I had hoped to blog more this week but have been so busy trying to get things finished for clients before the Christmas break I didn’t have a chance. My New Years resolution will be to blog more regularly.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for reading my blog and for all the wonderful feedback and comments you’ve given me. Have a great Christmas and New Year!

I’m taking a break and will be back on January 2 2007. Yup, no rest for the wicked.

Some of the rush jobs I’ve been working on was to finish off two websites for my clients. In the spirit of Christmas I’d like to pass them some link love:

Coogee Pet Friendly B&B Accommodation

Film & Television Studio International

Take a look and tell me what you think.

Looks like I better jump on the bandwagon. Thanks Kim. Ok, so 5 things you don’t know about me:

1. In the offline world I’m known as “mouth of the south”. Yeah, yeah, apparently I talk a lot.
2. I once crashed my mum’s car driving out of a panel beaters. I was there picking up her car which had just been repaired from the last time I crashed it. No, she has not let me drive her car since.
3. I love fonts almost as much as I love shoes and handbags.
4. My hero is Nelson Mandela.
5. I designed the Clientside SEM website for Scott and Aaron.

Who’s next: Peter Da Vanzo, Dave Child, Scottie Claiborne, Diane Vigil and Bill Slawski.

Over the years I’ve had a lot of really, really fantastic people give me advice on building and promoting my web design business.

Today I received an email from someone starting out and asking me for advice. I was flattered and more than happy to give back.

I thought I’d sumarise some of my points for others out there looking at building a web design business. In no particular order:

Find a niche. There are so many web design companies out there you have to really think about what makes you different. Do you want to specialise on one particular area? Are you known for something or is there something you could be known for? A great book to read is Purple Cow by Seth Godin. Seth talks about transforming your business by being remarkable.

Get your website online. Now! This is one mistake I made and really wish I hadn’t. Learn from me.

Learn about markets as conversations and having a human voice. Another must read: The Cluetrain Manifesto. You can buy it or read it online.

Join some relevant forums and start conversations and make connections. I spend most of my time at Cre8asite Forums under the nic sanity. Others to consider:

• Webmaster World
• SitePoint Forums
• Digital Point Forums

Forums are a way of getting help and advice, sharing help and advice, showing off your skills and of course - networking.

Write articles.

Start a blog.

Get links to your website!

Collect and post testimonials on your website.

Add case studies or a portfolio to your website. If you haven’t done a lot of sites yet look around and see if you can offer your services to a charity or something similar.

This list is by no means exhaustive but I hope it offers some advice for those just starting out. Trust me, we’ve all been there.

Good luck!

I received an email back from AmericanGreetings.com letting me know they have turned off the auto-renewal feature on my account. Not sure why they have to make it so difficult but I have to admit they did respond fast and it seems the problem is resolved.

So I signed-up for an eCards membership with AmericanGreetings.com last year. I figured it would be a great way to send cards to clients and friends at Christmas and throughout the year.

After 12 months I’ve used it once. I just prefer to send out physical cards. So on receiving my renewal I decided to cancel. What a nightmare! If I happened to live in the US I could call at a time convenient to them. Umm call? Ever heard of email? Or an unsubscribe?

Anyway not being in the US I had to hunt for over 10 minutes to find out how to cancel the account. For some reason it was left out of all FAQ and account pages. In the end I used the search functionality. Turns out I have to email for “further instructions”.

If I was a cynic I would think this is done on purpose - it’s much easier to suck up another $13.99 and save myself the headache.

So I’ve emailed. Will keep you posted….

Seth writes an great post about Under New Management notices:

If I liked your store before, now I’m on notice to be careful–it might not be as good.

If I didn’t like your store before, why on earth am I paying attention to your little sign and why should I go out of my way to take another chance?

If you aren’t reading his blog you should be.

Going through my Bloglines subscriptions I noticed that for a web designer I have far more search marketing related feeds than web design ones. So I’m working on changing that. Problem is finding them ain’t so easy. Can anyone recommend some really good web design focused blogs?