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Unfortunately, There’s No Such Thing As Free Web Design

The concept of free web design is kind of intriguing. Just like there’s no such thing as a free lunch, all in all, free web design doesn’t really exist either (and we’ll cover that a little bit more comprehensively in just a second). And here’s where most of the confusion occurs:

· Is there a such thing as a free website? Yes.

· Free web design? Only if you’re lucky.

Not to dwell on a technicality, but the notion of “web design” generally means that a professional designer is doing the work. And not that the impossible doesn’t happen from time to time, but if you can find a professional web designer willing to work for free—well, let’s just say that it doesn’t happen very often.

What You Should Know About Free Websites

First and foremost, usually you pay for what you get. There are lots of places out there where you can build your own website for free. Most of them produce very unprofessional, sub-par at best results. Some are actually decent at first look, but the catches and add-ons required to make it a fully functional site in the end are actually more costly than just hiring a good designer to do the complete job right the first time.

And let’s face it, most of us out here who might be pretty good at managing our organizations or running a business—well, just because we’re great at that, doesn’t mean we have any business playing the role of designer of our own websites. Best to leave that to the pros (WSpider, of course).

And Now Back To What You Should Know About Free Web Design

Take it if you can find it (only if it’s truly pro quality, though…never take the risk of bad design for your site). Here’s the thing about free web design. Web designers are in high demand; in fact, their rates often just begin at $50 per hour. That said, many times it takes a true pro just a couple of hours to create great results on a task that might take an amateur a couple of weeks to do a bang-up job on.

What’s the incentive for a pro web design expert to work for free? That’s just it—there really isn’t one. So if you do come across such an offer that seems too good to be true, make absolutely sure that you’re looking for the catch. It’s there…you’ve just got to find it.

Unfortunately, there’s just no such thing as free web design.

Tips To Improve The Way Visitors View Your Website

We’ve discussed it recently here on the WSpider blog—earning a positive impression from your website’s visitors is not just important…it’s essential. Granted, top quality professional web design sure helps when it comes to creating stellar visitor impressions. However, for many, this isn’t always exactly in the budget right at the moment.

So today, let’s take a look at some smaller tips that will still improve the way visitors view your website—things that can be done a little bit at a time to ensure better visitor impressions.

Sharpen up your photos.

Sometimes photos and other display images that are grainy, blurry, small, or otherwise low in quality end up on our websites for one reason or another. It’s not usually the end of the world, but improving your photos does go a long way to improving your image (pun intended). Optimize photos for ideal viewing and great impressions!

Add trust-building factors.

Visitors want to know that you’re who you say you are and that you can be trusted. It definitely helps to add professional image building elements prominently into your website. First things first, ensure your phone number, business address, and other comprehensive contact information is incorporated within your site’s layout. Add proof of rewards or other recognitions you might have (links to the source or a newspaper article works well for this). Also, be sure to include any professional memberships or associations you’re part of somewhere prominently within your site.

Improve your offline brand to boost your online impressions.

Could your company or organization logo use some much needed updating? Logos are often used on a website in the most prominent position available as part of the web design—at the very top. It’s simple—your logo can make or break the entire site’s look and feel. With a simple, clean site design, your logo alone can be the one thing that shows how professional (and trustworthy) you are to visitors. Don’t skimp in this department. And the good news is that by updating a tired logo, you’ll also be improving your offline recognition too.

Do some spring site cleaning.

Yep—even though it’s not spring right now, a little spring cleaning can still definitely help to improve your visitor impressions. Think about cleaning and simplifying hand in hand together. Usually, with professional design, less is actually more. De-clutter and try to take your site to the essential basics. Chances are pretty good that it’ll look much better and make better impressions because of it.

Again, the way visitors view your website does make a real difference. Turn them away at first impression, and you’ll never get them back. Do whatever you can to make the best impressions possible!

5 Ways To Make Your Website Better In Just 5 Minutes

Sometimes it’s the little things that can add up to make a big difference. We all know this to be true in life—and at the very same time, it holds resoundingly true with websites too. Here are 5 simple ways to make your website just a little bit better in just 5 minutes (or less):

1. Clean up your text.

Copy a page of text from your website, paste it into your word processing software of choice and give it a quick once-over. Look for blatant errors and be sure to run spell check to catch any mistakes that might have been overlooked. Clean it up, and then copy & paste it back into your site.

2. Reformat a web page.

Again, regarding the text content on a page, sometimes just reformatting a body of text can be a significant improvement. Read through it aloud, and as you read, be sure to break up the paragraphs into short, web-friendly paragraphs. Add a few bold headlines to break up the body of text. Use bold here and there to highlight the features or benefits mentioned throughout. Finally, ensure that the entire body of content is perfectly consistent—in other words, if one paragraph is indented to start with, shouldn’t they all be? It’s amazing what a little bit of attention to detail & consistency can do for a web page.

3. Add a link/Ask for a link.

Know of a great website that would really help your visitors? If so, why not take a minute and link to that site from one of your site’s resource pages or even within a recent blog post? Share the love. And while you’re at it, go ahead and ask that site for a link back if they would be so kind (no strings attached, though). Reciprocal linking has gotten kind of a bum rap lately in the SEO guru circles, but when it’s visitor-centric, it can only stand to help.

4. Add a stock photo to a page or post.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Subscribe to a stock photo site and grab a few really high quality images to spice up your site with. Using just the right image prominently within your next blog post or on one of your top web pages can really help to bring out the message of that page. The best part? It literally only takes a couple of minutes to add an image to a page. (When using a good CMS…don’t have a content management system? WSpider can help you with this.)

5. Create a new page or post.

If you really know your stuff, creating a short but fresh new blog post might just take you 5 minutes or so. Adding new content to your site on a regular basis is essential to ongoing success. So even if you can only commit 5 minutes a day to this strategy, then at least at the end of the week you can have one new piece of content ready to upload to your site.

5 minutes sure doesn’t seem like a much time at all. But the bottom line is that sometimes this is all the time we can squeeze out of a day—make it worthwhile. Each small improvement you make to your website will have a cumulative snowball effect on your site’s long term success.

WordPress: A Trend In Web Development, But Novice Friendly?

ou heard of, or are perhaps already using, WordPress as a part of your website or blog? The open source software that started as a blogging-only solution and has now begun to morph into a CMS (content management system) is definitely a popular buzzword in the design and development circles lately.

And all is fair here—there are some really decent benefits that WordPress offers as a back-end for a website, especially now that the version 3 has been released and is taking into account some of the features that really begin to make it more practical for use as a CMS and not just a blog only solution. But with this said, there are still many things that you should know before deciding that WordPress is the route you should go for your website.

Let’s start with the pros of using WordPress to power a website:

It’s free and open source. As open source software, you’re free to use and customize as you please to fit your own site’s unique needs.

Tons of plug-ins available. Third-party developers have created an app for just about any website function you could imagine—from social media to e-commerce, there’s a plug-in for WordPress to accomplish it.

Once setup, it’s pretty easy to use. Once you’re familiar with the system, using WordPress as a CMS to add or edit website content is fairly straightforward.

With these points in mind, we also need to share some of the cons of using WordPress as a back-end for your site.

Setup can be a nightmare. The software is getting better and simpler to install, but if you’re a novice without professional help, it’s probably best stay away.

Plug-ins can be really buggy. Most plug-ins available are developed by third party “hobbyists.” Using them can cause serious reliability and/or security faults for your website.

Security is debatable. Some say that the WordPress codebase itself is rock-solid secure. This might be true, but because there are so many people using it these days, it’s also become a popular target for hackers to challenge—once they’ve figured it out, they can have free reign on just about any site that runs the software.

Getting WordPress established as a CMS is a challenge. By default, WordPress is still configured to operate more like a blog that a content management system. Extensive modification can sometimes be necessary to get it to actually operate according to your vision or CMS needs.

If you’re seriously considering WordPress, it’s probably a good idea to review the pros and cons in detail for your specific intended application with a pro. If you’d like to discuss in detail, please just give us a ring here at WSpider—we’ll be happy to review your plan and help determine WordPress is the best way to achieve your website goals.

Search Engine Marketing Report – Are You Seeing The Big Picture?

Running a search engine marketing campaign is quite complex. Most realize this completely, choosing to farm out the SEM to professional outsourcing companies like WSpider that specialize in the online marketing techniques encompassed by search engine marketing.

But whether or not you’re already running an SEM campaign for your website, the important question still remains—are you seeing the big picture? And more importantly, if you are getting search engine marketing reporting, it is clear enough to understand and interpret?

Are You Getting An SEM Report?

If you’re paying for quality SEM, make no doubt about it…you should be entitled to receiving a full search engine marketing report on a monthly basis so you can determine exactly what’s happening in your campaign. Transparency is important.

Your SEM company should absolutely be tracking website and visitor data on your behalf—keeping complete tabs on who’s visiting your site, where they are coming from, how long they visit your site, and how they interact with your site’s content while they’re visiting. This is the foundation of visitor tracking, and it all definitely plays an important role in determining which search engine marketing techniques are working best for your unique site.

It Your SEM Report Providing You The Info You Need?

So, your SEM company is providing adequate reporting from a data standpoint. The next question to ask yourself here is if the facts and figures included as part of the reporting actually make sense. What is the story that the numbers tell?

Running an organization effectively and efficiently is time consuming enough. The last thing you should have to worry about is if the SEM campaign that’s supposed to be producing true results for your website is performing or not. You should be able to look at your regular search engine marketing report and instantly be able to discern areas that are meeting goals and areas that still need improvement.

In some ways, it’s a lot like reading your monthly or quarterly stock or 401k report—think how clear that is on what investments are doing well. SEM is much the same. It’s an investment you make in your site, for your online marketing visibility, that is supposed to pay grow and pay dividends.

In other words, SEM should not turn in to a costly liability. It should be a solid asset that delivers a sound return on your investment. And the search engine marketing report should prove it.

How To Be “Above The Fold” Compliant With Your Website

You’ve probably heard the term used at a least a few times before: Above the Fold. It is very important—on the web, and otherwise too—but what exactly does it mean for your website? And most importantly, how can you be compliant with the guideline? Today, we’ll aim to answer these questions while providing some additional important information regarding designing above the fold.

What Is Above the Fold?

Simple. It’s the practice of putting your very best content—whether it be headlines, images, videos, or anything else—at the top of the page. The point of the matter is you want your visitors to see this content and have their attention captured right away. If they have to scroll down to figure out what your web page is going to be about and to find out what’s in it for them, the chances are pretty good that you’re going to lose their attention before they do so. They’ll essentially become another statistic under the “bounce” column (not a good thing).

The concept of above the fold actually comes from traditional print media—going back to the early days of commercial newspapers, the idea was that the most important stuff had to be on the front page to attract readers (and get people to purchase the paper). This is why most front page newspaper stories are typically lead-ins that continue in detail deeper with the folds of the newspaper—the concept is to put the “teasers” first and then draw readers in.

And you guessed right…the exact same concept still holds absolutely true with web media today. Try to follow the example of traditional media that has been paving the way for hundreds of years in this attention grasping technique. It works!

Web Specific Techniques To Try

Further, there are some great new above the fold techniques that web technology has discovered and enabled. For example:

· Rotating images at the top of a page are quite popular to attract visitors’ attention.

· Rather essential lately, homepages across the web are using a rotating feature box, front, top, and center, to attract attention and lead visitors deeper into the depths of the site.

· Many home pages keep textual content to a minimum.

· The above the fold philosophy is most likely influencing the horizontal top navigation menu trend that most sites follow today.

· Sometimes, when it comes to “above the fold,” less is more. Specifically, keeping textual content light and airy with lots of whitespace. This captures visitor attention.

So, why not try some of these techniques? Sites across the web are using them to great success—just look at some of the most popular sites on the web for proof. And if you need help or additional ideas when it comes to using the above the fold philosophy, please don’t hesitate to contact us here at WSpider—we look forward to helping you optimize your website’s visitor experience!

Saturday Social Media Marketing Questions Answered

Working on your online social media marketing strategy? It’s a popular thing to do lately—and the benefits of social media done right can be quite attractive too. Today, let’s take a look at a few commonly asked social media marketing questions and answers. Here goes...

Question #1: What Social Media Badges Should I Display On My Site?

It’s become popular (and effective) to display badges, usually in the header or footer section of your website, that link to your respective social media accounts. Using these icons is a good idea, as it immediately lets your visitors know where to find you and follow you using the common ground social media outlets that you both frequent. The key is in simplicity though. Obviously, you’ll want to have your Facebook page linked, but for other social media sites, only have icons there for the ones that you really use. No sense promoting social media outlets that you don’t update or utilize.

Question #2: What’s the Difference Between “Sharing” and “Following?”

When it comes to adding social media links to you website’s blog posts and other applicable pages, sometimes it’s a bit confusing. Since you’ll already likely have your “follow us on…” links posted in the header or footer of your site, for each individual blog post, the tactic is different when it comes to social. Here, you’ll want to give readers the opportunity to click to share the article on their own favorite social media outlets. In other words, your visitors become ambassadors of your content as they “share” it with their own followers.

Question #3: Which Social Media Sites Should I Use To Promote My Site?

There are hundreds of social media outlets out there in addition to the super popular ones that everyone knows about (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.). So which ones should you actually take part in as you promote your site online? Well, it’s a matter of preference—you’ll definitely want to work Facebook. Right now, it’s kind of the major outlet in use. For many niches, Twitter is also a vital mainstream social site—use it if it makes sense for you. From there, it’s a matter of finding social media sites that you think your visitors will appreciate…and of course, those that you’ll be able to keep fresh and active with regular updates and participation.

Have more questions about social media marketing or other online marketing strategies? If so, please don’t hesitate to contact us here at WSpider anytime—we’ll be happy to help you plan out an online marketing strategy designed to drive success.

There’s A Plugin For That…But Be Careful!

· Want to add a social media widget to your website? There’s a plug-in for that.

· Want to add visitor tracking to your site? There’s a plug-in for that.

· Want to add third-party images or content to your site? There’s a plug-in for that.

You guessed it—pretty much for any idea you might have for your website, there’s a third-party downloadable plug-in that can add the functionality you’re looking for. Most are even free.

So What’s The Catch?

Piecework equals bad design. Patching together multiple plug-ins and apps can really lead to an in-cohesive look and feel for your website. It goes against the principles of good design. An ideal design process incorporates all required features and functionality in the beginning with balance in mind—adding things one by one later on can cause clutter and confusion.

Conflicts and crashes can be expected. Just because a given plug-in might work perfectly on its demo site doesn’t mean it will work perfectly (or work at all) with your own site. Code conflicts are fairly common, and getting everything to work together is a small miracle as it is—add random plug-ins and the problems can easily begin.

Free is not always better. Just because you can get an app for free doesn’t mean you should. It might be a buggy pet project or hobby—who knows. But one thing is certain, you shouldn’t experiment with someone else’s hobby on your site unless you can put up with the possible problems and bugs that follow. Do you want your site to come across as unprofessional?

Do you really know what’s being installed? This the other huge catch—even when a plug-in looks and works completely perfect on your site, there’s always a chance that it could actually be a front for spyware or other malware. Unless it’s provided by a completely trusted and reliable source, who knows what could be wrapped into that app…

It’s always best to ask your web professionals first before trying to add any apps or plug-ins to your website. In fact, here at WSpider, we’re always eager to share our favorite “apps” and plug-ins…those we’ve tested and know will work well, exactly as promised. We’ll even be happy to install or build the plug-in into your website.

The bottom line? Be extremely careful—never trust random 3^rd party plug-ins or apps. The can cause tons of damage if not done right.

Looking For Affordable Logo Design (From A Web Design Company)?!?!

There a lot of misconceptions out there on what a web design company actually does. Not that there is anything wrong with it. After all, the lines between web design and graphic design and those between design, development, and marketing are just plain blurry in most cases. Confusing and convoluted at best!

We’ll start with a fairly common request for web designers. Usually goes something like this:

Customer: “For my new site, I’d like to stick with something simple and clean design-wise. Keep the colors green and white for the most part.”

Web Designer: “Okay, think I’ve got it…anything else?”

Customer: “Oh, yeah—for the logo, can you create a symbol of my business location’s building and superimpose my business name over the top?”

Web Designer: “Ummm…we don’t really do logos, but we’ll be glad to help connect you with a great graphic designer who specializes in logos.”

Customer: “How much will that cost?”

Okay, okay, forgive us for the silliness above—it’s just meant to be an example. But nonetheless, it’s usually true, isn’t it?

Here’s the thing. Unless your web designer specializes in more than just web design, it’s probably not accurate to assume that they handle logos and other very specialized fields of branding. That doesn’t mean they can’t help you though, but referring you to someone that can assist with the request.

Web Design is unusual in the concept that it so often encompasses not just website design alone, but also:

· Graphic Design – Getting the graphical elements of the site ready to be incorporated into the web design.

· Logo Design – Okay, sometimes, but not always, a web designer will be willing to do logo work too. Just know that this is a specialized field of design.

· Web Development – You mean there’s a difference between web design & web development? In short, the answer is yes. Design is the layout and visual experience; development is the code and software that makes it all work.

· SEO, SEM & Online Marketing – Indeed, these web marketing tactics are highly specialized fields, and don’t necessarily automatically go with what a website designer practices; the trades do tend to overlap a lot though.

· Offline Marketing – Well, for this, you’re going to want to work with someone that is an expert with traditional media. Not all web marketers are great offline marketers (and vice-versa).

So the point this post sets out to make is not that you need to reach out to twenty different providers to get the new website launched with success—in fact, as a full service web provider, here at WSpider, we take a team approach that ensures we’re very proficient at most of these website related tasks. Rather, the point is that it’s best to check and make sure you’re working with someone who knows and understands the field well before committing. On the surface, it would seem that all of these components and trades are similar and cross-compatible with one another; however, when actually getting down to business, the fact of the matter is that every web “designer” has their own specific areas of expertise.

5 Important Questions To Ask A Search Engine Marketing Service First

Thinking about hiring a search engine marketing service (SEM) to help you take your small business website to the levels of traffic you demand? Hey, it’s a good idea for the most part—a reputable search engine marketing service (like WSpider) can fully manage the traffic generation process on your behalf, generating a positive ROI for the hard earned dollars you spend on your web marketing plan.

There are a few important questions you should ask any search engine marketing service, though, before you make a final decision:

1. What is included with the SEM service?

You should definitely be looking for search engine marketing that combines organic SEO, high-ROI pay-per-click (PPC) for targeted traffic, and of course these days, some type of high-energy social marketing strategy. These are the vital 3 components of quality SEM—the sky is the limit when it comes to additional value-added options.

2. What is your experience doing SEM?

Look for a company that has experts on staff that have extensive hands-on knowledge and experience with all of the vital components of a search engine marketing service. In other words, they need to know exactly how to integrate SEO with PPC with Social Marketing to create a perfect balance and synergy that couldn’t be achieved when these three components stand alone. Our passionate experts here at WSpider in San Jose can help you!

3. What is your SEO philosophy?

Since organic search engine optimization, SEO for short, plays such an important role in any quality search engine marketing campaign, this should be a real focus when selecting an ideal provider match. Look for SEO experts who focus on quality, white hat SEO only; it is so important to play within the confines of the search engine’s guidelines and rules. No tricks or sneaky tactics permitted.

4. Can you show me proof?

There are lots of SEM services out there that claim to be the best. The truth of the matter, however, is that many are just start-ups or fly-by-night “artists” that have never done a day of search engine marketing yet. Thus, it’s very important to ask for proof. Testimonials from previous customers and references are a good place to start.

5. How long is it going to take for real results?

Don’t be misled when it comes to the time it takes to achieve excellent SEM results. It doesn’t happen overnight. That said, the PPC portion of SEM does kick in over the short term quite nicely to help fill the gaps that occur before longer-to-realize-results SEO really begin to snowball. Social media marketing can have appreciable short term results as well. Be sure you’re on the same page with your search engine marketing service when it comes to accurate, honest, and realistic timelines.