Leanne Nelson+ by | Aug 3, 2012 | Business
It’s easy to slip into the mindset that the way we’re doing something must be the best and only way to do it. Or perhaps we can see that something needs improving but aren’t confident to try a new way. In this fascinating TED talk, Tim Harford discusses the importance of trying something different, even if we don’t know the outcome. What do you think? Are you brave enough to make a...
Leanne Nelson+ by | Jul 30, 2012 | Content marketing
A presence on the web makes great business sense. It’s not difficult to set up, build and maintain any number of websites and social media accounts. In fact, the hard part is deciding which web presence to build. Of course, your choice will largely depend on your business goals and marketing strategies but there are a few rules of thumb to help you decide. Build a website I believe the most important web presence for any business is its website. More and more, the first point of call when looking for products and services is the ubiquitous search engine. A website is your home on the interwebs. It’s a place that you own (I’m talking your own domain here, not something hosted on WordPress.com or your ISP’s free website). This is the place that’s designed to suit your business and operates by your rules. It might be your online store – your only shopfront. It might provide information about your services. It might be a news or education source for your clients. Get on social media Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, … where to first? Any and all of these social media services can help you build relationships with your clients. The key is to only choose the ones that you’re willing to spend time in developing and working on AND the ones your clients, potential and existing, are using. Unfortunately, it’s not a case of build it and they will come. However, done properly, social media can benefit your business enormously. There is a big BUT with social media, though. You don’t “own” your social media property like you...
Leanne Nelson+ by | Jul 9, 2012 | Gallery, Websites
I’m very excited to have recently completed my first “official” web design project. It was an ecommerce store design and setup for Elite Show Rider Clothing, which sells high quality horse riding gear. Like many new business ventures these days, Elite Show Rider Clothing doesn’t have a bricks and mortar shopfront, so its online presence is vital to the business’ success. I worked closely with the business owner, Heather, to find her requirements including deciding on and purchasing a domain name. She wanted a clean and simple estore layout that reiterated the high quality of her products. Heather also wanted a solution that was easy to manage and gave her plenty of functionality to make the store easy for her customers to navigate and buy products. We decided to build her estore on BigCommerce, which offers a great setup that makes the whole process a lot simpler. Functionality including integration with loads of applications, a simple to follow control panel, built in mobile compatibility and great SEO options are all important considerations that are available with BigCommerce. Heather chose a template from the BigCommerce range, and I set about tweaking and changing the design to suit the image she wanted to portray. To speed up the process of getting the store “stocked” and to allow Heather to focus on working on her business, she also engaged Tacit Business Services to enter all the (100+) products. Congratulations on the launch of Elite Show Rider Clothing, Heather! If you’d like to learn more about getting your business online, I’d love to help! Check my contact page for how to get in touch, or connect via Twitter, Facebook...
Leanne Nelson+ by | May 25, 2012 | Gallery, Websites
What is CSS? Cascading Style Sheets are the files that make a website look the way it does. Your HTML holds the background structure and content and the CSS styles your site. CSS’s are the best practice way of designing websites that makes them easy to alter in appearance without breaking the fundamentals of the site. It’s a bit like being able to move your furniture around and paint the walls to change the look of your house without having to rebuild anything. CSS Zen Garden is a great site that allows designers to strut their stuff using only CSS. This was great fun to design as an assessment for my degree. The challenge of changing the CSS only was a great experience and shows how powerful this type of website structure really is. I created a fixed footer that stays in place as the content scrolls up the page. It’s like the passers by are watching a giant retro news screen. And I love, love the retro fonts. Did I mention how this was so much fun? You can see the finished product here. Note that the sidebar links point to my own website, where the page is hosted, not the CSS Zen Garden website. To check out loads of other great designs that use the exactly the same HTML and content, with only the CSS files changing visit CSS Zen Garden. Could you add a little bit of fun to your website? Contact me to chat about your...
Leanne Nelson+ by | May 15, 2012 | Gallery, Websites
Websites have become the new contact point and advertising medium of our time. It’s important even for small local businesses to have a presence on the web as more and more people make Google their first port of call when looking for goods and services. Of course, not every business requires a whizz bang website with member portals, ecommerce functionality and huge back end databases. Sometimes what is required is something simple. I like to think of these types of websites as dynamic, expandable business cards. They can start off small and be added to as the business needs. This is an example of one such site I designed. It provides a run down of what the business provides, some information about their products and a contact details. Simple doesn’t mean bland and boring. Simple means it has what it needs for now and nothing more. If you’d like to learn more about getting your business online, I’d love to help! Check my contact page for how to get in touch, or connect via Twitter, Facebook or...
Leanne Nelson+ by | Apr 5, 2012 | Time management
This is one of my favourite TED talks. It’s by Jason Fried, co-founder of Basecamp (online collaborative software) and author of the book Rework. Here, Jason talks about something we’ve probably all experienced – why it is sometimes so difficult to get any work done at...
