On Dave, Disconnects and Design [Walks With Dave #20]

You’ll notice some things have changed here.

For one, the design. But before that happened there was some messiness to clean up in terms of disconnects.

What’s a disconnect? And how can it reduce the chances of people sticking around and taking action?

Watch today’s Walks With Dave to find out:

(Transcript included if you’d rather read.)

Here’s the transcript for those who’d rather read:

Hi, guys. This is Dave Charest from the newly minted DaveCharest.com, and welcome to another episode of Walks With Dave.

Today, we’re talking a bit about a new name and a new design. I just wanted to touch base with you guys. I promised we would go into some depth about what was going on with the redesign here.

Just to recap a bit, we had decided that I had way too many things going on. I have been working with Pamela Wilson from the Big Brand System to clarify things, make things look better and then give us a nice little package to look a little bit more professional, which is very important because first impressions, as we know, can often be the difference between someone working with you and someone choosing not to, or coming back and visiting your site or whatnot.

Making it easier to come back

So some of the things that we had going, as I have mentioned in a previous post, is that we’ve had my main business, which is CaseAceCopy.com (currently in re-design,) which is my copywriting business.

I also had this idea for FuzzBucket.org (also in re-design,) which is going to be the membership/training site for people who want to work on courses. It’s basically a safe-zone for collaborative learning.

Basically, what I had done was my main site was already up, which was CaseAceCopy. I had added the blog to there. So the URL was CaseAceCopy.com/blog (This now redirects here at DaveCharest.com,) but I had named the blog FuzzBucket. So already what was happening there is I am creating a disconnect.

What’s wrong with disconnects?

Anytime you create a disconnect, you are lessening the chances of somebody sticking around, taking an action or doing something. You are putting a little bump in the way.

What was happening is for one, when you get to the website, I had FuzzBucket.org redirecting to CaseAceCopy.com/blog. And for some time, when I decided I was going to make these changes, I actually had DaveCharest.com redirecting to the CaseAceCopy.com/blog.

So what’s happening is you are typing in CaseAce… or you’re typing in FuzzBucket.org or you’re typing in DaveCharest.com and you’re getting redirected to CaseAceCopy.com/blog.

I’m already confusing myself

Now, what happens is because that’s different from what the person was looking for or what they typed in or assuming they were going to end up to, that already sets off a little hiccup. It sets off a disconnect. It put people in the, “Okay. What’s going on here?” mode. So already, the person is a little confused.

Then the blog said FuzzBucket. So again, that’s another disconnect because, depending on what you are typing in, you are not ending up at the right place, and then the URL that you end up on also doesn’t match the name of the blog. So that’s very confusing.

As I was making these Walks With Dave videos, I was sort of confusing myself because I found myself saying things like, “Welcome to another episode of Walks With Dave. This is Dave Charest from the CaseAceCopy blog FuzzBucket.org.” It’s like, “Okay. Come on. Really? That’s enough.”

So now, it’s simple. It’s Walks With Dave at DaveCharest.com. Nice and easy.

And a fancy new look too

DaveCharest.com is now, as you can see if you’re taking a look around, newly redesigned. We’ll be making slight adjustments here and there, but for the most part this is going to be the basic design idea.

Now how did we end up with this?

Well, one of the things we had decided was that of all of the things that we were using and all of the things that we were doing, what was most important or most memorable was actually me.

So we wanted to make my name, my image, and all of that stuff, we wanted that stuff to be prominent on the site because that’s what people were associating with me. And I agree with that statement, and I would love to hear to your thoughts on that as well. So that’s what we did. So we decided to go that route.

What was important?

What’s important to me, as we were going through this redesign, was that it was something that was clean, something that was simple, and also something that looked attainable.

A lot of times you can go to these sites and you’re just like, “Whoa. That’s like a crazy site, and I’ll never have something like that.” What’s important for me is, as I’m doing this and I’m making strides and getting further with my business, I always want it to look like something that you can do, because I think that’s what important is that, again, I always talk about the importance of why doing things wrong is better than waiting to do things right.

You’re just getting moving and you’re doing things and you can make these adjustments as you go along. I think that’s really important to just feel that you don’t need to wait around for the perfect thing. You’ve got to work with you’ve got. If you can afford a free WordPress blog with a regular theme, then that’s what you start with.

But then your goal is to eventually get to the next level

You’re always going to be thinking about “how do I get to that next level?” Because when you’re thinking like that, that’s going to get you moving forward. That’s going to get you there, as opposed to saying, “Well, I’m never going to have that. I can’t really do this.”

Who cares what you can’t do?

I’m more interested in what you can do. So that’s what was really important to me when I spoke with Pamela was that it needs to look attainable, something that you can achieve. Then who knows? Maybe a few years down the line, I will want to do another redesign because I’ll hit another level with my business. But, this is where we are at now.

So basically what we’re going to do is, as I mentioned, the sites are separate now.

CaseAceCopy.com is going to be my copywriting business. FuzzBucket.org is going to be the training site. And DaveCharest.com is like the home base. The one thing that kind of flows through all of these things is Wicked Smaht.

A secret club?

Now, Wicked Smaht is the email updates and newsletter (Yes, you should sign-up.) That’s really like a little secret club. The people who take that extra step can sign up for that. We get things a little more in depth, and we get things a little different than you would normally get on the blog. So it’s different things.

It really feels like a secret club to me. It’s like a little group of people that we share emails back and forth and we talk about things. It’s really a cool thing.

Which leads to the tagline…

So that’s really how we came up with the tagline, “Wicked Smaht Marketing Tips for Indie Artists.” If we are going to say it in full Boston accent, it is “Wicked Smaht Mahketing Tips for Indie Ahtists.” I will have a funny story about that for you another time. But if you want to own it, that’s how you say it.

So now, what will happen is we’re going to take this existing header. We’re going to modify it a bit for each of the other sites. So CaseAceCopy.com and FuzzBucket.org will still be under my brand name and the same type of header feel, but we’ll probably just make a few adjustments with color and things like that.

It’s amazing how simple changes make a big difference

We fixed that whole issue with the disconnects, as I mentioned.

Also, if you subscribe to the blog through RSS, it would be a good idea to resubscribe. The feed is now Dave Charest. It’s not the FuzzBucket feed any longer. So if you were subscribing, you may want to resubscribe to make sure that you get updates from the blog.

So like I said, we made those changes, where we said, “Okay. We’ve got to get rid of these disconnects. Good. Now, we’ve got everything under one name, and now we need to fix up the other sites to get those flowing together. And Wicked Smaht is really the thing that kind of ties it all together.”

Now if you take a look around

Really all we’ve done is make a few adjustments. Mainly, we put a new header on. We pulled the colors from the shirt that I was wearing in my photo. Pamela did a great job of getting this stuff together, and I’m going to show you some of the concepts that she came up with first and then how we got to the one that we ended up using.

I’m probably going to do that in another post, because that’s a little bit more detailed and we’ll look at those more in depth. I’ll see as I’m putting this together how we’ll work that out.

What else did we do?

Then the other thing is we added the background color. The background color really makes everything pop. It’s funny when you get these themes, regardless of what they are, play around with them a little bit. One of the things that we found was really important that we kept it really to two primary colors, because when we started adding another thing, it just made it too busy. Again, we wanted something that was clean and simple.

So take a look around. Tell us what you think in the comments below.

I really hope you enjoy it. I think it definitely adds a whole new level when you get here, and it adds a first impression.

So like I said, it’s going to be really interesting to see what happens now as I start promoting things and creating more content and creating more cool stuff for you guys that how it’s going to be received now that there is a more professional image on the thing.

So guys, thanks again for watching

Walks With Dave. DaveCharest.com. We’ll see you again soon. Bye-bye.

People always ask how I shoot these videos. I use the Flip Mino HD Camcorder, 60 minutes – Amazon Affiliate link. There’s a newer version available also. I also use the Pocket xShot to hold the camera.