Doodlebit | Website Company | Small Business Websites - Latest Blog Entries

Connect with your Customers through Forums

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 14:17:00 -0500

There are so many great ways to use your website to better service your customers. We’ve talked about Web 2.0 and Blogs so far, but now I’d like to talk about forums.

What is a Forum?

Many of you probably use forums everyday; but for those that are unfamiliar, a forum is a place to have online discussions between many people. Forums are sometimes called Bulletin Boards, and have a very specific setup. Usually you have a few different forums for different categories of topics. Within each forum you have a series of Threads or Topics. These Topics contain many Posts or Replies to the original Topic. The content is arranged by date, so you always see what’s new first. And that’s about it.

How can I use a Forum?

Normally when you think of a forum you might think of a large online community centered on a certain topic. Maybe it’s to talk about games, car stereos, or maybe just a place to talk to friends. However just like with Blogs, Forums can be an extremely useful tool for your business.

The most common way to use a forum for your website is for Customer Support. With a support forum, your customers, or potential customers can register on your website and ask you a question. You then answer their question in the forum for everyone to see. Now you have an avenue to keep an open line of communication with your customer.

Think about this; forums not only give your customers a way to ask questions online, they also provide a record of those questions. That record will always be on your website, so the next person with that question will already have the answer. Not only that, but search engines will pick up that content, which will draw more people to your website.

If you’re a small business owner, it’s likely that you are a master of your trade. A forum is a great place to share your knowledge not only with your customers, but also with the rest of the world. Beyond a Customer Support Forum, you can setup a General Questions Forum. This will give your website even more content that is great for search engine ratings.

Setting up a Forum

There are many great forum software packages out there, however they all require you to install software on a server and configure everything yourself. These packages are great for large community sites, however there is an easier way for a small business support forum. Doodlekit comes with forum software baked right in. All you have to do is give it a name, and you’re ready to go.

You can setup multiple forums, each with their own subject. One common mistake is to setup too many different forums. This will confuse the users, and they won’t know where to start. Its best to start out with the minimal number of forums, and create more as needed. For example you could have a “Customer Support Forum”, an “Ask the Pro Forum”, and a “Just for Fun Forum”. It’s common to have a Just for Fun, or Off Topic Forum to promote a friendly and constant dialog.

Keeping Track

When you setup a forum, it can be easy to just forget it's there. You never know when your customers are going to log in and ask a question, and you certainly don’t want to leave them waiting. Fortunately most forum software comes with an RSS Feed, which is basically a list of the latest posts in a format that can be read by many applications. By setting up this feed in the reader of your choice you can know right away when someone has posted a message on your forum.

Getting your customers to use your support forum can be extremely valuable to your business. When questions are asked, anyone from your staff can answer them at anytime from anywhere. You get content and search engine ratings for free, and you establish a good relationship with your customer. Considering how easy Doodlekit makes it to setup a forum in minutes, there’s really no reason not to.

The SitePoint CSS Design Contest

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 15:13:00 -0600

I submitted an entry to the Sitepoint CSS Design Contest yesterday. They have a pre-made HTML page that you add your own CSS and graphics to. At first, I glanced at the HTML page and thought this would be an easy contest – there wasn’t a whole lot of HTML. Once I started working on it however, I realized it was going to be harder than I thought.

SitePoint had intentionally made the HTML a little – shall we say – difficult! They had imbedded img tags inside of h1 tags, div’s with the same class name imbedded within each other, very few tags to work with, etc.

Man! Trying to get everything to go where I wanted it and to line up evenly was an incredible challenge – but fun! I really enjoyed doing this design. One thing is for sure – this contest for hand-coder web developers only (which I am, of course!). It separates the boys (WYSIWYG designers) from the men (hand-coder designers). This is a great example of why you should hand code your sites. I encourage all web designers to participate – it was a good challenge.

Here is my contest entry.

I doubt I win, but that’s not the point. Each time you enter a contest like this, it exposes more of your work and builds up your portfolio. Not only that, but it might draw in a few potential clients if they like your design! Add into this the fact that you are getting hits to your website when people view your contest entry, thus increasing your Google page rank, and it’s hard to find an excuse not to enter the contest.

So have at it! I challenge all you hand-coders out there to enter! Its good practice and good marketing!

Doodlekit gets a facelift!

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 16:25:00 -0600

I have learned so much in the last year about web design. My skills have quadrupled regarding CSS, XHTML, HTML, Photoshop, etc. All because I finally quit my corporate job as Java web developer and became a full-time, self employed web designer. Doing what I love to do, and doing it 65+ hours a week, has been the best training and experience I could have ever asked for. No extra college courses, no books, and no job working for someone else could ever do that for me.

That being said, when I pushed out Doodlekit, just a few months ago, I was well below the design level I am now. Just in the past few months, I have learned so much more. That's when I started "itching" to change the design. So I did it. The timing wasn't the best, but I had to do it. If you're a web designer, you probably know what I am talking about. You always seem to want to redesign again - and again - and again.... The trick is knowing how to control that.

But when it came to our website, I couldn't hold back. If ever there was going to be a site that I wanted to be perfect, it was going to be ours! Of course, the reality is that it is far from perfect, but I think it's a vast improvement over our old site. I am sure, in time, I will want to change it again. But that won't be for a while (I swear!).

I wanted the site to better reflect the ‘doodle' aspect of Doodlekit. I love that word... doodle. It sounds so... fun! That was why we named our company Doodlebit. And when we came out with a website builder & CMS a few months later, it only seemed natural to call it Doodlekit. I have had some people suggest that the name is not very professional, but that doesn't bother me. Ever heard of ‘Google' or ‘Yahoo'? Those don't sound very professional to me at all! But they sound fun... and Doodlekit is fun!

Because of this I decided to use actual illustrations instead of photos. Doodling implies drawing or painting. I searched and searched for images until I finally found some I liked. They were not exactly what I wanted, so I had to make a lot of changes to them. I also paid special attention to the details. Every button, textbox, icon, etc. To me, this makes all the difference.

Because of this site, I am now determined to make all Doodlekit layouts just as nice. All details will be dealt with. Maybe I am a perfectionist, probably too much so, but I love what I do. I hope everyone likes the new changes to Doodlekit. Feel free to post any comments about the new design (good or bad). I do use feedback to make changes. So you won't offend me if you have suggestions!

I learned a new word today... ‘hand-coder'.

Sun, 07 Jan 2007 10:51:00 -0600

I put an ad in at SitePoint a few days ago for ‘CSS Web Designers" to try out Doodlekit for free and to offer 3 of the best designers a free website. What did I get? I got a handful of people who only knew Dreamweaver or some other WYSIWYG editor apply... but none that actually understood or worked with HTML/XHTML and CSS.

Wow.

So I started looking around the web. Maybe I wasn't using the right terminology. Looks like I was correct. The appropriate word I should have posted was ‘hand-coder'. Hand-coders are those individuals that write their own HTML/XHTML and CSS (like me).

There has been a large controversy over whether or not those individuals who use Dreamweaver, Front Page, and other WYSIWYG tools should be considered web developers. Both sides have good points. Below are some links to discussions/articles about this very subject:

To me most if it falls into this type of analogy about breakfast at a restaurant:

You can have breakfast served to you in 5 minutes created from frozen pre-made items that have been heated up in a microwave and served with a cup of generic coffee. Most of the time it's OK... but sometimes your hash brown or egg biscuit is still frozen in the middle or over cooked.
You can have breakfast made from scratch, where the cook knows every ingredient and can change those ingredients for each individual plate - served exactly the way you like it - but it takes a little longer and costs a little more.

Which is better? Of course, that depends. If your in a hurry and need something done within a certain timeframe, on a tight budget, and are willing to take chances on quality - choice #1 would be best. If you are into quality and are more of a perfectionist - choice #2.

I will say this however - no WYSIWYG will ever be comparable to a hand-coder (unless it's a bad hand-coder!). There are just too many situations where you have to pop the hood to find out why something isn't working the way it is supposed to be. And even if you know a lot about HTML/XHTML and CSS, when you use a WYSIWYG, you get stuck with a generic "framework" that might not have been the best choice. You can throw some salt and pepper and maybe even some ketchup on that egg McMuffin, but its still just an egg McMuffin.

The best example that I can think of for becoming a hand-coder vs. a WYSIWYG user is this:

DKAdvanced.com!

What I mean is that dkadvanced is all about overwriting existing CSS from our Doodlekit^TM website builder to customize your layouts. You cannot do that with any WYSIWYG. And it's not just this site... there are lots of web products that allow you to customize your look and feel by overwriting and creating your own custom CSS. Not to mention the complexity of intertwining backend code into your front end code. If you don't know CSS and HTML that well... that can be disastrous.

In conclusion, I would like to say that using a WYSIWYG editor or ‘hand-coding' depends upon the individual/company. There are lots of McDonald's restaurants out there and lots of people who like McDonalds. But there are plenty of people who like an omelet made with cheese, peppers, mushrooms, bacon, and some Tabasco - cooked a little runny, with some homemade jelly and toast on the side!

Here at Doodlekit^TM, we make breakfast from scratch!

Creating a Website Design Using an Image Editor

Sat, 06 Jan 2007 13:49:00 -0600

Anyone can draw up a design in Photoshop. That doesn't make them a web designer. I have worked with artists and graphic designers that can create some pretty cool looking "layouts" but the problem is they can't be converted to a web design. You don't just paste an image into an HTML page and call it a website... it has to be cut-up and laid out with lots of thought and care. Knowing the rules, limitations, and constraints of web design will dramatically effect what you draw up in an image editor.

Before you draw anything, you will need to figure out some things first:

1) What resolution do you want to develop to?
2) What layout do you want to use?
3) Will your content be static, dynamic, or mixture of both?

The first thing to figure out is what desktop resolution you are going to develop to. Based on information from http://browsersize.com/, all web user desktops worldwide can be broken up into these percentages:

1024 x 768 - 56%
800 x 600 - 22%
1280 x 1024 - 13%
1152 x 864 - 3%
other - 6%

When actually drawing a website design up in an image editor, don't forget to subtract 30px from the width for your layouts. This is to accommodate the scrollbar that will appear to the right when content exceeds the screen height. Example: for a resolution of 800x600, your design should be 770px in width.

The main number you want to look at here is the width (the first number). Scrolling down is fairly well accepted as normal behavior for a website by all users. So the height is not as important as the width. Scrolling across is a different story. You will never want your design to have horizontal scrollbars at the bottom of the page. You will need to pay special attention to the width of your design when developing. If someone's desktop resolution is smaller than the resolution you designed to, they will have scrollbars at the bottom of their page and this will be deemed to be an unpleasant "viewing experience" for that user. The lower the resolution of your design, the more people that can be included in those that will have a nicer "viewing experience".

Before you just jump to the highest used resolutions (1024 x 768), consider your market. Who are you developing your website for? If your website is a forum about Java Web Development or CSS Web Design, then it's probably safe to figure that most of your users will be tech savvy. That means they will probably have nicer/newer computers, which means that you could probably develop to 1024 x 768 without worrying about to many people having a bad "viewing experience". On the other hand, if you are developing a website for a non-profit organization that provides free food and clothing to families with low incomes, you probably want to stick to 800x600. Your target audience probably can't afford the latest computers and may more than likely have older computers that were given away to them or purchased at a very cheap price. Another example is older people with bad eyesight - if your website draws in lots of senior citizens, they will probably want to see things at a lower resolution to make text and images larger.

You might also want to consider whether or not you want to ignore a quarter your market's "viewing experience". If your website is for a company that markets to the general public, I doubt their marketing department will like this. They will more than likely want something that looks appealing to everyone. This can be done easily by designing to 800x600 desktops. In fact, sometimes it's nice to have a background for your design. For those people who use higher resolutions, you can create more of an esthetically pleasing look to your design by having a background.

The second thing to figure out is what layout you want to use. A layout is how headers, footers, content, sidebars, etc. are placed on your page. Not every page has to have the same layout. For instance, you may want a unique layout just for your index (entry) page. That's fine, as long as most of the other pages on your site are consistent in their layout.

There are all sorts of layouts you can go with. There are those with menus on the side, menus on the top, some with sidebars and side boxes, and some without. There are those whose width stretch to fill your screen (liquid) and those whose width is a set size (static). Lots of possibilities here. A good place to look at some example layout can be found at the Layout Gala: http://blog.html.it/layoutgala/. This site provides the code for some of the most popular base layouts used in web design. All these layouts use valid markup and CSS, and have been tested successfully on Internet Explorer/win 5.0, 5.5, 6 and beta 2 preview of version 7; Opera 8.5, Firefox 1.5 and Safari 2. A great starting point for your web design. Again, keep in mind the two types of basic layouts: static and liquid. If you use a liquid layout, you will still need to determine the minimal width. It should be equal to the width of the resolution you have decided to design to. Your content should "float" appropriately as the browser is resized - either to the left, right, or center until they overflow, at which point they should float downward, pushing all your content down. Once you have reached your minimal width you have designed your site for, you are no longer accountable for your users "viewing experience". The content can overlap and run into each other... this now acceptable. You can try and force it to be static once it has reached its minimal width, at which point it will show horizontal scrollbars. This is sometimes deemed to be more pleasant than letting your content overlap itself. This is up to you.

Finally, you need to consider your content. Is it going to be fairly static? Will the content be updated by users frequently? Is there dynamic data that is used for content that comes from a database? Does the site use a content manager? The important thing here is to design to your content. In general, you should avoid designing static height pages... they should stretch appropriately to accommodate the data that is present on the page. This is one of the mistakes I see a lot of from graphic designers that don't know anything about the web. They code a watermark background that looks cool for a page of an exact height of, say, 600px because that was how big the page was with its content. But then a month later someone goes in adds some more content -now the website has an 800px height, and there is 200px at the bottom of the page that doesn't have a watermark and is even a completely different color/look than what was used for the first 600px. As a web designer you have to be aware of when to use "repeatable background images" or colors for backgrounds with dynamic data. Sometimes you can use static images or horizontal repeating images at the top or bottom, as long as they gracefully blend into the main background eventually.

This is also important for menus. Using a static image, like a tab, is fine as long as you are willing to go into an image editor and create a new tab every time you need to. However, you might consider using repeatable images/solid colors with text that automatically stretches when content is added. To do this is more complicated, but will save you time in the future. Plus, if you're using a content management system, this will be mandatory. You will have no idea how long someone might make their menu link, so you will need to be prepared for links that wrap and/or stretch dynamically. Again, solid colors or repeatable background can be used here. The Doodlekit Website Builder tool is an example of when you would want to consider this. Advanced web designers that use this tool will need to consider these rules when developing. Some of the more complicated designs used by Doodlekit have repeatable images/colors in the middle, and static images at the top and bottom, or on the left and right sides that blend into the middle.

Once you have figured out the resolution you want to design to, picked your layout, and determined how dynamic your content is, you are ready to finally start drawing! Keeping these in mind will determine how and what you design. When it comes time to convert it to an actual website, your web designer/developer will thank you!

Blogging for Business

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 14:02:00 -0600

I talked a little about using Blogs for your business in my previous article, Make Web 2.0 Work for Your Business . I'd like to elaborate on this topic, as it's becoming an increasingly valuable tool for online business marketing.

What is a Blog?

Let's start with the basics. Blog is short for Web Log, and is essentially a series of articles or posts categorized by the date they were created. Sound too simple? That's really it. Blogs started as online journals for web savvy folk as an extension of their online presence. It was a way for them to express themselves and share their experiences with friends. Eventually Blogs started linking to each other, which caused them to exponentially explode into what is now called the Blogosphere.

Why is this important for my business?

While Blogs continue to be used to express one's self, the platform naturally lends itself to other uses. One problem that many small business websites have is Content Stagnation. In other words they create a website with all it's content and maybe update it once a year. The consequence is that your website essentially becomes a business card, with no other purpose than for people to find your phone number or email. Once a potential customer sees your website, there's no reason for them to ever come back.

Blogs get the stream flowing again and add life to your website. Because you are entering new content monthly, weekly, or hopefully daily, your customers have a reason to keep coming back and to interact with you through your website.

The positive side effect is that you are filling your site with good content that search engines love. The more you Blog, the more likely it is that potential customers will find you.

What do I Blog about?

Just because Blogs started out as a way for people to talk about the new video game they bought, doesn't mean you can't use it in other ways. As an owner of a business you're most likely an expert in your field. The very best thing you can do with your Blog is to write about the topics surrounding your business. If you're a Construction Company, write small articles about how to plan for your new house. If you're a Pet Store, write about how to trim your dog's toenails. There are people out there searching for information, so why not let them find it on your website.

A common pitfall among new Bloggers is that once you become an expert in a certain topic, you think anything you can write about it is too basic. However what you have to realize is that there are people of all levels of experience out there looking for help. Create your target audience based on your level of knowledge and cater to them.

Other great uses are product updates, company news, press releases, emergency information or just for fun.

Where can I get ideas?

There's a joke that most Blog posts are just links to other people's Blogs. This is partially true, however it's not always a bad thing. Once you start Blogging you'll naturally start to visit other people's Blogs. You might find something interesting and want to post about it. The important thing is that you take the time to write down why you enjoyed the other post and add your own spin to it.

Otherwise, take advantage of your own knowledge pool and just start writing.

How do I put a post together?

If you're not accustom to writing, it can take awhile to find your Blogging groove. Start out by doing some research. Find other articles and statistics you can reference. Linking to other Blogs can create a network which will help other people and search engines find your post. Create an outline of the topics you'd like to discuss, you know like in English class in high school. Get a second opinion from colleagues, they will always have some good feedback. And most importantly, take your time. Good entries can take time to put together. If you don't feel that something is ready to post, save it on your hard drive for later.

How do I spread the word?

One of the great things about Blogs is that after you get things going, they kind of spread naturally. However it does take a bit of impetus to get it started. One of the best ways to promote your Blog is by becoming a part of an online community. Find other people talking about the same thing. If you join a Forum, put a link to your latest blog post in your signature. When you comment on other blog posts, put in your Blog URL if there's a place for it. Try to establish yourself as an authority among the community.

You can also use the tools of the Web 2.0 trade like social bookmarking and democratic news sites. Bookmarking sites like delicious let you post links to your own blog posts and "tag" them. These "tags" are simply keywords that relate to your article. The benefit is that other people will be looking for articles based on these tags, and some websites are even setup to automatically post links to articles by tag. News sites like digg let anyone post interesting articles, and lets others vote on which they think are the best. At the very least you'll get a moderate amount of traffic, and at most you'll need to make sure you have a good server.

As you start acquiring readers, they can use an RSS feed to see new posts come in. An RSS feed is basically a copy of your latest blog posts that a computer can read and understand. Readers can then subscribe to the feed and be updated as soon as new content is posted.

If you're serious about your businesses online presence, then there's no easier way to establish it than Blogging. It does take some time, but it's well worth the effort. If you ask any search engine optimization expert about the best thing you can do to be number one, they'll always say "content".

So signup for a free Doodlekit trial today and see how easy Blogging can be.

Taking Control of Your Website with Content Management

Sat, 16 Dec 2006 23:22:00 -0600

I've talked with too many people that say they have to pay their hosting company by the hour to update their own website. It's your website, you own it and the content within it, why are you letting your hosting company hold it hostage?

The other side of the story is that when I ask these people why they don't use a content management system, most of them say they're too complicated. I can't disagree with this. Even as a web developer I find many CMS's convoluted and very difficult to use. To edit a page you have to login to the admin area, find your page, change it, approve the change and publish it. Now of course this is a requirement for some companies that have a content approval process. However when your approval process consists of you asking yourself if it's ok, things should be a lot simpler.

So how simple can it be? Usually when you're thinking of changing a page, you look at it first. Why isn't there just and edit button right there? And after you save it, you want to see the new page right? That seems pretty simple. Thankfully this is exactly how our online website builder, Doodlekit works. Ok, I admit it, I set that one up. But that doesn't take away from the fact that Doodlekit makes it as simple as possible to edit your content. If you can get around your own website, you have the skills to manage it.

Another scary CMS related word is hierarchical, heck I can't even say that without correcting myself three times. Most content management software will make you create a complex hierarchy of pages and sub-pages, that quite frankly no one will ever bother perusing. Doodlekit encourages you to keep your content managed pages simple, and use the other tools to help manage content for you.

If you need to publish a series of articles, why not put them in a blog? Your website visitors can then browse them by date, or easily search for a specific topic. You can also provide an RSS Feed of your articles, which lets anyone know when new articles are published. Or maybe you want to post some Frequently Asked Questions. Why not post them in a Forum where people can respond and ask more questions? In fact, why not just let your customers build your FAQ's for you? Have pictures of your products? Post them in a photo gallery with descriptions that your customers can easily browse through.

Whether your using tools like CMS, blogs, forums, or whatever, make sure that you own your website. There's no reason for you to pay someone else to manage your website when there are easy to use tools like Doodlekit. You don't have to be a programmer, just as long as your enthusiastic about taking back control of your content.

New doodlekit Feature: Form Builder

Sun, 10 Dec 2006 01:09:00 -0600

With the core Doodlekit features honed and ready, we've started creating "add-ons" to extend the default functionality. We already have a handful of ideas in mind, such as E-Commerce, Calendars, and/or Newsletters. One of the first to actually be released has been the Form Builder, which allows you to create custom web forms to collect information from visitors.

You could create a newsletter form to collect contact information, or possibly an RSVP form for an event. The results can be emailed to you, posted publicly, and/or downloaded as a Comma Separated Value file.

To start, click on the "add-ons" menu link from the admin screen. Then select the "Form Builder" and you will be taken to the "New Form" screen.

There are many options on this first page.

Form Name - Will be used in the page title, as well as the menu
Sub Header - Displayed directly below the Form Name on the actual form page
Thank You Message - This message is displayed after the form is filled out
Email Results? - Automatically Email every form submission to the email defined in settings
Show Results Publicly? - Display the results under the form
Message - A custom message that will be displayed above the form

These options basically setup everything but the Form itself. When you click "Continue" you are taken to the actual form field builder.

When you first create a Form you can select form a set of Pre-built fields. For example you can select "Newsletter" which simply asks for a Name and Email Address. If you'd like to create a form from scratch, just start adding fields.

To add a field, enter a label and select a type. The label will be displayed next to the form fields, and the type determines how the data for that field is collected. The field types Radio Buttons, Checkboxes, and Drop Down require you to enter a list of values for the user to choose from. A box will appear to the right, and you can enter the values, each on its own line. The "Required?" checkbox ensures that all users enter something for that field. When your ready, click the "Save Field" button and your new field will appear below.

You can continue to add as many fields as you like. To edit a field, click "edit" next to it on the Form Preview. The field will be re-loaded above, where you can modify it, and then click "Save Field" again. You can also delete or move fields up and down from the Form Preview.

Once you are happy with it, click "Finished" and you will be taken to the newly created Form.

You'll notice that the Form was automatically added to your website menu. You can remove it by hiding it in the page/menu admin. You can also delete the Form from this same admin screen.

Depending on which options you selected, the results will be emailed to you and/or displayed below the form. You can also download the results in CSV format by clicking on "download results" from the actual Form page.

Forms can be very valuable to get feedback from your users. Use them carefully however, as asking for to much information may keep people from providing it. Think about what information you really want to collect. For example many people ask for a mailing address, however they never actually use this information.

So if you don't have a Doodlekit account yet, get one and try it out. Let us know if you have any questions.

Make Web 2.0 Work for Your Business

Mon, 27 Nov 2006 16:52:00 -0600

Without a doubt you've been hearing about how Web 2.0 is changing how people use the Internet. You may be wondering, "What does that mean for my business?". What is a Blog? What's an RSS Feed? Why should I care about a Photo Gallery? These are all questions many business have been asking themselves.

Fortunately, now is the perfect time to be asking these questions. By learning about these new technologies, and harnessing them for you're own business, you can still be on the leading edge of online business technology.

Blogs

When you think of a Blog, you're probably thinking of you're daughter's online diary where she talks about how much she hates homework. Blog is short for Web Log, and started as a way to keep an online journal that everyone else can see. However, many businesses are discovering that this can be a useful tool to keep in touch with their customers. Instead of posting about the funny thing that happened in science class today, you can post News about your business, or product updates.

A common problem with providing this type of information to your customers, is making sure they get it when they need it. It's likely that your customers don't check your website everyday, just incase there is some news. This brings us to the next topic, RSS Feeds.

RSS Feeds

RSS is very simple, in fact it stands for Really Simple Syndication. An RSS feed is a way of providing your content in a format that is readable by other applications. For example, you can have an RSS feed for you Blog that can be read by a news reader. Many people use these news readers to automatically gather information from various sources. This is much easier than manually checking each site. It's more likely that a customer will subscribe to your feed, than bookmark your site and check it every day.

If you're not using RSS for your own business, you should at least be using it to keep up yourself. Try out Google Reader, and then check to see if your favorite sites have feeds.

Forums

You've probably come across an online forum when searching for information. They are great for building communities around a particular topic, and letting strangers with similar interests find each other. Forums can also be a great way to keep in touch with your customers. Creating a forum for your business gives your customers a place they can ask questions, and help each other. Many times you'll have a particular customer that is very enthusiastic about your product, and will volunteer their time to participate in the forum discussions. The hidden benefit is that all of the discussions are kept for as long as you like, and you get FAQ's for free.

Forums can also have RSS feeds so you and your customers can see new activity.

Photo Galleries

Photo Galleries are not just for uploading pictures of your last vacation. People want to see your product, so why not show it to them? Real Estate Agents can upload house pictures, store owners can show off their goods, artists can upload their works, and restaurants can display their dishes. There are so many possibilities, but the bottom line is people just like to look at pictures.

Products like Doodlekit can bring all these features together and create a living breathing website, which is one of the primary attributes of the Web 2.0 phenomenon.

These tools keep you closer to your customer, and welcome their feedback. Not only will you improve your online presence, but you'll have a lot of fun in the process.

New Feature: Custom Header Image

Mon, 13 Nov 2006 12:01:00 -0600

Less than a week into our release, and we already have a cool new feature. Previously we allowed users to select from a list of preset header images for their layout. In order to personalize your layout even more, you can now upload your own header image. Because images come in all shapes and sizes we even provided a nifty cropping tool.

Here's how it works, when you're selecting a header image, choose the 'Upload Custom Image' option.

Then browse for your image and click 'Upload'. You're image will display below, but it's not yet formatted to fit in the header image space for the layout.

Now click the 'Crop Image' button and a new window will appear.

Use the selection tool to select the area of the image you want to appear in the header. You can resize the selection area, and the images will automatically be cropped and resized to fit the layout. Click 'Crop Image', and the cropping window will close. You can then click home to see your new custom header image.

Custom header images are just another way we let you manage your own website, without having the be a graphic designer.

Have fun, and as always, let us know if you have any trouble.

Doodlekit is Live

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 23:22:00 -0600

At long last we have released Doodlekit™ to the public. Doodlekit™ is an online website management tool targeted at small businesses, families, and anyone else that wants to control their own content for an afforable price.

For more information check out your Doodlekit™ site. We've also created a screencast and demo site.

We're quite proud of what we've accomplished with this, and trust me, it's only the beginning.