Internet Explorer's market share has been falling for several years now, while browsers like Firefox, Safari, Opera and Chrome are growing in popularity. From a web designer's perspective, This is a welcome migration. Internet Explorer (IE) has long been the bane of our existence due to its lack of support for web standards. For every site built, a designer or web developer must spend hours getting IE6 and IE7 to play nice with their code. IE8 has made many improvements but still doesn't natively allow for some of the simpler things like rounded corners or a decent drop shadow. Much of this is slated to change for IE with the introduction of IE9 which has decent HTML5 support and better support for CSS3 and other web standards.
Perhaps Microsoft is just finally waking up and smelling the reality of the web these days with their extensive enhancements to IE9. Or, perhaps this is all in an effort to gain back their dominating web browser market share, which was as high as 90%+ at it's peak.
In many situations, people will use what's readily available to them regardless of how well or how poorly it gets the job done. This is especially true in situations where users are less tech-savvy and don't feel comfortable, don't care or don't have the knowledge to change their browser's default search engine. I'm sure a very significant portion of web users fall into this category. All search engines are available in all browsers but some browsers come with a default search engine already set. Regardless of the reason for Internet Explorer's dominance in the past, that dominance is waning while Microsoft is taking part in a well-marketed battle with Google for a portion of the online search business. Could this desire to gain a foothold in the search market be the reason that Microsoft is implementing a bigger, bader (not bad meaning bad but bad meaning good) IE9? If Users migrate back to IE9, Microsoft's Bing search engine stands to cut into a significant portion of that valuable search business from Google. The great search wars are far from over but Google is obviously winning very big at this point. We'll have to wait and see over the next few years if Bing can hold it's own in a market where the other players are well embedded. Either way, at least we're getting some signs of a better IE.
What does it mean to have a good online presence or "web presence"? It means having a firm grasp of how your target demographic uses the web. It means taking that knowledge and putting it to work in your favor by utilizing the tons of online resources that are available to you. Recognizing which of these resources will benefit you the most, is key to a solid online presence.
In this series of posts, I'll be discussing thoughts on how to create a better online presence through various channels.
Start With Your Own Website
The vast majority of people I talk to aren't happy with their website (the ones that have websites anyway). Web users are much more savvy than they were even 3 or 4 years ago. Even less "savvy" users know the difference between a good website and a terrible one. People are much more likely to respond in a good way to a well designed website. Aesthetics are important but website design involves much more than making a site look good. It also involves Information Architecture, User Interface Design and User Experience Design. What the heck does all that mean? Put simply, it means that when users come to your website, they get where we want them to go and they feel comfortable enough to hang out for a while. This is hard to achieve when your site has no continuity in it's presentation of information, navigation, links, styling etc. Would you enter your credit card information to make a purchase on a website that looks like it was built in the late 90′s using free templates that have been hacked together? Would you put much stock in a company that isn't willing to spend time and effort on their own website? Probably not.
Hiring the right person (or people) to design your website is key to building an online presence that gets results. Although your nephew may be able to put a website online and he works for peanuts, is he really the best person for the job? (Nothing against using relatives for web design. I have relatives too!) Do your research and figure out who will work better for you. More often than not, smaller web design shops hold advantages over larger agencies: agility, speed and quality of service.
Some things to look for:
- the designer's/company's portfolio. Are there example projects that fit your vision or is there evidence of being able to create many different aesthetics? Is there a wide breadth of work even though you don't see something exactly like what you have in mind?
- available services. Is there a wide range of services available that can fit potential future projects like print advertising, logo design, SEO/SEM, marketing, etc.?
client testimonials. (if available) Are there happy clients singing the praises of this potential website provider?
- SEO services. A website with no traffic isn't a good tool. Can this company/person get your site found via search engines? Did you find them through a search?
All of these will help you get a feel about whether or not they're a good fit for your project.
Up next: Building an Online Presence – Part 2: Using Social Media. Subscribe to the RSS feed or signup for spam-free email updates to get notified about new posts immediately.
The battle is pretty much over between Facebook and Myspace and Facebook took the title hands down. Myspace still has many millions of users but Facebook is the heavy-weight these days. So what does this tell us about the average web user today? It tells us (or me anyway) that people prefer a good user experience over complete freedom of expression through their own personalized web page design. Myspace gives you the freedom to create a completely unique webpage of your own, including custom images, Flash animation and control over styles via CSS (cascading style sheets). That's pretty much all the average user could ask for in a social networking page. But apparently most people don't care about complete freedom of expression through page design; they'd rather have a better user experience in a controlled environment. Of course Facebook's "better user experience" is just an opinion but the numbers seem to justify that opinion.
Another factor is that people who aren't artistically inclined can be intimidated when confronted with complete freedom of design. It could be that the average user felt that Facebook's simpler approach leveled the playing field. No longer are users forced to "compete" for the cooler looking page. With Facebook, everyone is playing by the same rules. It's more about the content than the unique presentation of information. Both Facebook and Myspace have powerful platforms for social interaction though Facebook is very easy to use and has much less clutter than Myspace which in my opinion is why it has become the leader in online social networking.
Are you into horse racing and/or fantasy sports? If so you should check out the Winstar Fantasy Derby. Nashville Interactive handled the User Interface design and also had a hand in the development of the Fantasy Derby portion of the Winstar site. Once again, this project entailed working with some great people on a cool site. So, even if you're not a horse racing aficionado, you should check out the contest. It's completely free and you might even win a trip to see the 2010 Kentucky Derby! Mint Juleps and sun hats anyone?
