Do You Need Responsive Website Design?

The most effective website gives every visitor what they want. But consider this: even if you have everything they want, your visitors still might not see it. There is an assault of devices accessing the content on your website: desktop PC’s, laptops, tablets of all shapes and sizes, smartphones galore. All have different screen sizes. How can your website handle those screens? Not very well, in most cases.

multiple devices access your website

Photo credit by londoncyclist on Flickr

It’s time to respond, with responsive website design. Responsive website design is your answer to the device assault on your website. What is it and is it for you? Responsive website design makes your website content universally accessible across a number of devices, in an optimized format for that device. Sounds like magic. But is it?

In this episode of the Power to the Small Business marketing podcast, we ask an expert web developer to weigh in on this hot new trend in website design. Cory Webb is an web developer, author and Joomla specialist, and he joins host Jay Ehret to discuss the pros & cons of responsive web design, content management systems, and how to hire a responsive design web developer to create your website.

Guest: Cory Webb – Web Developer, Joomla Expert
Host: Jay Ehret of TheMarketingSpot.com

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Responsive Website Design Cheat Sheet

Responsive Website Design – An approach to website design that takes your existing website content and makes it accessible to all devices accessing your website.

CSS: Cascading Style Sheets – A programming language used by developers to design the look and feel of a website.

Javascript – A programming language used by developers to make websites more interactive.

CMS: Content Management System – Software on your website server that allows you to create, publish, and edit content on your website. The three major CMS platforms are WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal.

Show Notes

Tips to hire a responsive website developer:

  1. Look for developers who have a lot of front end development experience.
    – HTML, CSS, media queries
  2. Look for developers who are familiar with the popular frameworks:
  3. Look for examples of responsive designs the developer has done.
  4. If they try to sell you a template, ask to see what your site, or others, look like with that template.
  5. Examine the examples across multiple devices.

Selected Podcast Quotes on Responsive Website Design

“Whether you do a mobile website or responsive website, you probably should do something. Because it really makes you look bad to the customer if you are not paying attention to those details.”

“A website is the most efficient and effective way to communicate with your customers.”
~ Cory Webb

Show Links:

Cory Webb responsive website designCory Webb on Twitter

WordPress
Joomla
Drupal

Marketers Roundtable 8 – The Biggest Marketing Impact

Current Marketing Issues

Podcast Episode #72 of the internet show about small business marketing


Hear ye, Hear ye! Interested citizens of The Internet, you are invited to the eighth gathering of the Marketers Roundtable.

Whereas…marketers like to congregate and discuss marketing, Therefore, let them gather at The Marketers RoundTable to discuss current marketing issues for all to hear on Power to the Small Business.

In this gathering of the Roundtable, the marketers discuss the biggest marketing impact of the past year, and what will have the biggest marketing impact in 2011.

Guests:
Tamsen McMahaon, Director of Digital and Strategic Initiatives Sametz Blackstone
Kyle Lacy, Principal – Mindframe
Ken Briscoe, Creative Director – A6 Media
Jay Ehret The Marketing Spot (Podcast Host)

Length: 27 minutes

iTunes

The Biggest Marketing Impacts:

TAMSEN McMAHON

2010 is the year the social media barrier fell.

“It was the year the general public lost its resistance. …I point you to the dramatic increase of people on Facebook…and 41% getting their daily news from Twitter, up from 17%.”

2011 is the year marketing gets to join the big boys at the table of business operations.

“This is the year we’ll really start to see marketing shift upstream, where a lot of us think it always should have been.“

KYLE LACY

2010’s biggest impact was mobile.

“We’re seeing an uptick in manufacturing (mobile use) …health networks are starting to use iPads within the hospital.”

2011’s biggest impact will be mobile.

“I think that mobile is going to completely revolutionize the way that and industry is working. …Number one is going to be customer service.”

KEN BRISCOE

2010’S biggest marketing impact was social media.

“It became obvious that every one needs to play on some level.”

2011 will be mobile accessibility.

“I think you are going to see a lot more conversation about location-based stuff.”

JAY EHRET

The biggest marketing impact in 2010 was Facebook Pages for Business

“Businesses realized that this was something relatively simple that they could do and immediately become available to 57% of the adult population in America.”

2011’s biggest marketing impact with be Facebook combined with location-based services.

“…because of Facebook Places and Facebook Deals. Facebook has just been brilliant in the way they’ve integrated it all into one, easy-to-use interface.”

Show Links

Tamsen McMahon: Brass Tack Thinking@tamadear on Twitter

Kyle Lacy: KyleLacy.comTwitter Marketing for Dummies

Ken Briscoe: @kenbriscoe on Twitter

Jay Ehret: Free Branding EbookThe Marketing Spot on Facebook

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