Jovillar Web Design

Mobile Applications services in Edmonton

2011-05-26T14:43:00.002-06:00

Do you have a mobile app idea that you would like to bring online to the world? Do you have a game idea or a software idea that would help users?

Looking for a mobile application company in Edmonton or Alberta? What do you need to look for in order to get your app idea out on the web?

First off, you should know your mobile app requirements. Ask yourself the following questions to get you started:

1. What is your mobile app market?
2. What are your demographics? Are you selling to a certain age range or interest group? Is this app for all ages?
3. Under what platform do you want your app to be developed? Are you interested in Windows 7, iPhone, iPad, Android, Android tablet, iPod Touch, or Blackberry?
4. What is your budget like?
5. What is your deadline? Is this going to be a 6 month project or a 2 year project?

It is good to have a fair understanding of the process of the app flow so that you can sit down with your Edmonton mobile app developers and discuss the process, flow, functionality and structure of your mobile application.

Here are the mobile app phases:

- Requirements Phase
- Mockup Phase
- Mobile Application Design Phase
- Mobile Application Development & Functionality Phase
- Mobile App Testing Phase
- Final Delivery and Product Sign Off Phase

Hope this posting gives you some tips to getting your mobile app idea out there! Remember to have fun while you are doing it!

Jovillar Web Design offers Edmonton web design services, Edmonton SEO services, and Edmonton Mobile App services.

Free HTML 5 Tutorials - The optgroup tag

2011-04-02T13:21:00.001-06:00

Free HTML 5 Tutorials - The NAV tag

2011-04-02T13:21:00.000-06:00

HTML 5 Tutorials - The colgroup tag

2011-04-02T13:19:00.000-06:00

How to make money with your website

2010-10-09T10:50:00.004-06:00

1. Join an affiliate program such as www.cj.com or Commission Junction. What I do is sign up for free, select a company I'm interested in having on my site, get the links or ads available and post them on my site. You can create a page on your website dedicated to advertising for these companies and you make a nice commission on it. For example, if you advertise for web hosting companies such as godaddy or justhost, you can make up to $100 per customer that signs up with these web hosting companies. Not bad of a paycheck and I use mine to go out to movies and buy something for myself. :)

2. Banner advertising - swap banners with a company in your niche or market. Check out the website of the company you are interested in and contact them. Ask them if they provide banner advertising. Tell them about your company and that you are interested in swapping banners with them. You put theirs on your website and they will post your banner on their website. Everyone wins.

3. Google Adsense - Google Adsense lets you post advertisements on your website. Any user, (not yourself) who clicks on these ads, will get paid.

4. Google Analytics - Google Analytics lets you analyze the visitors and demographics. The way you can make money is by analyzing your traffic, you can determine where most of your market comes from. You can also view logs, reports and see the status of your daily traffic. If you know where your target market is by looking at the demographics, you will be able to advertise better and focus on which locations are more interested in your product or services.

5. Offering coupons - Posting discounts or adding coupons on your website is another way to make money with your website. Offer free shipping and you will turn your visitors into customers.

Jovillar Web Design offers Edmonton web design services.

How the PPC Search Engines Work

2010-09-19T10:40:00.002-06:00

The purpose of PPC Search Engines is to promote your website. Advertisers sign up with a PPC engine and then they make a minimum deposit and then submit one or more keyword phrases. For example, if you have a web design company, your keyword phrase would be web design services. It is best to research your keyword phrase(s) by using the Google keyword analyzer tool. There are other keyword tools on the Internet. Next, the advertiser assigns a bid to each phrase. The bid will be the amount of money they are willing to pay whenever someone clicks to come to their website.

Remember this, it only costs when someone clicks on your listing and goes to your web site. If you have the top bid for a keyword phrase, then you also have the top spot for that specific keyword phrase. If someone comes along and searches your keyword, and they click your listing, the amount of the bid is deducted from your account deposit. In other words, it does not cost anything to be listed in the PPC engines. You pay the amount of your bid each time someone clicks on your listing.
Here is a list of popular PPC Search Engines referenced by: http://www.payperclicksearchengines.com/
1. Google AdWords - The biggest and best for volume, traffic quality and user interface. However the most expensive.
2. Yahoo! Search Marketing - First GoTo.com, then Overture, now Yahoo! Search Marketing. Both high volume and quality with a few bargains still around.
3. MSN AdCenter - A newly emerging big player with lots of leverage, and arguably the best quality traffic. Look out for an amazing keyword research tool as part of the package.
4. MIVA - One of the best, yet more underated PPC search engines.
5. SearchFeed - Strong ROI with a reasonable search volume. Geo-targeting available with 11 countries you can specifically focus on.
6. Marchex AdHere - Get new visitors to your site in just minutes with Marchex AdHere PPC.
7. ABCSearch - Solid targeting, decent traffic sources, and good customer service.
Check out one of the popular PPCSE listed above and do a search. You will notice that the amount of the bid is shown on each search listing. This is how much the advertiser will pay when someone clicks on the listing to visit their website. Bid Ranked means that the search listings are ranked in descending order of their bid.
Note that PPC Search Engines have anti-fraud measures so bad people cannot click you out of business. The most you can be charged is once per actual visitor per day.

About the Author

This article is written by the owner, Christina Ebeling, at a Edmonton web development company that offers Edmonton web design and development services in Edmonton, Alberta to clients all over Canada.

Why Vertical Portals are Important for your Marketing Strategy

2010-09-04T11:00:00.000-06:00

A search engine, like Google, often called a portal, is a horizontal portal because it is catered to everyone, not just a specific group of people. Within the Google portal, there are thousands of Vertical Portals. Vertical Portals are large, informational websites that cater to a specific industry or special interest. These vertical portals are online communities where people are interested in a particular topic. There is usually more than one vertical portal for any given topic.

Vertical Portals should be a part of your marketing strategy by identifying and utilizing the resources that the vertical portals offer. Vertical Portals, or On-Line Communities, are relevant to your industry as Yahoo is to the Internet. Vertical portals typically have one or more of the following characteristics such as Online Chats, News, Calendars, Vertical Banner Exchange, Classified Ads, Forums, Directories, and a specialized Search Engine to search vertical content.

Vertical Portals are important to your marketing effort because they are an excellent resource for reaching your niche market. Vertical Portals are also an awesome resource for locating paid advertising resources such as buttons, targeted banners, article advertising, press releases about your site, and news articles about your site. Now how do you go about finding these vertical portals? You will be able to identify a vertical portal when you see one while searching. If you consider websites you visit frequently on the Internet, you will probably find that you often visit a few vertical portals but you just didn't realize they were Vertical Portals. Just make sure that you understand what features are common to vertical portals as this will make finding them much easier. The 3 ways to look for vertical portals are by trading links, searching on Yahoo and Google directories, and by checking out the Alexa directory.

For more information on marketing, check out our free web design articles at www.jovillarwebdesign.com.

About the Author

This article is written by the owner, Christina Ebeling, at a web design company that offers web design services in Edmonton, Alberta to clients all over Canada.

Offering Free stuff Can Bring More Traffic to your Website

2010-09-03T19:50:00.000-06:00

If you offer free stuff on your website you will definitely attract visitors to come back to your site. Whether it is free stuff, free shipping or free information or tips, people love anything that is free. If you want to offer free stuff, ask your supplier for samples to give to your visitors.

If you plan to offer free information or tips, visitors who come to your site will notice because it's related to what they are searching for and they will most likely purchase from your site. Focus on what you think your visitor will be interested in when they arrive to your site. Ask yourself what do they want to read on your site?
For example, you can find free information and tips on my Web Design site, located under Resources.

Providing free information, free stuff or free shipping generates a sense of trust and builds a good repor. There are actually websites online that only offer free stuff on their website. That is the whole focus of their site.
Developing web pages that educate and inform visitors help to build more credibility with your company. Give them a reason to come to your website. Then place a link at the bottom of your information to get them to click on so that it will take them to buy something. Make one sub page on your website dedicated to offering free stuff. I guarantee it will encourage visitors to come back for more. Make the sub page easy to navigate and link to your products and services. If you need assistance on how to create this sub page, research other websites that offer free stuff. Just open up a web browser and type in free stuff.

Remember that more information you can provide for your visitors, the more credible your site will be, and the more likely your visitors will buy from you.

About the Author

This article is written by the owner, Christina Ebeling, at a web design company that offers web design services in Edmonton, Alberta to clients all over Canada.

Ecommerce Web Design - Why We Should Consider Content Management Systems:

2010-09-03T19:46:00.003-06:00

Ecommerce Web Design is necessary when you want to sell your products or services online. What kind of software should be used when choosing ecommerce web design services? Content Management Systems or Web Content Management Systems is a popular choice for developing ecommerce websites.
A web content management (WCM) system is a CMS designed to simplify the publication of web content to web sites and mobile devices, in particular, allowing content creators to submit content without requiring technical knowledge of HTML or the uploading of files.
The benefits for a customer in choosing Content Management Systems (CMS) are the ability to manage your own system after the website is live or online. Customers want a user friendly website that will allow them to login and add content or upload an image. With CMSes, the user can check out their orders, upload new products and services, insert images, change prices on their products or services, and add more pages with content.
Once the ecommerce website is designed and developed, the next step is to connect the shopping cart to a payment gateway. You must consider what type of payment gateway to choose. The options available are paypal and credit card payment gateways such as authorize.net. There are tons of credit card payment gateways to choose from that you can just google.
A payment gateway is an e-commerce application service provider service that authorizes payments for e-businesses, online retailers, bricks and clicks, or traditional brick and mortar. It is the equivalent of a physical point of sale terminal located in most retail outlets. Payment gateways protect credit card details by encrypting sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, to ensure that information is passed securely between the customer and the merchant and also between merchant and the payment processor. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_gateway)

About the Author

This article is written by the owner, Christina Ebeling, at a web development company that offers web development from Edmonton, Alberta to clients all over Canada.

Why Google PageRank is important for your Website

2010-08-31T09:38:00.000-06:00

There are a number of factors that are important when advertising your website. Search Engine Optimization includes something called Google PageRank. Google PageRank is an algorithm used by the Google Search Engine to analyze links.

Google assigns a numerical value to each webpage. Google ranks from a scale of 0 to 10. The higher the PR, the more importance your website is given. Remember that each webpage is ranked, not the entire website. Each webpage carries different content and different links so it should be ranked individually.

Basically, the more relevant your page links are, Google will rank your website according to this. Inbound links and outbound links are taken into account. Inbound links, or links into the site from the outside, are another way to increase a site's PageRank. Also known as Backlinks, they are incoming links to a website or web page. Outbound links are links that take a user to an external web site.

Here are some tips for creating links:

1. A link from another website will increase your website's PageRank.

2. Ways to increase your site's PageRank is to add more pages to your site. Google loves content.

3. You should avoid link farms as Google does not like this.

4. Try to make sure your outbound links are reciprocated.

5. It is better to link from a page that has a higher PageRank. Check out site's with higher PR and contact the webmaster to exchange links with their website.

6. You can check each website's PR by downloading tools like Google Toolbar or Alexa Toolbar.

The maximum amount of PageRank in a site increases as the number of pages in the site increases. The more pages a site has, the more PageRank it will also have. The higher the PR of a page's backlinks, the more PR is allocated to that page. The fewer outward-pointing links on a page, the more PR is allocated to that page.

About the Author

This article is written by the owner, Christina Ebeling, at an web design company that offers web design services in Edmonton, Alberta to clients all over Canada.

Reciprocal Linking Tips to Bring Traffic to your Website

2010-08-26T19:21:00.002-06:00

Reciprocal linking, or also called trading links, is a method used between two website owners exchanging links with each other to promote his or her business.
It is a simple process, basically starting by creating a web page on your site dedicated to linking to other websites. I call my web page on my site Web Partners.

How do you contact these website owners? You can send them an email requesting a link trade. Make sure your website is related to the website you would like to promote. This will increase qualified traffic to your site. Why would you want to post your link on a cooking website when your website is about cars?
Once the website owner approves the link trade request, you can check often to make sure your link is still in place. Ask the website owner where your link will be placed within their site and bookmark these pages. You can check up once or twice a year.

The benefits to exchanging links with relevant websites are that it is free to do this. There is not cost to link trading. Keep in mind that it takes some time to contact each website you are interested in but it is worth it in the end. Another benefit is improving your link popularity and also your page rank. Search engines take notice of your website and how many websites link to yours. The more sites you have linked to you, the higher up you can go in the search engine rankings. Remember that it takes effort to do this but once you get the hang of it, it will be pretty fast and simple to do. Keep a notepad of sites you want to link to and also have a description ready to give to each site.

I usually give them my website’s link, keywords I want them to use and a description of what my website offers.

You can also build a directory of links on your website that is a resource for visitors to find related websites. I guarantee they will come back to your site because of the link directory you have.

Reciprocal Linking may be the most effective method for establishing an increase in web site traffic.

This article is written by the owner, Christina Ebeling, at a web design company that offers web design services in Edmonton, Alberta to clients all over Canada.

How the Search Engines Find You : GoArticles.com

2010-08-20T16:14:00.000-06:00

How the Search Engines Find You : GoArticles.com

How to Make your Website Stand Out

2010-08-12T16:21:00.000-06:00

In this article, I will list important web design elements that will make your website stand out.

* Domain Name - Make sure your domain name that you register will be short and related to your website. Make sure it is not difficult to remember and that it will be easy to spell.

* Keywords - Make sure your main keyword is placed in the important areas of your web page. Make sure your main keyword phrase is located at the top and bottom of your web page and repeated throughout the body area. Don't add too much repetition. Search engines don't like this.

* Home Page - Make sure your home page is easy to read.

* Menus - Make your web site easy to navigate. Providing simple and clean menus will help you do this.

* Fonts - Make sure your home page has a decent font size.

* Make your selling points stand out. Bold header, add bullet points and short, easy to read sentences.

* Links - Entice your visitors to stay on your website. Keep them interested by having them click on links that will take the visitor deeper into your site. Your site can link to a menu, more web page content, products/services, or images. You don't want your visitor to leave your site.

* Logos - Having a logo will present professionalism and help to build name recognition and branding to your web site.

* Colors - Make sure the colors on your site are easy on the eyes but stand out enough to look good. Use web safe colors.

* Uniqueness - Of course going for your own custom web design template will help your web site stand out as well. Retro is cool too. Be creative!

* Have Fun while you're doing it. It's your website. Whatever your reason for the website, make sure you have fun while you're planning.

About the Author

This article is written by the owner, Christina Jovillar-Ebeling, at a web design company that offers web design services in Edmonton, Alberta to clients all over Canada.

What Search Engines like Google Look For

2010-08-08T23:20:00.001-06:00

For a search engine to list your website, you have to optimize it before you submit it to the search engine. Search engine optimization focuses on ways to position your web pages to improve their chances of being found. Search engines rank web pages using Keyword Phrase Repetition, Meta Tags, and Link Popularity. I will discuss each of these below.

Search engines will look at the top and bottom of your web page to find your keyword phrase. Rule of thumb is to use this keyword phrase 5 times for every 100 words of text on each web page.

Meta tags are hidden tags on a web page’s source code which uses HTML code. Search engines use these meta tags for ranking as well. There are three types of meta tags to be aware of. These are Meta Title, Meta Description and Meta Keywords. Meta description is one paragraph to describe your web page. It will help to use your keyword phrase a few times in this description as well. Meta keywords are a list of 25 keywords and phrases that are relevant to your website.

For example, if you are running an online web design business, your keyword would be “web design”. For my web design business, I use the keyword phrases, “web design services”. To view your keywords, go to a homepage of a website and click on “View” on your top main menu of your web browser, then click on “View Source” or “Page Source”.

Link popularity is also used by some search engines for ranking web pages. It basically sees how many web pages link to your web page. These links are called incoming links. The more links you have on your web page, the better the link popularity.

Once you have your website optimized with keyword phrase repetition, meta tags and link popularity, you can then submit your website to Google, Yahoo and Bing and other search engines.

This article is written by the owner, Christina Ebeling, at a web development company that offers web development services in Edmonton, Alberta to clients all over Canada.

Free stuff

2010-08-04T11:04:00.001-06:00

If you plan to offer free information or tips, visitors who come to your site will notice because it’s related to what they are searching for and they will most likely purchase from your site. Focus on what you think your visitor will be interested in when they arrive to your site. Ask yourself what do they want to read on your site?

For example, you can find free information and tips on my Web Design site, located under Resources.
Providing free information, free stuff or free shipping generates a sense of trust and builds a good repor. There are actually websites online that only offer free stuff on their website. That is the whole focus of their site.

Developing web pages that educate and inform visitors help to build more credibility with your company. Give them a reason to come to your website. Then place a link at the bottom of your information to get them to click on so that it will take them to buy something.

Make one sub page on your website dedicated to offering free stuff. I guarantee it will encourage visitors to come back for more. Make the sub page easy to navigate and link to your products and services. If you need assistance on how to create this sub page, research other websites that offer free stuff. Just open up a web browser and type in free stuff.

Remember that more information you can provide for your visitors, the more credible your site will be, and the more likely your visitors will buy from you.

This article is written by the owner, Christina Ebeling, at a web design company that offers web design services in Edmonton, Alberta to clients all over Canada.

Free Merchant Account tips and how to get one

2010-08-03T18:37:00.001-06:00

Merchant Accounts and how to get one

A merchant account allows you to accept credit card payments online. In order to accept credit card payments, you are required to apply for a merchant account and online payment gateway. What you will need is a real time credit car processing gateway that will authorize and decline credit cards while the customer is on your website. The web hosting company will provide the merchant account and gateway. There are usually fees that come with this set up. Setup and monthly fees are associated with having a merchant account.

95% of all orders made online are with a credit card. The fact is that your businesses success or failure can depend on whether or not you accept credit card orders.

You must make sure that the merchant account and payment gateway is compatible with the shopping cart your site uses.

All Merchant Account Providers provide merchants with their own merchant account, online processing of credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover), shopping cart links, virtual terminal, and site enablement.

Here is a list of top merchant account providers: Paymerica, CDG Commerce, Paypal, and 2CheckOut. Authorize.net is another popular source for applying for a merchant account and gateway.

To start payment processing you will need the following requirements:
• Order Form
• Gateway – for processing credit card information
• Shopping Cart – compatible shopping cart for your ecommerce store to take online purchases
• Secure Server –to prevent hackers from stealing credit card information. SSL encryption will prevent this from happening.
• Merchant Account – process, authenticate and authorize transactions

Follow the list of requirements above and you will be ready to start your online business!

This article is written by the owner, Christina Ebeling, at a web development company that offers web development services in Edmonton, Alberta to clients all over Canada.

Why you should have your own domain name

2010-08-02T20:51:00.000-06:00

Okay, now you are interested in setting up your website. In order to get it up on the Internet successfully you need a domain name. The benefits to having your own domain name are name recognition and better branding. It is also easier for your customer to remember and some search engines may rank you higher if your keyword is part of your domain name and it is related to your website.

Here are some tips on selecting a good domain name for your website. Start by selecting one that is as short as possible so that customers can remember it and come back. Make sure it is easy to spell and will leave an impression on your visitors. Also, it should pertain to your site offering.

I mentioned earlier to select a domain name that has your main keyword in it. The reason why this is important is because search engines place importance on domain names that use the keywords in the domain name. For example, my website is tailored to web design services. My website domain name is www.jovillarwebdesign.com with "webdesign" as the main keyword of choice and it is related to my website's offering.

Try to select a ".com" extension as it is more popular. ".net" and ".org" are the other popular choices. You can search if your domain name is available by going to whois.com. If it is available, you can register and purchase your domain at a web hosting provider such as Web Hosting services. Some web hosting providers will include a domain name in the web hosting package. It is better to register your domain name for about 2 years. Making your domain public for this length of time can let all the search engines know that you are a real business and not a spam website.

Free Internal Marketing Tips

2010-08-01T22:47:00.001-06:00

Internal marketing is basically needed to keep visitors on your website and get them to stay and also to get them to come back.

In order to get visitors to come to your website, you need to get their attention. If you don't have something interesting on your website to grab their interest, they will most likely leave your site. Have a clear and simple menu for navigating the website. Allow your visitors to find things easily. Adding a lot of hyperlinks on each page of your site will allow your visitors to click to each page and stay interested. Your hyperlinks should be keywords related to your site. Keep your links within the body of your paragraph on each page. If you offer specials, deals, discounts or coupons on your home page, you will keep your visitors engaged and possibly turn them to customers. Your links can be called "What's hot", "Free shipping", "5% OFF", etc.

To get your visitors to stay, you can offer newsletters or have them subscribe to new offers, news, and specials. If you provide free information to your visitors, they will most likely be interested because it establishes trust.

To get your visitors to come back, keep your website up to date with the latest news, specials and information. Your website should be fresh looking. Keep your visitors coming back for more. Look at what other websites do to keep visitors coming. For example, see Jovillar Web Design, Yahoo or MSN. Daily they are updating news, adding the latest applications and updates for their customers.

I have a poll on the home page of my website at www.jovillarwebdesign.com. I also have free tips on my blog and I write articles and tweet them on twitter and post them on facebook. This will keep your visitors interacting with you on a consistent basis. They won't be bored.

Applying effective internal marketing techniques can reduce the number of times your web visitors will visit and possibly purchase your products or services.

9 Free Ways to Advertise Your Website

2010-07-29T21:05:00.000-06:00

All business owners would like to find a cost-effective way to advertise on the Internet.
Here is a list of ways to advertise your website:
1. Blogs - A Weblog, or blog, is a collection of articles, essays, or thoughts. Blogs encourage reader comments, which make them a valuable tool for gathering customer feedback. Blogger and WordPress will host your blog for free. 2. Podcasting - Podcasts are audio files. Post podcasts on your website and other sites like Apple's iTunes. Customers can subscribe to your podcasts and download them. They can listen to them on their computers or portable MP3 devices. 3. Join as members of online communities - Contribute to discussion groups and you can inform your customers and advertise your business all at once! Some examples are Twitter and Facebook. You can see an example of a Twitter account webdesigngurl. 4. Customer Service - Providing excellent customer service will please your customers and give you word of mouth. You can also have a testimonials page on your website to turn your visitors into customers. You can see an example of my web design clients testimonials page. 5. Article Writing - Write an e-mail newsletter with articles about your company, your products and services, and news. Here are some sources to check out: www.goarticles.com and www.ezinearticles.com. 6. E-mail lists - Gather a list of all of your customers' e-mail addresses and send them product news, coupons, and special offers. 7. Reciprocal links - Companies help businesses via an exchange of hyperlinks. 8. Reciprocal banner ads - Reciprocal banner ads help businesses by allowing free banner advertisement exchanges. 9. Coupons - Make coupons available on your Web site and let users download them. You can also e-mail them to your customers.

Paypal or Other Credit Card Payment Gateways?

2010-07-29T21:01:00.001-06:00

Okay, now you have your ecommerce website design and you want to set up a payment gateway. Where do you begin? You can find these payment gateways on the Internet and see which one is more suitable for you.

First things first, what is a payment gateway and why do I need one? A payment gateway connects your ecommerce website to your merchant account. It connects payments by a secure order form with your merchant account at a bank.

I would start by researching all the different payment gateways companies and compare security, features, price and reliability.

Some differences I found when researching are mainly the fees and services offered. Some have higher fees than others and some have services such as fraud protection, eCheck processing, and risk management you should look into. Fraud protection identifies suspicious transactions with built-in fraud tools provided by the online merchant company. Electronic checks (eChecks) are another payment method that allows customers to enter their banking information online. Risk management is where sensitive data is stored in the online merchant's PCI-compliant data center, never on your computer.

Some fees to look into are the setup fees, monthly fees, and transaction fees. Most providers will charge a monthly fee and transaction fees. Some companies will waive the set up fee.

Reliability is an important thing to look at. Make sure your gateway is up 24/7 especially when your customers are ordering online throughout all hours of the day, all over the world.

Authorize.net is a company that offers payment gateways. I would also look into Paypal, especially Paypal Websites Payment Pro. Your customers won't even need a Paypal account to purchase your products or services if you go with Paypal Websites Payment Pro. This is a very good choice, plus you will save on fees as there is no monthly fee for this type of account. Websites Payment Pro accepts all credit cards and all paypal payments, and works with a number of shopping carts.

Considering security, price and reliability features for the payment gateway will help you on your way to getting your ecommerce web site ready to go live.

Web Design Tips

2010-07-29T21:00:00.002-06:00

Here is a list of factors to consider when designing your web site:

Cross Browser Compatibility - Make sure your site is tested on different browsers such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, and Safari.

Website Navigation - Determine your entry points or which pages your customer will most likely enter from and most likely read its content. You can download Google Analytics to track your visitors and analyze your website's traffic. You can also see your demographics as well as see your entry points too.

Web site Menus - Look into clean menus and easy to find links. This will allow your visitors to stay longer and not be confused with where to find what they are looking for. For an example, see this Web Design site.

Website Load Time and Total Page Size: Huge graphics, cartoon animation and flash dramatically increase the size of the file. Unused scripts in your HTML code need to be optimized as well. Search your code and test it thoroughly. Rule of thumb, a main page shouldn't be a whole lot more than 50K. Be aware of the different kinds of graphic formats available. Research which format is the best to use for your website. GIMP, a free software image editor will work with all graphic formats and you can play around with the compression, transparency and size of your images.

Home Page - Make sure you have at least a summary of what your site is all about so your customer will know within 5 - 10 seconds whether to stay or leave your site. If you cannot sum up what your site is about, then you shouldn't have a website in the first place.

Web Design Layout - Look into CSS layouts for your web design so that will be easy to edit and that have a clean look.

Screen Resolution: Stretch layouts will fit any screen resolution because not every user has the same resolution. This will make your website more professional and businesslike.

Ensure Website scalability: Make sure your code and web design is scalable.

So we discussed a few web design tips to make your website more professional.

Searching for the Best Web Design Company

2010-07-26T15:53:00.004-06:00

Online business is growing and businesses need to keep up with the times with a website. A web design company that specializes in custom web design services can help you get your site up and running in no time.

A professional web design company can work with your website needs and requirements. They can also provide continuing services such as ongoing website maintenance, website redesigns, or offer search engine optimization services.

When you search for a reputable web design company, you must consider some important key factors. The first factor to look for is the kind of skills the company offers. If you are looking for a Flash website to be developed and the company doesn’t offer Flash services, then they won’t be able to work with your project requirements. It is best to contact the company and ask what type of services is offered. You can also ask for a quote, as most professional web design companies will offer a quote. Next, you must consider what kind of timeframe is needed for your project and if the website design company can work with your deadline. It is important that the company you work with will respect and value your time. Lastly, is understanding. A web design company will design and develop your website from scratch. That being said, it takes a lot of planning, constructing, developing and testing before the website is ready to go live. Customers must understand that each web design phase must be carried out with precision. Each phase is equally important in delivering the ideal website for each client’s needs. The reason why I mention this last factor is because some customer's do not realize how much work is involved in the design and development of a website.

Whatever your needs are, a web development company is the key to bringing you online to the world.

Ecommerce Web Design - Content Management Systems

2010-07-26T15:53:00.002-06:00

A web content management (WCM) system is a CMS designed to simplify the publication of web content to web sites and mobile devices, in particular, allowing content creators to submit content without requiring technical knowledge of HTML or the uploading of files.

The benefits for a customer in choosing Content Management Systems (CMS) are the ability to manage your own system after the website is live or online. Customers want a user friendly website that will allow them to login and add content or upload an image. With CMSes, the user can check out their orders, upload new products and services, insert images, change prices on their products or services, and add more pages with content.

Once the ecommerce website is designed and developed, the next step is to connect the shopping cart to a payment gateway. You must consider what type of payment gateway to choose. The options available are paypal and credit card payment gateways such as authorize.net. There are tons of credit card payment gateways to choose from that you can just google.

A payment gateway is an e-commerce application service provider service that authorizes payments for e-businesses, online retailers, bricks and clicks, or traditional brick and mortar. It is the equivalent of a physical point of sale terminal located in most retail outlets. Payment gateways protect credit card details by encrypting sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, to ensure that information is passed securely between the customer and the merchant and also between merchant and the payment processor. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_gateway)

Web Hosting Services

2010-02-16T09:41:00.002-07:00

Jovillar Web Design now offers web hosting services.

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Packages:

$5.95 for 3 years hosting
$6.95 for 2 years hosting
$7.95 for 1 year hosting
$8.95 for 6 months hosting
$9.95 for month to month hosting

Web Design Terminology - Part I

2010-01-27T11:05:00.002-07:00

Anchor Text:

In order for a search engine to tell what a link is point to, they need a description. This is called Anchor Text.

Analytics:

Google's services that provides information on the usage of a web page. It calculates the number of visits to the location of the browser and the search terms used to find the page. It will alert you of changes in data patterns as well. You can print customized reports. It basically analyzes your site for you and it's free. Check it out: http://www.google.com/analytics/

Alt Tags:

Some web browsers do not display the images on a web page so if it isn't available, then the Alt Tag acts as a replacement so you can see the caption. Alt Tags help search engines locate and index a page.

Stay tuned for more Web Design Terms...

Article submitted by Christina Jovillar-Ebeling at Jovillar Web Design, a company offering professional web design services for small business. For more information about Professional Web Design Services visit www.jovillarwebdesign.com