Archive for the ‘Website Design’ Category

51. How the use of Photobucket can benefit a small business

Wednesday, September 26th, 2012

Photobucket allows you to host all your photographs, videos and graphics for free and then share them with customers and colleagues by way of email or social networking sites like MySpace, Twitter and Facebook. A Photobucket account will provide safe storage for thousands of images and videos and allows you to use them in various different ways.

Along with email and social networking sites, your images can be shared with existing and potential clients on any website, blog or forum by simply copying and pasting the relative links.

The free account affords its users up to 500 Megs of storage space and provides for 10 Gigs worth of bandwidth per month. You can create numerous albums and sub-albums in a Photobucket account and reference them with identifying tags. You can choose to share single pictures or an entire album of images and are given the option of keeping any of your content private.

For businesses that require larger amounts of storage space, there is the option to pay a nominal amount per year which will provides a Pro Account with unlimited bandwidth for video viewing and photos. This type of account will also allow for a reasonable amount of business use for sales sites and others like eBay and then charge you for any additional image hosting.

For businesses that use branding merchandise for their clients such as t-shirts, cards and mugs, an account with Photobucket will offer the ability to order this merchandise through them after having been able to edit the images therefore saving on the cost of having to employ a sales site to make any changes.

Pro Account users can also take advantage of provided statistics which will afford an insight into which websites their images are being viewed though and the amount of times every image has been seen. This helps a company determine which web pages are performing well for the company by way of the number of visitors it is receiving as they have been attracted by a certain image.

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Posted in Small business online, Small Business Online Marketing, Website Design | Comments Closed

41. Does you small business website REALLY contain the content Google now wants?

Wednesday, July 4th, 2012

In recent posts I have covered the changes to the Google search algorithm (Panda and Penguin) and in post 40, why you should not rely only Google for your traffic.  However, you can not ignore Google as they still account for around 80% of the search engine market.  So the question is, what is the most constructive use of a small business owners time to make their website appealing to Google?

What does Google want?

As mentioned many times, they want to provide the best user experience to the person conducting a search by providing the most relevant search results.  In order to do this, Google wants high quality content.

What does this mean to a small business?

Review the content on your website and ask yourself:

  • “does it provide value to the person searching”
  • “has it been written for the person searching or for the search engines”
  • “does the content answer burning questiond, provide information, etc”
  • “is the website easy to navigate, easy to find the information”
  • “can the information be improved and enhanced”
  • “is the information out of date / defunct”
  • “ask family and friends for their input”
  • “ask your clients (after all they know what they want”
  • “ask the people on your mailing list, followers on Facebook, Twitter, etc”

There are many other questions that could be added.  However, reviewing your site using the above will be a good start.

Take action – make changes

If you find areas that can be improved, make changes.  The sooner you make changes the quicker they will be picked up by Google.  Don’t sit back and wait.  If you have a big website, start that changes in tranches, don’t wait until you have reviewed all of your pages.

Action list

  1. Review website content
  2. Identify changes
  3. Rapidly make changes
  4. Repeat steps 1 to 3 on a periodic basis

Follow these simple steps and your website should become more useful to people searching meaning more relevant to Google.

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Posted in SEO, Small business online, Website Design | Comments Closed

26. Merry Christmas and a Happy 2011 from Digital Ark

Thursday, December 22nd, 2011

I wanted to close the year with a very quick post to thank all of you who have visited the Digital Ark blog in 2011.  I hope you have found the information useful and it has helped you with your own web site projects.

I have enjoyed writing the articles and creating the beginners guide to web design and I am looking forward to creating and adding more in 2011.

Writing this blog has demonstrated what a versatile platform Woprdpress is.  So if you have been thinking about starting your own blog, I can assure you it is very easy.

At Digital Ark, we offer relaible web hosting with simple 1 click WordPress install.  This makes it very easy to get up and running with your blog.  Also by signing up to one of the Digital Ark plans, you will get real support to help you when you get stuck.

Like wise, if you have been thinking about launching a website, use the start of the year as your reason to put the plan into action.  If you sign up to one of our pay monthly website plans, you could have your website up in running in the first few weeks of January 2012.

I look forward to sharing more thoughts and insights in 2011 and hopefully helping make your website or blog a reality.

Merry Christmas and a happy, prosperous 2012.

Simon

 

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Posted in Beginners Guide Web Design / Hosting, Web Hosting, Website Design | Comments Closed

10. You web site does not always have to be 100% perfect before publishing!

Tuesday, May 17th, 2011

This may appear to be a very strange statement so please allow me to explain my thinking.

I have seen some of my clients who when they contact me are really eager to get a web site live.  I work with them quickly to develop a draft and make initial changes, then it can take week upon weeks for them finally to give the go-ahead to make the site live.

In many cases the site after the initial changes is good enough to go-live and further changes can take place on an ongoing basis.

What it is important to remember is there is a lot of benefit in registering the domain and publishing the web site, specifically it allows the search engines to start indexing your web site.

As long as the web site has been designed to meet the objectives for your business / organisation, the indexing should be fine – so there is nothing to lose (and all to gain) by getting the site live.  Obviously check that your web designer will not charge you extra for fine tuning.

I also think that it is human instinct to defer decisions.  Unfortunately, the longer you think about something, the harder the decision becomes.

So in summary, if the web site design is good enough, get it live and then fine tune.

Regards

Simon

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Posted in Website Design | Comments Closed

8. Does your business web site have a purpose?

Thursday, April 14th, 2011

Have you ever stopped to ask the question “what am I / my business trying to achieve from our web site?”.

Don’t be surprised if you can’t answer this question straight away!

In the late 90′s, through the 00′s and even today, many businesses and organisations were told they needed a web site but never really stopped to think why (and more importantly what it could do for their business).

This has led to million of web sites being published with no clear message and no clear objective.

I also think that this problem has been perpetuated as many web sites are designed by graphic designers or more technical focused people who are very must focused on making the design look good and / or the technical infrastructure that makes the site work!

Both are very important but it does not help meet the objectives of your business.

So it is important when building a new web site (or reviewing and existing web site) that you ensure that suitable time is committed to defining the objectives of the web site (what will you as a business consider as success).

I would recommend keep it simple and less is more.  You should be able to clearly articulate the objectives.  It is a good idea to right them down.

Examples of real objectives for your web site will normally fall into 3 general catergories:

Provide information

Allow potential clients to understand what your business does, location, opening hours, etc.

Engagement

Provide information to potential clients to prompt them to engage with your business i.e. place a call, book a meeting, request more information, join mailing list, etc.

Sale

Provide information to potential clients to allow them to make a buying decision and place a transaction through your web site.

Obviously this is only covers the objectives in a very high level and over the coming months I want to unpack some of these topics in more detail.

So lets take one example.  You may own a kitchen fitting company.  Therefore, the objectives of your web site could be:

  • Provide examples of your work (credibility)
  • Prompt potential clients to contact you for an estimate

A kitchen sale is a big transaction so it is very unlikely a client will place an order through a web site without meeting you face to face.  Therefore, it is sensible that your objectives are to make you stand out from the other kitchen designers causing the required action of the potential client to phone or e-mail you to book a free estimate.

With this objective clear in your mind, you then can maximise the design of your web site to achieve the required objectives.  This means that your business web site has a clear purpose and you should gain an increase in business.

Over the coming months I will develop these themes further.  In the meantime you may be interested in the free resources on my web site for planning and designing your web site.  Simply join our web site by following this link and completing the simple form Free Web Site Design Guide.

Digital Ark is very focused on helping businesses and organisations to use their web site and online marketing to achieve real business objectives.  If you would like to know more, please drop me a line simon@digitalark.co.uk.

Kind regards

Simon

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Posted in Local Mobile Search, Website Design | 4 Comments »

6. Does it save money when a business owner builds and maintains their own web site?

Wednesday, March 30th, 2011

In this age of austerity cuts many small and medium business owners are looking to save money.  This means every cost line must come under scrutiny to see if it provide value for money and if it can be done cheaper.

One of these cost items will be the expenses that relate to the web site (web hosting, design / build of web site and ongoing maintenance).  Lets take a moment to think about each of these areas.

Web Hosting

Not unless you are a large business who has made the necessary investment to host your web site on your own infrastructure, most businesses will be purchasing their service from a web hosting company.

This is a sensible choice for most businesses as this can be viewed as a commodity service with many reliable providers.  Competition is strong meaning that pricing is very competitive.

The alternative is to invest heavily in technology infrastructure, employ technical resources and then be prepared to continually update to keep up to speed with market trends.

Recommendation

Outsource the service by buying from a reliable web hosting business.   However, make sure that you shop around for the best deal.  This is not necessarily price, look what features are included and the cost of moving to the next package up.  You may find providers offering great headline prices but with limited web storage, e-mails, bandwidth, no databases, etc.  Then the cost to move to the next package up is a significant increase in price.  Always remember there is nothing that really is FREE!

 

Web Design / Build

A number of business owners are very computer savvy.  They are comfortable using new software packages, online social media, etc.  Therefore, it would be a logical choice to take on the design and build of their business web site.

This can prove to be very effective.  However, there are some considerations that often get overlooked:

How much time is it going to take to design, build and publish your web site?

I don’t know about you but, if I had a leaking tap, I could read a dummies guide to plumbing, get my tool box out and then go on to fix the leak.  This is great but what is the cost?  I don’t necessarily mean the £ cost, I mean the cost in my time.

It is fair to say that it will take me considerably longer than a qualified plumber.  This means the valuable, scarce commodity of time will be diverted away from important things like my family or building my business.  As time is far more important I would phone a professional and pay the plumber happily for the job.

Have I done a good job?

While you may be able to put together a good web site and publish it to the web, is it a good job?

  • Has it been designed to meet your business objectives?
  • Has it been developed in a way that it can grow with your business?
  • Has it been optimised for key search phrases?

There are many other considerations.  However, the point is while the web site may be OK to start with, it may prove expensive and problematic to take it to the next level as you grow.  If it has not been designed to meet your objectives i.e. sales leads, then it won’t be effective at all!

Recommendation

Using the plumbing anology.  You make fix the leak but you may have made more serious damage to the pipes for the future!

Use a good web designer who can work with you, understand your requirements, provide advice and then execute the project quickly and efficiently on your behalf.

Web Site Maintenance

If you have a web site that needs regular updates to ensure it remains useful, you will need to be performing regular maintenance and updates.

Again there is no reason why you can not take on the work to update web pages, add articles, add new pages, etc.  However, again the question to ask is “what is the best use of your time?”.

Recommendation

Speak to your web designer and ask them to provide a quote for providing an ongoing update service.

I would like to close by saying that the idea for this article came from real experiences with some of the Colchester businesses I work with who recognise that their time is better spent on building their own business while letting Digital Ark concentrate on their web site.

Please visit our web site www.digitalark.co.uk for details of our web hosting, web design and web site maintenance plans or alternatively e-mail at simon@digitalark.co.uk.

Simon

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Posted in Website Design | Comments Closed

5. Do you own your web site?

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011

In my last blog post (4. Do you own your domain name?) I talked about the risks of not having your domain name registered in your name.  This post is a logical extension.

The title probably should more accurately be “do you own the source and output files that create and form your web site”?

After agreeing the design brief and objectives, a web designer will normally collate content (text and pictures) and then design the website using a software package such as Dreamweaver, Frontpage, WebPlus, etc.

In some cases the web designer may even create content (especially graphics, photos, videoa, etc) for the web site.

Each software package will save the design files in it’s own format (this is known as the source file).  When the web site is published to the internet, the software package will output the web site files using a common format that can be interpreted by a web browser such as Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome, etc.

It is important to understand this as the files that are uploaded to the internet are not the same files that you need to make changes to your web site.  What you need is the source codes.  So this raises the first question on ownership.  “Who owns the source files, you or your web designer”?

This is not necessarily an issue, unless you fall out with your web designer or move your web site to another web designer.  Then you may find that your current web designer may not release the source files meaning that your new web designer will need to completely rebuild your web site.  This will usually result in you having to pay additional costs to cover the work.

Worse still the web designer may claim that the content, design, look and feel of the web site is their intellectual property and as such you can not recreate a similar web site.  Again they may demand a royalty payment to allow you to use the design and content.

As mentioned earlier, as well as source files there are also output files that are uploaded to your web hosting account on the internet.  While you may have access to these source files through a Control or Admin Panel meaning you could download the web site files and then upload to your new web host, the question of ownership still applies.  If the web designer claims intellectual ownership over parts or all of your web site, uploading the files to a new web host may mean you are in breach of copyright.

Hopefully this provides a high level overview why you may not own your web site, even if you have paid for it to be designed.

So what can you do to protect yourself:

  1. Make sure it is clear about who owns the content, source files and output files (including any items created for your web site by your web designer).
  2. Ask if you will have access to (or can have copies) of the output files.
  3. Confirm the fee you have paid means that you own the intellectual property and that you can reuse the design and output files without requiring further permission.
  4. Ask if you can have copies of the source files or if not the process of how these will be made available to you if you move to another web designer.

By following these steps hopefully you will avoid problems in the future.  If you have any questions please contact me as I will be happy to help.

Simon

 

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Posted in Uncategorized, Website Design | Comments Closed