15 years, 15 lessons
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What I've learned about web design, marketing and client service.
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15 years, 15 lessons
- 1. 15 Years, 15 Lessons WHAT I’VE LEARNED ABOUT WEB DESIGN - MARKETING - CLIENT SERVICE @ericsharp_ eric@protofuse.com
- 3. Played an Active Role in 300+ Websites Since 1999
- 5. Me in 30 seconds...
- 7. How I got my start...
- 8. So I’ve heard Entrepreneurship takes... SACRIFICE
- 9. Illinois Forge, 1998 Paying my dues early
- 10. Full Sail, 1999 To get here...
- 11. WildCard Systems, 2000 ...to do THIS!
- 14. Founded “A2M Interactive, Inc.” in 2001
- 17. $3,152
- 19. Getting Official Winter Park, FL - 2005
- 20. Getting Official Winter Park, FL - 2005Partnership from 2005 to 2012
- 21. ProtoFuse, Inc. - 2013
- 23. Lesson #1 #1 - The ideal User Experience is never “DONE”
- 24. Lesson #1
- 25. Lesson #1 Not a Destination, rather a JOURNEY
- 26. Lesson #2 #2 - Most things take LONGER than expected (so plan for it)
- 27. Lesson #2 A key feature gets overlooked Third-party integrations don’t go as planned Hard drives stop working Someone gets sick
- 28. Lesson #2 Give yourself some Margin
- 29. Lesson #3 #3 - OVER COMMUNICATE if there’s ever a hint of Miscommunication
- 30. Lesson #3 Project Management Tools Short Meetings Take 30 seconds to clarify
- 31. Lesson #4 #4 - Audience is always FIRST priority
- 32. Lesson #4 “...we assume that a website’s users think and act like we do.” - Steve Mulder
- 33. Lesson #4
- 34. Lesson #5 #5 - Google Search isn’t going away
- 35. Lesson #5 40,000 search queries per SECOND 3.5 billion searches per DAY 1.2 trillion searches per YEARS
- 36. Lesson #5 16% to 20% of queries that get asked every day... have NEVER been asked before.
- 37. Lesson #6 #6 - Websites & the marketing of websites is constantly EVOLVING “responsive web design”
- 38. My point?
- 39. Lesson #6 It’s my JOB to ensure my team, and my clients, keep one foot in the PRESENT and one in the FUTURE
- 40. Lesson #7 #7 - There’s always someone SMARTER than me
- 41. More to this than just being “humble”
- 43. Lesson #8 #8 - Vague, undocumented and non- agreed upon specifications can wreck a website (and a relationship)
- 44. Lesson #8
- 45. Lesson #9 #9 - Design TRENDS come and go, but sound STRATEGY and FUNDAMENTALS do not
- 46. Lesson #9
- 47. Lesson #9
- 48. Striving to win a popularity contest with your website will FRUSTRATE users & KILL conversion
- 49. Lesson #10 #10 - We’re ALL figuring out this web design thing together
- 50. Lesson #10 Industrial Design? Mid-18th Century
- 51. Lesson #10
- 52. Lesson #10 20 years of Websites. That’s it.
- 53. Lesson #11 #11 - Put CONTENT first (because it’s the heart & soul of a website)
- 54. The actual content of a website (the WORDS you use) is the most important element Lesson #11
- 55. Lesson #12 #12 - Always be Prepared
- 56. Lesson #12 My Mission: Create specifications with BEC Engineering Team
- 57. BEC Headquarters
- 60. Lesson #12 You never know what kind of ROOM you’re walking into
- 61. Lesson #13 #13 - A snappy User Experience beats a glamorous one
- 62. Lesson #13 “People engage more with a site when they can move freely and focus on the content instead of on their endless wait”.
- 63. Lesson #13 40% of people will abandon a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load
- 64. Lesson #13 People abandon websites... - Clunky drop down menus - Delayed user feedback (“Added to Cart!”) - Sluggish Animations
- 65. Lesson #14 #14 - SEO is a Science AND an Art
- 66. Lesson #15 #15 - WRITING makes me a better expert
- 67. Writing helps me in 5 ways
- 68. 1. Forces research on best practices 2. Clears cobwebs around website-related strategies & tactics 3. Solidifies position on polarizing topics 4. Exercises creative muscles 5. Improves problem-solving ability
- 69. What will the next 15 years teach me?
- 70. “Roads?” “Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”
Notes de l'éditeur
- Presentation was inspired from a blog I wrote last June. Started professional career at tail end of 1999. Caught wave of dot-com boom. First 5 years was wild and fun, next 10 were more focused and humbling (mainly self-induced from starting my own business).
- 2015 is a bit of a milestone. 15 years.
- By the way, the experience wasn’t at all like the movie. But, I did have a one crazy client fights along the way. Story about NewDirt.com (software that helped businesss find prime commercial real estate)
- Attending EntreLeadership Master Series in 2011 > Complete paradigm shift (business, management, profits) Rich Froning.
- Didn’t train in Russia to fight Drago, but I did leave a scholarship behind at the University of Wisconsin Platteville in Mechanical Engineering to work at a forging factory in Illinois for the 2nd semester of my Freshmen year. Saved up cash to move myself to Florida to change careers, and really my entire life.
- Attended Full Sail. Very different school now. Dirt parking lots. Small campus. Only has Associate degrees. Curriculum has completely changed. Graduated in November of 1999.
- Working for Visa, Mastercard, Bank of America, AAA. Many Fortune 500 companies. Startup culture, made some great friends whom I’m still connected with today.
- Family atmosphere. Did many team gatherings. Road scooters around the office. Tossed the football around. Had our little “cave” in the office where all the designers and developers sat.
- You could say my Entrepreneur itch needed scratched around this time. There were many things exciting to me. Putting food on the table on my own (both exciting and terrifying). Working with clients that I wanted to. Designing websites the way I wanted to. Making my own schedule. It lit a fire underneath me.
- So, I founded ProtoFuse (originally started the company with the name “A2M Interactive”). Please don’t ask me what the acronym stood for. And yes, my website was in Flash. A little foreshadowing to one of my 15 lessons regarding trendy design.
- Wasn’t this desperate because I still had my job at WildCard Systems, but, I’d pretty much make a website for anyone with $100. Did it on the evening and weekends.
- I made a lot of money.
- Actually, I only made $3,152 that first year. Gross revenue.
- Ran A2M out of this townhome in Maitland for 2 years while working at WildCard Systems. 70+ hour weeks (crazy schedule) No office. Traveled to my clients, met at coffee shops, and periodically had them come to this townhome to meet. One of my first “big” (at the time) was Ming Court Restaurant (who, by the way is still a client) met with me at the kitchen table. Jordan picture story.
- Moved into an office on Park Ave (where I first met Pete). Worked with the smallest of clients (Mom & Pop shops), to some big US clients (Dixon Ticonderoga) to even some International clients (Bahamas Electricity Corporation). Was in this Winter Park office for 5 years, then moved to Altamonte Springs (never get into a triple-net lease situation with your first office space)
- Was marketing my company under an umbrella company - partnership with a good buddy from High School & College. Dave Ramsey likes to say, “A Partnership is a Ship that can’t Sail”. I somewhat agree with that. I think a partnership is a ship that can sail...for a while”.
- New vision for where I wanted to take company, wasn’t able to do that under framework of Caxiam Group and the partnership I had. Re-named. Re-branded. New office. Kept my team & clients. Been working really hard to solidify so many aspects to ProtoFuse. 2015 was a big year for setting a strategy for client acquisition & sales. Feels like a start-up, even though it’s the same company I incorporated in 2002.
- Ask if anyone can define “User Experience”.
- Website & Marketing is like a garden analogy. You gather data Iterate on design Measure marketing campaigns Improve your SEO Create new content.
- Have a healthy cushion to your projects.
- Assumptions are paralyzing. Impacts a team’s efficiency and a client’s understanding. “I’m pretty sure the client understands our design ideas.” “I believe those assets are being sent.” “I think everyone knows the project’s next steps.”
- Some of these are obvious, but the “take 30 seconds” seems harder than it sounds. No one wants to be the dumb person that doesn’t “get it” when wrapping up a meeting. But, I think it’s a smart move and suggests an importance on details.
- Remember the days when I designed without considering the people that would actually be using the website. I brought my preferences to the decision-making process.
- Book was a major paradigm shift many years ago.
- Creating website-specific user personas reminds me of the truth that a client’s website is not for me. WEBSITE SPECIFIC is the key here. Focusing on people coming to the website. A business will have marketing personas for maybe other mediums and channels. (List out some elements to a Website-specific user personas)
- Google can be a polarizing topic. Lack of transparency (Google Authorship in SERP removed, competing with Ads) debatable monopoly status rub people wrong way, but it’s obviously here to stay. Every business trying to sell a product or a service needs to set the goal of first page of Google or bust. And here’s why...
- And GROWING! This statistic tells me 2 things: More people are adopting search engines People are using search engines at a deeper level (long-tail searches)
- Five years ago, no one heard of Responsive Web Design. Three years ago, most small to mid-sized businesses had no clue how powerful Marketing Automation was.
- Balancing act of trying new strategies and tactics, but sticking with what you know works.
- I’ll admit it. I was pretty stubborn and over-confident in my early 20’s. But, luckily, I had many people forcing me to remain humble, and wildly curious those first few years. It was a necessary, and sometimes painful journey. Walter White.
- I know nothing > I’m an expert > I know nothing Every time I finish a book, I feel both smarter and dumber at the same time.
- I do everything possible to avoid the whole “we talked about this” game.
- Correlation between a website that get launched on time and budget and the amount of documentation completed
- Remember Flash before Apple crushed it?
- Anyone remember these? Remember that $3,152 of gross sales I did in year 1? Well, probably 25% of that came from Flash Intros.
- People get so excited about trendy design.
- Rather focus on: Solid UX documented website strategy proper usability design fundamentals
- A lot people forget that this web design thing hasn’t been around very long. If you compared the length of existent to that of architecture, there’s a vast difference. Architecture has been around since the Roman Empire. (img: Parthenon in Athens, Greece)
- The first website launched in 1991, and even then it took a few years to become commercialized. I remember seeing a browser for the first time my senior year in high school (1997). http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html
- I don’t have it all figured out. As designers and marketers, we’re all learning as we go.
- Headphones, new CD, and designing UI. That’s all that mattered to me with a website. Run the gamut of the web design process (design, planning, analytics, marketing, development)
- This only took me a decade to figure out. “Content is King”. It’s STILL king.
- 2006 landed first International client. BEC (Bahamas Electricity Corporation) is a 50+ year organization and powers 85% of the Bahamas.
- On my way to Bahamas to finalize web specifications with engineers to eventually create a proposal to revamp website. Running around beforehand, trying to get my passport ready. Met Robert at the airport, drives me to BEC headquarters.
- Walking me around the office, banter is casual. Dressed pretty casual. Polo, dark jeans. No suit jacket, certainly no tie. Seeing where this is going? We then stop at these 2 double doors and I’m thinking...
- OK, the engineers are on the other side of these doors. But, Robert’s tone gets serious and then says to me: “Eric, the executive team wants to meet you. They’re looking for a presentation.” And as if scripted in a movie, the doors slowly swing open and I see this...
- No handouts. No laptop. No presentation. I had NOTHING. About threw up.
- Made a promise to myself that day. Always be prepared. Expect the unexpected.
- Jakob Nielsen (Mr. Usability). I hated this guy early in my career because artistic decisions drove my decision-making. But now I love him.
- Speed matters.
- If I don’t put an emphasis on a snappy UX for my clients, I’m not doing my job.
- Ask questions: 1) can someone define/expain SEO? 2) has anyone done SEO? I once thought Search Engine Optimization was only scientific. Keyword research, plug in keywords, watch rankings soar. SEO is more than just research, numbers, and analytics. Takes a left and right brain approach. http://www.protofuse.com/blog/is-seo-science-or-art/
- Starting blogging personally in 2002. Then, professionally in 2010. Became serious in 2012 and now I write close to 2,000 words a month on the ProtoFuse blog.
- 1. If I’m going to write on something, I better be informed 2. Sometimes topics just hang out upstairs, in a messy sort of way, until you force yourself to REALLY think about them 3. 4. Creativity still fuels me. I scratch that itch mainly through writing these days. 5.
- Web 4.0? Augmented Reality? A new search engine?
- Whatever awaits us, I know I’ll be ready.