These days it is extremely important for a web design company to offer more than just simple web design and building. Besides having to keep up with the latest trends and technologies a web designer’s day is full of twists and turns. Here are a few things you can expect your web company to be well versed in:

Summary

This is just barely a drop in the bucket of the type of information you should be able to get from your web designer at a moment’s notice. It is their job to be able to provide you with answers to your questions. Having said that don’t drop your designer if they can’t answer your questions immediately, they may need to find the answer after all their plate is already pretty full!

One of the many benefits of working with WordPress is the amazing number of quality plugins that are absolutely free of charge. If you run a company, where you like to show pictures of your products, these particular plugins will be of interest to you. Each plugin creates the photo gallery a bit differently — jquery slideshows, flash slideshows, automatically from your flickr set — which you choose is purely a matter of preference.

Summary

These are just a few of the great gallery plugins that are available. A simple Google search will show you at least 20 or more. However, if you have certain plugin that you absolutely love, list in the comments below so the rest of us can check it out.

What on Earth is a CMS?

CMS or Content Management Systems have been around for quite awhile now, however when I recommend that a client uses a CMS to power their site I am usually rewarded with a blank stare. To break it down, a CMS is a web application that uses a database to store the sites content. This way the site’s content is separate from the design (as it should be) and is easily changed. All CMS have a Graphical User Interface (GUI) that allows the end user to edit, add or delete the content that is stored in the database. Since the content in the database is displayed to the users on the front end, the end user is able to change the site’s content.

Why do I want a CMS?

The obvious answer to this is to manage your site content. There are many forms of site content that you can use the CMS to manage: forms, images, links; they all fall under content. Basically if you see it on a web site it is content and should be editable by the CMS.

How to choose a CMS?

This is where things start to get a little tricky. There are a lot of CMSs out there and most of them are quite good. The big three are Drupal, WordPress and Joomla. Although there are a number of ‘new’ CMS’s that are starting to become quite prominent. There are a few rules that you should keep in mind when choosing a CMS:

1. Beware too much technology: this may or may not be a problem, depending on you level of technical know how. If you struggle to open up a Word document then the easier the better.
2. Going with an old dog: Even though I encourage you to stay away from the too technical CMS’s, I also recommend that you try to look for one that is updated fairly regularly. An outdated CMS will definitely be more work than what it is worth
3. Going with the New Dog: The counterpart to number two, you want to choose an established CMS. They are likely to have an excellent community that you can turn to for help

What to look for?

There are so many things to take into account when looking. Here are a few:

1. Easy installation.
2. Simple administration panel
3. Active community
4. Easily extendable..plugins
5. Easily created or edited templates

Another simple way to choose is design appeal. If the administration panel makes sense to you and is attractive, you will probably find the interface easy to use.

A few CMS’s to look into

Summary

In the current internet market, I always recommend that clients choose to build their sites powered by a Content Management System. As you can see though, they come in many shapes and sizes and it is not a one size fits all solution. Being that the CMS is the engine that makes your site tick, investing a little time in researching it is recommended.
I am confident though, once you find a CMS that fits your needs you will never look back!

Or maybe a better question is what is SEO. It stands for Search Engine Optimization, and is the art of  tweaking the on-page  and off-page elements of your site. This usually means tweaking your web site using design elements and content — and in most cases, it also means spending no money at all.

Search Engine Marketing or SEM is what most businesses mean when they say SEO. SEM is about doing whatever is necessary to make sure your site ranks well in the search engines results. This means that not only do you ensure that your site has been optimized for the search engines you also engage in other activities, such as pay per click  advertising , link building or content strategies.

Ultimately, the whole point of SEO or SEM is to bring more traffic to your site and have more eyes viewing your content or products. You can do that by improving your search engines results or you can also do that by taking advantage of a growing phenomenon on the Web — social media. We will be discussing social media more in a future article, but for now how can you go about optimizing your site for search engines.

Analyze

The very first step is to analyze the code of your site. There are various W3C validators available for free that will analyze your site and let you know it the markup is written correctly. In recent years the use of meta tags, have been one of the most important features on your website. Meta tags are html tags embedded in the source files used to ‘tell’ search engines what that page is about. Nowadays, meta tags are just one of many important on page elements that affect Search Engine Placement.  Other elements are:

• Domain name and URL’s
• Page Content
• Link Structure
• Usability and accessibility
• Meta tags
• Page structure

True on page SEO is the sum of all these elements combined. Each one weighs on the final outcome. But that actual weight given to each element is only known to the search engines.

As you can see on-page SEO does require a strong understanding of HTML, if you are not comfortable with looking or editing source code , I would recommend hiring a professional to go over your code for you.

In my next post I will look at how you can start to optimize your site, to get the best search engine rankings you can.

Admittedly this is a long video, but Matt Cutts ( yes of Google)  gives some great advice on SEO and WordPress.

So in case you haven’t heard the Internet is kind of a big deal. But, do you really need a company website? Well here are a few reasons why your company needs a website.

24 hrs

A website is available 24 hrs, 7 days a week. How else can people get information on your company whenever they want.

Convenience

Nowadays people have become so accustomed to having information only a click away. Giving your customers the convenience of inquiring about your company on their own timetable, without placing a phone call or driving to your location is a huge asset to your company.

Credibility

This one is reliant upon the fact that you have a quality site. A quality website will give your company a strong first impression and “instant credibility” within seconds of viewing it. Conversly, a poorly designed or inaccessible site will convey a poor impression of you company. Which do you want?

Advertising

Your website is always there to promote you with no time limit or expiry date, making it one of the best long-term investments for your money.

Bigger Audience

It is estimated that there are over 1.6 billion global Internet users. I don’t know about you but that is more than enough potential customers for me.

Everyone Else has one

Websites are no longer considered a luxury item, they are a standard and recognized way that companies do business. The absence of a website can make your company look dated and out of touch with today’s business scene. Even if your business is not online based it is important you are present on the web and have your online authority.

Business comes to you

A few years ago it was the golden standard to have your business listed in the local Yellow Pages, while this is still important people are just as likely to look for your business using Google.

So are you convinced? If so why not fill out our contact form or give us a call 250-718-3176

Welcome to Cheeky Monkey Media, we strive to provide your business with an affordable, professional web presence.

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