Skip to content

Posts tagged ‘website design’

Apr 2

web
3 Comments

Fifteen Hallmarks of an Effective Small Business Website

The Checklist for Websites that Get New Clients for Small Businesses

GLEN COVE, N.Y., April 2, 2012 /PRNewswire-iReach/ — Often those tasked with looking for a new small business website will place a great deal of importance with very unique designs. There is nothing wrong with a website that is very attractive, but if the goal of your website is to attract new clients and assist existing clients, then an austere design with great content to help guide consumers and businesses with an interest in your market to your website. Businesses on the forefront of ideas in their field and can take the time to document the most useful of the many things they learn can showcase this valuable content on their websites. It is this content that is found by search engines for people seeking answers to specific problems. Finding the answer also makes them find your business.

  1. Use a minimalist design that uses whitespace (the empty space in the page that is generally white) effectively. This will make content more accessible.
  2. Frequent updates of fresh text are necessary for feeding the search engines and increasing online reputation and exposure. The best practice is to keep the length to around five hundred words.
  3. Blogs should be interactive, with links to share on social networks as well as a mechanism to comment on appropriate posts and pages. Moderation of comments can make sure that only legitimate responses are approved as comments.
  4. Businesses need a call to action on all appropriate pages to make it easier for potential clients to contact and hire their businesses.
  5. A value proposition should be high up on a business web page.  Businesses can express your reputation and / or quality in ten words or less.
  6. Businesses should do some writing about what differentiates them different from other similar firms. This differentiation can be in the form of writing quality content that potential clients would be interested and using terms they might be searching for.
  7. Accessibility for multiple device types to have a quality experience on your Website is important because people will visit websites from a variety of mobile devices and IPads.
  8. Using Google Analytics or other statistical traffic measurement tools for your site is critical to helping you develop your Website over time. The information can include what people are searching for when they find your site, and pages or topics that generate unusual interest.
  9. Engage with existing and potential clients on social networking platforms. Use social networking to syndicate your content and spread as far as possible. Automation can save time and money when implemented as part of your syndication strategy.
  10. The most important work that is done on a website is not done by your website designer but by the author of your content. If you are not going to produce the content yourself, then hire competent writers and give them the best ideas of your business to work with as well as guidance to produce the content which would be most helpful to a business’s potential and existing clients.
  11. Effective use of keywords in the text and in your title tags and URL’s will help search engines identify and catalog website content more effectively.
  12. Pursue legitimate avenues for obtaining quality backlinks to websites in order to increase page rankings of your pages in search engines.
  13. Avoid possible search engine policy violations by reading the guidelines available on Google, Bing, and others.
  14. Avoid being blocked by searchers. Websites blocked from search results are not producing what is considered to be quality content in the market of the business being blocked. Businesses can avoid this with good content as well as reputation management and answering concerns all over the Internet.
  15. Excellent security for your Website against hackers. A business can be ruined with careless handling of information, but well deployed and maintained high-quality security can reflect well upon a business.

Whether you do more research or not, the items listed here are all required hallmarks for a successful website. The success of a website requires all fourteen of these conditions to be fulfilled, and the success of each of these key areas is what will determine the success or failure of a Website.

The Web and I is a cloud computing consultancy specializing in website design and web applications in Glen Cove, Long Island, New York. Their website is http://thewebandi.com.

Media Contact: Martin Low the Web and I, 646-853-0573, webmaster@thewebandi.com

News distributed by PR Newswire iReach: https://ireach.prnewswire.com

The original can be seen at:

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fifteen-hallmarks-of-an-effective-small-business-website-145733325.html

Mar 24

Build-a-Blogging-Empire
2 Comments

10 Stumbling Blocks for Small Businesses to Avoid on Their Blog

Unlike simply creating a site for one’s business, creating a blog is an ongoing effort and a serious commitment to do a lot of writing and thinking on a regular basis. Whenever your business undertakes a new project of any kind, proper planning should include an analysis of potential pitfalls that could jeopardize the success of and even the continual existence of your project.

Businesses choose to start blogs as marketing projects, and in order for a blog to succeed it needs to be well designed and run, and new fresh and relevant content needs to be added on a regular basis. Ten conditions that can affect your blog are shown below so that you can plan to avoid them by taking proactive steps at the beginning.

  1. Neglecting Social Media
    Blogging goes hand-in-hand with social media, and the best chance of your blog being read by potential clients is to make sure your content and links get to social media sites. In addition, the best way for maintaining and improving your social networking is to regularly participate and update your profiles. Proper planning can also help by setting up syndication of your new blog content to many social network profiles automatically. All plans for new blogs need a good social network strategy or your blog will only get a fraction of the traffic that it could if you did.
  2.  Failing to Create a Consistent Writing Style
    Whether one or more people write on the blog for your business, the use of language and ways of presenting various kinds of information can be standardized in terms of style. This is most important when blogs have multiple authors. No matter the number of authors, your blog needs one voice.
  3. Blogging for Corporate Vanity
    Besides describing your products and services, some bloggers create more articles which are centered around their business. Consumers are more likely to come to your site and search engines will give you higher rankings if your blog concentrates on providing useful information related to your field without turning it into a sales pitch. The writing your team will do will be of a higher quality because they are writing articles and not advertisements. Providing some useful information for free will result in more clients in the long-term because of increased brand confidence and boosted search engine rankings.
  4. Micromanaging Blog Authors
    Some companies are far too cautious, putting multiple layers of reviewing staff before new content is published. They may also delay the approval of new topics. This is demotivating to blog authors and puts up barriers to posting good fresh content on the blog. Some creativity should be allowed, and authors must be trusted to choose topics.
  5. Not Allowing Comments
    Many businesses starting a blog are cautious and turn off the commenting feature on their blog. Answering client and public positive commentary as well as complaints can be effectively accomplished on your business blog when you open it up for commentary. Your company still has control of which comments can be published, as you can set an option to review all new comments before approving them. Others choose to allow all comment posts and then remove any offensive comments later when monitoring comments. Another added benefit of allowing comments is that it can put new text content on your most popular blog pages on a regular basis. This raises your search engine rankings in Google, Yahoo and Bing.
  6. Badly Written Posts
    Grammar and spelling are not only noticed by your customers but also by the search engines. Good writing style, perfect grammar and spelling are crucial for every post, and one bad blog post can hurt your blog’s reputation. Common errors include run-on sentences and forgetting to run a spelling checker before publishing. Sometimes inconsistent performance by new blog authors is an issue, and this will get better with experience.
  7. Poor Blog Design
    There are two parts of design: aesthetics and usability. Clean and minimalist design featuring a good logo, use of whitespace to separate different parts of your page and a consistent look for all of your pages is the hallmark of a good blog and website design. Blogs that look cluttered or even too pretty and overdesigned distract people from the original content. The design is merely a path for people to navigate and a way of displaying content. This is where usability comes into the picture of design. A good design looks the same across multiple browsers, and has visible text for search engines and electronic readers for the blind to access all content. Text should always be large enough to read, which means it is important to not give in to the temptation to use small fonts in some areas to free up space on the page. A site map or archive of posts should be easy to find as well.
  8. Lack of Realistic Goals
    Companies sometimes act on bad information, and they sometimes over-estimate the amount and rate of new business that their blog will get them based on their budget. Managing expectations can be difficult, but it can help a project be thought of as a success rather than a failure. Your company’s blog can be successful, but if you are in a competitive field, you are going to have to do a great job of writing and also have an advertising budget and strategy that can deliver the new business you need.
  9. Writers Block
    Getting stuck when you need to think of new topics that are relevant is a common problem that slows down the posting schedule. Reading as much news about your industry as possible will help your blog authors come up with fresh ideas. The reading of industry news will also keep the topics and tone of your blog consistent with contemporary views in your field.
  10. Lack of Time to Write
    Unless your business is very large, you and possibly other employees will be responsible for writing while also having other responsibilities at work. A risk for your blog is to have no fresh content added for long periods of time while you and your staff concentrate on other responsibilities.

We hope that this survey of potential risks to your business blog gives you something to think about concerning your blog or planned future blog. For assistance through a free consultation with us, please call us at any time at 646-853-0573.

Dec 30

2 Comments

The Benefits of a WordPress Website

Most people think of WordPress as just a site for amateur bloggers. However WordPress has been around a long time, and during that time they have picked up a lot of features and expertise that has made them into a premier web host. Most people do not realize that WordPress actually has a large client base of serious websites, including Time Magazine, NBC Sports, TED, Dow Jones, and more. They have all realized the benefits of managing the complex needs of their sites with WordPress.

WordPress provides a sophisticated content management system scheme. This means that once your site is complete, you can edit the content yourself without having to call on expensive web design resources. Areas for editing or adding new content can be delegated to your staff, or you can take control yourself.

WordPress has many layouts or themes to choose from. We can help you choose one that will work for your business. These themes have options of interest including great front page headline sliders, to add motion and interest to the homepage of your Website. All kinds of media from pictures to mp3 files to videos can be added to articles as well.  Your customers can also leave you feedback in the form of comments, questions, or testimonials: With a WordPress site, you have an interactive forum to actively engage your customers if you so desire.

There are many optional features available on your WordPress site. You can add statistical counters, category clouds, tag clouds, and even an active list of authors with links to their profiles that pop up when the cursor hovers over them. All of these serve to make your site more interesting and engaging.

Search engine optimization features are built-in as well. Because of the interest of larger businesses, WordPress has integrated SEO tools which enable you to verify your site and register it with Google Webmaster Tools, Yahoo Site Explorer, and Bing Webmaster Central.  There is also social media syndication available to automatically share new articles you have written across your social networks, thereby further engaging new sets of customers and potential customers.

All of this complexity is easy to use, but it is not easy to set up. That is where our expertise comes into play. We are experts at setting up WordPress sites, boasting many happy customers, all of whom are willing to serve as our references. They will tell you how easy we made it for them to succeed with WordPress. They will tell you how much new business is generated by the sites we have made them. They will also let you know how easy it is for them to use their own sites when they want to.

So whether you want to manage your own site, or if you want a “Done for you” solution, call the Web and I at 646-853-0573  and get started now!

May 14

Website Design by the Web and I, Inc.
2 Comments

Website Design Glen Cove

Website Design And Applications Hosted By Microsoft For the City of Glen Cove

The Web and I, Inc. is one of a select few technicians of Microsoft Office Live Small Business. Microsoft Office Live Small Business is the latest in cloud computing. You get quality website hosting, sophisticated business applications, ERP integration, internal social networking, and online reputation management with an extraordinarily robust solution. The future of the Web is here. Get online, get customers, and take your business to the next level! We are also ready to lead you to Office 365, when that is live in 2012.

More than just a Website Host, Microsoft Office Live / Office 365 includes the following key Capabilities:

  • Contact Management
  • Customer Relationship Management
  • Time and Schedule Management
  • Sales Management
  • Document Collaboration and Archiving
  • E-Mail Marketing Tools
  • Online Reputation Management Tools
  • Social Networking Tools
  • Custom Software Applications
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO Tools)

…and more. You just need the most desirable consultants who can help you pull it off. Solutions that are properly put to practice can be successfully managed by internet and computer beginners without the expense of full-time IT office workers. Run your business with the virtuosity secrets enjoyed by Fortune 500 companies.

Website Design is the science of the Web and I. Bringing big business savvy to small businesses in the New York City / Metropolitan Area and the City of Glen Cove Long Island is our goal. We want every small venture to take advantage of the miracles offered to larger businesses as a matter of course. We have partnered up with Microsoft Corporation, of Redmond Washington because we believe they offer the best small business hosting. Their sites are up with great reliability, and the method is always being improved. Best of all, hosting is free until 2012 (when they launch Office 365, then it will be $6 per month)The Web and I can create your site from simple sites, to marketing sites, to E-Commerce, and sites with forms on them for collecting customer

data. If your business needs are more complex, we can create customer intranets so that you can invoice your customers and present them with special offers and services. The Web and I is trusted by small businesses for marketing as well. Our search engine optimization and social networking can put your site ahead of the competition, with a number one ranking on Google.com.

May 14

Website Design by the Web and I, Inc.
2 Comments

Website Design Nassau County, New York

Website Design Nassau County Businesses Featuring Applications Hosted By Microsoft

The Web and I, Inc. is one of a select few web developers of Microsoft Office Live Small Business. Microsoft Office Live Small Business is the latest in cloud computing. You get quality website hosting, sophisticated business applications, ERP integration, internal social networking, and online reputation management with an extraordinarily robust solution. The future of the Web is here. Get online, get customers, and take your business to the next level! We are also ready to lead you to Office 365, when that is live in 2012.

More than just a Website Host,Microsoft Office Live includes the following key roles:

  • Contact Management
  • Customer Relationship Management
  • Time and Schedule Management
  • Sales Management
  • Document Collaboration and Archiving
  • E-Mail Marketing Tools
  • Online Reputation Management Tools
  • Social Networking Tools
  • Custom Software Applications
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO Tools)

…And more. You just need the proper consultants who can help you pull it off. Solutions that are properly put through can be successfully coordinated by internet and computer beginners without the expense of full-time IT Personnel. Run your business with the functionality secrets enjoyed by Fortune 500 companies.

Website Design is the pursuit of the Web and I. Bringing big business savvy to small businesses in the New York City / Metropolitan Area

May 14

Website Design by the Web and I, Inc.
1 Comment

Website Design Long Beach

Website Design and Applications Hosted By Microsoft For the City of Long Beach

The Web and I, Inc. is one of a select few engineers of Microsoft Office Live Small Business. Microsoft Office Live Small Business is the latest in cloud computing. You get quality website hosting, sophisticated business applications, ERP integration, internal social networking, and online reputation management with an extraordinarily robust solution. The future of the Web is here. Get online, get customers, and take your business to the next level! We are also ready to lead you to Office 365, when that is live in 2012.

More than just a Website Host,Microsoft Office Live includes the following key features:

  • Contact Management
  • Customer Relationship Management
  • Time and Schedule Management
  • Sales Management
  • Document Collaboration and Archiving
  • E-Mail Marketing Tools
  • Online Reputation Management Tools
  • Social Networking Tools
  • Custom Software Applications
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO Tools)

…And more. You just need the perfect consultants who can help you pull it off. Solutions that are properly adopted can be successfully supervised by internet and computer nouveaux without the expense of full-time IT engineers. Run your business with the overall performance secrets enjoyed by Fortune 500 companies.

Website Design is the pursuit of the Web and I. Bringing big business savvy to small businesses in the New York City / Metropolitan Area and the City of Long Beach, Long Island is our goal. We want every small business organization to take advantage of the results offered to larger businesses as a matter of course. We have partnered up with Microsoft Corporation, of Redmond Washington because we believe they offer the best small business hosting. Their sites are up with great reliability, and the engineering science is always being improved. Best of all, hosting is free until 2012 (when they launch Office 365, then it will be $6 per month)The Web and I can create your site from simple sites, to marketing sites, to E-Commerce, and sites with forms on them for collecting customer data. If your business needs are more complex, we can create customer intranets so that you can invoice your customers and present them with special offers and services. The Web and I is trusted by small businesses for marketing as well. Our search engine optimization and social networking can put your site ahead of the competition, with a number one ranking on Google.com.

Visit thewebandi.com for website design for a new era in Long Beach. 646-853-0573.

May 13

Website Design by the Web and I, Inc.
5 Comments

Website Design

Websites have to fulfill expected functions, and one of the pitfalls to avoid when getting a new website is small businesses not knowing what expectations to have from their website and internet presence. Knowledge of your brand, positioning your business as a leading source of information in your market, and ultimately developing a larger client base are an excellent place to start.

We make websites designed to be accessible and popular to the correct audience. The technologies and techniques we use adhere to industry standards for best practices designed to help grow your business and increase the knowledge and reputation of your brand.

Websites for businesses have to perform the functions of information dissemination and gathering new clients and customers. The kind of website that actually gets new clients is different from the kind of website that is chasing the most unique visual look. We counsel clients and anyone interested that websites that work too hard to be pretty do not generate leads, sales, and closed deals. We have more information about the hallmarks of an effective website here. Simple websites that are content focused and feature clean, minimalist designs are what works for search engines and for your customers. Rather than focusing on a vanity website full of beautiful and unique graphic features for the business owner’s pride, a usable website offers key benefits making it a conservative investment all businesses should make.

A usable website properly implemented will:

  • Increase sales of your product or service.
  • Increase awareness of your brand among those with an interest in your markets.
  • Increase your reputation in your industry by positioning your firm as a leader of ideas.
  • Provide your business with a turnkey solution that will enable you to:
    • Control your development expenses with technology that perpetually self-upgrades. (Unique to the Web and I)
    • Lower customer support expenses. (Unique to the Web and I)
    • Allow you or your delegates to add new content on your Website in your office without technical assistance.
    • Provide professional content creation and curation for companies seeking a managed internet presence.

The most important user is of course your client.  The second most important users are the search engines and social networks where people are looking for your products and services. You have to offer your products or services and policies and information in such a way that your client can get to any major destination on your Website in three clicks or less. Local search for your kind of business must show up on your neighborhood Google Maps and local search on Yahoo and Bing as well. We believe in taking the extra steps of making sure that your Website is accessible to the Handicapped. We ensure compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act Section 508.  Compliance with these standards are required of any organization of any size receiving government grant funding or wishing to be eligible to respond to government contract or RFA. A little-known fact about making websites that get seen by both search engines and read by people is that accessibility is crucial.

User acceptance testing we perform finds any barriers to completing an inquiry or accessing any part of your Website.  A uniform, rapid, consistent experience will help any kind of business avoid website abandonment by readers.  Many studies have concluded that most online shopping results in abandonment without a transaction, and these barriers to completion and conversion are what we seek to remove. Contextual browsing by topic can help users find what they need in three clicks or less. Recommendations and referrals by word of mouth go to usable sites.  People like to recommend things that work.

What should clients do?

We ask that our clients prepare a list of problems on a high level that they hope to address with the creation of a website.  From there we can come up with a strategy best suited to your needs.  Knowing the big picture will help us find the most efficient solution to your problems.

Who’s doing the technical work?

WordPress. Your business reputation these days has to be managed online because in today’s market, that is where businesses are found.  Nobody uses the Yellow Pages anymore; people use Bing, Google, Yahoo, Dogpile, and often the recommendations of your friends on social networks and review sites.  Press releases can now be made online for free, and there are classified advertising opportunities, blogging opportunities, and video posting opportunities which will help you along the way.  Search Engine Optimization and Social Network Optimization are what Coca Cola, IBM, Google, and others are spending their time and money on.

Most people think of WordPress as just a site for amateur bloggers. However WordPress has been around a long time, and during that time they have picked up a lot of features and expertise that has made them into a premier web host. Most people do not realize that WordPress actually has a large client base of serious websites, including Time Magazine, NBC Sports, TED, Dow Jones, and more. They have all realized the benefits of managing the complex needs of their sites with WordPress.

Find out more about WordPress Websites, the high-profile organizations using WordPress now and how we can help you.

You just need the RIGHT consultants who can help you make it happen. Solutions that are properly implemented can be successfully managed by internet and computer novices without the expense of full-time IT staff.  Run your businesses with the efficiency secrets enjoyed by Fortune 500 companies.

About the Content:

The Web and I prides ourselves upon ability to produce great content.  We can take all of the marketing material you have to work with, work up a marketing strategy, and then weave this into a seamless whole, filling in the gaps.  We know what pages will be needed for your business model and we can perform a gap analysis prior to commencement of the project.

About the users:

User testing across the gamut of all browser types is central to our design process. We wish to make the experience for the user the best possible, with a logical and easy to navigate information architecture, and fresh, engaging content.

Get Started Now

Discuss your project with one of our system engineers today! Call us at 646-853-0573 for a free consultation.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 904 other followers