Many web development firms claim they can produce search engine friendly websites and there is nothing wrong with this claim. The CMS technology has come a long way and most of the content management systems are built to output search engine friendly URL structures and at the same time they minimize the other negative SEO signals like duplicate content and URL canonicalization too.

However, when a web development company misconstrues their offering as “search engine optimized”, there is a case for the client to look deeper into it. As a premier web marketing firm, our project estimates typically start with an overall understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the client website. We get daily requests to redesign and revamp websites and this is when our creative team works with the search marketing team to identify issues with search visibility and conversion optimization on the websites. Our solutions are as much about visitor conversion and interaction as they are about design and programming.

This article helps you and your website designer in avoiding situations where 3 days prior to launch, you call upon the SEO expert to check the implementations of the newly redesigned site from an SEO perspective or worst yet, after the launch has been done.

This article throws light on some of the important points to be followed from the start itself so that your website redesign doesn’t equates to loss of traffic with the slick design that your website designer did for you:

When you work with a web design company or a standalone website designer, there are many things that you expect them to know. Your list of requirements may range from professional design experience to robust communication and reporting systems. Clients also look for local web design service providers to that they can touch base with them on a regular basis and can hold them accountable for any drift which happens from the expected project movement.

While all the above criteria are important and form the basis of selecting a web design company, there is a vital ingredient to the success of your website – how well do you communicate with the designer and how well they understand your business. As an external firm, do not expect your website design company to know all what you know about your business. Some design firms are exploratory and research intensive in nature while others may only superficially ask questions or raise any concerns. While a web design company that asks penetrating questions or meets with you to have great planning guides for design are a boon, the onus of clarity in terms of what is required, lies solely with you, the client.

Most of the small and mid-size businesses in US still think of website as a peripheral entity to the day-to-day operations of their business. Most of them still do not realize the potential of their own website and the kind of pivotal role it is capable of playing when it comes to Integrated Marketing.

Your business website not just acts as your 24 hour active brand evangelist, but also has the potential of acting as a salesperson ready with all the arms and ammunition to fight a sales battle and convert visitors into prospects. You can even improve your customer relations and answer their questions, queries and handle their objections on your website, in a manner that increases your brand’s reputation online.

With release of the very successful Avon Lake Public Library website, and 3 more upcoming non-profit websites, we now understand what it takes to develop a non-profit website. If yours is a non-profit (a library, a foundation, a support cause or a government supported organization) and need a better website, a better online brand with better online outreach, read this post carefully before you contact a web design firm.

Long Term Value Proposition

The initial cost for website design and development might get offset against the long term gains that you attain with a design and marketing agency that has a professional approach. Your website is your most powerful tool for when it comes to generating support, collecting donations, garnering media attention and generating awareness through social networking. Beyond the looks and aesthetics of your website, it is essential to consider the sustainable value proposition through determining the functionality aspect of your site.

Your non-profit website should not only be participation worthy and usable, but should also be search engine-friendly, easily updatable with a CMS like Drupal or WordPress, integrate event registration, connect to stores or carry eCommerce functionality and should support regular content updates through a blog, newsletter and integration of Twitter/Facebook updates. When you are creating a new website, remember that you are creating a marketing machine that will serve your organization for years down the line.

This popular topic is presented in an insightful series of 6 articles, with this introductory overview being the first in our six-part series. In this part 1 introduction article, our goal is to give you a topical overview on the important aspects of improving your company or organization’s website and its online presence.             

Each series will delve much deeper than we do in today’s article, and provide you with great information and guidance to ensure your online success. Our goal is to equip you with a solid understanding of all aspects of effective web design and web marketing so that you and all our readers’ experiences with their web design firms or web marketing companies are successful and profitable.
 

This 6-part series of articles is provided as follows:

• Part 1: Introduction to Improving your Web Presence (Today’s article)
  

• Part 2: Planning for an Effective Website
  

• Part 3: User-Centered Web Design Principles
  

• Part 4: Importance of Clean, Crisp Design and Effective Content Flow
  

• Part 5: Ensuring your Website is Search Engine Friendly
  

• Part 6: Implementing Results-Oriented SEO and Web Marketing

As you learn new ideas and concepts from this series of articles, we are sure that new questions will come to your mind. We would be happy to answer them for you, so feel free to visit our site at www.ocularconcepts.us to submit your question on our contact form or call us at 866-530-6584. We hope you enjoy this series!

Website design and development as a service stream has grown exponentially in the last 5 years. With more and more service providers jumping on the bandwagon and the Internet opening up the International boundaries, a lot of design variety and skill diversity is available.

However, this variety of service offering also creates confusion in the minds of buyers. With pricing all over the place, most of the web design service buyers ponder over the reasonable cost of web design and development. You can find web designers and web design firms who would be willing to do a website design for $600 while at the same time some others don’t even touch a project for less than $10,000, and even more web designers fall in between these price ranges. So what is the right price for a website design or redesign?

The answer is that there is no one right price for your website needs. Just like buying a car or an SUV, this too depends on a multitude of factors.

Drupal has been at the forefront of website development since early 2007 and is known as one of the most reliable, cost effective, scalable and secure content management systems developed using open source PHP programming language. What many don’t know are its web application framework capabilities using which Drupal core functionality can be extends to develop intranets, booking applications, community portals and catalog applications.

Drupal is an open source content management framework; which means no vendor lock-ins and no expensive licensing. It also means that codebase is available free for all and can be used to build applications and website CMS. Drupal is supported by a passionate community of thousands of PHP developers who collectively work on improving the functionality, security and enterprise level features that this framework offers. As a business owner, you would like to never want to be stuck if a non-responsive or out-of-business web developer. You can hire any other developer and they can start development without having to go through the code or understand nuances.