It always comes up. I get the question: “My business is very small, just me and two employees, and our product really can’t be sold online. Do I really need a website?”

That’s a good question. In fact, it’s one of the most important and most frequently asked questions of the digital business age. Before I answer, however, let’s flash back to the very first time I was asked this question. It was circa 1998, during the toddler years of the internet. (more…)

In the first installment, Twelve Things Most Sites Need – Part I, I offered a six-pack of must-haves. Specifically I suggested sites should have a proper navigation menu, a meaningful, well-formed title, a method of contact, a site map, passive accessibility, and standardized markup. Now, as I offered the last six, in the order in which I thunk ‘em up, here is the balance. (more…)

There are a plethora of Websites out there, each one unique in its design, its content, markup, features, functionality, and in myriad other ways. Yet, despite these differences, there are specific needs that should be met with near consistency, Internet-wide, regardless of the site. Let’s take a look at twelve of these common denominators. Below are the first six. They appear in the order in which I thunk ‘em up. They’re just numbered so you can refer to them more easily. (more…)

There are a lot of content management systems out there, but many of them are overly complicated and require a certain level of technical expertise. However, there are a select few that focus on simplicity and ease-of-use, but still give the designer flexibility in templating features and customization. In this article, we have listed ten of these CMS’s.Some of them are well known, while others you may have never heard of, but deserve a look. I’m currently running through about 4 of these to determine which ones I’m going to stick with.

If you have a favorite CMS that we didn’t list here, let us know. (more…)