Quick W.I.T.S.

Sometimes in business, little things lead to big things. A fire starts from the tiniest spark, but burns far hotter and brighter once ignited. When you collaborate with others, your ideas feed off each other in much the same way, growing, intensifying. The fires you start together can set the world ablaze in ways no lone ember ever could. The beautiful and terrible thing about ideas is that you never lose them, you only gain them. If I give you an idea, and you give me back an idea, we both have two ideas. Working together exponentially increases your maximum potential. The whole really is greater than the sum of its parts. If you have the chance to work with someone else in your field, it's probably worth your time. Who knows what you'll come up with together?

Modern consumers spend a lot of time on their phones. Research shows that 91% of mobile phone users say they search for local products online, and that 93% of them do research online before they decide to buy. With over 2 billion mobile phone users in the world, and the saturation growing ever closer to 100% in developed countries, that's an enormous audience expecting to find what they're looking for online. And it's an enormous opportunity for small and growing businesses to capitalize on if they're already available online, ready to market to those consumers in the micro-moment. What the heck is a micro-moment? The term "micro-moment" was first coined by Google in 2015. It refers to the moment when a person reaches for their phone in order to find out a piece of information. It may not even be with the express intent to make a purchase, it is just the first moment a user thinks about something they want to know, and picks up their phone to discover in

Why do companies feel the need to use deceptive tactics to get people to buy their products? Wouldn't it make more sense to make a better product in the first place, than trying to trick people into buying the bad ones? You see this kind of thing all the time, but most notably in the entertainment industry. When Rotten Tomato scores for The Emoji Movie hit 0% based on a few early reviews, Sony shut down all previews until the day before release, desperately trying to halt the inexorable tide of negativity. This lead to a pretty big opening day, but a sharp drop-off afterwards (because the movie was terrible). Rather than waste all that time, energy, and money on a clearly bad product, why not just make something better? Why not cut your losses and abandon the project, rather than try to trick people, earning bad will for future projects? For some reason, big companies just don't think this way. Many video game companies are the same. They work for years on a game, then g

There's a lot of competition out there for people's attention these days. It's not enough to just have a website. Anyone can throw a website online for you and tell you it's going to magically draw people to your door (believe me, I've seen it). But unless you or your web designer actually understand what attracts people and makes them want to check out what you have to say, show, or sell, having a webpage on its own won't do you much good. It takes work and effort to know your audience, and build a website dedicated to appealing to that audience. The images you choose and how you use them are just as important as the words you use, if not more so. People are inherently visual, so what they see has a more lasting impression than what they read. It's a can't-miss opportunity to make a real impact. Here are 5 tips for improving your website's visuals, and making it stand out from the crowd. 1. Use High Quality Images Much like baking, the qu

Well, it's been a pretty crazy week for Whistler IT Solutions. I'm currently working on two websites, and was just contacted yesterday to possibly build another (still hashing out the details). In addition, we're taking a short family vacation this weekend, so I've also been running around trying to help get ready for that. So I haven't had as much time as I'd like to dedicate to non-billable work. Needless to say, researching and writing the articles for this blog takes way more time than anything else I do besides actual paying work for clients, so as much as it pained me, the blog had to take a back seat this week. That being said, I still want to apologize for re-posting an article this week instead of having a new article for you. I'm quite proud of my social media tips article, and it's by far the most popular entry I've made since I started this blog (thanks, readers). But I still feel bad for not having any new content this week. Mea

Something a lot of new business owners overlook is networking, especially if their business operates primarily online. Forging relationships and making contacts is crucial to growing awareness of your company, and getting your name out there. You can't skip this step or fake your way through it, you have to put in the time. There are lots of ways you can do this. Most cities have small business support groups and government-sponsored programs for small business aid. It's a great way to meet other new business owners just getting started and work together. You can volunteer for local charities or municipal organizations, or join the local chamber of commerce. Getting involved locally can really help boost your reputation and your contact list. It's important to show that you are providing value to people, not just trying to take advantage of them or get what you can. You have to benefit others in order to benefit yourself. The businesses that understand that and embra

When people think about reaching more customers online, they usually think about facebook or twitter first. Social media is a powerful tool, but as more and more customers look for their goods and services online, they expect to find the information they're looking for quickly, easily, and all in one place. More importantly, customers are mistrustful of companies that don't have a quality website, but instead rely solely on free platforms to promote their products. According to  this awesome infographic from minewhat.com , 81% of shoppers research online before making purchases online OR in person. Furthermore, 6 out of 10 customers said they were concerned about credit card fraud from online businesses. With customers arming themselves with more information, and growing concerns over online fraud and disreputable companies using just social media to quickly get scam businesses up and running, it's more important than ever to have a professional, high-quality website

Did you know that there are over 2 billion smartphone users in the world? That number grows every year, while the number of people using traditional computers continues to slowly shrink. It's more important than ever to reach these users where they live, so your website needs to look great on mobile platforms if you want those users to find and use your business. A lot of web developers talk about "responsive" design. This is the term used to describe websites that resize images, text, and layouts based on the size of the screen or window they're being viewed on. Many platforms do this automatically, but just changing sizes isn't automatically good enough. The interface still needs to look good and work well on a mobile platform, and be easy and intuitive to use. Responsive code doesn't do this automatically - you need to build the site with mobile in mind from the outset. There are a few questions you should ask yourself when you or your web designer ar