Semi-Custom IMCD Web Designs – Hybrids Ease Website Creation Process
May 31, 2010
For business owners looking for their first or a new professional web design, semi-custom template sites are an effective and cost-effective bridge step to a totally custom web design. In any web design and website development process, four key steps take place: keyword/market research, web design creation, web content development and website launch. Starting with a semi-custom web design makes it possible to cost effectively move through these steps to launch a professional site in a short period of time.
How does a hybrid web design, utilizing the elements of graphic design found on custom sites and the ready web content of a template website, best meet a company’s online marketing needs in a very competitive online environment?
1. By investing in a semi-custom web design template, you benefit from adapting a ready, professionally designed layout with your personal logos, photos and graphic images. Your brand is supported and promoted, not overshadowed, by the web design’s graphic layout.
2. With a navigation and web content areas outlined, you aren’t forced to reinvent the wheel deciding what content is necessary to sell the sizzle. IMCD Web Design has years of experience working with business owners on the best way to market their company’s products and services. The essential pages of a business web design are included in the template. These two areas greatly reduce the cost and time needed to take your web design from inception to completion.
3. With the savings in resources gained by customizing a professional web design, business owners gain by a greater focus on the search engine optimization (SEO) and keyword research. Template designs that offer SEO as an option do a disservice to their customers. Since not all web designers understand the power of a solid SEO strategy, it is short-sighted to assume business owners maxed out tending to their business’ needs will learn, much less master, the level of SEO knowledge necessary for their website to be competitive in the search engine results.
4. Finally, by utilizing a web design company’s hosting option, the burden of being your own webmaster is shifted to the pros who know how to secure your site from hackers and defeat websites that would steal your bandwidth (and drive up your hosting costs) by accessing your images for their websites.
IMCD Web Designs semi-custom website design option allows business owners to improve their online sale lead generation or product sales effectiveness without going through the school of hard knocks. Contact our sales department to safely move your online marketing into an effective professional web design.
Does Your Business Web Design Meet New Web Design Standards?
May 3, 2010
Is your business’ professional website design ready for the new web design standards…and how do web design standards affect your business? First, how do web designs affect your business – in the short run not much, it is the long term changes that may render parts of your web design invisible or not as you envisioned. Web design standards are used by web designers to develop web site designs and by browser creators for the next version of how their browser will show your website’s code.
The timeline for change is set by the adaptation of the newer browser versions. Newer browsers will not always stay backwards compatible to the older codes. Two of the biggest changes is the greater use of cascading style sheets (CSS) to remove all style directions – like font size and color – off the page and create stricter standards for how the code that creates the architecture is written. IMCD Web Designs has always kept its web designs current with the web design standards as well as keeping an eye on changes that are on the horizon. Our latest semi-custom website templates for small business and our real estate web designs are based on the latest standards, giving our customers peace of mind that their investments won’t be in need of overhauls in the future.
The latest ripple in the web design standard pond is how Adobe’s Flash slide shows and videos will fare in the new HTML 5 standard. Apple Computers created their latest iPads without adding Flash. The good news for businesses is that Flash is not the only slide show software on the market. Businesses can still use slide shows to parade their products without needing to utilize Flash, so while Adobe and the web design standards experts wrangle over issues, your professional web design can continue to be rendered correctly in the Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and Safari web browsers.
For the best of professional websites that are developed and validated to the latest web design standards – as well as visually pleasing, search engine optimized and targeted to your niche market – contact our expert designers at IMCD Web Design. Invest today in your professional web design that will market well tomorrow and for years to come.
Professional IMCD Web Designs For Businesses
April 14, 2010
Does your professional web design meet the needs for your type of business? IMCD Web Design offers several types of professional business web designs that can be matched to your specific business need. How to determine which web design is right for your business? There are three basic web designs that have many options in common, however the three design categories are custom websites, semi-custom templates and blog websites.
Custom websites have the advantage of creating a new image that is branded to your product or services and unique in your market. These are mid-range to high end priced sites that are the most labor-intensive. However, they offer years of service and are created to the latest standards. The graphic design is adaptable to your market and style. A high level of search engine optimization on custom websites is also a major benefit.
Semi-custom template business websites offer an array of color schemes, your choice of unique graphic images and your logo, and the ability to add your unique content to a an adaptable template. IMCD Web Designs popular semi-template designs are used by both small to mid-sized businesses to gain Internet marketing traction quickly with a professional website design.
The newest web design is a blog website. These have the ability to create static pages and dynamic blog entries. Blog websites, even with their dynamic nature, are capable of very good search engine optimization. Blog websites, by their nature are like an ongoing conversation reporting news or information on the industry, impact of recent legislation, market changes and business.. Though a successful blog web design is the most labor intensive (due to writing and posting articles on a weekly basis) it is well worth it if your market has changing dynamics or areas that your clients will benefit from updates.
Integrating a blog into an established professional web designs is an option. IMCD Web Design always offers its clients a blog upgrade (or a similar article manager product) as part of their clients’ future web design build-out strategy. Call your web design experts at IMCD Web Design to see which professional web design matches your market and budget – with the majority of buyers relying on the Internet to research products and services, having your professional website ranking in the search engine results is necessary for market penetration and expansion.
Passing The Website Design Usability Test
March 29, 2010
Does your Internet website pass the web design usability test? To see you user friendly your website is, check these factors that attract or repel your online visitors.
1. Is your navigation clear – can a visitor find any page on your website in two to three clicks? A website design that eliminates visitor frustration has intuitive navigation – a visitor arrives at your homepage from a search and can quickly find the information within a few clicks.
2. Is your navigation visible to the search engines? Website designers know that the search engines use the navigation to help index the content on your website. Website designs that use Flash, hide certain elements of the navigation so your site is not easily indexed. IMCD Web Design uses Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) navigation to maximize the search engine optimization capability of your web design’s navigation.
3. Is your domain name memorable and optimized for the search engines? Website domain names that focus on the keywords of your product or service meet the website design usability criteria. It may be a blow to your ego, but using your name is not the best domain name – you miss the vast Internet population that is searching for your business, but does not know your name.
4. Do your contact forms solicit more information than the 2010 census? People do not like their privacy invaded. Website design that succeeds the best demands the least amount of information necessary for you to contact them. IMCD Web Design uses time tested visitor information capture forms that balance ease of answering with drop down menus and minimal questions. A time-tested form is the key to improving your return on your website design investment.
5. A Flash intro page. A sure sign that an Internet site needs a new website design is the Flash intro page with the “Click to enter” button. A business website only has one home page to serve up to the search engines. When the home page is a Flash slide show, no matter how appealing to visitors, the search engines cannot decipher any of the information offered. IMCD Web Design knows the best places and ways to use Flash in a website design to capture online audiences. Those places are never the ones that search engines are using to index and catalog your business website.
Contact IMCD Web Design and connect your business with a web design that meets your business needs and passes your clients’ website usability tests.
Successful Real Estate Blog Copywriting Secrets
March 1, 2010
Writing a real estate blog website entry can be considered a success if you have a hard time just getting one written. There are online real estate marketing secrets to successful real estate blog copywriting. The success is measured in increased real estate sales activity as well as increased traffic to your agent website. Internet Marketing Consultants has researched the best online marketing minds to bring you a few secrets that will improve your blog entries.
1. Capture your creative ideas.
Ever notice that some of your best ideas come when you are driving, taking a shower or listening to a seminar (not all at the same time)? Be ready with 3 x 5 cards, a note book or your cell phone’s memo capacity to capture your thought. These little sparks of genius often lead to blog articles that capture your audience’s interest.
2. Rewrite your entry’s title.
By rewriting your title three or four times, you can hone down the most captivating, short, keyword-rich way of introducing your article. Your title is the primary tool you have to capture your real estate website visitor’s attention and move them to read your article. Time spent perfecting the headline is well worth it.
3. Give information through a story.
Possibly we have all been jaded by getting bored sitting through lectures in school, however, whatever the reason, people tune out when presented information in a lecture dry fact way. Introduce a story and you capture your audience’s attention. Do you remember getting captured by Reader’s Digest articles on a dry subject (“I AM Joe’s Adam’s Apple) only because the article started with a riveting story and then withheld the resolution of the story until the end of the article? It is a formula that the magazine still uses effectively.
4. Provide a safety net for your call to action.
Two elements in a call to action increase the safety factor and improve your lead generation: third party testimonials and a guarantee of success. Testimonials have two benefits – a third party authentication of your real estate services and a story element.
Add these marketing success tips into your next real estate blog entries and benchmark your ability to improve your visitor’s response to your call to action. Is your real estate website still limping into the twenty-first century without a blog or article manager? Contact the experts in effective real estate web design at IMCD to accelerate the effectiveness of your online real estate marketing campaign.