Web Design Pricing Revisited

Posted on July 26, 2007
Filed Under Real Estate News | 1 Comment

Real Estate Site Design

I knew I’d get emails from my post yesterday about design pricing for Open Realty. It seems I need to stand corrected a bit as my argument that selling templates for $2,000 is in someway unethical.

I have to concede after reading 3 emails in particular that it is true that a designer or webmaster can charge or command any price he / she feels they could get away with and do so without being called a fraud or deceptive. My argument yesterday was the issue of telling your client that a design is exclusive or custom when in fact its not.

Anyway so if any of my blog visitors were offended by that I stand corrected. It is ok to charge whatever you feel your services are worth.

Website Application Compliance?

Posted on July 21, 2007
Filed Under Design, Portfolio | 1 Comment

Does XHTML and CSS Compliance Really Matter?

For some reason I seem to just piss people off in forums when I point out ways to improve the compliance of application code. It seems no matter how much patience and professionalism I use to describe ways to reduce the size a site by switching it to CSS or simply cleaning up the hundreds of compliance errors that surface, some people take offense. It’s freaky really.

I recently wrote about creating all css layouts for templates for CRE Loaded and opened up a storm of responses in a particular forum for designers that still has me shaking my head in wonder and amazement. Now I tend to self edit my writings pretty accurately as not to completely offend people but when I say that tables are heavy compared to style sheets, or I talk about cross over block elements as being bad code, I’m speaking truth! Right?

CSS / XHTML compliance is not pure vanity and its not an attempt to show off ones skill in design. Web standards however are alot more than just validation per se. Compliance to web standards has everything to do with the methods of publishing content in ways that screen readers and browsers can understand. It’s also about publishing for consistency, ease of change, control and many things that most compliance browsers should present unanimously in similar form and function. Now validating code doesn’t mean you get to say “I’m better than you are, ha” and it doesn’t mean you will rank better in search engines contrary to popular belief.

Good code standards in my opinion makes a statement about quality and attention to detail not to mention just doing it right. Nothing is harder to deal with then bad code and when code is so bad its noticeable I find myself making it a personal challenge to clean up.

Tables are NOT bad code

The bold and often arrogant pursuit of compliance has led many to adopt this belief that tables are in some way bad code or at least bad coding methods for layouts. Granted tables are not really intended for layout they none the less acceptable methods of site design for popular applications like CRE Loaded or osCommerce as so much of their function relies on tabulated data and data sets that really can’t be displayed effectively any other way.

So, since CRE Loaded was the motive for this post I’ll move to briefly looking at how it can be done using nice clean compliant code.

Open Realty – Joomla – CRE Loaded – Word Press

Of the many applications I work with only three stand out as being in some need of an overhaul. WordPress and Joomla are certainly not on the list as these two applications are very well developed to accommodate good web design.

CRE Loaded is a commercialized enhanced variant of osCommerce which inherits all of its poor layout standards and old inline styling methods. With patience and a little diligence, CRE Loaded as well as osCommerce can be brought up to speed for a lighter and faster product that will at the very least validate providing your content and products descriptions are not messy. Its easy to take an otherwise clean and compliant layout and break it with your content as you can see on my blog I do almost daily as this site produces more non compliant errors than any I’ve worked on. (There is a method to my madness I promise)

I’ve taken CRE Loaded as well as osCommerce on many occasions where custom designs were needed and pretty much went through and cleaned up the code but never did so as a foundation for further templates. Until now! The biggest concern is the frequency of change in these applications and the developers apparent decision to not include the inventory of file changes in the change log (sometimes). This presents a problem as updates and maintenance become a very time consuming endeavor.

An all CSS osCommerce template is possible in Beta 3 and is relatively possible in CRE Loaded 6.2 as I’ve discovered. After spending countless hours building a solid foundation for future design by creating several custom modifications as well as contributions, CRE Loaded templates can eventually weigh nearly 1/3 of their average weight while reducing processing time as much as 80% in all the demo’s and tests I’ve ran. I think that alone speaks for itself.

But compliance in relation to CRE Loaded really begins with the doctype and then all the little redundant generated code methods that make up the application on a whole. CRE Loaded has a proud feature set in its admin panel that let you alter the design to a degree and this doesn’t play well with an all CSS Layout.

I’ve been able to make features like template width, background color and other things controllable in the admin panel work well with an all CSS template. But an all CSS / XHTML compliant template for CRE is a lofty endeavor to say the least.

Now I love CRE Loaded and I suggest it to clients more so than any other commerce application. I wont even touch things like VirtueMart or Zen Cart anymore now that I’ve had some serious time invested into looking at, learning about, and designing for CRE Loaded customers. Compliance was a personal challenge when I decided to take it serious and the very first things I nailed was the module boxes.

CRE Loaded All CSS Templates / Themes

People who use osCommerce or CRE Loaded may be familiar with some of the menu tools available such as JS Cool Menu or DHTML Menu among others. The big issue I’ve always had is that neither one of those menu systems will rank or index with google and the ease of use is almost nil.

The very first obstacle I had was creating and all css multi level menu that I could apply to many of the other CRE Modules so it would index in search engines and reduce its weight and redundant “countless nesting” table levels that were really odd to work with.

After diligence, plenty of $$ for coders, and testing, I was finally able to produce a few master layouts that will validate according to both XHTML and CSS compliance tests and reduce the size to such a degree that when compared to stock templates, the CSS designs will weigh on average about 70% less and load much quicker.

Does this matter? Well I’ll let you and the search engines be the judge as my next posts on the subject wont be until I publish the results I certainly know and expect in terms of indexing and usability.

Regardless of the arguments surrounding compliance standards, CRE Loaded in my personal opinion benefits greatly by quality template design as many would plainly see. The temptation to produce turnkey tabled layouts is hard to avoid considering that most template houses sell their designs for $150 on average. The headache has been the exhaustive amount of layout code that makes up the pages when finally rendered. I think if you look at some of the designs I’ll publish you may consider a similar transition and because of such I’ve assembled a 5 template package which includes several custom menu contributions (All CSS mind you) along with STAR PRODUCT and a few other contributions that will help you in your own template design.

I’ll call it a template kit even though I don’t want it associated in any way to the Rapid Template Design Series. But look If I can save a would be client or customer hundreds of dollars in design by providing a nice little package for $50 my only question to you would be. Is it worth it? and if so, I’m going to publish it!

Nancy Etcoff – Survival of the Prettiest

Posted on July 11, 2007
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Appearance is Golden!

I keep a handful of only 5 or 6 books I like to re read over time in order to gain new perspectives on subjects related to this industry of web design. One book in particular stood out recently as I begin to dig back in and evaluate the subject of Beauty and its power to motivate and influence. As you may already know or understand, beauty by itself has the power to influence without any assistance what soever.

Worthy of reading time and again, the well thought out exploratory examinations of beauty in Nancy Etcoff’s book “Survival of the Prettiest” reveals many insights applicable to those in web design. Unlike similar books that boast superficial ideologies about beauty, Nancy Etcoff’s book explores the subject from a psychological as well as social aspect fully articulating the history and influence beauty has on people.

Although beauty can be argued as superficial that characterization demeans the defining points almost to the point of cliche. Pickup a copy and examine it for yourself. I think you’ll be impressed with the content and writings.

Joomla Multi Sites Plugin

Posted on July 11, 2007
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Multi Sites Review

Cruising through my list of articles I wanted to write this week, one in particular stood out that I wanted to drop a little blurb about.

A good majority of my clients are Realtors and or Real Estate related customers and time and time again I find the need of a way to manage multiple domains with a single utility. A great tool for this when using Joomla is the Multi Sites Pro plugin.

A few times in the past I’ve had Realtor clients that have wanted to publish many keyword targeted domains for their agency where the need to manage data of similar (NEVER IDENTICAL) content was essential. With the Multi Sites tool, not only can Realtors manage and or share, users across several domains; agencies have the ability to publish menus, resources, directories and quite literally anything within the Joomla environment to any number of domains for an added SEO boost.

I have a lofty article planned on some critical tips for SEO and SEF optimization in Real Estate sites and one of the features I’ll explore will be the use of Multi Sites in real estate related sites.

A designers #1 mistake and how to fix it.

Posted on July 1, 2007
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Website owners assume people care about them.

The first rule in all web design should be that the only person you will ever impress is the person you are designing for and maybe yourself. People do not visit sites because they care about you or your design; they visit your site to find a solution specific to their need and if you fail to provide that, then the rest is moot.

Much like writing a book, the creative and intuitive process can be broken down into steps that when followed will likely produce consistent and predictable results. Writing is said to be many things but more often than not its said to be an expression of thought. True the pen is mightier than the sword, writing has the power to influence to a great degree, the audience of its intent. Therein lies the key fundamental solution on how to fix a web designers #1 Mistake in design. The process of good design is all about being intuitive and you can expect predictable results when the entire process is followed from conception to delivery. But this in no way says that a designer should NOT make a web site attractive visually. Right? Lets keep things in perspective.

Think about this for a moment. Would you take a 30 gallon metal garbage can and put high grade European automotive paint on it? Why or why not? What exactly is wrong with having a nice looking garbage can? Maybe this isn’t the best way to articulate a point but then again if your site is a container for garbage, then no amount of expensive paint is going to change that.

You design for your audience

It is a bold statement to say that visitors to your site care less about you and your design than you would hope they do. But all to often site designers (and I’m guilty of it myself) focus more on the appearance than the content in hopes that the design will impress enough that someone will caress my ego with praise.

But good quality web design is not a one time $100 shot in the dark for an interface. I don’t know how many times I’ve been asked to simply provide attractive interfaces wherein some of the design specifications defy good marketability of the finished product. I’ve written on guided navigation and intuitive layouts in no fewer than a dozen forums and every time I do, the interaction and responses are so great in number that its clear to me its a subject not covered enough.

Good web design begins with…

So how then does a designer solve this self love and presumption that a visitor cares about his / her design? Simple! All of the above provides the introduction and the summary goes like this;

First lets restate the mistake;
Designing for you and your needs, operating under the belief that people care about your design. Big mistake!

Easy Solution!
When approaching good design, keep your audience always in mind and design for them, NOT YOU. Every facet from interface to content and typography is all for someone else and rarely for you. Good web design begins with a clear idea of who your target audience is before all else. It should be the first group of question a designer asks a client just prior to all other interview questions.

If you have to caress your ego, get a blog, it works wonders for mine.

Breakthrough Advertising “The Course”

Posted on July 1, 2007
Filed Under Real Estate News | 1 Comment

Making mad cash with the course that teaches it

Breakthrough Advertising, the money book, written by Eugene Schwartz. When time is of the essence and you need to turn your site into a cash register now, this is the book to have.

Most internet successes that rank do so because of the practice of following the techniques used by highly successful advertising copywriters. Breakthrough Advertising was called the Holy Grail of deep psychological insights that lead to breakthrough marketing campaigns.

The book however is exceptionally rare and considering that it had been listed on ebay just a year ago for $900 says a lot about its extreme value. Don’t believe me? Go try and check it out at your local library. Chances are its in the reference books area and isn’t available for checkout. It would quickly vanish if it were.

Well why go on about this when I can just cut to the chase? Years ago while at the college I witnessed the maintenance people tossing out old college binders into the dumpster and my curiosity (and sense of greed) prompted me to ask why they were tossing such nice three ring binders. Upon closer examination it was clear to see that these were supplemental course materials which sold in the book store from three years prior. The binders were in excellent condition as were most of the contents.

You know what happened. Jared went dumpster diving! I began by tossing as many binders (with course materials included) into the back seat of my car as fast as I could until I could carry no more. It should be obvious what I discovered by now, right? Of all 50+ three ring binders with contents I managed to gather up, 29 turned out to be the materials with a full reprint of Eugene Schwartz’s book Breakthrough Advertising. Apparently part of the marketing course at the college the contents also included an assortment of examples ads, guides on advertising analysis and many dozens of excerpts from seasoned professional copywriters.

Its funny almost. I’m writing about books and course material that I’ve had in boxes in my attic for more than 14 years. I still have the emails in archive that I sent to Michael Senoff asking for an appraisal of the materials. I think I’m going to post 20 of these up for sale after I add to the materials a few additional materials specific to marketing for the web. Price? Lets toss around the idea $250 per copy.

I ask this question. How many of your products do you need to sell to justify spending $250 on a course featuring Breakthrough Advertising which has made more direct marketing millionaires than any other book?

I’m not in the business of publishing and selling books! There is but one exception which is my Rapid Template Design Series, but that too is more of a course than a book per se. Yeah, lets explore this a bit more. EVERY SINGLE WEB SITE OWNER needs good copywriting and every blog would certainly benefit from the techniques that are tried true and tested discussed throughout this course.

I’ll leave it here for now….

Breakthrough Advertising

Posted on July 1, 2007
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How to Write Ads That Shatter Traditions and Sales Records

For almost 12 years now I’ve been lucky to have obtained two copies of one of the most amazing books ever printed on the subject of advertising and marketing. So amazing in fact that two years ago when I considered selling a copy on ebay the going price at that point was about $900 per copy. I quickly realized that maybe it would be a good idea to put one in a safe deposit box “just in case”.

Well, this morning while going through my library of books, I dusted off the cover of my treasure and looked on Amazon.com to see what the current price range was; I was amazed to see that the book still fetches $350 on average with some poor quality and used copies as low as $200.

The book I’m referring to is one called “Breakthrough Advertising” and its written by direct marketing mail order genius Eugene Schwartz. This book has made more mail order millionaires than any other book of its type. Its sold more copies than any TV Get Rich Guru junk and is more coveted by professionals than any classic of its genera. The book, originally published in the 60′s features principles and wisdom that are as fresh and accurate today as they were almost 50 years ago. Why? because fundamentals never die and Eugene Schwartz did an amazing job of taking the wisdom of professionals and actual successes and outlines fundamental so simple that the bold and arrogant, more often than not educated ivy league types generally disregard the wisdom recklessly.

But is the book all hype and moot. When you consider that many books have been written that have been full of hype and just as equally full of crap it begs the question. Take the mega successful book titled “The Secret” for example. Here is a book filled with more garbage and deception than any other self help book of its type. After going through the book I always felt that a punch line was about to show up that said “you believe this crap don’t you, GOTCHA!” Still, it was easy to notice that every single page is filled with content so generalized that if you did succeed by following its useless suggestions, you could easily attribute your success to the books pseudo wisdoms. But then again if you frequently bet 50/50 on anything for your decision making in life then you can really only expect happenstance results that are more coincidence than science. You could bet the same fate on garnering wisdom from a comic book with equal results.

Unlike “The Secret”, Breakthrough Advertising isn’t just another book packed with generalizations and unfounded science and theories. Although any book can be made suspect in light of exuberant bold claims of wealth and riches, Breakthrough Advertising is one that is profound yet simple enough that not many can make real bottom line results claims like those being portrayed about it. Its so profound that its worthy of some serious blog posts in my opinion. Because of this, I’ve dusted off the cover of this well preserved classic and have added a few post subjects to my list for further exploration. But how to approach it from a designers, Real Estate, internet business perspective?

Fearful of projecting the GRQ (Get Rich Quick) mindset so often played out in online products that claim to foster great success, the approach in writing about this book and its subjects must be handled intelligently. Following the conventional wisdom of professional guru’s like Jay Abraham or David Bendah (Lion Publishing), I’m motivated to write a weekly post on marketing websites and internet products because so much can be clarified by these authors. Please stay tuned.

So what makes this book so valuable

Well, fundamentals for one! The wisdom in Breakthrough Advertising is such that when long time professional mail order marketer Bob Stone and Michael Senoff suggest it as a must read, it quckly takes on compounding value. Both of these experts among many others all agree that no single book is as profound in principle as this one for the mail order or direct advertising marketer.

The book is so valuable because its very hard to find, in high enough demand by professionals that want results and its so easy to follow that a 10 year old could apply its principles. Thats why its so valuable. If you ever wanted to just start selling your products now, without all the trial and error, this book becomes very valuable then. I mean seriously, how much is a costly advertising campaign really worth to you if it fails? Certainly more than the value of this book.

But enough about how great the book is. I’ll simply say that this post serves as an introduction to future posts as I examine, adapt and write about principles in my blog on a per chapter basis.

Effective Inspirational Motivating Copy Writing

Its the direction I’m going in future posts. Appearance is golden but content is “king”! No truer words could ever be said. Search engines don’t index sites based on the beauty factor they do so based in part from content. If you could learn how to write well articulated and effective content, would that be of value to you? Consider before you answer, if web sites are indexed, linked to, discussed, and used, its because of your content and not you or your site. Its bold arrogance to believe anyone cares about you, your design and your websites features if it doesn’t provide people what they are after.

People could care less for the most part how your site looks. Although that sounds like a self contradiction considering the business I’m in; I’m fully capable of keeping it real as I convey to people with frequency that design is very important only after…..? After “Content”, because its content that gives sites their utility value, all the rest is window dressing and presentation.

So if its interesting to you to read about copywriting, I’m going to explore many of the fundamentals in good copy writing by simply sharing conventional wisdom and tried and true fundamentals in future posts. Breakthrough Advertising will be foundation in my writings on the subject.

Until then….