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Top Website Designers & Web Development Companies

Friday, June 4th, 2010

Selecting the right website designer for your web development project can make all the difference in the world when it comes to the success or failure of your web site design. But with thousands of web design companies in the market it can be a daunting task, if not impossible, to identify which web designer provides the best service at the best website prices.

Below you’ll find a list of some the most reputable small business web design companies and website designers that we’ve hand picked based on their reputation as well as the overall value they provide to their customers. The website designers listed below provide custom business website design, e-commerce website design as well as large variety of website development services.

FocusMX: FocusMX is a reputable website design firm with a portfolio to prove it. They offer static websites starting at $500 and dynamic websites starting at $1,500. They are good solution for small to medium size companies.

Hit Web Design: is one of the largest website design companies in the nation. They develop a ton of websites and they are very inexpensive. However, they require a one year contract.

Pervasive Marketing: These guys are strategic Internet marketing experts. If you want an innovative strategy and an innovative website that gets results we recommend working with Pervasive Marketing. They cater to small, medium and large corporations.

Register.com: When it comes to website design and development Register.com has the resources and capabilities to see your project through from start to finish. They can provide their customers everything from domain name registration, web design to web hosting.

Square Peg Web: If you’ll looking for a e-commerce website designed to turn website visitors into customers then we recommend Square Peg Web. Not only do they create extremely attractive e-commerce websites, they create websites that get results!

TD Roberts: is an experienced website design and development company. They provide custom web development services for companies that have unique technology requirements.

Web Success Agency: is a low cost website design and development firm. If you’re a small business on tight budget then Web ucess Agency is a great solution. If you’re in need of a comprehensive e-commerce web development strategy we recommend considering a different web design firm.

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Website Development & Hosting

Monday, May 31st, 2010

A business without a web presence is depriving itself. A website can help a business promote its brand and reach out to more customers resulting in additional revenues and profit streams.

Web development prices have become amazingly reasonable in current times. Web packages that charge as low as $99 per month have all the necessary equipment for you to develop your website, register a domain name, launch an e-commerce solution, interact with customers, launch audio and videos, send and receive emails, virus protection, and more. Best of all, web hosting services take care of crucial database and server backups ensuring vital customer data is protected at all times. They also guarantee server uptimes ensuring your website is accessible around-the-clock.

There are hoards of web hosting companies vying for your business on the internet. It is important not to be swayed by low prices. Remember, your professional website design is the place customers come to see what your business offers. If the website is slow, unresponsive or down, you’ll only be doing your competitors a favor. The value of adequate bandwidth, a guarantee of 99.5% uptime, regular database and server backups, and customer service cannot be overemphasized. The services of the web hosting provider should be your first concern and the price secondary.

The best way to get started is to list out your own business needs. Will you be selling products online? If yes, you’ll need an online shopping cart. Will you be enabling credit card payments? Your website will need online credit card processing  with SSL security encryption. Once you have your list ready, look at other services. The web hosting service should come with a user friendly control panel that allows you to develop and administer your website easily. The backup server should not be at the same place as the web hosting server. Go for a web hosting service that offers 24×7 customer support to ensure maximum uptime for your business website.

Websites are a businesses’ first point of contact with customers and it would be foolish not to optimize this cost-effective online channel.  Web hosting services enable businesses to launch websites without taking on the pain and costs of procuring and maintaining servers. Paying a premium price for excellent web hosting services is a great investment that promises high returns.

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Top Web Designers Make Small Business Websites Look Professional

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

Website design can be the difference between success and failure in todays online world. Potential customers associate a business’ website design with the quality of its products and services. A professional website design can attract new customers and increase sales revenues while a cheap website design can have a negative impact to any business’ overall success.

The professional look of a small business’ website can enable it to compete with large enterprises and also help increase revenues by converting more visitors into customers. However, the website  design is only as good as the web designer you hire.

Here are some of the critical things that top web designers will most certianly build into your website design to turn it into a customer attraction magnet:

About Us page

An effective About Us page is critical for a professional website design and one that must not be neglected. This webpage design gives your visitors and prospective customers background information about your company and its location. Always include executive bios to provide prospective customers with insight into the mnagement team so they can feel warm and fuzzy about doing business with your company.  You should also include complete contact information including physical address, phone number and email address so that prospective customers can contact you to get information and convert into a sale.

Web Page Design 

Top web dsigners will advise you not to change the URL structure of your website as it will  negatively impact your SEO rankings. The best web design companies will build your website in a way that allows you to change the content within your website while retaining their original website design so you do not lose any SEO link juice.

Website Content

A great way to keep visitors, customers and search engine bots coming back to your website is to frequently update your web page content. Top web designers can help you implement an open source content management system (CMS) such as joomla, drupal so you can frequently update your web page content  instead of having to outsource website  maintenance and content updates to web designers.

Adding a content blog can also help improve your search engine rankings and credibility with potential customers. Frequent content blog posts attract repeat visitors to your website increasing the chances of converting them into customers.

Navigational Links

Ensure that your links and contents are well organized and easy to navigate. Users look for quick and easy access to information when browsing business websites and will move to your competitiors if they cannot quickly find what they are looking for given the short attention spans we seem to have developed in the online world. Use headings, subheadings and bullets to highlight your primary marketing message and any important information to stand out from the crowd.

Finally, make sure yu have no broken links as it will negatively impact the customer experience and you will t dnged be search engines causing you to lose visitors to your website.

Images

Relevant images can make your website attractive to prospects and customers, but too many images plastered on your website can make your web pages slow to load resulting in a high bounce rate. Use images judiciously and ensure that they are relevant for you target audience.

Web Page Titles and Descriptions 

Web page titles and descriptions are very important for search engine optimizaton (SEO). Use web page titles that describe the content on the individual landing pages. Additionally, top web designers will place important keywords at beginning of  the web page titles and keep title length within 64 characters to help you attract relevant traffic to your website from search engines such a Google, Bing and Yahoo!

A small business should not cut corners on a cheap website design as the website is the first impression for a majority of prospective customers in todays online world. Invest in a professional website design as it will pay huge dividends for your small business in the long term, helping you acquire new customers and grow revenues by leaps and bounds.

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Web Design Meets Social Networking

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

The Web may be the most powerful tool that technology has ever created. Were it just a database of information, it would still be really neat, but it wouldn’t be as popular as it is today. After all, libraries are full of static information, but how many people go to the library every day? It’s the social elements and constantly changing information that has made the world wide web an integral part of our lives and created a huge market opportunity for web design companies.

You’ve got your friends, family, acquaintances, neighbors, classmates, coworkers, clients, and all manner of other peers. These people make up your social network, and you are part of theirs. This seems pretty straightforward, and from one person’s perspective, it is. When we take a step back and start trying to really map out how every single person is connected to everyone else, it can get mind-numbingly complex. Don’t worry–you don’t have to have a complete understanding of social networking to navigate the world wide web.

But using social networking elements in your web site design can help you grow your business online. For example, when you start a new business. Who knows about it? Your friends and family know, so you talk to them about spreading the word. Imagine how much faster this process would go on the Web, especially if you just started an e-commerce business with online credit card processing capabilities you can very quickly disseminate your website via social bookmarking to thousands of people that frequently visit social networking sites like facebook, twitter, tradeseam, myspace etc. If your web site is designed for the social web, you can easily reach your target audience, which means higher profits and revenue streams for your business.

Some things to keep in mind while designing your website for the social web:

  1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) : This, like chess, takes a little while to learn and years to master. Unlike chess, the rules change every so often because of evolving search engines. You want to design all of your company’s website and content to pop up when someone searches for it by including various keywords in the text. If you sell towels, for example, you might want to feature words such as “towel” and “terry cloth”.
  2. Demographics: Figure out who wants your product, and distill that list into characteristics. Millions of people have posted their interests online, right out in the open for all to see; take advantage of this. It’s called free market research!
  3. Web Design: You don’t have to rely on social networking sites that have already been developed. Many Web sites have built -in social networking capabilities such as social blogs, walls, feeds, photos etc. Answers, profiles and blogs bring  people with similar interests together. Thes tools can be integrated to support a thriving e-commerce business. Customers can see what others have purchased, product reviews and recommendations, ask questions and get suggestions for similar items or gifts etc.
  4. Viral Marketing: This is exactly what it sounds like: news about your company spreads like a virus. Social media marketing lets you easily reach customers, recruit employees and spread the word about your company across the world wide web. Various forums and groups on social networking sites make it easy for customers to find you through word of mouth, greatly reducing the push marketing efforts required such as pay per click, direct mail or telemarketing campaigns.

Website Design with social networking capabilities is changing the way we do business. It’s the twenty-first century; welcome to the social web.

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Professional Web Design – Is it Expensive?

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

Are you considering designing your website because hiring professional web design firms  is not worth the expense? If you are, have you considered what a poor website design would cost your business?

Many people think professional web design services are expensive. This is primarily because most people don’t really understand why they are paying such high fees for just pretty website graphics and colors. When you pay less you get just what you pay for – less web traffic, less conversions and less profits.

Here’s what you get when you hire professional web designers.

  1. Web 2.0 Expertise: Professional Website designers understand what they’re dealing with – not just the web graphics but also the latest web 2.0 technologies including  ajax, flash, iframes, mysql, cms tools etc. and white hat SEO guidelines to create relevant meta tags such as titles and descriptions so that your website appears higher in search engine rankings for Google, Bing and Yahoo!
  2. Effective Website design: Website designers can not only use their creativity to develop an attractive looking website but also make sure it is functional so you can capture business leads and expect to see higher conversions resulting in more revenues and profits.
  3. Easy To Update and Maintain: While website designers will make the major changes and revisions, they provide you with access to open source content managment tools and publishing platforms such as joomla, drupal etc. so that you can keep your site fresh by making regular content changes keeping the Google search engine bots coming back to crawl more of your web pages and content. This gives your website more chances to appear in natural search resulting in more visitors to your website.
  4. Efficiency: The good web designers have the necessary tools to get the job done quickly. They also communicate with you regularly to keep you updated on progress and get feedback often during the design iterations phase to make sure your requirements are captured in the overall web site design.
  5. Add-ons: Many professional web developers offer comprehensive web services such as:

                  a. graphic design

                  b. e-commerce solutions

                  c.  online credit card processing capabilities

                  d. web hosting

                  e. domain name registration

                  f. content management tools

The design of your business website is critical as it provides potential customers with the first impression of your business. The customer’s first impression is very important in todays crowded business marketplace with customers having such limited time, a poorly designed website can turn them off instantly and you won’t even know as these customers were lost even before they picked up the phone or sent an email to inquire about your products and services.

More importantly, a creative website has the potential for viral marketing  in today’s social web where users, bloggers and journalists are likely to social bookmark and comment on social media sites such as blogger, wordpress, facebook, twitter, digg, stumble upon etc.  resulting in instant access to thousands of new potential customers.

In summary, the web has amplified the already crowded business marketplace by increasing competition tenfold as it has become easier to get access to new customers and serve remote markets via the web. Websites have become the new first impression of your business and developing a professional, robust and attractive website can help you stand out from the crowd.

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Web Site Design – Myth vs. Reality

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

Do you want to know the truth about website design? Web designers are masters of this craft and know it the best. Although many people have some idea and working knowledge of web design, it is often plagued with misconceptions and false notions. Not only do these cause you precious time and money, but they also result in below par website design and performance preventing you from tapping into the large pool of prospective customers that surf the web daily.

To help improve your website design knowledge and increase the chances of your website success, here are a few commonly accepted myths and some truth about web design:

 1. Flash animation is good for attracting visitors to your website, but it can slow down the performance of your site

Though Flash can add great appeal to your web pages, it is not a necessity. Add Flash features only when they are relevant to your content and carry significant value for your visitors.

Flash animations can greatly increase the time your pages take to load, especially on old computers. Test your animations for load time and proper functioning. If you add flash to your website, always include a non-flash version of your web page for browsers with slow network speed to be able to render and view your site.

When used judiciously, flash can enhance your website’s look and impact on customers but excessive or unnecessary use can annoy them and make them move on to other sites.

2. Colors make the web site design attractive, but too many on a single page may annoy your visitors

Colors must be used in moderation. A multitude of colors on a single page can annoy visitors and make them leave your site. Web design experts recommend a maximum of 2-3 colors on a single page.

To make your website attractive, rely on intelligent use of colors. This involves proper color coordination between text, background and image colors. For instance, dark text and images on a light background increase the allure of web pages. Also, make sure the color of links on your site is consistent with other colors on the web page.

3. Images and Videos make the web design more attractive, but use them conservatively

Images and Videos help to reinforce your message and add appeal to your website. Like excess animations, too many images can distract visitors, divert their attention from the call to action and make your web pages slow to load.

In addition to visitors, search engines are also harsh towards slow loading sites. With millions of pages to crawl, search engine crawlers will move to other websites at the slightest delay in your site’s load time, lowering your visibility and organic search rankings. So you should keep use of graphics and flash in check.

4. Optimize your web site design for Internet Explorer only, but its no longer the only browser with significant market share.

This is a very common misconception. Your site may appear differently on different browsers. It is always advisable to test your site on multiple browsers to ensure it has an appropriate look and feel for all major browsers such as firefox, IE, Safari and Chrome.

In addition, with the popularity of mobile internet ensure that your site can be properly viewed from mobile phones such as iphones, android phones and blackberrys as well.

5. IT and Computer knowledge is required  to be good web designers, not really.

It is true that computer and IT professionals have a better understanding of web design tools and technologies than most of us and if you are a novice, it is best to hire a professional web designer. However, learning web design is not rocket science. There are several books, tutorials and tools that can assist you with it. Give it a little time and you can become proficient in website design and development yourself.

With all this new information, start making smart decisions for your website design without wasting time and money on unnecessary bells and whistles that will not have any impact on the traffic to your website or conversions!

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How To Become Your Own Boss in 2010?

Monday, January 4th, 2010

People with vision and capability often make for frustrated employees. Working for another individual or company shackles their potential to achieve more than the ordinary. These people are motivated by their dreams and ambitions to start their own business. It is tough going initially but they can look forward to steady returns from their self-made business in the future years.

Starting and establishing a business today is much easier and viable than a few decades back. For starters, businesses can choose from a variety of small business loans for starting a business. While the recession has made it tougher for small businesses to get loans from banks and other traditional sources, there are other options such as a business cash advance for merchants that can borrow against future credit card receipts. Business Cash Advance also known as merchant cash advance is an unsecured cash advance forwarded to the business in exchange for a cut in future credit card sales till the whole amount plus interest is recovered.

Small business owners can also outsource non-core functions of the business without investing in in-house expertise. Outsourcing  payroll or call center related services empower businesses by incorporating efficiency into processes without incurring the cost of infrastructure and adding additional headcount. For instance, a small medical practice can increase its income by over 40% and improve its revenue management cycle by partnering with outsourced medical billing companies.

The internet is another cost-effective tool in the hands of small business owners. A small business can take the help of professional website designers and developers to design a website to establish its online presence. Effective internet marketing campaigns developed by reputed online marketing firms can drive qualified traffic to your website. E-commerce solutions enable businesses to sell products on the internet and capture an online customer segment that continues to grow in size.

All these facilities enable small business owners to focus on the core functions of the business, accelerating its growth and profits. However, small businesses also need to innovate and evolve continuously to maintain their competitive edge and retain profitable customers.

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Work From Home In Your Pajamas

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009

With the numerous amenities at the disposal of small business owners in today’s times, they don’t need to be at the office to manage the business. They can supervise operations via online tools and services.

Many small businesses are realizing the benefits of outsourcing functions that need the experience and knowledge of professional third party experts.  This move actually saves you dollars, increases your productivity and enables you to focus on business growth and profit rather than internal operations. As all outsourcing companies provide detailed reports of their work, business owners can keep tabs on their activities at all times.

VOIP phone systems and web conferencing tools allow business owners and their employees to communicate, share and exchange information across geographical borders and remote locations without leaving their homes.

IT consulting firms increase profits and ensure the efficient running of the business network. IT consulting personnel take care of software installations and customizations, administrative tasks to manage the IT network, advice the business on security features and risks, setup an effective backup system and generally protect the business from making IT mistakes.

Answering services ensure all incoming calls are handled professionally and important or urgent calls are diverted to the business owners on their private number. With a trained answering service in place, business owners need not worry about missed calls if they don’t come into office, are travelling or on vacation. This 24×7 service ensures businesses do not miss out on sales leads.

Small businesses can be as effective as they want by hiring expertise. Website design, e-commerce solutions and online advertising can all help to market the business and its goods and services on the internet. Credit card processing firms can increase the customer outreach of the business. Unsecured business cash advance can be availed at any time to fund expansion plans.

With so many facilities available to small businesses, owners can divert all their energy towards expanding and growing the business. Owners can supervise outsourced internal operations through web applications, right from home.

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