This is the second in a series of posts from Chris Rackley on better home page design.

I’ll never forget last spring. My wife and I were shopping for our first home. We’d lived in an apartment for nearly four years, and were finally going to get a house. We had, as most people do, a fairly tight budget - so the pickin’s were slim. Our realtor was a former roommate and long-time friend of mine, and so I was asking him a lot of questions about not just home-buying, but home-selling. I won’t forget some of the principles he taught me (I think I’ll need them someday!). But one that really stands out is this: The #1 thing that sells a home is curb appeal.

Wow! The exact same principle is true of your website.   Read the rest of this entry »

Christmas is one of the most wonderful times of the year – a chance to reflect, eat tons of food and not feel guilty (until after you make that New Year’s resolution for the 289^th time to lose weight and diet), share in gift giving, and spend time with family. So naturally I spent Christmas day doing what any normal person might do – reading.

Now before you think to yourself what a nerd, let me clear a few things up. You’re absolutely right. I’m a nerd.

My selection of books had grown since Kris Kringle last came. I narrowed it down to two books: The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire and The Google Story. I decided to tackle the modern day empire of Google and leave the Romans for another holiday… Read the rest of this entry »

A little while back - just before the ‘08 election, actually - I wrote up a piece about why Obama would win: His harnessing of technology. Change for America (who has mysteriously taken down their web site) set up a campaign that put Obama EVERYWHERE on the web, from Facebook to Twitter to just about every other Web 2.0 social utility imaginable. The success was enormous.

Since my article was posted, I’ve had several people approach me privately to discuss whether Republicans even have a prayer at winning an election in the near future now that the Democrats have so well embraced branding a politician and marketing them socially online. I said, “Sure, they just have to do the same thing, and with a new unique take.” The usual reaction to that comment is something like, “Yeah, but do you really see that happening?”

Nope, at least I didn’t. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the first in a series of articles from Chris Rackley regarding better home pages.

Where have all the good home pages gone? No, seriously. Has the age of Adobe Flash and Adword-driven Landing Pages really brought us to this? So many domains you click on now have some of the coolest graphics, animation, and sound around, but the home page and subsequently the whole site, makes no flippin’ sense whatsoever! Others are poorly laid out - a conversion of confusion and convulsion (yes, I said that!). The point is, many businesses today need to rethink their home pages. I contend that it is not an issue of code, art, or site map plan - it goes much deeper than that. It’s a weak philosophy. Never fear, we’re here to get you back on track. But before we explain to you the right way to view your home page, we need to get rid of some wrong views.

Here are a few popular ones that have been going around: Read the rest of this entry »

We get it all the time. We’re meeting with someone and they say: “I want to link my partners and vendors to my site.”

We say, “That’s great! That will really help you build relationsh–”

“Then I want to charge them a fee for me linking to them.”

*awkward silence*

This is just a shame. Why would you want to charge your partners for a link? Read the rest of this entry »