If you watched Tuesday’s BRIT Awards you’ll have noticed an interesting clash of styles near the start of the show.

Adele took to the stage, dressed in black, with the lights down low and accompanied by only a piano. She stood on the spot and sang a song she’d written herself. There were no dancers or costumes – just one woman baring her soul and displaying her incredible talent for singing.

It was one of the highlights of the night and almost moved host James Corden to tears.

“You can have all the pyrotechnics, the dancers, laser shows you want but if you sound like that, all you need is a piano” he said.

Adele’s performance was followed by Rihanna who delivered the complete opposite.

She performed a medley of songs all of which were written by a team of producers. She had a dozen dancers, a light show, a backing track to boost her vocals, a steel drum band, and she prowled and gyrated her way around the stage. There was also a bonfire in the middle of it at one point. And half way through she made a costume change.

Two very different approaches, both brilliant in their own way. But how are Adele and Rihanna’s styles represented on their official websites? It’s likely each picked up new fans on Tuesday night – so what’s in store when they get there?

www.Adele.tv has a mood in keeping with her BRITS performance. It’s simple and minimal. No frills. The splash page is relevant with quick links to get hold of her new album and another if you want tickets for her live shows which have just been announced.

There is an argument in web design circles that splash pages with heavy sales messages should be avoided but this has to be balanced with the need to anticipate what visitors want from the site and make it easy for them to find what they’re looking for.

Inside the main site the plain black and white theme continues with content spread across 3 main columns.

I like blogs and it’s always a shame when they’re buried in a hard to find sub menu. Adele’s blogs are well written, funny, and interesting and it’s good to see them given a prominent place. It’s content fans can only get from her official website so they’re right to make the most of it. It builds that feeling of a relationship between fan and star.

The middle column is official news and this is where the record company makes sure fans know what’s going on with release dates, ticket sales and special performances, competitions and events.

The third column is more interactive with a box to sign up to her mailing list, links to Adele’s forum, and her Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and iTunes Ping feeds. No matter where you click on the site this third column remains in the same place and that box to sign up for the mailing list never goes away.

There’s clarity and accessibility to this site and it’s clear someone’s looked at all the content available, chosen the best and given thought as to how it should be displayed throughout the site.

Pictures are well organised and a good size. There’s original content and insight into Adele’s life. I get to see special video clips and I feel I’m rewarded for visiting the site.

One thing very few celebrities get right is providing a means for their fans to contact them. They’re never going to give out their home address and mobile number, right? Well, Katy Perry did give out a phone number on her site a couple of years ago and invited fans to call and leave her a message.

I doubt she ever sat and listened to the tens of thousands of messages that were left but it was a nice, original touch and certainly of more interest to her fans than Adele’s “Contact” page on her site which looks like this…

I think everyone with a website should think very carefully about the “Contact” option.

Getting it wrong – and it’s the only area of Adele’s site where I think she has got it wrong – and it changes the whole perception of the site. I’ve gone from thinking this is a personal, intimate, revealing site that Adele herself is involved in, to wondering if it’s actually all about the record label and the management and there’s no way to get close to Adele herself.

Even saying “Adele’s e-mail address is….xxxxx, but she receives a great many messages and can’t respond to them individually” and THEN listing PR, management, and booking contacts would demonstrate that they’d at least thought about what the fans expect from a “Contact” page. They could also explain that Adele DOES interact via Twitter and Facebook.

Here’s an example of a business getting it right. The Glasgow Rocks basketball team on their website…

Perhaps you have a view on how to handle the “contact” option – share your thoughts in “comments” at the end of this blog.

Now let’s check out www.rihannanow.com

I’m expecting big things after that BRIT Awards performance. I want fireworks! And although there’s more action than on Adele’s site, it’s not what I was hoping for from Rihanna. I expected more sizzle than this…

There’s not much going on at all. In fact some of the sites made by her own fans are better than the official effort. The first thing that catches my eye is a giant sign up form for Rihanna’s newsletter. Down the left column there’s the official news feed which consists of PR type material flagging up awards she’s won, upcoming performances and sales figures.

It’s like an official news feed with a decent design budget and some extra stuff thrown in.

There is nothing on the entire site that even gives the suggestion that it’s come from Rihanna herself. There’s no blog, no diary, no message to the fans.

Even the audio player which streams her songs is so tiny I almost missed it, squeezed in as it is between the newsletter sign up form and a long list of box ads for her new album, an offer she’d doing with Kodak, her embedded Twitter feed and a link to lyrics for her songs.

The whole feel is impersonal and there’s too much of a sales message.

This mention of her fragrance is typical.

Things improve in the “Images” section with high quality well organised pictures of Rihanna on her travels round the world and a great section featuring shots of her fans.

Unfortunately the community feel doesn’t go any further because the “community” page on the site simply says “coming soon”.

This is another mistake lots of businesses make with their websites. I don’t care if something’s “coming soon”. If it’s not available now it’s no use to me. Better off not mentioning it until it’s ready and working. You get one chance to make a first impression. If you insist on mentioning something that isn’t ready yet tell me when it will be – and be specific.

In the modern digital world “coming soon” is worth nothing whether you’re an international celebrity or a business covering a small corner of Scotland. I’ve seen too many examples of things “coming soon” which never come and the phrase has no meaning for me.

Perfect example – that blog I wrote 3 weeks ago comparing football clubs’ websites – I highlighted a competition section on www.hibernianfc.co.uk which was “coming soon”. Guess what… it still is!

After a spectacular performance on Tuesday night Rihanna’s website doesn’t do her justice. It’s impersonal, there’s no wow factor and it’s too commercial. Her website creators haven’t considered what people want or expect when they visit her site.

Adele and her team clearly have. The site is in keeping with her identity and something simple like prominent blog posts deepen the relationship between artist and fan and will get me visiting again to see what she’s saying again.

If you’ve got a business website ask yourself if you’re a Rihanna or an Adele. If you offer a sexy, glitzy high impact product then your website should reflect this. If you’re simple, reliable, high quality then the site should leave visitors with that feeling.

Ask yourself “Is the site doing what visitor’s expect?” and if there’s anything you should change to make it more relevant and to deepen the connection with your customers.

Now – imagine you’re a web designer (maybe you are!) and you’re given an unlimited budget to create a new official site for Rihanna – what would you do and how would you make sure it reflects the performances she gives on stage?

Let your imagination run riot (maybe she’ll read this and give you the business!) share your ideas in “comments”.

This week – are you ignoring the mobile web?

So you’ve got a smart website, you’re doing some social networking, maybe even writing a blog – everything’s good, right?

NO!

Stand still in this game and in reality you end up going backwards.

Look at this week’s evidence involving “Guitar Hero”. Not that long ago it was considered a genius, money spinning new franchise in video gaming. Now it’s been axed by its creators along with 500 jobs. Times change and these days, and in this sector, they change extremely quickly.

Some people in business, as in life, think they can knock a few things off their To Do list and reach the point where things take care of themselves and they can relax.

In my experience nothing worth having works like that. True success comes from a total commitment to continual improvement. And the people I admire most are those who’re in it not because of the pot of gold that might be waiting at the end but simply because they get a kick out of constantly trying to make things better.

One thing a lot of businesses need to address urgently is how their website works with mobile browsers. A few years ago this didn’t seem important but access to the internet from mobile devices, like smart phones, has been exceeding traditional desktop computer access since 2008. And with the rise of tablets like the iPad and Samsung Galaxy the need to make sure your site works and looks good in ALL situations is even more pressing.

Here’s an example from last weekend of how a website that didn’t work on mobile cost a well known brand some business….

I pulled in to a service area because I thought there might be a Little Chef nearby. I wasn’t in any rush to get home, I could almost taste the Olympic Breakfast and was very much looking forward to it. I’d have done whatever it took to get one. Even if the nearest Little Chef was 20 miles in the opposite direction I was travelling I was quite prepared to turn round and go back to wherever it was.

I took out my iPhone and found the Little Chef website expecting it to at least include a map of Britain with details of all their restaurant locations.

It actually went one better than a map. It had boxes where I could enter the start and end point of my journey and it would tell me the location of every Little Chef along the route.

Brilliant.

Except it wasn’t really.

Because it quickly turned into a total footer. And from being prepared to go to considerable lengths to find a Little Chef, the experience of searching for it through their website on my iPhone completely exhausted my patience.

All I wanted was a big fat box I could put a location into. But that’s not how it’s laid out on the Little Chef website. It’s a perfectly good site but access it on a smart phone and you’ll see it’s exactly the same as the standard version and much harder to use.

It requires zooming in on text, moving the screen around, trying to type in tiny little boxes then zooming back out to hit the “submit” button. Try it for yourself and you’ll see what I mean.

The point is if even a few websites are now optimised for mobile browsing the user becomes increasingly reluctant to persevere with those that aren’t. And that cost Little Chef business last weekend. Worse, in my mind they’ve gone from being a company who’ve come through some troubles and deserve to be given a chance to just another business who’s website annoyed me and a brand who’re still a bit stuck in the past.

So what should Little Chef – or any business – do? Watch this video and find out…

Now –  give me your mobile internet heroes and villains. Have you come across someone who’s got it spot on, or someone else who’s totally inadequate? Spill the beans!

And remember the team at NS Design can help optimise your existing site for mobile access or make sure your new page is right at the cutting edge. Give them a shout and they’ll be happy to help.

ps -I’ll see you this Sunday if you’re coming along to the Kelvin Hall for the Scottish Rocks basketball match!!

An unhappy web designer put a company in an uncomfortable situation after it refused to pay the bills for his services.

The Winona Chiropratic Center in Winona, Minnesota, was the victim of the creative (whose name has not been revealed), who stressed: “Please note that I have waited years for this business to pay”.

The web designer, who posted his feelings on the website he redesigned under the heading ‘Our web designer has a childish sense of humour’, went on to say:

”Winona Chiropractic has, as of January, 2011, failed to pay any of their total web design bill, despite repeated attempts by their web design agency to collect. It’s kind of sad that they seem to think that their website wasn’t worth any money. Their web designer is hoping that Google will show them otherwise.

“Personally, I wouldn’t trust a doctor of any kind who couldn’t pony up for what, in the grand scheme of things, is a small charge for their web design. Do what you will, though.”

If this seems a little harsh and perhaps not the best example of professional practice, then the web designer had a change of heart and took the site down not long afterwards. However, this has still not stifled the chuckles on message boards. Screenshots of the designer’s wrathful work are still doing the internet rounds.

Football clubs, the web and social media. What can we learn from them? How does your team fare? And is there any correlation between the quality of the team’s on-line presence and their performance on the pitch?

Football’s been in the news all week so I reckon it’s a good time to investigate how the SPL clubs are performing in the on-line world.

Every team has a large community of fans who follow it. You’d think that would be the perfect starting point for a successful social media strategy!

So who’s taking full advantage and what can we learn from them?

Watch the video clip to find out more…

So who is at the top of the on-line league?

Excellent
Motherwell, Rangers and Celtic belong here.

Celtic beat their Glasgow rivals in the style stakes. www.celticfc.net  is beautifully designed with large high quality pictures given the space they deserve. Celtic lead the way for Scottish football on Facebook with a link to their official page which has 34,716 people who LIKE it. Video clips from press conferences are added here, the club responds to tabloid rumours and Celtic’s Facebook is moderated meaning any inappropriate material is deleted. They say Twitter is “coming soon”.

I’d give Rangers www.rangers.co.uk  the edge for content. Fans can sign up for a weekly e-mail from the manager, and a video clip started playing immediately when the page loaded giving me a preview of the next match. A cluttered design means they might not get the credit they deserve and the SPL champions are missing out by not having an official Facebook presence. An unofficial Rangers page has 54 thousand LIKES but a lot of abusive content.

So the Big 2 can learn from each other, and we can all learn from Motherwell.

They bring it all together very nicely. Great design, good content although someone needs to persuade new manager Stuart McCall to do a weekly blog like his predecessor Craig Brown did.

The Fir Park side do something clever with their “Latest News” section. Each story gets a one paragraph outline. To read the full article you need to register for free. It takes seconds but there’s a range of optional questions which give the club powerful information about who’s using the site. They can capture this and turn it into targeted marketing.

Motherwell clearly have a strategy and things they want to achieve on-line. Their Facebook has 3,831 LIKES and there’s a Twitter feed which follows other people and interacts with them. It has personality and there’s even a Flickr feed embedded on www.motherwellfc.co.uk which means fans who take their own pictures have them featured on the main page.

Good
Well done to Hearts and St Johnstone for thinking about their communities. www.heartsfc.co.uk includes a section for “new fans” (Motherwell do this too) and www.perthstjohnstonefc.co.uk has an area for Polish supporters.

I get the feeling from Hearts’ page that the commercial team have the edge over the content providers! The advertising and promotion just feels a bit full on with box adverts breaking up news stories after a single paragraph and this takes away from what is some pretty good content. Although there IS an official Hearts Facebook page, there’s no obvious link to it from the main site and this could be costing them followers.

St Mirren suffer from limitations in site design but are ahead of the game with social media and all the teams in the SPL provide full match reports with high quality pictures from all their games.

St Johnstone’s “newspaper” style site is one of the most innovative designs in the entire league. It’s brilliantly thought through and a great example of how to do things differently. Making the site look good and easy to use has clearly been a priority.

Hamilton also deserve praise for innovation at www.acciesfc.co.uk Although I wonder if the down to earth domain name and unusual look of the page might make some people wonder if it’s a very professional fan page rather than the official club site. But it’s sleek and minimalist and very easy on the eye and if it could be livened up a bit with some social media it would be right up among the best sites.

Aberdeen have a particularly strong “blogs” section with some excellent writing. It’s buried away in a sub menu and I reckon if they made it more prominent and tied it in with social media they could get some great comments and debates going and people sharing them throughout the wider internet.

Hibs promise a competition section “coming soon” and helpfully type out full quotes from managers and players in news stories. This means fans who don’t want to pay for the premium video subscription content can still at least read exactly what was said.  

Could Do Better
Inverness Caledonian Thistle, Kilmarnock and Dundee United all suffer from the same problem – design limitations on the main site.

I found the pages looking dated and difficult to navigate around. This took away from some good content. All 3 had strong match reports with high quality action pictures from the games.

Dundee United also have a superb weekly e-newsletter which fans can sign up to. It’s brilliantly put together but if you don’t know it exists it’s hard to find it on the main page. It has a box linking to it but I’m not sure tangerine and black are the easiest colours to read on a computer. However, anyone considering an on-line newsletter would get some great inspiration from the way they do it at Tannadice.

Killie and Caley need to find a way to get the action from their games transferred to their home pages. Every match report has great pictures within it but the site design needs to adapt so this hits the viewer in the face when the page loads.

Of course fans want results on the pitch rather than fancy websites and perhaps it’s no co-incidence that these clubs are higher up the SPL table than some of their rivals with better websites. Maybe they’re deliberately putting a bigger slice of the budget towards the team itself.

If that’s the case all the more reason to invest in social media. Even after investing some money in training and time to manage the page it’ll still be cheaper than paying for a re-built site and the way the web’s going it could end up much more effective.

Killie in particular have a thriving unofficial Facebook page where 2,711 fans post news articles, make comments and share pictures and memories. They’re missing out by not even linking to it from their main page.

Action points!
The NS Design door is very much open to any SPL club (or any other organisation or individual) who’d like to discuss how to improve their on-line presence through a better website, or improved social media strategy.

Gary and the team would be delighted to chat with you.

But here are my free, handy hints to each SPL club on things they could do straight away to improve their on-line league position…

Rangers www.rangers.co.uk – get an official Facebook page, moderate it and link to it from your main site.

Celtic www.celticfc.net   – get on Twitter and use that big Facebook community you’ve built up to enhance your content with official blogs and podcasts.

Hearts www.heartsfc.co.uk  – cut back a bit on the commercial content and give the good stuff room to breathe.

Kilmarnock www.kilmarnockfc.co.uk – some action pictures on the front page and consider giving that unofficial Facebook page some official recognition – or at least a link.

Inverness Caledonian Thistle www.ictfc.co.uk – same as Kilmarnock and think about explaining what fans get when they sign up to the premium subscription service. At the moment there’s no explanation until after I click “Register”.

Motherwell www.motherwellfc.co.uk – very good as it is but ask that new manager if he’ll do a blog!

Dundee United www.dundeeunitedfc.co.uk – make the e-newsletter stand out on the front page of the site. It’s excellent but too hard to find.

St Johnstone www.perthstjohnstonefc.co.uk – Top marks on a great layout but make the audio clips in the news articles more prominent and consider reaching out to the 2 thousand or so fans on the unofficial Facebook page.

Aberdeen www.afc.co.uk – Do more to promote your blogs. There’s some very high quality writing there and it’s buried too deep in the site.

St Mirren www.saintmirren.net – With Motherwell, the only other club on Facebook and Twitter but the Buddies need to realise it’s a 2 way street! Don’t just use social media to issue news stories and alerts, think about engaging with the fans and talking back to them. Follow some people on Twitter and try to give it some character and personality.

Hibs www.hibernianfc.co.uk – Get the fans more involved and think about social media and more interesting content.

Hamilton www.acciesfc.co.uk – you’re much higher up the on-line league than the SPL table! Could you integrate the high quality pictures into the match reports rather than keeping them separate? And dip your toe into the social media water!

Now, play the video clip for my closing thoughts…

Thanks for reading and as ever, I invite you to post your comments below. It’s all about opinions so have YOUR say now! Have I been too harsh on your favourite team? Maybe there’s another football club or sporting organisation doing great things on-line that you want to highlight. How do you feel about clubs keeping their best content back and making fans PAY for it?
 

HTML5 is no more, the specification having been ditched just two days after the logo was revealed to the web design industry and the general public.

W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), the standards group that steers the HTML specification, launched the new HTML 5 logo to endorse next-generation web technology. But the WHATWG (Web Hypertext Application Working Group) – a related quality watchdog that broke from the W3C in 2004 – stated that HTML5 should just be called HTML.

WHATWG’s Ian Hickson claims that given the fast changing nature of technology – and the demands of the users of this technology – new and updated features would have to be added on a near unending basis, making more sense for the move to a “living document” that can be amended more easily.

Hickson said the WHATWG had wanted to alter the HTML5 name previously, but resisted since the tag encouraged advocacy aims. However, WHATWG decided to enable the name change after the mix-up caused by the release of the W3C logo.

In a blog post, Hickson said: ”The term is now basically being used to mean anything Web-standards-related, so it’s time to move on!”

Meanwhile, Ian Jacobs, head of marketing and communications at the W3C, has apologised for the confusion as a result of the new W3C logo. In a blog post, he said: ”Clearly the mixed message – ‘high visibility launch’ along with ‘not yet official’ – was confusing to some and caused others to feel slighted. I understand and apologize for that.”

Like everything else, web design does age and will periodically need a revamp to ensure your website stays current and attractive to your target audience. Redesigning your website goes well beyond updating your content . Considering design issues which may involve branding, navigation, and colour schemes, among others, are all essential in ensuring that your site remains as effective as possible.

This can be a costly  and time-consuming project, so before embarking on a major revamp, it’s best to test the waters and ensure it’s the right time. Begin by considering who the website is aimed at, is it your clients, suppliers, current and potential employees, or all of the above?

Once you’ve highlighted your target audience, start garnering opinion. Obviously, this won’t be possible in every circumstance, but where you feel able to ask for feedback from people, especially external parties such as clients, you should do so. The more specific your respondents can be the easier you’ll be able to pinpoint exactly what it is that requires updating. This will help you target your resources, ensuring maximum impact for minimum input.

After you’ve done your research, you’ll be in a stronger position to determine what form of update your website requires, whether it is a simple update to content, or if there are more serious issues, such as a difficulty with navigation, or whether company developments have left your branding out of date.

It’s at this stage that you might like to consider approaching companies like NS Design for a free, no-obligation quote on making your website reflect your modern-day business.

Google has recently added a visual preview of web sites to their search results that could very well call for real change in the way we view SEO. Now, when you type any query into Google, you’ll see a little magnifying glass next to the page’s title. Hover over this icon and you’ll see a preview of the homepage for the selected site.

For once, Google are not leading the trend here; however their implementation of the preview feature is more integrated and easier to use than previously seen versions and also affects the majority of UK search results, where Google is by far and away the market leader.

This means web design just shot up the priority list. Gone are the days when you could attract visitors to your site with relevant content, placing emphasis on the written word rather than design. Google preview means that potential customers will be judging the site before they even click on it, and to ensure they do click through, sleek design is going to become increasingly important.

It’s too early in the process to say if there are hard and fast rules designers need to apply for the new system, but it is likely that sites which have striking and uncluttered home pages will be popular; while those which suffer from information overload on the front page are likely to suffer as the previews won’t do them justice, possibly making them look confused and irrelevant.

The good news is that Google’s testing of the system found that people are 5% more likely to appreciate the site they click on having used preview, than a site that they blindly selected. So hits which do come through are more likely to convert into business.

When designing your first website, it can be difficult to keep track of everything there is to consider. So, just for a change, we thought we’d look at those things you can forget about – the five elements of web design that can put off customers and mar an otherwise excellent composition.

Multi-sensory sites: Background music on websites gets very irritating very quickly, and can potentially embarrass customers, especially if they are trying to use the web in a crowded or quiet place. If you feel sound will add to your site’s ambience, create an opt-in button so visitors can choose to listen.

Stick to the map: Once you have decided on your navigation system, stick with it. Ensure that your menu is in the same position on each website, so visitors don’t have to waste time re-orientating themselves on every single page.

Don’t be too flash: Flash is brilliant for embedding graphics and animations which can really make your site stand out. The downside is that they are time-consuming to load and won’t catch the eye of search engines. Flash is non-indexable, so while it may look great on the site, it isn’t visible outside, greatly reducing the number of visitors you receive.

Don’t get dressed in public: Under construction sites add nothing to your SEO and frustrate customers looking for answers. There’s nothing worse than thinking you’ve found the solution to your question, only to click and find out that answer is ‘Come back soon’.

Make sure your content can be read: You’ve spent ages making sure that your site says what you want it to, so make sure it produces the maximum impact by choosing the right font at a readable size.

Once you’ve created your website, you are highly likely to see a massive increase in the amount of spam you receive. This normally occurs for two reasons; the first is that your e-mail address is published on the internet, probably on several of your pages and is therefore an easier target for spam crawlers. Secondly, any ‘contact us’ form provided, can potentially be hacked to send spam messages. Luckily there are ways to mitigate both circumstances in your web design.

The way most spammers work is via a piece of software which trawls the web, extracting e-mail addresses from sites and adding them to a spam mailing list. These crawlers are only programmed to look for a certain type of text, so one way to stop them picking up your e-mail address is to disguise it wherever it appears.

As a webmaster, the easiest way to do this is to type the whole thing out in words; contact (at) emailaddress (dot) com. However, this can look slightly unprofessional and is not as easy for your visitor to use. It takes more work up front but  it can be worth spending the time to replace a text ‘@’ sign with a graphic one. As spam crawlers can’t read images, creating a graphic email address will stop them picking yours up.

To protect your contact page, you need a ‘humanity check’. This means showing a piece of information and getting your visitor to repeat it back to you, as machines can’t do this. The most famous piece of software is Captcha, but it is possible to write your own version in using HTML.
Applying simple steps such as these should greatly reduce the amount of spam your site receives.

Google have recently launched Instant, a new approach to searching which pushes the boundaries of internet search technology as well as altering the playing field for marketing.

This latest advancement is based on research which suggests that users take up to 10x longer to type an enquiry than they do to scan a page of results. Instant responds to this by bringing up results as users type, allowing them to scan simultaneously and click through to their desired web page faster. The user also establishes a dialogue with the system, amending their own search parameters as they go to find their required content quicker.

It’s an impressive new tool which accelerates functionality for users of the system; however, it may not be such good news for businesses, especially those running Adword campaigns. Results for Google Instant searches are almost constantly refreshed, and so too are the PPC ads, allowing no time for an interested party to click through.

There is also the possibility that businesses will end up paying for impressions on irrelevant searches, with results changing as a query becomes more defined.

In response, Google will change their definition of an ad impression.  Unless an ad is on screen for 3 seconds or more, it is not considered an impression. This goes some way to solving the problem, but doesn’t help if the user is distracted half way through typing their query, leaving irrelevant results on screen for a prolonged period.

Google Instant has the potential to revolutionise the way we use search engines and its true impact has yet to be felt. Only time will tell us what effect it has on Adwords.