BrandTampa.com a ning based social network website has officially hit over 1,000 members. That is a huge milestone to hit and I strongly encourage you to join BrandTampa.com.

If you are not familiar with the ning platform, it’s another way to create a social networking website with a lot of functionality for little to no cost. It also offers you the ability to create a totally custom look for the website. Check out this MMA Fighters ning site : http://www.urijahfaber.com/ Also pay attention to how his twitter account matches the website…nice.

So join BrandTampa.com and check out ning.com too. And let us create a custom ning look for you.

Visit Brand Tampa

Now is a perfect time to redesign your website!! Have you bought a new computer since you last updated your website? Have you bought a new vehicle in your fleet? Have you moved to a bigger office? Well..don’t leave your website behind. I meet a lot of business owners who use the godaddy site builder as their company website, or better yet something they made in frontpage. Web Developers never use frontpage. How can you brand yourself with godaddy’s logo right there on the bottom of your website? Who is going to take serious as a legitimate business if you have someone else’s logo on the bottom? When is the last time you updated your website? Did you just build it and leave it..5 years ago? Search engine spiders will ignore your website if they never find updated content. People tend to also do the same thing. Business that don’t take their websites serious often have a difficult time getting out of the mom and pop stage a.k.a. start up. You can pawn it off as non important or one of those things you will get to later. But the reality of the situation is that everyone looks at your website before doing business with you. What is your website saying about you? Is calling you an amateur, or saying your the best in this industry?

It has been four long months since I last wrote the last part in this 5 piece series. Incept design is committed to helping business owners make the most of their website. One of these ways we are honoring our commitment is through helpful series such as this one. We work at Incept Design to improve the reputation of our industry. I would also like to extend my appreciation to everone taking the time to read our blog. Incept Design’s blog is maintained personally by our founder and lead web developer Alex Adekola.

This will be well worth the wait as I take time to inform business owners on ways to improve their search engine rankings. One of the more important factors affecting your rankings with search engines that may be out of your control… Who is linking into your website, and with what anchor text. Anchor text are the words that are used to link to you. It has been pretty common for a while to anchor text such as “click here”. Ideal anchor text would include keywords that you are attempting to market your business for. Another important factor in search engine optimization is the rank of the site that is linking to your website. The higher the ranking of a website linking into you, the better for your site. I strongly caution business owners against participating in link schemes or link farms. These type of practices can diminish or negatively impact you rankings. If your interested in improving your websites rankings call Incept Design at 813-401-7395 for a free phone consultation. Look out for part 4.

All to often I hear horror stories from different people about how they got burned by a fly-by-night web company or a shady freelancer. It saddens me each time I hear these stories, so this is my advice to help you avoid a bad experience.

1. Demand to see a Business Tax Receipt (Sometimes referred to as an occupational license). Hillsborough    County requires all businesses to display a valid tax receipt per County Ordinance 95-4.

2. Get a contract signed by both parties describing work performed, and payment amount.

3. Make the check out to the business and not an individual person.

4. Don’t pay more than 50% of the total cost of your project up front.

5. Look for a portfolio with at least 15 different websites w/ legitimate business information.

6. Ask for references.

7. Ask for a client list.

Peace of Mind Hosting – At Incept Design our managed hosting allow minor development and content updates to your site. With managed hosting comes with new technologies added to your site(s) as they become available. The latest upgrade to our manged hosting clients includes Google Map’s new API integrated into their website at no cost.

Keep your web designs current…Our managed hosting clients are eligible for a complete redesign for at a wholesale price after a year of service. Now your site can always be the best design in your industry as your competitors lag behind in functionality and design. High End Design…Mid Range Cost. You will always find someone to do it cheaper…But your level of design and functionality will be substantially lower rendering your site useless due to a high “Bounce Rate” from user frustration.

Drastically improve the look of your site by adding a Flash Gallery. Let Incept Design re-design your website and save 50% on your new Flash Gallery.

Top 10 Reasons why new business owners choose Incept Design over a larger design firms.

1. We act as a guide helping you understand the design process.

2. We allow our customers unlimited revisions.

3. We answer the phone after 5pm, and on the weekends.

4. We answer our email after 5pm, and on the weekends.

5. We never put you on hold, you always speak directly to web developers.

6. Your website is our website.

7. Everyday we are only 1 call away.

8. High Design with a Mid Range Cost.

9.We burn your website on a cd free of cost.

10.We don’t Re-Cycle Designs, but we offer a Green (Zero Carbon*) Website!

* A zero carbon website is a website that includes enough carbon credits to offset the carbon released during the process of creating the website.

Are you unsure about how to go about creating a great website most business owners are!

Most Professionals (consultants, coaches, trainers, writers, designers, financial and employment professionals, etc.) want a better web site – a web site that actually helps attract more clients. But they have no idea how to do this. They don’t know where to start, what to do and how to make their web site truly effective.

A great website will pull in business and in the process you will build a solid marketing communication foundation for your business that will generate revenue for years to come.

Where do you start? Here are some important elements of a successful web site:

Quality Content – Users quickly scan headings when they browse a website. They DO NOT read every word. Do you have your content broken up logically? Are you headings descriptive and captivating?

Functional Design – Potential customers form their first impression of your business based on your website. You need a design that looks better than your competitors! It also shouldn’t distract from the content or make navigation cumbersome. Don’t leave the design up to your cousin. How many customers can you afford to lose?

Navigation – Don’t make your users guess or think. They will quickly get annoyed and go to a competitors site. Clear, Easy, Intuitive navigation is key.

Call for Action – When people visit your site you want them to pick up the phone, fill out a form, send you an email, or buy something! In order to get them to do so you need a stylish, creditable, and informative site. Then you need to make a call to action.

Free Information – Offering complimentary information to potential clients at no charge is a great way to build a list of emails to use later when you begin your online marketing campaign. It can be a simple PDF related to your industry. But remember to keep the information relevant and useful. DO NOT make it another sales pitch!

Generate Traffic – Search engine optimization is a great way to build traffic. But it may not be cost effective for everyone. To make it more cost effective find your niche market! Don’t compete for rankings amongst broad keywords unless you have the marketing budget of Microsoft!

PART 2 of 5
In the last post I ended by saying there are some things you should never do to optimize a website. Let me clarify by saying optimize your website for the long run. There are two types of techniques used in the SEO world. White hat SEO and black hat SEO. White hat SEO is the only kind of SEO we will discuss. Black hat SEO involves tricking search engines into ranking you higher. Eventually the search engine figures out your spam and then your site is banned from appearing. Most businesses are interested in the long term profitability, at least the successful ones are.

Optimization starts with content. You want to provide the content that people are actually looking for when they entered their search terms into a search engine. Relevancy is key and we always need to keep the searcher in mind. Once they land on your site the two main goals are impress them with the design, and provide the content they are looking for.

Attractive design is key element that is overlooked. Design includes functionality and hierarchy as well as an attractive color scheme, with depth, gradients, balance, and shadows. For more on design see this post on web redesign. People scan web pages a lot faster than print.

When thinking of content for your website think in terms of an outline:
Global Warming is affecting the Planet.

Polar Bears are Endangered.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne made the announcement in Washington on Wednesday, saying the decision was based on findings that bears’ Arctic sea ice habitat has dramatically melted in recent decades.

Arctic Ice is melting ‘faster than predicted’.

The pace at which both the Arctic sea ice and the Greenland ice sheet is melting has “severely accelerated” and could bring about rapid and unstoppable change in natural systems across the world.
Search engines can see which words are in a larger font. They also can tell if a word is in bold font. Words in a larger or bold font are considered more important. It is also important to make sure all content is relevant. Search engines compare your content and the words surrounding your content to other web pages with similar content. If there is consistency between your words an whats on the web it will help you some. To demonstrate what I mean look at our example. You can find content on the internet that talk about Polar Bears and Arctic Ice, or stories about Global Warming and Arctic Ice. Or Global Warming and Polar Bears, or Arctic Ice and Polar Bears. All your content should be somewhat interdependent.
SEO HOMEWORK FOR BUSINESS OWNERS.

1. Ask your clients what search terms they would use to find your service or product on the internet
2. Buy a domain name containing at least two of the most popular keywords.

Remember that the age of your domain is also considered by search engines so this will not immediately improve your search rankings. We are in this for the long term so this will eventually become less and less of a factor. In the next post I will be detailing more factors that affect your websites ranking.

The final piece.

Work has been brisk so I have not had a chance to post as often as I would like. So I will be catching up this week. In the final part of this series I want to take a brief synopsis of a the typical experience of the client of a Brick and Mortar Horror Rush session website in a box deal. (That last line may have been a tad bit bias.) Or a client of Incept Design.

A day in the life a 9-5 client.

1. Okay so you walk in, call, or fill out a contact form and guess who the first person is that you are going to talk to? A sales guy who doesn’t know a thing about design an most likely has never built a website in his life. The only think on his mind is a commission. Which means unnecessary up selling. And don’t get too technical on him or he may have to put you on hold.

2. So you have told the sales guy everything that you want in your website. Next comes a meeting with the sales guy, possibly some member of management, and the designer. And after that meeting you have your idea of what you want, the designers idea of what you want, and finally the sales guy & management’s idea of what you want. Sometimes this works out perfectly well. The other half of the time it doesn’t.

3. If you like the initial look of your website consider yourself pretty lucky. If not, I hope you can nail everything down in 2 revisions. If an idea strikes you when your stepping out of the shower and your on your 3rd revision expect to come out of pocket. Believe me that will leave a sour taste in your mouth.

4. Then ask how much it costs to have your website burned on onto a cd so you will have a back up. Remember cd’s cost around a twenty-five cents a piece. Who knows you may need to bring that cd to us one day.

5. You have your website, now what? Are they going to help you market it? Are you just another website they built, or will they take ownership in it?

Brief life cycle of the client of a Incept Design.

1. Okay so you walk in, call, or fill out a contact form and guess who the first person is that you are going to talk to? Someone who is knowledgeable about the whole process of building a website! Instantly you can begin discussing details about your website without getting annoyed. You can even call or email us outside the hours of 9-5, and still talk to someone who is knowledgeable and able to answer all your questions. Never sales guy.

2. So you told the Incept Design all of your ideas. Now it’s time to meet face to face. These face to face meetings tend to gravitate towards Starbucks or our Office. We don’t mind. Or sometimes they gravitate towards happy hour. That still works out with us. Some great web advice and drinks on us. Or your super busy so you want us to come to your office…on a Saturday. Once again we still don’t mind. Either way you are in a familiar environment which allows your creative entrepreneurial brain juice to flow. And that is important.

3. So now your chances of liking you website increase dramatically since your ides haven’t been diluted by the sales team, and management. Thats less time wasted and a better looking website.

4. We burn it on a cd for you at no-cost.

I will leave you with this final point. The lifeblood of any growing company are referrals. A majority of us take ownership of our work and clients. We do what we love, while living outside of a cubicle. We strive to build a reputation that will bring recognition to our work, and we focus on building relationships by listening to our clients needs so that our services benefit you the most. We build websites and help you use them as a tool for your business.

And as always we urge you to be a smart consumer and shop around.

I recommend this video to anyone who is interested in
e-commerce.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y2kOGo8R5w&feature=related

Alex A.

In the web world new technologies and User Interface design techniques emerge that improve upon web users experience emerge fairly rapidly, soon users expect these design methods and technology everywhere. When they stumble upon sites that lack these features and methodologies users tend to wander off to a newer more updated website. Here are some things to consider when planning your site re-design with your web designer.

1. Don’t clutter a page and overwhelm a visitor, with to many choices visitors become indecisive and may choose another web site that is better organized.

2. Users don’t read web pages they scan for content and information. Make good use of headings with information directly related to the heading underneath. Those who are interested in reading more about the subject usually will.

3. Anyone visiting your website for information will not spent a lot of time digging around for what their looking for. User don’t want a scavenger hunt, they want information that is clearly laid out for them in manageable chunks.

4. Users want total control of their web browser and hate pop up windows that cannot be closed or links that trigger ads when hovered over, or any unrequested pop up, slide out, or screen overlay. I immediate leave a website with any of these.

5. Intuitive navigation is very important. No one like the feeling of being lost or confused.

6. Put the most important and relative information the first two paragraphs of your website. Users tend to scan websites in the shape of an “F”, The scan the header and then the subheading(s) and then the left rail. All in no particular order

7. Be short and concise in your text, avoid jargon, and any names that come from the marketing department. Also leave out blocks of plain text and exaggerated text. These all seem to usually get skipped over.

8. And finally the most important aspect of the website is good design. Remember whitespace is your friend, don’t make a design so elaborate that users have to think in order to navigate or find content. Clear colorful contrasting colors with large icons, 1-2-3, or A-B-C, steps that guides users though any type of process work the best. Remember keep it simple.