Monthly Archives: May 2011

Web Design Technology

Web Design Technologies and Tools

Modern websites use a variety of software tools. Aiming to give users a good experience. And to give owners a return on investment.

Some of the many tools we use in our web design and development processes are listed below.

Google analytics is a fab web user information tool. Google’s tracking tool gives you in-depth information about the pages your users are visiting, how long they are spending, what keywords and phrases they are using to find you and much more. Google Analytics works perfectly with Adwords so you can monitor your pay-per-click advertising results and compare them against natural listings. Giving you a complete overview to reconcile with sales. Very powerful when linked to your e-commerce store to track conversion rates.

YouTube is the video tool that changed the Internet. And perhaps the way we communicate. Posting videos of examples from your website gives you valuable exposure to a complete new audience online. You can use videos to quickly promote your products and services. Each video page on YouTube can be deep-linked back to your site. There are so many possibilities with YouTube.

Facebook has changed the way we communicate. As a promotional tool Facebook gives you personal connection to customers and clients, all of whom have expressly ‘liked’ you. You can be more informal on Facebook than in other communications.

Twitter is perfect for brief messages and updates. You can use Twitter to make short, quick news announcements and give your clients and customers a place where they can ‘get the latest’. Twitter also makes it easy for you to follow others in your industry or interest group.

WordPress is our open-source content management system of choice. The functionality and flexibility of it make it a powerful website management tool and provide for many levels of dynamics and interation with users.

Magento is an awe inspiring open-source e-commerce platform. The amount of flexibility and ease of use are un-equaled in our experience of using shopping carts and online payment processing systems.

MailChimp is a perfect tool for managing mailing lists and newsletters. It enables tracking of emails opened and tracks click-through routes as well. You can easily see who has opened your email and who has also clicked on one or more of the links.

Zend is the perfect development platform if you need to build high-quality PHP applications quickly.

PayPal is often the most straightforward method of receiving payments from your website. There are numerous other excellent payment gateways including Worldpay. SECpay and SagePay

Photoshop is still the fundamental building block for most new web designs. Also in-page graphics play an important part in creating the desired user experience on many sites.

Dreamweaver has become more of a super ftp tool than an editor. It is still rolled out for some hard-coded web pages, scripting and editing cascading style sheets (CSS).

Orissa Designs – site is live

Orissa Designs specialise in hand crafted, up-cycled, shabby chic furniture and Hindy deity reliefs.

Orissa Designs also sell high quality, ‘temple-grade’ incense.

Their new shiny website is live now from today so well done to them for getting it there. All done with WordPress and PayPal.

Then there is the Facebook and Twitter – but you can spot those for yourself of course.

Orissa Designs’ website is at http://www.orissadesigns.co.uk.

How the search engines work

Google search box – we all know, use band love.

Each of the major search engines works in a different way to the next.

What they all share in common is the aim of delivering relevant and timely search results for their users.

Some of the search engines use software spiders and robots to crawl through content and index it. They actually copy the entire Internet onto their own hard disks.

Other search engines use real people to look at web pages and then decide whether to include them in search results. These sites have lost prominence in recent years due to the increased dominance of companies like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.

How do you make a site do well in search results?

Start with a good website

They key principle in making your website rise in the listing pages is to make it a relevant one.

Know your subject

You must know your subject and make your website about that subject.

When you add content; text, images, video, or audio, make it about the subject of the main website.

Keep to the point

Don’t get distracted and go off the point. Keep focused on what you’re trying to achieve.

Keep text simple

Make your text easy to read and comprehend. Avoid using long sentences and paragraphs.

Use titles and heading tags

Use titles, headings and sub-headings in the right way throughout your pages.

Meta tags too if it helps

Meta tags are useful but are secondary to what is actually on the page itself. There is no point in putting key words into meta tags that are not included on the page.

Use style sheets for layout

Where possible avoid using tables for your site layout. If you have a designer working for you make sure you point this out to them.

Know your users

Get to know your visitors and what they like and use on your site.

Use the right key words and phrases

Research and develop using the keywords people use to find your site. Also research associated key words and phrases and develop content to attract searches around these terms.

Links to you

A very important factor in determining your website’s position on the search engine results pages is how many sites are linking to you. Not just how many, but also how good or authoritative they are on a given subject.

If you have a few ‘quality’ links this can be more effective than lots of low-quality or irrelevant links.

Please drop us a line if you want to talk to someone about your website and search engine optimisation – contact us.

Monetising your website

Or – how can I make money from my website?

Could this be the most often asked question?

The simple answer to the question of how to make money through your website is – there are lots of ways.

A few proven methods include;

Selling items
Selling knowledge
Selling support / guidance / instruction
Displaying paid adverts
Displaying pay-per-click ads
Affiliate systems
Collecting donations

How you make your site pay is the next question.

Success in this involves understanding your visitors and what they are looking for on your website.

You can benefit from knowing how many visitors you have and what pages they are looking at. Also what search terms are they using to find your website.

Ask yourself some questions. “Is the site communicating with the right target audience? Is it giving the responses I’m looking for? Am I getting the number of sales I need to make a profit?”

If you’re unsure about what you could do to monetise your website have a look at some of these sites for ideas:

EBay – sell things and make money. http://www.ebay.co.uk/

Amazon – more than just books. You can affiliate in several ways. http://www.amazon.co.uk/

Google adsense – display Google ads on your site to earn revenue. http://google.co.uk/adsense/

Chitika – display user targeted ads. http://chitika.com/

Quick tip:

When people put the term ‘buy’ or ‘shop’ into a search engine they are usually ready to part with their hard earned cash.

So for example; If you sell hand made furniture you might put on your homepage a phrase like. “Buy hand made furniture from our online shop today.” You may also put in the page title. “Hand Made Furniture Shop – Buy Online Today”.

Tusler Design

The Website of Pat Tusler