Web Site Design and Choosing the Right Web Design Company

It’s been several years since you had someone design your company web site and now it’s outdated. You are losing business to competitors that have quality designed web sites with great layout and navigation. This may be your first company web site and you want to make the most of your money and time.

How do you choose a quality web design company that will understand your companies’ objective for designing or redesigning this web site?

First, you need to answer a few questions.

What is your budget and time frame for completing the web design or redesign project?
Are you going to be using original content and pictures for building this web site?
If this is a website redesign, are you planning on getting updated images and content for this new look and layout or will you need the web design company to supply them for you?
Does any one at your company have basic editing skills and will they be able to update the website content or will this be an ongoing job for the web design company you hire?
Are you looking for a local web design company?
Do you already have an idea of your web design colors, layout, and navigation?

Knowing the answers to these questions, will help you when you locate the right web design company.

Now it’s time to find the right web design company for your needs. Go to Google and search for local web design firms and you will see how many results show. Take “web design orlando” for example: Results 8,860,000. Wow, there are a lot of results for “web design orlando”.

Don’t panic, you will probably find a company that can do the quality web design work you need in the first 50 results. Quality web design firms will have a portfolio of work online that will show an example of their custom web design work. Start at the first web design result on work your way down.

Examine the portfolio to see if there is anything equivalent to the web design layout you are imagining. You will be able to tell immediately if this web design firm is right for your company and its look and feel. Find out how long they have been in the web design industry and compare that to how many quality web sites they have designed in that time.
If this is a redesign, find out how many web site redesigns that have completed and ask to see the web site before and after the redesign.

Find out if they have the staff available to work on your entire web design needs and that they know the programming necessary to complete the job in a timely manner. Ask for references, a top end web design firm will be glad to offer up references on the web design work performed. Most web design references will be glad to talk to you about the quality job your potential web design company did on their web site.

Depending on your web design budget, it may help to several quality web design companies to talk to. You will want to get at least 3 estimates and it never hurts to have more.

Remember, when it comes to your business and your companies exposure on internet, take you time locating a quality web design company. Your future may depend on it.

By Shawn Hickman - Internet Marketing Managersource: Web Solutions of America

Web Design Elements You Should Avoid Having on Your Site

As a web designer, you should design your websites to give your visitors the greatest ease of use, the best impression and most important of all a welcoming experience. It doesn't matter if you had the greatest product in the whole world -- if your website is poorly done you won't be able to sell even one copy of it because visitors will be driven off your website by the lousy design.

When I'm talking about a "good design", I'm not only talking about a good graphical design. A professional web design will be able to point out that there are many components which contribute to a good website design -- accessibility design, interface or layout design, user experience design and of course the most straightforward, which is graphic design.

Hence, I have highlighted some features of the worst web designs I've come across. Hopefully, you will be able to compare that against your own site as a checklist and if anything on your site fits the criteria, you should know it's high time to take serious action!

1) Background music

Unless you are running a site which promotes a band, a CD or anything related to music, I would really advise you to stay away from putting looping background music onto your site. It might sound pleasant to you at first, but imagine if you ran a big site with hundreds of pages and everytime a visitor browses to another page on your site, the background music starts playing again.

If I were your visitor, I'd just turn off my speakers or leave your site. Moreover, they just add to the visitors burden when viewing your site -- users on dial up connections will have to wait longer just to view your site as it is meant to be viewed.

2) Extra large/small text size

As I said, there is more to web design than purely graphics -- user accessibility is one big part of it too! You should design the text on your site to be legible and reasonably sized to enable your visitors to read it without straining their eyes. No matter how good the content of your website or your sales copy is, if it's illegible you won't be selling anything!

3) Popup windows

Popup windows are so blatantly used to display advertisements that in my mind, 90% of popup windows are not worth my attention so I just close them on instinct everytime each one manages to pass through my popup blocker (yes, I do have one like many users out there!) and, well, pops up on my screen.

Imagine if you had a very important message to convey and you put it in a popup window that gets killed most of the time it appears on a visitor's screen. Your website loses its function immediately!

In concluding this article, let me remind you that as a webmaster your job is to make sure your website does what it's meant to do effectively. Don't let some minor mistakes stop your site from functioning optimally!

About the Author

Copyright (C) 2007 Rolf Olsen, All Rights Reserved. Rolf Olsen is a web desiger and Director/Sales Manager of http://www.affiliategrand.com. Download 22 Photoshop Action Scripts and Get 37 Listbuilding Secrets with Private Label Rights, Free. http://www.affiliategrand.com/cover_design

What is Google Adsense?

What is AdSense?

AdSense is a wonderful advertising concept that was conceived by Google some time back. Though new advertising concepts keep coming up all the time, this one is something that is altogether different.

AdSense (Google's advertising program) presents an earning opportunity to the website owners by allowing Google to post advertisements on their websites. These advertisements are either text advertisements or image based advertisements. Of course, the website owners need to enroll to the AdSense program through Google's website (https://www.google.com/AdSense).

Google AdSense program requires you (the website owner) to include a piece of code (a programming script) on your website. You can add this piece of code anywhere in the html code of your website i.e. depending on where you want to position the advertisements (however, there are certain rules that you must follow while pasting this scripting code).

This piece of code is what determines the structure of advertisements and their content (and this is what helps Google in floating the advertisements on your website). When people visit your website they are able to see these advertisements. Your earnings are based on how many Google Ads are displayed on your website and also based on how many times visitors to your website actually click on one of those Ads. The Google AdSense system calculates your revenue on per-click (CPC) and per-thousand-Ads-displayed (CPM) basis. The latter is also known as impressions.

For people who want to advertise their products and services through the Google AdSense system, it's just a matter of signing up through Google Adwords program and letting Google know how much they want to spend towards advertising through Google AdSense.

These businesses can specify the limit and Google AdSense system will accordingly serve their Ads so as to ensure that the specified limit is not crossed. Google AdSense increases the visibility of their business/ services and also increases traffic to their website; hence fulfilling their purpose of advertising.

About the Author

Dennis Koray helps anyone serious about building financial freedom from home. He uses a 100% generic internet marketing system that will teach anyone how to make money online. For more information visit. http://www.denniskoray.ws

RSS Feeds and Search Engine Optimization

I have been asked many times if adding RSS feed content to your web site helps improve page rank and web site placement in the free search listings. First we have to look at RSS and if it’s right for your web site.

RSS is basically Really Simple Syndication written in XML code. It allows a script to run in a RSS Reader or on your website that allows updated content that you subscribe to automatically become up to date as soon as it is published.

The great thing about this is that you can always have fresh content on your site without having to do any updating or babysitting.

Search engines have been known to eat up RSS feed content on web sites. They love to deliver new information to visitors. One thing to remember is that the feed must be displayed in HTML format. Search engine spiders do not read java script as plain text, so it is essential to better placement that HTML code be placed in your site instead.

There are several programs that do all the hard work for you. RSS Equalizer is easy to install and lets you customize your feeds to fit your particular subject content you need. It all works on your web server backend. You log in, set up the categories of feed you want, test them, and place them on your site. No need to update, it’s all automatic.

Next, does your site have an area that you can ad RSS feed content to? You can ad some to the home page. In the setup, you can set how many topics you want listed on a page.

It is only relevant to the engines if the keywords you are trying to place with also reflect in the RSS content. So the keywords must be in the title tag, keyword tag, description tag, page content, and RSS feed content for best results.

Try testing a secondary page that is not your home page. Optimize your web site for best placement, and then add the RSS content. MSN will pick it up very quickly, Yahoo, and Google will be soon to follow. If certain content doesn’t work, go back to the sites where you pulled the RSS feeds from and see if there is more keyword relevant content.

For example you can pull an SEO related feed that will have SEO in every topic. Ten topics to the feed, that’s 10 keywords added to your page content.

Keep an eye on it for the first few weeks. If it is getting you into the listings, you are doing great. You have a robotic editor keeping your site in great position.

Good luck and have fun not matter what you do.

By Shawn Hickman - Internet Marketing Manager source: Web Solutions of America

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Shawn_M_Hickman

Need of Custom Web Site Design

By Mark Colins

A custom website design is an integral part of how a Business or company may be perceived online. An accurate reflection online means achieving that important sale or a true representation of the services provided by the company.

Some advantages of custom website design are: Provides a look and feel that is particular to a firm and company. At economical cost, Site will be tailor-fit to exact business needs of the company. Viewers will get a more focused experience of the company, thus creating a marked impression on them, that might greatly benefit the company.

Custom Website Design Strategies: Custom website designing takes much more than just programming expertise and technical skills. It involves strategic thinking, analysis of needs and audiences, advanced planning, graphic design and strategic marketing expertise.

Some points to be considered while designing are:

Navigation: This is the most essential part of every website design. Proper navigation helps the website design in two ways. Firstly, it facilitates the smooth movement of the visitors throughout the website design. Secondly, proper navigation helps the search engines to index the website effectively. It can get the information of all the pages to be indexed thereby giving high ranking to those website design.

This is the reason all the website design must have a proper 'Sitemap'. Design of Home Page: The design of the home page of the website should be made very professional looking, and eye catching as the visitors see that page upon landing to the website design. Contents: Contents are the most important part of every website design since the visitors to the website design goes through the contents in order to get the information website.

That is the reason why it is essential that the contents of the website design must propagate the goal of the website properly. Consistency: The website design must be consistent. This is the reason that most of the website designers are using CSS so that the entire website design can give a consistent 'look' and 'feel'. Flash Techniques: Better flash techniques have also been discovered and employed in the past several years, leading to greater effectiveness of flash sites, and faster upload speeds.

Sites that employ flash now have a more professional look and feel to them, and flash is used often now in the construction of online videos and games those appear on sites and educates and entertains visitors. Hosting: The website hosting is also an important website design strategy as because good hosting decides the fate of the website design. The website host must be secured and it must be error free.

About The Author
Mark Colins writes articles on custom web design, web site design, e-commerce web design etc. and you could get more info about web design tips from him by contacting on the email mark.colins@gmail.com

Advantages of a Professional Web Design vs Doing it Yourself

By Gabriel J. Adams

Your website says a great deal about you and your business. It can make the difference between making a sell and the consumer using another website for their purchase. It is quite possible to design a website on your own, but it isn’t always the best choice.

A professional web designer has insight about what consumers are going to focus on and how to set your site up to offer them exactly what they are looking for. They are also very skilled in how to promote various aspects of your website to help you generate even more sales.

Having a professional design your website generally means you won’t have to spend so much of your time focusing on this aspect of the business. Websites continually need changes and updates so you can see how that will eat away at your time. This means the navigation tools will often need revamping to keep up with such changes. A professional web designer is an expert in making everything fall into place. You want the consumer to be able to click and access on your website without having to consider how to make it happen.

A professional web designer does cost more than doing it yourself, but you can avoid common mistakes that plague do it your self website projects. A huge issue is the scripting of the website. It takes more than good spelling and grammar to make it interesting and attractive to the consumer. Graphic designs look great, but do you know how they affect the consumer? It may attract their attention but if it takes too long for the graphic to open they will likely move on to another website."

You can avoid both of these issues by placing your web design needs into the hand of a professional web designer.

About The Author
Visit National Web Design for a professional web design for your business: National Web Design

Getting Listed The Waiting Game of SEO

Getting your site listed for the right keywords takes lots of hard work and time.

We have all done the research, wrote the right page content, submitted our site to the search engines, placed the right meta tags in the pages and waited to see if our hard work has paid off.

It has been over a month and we are starting to see some results, although not where we would want to rank, we are getting listed and that is more than before. So we adjust our title, description, and content tags and wait.

Now a second month has past and now we are seeing significant placement on some of our more targeted search terms. Not Bad. Again, we look at our competition and where they are and when they were last indexed by the engines taking notes on any improvements they have made to their sites since the last update. Oh, I found some more areas that could use some extra care and SEO.

Now that I have my site well optimized, it’s time to get fresh content onto the site. It’s time to write a few articles emphasizing my expertise in search engine optimization. This allows me to add fresh content and to also place quality keywords relevant to my website through the webpage.

Now I resubmit to the search engines alerting them that I once again have new content to index. Another month goes by and the more generic terms are showing significant placement.

Success, I have optimized my web site for great results.

The key is to continue adding great content, watching your competition, and keeping the search engines aware of your every update.

Best of Luck…

Keyword Optimization - We All Want To Do It a Little Better

By Mal Huddleston

Keyword research is one of the most important tasks when building your web site. Your keyword research will help you increase search engine traffic. It will help you determine your content and menus. Don't bother with web search engine submission until you have optimized your site completely.

It is important not to abuse the service granted you by the search engines. Try to trick them with silly games, and more often than not, you will reduce your chances of success. Search Engines are continually trying to find ways to better their results. That helps them sell their product, as much as it helps the users.

Try to optimize your page for just a few words or strings, concentrating on a single one for each page. As an example, view the page source of this page (sorry, example deleted for compliance. If you are clever, you may work out where to find it.), and do a word search for "Keyword Search Strategy". The main keyword string for this page. Notice it has been used ten times, and placed strategically throughout the page. Not too much, and not too little.

Firstly you must use the keyword in the "Title" of the page. Then you must place it at the start of your "Description" metatag, next use it as the first "Keyword" in the keyword metatag then place it in the page heading. The main thing about using your keywords and building your content around them is to stay relevant. Don't try to say everything on the first page. Try to build each page around a specific topic. You will use your menus to guide your users through your information in an orderly way.<

What about searching for a list of keywords or search engine requests that other people are using. This search engine tool from Overture, the "Keyword Selector Tool" at http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/, shows you "Related searches that include your term" and "The estimated number of times that term was searched on last month". When you find a "Keyword String" that you like, enter it at "Google" to see how much competition you have for that topic.

For example, - Ecommerce Site Builder - brings back a total of 11,400,000 pages with those words. If you place inverted commas around the term like this, "Ecommerce Site Builder", Google brings back a total of 15,100 pages with that particular string. That is 15,100 pages with information about "Ecommerce Site Builder". A bit of competition, I would say, but it is a great tool for Keyword Optimization.

To explain the advantage of keyword strings, as opposed to single keywords, a search for - Keyword - brings back a total of 461,000,000 pages relating to that keyword. - Keyword Metatag - brings back 1,010,000 results and adding the inverted commas reduces that number to 815 results. That means the results for the complete string, and not just the words found singularly. Now enter "Keyword Metatag" in the Keyword Selector Tool and you will find 687 searches were made for this last month. That is only 1.2 pages of supply for every search for that keyword combination. A great ratio of supply and demand, if you can find it.

You do not need loads of keywords for every page. You need to discover the keywords with the best potential. Then build your page content around them. You can use combinations of words generated from the best two or three keywords you find, while concentrating your efforts mostly on the main one. This will eventually improve your overall search engine keyword ranking. Make sure to use relevant keywords for each page. You could also download this free software from Softnik Technologies, "Good Keywords" found at http://www.goodkeywords.com/. It includes several tools to help you obtain a good set of useful keywords.

Created by Mal Huddleston -- Copyright 2006 Ecommerce Site Builder

Mal Huddleston from Ecommerce Site Builder has developed the free e-book, the Twelve Point Plan, an overview of the major steps required to build and promote an Ecommerce Web Site solution. Ecommerce Site Builder aims to educate you about ecommerce systems, show you tools that will help you, and investigate the main components required to make a successful web site. You will then make a more informed decision about the solution that best suits your needs.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mal_Huddleston

Web Design As Work Of Arts by ba

This leads to over my thinking the project and causes delays in completion to starting over and over ahead. I have been knowledge to be guilty of this time wasting practice but I have develop a procedure that allow me to avoid this major PITFALL of all graphic designers here.

Hopefully this sharing techinque will assistance of you so that your valuable time and save may be more productive and profitable. The very first step you must take is to be absolutely clear as to what your customer desires in a design! This involves communicating with that customer CLEARLY what you need to know before you begin. I use a list of basic questions that I pose to all my customers.

Web Design ...

1.What the customer's idea is for the design? 2.Be used as a LOGO? (reflective of business or personal site) 3.Be used as a BACKGROUND? (static or automated) 4.Preferred size, shape and colors to making a web site?

Some customers will not have any input here but allow the designer total freedom of creating the design.

About the Author

http://designweb.blogspot.com http://websdesigner.blogspot.com http://netdesigner.blogspot.com