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Most business owners think of “web designers” as “graphic designers”. This is unfortunate because it lowers their expectations about what to expect from their business website. Fact is a business owner needs a web designer for their online business presence far more than they need a “pretty face” for their business online. To compare, it’s similar to needing an architect to build your office building far more than a painter to make it look good.

Every aspect of your business is important but some are simply more important. Using the office building example, a business owner would not construct his business out of cardboard and then just slap some paint on the outside so it looked good from the street. The first customer that entered the office would immediately notice the lack of depth in the business and leave as quickly as possible.

It’s the same concept when building an online business presence. There is no doubt that your online business needs to look great. If it doesn’t look professional, customers are going to be hesitant to do business with you. With that in mind, your website should be solid in design and have depth if you want potential customers to visit, look around, purchase your product or service, and return for a repeat purchase in the future.

So what should you look for when you are selecting a “web designer”? It means don’t look at how pretty their portfolio looks as your main criteria for selecting them – again, you’re not looking for a graphic designer. Here are a few skills that a “web designer” should be able to bring to an effective online business website and you should consider when hiring a web designer:

• Web design and development – ability to design e-commerce solutions, content management systems, user registration systems, and sound web site designs.
  
• Web hosting services – either providing hosting services to you or assisting you with setting up your hosting with a reputable hosting provider.
  
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – keyword and key phrase selection, keyword density, meta tag generation.
  
• Graphics creation – (Here is where you may want to use a Graphic Designer!) ensure graphics are optimized for the web.
  
• Database creation – product databases.
  
• Web content – includes streaming video and audio, flash animations.
  
• Web maintenance – updating content, tweaking website for SEO.
  
• Internet marketing and promotion – Pay-per-click/ Google AdWord Campaigns, Paid Inclusion, and Search Engine Submission.
  

Make sure your designer is coming from a systems engineering or programming design perspective, not just a graphic design perspective, and you'll have a business website that not only looks good, but also works tirelessly for you and performs exceptionally well in search engines to help you with increasing your business profits.
]]> Web Site Design http://www.spyderbytewebdesign.com/blog/index.php?itemid=8 Tue, 16 May 2006 19:32:21 -0300 http://www.spyderbytewebdesign.com/blog/index.php?itemid=7
Static banners are what the name suggests. The content on the banner remains static until the web visitor visits another web page.

Animated banners are banners that move on a Web site. Animated banners are usually in GIF format and contain “frames” of graphics in one file that are displayed in a certain order for a certain length of time. You can even set the file to loop continuously or for a certain number of cycles to include stopping completely after only one complete cycle.

Rotating banners are banner ads that rotate among different web pages on the same site. They can rotate at a specific interval or they can rotate whenever a new visitor displays a page or when the page is refreshed by the same visitor.

When designing a banner you should look to achieve the following objectives:

- Make sure the banner loads quick. If not, the web visitor may leave the Web page before the banner displays without ever seeing it.

- Keep the banner simple. If the banner contains too much information the viewer will experience information overload and will not click on the banner.

- Make sure your banner ad can be viewed easily. Do not use hard to read fonts and be careful of what colors you use.

- Always use ALT tags (small piece of HTML code added to a Web site) so visitors that have their graphics turned off still receive the message of your banner ad only in text.

- Be sure your banner ad clicks to a link that is interesting and is present on the Web site. Nothing is more annoying than clicking on a link and receiving a “page not found” error.

- If you are using animated banners limit your animation to a reasonable number of frames.

- Test your banner ads with different browsers and different screen resolutions to be sure they are displaying as you want them to.
If you know nothing about graphic design, do not try designing a banner on your own. If you do, it’s best to get a second and third opinion before you run your banner ad.

Before you purchase a banner ad you should consider the following:

- How closely aligned is the target market of the site you want to advertise on to your business?

- What banner sizes are allowed? Typically, the larger the banner the greater the cost.

- How many ads are on each page? The more ads per page, the lower the click-through rate will be for any particular ad on that page.

- How many sites are there like the one you are considering advertising on? Are there other sites that you could advertise on to reach the same market?

- What are the site’s competitors charging?

Location, location, location. Where on the web page will your ad be placed – Top, left or right margins, bottom, etc.

There are ways to improve the effectiveness of banner advertising. One commonly overlooked method is having the banner link to specific information on your site. Banner advertisers often have their ads link to the home page of the site, where the user then has to look around and click through several pages in order to get to the information that they want. Most viewers won't go to the effort. If they don't see what they want right away, they will leave.

You should instead link the banner to the information that relates to that specific banner and that specific audience. The page should let them know exactly what they want and also let them know where they are within your site, so the Web visitor won't feel lost.

One more thing that you will want to consider is how the banner will print. Animated banners are a series of frames that together make a complete message. However, when you print these out, you can get a frame that is nonsense. It may be beneficial to make your banner so that when it prints it will print with a complete message, or at least include your web address or contact information. This will improve the effectiveness of the banner on printouts.]]> Web Marketing http://www.spyderbytewebdesign.com/blog/index.php?itemid=7 Wed, 21 Dec 2005 10:05:50 -0400 http://www.spyderbytewebdesign.com/blog/index.php?itemid=6
Born: July 18, 1911
Died: November 06, 2005

MITCHELL, Margaraet Helen, Age 94, went to be with her Savior November 6, 2005. Born July 18, 1911 in Allegan, Michigan she was much loved by her parents, the late William and Luella Mayers and her seven brothers and sisters. Margaret loved and served her Lord Jesus Christ in her Daily Life. Her family loves her dearly and she will be greatly missed.

Love,

Your Grandson

P.S. Give Grandpa a hug for me!


]]> General http://www.spyderbytewebdesign.com/blog/index.php?itemid=6 Tue, 15 Nov 2005 22:40:39 -0400 http://www.spyderbytewebdesign.com/blog/index.php?itemid=5
To place well in search engines you need to vote your site up to have the best chance of placing well within search engine results. These votes serve to do several things:

• Links make it easier for search engines to find your website. As the search spiders and bots traverse web pages on the Internet they come across links which they follow to index additional pages. The more links you have to your web site the greater the chance that your website will be traversed and indexed by the search engines. The more links you have pointing to your website, the quicker your website will be indexed by the search engines.
  
• Search Engines like Google use the number of links to your website to assign a value called PageRank. The more links to your web page the greater perceived value, or PageRank, Search Engines assign to your website. However, it is not just the total number of links to your website but also how relative the links are to your site. As an example, I had several hundred links to my website, Michigan Web Site Design business, Spyder Byte Web Design, LLC. Many of the links were non-Internet related; Hotels, Real Estate companies, Travel Agencies and even a few Paint Ball businesses in the UK that wanted to exchange links with me. Within a few months, my Google PageRank went from "0" to "3" and stayed there for many months. I recently found time to redesign my own site and did away with all non-Internet related links and began rebuilding content relative links to my site. I have approximately 50 Web Design, Web Hosting, Web Marketing businesses across the US and UK that I am exchanging links with and no non-related Internet links. Within a few days, my Google PageRank went from "3" to "4". Just coincidence? We'll see what happens over the next few months -- I expect to move to a "5".
  
• Links provide information to the Search Engines about the web page they are pointing to. Many times links contain keyword and keyphrases that will provide the search engine with information about your site. Notice what I did in the bullet item above. I mentioned Spyder Byte Web Design, and created a link with my keyphrase "Michigan Web Site Design". Now imagine having hundreds of links to your site all using the same Keyphrase link. Do you think you will place well for that keyphrase "Michigan Web Site Design" in search engines?
  
• Links direct visitors to your website. This is obvious but important. The more links you have out on the Internet, the more potential there is for someone to find your link and click on it.
  

Links are very important. They may mean the difference between being indexed by a search engine or not being indexed and ranking high or ranking low in the search results. If two comparable websites were being indexed by search engines and one had 100 links pointing to it and one only had 10. I can almost guarantee (nothing in life is for sure except...) the web site with 100 links will rank higher in the search results and have a higher PageRank then the web site with only 10 links.]]> Search Engines http://www.spyderbytewebdesign.com/blog/index.php?itemid=5 Tue, 25 Oct 2005 08:42:59 -0300 http://www.spyderbytewebdesign.com/blog/index.php?itemid=4
What is unique about businesses on the Internet is that a visitor arriving to the web site has no idea how large or small the company may be. In contrast, it's pretty easy to distinguish a big "Brick and Mortar" company from a small one. The larger company has flashier advertising, more square footage, and a much larger inventory. Regardless of true size, an Internet business can project a larger image by promoting their websites successfully. When done properly, advertising allows the small business to compete against much larger companies on the Internet which otherwise would be impossible to compete with as a "Brick and Mortar" company.

No matter how large or small your business is, you need to advertise to stay in business. Unfortunately, traditional advertising methods requires significant captial and manpower. This is exactly why many small businesses fail -- they spend far to much time trying to compete in someone else's back yard. They should rethink their advertising strategy and find a cost-effective and targeted method for locating the right customers.

One such method is to utilize search engines. Search engines are very unique in that the individuals that use them already know what they are looking for so you as a business owner do not have to try to influence their purchase. They are already looking for your product and service and no other advertising method is this focused.

Did I mention that many of the search engines are free? One purchase from a customer that was referred to your business from a search engine, results in a profit for your business.
]]> Web Marketing http://www.spyderbytewebdesign.com/blog/index.php?itemid=4 Wed, 12 Oct 2005 22:58:03 -0300