Tranquil BLUE Web Design Co | Tampa Web Design

10 Ways to Stop the Whopping 70% of Shoppers Who Don’t Complete Checkout

2011-12-06T18:20:00.001-05:00

By John Siebert, an avid Tampa web designer, and 12+ year veteran of internet marketing.

The latest statistic by Forrester Research indicates that an average 71% of shopping carts are abandoned before finishing checkout. That is over 7 in 10 users and the result is an estimated 18 billion in losses. The numbers should not be taken lightly, but shockingly few are doing anything about it. According to Listrak only 13% of the top 500 online retails are attempting to recover abandoned shopping carts. Listrak claims it has helped its customers gain 20-35% back from decreases in abandoned shopping carts. What steps can your business take right now to see increases like that?

First, some easy and effective steps to implement

1. Tracking is Huge – Identify where the problem areas are

If you’ve gotten this far in the article then the assumption is that you’re already tracking your visitors. However, if you haven't yet then scoot on over to google.com/analytics and get some free, reliable tracking. You may already be tracking, but are you sure that you’re tracking the steps through checkout? It’s important to know what steps your customers are getting bottle-necked at. You could find, for example, that shipping is the major bounce-point and you can explore cheaper shipping options.

2. 48% Look for Trust Marks First – Help your customers trust you

A recent study by Econsultancy polled two thousand UK online shoppers at various steps of checkout to identify their reason for leaving. Amazingly, nearly half claimed they were looking for trust symbols. Trust symbols are symbols like the BBB, secure shopping (lock icon), and MacAfee Site Secure can help insure legitimacy. Also make sure you have your SSL certificate and it is up to date. They also have EV (extended validation) SSL certificates which turn the browsers bar green or have another visual indicator of the additional level of security depending on the browser.

3. Clear Contact Details – Make your contact information visible
The study by Econsultancy also found that 48% of people abandoned their carts because they could not find clear contact details. Contact details are probably the easiest change to implement. If you are a legitimate shopping cart company then you probably already have your phone number, an e-mail address, and maybe even a live chat. If they are hidden out of site on a contact page or in a tiny unassuming area in the site’s footer then why not move them to the top of the page? Or put them right into your checkout process. This will ease any concerns of consumers of being taken by a fly-by-night company.

4. Clearly State Your Return Policy
Display your return policy for your products especially if you’re return policy is a money back guarantee. If you’re return policy is less friendly you may still want to put a link to your return policy page so viewers can clearly see what they’re options are in the event that they don’t like or don’t want the product.

5. Intuitive Checkout Process
Can your visitor find their way through the checkout process or are they not sure what to do next and leaving the site out of frustration? Internet users are notoriously easily distracted. Make sure your continue buttons are big, bold, and bright. Also make sure they are more visually emphasized than other buttons that might take them away from the checkout process. Check out this tool, by AttentionWizard (free trial), to analyze a visual heat map of your checkout pages. This shows what elements on the page will be looked at first and which elements may be missed from a visual standpoint.

Here are some potentially harder steps to implement, but can yield great results.

6. Shipping Costs – Lower your shipping rates

Lowering shipping rates will decrease shopping cart abandonment. Everyone’s bottom line is different, but a Forrester Research study showed that 44% of online shoppers abandon their carts because of shipping costs. If it fits the budget you might want to offer a cheaper or free shipping option. If you have an option of free shipping over $x already in place then this would be a great time to remind visitors that they only have to spend $y to reach your free shipping price.

7. Not Ready to Purchase – If you customer is not ready then let them save.

The Forrester Research study also indicates that 41% of shoppers were not ready to purchase at the moment they left a cart. While there is not much you can do if they are not ready to purchase you can entice them to come back later. Options for “save cart” and “e-mail cart” can help. In fact, 24% of surveyed said they were attempting to save products in their cart for later.

8. Offer Guest Checkout

The 7th highest option with 14% of respondents of the Forrester study claimed they left the shopping cart because they didn’t want to sign up for another web site. Guest checkouts are very common today. Many users expect this option. Also many of the shopping cart software out there have an easy built in option.
When all else fails and they abandon their shopping cart there are still more options.

9. Be #1, #2, and #3

Since 27% of polled shoppers indicated they wanted to compare prices on other sites why not be all of the competitors? Although it is the hardest item on this list to achieve it can also yield the best results. If your #1 for your term on Google you must assume there are some people who are going to #2 and #3 and possibly further down the list to compare prices. Since small, niche, keyword-targeted domains are working the best to get to the top spots then if you create multiple sites which don’t appear to be connected then you can be in more than one top spot on Google. You can even vary prices slightly and offer say, free shipping, on one of the sites. This greatly improves your chances of a sale in the case of price comparisons (assuming they price compare on the same search engine). It’s more attainable then you would probably think especially if you are already intensely search engine marketing.

10. Re-marketing Campaigns – Don’t ever give up on a sale

The big guys like Amazon.com, Buy.com and Newegg.com, just to name a few, have been doing some amazing things in cart abandonment remarketing. If you leave your shopping cart abandoned with a fancy red sweater then you might see a picture of that red sweater on a totally unrelated site. Since they display their ads on so many 3rd party sites all over the internet if you visit a site that has an Amazon.com ad, for example, you will see a picture of that fancy red sweater you left in your shopping cart. Clicking on it will bring you right back to your shopping cart so you can finish your purchase. You may not have the advertising budget (or budget in general) to reach these people on your advertising network but there are still remarketing options. If you have a shopping cart, look for extensions or plugins for “shopping cart abandonment”. Listrak makes an extension for the popular cart Magento. There are also many other extensions for the various other canned shopping carts out there. They can send an e-mail to users who have passed the email step. You can offer them a deal, free shipping or just remind them a week / month later. If all attempts to get them to purchase on the spot fail then try to re-capture that lead.

3 Business Questions You Must Answer Before You Can Successfully Use Social Media to Grow Your Business

2011-11-14T09:40:00.001-05:00

This article was written for Tranquil Blue by Dino Eliadis, a small business growth expert.

Social media is all the rage these days. Millions use it daily as their way of communicating with the world, making it ripe for the picking as a business tool. But, too frequently I see business owners rush off into social media without a clear picture of how they plan to use it to grow their company.

3 Business Questions for Social Media Success

Social media is just a tool like any other tool, so you use it to leverage what you want accomplish. You need to apply “planning 101” to it just like every other aspect of your business. The questions are:

What business objective am I trying to accomplish by using social media?
How does this objective relate to my business growth strategy?
What is the most effective social media strategy I can use to achieve my business objective?

Let’s take a little deeper look at why each of these questions is so critical to successfully using social media for business growth.

Applying Social Media to Business Objectives

This seems pretty clear, why apply resources (time, money, and people) to something if it doesn’t get me closer to my desired outcome? It’s amazing how often this step gets skipped!
If you are trying to grow your business then you should have clear objectives set for each business function (sales, marketing, production, finance, etc). If you already do, then ask yourself which of these objectives have an externally facing communication component, and by using social media might allow you to do it smarter, faster, or cheaper to? Identify these objectives and you’re on your way.
Social media doesn’t eliminate things it’s just a different way of doing things. So, you just have to find that set of tasks that you are currently doing that can be done more productively using social media.

Applying Social Media to Your Growth Strategy

If your goal is growth, then you don’t have extra resources to be throwing around that don’t contribute to your growth. So, this step is a business check before you take the jump into social media.
If you have identified an objective that you believe is a good reason to use social media, now ask yourself the tough question, “how does this objective contribute to the growth of my business?” If you find it difficult to answer this question then you shouldn’t even be an objective you should are focused on anyway!
Enough resources are scarce in business that is truly growing. It’s the one thing that growing business struggle with every day. Not enough money, not enough people, not enough time, not enough capacity, not enough _____ (you fill in the blank). So don’t waste your resources on things that don’t matter. Make sure your social media strategy is focused on the prop objectives for your growing business.

Applying the Optimum Social Media Strategy

There are hundreds if not thousands of forms of social media from which to launch your campaign, but which one(s) best fit your situation? Answering this question is an obstacle that keeps many businesses from taking a positive step forward. That being said how do you determine what makes sense for your business?
You need an integrated social media strategy. That means selecting social media that fits with what you are trying to achieve with your business overall. This is a very high-level executive and board level conversation. It requires the talents of a real marketing executive who knows the in’s and out’s of traditional as well as new marketing.

What’s the Next Step?

I’ve laid a fairly simple process before you here. Ask yourself these questions and answer them honestly. If you get stuck then get some help, but beware. There are lots of self professed social media gurus. Can they show demonstrable examples of where their expertise has help companies grow?
I will not profess to be an expert. Although, many people I know want to put me in this category. My social media success came from using an expert. And I can say using this approach has been a resounding success having taken this blog from 0 – more than 500 readers a month in only 6 months. I’d happily share my “guru”, just drop me an email.
For those of you that have some success in growing your business with social media, what are some of the positive experience you have had? What did you struggle with most and how did you overcome these obstacles to achieve social media success?

What free software recently released captured 330,000 users in just 24 hours?

2011-07-07T13:38:00.003-04:00

Why WordPress's version 3.2 release of course! This was just an update to the already popular blogging software. This blogging software has now become a base for web sites that don't resemble blogs at all. An all out content management system that has nearly become a standard in content management systems. And best of all. It's free.

WordPress version 3.0 (previous version) drew headlines when it was released. It has well over 15 million downloads itself. WordPress is relatively new to the CMS scene being only 5 years old. They plan on releasing a new theme at least once a year. But with the popularity of this software there is an abundance of user generated themes out there. Some for free and some for a fee. Many types of styles are represented. A search for "WordPress Themes" will reveal lots to look at. Installation after version 3.0 is very easy. In fact, you can do a one-click install right from your WordPress back end. No wonder almost 15% of the top 1 million most visited web sites are made from a WordPress base.

Here at Tranquil Blue we fancy ourselves experts on WordPress. We have created a number of WordPress themes as well as basic WordPress installs. In fact we average 2-5 WordPress installations a month. So if you're looking for a fully customized WordPress install that fits your business then contact us today at 631-581-6090 or visit: Tampa Web Designer.

We've seen some other contenders in the CMS game come and go. Some notable packages include Joomla, Drupal, and DotNetNuke. Many of these had good strengths and have also had a lot of downloads and implementations. It seems none of them could match the simplicity and ease of use of WordPress. Although they are not as common. They do make sense in some situations. We would be happy to consult you on the best solution for your business.

Is Free Software Really Free?

WordPress is open source. Which means it's free. This leads me to a topic of much debate in the internet software industry today. Although WordPress & other open source software is free. There is an inherent cost that is still involved. Although your base install may be free. You almost invariably have to edit the design, functionality, and integration. The more customization that you are planning on integrating the more cost you will incur. Since dealing with their complex coding is often more time consuming then building a custom site from scratch you may not be saving time or money. Also, security concerns come to mind. Since the software is open source and developers as well as hackers can see how it all works. Your site may be more prone to hackers manipulation. After all they can peak under the hood and see all the inner workings. A WordPress add-on was recently hacked. This add-on was downloaded over 500,000 times and installed on many live WordPress sites. It's wise to consult with a technology company before deciding on open source. There are many variables that should be considered.

John Siebert
President
Tranquil Blue Web Design

Integrate Google's Plus 1 in Your Site

2011-06-28T15:30:00.000-04:00

Google's Plus 1 is their answer to Facebook's ever-popular like button. If you're planning on getting on the social media bandwagon (and you should be). You should integrate this new Google feature immediately. An important aspect to note about Google and it's Plus 1 feature is that businesses can now integrate a social media icon that has very little connotation to being non-business or young-generation. The Google Plus 1 is an easy way to help your Google ranks. Also, every time a user clicks a Plus 1 button it is automatically posted on their public Google profile page. Which counts as an in-bound link (great for SEO) and is displayed to their list of friends. Their list of friends could be hundreds long. The best part is that it's free and easy to implement. Just follow Google's instructions here:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/+1/button/index.html

Update on our climb to the top for "Tampa Web Design"

2011-06-01T19:48:00.000-04:00

As we had mentioned a few months ago. Our plan was to get to #1 for the term "Tampa Web Design" in Google, Yahoo and Bing. Our first post showed us at position #50 in Google. This was way further down the listings then any rational person would go to find a web designer in Tampa. We had to make some changes and we decided we would blog out our way to the top. By April we were able to get to the first page in Bing, but Google was a harder nut to crack. We have finally secured our spot on the first page and plan to get to the top 3 in the next month or two. Below are some graphs that show our ascent.

Our Google Rankings

As you can see. Our Google path was a slow and arduous one. A steady growth over what seemed like a long time. Although it was a few months of honing our on-site and off-site characteristics.

Our Bing Rankings

You will notice that we were able to rise much faster in Bing (Note: this is under a longer timeline). We stay relatively constantly in the top 5 positions on Bing throughout the last few months. We anticipate staying in this general area, or much towards the coveted #1 position, as time goes on.

Our results are typical to campaigns that we undertake. If you would like to speak with someone regarding your position in the search engine world. Please contact us at 631-581-6090.

Update ***

We have broken to our goal of 3-5 positions in Google as well as #1 in Bing for the terms "Tampa Web Design" and "Tampa Web Designer". Now onto new terms. Thanks for reading along.

Frattoys.com Redesign & Search Engine Optimization by: Tranquilblue

2011-05-25T14:36:00.001-04:00

In the beginning of 2011 Tranquilblue was commissioned by Frattoys.com to completely redesign their website as well as overhaul their Advertising & Seo campaigns. We are happy to announce that Frattoys.com is thriving and performing well above even our own expectations.

Frattoys was kind enough to send us this screen shot(we blacked out the sales for the sake of privacy).

- "Dear Tranquilblue Staff,
...We could not be happier with the results of your hard work. Since the launch of our new site design sales have more than doubled. We would like to thank the entire Tranquilblue staff for everything they have done..
Sincerly,
The Frattoys Team"

CSS3 Keyframe Animation - An Introduction

2011-05-24T14:51:00.000-04:00

The idea of using CSS as an animation tool has actually been around for a while. It is just now that browsers are starting to catch up. Soon enough CSS3 keyframe animation will have a big impact on web design.

The benefits of using CSS3 keyframe animation is that developers can create smooth motion that is not too resource heavy without an enormous amount of scripting. Combined with other useful CSS3 advances like rounded corners, gradients, and shadows one could potential create small user-friendly animations that rival the ones currently being made using flash or java-script. As a matter of fact combining CSS3 and java-script opens the realms of possibility even farther.

CSS3 and especially CSS3 animation do not yet have wide browser support so this article is intended as more of an introduction to the future not a what to do now.
You can find more information about CSS3 keyframe animation here.

Simple CSS3 Keyframe Animation

For this exercise I created a quick scene that changes from dawn to night. The background color transitions from orange to blue to purple to grey. Each time of day has its own title and the title is brought to the forefront at the right time.

Take a look at the Demo here.(This Demo requires a newer browser. Safari 5, Firefox 5, Chrome, IE 9. For the rest of the tutorial I will leave out the browser rendering engines. Just recognize that they are necessary for now. If you have no idea what I am talking about I suggest a little research before moving forward.)

The Basics

As always we start with clean mark up. You can see that inside our container we have a div with an id of 'sky' and inside that a div with an id of 'sun_contain'. The sky is the colored background and our sun is represented by the titles. Inside out 'sun_contain' is four other divs labeled for the time of day.

The CSS

There are a couple of things that make this work. The first thing is the @keyframe rule. A specific identifier is placed after each @keyframe that is referred to in the next part. Inside the the @keyframe and identifier are where you place the rule sets. The rule sets include the keyframe selectors which are snapshots of the animated elements. Just as in flash 0%, 33%, 66%, and 100% would be keyframes to which the CSS will tween. Each keyframe snapshot can have different styles associated with it like position, background color, and text color.

So, to define four times of day I have set four keyframes for each element(sky, sun_contain, dawn, day, dusk, night).

The next part are the animation properties. The first one the animation name is where we call our unique identifier from earlier.

The rest of the properties tell the animation ways to act like duration, delay, and play state.

The Conclusion

The W3C lays out what each of the animation properties are used for here. Remember this is still in early develpment and some browsers like Firefox 4 or lower won't do anything with this. This is coming down the line. One can imagine all of the fun stuff that can be created with this ability.

On a side note you can see that I am using Google Fonts which is pretty awesome in itself.

Ryan Shuhart
Sr. Web Developer - Tranquilblue

How to create an iPhone App

2011-05-11T10:45:00.000-04:00

Here's access to O'Reilly's book entitled App Savvy. This book goes through app planning, marketing, getting help from developers, concepts, and even plans for future growth of your (hopefully successful) app. It's a good read for anyone interested in developing an app. We wanted to offer this to our blog readers.

Thanks for reading.

A PHP form that sends emails to different recipients based on options selected

2011-05-09T09:58:00.002-04:00

This is how to make a PHP contact form with options that send to different email recipients. I will write it again for the Google searchers out there. This is how to make a PHP contact form that sends emails to different recipients based on options selected.

This is not a beginners course. This is meant to help anyone out there that has an intermediate understanding of Html and PHP.

Great, let's get started.

First the easy part is to write the html. This form will have a drop down menu with five options and a field for a return email address. You can add any fields you like just be sure to give them a reference for the php code.


<form method="post" name="email_form" 
action="www.yoursite/ mailform.php">
<label for="select">Select an option</label>
<select name="department" id="select" size="5">
<option value="department1">department1</option>
<option value="department2" id="design">department2</option>
<option value="department3" id="quality">department3</option>
<option value="department4">department4</option>
<option value="other" >Other</option>
</select>
<input type="text" name="email"  />
<button type="submit" name="submit">Submit</button> 
</form>

This is a simple form with no bells and whistles. Next is the PHP part of the form. Create a new document. Call it mailform.php. Beleow is the PHP that will go into the document. You can call it whatever you like just be sure that the action in the Html above is linked right.


<?php

//THIS SWITCH STATEMENT CORRESPONDS WITH YOUR HTML OPTIONS.
//WHATEVER OPTION THE USER SELECTS IN THE HTML PART TURNS ON
//ONE OF THE BELOW LINES OF OF CODE.
   switch($_POST['department'])
    {
      case "department1": $my_email = 'person1@email.com'; break;
      case "department2": $my_email = 'person2@email.com'; break;
   case "department3": $my_email = 'person2@email.com'; break;
   case "department4": $my_email = 'person2@email.com'; break;
   case "OTHER": $my_email = 'whoever@email.com'; break;
    }
  
//THIS LINE USES WHATEVER IS TURNED ON ABOVE 
//TO KNOW WHICH EMAIL TO SEND TO
    $email_to = $my_email;
    
//EMAIL_SUBJECT IS EMAIL SUBJECT
 $email_subject = "Your email subject line";
     
//EMAIL IS THE RETURN EMAIL ENTERED IN HTML.
 $email = $_POST['email'];
 
//DEPARTMENT IS THE SUM OF ALL YOUR CASES.
//ONLY THE OPTION SELECT WILL BE SEEN
    $department = $_POST['department'];
    
//EMAIL_MESSEGE TURNS THE OPTION SELECT INTO A STRING 
//AND DISPLAYS IT IN THE EMAIL
$email_message = "Option Selected: ".clean_string($department)."\n";

     
     
//THIS SENDS THE EMAIL
$headers = 'From: '.$email."\r\n".
'Reply-To: '.$email."\r\n" .
'X-Mailer: PHP/' . phpversion();
@mail($email_to, $email_subject, $email_message, $headers); 


//THIS WILL REDIRECT THE USE TO A LANDING PAGE

   header( 'Location: http://www.mysite/success.html' ) ;

?>





The important piece of code that makes the options work is the SWITCH. Without it you would have a basic contact form that only sends to a single email. You can see how this may be useful if you have several contacts but only one contact form.


I glossed over a lot of the specific details so if you need any help don't hesitate to contact me.



Ryan Shuhart

Sr. Web Developer, TranquilblueTampa Web Design Tranquil Blue Web Design



Real Estate Web Development
2011-05-06T19:23:00.001-04:00
Tranquil Blue has been doing real estate web development since our humble beginnings over 10 years ago. Although we service other verticals we have become very accustomed to the ins and outs of real estate web sites. If you are in the real estate industry then your probably already familiar with the difficulty to get clean data of open listings. We can integrate and clean up data feeds from any listing data source. We are familiar with disclaimers and notices to stay compliant. We also know the the fast-paced, rat-race to stay on the top as a real estate services provider. In short, we know internet real estate.





Real Estate Listing Integration



We have successfully integrated many real estate feeds. We have gathered MLS listings from RETS, IDX, and others. We've integrated them with Google map services as well as other Google services into listings. We have integrated CSV, XML, and XLS lists. We can create a site that shows only listings based on specific areas, zip codes, bedrooms, rentals, or just about anything you could want to filter by. Our sites also work on all browsers and not just Internet Explorer as canned main MLS does. 



Partial Real Estate Web Development Client List



Zere Real Estate Services

Rent Tampa Today

Exclusive Property Management Co

Breslin Realty

RTT Realty

Brandon Homes Org

Lender Authority (mortgage)Tampa Web Design Tranquil Blue Web Design





A Simple CSS Drop Down Menu
2011-04-28T12:15:00.002-04:00
Here is an example of a simple drop down menu style navigation to make your website more awesome.
Drop down menus can be a really exciting and easy way to add functionality and style to your site
First, start with some basic html. You will need to make an unordered list with your main navigation. The ul and its child li have some default styles associated with them that we will address in just a second.

<ul>
<li><a href="#">Planes</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Trains</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Automobiles</a></li>
</ul>
Now add some css styles to make this more of a traditional horizontal nav and remove the default styles.


ul{font-size: 30px; 
   list-style: none; 
   height: 53px; 
   margin: 0;
   padding: 0;
   float: left;}

li{float: left;
   margin:0; 
   line-height: 53px; 
   padding: 0 24px 0 24px;
   position: relative;}

a{color: black;
  text-decoration: none;}
   


What did we do? For the ul we defined the size of the type. This will cascade over to all of its child elements. In this application we do not want the list-style so define it as none. For now we do not want any margins or padding so define that as none. Float the ul left to keep it from stretching across the screen.


For the li we also float it left to make it horizontal instead of default vertical. Remove default margins. The line-height is set to the height of the parent element which is a trick for centering vertically. Then we add padding to either side to space out the links. Then make sure that this li is relatively positioned. More about that later.


The last thing we did is remove the default attributes of the 'a' tag.


This is a pretty basic horizontal nav. From here there is much that can be done like adding background images, playing with fonts, and colors.


Let's build the drop down portion. Start with your unordered list and add another inside of it.

<ul>
<li><a href="#">Planes</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#">1900 - 1940</a></li>
<li><a href="#">1940 - 1980</a></li>
<li><a href="#">1980 - present</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#">Trains</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Automobiles</a></li>
</ul>


Add the styles to make it work.



ul ul{position: absolute;
      display: none;
      width: 225px;
      top: 53px;
      left: 0;}


li:hover > ul{display: block;}





We defined the sub ul to be positioned absolutely that way it is removed from the normal flow of content. This is why we set the first li to be positioned relatively because it becomes the container by which the absolutely positioned element is set to. Then to ensure the sub ul is invisible until it is needed we set the display to none. The width is optional and if we wanted to add a background image we may want a different number. We set the Top to be 53px which puts our sub ul just below our first ul which has a height of 53px. Left we keep at 0 because we want it to be positioned to the left side.


Now we define the hover state and bring it all together. li:hover > ul says:"When the mouse hovers over a li any ul within that li will be displayed: block". This makes our ul visible while the mouse is over it.


It is really that simple. Remember this is as basic as it gets. There is so much more we could do with this.


I hope this helps any newbies out there.


Ryan Shuhart

Sr. Web Developer - TranquilblueTampa Web Design Tranquil Blue Web Design





Local SEO and Positive Review Building
2011-03-24T17:16:00.004-04:00
Did you know that your results on local searches. Such as Google Places, Bing Maps, and searches on your cell phone, all depend on your company's positive reviews? You must have a presence, as well, in all of the major local search, yellow pages, and review sites? If your not listed in some or all of these sites sites chances are you're not ranking very well on Local Search Results.



Considering there are over 300 million searches per day and 60% of them are in one way or another tied to local search results. Local search is something  you should probably be looking into.  



You will notice that our name is Tranquil Blue web design co. We use keywords in our name to gather people searching for those keywords. Since Google receives a lot of submissions for listings it doesn't trust all listings are legitimate. Google and other local search engines check each others' listings for accuracy. So if your listing exists in Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yelp, and many more. Then Google assumes your listing is correct and displays it higher in listings. Also it double checks that all of the information is the same on other engines. The more local sites it can verify your information on the more Google trusts your listing. So it is beneficial to get your listing with the same exact info on many local engines. And don't forget to use your top keyword. 



Here's What You Can Do. And It's Free!



Sign up at: 

Bing Maps

CitySearch

DexKnows.com Advertiser Sign Up Not sure if you can get a free listing here

Google Local Business Center

Local.com Free Business Listing



Superpages.com Free Listing

Yahoo Local Free Business Listing

Yellowpages.com Create A Listing



Data Suppliers to Other Search Engines and Directories

IBeginSource.com

InfoGroup (formerly InfoUSA)

 Localeze.com Manage Your Business Listing



Popular Customer Review Sites

AllPages.com 

Insider Pages 

Kudzu.com Basic Profile

MagicYellow.com Add Your Business 

Merchant Circle

SuperPages

Yelp 



Get Listed Higher by Building Positive Reviews (Article Coming Soon)



Contact John Siebert, President of TranquilBlue.com, for Local Search Optimization.Tampa Web Design Tranquil Blue Web Design





New Browser Wars + HTML5 = Web 3.0?
2011-03-21T13:07:00.005-04:00

Who can forget the infamous browser wars between Microsoft and Netscape of the turn of the century? These two companies fought to one up one another to gain market shares. In process they provided feature rich browsers that seemed to quantum leap their predecessors. The consequence of all this was proprietary features that didn’t obey standards and security loop holes that have been exploited ever since. Microsoft eventually won that first war mainly because of its operating system advantage but has been losing market share steadily ever since. The big players in the game now are Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Internet Explorer. The browser wars are about to heat up again as each one of these browsers has or will release a newer version promising to out-innovate each other once again. The difference this time around is Html5 and the desire to support it.


  

The first time around the web was a new frontier and browser developers didn’t care about cross-browser compatibility when they were bringing us the newest and greatest. They probably don’t care about that today, but the big difference is near universal support for Html5. The buzz word that is sweeping the nation could finally be the Web Standard developers have long prophesized about. This means that web designers and developers can finally spend more time creating beautiful and functional websites and less time accounting for each browser’s fussy disparities.





Support is not the only exciting thing to look forward to. Some of the improvements to keep an eye out for are:


Speed: Hardware acceleration is supported by all four of the major browsers newest releases. This feature can tap into your computer’s graphics processor and get a jolt of speed for complex web pages. Combined with Html5, which has tremendous support for video integration, we should see sites with layers of HD video seamlessly integrated into background graphics.





Privacy: Third-party advertisers are constantly collecting information about us on the web. New browsers are going to limit their ability to track you. All four of the major browsers are adding features that allow you to opt out of some of advertiser’s information collecting methods.





Synchronization: Mobile browsing is only getting bigger. The newest browsers will let you sync seamlessly from your PC browser to your Mobile browser and back again. Anything you do at home you will also be able to do on the road.



Of course, the door is open to the newest round of ‘feature fights’. There is always the possibility that too many proprietary innovations eliminate the advantages of having an industry-wide standard. Each browser is clamoring for user support by having the most unique and useful features. As this fight heats up the line between standard and proprietary becomes blurred and thin.



Do not fret too much. This is not the turn of the century and browser makers have learned from the wars of old. Fast-paced innovation in browsers is going to pay off for the users. As these newest rounds of browsers shake off their bugs and Html5 matures into its own we should be seeing the birth of Web 3.0.





Ryan Shuhart

Sr. Web Developer, Tranquilblue

Tampa Web Design Tranquil Blue Web Design





The Uphill Battle of SEO
2011-03-15T10:47:00.000-04:00
Previously I had mentioned that we had changed keyword focus and were now targetting "Tampa Web Design" to get the homepage of TranquilBlue.com to the top 3-5 positions. We started out at 50. Our last posted mentioned we were at 30 and today we've hit 19th. Although we're still not nearly in our desired position we are well on our way and confident that you will see us circling the very top, very soon. We look forward to our triumphant breaking of the top 3. Stay tuned!Tampa Web Design Tranquil Blue Web Design





Converting with precious little time
2011-03-14T11:38:00.002-04:00
Let’s face it our collective attention spans can be measured by the heart-beat of a humming bird. We are a society on the move and we are bombarded from every direction by stimulus of all kinds. The web is no exception. There are literally millions of results available on any kind of subject and the window to seize a visitor’s attention is less than 9 seconds. Think about it. If you owned a store in your downtown and only had 9 seconds with each person that walked in the door you may not sell anything. It takes nine seconds to get past the door. That is what we must deal with as web designers/ developers. That fact is that most of us are doing a poor job. If our websites are not converting the way we had hoped we need to look at ourselves in an objective way. Websites are in existence to make a sale of some kind and if yours is not then there are ways to approach this challenge.


First thing you need to do is Identify the problem. This starts with clearly defining what your goals are. If you have a newsletter you want people to sign up for that gives daily deals, thereby drawing foot traffic to your chain of cafes than that is your aim. It is fully probable that your website is serving multiple purposes. If that is the case you need to consider a clear conclusion for each one of your websites purposes.  Once your goals are laid out you can find the leaks in the ship. Why are people not signing up for your newsletter?


The next step is to go through a process of testing. This step can be long, involved, and complicated but can be broken down into three key ideas: You, Analytics, Usability. Of course, the first person to start with is you. We all tend to fall in love with our websites and don’t want to believe they are anything but perfect. Now is the time to be extremely self-critical. Really look at your site from a user’s perspective. Instead of going through the site with a sense of accomplishment, try to ‘use’ the site to reach one of your goals.



Analytics are an extremely helpful testing tool. There is a wealth of knowledge that can be gathered about your site. Are people leaving your site unusually quickly? If they are coming to your site directly from Google with a specific search term, but are leaving right away than you are definitely doing something wrong.



Testing must also be done independently of you! Feedback from usability testing will surprise you. The one thing you may discover is that people are not even aware that you are offering something. 


The next thing to do is learn from your results. Now that you have a wealth of information you need to analyze it for chinks in the armor. Every website is unique and every conversion goal is different. Through testing and analytics you can determine what changes need to be made in order to make your website a conversion machine. Do not take any bit of information for granted. You may learn that you seriously need to over haul your website which is a huge undertaking. But look at is this way. Every customer that walks in your ‘virtual’ door then quickly walks out is money lost. 


Time is precious on the web. We only have split seconds to make an impression and often times its wasted. Take a hard look at yourself. Is your website not converting the way you had hoped? What can you do about it? Fortunately there is much that can be done.  


Ryan Shuhart
Sr. Web Developer, Tranquilblue
Tampa Web Design Tranquil Blue Web Design





Jacksonville Cleaning Services
2011-03-07T20:55:00.000-05:00
Tranquil Blue has been commissioned to do online advertising for the Jacksonville cleaning services company, Four Season's Jax.Tampa Web Design Tranquil Blue Web Design





2d Barcode Technology coming into its own
2011-03-07T11:18:00.005-05:00
Things have changed pretty quickly. It is funny to think that just 20 years ago the internet barely existed and mobile phones were the size of a loaf of bread. Now we cannot imagine a world without our palm sized mobile phones that connect to the internet. In the United States almost half of all mobile phones are smart ones. That means that hundreds of millions of people are accessing the internet via their phones each day. That is a pretty large audience that is only getting bigger. The trick for marketers these days is how to reach that mobile audience without being intrusive. One technology I am very excited about is 2d Barcodes. 


2d Barcodes have been around for several years. They are now coming into their own because more and more people are purchasing smart phones. The 2d barcode is a pretty simple idea. You place the barcode almost anywhere like a magazine, billboard, product box, or flier. The user scans the barcode with their smart phone and is taken to a webpage, or any type of interactive page. Suddenly, something like a magazine article that is static and unchanging can become an immersive experience that has accompanying videos and resources. 


The possibilities for this technology are endless and the principle behind it is simple. It allows us to get more information out to people in an accessible way. And not only is this information accessible it is engaging which in turn leads to a more fulfilling user experience. So much has been written about the user experience that it is not necessary to point out the benefits of that.


What is next for 2d barcodes? Many corporations and advertisers are already seeing the benefits of this technology and are using the barcodes as a supplement to existing information. By 2015 almost all phones will be smart phones. And as people get more used to seeing and using these barcodes it will become second nature to swipe your phone over one to connect to what lays beyond.


Ryan Shuhart
Sr. Web Developer, Tranquilblue
Tampa Web Design Tranquil Blue Web Design





That sneaky little web designer
2011-02-28T11:56:00.000-05:00
  

In our everyday lives we make decisions. Often times these decisions are made so fast that we are not aware of the processes that go on inside our minds that influence them. We tend to think of ourselves as conscious free thinking individuals, but our sub conscious plays an important role in decision making. While we rely on our sub conscious to help us make rational decisions it can also lead us to make snap judgments. These sometimes illogical judgments are referred to cognitive biases. Cognitive bias is a general term that describes many distortions in the human mind that effect our decision making. What does this have to do with us as web designers? Well, many of these quick decisions that are made are predictable and if understood can help us become better architects of persuasion





Every good designer already uses techniques that play to our cognitive biases. When designing websites we apply the rule of thirds or the ‘golden rule’. Why? It is appealing to the eye and makes for a flow that is coherent and balanced. We use colors that complement each other and invite the user to read or linger on a page. These techniques are applied because if they weren’t the end result would make your user uncomfortable and would promote a feeling of uneasiness. 


Our cognitive bias often comes out when we encounter a situation that our sub conscious feels as incomplete or somehow off. If a design doesn’t have the flow mentioned above than the mind rejects it as not right and compels us to move on. This idea should be considered in every aspect of your design. Someone may be going to your website to purchase a product you offer. If when they read the description they find it to be short and lacking pertinent information they may be less inclined to go to the next level because their cognitive bias will send up warning flags.


Another cognitive bias we share is what is known as the ‘band wagon’ principle. We like to know that other people are just like us. It is the same reason we search for products that are already popular. In your design it is a good idea to show people what there peers are doing.  Facebook implemented their ‘like’ button a while back for the same reason. If we know that we are not alone in our decision process are more likely to be more easy-going about it. 


A bias that is used quite often to stir up interest in products is known as the ‘going out of style’ principle. People are more likely to want something if they think it will no longer be available to them. Words like ‘limited time only’ and ‘while supplies last’ have a strong influence on how people see things. Scarcity makes stuff appear as if it is more valuable. If there are only a handful left in stock people will certainly feel the urge to not miss out. 


An additional bias is known as the ‘credibility’ principle. We want to hear from experts and trust the opinion of people if they seem qualified to give it. This is why ‘9 out of 10’ dentists want you to buy this tooth paste and mechanics only use this oil. Name dropping may seem like a self indulgent practice but it is actually an effective way to portray trustworthiness to your users. 


Human beings make irrational decisions in predictable ways. We all have our cognitive biases that influence us one way or the other. To understand how these biases work is to become better designers, sales people, and persuaders. It is our job to make sure that the biases work in our favor. 


Ryan Shuhart
 Senior Web Developer, Tranquilblue
Tampa Web Design Tranquil Blue Web Design





Brandon Homes for Sale - New Web Site
2011-02-23T21:55:00.000-05:00
We are developing a new web site for RTT Realty in Tampa, FL. If you are searching for Brandon homes in the next few months you are sure to be visiting the new Brandon homes for sale web site that we are developing. We will also be search engine marketing it to the #1 position for the keyword, "Brandon Homes". So look for it in it's top ranking spot in 1-2 months.Tampa Web Design Tranquil Blue Web Design





The Balance Between Business Objectives and User Experience
2011-02-23T11:30:00.000-05:00
Too many times in the profession of web design people are quick to decide they know what the user 'wants' and providing a great user experience is the end of the discussion. It seems the majority of web designers have fooled themselves into thinking that the user actually wants an experience when they come to a website and business just happens accidentally. The fact is most web users today go to a site with a clear objective and your user roller coaster may be getting in their way.



Let’s look at the facts. We as Web Designers build websites for clients. Our clients have websites built with the hopes of generating a return on their financial investment. The actually returns may differ from client to client but the end result is usually the same. It doesn’t matter if we are building a portfolio website or a shopping cart we polish the user experience to direct people towards a single point. The user is the one responsible for the return of investment our clients are after. That is why we do what we do, not to provide the user with hours of entertainment distracting them from the goal.



Everyone knows the quickest way from point a to point b is a straight line. The best way to approach web design is to keep this in mind. Amusement Parks, for example are generally built in a giant circle. There are side roads and points interest that distract, but there are always signs and directions clearly pointing where to go next. Everyone that goes to a website has an objective and reaching that objective can give them the same thrill as being on a roller-coaster.



Don’t get me wrong. The user experience is extremely important. It is what brings people back. And let me be clear that building an amazing user experience is the primary means of helping a website fulfill its business goals. In fact, my point is that user experience and the business experience should not be considered two separate entities. They are one and the same. If you are doing your job right the user will barely notice you did anything at all. They will be influenced without knowing they have been. They will leave your site happy and happy users are money in the bank.



In the end we are responsible for helping our clients fulfill their web goals. It is our responsibility to find a balance between the user experience and business experience. It is important to take a step back and think about the whole picture. We may not benefit financially or see the growth in business from a website after it has been built, but we do have a responsibility to our clients. The internet is already filled with so many meaningless websites and I for one feel compelled to build sites that are thoughtful and useful.



Ryan Shuhart

Sr. Web DeveloperTampa Web Design Tranquil Blue Web Design





Tampa Web Design - The Arduous Road to the Top
2011-02-23T00:27:00.005-05:00
Due to a web site redesign, restructuring and mainly a move from Long Island, NY to Tampa which has changed our keyword targets. Today TranquilBlue.com is meagerly ranked #30 for the term "Tampa Web Design" on Google. We are also #33 for "Tampa Web Design" on Bing as well. We are beginning our campaign of search engine marketing to bring us to the top. Follow our progress.



See you at the top. And if you are looking for Web Design in Tampa Bay, FL or to climb to the top of your search engine ranking goals don't hesitate to give us a call.Tampa Web Design Tranquil Blue Web Design





CSS3 on the Horizon
2011-02-14T11:57:00.005-05:00
  With CSS3 on the Horizon, the team at TranquilBlue thought it would be a good idea to go over some of the benefits of CSS and explain why it is so popular. After all it will be years before CSS3 has full browser support and it is already buzzing. Needless to say it will not be long before clients and developers alike will be clamoring to get some CSS3 incorporated into their sites and you should know why.
  First, for those of you that do not know, CSS stands for 'Cascading Style Sheets'. CSS is a web language that allows you to describe the presentation of a document’s HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language). What CSS allows you to do is separate the design from the markup. Before CSS became widely used in the early part of this century, web designers used tables for design structure and styled each element separately. This became a nightmare when someone wanted to make a change as simple as making the color of a headline blue on every page. Whoever was making the change would have to go through every page and manually change the color of that element. What CSS allows is the control of elements in a single location. So if someone wants to change an element to blue all they have to do is go to the CSS sheet and declare it blue. Every element on the site will change simultaneously. 
  Of course, there have been limitations both in browser support and in the capabilities of the language itself. Some browsers were slow to comply with the CSS code which would provide different results and made browser testing a necessary part of CSS design. Over the years crafty web developers created tricks, also known as 'hacks' that would get around some of CSS’s shortfalls. 
  Today CSS is an integral part of what is known as DOM scripting. Dom stands for 'Document Object Model' which uses HTML, CSS, and Javascript to provide the user with a rich experience.  Most browsers that are relatively new handle CSS in the same way making it easier for web designers to provide a consistent look and feel for the end User. 
  Why is everyone so excited about CSS3? CSS3 has been in the works since 2005 and it is promising to expand on the already amazing capabilities of CSS2 (current version). With CSS3 a web developer will have more flexibility which will allow for cleaner faster loading websites. One example of CSS3 advances is the capability of adding two background images to a single element. This is a great idea because up until now if someone wanted two background images they needed to nest elements inside each other which added more code and eventually a longer load time.
  As a web developer I rely heavily on Cascading Style Sheets. Without CSS we would not have the beautiful and immersive websites that we come to expect.
-Ryan Shuhart
Senior Web Developer, Tranquil BlueTampa Web Design Tranquil Blue Web Design





Tampa homes for rent
2011-02-11T13:44:00.003-05:00
If you're looking for Tampa  homes for rent then there is a new resource that was just launched called renttampatoday.com. It integrates a live feed from the state real estate system combined with exclusive listings from the company RTT Realty. Which makes it the largest Tampa rental listing. We were proud to develop the logo, branding, and web design for this service. The client is ecstatic with the project and we are happy to announce it's official launch.Tampa Web Design Tranquil Blue Web Design





How to increase conversion rates
2011-01-31T18:51:00.007-05:00




BEFORE






AFTER


Tranquil Blue was asked to help a site (cpamiami.com) turn it's qualified visitors into customers. Viewers were not finding out how to contact the site to sale. Although they had lots of great traffic which was reading multiple pages of content on their site. They had very few people calling, emailing, or inquiring about their services. Upon reviewing their site we realized that they were not converting because of poor visibility of a way to contact CPA Miami from their site. We put an eye-catching lead generation form on the top left of every page as well as a less pronounced form at the bottom which users interact with after reading the last bit of text on each page. The operation was a success and their inquiry which were nearly non-existent now have submissions of qualified leads often.



We also felt that the design should be more elegant and reflect the professional nature of their business. To stay within budget and to integrate fast we changed a few elements. This really altered the look & feel of the entire site.



Visual Emphasis





As you can see from the visual heatmap that the main focus on the site was a click-to-call widget that had very very low conversion rates. After rectifying the situation the site went from virtually no inquiries to nearly one a day. A success.Tampa Web Design Tranquil Blue Web Design





New Tampa Web Design Office
2011-01-10T23:17:00.004-05:00

Thank you to everyone who helped up us with painting and moving. Our unique brand of Tampa web design will be created for a more creative, and larger space. We created some office space that was as creative as our services. Worldwide & Tampa web design have a new home at Tranquil Blue.Tampa Web Design Tranquil Blue Web Design