The business identities are nowadays flocking to get websites published, registered and hosted on the internet. Seeing to the exponential demand, the marker is witnessing mushrooming of a number of website design and development companies.
Here are some key aspects that throw light on the criteria for selecting a website design company that can cater to your needs.
Experience: There is no better teacher than experience. Before selecting the company one needs to know whether the company has got any experience of designing a website for that particular industry. Since how many years is that web design company providing this service. The more the experience the more is the technical expertise and knowledge about increasing the utility of the website. This depends on the expertise of the workforce deployed by the web design company.
Testimonials:
The true worth of a website designer is known from the feedback of clients to whom he/she had provided the services. It is not reliable to trust 100% the client testimonials that are embedded on the websites. It is always better to contact the clients directly and ask their opinion about the services offered by the website designer.
Time:
While getting a web design prepared from a website designer developer, time is of prime importance. The more the time it takes to design the website, the more clients the website owner is losing. If the website is prepared in a hurry, just to get the business identity on the internet, it may be loss of time, money and energy. The web designing process should take neither a lot of time nor be done instantaneously. The time that is given for this should be justified.
Pricing:
Before placing the order with any professional web designer the business identity should calculate how much money is worth being spent on the website designing and developing. This directly depends on the projections of the maximum business that the website can bring to the organization. This is the maximum revenue that can be generated from the website after design and development. It is only after this that the quotations should be asked from the web design companies. One should not get carried away by anything offered for free or at cheap rate. The service charges levied by the company should neither be very cheap nor dear, but reasonable and justified. The inclusions of the packages should be made clear in the quotations. It is always better to get this aspect cleared before placing the order.
Comparison:
It is always better to seek quotations from two or three companies that offer web design services. The comparison of these services can throw light on the range of services offered, pricing and at times even on the satisfied clientele of that particular company.
Hope the above mentioned tips help you to select the best professional web design company.
Website Design and Maintenance Basics
Now as you have designed and have launched your site, you are having a powerful marketing tool for the business. However, your site would be only useful as long as the content is current. Procedure for keeping the site current is known as web site design maintenance. It is necessary to keep the search engine as well as visitors supplied with the new information. As you maintain your car, you need to do web site design maintenance. Making changes in the site regularly, in order to allow smooth working of the business.
If you are worried about the outdated text or broken links then, design a web and maintenance should be the solution. Planning for website design and maintenance should be ideal for updating the website. One can easily find service provider for website design and maintenance. There are several service providers out there offering with high quality design a web and maintenance and that too at competitive prices.
The websites dealing with ecommerce, information needs to be updated regularly. For instance, the news related to the company, images, information on products, web content, prices and the content needs to be updated.
The sites that abstain from changing content and the overall appearance for a long period hold risk of losing interest of the visitors. For an old site, more changes in website design and maintenance needs to be done. It would also allow the site to maintain its freshness. Taking certain steps should allow you to take right decisions related to design a web and maintenance.
Some web beginners would charge on hourly basis, while the rest would charge on monthly basis. Sometimes, website design and maintenance can be planned in such a way so as to allow you to makes changes on own.
Decision regarding the usage of Macromedia's publishing program is quite important. The program offers with an array of advantages for the users. It would allow you to connect to live sites, yet make draft for the web pages where the changes need to be made, editing it and updating the work. After completing all of these steps, one can make it online to live site. 'Contribute' operates like any daily day-to-day desktop type of program. Using it is quite simple and would allow you to update without having any troubles. If you are looking forward to make changes on your own then, you should probably try out this program.
It is advisable to seek some professional help for website design and maintenance. The experts would help with design a web and maintenance the best way.
Irrespective of the path chosen for website design and maintenance, having a practical approach for keeping the site updated should be fine.
SEO Website Development Company is professional SEO specialist offering an array of excellent services - SEO, ecommerce website development, web designing, web development, web maintenance, web content development and quality assurance.
If you are worried about the outdated text or broken links then, design a web and maintenance should be the solution. Planning for website design and maintenance should be ideal for updating the website. One can easily find service provider for website design and maintenance. There are several service providers out there offering with high quality design a web and maintenance and that too at competitive prices.
The websites dealing with ecommerce, information needs to be updated regularly. For instance, the news related to the company, images, information on products, web content, prices and the content needs to be updated.
The sites that abstain from changing content and the overall appearance for a long period hold risk of losing interest of the visitors. For an old site, more changes in website design and maintenance needs to be done. It would also allow the site to maintain its freshness. Taking certain steps should allow you to take right decisions related to design a web and maintenance.
Some web beginners would charge on hourly basis, while the rest would charge on monthly basis. Sometimes, website design and maintenance can be planned in such a way so as to allow you to makes changes on own.
Decision regarding the usage of Macromedia's publishing program is quite important. The program offers with an array of advantages for the users. It would allow you to connect to live sites, yet make draft for the web pages where the changes need to be made, editing it and updating the work. After completing all of these steps, one can make it online to live site. 'Contribute' operates like any daily day-to-day desktop type of program. Using it is quite simple and would allow you to update without having any troubles. If you are looking forward to make changes on your own then, you should probably try out this program.
It is advisable to seek some professional help for website design and maintenance. The experts would help with design a web and maintenance the best way.
Irrespective of the path chosen for website design and maintenance, having a practical approach for keeping the site updated should be fine.
SEO Website Development Company is professional SEO specialist offering an array of excellent services - SEO, ecommerce website development, web designing, web development, web maintenance, web content development and quality assurance.
Link-Building Policy for Bing
It’s easy for everyone to get caught up in obsessing about how to optimise your site & build links for Google, when trying to market through search. That’s certainly a wise thing to do, considering Google totally dominates the search market. But, there are still other search engines that some people are using, so it is wise to make sure your site is performing to the best of its ability in those too!
Obviously the other two engines are Yahoo and Bing and whilst Yahoo is seemingly declining fast, Bing is actually gaining a market share. Furthermore, if the deal between Microsoft and Yahoo goes through, Bing search will be talking over Yahoo anyway. With the muscle of Microsoft behind Bing, you can be sure the search engine won’t be prepared to play second fiddle to Google for long!
However, unlike Google, we don’t hear much about what Bing wants out of a site for decent rankings, but Rick DeJarnette of Bing Webmaster Center has shared some dos and don’ts of link-building for Bing. Not surprisingly, a lot of his advice for complying with Bing’s policies, does not differ too much from the advice that Google would give you. It is however, still always nice to hear what they think, just to clear up any possible confusion.
Like Google, Bing places great emphasis on quality links to determine its rankings. “Just don’t make the mistake of believing it will result in instant gratification. Successful link building efforts require a long-term commitment, not an overnight or turnkey solution,” says DeJarnette. “You need to continually invest in link building efforts with creativity and time.”
What You Should Do!
DeJarnette shared some tips for getting more quality links. The following are Bing’s tips for effective link building (paraphrased):
1. Develop your site as a business brand and brand it consistently
2. Find relevant industry experts, product reviewers, bloggers, and media folk, and make sure they’re aware of your site/content
3. Publish concise, informative press releases online
4. Publish expert articles to online article directories
5. Participate in relevant conversations on blogs/forums, referring back to your site’s content when applicable
6. Use social networks to connect to industry influencers (make sure you have links to your site in your profiles)
7. Create an email newsletter with notifications of new content
8. Launch a blog/forum on your site
9. Participate in relevant industry associations and especially in their online forums
10. Strive to become a trusted expert voice for your industry, while promoting your site
What You Should Not Do!
DeJarnette shared a list of things that you should avoid in your link building efforts, if it is a good Bing ranking that you are after. Here is what Bing says will get your site reviewed more closely by staff:
1. The number of inbound links suddenly increases by orders of magnitude in a short period of time
2. Many inbound links coming from irrelevant blog comments and/or from unrelated sites
3. Using hidden links in your pages
4. Receiving inbound links from paid link farms, link exchanges, or known “bad neighborhoods” on the Web
5. Linking out to known web spam sites
“When probable manipulation is detected, a spam rank factor is applied to a site, depending upon the type and severity of the infraction,” says DeJarnette. “If the spam rating is high, a site can be penalised with a lowered rank. If the violations are egregious, a site can be temporarily or even permanently purged from the index.”
Most of the stuff DeJarnette shared is nothing any experienced search marketer is not already aware of, but it can be quite helpful when a search engine itself lays out what to do and not to do, to help webmasters get better rankings.
"Link-Building Policy for Bing"
- http://www.freshwebz.co.uk/blog/ (view on Google Sidewiki)
Google Sidewiki entry by SEO Expert
Banners have been a major part of the World Wide Web world since its early days. Copywriters burn the midnight oil looking for new designs that will grab the visitor’s attention and compel him to click on their banner. This article discusses some of the most successful banner designs.
Teasing your curiosity
“Do Not Click Here”. How many of you have seen this slogan in a banner? What did you do when you first saw it? If you are like most people, when you first saw it, you clicked on it. What makes this simple sentence so powerful that it compels the visitor to click on it? The answer is curiosity !!!
Copywriters and web designers are always looking for ways to arouse the website visitor’s curiosity. As banner designers their goal is to attract the visitor to the banner, usually completely ignoring the other elements on the web page that are more important to the website owner. However, because the “Do Not Click Here” slogan tells us nothing about what is on the next page, it arouses the visitor’s curiosity and makes it almost impossible not to click on this banner to see what’s behind it.
Simple integrated design
When Larry Page and Sergey Brin first introduced their product, “Google”, to potential investors, they mentioned Adwords as a backup option in case they didn’t make any money. We all know how lucky they were that they eventually needed to use that backup plan. What made these “boring” ads such a great success?
Unlike other ads, Adwords neither arouse the visitor’s curiosity nor disturb the main flow of the web page. In fact, the opposite is true. Adwords are meant to look like part of the search results giving the user the feeling that those ads are there because he asked for them. No one has any doubt that this simple design helps Google to promote both their search engine and the Adwords advertising program.
Take part in the action
Banner designers wisely used interactive technologies like Flash to develop type of banners that invite the user to take part in the action. Drawing the user into the action can be accomplished in many creative ways. Some web designers use popular old games elements as part of the scene. You all know the famous game pacman. One of the banners that I like the most is the one where the user is allowed to let pacman “eat” few dollar signs. At the successful completion of this mission, a nice slogan is revealed asking him to open a saving account that will earn money with a fixed interest rate. The idea behind those interactive banners is simple: Let the user take part in the action and then at the right moment when his mind is less resistant, show him the sales message. Those interactive banners proved to be very efficient. Their biggest disadvantage is that most webmasters will not allow that kind of banner because it distracts too much from the web page content.
Back to Black and White
Website designers are always seeking to be different with their design ideas. One banner fashion trend that can be found lately is Black and White banners. Although research shows that blue and yellow are the most efficient color to use in a banner, Black and White banners have been seen a lot lately. It’s probably something that will eventually vanish, but the idea behind it is to be different and to make the user wonder what’s up and hopefully click on the banner to find out.
Get Out of the box
Have you heard about the mrfdesign.we.bs If not, check out this website before continuing to read this article. This website has proven that creative thinking not only can bring you money but also create a whole new trend. Right after the milliondollarhomepage.com got the internet community’s attention, many designers used this idea to deign a banner on which they sell a 10x10 pixel area. Like the original concept, this banner design had its impact. Advertisers are investing money on these ad spaces while at the same time visitors are curious enough time after time looking at those unorganized pixel banners to click on them.
What about the next trends
What the
eCommerce Website Design
250 Free Business Cards
eCommerce websites have their own unique character that is designed to lead the visitor to one simple task – make an online purchase. A web designer needs to consider a variety of online selling principles while designing an eCommerce website. In this article we will try to take a look at some of the major design aspects that you must have in an eCommerce website.
Many of you are probably already asking why eCommerce website design is different from any other website design. They all need to be attractive, well organized and use the right colors that fits the website spirit and so on. Your instincts are good. However a close look at some successful eCommerce websites will reveal the conceptual differences that are typical in a successful eCommerce website.
An eCommerce website needs to follow certain selling principles:
1. Give the user a pleasant experience during his online shopping.
2. Make certain you provide sufficient information on who owns the website and why they should be trusted.
3. The website must be easy to use. If it isn’t, the visitor will go to your competitor.
Those principles are not new. We all know those basics from our day to day experiences in the mall, shopping center and every other market place that is waiting for us to open up our wallets. The big challenge for a web designer is how to translate those conventional marketing techniques to the virtual world of the internet. I’m sure you’ve all noticed that in most supermarkets the bread stand is placed at the far end of the building, yet you can smell the fresh bread at the entrance (sometimes they even use a special air duct to carry the smells). That has been done deliberately. Marketers use our sense of smell to draw us through the store where we are exposed to all sorts of tempting goodies as we go to get our loaf of bread.
How do you draw an imaginarily path in a web page? A path designed to lead the visitor to do what you want him to do…make an online purchase. Unlike the supermarket our website has no smell. In a website the distance from one point to the other is pretty much the same, so the exit is always right there. In a website you can try to order the “shelf” in the way you think will best expose the visitor to many of your products, but there is always a chance that he will find a short cut to another page that can also be the way off your site.
As can be see, although putting your products on the web is much easier then renting space and opening a supermarket. However, selling your products on the web can be difficult.
A good eCommerce website design will lead the visitor to the right page in one click or two at the most. Sometime web designers will use techniques that would never be considered for non-eCommerce websites. Everyone has seen at least one sales letter website. On these web pages the only link is to the order form. Sales letters are not the most typical eCommerce website because they usually sell only one product. That allows the web designer the ability to exaggerate the one click principle and make it an advantage. All the facts about the product have been presented to the user is a smart way while every few lines he has the option to click on the order form. If he is not yet convinced he will have the option to continue to read more facts and testimonials about the products. Believe it or not, those sales letter websites are actually selling.
“What about online shops?” Online shops have to deal with more then one product. Of course, the greater number of products increases the complexity of the website. Sophisticated eCommerce websites use a variety of personalization technologies in an effort to determine the best selection of products to offer to the visitor. Personalization technologies are a major part of advanced eCommerce websites. However this topic is beyond the scope of this article. The cleverness of an eCommerce website’s personalization technology has a major influence on its design. The first to use such technology was Amazon.com who decided
Appearance, Usability and Search Engine Visibility in Web Design
Appearance, Usability and Search Engine Visibility in Web Design
by Christopher Heng, thesitewizard.com
I was recently asked by a visitor to thesitewizard.com to take a look at her company's website, designed by a university student. I will not give the URL for that site, partly to protect the innocent, and partly because by the time you read this, it'll probably have been modified.
The site was heavy in its use of graphics with images adorning most parts of the page layout, to provide curved borders (to replace the sharp corners in enclosing boxes), different background images for different parts of the page, etc. It had a top navigation bar, driven entirely using JavaScript. The navigation bar mimicked the sort of menu bar you find in computer programs - there is a horizontal menu bar with different items listed. When you move your mouse over one of those items, the menu will automatically expand vertically. As you move the mouse cursor down the pop-up menu, the item beneath the pointer is highlighted. Click it, and you will be delivered to another page on the site.
In general, that site is typical of the kind of sites produced by newcomers to web design. It scores well in terms of prettiness and gadgetry (although only under one browser, it doesn't work well under other browsers), but fares dismally in terms of usability and search engine readiness. In fact, the reason my visitor wrote to me was because the website suffered a significant drop in the number of visitors after it was redesigned in its current form.
This article uses that site as a starting point for discussing some of the issues that a web designer needs to consider when creating a website that must exist and compete in the real world (as opposed to a site that is created merely to fulfill the course requirements of a school or university).
1. Appearance is Not the Most Important Issue
Over the years that I have dealt with newcomers to web design, it is my observation that they tend to focus excessively (and sometimes almost exclusively) on the appearance of a website. The site I mentioned earlier is a case in point: the designer tried hard to make the site look beautiful (and, if I may add, succeeded too - the site does indeed look pretty). However, as hard as it may be to believe (if you are a newcomer), appearance isn't the most important thing to look at when you are planning and creating your site.
Don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying that appearance is of no importance. Far from it. However, in this article, my intention is to address the excessive importance newcomers place on beauty. In fact, if you belong to the other extreme, discounting the value of the appearance of a website altogether, you might want to read my discussion of Two Common Web Design Myths at http://www.thesitewizard.com/
Having said that, your site can still survive (or even thrive) if it is a plain-looking site like Google. This is not necessarily the case if you overlook the other important issues in web design.
2. Usability is Important for You to Achieve Your Purpose
All sites are created for a particular purpose. Some were created so that their owners can sell something. Others are information resources (like thesitewizard.com). Still others are designed to showcase their owner's talents (such as sites displaying the owner's resumes and portfolios).
The usability of your site is important to help you achieve that purpose. The basic question that you need to address when dealing with usability is: can your visitors easily access the information they need so that they can do the stuff that you want them to do? There are quite a number of things involved in this question.
1.
Information Availability
Is the information that your visitors need to make informed decisions available on your site? For example, before they can buy a product, they will want to know more about that product. A brief one-line summary about your product's features may work for your main page, but you will probably find that you get more buyers if you can p
Appearance, Usability and Search Engine Visibility in Web Design
Appearance, Usability and Search Engine Visibility in Web Design
by Christopher Heng, thesitewizard.com
I was recently asked by a visitor to thesitewizard.com to take a look at her company's website, designed by a university student. I will not give the URL for that site, partly to protect the innocent, and partly because by the time you read this, it'll probably have been modified.
The site was heavy in its use of graphics with images adorning most parts of the page layout, to provide curved borders (to replace the sharp corners in enclosing boxes), different background images for different parts of the page, etc. It had a top navigation bar, driven entirely using JavaScript. The navigation bar mimicked the sort of menu bar you find in computer programs - there is a horizontal menu bar with different items listed. When you move your mouse over one of those items, the menu will automatically expand vertically. As you move the mouse cursor down the pop-up menu, the item beneath the pointer is highlighted. Click it, and you will be delivered to another page on the site.
In general, that site is typical of the kind of sites produced by newcomers to web design. It scores well in terms of prettiness and gadgetry (although only under one browser, it doesn't work well under other browsers), but fares dismally in terms of usability and search engine readiness. In fact, the reason my visitor wrote to me was because the website suffered a significant drop in the number of visitors after it was redesigned in its current form.
This article uses that site as a starting point for discussing some of the issues that a web designer needs to consider when creating a website that must exist and compete in the real world (as opposed to a site that is created merely to fulfill the course requirements of a school or university).
1. Appearance is Not the Most Important Issue
Over the years that I have dealt with newcomers to web design, it is my observation that they tend to focus excessively (and sometimes almost exclusively) on the appearance of a website. The site I mentioned earlier is a case in point: the designer tried hard to make the site look beautiful (and, if I may add, succeeded too - the site does indeed look pretty). However, as hard as it may be to believe (if you are a newcomer), appearance isn't the most important thing to look at when you are planning and creating your site.
Don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying that appearance is of no importance. Far from it. However, in this article, my intention is to address the excessive importance newcomers place on beauty. In fact, if you belong to the other extreme, discounting the value of the appearance of a website altogether, you might want to read my discussion of Two Common Web Design Myths at http://www.thesitewizard.com/
Having said that, your site can still survive (or even thrive) if it is a plain-looking site like Google. This is not necessarily the case if you overlook the other important issues in web design.
2. Usability is Important for You to Achieve Your Purpose
All sites are created for a particular purpose. Some were created so that their owners can sell something. Others are information resources (like thesitewizard.com). Still others are designed to showcase their owner's talents (such as sites displaying the owner's resumes and portfolios).
The usability of your site is important to help you achieve that purpose. The basic question that you need to address when dealing with usability is: can your visitors easily access the information they need so that they can do the stuff that you want them to do? There are quite a number of things involved in this question.
1.
Information Availability
Is the information that your visitors need to make informed decisions available on your site? For example, before they can buy a product, they will want to know more about that product. A brief one-line summary about your product's features may work for your main page, but you will probably find that you get more buyers if you can p
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)