Yup… for real.  Click the picture to hit the Facebook page to participate.

Cheers,
Hammer Bro
@ManciniMedia

I started looking for "Super Nerds" online and got stuck on this website: http://freshpics.blogspot.com/2009/12/super-nerds.html, enjoy.

Today I’m covering “How to choose a web designer.”  This is a crucial step in the whole process as this will directly effect your online business.  In the end, the website that the designer creates is going to either bring in business or just stay stagnant, contributing nothing to your business whatsoever except a loss of money on building the thing in the first place.

The first thing to keep in mind is that the title “Web Designer” is sort of a vague title.  It encompasses so much and anyone who is on the web contributing to the creation of websites will probably consider themselves a “Web Designer.”  So it’s not going to be the title that matters, and in this case you simply cannot judge a book by its cover.  It’s going to be the type of work that they can produce and what they know about the web that differentiates the good from the not so good.  I’ll give you a few important things to consider and from now on I’m going to be calling this person, the ‘web guy/girl.’  But really just ‘web guy’ so it reads a little better.

A good ‘web guy’ will be able to help you determine the overall look of your website.  Starting from a brand you already have, or creating one from scratch.  This will include typography, imagery, page layouts, white space, colours, navigation and will usually come in the form of a Photoshop PSD file.  If they start with questions like “Do you already have a logo,” or “is there a specific website that you’d like yours to look like,” is a good sign.  It means that they are making this website for you and not themselves.  Keep in mind though that the ‘web guy’ shouldn’t be copying another website (and you shouldn’t ask them too either!), it’s simply used as a guide to help the designer get inside your head so that they have an idea of what you’re looking for.  This will usually be stage one in a meeting: the design.

A good ‘web guy’ will be able to create interactivity for your website.  Once the look of the website has been determined, the ‘web guy’ should start asking about functionality.  They should be asking something like “What sort of things would your like your customer to be able to do on your website?”  This is a good place to start.  It really is hard to determine the quality of the programming side of things since it’s all under the hood but there are ways.  Usually at this point if you’d like, for example, an ecommerce website so that your customers can purchase your product online, the best thing you can do is ask to see a project in their portfolio where they’ve accomplished the same task.  This goes the same way for other specific things you’d like to see on your website.  If they’ve already created one, they can do it again.  Another thing to consider is that a good programmer will develop a website with Search Engine Optimization in mind.  They’ll follow W3C guidelines and make sure that their code is neat and tidy.  A good sign to look for in code (if you’re going this far), is comments.  This is a good indicator that the programmer is thorough and is a great habit to get into, every programmer should comment!

Since this post ended up being a lot longer than I anticipated, I’ve decided to split it up into two parts.  Part two to come tomorrow!

Here is the recap of this 5 part series:

• First of all, do I have domain name? If not, what should it be? What is my niche market and why is this important?
• Do I have a hosting provider?
• Do I know a ‘guy?’  (This is a common question that many people ask themselves) (This Post)
• Who should I hire if I don’t know anyone?  Where should I look for web design services?
• What should my website achieve?  Do I have a product to sell?

Cheers,
Hammer Bro
@ManciniMedia

This guy started with a little bit of HTML.

Today you get to see 5 funny things that have made me actually laugh in front of the screen… yup, an actual LOL.  So if you’re reading this with your coffee, drink, then read and laugh.  Not read while drinking and spit all over the screen.  Or you can try it and let me know the results.

The first gem is the Do’s and don’ts with babies.  I’ve added a preview to give you a taste of what’s after the link.  This is worth about 15 minutes and someone needs to continue this series.  As per the website, the end has a blurb that mentions that the pictures are from a book by David and Kelly Sopp. Here’s the book, great for new baby owners.

Next up, Lolcats.  I mean… if you don’t know what lolcats are, you’re probably new around here.  Here’s the run down though; in short they’re user submitted images of cats in various poses with community voted captions.  The result?  I can has cheeseburger.  I know there are others… but I can has cheeseburger is the best one out there.  I can easily kill an hour on this site.

Three,  xkcd.  I’ve never actually looked into why it’s called what it is… but it doesn’t matter in the end.  The comics are set as my home page, every day it loads up a random image, great way to start the day.  Use this link for a random image; http://dynamic.xkcd.com/random/comic/ you can set this as your homepage too.  The simple interface lets you get to the next comic in seconds… another site that’s good for hours.

Know what a meme is?  No?  Awesome.  Do you know how to say it?  No?  Neither do I.  Know your meme is a good place to get informed.  Tons of content, and videos too.  You’ll spend hours here regardless of your bed time.  As a side note, the one to the left is the Xzibit Yo Dawg series… annnnnd apparently he’s super pissed off about it.

Last but certainly not least, and I mentioned him in a previous post of mine, is The Oatmeal.  This guy takes the win.  His comic style is unique and his humor actually makes me laugh out loud, sometimes in a hunched-over position.

Thanks for stopping by! And don’t forget to comment!  Cause apparently there is too much time in my day… HA!

Cheers,
Hammer Bro

Alright, back on topic we go. In the first post within this Startup Series I talked a little bit about how your domain name ties into your niche, and how to choose a domain name that is right for your business in the online world.  I covered a couple tips when it comes to choosing and gave you a couple tools to use along the way.  Nothing over the top, but just enough to get you started.

You’ve come up with an awesome domain name and now you’re wondering what’s next, right?

Well person on the other side of the screen.  Your next step is going to be finding a place to store your website files so that people can look at them.  At this point we hit the next phase of the Startup Series and another question comes up that gets a little bit more technical.

“Hosting, do I even have a hosting provider?” And “What language should my website be in?”

I don’t mean English, French, Polish or Klingon.  I mean programming language and more specifically, server side programming languages.  Generally most web hosts will support the programming language you want to build your website from.  Just to give you an idea of what I’m talking about, an example of a server side language would be PHP (which actually stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor, weird right?  It’s an acronym within an acronym within an acrony… you get the picture).  You might also hear ASP.NET or just .NET being tossed around, which stands for Active Server Pages, and uses the windows based .NET framework.

“Woah woah woah… I was promised kittens.”

Ok, I’m sorry, too technical.  Here, this should hold you over.

Click the pic to head over to "Post a picture of the cutest kitten you can find." Ironically posted by a member known as "Time For Destruction!" What?

Ok, so lets skip that techie part.  I didn’t really want to get into it but my nerd took over and for that I apologize.  I did want to bring this up briefly however, because this is something your computer person is going to have to know.  In the next post I’ll cover a bit about what questions you should be asking them.  This is something that you as a client have a right to ask.  Basically, “Can you please find out if my web host can run the programming language you’re going to use to build my website with?”  Moreover, if your website is going to have a database (again, this is something your computer person should know), then they’ll have to find out if your web host can support it.  MySQL server and MS SQL are common database platforms that you might hear being tossed around.

Hold on, hold on.  Just look at that cat’s face and try not to laugh.

So, back to the original question, do you have hosting?  Well, if you’re not sure what it is, then probably not.  As a rule of thumb, in my personal opinion, I try to stick to the local guys here in Canada, I’ll also do research through Google.  Something like “[Insert company name] Reviews” should do the trick.  So far I’ve used three providers in my development years.  Netfirms, GoDaddy and Host Papa.

Netfirms has a really nice administration area, it’s relatively easy to navigate, and they’ve just upgraded their tools.  What I found about them though was that the customer service wasn’t anything spectacular, and things took a bit long to get going.  GoDaddy on the other hand has amazing customer service (in my experience), BUT, for some reason WordPress websites take FOREVER to load and their tools are way too complicated.

This brought me to Host Papa.  Canadian, fair prices, great interface with easy to understand tools, and best of all, they run on Green Energy (energy provided naturally though wind turbines and solar panels).  I haven’t had to deal with their customer service yet, so we’ll see about that.

When it comes down to it, you’ll probably be paying around $100/year for hosting, and about $10/year for your domain name.  You can probably find a bit cheaper, but given the service that Host Papa provides, they are worth it.

As a recap, here’s what’s in this 5 part series:

• First of all, do I have domain name? If not, what should it be? What is my niche market and why is this important?
• Do I have a hosting provider? (This post)
• Do I know a ‘guy?’  (This is a common question that many people ask themselves)
• Who should I hire if I don’t know anyone?  Where should I look for web design services?
• What should my website achieve?  Do I have a product to sell?

Cheers,
Hammer Bro

Best amateur video effects guy on Youtube.

Check out his channel; http://www.youtube.com/freddiew

Yeah, ok, they are a little over the top.  But they probably brought some people here, and also, people are talking about it outside of the internet.

Kinda like… “Hey, lets see what the crazy looking guy has to say!  You know it’s probably something good… and he might also know kung fu which is right up my alley.”

Sadly, I don’t.

I was explaining this to a friend of mine the other day.  No, not that I don’t know kung fu, but why I gave myself such a ridiculous entry into the blogging world.

It really all comes down to marketing, about grabbing someone’s attention.

Cue the awesome Valentines day card by one of my favourite online comics, The Oatmeal.

I’m going to switch focus (again.. ADHD?) from the 5 post startup series that I’m writing to interject and write a bit about marketing.  Actually I’m sort of using this as an introduction.  My brother is taking a crash course in Marketing 101 and he’ll be dropping in to do a few guests posts on it.  Keep an eye out for that.  His hair is definitely more tame than mine is.

The type of marketing I’m going to be writing about is Social Media Marketing, and more specifically, in 2012.

I was watching a video on Youtube the other day titled “Blogging Tips From an Expert Blogger – Social Media/Web 2.0 (10 min),” which had some great information.  The video boils down to this, and this to me has been priceless advice.  When you think of the purpose of the interwebs, the people that come here are really doing one of two things (or even both).

1. You’re hitting the net for entertainment (like the picture I posted above).
2. Or, you’re here for information; learning it, or explaining it to others.

All right meow. Hand over your license and registration.

These two things are great to keep in mind when you’re thinking about how you should be building your community.  In my case, I’ve decided to utilize my every day job, professional web services, mixed in with a little bit of who I actually am.  Because this is the approach I’m taking, I’m not really trying to be anyone else online and I find that this is really working for me.  It’s keeping me interested and focused.

Another great tip I was reading about was to be random and try to do things that are a little crazy (don’t injure yourself).  This is what I plan on doing this year.  I have a couple things in mind; a random polar bear swim, and a food drive with a twist.  Doing these things keep people entertained, but at the same time they should serve a purpose.  For the polar bear swim I’ll be raising money for a charity, and the food drive is self explanatory.

With social media the way it is now (super dominant) and where it’s going (super duper dominant), being socially connected online is going to take care of the essential aspect of a business’ web presence.  If you’re starting an online business, this is what you should be focusing on.  Sure you might not get recognized right away and your writing style might not be the best just yet (and I’m definitely not saying mine is as I’m new to this too).  But you just need to be yourself, get it out there, and speak what you know.  Throw a little entertainment in there and you’ve got yourself a great base for the online world.

Cheers,
Hammer Bro

Things I was surprised about:

• Couldn’t find a decent version in english.
• 100 was backwards.  What?

Bonus points for guessing what this is in the comments.

The last couple of posts I did covered my passion for design and development on the web and the other was about bartering for website quotes here in hamilton (or all over the world for that matter).  They briefly went over getting your own business online, whether it’s a starter or not, through a website that can stand out from the rest.  But of course, since I’m a bit scatterbrain(ish), they didn’t really cover any structure.

When you first think about your website and where to start, about 5 billion (over-exaggeration) questions pop into your head.  Some of the right questions to ask might not even be in that list, but I can point you in the right direction based on what I usually ask my clients.  I’ll switch the verbage up a bit so that you don’t have to awkwardly read this in the third person.

Here we go.

• First of all, do I have domain name? If not, what should it be?
• What is my niche market and why is this important?
• Do I have a hosting provider?
• Do I know a ‘guy?’  (This is a common question that many people ask themselves)
• Who should I hire if I don’t know anyone?  Where should I look for web design services?
• What should my website achieve?  Do I have a product to sell?

But, the most important question is usually “How do I create a website?”  This one will be answered last with all other things considered.

These are the basics of a website but I don’t want to dive right into everything now.  The first two questions sort of tie into one another since your niche could reflect the outcome of your domain name.  When creating one, it should be easy to remember, short (if possible), and should definitely reflect what you’re all about (your niche in other words).  In my opinion, if you can grab it, you should use your business name; it will help with branding.  This isn’t exactly as cut and dry as it seems though.  According to internet 2011 in numbers there are over 550 million websites as of December 2011.

Yes, 550 million websites.

Each of these websites has a domain name associated with it, so it might be a little tough to find exactly what you’re looking for.  I’m going to give you a little trick that I use when I’m looking for domain names.

If ever I’m concerned about the domain name, I look to Google’s Keyword Tool to get some ideas for potential phrases that people search for naturally, usually one that has over 200 monthly local searches. When you head over to Google’s tool, you’ll be presented with a search box.  Type in some keywords that correspond to your niche.  In my case I’ve used 4, web design blog, web development blogger, blogging website, and web design and development blog.

You can even tweak your search results a little by throwing in some specifics, in this case I’ve selected Canada as my location, and set the local monthly searches to be greater than or equal to 200 searches.

When you click search, you’ll be presented with a list of SUGGESTED keywords based off of the keywords you’ve provided.  It’ll look something like this.

From here, you can look for ideas that will help you decide your domain name.  If you stick to one of these phrases, when someone types it into Google, if competition is low, you should have a good chance at coming up near the top.  To check for domain names, you can use tons of domain registrars.  In this example I’ll use Godaddy.

Webdesigner Depot, that sounds pretty cool, lets check that out…

Looks like .com is taken, but .ca isn’t!  Could be a good opportunity there!

If this wasn’t exactly what you’re looking for, then use this method to find another domain.  Using this little trick gives you a base and means that eventually someone will find you based on that phrase having over 200 local monthly searches.  Of course the higher that number is the better, but it also means that there will be a lot more competition!

Keep in mind, though, it’s your content that will get people to stay on your site, so while your domain name is important, it isn’t the be all and end all of starting a website.

Cheers,
Hammer Bro

Who doesn't like tacos? But these tacos should be wrapped in another soft shell taco so they don't bust apart all over the place.

That’s right… Tacos.

A friend of my just recently asked me,

“If I started up a taco truck, would you help with the website for tacos?”

“As payment.  Tacos as payment.”

At first I wasn’t sure how to respond… partly because I wasn’t sure if he was serious or not.  But I thought to myself that if this were a serious offer… would I take this deal?

The short answer?  Yes, yes I would take this deal.  If you know me even just a little bit, you probably already knew this.  Food costs money anyway, so really this would just cut out the middle man.  This isn’t a new concept either, bartering has been around for a long time.  However, I will not accept payment in food all the time though, get creative, maybe you’d like to redo my exterior walls around my kitchen?

If so, done deal.

Let me explain.

In the web design world, there are a lot of things to consider; domain names, SEO, branding, cool website functions to help you stand out, who to host with, and the thing that is really going to vary out there, is cost.  A lot of people that come to me looking for help with their websites are people who are trying something new.  They have a great idea or a great product, but a small budget.  Perhaps though, now stay with me here, perhaps you could offer something that you do well in return.  Maybe it’s offering to write some posts for them for their blog (hint, hint).  Or maybe as I mentioned you’re a bit of a handy person and you could offer some of your mad skills sawing and drilling masterpieces.

Whatever it may be, it won’t hurt to suggest it if the price you’ve received from a quote is a bit higher than you expected.  Making a website isn’t cheap either, the last place I worked at charged $75/hr… and this is cheap in my industry.  I’ve heard of companies (in Hamilton) charging as high as $140/hr, imagine Toronto?

The barter system is coming back.  When I thought about it, what do people start businesses for?  To make… money?  And what is that money used for?  To get things.  But, if you’re able to get those things without having to give money, but offer your services instead?  It’s pretty much the same thing.  The only thing that’s different is that there isn’t a need for money anymore.  Read up on the history of bartering on Wiki… some interesting facts in there, including this little tidbit,

“The worldwide organized barter exchange and trade industry has grown to an $8 billion a year industry and is used by thousands of businesses and individuals.”

That’s pure awesome.

All in all I’ve indirectly learned something today about my business.  Helping each other out in the startup world, keeping things local and building a strong community is what counts.  Make the connections, make people happy, give great customer service and you’ll grow your business in no time.

Cheers,
Hammer Bro