings, many corporate blogs employ an official tone announcing the play-by-play updates of company news. This is just one mistake that businesses are making in the blogging world.

There is a laundry list of issues that need to be addressed when it comes to improving corporate blogs, but here we’ve narrowed down the key elements that companies should focus on. Here are 10 tips for corporate bloggers hoping to make a positive splash in their communities.

1. Establish a Content Theme and Editorial Guidelines

When creating a product or service, you must be able to define the value that it’s bringing to consumers. In the case of a blog, you need to clearly define the focused theme that your team will follow. Choose a blog name and theme that fits well with your company’s expertise, but don’t be afraid to branch out into a larger space. Your blog should provide pertinent information for consumers interested in your area of business.

Once you’ve chosen an area to cover, create a set of editorial guidelines that your bloggers will follow. Guidelines can include appropriate verticals and topics to cover, as well as how and when posts should be written.

A clear goal and theme for your blog will make it easier for users to know what to expect. For example, Dogstuff, an online shop for canine gifts, toys and supplies, hosts a blog called Dog Blog. The blog is simple and to the point, and it’s more than evident that the blog is about dogs. The theme is specific enough for readers to understand what they may find, but it is such a broad topic, that almost limitless posts are possible.

2. Choose a Blogging Team and Process

Choose a team of core bloggers to begin your blogging adventure. Select individuals that are knowledgeable and comfortable writing about the areas you would like to cover. Also, it’s key to choose people who write well and have a great online presence.

Train your bloggers on the editorial guidelines and decide what type of writing and editing process you would like to put in place. Some companies prefer to elect an editor or group of editors to have a final look at all blog posts, while other companies allow their bloggers to publish directly. Figure out the level of comfort you have with your blogging, editing and publishing process and implement a procedure that works well for your team.

3. Humanize Your Company

A company blog is an opportune place to let down your hair and get to know your customers. Think of it as a conversation between people, not between a brand and one person. In order to have a conversation, you need two people — a blogger and a reader.

Give your corporate bloggers the freedom to be themselves. Encourage them to have their own personalities and writing styles. This type of diversity is more representative of your company than any monotonous tone that you could manufacture on your own.

Always keep in mind that your blog is about people connecting and conversing with people, not a corporation. Throw away that ‘corporate’ concept, and you’ll be ahead of most.

4. Avoid PR and Marketing

If maintained correctly, your blog will act as a repository of real analysis and opinions provided by your company’s fine employees. The type of insight and expertise that a blog can demonstrate is far more useful than any PR pitch that you could post. Stay away from trying to sell your readers. There are appropriate venues for that, and your blog shouldn’t be one of them.

Continue to add to the conversation, adding value for your readers. Your opinions will be priceless. And for the times that you don’t have an opinion on an important topic, gauge your community’s opinion by taking a poll or interviewing key people.

Lululemon Athletica, a yoga-inspired athletic apparel company, constantly adds value to its community through its blog by providing posts on topics that their core followers would appreciate. Some of the most recent posts were on how to do a handstand, protect the lower back, and explore a new city.

Readers will get a taste of the massive knowledge bank available at your company. Take your mind off of marketing, and you’ll find that the analysis that you provide sells your company better than a press release ever could.

5. Welcome Criticism

Oftentimes, corporations shy away from opening up their websites and blogs for commenting and interaction, because they are afraid of the harm that criticisms may cause. Make it a policy to welcome criticism, thinking of it as an opportunity for feedback and improvement. There are lots of ways to deal with negative feedback, so don’t be afraid to open up to your community.

6. Outline a Comment Policy

Be aware that if you open up your blog for full feedback (which you should), you will get a variety of comments — constructive, complimentary, hateful, and spam. Be prepared for everything. Create a comment policy that your team can follow, and make sure everyone is on same page. Outline the types of comments that should be responded to, deleted or passed along for follow-up.

7. Get Social

Make sure your blog is open for comments and utilizes share tools, such as Facebook, Twitter and Digg. Share tools allow your users to pass along your content. Why not allow your readers to promote your work?

Put forth an effort to respond to comments or forward them on when a specific employee could offer the best expertise in that area. Make sure each employee maintains a personable tone when responding to comments, so that readers know that your bloggers are genuine.

Lastly, if you haven’t done so already, implement a social media strategy for your blog, creating the appropriate profiles across social networks that your readers and customers are active on. Usually, Facebook and Twitter are a good start, and YouTube is a must for video-sharing. When you post on your blog, announce the new post on your social networks and ask for your readers’ opinions on the subject.

Promote your social presence on your blog, by implementing links, buttons and widgets that link to your social profiles. This will enable readers to stay connected with you across platforms. Whole Foods’ blog, Whole Story, for example, displays its social links prominently at the top of the blog.

8. Promote Your Blog

Just as you would promote any other company initiative, get the word out about your blog. Share the URL on your website, social networks, business cards, e-mails, and advertisements.

Without promotion, building an audience can be difficult. Get behind the quality work that your team is putting into the blog and promote away.

9. Monitor Mentions and Feedback

One way to get a pulse on your blog and its effects on the community is to monitor mentions and feedback. Set up Google Alerts for your brand, blog name and any keywords that might be relevant. Search on Technorati and Twitter for those set terms.

To make things easier with Twitter, set up custom search columns in a Twitter client, such as Hootsuite, Tweetdeck or CoTweet. The columns will update in real time, keeping you up-to-date on brand and blog mentions at all times.

Getting more sophisticated, you should look into social media brand management tools, such as Radian6, for monitoring keywords across social sites.

10. Track Everything

You’re probably accustomed to tracking everything, and your blog is no different. If your blog is a page on your website, make sure your current web analytics tools are set to track all the same data that it monitors on your website. If you don’t currently have a web analytics tool, check out Google Analytics, a free analytics tool with an easy-to-use interface.

At the minimum, make sure you’re tracking site traffic, where referrals are coming from, and traffic-wise which posts are doing best. Learn from the data and adjust your blogging guidelines accordingly.

(Via Mashable!.)