Archive for the Category »Traffic «

Some of the Best Web Design Software

18 Jul 2010 | By admin

Web design software has become as plentiful as almost every other type of computer program on the market. Nearly everywhere you look, you’ll find another option. That doesn’t mean all of those options are created equal. There are definitely some examples of web design software that stand above the crowd.

Determining the best best web design software, however, requires knowing what you’re looking for. What might be the best software for a professional web designer would probably not be the best software for an amateur with limited HTML knowledge or for someone just wanting to start an online blog.

For example, one of the consistently best web design programs is Adobe Dreamweaver. With the program, you can make complex web sites, including the always popular e-commerce sites. It can help you integrate multimedia elements into your site, work with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and even create database interaction. It’s fairly simple to use and is distributed by one of the biggest names in software. However, it costs around $400 so that puts it out of the ballpark for anyone but the most serious web designers.

Outside of Dreamweaver you can also use Microsoft FrontPage. Although Microsoft might eventually discontinue supporting this software in the near future, it is still one of the easier tools available to create a website quickly. I personally didn’t like using Frontpage years ago since it had the habit of rewriting some of my html code, but if you don’t go into your site’s source code and fiddle around with it than Frontpage might be a good solution for you.

Some other tools to consider when making your website are blogs. A blog can be used as a part of your site or the main part of your site. There are lots of sites online now that are using blogs as the main format of their business and most users are not even aware of it. Plus it is very easy to setup and use. The hardest part might be the setup, but most hosting providers offer one click installs where the setup is so automated that a monkey can do it. There are several types of blogging platforms available such as WordPress and Blogger. The really nice thing about these two is that you can even host your site with them for free, but this will limit the features and customizations that you can do. But if you wanted to get online quickly for free and not deal with software this is a good choice for you to look into.

On the other hand, if you just a simple web site for your small business then you’d be better off choosing Coffee Cup 2006 or Homestead Sitebuilder. Neither of these choices allow you to have an elaborate e-commerce site, but if you pay a little extra you can get a Homestead package that allows you to accept Paypal. Coffee Cup still lets you put together a fairly professional looking site, although without as many bells and whistles, but for only around $50. With Homestead, you’ll get web hosting and the tools to create a WYSIWYG site, but you’ll pay a monthly fee of $5 to $50 per month, plus an initial $20 set-up fee.

Category: Traffic  Tags:  Leave a Comment

The Art of Leaflet Design

17 Jul 2010 | By admin

So you’ve spent practically your whole budget and life savings into starting up a brand new business on your own. You want to start running your business as soon as possible to get a return on investment and start making a profit. There’s barely enough pounds left for you to get the word out to the public that your business exists. With little money to spare, have you considered the idea of advertising with leaflets? A Leaflet is a cost effective, exclusive, personal and an easy direct marketing tactic to get the message out to your potential customers. You can mail out leaflets, distribute them door-to-door, or hand them out in person.

When people learn about your business, what it offers, the range of products, and other highlighted details from your leaflet, they will become interested and will be keen to visit your store. It is a chance to inform the public about established organisations, causes or companies your business may be affiliated with. Leaflets make people aware of your brand which helps the public gain trust in your company and associate with your business. In order to effectively promote your company using leaflet advertising, the first step is to ensure you have a good sense of leaflet design that would be appealing to people reading your leaflet.

A leaflet has several aspects dependent on the quality of the design. The top 3 inches of the cover of your leaflet are the most important. Those 3 inches are what people are going to judge your leaflet by, to determine whether they’re going to read the rest of your leaflet or not. It should be your utmost priority to attract a passer-by’s attention with a captivating headline and so they can comprehend the purpose of your leaflet at a quick glance. Since leaflet design has the advantage of having more space to work with as compared to flyer design, use it! Utilise the space on your leaflet to highlight a few key points of information.

Then take the time to select one or two images to incorporate into your leaflet design, in order to create the right impact in the reader’s mind and backup your information. You should be able to give out a clear concise message to the person reading your leaflet. Do not confuse them by including too much information printed on your leaflet. The standard leaflet sizes vary from 1/3 A4 and A3 or A4 sizes folded into A5 sized leaflets. These sizes are considered to be standard since they have the convenient feature of fitting into a person’s pocket. This convenience will allow a person to read your leaflet in depth at a later time. If you produce bulky leaflets which are difficult to store in a purse or pocket, they are going to be thrown out by people instead of read.

The ink and paper chosen for your leaflet should be sturdy enough to handle any type of weather conditions or external force factors. The ink should be a higher quality of ink which is less likely to run if the leaflet gets moist or wet. The paper should be strong enough so that it doesn’t tear easily and is able to maintain its presentable form. Nothing is better than a sale, discount or one time offer, to give the public a reason to visit your business, so make sure to mention these specifics. People get extremely turned off by bad grammar and spelling errors. It makes people think your business is not significant or serious enough to be worth their time or money. So verify that your leaflet design is free from any sort of errors. Many businesses that print leaflets, fail to request for a preview before printing their whole order of leaflets. Only when the whole order is printed, do they realise something needed to be changed. Get a preview printout to get an idea of how your leaflet will look. Once you have had a chance to examine the preview, any small enhancements or adjustments can be made, to have an excellent leaflet design to promote your business.

Category: Traffic  Tags:  Leave a Comment

The Design Checklist

12 Jul 2010 | By admin

Before any SEO campaign can begin, a site must be analyzed to determine how well the site is being spidered by the search engines. It is also important to assess and modify the architecture of the site as needed. We always assess and recommend changes to the design of a site before doing any optimization. This ensures that a solid base is beneath the optimization and minimizes the amount of design changes we’ll have to make later. Before you begin optimization of a site, you should review the following areas. Ignoring certain aspects of the design can seriously limit the impact of the optimization.

1.) Spiderable Links

The search engines typically follow standard HTML. They do not render most scripts. The most common design problem is the inclusion of non-spiderable links. Often, these links are coded in either JavaScript or Flash, but non-spiderable code also includes HTML Forms. It is important to the optimization that as many pages as possible be indexed by the search engines. If the pages aren’t indexed, they can never rank and do not provide value to the other pages on the site.

The most common usage of non-spiderable links is in dropdown navigations. The most common dropdowns are coded in JavaScript and are not spiderable. It is always ok to use JavaScript for animation or other functionality, but the link itself must be in standard HTML. There are numerous CSS/JavaScript alternatives that allow using standard HTML links with div tags to accomplish the same drop down effects without using non-spiderable links.

2.) Maximum Internal Linking

The architecture of the site tells the engines a lot about what pages are important and what pages are not. The search engines try to view sites the same way a user does. This means that pages linked to from prominent locations like a main navigation will automatically receive more attention and authority. This is why search engine-friendly CSS drop down navigations are a good thing. Our goal should be to provide as many direct links to important pages from as many other pages as possible on the site.

As a rule of thumb, do your absolute best to ensure that no page is more than 2 clicks from any other page on the site. It is not possible to link every page from every other page on a larger site, but proper organization should lead to pages being accessible through main categories that are accessible from anywhere on the site. Authority filters down. If a page is available from only one other page on the site and that page is hard to get to, the original page will never rank well. Make it easy for users to find and you’ll make it easy for search engines to find.

Depending on the size of the site, it can take a good bit of planning to optimally lay out an architecture and internal linking structure. Generally, it’s best to lay out a site like a pyramid. The home page should act as a true hub to the site with main categories providing maximum access to pages under its control.

3.) Portal Home Page

This ties directly into maximizing internal linking, but is important enough (and a common enough problem) to get a special note. The home page is given the most authority of any page on the site. The search engines assume most traffic will enter the site through the home page. They also assume that the webmaster understands that and links the most important pages and information directly from the home page. If the site uses a ‘splash’ or some minimal home page, it is seriously limiting itself.

An optimized home page will act as a hub to all information on the site. If a page is hard to get to from the home page, it will be treated as a supplementary page and NOT an authoritative page.

4.) Text Content

Good web pages provide good content. Without good content, the page has no value and no purpose on the Web. It should be assumed that good text content will need to be added to the site. If the site’s design does not allow for the addition of content, it should be addressed as early as possible. The goal with any optimization campaign should be to provide the content that users are searching for. Grow your site, find out what people want, and provide it.

It is also very important to assess the visibility of the text content to the search engines. Text content should be written in standard text. Content that appears in Flash, images, JavaScript, behind HTML Forms, or in secure sections of the site will most likely be invisible to the search engines.

As we can see from the previous points, we have to address some things with each site before planning any real optimization strategies. We must determine what the search engines see. We must determine which pages are important and display them as such. We must cater to both the search engines and the users. This will provide a strong foundation for the optimization and help the site reach its potential.

Category: Traffic  Tags:  Leave a Comment
« Previous Entries
Next Entries »