News from Lingo Design

I heard a saying sometime ago that “a good website should never be finished�, and I believe it’s fairly true. It’s a tough statement to be comfortable with though. It doesn’t mean you’ve not got ‘it’ (your site, or your page, your post, or your new function) as good as it can be, but it’s more likely that, by the very nature of the internet, ‘it’ will change very quickly, and that you will have something new to add to it, or improve it in some way.

The real trick is to be happy with the ‘Phased Development’ idea. That you’re always working on improving what you have. It encourages your constant thought on ways to improve, and allows you to be comfortable with an ongoing (or, unfinished) job. Unfinished is not a bad thing.

The other reason to terminate the procrastination when almost ready to go live is that the hunt for perfection can sometimes leave you dissatisfied with an otherwise very good job.
Going live with a ‘phase one’ means your audience can often be the source of feedback you need to feel happy with your page, or sometimes be the inspiration for the ‘finishing touch’, and more likely, the encouragement you need to keep going to get to ‘phase two, three, four’ and so on.

So, without further ado, I’ll stop titivating this post, and publish it!  I hope this might encourage you to do the same.

The question: “Can I use a profile for my business in facebook or should I consider using a page instead?� seems to be coming up a lot at the moment, so here’s a few key issues you might want to consider.

Just as facebook has improved peoples’ profiles (the walls, pictures and info belonging to individuals) to be more interactive, enjoyable and captivating (so much so that it now commands the largest attention of any website on the internet), so too has it improved business ‘pages’, allowing owners or administrators to interact with their customers in more innovative ways while INSIDE facebook.

It’s obvious that facebook has more improvements up its sleeve here too, as commercial interest in social networking continues to boom.

Recently, and crucially, facebook’s own search facility now not only searches people or pages within facebook but also delivers external search results from websites (anything on the world wide web) through Bing, within facebook, without even so much as the need to open a new tab. So the trend is now for users to search within the Facebook blue bar, for EVERYTHING.

In fact there are some industry bods who even question the need for an external business website, since the pull to stay within our logged in, blue walled, socially connected environment, is so great. Personally I think that’s pushing it a bit far, since some people (unbelievably) are still not on Facebook and, there’s still a lot to be said for the freedom outside of Facebook’s terms and conditions.

Indeed, if you are a business, using a profile, (not a page) then you are technically in violation of those terms and conditions (the one’s that no one ever reads http://www.facebook.com/terms.php?ref=pf ) which may not seem important, until you realize that facebook could, if they chose to, close your profile down, and, if they do, you could lose all those ‘friends’ you’ve acquired who could have become fans of your business page instead.

More obvious differences, as businesses turn to facebook for promotion, are the ‘profile vs. pages’ options. Firstly, business page benefit is in the ‘fans’ not ‘friends’ area. A fan (someone who likes your business) doesn’t need to be approved in the same way that a friend request has to be accepted. Having fans thus lowers the constant administrational chore of accepting friend requests and instead creates an instant connection between fan and business.

Secondly, there’s an upper limit to the number of facebook friends a profile (person) can have, whereas there is no such upper limit for fans of businesses.

Thirdly, there are one or two restrictions to be aware of; such as the essential first name and last name fields of a personal profile, which won’t suit a business with greater or fewer words in its name, plus profile vs. page information, such as ‘relationship status’ and ‘date of birth’ vs. ‘opening hours’ and ‘year founded’ are also going to affect your professional appearance.

And lastly, but by no means least, is the option for businesses to have a custom facebook page (www.customfacebookpages.co.uk) a powerful and flexible promotional tool that businesses can now take advantage of, to display custom graphics and interactive elements is again, not an option for personal profiles.

Big brands are making obvious leans towards the use of these tools. Notably, Ford recently launched their new model, the ‘Explorer’ via facebook;

[ Ford ambitiously decided to forgo the auto show and carried out its '2011 Ford Explorer' launch on the web, with facebook as the centrepiece of the company’s online reveal strategy.

The campaign proved to be more successful than anticipated. On reveal day, Ford produced the number one trending topic on Twitter in the U.S.; the Explorer was the number two most searched for term on Google; Ford’s YouTube reveal video garnered 11,000 views; more than 50,000 Ford Explorer Facebook “Likes� flooded in; and, perhaps best of all, 25,000 potential car buyers built and priced new Explorers on the company’s website. ] (source - http://mashable.com/2010/09/28/brand-trends-on-facebook )

So, it’s worth being careful in your business management of profiles and pages, the decisions you make now on your set up in the social media could be the difference between creating profitable popularity or becoming a company cast-out. If your business is already set up as a profile then get yourself a page now, and start migrating, and if you haven’t started yet, remember this, profiles are for people, and pages are for business.

If you’re in need of help, Lingo has social media experts ready for your email. Drop us a line at info@lingodesign.co.uk to get started.

As the temperature drops and the leaves start to turn, the arrival of Autumn heralds a change and new beginnings. Not to get all poetic, but this is an emotional post! That’s because the change at Lingo, is a big one.

Claire Yaxley, our wonderful studio manager of over two years, is moving on, changing her direction. Emotional post, yes, Claire has meant so much to us during her time here. As a close friend and an integral part of our little team almost from the start, she’s been an absolute gem to us, a source of endless creativity, hard work and encouragement and we will all really miss her.

Thankfully we’ll still see Claire; it’s a close knit community here, and we’ve been friends for years. But some of our design clients may not see Claire again, so she’s shared a parting message;

Well it’s farewell to you all from Claire @ Lingo!

I wanted to just drop you all a note to say Goodbye…my time at Lingo has been absolutely amazing over the years, I’ve had the privilege of watching Lingo grow from strength to strength since the early days. My time here has been very rewarding and I wish the guys here all the very best, they are a fantastic bunch of people who are dear friends to me. I have met some great people come through the door during my time here not only colleagues but Lingo’s client’s too. The knowledge and experience I take with me is invaluable and I would like to thank Liz and Steve for the opportunities they have both given me.

I’m off to pastures new, I wanted to just say goodbye to you all. We have all shared some great times together and had many of laughs over the years, I wish you all well and hope many of you stay in touch!

Claire, thank you so much for all your hard work and we wish you all the very best in your new direction, from all at Lingo.

Check it out; http://www.google.com/instant

Have you ever felt like a nodding dashboard dog? Pretending that a load of technical mumbo jumbo is sinking in, when in reality you are absolutely bewildered and not only do you not understand what is being said, but you have convinced the culprit of your baffled state into believing you know what they are talking about too!? Oh dear, what a sticky predicament to find yourself in! Without meaning to though your head continues to nod which keeps the jargon flowing and sends you deeper into a hole of utter cluelessness!

Meta tags, hyperlinks (external & internal), resolutions, navigation bars, frames, image maps not to mention the abbreviations like URL, CSS, HTML. Unintelligible gibberish to some but perfect sense to those in the world of web design.

At Lingo, we want to share knowledge with you to help you understand, and where industry specific language is used, we make sure it’s easy to take on board, and will make sure you are not left reeling from jargon overload. If you are really green, here’s a few starters to show you how we break down the lingo and make it easy for you to take in.

Starting with the basics, and a fundamental term upon which web design is based, is “HTML� (Hyper Text Markup Language). This is the name of the language system for building components on web pages such as body text, font and colour, as well as graphics and hyperlinks. Think that the internet speaks in a foreign language? This language is HTML. The appearance and layout of a web page can be made by applying a “CSS� (Cascading Style Sheet) which is basically a HTML template that can be applied to a web site to make it look a certain way. If a website is made up of HTML, a language, then CSS is the dialect, or accent that it speaks in! (It determines the style of the page).

Just to re-track “hyperlink� is a way of moving from one place to another either within the  same web site or to a separate web site altogether. Handy when viewing a web site and useful for directing web users to the best place to get information. A hyperlink within the same web site is known as an internal link whereas a link to a different site is called external.

Meta tags are a special HTML ‘tag’ that provides information about a web page. They are descriptive key words about the information on the page. Unlike normal HTML tags, meta tags do not affect how the page is displayed. But they are vital in boosting the number of hits on your website. Hits by the way just means how many views your website has had by internet users. Web site owners can view how many hits they’ve had which is great to see if improvements to the site have increased audience figures or not.

The internet is something you use everyday, so you shouldn’t be worried by the baffling words about it. It’s not a profane language but a specialized lingo that can be learnt and understood. It is best to start off with just a few terms, and as you would learn a new language, gradually build up your vocabulary. Check out this space soon for another friendly push towards being in the know and down with the lingo!

Reading this well written blog post on making smaller goals for writing, rang a lot of bells with advice I often give when composing new website content.

Bite-Size Resolutions by Moira Allen talks about  the approach she uses for writing her books, but the technique can be applied to writing content for your website. Rather than struggle to write the text for your website (or page) in one go, and struggle to get it done…aim to write just a few paragraphs per day or maybe a page per week.

The bite sized chunks will make it seem a lot easier and more enjoyable.

With so much going on at Lingo, it’s tricky to find time to blog about it all – thus was ever the way with blogs!

But a quick update is easier than a long one; so if you’re falling behind on your blog because you’re too busy to tell everyone what you’ve been doing – just say it…quickly!  Here’s my quick list!

We’ve started a new e-commerce site for KLS – King’s Lynn, the big-daddy (ok, parent company) of the recently launched Fryline website; http://www.fryline.co.uk/. We’re starting a new website for heating engineer Mike Dent in Downham Market. We’re working on Search Engine Optimisation for a solicitors in Bury St Edmunds, and we’re doing adverts for our Pharmaceutical Regulatory Affairs consultants CambReg, in St.Ives!

(Not to mention the printed price lists for the wholefood supplier, the refreshed pictures on the vehicle wrapping website,  the address change on the IT company and the new Kitchen website too!)

With so much Busy-ness – there should be plenty more to write about soon!

Having work experience students at Lingo design over the last 4 years has been something that the team have really enjoyed. It’s even better when a student fully engages and obviously enjoys their time as part of the team.

On her last day, Lucy Benefer, from Terrington St Clements High, has been asked to summarise her time here in a paragraph or two… what she’s written sums it up nicely…!

My time at Lingo Design:

“Well, what can I say about Lingo Design? The word ‘bonkers!’ springs to mind!

Everyone is so fun and welcoming; even though they may not be feeling all that great themselves (like Claire’s heyfever) they still treat you with respect and try to make you feel comfortable.

Sure some days it’s a big yawn! :O! But that’s just part of work and you deal with it and move on knowing there will be days that fly by and make coming in all worth the pain of slow work .e.g. highlighting for two hours!

The atmosphere whilst I’ve been here has been awesome! Everyone works but has a good old joke, it’s been so great to work here for two weeks and I would love to do what they do here despite the days where it’s all stress.

I loved the designing tasks I was set here like the launch card and the analytics card and I hope my contribution was welcome, I would like to thank them for everything! So thank you, you absolutely bonkers people!! I will never forget my time here and never get rid of the habits .

So the Lifestyles festival is almost upon us, and all the hard work is coming in to play. Everyone that’s involved in the festival is working hard to get everything ready for tomorrow. Here at Lingo we’ve been Blogging on the Lifestyles website everyday which have then been pulled over my Facebook and hitting an even bigger audience. The Lifestyles festival starts tomorrow the 9th of July and is hosted on the North prom in Hunstanton. The Lingo Design team will be down on the beach watching all of the action and enjoying the sun, we’ve also got our kites packed ready see you all there!