Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Chicago WebDesign's InsaneJournal:

[ << Previous 20 ]

Saturday, April 21st, 2012
9:20 am	chicago web design tangible results Chicago Web Design If you are a budding and a beginning website developer dreaming of a site that's worth to be in the top Page Rank, you should be able to take note with what's cool and what's not in web design. Let's face it, there are some websites out there that is definitely not worth the precious seconds of your lifetime. You wouldn't want to be categorized in the same rank, would you? And so, here is some fail-safe advice on avoiding the should-not-be-there-in-the-first-place. First, do not put page counters. That stuff is for amateurs. If you really want to know how many hits your website has made, just ask your host for server stats. Second, don't force people to download a new browser of special plug-in to see your site. Using CSS and HTML properly, you can create good quality pages that will not give people a pain in the butt of having to do certain stuff in order to gain access. Third, don't try stupid cheat tricks so as to fool search engines. A lot of web designers in the past have created disreputable methods in order to get higher rankings in search engines. Methods such as putting hundreds of keywords on the pages as invisible text, and a whole lot more have gained limited success in the past. But don't try to fool search engines like Google, or else your website might die of a horrible, painful death. What's important is that quality always makes the quantity. Fourth, don't set up an "Under Construction" page. If you know that the page is not ready yet, then don't set it up. If your page is really under construction, but containing contain that can be accessed by people, then simply post a "last updated" date and make sure that the content will be in place very soon. Now the above mentioned advice is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many do's and don'ts out there. You can get inspiration from the high-ranked websites and do your own evaluation. Web design is no easy job to do but in the end if you just avoid the web design mistakes, this information will surely help you out. You may end up with nothing if you are not aware of the common mistakes in web design, you will surely keep on repeating it. So, try these tips now and see how much of a difference it will make. Have fun on your journey. Web Design Whether you are about to launch a personal website, or one for your small business, it's crucial that you evaluate the website before it goes live to world. Use this 10-point checklist to ensure that your website is user-friendly, looks professional and reflects your personal or business brand: 1. Branding The look of your website, as well as its content, must be consistent with your brand. You should be using the same logo, type font and color palette across all your marketing collateral, including your website. When a potential customer sees your company's billboard, magazine advertisement, or brochure, and they then head to your website, what you don't want is the customer thinking that they've come to the wrong website. If your website looks nothing like your company's branding the visitor will get confused and just click away. It's critical that you focus on the branding of your website as you would do with any other marketing collateral. What makes large companies so successful is that their branding is consistent across their product packaging, their websites, and their advertising. 2. Layout It impacts the usability of your website. When designing the layout for your website you need to make sure that all the elements are in a logical order. This is especially important if you are trying to get your visitors to buy products or services. Think like your customer when evaluating your website's layout. Don't make it difficult for your visitors to find information or make an online order. 3. Load Time While most of your visitors will have high-speed Internet access, you should remember that connectivity speeds can vary. It's important to be aware of file sizes, image sizes and total load time of your website. A good tip is to try and test how long it takes for your website to load using different connectivity speeds and devices. 4. Errors If links in your website take your visitors to 404 Error pages, your visitors will walk. Make sure all of your links are working correctly and pointing in the right direction. Test all the internal and outbound links prior to launch. Google provides webmasters with tools to identify dead links. 5. Advertisements Visitors will usually forgive a website for having an advertisement here or there. However, if the website is 80% advertising and 20% content, the likelihood of visitors returning is slim. Be aware of the amount of advertising on your site. Remember that your visitors have come to your website looking for information, and your products and services. They have not come to just read someone else's ads. 6. Navigation Have you ever been to a website and just didn't know where to start? Make sure your navigation is user-friendly. Plan the navigation for your site by anticipating how visitors will interact with the different elements that make up your site. Visitors just don't have the time to tangle with a site that looks like a maze. Make it easy for visitors to find what they're looking for and you will be repaid with repeat visits and online sales. 7. Purpose There is a purpose to every website. It could be selling a product or service or trying to get people to sign up for a membership program. If it's not clear to your visitors what they should be doing on your site, they're not going to do what you want them to do. Test this out with friends, family and colleagues. Have them visit your demo site and then ask them what they think they're supposed to be doing there. 8. Annoyances Don't add any unnecessary widgets, flying saucers, mouse trails, pop-up ads or other 'cool' features. Keep it simple. If it doesn't complement the visitor experience, your site won't need it. 9. Audio & Video Remove any auto play multimedia elements from your site. Give your visitors the choice to listen to music or watch videos. Never have any website elements that will intrude on the visitor's experience. 10. Quality Your website should have an overall feeling of quality. The writing should be strong, informative and grammatically perfect. The visual look of your website should have style. If you are not known for your style, you might want to get a professional designer in to give your website a stylish finish. Read more about Aston Weber Group: Web Design, Chicago Web Design, Chicago Web Design, Web Design (Comment on this)
Friday, April 13th, 2012
9:20 am	Chicago web design and Internet Marketing Web Design We all want to have the most attractive website that leaves a visitor wide-eyed and completely dazzled. Usually an extremely attractive website design involves lots of graphical elements, increasing the overall page size which causes the page to download slowly to the browser. This article will provide some useful tips on how to keep your website design attractive but still downloads quickly. As the average internet bandwidth rate per computer is raising, more and more webmasters allow themselves to develop complex websites laden with heavy graphic elements. In extreme cases you can find websites that take as much as a few minutes to load their content in your browser. Of course the user will never wait that long for a website to load, and will move on to the next website in his search results. So why are webmasters still developing slow loading bloated websies? Primarily due to a lack of knowledge of simple graphic optimization techniques that will allow them to maintain an attractive website while keeping the page size smaller. How many of you are aware of the fact that a box with rounded corners can be achieved using CSS code only, without the need for any graphic image. Well it is possible! Before those of you familiar with CSS say that it cannot be done for every type of browser and a relatively high level of programming is required, I say that dealing with the most common mistakes web designers make regarding optimization can have simple solutions. Never limit the web designer by placing any restrictions that impact the final outcome. You might make the claim that what a web designer can do with graphic software is impossible to implement by code. I disagree. When the design is finished and you are ready to slice it into small images to be used in the html code, your creativity is been tested. Everything you do at this stage will affect the total page size. If your design contains rounded shapes that overlap each other or areas with color gradients, then you must slice it carefully so the outcome is a small file size. Let’s look at what efficient slicing means: 1. Do not make large slices that contain lots of different colors. Use a small number of slices where each slice contains a limited number of colors. 2. Do not make a large slice that contains the same graphic structure. Slice a small portion of it and duplicate it in your code. This is a very common mistake that webmasters/programmers make when dealing with gradient color background. 3. Do not use JPEG file format all the time. In some cases a GIF format will be much smaller in size. A rule of thumb – a slice with high number of colors will be smaller in size using the JPEG format rather than the GIF format, and the opposite is also true. Check each option separately. Every 1KB that you reduce from the image file size will eventually add up to a significant reduction in page size. 4. If you have text on a solid color background, do not slice it at all. Use code to create the background instead. Remember that you can define both the font style and background color of the area using CSS. Chicago Web Design When people plan to buy a computer they check the configuration, screen size, battery backup etc. Screen resolution, in most cases, is a non issue. It is something that comes predefined with the system and they start to use it accordingly. This is the general approach. Now, this general approach proves to be a big headache for website designer and developers. Technology is something that changes faster than climate. As a result we have technologies of different age in operation at the same time. The challenge that this scenario posts for the website developers is to optimize their sites to suit all these versions at the same time. The biggest hurdle here is of screen resolution because when a website is designed it is done with certain dimensions in mind. It has some buffer but less or more than that scope effects the look of the graphic. Generally designers work according to the most common resolution in their target areas. For example in USA and Europe 1400 x 900 is the common resolution while countries like India are still dominated by 1024 x 768 and 1280 x 800. The designs are made in such a manner that if the image is viewed on lower resolution than targeted, certain outer sections of the graphic will get cut but the core look will not be affected. Similarly, background wallpapers are added to account for the extra width of higher resolutions. It's not design that can suffer from resolution fluctuations, various modules specially the ones with tables / forms can't get deformed in some resolutions. The layout might break making things look clumsy and unprofessional. For the problem that is caused by technology, it is fair that the solution also comes from technology. There are new ways and techniques coming up that are trying to eradicate this menace for web designers. One such way is 'liquid designs'. As the name suggests, liquid designs are not bound by any size, they are made to adopt themselves to the resolutions at work. The trick is that these designs are made in flash which enables the flexibility feature. It's a welcome relief but is still in growing stage. Till liquid designs gain popularity, the designers will have to fight the devil. The best thing to do is test your website under all common resolutions before finalizing it. It's easy to do by adjusting the screen resolution settings from the control panel. Try and cover as many resolutions as possible as hope for the best. That's pretty much all that can be done till technology comes to the rescue once again. Read more about Aston Weber Group: Chicago Web Design, Web Design, Chicago Web Design, Web Design (Comment on this)
Thursday, April 12th, 2012
9:19 am	Chicago web design - delivering the best services Chicago Web Design Your real estate website could already be offering great services and website designs. However, without being correctly optimized for search engines it will most probably end up where very few users will search. Read on to find out the importance of SEO for your realty website. Traffic is an imperative for any business on the Internet, regardless of their industry. Your realty business is no exception. If your website is invisible to your potential customers, it is obvious that you are losing them to someone else. Your real estate website requires some sprucing so that it is more noticeable to search engines and eventually to your customers. There are various ways to get there, starting from an attractive looking site to adding tools to networking and marketing to SEO and others. While it is crucial to cover other features and tools, optimizing your website for search engines is one of the most important requirements. Your realty website could already be loaded with great services and offers, but without being optimized for search engines it is bound to end up where very few users will search. You'd be surprised what difference can few SEO tweaks do to your website's traffic. Text up! Remember that search engine crawlers oversee images and videos while crawling websites. They might be attractive and informative to visitors who watch them (this way they are helpful). However, to be on top of the search engine ranking, your website's content is what does the work. So, add 'more' relevant and high quality content to your site. Research and use the most popular key phrases and keywords on your pages and articles, blogs and press releases. Use the key phrases and keywords but do not overuse them at the same time. Having more pages with useful information that offers solution to your visitors will automatically raise the quality, and over time, traffic to your site. Writing content is easier and more economical as well. Articles, blogs and press releases These are powerful tools via which you can take your message from the confines of your web pages and distribute them across the world wide web. The content of your articles could be general or target specific. The important thing is that they should contain what your potential customers would look for. Blogs have great function as they offer the readers a two way communication. For instance, a reader can add his/her comment regarding the blog or ask questions. Likewise, you can submit press releases to various channels, RSS feeds and websites etc., and get inbound links. Make use of directories Submitting your website to various web directories is another way of acquiring inbound links. Unlike search engines, each site listed on a directory is found, quality and relevance checked, and then added to appropriate categories on the directory's database. Search engines such as Google, use the data from directories in their ranking algorithm. Hence, marking a presence on directories can also impact your search engine ranking. Directories that are deemed as high quality may charge for submission of your site, but the benefit you get from being listed on such directory is always worth the fee. Strike a balance While making use of texts or attractive graphics or videos improve your website's visibility and appeal on the web, it is advised not to overuse them. For instance, using a keyword repeatedly (in hundreds) on the same page might get your website penalized by search engines as it is not considered a healthy practice. Likewise, overusing images and videos will make your website heavy, requiring more time to load pages, and annoy the visitors. The key is to maintain a proper balance of all the ingredients. Web Design At present, WordPress is one of the most widely used and preferred CMS all across the globe. The vast fame and popularity of WordPress is the manifest of its varied features and advantages that it proffers to different bloggers and website owners. Extensively used by many users for developing corporate websites and blogging sites, now with the help of free WordPress theme downloads, it becomes quite easy to change the appeal of the site with much ease. There has been a wide gamut of free WordPress templates that offers a diversified variety and options to choose. The user friendly, eye catching and attractive website layout is extremely mandatory to drive more potential traffic and customers. Once the visitor likes the appeal, content and layout of a website, it's for sure that you have a loyal client who would definitely come back again. The free WordPress theme downloads is a good option to consider especially for new websites. If you are a beginner planning to create a professional website or wishing to customize the existing one, then free WordPress design themes can do wonders for your site. There are lots of online websites available, which are assisting web developers and companies by proffering them prime quality, well developed and rich WordPress designs at free of cost or at cost effective rates. Moreover, you can search online for supreme plug-ins used in WordPress templates needed for integrating online e-commerce applications. Though, there are innumerable numbers of options available at the online platform, but you have to ascertain the genuineness and reliability of them. Beware of the fraudulent sites offering low quality WordPress themes at cheap prices. Low quality products of WordPress are of no use and will not fetch any advantage for your site. Thus, it is extremely important to take aid of some expertise when looking for superior quality free WordPress themes, WordPress Premium Themes for your website. Along with this, WordPress templates can also bring a new life to your website or Blog, fruitful and beneficial in driving huge traffic, with just a couple of clicks. As WordPress is a database driven content management system, so you don't have to change anything while doing modifications in the template. You can simply make changes in the WordPress template and can experience the completely different look of your website. In short, take a good step towards success by choosing an appealing WordPress theme. Read more about Aston Weber Group: Web Design, Chicago Web Design, Chicago Web Design, Web Design (Comment on this)
Friday, March 30th, 2012
4:46 pm	Chicago web design - improve your online visibility Chicago Web Design First let's understand Marketing: On a networking event you see a meeting planner. You approach him/her and say, "I'm a great Speaker." That's Direct Marketing. You're at a party with a bunch of friends and see a meeting planner. You have one of your friends' approach him/her, point at you and say, "She's/He's great speaker." That's Advertising. You see meeting planner at a party. You approach him/her to get their telephone number. The next day you call and say, "Hi, I'm a great speaker." That's Telemarketing. You're at a party and see a meeting planner. You get up, straighten your clothes, walk up and pour them a drink. You open the door, pick up their bag after it drops, offer them a ride, and then say, "By the way, I'm a great speaker." That's Public Relations. You're at a party and see a meeting planner. They walk up to you and say, "I hear you're a great speaker." That's Brand Recognition. OK, just a little fun, but seriously if you are a communicator you do understand that communications can be broken down into 3 elements: • Message: 7% • Tone of Voice: 38% • Body Language: 55% And you also know that a communicator makes a living speaking, i.e. showing up for live presentations. Consequently 93% (38%+55%) of you message depends on how you present yourself. How then do you expect meeting planners to hire you by reading a web-page? How do you expect coaching clients to do the same or to get your message across to prospect buyers when you are holding back 93% of your message? Having a static web-page is like presenting only 7% of what you are. You MUST have several videos to showcase your talent, ideas, and products to get 100% of your message across. Would you hire or buy from anyone that only shows you 7% of what they are capable of? Videos are a crucial marketing package item for speakers, coaches, ministers or anyone that speaks to market their business. Videos also help consumer make educated decisions. When Zappos (the online shoe store) introduced videos not only did purchases increase by 10% when a product included a video description, but returns for the product also decreased due to a more educated consumer. An you as a communicator would benefit from this education too. Having educated consumers about you and your products will increase your sales convection. More educated consumer means less time on calls / explanations and more inclined to hire your services or attend your seminars and ministries. Web Design In the field of web development, CMS (Content Management System) plays a major role in making the task easier for the developers. Although website customization is by no means a smooth cakewalk, various Open Source tools have made the task quite comfortable for software and web professionals. WordPress web design service has been a driving force behind successful professional websites. This leading open source publishing platform has been registering tremendous growth since its release way back in 2003. The use of Internet has been witnessing a phenomenal rise. Common people are becoming net-savvy. In recent years, the popularity of blogs has touched even the non-technical people. Professional blogs are being extensively used to promote business. Here lies the importance of a customized blogging site with user-friendly features. Moreover, people want innovative technologies so that even laymen can reap the benefits of latest inventions. In this regard WordPress plays its major role. Thousands of WordPress custom themes and templates are available on the web to customize a site with personal touch, making it one of the widely used CMS to integrate on websites. Moreover, WordPress website offers online guidance to work on this blogging tool. It tremendously helps newcomers in the IT field. WordPress comes with a web template processor. The easy-to-use features and WordPress custom themes enable even the laymen to rearrange widgets without any knowledge of PHP, HTML or CSS code. However, in the era of e-learning one can easily learn the basic tricks of these web publishing tools through different websites at free of cost. Editing PHP and HTML codes will no doubt ensure a memorable experience for the users. The extensive feature list of WordPress includes integrated link management with an eye on search engine optimization for the websites and permalink structure to enable assigning nested and multiple categories to articles. This Open Source blogging tool also includes auto-filters and rich text formatting options to edit articles with professional touch. Its text formatting features offer several benefits and help to convert regular quotes to smart quotes. Among other benefits of WordPress, one can easily mention about its support for Trackback and Pingback standards that enable to show links to other websites, which have been linked to an article or post. However, one key feature that separates it from other customizable CMS is its rich plugin architecture that allows millions of technical contributors to enhance its functionality beyond its basic and original offerings. Read more about Aston Weber Group: Web Design, Chicago Web Design, Chicago Web Design, Web Design (Comment on this)
Thursday, March 29th, 2012
4:47 pm	Chicago web design - your personal touch Chicago Web Design When it comes to creating a website for your company, there are many things that are important. Not only should your website be visually pleasing and attractive, but there are a number of things that are essential for having an effective website. When considering the things you need for the website design, here are some things that will be vital: - A Clear Statement of Your Purpose The clarity of your mission statement is one of the most important aspects of your website design, and you should ensure that your website states clearly the purpose of your business. Instead of providing huge blocks of text explaining everything in great detail, you need to ensure that your mission and purpose is defined clearly and is easy for people to understand. People should be able to understand the purpose of your website within the first couple of seconds of seeing your page. - A Domain Name that is Easy to Remember Why are sites like Amazon.com and Monster.com so much more memorable than sites like Books.com and Jobs.com? The secret to these websites' success is the fact that their names stick in your memory, and they are easy to remember. That is an important factor to consider when planning your website design, and you should try to create an URL for your website that sticks in people's minds. - A Layout that is Easy to Read and Uncluttered The most important aspect of your website design is the layout of your text and images. Some websites simply cram everything together and there are large chunks of text spread all over the page. It can be nearly impossible to be interested in these pages simply because there is too much information provided. You need to plan your website design and ensure that the layout of your page provides plenty of blank space to provide a rest for the reader's eyes from all the text. Try to the keep the amount of text on your page to a limited amount, and focus more on the presentation of essential text. - A Theme that Matches your Company or Product Imagine a website promoting antique wooden furniture, but the color scheme of the website is a hot pink with flashing sparkling letters that completely clash with the image trying to be presented by the company. You need to select a color that matches the image you want to convey, and you should find a theme that promotes your product with its simplicity - A Website that Loads Quickly In the fast paced world of the Internet, people are looking for instant information. Most people will get bored if your web page takes more than 3 or 4 seconds to load, and you should ensure that your page loads in as little time as possible. Instead of using bulky graphics, images, and videos, try to ensure that the images and videos that you do use don't slow down your web page to cut down your loading time as much as possible. Once you take these essential website design elements into consideration, you have a far greater chance of having a successful web presence for your business on the Internet. Web Design The needs of businesses have changed from a simple website to a large and complex website which would generate a good return on investment. While designing an effective and professional web design, you should keep the target audience in mind. The website should be customer oriented and directed towards the target audience. There are some of the features of quality website design; one of them are to check the downloading speed and making sure that the images are chosen carefully. High quality, but low size images are best suited for the website to load faster. The use of high graphic images can make the website loading slow which affects the website's conversion ratio. The next is to look for the website's resolution, as the website should be compatible in all the resolutions and monitor sizes. After that you need to check the browser capability, as there are numbers of browsers which are used for surfing like internet explorer, Firefox, chrome, opera, Netscape, etc. It is necessary that the website should be compatible for all the browsers; you cannot compromise in the quality of the website in any of the browser. Once you are done with designing the website, you need to submit the website on top search engines like Google, yahoo, msn etc. It is considered that high ranking on the search engine results in immense business opportunities to your website and huge return on investment. For submitting the website, you need to follow various steps for optimizing your website design for major search engines. E-commerce website has emerged as a payment mode like PayPal and other credit card payment options. Mostly large business people incorporate payment gateway functionality in their website where they are able to sell their products and generate sales for the business. To fulfill the objectives of the businesses, a standard website package is ideal for small business. To design an affordable website, gives a long lasting impression in the online market. Also, the content matters a lot in driving the interest of the visitors. It has to be precise and should not be filled with huge text and information; otherwise you would lose the interest of the readers. The content of the web design will fail to convince the visitors if it's not clear-cut and of high quality, it will ruin the whole effort and image of the company. The content has to be impressive, but in a compressed form to highlight the benefits of your products. Addition of the captivating lines in the content strengthens the value of the website design. Read more about Aston Weber Group: Web Design, Chicago Web Design, Web Design, Chicago Web Design (Comment on this)
Monday, March 12th, 2012
9:38 am	Chicago web design - best online developing Chicago Web Design It is very important that you hire the best website design company in order to obtain the best services possible. Not all website design companies are easily able to provide you with what you need, and you need to spend some time looking around at the different companies in your area in order to find the one that will meet your needs the best. The first thing you need to establish is the purpose of your website, and you need to come up with the purpose before you ever go out to hire a web designer company in your area. Does your website need to inform, educate, promote, or sell? Do you want to sell many items, or just one? Do you want to promote many things, or are you just going to provide simple information on your services? Whatever the purpose of creating a website, it is important that the owner of the site have that purpose well-established in his mind in order to truly be able to communicate that purpose to the chosen web design company. You can go with freelance web designers, or you can use a website design company. Each has their benefits: - Freelancers are often cheaper than a web design company - Companies usually provide better services than freelancers, and can be more reliable in the long-run. Whichever you decide to go with, the next step is to take a look at their portfolio. All website design companies should have a portfolio of some of the website designs they have created, and you can look through those designs to get ideas for your own website design. Do research on the website design company you are considering hiring. Feedback from others will help you to get an idea of how good they are. You need a company that has a experts in the following areas: • Copywriters, the people who write the text that will go on your website • Graphic designers, those who will handle your sites' visual aspect • Web programmers, those who handle the administrative aspect of the website • SEO experts, the people who ensure that your website is ranked highly on search engines (if you are opting for this service with your site design) If you can find a couple of website design companies that have passed your selection criteria, then the only left to help you decide which to speak to them and work out what packages they offer, and at what cost. You need to make sure your website design is optimized for mobile devices such as mobile phones, so don't choose on price alone, as you need to future-proof your website as much as possible. Creating a quality website is an important part of marketing any business, and it is important that you, as the business owner, take all of these criteria into consideration when looking for the best website design company to hire. Web Design In this article we'll follow the long path web design made, starting back in the early 1990s when websites were presented as a single column, text-based pages, done in HTML. Websites looked like a series of text documents with inline links; and dynamic elements weren't even a thought. Right after the formation of WWC (World Wide Web Consortium) in mid 1990s, table-based sites and online page builders replaced the simple text-based web design. More complex, multiple column, sites were created due to table-based HTML. This expanded the text-based design model, allowing for better content organization and navigation layout. Background images were often inserted into tables; animated text, scrolling text, and gif images started bouncing across websites. Frame pages became a popular way to clearly distinguish the body from other website elements and navigation. Also, visual counters started to appear at the sites' bottom. Other significant advancement was the introduction of Macromedia Flash (now Adobe Flash). The late 1990s were marked by the rise of Flash. Many websites were spiced up by a combination of table-based design and flash elements, like featuring company logos bouncing around and gleaming before their homepage and flash-based animation that expanded and changed colour when a user clicked on it. A serious progress was made by the introduction of CSS and PHP - dynamic design language (PHP3) gained popularity with its release in 1998. And 2000 was the year of CSS potential recognition. Cascading Style Sheets allowed designers to separate website content form web design. Using CSS, the design elements such as background color, images and text formatting options could be defined separately (in a style sheet), rather than in the main HTML page. This advancement made it easier to control the uniform look and feel of a website apart from the content. The rise of JavaScript started in the early 2000s. Web designers began dumping tables and using JavaScript for page layouts. JavaScript allowed designers to animate menus without Flash. Navigation bars began moving to the top of the page and drop down menus became a popular navigation choice. Semantic web was introduced in the mid 2000s. This web design movement aimed at allowing machines to understand web pages as well as human viewers do. In the late 2000s web design began to take a turn toward interactive content and web applications with the progress of web 2.0 concepts: Interactive content that changes without having to refresh the page. Powerful applications have flooded the internet. Design focus has become more about social web and traffic-driven websites. Socially driven websites tried to interest the user and allow him or her to share content, articles, graphics, etc., than just selling products. The rise of smart phones and tablet computers are driving popularity of the mobile web. In 2008, mobile access to the internet exceeded desktop access for the first time in history. Since then, more and more websites have been designing alternative "mobile" versions for their active-living users on the move. Mobile sites contain the essentials of the regular website; navigation is minimal - reduced to the most important areas of the site. Read more about Aston Weber Group: Chicago Web Design, Web Design, Chicago Web Design, Web Design (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 29th, 2012
2:41 pm	Chicago web design - services that exceed Web Design We often believe that we all make decisions consciously, i.e. when we are seeking to make that special purchase be it a holiday, a home or just the latest DVD are actions are taken by ourselves knowingly and deliberately. Wrong on most levels...much if not most of our decision- making is made unconsciously and those in the know are beginning to use experts and present knowledge in this field to ensure the website and final product chosen belongs to them! In simplified terms we all as human beings are fortunate to have and use three brains; these have come to be known as the New Brain, Mid Brain and Old Brain. Most of us are probably aware of the left and right hemispheres of the brain and how one uses logical process, while the other is more artistic in its thought patterns. With the 3 Brain types, we have further uses, starting with the New Brain, known in more scientific circles as the Cortex (Pre-Frontal Cortex) this is the brain that is in the present, which we use consistently to read, speak and most importantly the brain we use for reasoning and logical thought, and where one would come to believe our decision making process comes into its own. The Mid Brain is where our physical movement and feelings are controlled...hence what we've come to term as emotion (e-motion). When we are moved by someone or something both the New and Mid Brain work together to firstly make sense of, and then to react to, whatever we are hearing or seeing (visual and auditory). Two essential parts of the Mid Brain are known as the Amygdala, these regulate emotions, and are about the size of an Almond, so hence why we are so interested in ideas and concepts that build into stories, because in the first instance these 'stories' activate our New Brain as we try to remember or relate ourselves to what we are hearing, followed by the Mid Brain kicking in via the Amygdala to let us know how we will feel or are feeling at that time. What you may then ask is, what is the relevance of the Old Brain, this brain evolved from the brain stem and is often known as the reptilian brain, known as such because all vertebrates and reptiles have one and there lies the key... the Old Brain is and always has been our 'survival kit' in the sense that it unconsciously decides in simplified terms whether we can eat it, have sex with it or run away from it i.e. to see something as a perceived threat. From this point of view, it therefore is the major decision making part of the brain. Once we are aware of this, in terms of effective Web-design, we need to use quite different visual design as well as the written word, to target required behaviours in such a way as to appeal to the Old Brain as well as to the other less important Mid and New Brains. Neuroscientists estimate that our five senses take in up to 11 million pieces of information every second; we process only 40 of these consciously so the unconscious has to deal with the rest. So therefore E-commerce and On-line Business needs to know how to target their potential clients and create behaviours that will lead to engagement. Key areas for success are, known areas of influence and persuasion along with being able to enlighten and engage all three brains. The visitor to your website wants to feel as though they are making logical decisions, even though they aren't....everyone likes to believe all decisions are not only based on careful thought but made consciously...our success is knowing that our websites will speak to all three brains with a conscious effort in an unconscious way! Clever, like any good closing 5 minutes of a thriller serialisation...hopefully this leaves you wanting more! Chicago Web Design Good Web design features: Text: Background does not interrupt the text, Text is big enough to read, but not too big, the hierarchy of information is perfectly clear Columns of text are narrower than in a book to make reading easier on the screen. Navigation: Navigation buttons and bars are easy to understand and use, Navigation is consistent throughout web site, Navigation buttons and bars provide the visitor with a clue as to where they are, what page of the site they are currently on Frames, if used are not obtrusive, A large site has an index or sitemap. Links: Link colors coordinate with page colors, Links are underlined so they are instantly clear to the visitor Graphics: Buttons are not big and dorky, every graphic has an alt label, every graphic link has a matching text link, Graphics and backgrounds use browser-safe colors, and animated graphics turn off by themselves General Design: Pages download quickly, First page and home page fit into 800 x 600 pixel space, Good use of graphic elements (photos, subheads, pull quotes) to break up large areas of text, Every web page in the site looks like it belongs to the same site; there are repetitive elements that carry throughout the pages Bad Web Design features: Backgrounds: Default gray color, Color combinations of text and background that make the text hard to read Busy, distracting backgrounds that make the text hard to read. Text: Text that is too small to read, Text crowding against the left edge, Text that stretches all the way across the page, Centered type over flush left body copy, Paragraphs of type in all caps, Paragraphs of type in bold, Paragraphs of type in italic, Paragraphs of type in all caps, bold, and italic all at once Underlined text that is not a link. Graphics: Large graphic files that take forever to load, Meaningless or useless graphics, Thumbnail images that are nearly as large as the full-sized images they link to Graphics with no alt labels, Missing graphics, especially missing graphics with no alt labels, Graphics that don't fit on the screen. Tables: Borders turned on in tables, Tables used as design elements, especially with extra large (dorky) borders. Junk: Counters on pages -- which cares, Junky advertising, having to scroll sideways (800 x 600 pixels) too many little pictures of meaningless awards on the first page, Frame scroll bars in the middle of a page multiple frame scroll bars in the middle of a page. Navigation: Unclear navigation; over complex navigation, Complicated frames, too many frames, unnecessary scroll bars in frames, Orphan pages (no links back to where they came from, no identification), Useless page titles that don't explain what the page is about. Read more about Aston Weber Group: Web Design, Chicago Web Design, Chicago Web Design, Web Design (Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 28th, 2012
2:42 pm	Chicago web design - creative talent Chicago Web Design In these times of taut competition, there are many businesses that have been late at realizing the true potential of conducting the operations through the internet. Once they realize the importance of having a website they run to the website design firms and offer them as much money as they want provided the web designers designs the website in the shortest possible time duration. A designer when accosted by such a demand of the business identity needs to complete the work in the short possible time frame and at the same time assure the effectiveness of the website. Working on both these flanks simultaneously is not as easy as many people think it to be. The web design firm entrusted with completing the website designing in the shortest possible time duration should thoroughly know every step of website design process. The business needs to first clarify with the web designer about what is expected from the website. The functionalities of the website need to be decided. The design needs to be established. Flowcharts that reveal the working of the website should be prepared. The web designer needs to be clearly directed about what is expected from the completed and hosted website. When the web site has to be developed quickly, there are some very important and critical steps that need to be followed. Usually the web design layout is broken into modular panes or blocks. This step lays the foundation of the website and the flow of the information in the website. Professional website designers know the relevance of quality and quickness in the web design industry. They also know that when speeding up the work of web design the quality cannot be compromised upon. It is only experience and technical expertise that enables the web designer to deliver quality web design to the client as quickly as possible. When faced with such a situation, CMS is the only thing that can help the website designer. There are companies that offer CMS at affordable rates and usually include it in the package. With the help of CMS, the designer can design automated website designs for different types of websites like business, personal, non-profit organizations, municipal, and education. The best feature of CMS is that the website owner can amend, add and edit the content of the website without any help of the designer. This facility can quicken the building of the website. Moreover the web site owner can bring changes into the websites very quickly. The CMS facilitates the web site owner with a provision of changing the content without having the knowledge of any programming language like HTML. Design a website with the help of CMS is cost effective and offers a wide array of features to not only the website designer but also the web site owner. Web Design Essence of every marketing material lies in its content. Enticing images and tempting outlook only work to augment the worth of written content. The power to convince your customers for high quality of your products is stored within the content. From smallest marketing tool like a flyer till the most prominent tool like a website, content holds a significant position for all of them. Writing for professional purpose is entirely different from what you write casually. It is a complete science; in fact, it is an art to capture the attention of your target audience. There are loads of rules and regulations that need to be considered while writing content for corporate use. Understanding the needs and demands of the industry and following its norms is important to make your marketing tool work out for the progress of your business. Brochure design is a phenomenal tool for advertising and promoting a specific product or business in the industry or among your target customers. It is extremely important for a content writer to understand the purpose of the brochure design. There are mainly two types of brochures; one is promotional brochure and the other is corporate brochure. There is a concrete difference in the language tone used for both types of brochures. Promotional brochures interact with target customers and corporate brochures deal with industry mates. Now, there are different categories, even in target customers. With every category, the features of brochure design also change; therefore, foremost step of a content writer should be, to study the business domain of an organization. This will help in understanding its target customers and demands of the industry. Content should be aligned with the nature of target audience and purpose of the brochure. These are not only the images or graphics that are responsible for adding the element of enticement to a brochure design; in fact, content should also be written in and appealing manner. Your target audience doesn't have time to read large number of boring paragraphs. It is the responsibility of the content writer to turn a boring text into attractive content. This requires addition of good captions or slogans and use of simple language. Saying an important thing in shortest and simplest manner is an art and a content writer must possess this expertise. Brochure design doesn't comprise of huge number of pages. Organizations prefer brochures with less number of pages. Optimum content should be written in order to describe an organization's business nature. Exaggeration brings fakeness and takes away the trust of customers; thus, it should always be avoided. It is also an important point that all corporate brochures don't have same requirements. Similarly, all promotional brochures don't even carry similar objectives. They vary from organization to organization and business to business. Content writer should evaluate the stage, at which an organization stands and what it is aiming at through the brochure? These two important things will add worth to the brochure design and will boost its business. Sound Content is a paramount feature of a successful brochure design; thus, it must be developed after profound research. Read more about Aston Weber Group: Chicago Web Design, Web Design, Web Design, Chicago Web Design (Comment on this)
Friday, February 24th, 2012
11:52 am	Chicago web design - redesign current content Chicago Web Design Is your business website lagging behind your competitors' websites on search engines? Despite having unique, innovative and informative web content, you are unable to gain maximum response from your targeted customers. If this is the situation with you, you need to take some steps to improvise the design of your website. It is often seen that the usability and overall look of the web pages determines the users' engagement. Today, almost all the companies prefer to have online presence, not just to advertise their products/services but also to generate revenue for efficient business processing. In order to establish unique identity for your business website, you can think about customizing its design keeping into consideration your targeted market, the need of your potential customers and various other factors which are required to operate business with efficiency. If you are finding it difficult to develop a perfect design, you can take assistance from professional web designers. Some of the major advantages of having customized web design services are mentioned below: • User-friendly website design will help you to convey business-related information to your buyers in an efficient manner. • Users visiting your websites can easily navigate through different web pages and can find products/services in just a few clicks. • Experienced web designers are able to manage the existing content, images and other relevant data within the websites. The structured content and web pages will make your visitors spend more time on your websites. • By getting customized website designing services, you can build unique corporate identity for your business in the competitive market. You can highlight the logo and punch lines of your company to reflect the corporate image of your business. Besides the above mentioned benefits of custom web designs, you might find out a few more advantages after implementing this latest concept of customization into your business. In order to get quality web designing services, you can consider contacting some experienced website designing companies. Most companies prefer outsourcing their web-based projects to web development companies that are known to have dedicated designers. The biggest advantage of hiring offshore web designing team is that you will get quality designing services at the best prices in the industry. Besides this, some designers have up-to-date information about the recent trend of search engine optimization. So, they have the potential to provide search-engine friendly web designs so that business entrepreneurs can achieve higher search engine ranking for their websites within a short span of time. If you want to get your website design customized as per your business requirements, then get set to contact designers employed in offshore website development companies. For sure, you will get your web-based project done on time and within your limited budget. Web Design Building a site with a website creator is fun and easy to do. It takes very little time and effort to build a website in this manner. However, there are some pitfalls that are easy to fall into when you use a website creator. This is because they are so easy to use it can be difficult to remember that your site needs to be professional and unique, as well as easy to navigate. Here are the top five website creator mistakes that you should avoid at all costs. 1. Not making the site unique. A website builder offers hundreds of templates for you to choose from. Unfortunately, these same templates are being used by thousands of people every day. In order to keep your site professional and unique, you need to change the template slightly. Choose a different color scheme. If possible, make a unique color scheme by choosing individual colors for your font and backgrounds. This way your site is somewhat unique from the thousands of others using the templates. 2. Not using keyword rich titles for your pages. Some site builders will automatically name a page "Page 2" or something similar. Other website creators name the page after the heading you put in the title. The name or title of the page in the navigational tools and buttons should be keyword rich and descriptive. This is necessary both for your site to be professional as well as for your site to be found in search engines. 3. Not changing graphics. You might choose a template that you like because the graphics match your business or website goals. However, this is detrimental to the professionalism of your site because thousands of other people will have the same graphic. Instead, change the graphics in the template to original graphics that you create yourself or purchase from the internet. This way your site is professional and unique. Title the graphics with keywords to further optimize your site for search engines. 4. Not giving enough information. It is easy to build a website with a website creator in a matter of minutes, but you won't be providing much information in the process. Information is important to keep your visitors long enough to buy something from your site. Keyword rich content is also important for getting higher placement in the search engines. 5. Not keeping it simple. Too many graphics, colors in the fonts, hard to read font styles, and similar design mistakes are not as easy to make when you use a site builder, but they still crop up. You want your site to look cool, but you also want to make sure that the design doesn't take away from the goal of the website. If something is too flashy, many visitors will not stick around long enough to buy something. Read more about Aston Weber Group: Chicago Web Design, Web Design, Web Design, Chicago Web Design (Comment on this)
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
12:34 pm	chicago web design make your mark on the web Web Design Adobe Photoshop is a versatile image editing software. Most companies in all developed countries use Photoshop for their design needs. The growth of e-commerce websites for web and mobile has led to a phenomenal demand for Photoshop artistes and graphic designers. You must become an expert in Photoshop whether you seek a steady career or a career enhancement. The only way to become a Photoshop pro is by taking up courses in Photoshop. So, how will you learn Photoshop and what will the courses in Photoshop teach you? Well, it's really simple. All you have to do is find an impeccable online Photoshop school and register. There are many different types of courses in Photoshop and you must start with the basics, unless you know them already. Here's how online classes typically break down their Photoshop courses: A Basic Photoshop Course You will learn about all the main menu items (File - Edit - Image - Layer - etc.) and what each of their functions can do. You will also learn how to work each item of the toolbar and understand what it represents. Making selections, toning and color corrections, image correction methodology, working with layers, adding text to images, painting, transforming and retouching images, applying filters, using Photoshop for web graphics and color management are topics that covered in a basic course. Once you're done with this course, you'll be able to correct underexposed images, lighten/darken images, use burn and dodge tools, correct color imbalances, change an image's white balance and sharpen images, among other basics. A 2nd Level Photoshop Course Once you understand the basics, the next thing is to go a little higher by joining a 2nd level course. A 2nd level course in Photoshop will help you practice semi-advanced Photoshop techniques and get ready for an advanced course. This course carries on from the basic course and teaches you advanced image correction, masking, advanced usage of layers, working with channels, using paths and vector shapes, advanced retouching of images, automating Photoshop, imaging commands, using gradients, correcting lens, blending and advanced lighting effects. After you're done with this course you'll be able to practice on making black and white images from color images and vice versa, correcting lens distortions, correcting converging lines, creating perspectives, removing dust and scratches, work the polarizing filter, and more. Advanced Courses in Photoshop These courses help you turn pro, and form an essential part of the training. You will learn advanced Channel techniques, adding and subtracting blending modes, high dynamic ranges, layer blending, scaling content, working with 3D files, working with Adobe Bridge and other advanced topics. Once you're done with this Photoshop course, you'll be telling us what we didn't learn! Chicago Web Design There are plenty of scammers out there. As a new business, you would need to get a new logo design created for your company and will most probably need the help of professional designers to get that done for you. Here are a few things to watch out for that will help you along the way. Company Credibility Running a business will take up a lot of your time. Whether you are running a new or existing business, your time needs to be focused on more important issues. That's why many business owners prefer to use the logo design services of reputable companies. Now remember that it is important to choose a company that has good credibility. One that offers a fair deal to you as their customer and will not run away with your money leaving you stranded with ugly designs that you would not want to use for your business. If you are looking for a logo designer, you will need to make sure that they have a money back guarantee so that in the event you do not like the final outcome of the design, you can still get all your money back. This in turn will also force the designers to come up with proper designs that meet your taste. Unlimited Revisions We all know that designing logos and websites are easy for those that are gifted in artistic work. But for the rest of us who only love to look at beautiful designs, we should also have the option to let the designers know on what we would like to see. Designers normally come up with initial sketch designs to whether we like their work or not. If at first glance you don't like the initial sketch, you may request for changes to be made to it and this should be unlimited changes until you are satisfied with their work. Do not allow them to limit you to only a few revisions as you may end up with a logo design that you still do not like. Only finalize the design once you are completely happy with it. Professional And Prompt And whichever logo design company that you choose to use, check to make sure that they are able to offer you prompt and professional work. No point taking ages to come up with something that you will end up not liking. Standard time frame would be 48 hours to come up with a completely new design. Some people just want to take your money and completely disappear. Don't simply sign up for all their services yet unless you are happy with their initial logo design services. Summary You know what they say. You pay for what you get. Choose a professional logo design company that is able to understand and meet your business needs. Don't be easily cheated by those that offer dirt cheap rates as you could end up getting conned. Read more about Aston Weber Group: Chicago Web Design, Web Design, Chicago Web Design, Web Design (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012
11:22 am	Chicago web design Logo design Chicago Web Design Essence of every marketing material lies in its content. Enticing images and tempting outlook only work to augment the worth of written content. The power to convince your customers for high quality of your products is stored within the content. From smallest marketing tool like a flyer till the most prominent tool like a website, content holds a significant position for all of them. Writing for professional purpose is entirely different from what you write casually. It is a complete science; in fact, it is an art to capture the attention of your target audience. There are loads of rules and regulations that need to be considered while writing content for corporate use. Understanding the needs and demands of the industry and following its norms is important to make your marketing tool work out for the progress of your business. Brochure design is a phenomenal tool for advertising and promoting a specific product or business in the industry or among your target customers. It is extremely important for a content writer to understand the purpose of the brochure design. There are mainly two types of brochures; one is promotional brochure and the other is corporate brochure. There is a concrete difference in the language tone used for both types of brochures. Promotional brochures interact with target customers and corporate brochures deal with industry mates. Now, there are different categories, even in target customers. With every category, the features of brochure design also change; therefore, foremost step of a content writer should be, to study the business domain of an organization. This will help in understanding its target customers and demands of the industry. Content should be aligned with the nature of target audience and purpose of the brochure. These are not only the images or graphics that are responsible for adding the element of enticement to a brochure design; in fact, content should also be written in and appealing manner. Your target audience doesn't have time to read large number of boring paragraphs. It is the responsibility of the content writer to turn a boring text into attractive content. This requires addition of good captions or slogans and use of simple language. Saying an important thing in shortest and simplest manner is an art and a content writer must possess this expertise. Brochure design doesn't comprise of huge number of pages. Organizations prefer brochures with less number of pages. Optimum content should be written in order to describe an organization's business nature. Exaggeration brings fakeness and takes away the trust of customers; thus, it should always be avoided. It is also an important point that all corporate brochures don't have same requirements. Similarly, all promotional brochures don't even carry similar objectives. They vary from organization to organization and business to business. Content writer should evaluate the stage, at which an organization stands and what it is aiming at through the brochure? These two important things will add worth to the brochure design and will boost its business. Sound Content is a paramount feature of a successful brochure design; thus, it must be developed after profound research. Web Design Even with good web design, the reality is that 9 out of 10 of websites fail. They fail to get traffic, signups, leads, sales, and so on. They become a bad investment. But above all, they fail to deliver for the business they were created to serve. Of course, there are multiple reasons why websites fail. But a critical factor is that often they contain one of the biggest and most common web design mistakes. As an Internet marketer, I face this regularly. Companies have just paid thousands for what they regard as a perfect new website. They come to me seeking help to market it. Then I have to break the bad news: To market it successfully, they will have to spend yet another few thousand - to make the website right. Naturally, some people are hurt that you've apparently criticised their site. In addition, having just laid out so much money, they don't want to pay more. In many cases, they don't have the budget for costly changes. Worse, some, although they are far from being the worst websites, are constructed so badly that they require major surgery. If only they had thought more about the website before they began to design it. That's because the biggest and most common mistake occurs at the pre-development stage. To paraphrase Bill Clinton, "it's the marketing, stupid!" Web designers and/or their clients ignore or pay scant attention to the marketing. In other words, they build their website. And only then do they think about how they're going to market it. Avoid that mistake and you'll save yourself a lot of time and hassle. Not to mention potentially saving a lot of money on corrections. And, from the outset, you'll have a website that's ready to hit the market. So, what should you do? Setting out a pre-build marketing plan for a website is too much for a short article, so I can only give you some pointers. First, be clear about the objective of your site. What is it you want your site to do for your business? It could be promoting your corporate brand, building a mailing list, lead generation, or selling your products direct online (e-commerce). Second, be clear about your target market(s). Precisely what is your target niche? Who are the people you want to reach? What problems are they seeking a solution to? How will you shape your offer on the website to provide that solution? What kind of text, images, language, terms do these users associate with their problem? Third, consider the level of online demand for your product or service within your chosen niche. Remember that the Internet is very competitive and don't assume that you will achieve a high market share. Of course, that depends on what you are offering as well as the level of competition. But, generally, the niche has to be large enough for you to survive on a small share. Fourth, think about your web promotion strategies. If, for instance, you intend to rely on organic rankings (SEO), then do your research for the appropriate keywords. Choose keywords that are less competitive and easier to rank for, normally longtail. But don't forget those volumes. Fifth, be clear about the selling messages and the competitive advantages you intend to promote. At the very least, you must be able to offer visitors a better deal than they can get from your competitors. Only after you've decided the marketing should you think about how you're going to design the website. Read more about Aston Weber Group: Chicago Web Design, Web Design, Chicago Web Design, Web Design (Comment on this)
Monday, February 20th, 2012
10:55 am	Chicago web design - viable web presence Web Design Website design is a generic term and can mean a lot of different things to different people. A lack of proper definition of this term can often give rise to a number of problems. For instance, there are a number of services that call themselves as web designers. Some of them would mean that they could design the look and feel of a website on paper, while you are required to hire a web creator to actually create the website that they have designed. While conceptually this can seem like a good idea, for all practical purposes, it is much better if the same service can design as well as create the website for you. If they cannot create the website that they design, then you should consider using someone else's services. Some services come from the totally opposite angle. These services specialise in creating website, but they do not have any training in fine arts to design good-looking sites that are attractive. They only specialise in the coding algorithms and technologies for creating the website, while do not focus much on the aesthetic aspect. Here again, there could be a problem because the sites that they create might be totally functional, but they can be far from satisfactory to look at. The colour schemes might look odd, their selection of fonts and typefaces might be amateurish and the total look and feel of the site can be pathetic. This is one of the problems that arise when technology geeks create a website with no sense of aesthetic appeal. Whenever you look for a website design firm, you should see to it that the team can design as well as create the website with the same amount of professionalism. Of course, two separate individuals or even teams can be employed by them to design and to create the website. But both the services should be rendered by the same company as a complete package and not as two separate jobs. You should only choose firms that offer website design, which can both design as well as create the website for you. Apart from designing and creating, the firm should also provide a range of other related services as well. For instance, the various pages of the website have to be search engine optimised. Therefore, the service that offers web design company should also provide SEO and keyword research services so that your website can get sufficient amounts of organic traffic without you having to spend large sums of money for traffic generation. The web design firm should also provide website maintenance service so that you are able to make minor corrections and modifications to the site from time to time, as and when the need arises. Chicago Web Design With website builders anyone can build a website, but you need to know how to build a website that sells in order to be successful in your online business. Remember that your website is your store front, and should be professional and welcoming. If it is not, you will not keep visitors very long, certainly not long enough to buy anything. There are a number of mistakes you can make that will keep people from buying at your site. On the other hand, there are also many key elements to a website that sells successfully. The first mistake many people make is in the layout. Your layout should not be too complex, nor should it be so simple that it does not look professional. A website builder usually has many templates that are in between, and will work for your site. If your layout is too complex, people will be confused by your site and give up navigating it before they buy anything. If your layout is too simple, people may feel that your site is not professional, and they may even think that it is a scam. The second mistake people make is in content. You should have more content than a simple about us description, home page, and product descriptions. You should offer informative content that is useful to your visitors, shows your knowledge of your industry, and compliments the products and services you provide on your site. This will not only help customers feel at ease with your site, but it will also help get your site into the search engines where buyers can find your site. After content, one of the biggest elements to how to build a website that sells is learning about shopping carts. You need to have a shopping cart on your site in order to process orders. However, the shopping cart should be professional in appearance as well as easy to use by the customer. It should also be use for you, the seller, because if you cannot easily access orders and process payments you will lose buyers. More importantly, if a visitor cannot easily navigate your shopping cart system, they will give up and buy from someone else. There are several things you can do to learn how to build a website that sells. The best place to start is the websites of your competitors. These websites will show you what you should and should not do with your own website. You can also do some market research, asking potential customers, friends and family members what they like and dislike about similar websites. This will give you some great ideas as to what to include or avoid in your own site. Read more about Aston Weber Group: Web Design, Chicago Web Design, Chicago Web Design, Web Design (Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 14th, 2012
11:59 am	chicago web design and content management Chicago Web Design Will my website be on a content management system? A content management system (CMS) means that any content or SEO updates you need to make can be done immediately, easily and usually by yourself - with a little training. If you don't have the resources to do it yourself, ask the website company to tell you how much they charge. Most will charge a monthly fee even if you don't make any changes. A CMS website will cost a little more to build but if your business is one where you'll need to update the website regularly then that initial extra outlay will soon pay for itself. Not having a CMS website means that if you need to make any changes whatsoever, then the website developers will need to do it for you and they will charge according to the time it takes and your cheap web design just got more expensive. Will the URLs of my website be both user and search engine friendly? URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) are the addresses of the pages of your website on the World Wide Web. If they are user friendly, they will be easier to remember. The following are called dynamic URLs meaning the website is built on a database. If your URLs look anything like these, you'll have a problem from the outset: page.aspx?PageID=00 page_id=brand&brandid=00&desc=mywebsite index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=00 product.php?categoryid=00&productid=00 Search engines are known to index the content of dynamic pages a lot slower than those of static pages but, more importantly, could you remember those? Dynamic URLs can easily be rewritten to static but most website designers simply don't bother. Capitalisation of text in the URL is not considered good practice - users shouldn't have to guess or remember whether or not a URL is in a particular case. Nor should web developers leave spaces in the URL so they end up looking like this: this%20is%20my%20website Will every page of my website be search engine optimised? Most developers pay scant regard to search engine optimisation. Most e-commerce websites fail simply because the owners fail to include SEO in their marketing plan. How many times have you seen the company name followed by the word 'Homepage' when you've beeen searching the web? Those websites have not been professionally search engine optimised. A lot of web designers simply have the same Title and Description on every page. This is basically telling the search engines that every page has the same content. Web pages that are properly structured to make it obvious what they are about, and the keywords and phrases associated with them, will rank better than those that are not. H tags are an important element on the list of things to help your website rank higher in the search engines and they need to be properly implemented. How much control will I have of the Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions of my website? You need total control. It's the combination of the Title and Description Meta tags that most people see in the search engine results (SERPs) pages. Combined, they are a free advertisement for your website. The Meta Title tag is crucial for search engines and remains one of the most important elements of search engine optimisation. It not only determines how a search engine may rank the web page but most display it as the headline in their listings. So it's important to spend a good deal of time perfecting this element. And search patterns change so you need to change your tags accordingly and not pay through the nose every time. You could end up paying dearly for a cheap website design both in lost business and putting things right. Web Design There are plenty of scammers out there. As a new business, you would need to get a new logo design created for your company and will most probably need the help of professional designers to get that done for you. Here are a few things to watch out for that will help you along the way. Company Credibility Running a business will take up a lot of your time. Whether you are running a new or existing business, your time needs to be focused on more important issues. That's why many business owners prefer to use the logo design services of reputable companies. Now remember that it is important to choose a company that has good credibility. One that offers a fair deal to you as their customer and will not run away with your money leaving you stranded with ugly designs that you would not want to use for your business. If you are looking for a logo designer, you will need to make sure that they have a money back guarantee so that in the event you do not like the final outcome of the design, you can still get all your money back. This in turn will also force the designers to come up with proper designs that meet your taste. Unlimited Revisions We all know that designing logos and websites are easy for those that are gifted in artistic work. But for the rest of us who only love to look at beautiful designs, we should also have the option to let the designers know on what we would like to see. Designers normally come up with initial sketch designs to whether we like their work or not. If at first glance you don't like the initial sketch, you may request for changes to be made to it and this should be unlimited changes until you are satisfied with their work. Do not allow them to limit you to only a few revisions as you may end up with a logo design that you still do not like. Only finalize the design once you are completely happy with it. Professional And Prompt And whichever logo design company that you choose to use, check to make sure that they are able to offer you prompt and professional work. No point taking ages to come up with something that you will end up not liking. Standard time frame would be 48 hours to come up with a completely new design. Some people just want to take your money and completely disappear. Don't simply sign up for all their services yet unless you are happy with their initial logo design services. Summary You know what they say. You pay for what you get. Choose a professional logo design company that is able to understand and meet your business needs. Don't be easily cheated by those that offer dirt cheap rates as you could end up getting conned. Read more about Aston Weber Group: Web Design, Chicago Web Design, Chicago Web Design, Web Design (Comment on this)
Monday, February 13th, 2012
2:56 pm	Chicago web design distance learning applications Chicago Web Design Your web design is the face of your website and business to the Internet world. Millions of websites abound in the crowded World Wide Web and if you want your website to stand out, it should be impressive and unique, both in form and function. As a beginner, it is advisable to ask the help of a web developer or trusted colleagues in the industry. Whether you are creating your own design or having a web agency do it for you, it is necessary to prepare and plan for it by remembering the following basic tips: Try several design outlines. When creating your design, try to sketch or draw on paper a rough draft or model of the web design you have in mind instead of directly coding it. This way, you give yourself the chance to improve or change it entirely if need be. Ask your friends or experts to give suggestions and inputs on current trends and tools for easy web designing. After making several drafts, make a wise choice for final coding. Make your content readable and pleasing to users. Remember that you are designing your website not for yourself but for your users. Knowing what your users want and what will please them should inspire you to put content into your web design that is readable as well as attractive. This includes a good color scheme, ideal font sizes, catchy animation, pleasing sound effects and quality text. Use as much CSS as needed. Cascading Style Sheets or CSS offers many techniques that are not available in table layouts. One good feature is the complete separation between design or layout of a page and the information on the same page. Thus, when corrections or updates need to be made on the layout for instance, all you need to do is replace the CSS file for the information with the design or layout remaining intact. Apply the right formats. Before exporting graphics from graphics design tools to be imported to your website editor, make sure that your design has the right format. JPEG and GIF file formats are ideal for images and photos while PNG and GIF are great for screenshots, logos and other graphical features. The PNG offers 'alpha transparency' which the GIF format does not. Alpha Transparency allows you to use the PNG format over the top of any background image, colour or gradient, without 'jagged edges' showing. There are many tools that beginners can find on the Internet to help them create their own web design, like graphics design tools and web design software. Making your own niche web design can be fun with these tools plus your own creativity and resourcefulness. Web Design Although hundreds of graphic file formats exist web browsers only support a few of them. This article describes the different graphic file formats that are available to web designers and when they should be used. The graphic file formats supported by most popular web browsers are Graphic Interchange Format (GIF), Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG), Portable Network Graphics (PNG) and vector graphics. Some of the properties of graphic files are: * Transparency – this property allows the image to be varying degrees of opaqueness from solid to completely transparent (see-through). * Compression – this property allows the image to be stored in a much smaller file by using a mathematical algorithm to handle groups of pixels as a single item. * Interlacing – Interlacing allows the image to be loaded by first drawing the odd rows and then going back and drawing the even rows. It allows the visitor to see the picture sooner. * Animation – Animation gives the appearance of movement by using a series of successive still pictures. Animated gifs do not require a browser plug-in and can work on almost all devices. * Progressive loading – Progressive loading is similar to interlacing in that it only loads a portion of the picture initially but is not based on alternating rows and allows the user to see the picture quicker. GIF GIF was originated in the 1980 and was adopted by web designers in the early 1990s as the preferred graphic format for web pages. GIF files use a compression algorithm that keeps file sizes small for fast loading. They are limited to 256 colors (8 bits) and support transparency and interlaced graphics. It is also possible to create animated graphics using the GIF format. All browsers can display GIF files. GIF Advantages: * Most widely supported graphic format. * Diagrams look better in this format. * Supports transparency. JPEG JPEG files are compressed but support “true color” (24 bit) and are the preferred format for photographs where image quality matters. JPEG supports a progressive format that allows for an almost immediate image that will improve in quality as the rest of it loads. Unlike a GIF file, the compression for JPEG files can be controlled by the web designer, which allows for different levels of picture quality and file size. All browsers can display GIF files. JPEG Advantages: * Large compression ration mean faster download speeds. * Produces excellent quality for photographs and complex drawings. * Supports 24-bit color. Read more about Aston Weber Group: Chicago Web Design, Web Design, Web Design, Chicago Web Design (Comment on this)
Friday, February 10th, 2012
10:44 am	Chicago web design E-commerce development Web Design The message you present in your website is extremely important. All businesses want their message expressed in an effective way. Most times this requires the assistance of a website designer who can make your brand pop out against all the others in the market. While it may be extremely tempting to select the least expensive web designer, it is not advantageous, especially if you are looking to grow your brand. Select a designer that understands the market and your concepts. Choosing web developers based on their price is not always the best way to go as it may mean they are not the most reliable. It is important to look for a website designer that balances quality with cost. When looking for a web designer, the first thing you need to ask for is to see their portfolio. You want to make sure that their previous designs resonate with you. If you find yourself looking at their designs and saying, "Eh, these ones are okay," then it means that this website designer may not be the best one to put your brand online. A portfolio will tell you about their design and layout techniques or if they believe in simple designs or over-the-top. If you do not feel moved by their portfolio, move on. Personality is very important. It is important that you mesh well with the web designer because you will be working with them a lot when it comes to designing the website. If you find that website developers at the company X are constantly in communication with their clients - great, it means that having a connection with the client makes the working relationship a lot easier to manage. You want a website designer that gets you, your business and your brand. Know what questions to ask. This requires that you do some initial research before calling up a web design company. Figure out what you need from the website designer. This way, when you are working together on the website, you do not get blindsided by additional fees, lack of expertise and understanding on the part of the website designer, or more time to make the website. Ask them if they have every done websites for other companies in that industry; ask them what their time frame is. One last thing you need to think of is the future of your website. Often, individuals would love to find a website designer that they can just return to over and over again when they need to revamp or add to their website. Ask any website designer how they choose to handle future business. Ask them, for example, if their doors are open for returning clients that are looking to do additional business. You do not want someone who will just take care of the "now," but also the "future" as well. Chicago Web Design The terms web designer and web developer are used interchangeably in the media and advertisements. But, they are not the same thing. Design involves what the visitor sees on your website, development involves the site’s functionality. This article explores the difference between these two disciplines. A website contains several distinct aspects: * Look and feel – primarily the graphics, color scheme, navigation elements, etc. * Content – information, products, etc available on the site. * Functionality – functionality includes interactive features that the web site provides to the visitors and the required infrastructure needed to provide them. * Usability – the site from a visitor’s perspective and includes things like program interactions, navigation and usefulness. Look And Feel Look and feel includes overall appearance of the website. A Graphic designer decides on what colors and fonts to use and how to layout each of the sites pages. The graphic designer needs to have a good appreciation for aesthetics and feeling for what combinations of colors and imagery will project the image that the website owner wants visitors to have of the site. Content Content is all of the text that is found on a website and includes everything from the privacy policy to a very persuasive sales letter extolling the benefits of a product and asking the visitor to part with their hard earned money and everything in between. If it is written text then it is part of the content. You need a copywriter and editor to create good content. Functionality Functionality includes all of the interactive aspects of a web site and includes animation. The common denominator is that programmers using the various web programming languages that work either on a web server or in a web browser create all of these functions. Flash can be used to animate graphics. Perl, php and java are programming languages used on the web server to create sophisticated dynamic web pages. These pages can work independently but most commonly with a database to create all of the features we have come to expect from a website. JavaScript is used in browser to create a lot of cool effects such as swapping images when a mouse moves over an image, “ticker tapes”, links changing colors, etc. JavaScript works in the user’s web browser rather than on the web server. There are also other “backend” applications that are transparent to the visitor such as form processing, content management and other administration programs that make it possible for non-programmers to maintain some aspects of the website’s data. All of these programs have to be integrated into the HTML code to be used on the webpage. Read more about Aston Weber Group: Web Design, Chicago Web Design, Web Design, Chicago Web Design (Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 7th, 2012
12:45 pm	chicago web design put the new market to work for you Chicago Web Design Colors not only affect life but also the usability of the websites. This is the reason why they play a crucial role in the success of any web design. There is wide choice of colors for the web designers but some have to be used and some have to be avoided. This decision depends on the following factors. Visitor's Attention: In most of the web pages the designer mentions the call to action but also needs to draw the visitor's attention towards it. To make the visitor focus his attention on the things you want him/her to focus on, you need to use some street smart tricks. The pastels should be used to color the content while the rich colors should be used for the things that you want in limelight. Some designers tend to use even contrast for drawing the visitor's attention. Effect on Emotions: It is said that the eyes are the windows of the brain. Not only human beings but also the animals, birds and insects are affected by the color of different things around them. In case of usability of a website the designer needs to take into consideration the effect of the color on the mind of the visitors. There are bright colors like purple and soothing colors like blue. Most of the visitors relate red to aggressiveness and danger. There bright colors usually stand out and grab the attention of the visitor even if they are used in the corners of the web page. Studies have shown that the color influences the buying behavior of the visitor. Effect of combination: When the color scheme is considered in a web design, the designer would like to use a combination of two or more colors. When this is the case the colors need to complement each other and be in harmony. There are some combinations that are soothing for the eyes while there are other color combinations that can put off the mind of the visitor. Conveying message effectively: Most of the visitors have been habituated to reading black text on a white background. This nature has been attributed to the fact that most of the printed matter we have been reading since childhood has been in black text on white pages. Most of the designers have to stick to lighter background and darker print so that the content becomes legible for the visitor. Limitation: Everything is good in limits but what is this limit? When only 2 colors are used the website would seem to hail from the age of black and white movies. This kind of website would neither look very lively nor attractive. On the contrary if more than 5 colors are used the website would look garish and distractions are likely to increase. It is recommended that the designer uses 3 to 5 colors. Web Design Not all websites are created equal. Good web design is not difficult but there are a few things you should avoid if you want to create attractive and user-friendly websites. The 10 most common mistakes inexperienced web designers make are: 1. Technology for technology's sake It's very nice to play with new toys, but your website is not a suitable playing field. Visitors to your website are interested in content, not whether you have Brand X Version N of flashy stuff on your website. Keep things simple. Use tried and trusted technology, not web tools that require the user to download special add-ons just to view your website. They won't. 2. Using frames for page layout Frames are a cop-out. They are easy for the designer, that's why they are used so often. But they have a stack of disadvantages from the user's point of view - and it is the user that we need to cherish, not the designer. The biggest problem is that the back button becomes unpredictable. You can't bookmark the current page and come back to it - you will be returned to another version of the frameset. It's also difficult for the user to know when to scroll, because different bits of the page have their own scroll bars. 3. Scrolling, blinking and animations Moving images are distracting. Don't use them. Visitors want to be able to read and digest what you are saying on your website. They don't want the text to be bouncing around or flashing on and off before their eyes. 4. Colour clashes Yes there are 256 different colours you can use for text and background, but that doesn't mean you have to use all of them. Nor does it mean that you should use colour combinations that give your visitors eye-strain. Choose colour combinations that provide a good contrast - dark on light is easier to read than light on dark. 5. Where am I? All pages must have a clear indication of which website they belong to, either in the browser window or on the web page itself. This is to help users who come to pages directly without coming in via the home page. For the same reason, every page should have a link to the home page as well as some indication of where they fit within the structure of your website. 6. Long scrolling pages It's best to avoid pages that have several screenfuls of content. Users will only scroll if they believe that there is something useful further down the page. If you really can't split the page up, then at least provide content and navigation options on the top part of the page. 7. Lack of signposts Your users won't know their way around your site like you do. Provide a clear idea of structure and place. Use a menu bar or column in the same place on every page. If you have more than two levels of page hierarchy, provide a site map and search function as well. 8. Non-standard link colours It has become conventional for links to pages that have not been visited by the user to be blue, and links to previously seen pages to be purple. Don't invent your own colour codes, you will only confuse visitors to your site. 9. Long download times In our increasingly "time poor" society, people are getting more and more impatient, and when websites take too long to load, they will go somewhere else and probably won't come back to you. So do everything you can to reduce download times. When designing your website, consider reducing the number of images on each page, and definitely reduce the size of the image files. 10. Outdated information Nothing is worse than a website that advertises an event that has already passed its date, or a product that has already sold out. Have a plan to review and modify your site on a regular basis. When designing your website, identify pages that are date sensitive and remove or amend them as soon as that date has been reached. Read more about Aston Weber Group: Chicago Web Design, Web Design, Chicago Web Design, Web Design (Comment on this)
Monday, February 6th, 2012
10:44 am	Chicago web design improving your online presence Web Design There are basic rules which every web designer knows to follow when creating a website. These rules are like simple fashion rules for a designer. If followed your website will never be badly dressed. They are not the kind of rules which are made to be broken. Stick to them and you will have the basis for an incredibly designed webpage. Page Continuity All the pages in one site should look as if they are part of the same site. There should be continuity of elements, banners, logos, template and colours through the site. Do not use one font on the first page and a different font in half of the supporting pages. It is confusing users. Load Time Pages should be quick to open as users will often return to search listings if they are required to wait. To aid this do not use large graphics, video, flash movies or auto play audio. Colour Colours should be as inoffensive as possible. Use lime, yellow, pink, aqua as sparingly as possible, and definitely not for the body text or background. Colors should tie in with the logo or company color. Even the link color should be changed to support this site color scheme. Graphics Graphics, photographs and logos are an important part of website design. They help to break up text into manageable sections and make the content easier to read. A page of text with photographs is much more inviting for users than a page of plain text. It is not a good idea to use background graphics, rather than making the text easier to read they are distracting. Check that all graphics work in the most popular browsers (Explorer, Mozilla, chrome, AOL browsers, Mosaic, Opera. White space between an image and a section of text make a page easier to view and looks neater. Fonts Fonts should be easy to read. Do not select a body font which makes reading content a chore. Text size should not be too small or too large. 12 is a good size in most commonly used fonts. Navigation Your site should be as easy to navigate as possible. If your site is large it should be easy for users to find a site map and all pages should have a clearly displayed link to the home page. The navigation buttons should be grouped and displayed I the same place on each page. Links Links should be underlined to make them clearly visible to users. Check and double check that your links are current. There is nothing more frustrating for users than links which lead nowhere. It looks sloppy and unprofessional and does not create the feeling of competency that you want your site to inspire. Make things easy for users. Display all contact information... do not make them guess how to find you. Include a contact form... keeps user on the site rather than requiring them to login to their own email. There you have it, the web design rules which all designers keep in order to create clean, nice looking websites. Chicago Web Design Every owner knows that attractive 'blue sky' photographs are key in piquing customer interest in a holiday property. Whilst it's always preferable to use original photographs that relate directly to your property, don't worry if your skills are limited; there are plenty of resources on the internet to help you to produce some stunning images of your business. Here are 6 top tips: * Once you're satisfied that you've taken the best pictures you can then take advantage of free photo editing software to enhance your efforts. A good one (which is also free!) is Google Picasa which offers basic, yet powerful, image editing functionality. It's simple enough even for the casual user to get to grips with. If you're looking for advanced editing tools comparable to Adobe Photoshop then try GIMP. Though be prepared for a steep learning curve! * Complement your own photographs with quality images from the web. However do remember that you must first seek permission before using a copyrighted image to avoid legal action against you. Here are some sources for finding free images online that you can use on your website: Google Images - use the 'Advanced Image Search' link, type your search term in the box and then scroll down and tick the 'only images labelled for reuse' box. Finally opt to 'limit to images labelled for commercial use' before searching images. Creative Commons is a non-profit organisation dedicated to facilitating sharing of creative projects. It is easy to search for images on any subject but once you have made a choice then look under the 'license' area to verify the conditions of use specified by the creator. A similar service is offered by the photo-sharing site Flickr where you can search for users who have chosen to offer their work under a Flickr Creative Commons license. * Give your images good, descriptive captions or titles to provide search engines with important information about the subject of your image(s) and also to add interest for the reader. Also, give the search engines a hand by naming your images correctly. Instead of 'picture1.jpg' use more accurate wording such as 'swimming-pool-la-ferme-dordogne.jpg' Use no more than 4-6 keywords and use the dash symbol instead of empty spaces which will show up as '%20' in urls. (For example, swimming pool la ferme dordogne.jpg will appear as swimming%20la%20ferme%20dordogne.jpg) * Website users generally leave a site that takes longer than 7 seconds to load. Resolution and file formats for web images need to be much smaller than for print images so that they can load quickly. For most web applications an image width of 400-600 will work well. The height can be set to adjust automatically. Read more about Aston Weber Group: Chicago Web Design, Web Design, Web Design, Chicago Web Design (Comment on this)
Saturday, January 28th, 2012
10:01 am	Chicago web design and development Web Design According to Google, Bounce Rate is defined as the "percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page." In just a few short seconds, you have to capture your audience and persuade them to go deeper into your site (click to another page such as Contact Us). Website Design has to take into consideration how to build a site that will compel the consumer to stay on the site and click other pages within your site. The more compelling you landing page, the more the consumer will want to stay on your site and actually convert from a shopper to a consumer. The landing page has to provide the information that was promised in the ad copy and it has to be easily found. Look at your website and ask yourself the following questions? 1. Does Your Website Capture the Eye of Your Audience? You only have a few seconds to capture your audience. Where do your eyes go on your website? If your traffic spends only a few seconds on your site, they will be considered a bounce. One of the most important aspects of website design is be able to catch the eye of your audience and give them pause long enough to look at your site. Graphic Design plays a key role in whether or not your traffic is considered a bounce. 2. What is Your Website About? The average time spent on a website is around 30 seconds, but the typical person will spend much less time than that if they can't tell what your site is about or if your site is too cluttered. Your site needs to be clean and compelling because you only have seconds before that traffic moves to your competitors site. Your landing page should be exactly as promised in your description or ad copy and more importantly, once you've convinced someone to come to your site for a particular reason, don't hide that information. If you're promising someone a free download, don't make them hunt for the download button. 3. Is Your Important Information Above the Fold? Your audience doesn't need to hunt for your most important information like your "contact us" button or your special offers and call to actions, so make sure you can establish your unique position without making your audience scroll down to find it. 4. Does Your Site Have a Clear and Compelling Call to Action? Once you connect with your audience, there needs to be something that tells them what to do next. Provide them with a compelling call to action, such as, "Download Report Now," "Buy Now," "Free Sample," "Join our Mailing List," or "Sign up for a Free Trial." These are just a few examples of your unique selling position. 5. Does Your Site Connect With the Consumer? Consumers prefer dealing with people and not machines. Use a conversation style on your site and be honest and straightforward about your products and services. Chicago Web Design 1. Know Your Target. How did you find your designer, if you have one, or how do you plan to choose one when you are ready? What are you expecting to find when you decide to hire a designer? Being clear on what you want and don't want is one of the first steps to finding the right person or team to work with. What are your expectations? By listing out what you need and what you expect from them, you'll be able to define it clearly for your designer. If you're not sure, ask your designer what they will be giving you. It may sound silly to ask such a simple question, but it's surprising how many times people aren't clear in the expectations for a project or relationship. 2. Take Note of Your First Impressions. When you are considering a designer, what about them attracted you? Are they warm and easy to talk to? Would you feel comfortable agreeing or disagreeing with them? Do they seem interested in you, or only interested in getting you as a client? 3. Remember that Communication is Key. Does your designer "get" you? Do you feel he/she listens to you and your wants/needs? Or do they give you something they think you need? You want to feel comfortable discussing what your ideas are. Being able to leave a conversation feeling like you were heard is critical to building a relationship and getting what you want. 4. Being Flexible Will Help You Both. Is your designer adaptable? If you change your mind or get a new idea, how would your designer respond? If your designer offers ideas that are different from your original plan, how open to you to considering changes? If it takes longer than you thought, how will that affect what you are doing? Figuring out how to grow with your project to help it reach its potential is key to developing a successful project. It may mean growing with your designer; it may mean finding another to get the result that suits what you want. 5. Consider Whether Your Designer is a Marketer or an Artist. Marketers will design based on what will sell or generate leads in your target market. Artists will design based on what looks good. Know what you want before you decide on the designer. 6. Look for Someone You Can Talk To When You Want. Can you talk to your designer on a call or in person? Can you brainstorm with them? Can you share examples of stuff you like? If your design company is too big to give you individual attention, or they don't speak English fluently, or they are unreachable, consider how well they are serving you. 7. Integrity is a Biggie. Integrity is key to any successful relationship. Does your designer come through for you when they say they will-or let you know immediately if something changes? Do you feel confident that your designer will stick with you to give their best to get what you want? 8. Ask About their Background and Other Projects. How does your designer stay current to the latest design and/or marketing trends? Does your designer offer input or suggestions based on experience, knowledge and/or education? Do you feel like you learn and your business grows from the relationship? 9. Often the Greater Commitment You Make, the More You'll Learn or Get Out of It. Read more about Aston Weber Group: Chicago Web Design, Web Design, Web Design, Chicago Web Design (Comment on this)
Friday, January 27th, 2012
10:33 am	Chicago web design - make your mark on the Web Chicago Web Design Most web designers spend too much time trying to figure out what to do to keep visitors on their websites that they forget what not to do to keep them from running off to another website. What NOT to do is just as important, maybe an even more significant aspect of web designer, than what to do. The moment a visitor views your website, it's up to you, the web designer, to make sure you designed your website in such a way as to hook his or her attention as long as possible. Here are some tips on what not to do when designing a website: 1. Sound and animation overload It's so easy to fall into the trap of, "Hey, I'm a badass web designer, I can design my website with sounds and flying animations!" Many amateur designers think flashy graphics is all it takes to attract a huge following. NO! In fact, too much sounds and animation tend to distract visitors from viewing what they came to your site for - the content. So please, easy on the background music and flying colors, please? 2. Annoying pop up windows If there is a list of 10 commandments on what not to do when designing a website, this should be put up as the first commandment of all time. Pop ups has got to be one of the most annoying inventions this side of the internet. Have you ever clicked on a link in a website and suddenly 50 different windows bombard your screen? As a designer, forget pop up windows as a way of generating income on your website. They are unethical, and eventually you'll lose more visitors than you gain from them. 3. Image backgrounds Image backgrounds speak of one thing - amateur. But having an image for a background also does something else other than distract the visitor from viewing the site's content: they also slow down the page's loading times, which is a big blow to your credibility as a web designer. Successful websites have extremely fast loading times, like Google, Facebook, Yahoo, etc. So take a lesson from these big guys, don't use image backgrounds and make sure your pages load fast. Follow these simple tips and you should have a decent, fairly successful website in no time. Sometimes it isn't about what you do, it's what you don't do that keeps visitors glued to your website and that they keep coming back. Web Design When it comes to creating a good website you have several different things that you will want to learn. First of all, website design today is nothing like it was in the 1990's. To take a trip down memory lane we will throw out a few keywords: framepage, DHTML, XHTML, do any of these sound familiar? If not then there is a strong chance you were born before the Internet truly took hold of the world, but the world has moved past these forms of design, and there are a number of different things you will need to take into account when creating your webpage. Aesthetics are Everything! If you write the proper SEO and make sure you have listed your page in Google, then you will receive traffic, but if your website is not aesthetically pleasing, there is a strong chance that they will simply move on. If you are selling a decent product, then you are probably thinking that the aesthetics really do not matter, and you would be right, but to the customer they tend to be everything. That being the case, make sure you always have the following elements in your web page: Navigation Bar: This can be situated virtually anywhere if you want, but most people will put it at the top or on the side. There is one rather typical mistake that people tend to make when building a webpage which is to put a navigation bar on both the top and the side. Yes, there are at least two dozen templates that use this type of layout but it can appear tacky, and it can make the developer appear incompetent. Images: You would be amazed at how a background image or button images can change the look of your page. Many people will never really notice the background image, at least not consciously, but it will enhance their experience nonetheless. Animations: Something that many people tend to forget when creating a webpage is that animations do not have to be obnoxious. You can have very subtle animations throughout your webpage and they will add to the overall user experience quite nicely. Ease of Use Make sure your website is easy to use. A quality web design company will work with you to ensure that it is of course, but an easy to use website is one that customers will return to! This is definitely something that you will need to remember and implement if you ever create a web page on your own. In Conclusion Using a quality web design company is definitely the way to go if you want quality, ease of use, and a good conversion overall. These companies are experienced, they know what they're doing, and they will work to bring you a high quality product. Read more about Aston Weber Group: Chicago Web Design, Web Design, Chicago Web Design, Web Design (Comment on this)
Thursday, January 26th, 2012
10:33 am	Chicago web design and Mobile Applications Chicago Web Design Will my website be on a content management system? A content management system (CMS) means that any content or SEO updates you need to make can be done immediately, easily and usually by yourself - with a little training. If you don't have the resources to do it yourself, ask the website company to tell you how much they charge. Most will charge a monthly fee even if you don't make any changes. A CMS website will cost a little more to build but if your business is one where you'll need to update the website regularly then that initial extra outlay will soon pay for itself. Not having a CMS website means that if you need to make any changes whatsoever, then the website developers will need to do it for you and they will charge according to the time it takes and your cheap web design just got more expensive. Will the URLs of my website be both user and search engine friendly? URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) are the addresses of the pages of your website on the World Wide Web. If they are user friendly, they will be easier to remember. The following are called dynamic URLs meaning the website is built on a database. If your URLs look anything like these, you'll have a problem from the outset: page.aspx?PageID=00 page_id=brand&brandid=00&desc=mywebsite index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=00 product.php?categoryid=00&productid=00 Search engines are known to index the content of dynamic pages a lot slower than those of static pages but, more importantly, could you remember those? Dynamic URLs can easily be rewritten to static but most website designers simply don't bother. Capitalisation of text in the URL is not considered good practice - users shouldn't have to guess or remember whether or not a URL is in a particular case. Nor should web developers leave spaces in the URL so they end up looking like this: this%20is%20my%20website Will every page of my website be search engine optimised? Most developers pay scant regard to search engine optimisation. Most e-commerce websites fail simply because the owners fail to include SEO in their marketing plan. How many times have you seen the company name followed by the word 'Homepage' when you've beeen searching the web? Those websites have not been professionally search engine optimised. A lot of web designers simply have the same Title and Description on every page. This is basically telling the search engines that every page has the same content. Web pages that are properly structured to make it obvious what they are about, and the keywords and phrases associated with them, will rank better than those that are not. H tags are an important element on the list of things to help your website rank higher in the search engines and they need to be properly implemented. How much control will I have of the Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions of my website? You need total control. It's the combination of the Title and Description Meta tags that most people see in the search engine results (SERPs) pages. Combined, they are a free advertisement for your website. The Meta Title tag is crucial for search engines and remains one of the most important elements of search engine optimisation. It not only determines how a search engine may rank the web page but most display it as the headline in their listings. So it's important to spend a good deal of time perfecting this element. And search patterns change so you need to change your tags accordingly and not pay through the nose every time. You could end up paying dearly for a cheap website design both in lost business and putting things right. Web Design We often believe that we all make decisions consciously, i.e. when we are seeking to make that special purchase be it a holiday, a home or just the latest DVD are actions are taken by ourselves knowingly and deliberately. Wrong on most levels...much if not most of our decision- making is made unconsciously and those in the know are beginning to use experts and present knowledge in this field to ensure the website and final product chosen belongs to them! In simplified terms we all as human beings are fortunate to have and use three brains; these have come to be known as the New Brain, Mid Brain and Old Brain. Most of us are probably aware of the left and right hemispheres of the brain and how one uses logical process, while the other is more artistic in its thought patterns. With the 3 Brain types, we have further uses, starting with the New Brain, known in more scientific circles as the Cortex (Pre-Frontal Cortex) this is the brain that is in the present, which we use consistently to read, speak and most importantly the brain we use for reasoning and logical thought, and where one would come to believe our decision making process comes into its own. The Mid Brain is where our physical movement and feelings are controlled...hence what we've come to term as emotion (e-motion). When we are moved by someone or something both the New and Mid Brain work together to firstly make sense of, and then to react to, whatever we are hearing or seeing (visual and auditory). Two essential parts of the Mid Brain are known as the Amygdala, these regulate emotions, and are about the size of an Almond, so hence why we are so interested in ideas and concepts that build into stories, because in the first instance these 'stories' activate our New Brain as we try to remember or relate ourselves to what we are hearing, followed by the Mid Brain kicking in via the Amygdala to let us know how we will feel or are feeling at that time. What you may then ask is, what is the relevance of the Old Brain, this brain evolved from the brain stem and is often known as the reptilian brain, known as such because all vertebrates and reptiles have one and there lies the key... the Old Brain is and always has been our 'survival kit' in the sense that it unconsciously decides in simplified terms whether we can eat it, have sex with it or run away from it i.e. to see something as a perceived threat. From this point of view, it therefore is the major decision making part of the brain. Once we are aware of this, in terms of effective Web-design, we need to use quite different visual design as well as the written word, to target required behaviours in such a way as to appeal to the Old Brain as well as to the other less important Mid and New Brains. Neuroscientists estimate that our five senses take in up to 11 million pieces of information every second; we process only 40 of these consciously so the unconscious has to deal with the rest. So therefore E-commerce and On-line Business needs to know how to target their potential clients and create behaviours that will lead to engagement. Key areas for success are, known areas of influence and persuasion along with being able to enlighten and engage all three brains. The visitor to your website wants to feel as though they are making logical decisions, even though they aren't....everyone likes to believe all decisions are not only based on careful thought but made consciously...our success is knowing that our websites will speak to all three brains with a conscious effort in an unconscious way! Clever, like any good closing 5 minutes of a thriller serialisation...hopefully this leaves you wanting more! Read more about Aston Weber Group: Chicago Web Design, Web Design, Web Design, Chicago Web Design (Comment on this)