Aviation of Business

posted by Andrew Hartley - Business Consultant & Entrepreneur on Aug 15

I want to thank anyone who helped Third Floor Cards for their commitment in voting in LifeBlue’s “Get a new Design” contest! If you were following the action, you’ll know that after a short stint in third place, Third Floor Cards ended up finishing a strong fourth! While that means that Third Floor Cards did not win the contest, LifeBlue offered a “second-chance” drawing for anyone who posted a review of the LifeBlue website on their blog and sent them an e-mail telling them so.

You can find my review of LifeBlue’s site at the following URL:
http://www.aviationofbusiness.com/AoBBlog/lifeblue-web-design/2007/08/06/

And the result was:
Third Floor Cards was selected at random in the second chance drawing! Also, check out the rest of the contestants on LifeBlue’s Wall of Shame…

So even though we didn’t “win” the contest, Third Floor Cards will still receive a redesigned website! We couldn’t have done it without all of your help in the voting portion… and all of your good thoughts and hopes for Third Floor Cards! So, again, thanks so much for your help.

Come soon to see the redesigned website at http://www.thirdfloorcards.com - I don’t know how long of a process it is to do a professional redesign of a website, but you’ll know when it’s done… it won’t suck anymore!

Fair Winds,
Andrew

posted by Andrew Hartley - Business Consultant & Entrepreneur on Aug 12

I’ve been kicking around some business ideas for quite awhile now. Third Floor Cards is a site that I started and then put off for a long time… and it’s one that I would still like to see up and running with a decent site and some good business running through it.

But the most recent one that I have started is The Teacher’s Forum. Currently, it is a dull yaBB forum with a generic look, but it is functional and up and running. So far the only registered members are me (administrator) and my wife, Jill. There are three posts. Two are introductions in the “Break the Ice” section.

We’ll be continuing the design of the site to make it look less generic and more eye-catching when people first come to the forum, but this brings up two questions:
1) Is yaBB (a freeware forum software) the right software to use for this forum, or should I use something more “well-known” throughout the forum world like vBulletin? I’d have to buy a license for the vBulletin software.
2) What is the best way to encourage people to be the first ones to post on a new forum? I’ve thought about using a service like ForumShock to jump start it, but is there a better way?

In beginning to answer number 2, I will be offering free “upperclassman” membership to the first 50 people to register and introduce themselves (in the “Break the Ice” section) on the site. However, I don’t have any kind of paid membership level (yet), so they’ll be taking it on my word that the site will, in the future, have that capability. Which begs the quetion laid in 1, above again - is yaBB the right forum software for the site?

I also spent some time yesterday listing The Teacher’s Forum on search engines and free site-listing web-pages to help bring up the site’s “link love,” as so many search engine optimization (SEO) gurus (like Rae Hoffman and Jeremy Schoemaker) call it.

Any other suggestions and help would be appreciated! Leave a comment if you have any ideas…

And if you want to register and be among the first 50 people to get your free lifetime “Upperclassman” membership, I certainly won’t shed any tears over you posting and helping to get the site active!

Fair Winds,
Andrew

posted by Andrew Hartley - Business Consultant & Entrepreneur on Aug 6

As I mentioned in a previous post: Re-designing a never-quite-finished-in-the-first-place design, I entered one of my sites (Third Floor Cards) in a contest to win a free site re-design. Lordy, does that site ever need it. We rose through the ranks pretty well, enjoyed a short stint in third place, and then were knocked back down to fourth, where we’ve been sitting for a couple of weeks now.

With a little boost, I think Third Floor Cards can still make it to third before the end of the competition, but second and first are out of the question for our little site.

That being said, Life Blue has offered a second chance to the less fortunate websites out there - like TFC. The remainder of this post is a critique of LifeBlue’s website, which will garner me an entry into their second-chance drawing. Watch for the “web design” link -> that little beauty buys me five entries into the drawing! Talk about a neat marketing trick to improve your Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Life Blue’s website, in my opinion, is quite well-made. It’s intriguing to the eye, as the top banner changes into a new design focus each time you click a link, but the site’s “motto” - Is your life Blue? - stays front and center throughout. Additionally, there is always a form on the right side of the screen - “above the fold” - allowing you give the web design company your contact information so they can contact you for a custom quote.

I found the site easy to navigate and interesting to read. The writing is concise and has some humour, the text is easy on the eyes (as is the rest of the site), and there are a plethora of links to get you pretty much anywhere you are interested in going on the site without much fuss. The only confusing bit to me was on their Portfolio page, where the links in the left column were there to limit your search of their portfolio examples to their design focuses of creative design, application development, search engine marketing, content management systems, and e-commerce. Since the rest of the left-column links on every other page were so similar, I was confused when I clicked a link and it just reloaded the portfolio page. Perhaps a better explanation of what clicking the links on this page does would help… it took me several clicks to realize what it was doing.

Overall, though, I think it is a very well-designed site, and whether I win in the second-chance drawing or not, I may be contacting Life Blue for my web design needs in the future.

I did two “web design” links! Think that’ll get me another five entries in the drawing? naaah.

Fair Winds,
Andrew