Web Development Blog

In the majority of site visits the Home Page is the first impression a visitor has of you, much like how you would view a store front and make your decision if you would like to shop, eat or drink at their establishment. The decision to investigate further into your site is made within about the first 10 seconds of their visit.  It reflects your product, personality and style.  Different sites use styles to project an image that would attract a particular audience and to captivate that persons attention.  Some examples would be, to catch a childlike mind you want it colorful, with fun music and lots of flash content, where as professionals may want to use strong, bold colors with a sleek, straight line and clean approach.  Most people are not very patient when it takes a long period of time to open a page, and will move on.  You don’t want your visitor to wait too long before being able to see what you have to offer.

The wording, known as content, needs to captivate their interest, making them curious to find out more.  It can be geared toward presenting them with a problem that you have the answer to, and they can access this information by clicking on a link, or a list of catchy titles that link you to pages that go further into the information they are seeking.  The ideas are limitless and all have a common goal, to get visitors to your site and keep them there.  Regardless of your style, the words used in the lists, content, links, graphics, etc…, need to be full of keywords.  Not too wordy, but still rich in words used for searching.  These keywords are what brought them to your site in the first place.  Your site was in the list because Search Engines have crawled through your Home/Index page for keywords.  Search Engines in turn use this information, to return a list of sites that contain the words submitted.   Where you are in that list of results depends on well placed your keywords are within your Home Page.

How should my content look?  What criteria should my content contain?  These questions and many more are legitimate and important.  Web site content is one of the most important elements to optimize SEO (Search Engine Optimization).  Search Engines, like Ask, Google, Yahoo, etc…, use the content in a site to determine the rankings in the results list.  Using keywords and phrases in the content throughout the site can determine a higher ranking within the results of searches.

Well written content will not only help your search engine rankings, it will keep the viewer from moving on to another site.  Content that is enlightening and compelling piques the interest of your readers, keeping them browsing thru your site.  Be persuasive, aim for making the reader believe that the service or product you have to offer is the best to suit their needs.

When putting together enlightening and compelling content full of keywords and phrases, there are some other criteria that need to be met.  Uniqueness has an important role. Content that is copied or wording that is too similar to another site will be recognized by Search Engines as duplicate content.  If plagiarism is suspected and/or found by the Search Engines they will penalize your ranking.  All pages, elements, content, styles, etc., need to be as unique as you are, insuring that your web site rankings are not punished.

Check back frequently for more articles about effective content development for the different pages of your web site.

Reaching large groups of potential customers has never been easy. However, the ability to speak directly to customers makes the process well worth it. Once upon a time a company’s only choice was to send mass mailings of pamphlets or newsletters to thousands of addresses, at a substantial cost. Now, however, almost everyone has access to an email account (or several). The purpose of email, of course, is to allow you to reach anyone anywhere virtually instantly, without having to worry about paper, envelopes, or postage. Modern email clients can even interpret HTML code, allowing you to style emails in any way you want. Surely this marks the end of all of your mass mailing troubles, right? Unfortunately, mass mailings are still fraught with challenges and limitations.

When sending a mass mailing, you must somehow organize the contact information for all of your recipients. Keeping a list of email addresses is much easier now than saving thousands of mailing addresses used to be. The easiest way to store email addresses is to simply enter them into a text file, putting each address on its own line. Modern mail merge software should be able to interpret that text file and get each address from it. Sending thousands of emails at once is also a challenge, but companies can purchase several programs which make it easier to send HTML newsletters. One handy program is called World Merge. Another option is Auto Mailer. Both of these programs automate the mail merge process, and work with HTML source code to send an HTML newsletter to a list of up to thousands of addresses. Both programs (and many others that are available) are less than $100 for a full version. You can also download and use trial versions to make sure the process works for what you need. Once you automate the sending process, you can then design and build your newsletter.

An HTML newsletter is essentially the same thing as any HTML web page. Creating an HTML newsletter is not complicated, but the many restrictions and limitations of email clients make it difficult. The latest version of Microsoft Outlook, for example, does not support CSS-created background images, so be sure to avoid those in your layout. In fact, many CSS design elements are not fully supported by various clients, so you should be careful choosing which ones to use. Most email clients lack support for floating elements, which is the primary CSS style used as an alternate to table-based layouts in websites, so table-based layouts are the way to go in a newsletter. You must also keep all code within the “body” tags of the layout. When viewing a newsletter in an email with Yahoo! or Gmail, the “head” sections are stripped from the code. Any “style” or “script” tags within the “head” section will not be executed.

Click here to see what CSS elements modern email clients can support.

As a special note, remember to thoroughly test your newsletter before you send it to your customers. An HTML newsletter might be a good way to get repeat business, but a malfunctioning HTML newsletter is an even better way to lose it. Set up a separate list of email addresses that you have control of to see how the newsletter looks before you send it to your official list. This way you can make sure it all looks right (try to test it in as many clients as possible). You can always create free email accounts in Yahoo! or Gmail to have more places to test the email.

Put simply, what should you do to design a newsletter? First, the layout should only be about 600 pixels wide (considerably narrow compared to modern web design standards), to fit inside email clients. Second, don’t put anything inside the “head” tag of your HTML. Third, you will have to use table-based layouts, even though modern web trends shy away from tables as much as possible. Fourth, do not use background images anywhere in your newsletter, as Outlook 2007 will not display them properly. Fifth, avoid javascript, flash, or other dynamic add-ons entirely, as they most likely not work at all. Finally, thoroughly test your email before you send it, to make sure it looks the way it was meant to.

Follow this advice and in no time you will be sending professional quality HTML newsletters to your potential customers.

It may seem like there is no more need for DOS batch file programming these days.  Basic DOS and Visual Basic scripts can be pretty useful when integrating a website with third-party software running locally, though.

At Tiger Team Solutions we commonly use DOS batch files to FTP data extracts from applications running locally, for example the Keystroke Point of Sale application.  Using the executable Keystroke Utility programs (standard with Keystroke POS), the retailer’s inventory database can be exported to a delimited file and uploaded for import into a web site database automatically after business hours.

Colonial Wines & Spirits, a long-time client of Tiger Team Solutions, utilizes this process to keep their massive inventory of over eight-thousand(!) products updated daily on their web site and available for online ordering.

The next time you need to automate a data transfer task, give the “old-school” techniques some consideration.

The goal of every website owner is to be noticed.  You want to have a high page ranking so that you are recognized by the search engines and of course you want potential customers to find you before they see your competitors.  Here are a few simple ways to beef up your “get noticed” factor.

First you need a keyword heavy domain name.  You may think that just naming it your current business name is sufficient but in reality you have to prepare early on in this game to get ahead.  Your best bet is for you to purchase two domain names.  One is your business name which is printed on your business materials and a keyword domain name.  Your business name website then redirects you to the keyword domain.   Of course it has to be available and you may have to come up with a few before you find one that is available for purchasing and it has the keywords that work best for you.  You should use a keyword program that will generate you a Read the rest of this entry »

If you have been receiving our newsletter you know that every month we have been listing a handful of terms that you might hear or read but may not know exactly what they mean. Just doing our little part in helping clear up some of the confusion and mystery surrounding web design and website marketing. Well I am going to do a little recap and list a few more to round off the New Year.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
This is the act of altering a web site so that it does well in the organic, crawler-based listings of search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, AOL and MSN. In the past, has also been used as a term for any type of search engine marketing activity, though now the term search engine marketing itself has taken over for this.

CPC (Cost Per Click)
The amount search engines charge advertisers for every click that sends a searcher to the advertiser€™s web site. For an advertiser, CPC is the total cost for each click-through received when its ad is clicked on.

PR (Page Rank)
Google technology developed at Stanford University for placing importance on pages and web sites. At one point, PageRank (PR) was a major factor in rankings. Today it is one of hundreds of factors in the algorithm that determines a page€™s rankings.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication)
RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. An RSS document, which is called a “feed,” “web feed,” or “channel,” contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with their favorite web sites in an automated manner that’s easier than checking them manually.

Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity)
To put it simply Wi-Fi is a local area network (LAN) that communicates via radio waves. A more detailed explanation is, it is the set of standards for wireless local area networks based on the specifications known as 802.11. It was originally developed for use by wireless devices and local networks. It is now used for Internet access as well. If you access the Internet wirelessly from your computer or personal digital assistant, chances are you are using some sort of Wi-Fi.

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Here are a few more new terms that will hopefully jump start you into the New Year knowing just a little bit more than you did before:

HTML (HyperText Markup Language)
The document format used on the Web. Web pages are built with HTML tags (codes) embedded in the text. HTML defines the page layout, fonts and graphic elements as well as the hypertext links to other documents on the Web.

ASP (Active Server Page)
A Web server technology from Microsoft that allows for the creation of dynamic, interactive sessions with the user. An ASP is a Web page that contains HTML and embedded programming code written in VBScript or Jscript.

IDK
I Don’t Know (keep brushing up on your vocabulary and you won’t need to use this one.)

JPG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)
An ISO/ITU standard for compressing still images. Pronounced “jay-peg,” the JPEG format is very popular due to its variable compression range. JPEGs are not suitable for graphs, charts and explanatory illustrations because the text appears fuzzy, especially at low resolutions.

ROI (Return On Investment)
A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or to compare the efficiency of a number of different investments. To calculate ROI, the benefit (return) of an investment is divided by the cost of the investment; the result is expressed as a percentage or a ratio.

It seems every year the Holiday Season begins even more early than the year before.  You are shopping for Halloween candy on one aisle and on the next is Christmas trees fully decorated.  I prefer to celebrate one holiday at a time but I have worked in retail and I understand their reasons behind it all.  They have so much Christmas merchandise to put out that they have to start early to get it all on the floor and out of their warehouse so more Christmas merchandise can be moved out to the floor. 

This can also be the problem on a website. You have so many ideas and items of merchandise to sell that sometimes you can get bogged down in the details.  You have gone halfway through your fiscal year Read the rest of this entry »

Customer satisfaction is the number one goal of any business.  It’s what you work toward and enjoy the afterglow of when you have accomplished your mission.  What you are hoping for is customer satisfaction to develop into customer loyalty.  Almost 40% of your satisfied customers will eventually do business with your competition.  Now, I know you are thinking €œWell I still have over 50% coming back€ but that thought may be costing you more than you think.  Attracting new customers can cost twice as much as keeping your existing customer base and that€™s money you want in your profit margin not in your marketing losses.

What is it then you need to solve this problem?  You need to go beyond customer satisfaction and establish a rapport with you customers.  Read the rest of this entry »

How many times have you opened up a file or email and been prompted as to whether you have the latest Acrobat Reader?  Millions of users and and businesses use PDF (Portable Document Format) but the cost can be a little out of most people’s budget so I went in search of a more affordable way to convert my documents into PDF’s.

A PDF is the “file format created by Adobe Systems in 1993 for document exchange” according to the definition offered by Wikipedia.  As of right now it is an open standard but is being prepared to be submitted to ISO (International Organization for Standardization) for approval as a formal open standard.  There are over 200 million PDF documents out there on the web.  It is becoming the standard for electronic document exchange especially for government agencies and large corporations around the globe.  The benefits of using PDF is that Read the rest of this entry »

Online marketing is the constant pursuit of the “golden ring” and the hope is not to spend too much money to make some money.  If you are attempting to do some online marketing without spending too much of your hard earned cash then here are a few ideas.

Reciprocal links, or backlinks, are basically you link to my website and I’ll link to yours.  You should do about five or ten of these a week.  Remember though Read the rest of this entry »