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Wednesday, November 28, 2012

5 Things A Phographer Should Look Out For When Creating A Website

There are many who earn a lot through Wedding, Event and other types of Photography. Today, the new-age theme of Destination Photography is also being heard a lot. In short, it is very important for a photographer to showcase his/her work profile and ethic as well as possible. This is the reason why it becomes extremely important for them to have a smart website.

What does a photography website need?

Strong portfolio Client login panel Mobile compatibility Payment gateway Gallery Management System

Strong portfolio

The portfolio must not have any constraints of image pixilation and should be capable of being worked over thumbnails. This makes a site look professional and helps it in showcasing images without having to scroll up or down a lot. Also, it is important to keep images segregated within various subheadings or via drop down menus.

Client login panel

This facility helps any client of a photographer to have his own personal gallery maintained by himself. The client receives a username and password and all his information is kept protected. If he chooses to buy a picture or get a hardcopy for it, he can simply go to his login panel and apply for the same.

Mobile compatibility

Let us suppose you have got your wedding pictured through a given photographer. Now, you are very happy with the work and want to show it to a friend of yours while moving in a car. How do you do that? Naturally you would show it over your mobile device. However, if the same photographer does not have a mobile compatible website, the portfolio images will get pixilated badly over a 2.5 inches screen.

Payment gateway

If a client wants to buy a few pictures from his own personal gallery, there must be provision for it. The most popular and easy to install payment gateways would include PayPal, World Pay, Moneybookers etc.

Gallery management system

This feature helps in making any number of changes on the portfolio. Such changes may be along the lines of simple edits or complete deletion or addition of images. A photography website should be equipped with a content management system which enable the photographers to upload new images to their portfolio as and when they require. The kind of tool comes in very handy and saves a lot of time and money in terms of maintenance of the website.

If you think that including all of the above functions in your website could cost you a bomb then that would not be quite right. There are many free and open-source softwares available in the market which makes the development very cost effective.

Growing Usage of Mobile Application Development Services Websites Are Effective Marketing Tools For Tradesmen Get Your Best Web Site Design for Small Business Designing a Mobile Website: What To Consider

10 Ways to Ruin Your Website

How hard can it be to build a website?

After all, you just throw together a few components, add in some text and images, get someone to code the whole thing and voila! A working website that will boost your company's profile in no time at all.

This is, of course, nonsense. Building a website is no mean feat. Unless of course, you're looking to actively ruin your reputation and drive your customers crazy. Here we look at 10 ways you can ruin your website:

1. Build it in Flash

The quickest way to ruin your website is to build it entirely in Flash. Sure, it'll be eye-catching and attention grabbing, but it won't always work - especially for those people visiting your website from a mobile device.

2. Go Pop-Up Crazy

Everyone loves their web browsing experience to be interrupted by pop-ups, right? If your website is filled with pop-ups and distracting banners, it is the quickest way to get people to leave your site. Avoid at all costs, and keep your website clean.

3. Include a Gateway

Making people sign up to view your website content is another great way to ruin your website. Unless you have sensitive content, or a members-only area, including a gateway on your site is not advised. You want to attract visitors, not send them running for the hills.

4. Build it for Search Engines

By building your website entirely for Google - and making it impossible for a human to navigate around - is the best way to get to the top of the rankings. Right? Unfortunately, both Google and your real visitors will see this as a pretty rubbish website and leave it right away.

5. Play Music That You Can't Turn Off

What better way to welcome visitors to your website than with a lovely song? Blasting music from your homepage (with no 'stop' button in sight) is one of the fastest ways to send your website to the scrap heap. Again, avoid this at all costs.

6. Clutter Your Website

A homepage filled with copy, adverts, images, banners, and everything but the kitchen sink is one of the biggest web design disasters ever. You need to remember that people need to navigate around your site. Kick out the clutter, and opt for a clean layout.

7. Don't Bother With Graphic Design

Another way to ruin your site is to forget about professional graphic design altogether. If you want to ruin your website, chose a template design that is about 5 years out of date. Poorly designed websites are a huge no-no.

8. Have Two Home Pages

Some people like to have an "entry page". One that appears and then asks users to click a button to visit the home page. People have too much choice as it is online. Don't make it even harder for them to access your content.

9. Only Build the Site For IE

Another great way to ruin your website is to build it with one web browser in mind. You need to make sure your website is compatible with every online - and mobile - browser. Otherwise your prospects will go elsewhere.

10. Make Your Text Illegible

By making your text really small, a crazy colour or font; you're ruining your site. If people can't read your text; they can't understand your site. You need to make sure your content is easily digestible, and that means making your onsite text easy to read.

As we've seen then, it is really easy to ruin a website. But by using the services of a professional website design agency, you'll be able to make your website work for you. Just make sure it avoids all these points.

Ask Your Web Design Company About The Effects of Website Load Time

Website load speed is at the same time a functionality element and also a ranking factor.

Sluggish loading sites annoy end users, who are likely to hit the back browser button in a heart beat, while Google prefers visitors to experience an all round favorable encounter every time they check out a search engine product. Google announced web site speed as a rank component way back in 2010.

Webpage speed is worried with how fast a webpage loads into the user's browser, and this includes all the subject matter, the pictures and video footage. How rapidly a webpage will load depends on quite a few troubles, such as how the website is coded, where exactly it is hosted and how large the files are which must be run to display the website in the user's internet browser.

A swifter loading time frame is a more desirable visitor encounter, together with a beneficial increase for better rankings in the Google search results.

How Do You Check My Site Loading Performance?

The main thing you should do is take a look at your present website load speed. Thankfully, there are lots of specialist tools out there that will do this for you without cost.

What Should My Website Load Speed Generally Be?

When you have an online site load speed of below two seconds, you're in the right range, but quicker is undoubtedly much better.

A load rate of 2 to five seconds is positioning you in the risk sector.

More than five seconds, and you're sacrificing visitors and suffering in the search engine ranking positions.

How Can I Make This Site Load Speedier?

There are various things you can do to increase the page load rate, and here are my top strategies for a swifter web page.

Website Speed Tip #1 - Re-size Graphics so they really are reduced to the lowest usable size

Making use of large picture files will considerably slow down the page load tempo. Lessen the file overall size by checking the photograph in a photo manager, such as Photoshop or maybe Paint. By decreasing the pixels into the dimensions you want the photo to be provided, e.g. 225x225 pixels, you will considerably improve the load speed in comparison with if the graphic was 1150x1150 pixels, for example.

Website Speed Tip #2 - Make use of Speedier File Types for Pictures

Image file formats vary in the way they display the photograph and also how soon they will likely load. For those who have a picture with a lot of color variety, you will almost certainly want to work with a JPEG format, but this is probably going to be a slow load.

Start using a GIF for pics which have a minimal color spectrum, such as the business trademark.

Alternately, utilize a PNG format for other photos where ultra-high quality is just not a dilemma.

Website Speed Tip #3 - Rule out Pics On the Whole

At this stage you may understand that images are the distinctive offenders when considering slowing load speeds, and you'll be absolutely correct. Picture files are far larger than text files applied to render the text, and video clips are even larger.

In case you don't need to display a picture or video, don't use it.

Website Speed Tip #4 - Take advantage of 3rd Party Platforms for Video Hosting

If you use video, you've got a couple of choices:

1. Host the recording on your dedicated server

2. Make use of a third Party hosting web site, just like Metacafe, Vimeo, or YouTube.

A self-hosted video has specific advantages from the point of having the online video search engine ranked (in the event the online video does get ranked, the internet site exactly where it is hosted gets the Search page results credit). On the flip side, hosting the video on a third party internet site and basically giving the streaming window is much faster loading.

Website Speed Tip #5 - Benefit from Website Compression Resources

Website data compression instruments compress the written text files that incorporate the web source code and your written website content. By data compressing the files, they are quicker to load from the hosting server where they are stored and to the end user's internet browser.

Web site compression tools you should not have an effect on how the website looks, but be mindful that they do not reduce graphics and video (and that means you still have to deal with most of these).

Website Speed Tip #6 - Limit the utilization of Plugins and External Functions

Should you be adding widgets and plugins to your web page, then these are typically served up by a supplier that you have zero control over. In particular, an eCommerce shopping cart application like Volusion is not inside your direct control, so if there exists a load speed dilemma, it truly is a thing you cannot contend with other than by asking the third party vendor to speed up their performance.

Inserting widgets on your web page for revealing your posts is a good idea in general, but watch out for those that you use because they can also slow your web site load speed downwards. Always look for the web page speed risks for every plugin or external characteristic, because the edge might not be outweighed by a slow speed.

To conclude, web page speed positively has an affect on the user experience and is a vital alert that the search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo keep an eye on routinely. Utilizing the ideas pointed out previous helps improve webpage conversion rate, and positioning your website much better within the ambitious surroundings of the search results.

Basic Optimization Tips For Websites

Website optimization is important for anyone who runs a website. Without it, your website will not only be inefficient but may also scare off visitors. As such, you may want to follow these brief tips listed below.

Get a Decent Hosting Provider

This is perhaps the most important part optimizing your website. It does not matter what else you do if you do not have a great host, so take the time to do your research. Never be fooled by special promotions or low prices - instead, take the time to make sure that you know exactly what you will get from the host. Take a look at the amount of downtime that popular sites hosted by the company have experienced, and always make sure to look into customer service response times. If you do so, you should be able to find a great host.

Do Not Be Afraid to Outsource

If you have a modern website, you know that the bells and whistles are often a necessity. Unfortunately, having all the bits and pieces of an average website on the same server can make your life very difficult. As such, you may want to think about using other services to supplement your own. If you want images, consider having them hosted by Flickr or Imgur. Forms, on the other hand, might be better handled by FormSpring than they are by you. No matter what you choose, though, make sure that the outside service is actually reliable.

Minimize the Slowdown

If you really want your site to take off, you need to make sure that it is actually user friendly. For most, this means making sure that the site functions at a reasonable speed. Most web designers have already learned the lessons of the early days of the internet, getting rid of graphic-intensive sites and focusing on the important info. Modern designers, though, still have a good deal of work to do. Try to minimize the number of redirects on your site, try to keep information as concentrated as possible and always remember that many of your visitors may be using mobile browsers which do not handle images of gifs quite as well. Keeping this in mind will help you to speed up your site and keep visitors.

If you want to run a website, make sure that you keep optimization in mind. Keep your site friendly, make sure to offload content that you cannot handle yourself and always make sure that you have a great host. If you can, you can focus on your content rather than your website's build.

Let Your Website Bring You New Customers

Your business needs to have a website in order to stay connected with your customers and to drive new clients to you. Consumers today expect to go online and find more information about a business. If you don't have a website, or if you have one that is poorly designed, it can cast your company in a bad light.

Designing a website isn't easy though, especially one intended for business purposes. You will need to hire a professional web designer to get the job done right, unless you have been trained in building websites. Sure, you may be able to create a blog or Facebook page, but a business website needs much more than that. Some of the features that should be included in a business site are contact forms, testimonial area, rotating banners, professional graphics, quote request forms, location map, and gallery.

Even if you already have a website, you may want to consider having it updated by a professional web design company. Trends change quickly on the internet and it doesn't take long for your website to look outdated. You don't want your business to look like it is out of touch with the times.

Your website will do much more than simply inform people about the services you offer. It will bring you new customers too. Today, people search for trades online when they need work done. Specifically, they use Goggle. So in addition to having a professionally designed site, you also need someone to get it ranked well in the search engines so your customers find you before they find your competition. A good website design company can take care of building your site and getting it ranked properly too.

As a professional, you stay busy enough servicing your customers. The last thing you need to worry about is keeping your website updated and ranked. If you don't have professional know-how, it could take a lot of effort for you to get the job done. Of course, if you want, you can still maintain your own Facebook page and Twitter account. That way you can reach customers instantly to let them know about current specials or holiday hours. Using social media is a good way to build rapport with your current customers and potential ones.

It may surprise you to know that sometimes tiny changes to a website can bring about big results. All kinds of studies have been conducted over the years trying different colors, layouts, fonts, and copy in order to increase customer response. In fact, many professionals use a technique called split testing where they test an original site against one with a small change made to see which one performs better.

Over time, general rules have been established for designing the optimum website. A professional web design company understands the best layout to use for your site. All you have to do is supply them with your information and logo, and they will handle all the difficult details you probably didn't even know had to be considered.

Once your site is online and ranked well in Google, you can rest assured new customers will find you when they need your services. Once on your site they will have access to your address or phone number so they can contact you in the way you have determined. Your website will work hard to gain new customers while you work hard to keep them serviced.

Why Is Mobile Web Optimization Important?

Mobile browsers are odd. They function on machines that are not quite as strong as traditional computers, often using browsers that are more concerned about making the most of limited space than adding in all the bells and whistles of modern sites. To stay competitive in a market in which these browsers are a concern, you have to learn how to optimize your website for mobile browsers.

An Increasing Share of the Marketplace

Take a look at your desk. How many ways do you have to browse the web? If you are an average person, you have at least one traditional computer and one web-enabled portable device. If you throw in laptops, netbooks and tablets, you get a picture of a very diverse browsing marketplace. Given that smartphones are the sole device on the marketplace that can be easily used on the go without any kind of wi-fi signal, it obvious why it is important to cater to this part of the market. Even if only a small percentage of your customers make use of mobile browsing, this is a percentage that still has money available to spend.

A Fleeting Moment

The mobile web market has an intense level of competition. If your web page is hard to navigate on a phone, most users will use elsewhere. If it takes too long to load, most users will simply turn away. Every use that you lose due to poor optimization is a lost sale or click-through, money that has been taken directly away from your profits due to poor design. Given how easy the problem is to fix, it would be foolish to ignore the opportunity.

The Future

Even if you do not think that current trends point towards the majority of customers visiting your website via a mobile device, you might want to take the time to think about the future. The amount of growth in the smartphone market alone during the last five years has been nearly unprecedented, and tablet computers are making a very similar jump in accessibility. This means that your future customers are far less likely to have access to a typical computer screen or web browser than those in the past, and that your future really is dependent on mobile optimization.

The modern marketplace trends towards mobility. As such, you should make sure that your site is optimized for mobile browsers. While it may take a great deal of work to do so, it will help you to maintain your page views and connect with a more mobile marketplace.