1.    Submit your website and logo to design galleries – Even if your business is not in the design industry, you can attract a sizeable new traffic base by posting your unique and interesting website or logo to one of the hundreds of galleries currently on the web.  An expansive list of these galleries can be found on the CSS Gallery List.

2.    Create a Wiki – Create more interaction among employees and potential customers by creating a wiki for your business.  With a wiki, employees can post info they find useful and can allow clients and potential customers to collaborate and add to the open projects.  A wiki can be a very valuable source of both information and interaction, making your customers feel like they are part of the company.  Check out Media Contour’s Wiki to see how it works.

3.    Record Videos of your Meetings and Processes – If you are going to a particularly interesting meeting, you can use your camcorder, cell phone, webcam, digital camera, or screen capturing program to capture the event.  You can then go back and edit out any portions that are boring or contain sensitive info.  Interviews with various employees of your company can also act as promotional vehicles for your website.  Processes such as the design of a website or the coding of a particular widget on your site can also become a viral sensation if made interesting, funny and useful.  You can post these videos on your site as well as on YouTube, Viddler, and Veoh to gain maximum exposure.

4.    Cold Calling and Spam Email Reversal – We have all gotten those annoying calls from telemarketers and it is safe to say that you have at least a few spammy emails in your inbox.  The next time you get a solicitation for a certain product or service, turn the situation around and offer your products and services to the telemarketer or spammer.

5.    Use your network of friends and family to spread the word – Is it too much to ask your brother, uncle, or girlfriend to mention your website on their own social networks?  Ask them to post your link on their profile(s) or to check out your site once in a while.  If you get the right person to endorse your product or service, you can instantly gain recognition and a significant new group of followers.

6.    Design and Provide Library Bookmarks – You can promote your website while at the same time contributing to local bookstores and libraries.  Although libraries usually have a surplus of these cheap pieces of cardboard, you can create an interesting design with your company logo and the URL of your site to attract all of the knowledge-hungry bookworms.

7.    Create Customized Merchandise – Use CafePress or another custom printing service to create t-shirts, mouse pads, stickers, leotards, or anything else with your company’s logo or name.  Ask your designer to make the merchandise look cool so that people will buy it despite the advertisement.  You can also get your employees to rep your customized gear at the office and on their personal belongings.

8.    Write your URL on Dollar Bills – While this method for attracting new visitors to your website is considered defacing US currency and is technically illegal, the rewards may be worth the punishment.  Money is constantly changing hands between new people in different locations from different backgrounds, making it a very effective medium to advertise your company’s website.

9.    Use Your Pet as a Walking Advertisement – Your dog will not mind a quick hair cut, but the people who see him will definitely notice.  A cat, dog, rabbit, or any other pet can be converted into a walking advertisement with personalized pet clothing or by shaving the company website or logo into their fur.  Just make sure that you know what you are doing before you get a call from PETA.

While the traditional methods for promoting and advertising your website are often quite effective, sometimes they aren’t enough to get your site to the next level.  The nine tips listed above will surely attract the attention you need to get new visitors to your website and increase exposure. Though some of the methods described here are slightly unusual and can be controversial, they all can be accomplished with little to no budget, making them viable options for any web-based company.

1.    Confusing Navigation – If a page is buried, has a broken link, or is not a part of the main navigation menu, it can take significantly longer for a user to find the content they are looking for.  If it takes more than 5 minutes to find a particular page, you can be sure that the user will be turned off and will more than likely never return.

2.    Pop-ups – No one likes pop-ups.  Even if the pop-ups serve a purpose and are not spam, users will be annoyed by the fact that they are being interrupted during their web browsing experience. If you must have ads on your website, then stick to traditional banner ads that won’t be so invasive.

3.    Complicated URL – Website addresses that include many words, symbols, numbers and dashes are unlikely to be memorable and will be less favorable in terms of SEO.  Instead of “http://www.the-best-fly-fishing-directory-on-the-web-2.com” use something along the lines of “http://www.fishingdirectory.com.”  Make sure that your URL is short and easy to remember.

4.    Too many fields on your forms – While having many different fields on your contact forms allows for the greatest amount of user information to be captured, you do not want to overload your website’s users.  Limit forms to four or five fields so that your user can quickly and easily fill them out.

5.    Cryptic CAPTCHA Images – With the increase of spam robots that auto-fill your website’s forms, it is necessary to include a CAPTCHA image or question to validate that your users are in fact human.  But if a user is required to retype a CAPTCHA value several times because it is too difficult to read, they may decide to navigate away from your site.  Instead, use simple math or logic questions to validate your users.

6.    Automatic Music or Video Player – Almost everyone has experienced the annoyance of automatic music players.  These players can be embarrassing at work, obtrusive and annoying and are simply unneeded.  Instead, wait for the user to click the “Play” button.

7.    Flash Intro – While certain Flash elements and small animations can add movement and make your website more intriguing, overusing Flash can get in the way of a visitor’s ability to quickly and easily access the site’s main content.  Having to wait through a long flash intro every time you access a website can be painful, maddening your visitors and turning them away.  Forget the Flash intro and instead use landing pages to initiate your users’ website experience.

8.    Fixed Text Size – Websites that fail to use CSS to allow for scalable text can frustrate users who have bad vision or unusual display sizes.  Modern web designs allow browsers to adjust the size of the text that is displayed without fouling up the site’s layout.  Also make sure that your text is not displayed as an image and that it uses relative sizing (instead of absolute).

9.    Login to Comment – While it is fairly common to practice to force your website’s users to create an account and login in order to comment on forum threads and blogs, this cumbersome procedure often impedes your users from taking part in the dialogue within your website.  Instead of requiring an account to comment, simply ask your visitors to submit their name, email address, and website so that you still have their valuable contact information.

10.    Click “OK” to navigate away or “Cancel” to stay on this page – Recently, a trend has developed in which web designers attempt to trick users into staying on their web page.  By forcing users to click a popup button to navigate away from your page, you are leaving your potential customers with a bad taste in their mouth.  Let users leave if they so please…you know the old saying, “if you love something, set it free, if it was meant to be, it will come back to you.”

Users who have a negative experience on a website are likely to never return, so be careful not to drive them away with intrusive, complicated, or irritating features. While it is impossible to predict everything that will bother your site’s visitors, you will be much less likely to frustrate your guests if you avoid these common design and development pitfalls.

Hiring a team of professionals to perform a usability test can provide you with the extra insight you need to optimize your website’s overall performance.

Obstacles to Personal Email Campaign Management

Sending out emails to dozens or hundreds of subscribers on your own isn’t impossible, but it’s likely to be a much more time-consuming and difficult task than you imagine. There are several problems you may encounter when trying to manage an email campaign on your own:

1.    Each recipient must be manually added to your email contact list.
2.    Email “bounces” must be processed by hand.
3.    Unsubscribe requests must be handled manually.
4.    Email service providers often limit the number of recipients you can designate for an email.
5.    You can easily be mistaken for and blocked as a spammer when you send out large quantities of the same email.

To make things worse, the email you design isn’t likely to look professional. Plain looking emails that lack your logo, branding and special formatting won’t do your business image any favors. Cheap-looking emails are also more likely to be ignored and to trigger an unsubscribe requests.

Professional Email Campaign Management

Instead of spending hours trying to manage an email campaign on your own that isn’t likely to yield good results, you can rely on a quality web designer to help you design and implement successful email campaigns. Experts in website design can help you narrow down your campaign goals, identify your needs, and design attractive and appealing emails and newsletters.

When you invest in expertise, you can expect greater profitability and success from your email campaign, no matter how big or small your list may be. You can also look forward to a simplified pricing schedule that’s clear-cut and affordable.

A website designer can turn your email campaign into a success by providing valuable in-depth campaign performance reports, as well. You can rely on their ability to supply information about each of your recipients, including who opened your email, when it was opened, how many times it was opened, what they did with it, who unsubscribed, what links were followed and more! Website designers can also provide reports that compare the performance of various email campaigns on a single page.  This way, you can better understand which subjects, content, and mailing techniques are most effective.

When you opt to have a web design team manage your campaign, you make a sound investment. You’re guaranteed less hassles and frustrations, a higher response rate and assurance that you are presenting the best possible image to your prospects.

1.    Optimize the search function on your website or blog to make it easy for your users to find the information or media that they are looking for.  Tag everything from articles to pictures and videos so that all of the content on your website is searchable.  You want your users to spend a lot of time on your website, but you don’t want that time to be spent digging around for information that should be readily available.

2.    Include links to all of your social network profiles on your homepage.  Visitors who are genuinely interested in you or your business should be able to easily connect with you via social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.  By including these links, your users can get more involved in learning about your company and will get the feeling that there are real, compassionate people behind your website.

3.    Create landing pages that direct users to the content that is most relevant to them.  Landing pages are convenient for your users because they can cut down on the time it takes for them to navigate through your website.  Landing pages can dramatically improve conversions from website visitors to leads by providing users with a direct path to the page or form you are hoping they will use.

4.    Optimize your website for the iPhone and other mobile devices by creating a version of your site that is readable and usable on the popular mobile browsers.  Make sure that all text and media is formatted correctly for the smaller screen size and that your website’s style stays intact. Media Contour has an informative iPhone tutorial to get you started with making your website mobile-friendly.

5.    Incorporate a text-to-speech application like Odiogo that allows your users to listen to an audio version of your website’s content.  This is especially useful for users who are blind, illiterate, too busy to read, or simply lazy.  Many people do not want to devote their time to reading a long blog article—by listening to it, they can browse through other sites or multi-task in other ways while they are enjoying your words of wisdom.  Media Contour has implemented this application so that you can try it out for yourself—just click the “listen now” button above this or any other KaBlog! article.

6.    Create text alternatives or captions to describe the content for all of your website’s media (images, music, video, etc.).  This text alternative ensures that blind individuals can understand what a picture or photograph is portraying.  Similarly, it also allows your hearing-impaired visitors to understand what is being played within an audio file.

7.    Allow your users to navigate your site using keyboard shortcuts.  Keyboard shortcuts can save time and prevent early onset of carpal tunnel syndrome.  Many users prefer not to use a mouse and some are unable to do so.  By installing keyboard shortcut compatibility, you will ensure that your website is usable for the widest range of visitors.

8.    Provide your website’s users with helpful tools like an automatic spell checker, help or FAQ section, and bookmarking buttons.  The Help and FAQ pages can save time for your users when they encounter a problem or an error on your site or when they have a specific question.  The bookmarking buttons help users to easily remember and share your website within their network of friends, family, and professionals.

Tips specifically for e-commerce websites:

9.    Provide an option for one-click checkout on every page so that users to do not have to spend time going back and forth between pages, potentially losing interest in purchasing your product or service as they waste more time navigating.

10.    Include testimonials on your homepage, products page, or portfolio section that give your business a good reputation and help prospective customers gain trust and respect for your company’s products or services.  You want to be able to choose which reviews your users see—without testimonials on your site, you will force your customers to look elsewhere for reviews of your business.  These reviews, unlike the testimonials on your site, cannot be moderated by you.

While these suggestions are not appropriate for every website, they can be very valuable for a designer or developer looking to improve usability on multiple levels.  By optimizing your site for many diverse types of users with their own preferences, tendencies, and handicaps, you can increase traffic to your site and raise the standards by which designers and developers create their own works.  The Internet is for all to enjoy—you should make your visitors’ experience as pleasant and pain-free as possible.

Just as your car needs a tune up now and then to run at its best, your website needs regular maintenance too. Regular maintenance is what enables your site to perform at peak function and stay profitable in the long run. Depending on your business, your website and your visitors, keeping your website current can involve a variety of procedures.

If you rely on your business to attract visitors who then contact you to purchase services, your website maintenance schedule is likely to involve:

• · Adding or updating content such as copy, pictures, and blogs at least bi-weekly.

• · Deleting or archiving old content.

• · Adding new services or special offers.

• · Updating, repairing or removing broken links.

• · Verifying and ensuring website security.

• · Analyzing and reporting on site traffic and other relevant statistics.

• · Submitting your site to search engines, directories, and niche sites.

Websites that are strictly designed for e-commerce have an additional set of processes that should be included in the site’s regular maintenance schedule:

• · Product and service updates, including graphics, text and files.

• · Visitor and lead conversion analysis.

• · Feature additions to improve usability.

• · Customer support.

• · Database management.

• · Enhanced security monitoring.

Depending on your business and your website maintenance needs, you can either learn to perform maintenance yourself or you can hire a third party to manage it for you.

Whether your maintenance needs are large or small, it’s often more efficient and economical to hire someone to manage website maintenance for you. Out-sourcing website maintenance guarantees it will get done regardless of how busy you may be. It also helps ensure maintenance is done correctly. You won’t have to train yourself or an employee on the details of website maintenance—an expert will be able to spot and correct issues before they develop into problems.

Regular website maintenance doesn’t have to be a complex, expensive undertaking, but it is crucial if you want to protect and make the most of your investment in your website. Developing and implementing a maintenance schedule will enable you to keep your website alive and thriving in the long term.

Yet website redesign is not as simple as it sounds and can result in a negative experience for users accustomed to the old design.  While there are many pitfalls surrounding redesign, there are also solutions to help you avoid these problems.

A Case Study in Redesign: Facebook
Anyone who has used Facebook in the past few years must have noticed the frequent design and layout changes they have implemented.  While many of these changes have improved usability and aesthetic appeal of the site, other changes have resulted in a backlash from Facebook users.  You have probably seen one of the many groups created to allow users to vent their frustrations over the modifications.  These groups have accumulated millions of members who are against new changes in design.

So why exactly has Facebook’s redesign been met with such great opposition?
Those die hard Facebook users who have been members of the social network since its inception became used to the simple, unadorned layout that Facebook initially offered.  They valued the fact that this social network lacked the pesky customization options and add-ons that cluttered similar networks.  They liked Facebook simply because it represented a fresh and easy alternative to MySpace.  While the addition of applications, fan pages, and the new Twitter-like design of the home page were created to improve usability, many argued that these changes ended up taking away from the overall purpose of Facebook as a network to connect friends, peers, family members, and co-workers.

While Facebook’s redesigns have created discord, it is possible to redesign your website without upsetting your current users and past clients.  By taking the time to research the opinions of your users, what they like and dislike about your current site design, you can figure out which features are worth keeping and which need to be rethought.

Benefits of Redesigning Your Site:
•    Improved usability and aesthetic appeal.
•    Improved ranking in search engine results.
•    Improved ability to view and interact with your website in mobile browsers.
•    Creates a buzz for your website.

Solutions to the Pitfalls of Website Redesign:
Problem: Potential loss of brand identity and change in values.
Solution: Do not radically change logos or names associated with your company, instead update, freshen, and modernize.
Problem: Potential loss of customers who are used to and preferred the old design.
Solution: Before redesigning, perform a usability survey among customers to see what they like and what needs improvement.

Your website should be custom designed with your customer in mind.  You have spent time creating a brand and image for your company.  Why destroy that brand with a website design that a thousand other people are also using?  By doing so, you are sending out the message that you don’t want to be unique and that you are not better than your competitors.

Choose a Website Designer that is Raising the Bar
When selecting a website design service, it’s vital that they not only fulfill your needs in the design aspect of web development, but also ensure that your website is a direct extension and reflection of your business.  The right designer will assist you with:

Business Development – Your brand image, logo design, brand development and even the training of your own webmaster.

Business Consulting – Creating the color palette, icons and other nomenclature specific to your business that will create an overall professional look for your company.

Identity & Branding – Creating more than just business cards and letterhead, but also customized emails, newsletters and more.

Information Architecture – Creating a solution that allows you to create an easy to use solution for the update and management of your website.

Web & Graphic Design – Services that mesh your corporate identity with your online portrayal.  Combining the components of your brand and identity into your web design creates harmony between your marketing materials and branding as a whole.

Logo Design – The creation of your logo because your logo is your business’s face.  This is how customers will identify with you.

Business Collateral – Creating print material that corresponds with your website’s design and graphics.  It should all work together cohesively and the right designer will help you to ensure just that.

Marketing & Sales Material – Ensuring that every aspect of your website works with your marketing and sales material as well from your letterhead to other promotional items such as press releases, fact sheets, press kits, and more.

Services Your Web Designer Should Provide
Not only should your website and business image work together cohesively, but it must appeal to the customer or client as well.  A premiere website design service will ensure that your website does just that by providing you with:

An appealing header and logo that is easy for your customer to remember.

High quality photographs that show off your location, products and property.

A color scheme with aesthetic tones that convey an up-to-date view of your business.

A professional website appearance that shows you are an authority in your industry.

Browser compatibility that ensures all Internet users can view your site the way it was meant to be seen whether they use Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox or Apple Safari.

Analytics that provide you with information on your traffic and the usability of your website.

Specific coding that influences on the search engines see your website and provide optimal usability.

Today’s process of web design should not be one that merely creates a cookie cutter website design.  By selecting the right website designer, you should find customer service that goes beyond graphics and coding, but also ensures your business image as a whole is one of modern professionalism.  Anything less means that you are sending customers to your competition.

Over the past two years we have grown. We’ve spent our days learning what makes a successful online product, how to make our process and performance efficient enough to meet every last minute request, and how to always deliver a better product than our competition at a price that is as cost effective as possible.

We are excited to raise the bar in the website design industry. We believe that a website is a reflection and extension of a business. If your website looks bad; you look bad. If your website is clumsy and messy; your business is clumsy and messy. Whether it’s true or not this is how your business is perceived. A website should project the image you want, and ultimately mirror your sales cycle so that it sells even when you aren’t. Ask yourself, are you being misrepresented? Are you sending business to your competition?

We’re new and improved and we’re here to provide you with the resources that will help your success exponentially.

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