What The Template Website Designers Don’t Want You To Know;

You’re tired of hearing about how profitable the Internet is, especially knowing your website is an increasing expense never to be recouped, continually bleeding your bottom line. The time has finally come to choose a new website design company. Ironically, most websites are not profitable and many brand new websites are hamstrung in regard to ever being profitable the moment, the very moment, of publication to the Internet. Profit generating website development is a puzzle with dozens of critically important pieces. First and foremost, your website must be found in native or ‘free’ search engine queries. Nearly as important to website profitability is graphic design perfectly definitive of your unique business or organization.

Picasso, Monet and Rembrandt-‘like’ creativity, coupled with compelling creative genius is certainly not a prerequisite for a career as a web development graphic designer. The evidence is everywhere on the Internet. Through the ages humanity has sought to make personal and beautiful the things we have to view in day to day life. Architecture, public places and dwellings have been made visually unique and personally representative since prehistoric times. American Indians painted walls and ceilings of dwellings, ancient Egyptians built architectural wonders of the world as celebrations of culture and Romans built stone monuments of extraordinary beauty for entertainment and worship. The dominant culture of the last two hundred years is adorned with graphic appeal in every glimmering facet of our, “Shining city on a hill.” Homes bristle with intended graphic appeal, automobiles continuously change visually to suit human interest. Is there a home that doesn’t have a few pieces of art adorning the walls or shelves? Even our clothes make visual impressions defining us as individuals to the rest of the world. With graphic appeal having all encompassing human value, why do so many websites have none? Why do most websites visually say nothing about a business? Why do so many websites graphically confuse who or what a business is for site viewers?

Unlike the exterior of a building where there may be little a small or even large business can do about visual appeal, a website walks customers directly in the showroom or executive offices where visual impression make or break a business. Nothing says, “I am overpaying for this oil change,” like fine art, luxury furniture and a 72 inch plasma television in a corner garage waiting room. Nothing stokes pangs of anxiety like lawn furniture, stained emerald green polyester shag carpet and a toothless receptionist in a dentist office. Accountability for failure of graphic design in the website industry lies squarely on the backs of website graphic design professionals and the proliferation of, ‘what the customer doesn’t know’ approach to website development so many website design and development companies adhere to. What you know/don’t know determines what you get… Even what you pay. There is much all but the very best website development firms don’t know about website development; it simply is not feasible for a business person or manager to understand what is required for profitable website development.

Most graphic website designers are perfectly happy putting minimal thought into the visual creativity of their customer’s websites. Minimal work and maximum profitability is a great motivator for many web design and development firms. These template website designers are content to create websites requiring the site viewer to discern what the website is about or to read it. Like it or not, most website text rarely gets read. With website visitors spending less than five seconds on the ‘average’ website homepage, unique, definitive graphic design may be the single most important factor, once a visitor lands on your website, in having a web marketing platform literally adding to your business bottom line.

Great graphic website design instills customer confidence. Intriguing website graphics slow Internet shoppers down. Well done, unique website graphic design defines a business or entity visually and precisely as the business marketing team or owner defines the business in written words or conversation with The single customer the business must acquire to succeed or even exist.

The ‘kicker,’ so to speak is; the cost of a Custom Creative Genius inspired website design, coupled with template free code achieving at the highest level in search engine rankings is often less expensive upfront than half baked, template website development. While ‘file tab’ navigation buttons on the left or top margins, with base-color predetermined boxes to plug an individual business’s logo, marketing and photos in is, ‘classic website design,’ classic website design is a complete and utter failure for business’s desperately needing to capture every customer who experiences their web based marketing platform as a new business client.

So what is a business or organization to do in choosing a website developer? Shop around for a website design and development firm with many examples of custom design websites at the top of free searches on major search engines. The custom designs must make sense, visually defining the services or products the business offers. While great, custom website design and development firms are but a drop in the ocean of all website developers, finding one will not only make the likelihood of return on investment at any price point much higher, a real website developer who, ‘gets’ the importance of graphic design, who has the ability to do great graphic website development will make for your business, an Internet based marketing platform generating profitable new business.

Follow these simple keys to find a website developer and your business will have the greatest chance to experience the deep refreshing profit filled waters of the Internet revenue stream. Ignore these simple keys and you will likely end up with a website only profitable for your template website developer.

1. Avoid any website designer/developer who pushes pay per click. Even asking you to consider pay-per-click is a RED FLAG. If your perspective web developer is a pay-per-click pusher they likely use template code or don’t have the ability to install your web marketing platform where it needs to be to generate profit. Template code very often stops search engine spiders. Template code is often indicative of web developers who don’t know how or don’t want to do the work to get your website to the top of free searches where profits are generated on the Internet.

2. Look at your prospective website developer’s portfolio page. If they don’t have one ask for twenty examples of websites they have developed. If they can’t come up with twenty, quickly flee. If they come up with twenty after not choosing to display them on their own website, call all twenty and ask if they are experiencing profitable new business, undeniably related to their website… If not flee. Past performance is the single greatest indicator of the result you will achieve with any website deign/development firm.
3. Avoid any website developer who offers templates like the plague. Offering templates is a clear indication the website developer is willing to take shortcuts to maximize their own profitability at the long term expense of their clients. The shortcut mentality is a form of rot spoiling everything it touches in website development. Template development is almost always indicative of a website developer who will deliver a solution with very little hope of ever achieving profitable new business via the web.
4. Finally, in keeping with this article look, REALLY LOOK, at the website developer’s portfolio. Do all the sites look very similar? Is the logo in the same place and all of the navigation always on the left side, with boxes for content? Does even the website development company’s own site lack any kind of graphic uniqueness? Could you unplug their logo, put another in its place, and the website would be a different type of business website? If so, look elsewhere. If they can’t do it for themselves they won’t do it for you.

A graphic design equivalent of a Monet website no one other than your existing customers can find is a bad website. A website at the top of free searches for your choice of keywords, with great graphic design, perfectly definitive visually of your business or organization, is a profitable website for YOU. Your best choice for a website designer/developer is a developer who proves they will put you on the top of search engines like Google and Yahoo, AND who is a designer capable of developing a unique image, intuitively endearing customer confidence while gently pushing your online customers into the contact or purchase process. While it may take a little more effort to choose your website developer, your graphically superior website will be the single greatest return on investment marketing your business ever invests in, IF you make the right choice.

Steven Libbey
CEO at iNET Web in Waukesha Wisconsin, known for my "MEOOOWWW" radio ads!
Creative Genius Website Development

How to Choose a Custom Website Design That’s Right for You

As anyone who owns a business knows, having a strong online presence is fundamental to your success. Whether you own a small or mid-size business or manage a large corporation, creating a custom website design to clearly and succinctly represent your company on the web is one of the most important investments you can make. Developing an image, creating a lasting impression, improving your companies visibility, and implementing a website that will maximize each users experience are a few core goals you may want to think about when considering an ecommerce web site design. Here are a few tips to get you started when creating a checklist for your new website:

1. Design a homepage that draws people to your company: Lets face it - first impressions are everything, and your homepage is the first place your customers will land when they visit your site. Be sure to include your business logo and company name at the top of each page. You will also want to leave room for clearly-labeled menus on the side or top of the page, allowing customers to navigate throughout your site. Use your home page to tell customers what your company offers, but don't crowd the page with too much information - clean and simple layouts are usually the most visually appealing.

2. Let them know who you are: Be sure to include an "About Us" page, which will give you a chance to identify your business and inform your customers what your company is all about, as well as interesting facts and other relevant information. You will also want to mention your company objective here, including a mission statement. Most importantly, add your history, how you got started and how long you have been in business. You will also want to include information about the main employees of your company, who they are and what they do.

3. Let them know how to reach you: Be sure to include a "Contact Us" page so that customers can reach you via your preferred mode of communication - clearly list your business name, address, phone number and email address.

4. Make sure each page is easy to use: Although it may seem obvious, its important to keep your page layouts clean, concise and to-the-point. We suggest implementing clear fonts, providing useful information (vs. filling up pages with extraneous verbiage), leaving plenty of white space and including links to other pages. Keep your site pages simple yet informative - i.e., easy for people to scan it quickly for information without being bombarded with unnecessary images or content.

5. Create a frequently asked questions (FAQ) page: Customers will scan this page to find answers to common concerns. Make sure this page links to your "Contact Us" page in case customers have more questions.

As you can see, whether you are building your site from scratch or interested in updated your current website, there are many different options available - and many different website design agencies (or interactive advertising agency ) to choose from, which can make your project seem even more overwhelming! At Ecommerce Partners ( eCommercePartners.net ), they have taken the guesswork out of your projects, big or small - from basic website designs to custom e-commerce websites, they are a full-service provider of custom website design and web site programming, including:

a. Lead Generating

b. E-Commerce Website Development

c. Logo Design

Custom Website Design and Development, including:

a. Flash Design

b. Video Development

c. Image Galleries

d. Blogs

and much more! Although their services are extensive, their focus is clear: with an award-winning staff of professional web designers, Ecommerce Partners will assist you with your request and help make your vision a reality.

Roger Hardaway has expertise in writing about E-Commerce Web sites. His articles specializes on visual design and web design for small and large businesses.

Making The Most Of The Webmaster Tools

You've spent hours upon hours building and tweaking your website until you're finally proud and satisfied to show it off to the world. You check daily for the traffic of visitors to wander through, and praise all your hard work. Days go by, and still only a couple of people have checked anything out - what's happening?!? Well, chances are that nobody really knows your site is online. While it's true that the search engines may eventually stumble upon your site if it finds a link on another webpage somewhere online, you'll likely be indexed so low in the listing that very few people will find you. Let's fix your problem using the huge arsenal of Webmaster Tools you may have missed the first time around. We'll break down all the tools into three categories: SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Site Link Submissions, and Tracking systems. SEO TOOLS Though you'll be tempted to send a link for your site into the search engines [SE] right away, don't do it! Yes the search engines will accept adding your website to their long waiting list, but you'll be standing way at the back of the line if you don't prepare your pages properly first. Search Engines will actually give a higher priority to accepting pages that have already done some of the work for them. The first Webmaster Tool to check into is the Meta Tag Generator. Hopefully you've given each page a short "Title" (which will appear at the top of the browser when people look at your page), but we definitely want to include at least two more Meta tag code types on each individual webpage. - DESCRIPTION: Include a short description about what's on that specific webpage. This is the description which will appear under the link for your site when it's listed in the search engines. Think of this as your classified advertisement - you want the description to attract enough interest that users will check out your site. DO NOT fill the space with random hype. The SE will give a much higher relevancy score when the description matches phrases from your actual content. Get rid of as many filler words [the, and, of] as possible for the best results. - KEYWORDS: These are the main words you want the SE to consider when listing your site. Don't list every word you "want", and DO NOT include words that aren't actually in your content. The search engines may include you temporarily, but they will drop you just as quickly when they realize you've added words that aren't even in your webpage. Rather than listing single words, concentrate on specific phrases (of 2 to 4 words each) that appear in your webpage. Many people make the mistake of listing every word or phrase they can think of ["want"], but the engines generally only consider the first 20. Focus on the main phrases in your keyword list: the search engines will find the rest on their own. Separate the words/phrases with a comma. If you need help picking out some of your best keyword choices for that page, use the Keyword Density webmaster tool. It will help pinpoint some of your best options. You can add in other fields as you want, but the generator only really needs the number of days for the SE to revisit. Just enter 7 days (even if the page changes daily) for normal pages, or 365 days for pages that won't be changing for a year. The search engines assign their own revisit schedule, so setting the days lower than 7 to try fooling the SE is foolish. SUBMITTING YOUR WEBSITE You could set up a webmaster account with each of the main search engines, but the Simple Submission tool will take care of getting your website included in the queue with just one button. It may take a while before the search engines actually check out your website (there are almost a million new sites added to the internet each month), so use the submission tool to make sure the main SE know you exist. TRACKING SYSTEMS Welcome to the most useful (and most overlooked) devices to pinpoint exactly how your website is succeeding, and where it's failing! To save yourself hours of time and frustration, use the Pages Indexed tool as your number one guidance to see if the search engines have started indexing your website. You could go to each SE in turn, and try entering the name of your site, but unless it appears on the first or second page, you could spend hours looking for it (if it is even listed yet). The pages indexed will not only let you know which SE have picked up your site, but also which specific pages it has included in its listings. Want to find out how your keywords or target phrases are doing with the Big-Three [Google, Yahoo, and MSN], then do it all in one step using the Position Checker. It will tell you right away how close you are to the top of each SE. If the results show you're way down in the listings, this will be the perfect time to re-optimize your page and keywords for better phrase choices that can get you to a higher ranking position. Are you getting slaughtered or not showing up for important phrases? Then it's time to spy on your neighbor - which, in this case, is your competitor. Uses the Competitor Analysis to see how they are getting the keyword listings you want. Tweak your site a bit, and you may quickly overtake them. MORE TO EXPLORE There are so many fantastic tools available, and each serves its own specialized purpose. Make use of every Webmaster Tool available to build your ranking score ... and check out the Crazy Egg tool - it's probably one of the hottest tools you'll ever find!

About The Author Amy Armitage is the head of Business Development for Lunarpages. Lunarpages provides quality web hosting from their US-based hosting facility. They offer a wide-range of services from dedicated servers and managed solutions to shared and reseller hosting plans. Visit us online for more information.

Ingredients for Effective website design for successful ecommerce

The increasing penetration of internet all over the world has greatly boosted the potential market size for E-Commerce. An ecommerce web site development company designs a well organized, uncomplicated and search engine affable website in order to enhance traffic to the website.

What is basically Ecommerce all about?

Ecommerce also known as Electronic Commerce refers to the trade and promotion of products or services via electronic systems for instance the Internet and many other workstation networks. Services into ecommerce website design from India provide finely designed and good-looking ecommerce websites, which can be regarded as an effective online portfolio for a company.

Importance of Ecommerce Site Design

For companies that wish to trade online, an ecommerce website is indispensable. Solutions for custom web site design in India develop and design Ecommerce site as per your product catalogue, including custom images, product descriptions, prices, and other details.

Ecommerce Web Design Considerations

For creating a smart ecommerce business solution for a client, a company specialized in ecommerce website design from India may be hired that will take into consideration the following:

• Convenience for browsers - The more browsers can access a site the better the probability that the site will generate trade. There are numerous ecommerce site design principles that, when adhered to, guarantee more traffic to the website. This includes one and all, from the visually impaired to mobile users will be equipped to buy from the particular ecommerce site.
• Ease - Clients and consumers don’t desire to spend their time on a site trying to understand as to how to navigate from one page to the next. In fact, unless the site has an exclusively exceptional product that is tremendously tempting to the visitor, the visitor tends to leave the site the moment they come across an obstacle.

Ecommerce websites have a tendency to utilize additional disk room and greater bandwidth in contrast to other sites. They necessitate a practical quantity of software and have to afford safety, accessibility, and functionality to consumers, while maintaining visual appeal. These features must blend together in effectual ecommerce web site development.

I am the webmaster at www.synapse.co.in - a custom web site design in India company in India offering numerous services, such as flash web development, flash scripting, customized applications for the iPhone,and website maintenance services.