Monthly Archives: July 2011
Web Design Companies vs. Freelance Designers
Most of the businesses today need business promotion through websites. Websites nowadays have become crucial for all types of business regardless of their size. These provide the most effective way of connecting with your users and make yourself accessible 24×7. Websites have been found to fetch a large number of customers for a business. Thus, looking at the importance of websites, it becomes all the more important to get the website designed effectually. For this, the first question that arises in mind is whether to go for a freelance designer or a professional website designing company.
The choice can to a large extent depend on the size of the business. Small business have a limited amount to invest and generally prefer to go for freelance designers as they charge less than the designing companies. Big firms can invest a great deal in their website designing and can go for designing firms as well. However, an important factor to be considered here is the quality of work. It would be wrong to say that freelance designers cannot deliver quality work but the quality of a full fledged company having a large number of employees and resources is more likely to deliver something better.
The next consideration that arises here is the professional approach. Designing companies have an image and reputation of their own and need to carry a profitable business. Therefore, they follow a more professional approach, which is likely to bring greater revenues for your company. They can also prove to be very productive for effective online marketing and take care of each and every aspect of website designing precisely.
Moreover, the website designing companies gain a lot of expertise and experience by working with a large number of different clients. Therefore, they understand the market needs better and their workforce can help in completing the task faster. Also, the risk involved in the promotion strategy through web design companies is lower. But, freelancers can provide a personalized touch to your website and can more readily take your inputs. This helps in designing the website as per your wish in an economical price.
Therefore, both freelance designers and web design companies have their own pros and cons. It is up to you to decide which option to go for, keeping in mind your need and budget. So, go for the best option after carefully assessing your needs as well as the trends.
5 Different Ways to Approach a Redesign
Redesigning a website takes a lot of thinking and creativity. This may sometimes involve
more efforts than designing a new website altogether. Almost every web designer is asked to redesign a website at some point of time in his career. Redesigning can be referred to as providing a new shape and structure to an existing website. Sometimes it involves a change in the design or sometimes a change in the content or its placement. There are 5 simple ways to approach a redesign which can be listed as:
Restructuring The Content- In this approach of redesigning, the design of the website is left pretty much the same and change is made only in the structure of the content on the site. If you are satisfied with the content of your website and feel that the flow of content needs to be changed then you can go for the option of restructuring.
Realignment With The Latest- Many times redesigning involves looking back towards the original goals and purposes of creating the site and ensuring that it does not loose relevance. Sometimes, a designer is required to consider the changes that have taken place in the web and realign the website based on those patterns.
Rebranding- It is not only restricted to the website but may involve redesigning in every bit of your brand. This provides a completely new way of branding your website as well as your brand.
Rethinking On The Content & Design- While redesigning a website, you may need to do rethinking on the design, structure and content to ensure that the very purpose of creating the website is essentially met.
Mix & Match- Sometimes just one approach is not sufficient to fulfill the purpose of redesign and you might have to go for a combination of two or more approaches. Whether you just want to update some content or completely re-imagine, your site is up to your discretion but wisely using a combination of approaches is the best way to go.
Knowing your objectives and keeping your mindset clear regarding the approach to a redesign always works. Thus, the above mentioned approaches can simplify the daunting task of redesigning a website and help you to come up with the most effective redesign.
What should you look out in your Website Design?
With the internet gaining prominence each passing day, more and more businesses go for creating their own website. The prime objective behind designing the web
site is expansion of business and getting more customers. To fulfill this purpose, it is essential that you go for the correct website design as the design largely affects the success or failure of a website. A good website design is one which is simple, easy to read and user friendly.
For a business website, the first and foremost thing is a ‘Professional Look’. The Website Design should give a neat and professional look to the website and it should not be cluttered or look shabby. You can be sure of hitting the bull’s eye, if your design reflects the exact needs of your business. Make sure that your visitors enjoy the time they spent on your site. Your website should meet your needs and expectations, not only in function but also in design.
Apart from this the things that your Website Design should most definitely have include:
- Simplicity- The key to an effective Website design is its simplicity. Use of dark colors and fancy fonts may spoil the look of the webpage rather than enhancing it. Many a times, designers use a lot of graphics and animations which makes the page heavy and hence it takes a long time to load, which might irritate the user.
- Beware Of The Bells & Whistles- Many a time websites are designed using flash animation, ASP databases and all kinds of bells and whistles even when they are inappropriate for the particular site. Moreover, these can keep people with older browsers and slow internet connections away from seeing the website.
- Organization Of Web Pages- The website and its web pages must be organized in a logical manner. The arrangement should provide smooth transition from one page to another and should not be time consuming.
- Provision Of Interacting With User- Your website must have a provision for interacting with the users for which you can place a “Contact us” page in the website.
- Content & Theme- The content and theme of the website should be within the reality of your potential customers. The customers should be able to relate the theme of your website with your business otherwise they might get confused and loose interest. Try to lead by the content and not entirely by design.
In addition, you can take reference from a few websites that are similar to what you want, to have a clearer picture of what you want. Choosing the correct website designing company and designer is equally important. Also remember, that your design should facilitate the user in every way and provide the easiest navigability to ensure that your web design will hit the correct target.
Top 6 Things Every Small Business Website Must Have in 2011
Online promotion of the business is the smart thing to do for every small business because it offers great visibility and tremendous opportunities to promote the business. Websites are the easiest and most cost effective way of staying in touch with a large number of customers. However, there are certain things that the small businesses must keep in mind while getting their websites designed. There are certain elements which are very crucial for the website to have, in order to increase its interactivity and proximity with the users. These are listed here:
Search Engine Optimization
Most of the people use search engines to find web content. It therefore becomes very important to go for SEO in order to make your website easily accessible to the people. For small businesses it is all the more important to go for promotion through Local Searches and SEOs.
Resourceful Web Master
It is essential to have a web master who can integrate codes, knows how to select appropriate web hosting, has know-how of the programming languages & graphic design, is capable of performing successful SEO campaigns and can create neat looking graphics.
Blogs
Blogs provide the most effective platform for interacting with your customers as you can post your views and get responses. It is a place to tell them about industry news, future deals, discounts, products, and services and therefore build better public relations.
Social Media
Aligning yourself with the social media sites like Facebook and Twitter will bring you in close contact with your clients and make your website more interactive. You can add a Facebook feed box to your website so that viewers can ‘Like’ the products or set up a Twitter account so that the users can tweet about the products or services. Automatic LinkedIn and Twitter updates will boost your online marketing strategy & drive huge traffic to your sites.
Videos
Videos make a website all the more attractive and provide a more convenient way for customers to learn about products and services than reading about them.
Mobile Sites
A site is likely to fetch more visitors if it can be viewed on the mobile phone. You can go for a mobile site with a QR code so that users can easily log on to the site through their mobile phones.
These are the six sure shot ways that can help a website of a small business get maximum visitors and hence promote the business tremendously.
5 Strategic Content Tips to Help Your Website Grow
Content of the website is probably the most crucial element which has a considerable impact on its succe
ss or failure. Most people make the mistake of giving more importance to the design of the website rather than its content and fail to understand that a great design cannot make up for a substandard content. With the evolution in the world of web, it is essential that the content should also grow and evolve. There are 5 strategic steps that can help in keeping your visitors glued to your site which can be listed as:
Write Timeless Content
Trends keep on changing with time. Therefore, it becomes important to ensure that your content does not loose significance with the passage of time. The writer must try to write content that will stay relevant long after it has been written.
Content Should Complement Your Business Goals
The content of your website should be aligned with your business goals and should be capable of establishing the authority of the business as a trustworthy business in the sector. It should be able to drive your sales and bring in prolific deals.
Ensure That The Content Evolves With Time
Good content is always able to establish an evolving relationship between a customer and business. The content should be in tune with the latest business trends and should be regularly updated so that the viewer does not see the same mundane content every time he/she visits the site.
Keep The Tone Of Content Well Regulated
The tone & voice of content largely depends on the type of website and the audience. While writing content one should keep in mind that whether they want to establish a more informal relation with customers through lively and interactive content or maintain a professional corporate image.
Define Key Themes
Clearly define the key areas of business and the subtopics that you wish to highlight. This will help you in writing target specific content. Use the key words and key phrases effectively to make the content more meaningful.
Good content will always direct more traffic to the website. What is noteworthy is that an attractively designed website can only bring the visitor to browse through the site but what will keep them hooked is the content.
How Web Design Trends Change With the Advent Of iPad?
The iPad is a revolutionary device that has changed the way of computing. It has gained tremendous popul
arity all over the world due to its easy portability and high tech features. An iPad refers to a line of tablet computers designed to be used as platforms for audio-visual media including periodicals, movies, books, games, music, and web content. The iPad provides a more intimate way to interact as it can be carried from one place to another without the restriction of sitting in front of a system as in the conventional PCs. You can most commonly see people with iPads in their hands in public transport systems like metro trains and in restaurants, parks and other places.
The advent of iPad has brought some notable changes in web designing as well. It has led to designers rethinking about their designing tactics, keeping in mind the possibility of a rise in its popularity all the more in the near future. The Web Designers are now concerned about creating a design that is compatible with the iPad. Many prominent websites have already created iPad friendly designs. For instance, Twitter has incorporated additional in-line links and media support compatible with the iPad. With the iPad more columns can be displayed and their sizes adjusted. Even the New York Times has created an iPad friendly version of its opinion page where the columns can be easily selected using finger and stories are organized in grids to make it easier for the user access.
Designers should keep in mind the following features of iPad while creating the Web Design:
- Navigation in an iPad is done through fingers. The hover effects that are only suited to pointer based devices are useless for iPads
- iPads have two kinds of modes viz. the Landscape and Portrait mode, so a website needs to be designed in two different layouts and developed in smart fluid width design.
- The iPad does not support Flash so if you want your website to contain animations and videos it has to be designed in HTML5
- iPads can be used at various locations- indoors and outdoors, so the color contrast sometimes creates a hindrance as the iPad’s screen appears glossy and reflects light.
To keep up with the iPad technology, the designers can use JavaScript and CSS in combination. The designers should focus on making the Web Designs interactive rather than complex. The website should be adaptable to multiple platforms like desktop PCs, tablets and other mobile devices as well. These simple steps can help the Web Designers keep up with the changing technologies and incorporate designs that go with the trends.
Web Applications: The Next Generation
The digital era has brought with itself, many revolutions in the field of internet and technologies. Take for example a ‘Web Application’, an application that is accessed over a network such as the Internet or an Intranet. The term may also mean a computer software application that is hosted in a browser-controlled environment. Common web applications include online retail sales, wikis, webmail, online auctions and many other functions.
Many people however think of the web applications as bookmarked websites, which is correct to some extent. The evolution of internet over the years has led to dramatic changes in the websites. The websites are no longer static pages where a reader can come and read the stuff. They are now dynamic, hosted externally, store and manage relevant information backed by servers, and scripted using a variety of languages that communicate between cloud server and the page that you are looking at.
Web Applications therefore are more than just websites. They store and manage information, and make connections between users. Applications are not only programs that must be downloaded and installed but can be built on the web. The applications have derived this name because they ‘do something for the user’. Some of the most common web applications that you would be using in your everyday life include: Google docs for word processing and spreadsheets, Grooveshark or Pandora as advanced media players, and mySQL databases etc. All these facilitate the work and give you the easiest ways to complete a task.
Web Applications have also found important uses in the corporate world. Modern companies use web applications to connect with each other through intranet or manage projects. They are helpful in interacting with the clients for ascertaining that the businesses as well as the services remain available to them. Web Applications aid an organization to create a user-friendly interface and provide a comprehensive set of appropriate tools for the customers to put in the precise data with little amount of work and marginally improve the operating efficiency. They also provide a smarter mode of doing business by reducing the operating time as well as the costs.
The next generation of Web Applications promise much more in the times to come. They are likely to become more advanced and provide better, more creative and quicker results to the user.
The Ideal Business Logo Design Service
Creating a distinct identity of the company through branding is necessary for assured business development. But, Corporate branding is effectively possible only if an organization has a unique symbol to represent itself. This identification mark, popularly known as the logo of the company, becomes its virtual face. Each organization requires different logos that are one-of-a-kind for its company. Since a Business Logo has significant role in creating brand awareness among target audience of a company, taking assistance of professional Logo Design Services becomes a necessity.
Ideal Business Logo
A Business Logo is an inseparable identity of a company. Thus, an attractive and unique logo is necessary to have high recall value of the company. There are many factors for creating the right Logo for a company. The foremost thing is that it should be distinct in design. The color combination being used should be in accordance with the vision of the company. Here, the concept of color symbolization plays a great role. An ideal Business Logo would be a small symbol presenting the company’s identity in the simplest way. An attractive logo can save the company from unnecessary expenditure on branding just to enhance the recall value.
Role Of Skilled Logo Designers
Skilled and talented logo designers understand the company’s outlook on the whole before creating a logo. After being thoroughly acquainted with the vision of the company, Designers come up with customized corporate identity solutions. Ideal business logo design service would ascertain that the image of the company projected via its logo is distinct and easy to remember. Every business house, irrespective of its size in terms of annual sales, must have a logo.
All the small and big corporate houses can conveniently take the assistance of professional Business Logo Design Services available on internet. You can easily avail economical logo design service matching your specifications and expectations.
WeblinkIndia.Net – Blogs Release June 2011
Differences Between Web 1.0, Web 2.0 & Web 3.0
Web is a hypertext system that operates over the Internet. There are till-date three versions of the web that are in use and there is much confusion regarding Web 1.0 Web 2.0 & Web 3.0. This write-up aims to clear all these confusions by discussing various aspects.[...]
Why Outsource Web Design Services To Indian Web Design Company?
India has always been in the news all over the world for its handicrafts, garments and culture. This has been proved by the many websites and portals created by Indian techies. Let’s have a look at the chief reasons for the rising demand of offshore Indian website designing companies.[...]
Growth of PHP And ASP In Web Development
The most popular websites today, be it Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox or Opera and Safari have evolved from basic scripting to include modernized features for enhanced surfing experience. The websites on the other hand, whether they are static or dynamic, require specific languages for development so that they can be compatible with most[...]
Flash Web Design: The Best Web Design Platform for Looks and Interactivity
Flash has emerged as an interactive element which also gives an interesting look to a web page. It is an interesting element which adds a spark of innovation and interactivity to the web contents. It also helps in promoting the company or the website in a very attractive way.[...]
The Growing Need For Mobile Websites
Who could have thought that the humble telephone could evolve into a mobile phone and then into a smartphone with access to the internet? But it is happening right now as most of the modern phones are developed for people to access internet on the go. Simultaneously the website development companies are also coming up with newer technologies[...]
How to Create a Full Flash SEO Friendly Website
The internet revolution has give rise to a spate of websites catering to the needs of knowledge, business, and entertainment sectors, and so on. In such a case, it is essential to have a distinct identity and that is where Search Engine Optimization comes in. Search Engine Optimization is the technique that puts a spotlight on websites[...]
Effective Article Marketing For Your Online Business
Businesses and Corporate Houses all across the world today come up with different marketing tactics, in order to promote their products and services. Choosing the correct tactic determines the success of a business and is therefore a very crucial task. The e-businesses today formulate different marketing strategies in order to promote their business online and get more visibility.[...]
PayPal- Your Pal for Online Transactions
For the people who indulge in online payments and money transfers PayPal offers a very convenient alternate. This important element of an e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet, serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods such as cheques and money orders. You can get entitled to online transaction facilities through PayPal[...]
Advantages Of Working With A Specialized SEO Company
Working with expert SEO companies means remarkable benefits for the business houses that have an online identity. The offerings of Search Engine Optimization give a boost to company’s online image. One can rely on the assistance of a professional SEO Company to achieve online marketing targets.[...]
