2010 January | SiteBuilder Blog

Jan 26

How to Find a Good Web Designer

When it comes to finding a good web designer, there is a lot to research. For example, you’ll need to know what you’re looking for. Is it just design? Or, do you need design and web development (coding) as well? Determining what you need is the first step. Wikipedia can help you define terms for different types of services.

One thing you’ll want to look for is references. When finding a designer, look for good reviews, ask for references, ask to see work from the designer that has been put to good use, so that you know they aren’t faking. This is all to make sure that you don’t end up with a nightmare on your hands. The last thing you’ll want to have to do is turn to the Internet because, “Marty Minton… ripped me off” or some similar story.

Once you feel you’ve landed on a web designer that can do what you need, and you’ve checked out their work and references to verify that they won’t rip you off, it’s time to sign a contract for work completed.

Be careful not to sign away your rights. Make sure that the contract both protects you and details what the designer said he or she would do for you. The contract should cover an agreed upon price, payment terms, services to be completed, and anything else that is a part of your deal.

Beware of freelancer sites. For example, Marty, the web designer from Bowie, MD that ripped off at least one site can get away with creating profiles on multiple sites to try to make their wrong doings seem to dissappear by flooding the sites with new accounts. For this reason, if you find a web designer on a freelance site, find out their name or their company name so you can google them to find out more.

Finally, you’ll want to find out what to do if a company rips you off. There are many forums available to you as a consumer to ask for advice. You may also want to ask your friends on twitter, facebook, or other platforms.

I hope this has helped you know whether or not the person you’re dealing with is legit, and what to do if they’re not. The example of “Marty Minton… ripped me off” comes from a simple google search and is not my own experience, just an example of one to look out for.

Design refugee, after being ripped off multiple times, I hope to educate people on the ins, outs, ups and downs of finding a trustworthy designer.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/web-design-articles/how-to-find-a-good-web-designer-1787556.html

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Jan 25

Few Important Aspects of Launching E-commerce Website

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Ecommerce websites has been growing steadily for the past decade already. It is soon going to rival the de facto method of shopping. Why? For the pure simple fact of convenience and being around 24 hours-7 days a week! Does your retail outlet or company sales department work the graveyard shift? No? Why not? There are people slogging it out in front of their desks at weird hours and chances are that they will probably spend some time of the well earned money buying stuff online. Well, it could be your goods!

Festive seasons like Christmas, New year and other local festivities are spaced out every few months but more important than that are minute appreciation gestures like a small gift for your client, spouse, kids etc to show your appreciation. You don’t have to wait for festive seasons to take the initiative!

I am not going to go into the whole showdown on the already much covered aspects of ecommerce…hmm.. Well I might keep it for another cold day. But here are some important aspects of Ecommerce website which you may want to get your team or any Singapore Web Designer or Singapore Ecommerce Website developer to consider before implementing an ecommerce website solution.

1) Give your website a warm presence:

It is not about putting warm colours but it is about ensuring that you are there for your visitors and they feel at home. Contact availability and online chat functions can be considered important so that they know they are talking to humans after all and not some robot! The website can be often perceived as a cold sphere if you are not careful about ensuring whatever information is needed for them to purchase is not there. Shipping, terms and conditions, privacy policy as well as your contact details should be seen easily.

2) Do usability and accessibility testing:

Most web developers avoid this. They create the site, ensures its looks fancy and “wham bham thank you ma’am”! You should ensure that your website can be used by a real un-savvy person as well as to the mavens as well as to people without the normal abilities. It should be cross browser compatible and coded with the proper language so as to ensure it is optimized for the web and to the audience from all spectrum at least to most. It may cost a little more but it is worth it because at the end of the day you want to make more money with your websites and so to ensure that you have to make sure that usability testing is adhered strictly! It doesn’t mean that you need to ensure its AAA W3C because even AAA websites do not satisfy everyone, but do ensure that minimal accessibility is practiced.

3) Know your target market:

If your target market is from overseas then I suggest, get a server or hosting service which is located there. Lots of time is wasted on lagging and it is more than likely in today’s highly competitive world of business, they will move on to someone else if your website lags or has too much of flash! It is a “NO,NO!” for an ecommerce website to have Flash unless it is part of a small banner which is fine. Otherwise, ensure that your web loads fast by doing routine testing especially if your clients are from overseas. If you target market are children, you may want to partner with some maternal sites selling maternal paraphernalia and vice versa to cross link each other’s sites. And if you only have local delivery, state it from onset and not until the shopper reaches the checkout button! It will fry him or her forever and will increase bad ratings for your website… it is a small world my friend.

4) Are you opening up to the world?

Certain websites just want local buyers but many a times we tend to disregard the universal fact that most businesses sometimes can tend to come from outside your own domain. For example, especially businesses in UK and USA and even sometimes in Singapore, they always state their area codes and not country code which means they are strictly looking out for business from their own country and not overseas. I feel that this is wastage because why restrict your business to just a local sphere? Let’s just say I have my wife who is visiting her family or I have a client who is in USA and I am in Singapore with little or no knowledge of calling overseas? And if I directly call the number, there is no way I can call a US number without adding a +1 in front. And if it doesn’t go through the first time, chances are I am moving on to another company to get the gift sent to the desired destination. It doesn’t matter if your website is probably the best looking ecommerce site in the world! What I need is simple instructions on how I can get my gifts sent. If you do not have it, then my money is not going to you.

5) Have Google analytics installed:

Well lots of statistics companies just went bust because Google came up with their infamous and superb analytics tool. Install it and then you can analyze on where the drop out is. You can then analyze where your website needs tweaking. For example if you can see that when the dropout rate is high in your member registration page, you may want to reevaluate your methodology. Why are they dropping out here? Should I eliminate my mandatory registration fields? Should I reduce the number of questions I should ask? Does the page take too long to load?

Are the shoppers worried about my lack of web security or credentials?

Get a web developer to assess this and he will revert to you on why it happens. Get an experience company and not some freelancer who does this for some part time cash! Oh.. by the way Google analytics is free so give it a shot even if you don’t have an ecommerce website! It can tell you lots of stuff even for a plain vanilla site.

6) Reply fast:

Turnaround time as well as delivery is important for businesses all around the world be it if you from New Delhi or New York! Ensure that your customers’ requests are handled immediately and SLA should be informed upfront. Many web design companies do not program dual way receipts for customers and companies alike hence it goes haywire. This is a problem if you do not do dry run before you release the site to BETA. There should be minimum standards to web practice and at De Mellows, we follow a no nonsense 24 hours reply guarantee. We reply emails within 24 hours to adhere to best web practice. To increase your trust in your clients, you have to ensure all these are set in place and the sooner you reply your client, the better trust you will engender. And that will say a lot about your company and its Ecommerce policies.

Mike Greaves is a self-made entrepreneur, a well known sports shirts consultant and internet marketer. Over the years he has football shirt across the world and has numerous writings credited to his name in many renowned publications. His areas of writing include sports shirts experiences including reviews of Ecommerce websites and Singapore Web Designer

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/web-design-articles/few-important-aspects-of-launching-ecommerce-website-1778603.html

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Jan 24

Projetando Websites, A Filosofia da Projetando Web Sites em Kelowna

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Projetando websites e filosofia na concepção de sites é melhor resumiu a famosa citação de Albert Einstein: “Tudo deve ser tão simples como ela é, mas não mais simples.”

Projetando websites é uma arte de análise técnica, que eu sou bem versado em e um Web site é a melhor forma de publicidade disponíveis hoje. Projetando websites é a principal tarefa que cada proprietário do Web será olhar para o seu primeiro passo para o sucesso na Internet. Nem todo mundo é um bom designer. Web design é uma paixão para muitas pessoas e eu. Por mais de uma década, concepção de websites e proporcionando às pessoas com soluções acessíveis e resultados reais para os seus objetivos e sonhos.

Um factor importante na concepção de websites é manter o Web site fácil de navegar. Não adianta gastar inúmeras horas na criação de um website e os visitantes não podem viajar facilmente em todo o website ou páginas da web.

Projetando websites ou re-design é mais resistente do que se poderia pensar. Uma ferramenta que é frequentemente utilizada para projetar sites é mind-mapping. Mind Mapping é uma técnica útil que melhora a maneira de tomar notas, e que apoia e reforça a sua resolução criativa de problemas. Um diagrama pode ser usado para representar palavras, idéias ou outros artigos ligadas e arranjadas em torno de uma palavra-chave ou idéia central. Mente mapas são usados para gerar, a estrutura e visualizar idéias para organizar e tomar decisões na concepção de websites.

O objetivo principal ao projetar sites é criar o local perfeito para cada indivíduo. My extensa experiência na Internet e mais de 25 anos de programação ajuda tremendamente. A maioria das empresas de design do site não pensar em seus sites capacidades promocionais depois de todos os sites desenhar é a sua principal “preocupação.

Projetando websites é um desafio constante para webmasters. Um desafio é que os navegadores da web está usando muitos diferentes resoluções de tela. Uma idéia muito boa, na concepção de websites, é a sobreposição de seu desenho em um navegador real. Existem sites que você pode visitar para testar o seu projeto e especificar um tamanho do navegador.

Cor psicologia, amarelo e usando como exemplo na concepção de sites é uma maneira emocionante para fabricar componentes destacam-se o resto do site, e de cor vermelha é muito sugestiva, que tende a trazer uma memória, o humor, ou imagens, por exemplo , sutilmente ou indirectamente, a mente. Projetando websites não é apenas sobre a construção de algo cativante. Deve haver apoio raciocínio cada projeto único ligado escolha.

Projetando websites é como a montagem de artesanato. Você só precisa de alguns materiais-primas, as ferramentas certas, e seu velho e fiel mente criativa. Projetando websites é um processo criativo e não é nada fácil para começar, se você não tem o direito ideias, inspiração e ferramentas disponíveis. Apesar de projetar sites é um esforço multifacetado há uma coisa que amarra tudo junto e que é HTML. Existem dois tipos de design do site, tais como estático e dinâmico design do site. Você pode criar sites estáticos ou sites dinâmicos, design, onde primeiro é baseado no código HTML simples e este é desenvolvido com tecnologias avançadas e sofisticadas, baseadas nas informações fornecidas em bases de dados com as tecnologias PHP.

Projetando websites é muito bem como projetar cenários, deve ficar bem, mas abaixo da superfície tem que trabalhar para que os motores de busca e surfistas da Web podem encontrar seu site. “Cartas de jogar e assistir esportes são hobbies para algumas pessoas, mas projetar websites são os talentos e habilidades profissionais dos programadores e web designers”. Projetando websites é uma arte. Possuir e projetar sites é uma experiência emocionante. A tecnologia permite web designers para criar sites interessantes e dinâmicas.

A filosofia na concepção de sites é mantê-lo limpo e simples, e todos os sites chamativo que distraem os surfistas da web do que eles estão tentando encontrar tira você está tentando “fazer” ou “dizer” com o seu site.

Olha para os meus muitos artigos na Internet em Autor James Murray para obter mais informações e estratégias sobre design de site ou jjmurray007@yahoo.com.

James Murray é um escritor de sucesso e em Search Engine Optimization (SEO) e Search Engine Marketing (SEM) perito fornecendo valiosas dicas e conselhos para aqueles interessados em SEO e sem estratégias. Seus inúmeros artigos encontrados na Internet, fornecer seo úteis e factual e sem informação e discernimento. Alguns dos meus sites são http://www.casinospokerrooms.com , http://www.bingosbingos.com , http://www.seo-worldwide.net

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/web-design-articles/projetando-websites-a-filosofia-da-projetando-web-sites-em-kelowna-1772179.html

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Jan 23

The Value of Good Website Design:

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In an aggressive market, it is critical for every business to have an existence on the web and the visual appeal of of the website is also very important for it to be successful. The Creative Web Designs are bound to attract people to the website which would thereby lead to an increased web traffic and further increasing the popularity of the site. The internet is usually the primary place that potential clientele look when probing for a company to meet their requirements. A site that is well designed and has all the information on the site would definitely be a winner as in comparison to the ones that are neither visually attractive and nor do they have any pertinent information on the web that would be appropriate for the customers. Most of the businesses do not want to invest a lot of money in getting a website made, they either think that it is a costly affair or probably it is not worth spending that much money on the ‘Computer stuff’ (as many computer illiterate people might call it!). However; first of all it is not that expensive and complicated to get a website made, and secondly the cost of it can just be taken care of by returns that you would get from it. Therefore one should hire The Best Website Designing Company to get the work done. One should also appreciate the fact that professional website designing companies also offer another benefit of doing the Search Engine Optimization for your company. In the computer world it is a known fact that the higher the ranking of the site; the more number of customers it would attract as most of the people come to the websites through Search Engines only. Therefore it is imperative that the website promoting your business gets featured in the first page of the Search Results. Therefore the content used on the web should be keyword dense based on the anticipated words that the users might put in looking for your site. In general; the content rich sites have been revealed to perform superior in search engine results, and it is significant to hit a striking balance between search engine results and designing websites that are easy to interpret and navigate. Website Designing Company Delhi which are the best in their field of performance; advocate, that the primary feature that can in a single handed manner influence the ranking of the site is the excellence of inbound links pointing to your website. Thereby suggesting that though the value of a good web design is significant but at the same time it is also very important to market and publicize the site in a correct manner.

Rajeev Nimar is the Internet Marketing member for Professional Website Design Company i.e. Webrex
Technologies.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/web-design-articles/the-value-of-good-website-design-1769966.html

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Jan 22

Is Google Personalized Search Results Giving You a Case of the Ups and Downs?

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Google has been customizing personalized searches or website SERP’s for quite a while. Recently, one of their updates has dramatically affected personalized search results - you may have noticed it with your own website. Previously you would have noticed a variation in search engine results while logged into your Google account. With Google’s latest round of updates you get personalized search engine results all the time whether you’re logged in or out of your Google account. This recent batch of changes has caused a lot of up and down SERP fluctuation for business websites.

As the art director for a leading website design company I hear a lot of chatter about websites going from page 1 to page 5 overnight. This can happen to anyone. If you check your websites enough then you have probably experienced this phenomenon. Many people attribute it to lazy link building programs. Though, no one can know for certain how Google ranks websites, I have noticed similar temporary website fluctuations when Google releases a new algorithm update or when they do their quarterly page rank update. Google’s most recent set of updates has to do with localized search results which is the culprit in many of the recent website ups and downs.

Consequently, I’ve been getting a lot of feedback from site owners who are freaking out about seeing dramatic changes in their websites search results. Yes it’s true that actual search engine positioning and personalized SERPs can be significantly different. So, what’s going on? First of all, there’s no need to panic about this. There are several components at work here, but two important ones.

The first component is location. Google is continually trying to improve how they deliver the best and most relevant website search results to those searching for companies, products, or services. In order to do this Google takes into account your location to bring you the most relevant search results. Google uses your IP address to deliver results based on the city in which you live or happen to be using the internet. This clearly affects user defined searches, but it also greatly impacts businesses with website SEO plans and search engine marketing campaigns. This new change can actually greatly improve local search campaigns for business websites, however it will skew how your business shows up in national search engine results. For instance, your website may be showing up on the first page of Google when you search for your key terms, but people outside of your area may be seeing your site somewhere on the fifth page.

The second component is Web History This affects both searches done when signed into a Google account and searches done while signed out though results will still vary a bit. Google customizes your search results based on previous search activity using a search information stored in a browser cookie. This information is referred to as “web history”. Having your web history enabled can really give you a false sense of your websites ranking, because it pushes your most visited websites to the top. So, if you happen to search your own website to check rankings a lot - you may very well see yourself in the top position when actually you could be 50 pages deep in Googles actual search positioning.

How do I turn off localized search or what can I do to see my websites actual search engine position? If you don’t want to see localized search results so that you can get a better idea of your websites actual SERP here’s what you should do.

A) If you are signed into a Google Account you can disable “Web History” by choosing to “remove Web History” from you Google Account.

B) If you are doing searches signed out of a Google Account then you can delete the “cookie” stored on your browser by clearing your browsers cookies and refreshing your screen. You can also disable history based customization by going to the top right corner of a search result page and clicking on “Web History”. Then on the resulting page click on “Disable Customizations”.

Please note that if you are not logged into a Google account simply disabling web history will still provide distorted search results because Google will still be providing you with localized search results based on your IP address. However, your SERP’s should now be fairly accurate while logged into a Google account. To see unbiased results you can check your website using a proxy server or a third party SERP checker website.

I am the art director for a highly rated Website Design Company, and website SEO Company. I have many years of experience in website design and believe that one of the greatest assets a company can have today is a well designed website and the right amount of search engine optimization.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/web-design-articles/is-google-personalized-search-results-giving-you-a-case-of-the-ups-and-downs-1768301.html

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