Facebook

As is the case with most social media, the City of Salem is not in the forefront (they still don’t have a twitter feed for governmental updates like road closures, snow bans, amber alerts etc.) I’m sure they will jump on the band wagon eventually but until then the good people of Salem have found a champion on facebook by the name of Joey Colomba.

Joey started up a facebook fan page because like many people in Salem he loves the Witch City and very much like us he puts in his own time and effort, paid by no one because he wants to see Salem prosper.  Currently he 9,270 fans who see his musings, news stories and various info about Salem but he wants more.  He is on a quest to have 10,000 fans and I’m sure that with the help of TheSalemInsider.com readers we can get him there.

I recently spent some time chatting with Joey about his Facebook fanpage. After you are done reading this post you should head over to facebook.com/salemmass and become a fan. Tell him “The Salem Insider sent you.”

TSI: Joey, you have built up a pretty robust Salem MA facebook page. It doesn’t appear that you are employed by the City of Salem so what is your motivation?

JC: The main reason why I started the Fan page was to help local businesses in the tough economic times. The page since then has grown to a place for everything including local events or what is happening in Salem, MA.

TSI: Given the recent additions to Salem in regards to new shops, restaurants, bars and condos do you feel Salem is moving in the right direction and how do you feel about its future?

JC: This is a tough question, I honestly think having more business in Salem is great and will help the city grow economically and provide more jobs for local residents.

TSI: What are some of your places to go / things to see in Salem?

JC: I personally like going to the Salem Willows and some of the Museums in Salem. I also love eating at Engine House and for a quick sub at Bella’s

TSI: Has your facebook page connected you with more Salem insiders or tourists? Do you feel that both the tourists and locals view Salem the same way or are there obvious differences?

JC: Their is a mix of Salem residents and people who just love salem in general. I’ve been receiving phone calls and emails from people all over the world with nothing but postive feedback on the page and how much they want to move back to salem after seeing our page and whats going on with the city. It allows people to connect with salem without opening a local news paper.

TSI: If you could change something about Salem what would it be?

JC: Something needs to be resolved with traffic in the downtown area aside from this I believe the city staff is running Salem just fine.

If you have more questions for Joey or just want to connect with other Salemphiles head over to facebook.com/salemmass and become a fan.

Thanks Joey and good luck!

Here is a quick list of some Salem Twitter resources.  With more people joining twitter each day I’m sure this list will be missing a few Salem tweeters, if you know of anyone we should add to this list please tell us.

Salem Info

The Salem Insider @saleminsider

Destination Salem @destsalem

Haunted Happenings @hauntedhappenings

North Shore Dish @northshoredish

Salem History Society @salemhistorysoc

Salem News @salemnews

Salem Businesses

Crunchy Granola Baby @crunchygranolab

Engine House Pizza @enginehouse

Fools Mansion @foolsmansion

Gulu Gulu Cafe @gulucafe

Harbor Sweets @harborsweets

Hawthorne Hotel @hawthornehotel

Jaho Coffee @jahocoffee

Patriot Lobster @patriot_lobster

Rouge Cosmetics @rougecosmetics

Salem Harley Davidson @salemHD

Salem Theater @salemtheatre

Salem Wax Museum @salemwax

Salem YMCA @salemfamilyymca

Seed Stitch @seedstitch

Sophias of Salem @sophiasofsalem

Spirit Wellness Center @spiritwellsalem

Strega @stregasalem

Treasures Over Time @timelytreasures

Upper Crust Pizza @uppercrustpizza

Witches Cottage @witchescottage

Municipal / Education

Phoenix School @phoenixschool

Salem Public Library @salemmalibrary

Salem State Arts @salemstatearts

The Build Guild, a montly Salem meet-up for web professionals is hosting a special event tonight they will have a few special guests: Eric Meyer, Ethan Marcotte, Dan Cederholm, and perhaps Rob Weychert. If you are a web person then you know these names.

Admission tonight at Spirits (upstairs)  is limited and this will meet it’s capacity.  If you can’t make tonights 6:30pm event the Build Guild meets every month at Spirits, hit their website and sign up for notification.

This special pannel of noteable internet professionals is sponsored by.

• BuySellAds.com
• Simplebits
• Booyant
• iMarc

Be there or be ◻

The Salem start-up isn’t the only walking tour available, Untravel Media a Boston based company offers a variety of tours one of them being Seeking Sanctuary in Salem.  This walking tour was written and mapped out by Salem filmmaker Mike Boudo.

Already in the tours business for the past 92 years is the National Parks Service.  They offer “audio tours” of various Salem sites owned or run by the NPS.

We decided to check out these downloadable tours and give you the low down.

Format

All of these tour providers offer MP3 download formats.  Seeing as though Apple has sold over 100 million ipods (1 in 3 Americans own an ipod or mp3 player) formats other than mp3 are not needed. However Untravel Media goes the extra mile and offers not only audio downloads but M4V video as well and has a windows mobile OS download option for people with Crackberrys and the like.

Cost

Tourists are already spending money getting to their destination and especially these days every penny counts.  Iseesalem.com and the NPS have free downloads of their tours while at Untravel Media you will fork out $6.99 for any of their three versions of the tour.

Narration & production quality

If I’m going to listen to someone talk to me about Salem I want it to be a pleasant experience. If you’ve ever been to a National Park and used one of their “press this button” features to hear or see some multimedia about whatever you’re looking at you know this is nothing short of professional, one might say the industry standard. The Salem audio tours are cut from the same cloth, professional voice actors with clear elocution, good use of ambient sounds, clean consistent sound and volume featuring male narration.

Iseesalem.com does a good job with a clean recording although it does feel as if it were recorded in a small room.  The female narrator does a fine job reading an informative script. These tours offer no actor portrayals and ambient sounds limited only to royalty free music when directions are given to the next location on the tour,  keeping the emphasis on the narration.

Untravel Media sits on the other end of the spectrum offering ambient sounds, background music, actor portrayals, interviews, and narration.  The male narrator is not as polished as the NPS narrator but offers much more enthusiasm and character.  Recording quality of the different segments changes widely in some places the audio noise and background sound shows the user that many of the interviews must have been done on location, it’s not distracting but it is noticeable.  They do go above board with a nice selection of photographs from interiors, exteriors and of the people talking during the audio tour.  They do a great job instructing you where to walk but the photographic cues are a true bonus for users of video ipods.

Do they deliver what they promise?

The National Park Services says of their Audio Tour of Salem Maritime:

The tour takes about an hour to complete, and consists of ten stops within the nine acre site. The stops are marked on the map, which is available here in pdf format

Each of the 10 downloadable files are between 2:45 and 7:04 minutes long and quite informative.  Using the accompanying map you move from place to place and once there listen to a new file.  This is truly an audio tour as opposed to a walking tour as there are no walking directions or comments on what you see as you walk from one location to the next.

When we did the tour with four adults and two children it took us just over an hour.  This tour delivers exactly what they claim.

Iseesalem.com says of their tours:

Download these free walking tour podcasts and enjoy learning about Salem’s history at your pace.  You will discover tales of Salem’s famous residents, long nautical history, haunted sites, witch history, and more!

Currently they offer 3 downloadable files with two “coming soon” (we need to add a special section for “coming soon” to our web site post) ranging in length from 6:28 to 6:52 minutes and walking from location to location took us about 45 minutes for the Revolutionary War tour and slightly less for the other tours.

While not as leisurely as the NPS tour these tours did offer directions to the next location.  Unlike the NPS tours their “click here (*ahem*) to download a map” doesn’t actually download a map, it opens up google maps with points plotted.

These tours are free to download, they offer directions and you can take it at your own pace so once again their claims true.

Untravel Media says of their tour:

The first part of the tour highlights buildings that are on the grounds of the Peabody Essex Museum. Through their foresight, some of Salem’s oldest and grandest architecture is being preserved.

The last part of the tour takes you to the Salem Maritime Historical Site which has preserved a number of waterfront buildings including the Narbonne House and oversaw the building of the 1797 replica “Friendship” merchant vessel.

While Untravel Media offers a bunch of tours only one is devoted to Salem.  They go above and beyond by being concerned with your safety and pointing out facts that only insiders know.  You get much more from this tour than you would from reading books or any of the available tourist literature.  I would like to see better photography (only applies to video ipod downloads) and some info is a tad dated (no more horse drawn carriages, sorry).

The format holds true to the description as the tour takes you from downtown by the PEM and Visitors Center through some of the PEM grounds, across the common and down to the Wharf.

Is it worth it?

The NPS tours give you some good info in a professional manor but having been at some of the houses I have to say that your best bet is a tour given by one of the Park Rangers.  If the Rangers are not available these tours are a fine substitute.  And since they are free you have nothing to loose.

As for iseesalem.com’s tours you might want to listen to them before you head out.  They do offer some good facts to know but as for a walking tour they don’t hold up to our other two options.  Once again they are free so judge for yourself.

Untravel Media is exceptional and exactly what I want out of an audio walking tour. As I said earlier, they are the only tour offered by these three companys that you have to purchase but, I think its worth it.  If you don’t want to be bothered with other tourists, set your own walking pace and still see some sites and learn some tid-bits, spending $7 for a tour you can enjoy over and over again is a bargan as compaired to some of the guided tours of Salem costing $10 or more.

Do I need to hire a professional?

A web developer, who read our post yesterday, said on Twitter “Somebody had to do it, good for you. Supports my theory that 90% of the intertubes should just use WordPress.”  Honestly, I couldn’t agree more.  In fact, this web site is run on the WordPress blogging platform.  Many Salem businesses run their sites on a blogging platform and it eliveates a world of headaches.

• http://www.picklepot.com uses wordpress and their own url
• http://www.theartcorner.blogspot.com uses a shared platform called blogspot (a google product) this is not as versatile or professional as a standalone solution

However, if you want your site to stand out while using a blogging platform as a Content Managment System (CMS) you will need to create a custom theme (like we have) and you might want a developer who is familiar with the platform to help you set it up and get you going.

For everyone else who doesn’t want a blog, but still wants a professional site that adheres to yesterday’s rules, it’s time to find a designer & developer (or full service web shop) to get you moving.

People contact me daily to promote their Salem based businesses, projects, groups, bands and events.    Marc Amos and Angelo Simeoni, recently formed a group of web professionals called the Build Guild. When they contacted me I knew it was a great opportunity for people who live in and around Salem. It’s through this group I discovered just how many Salem-based freelancers there are.  Some build flash sites, others focus on ecommerce. Some build cool applications you can add to your site, while others just make your web presence pretty.

For the average Joe who doesn’t know what  hex values, rails, xml, seo, ppc, css or any number of other acronyms are, finding and hiring someone to help you create a professional online presence is a daunting task.  Why does one person tell me I can build a site for $200 while the next guy says its $20,000?  I sat down with local developer Marc Amos, who runs a Salem-based business Boston Web Studio, to help demystify these issues.  The following is what he suggested to get you started.

List of questions a business should ask a developer.

1. “How long have you been designing and/or developing websites?”
2. “Can you name a few of the companies you’ve completed projects with and what your role was in those projects?”
3. “Have you designed/developed a website for another company in our industry?”
4. “Are you solo or do you work with partners/a team?”
5. “Do you also providing a hosting service, or can you recommend a quality hosting company?”
6. “What sort of target-audience research do you do before starting the design?”
7. “What is the general project process? (How do the unique phases progress? [discovery, information architecture, wire-framing, design, client-review, etc.])”
8. “Are you self-employed or are you freelancing at night and on the weekends?
9. “Once the project is complete, what source files do you provide to us?”
10. “Do you design every site from scratch, or do you use templates?”
11. “How do you stay on top of web design & development trends?”
12. “Do you attend any design/development events, big or small?”

How to interact with a developer

Many designers/developers that I know prefer to communicate through non-traditional mediums rather than by phone. For example, after a project is kicked off much of the conversation will happen via a project-management tool such as Basecamp or Unfuddle (both of which send out email notifications). If there isn’t a project-management tool in use, email is probably the preferred method. It allows the designer/developer to have a “paper trail” of requests, conversations, files, deadlines, and other important information that they can refer to later; it’s often the case that when a client calls their designer/developer, they don’t receive the full attention they expect because that designer/developer is in front of a computer and probably working on something that is consuming their focus. To this same point, a designer/developer may even let many of the phone calls go to voicemail for that same reason–they’re too deep in a consuming task to break their focus and answer a call. Doing so usually results in the designer/developer having to back-track to the beginning of their task to re-establish their focus. (Wow, that was a long point)

If you’ve hired a well-qualified designer/developer, understand that, most of the time, they will know what is best for your web site’s visitors. Don’t hesitate to allow your well-qualified designer/developer to make suggestions or decisions that you yourself aren’t so sure about. Just as a well-qualified contractor has a reputation to lose if he does shoddy work on a home, a designer/developer stands to lose if s/he does shoddy work on your web site.

List of what questions to expect from a developer

1. “Do you have any analytical data for your website?” (referring to Urchin stats, Google Analytics, etc.)
2. “Can you describe your target audience?” (Sex, age range, interests, location, etc.)
3. “What existing marketing/branding material do you have?” (Company logo, brochures, letter-head, etc.)
4. “What marketing has been done recently?” (Radio, T.V., online pay-per-click campaign, etc.)
5. “What companies are your direct competitors?”
6. “Could you show me three websites you think look great, regardless of industry?”
7. “Could you show me three websites you think look terrible, regardless of industry?”
8. “Do you have a budget?”
9. “Do you have a deadline?”
10. “Who will be my direct contact during the project’s duration?”
11. “Do you have content written for the website?”
12. “Do you have all photos/videos/media files for the website?”

Hopefully this primer helps you separate the hacks from the true professionals. Here in Salem (as you can see if you’ve looked at some of yesterday’s example sites) we have our fair share of clueless lunkheads masquerading as web professionals.  I encourage you to look at who built some of the more horrible sites and avoid them.  In my experience bad sites often have links back to bad portfolios giving you a head’s up not to use that guy.

Or they link to a “designers” email

• http://www.grapevinesalem.com

Or worse of all, they link back to some bad DYI that let you build your own site.

• http://www.sophiasofsalem.com
  see the link at the bottom of the page

Most good sites, on the other hand, are above linking to the developer.  You need to ask the site owner who built it.  Most people won’t mind if you drop them a line and ask who did their site. You might even get an insight as to how the developer was to work with.

There are some larger or more notable shops around town if you need more specialized treatment or an entire team to get your project going.  You can even find they guy who wrote the book(s) on proper design and how to implement it, right here in Salem.

Where can I find a developer for my project?

My first bit of advice is if you are a local business, band or organization, then try to hire someone local. Build your community up.  The best route is word of mouth. Find someone locally who does a great job. How does that person’s portfolio look? Do the sites they build stick to the rules we discussed yesterday?  If so, then contact them and ask some of the questions we talked about today.

Watch out for poseurs. Recently I met a guy trying to sell one of Salem’s new businesses a website.  He had read a few books and took a JavaScript class at a local community college.  Doe-eyed, he asked me for advise about getting into the development field. I told him:

It’s easy to get sucked in to the glamorous lifestyle that is the web professional.  Let me tell you from personal experience the days of razor scooters, pinball machines and funky loft spaces are over.  Being a developer in Greater Boston or San Francisco is like being an actor in LA – start waiting tables now.

We’ve got some great talent here in the Witch City, talent you don’t see when you walk around town.  Do yourself a favor when it comes to your website, build a georgous hotel with a doorman not a flea bag pay-by-the-hour motel.

I invite local web professionals to comment on this post and link to their own portfolios, talk about their work or show some examples in order to help our readers get a more personal connection than a simple google search.

Does my web site suck?

Look at the following rules and rate your website objectively, better yet have a stranger do it for you.

RULE #1 In today’s super-highway-information-tubes age people no longer pick up the phone to get the information they seek, they use google at any hour of the day or night and bypass pesky human interaction.

It might be hard for some elderly people to grasp but consumers comparison shop and gather information online. This is especially true for destination locations (like Salem, Massachusetts: the home of Halloween and all things spooky) where people might not be in the same time zone or don’t want to spend money for a long distance call. If people can’t find you, you don’t exist. Take the time to search for your site and see if it can be found.

When preforming a search, look for your business from the perspective of someone who doesn’t know of you.

• Don’t search for “Bella Verona” (yay #1 result)
• Do search for “Salem MA Italian restaurants” (boo not found in first 1000 results)

RULE #2 Just the facts ma’am

Once someone finds your site make sure important information is served up in an easily digestible fashion.  Remember the five W’s of journalism (Who? What? Where? When? Why?) and show them to your potential customer. People don’t want to be burdened by lengthy load times or superfluous BS. Content is King!

Good: http://www.picklepot.com
Poor: http://www.cilantrocilantro.com

RULE #3 Your online property is just as important as your bricks and mortar property.

For the love of God people, get a good domain name and have your web site hosted with a real company!  Your restaurant is in the bustling down town area or over by the college or on a heavily trafficked thoroughfare because you understand the first lesson in real estate – location, location, location. That lesson carries through to online properties. Own a domain name that is reflective of your business.

• Good : www.RedsSandwichShop.com – Name of business: Reds Sandwich Shop
• Fair: www.HipFinz.com – Name of business: Finz (I get it, they’re hip)
• Utter Failure: http://www.geocities.com/str_mw/ Name of business: who cares

Oh, and don’t let your domain name expire. If you buy a new one have the old one forwarded in case it’s indexed anywhere. Otherwise you might end up like this.

• http://www.pyramidbooksofsalem.com

RULE #4 The design of your web site is more important than the visual merchandising of your product or the exterior upkeep of your shop.

A polite and well groomed doorman greeting you at your fancy hotel goes a long way to justify the price you pay to stay there. He is a welcoming ambassador there to serve you. Your website is a silent doorman greeting more potential customers than you can imagine. It’s in your best interest to put on a good face and inspire confidence in those who might spend money with you.

Your best friend might have a flare for decorating a room or your brother-in-law might be a networking engineer, that in no way qualifies them to be interactive designers. Keep them away from your web site.   Let’s look at another three local Salem based websites and marvel at their design, which one is clean, has good use of color and font, is easily readable or inspires you to pull your wallet out?

• http://www.redssandwichshop.com
• http://www.grapevinesalem.com
• http://dodgestreet.com

That’s right, it was a trick question none of them do any of those things. This is not to say that they don’t provide good content but they fail on the delivery method.

Like it or lump it, a poorly designed site is a direct reflection of your actual business, by the same token a well designed site is also a reflection of your business. Can you walk right in and easily find what you are looking for or do you have to go through a few doors then guess at where to find things based on some kooky organization that is understood only by the owner (Derby Books *cough*)?

• Easily findable segmented information: http://www.sacredgear.com
• Wait a tick, is this a site about a dead dog? : http://www.goddesstreasure.com
• What the hell? Get me off this kiddie ride! : http://www.penelopespetboutique.com

For people doing some research prior to their trip to Salem, their first impression is made at your web site.  Why would they come and visit your physical location if your competitor has similar product at similar prices but has made a better first impression?

RULE #5 Don’t piss off your reader with poor user experience.

Have you ever seen an ad saying that new HDTV you want is on sale but when you get to the store, you find the sale over? What about getting directions to somewhere but along your way you find an error and end up getting lost, stopped or misdirected? The same thing can happen on your website.

What makes a reader leave your page faster than a cop scooting down Washington Street on a segway? Broken links. Why even have a link on a page if it goes to nowhere?  I understand that sometimes you might link off of your web site to some other site and they might change their pages (although you can check for that) but linking to a non-existent page on your own site is a total bonehead maneuver.

• Bonehead maneuver: http://www.historicsalem.org (click on site guide in the footer)
• Try almost any link: http://www.wlpssp.com pathetic

Any copywriter worth her/his weight in Red Bull and Twinkies will tell you usage of “click here” as a link is dead. Looking beyond that, if you are going to tell your reader to “click here” you had better a) make it clickable and b) make it go to a live page somewhere.

• Click here fail : http://www.redlionsmoke.com/index_files/Page790.htm

Proper Coding

People don’t like to wait around. The average person will only wait 7 seconds for a page to load. Honestly, there really is no reason for any site to take longer than 7 seconds to load if coded properly.

• Fail: http://strombergs.com/directions.html 27.789 seconds (due to third party app)

That brings about another issue: pictures on your web site. Make sure they are the proper size and resolution. Don’t try and cram huge images in a small space.

• Photo Fail: http://strombergs.com/calendar.html that little photo is 2288 x 1712 px and 882 kb – WTF?

Links as we mentioned above are a major issue:

• link coded wrong http://www.salemathenaeum.net/resources.html House of Seven Gables link has an extra quotation mark within the link code
• even the heavily-trafficked http://www.hauntedhappenings.org/stay_eat.php didn’t close their link tag on the Clipper Ship Inn link properly

Great lots of sites suck, what does this have to do about being a Salem Insider?

I’m glad you asked.

If we were in some podunk little town with only dial-up service, dueling banjos playing in the background and the latest Charlie Chan film playing at the bijou theater, then I might cut you some slack. But Salem, Mass is filled with some outstanding web professionals, freelancers, design shops and authors. Because this historic seaport city focuses it’s efforts on publicizing retail, museum and historic businesses, you might not be aware of the abundance of talent working in the internet arena.

Tomorrow I will introduce you to some local web professionals. I’ll give you some tips on finding the right designer/developer/company to help get your website to where you need it to be. And best of all I’ll teach you how to head into a new site build or site redesign with your eyes open, knowing how to get the most from the person you hire.

From their site:

Created by two Salem web geeks, Marc Amos & Angelo Simeoni, the Build Guild is a monthly event (Starting in July 2008, and occurring every 2nd Tuesday of the month) where folks in the web industry—designers, coders, project managers, hobbyists, etc.—can get together to talk web, debate industry topics, share ideas, make professional connections, land gigs, and discuss the real reasons why mustaches need to make a comeback

I realize this about a month away but with the summer here and everyone having plans I figured it best to get the word out now (as I am already getting emails about it).

If you are interested in attending, make it known via upcoming.yahoo.com (a free account is required). Also you can follow their updates via twitter @buildguild. While you’re over at twitter don’t forget to friend us also @saleminsider.

SalemOpen.net
A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away there was a free internet provider for down town Salem: SalemOpen.net. If you are in the down town area you might even be able to log on to the network but apparently there was a disagreement between the provider and the merchants so the provider pulled the plug but left the hardware in place.

List of Salem locations with free wi-fi

Even though the SalemOpen.net project is dead, there are plenty of merchants that realize the value of offering wireless internet access to their customers.

• Cinema Salem Cafe
• Cornerstone Books
• Front Street Coffee house
• Fuel
• Gulu Gulu Cafe
• Hawthorne Hotel
• Jaho Coffee & Tea
• McDonalds
• Salem Public Library
• Salem Waterfront Hotel
• Starbucks

Also, if you have ever spent time at one of these locations then you know there are plenty of other unsecured wi-fi points in town that an unscrupulous person could use for free access (you would think that business would know better these days).

Map of free wireless access points in Salem MA

Where do you like to pop open your lap top and while away the hours?