Apprenticeship Network - Before & After

I love before and after photos!  It is always amazing to see the transformation from a previous website to the newly created one.  The sense of pride I get (including thoughts of "I created that" and "My client loves this design") make for a great day.  Even better is starting my day with a newly published website.  It give me a sense of accomplishment and a feeling that I can take on the next project.

The Apprenticeship Network is a collaboration between 17 groups in London, Elgin and Oxford.  The organizations included local Employment Ontario Service Providers (Goodwill, Community Employment Services, and The London Training Centre,  to name a few), Education Facilities (Thames Valley District School Board, London District Catholic School Board, Fanshawe College and College Boreal) as well as several other agencies including Workforce Planning & Development, and The Ministry of University, Training and Colleges.  Each organization had one representative on the website committee.  The goal was to create a site with the relevant apprenticeship information for our area.

The group was looking for a clean, simple, user friendly design.  This needed to appeal to a less tech-saavy group.  During the last meeting of the committee, I received applause from the members!  Having a this group of people be that happy with the design was more than wonderful.

Click on the link to view the new Apprenticeship Network website.

If you would like a website transformation of your own or have questions about our content strategy program, please visit our website or email me.

Top 5 Tips for Working with a Web Designer

Your company's website is so much more than your on-line business card.  It is the professional face of your company.  That is why it is so crucial to find someone who will work with you to create your vision.  Getting a friend of a friend's brother's roommate who made a site for the local band is not going to cut it!

I actually went to a business meeting a few months ago for a larger business site.  One of the panel that reviewed my initial design actually commented that I was the first one not to call him "dude" during the meeting!  I was astounded!  So for those of you who don't want to be called dude during business hours, here is my list of tips for working with a web designer!

Step 1 - Do your homework

Pick a designer with a portfolio of designs.  Choose someone whose portfolio represents great work.  You'll notice similarities in all of their designs.  If you don't like them, this designer probably isn't for you.  When choosing a designer, don't just ask friends for names or google "web design" and pick the top one.  These company's may be a poor fit for what you are looking for.  Another thing to consider is the scope of your project.  If your website will be a large project, choosing someone who has only ever created one page designs also won't make you happy.

Step 2 - Collaboration is key

Your input is necessary!  You can not call a web designer and say "make me a website and show it to me in a month."  A good designer will have a questionnaire for you.  This would include information on your current design, your target market, your logo, features you would like to see, colours that yo

If your designer doesn't ask you questions about your business, how can they come up with a design that will suit you.  They should be able to present something to you be it a drawing, or mock-up fairly quickly.  If you don't like it, ask them to go back to the drawing board, or move on to someone with an idea that brings your vision to life.


u like used, links to websites you like, etc.  It should also include information about how you make creative and marketing decisions.

Step 3 - Speak with your designer

Once a client completes my questionnaire, I always phone them to be sure that we are a good fit.  When collaborating with a client, a reputable designer should want to be sure that your personalities don't clash.  Beware of designers that seem really eager to work with you.  Reputable designers know that this can be the deal breaker to a project's success.

Step 4 -  Read and sign a contract

A reputable designer will always give you their standard contract.  Read it, ask questions about items you don't understand, request changes, and once your a satisfied, sign it.  Make sure all the items you want included in your design are included in this document.  Anything that is not included is probably going to cost you extra.  Sometimes designers are flexible about small changes.  Other times a client might think something is a small change when really it affects the entire layout of the design.  These types of changes should be addressed in the document. Client's should also be prepared to put down a deposit before work begins. 

Step 5 - Be honest and decisive but don't nitpick

A good designer will provide you with a mock-up of a proposed design before transforming it into a working site.  This really is the toughest part of the collaborative process.  It is imperative that you are honest with your designer at this point.  If there is something about the mock-up that you don't like, say so.  Being honest makes the process easier on both of you, however don't nitpick.  Your designer is a vast resource of knowledge, give them a bit of room to WOW you with the finished product.

BONUS - Step 6 - Send content and images on time

Your designer will provide you with the framework and will include the content and images you send in a way that best represents your business.  If you don't send the content, this will no doubt cause a delay.  Your web designer should be able to give you a list of suggestions for content.  They may even work with a copywriter to help over burdened business owners with website content.  A bonus of working with a copywriter is that the text can be customized for search engine optimization.

Lastly, the most common cause of delays and extra costs after the contract is signed is a client changing their mind.  Asking for sudden changes, additions, or wanting to go in a different direction may seem simple to a client but can result in hours of work for the designer.   Be sure you make your decisions carefully to avoid these costly delays.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words!

 Do you remember being a child and seeing your dad read the newspaper or your mom with a novel and saying "How can you read that - there are no pictures?"


It just looked BORING!

I am not the first designer to look a website full of copy and cringe. Visual content matters, perhaps more now that before. Website users are going to give you 20 seconds (or less) to get your point across.

"As users rush through Web pages, they have time to read only a quarter of the text on the pages they actually visit"! Visuals on the other hand are processed 60,000X faster than text by our brains. This means we need to get and hold their attention with visuals.

Having a video on a landing page increases the average page conversion rates by 86%! In fact just having an image breaking up the text on a page has the same conversion rate!

Visual content needs to be at the top of your design list. Items like infographics, videos, memes and straight images add to your design's success.

Another reason to include more visual content in your web design is it makes your site social media friendly. Visual content is easily shareable. In fact, just one month after the introduction of Facebook timeline for brands, visual content -- photos and videos -- saw a 65% increase in engagement. This social engagement is also very important to your business' search engine optimization (SEO), thanks to Google's Hummingbird search logarithm.

To get the most out of your visual content, try the following:

1. Keep product pictures and videos up-to-date.
2. Deliver valuable content steadily.
3. Be creative and make and impression with your social content
4. Create a platform for customers to contact you
5. Build relationships with your customers and engage them.
6. Enable your fans to respond to customer queries as well
7. Answer all customer questions.

See the graphic right for more visually appealing information (courtesy of Gryffin).

Does my business need a mobile website?

Yes! 

There are many reasons, but the most important one is to make visitors happy.  If your visitors are not enjoying your site, they will not stay, and certainly will not come back.  The most common reason for site visitors not staying for more than a few seconds is due to a poor experience on a mobile display. 

I'm certain most people surfing the web, once they have come across something they are interested in will stick around, and even put up with some horrible styling, colors or navigation issues on a site because they are already there.  The problem lies when visitors are on a mobile device, and the information presented is simply unreadable.  Personally, I have a rather large smart phone, the Samsung Note II, and there are many sites I have been to recently, where I did not stay more than a few seconds.  Why?  I could not read the screen!  Tiny buttons for navigation are impossible to select, and when it loads the wrong page slowly... well, I never stick around that long anymore.  I simply go back to my search results and pick another one.  Remember, I have a huge phone!  I shudder thinking about what happens when the phone is half the size of mine.

That is a common scenario, a potential client lost, and a slightly disgruntled site visitor who had to go back to his search.  Will I avoid their site the next time I am searching and come across it on my desktop PC?  Not likely.  However, it is likely that I already accomplished what I set out to do on my mobile with a competitor who has a mobile friendly website.

Over 55% of online consumer shopping time is on mobile devices.  But your not doing online retail?  Ok, how about 60% of smart phone users have looked up a business address while mobile?  If those users cannot view your site to get your address, how will they find you?

There are countless more reasons to have a mobile friendly website, but I will not dive into the technical (and boring) side because I truly like our readers, and want you to come back. :)

I will mention one quick thing though, evidence is piling up that not being mobile friendly affects your page ranking in a negative way with Google.  That is another huge reason to go mobile, keeping Google happy is almost as important as keeping potential clients happy.

If you would like to know about mobile design, please call or email us anytime. 

Have a great day,

Mike Rhora
MVR Solutions
1-800-429-7183

Managing Lists of Text on a Webpage

Pages of text can be tough to work with.  Lists are very handy items.  Sometimes we can have issues when a client has a list that is a mile long.  As a website visitor, I know that it is hard to read, and in fact, more than likely it won't be read at all.  

Here is an example from a newly created site I published this week. The left side image is our before shot.  This is a list of faculty members that are approved to advise in the Centre for Environment and Sustainability at Western University.   That list is so long and really not user friendly. 

On the right side you can see where we broke the list in to more manageable pieces.  Students can now find their advisor by department first.  We also included links to each faculty member's biography page and email address.  This will help students that are in the selection process.

Managing your lists is a matter of discovering how web visitors are going to use the information.  In an academic setting, success is based on how many follow-up questions you get regarding the information presented.  If you design for your users, follow-up is only done for more advanced questions and not about the what they can't find on your page.

MVR Solutions is proud to have worked with over 20 different departments/units on over 30 Cascade migration projects with Western University.  The Centre for Environment and Sustainability project was completed on July 29, 2014.  View their newly created site here.