Web Programming Trends for 2012

Posted on January 21, 2012 by Nikki

Staying on the crest of the new wave of web design.

Building on our last article, we’d like to mention a few of the most prominent things to keep in mind regarding the programming of your new website in 2012.  Keeping the technology of your website up to date along with the graphic look is very important in keeping your website competitive!

 

Make it Mobile!

According to a 2010 report from Morgan Stanley, mobile web surfing is estimated to outstrip desktop usage by 2015.  That is not that far away!  Is your website easily accessible from a smartphone or other small mobile device?  If not, you should consider having a mobile website designed to work in tandem with your current site.  Mobile sites are programmed in mobi format, and are designed to be easy to view and navigate on smaller touch-screen devices. Also something to keep in mind with the rise in mobile web surfing is how to encourage mobile device users to visit your site.  QR codes and email marketing are both great ways to drive traffic to your mobile online presence.

Flash is Flaming Out

While Flash animation hasn’t sung its swan song just yet, it is becoming less and less popular as a choice for putting animation on the web.  This is due in large part to Apple, whose mobile products (including the iPod, iPad and iPhone) do not support Flash.  What does this mean to you?  It means that if you have Flash animation on your website and one of the tens of millions of US residents who use an Apple mobile device surfs your website, they will not be able to view it in its entirety.  In fact, depending on how much the website depends on Flash for its function, the visitor may not be able to view the site at all. Don’t panic though!  There are other programming languages that allow for fun and funky animation that can be viewed across operating systems: HTML5 and JQuery, just to name a few.  If you have analytics set to monitor your website, you should be able to see where your visiting traffic is coming from.  If indications are that you are getting a lot of visits from Apple products, it is time to consider alternatives to Flash so that your visitors receive the best possible experience when they view your site.

Content Management

Having an up-to-date web presence is vital to supporting your current customer base and allowing it to expand.  In this age of a struggling economy, however, many small businesses recoil at the thought of having to pay someone every time they need a minor update to their site.  IGV offers a cost-effective solution to this dilemma by offering websites based on a Content Management System!  A CMS website allows the owner of the site to log in and make content updates themselves without having to resort to paying a 3rd party to add images to a gallery, update an events list, etc.  Most content management systems have a user interface that resembles programs that most computer users are familiar and comfortable with.  For those more adventurous users, the HTML can frequently be accessed and changed as well.

Share and Share Alike

What did your dear mother tell you about sharing??  Well, in terms of the modern internet, shareable content is incredibly important in spreading the word about your website and your business.  Including social media share buttons on each page, each FAQ entry, even every product in your online store encourages visitors to share that spur of the moment enthusiasm about something on your site with their digital network.  These “social shares” have the potential to drive waves of new traffic to your site!  Writing a blog and including RSS links is another way to get people to plug in to what you have to say and what your business has to offer.

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Top 5 Effective Website Design Techniques for 2012

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Nikki

As we sail into the new year, full of new connections to be made and new goals to reach, it behooves us to take a look at the up-and-coming website design techniques that can help us to achieve our digital potential.  Your website isn’t just a neat tool anymore – it is your hand outstretched to the world, often your first connection to a new prospective customer or fan.  You want to be seen as friendly, convenient, up to date and personal.  Here are 5 techniques that are being used very effectively to create those impressions:

Click for larger image

Aesthetic, Not Ascetic

Web design has matured from a field strongly limited by available functionality to a field where programming techniques have become ever-more complex and varied.  This has allowed the field of website design to become as much an art as a science, and web surfers are paying just as much attention to the visual appeal of a website as the content.  A site designed to illustrate the concept that the content is presenting is much more effective than a site focused primarily on the content.

From Print to Pixals

Click to view larger image

Think of the look of a high-quality magazine like Time or National Geographic; the style you see on those pages is emerging more and more in the World Wide Web.  Print design techniques are being used more and more to add visual interest to websites.

  • Multiple columns in text shortens lines and aids readability.
  • Using @font-face or similar tools to move beyond the very limited set of “safe” fonts (fonts that are most commonly available by default on the average computer) allows designers to add interest and emphasis.
  • Highlighted quotes and images as illustrations underline important concepts within the content and break up text so that viewers don’t get bored or overwhelmed by copy.

Framing

Think of two pieces of art – one is simply framed and hung, the other has matting between the artwork and the frame.  The matting allows the artwork to “pop”, separating it from the frame and the surface on which the whole piece is hung so it stands out on it’s own.  The same concept is being used now in web design, with blank space bracketing the main body of content (which helps keep long text in check) and empty space framing off items of particular interest or importance.

Click to view larger image

A Pleasing Palette

Color is not something to be afraid of!  In fact, the use of contrasting colors or neutral vs. bright is a great technique to use to bring attention to something of importance.  Think neutral “matting” surrounding a body of content with a bright background, or vivid font colors against a contrasting background.

See It in 3D

No, we’re not talking the kind of 3D that doesn’t seem to be going over as well as the TV industry would have liked.  3D effects though, along with fun or funky icons, add a sense of being slick and modern when used strategically.  Don’t go overboard though – an excess of fancy graphics or icons on a page can actually distract a viewer from other things you want them to pay attention to – like the actual content of the page!

Does your site need a New Year’s facelift?  Join our mailing list to receive our upcoming “New Year, New You” offer!

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Are You Usable?

Posted on December 7, 2011 by Nikki

If you have a website associated with your company, you have probably discovered a “universal truth”: getting visitors to your site is only half your battle in the war that is Internet Marketing.  The other half of your battle is to get visitors to do something once they’re there!  This is called “conversion”, and there are entire companies dedicated to helping your website with conversion optimization.

It may surprise you to know that conversion and search engine optimization can both be addressed by focusing on something a little easier to understand: “usability.”  When someone from the great wide world out there makes it to your site, a) do they know what they want/need to do, and b) can they figure out how to do it with a minimum of hassle?

 

If your online purchases are low, you just can’t seem to get people to sign up for your mailing list or register for events, or your analytics show that visitors are bouncing out of your site without taking the time to really look at any of your pages, chances are that the answer to at least one of those questions is “no.”  Is your landing page too busy?  Is your site too wordy?  Is your site navigation clear, your checkout procedure easy?  Even if the answer to any of these questions is “I don’t know,” it is probably time to consider Usability Testing.  All these issues and more can scare convertible visitors away from your site, and no reasonable amount spent on AdWords or other paid listings will make up for it.

Design your website for success!An experienced website design/development company like Innovative Global Vision will be able to use a combination of website analytics and objective, real-world-scenario testing to identify trouble spots within your website – and then help you to fix them!  If you’re worried that your users find you unusable, contact us today!

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The Perks of Customer Reviews

Posted on November 29, 2011 by Nikki

When building an online store for a client, Innovative Global Vision always encourages the inclusion of the ability for customers to leave reviews on products.  It is surprising how often online retailers balk initially at the idea of allowing the general public to comment on their products or services.  Their concerns most often center around 2 concepts: “What if no one rates it?” and “What if they rate it poorly?”

What Customer Reviews Do For You

In general, the availability to provide and read reviews on what a business is offering creates a “bandwagon” effect; good reviews from satisfied customers make prospective purchasers feel that they may be missing out if they aren’t part of this happy group.  Having reviews on a product also encourage future purchasers to leave their own reviews.  The occasional not-so-good review (especially if the store owner takes the time to post a professional response) usually serves to enforce the reality of the good reviews, and shows a prospective customer that if by some strange twist of fate they too have an issue with the product or service, they can count on a professional resolution of the situation by the business.  If no one has yet left a review on a product, it is a neutral effect.  If a customer does purchase it, that option to “Be the First to Review This Item!” is often inducement enough to return to the site after the purchase to let their voice be heard.

Some other benefits of customer reviews on a site are:

  • Reviews are highly linkable and provide “updated content”, encouraging search engines to improve your site rankings
  • The way your customers talk about your products can provide you with new or more searchable keywords to apply to your product

Customer Reviews Using Facebook Integration

With the recent launch of OneLuckyDogBakery.com’s new store website, IGV has added another layer of benefit to the standard customer review.  Products can only be rated by customers logged into their store account, greatly reducing the possibility of random malicious low rankings.  Also (and this is huge, folks), instead of the review feature being confined to display only on the store website, we have improved the feature to integrate with Facebook.  Now, to leave a review, the customer must simply sign in to their Facebook account and leave their review in the widget.  When they post their review of a product, it will visible on One Lucky Dog’s FB page, the customer’s page, and the pages of the members of both the customer’s and the store’s social network.

No longer will product reviews be visible to only those searching for that particular product or those who actually make it to the store!  This new feature will allow the word to be spread about great products across the Facebook universe, inspiring folks who might not have been interested before to visit One Lucky Dog’s online store and perhaps make purchases of their own.  What could be better than free advertising?

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IGV Project Review: One Lucky Dog Bakery

Posted on November 29, 2011 by Nikki

Check out the new OLDB Home page!

E-commerce solutions have always been a top contender in IGV’s line-up, allowing us to  provide our web design customers with highly-functional, SEO friendly, customized online stores.  With the recent launch of OneLuckyDogBakery.com, IGV has taken our e-commerce solution to the next level of outstanding service and design.

One Lucky Dog decided to reinvent their website after expanding their business from gourmet dog treats only to encompass high-quality dog supplements and accessories as well as their organic, hand-made gourmet dog biscuits.

 

Key Features:

With One Lucky Dog’s e-commerce solution, one of the first great features is the incorporation of their blog into the design of the store.  As you may have read in our previous article on the benefits of blogging, having your blog hosted on your company’s domain is a huge boost for SEO.  Every searchable keyword phrase used in the body of the blog articles will help boost the site’s rankings in search engine results, and allows more traffic to be drawn to the store through the blog.

New - Integrated Facebook Reviews!

Another great new feature is the use of Facebook likes and comments in place of the old item reviews.  This integration of social media allows product reviews to be posted on One Lucky Dog’s Facebook page as well as the page of the reviewer.  This allows for more proliferation of information about One Lucky Dog Bakery through its customer’s social networks, and discourages the possibility of malicious comments as they would be made public on both the store’s FB page and the commenter’s.

 

Hometown Heroes:

Some champion IGV ecommerce features that are returning for another winning season include:

  • Custom-designed rotating banners to show off your featured items and current specials
  • “Also Bought”: the feature that allows you to see other products purchased by people who have purchased the currently-viewed item
  • One-page Checkout: reduces abandoned shopping carts
    and improves conversion rates
  • “Best Sellers”: displays the current top-selling items in the store
  • eMail list sign-up integration

Does your online store need “sprucing up” for the holidays?  Contact IGV today!

 


Posted in Blogging, eCommerce, Online Marketing, Project Review, SEO, Social Media | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Why Bother to Blog?

Posted on November 4, 2011 by Nikki

Is blogging really important?Being in the business of website design, development and hosting, IGV often runs into resistance when we encourage including a blog in a client’s site.

“Do I really need a blog?”
“But it’s so much work!”
“I have no idea what to blog about.”
“Will people actually read it?”

These are the basic responses of which we hear variations on a frequent basis.  Well, here we are, writing a blog, to ease these qualms!

Before mentioning the benefits of blogging, we should mention the basic blogging “best practices” which will give the best results for your efforts.

  • Make sure your blog is hosted on YOUR domain and is linked to your website (ask IGV how!) to make sure your website receives all the SEO benefits from your blogs appearance in search results and the visits to your articles.
  • Use tools like Google AdWords to research what the online community is actually searching about in your field.  Write about those subjects to make your blog relevant and valuable.
  • Use searchable keyword phrases within the body of your article (again, you can use keyword tools like Google AdWords to see what people are searching on).
  • Pick a manageable schedule for releasing articles, and try your best to stick to it!  If you get returning readers, you don’t want to put them off by not giving them their latest bloggy fix when they expect it.  If you are worried about missing a date, ask the author of another blog in your field if you can repost or “syndicate” an article of theirs, or ask a guest writer to write an article for you.The SEO web

So there’s the how; now what about “Why?”In the optimum situation, wherein your blog is housed on your domain, these are the benefits you can expect:

  • The keywords you use in the body of your articles make your site more searchable and increases traffic to your site when visitors view blog articles.  When the search engine spiders crawl your articles, relevant searchable keywords will allow your blog (and the website it’s linked to) to rise in the search rankings without having to resort to risky tactics such as “keyword stuffing” or other things that search engines frown on.
  • Return traffic is encouraged as visitors begin to follow your blog and check back to view new content.
  • Updating your blog on a regular basis is an easy way to have your site show as having been updated.  This encourages search-engines to reassess and possibly improve the rank of your site.
  • Having other sites link to one of your articles, or linking out to another site within your article is a good, search-engine-friendly way to obtain incoming links to your site and have the search engines see you as a well-rounded resource.
  • Blogs are a great opportunity for inexpensive promotional and/or relational marketing.  Show your site visitors that you know what you’re talking about.  Share insights or stories that allow your visitors to relate to your business or to you personally.

Blogs help you "shout out" about your business!

HINT:   Posting your blog articles on social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter has the potential to send surges of new traffic to your site and provide high-quality inbound links as readers re-post or share your article with their networks.

Do you need help getting your blog started?
Let IGV help you out!

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QR Codes: The Best Thing Since Business Cards?

Posted on October 11, 2011 by Nikki

Scan to visit IGV on Facebook

Visit IGV on Facebook

Have you seen these strange little things floating around lately?  They are appearing on everything from fast-food soft drink cups to billboards to business cards.  They are QR Codes, and they are changing the face of print advertising.

“QR” stands for “Quick Response.”  Wikipedia defines QR codes as “a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code) first designed for the automotive industry.  More recently, the system has become popular outside of the industry due to its fast readability and comparatively large storage capacity.”  Smart phones are capable of using downloadable barcode readers, many of them free, to decipher these codes, making the information contained in them available to the ever-growing number of people who can’t live without their iPhone, Droid, or other “smart” device.  QR codes can be designed to transmit a URL, send a text message, download a file, or any number of other functions when scanned.  There are services online that will show you how to create your own QR codes and save the resulting image for your use.

 

What does this mean for your business? 

Scan to stay in touch!

Stay In Touch!

QR codes make it possible to turn any piece of printed marketing into a gateway to your online marketing campaign.  With a QR code on your business card, you can send new contacts to your website or get them signed up for your email newsletter.  Put a QR code on your flyers to send interested folks to your “Upcoming Events” page or your online portfolio instead of trying to fit all that information on a small, inexpensive piece of printed material.  Have a QR code on your website or a sign outside your business to give shoppers coupons or make them aware of special events.  If you are willing to spend a little money, you can even have custom-designed functions made for your QR codes like a digital contact file a scanner can upload directly to their phone.

Scan to check out IGV's upcoming events

Upcoming Seminars & Events

The possibilities are virtually endless with QR codes.  They allow you to bring your static printed materials into the dynamic digital world.

Happy scanning!

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Get Answers with Google Analytics

Posted on September 16, 2011 by Nikki

Many businesses, whether online or brick and mortar, have a website nowadays.  Yours may be no different.  In the massive community that is the internet, how do you know if your customers are getting to your site?  Are they finding the information they are looking for when they get there?  Where is your site traffic coming from?  Is there any way to collect all this information in one place?

Why yes, there is!

Google Analytics is an incredibly useful tool in studying the interactions between your website, blog or ecommerce store and the people who visit them.  The information garnered by Google Analytics can help you judge the effectiveness of your site, and help you make decisions regarding any changes that show themselves as needing to be made.

 

Reports You Can View
(click on images to view examples)

Answers You Can Get
Visitors  

Visitor Demographics - City drill-down
  • Who’s new; who’s returning?
  • Where are your visitors from?
  • What browsers are they using?

 
Traffic Source
  • What keywords are people searching with to find your site?
  • How are your visitors getting to your site (referring sites, direct traffic, search engines, etc.)?
Content 

Content Overview
  • How many total page views?
  • On what pages are people entering and leaving the site?
  • How long are your visitors spending on your pages?
Ecommerce

eCommerce Overview
  • What products are visitors most interested in?
  • What is your total online revenue?
  • How many visits result in a purchase?

… And more!

Contact IGV, Inc. to get Google Analytics connected to your website, blog or ecommerce store.  Once Analytics has been connected to your site, it will need some time to collect data.  Give it about a month, and then you can start delving into the data Google Analytics has provided and start putting it to use!

 

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Yes RSS!

Posted on September 8, 2011 by Nikki

In your wanderings through the internet, you’ve come across some fun or informational blogs that you enjoy keeping up with.  If you’re like I was until recently, that means you go through your “Blogs” bookmark folder in your browser and check each website every couple of days to see if they’ve updated yet.  How tedious!  Many of you have seen the little RSS widgets at the bottom of your favorite blogs, but what do you do with them?  What IS RSS and what’s so great about it?

The abbreviation “RSS” has gone through several incarnations, but the most recent acronym is “Really Simple Syndication”.  RSS-capable web pages are programmed using XML, and are designed to send out notifications when the content of that page has been updated or modified.  What this means to you is that, once you’ve subscribed to that page, your RSS Reader automatically sees the new content when a blog is updated.   No more time wasted clicking through site after site to see if someone out there has posted new content yet!

“How do I get in on this whole ‘reader’ thing” you ask?  RSS readers are EVERYWHERE.  Pick your favorite blog and go to its web page; I will briefly describe subscription methods for a few of the big readers, then let you explore the wonderful world of RSS on your own.


METHOD 1:  Microsoft Outlook

Those of us stuck in the office all day frequently rely on Microsoft Outlook for our email communications, calendars, etc.  Why not use that same versatile tool to keep up with your favorite blogs?  Here’s how:

-          While in Outlook, click the File tab
-          Click Account Settings, then Account Settings again
-          Click the “RSS Feeds” tab
-          Click “New”
-          There are two ways to get the information the “New RSS Feed” box is asking for: copy the URL (web address) of your blog page and paste it in the box, or right-click on your blog’s RSS button (if it has one), select  “copy link address”, then paste the info into the box in Outlook.
-          Click “Add”
-          Your newly-subscribed blog should show up in the Feed Name box.  Success!

Now go to your email “Home” tab.  On the left-hand side, in the scrollable menu that displays all your email folders, you should see a folder with the little orange RSS symbol on it labled “RSS Feeds”.  Use the little arrow to expand the folder and view all the blogs you’re subscribed to!  You can even access your bolg feeds when you log into your webmail (accessing your Outlook from the internet).


METHOD 2:  IE & Firefox

Internet Explorer and Firefox both have RSS readers built into the browsers.  How handy!  The only downside is that your feeds will be stuck on whatever computer you subscribed on (for instance, your computer at work), unless you subscribe again using your browser on, say, your home computer.

In Internet Explorer:

-          Left-click on the orange RSS Feed button on your blog’s webpage.
-          A new tab will open.  In a yellow box at the top of this new page, there is a link that says “Subscribe to this feed”.  Click it.
-          A sub-window will pop up asking where you would like to put the subscription link.  By default, it will be placed in your Favorites (accessed by the little star in the top right corner of the IE browser window) in the Feeds tab.  If you’re fine with that, click subscribe.
-          Click the afore-mentioned little star in the top right corner of the browser window.   Click the Feeds tab.  You should see your blog link!  Success!

In Firefox:

-          Left-click on the orange RSS Feed button on your blog’s webpage.
-          A new tab will open asking you how you would like to subscribe to the feed.  The default setting is “Live Bookmarks”; leave it at that.
-          Click “Subscribe now”
-          You will see a new bookmark icon appear in your bookmarks toolbar with the title of the blog you just subscribed to.  When you click on the bookmark, it will give you a list of the most recent articles on that blog.  Click on the one you want to read, and off you go!


METHOD 3: RSS Reader Websites

There are simply oodles of RSS reader websites.  Some are free, some are paid services; two of the most highly-recommended free readers that we have seen mentioned over and over again are Bloglines.com and Reader.Google.com.  From our experience and by many other accounts, these sites are easy to use and include some nice features.

Regardless of which external reader website you chose to go with, the benefit is that you will have access to your blog feeds day and night, no matter where you are.  Once you’ve created your account on the reader website of your choice, simply log in from whatever computer you happen to be in front of when that urge to read hits.

All you need once you’ve created an account on a RSS reader website are the URLs (web addresses) of your favorite blogs.  Your reader site will have an area for you to enter a feed address (right-click on those orange RSS buttons!) or website URL.  The reader will then keep track of your blogs for you, showing you when someone has updated.

Happy reading!

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