Sometimes, it feels like a hard sell to our clients... the constant updates, upgrades, etc. But, you HAVE to keep up with technology. With the way your customers interact with you, the devices they use, etc. You have to keep up with the criteria search engines use to index and rank your website. It's a fact of life.. or business, I suppose.

If it makes you feel any better, we are in the same boat. It's time for a re-design for our site, as well. Time, to consider mobile users, time to make use of the many new features, apps, whatnots 'n dodads that have become available in the past couple of years. And, two or three years down the road, we'll probably have to do it again. Well then.. let's get going!

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Written by: Gina Geick

First published: 30 June 2013

I've had a very interesting conversation with a web design firm in Toronto over the weekend. They called to request assistance with a Joomla! project for one of their clients, after they found us on a Canadian directory for Joomla developers. Fair enough.

This prompted me to check our entry on said directory. Since we don't pay for the listing, it's not at the top of the page, nor does it stand out in any way...

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Written by: Gina Geick

First published: 22 April 2013

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New and improved my foot! Have you tried to upload a new video to your YouTube channel lately? No? Gosh, darn... you're missing all the fun! I consider myself fairly web savvy and can usually find my way around just about any program. The simple task of uploading a video for a client turned into a wild goose chase (google chase?) for tutorials/instructions on how to use the new video manager. 

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Written by: Gina Geick

First published: 14 January 2013

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This week we lost a potential client because we intended to charge for research that exceeded the hour and a half that we had already spent discussing what was needed/wanted, look at this potential client's competitors' sites, open an account, and prepare a contract as requested. After the initial talks and emails our contact inquired about a specific program - a software used for e-learning, and one that we are not familiar with - and we agreed to research the software but that without a commitment (signed contract) we would have to charge our regular hourly fee to do so.

The potential client was VERY unhappy with that and pulled the project. Apparently, any additional research should have been part of the free consultation and our intent to charge for our time demonstrated lack of customer service. There was also something about chalking us up to another bad experience with yet another design firm only out to take their client's money.

Well, the way I see it, yes, we do offer a free consultation. During which we explore what the client is looking for and how to accomplish that. We talk about the process, what is required and expected of the client and of the designer, etc. Generally, this adds up to an hour or so and we frequently go a little beyond that. But, that doesn't mean we can or will invest hours and hours WITHOUT a commitment . That's the deciding factor here. We'll still spend an hour or so with you, even if you're just shopping around but, there has to be a limit. As for taking our client's money... well, yeah... this IS a business and we DO provide a service for which we charge. I believe it is called commerce.

While I was a little perturbed at first, I think I'll just chalk it up to a client not worth having.

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Written by: Gina Geick

First published: 03 June 2011

OH EM GEE! I love it!
Of course, I've used Firebug for longer than I care to date myself but for some reason, Google's version is more intuitive, a bit more light weight, and just.. well... awesome! Not only, does it bring you right to your highlighted tag, but it shows you exctly which css files and properties are applied/not applied. It allows you to make changes to css properties, instantly rendering those changes and then lets you either copy/paste a section or just save the whole kid 'n kaboodle so you can upload/overwrite. How cool is that!?

And, yes.. I'm feeling a bit nerdy today. I probably should have issued a geek alert or 'For developers only' disclaimer... 

Anyways, check it out in more detail at: https://developers.google.com/chrome-developer-tools/docs/overview

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Written by: Gina Geick

First published: 07 June 2012

Geeez. For years I have been a confirmed non-believer in email campaigns. You know.. the mass mail, toot your own horn, waste someone else's time kinda campaigns. I am a very private person, I value my time, and I assume everyone else feels the same way. Fast forward to last week or so...

I reluctantly sent out an email to all of our clients, announcing the launch of our new website, detailing some of the changes and improvements, etc. And guess what? We've had a TON of responses to that email. Clients saying "Yeah, we've been meaning to do something with our site, we really should, etc..."

Resulting are 3 contracts for re-design projects in the last 4 days. I guess, a well worded and informative email campaign CAN be a good and useful thing. I still wish people wouldn't use it quite so often, though.

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Written by: Gina Geick

First published: 03 December 2009

I was going through dormant files to follow up on and came across this would-be client. A lady contacted me (referred from one of our clients) about a year ago to finish her website. She had paid for a design firm to do her website but things weren't really moving along and not to her satisfaction. No problem. We can take over. We got in touch with the design firm to change contact information on the domain and get FTP login credentials. That's when the trouble started...

This website deal was an all-in-one type of thing. The website and hosting were one entity and the domain name came with it, free for one year. Because the hosting was shared, the current design firm could not give us (or the client) access to the webserver, and furthermore, they were unwilling to forward any of the work they had done, because they felt that they owned the content, not the client. Of course, there was no contract, either. In the end, the business owner stayed with the firm, or else she would have lost all of the money AND all of the work she had already paid for.

It really rubs me the wrong way, that this sort of thing still goes on every day. It gives our industry a bad rep and holds unsuspecting customers and their business hostage. Yeah, it sounds like a great deal: Website, Hosting, Domain - all for one low price of $x. But if you (the client) don't have any rights to it - then what good is it? Just for the record: Here (at GAWD Productions) YOU own all of the work related to your website - at ALL times. It is YOUR content, YOUR images, YOUR domain - from the start. And you absolutely have access to your web server. At all times.

Of course, we do not lump everything together, and we take the time to actually create a new account for every client. The designing of a website, its hosting and associated domain name(s) are 3 separate products/services. And they are charged for and set up independent of one another. You can most certainly have your site (re)designed by us, but not host here. Or host your existing site here without us getting involved in your actual website. Or just get your domain name from us. And, most importantly, you have access to all of it.

Isn't that how it SHOULD be?

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Written by: Gina Geick

First published: 27 November 2009