Shane in L.A.

Creating the perfect website involves a number of different factors. Often these may well be unrelated. Reaching customers, if you are in business, or finding a readership if you are a blogger may not be as easy as you assume. It goes without saying that the quality of the content on your internet page must provide the visitor with added value. Do you sell products? Are they sold at the lowest price? Or is there a value plus service included? You must definte what it is you are trying to achieve so that you know when you are moving towards your goal.

A website is an extension of yourself or your business. If you have nothing to say in the real world, what makes you think you will be any different online. The internet is not an escape from reality - it is an extension of reality. While you are creating your webpages, you must always consider the user experience. Is your site easy to navigate? Does it cater for special needs. For instance, is it compliant with text to speech software?

My own main interests are in the layout of webpages and ensuring that sites look the part. Taking clients' visions and turning them into reality is very rewarding. Other things you must consider on top of the user experience are web hosting, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and connecting with your customers or readers. Building websites and connecting with other individuals makes the WEB a wonderful place to spend time.

Some examples online of creative websites delivering value added client content.

Great Wine Images

Wine is certainly a food which gives us its fair share of incredible images isn’t it? From pictures of vineyards to those of wine gift baskets, there are tons of different ways to see the image of wine in photography. Clearly standing in a vineyard and hanging out on a website are two different things, but if you really want to do a great job selling wine…they can’t be. Web design and graphics need to bring people into your vineyard if you own one and let them experience wine country and the lifestyle that it creates.

vinyards

A Simple Sort of Style

If you want to make an impression with your website one of the most important factors to consider is simplicity. If your website is cluttered and full of text and content, it will simply look to difficult to read and your visitors will disappear with a click of the ’back button’. I always remember one website I visited some years ago – it was a site about running PPC campaigns and making money, stuff like that – fairly boring. But the reason I remember this site is that it was coded simply in very basic HTML – no graphics, adverts – just text in a plain style. It was incredibly basic but it stood out simply because it was different.

Sometimes less can be more – look at the Apple web site:

Their focus is the new Ipad and it’s image speaks more that a hundred pages of text. There’s no need to burden you home page with text when you have something as beautiful as the Ipad to look at. Apple is selling style and an image transcends words in that department.

Sometimes very basic templates and design help you to focus on the content. Blogs shoudl generally have as little clutter as possible on them, the words are the important bit on the blog. You can of course use relevent images – so stay on theme – this page uses graphics to demonstrate how to use an Ipad proxy to watch the BBC. Notice how there’s very little in the borders whcih also helps speed up loading of a page as well.

So don’t be tempted to overload your visitors, web surfers have extremely short attention spans – if your site looks too detailed and involved it will nto draw the visitors in.

Web Design vs Content

Being a web designer I feel that sometimes I want to advise a client against using my services, especially if I suspect that the client is in a highly competitive niche and is not likely to invest money in SEO and promoting the site. The reason for hesistency in business is that with each new Google update to their algorithm they are making content more and more important to search engine position.

Some people are not worried about their poistion for key words in Google, Bing, Yahoo etc. They have a strong brand already or they are offering something unique. While others should be more concerned about the position of their website in the search engines than the look of the site.

For example, if you have a hotel on Koh Phangan Island called ’Happy Hotel on Koh Phangan’ and you set up a website with the URL ’www.happyhotelkohphangan.com’ then you will come number one or near near number one for anyone who types in ’Happy Hotel on Koh Phangan’ into Google. Your prospective customer will find you quickly and will soon realize that he or she has found the official website. In this case web design can make the site attractive and help improve conversion rates.

However, if you have a website with affiliate links to Agoda etc that promotes accommodation on Phangan Island then you will find it very hard to rise above Agoda etc. to the top 5 for the key words ’Phangan Island accommodation’. What is needed more than exciting web design is lots of content, and content that is frequently updated. Only by offering better content than competitors will you make any money from the website. In this situation a platform that involves minimal coding and is easy to use such as WordPress is much more appropriate than a complex website with lots of bells and whistles that is never updated.

So before going to a web design expert or a graphic designer consider what you need a website for, and whether it needs to be constantly updated.

Designing a Travel Website

Travel websites must evoke a certain atmophere about a place. Web design can utilize Flash movies and animation as well life style photographs to capture this aspect of creating a good travel website. Another important issue is decide the purpose of a website. If the travel website is intended to make money then the design must focus on getting a high conversion rate. The other major consideration in a travel website is good content.

Balancing all these needs in a travel website can be difficult. Too many sites seem to be focussed primarily on getting bookings for hotels, resorts and other accommodations. The sites typically feature a large call to action box that prompts the user to choose dates and a location. These travel websites often look good but they lack much content. The descriptions are all about the accommodation not about the location, its attractions, its history and travel tips. If the user just wants to book a place to stay in Koh Samui (for example) then that is fine. If, however, the user wants to know which is the best beach in Koh Samui or the times of boats to Koh Phangan then these sites can be irritating.

Similarly, the temptation to impress the visitor to the site with graphics and movies can lead to a lack of informative text as well as making page load times slow. People with poor internet connections are likely to give up on sites that take too long to load. Also Flash is not available for people browsing through iPhones. A balance needs to be struck between ’bells and whistles’ and providing good content.

Finally, many people are itnerested in first hand experience when it comes to travel websites. Incorporating a blog or reviews section allows visitors to the site to read first hand accounts of places rather than purple prose about a hotel or a beach. This is important for establishing the authority of a site. It will also encourage people to return to the site to look for updates.

Web Graphics for Wine

I think we all know pretty well at this point (at least if you are a wine drinker) that all wine sites basically look the same.

It’s unfortunate given the number of wine gifts which are given every year and number of people shopping for wine online on a daily basis, but what can really be done?

Personally, I think those companies who take the time to employ and properly use graphics and even graphical representations of wine will be at a huge advantage. Given me some idea about what the bottle is going to look like on my table instead of just showing me the label!

Beautiful Graphics For RV Travel Websites

The great thing about making travel websites is that it is usually very easy to find plenty of attractive photos for use in decorating the site. Many times, we will be able to use our own photos that we have taken while on vacation – which is a great way to save over buying stock photos from the various Internet providers that sell imagery for online use.

If someone were creating a website about full time RV living, for example, they could simply step outside of their home on wheels and snap a couple of quick shots of their recreational vehicle. Heck, if they wanted something flashier, they could walk around the RV park until they found someone living in a fancier Class A Motorhome and ask for permission to take a photo of it. People love showing off their homes, so are almost guaranteed to agree!

Of course, part of fulltime RV living is the benefits the scenery offers. Perpetual travellers will have an almost unlimited ability to capture beautiful landscapes as they travel the country in their motorhome. With such an abundance of photography opporunities available it would be very easy for someomes site on living the RV lifestyle to be transformed into an online photography portfolio!

Web Templates & customization

Websites will be the primary key in order to invade the business world around the globe from the means of online connection. As with any business, custom made creation of web improvement derives from customer requirements, enterprise methods, and technicalities. This can be a few factors you might try custom creation rather than creating a template in your enterprise. The actual volume of online clients are raising on hourly basis of everybody wants his bite, only people are generally effective who continually adapt to the actual ever altering characteristics of online business.

The web template & customization separates your web site from others and also conveniently establishes your specific id inside internet commerce world. This uniqueness helps make your clients believe your own keep isn’t some of those trillion on the market employing templates. This is how custom creating develops have confidence in, and gives a dependable along with reputable impression to prospects going to your website. Custom solutions are given a process in which boosts the appearance involving types website but still supplies the skilled program your customer needs. This supplies far more options like the design. That particularly enables you to create your website exactly as that suits you.

Because change is the simply continuous, the prospect of the website must retain modifying as a way to accommodate the most up-to-date styles. Using customization it is possible to combine story ecommerce concepts with your site to help keep that relaxing regarding maximized buyer.

Although, another important benefit of template designing may be the energy you need to alter your website at will with regard to search engine optimization (SEO), to create selling gives along with other essential business announcements and many others. Nearly all organizations have got investment in system resources over the course of several years. While you gain custom web design templates and growth venture, it will save you a great deal of time and funds in the end simply by performing the sorts of tasks which could basically be outsourcing for you to experts.

The Power of Images

If you’re posting to a blog which updates your front page automatically, it’s vital to incorporate images. Without them you’re finely crafted site will just look llike a wall of text. The image should be related and doesn’t have to anything special just represent the subject.

So if you’re writing a post on how to access a Japanese proxy for example – a simple Japanese flag would be sufficient. The image is relevent and instantly defines the subject. If you’re interested in this subject – people use these Japanese servers in order to access web sites which restrict access based on location. For example many Japanese online banking systems only work when you are physically in Japan in order to increase security. Of course this is fine if a Russian hacker is trying to access your account but a bit of a nuisance if you’re a businessman from Tokyo who wants to pay his mobile phone bill!

The Image Of The E-cigarette Is So Important

I am a smoker myself and for anyone living in LA you will know how diffficult this can be! For that reason I recently made the switch over to electronic cigarettes and with the use of The Safe Cig coupon code I found it didn’t empty my wallet too much. What I have found since though when looking at the different brands is the difference in their visual appeal and design. I am talking about both the package branding and web presence.

There are massive differences between brands with some presenting their product in a clean and easy to understand was, they make their product offering stand out above all else. Some e-cig websites still have a cheap dated feel to them and this really needs to change. Electronic cigarettes are great but people looking to switch may not take the product seriously if the website looks like an out of the box $99 website package. Wise up e-cig brands and think about your websites, they represent your brand one 100%!