Archive for the ‘Web General’ Category
published by Dan in Web Development | Web General | Website Design
One question that faces website owners is who to trust with the optimisation of their websites. Many web designers nowadays offer SEO as part of their web design package. While this is very convenient you should be warned that having the web design team take care of the SEO is not always the best thing to do.
Before I explain why this is true let me state that in my opinion web designers should have a solid SEO background. This is important because you want the website to be designed already with SEO taken into consideration. It is important that the “SEO don’ts” shouldn’t be committed and best practices are followed. However, as mentioned earlier the entire SEO, especially the post website designing/building part of SEO should not be left in the hands of web designers. The reason why I say this is that most web design teams do not have the in depth knowledge nor the experience needed to do SEO. This means that….
- it is only the basic optimisation methods that are implemented.
- usually it web designers only consider on-page factors and neglect methods that affect off-page factors for SEO.
- many optimisation packages offered only include the initial SEO and since we know that SEO is a continuous process it is not the best you will get.
That being said this shouldn’t turn you off when web design firms offer SEO services. However you should make sure that if offered the web design firm also has a special SEO team and that it is clear what kind of SEO is exactly offered so that in case they are simply referring to adhering to SEO practices then you won’t end up overlooking the fact that you still need to hire someone to do your website’s SEO for you.
published by Dan in Web General | Website Design
Aside from the previous six signs we have enumerated other things that point to a good web design company include:
- A clear and detailed project price quote - Some web design companies quote hourly or daily rates. While this isn’t a clear sign that those web design firms do not give quality work it is preferable to go with a web design firm that will give you a per-project price. This means that you will be paying based on their output which makes sense since you do not really have a solid idea of how much work they get done in an hour. Per-page price quotes are also not that good an idea since pages differ in the amount of work they entail with static pages being really easy to do while database systems or search systems will take hours upon hours to finish. A per-page quote with the same price quoted for each kind of page indicates that the web designer might not realize/know the real amount of work it entails to finish the entire project.
- Clearly outlined legal issues - A web design company that outlines the legal issues clearly even before you raise the topic is a good sign. Make sure that they state that the artwork they use are used with permission from the original artist, or better yet, custom-made by their graphic designers. This will prevent future problems regarding copyright issues. Furthermore, make sure the issue of who owns custom code and graphics made by the web design company is clear to both you and the web design company you chose. This is important because if it is owned by the web design company then you will have legal problems if you want to use the same image or program for other purposes in the future.
published by Dan in Web General | Website Design
Last time I gave the the basics of choosing a good web design company. However, I did not really give more detailed tips on what to look for to be able to determine if a web design firm is really any good. While there are plenty of factors that come into play to be able to be a good web design company I personally think that a good one should exhibit most if not all of the signs listed below.
- Great website - A website is not great only because it looks nice but because it is has meaty, relevant content, is easy to navigate, and ranks pretty well in search engine results pages.
- People skills - A good company will have people who have good people skills. This means well written email replies and courteous answers on the phone. People skills are important not because they want to be able to reel in potential clients (although of course that is important to them too) but because it takes someone with good people skills to be able to communicate with a client effectively and so be able to discern the client’s needs. If they cannot understand you needs it will be impossible for them to come up with a website design that suits YOUR customers needs.
- Customer feedback - Again this was already mentioned but I can never stress enough the importance of knowing what their previous clients think of their web design services.
published by Dan in Web General | Website Design
There are numerous web design companies you can hire to to develop your website for you making choosing one a difficult task. Add to this the complication of scammers that dot the internet and what you get is a big headache and a lousy website. To help you in choosing a good web design company I have outlined a few guidelines which you can follow. Feel free to add any factors I might have overlooked and do feel free to tell us about it.
- Do a little background research - Check the company site. If the site sucks then how much can they possibly give you a good design? Check their portfolio. Look up the websites they have done before.
- Do not rely on the “client feedback” found on their site - Contact the clients on their portfolio (via the contact page found on the clients’ websites) and ask for their feedback. They might have delivered a great looking website but how easy were they to deal with? Ask for feedback regarding the web design company’s professionalism.
- Meet up - If the web design company you choose has an office that’s not too far from where you are then by all means meet up with the web designers. This way you can assess them in person. It’s also good to know their actual office because you’ll know where to go to in case something goes wrong.
- Ask for proposals - Do not agree to a deal at once. Ask for proposals or at least an assessment of your needs. A good web design service provider will be happy to do this for you. Some may ask for an initial fee, and this is ok, while some may even provide assessment services for free.
published by Dan in Web Development | Web General | Web Technology
As I mentioned in my previous post the other benefit that the popularity of alternative browsers broought is increased security.
The arrival of alternative browsers hailed the beginning of a more secure web environment. With IE being (almost) the sole browser being used (at east by Windows users) it did make it easy for for web designers since they did not have to think about being compliant with other browsers but it also made it an easy target for viruses, spyware, and trojan horses. The popularity of just one browser meant that malicious developers only needed to take a crack at IE and find its weaknesses to affect the majority of the web users. Nowadays though due to the popularity of various alternative browsers they need to figure out the bugs of EACH and every popular browser in order to affect the majority of of web users. To add to the difficulty of their task the innovations made by each web broser is not only for user experience but much has been innovated in terms of security. This means that they not only need to make different viruses for each browsers but they also need to tackle greater security in each.
While we all know that threats to security will never really go away and that people will still keep on trying to despite the added difficulty, due to the existence of alternative browsers the threat is significantly reduced.
published by Dan in CSS | Web General | Web Technology
Allow me to pause my on-going blog series on mobile web design and focus for the mean time on one mobile product news: Opera Mini 4.0 beta is out.
Opera Mini 4.0 beta is a preview release of one of the best browsers for mobile devices. Just like it’s early predecessors, it’s a java-based mobile application so it’s widely available on many mobile devices.
One of the cool things about Opera Mini is that it borrows from the long history of experience of the Opera team in creating and delivering a capable mobile browser, and the feature list of the opera mini surely contains some tidbits for the web designers out there who are thinking of developing for mobile web (and honestly, every good designer should consider that). In fact A list a part has a comprehensive article discussing mobile web design with special focus on the opera platform.
Along with other notable features (more on this later), Opera promises better support for CSS. This is good news for web designers. I have yet to test how well this feature pans out, but I’m really hoping for better CSS support in mobile web browsers. Opera Mini 4.0 offers a slew of features that seems to be a common trend among new mobile web browsers: zooming technologies that makes browsing the “real internet” easier and more convenient for the users. To learn more about other new things about opera mini 4.0 beta, you can visit their feature list page.
published by Gary in CSS | SEO | Web Development | Web General | Web Technology | Website Design | Website Standards | Writing for the Web
Although some argue that adhering to strictly validated code is just a way of making things needlessly complex, by the end of the day it makes sense to create validated code for many reasons. I have seen scores of websites getting highly ranked in the search engines despite not having a valid markup and this is an aspect used as a counter point. I don’t see it as a proof of “invalid code works too” but just as a fact that these websites don’t have enough competition to feel the pinch.
Valid code passes the recommendations laid down by the W3C, the body that defines (X)HTML.
The biggest advantage is the SEO factor. Another is browser compatibility. Let’s quickly go through a few benefits of writing validated code for your web pages.
Validated code makes it easier for the search engines to crawl your website
Some people don’t agree with this but a valid code ensures better organisation of content and layout. This tells the search engines where they can find the right information. Valid code keeps the clutter away.
Validated code works in all the browsers
Do you see that irritating message on some websites: “This website looks best in IE” or some browser X? How silly! You are actually declaring to your visitors that you are incapable of writing valid code for your website because valid code makes your website work seamlessly on all major browsers. Valid code not only makes your website suitable for current browsers, it also prepares it for future browsers.
Validated code makes your website accessible to all
You cannot write validated code without incorporating accessibility features into your website. Once your code validates, it automatically makes your website accessible to people with special needs and different abilities.
Validated code makes your website available to various devices
These days people don’t use just the computers. There are scores of other devices that can be used to connect to the Internet to view web pages. A valid code makes your website compatible to almost all handheld and other devices.
In the end, validated code makes your website future-proof
Standards are always defined with an eye on the future and nothing is different for the web designing standards. When you use validated code, you make sure your website will be ready to embrace the new technological changes with ease.
Writing validated code is not as difficult as it seems in the beginning. More than an expertise, it is a matter of habit. Once you start writing validated code, you won’t even notice that you are doing it.
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