Tips from Idea15 Web Design

A client contacted me today seeking guidance about an odd email he had received.  Here’s what it said:

I was hoping you might now have had the chance to think about my email, sent to you some time ago. Would you be interested in placing a simple text advertisement on your site? Our clients are some of the best known brands in a range of industries and would value the demographic your site targets. We pay a fixed annual fee to webmasters for placing adverts for our clients. You can find more information at (URL)

This is not the first time I have seen this offer.  It is run from a well-known company which, contrary to their claims of “valuable demographics”, targets sites in a fashion that’s so random as to be laughable.  For example, a small neighbourhood web site I administer here in Scotland was targeted by this company using an IP from an East Asian country.  Many folks in that community can’t afford to put the heat on in the winter, so the thought that they were a “valuable demographic” to the Asian market was odd to say the least.  In the case of the client who contacted me today, the company web site deals with such a specific, narrow, and geographically focussed target market that their counterparts can be numbered on one hand.  The mere fact that they were targeted suggests someone working off a quota list.

The ads this company places are never ads for the sorts of products and services one would want to be associated with.  99% of the time they are the sort of ads which, when they are sent to you over email, are funneled directly into your spam folder.  Don’t think too hard, but medication, casinos, and “recreational activities” should come to mind.  Text ads like this will drag your site’s legitimacy as well as its search engine ranking down like a dead weight. You can read about what typically happens if you do go ahead with this sort of arrangement: Bad ads can come back to bite you.  It makes for depressing reading.

Yes, the company has a perfectly rational explanation for everything (don’t they always?), and a few stock lines they use to retort any pesky questions about their transparency and integrity.  Most of those retorts fall into the “it depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is” category, with a dose of blame-the-victim thrown in for good measure.

If you have received one of these approaches

It goes without saying, but if you as a small business owner are approached by someone wanting to place ads on your web site, think about it.  Why is someone you have never heard of, writing from a random virtual company, trying to skive off your site?  If they are such a market leader, then why do they need the help of a little business like yours?  Will sharing your web site with another company help your brand or dilute it?  Will ads you have no control over serve your customers, or drive them away?  Is this what you went into business for?  And really, is it worth risking your brand integrity for a fee so low it wouldn’t pay your TV license?

If you are interested in placing ads on your web site, do it on your time and on your own terms.  Google AdSense, Yahoo Publisher Network, and LinkedIn Direct Ads are all legitimate, professional, and highly flexible services you can use to integrate relevant ad content.

As always, if you are in doubt about the legitimacy of an approach you have received, contact a professional web designer for guidance.

It’s funny cos it’s true…

This is a great example of my favourite business quote, Woody Allen’s line “80% of success is showing up”, in action.  These actual banner ads have been rotating on Statcounter today.  Click on them to view full size.

I make no claims to perfection either as a person or as a professional – but damn, if I pay to advertise my business, at least I remember to actually create the ad.  With competitors like these, success is easy.

Pigs were seen flying over the UK this morning as the Local Government Association released a list of 200 terms which should be banned from use. These include many of the Orwellian statements of jargon, nonsense, and bullshit-speak which have characterised so much of life in recent years.

You can view the full list here.

I scrolled down to scan for my most hated business bullshit terms – “partnerships” and “partnership working” – and was thrilled to see them on the list.  Far from their lofty ideals, in public sector practice, those terms really mean the forced dumbing-down and dilution of even the simplest tasks.  No one is permitted to work professionally, thoroughly, or efficiently, tasks must never be completed, and problems must never be solved.  Under no circumstances are you permitted to just get on with the job you were hired to do.  Doing that, of course, would not be “partnership working”, and would be an offensive incursion on the rights of your “partners” and “stakeholders”.   And fixing the problem you were hired to fix, after all, would put your “partners” out of work, so anything you do must merely dance around and hopefully expand the problem, not end it.  Oh, and don’t ever make the fatal mistake of pointing out that all five of your mandatorily assigned “strategic partners” are all funded from the same government branch as yours and most of their work overlaps and duplicates to absurd extremes.  Asking questions, after all, is the ultimate affront to your “partnership” and is condemned by any means necessary.  Ask the same question twice and your work is reassigned to new “key stakeholders” who are more willing to be “inclusive of partners” with your brief, though you are given a month’s pay as a parting gift.  “Partnership working” is the smarmy tool which has permitted the public sector to grow to 60% of employment in many areas of the UK, and “partnership working” is why we are deeper in social and economic decay than ever before despite all those “partnerships”.  As this piece put it brilliantly:

For those with 50 quid to spare, there’s still time to book a place at a conference in January on Improving Child Protection.  One speaker will be Sharon Shoesmith, who somehow finds time between days out at Ascot to be the head of children’s services at Haringey council. The subject of Mrs Shoesmith’s talk is: “Breaking Down Silos: Inspiring Ownership And Sharing Responsibility For Measuring Impacts And Outcomes Across Partnerships.”  No, I don’t know what a silo is either. But I’d be more than happy to whack Mrs Shoesmith with it.  (Full piece here.)

Last night at a networking event, I bumped into a graphic designer called Sandra Neilson of Forty Design.  Sandra designed the logos and colour schemes for two of my clients, and I integrated her work into their sites.  Here is one result of our combined work, and here is the other.  Two projects delivered on time, on budget, with great results for both clients, with both of us retaining our independence as self-employed freelancers.  We do not seek to encroach on each others’ territory and we do not burden our work with “quality assessments”, “IIP benchmarking processes”, or “strategic vision away days” (all of which my quango bosses were obsessed with); Sandra and I simply get on with what we do best and love.  That is real partnership working in action – a tool of progress and respect, not punishment and suppression.  And not a silo in sight!

Much tut-tutting in the Daily Record today over a renown Glasgow department store selling golliwog dolls.  So does my local Post Office, along with “Versedge” watches and handbags, “Mii” entertainment consoles, “Emperor Leather” shower gel, “Schoolboy wizard” toys, and a full selection of knockoff tat and cheap children’s crap in Engrish packaging.

Standing in UK post office queues – as one does for hours on end in December – is painful enough without having to spend that time staring at a range of merchandise more embarassing than beguiling.  Does every town in Scotland really need to be offered a wealth of choice in £2 DVDs of American made-for-TV movies, fake designer handbags piled into a cardboard box, and knockoff toiletries containing who knows what sort of chemicals?

Protesters love to stamp their feet about Post Offices being the heart of local communities, but if the merchandise on offer in most Post Offices is any indication of local spirit, congenital heart failure is more like it.  Let’s hope that one of the positive effects of the credit crunch is a return to Post Offices providing real value to communities, and not hawking tat more suited to a car boot at the Barras.