I rarely use my smart-phone for anything more than YouTube videos, checking my Warcraft auctions, an emergency email or two, or the requisite Angry Birds.  Mostly Angry Birds actually but that’s neither here nor there.

I don’t use it for web browsing, so I didn’g give much thought to how my business look on a smart-phone.

When I did check it, it looked great, really pretty.  Completely un-readable and the navigation was as good as useless.  But really pretty.

So I made myself a mobile version.  It’s been quite interesting figuring out how to get as much information as needed into what is tantamount to 300 pixels.  But its done and now when someone visits my site from a smart-phone, there is an obvious link to the mobile version, which is still pretty, but can now be read properly.

When was the last time you checked your website on a smart-phone?  If you did, how much did you allow for the fact that YOU know where everything is, if you didn’t, could you still read and navigate easily?

Another way to see how your site looks on a mobile, visit here: http://iphonetester.com

Thanks to CMS platforms like WordPress &  Drupal; blogging platforms like Tumbler & Blogger, keeping in touch with your favourite sites is easier than ever.

Yes I know that if someone has a Facebook page linked to their website you can get updates on your home page, but lets be honest, you don’t just have business links on Facebook, so in between your mother posting random cat videos, your various friends making heartfelt declarations in their status, your nephews posting images of vegetables that look like body parts (I refuse to believe that its only my nephews that do this!)  and lets not get into the highest scores on bejeweled or lost cows on Farmville, many important or interesting articles can easily be missed.

This is why having an Rss subscription is invaluable for a site that you like reading.

If you have a gmail account, and you really should, Google may be taking over the world, but their various applications are incredibly useful.  Next time you see an orange button on a site you like, click it.  When asked how you want to use it, select Google Reader.  It’s the easiest of all the Rss readers.  It will add the page to your reader, broken down by sites, click the sites individually within Google Reader and voila!  You wont miss another article even weeks after the publication.

Unless you are short on cows for your farm, I strongly recommend it.

I tell all my clients when they have a blog attached to their site, it behooves them to make a post regularly so random visitors know that their business is still active.

And behold, I notice my last post is nearly a year past!

In fairness I have something of an excuse, and before that I was crazy busy.  But I think more effort is required.

So, random visitor, we are still very much active,  in fact, I can feel a site overhaul coming on.

It’s easier than re-arranging the furniture.  Must be a Saggitarian thing.

“When I hear someone calling themselves the something King or Queen it reminds me of those tacky local commercials for local businesses, like ‘the Mattress King’  or some used car lot just outside of town.  The one where they say they’ll ‘treat you like royalty’ or whatever riff they can make on the king thing.  Trying to stand out so they can hype up their %50 off sale.’

If you really are the best at what you are offering, might be better to just say it upfront.

Peace Out

Chev
Simply the Best

Turns out, their advert is a really cute stamp with a monkey on it.  That’s it.  So if you have less than 500 people on your list, I suggest you give this a go.  The rates after 500 people are very competitive too.  If you are just starting or if you started recently, think about moving over.   If you have a current database of people, you can import them without having them re-subscribe so you wont lose out.

Other great things are the videos, most people when they get into database mailing list software are often overwhelmed at how much they are supposed to know and how to get something simple set up, MailChimp has a boat load of video tutorials to get things started.

The other thing that really appealed was the amount of control you have over the sign up box.  A couple of the list companies have no control, the others have some if you know html, playing around with MailChimp however was a blast.  They have the html version, but they also have a fantastic tool to let you design how your sign up will look with images, borders, backgrounds, sizes, everything can be tweaked to how you like it.  They also have variations on the way it appears, either a link to a page (hosted by them, designed by you using the earlier mentioned design tool) or a standard sidebar / header opt-in box and a nifty little thing that appears as a sort of hover over the page after a set number of seconds of the potential client landing on your website.

There are also options for full campaign marketing, multiple lists with sign ups, follow up emails and auto responders.

I really did love the MailChimp, I have a soft spot for monkeys as many of you know, the software has simply re-affirmed this!

This is a genuine opinion, not a sales pitch, I don’t have an affiliate with them, I truly believe they offer amazing service for what is tantamount to a free service for people that dont need the extra expense while they try to get their business started.

www.mailchimp.com sign up and have a play around with it.

Let me give you an example and let you in on a little secret.  I’m a closet goth.  I never really grew out of it.  Inside, Im still wearing all black with panda like eyeliner while scowling and lamenting the cruelty and injustice of a world that just doesn’t understand me.

Thankfully for all concerned, this is no longer reflected on the outside.  If it was, this website would be similar to Marilyn Manson’s and most people that dropped by to see if they wanted to hire me would run screaming to the hills clutching garlic wreaths.

So whats the point of that?  Its not about YOU, its about your potential paying clients.  If you are selling a healthy eating lifestyle, you need pictures of food in your banner.  Not a deep Indian sunrise reminiscent of incense sellers.

Healthy fruit eating people will leave.  They will take their money with them.

No matter what you like, ask yourself  “what does my next client like?”

And make your design match.

Then of course you had to get it online, hooking up the code, matching the site color. Its very laborious that most people stopped using the most powerful tool they had at their disposal. Oratory skills.

You can sell your product better than any text or image, you know what it is and what it means. Using these simple audio files you can really breath some life into your copy again.  Sadly my microphone is packed (I hope) so I have used music files instead, but the effect is exactly the same.

As you can see, you can have multiple audio files on the page, they don’t stop when you press pause, they pause, so you can carry on from where you left off listening, no matter how many others you open. It doesn’t slow down the page load so you can describe every product on the page in more detail if you so chose.

Watch how to set your own up

It’s because Microsoft Word is a web pretender and thinks it can write HTML code for websites.  So when you attempt to copy and paste, it pushes into the html section reams and reams of bloated useless code that ultimately affects your layout and your post.

Up until recently, the only way around that was to writing directly into wordpress.  Not an ideal solution, WordPress has a dictionary, but it isnt the level of Microsoft’s Word.  Thankfully you can now do both, type away in Word, spell check etc then look for this button in the group of buttons above the enter post window.  Now you can paste your Word content in there and voila, no more symbols and mismatched type!

If you dont see the symbol above, look for this button  called the kitchen sink, click that, it drops down or hides all the buttons.

What this will achieve, is that you can bold, underline, italicise, add links, indent all within Word and it will come across intact.

You shouldnt use this to paste images, images should always be entered directly into WordPress, however once you have the text done, adding images is the easy part.

The great thing about this particular script compared to some of the others, if that you can write your own sales pitch in the script that the person sending doesnt see, try it out, send it to yourself and see what I mean.

Also this is a self hosted form, which in laymans terms means no ad’s complete privacy, no pop ups.

So, what is this? Its the same as yousend it or send this file, if you need people to send you files for what ever reason, larger than 4 meg is considered bad form. It can clog your email account and crash your email client if there are problems trying to get it. The way around that would be to use yousend it or sendthisfile or you could be posh and have your own!

My script works wonders in that you can have files sent to different people in your organisation, and if you dont have different people well then you can pretend that you do, and impress your clients. Or you have things send to your VA direct.

Its very customisable.

So for example, if you sent this for the design dept, a thank you will be emailed to you from “design” and the design teams email address.

Go play in the support area, just let me know that you dont actually want me to do anything with it!