8 Tips to Update Your Website

Posted on | March 11, 2010 | No Comments

With warmer weather on its way, it’s time to think about spring cleaning … including your online presence. Just like your home, your organizational or community website also needs periodic ‘cleaning up’ to ensure it looks fresh, remains up-to-date, and stays relevant.

Freshen Up Your Colours – If you have a branded colour palette, are you using it? If not, dig out your branded colours and use them or visit a site such as Colour Lovers for colour ideas and combinations. Clever use of colour goes a long way to improving user experience; use colour to guide visitors to your most important information.
Update Your Content - If you haven’t updated your content since you built your site, it’s time. Click through your own site pretending to be a member of each of your target audiences … or ask a colleague to do the same thing. Count the number of clicks it takes a user to get to the recommended content. Most likely, there are areas that could be edited, making your site more user-friendly. If any core information, products or services have changed, then you should definitely update the content to reflect your evolving identity.
Check for Consistency – Go through your entire site and look for consistency with fonts, font treatments, colours, paragraph spacing, sizing, naming, use of graphics, placement of graphics, etc. This one simple step will improve the readability and increase return visits to your website.
Calls to Action – Revisit (or create) objectives for your website … is it to build a subscriber list? Make sales? Ask for donations? Refer people to certain information? Ensure whatever it is you want your visitor to do is easily visible and accessible … preferably from your home page. Direct visitors to your contact page, Frequently Asked Questions, shopping page, etc. in one click or less.
Let’s Get Social - If you are online elsewhere and don’t have links to your other social networks (i.e. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.), it’s time to add them! Not only will they add interest to your site, they will also allow visitors to connect with you through the other platforms you – and they – are using.
Consider Blogging – Google and other search engines love fresh content … and blogging is one way to continually add information that will get you noticed online. If you are a small business owner or entrepreneur, blogging is one way to add value to your services, and most blogs can be set-up for free or added to an existing site for minimal cost.
Add Photos – Photos are a real way to connect your visitors to what you are sharing online. Add pictures of your team, your customers, partners, products, etc. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words.
Survey Your Audience - Surveys are a quick and easy way for visitors to interact with your site, while also letting you gather information about their interests. Create a survey about a topic of interest to help people learn. PollDaddy is a well-known site.

Lastly, put someone in charge of your website so that it is reviewed and updated on a regular basis. Think of it like this … the web works in dog years; one year online is like seven years offline. Things change fast on the internet and ignoring changes and new technologies for too long can leave you behind.

Best wishes in your online clean-up!

Exploring Rural Development: Using the Arts as an Economic Driver

Posted on | March 5, 2010 | No Comments

Second in The ‘Fringe’s limited online series on rural/rurban development is Becky McCray, author of Small Biz Survival. Not only has Becky created a great rural and small town business resource, she’s also an entrepreneur, social media consultant, and small biz speaker. I was fortunate to connect with Becky last year, contributed a guest post to her site, and asked if she would be willing to share her insight here as well … and I’m glad she did. I also offer a similar Canadian example below. Enjoy!

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Creating Artist Alley

By Becky McCray

At the recent Oklahoma Entrepreneur’s Conference, a panel of communities shared how they had become more entrepreneurial. I want to share some stories from Mangum, Oklahoma.

“If you count every man, woman, child, and chicken, we have 2,500,” Maxine Thomason said. She is the mayor of Mangum, a former program manager of Mangum Main Street, and a 30-year teacher.

“Survival for a small towns is not a given,” she continued, “You have to work at it.”

Mangum chose the Main Street program as their stepping off point to work at survival. “We don’t have the workforce or space for a manufacturer, so we have to offer a niche market,” Thomason said.

They ended up in the artist business. Mangum’s Artist Alley is now famous in Oklahoma. It started with an individual artist setting up a studio. Then a few artists joined in … and it has now expanded to other entrepreneurial businesses moving into downtown.

They do lots of advertising to bring in visitors. One innovative tactic Thomason mentioned was an established business allowed artists to ‘piggy back’ on their newspaper inserts.

They made use of the state Main Street program. Oklahoma Main Street has an architect service, at no extra charge. Mangum used the Main Street architect to guide the remodeling of four storefronts. It was formerly an Otasco [hardware store] and is now a local home centre, with a little bit of everything and is thriving.

The City of Mangum established a Revolving Loan Fund for local businesses. They funded it through a grant by the United State Department of Agriculture. The local Main Street committee offered $500 matching grants for facade improvements. “It’s small, but it’s enough to start changes,” Thomason said.

The local Main Street also became a clearinghouse for available resources for small businesses.

“There’s lots of assistance out there,” Thomason concluded,” but sometimes it’s finding it.”

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In the case of Rosebud, Alberta, the arts became the means to an end … the end being the revitalization of their rural economy.

Facing the decline of their community, concerned citizens created an arts school and rural theatre, retrofitting older, existing buildings for their use, and encouraging other street-level improvements.

This entrepreneurial activity, coupled with historic building facade restoration, encouraged related businesses to develop. Today, individual art studios, retail shops, fine arts and crafts outlets, a general store, a museum, and a few B&B’s exist side-by side. Jobs were created. Shared facilities and resources were developed. Enthusiasm grew.

It wasn’t easy and they didn’t do it alone. Federal and provincial grants provided a variety of funding avenues, and partnerships with other businesses, community groups, and regional agencies provided invaluable contacts, access to resources, financing, and more.

Motivated by this ongoing success, the Rosebud School of the Arts & Theatre is embarking on its largest project yet … restoring its historic mercantile building into a hospitality/administrative/retail space called Rosebud Centre.

All this … from a community of 100, but with a heart 10 times its size.

Category: Entrepreneurship
Tags: arts and culture > Economy > entrepreneur > Mangum > Rosebud > rural > rurban > small communities > sustainability

Product Branding and Ag Career Focus Program

Posted on | March 2, 2010 | No Comments

I’ve been catching up at FarmOn.com these last few days … with a post about why branding your beef (or any other ag product) is important to the consumer.

You can find more information about such product branding at Government of Alberta, Agriculture and Rural Development’s website.

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Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada offers a Career Focus Program aimed at recent graduates in agriculture, agri-food, agri-food science, and veterinary medicine as well as potential employers with jobs in these areas.

The program provides matching funding for salaries and benefits up to $20,000 for a maximum of 12 months of work experience.

Of special note for this year, the program is retroactive to April 1, 2009, which means those qualifying businesses or agencies that have hired these types of graduates could be eligible for funding.

Visit the website for more information or call 1-866-452-5558 toll-free.