2009 December | SiteBuilder Blog

Dec 31

Website Maintenance Helps to Grow your Customer Base

Is there some sort of routine maintenance you perform on your website whether on weekly or monthly basis?

One of the common problems that a website’s visitor comes across is old, broken links. If you have linked to an outside or third party source then you might do well to check from time to time and make certain changes required. Remember this is especially true if your link is to a particular page or a blog entry as these are famous for getting switched; the website and the entry might still be there as it is, but if something about the particular link gets changed your visitors won’t be taken where you wanted them to go.

The possibilities of websites are more likely to come and go, so you’ll have to judge from your own experience about how often to check for broken links. Remember that internal links are just as likely to break, especially if you have made links to photos or audio files; when you make a change to any element of your website, check through all the links that might have affected.

You can find several tools online that can help you to check for broken links. Few of them are absolutely free and they provide a great service.

If you’re interested in free software program that can work on your desktop, another way to maintain your website is doing what we’ll call is fixing leaks in the pipe. It’s likely that you have certain things that you want your website visitors to do, whether it is to visit an affiliate link of your own product, or sign up for newsletters. Remember that the route from a customer’s arrival at your website to the action that you want them to perform is often called your “pipeline”. You should check for leaks in your pipeline as a leaky pipe could provide a place for you to lose potential customers.

Here are a few of the places from where your visitors might leak out from and never return to your website:

Have you checked each of your subscription forms lead back to your website?

Are you using custom made “thank you” pages or depending on auto-generated ones? Auto-generated thank you pages might not lead back to your website.

Have you customized your error pages that link back to working parts of your website? Remember that if a customer finds a missing page and ends up on a default “404 error” page you may never see them again.

SPINX Inc, is a leading Web Design Firm Los Angeles offers services like Print Design Los Angeles, Website Design West Hollywood, Website Design Santa Monica & also across the world.

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Dec 31

10 Website Design Mistakes

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Website Superhero Does your website send people fleeing as soon as they get to your home page or does it hook them in and keep them captivated? Do you offend your visitors with the following annoyances?

1. Unnavigable sites.

Do not expect visitors to jump through “link hoops” to get to your information. They won’t. Make your product, price, or service, clear, precise, and easy to find. Design your content so that even elementary school children can understand your site.

2. Excessive pop-ups. In this day and age, pop-ups are inevitable.

But if visitors have to close multiple pop-ups to get to your site, they may leave and never come back. The same applies for “fly-in” or “hover” that bounce across the screen. If you have to use anything, incorporate a pop-up that loads when a visitor leaves your site.

3. Automatic audio.

Always give people the option of listening to any audio or not listening at all.

4. Spinning, flashing, or blinking ads.

Flashing banner ads are the equivalent of a carnival barker trying to lure people into a sideshow. You don’t need to shout to people to have your message heard. Keep you ads limited and your content abundant.

5. A page full of dead links and 404 error messages.

Keep your links up to date and take down the links that are no longer active

6. Dark text on a dark background.

Don’t expect your readers to work to read your content, because they won’t. They will leave and find the information they need elsewhere.

7. Use Flash judiciously.

Unless you have a film site or a product that requires a detailed visual description, resist using Adobe’s Flash for e-commerce. If you are using your site to sell a product, use high-quality, fast-loading photos and creative descriptions of each item. If you must use Flash, make your files as small and fast-loading as possible.

8. Solid blocks of text with no breaks between paragraphs.

That may work in print, but it will not fly on the Web. People don’t read online content the way they read offline — they skim. Imposing blocks of dark text will put off your readers. Make your content clear and concise. Break up your paragraphs, and use plenty of white space.

9. Not Changing the Color of Visited Links.

A good grasp of past navigation helps you understand your current location. Knowing your past and present locations makes it easier to decide where to go next. Links are a key factor in this navigation process and knowing which pages you’ve already visited frees you from revisiting the same pages over again.

10. PDF Files for Online Reading.

People hate coming across a PDF file while browsing because it interrupts their flow. Even simple things like saving documents or printing are difficult because standard browser commands don’t work. If you have a PDF file, get rid of it.

If your site makes any of the mistakes mentioned above, make the necessary changes as soon as you can. In fact, if you haven’t redesigned your site in the last 6 to 12 months, you may be due for a redesign anyway. It will bring you more traffic, keep your visitors happy and increase your sales.

Sofia Sapojnikova
Vesta Digital
http://www.vestadigital.com

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/web-design-articles/10-website-design-mistakes-1650030.html

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Dec 29

Web 2.0 – The Way Forward For Definitive Website Design

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Web 2.0 is significant with many changes that have occurred in the web world since the first web pages were first developed and displayed on the Internet. The World Wide Web is continuously evolving with respect to how users interact and share information online. Web 2.0 is more of a concept rather than defining just a technological development, and centers around actively displaying information on the Internet rather than just passively using the information presented on a particular website.

Web 2.0 has been making waves around the world, now that web sites that incorporate Web 2.0 standards incorporate features like interactive sharing of information in the form of text and video, social networking tools, blogs and wikis, forums and comments, and other tools to encourage active participation of users on the internet.

Web 2.0 Design is the buzzword amongst web designers and web users alike. With the ushering of Web 2.0, web designers have been using the latest innovations and techniques to generate more traffic to their websites. In fact, using Web 2.0 makes more sense for web designers, because the interactive nature of the Web 2.0 compliant websites allows the smooth transition of the participating audience to become active and dynamic users. Web 2.0-website design has surpassed conventional website designing methods and the techniques used to market and popularize them.

If PPC marketing and Search Engine Optimization were the buzz words of the earlier ‘Web 1.0’ world, then Social Media Marketing (SMM), RSS feeds, podcasting, Short Messaging Services (SMS), and others are the new terminologies of the Web 2.0 designed website. The bottom line is in making websites more user-friendly rather than being technology centric. The end-result is a website that delivers a more pleasing and rewarding Internet experience.

Web 2.0 design strategies are now being extensively utilized to develop utilities like Rich Internet Applications, Social Networking Sites, Wikis, Community Portals, and others. Web 2.0 design is now the driving force of businesses and organizations that want to lead the web revolution and harness the true power behind the web to succeed in their businesses. Web 2.0 design is actively involved in being the visualization, stimulation, inspiration behind the new generation web oriented businesses today.

Today’s web designers are adept at developing precise and targeted solutions to clients and business for a variety of development requirements such as portal development, custom applications, ecommerce applications, and many more. With Web 2.0 design being the buzz world currently, no business is falling short of launching a Web 2.0 centric website to tap into the vast and enormous potential that the Internet has for business. Thus, business on the Internet now has a human face with the interrelating of technology and human communication needs. To conclude, Web 2.0 has given web design a very new dimension today powering it effectively with the tools required for human interaction.

If you feel that your website needs Web 2.0 design, then ioVista has the most appropriate resources to meet your needs. With the help of an adept and proficient Web 2.0 design team, you can harness the power of web 2.0 for your business right away.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/web-design-articles/web-20-the-way-forward-for-definitive-website-design-1639783.html

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Dec 28

4 Web Development Practices to Save Time and Money

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It has never been more important than now to save time and money when building or maintaining a website. Here are some practices that we recommend.

1. Create website mock-ups.

Believe it or not, most clients will not know exactly what they want. Or perhaps, you want to show off your new concept and get feedback before investing time. As a result, it is never a good idea to start developing a website before pinning down the actual design.

To develop and finalize the design, we suggest working with a graphics program such as Adobe Photoshop or Fireworks and then exporting PDF’s or JPEG’s of the design to show to clients. Then, when the client realizes that the color scheme is not to their liking or that the graphics don’t fit their image, changes can easily be made to the design before you’ve invested costly hours building a website that won’t work.

2. Don’t reinvent the wheel.

When many people approach the task of building a website or adding advanced functionality to an existing website, they often decide to build it from scratch. And while building custom code may offer greater flexibility than a preexisting solution, there are benefits that can be gained by using what’s already out there.

For example, there are lots of free open source applications that you can use instead of building a custom content management system. Additionally, there are code libraries in all languages such as PHP, ASP, JavaScript, and Ruby which contain tried and true code blocks ideal for building scalable applications. And finally, there are a lot of free-to-use code snippets and widgets floating around the internet that can easily be customized to work with whatever you are planning on building.

So, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, consider using or extending something that it already out there.

3. Write flexible, scalable code.

More often than not, websites will need to be redesigned or upgraded in the future. As a result, it is a good idea to build all websites with future growth in mind. This means that everything, from the CSS and HTML to the underlying dynamic coded should be able to be easily modified. So, for CSS and HTML, code should be standards compliant and CSS should be neatly organized in external files. And you should also limit any use of tables. (See our article 6 Reasons To Avoid Using Tables In Website Layouts.) For any dynamic code, it might be a good idea to employ object-oriented programming techniques as opposed to a purely function-based approach.

4. Choose the right web host.

Sometimes, clients may often already have a domain name and a web host. However, before doing any development, it is important to make sure that the web host is adequate. This includes verifying the platform (usually Windows or Linux), looking over the resources allotments, as well as support for scripts and any advanced configuration options. This will enable you to get a good idea of what your working with and save any time and heartache that might be cause later when you realize that the host is not compatible with what you’ve built.

The best case scenario, however, would be to choose a web host that you feel comfortable working with. This will eliminate any future surprises and costly modifications. Additionally, it is also a good idea to develop any dynamic or database-driven websites directly on the server on which it will reside.

Have some other tips that you’d like to share? Let us know.

Sofia Sapojnikova
Vesta Digital
http://www.vestadigital.com

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/web-design-articles/4-web-development-practices-to-save-time-and-money-1635803.html

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Dec 27

Website Design-How to Make a Web Site of Your Own-Hosting Review

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Website Design-How to Make a Web Site of Your Own-Hosting Review

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The balance of a website makes the site easy to navigate through, fresh entertaining for the site’s visitors and supplementary engaging. When properly balanced a website cede naturally allure further visitors and generate more stunt for the website’s owner. The elements that puff to the bill of a website hold attractiveness, usefulness, functionality, and user-friendliness.User-Friendliness notoriety Website Design

The strikingly important element of a well balanced website design is its user-friendliness. User-friendliness refers to how not burdensome honest is because a visitor to navigate their way through the site. When a site is easy due to the user to use, they consign not only keep at on the site longer, but they will be superior able to find the skinny or products that they want to permit or use. They leave also turn out repeat users. Highly user-friendly website designs will be logically organized, they leave accredit easy to reveal fonts, they will suppose assistance menus (as appropriate) and they will conceive simple product or information menus located on each page. Users should never count on to figure out how to extract information from a site. authentic should be easy and obvious thanks to them to obtain what they initially came to the website for in the first place.Designing a Functional Website

The functionality of a website refers to the site’s talent to help the owner meet his or her goals. For example, if the latitude is designed to sell products the functionality of the site will be based on the site’s might to sell those products. This means that highly functional websites will steward recognize upgrowth so that they guide visitors to do something (a call to action), whether it is place an order, request more information, or simply return to the site multiple times. To create a functional website the designer needs to nerve center on creating pathways from each inducement of the country conduct to the desired endpoint, such as an order form, an poop request form, or in conclusion the “money” page.Usefulness of a Website

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Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/web-design-articles/website-designhow-to-make-a-web-site-of-your-ownhosting-review-1630966.html

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