2010-2
12

DO’s and DON’Ts of Website Design – Part 1

Category: Do's and Don'ts of Game Publishing | 45 Comments

Once we created our product, Bailout The Game, we needed to present it to the world. As you know by finding this website, the best way to make our product visible to the world is through a website.

We have a few key DO’s and DON’Ts for you on this part of your business enterprise.

The biggest thing to DO is… DO your homework. Rushing through this step will waste your time and potential for success. Figure out your message. Work though how to convey that message properly. Understand how the message is presented on your website. Layout the website generically how the website is to be completed. If you are selling a product, find out the best method to receive payment. Taking the time to complete this rather simple planning is the best thing you can DO to assure your website goes online looking complete and professional.

Now, that you have some direction on how to layout your website, the design of the website needs to be executed. But wait…How are you to be sure that your target audience will be able to find you? You need to DO a complete strategy for your SEO (When I first heard SEO, I thought to myself, what in the world is that?!?). SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and I cannot stress enough the importance of this three letter acronym. You need to figure out what keywords people will use in a search engine and those keywords needs to find your website. Go to a bookstore and get some books on SEO programming to better understand how to accomplish this important task properly. Your website design needs to be geared towards this goal using the keywords in the programming of your website.

At this point, you can create the website yourself or hire someone to DO it for you. I recommend that unless you are better than a novice at website design, let an expert DO this step for you. Provide your website designer with as much information as possible including artwork, text, the message, layout sketches, company information, etc. Additionally, provide the designer with all the SEO information you can provide them. Let the website designer complete the front page and present it to you. Now you need to take a real hard look at what has been accomplished and be absolutely positive that your message is conveyed completely and succinctly. Remember, this page could be your one and only chance to catch someone’s attention to find out more about your products or services. After tweaking the front page, the balance of the website can follow the template of the front page. Follow through with evaluating every page as they are designed and make sure each page conveys your message properly. As the message is driven home with each additional web page, your overall website strategy is carried through the website.

Okay, now you have a completed website. What to DO next is find the proper website hosting company. As with most small companies or start ups, we did not have a server and appropriate bandwidth to host the website on our network. There are plenty of great companies that offer this service at a small price with tremendous bandwidth available to your website. Now get your website published, make sure everything looks correct on multiple browsers, and assure all the links work.

I have provided you some key things I think you should DO when publishing a website, but I want to assure you DON’T make the same mistakes I made. Its less costly for you to learn from my mistakes than for you to repeat the same things that probably cost money to our bottom line.

One thing I DON’T want you to do is wait to get your website online because I DON’T want you to miss out on internet presence due to being stuck in the ’sandbox’. Plus, if you have a unique idea but could catch on as a trend, I DON’T want you to miss out because someone has bought a similar name and steals your limelight. Get something on the internet quickly that has some information about your company and what you are going to offer. Plus, buy any related url names that you can think of and redirect them to you main website. This will help the time clock at getting out of the ’sandbox’ and assure the integrity of your domain name is preserved.

The next item is DON’T trust what the website development companies tell you at face value. According to the research I have completed after the fact, many website designers are not SEO experts and vice versa. In fact, most of the SEO experts DON’T even offer website design. We were told many things by our website development company that I have learned later from a SEO expert were in direct contradiction with how search engines find content. This proved to be very frustrating because a competing site has outranked us since the day our website made it online.

DON’T trust anyone to design your website for you. Your vision needs to be realized. Get involved and stay focused to assure the message is conveyed properly.

If you offer a product on the internet, DON’T offer a single form of payment. There are many people with different preferences. When we started, our website only accepted PayPal. I chose PayPal because that is a trusted name that I personally prefer. However, many people DON’T like using PayPal and another solution needed to be offered.

DON’T ever let anyone else have total control of your website or your url’s. You must have access to your web content so that minor corrections can be made quickly and efficiently. If you want to make a special offer to your customers, you are able to make sure it happens. If content needs to be added, you are capable of adding the content. Your website content is owned by you for the purpose of offering your services or products. Therefore, the website host needs to be in you or your company’s name. Plus, do not trust your website designer/hosting company to purchase url’s for you. This can prove to be a conflict in interest if they make a purchase in some other name other than you or your company’s name.

Lastly, DON’T ever sit back and relax. The internet is an ever evolving organism. Your website needs to evolve also. Content should be constantly updated, tweaked, added as your business grows. These continual additions also alert your fans, customers and search engines that they should come back often to see if there is a new product or service they may want or need.

As this is the first of the DO’s and DON’TS, I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful. Come back often as we will be creating a series that will educate you on what we have learned as we create and grow Liberty Street Games.

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2010-2
6

Creator of Bailout The Game is nominated for Wonder Women in Toys

Category: Bailout The Game | No Comments

Shari Sopourn, the creator of Bailout The Game, is a great board game that is making a splash in the toy and game industry. This first time game inventor has already won multiple awards from the leaders in the toy industry. Most recently, Shari has been nomiated for the Wonder Women in Toys (WWIT).

Sopourn is rubbing shoulders with good company for the WWIT that will be awarded at the Toy Fair in New York City on February 14th. This year the inventor of Jenga, Leslie Scott, has been nominated along with Dr. Jennifer Canter, Melanie Corpstein and Mary Elroy in the category of Inventor/Designer. Leslie has recently published a book about her endeavors in bringing the game of Jenga from her African origins to becoming the second most popular selling game by Milton Bradley. Dr. Jen of Play This Way Everday LLC has created a specialized play mat that was invented to help her son learn in an interactive way on the floor he was accustomed to playing with interactive posters or picture cards. Melanie is the creator of Adorable Originals which appears to be a doll for kids who recently had a younger brother or sister in the family. Lastly, Mary from Gamebird has been in the toy industry for 20 years as an agent for toy and game inventors. In her illustrious career, Mary has been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine and mentioned in The Toy and Games Inventors Handbook.

Certainly, Shari Sopourn has been included in a good crowd of industry leaders for this award. People always say it is great to be nominated and they may not mean it. However, in this case, it is great to be nominated. Shari pushed into this industry less than a year ago and is making major waves in the toy industry. The creation of the Bailout! The Game was timely, interesting, fun and has captured the attention from the news agencies and the board game industry alike.

We wish all the nominees good luck but are hoping that our inventor, Shari Sopourn, wins the award.

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2010-1
22

Help for Haiti Event

Category: Help for Haiti | 3 Comments

The “Help for Haiti Event” was hosted by Wings Plus and coordianted by Social Gorilla and Liberty Street Games on January 18, 2010.

The whole concept for the event occurred a couple of days after the earthquake that struck the country of Haiti on January 12, 2010.  Shari Sopourn of Liberty Street Games declared, “We have to do something to help the people of Haiti.”  The process began immediately that moment and everything began to be set in motion.

Shari started by consulting with Michael Black of Social Gorilla and Brian Walsh of Wings Plus to coordinate the time, place and how to get the word out.  Liberty Street Games started the process off by creating some flyers of the event.  With the flyers in hand, local businesses were visited to inquire if they were interested in helping with the event.  Unsurpisingly, many of the local businesses were extremely helpful with their support in resources and spreading the word.

Most of the local businesses provided coupons for the people who were making donations to the Haitian people.  However, some businesses went the extra mile like Dunkin Donuts who provided a free coffee cup and Anthony’s Coal Fire Pizza who provided a $5.oo gift card. Some more examples of the generosity of local businesses include USK Karate School who provided a month of free lessons and Curves who gave a week of work outs at no cost.

Liberty Street Games handed out flyers to the local residents and worked on the website for promoting the event. Wings Plus hung a banner on their store to draw attention for the all day event.  Social Gorilla used their social networking skills to inform the locals about what they can do to help.

In a very brief period of time, the whole event came together.  A local DJ, Big Daddy Gonzo, offered his services after he found out about the event via Facebook.  An interview was scheduled with 850AM WFTL’s, Jeff Katz, who promoted the event on the radio. Additionally, The Joyce Kaufman Show of 850AM also promoted the event.  While listening to The Jeff Katz Show, Suzanne Creations called Liberty Street Games to offer a balloon arch to announce the event to people who were driving by the event on Sample Road.  A pilot called Liberty Street Games and offered their cargo plane to transport all the donations to Haiti.  Bobby the Balloon Guy offered to share his creations with the visitors of Wings Plus.  After all the help from these great people, the fundraiser was turning out to be a well coordinated event.

On Monday morning, when Wings Plus opened at 10:30 am, Coral Springs residents showed up immediately with their donations.  People brought whatever they could; food, water, clothes, money and other essential items.  It was an amazing and humbling event.  Some people who came to the restaurant for lunch, returned later in the day with donations.  Anyone who made a cash donation, was given a copy of Bailout The Game or Bailout The Card Game.  Thousands of dollars were donated to the cause.

It is amazing that people who are in a financial crunch, came out and gave and gave and gave.  It just goes to show that Americans are truly a selfless people.  This Help for Haiti Event is a small vignette of the true spirit of the citizens of this great country.

When the Help for Haiti Event was over, the truck was packed up with the last of the items donated and delivered to a local Haitian church in Coral Springs.  A couple of days later, Liberty Street Games was informed that the plane was scheduled to land in Jacmal, Haiti.  The most needed items were requested to be loaded on the first plane to Haiti.  So the Sopourn’s sifted through the donations with Pastor Manno looking for canned food, water, baby diapers and medical supplies.  Due to the short time frame, the official inventory and weight was never calculated but it is estimated to be 2,000 lbs of these essential items. All these most needed items were delivered to the Fort Lauderdale airport where they were loaded onto the plane.  The plane took off for Haiti on January 21 at 2:00 pm.  Our friends at Christianville Foundation, Inc. are on the ground in Haiti and are going to make sure that these items are given to the earthquake victims who need them.

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