Welcome to the Escape Blog

The BBC cites some recent soundbytes from Jakob Nielson about web 2.0 (over) design. Neilson is one of the most respected voices on web usability.

He said sites peppered with personalisation tools were in danger of resembling the “glossy but useless” sites at the height of the dotcom boom. He also said,

Research into website use shows that sites were better off getting the basics right.

The Escape are a design-centric web agency but he is correct - a website is all about the end goal. A more interactive website, as many newer websites have become, is almost like software. It needs to be usable otherwise (shock, horror) people won’t use it.

And, as he states:

Most people just want to get in, get it and get out… For them the web is not a goal in itself. It is a tool.

So, stop, look, listen and think. Do you want people to actually use your website? If so, what is it that you want them to do?

Does the ‘function’ or styling add to get in the way of that action?

In the words of Antoine de St. Exupery:

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

An article on eMarketer (via Pronet) highlights the increased, and projected, spend in the US on social network advertising.

Debra Aho Williamson, author of the report, voices one concern I have tended to notice:

Is there enough interest among consumers to support so many ventures? Does every company need a social network? Indubitably, many of the hundreds of social networking ventures pouring into the market will not survive.

Which, begs the question, which horse do you back? MySpace is the undoubted leader but it soon tails off:

So, if you are a business, where do you advertise? Or, if you are looking to network socially where do you head?

Sorry, I don’t have the answers but then again, I don’t have next weeks Lotto numbers either.  It could be incredibly expensive, or time consuming, to experiment but really you have to ask yourself, where do your peers go?

MySpace, Bebo and Facebook tend to be full of  kids and people that aren’t so serious in terms of business to business. If you are in business to consumer, you may have some joy.

If business networking is your thing you could head over to LinkedIn or Ryze or one of the many others. That is, in my experience, if you can put up with the get rich quick scheme e-mails and messages. Also, there is certainly a large quantity of social networking opportunities. Quality is another thing though.

The importance of incoming links to your website is well documented, more so the actual relevance of the links you are getting.

The old strategy achieving this was to create link exchanges. You send an e-mail to another web master and ask for a reciprocal link. ie. I’ll link to you if you link to me. The problem with this is that it is very time consuming and also most of the requests I ever tend to get are from websites that simply aren’t relevant to mine.

Now, the thing is, search engines look at the company you keep. If you are linking to (or have links from) a spammy site, for instance, or even sites that aren’t relevant, these can harm your website rankings rather than improving them.

So What’s A Man To Do?

The importance of social networking and engaging an audience carries so much more power. If you are writing relevant articles, or creating great tools on your website, people will become interested; the same way that I subscribe to blogs or link to web pages I am interested in.

If you can successfully engage your audience, they may even link to you - if you are worthy. Yes you have to put some effort in!

The beauty of creating incoming links in this way are the numbers involved. Say you create a great article that is referenced and linked to by 100 people. How long would it have taken to get those links by asking?

With regards to relevance, if your audience buy into your articles (or website) and link to you, the chances are they are linking to similar quality articles. So, you end up sitting alongside your appropriate peers.

So, the more effort you put in to creating great content in the first place, the easier it becomes… and like a good cheese, your web page will mature over time.

One in 10 web pages scrutinised by search giant Google contained malicious code that could infect a user’s PC.

Ref. BBC

Just had lunch with Lou, our newest Escapee and we were discussing how annoyed (and annoying) I personally get knowing what can be achieved in delivering an amazing web project, compared to what sometimes gets concentrated on in terms of design or ‘features’ over a strategic viewpoint.

“Who Does He Think He Is?” you may be asking… bear with me.

Now, I know that if you went to our design team and told them to use clip art and comic sans in a design they would spit out their custard creams. If you asked the web team to design you a website using tables, they would flatly say no (quite literally).

Is it because we are a bunch of spoilt little poncy designers and techie web heads? Maybe partly but it is mainly because we are too some level idealists.

You could argue that there is no room for idealism in business, in design or on the web but sorry, I’d argue that there is. The blogs I read, for instance, are about creative design ideas (that push boundaries of what can be done), accessible and semantic mark-up of web code and ethical on-line marketing activities that RESPECT the user.

Yep, there are plenty of companies out that that look to exploit any new ideas; spammers and the like, but there is room for idealism and it can be - and this is the crux of the matter for business - PROFITABLE.

The Last Word

Louise said something else which is very, very pertinent to this argument.

Collaboration is what the web is about - and ethics plays a part. Tim Berners-Lee (inventor of the web) describes the web as “a common information space in which we communicate by sharing information.”

So, I can’t apologise for being an idealist. For a start, it’s not a bad thing and (I know from experience) you can make money and build a more sustainable online presence with a more ‘user-centric’ website.

It’s the end of another week and in the spirit of sharing, here is what we have been up to.

We welcomed Louise into the Account Management team who shared her first impressions of us:

Well, here I am, having survived my first week at The Escape. Impressed by the database and processes - this is the first agency I have worked for in a while (maybe ever) where this is the case - congratulations guys. And love the new CMS - that is something really special with so much potential - and just to top it all, everyone seems to like a laugh and have made me feel very welcome - in short, wahey! - can’t wait to get really stuck in!!

Louise mentioned a new CMS system there - it’s all hush hush but nearly ready and…. it is bloody amazing. Watch this space.

Rob and Simon kicked some London competition into touch (go go Basingstoke) as we won a pitch for the front end design of a new search engine and research tool for MarketClusters.

As for some of the rest of us well let’s see… Debs kicked off a project for MPI for a new feeder site for their Marine Diplomas. We also started our Canadian project for Advanced Presentation Products website. Lisa is cracking into two new web projects for Two Guys Kitchens. Jo presented some initial concepts for an Annual report for the First Wessex Group, which were well received.

Last but not least there’s Rob, returned from Cyprus looking sun-kissed and…………heavy.

“It’s only 2 pounds” he told us but we know how these things start. We think he needs the support and motivation from (not just his colleagues) but everyone that knows him for the London to Paris cycle ride in aid of Action Medical Research: http://www.action.org.uk/~robj

As an added incentive whichever one of you sponsors the largest amount can have a signed photo of him in his Lycra - nice!

Sorry the blog has been light this week, we have a redesign happening and change of platform… watch this space.

People love a good story. The rise in the use of real case studies is testament to the fact that people love relevance and third party experience in a relative way. ie. With a beginning, a middle and a end.

People ‘buy into them’ because they understand them, rather than the plain old sales speak of the old corporate brochure.

Writing a good case study (here’s some advice) allows people to engage with a service or product you sell in a more ‘human’ way.

It also, obviously, gives you a chance to show off why you are so good and let someone else tell the world how great you are with a glowing testimonial.

Some telephone interviews I did recently about our website revealed that people love testimonials on a website and often look for them first, much to my surprise I might add.

You can also use metaphors for selling your business. Seth Godin inspires people to create a real story of their business (All Marketers Are Liars) rather than the simple sales speak. Talking about the people; the blood, sweat and tears that that is the essence of an organisation.

Just take a look at the growing interest in business biographies. We love the beginning and how they got where they got: The story.

So, how do you start to get your story across? Try starting a blog and speak from the heart Create your story, keep it authenitic and start engaging people.

Lazy post by me, pointing to two great posts on Bokardo:

• 3 Necessary Conditions for Human Cooperation:
• The Web is a Social Creation