Optimizing Mobile Websites

Posted: Tuesday, December 6th, 2011 by | Filed under: , ,
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Welcome back to our series on web marketing for mobile phones/smartphones. Today, we’ll discuss more ways to optimize your mobile site.

As mentioned in our previous post, it takes a mobile user longer to enter the same number of keywords as a desktop user. For this reason, mobile queries are often much shorter, and search engines like Google try to compensate for this brevity by providing predictive phrase/query suggestions, which from an SEO standpoint, would be great in helping to determine what keywords your business should try to rank for.

An important aspect of mobile SEO is location. In order to enhance the user experience, mobile search engines present results in a different manner than desktop search engines. As mentioned before, mobile users often tend to be on the go, and their needs tend to not only be location/task specific but also immediate. As a comparison, you would not be able to do a comprehensive research report on a mobile phone the way you would on a desktop. The experiences are completely different.

To get the most out of mobile SEO, you need to gain a better understanding of how the mobile experience differs from the desktop experience. Read more …

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Website Design: Why Wireframes Are Helpful

Posted: Tuesday, November 8th, 2011 by | Filed under: , ,
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After your web designing company works with you on developing a sitemap, the next step in the web design process in creating the wireframes. Since you now have an organized page with the content you will be incorporating into your website, it’s important to lay it all out. Wireframes help arrange the content and give you a skeletal framework for your website design.

Wireframes

Wireframes

Wireframes give you a structure and help you specify your pages. They are simple, black and white ‘frames’ to help identify placement of content, features and navigation for your website. A masthead section is usually for your logo and below that you should have enough room for a core messaging area and a photograph. These three important areas are crucial to place above “the fold.” Similar to a newspaper’s “above the fold,” a website’s fold would be what you see before you have to start scrolling. You can insert placeholders for photos, videos or other features you want to include in your wireframes, but be sure you have your company logo, minimal copy to tell what your company does and some image to portray it. You want to have enough above the fold to draw the reader in. Read more …

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Wireframes for Websites

Posted: Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011 by | Filed under: , ,

Once your web design firm completes the information architecture step in the creative design process, you may move on to the next key step: developing wireframes.  A wireframe is helpful is defining what types of technology will be used and which messaging with be displayed on what pages. Although the wireframe doesn’t show creative, colors or and imagery or graphics, it does depict and lay out where content and photographs will be.

 

This step in the process is sometimes called the skeleton. Since there isn’t any colors or images displayed in this step of the web design, the creative design process is still taken place. The wireframes outline content placement areas and core features of the website, such as the masthead, core messaging, content, footer, call-to-actions, side bars utility links, information above and below the fold and more.

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SEO and Flash

Posted: Monday, October 17th, 2011 by | Filed under: , ,

Last time we discussed how implementing descriptive title tags can improve your website’s navigation and internet marketing. Today we tackle the next bullet point:

3) Are you minimizing your reliance on Flash?

One of the worst feelings a business owner can experience is finding out that the gorgeous website he invested so much money in is actually hindering his search engine optimization efforts.  Flash animations can certainly add a nice aesthetic touch to a website, but the bottom-line is that most search engines can’t read them, and if search engines can’t read what’s on your site, then it’s as if your site does not exist. For this reason, if you are serious about improving your search engine ranking, then it is absolutely crucial for you to make sure that if you choose to use Flash, that you still have enough content to flesh out your site and make it searchable for crawlers. This leads to our last checkpoint:

4) Are you optimizing your homepage for web marketing purposes? Read more …

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SEO for HTML5

Posted: Tuesday, September 27th, 2011 by | Filed under: , ,

If you’re a web designer, most likely you’ve heard about the latest HTML, HTML5. Not only is it an upgrade to HTML and web design features, but it’s beneficial for search engine optimization (SEO) also! There are enough problem SEO companies run into as it is, but hopefully some common problems can be resolved with HTML5.

Large websites, and most commonly, ecommerce sites have a lot of WebPages built in. It’s hard for Google and other search engines to distinguish the pages from one another. With similar content and products listed on the WebPages, SEO companies run into duplicate content issues. Google will see your pages as “the same” because of the similarities. Adding sequential links and HTML code to your pages will help Google understand that your pages differ.

HTML5 will also help Google and other search engines interpret our websites and WebPages a lot quicker and easier. With new tags to help organize the website content, web designers will be able to sort the HTML easier allowing Google to interpret it easier. There will be new tags and a wide variety of them to help sort out elements. Read more …

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Web Design and Browser Compatibility

Posted: Friday, September 16th, 2011 by | Filed under: , ,

Designing a website can be challenging and difficult for web designers since not all web browsers support every type of code. Most web designers started building websites back when Microsoft Internet Explorer completely dominated the web browser world. Ever since Mozilla Firefox began to appear, web designers had trouble designing their code to meet all standards. This resulted in websites looking differently in different web browsers.

Since Firefox, Safari and Google Chrome have all added to the competition, standards have been set for web designers to create code compatible for multiple (if not all) web browsers and the make sure their websites work. There are a few different kind of codes, which make designing a website even more difficult.

A website created or designed with HTML of XHTML will most likely work properly in most browsers. Many browsers support XHTML and should display is correctly, but web designers should always check just to make sure.

CSS support can be challenging also since not all browsers support all CSS2 standards. Most newer versions of Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Google Chrome and Opera should view CSS correctly. Although not all features are implemented in each browser, most are working towards it. Read more …

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Downside of Flash Site Design

Posted: Thursday, September 15th, 2011 by | Filed under: , ,

Flash websites can be very powerful when delivering a visual. Unfortunately, the effects of Flash stop there. From a graphic web design standpoint, Flash is attractive, fun and animated, but is it helping your website? Most likely not.

There are been a number of outstanding problems with Flash, including it’s compatibility with search engines. The internet overall is about text, and Flash doesn’t handle text very well. For whatever text may be included in your Flash (SEO keyword rich or not), most search engines won’t be able to index it anyway. Without an indexed website, your pages will never be found. Web designers can’t stress enough, the importance of content and copy on your website. Flash based websites usually wipeout the option of creating a content-rich website.

Aside from being buried among the millions and millions of other websites, once your page is found it’s not uncommon for it to take an extra few seconds to load. These seconds are worth a lot in the internet search world. Flash development usually takes much longer to load than HTML websites. Users (and potential customers) don’t like to wait. The longer your Flash takes to load, the more risk you take in losing customers.

Typical web design features aren’t included in Flash, making your website less user-friendly. Since Flash is typically all about the presentation, web usability goes out the window. Your typical navigation, contact information and other important pages aren’t in the standard position, making your user look longer for what they’re searching for. Another few worthy seconds you’re losing. Read more …

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Cosmetic Spas Need Professional Websites

Posted: Wednesday, September 14th, 2011 by | Filed under: , ,

Cosmetic spas are a very competitive local market, so it’s essential for them to have a professional website. For a business that offers any cosmetic services such as skin care, laser hair removal, injectables, breast augmentation or anything related, many times customers research the procedure ahead of time.

Since the internet has become a prime resource for any information, many people start there. Search engines have an endless number of websites in their database and when a search is conducted, robots crawl them looking for keywords and relevant websites pertaining to the search. From a local business perspective, you definitely want your website to appear first in search results.

It’s important to make your clients feel welcome and like they’re in “good hands.” A professional website for your business should follow your basic web usability standards. Web designers will tell you light colors are important, especially for a spa. Anything too dark doesn’t give a good “refreshing” vibe. An attractive image on your homepage invites the customer in, a simple web marketing tactic. Simple, defined horizontal navigation helps the user find what they need without having to search your website.

For a spa’s interior WebPages, it’s important to be descriptive and positive. Your copy should include relevant keywords and detailed information for your customers. For local spas, best SEO includes geographical regions. Including relevant towns, counties, cities and states will help users pinpoint your business. Because there is so much competition, you want to be sure to win over your local market. Be sure to do so with a professional website, any web marketing, whether it’s email marketing, pay per click advertising or something different, keyword integration and more. If you want to learn more about how to optimize your business on the web, contact an experienced web designer.

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Which is the Best Web Browser?

Posted: Tuesday, September 13th, 2011 by | Filed under: , ,

Internet browsers are your way to the web, where you can search for endless information. There are a few things you should look for when deciding on which web browser to use. Many internet browsers are designed differently and for different purposes. You may decide that you want to use multiple browsers, a different one for research, a different one for games, and so on and so forth.

Some evaluation may take place when reviewing the differences between internet browsers. You should feel safe when searching the internet and the more you know about the product you’re using, the better. A few things to keep in mind:

Security is a very important part of web browsing and something every user should keep in mind, web designer or not. Viruses, spyware, phishing schemes and identity theft are all things to be concerned about. Your main web browser should protect your computer (or other technology device) against viruses, pop-ups and other types of frauds that have the ability of hacking your personal information. It’s important to feel safe when browsing the internet.

Simplicity is important as well. An experienced web designer may be able to maneuver around any web browser due to the familiarity of the internet. Most users aren’t web designers so being user-friendly is important. Browser should be simple and easy for anyone to use, regardless of their knowledge of computers and the web. Anyone should feel comfortable about browsing the Internet. Read more …

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HTML5 Website Design

Posted: Saturday, September 10th, 2011 by | Filed under: , ,

Any web designer or web developer should have heard about the latest HTML updates, HTML5. HTML5 is the latest form of HTML and will be used across Internet browsers to turn WebPages into readable WebPages for the end user. HTML is constantly being updated to format the latest technology, but HTML5 will be the latest form to created HTML code in. Although it won’t be finalized for years, web designers have already started creating new code from it.

Although HTML5 isn’t finalized and will continue to change before it’s official, many web designers are wondering is they really need to care (or even learn) about HTML5. The answer is yes. HTML5 promises a better web experience across all devices: Smartphones (Android, iPhone), computers and the latest tablets and netbooks. Smartphones have been growing in the number of users accessing the internet and it’s important that devices are able to display WebPages of choice.

Many earlier versions of HTML have limitations for multimedia content. HTML5 will provide an alternative to plugins (such as Flash) in order to add music, video and other multimedia content to websites. Since top web browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari and Opera will support (some already do) the latest features of HTML5, it’s inevitable it will takeover HTML4. Read more …

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