Month: August 2008

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Website Design: First Impressions count.

What kind of impression does your web site make, especially in those critical first few seconds? Are you engaging your users to explore further or sending them away? Recent studies show that if a web site has not captivated a user within 4 seconds then they will abandon your site.

Here are a few things to consider.

  • How quickly does your main page load?
    What pops up first? How quickly can you begin to read any text? It’s critical for the most eye-catching elements to load first and near the top of the page. The page can then continue and finish loading while the visitor is checking out what’s loaded first.
  • Is it clear what your web site is about and generally what’s offered from a quick scan of the page?
  • Is the navigation clear and obvious so your visitors can quickly see where to find your products or services or are you forcing your user to think to much?

So is your web site meeting these simple criteria or failing and sending your traffic away.?
It doesn’t matter how much effort you put into search engine optimization, pay per click programs, internet marketing etc. If the first impression or your site is lacking your visitors will go else where.

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Congratulations to St Louis children’s author, Cynthia Reeg

We have been working with Cynthia Reeg for coming up to two years now and are always delighted to hear of her successes.
She has had a busy summer with the publishing of two new books.

The first, Doggie Day Camp gives young readers a great introduction to verbs and adverb
doggie-day-campt
Her second book of the summer The Girls is a collection of the five winning stories selected from the SmartWriters.com fiction contest
the_girls

Cynthia very generously mailed a copy of The Girls to my ten year old daughter yesterday who was thrilled not only to recieved such a great book..but an author signed great book!

To learn more about Cynthia Reeg and order her books visit http://www.cynthiareeg.com/

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How can I update my web site?

If you are a web site owner you know how important it is to keep you web site fresh and up to date… not only for your site visitors but also for the search engines. The more often a site is updated the more often a search engine spider will visit which will in turn effect the page ranking of your site.

We offer web site maintenance on a hourly basis, via web site maintenance contracts, or can configure customer sites so they can be easily self maintained by an online editor.

The online editor option is a great approach if a web site need to be frequently updated.

The system we use has the following benefits

  • No knowlege of HTML required
  • Secure login
  • Easy, Fast Editing If you know how to type a letter in Microsoft Word, you already know how to edit your website.

    -edit text

    -upload images

    -add links

    -add pages

  • Save Time and Money. No more waiting for someone else to make edits for you
  • Convenient. Edit your website directly in your browser, on any computer, anywhere
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How much does it cost for a web site?

“How much does it cost for a web site?”

This is probably our most often asked question, and not one that can be answered without going through our discovery process. If you went to a builder and asked how much it costs for a house, he would say it depends …are we talking a massive mansion or a 1 bedroom starter home. The concept is exactly the same for web sites.

During our discovery process we try to learn as much as we can about our clients, how they serve their customers, who are their competitors and most importantly what they want to achive from their web site. From this imformation we put together a comprehensive proposal which will help them achieve their goals. It is only after we have gone through this process that we can give them an accurate price.

With any web site there a two types of cost to consider:-

  • Initial Set Up costs
  • Recurring Costs

The intial costs will depend upon the size and functionality requirements of the site, whether it will be optimized for performance in the search engines (SEO ,search engine optimization), will it be integrated with a content management system (CMS)

The recuring costs cover things like domain name renewal, hosting costs, general web maintenance, additional search engine optimization, pay per click management etc.

Our discovery process and proposal preparation is always free, so if you are looking to cost out your next web project we would love to hear from you.

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A web site makeover: Tiger Tables

Last week saw the launch of a new web site for tigertables.com.

Tiger Tables is in the business of selling actuarial software and offers a demo version for evaluation. Delivering an easy “don’t make me think” approach was our focus during the design phase, and we utilized bold navigation on the home page to attract users to try the demo or buy the product.

The overall site design was targeted for a more upscale, professional look compared to the original site.

Business owner Larry Katzenstein had this to say:

“Thanks again for all your help. I love the way my new site looks.”