Web Development Archives

How to avoid common mistakes in website useability

When you built your first web site, didn’t you just want to promote it everywhere with big bold letters saying, “HEY EVERYONE! COME HERE AND LOOK AT MY WEBSITE! ISN’T IT GREAT?” Or, when you submit your web site to forums for web site reviews, what do you typically ask for? You may write, “Tell me what you think of my web site” or “Which color do you like better, blue or red?” or “Did I optimize for search engines properly?”

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Why cheap DIY business websites aren’t worth it.

Website Design is an issue every business confronts. Most businesses looking to save money do it either by hiring a freelancer, a student, friend, or a design company. The process of web design can be expensive and extremely frustrating and lead to ongoing service fees.
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10 tips for creating effective small business websites

Many small business owners struggle with the seemingly overwhelming task of managing their web site. There always seems to be so much to do, yet no time to do it all (something we know all too well). This brief primer should help to highlight the key aspects of web site management that will help them gain the most from their web site with the time that they have available.
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In marketing image is everything

A few weeks ago a flyer was handed to a friend of mine at the mall by a lady selling real estate. My friend doesn’t have any intentions of purchasing a house, but she read the flyer anyway and checked out the company’s website. The houses looked nice and the prices were reasonable but being a marketer herself, she was turned off by the typographical errors she spotted on the flyer and wondered why the color schemes in the flyer and the site were different. It just looked sloppy.
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How to get the best website for your business

Here’s a quick quiz for you? What do you think should be the first step in developing a website for your business?

1. Creating a design?
2. Deciding how the content needs to be integrated and managed?
3. Gathering content from other collateral material?
4. Developing a strategic plan?
5. Choose the most cost-effective hosting plan?

In just about any profession other than website development, your answer would be choice 4. After all, you couldn’t build a house without considering the layout, number of bathrooms, and features of the home. You wouldn’t create a design for a major advertisement and then plan the content and message of the ad. Yet, when it comes to website design, often the design comes first and the strategic plan for the site comes last.

In fact the development process should be:

1. Discover the reason a business needs a website and the expectations of the business.
2. Understand your typical customer and what influences their purchasing decision.
3. Have a clear understanding of how the website fits into the marketing plan.
4. Research to find what customers are searching for in Google, Yahoo in relation to the business (keywords).
5. Carefully plan a site architecture which is best for the demographic, online search trends, and have a site that’s easy for search engines to follow, is designed with the target market in mind, and has clear definitions of conversion goals.
6. Create a design which speaks to the target demographic.
7. Launch the site and begin an internet marketing plan to fulfill realistic expectations.
8. Modify strategic marketing plan as needed in response to real-time data.

I think the reason many web companies  get away with a backwards strategy is because the design portion is fun, is more tangible, and looks impressive. It gives a client the opportunity to suggest colors, logo position, interactive media, position of the navigation system and other elements. The process usually goes smoothly because the developer gets the excitement from the client and the client is impressed by the nice design work. BUT… that’s also why over 99% of all internet businesses FAIL, because there is no quality infrastructure and strategic plan in place. Either the site is poorly marketed, keywords are unfocused, or it doesn’t fit into the overall business marketing plan. In most cases, this is where the business owner begins to think the internet is all hype and will not work for their particular business. They disregard stunning statistics, such at 65% of all Kiwis begin their search for local services on the internet FIRST.
The worst part is that now the internet developing world has realized that cheaper, do-it-yourself systems sell better than a comprehensive plan. So companies sell template websites, and the only one who ends up suffering is your business. Be Smart and Eat Your Vegetables First… Then have Dessert.

Proper planning and website design and development such Page One Consultants provide is the only way to go. Hiring an experienced company to help you is the only way you will truly have an opportunity to dominate your market online.

Related Blogs

Page loading speed is important for SEO

The whole world is moving toward a faster and more energy efficient future. However, the amount of information being processed over the internet is growing exponentially. In an effort to address these trends the W3C (World Wide Web consortium) as well as all of the world leading search engines have recommended that websites take steps towards reducing their demand on both energy and bandwidth resources.

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A simple formula for great Google SEO

While SEO is baffling to many people there actually is a simple logic to making your website appeal to Google so that it appears high in the search results for your keywords. You need to concentrate on three main factors, as follows:
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Why Google isn’t really that smart

Here’s a great article from a friend of ours that we’re going to reprint here. Basically it says that Google isn’t as smart as they’d like you to think, and why a well designed, content rich, high-quality website PLUS a professional, ongoing SEO strategy crucial if you want to succeed with Google search results.

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Marketing using FaceBook and Twitter

Every so often we like to give sort of a “state of the union” on Facebook and Twitter best practices, because social media is constantly growing, changing and evolving.
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Make sure your website works hard for your business.

A potential customer has just opened up your web site. They see a fancy introduction that grabs their attention. The little video sparks a laugh, and they stay on your site to find out more about your business. After getting through all the fancy animations, he or she is greeted with a beautifully-crafted home page with killer copy that keeps them reading all the way to the end. After the novelty of the menu animations and the gorgeous background wears off, your customer sits – thinking. He or she has no idea what to do next.
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Simplicity is the key to Effective Communications

Barry Schwartz in his book ‘The Paradox of Choice’ describes how customers intent on buying, don’t, because they are confused with too many options. Features or options must not be multiplied beyond what it takes to get an order.’ In fact, it is pretty well understood by those of us who actually study how to communicate a marketing message that a focus on an emotional benefit is what works, not another new feature.
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Black Hat SEO techniques

There are many ways unscrupulous and short-sighted web designers and SEO companies spam search engines and try to trick search engine spider to increase traffic to their client’s websites. We think this sort of stuff is crazy, because sooner or later Google always spots these Black Hat methods and the result is a permanent ban on the website – which could be totally disastrous for the business involved.

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Your website should never stand still.

As we work with clients who need web design and search engine optimization (SEO) services, we observe that many are unclear about what their existing or proposed websites can do for them. We share the highlights of what works and we aim to educate interested clients about changing web standards, good design, content, and SEO. While web has been changing and evolving since it began, now the changes come more quickly.

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Nine things to consider when designing a new website

If they don’t have the guidance of a strategic website design company like Page One Consultants, many business owners make the mistake of commissioning a website without laying out a clear plan for their online business. This is a sure set-up for failure. There are 1000s of abandoned sites on the web due to lack of careful planning. Before designing your website you should ask yourself some questions to avoid making mistakes down the road.

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Fast websites are good websites

After Google started using website speed as a parameter in their ranking algorithms every webmaster has a good reason to keep an eye on the page load speed of their website. Google’s bending over backwards to spread the word about this new speed penalty is proof in itself since big G is usually very secretive about pending algorithm changes.
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