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Color Your Website With These Seven Tools

July 23, 2010 By Regina Fried Leave a Comment
color_wheel

One of the hardest aspects of creating a website is selecting the colors to use.

Often you’ll start with a logo or a photograph that is the jumping off point for the color scheme. But where do you go from there? This can be a real quandary.

Thankfully, the web abounds with tools that can help you select the right colors for your new website.

Here are seven tools that can help make the difficult job of choosing a website color scheme that much easier:

  • 0to255 — a simple tool that helps web designers find variations of any color; perfect for hovers, borders, gradients, and more;
  • kuler — explore, create, and share color themes;
  • Color Scheme Designer — generate color schemes;
  • ColourLovers — a creative community where people from around the world create and share colors, palettes and patterns;
  • Color Palette Generator — create a color palette to match an image;
  • Color Schemer Gallery — website ready color schemes;
  • Daily Color Scheme — a new color scheme every day.

I’ve also listed these on the Resources page of this website which I’ll be updating on a regular basis.

What are your favorite tools for selecting website colors? Leave me a comment and a link to the website.


Photo: unleashingmephotography

Filed Under: All Things Web, Resources, WordPress

Why Your Business Needs a Website

May 28, 2010 By Regina Fried Leave a Comment
Open for Business

With all the hype about social media these days, many businesses are neglecting their websites and focusing their marketing efforts solely on their Facebook and Twitter accounts. Some new businesses don’t even have websites. These business owners are counting on the popularity of social media to carry their message(s) to their customers. And, let’s face it, they think, social media is “free” and websites aren’t — so why not ditch the website in favor of a Facebook page?

That kind of thinking is wrong. Social media is not “free” — it takes a lot of time to maintain Facebook pages and Twitter accounts, and time is money, especially for a small business owner.

Here’s the best reason to have a website: it’s the best way to reach your customers.

Think about this: what about your customers who aren’t on Facebook and Twitter? How do you reach them? What about the fact that Facebook’s advertisers are placing ads — perhaps competitor’s ads — on your page? What about the fact that you, the business owner, don’t own the information on your Facebook page? (Surprise! Facebook owns that data.)

If these facts don’t give you reason to reconsider your “I don’t need a website” thinking, consider this:

“Search engines, which are still the most popular way by far to find information online, use website and blog traffic to determine your ranking.” — Ramon Ray, Open Forum Blog

Here’s the truth:

You should be using social media to augment, not replace, your website content.

I could go on and on, but I don’t need to as Ramon Ray has already written a great post about this on American Express’ Open Forum blog:

30 Reasons Why Old Fashioned Websites and Email Marketing are Best for Growing Businesses

Read it. You’ll be glad you did.

Image Credit

Filed Under: All Things Web, Social Media

Sometimes WordPress.com is "Just Right"

April 28, 2010 By Regina Fried Leave a Comment
wordpresscom logo

I’ve just completed a new website for an author who wanted to promote her book, “A Piece of Her Heart.”

Although the author wanted to be able to add new content to the site and to start a blog, she didn’t want to worry about WordPress upgrades, plugin upgrades, security, etc. — all the issues that go along with having a self-hosted WordPress site. She didn’t want a website with a lot of “bells and whistles.” By her own admission, she isn’t tech savvy. She also had a small budget for the site.

Thinking over what she needed, I realized a site on WordPress.com would be “just right” for her. The yearly costs are low — no hosting fees, just the annual fee for her domain — and because WordPress.com themes don’t require (or allow) many customization changes (unless you purchase the CSS upgrade), I was able to quickly create a website that fit her needs and her budget. Plus she will never have to worry about upgrading her software or making sure the site is secure.

It was my first time working with WordPress.com and while I was frustrated by some things — the inability to have more than one page template for instance — all-in-all it was a good experience. Most important, I think the client is happy with her site and happy to have worked with someone who listened to her — and gave her what she both wanted and needed.

There’s a belief in the world of many WordPress users and so-called “experts” that the right way to go when creating a website — the only way to go — is to use WordPress on self-hosted sites. I disagree — you should consider the needs of your client when making such a decision. WordPress.org versus WordPress.com? Sometimes WordPress.com comes out the winner.

From WordPress: WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org

Filed Under: News, WordPress

LinkedIn Goes Social

February 17, 2010 By Regina Fried Leave a Comment
LinkedIn

LinkedIn is becoming more social every day. Your LinkedIn profile no longer has to be “static” — in fact, if you have a blog or a Twitter account it shouldn’t be. You can integrate both with LinkedIn, and your tweets and links to your latest blog postings will appear on your LinkedIn profile.

In addition, LinkedIn has announced an easier way for you to keep track of what’s happening with your LinkedIn contacts: LinkedIn for Outlook. With LinkedIn for Outlook, “Outlook users can … transform their desktop inboxes into their hub for all things LinkedIn.”

According to a brief, informative video that LinkedIn has produced on this new application, users will be able to see — at the bottom of any email — “current information about the status of their LinkedIn Network … including who they are connected with, what articles they are reading, and when they’ve updated their profile.”

To learn more, and to move your LinkedIn profile from a static page to a social place, go here:

LinkedIn for Outlook

Filed Under: Social Media

What!? You're Still Not Using Social Media?!

February 4, 2010 By Regina Fried Leave a Comment
KeepCalm

Aren’t you on Twitter? Don’t you have a Facebook page? Quick jump on the social media bandwagon! I bet you’ve heard — or read — some variation of this.

But social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook aren’t for everyone or every business. (If you’re wondering, yes, I have a Twitter account, but, no, my business doesn’t have a Facebook page — yet).

How can you determine if it’s time for you to sign up for Twitter or Facebook? And if it is time, how do you start?

Two articles at Mashable, “The Social Media Guide,” offer excellent guidance on how — and whether — your business should begin using sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Among their suggestions:

  • Consider your audience: who are they, what social media tools are they using, how can you reach them?
  • Take it slowly, and set goals. What do you hope to gain from using social media? Do you want to promote your services/products or build relationships?
  • Don’t give up. “Don’t expect a case of build it and they will come.” Once you’ve created a presence on Facebook or Twitter, you’re going to have to put time into it to promote your business.

The notion of getting into social media might seem overwhelming for any small business. Spending time upfront before launch to create a plan with goals that includes how to translate that social media presence into dollars will go a long way toward achieving success. — Leah Betancourt, Mashable

What About LinkedIn?

In my opinion, if you have a business, are employed by one, or are looking for work, you should have a LinkedIn profile. Even if you do not actively use LinkedIn, think of your profile as an online resume and a way to build contacts with others in your field. It can be much more than that if you’d like, but as with all social networking sites, you’ll need to devote time and work to reap benefits.

You might also be interested in reading my other posts on using social media.

Do you have a question about using social media? Post a comment below, and I’ll answer.

Photo: Lululemon Althetica

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter
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