A website is an integral part of a law firms business. When someone is looking for a law firm to represent them, they are looking on the internet. Having a good web presence is key to growing your law firm. You website is your 24/7 advertisement.

Quick & Efficient

Utilizing LogMeIn, we were able to work together to quickly put the website together. The homepage had already been completed when A Sharma Law Firm ran into issue with the previous web developer, a story I hear way too much. A Sharma Law Firm contacted me to finish up the job. And they needed it done quickly and efficiently. Budget was an issue. In just 6 hours we had the entire site up and running!

Have You Had A Bad Web Development Experience?

Most web developers work full time and do freelance websites on the side. This is why you will run into issue with updates taking too long and work not being completed. I do this full time. I am a full time web developer and will dedicate the time need to get your project done on schedule or better. I strive to provide a high qulaity experience and mutually beneficial ruslts.

You Get A Great Website, I Get A Great Portfolio Piece

Let's turn your bad web development experience around. If you have had bad experience with other developer and are reluctant to continue, I understand. But I guarantee, your experience working with me will be as pleasant and easy as possible. This is your year. Give me a call at 732-925-4044 or fill out the contact form to get started.

Read more about A Sharma Law Firm, PLLC web development in my portfolio.

Your website can be on page 1 of Google, Yahoo, and Bing. You can have 1000 followers on Twitter and 1000 fans on your Facebook page. You can get 5,000 hits a month to your website. But does this really matter if you aren't making any sales? It doesn't matter at all. The bottom line is always trying to convert a visitor into a customer. If you are getting tons of traffic but still no sales, you are getting the wrong traffic.

What Is High Quality Traffic?

High quality traffic refers to visitors that come to your website looking to become customers. Low quality traffic includes any traffic that comes to your website with no intent of taking the next step. Here are 3 aspects to help you define your traffic.

1. Buyers Intent

Do your visitors have interest in purchasing your product or service or are they just "browsing"? The higher quality traffic you get, the more buyers and less browsers you will see.

2. Demographic Match

Is this traffic your actual target audience? Is your target audience the right target for your industry? Think outside the box and really try to understand your business from a customers perspective.

3. Cost Effectiveness

Will this traffic reach my cost per action goals? Can I convert them from a visitor to a customer? If you are paying for marketing, you want to see a return on your investment. If you aren't, you need to adjust your website marketing efforts to find what works.

How To Measure The Quality Of Your Traffic

Google offers a wide variety of tools for learning about the traffic on your website. The most popular is Google Analytics. It is free and offers a ton of great tools for learning about your visitors. Other analytical tools include Goolge Webmaster Tools, Google AdWords Keyword Tool and Google Website Optimizer. All of them are free and great for learning about your traffic.

Want to improve the quality of traffic on your website but don't have the time to learn all of this? Give me a call at 732-925-4044 or fill out the contact form and we can get started driving better quality traffic to your website.

Every business needs a website and they need it done yesterday. While I can't time travel(yet) and make that happen, I can have you website live in as little as 7 days. Following my streamlined process and dedication to meeting deadlines we can have your website live as quick as possible.

Website Development Timeline

Day 1. Initial Consultation

We’ll discuss your goals and ideas for the design. The goal of the initial consultation is for me to get an understanding of exactly what you need and how you want your website to look and feel. This is the most important step. A good clear understanding of your needs will help move the development process as quickly as possible.

Day 2. Design Approval

I’ll send you a design preview for your approval. If you would like changes to the design, they will be made on day 2. After a design is chosen, you will get 3 rounds of revisions. When the revisions are complete and you approve the design, a 50% deposit is required to move on to the development phase.

Day 3. Development

After the design is approved and the deposit is received, I will begin development. Your website will be housed on my server at this stage.

Day 4. Development

Development will be completed.

Day 5. Soft Launch

You will be able to view and test the website for bugs. During this phase, you should have a few people look at your website from different computers and different browsers to ensure consistency. Any issues should be sent to me to be corrected.

Day 6. Fix Bugs & Finalize

Any bug fixes or design changes will be made. The remaining 50% of the cost is due before you website will be launched.

Day 7. Launch & Support

After the final payment is received, your website will be made live to the public. You will have a fully functional business website in just 7 days. You will have my support for any questions or additional services such as search engine optimization and email marketing to make your business website successful.

Need your website live in 7 days? Give me a call at 732-925-4044 to get started now and your website could be live in 7 days. Or you can fill out the request a quote form.

This is something you can usually hear me saying. Your content is what draws visitors to your website. Nothing is worse than a website with poorly written content. Content over stuffed with keywords and grammatical and spelling errors will get you know where on the web.

Your content is a representation of you and your business. Knowing how to optimize your website content is key to a successful website. Here are 5 tips tips for writing and optimizing your website content.

1. Use short paragraphs with headers

Visitors to your website will scan over your content to look for headlines and keywords to see if your website has what they are looking for. Breaking your content up into smaller paragraphs and using headers will help a visitor find what they are looking for.

If a visitor can easily find what they are looking for on you website, they will come back. After a visitor uses your website a few times, they may decide to join your mailing list or subscribe to a paid service. Make it easy for visitors and you'll be rewarded.

2. Use bullet points ad lists

Bullet point and lists make scanning your content as easy as possible for visitors. Bullet points and lists highlight topics or give you an idea what the content is about. They also make reading your content a little more fun, as you're not just reading paragraph after paragraph of plain text.

3. Highlight important words or phrases

Again, when scanning content, highlighted words or phrases will be the first thing your eyes are drawn to when reading. Simple text formatting such as bold and italicized text make a huge difference in emphasizing that the content is important. It is common to highlight your specific keywords for that page using bold text.

4. Include links to your information capturing pages

99% of the time the goal of your business website is to capture leads or sell a product. Linking your content to your product page or contact form is a way to get entice users to contact you or make a purchase. After reading an article that got a visitor thinking about your services, why not tell them to "Contact you now!".

5. Write engaging content

Too many times on the web you see boring keyword stuffed content. It really feels like a marketing pitch when you read an article that repeats "NJ website design" 50 times. Use a human voice. Write as if you are talking to your visitors.

Writing content with a personal feel will give your customers the feeling you want them to have. Showing your own style and personality in your writing will create a much more natural feel and give visitors an idea who you really are.

Just to recap, 5 tips for writing and optimizing your website content are:

1. Use short paragraphs with headers
2. Use bullet points ad lists
3. Highlight important words or phrases
4. Include links to your information capturing pages
5. Write engaging content

Need some help writing or optimizing your website content? Call me now at 732-925-4044 or fill out the contact form for a free website content optimization consultation.

A web presence is how you or your company is viewed online. It is a collection of all your online outlets including your website, blog, Facebook page, twitter, etc. Every thing you post on the internet contributes to your web presence. Using your web presence properly can drive highly qualified traffic to your sources and increase your conversion rates.

Your Website

Your website is the most important piece of your webs presence because it is your company face online. You can make it look and function exactly how you want it to express your individuality and show how you are different from your competition.

Your website should have a goal

And getting tons of hits or being ranked high on Google is not a real goal. While getting tons of traffic and ranking high on Google aren't bad things, if nobody is buying your products it really doesn't matter. Using your web presence properly will drive more qualified traffic to your website leading to more conversions from visitors to customers. Talk to your web developer about more ways you can convert visitors to customers on your website.

Social Media

Today you can't deny the power of social media to your web presence. Social media offers companies to have a human side and interact more with people. I consider your website more important, because your website is where you will actually convert a visitor to a customer. Your social media outlets should be used to entice people to visit your website, join your mailing list or buy a product.

Don't Have it Just to Have it

Don't go out and sign up for every social media outlet and then post links on your website. It will actually make you look worse. Do some research about your customers and find out what social media outlets they use and use the same sites. Putting the effort into signing up for every social website out there is a waste of time. A website marketing professional can assist you with researching your customers and finding the social media websites they are using.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is an important piece of your web presence because it is a way to stay connected with your customers. People who sign up for your mailing list are interested in your company or product and want you to market to them. A good email marketing plan can make a huge difference in your conversion rates.

If your web presence gives your customers the right impression, you will get the traffic you want and convert more visitors to customers. Give me a call today at 732-925-4044 or fill out the contact form to learn more about making an impression with your web presence.

The days of over loading your content and meta tags with keywords are long gone. Search engine algorithms are constantly changing and putting more value on relevant content. Just having your business online isn't going to change your business, you need to drive traffic to your website. The best way to drive more traffic to your website is to regularly post relevant search engine optimized content and watch your analytics and adapt to how visitors are finding your website.

What is relevant content?

Relevant content is content that goes beyond just titles and text that is over loaded with a few keywords. Relevant content is content that has value to a reader and offers a solution to a problem your visitors are looking for. You don't need to hire a copy writer to do this, simple updates on what your business is doing and what's new is content that will keep your website fresh and keep customers interested.

Onsite search engine optimization

I believe this is 1 of the most important aspects of search engine optimization. Your content and design should be driving customers to contact you or make a purchase. Using links in your text and calls to action are great ways to get your customers to act. But don't over do it. Too many links and call to action graphics will make you look amatuer. The content on your website should be readable and have a human voice, rather than sound like a sales pitch.

Search engine optimization takes time

In order to see the real results of a search engine optimization campaign, you need to be patient. Search engine optimization is an ongoing process of analyzing analytical data about how visitors are finding your website combined with what they do when they get to your website and then adapting your content. Testing different calls to action and content is the only way to fine tune your website marketing efforts to drive the best content to your website. A 6 month search engine optimization campaign is a great start, a year is even better. You will be able to see the results in your traffic as well as your conversion rate.

It's not just for search engines, it's for your customers

When you think search engine optimization you may just be thinking about getting better results in the search engine result pages. But it goes deeper than that. Fine tuning your content to suit how customers are finding you and what they are looking for is key to a higher conversion rate. You will make it easier for customers to find solutions to their problems, and the solution will be your services or products.

I hope this article has given you a better understanding of the imporance of search engine optimization to a successful website. Give me a call today at 732-925-4044 or fill out the contact form to get started with your search engine optimization campaign.

A great start to 2012 for Revolution Unlimited, as well as the 3 companies who will be getting brand new custom websites. Starting the new year off with a fresh new web presence is a great way to reintroduce your customers to your business.

Flokati & Designer Rugs - website re-design, content managment system

Flokati & Designer Rugs specializes in stylish high end 100% wool flokati shag rugs. They have an ecommerce website, but the front end needed a face lift as well as some search engine optimization to get better search engine results. Keeping the website updated regularly had become an issue, so naturally the best solution was a custom content management system. The Flokati & Designer Rugs website will be live by the end of the month and will feature a brand new design as well as a powerful custom content management system to keep the website and products up to date.

SnowMelt Inc. - custom content managment system, web development

After working with 2 website design and development companies who couldn't get the job done, SnowMelt came to Revolution Unlimited to see if we could handle the task. The website was originally developed using the Maura CMS, which I find to be not very user friendly as well as difficult to customize. I recommended switching to our custom content management system to make editing and adding content and functionality a breeze.

Dried Fruit, Nuts N More - website design & development, ecommerce, custom content management system

Dried Fruit, Nuts N More is a new business that needed to establish a web presence as well as be able to sell products online and manage their products. They sell dried fruit, nuts, chocolate covered products and special seasonal items. The website will feature a "build a tray" page for customers to easily build custom dried fruit and nut trays as well as a powerful custom content management system to manage the website content.

Want to upgrade your web presence in 2012? Let's talk. Give me a call at 732-925-4044 or fill out the contact form and let's get started.

The beginning of a new year comes with lots of resolutions; some to go to the gym, some to quit smoking. But what about your website? Just like you get a fresh chance to make changes for the positive in your life, you have the same opportunity with your website. And why not show your customers a fresh new website for the new year? Here are 5 benefits of using Revolution Unlimited for your website design and development needs.

1. Speed

Everyone needs everything done yesterday. In our fast paced lives instant gratification and efficiency are key to being productive. That's why I strive to complete all of my projects before my deadlines. In some cases it's very possible to go from proposal to a live website in under a week! My goal is to provide high quality websites as fast as possible. Being a small company, you will work directly with me. This makes everything move much faster because I know what you need, and I know how I can help.

2. Experience

10 years developing websites has given a wide range of website design and development knowledge. And not just knowledge of how to code a website, but the ability to take your ideas and make them into simple, usable websites. I focus on the end use experience and making your users lives easier. Many times I find business owners have an idea, but don't know how to incorporate that idea into a website. I can help make your dreams reality!

3. Custom designs

Every website design I do is 100% custom. Unless you decide to use a template, I can assure you that your website is 100% custom designed to suite your business and your businesses specific needs. I've worked with companies in over 20 different industries and creating original, engaging designs is always 1 of my top priorities.

4. Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization is a necessity on the web today. This doesn't mean just posting articles or getting some back links. Search engine optimization is about following analytical information about your website traffic to develop better content and advertisements. It's an ongoing process. You have to constantly monitor your analytical data and make changes to suite how your users are finding and interacting with your website.

5. Price

Being a small shop(it's just me) I don't have any overhead. This allows me to charge much less than most website design and development companies. And you won't have to sacrifice quality either! No matter what your budget is my goal is to provide a high quality website for your business. I'm also flexible, we can work out payment plans if you need. I understand what it's like to run a small business and spending a lot up front can be unfeasible.

These are just 5 benefits of using Revolution Unlimited for your website design and development needs. Give me a call today at 732-925-4044 or fill out the contact form to get started with your new web presence for the new year.

It all comes down to your needs and knowledge of programming, or willingness to pay a developer. There are many free "out of the box" content management systems out there and they are very powerful. But for the average user, adding modules or changing functionality isn't the easiest of tasks. So how do you know which content management system is the right choice for you?

Custom design vs templates

When using an "out of the box" solution you will have to choose from a template or theme. There are usually tons of free themes out there and they are usually simple to install, but your design will never be 100% original. You may be browsing the web one day and see your website design on another website. Who wants that? If you are interested in a custom original design and don't have any knowledge of web development or HTML, you will need a custom content management system.

Data storage

Having worked with many out of the box systems, I have experience transferring content from one system to the next. And let me tell you, it is far from easy. Bad HTML and strange data storage make grabbing your content from the old system and importing to a new system a difficult and time consuming process. A custom content management system is usually developed much differently. All data is stored in tables with relevant names and it is much easier to work with.

Recently a client wanted to change their blogger site into their own custom website. Transferring from blogger was extremely difficult and time consuming, especially with 3 years worth of blog posts. Bad HTML can also be an issue, and going through each post and fixing them is not a good option. Unless of course you like spending hours fixing content.

HTML & web development knowledge

Without any programming or HTML knowledge, most out of the box content management systems are pretty much blogging systems. Most of the popular systems were developed to be used as blogging platforms, and modules are needed to expand the functionality. I have done this on many systems and it is not easy especially for someone with no programming experience.

Customizations

This is what really sets out of the box systems from custom content management systems. Customizing out of the box systems is not the simplest tasks and will be an issue for someone with no programming knowledge. A custom content management system can easily be added to and changes to suite your needs. I have built many custom management systems for the most non-technical users, such as church and school content management systems, and it allows them to easily update their website.

Ease of use

Not only have I developed sites using out of the box systems, I have also managed websites using them. I find most out of the box system to be extremely not user friendly and hard to use. This is the major reason why I developed my custom content management system. I wanted to make it as easy as possible for the least technical users to update their website. Try out the content mangement system demo to see for yourself.

Not sure what the right solution is for your website? Need some help? Fill out my contact form or give me a call at 732-925-4044 and I will give you a free consultation and we can talk about what the best option will be for your needs.

Internet users have high expectations of your website. If you are not meeting these expectations, you're probably loosing visitors and customers. Here are 5 characteristics of a successful business website in 2012.

1. Mobile compatibility

You don't need a completely separate website, but your website should be accessible from all mobile devices. Cell phones and tablets are the way of the future. Websites need to accommodate the new technology. Most websites can use a facelift for their mobile web presence. Contact me to learn more about upgrading your website for mobile devices.

2. Design With user experience in mind

Users have an idea of how a website should be laid out before they even reach your website. When designing your website, keep in mind that users expect your navigation to be in a similar location as most other websites. A good website design can make or break your website.

3. Use your homepage to draw people in

Don't overload visitors with flashy landing pages. Use your landing pages to draw people in to look deeper in to your website. Including specials and recent blog posts are 2 popular ways to get people deeper in to your website. Adding effective calls to action to your website can make a huge difference.

4. Quick loading pages

On the web today, users don't want to wait for a slow loading page. Consider a simple design over complicated animations and flash websites. You will keep more visitors if your website loads quickly.

5. Optimize your content

Fresh relevant content is king. Constantly monitoring your analytical data and updating what keywords you are optimizing for is essential for a successful business website. A custom content management system is a great tool to keep your website up to date. Optimizing your keywords can be tricky and time consuming. You may want to hire a search engine optimization professional to assist in monitoring your keywords and content.

Lets talk more about making your website more successful in 2012. Fill out the contact form or give me a call at 732-925-4044 and I will give you a free consultation and analysis of your website.

"Why do I need a website for my restaurant?". I hear this all the time. Restaurant owners rely heavily on their location and referrals to get business and don't realize the benefits they could be getting from a website. So I decided to write an article about 5 benefits of a restaurant website.

1. People use search engines to find restaurants

When looking for a restaurant where do you go? I'm positive it isn't the yellow pages. I love trying new food and going to new restaurants and when I'm looking for a new place to go, I go to the search engines (Google). I search for restaurants in the area I will be in and the type of food I want. I may find a few restaurants, so to narrow them down I then search for reviews and see what others have to say about the restaurant. If I like the menu and the restaurant has good reviews from customers, I will most likely give it a try.

2. Get and us a mailing list

A mailing list is essential for any business today and offers restaurants a huge edge if used correctly. Let's say your restaurant has a lunch special every Tuesday. Every Tuesday around 10am while everyone is planning what to do for lunch, you send an email with your special lunch deal and they get it on their phone or see the email in their inbox. They had a problem, what to do for lunch, and you just solved it. This same email marketing tactic can be used anytime your restaurant is having a special. Having a special for a football game? Baseball game? Holiday specials? Market special deals to your mailing list and you will be rewarded with return customers.

3. Post events and pictures

People like active restaurants. Just having a PDF menu and a few pictures of food is not going to cut it. Post regular updates about events, post pictures and information your customers will want to see. Show them your restaurant is alive. And make sure you use your social networks so that everyone can share their experience with their friends. Using a custom content management system is great for managing your restaurant website.

4. Put your specials and sales online

Unless someone comes to your restaurant, they won't know about the great deal you are offering. Posting your specials online allows potential customers to find them 24/7. If someone from out of state is visiting and trying to plan meals for the next day, they may find your special and go to your restaurant. If your specials aren't on your website, you just lost a potential customer.

5. Post feedback from customers

I rarely go to a restaurant if I can't find reviews about the food. Encourage visitors to give you feedback. Offer special coupons for anyone who posts a review of your food online or tags your restaurant on Facebook. This is a great way to spread the word about your restaurant and get feedback about what customers like and dislike.

Of course there are way more than 5 benefits to having a restaurant website. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Fill out my contact form or give me a call at 732-925-4044 if you have questions about your restaurant website or want a new restaurant website.

If you run a business in New Jersey you should be there. The event will host over 200 companies represented by over 400 industry leading professionals. NJ Marcom brings together marketing, design, illustration, communications, advertising, video, photography, printing, copywriting, PR, and online resources in NJ.

A great night of newtworking

It should be a great night and chance to meet other business owners and other creative professionals. If you are attending I look forward to seeing you there. And don't be shy, come say Hi!

You may be thinking, why would a church need to update their website regularly with a content management system? Well, a church is actually a great example of an organization that can really benefit from a content management system, and this past week I implemented a content management system for the OLV parish website. They have a large community, are always hosting events and fundraisers, and have tons of information to share with their community. Here are 5 benefits of using a content management system on a church website.

1. Manage event calendar

With events constantly going on at a church, having a website that can be updated regularly is a great way to market their events and bring more people. Most church events are nonprofit, so being able to post the event on a public forum such as a website offers a great marketing advantage. Members of the community who may not be able to find out about events can now go to the church's website and see what is going on when.

2. Post information regularly

A church is a busy place behind the scenes. Not only do they host events for the community but they also hold other religious ceremonys and are constantly getting new information that is valuable to it's community. Posting this information on your website creates a community feeling and puts the information out there for everyone to find.

3. Manage mailing list

Of all the social media websites and marketing methods, your email list is the most important. These are people that signed up for your list so you can send them updates and information. A church can use their mailing list to keep it's community updated on events and all of the happenings with the parish.

4. Manage and repy to information requests

A church usualy has a large community. With a large community come a lot of questions. A content management system stores these requests in a database allowing you to respond on your time rather than the requests getting lost in your email inbox.

5. Post pictures

People love pictures. Posting pictures from events and other parish happenings will keep people interested in what's going on with the parish. Event better, allowing users to share pictures on social networking websites lets your message get out to a much more broad audience. Pictures from an event can draw others to come participate in the next event.

There you have it, 5 ways a content management system can be used by a church website. If you would like to integrate a content management system on your website, give me a call at 732-925-4044 or fill out the contact form.

"The biggest event of its kind in New Jersey, NJ MarCom  welcomes up to 350 guests from the marketing, communications, and ad agency industries. Join the talented and creative professionals of NJ for a night of networking and opportunity." - njmarcom.org.

NJ MarCom is a non profit event designed to pring together New Jersey marketing, communications, public relations, and creative professionals. The event will host over 350 professionals and is the biggest even of it's kind in New Jersey.

"NJ MarCom is the biggest event of its kind in New Jersey, gathering together professionals interested in: marketing, communications, public relations, advertising, publishing, design, printing, broadcast, online, direct mail, email marketing, photography, and videography.

NJ MarCom is comprised of a diverse and talented creative audience. Since 2005, approximately half of our attendees are already members of one of the participating non-profit business organizations. People represent corporations, agencies, and independent practitioners.

NJ MarCom is not a job fair, nor a trade show. We are fortunate to have a sponsor such as The Creative Group that can help people find new opportunities and can help with staffing needs." - njmarcom.org

Why to attent NJ MarCom 2011

If you are in theses industries: marketing, communications, public relations, advertising, publishing, design, printing, broadcast, online, direct mail, email marketing, photography, and videography; you can benfit by going to NJ MarCom. Developing good business relationships and networking is key to any business. And NJ MarCom is just the place for it. Visit njmarcom.org to get your ticket today!

A content mangement system is a web base interface for you to edit and add content to your website. Our content management system makes managing your website content as simple as editing a word document. Here are 5 reasons to use our content management system.

1. Keep your content fresh

Search engines love new content. Posting relevant content on your website on a regular basis is key to having a successful website. With our custom content management system you can add and edit content on your website whenever you want making it a valuable search engine optimization tool.

2. Adapt to analytic trends in visitors

Using analytical software on your website is key to a successful website. The data from your analytics software (Google analytics), can be used to see what content your visitors like and what content they don't.

3. Easily test new marketing messages

With the ability to change your website at anytime, a custom content management system makes testing new marketing messages a piece of cake. A custom content management system will allow you to remove ads that aren't working and create new ones based on the ads that are working. Using analytical data from Google analytics is key here as well.

4. Update your website with no HTML knowledge

A content management system gives you the ability to add and edit content on your website with no HTML knowledge. Using a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) text editor allows you to create rich HTML content with images, links, lists, and much more. View our content management system demo to see the full set of features available.

5. Save money and time

Rather than paying a developer every time you want to change or update your website, you can pay a 1 time setup fee and have the ability to update your content anytime from anywhere with internet access. You don't have to wait for your developer to get to it. And you don't have to pay a developer.

Interested in a content management system for your website? Give me a call at 732-925-4044 or fill out the contact form and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

Step 1. Analysis and Planning

The objective of this step is to get a clear understand for what you are looking for in your website. This step is very important because it will usually determine the price of the website, time frame, set up deliverables, and give both parties a clear understanding of what is expected. In order to ensure the quality of this information, a web analyst will ask a series of questions (there will be a lot of questions) in order to fully understand your needs, the needs of your website, and your target audience. Communication is key on both parts.

Step 2. Design

The design phase is where you will be able to see what the website will look like. Again, communication is very important here. The website designer needs to have a complete understanding of your target audience and color preferences in order to create a design that your like. Providing samples of websites you like is usually a great help.

Step 3. Development

This is usually the longest step in the web development process. During the development phase all of the designed pages and functionality will be coded and you will be able to start seeing your website come together. If you don't have content ready, you need to get on it! This can be a major hold up in the completion of the project.

Step 4. Testing and Training

Testing your website will ensure that all of the functionality agreed upon during the analysis and planning phase is working correctly. Even though the website developer will be testing, it's important that you are testing as well. After all it is your website, and should function how you want it. This is why communication is crucial in the analysis and planning phase and throughout the entire project. If you will be updating your website using a content management system, training will be provided.

Step 5. Launch

Launching your website means making it accessible to the public. Sometimes tight deadlines become an issue an website owners want to launch without fully testing. This is a HUGE mistake and can be the downfall of your website. Be patient and test your website thoroughly before launching.

Step 6. Maintenance and Updates

Having a great looking website is nothing if nobody can find it. Updating your content, adding pictures, and keeping visitors interested is vital in having a successful website. If you opted for a content management system (which I highly recommend), you should be able to easily update your website at anytime. If you don't have the time or knowledge update your website, you may be interested in a monthly maintenance plan to keep your content fresh.

Even though your website has been launched, it's never too late to add new features. If you have an idea, talk to your website developer and see what your options are. Today, almost anything is possible on the web. So don't hesitate to contact your developer (we love new ideas).

I hope this article has helped you understand the web development process more clearly. If you have any questions or would like to get started on your website, give me a call at 732-925-4044 or fill out the contact form.

According to IBM, online sales on Cyber Monday were up 33% this year over last year with shoppers spending an average of $198.26 per order. Black Friday sales were also up this year, seeing a 26% increase over last years online sales.

Big companies are seeing big rewards to ecommerce

Online retailers are seeing the huge advantages to selling their products online with ecommerce websites. Some of the bigger companies are seeing sales increases in the double digit percentage wise over past years. Such increases in sales during slow economic times proves that ecommerce will be the future.

What can smaller companies do?

The internet gives smaller companies a chance to compete with the larger companies. Marketing your sales properly can lead to your ecommerce sales increasing as much or MORE than larger companies. With a more personal connection to your customers, reaching them will be much easier than larger companies. Targeting your audience with your online marketing efforts will be extremely valuable.

Ecommerce is the way of the future

If your company can sell it online, you need an ecommerce website. Even the smallest items, such as gift cards, can be sold online. Investing in an ecommerce website can easily pay itself off within 1 year and leave your company making more than ever in online sales. Add some online and email marketing and you are in great shape.

Don't have an ecommerce website? Need to improve your website?

Let's make 2012 your best year ever. Better yet, let's increase your sales for December. Contact me today at 732-925-4044 or fill out the contact form and let's get started.

After a record breaking Black Friday dispite the state of the economy, today is expected to bring huge sales online as many companies offer great deals and specials

The key goal of many websites is to generate leads. Encouraging visitors to sign up for mailing lists, fill out contact forms, or call or visit the office is key for a lawyer website. There a many ways to encourage users to contact you. In this article I will discuss 5 ways to encourage visitors to contact you through your website.

1. Contact forms

Contact forms are great for encouraging visitors to your website to contact you. It's quick and easy and that's what everyone is looking for. Make it easy for a visitor to end up at a contact form by using different calls and links within all of the text on your website. Nobody will fill out a form if they can't find it.

2. Mailing lists

Email marketing has the highest return on investment of all marketing methods. Using a mailing list properly can lead you to success. Offer visitors something for signing up, whether it's a discount or a free download, giving something away will entice visitors to sign up. Then keep in touch by sending them weeky or monthly updates with special offers just for them. Be sure to include a link to view your email in their browser as well as an unsubscribe link.

3. Contact information

Put your contact information somewhere that is easy to find. Including you phone number and address on every page has become the standard for most websites. This gives visitors access to contact you no matter what page the visit on your website. If they have a question about your services, they can easily pick up the phone and give you a call at that moment rather than having to search for your contact information.

4. Calls to action

Calls to action are extremely important for generating leads through your website, yet I feel they are very underutilized. Of course you don't want to go crazy and put a bunch of big colorful graphics in your content, but used tastefully they can be very effective. With Google analytics, you can even test your calls to action to see which are working best and which need to be modified or removed.

5. Good content

Content is king. When search engines first popped up they were very simple and meta data was almost all they had. As they have advanced and continue to advance, content has become more and more important. Good content entices sharing and increases loyalty amongst your visitors. Including links to your contact forms in your content will make a visitor want to contact you or sign up for your mailing list. I do it all the time. If I read a great article I'll sign up for the mailing list.

So there you have it, 5 ways to encourage website visitors to contact you. Need some help getting more visitors to contact you? Fill out my contact form ;) or give me a call at 732-925-4044.

Keep. It. Simple. Stupid. When it comes to pleasing customers, nothing makes them happier than being able to get what they want easily. Whether it's your phone number, your address, a product or service you offer, or even just sending you a message, make it easy for them and they will be happy.

Keeping your website simple

So what is the difference between a simple and a complicated website? When you think simple don't think about not having advanced features, or a plain looking 5 page website. When you think about a simple website you should be considering website usability. This includes having a simple, easy to understand navigation system, an easy way to find your contact information or contact form, and a general ease of access to information on your website. Including a search can be a great way to make it easier for customers to find what they are looking for on your website.

Customers will LOVE your easy to use website

When a customer is visiting your website, they are looking for a solution to their problem. Usually, customers will enter their issue into a search engine and if they end up on your website, the solution to their issue should be easy to find. Have you ever searched for a plumber on a search engine, but when you got to the plumbers website they didn't have any contact information? How frustrating is it to find the product or service you're looking for but not be able to get more information about buying that product or ordering that service? Make it easy and your customers will keep coming back.

Ease of use and search engine optimization

Search engines use what are called "spiders" or "bots" to crawl the web and analyze websites. A search engine spider is a program that visits websites and records information related to what the website is about. Then when a user searches for that information, your website will be shown. Of course it is much more complicated than this, but we're keeping it simple today. For a search engine spider an easy to use website means an easy to understand website, and the spider will be able to record accurate data about your website. Using text links with good keywords is key to having your content indexed properly and getting the best organic search results.

Making your website easy to use might be easier than you think

A professional web developer will be able to advise you on different ways to make your website more usable to your visitors. With a quick look at a website, it is usually easy to see where usability lacks and what can be improved to make the website more usable. Give me a call at 732-925-4044 or fill out the contact form to get a free usability analysis on your website.

Tracking your online and email marketing is easy and free with Google Analytics campaign tracking. Simply adding specail tag data to your links allows google to provide information about that link. Tracking these links is essential to test your online marketing campaigns and see what efforts are working the best and are worth continuing.

Step 1. Google Analytics

If you don't already have a google analytics account set up, you need to do that now! Google analytics provides priceless information about your visitors and content on your website. Information including keywords used to find your website, referring websites, time spent on a page, most popular content and much more. Setting up your account is free and a must have for any website owner. Need help adding google analytics to you website? Give me a call at 732-698-8419 or fill out the contact form and we can get you set up today.

Step 2. Add Tag Data To Your Links

This is where the real magic happens. There are 5 tags you can use in your online marketing campaigns. They include:

• Source
• Medium
• Term
• Content
• Campaign

Source is where the link is coming from. Using the name of the website or newsletter are common to indicate the source website your visitor came from. Medium combined with source can identify exactly where your visitor came from. Your medium can be print, email, article. etc. Term is the keyword typed into a search engine. Content is an important tag. Content is used to describe the version of your advertisement. This is useful when testing a variety of ads to determine what methods work the best. Campaign is the overall name of your advertising campaign.

Step 3. Track. Modify. Repeat.

After setting up some advertising campaigns, watch them closely to see whats working. You will most likely see variations in which ads will work best and keeping up with your advertisements and adapting them to what works is key. Ads that get more clicks are ads you will want to put more effort into, while ads that don't draw as much traffic can be removed from your efforts. This means you put more effort into what works and less into what doesn't.

Have questions? Need help? That's what I'm here for. Give me a call at 732-698-8419 or fill out the contact form and we can put together your online and email marketing campaigns.

Over the past 10 years, I have had the experience of working on many different kinds of websites. This experience has helped gain an understanding of what each industry needs from their website. For some businesses just having a website with contact information and their services online is enough. While others need complex functionality and e-commerce. I've seen both sides of the spectrum.

Here are a few of the industries I have had experience working with:

1. lanscaping
2. bbq
3. restaurants
4. e-commerce
5. spas
6. roofing companies
7. drafting companies
8. lawyers
9. churches
10. non-profit organizations
11. start-up companies
12. schools
13. authors
14. artists
15. musicians
16. real estate companies
17. travel companies
18. bars
19. communications companies
20. accountants

I want to add your business to my list

No matter what industry or what your business is, you can benefit from a website. A great website will generate more leads and make you more money. Call me today at 732-698-8419 or fill out my contact form.

For the past few weeks I have been involved in a new project with Barney's New York. They had an immediate need for an HTML specialist with a web development background for a project with a very tight deadline. The Barney's New York store located on 61st and Madison Avenue in Manhattan, NY is being renovated and included in the renovations is a state of the art cafe. The cafe includes a digial touch screen ordering sytem, which also displays ads to Barney's products and Barney's news and updates, known as "The River". The products and articles will be scrolling by and people will be able to click the item and find out more information and that's where I come in.

My involvement in this project is creating the product and article pages that will scroll on "The River". These pages are plain HTML pages. The big challenge in the project is developing an automated system, that goes to the Barney's website, grabs the required products and articles, reformats them, saves any videos or images, and saves the html page to be added to "The River". In just 1 week I was able to develop a solution using PHP that can be run daily and keeps "The River" updated with fresh content.

Have a rush project you need to get done? Give me a call at 732-925-4044 or send me a message from my contact form. No project is too big and no budget is too small so get in touch and we can get this done!

A content management system(cms) is an area of your website that gives you the ability to add, edit, and remove content from your website. Most content management systems use a WYSIWYG(what you see is what you get) editor, which allows a user to easily create rich html content with little to no html knowledge at all with a Microsoft Word like interface. Content management systems can also provide advanced functionality such as managing products, managing contacts, creating photo galleries, managing user accounts and much more.

Here are 5 reasons you should upgrade your website to use a content management system.

1. Update Your Content Quickly

Let's say you have a sale coming up and you want to make a few of your products "featured items" and have them displayed on your home page. With a custom content management system you can easily do this with just 1 click of your mouse. Try it for your self. If you have to contact a developer, it could take a week!

2. Saves Money

Usually, when you want to change the text on your site, add content, or remove content, you have to pay a developer. With a content management system, you may spend more initially but that's your only expense. You will never have to pay a developer or wait for a developer to make changes you need.

3. Search Engine Optimization

A static website is a dead website. Nobody is interested in old content. Users like seeing a website that is fresh and up to date. It makes them think that your company is doing business and builds on their trust in your brand. Search engines also love new content. The more you update your website, the better.

4. Control

Don't like your text? Want to add more links to your contact page or to a specific product page? With a content management system you have complete control over your website.

5. It's Easy

You can keep your design, add a content management system and you now have complete control of the content on your website. Managing your website doesn't need to be a time consuming and expensive process. You can do it on your own.

Want to upgrade your website to use a content management system? Give me a call at 732-698-8419 or contact me and we can have a custom content management system ready in as little as 1 week!

Things are getting busy this fall at RU with 2 new website projects coming this week and more on the way. One is an ecommerce website for a shag rug company and the other website is for a local NJ bar.

Flokati Designer Rugs Website Redesign Project

The old Flokati Designer Rugs website was designed using a table based layout, images for navigation, and had javascript errors that caused issues with loading pages. I was originally contacted for a "facelift" and some search engine optimization, but after reviewing the website I diagnosed to best way to get better results would be to build a better, more modern website.

The old Flokati Designer Rugs website features a modern design with easy to follow navigation. Ordering a shag rug is simple as possible! The new website also features a powerful custom content management system that enables website administrators to update  website content on the fly. The CMS also allows administrators to update and add products and product categories.

The Ale House - Custom Content Management System Inegration

This is an interesting project, and a first for RU. The Ale House has a nice looking website, the only issue is the content is old and outdated and updating the content all of the time is an expensive and time consuming process. In order to speed up this process and keep content on The Ale House's website fresh, integrating a custom content management system was the way to go. They can now manage all of the content on their website, as well as their entire menu.

Check back later this week for the official launch of the new websites!

Want to manage the content on your website? My content management system is for you. Contact me today to learn about how I can integrate a custom content management system into your existing website and give you the ability to manage your own website.

People like products that are easy to use. And when they come to your website, they expect the same. They made it to your website by searching for your products or services, and when they get to your website they should easily be able to purchase or inquire more information about your products or services. Here are some reasons why planning is so important and why taking your time will save you trouble and money in the long run.

Do It Right The First Time, Plan & Research

Before any designing or development is even considered, you need to have a good plan for your website. Your website plan should include a number of items including long and short term objectives, what your visitors are coming to your website for, how your information will flow, and how you want users to interact with your website. Understanding these items are key to a good plan and a great website.

Easy Access To Information, Website Usability

Website usability should be a high priority for your website. I often see website usability being over looked due to issues such as it's expensive, it's time consuming, and most people simply don't understand what website usability is. If you plan properly you can save a ton of time and money by make usability a primary concern.

Not taking website usability into consideration is a huge mistake. Discovering website usability issues after a project has been completed or partially completed will lead to either redesigning the website or having to make major modifications. This will take more time and will cost more money. So take the time to test and make sure your website is easy to use.

Make Website Usability A Priority

The investment of time and effort ensuring your website is easy to use is well worth the investment. Satisfying your customers should be your number 1 priority and an easy to use resource is exactly what the want and need. You will also save time and money down the line because you won't have to go back and fix what wasn't done right in the first place.

Concerned About Your Website? Nee Help Planning A Great Website?

Contact me today to learn more about how I can help make your existing website easier to use and help you plan a website that will be customer focused and easy to use. Call 732-698-8419 or fill out the contact form. And don't be shy! We can work together to make your website great!

We Upgraded Our CMS! Here Are Some Of The New Features

Our content management system was developed to give every day users the ability to manage the content on their website. A text editor called a WYSIWYG(what you see is what you get), you can add rich html content with links, images, ordered lists and much more. Creating pages on your website is like creating a word document! After analyzing how users use the content management system, we came up with some features that make the system easier and more powerful for you.

Google Analytics Integration

"Google Analytics is the enterprise-class web analytics solution that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. Powerful, flexible and easy-to-use features now let you see and analyze your traffic data in an entirely new way. With Google Analytics, you're more prepared to write better-targeted ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives and create higher converting websites."- http://www.google.com/analytics/.

Basically, Google Analytics gives you data about your visitors including how they found your website(search engine, referral, etc), what keywords were used, how long they stayed on a page, what pages were visited and much much more. We have integrated Google Analytics into our CMS, so now you can view analytical information about your website without leaving your website!

Quick Add

In a hurry? Need to add a new product right now? No problem! The quick add feature allows you to add content to your site with just 1 click. From any page within the CMS, you can click the quick add drop down menu, select what you want to add, and you will be brought to that page.

Search Engine Optimization(SEO) Upgrade

We've found that most users don't understand or use the meta data section of the content management system. Meta data includes a page title(what your see in the top of the browser window or on the tab), a meta description(a short excerpt of what the page is about), and meta keywords(important words and phrases associated with the web page). We made adding meta data even easier by auto generating it!

Auto Generated Meta Data

Your meta title should match the title of the page. When you enter the title for your page, a meta title and link are automatically generated to take a step out of adding content to your website. Meta descriptions and keywords are probably the most time consuming parts of a web page and we've taken the time out. When you create your web page, after you add text to your page, an excerpt will be creating and keywords and phrases will be automatically generated so you don't have to take the time to come up with them yourself. You can still add to and edit your meta data as well.

Improved Contact Management

In the old system, you can view contact for submissions, but in order to reply you have to copy the email address and paste it into your own program. That's gone. With the new content management system, you can reply right from your website. Simply click the "Contacts" link on the left hand side of the page and click reply to reply to a contact form submission. Want to get a copy of your message? Simply add your email address to the "also send to" field and your reply will also be sent to you.

Try Out The CMS Demo Now!

Stop paying for simple text updates and see for yourself how easy it could be to update your own website content. No need to pay a developer or wait for them to get to it. Try out the CMS Demo Now!

Since October 2010, I have been working on a project, Uvisor.com. Uvisor.com is a job search engine with advanced search technology that will show you results based on items in your profile/resume such as skills, work experience, education, and location. This project has helped me learn new web development techniques, tightened my javascripting, advanced my mysql knowledge, pushed my website usability and search engine optimization knowledge, and built on my css and html skills. I have learned a lot to say the least, as I try to do with every endeavor I'm involved with. This article will be part of a series of articles about my expereiences at Uvisor.

October 2010 - Uvisor 1.0

When I first started at Uvisor, I immediately noticed website usability issues that I knew would ensure the website would not be successful. Some of the issues included:

• Members only based job searching
• The entire website was javascript and ajax dependent
• Users using "out dated browsers" were blocked from using the website
• Navigation was confusing

Website Usability Was My First Concern

In order for a website to be successful it must be accessible and work properly in all browsers. I expressed my concerns to management and they agreed that this an issue and needed to be dealt with. And Uvisor 2.0 was born.

Uvisor 2.0 :: The New & Improved, User Friendly Job Search Engine

Uvisor 2.0 features a job search accessible to all visitors. We have opened the website up so that no browsers are blocked and dramatically reduced the websites dependency on javascript. Uvisor.com is now much more user friendly and easy to use.

Check back for more website development updates and news about Uvisor.

Now is the time. Through the end of September, if you choose Revolution Unlimited to re-design your website, we will give you 10% off!

Why Choose Revolution Unlimited?

• We have over 10 years of website development experience
• Our custom content management system makes updating your website quick & easy
• We will optimize your website for search engines to easily crawl
• We'll give you 10% off!

Money Is Tight, I Know

In these times I know money is tight. Re-designing your website is a long term investment in upgrading your companies web presence and gaining more loyal customers through your website. Upgrading your website is important to keep up with changes and growth in your company. Show your customers the new face of your business and get started today with 10% off your website today!

Many people get turned off and give up on there websites because the don't do what they are supposed to. Whether your goal is to sell more products or get more leads, your website should be doing something for you. If you're tired of pouring money into a website that isn't returning anything, you need to contact us today so we can turn your website around.

The Number 1 Rule: ABC - Always Be Selling

You've probably heard this in college business classes and movies, and it applies to the web just like any other business. You're probably wondering, how does that apply to the web? Simple. Using calls to actions and internal linking you can guide users to your product or service page, and lead them to make a purchase or contact you for more information.

What Can We Do?

First, if there are errors on your website, we will fix them. A website with errors on it will scare users away and cause them to have no trust in your products or services.

Next, we will analyze your website page by page to determine what can be done to increase sales or leads. Adding calls to action and internal linking are two simple items to help quide users to your purchase page.

Lastly, we will watch analytical trends and figure out what techniques are working and which need adjustments. By analyzing how users use your website and get to your product/service pages will assist in providing the best calls to actions for the best results.

Monitoring your return on investment from your website can be difficult. If you don't have analytical software installed that should be top priority. Not sure where to start? Call us today at 732-698-8419 or contact us.

This is a touchy subject today. With browsers changing, upgrading, and supporting new features so often it's hard to keep older browsers functional with code that new browsers can handle. But is it right to block those users? In my opinion, blocking ANYONE from visiting and using your website is a huge mistake. Here are a few reasons why I believe blocking users with older browsers from your website is a bad idea.

You WILL Confuse Visitors

Not only will most visitors not understand or know how to upgrade their browser, but they will leave your website and most likely not return. A visitor coming to your website made it there by searching for a product or service they need and you're telling them they can't buy it from you. Do you see the problem with this situation?

Users CAN'T Upgrade Their Browsers

Many users shop online while they are at work on spare time or on breaks. These users usually have restrictions on what they can change about the company computer, and upgrading browsers is usually one of them. Since upgrading browsers can take some time, some companies will keep older browsers for longer periods of time, due to the lack of IT staff to handle the job.

Never Turn Away A Visitor. EVER. PERIOD.

If someone tried to walk into a store, and because they were wearing old shoes would you tell them that they can't buy your product? Turning away visitors with older browsers is doing the same exact thing. You are losing out on business and a potential return customer.

Do you want to keep turning potential customers away? Then get that message off your website today! Call us at 732-698-8419 or contact us now so we can help get that message off of your website.

Many people who are looking to re-design their websites, are looking to do so because they aren't getting the business the thought they would. What most business owners fail to recognize when initially developing a website is that the website will be their store front on the internet. Many business owners rush into something "Just to get something online" and fail to properly plan a website. I hear that all of the time and it kills me.

So How Do You Avoid This Common Mistake?

Hire a professional website design company. A professional website developer will help you plan and develop a website that will meet all of your business needs. Understanding how customers use a website and what you are trying to offer your customers will allow the developer to determine the best approach to meeting those needs.

Already Have A Website? Not Getting the Results You Expected?

No need to worry. Open up your website and ask yourself some of the following questions:

• Does this website look like something YOU would buy from?
• Does this website truly reflect the quality, services and or products your business has to offer.
• Is your website easy to navigate?
• Can you easily find important services/products from the homepage?
• If you were a person searching the web for a particular service/product, is that product easy to find?
• Does your homepage inspire visitors deeper into your website or to contact you?

These 6 basic website usability ideas will help you determine if your website is ok as is or if it's time for a change. Since you are reading this article I'm going to assume you aren't happy with your current website and are ready to change. Now is a great time!

Kick Start Your Online Presence With A New Website

If you are ready to change and get a website that generates results, contact us. We would be glad to check out your website and come up with a plan to help turn it around. Give us a call at 732-925-4044 or fill out the contact form and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Consider your website as a communication tool, you want to say who you are and what you do an allow visitors to tell you who they are and what they would like from you. These 5 tips will help make your website generate more leads.

What's In It For Them?

Visitors are looking for something to help them when they come to your website. Make it clear what you can do for  them. Explain who you are, what you do, and give a clear way to contact you for more information.

People NEED To Be Entertained

Give your visitors something to come back for. Whether it's a blog, a video, or another type of entertainment, give your visitors something to come back to and share with their friends

People Want To Express Their Opinions

Giving you visitors a way to express themselves will entice them to come back and see what you and others think about their option. This creates a community type environment around your company through your website.

People Want Free Stuff

The best way to get visitors to interact with your website is to give something away for free. Giving a visitor something of value for free will entice them to enter their information and allow you to market to them in the future.

Make It Easy For Them

Make it as easy as possible for visitors to contact you. Providing contact us links in your content as well as in your footer or header will give your visitors easy access to your contact information at any time.

What Do You Think?

Being in the website design and development business, this is a statistic that I to stay on top of. While doing some research recently, I began to think about what others thought. Click on the percentage range on the right that you think is the percentage of businesses don't have websites.

Check Back Next Week, April 19th, For The Correct Answer

You might be surprised by the right answer. So cast your vote and be sure to check back next week to see what percentage of businesses don't have websites.

Are you unsure about how your website stacks up? Want to find out? Contact us and we will give you a FREE 5 point website usability analysis. If you are looking to re-design your website, this is part of the first step.

Here are our 5 website usability points that we will analyze your website for.

HTML Errors

Your website should be free of HTML errors to ensure cross browser compatibility and maintain up to date code. We will analyze your HTML and provide you with a report about the errors you may have.

JavaScript Errors

JavaScript is a touchy subject on the web. While it's great for enhancing a website, your website should not be dependent on JavaScript and you should always have a fall back for users browsing with JavaScript disabled. Our detailed analysis will provide you with possible JavaScript issues your website might have.

Cross Browser Compatibility

There are only a handful of popular web browsers, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari, your website should be functional in all of them. The most important are Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Google Chrome. We will test your website in each browser and report any inconsistencies.

Navigation Systems

This might seem like a simple item, but it is often over looked. A difficult navigation system will make it hard for your users to find the information they are looking for. Our analysis of your navigation systems will determine if your menu could be difficult for your users to understand.

Forms

Another item that is often over looked. When was the last time you tested your forms. Are you sending/recieving auto responder messages and alerts that someone has filled out the contact form? We will test your forms to ensure that they work properly, give you the appropriate response, and don't allow invalid data.

Contact us today to get your free website analysis.

It's no secret however most business owners don't realize the potential their website has to gain more business. In this day, when most people are looking for information, they go to the internet. And it makes sense. Someone can easily find what you are looking for, get directions, reviews, and a whole bunch of information within seconds, if it is available.

Your Website Is A Marketing Tool

And most likely the best 1 you can get! Think about it this way. To run a website, this does not include design and development of a new website, but just to keep your website online on a yearly basis costs about $100 to $500, about $15 for your domain name and the rest for hosting your website. Now consider your other marketing efforts. Considering the cost of just 1 print advertisement that only gets printed 1 time is about $100. You can market your website for an entrire year for the cost of a few print advertisements. Your website has the potential to blow all other advertising methods out of the water if it's used correctly.

Here are 5 tips to help you get more business from your website.

Update Your Website

This is the biggest killer on the web. Outdated content on your website is no help to anyone. How can someone call you if your phone number or the wrong phone number is listed? How can someone email you if you don't have your email address listed or the wrong email address is listed. When a user comes to your website, they want to see what's new with your company or they want to contact you about your services or products.

Create A Blog

Blogging has become a great way to interact with your customers. Blogging will also help you establish yourself as an expert in your field. A blog allows you to build personal connections by sharing helpful tips or articles with your users. If you are writing your own blog posts, you can also brand the voice of your company through your posts.

Build Your Email List

An email list is one of the most under utilized tool on most websites. Email marketing has the highest return on investment than any other marketing method. So building an email list should be on the top of your priority list!

Give Something Away For Free

Everyone loves getting something for free. I know I do, don't you? Giving something away to your customers will help your customer base re familiarize themselves with your business as well as draw in new customers.

Hold A Survey

Ask for your users opinions. Ask them about anything! This is just another way to interact with your customers, get there opinions, as well as collect their information(including an email address). This is 1 of the simplest and easiest ways to get feedback about your company, customer services, website, etc..

What's Your Next Step?

Give us a call at 732-925-4044 or fill out our contact form. We can help you get your website up to date and get more business from your website.

With the changing of the seasons, we figured why not change the look of our website. None of the content on the website has changed, just the background images and colors. A professional web developer can use HTML templates and CSS to easily change the look and feel of your website. We changed the look of our website in just a weekend!

Benefits Of Using A Professional Web Developer

There are many benefits to working with a professional web developer or web development company. Here are a few benefits of working with us:

• We use the most up-to-date HTML and CSS coding to easily change the look and feel of a website
• Our custom content management system allows you to easily update website content
• We use modern search engine optimization techniques to help search engines easily crawl a website
• 6 months of support and training free

Drawbacks Of Using A Professional Web Developer

You have to have some bad with the good right? Here are a few drawbacks of working with a professional web developer.

• Higher initial costs
• Longer time to launch
• More initial work, for you

Though there may be a few drawbacks of using a professional web developer, they are worth it. The initial cost will be higher because a professional web developer takes more time and effort to plan out and develop your website accordingly. However, this initial cost may be worth it when considering the amount you may pay for updates and upgrades. Longer time to launch also related to the time and effort put into planning the web solution that best suites your needs. You will need to put in more work initially. In order for the web developer to fully understand your needs, you may need 1 on 1 interviews or provide documents about your business process/model.

The Big Picture

While hiring a professional web developer may result in more initial work for you, higher costs, and longer launch time, your website will be far superior than a website developed by an unprofessional web developer. So before jumping into business with any website development company, do some research. An experienced web developer with a proven track record will be able to provide you with the best possible solution to your business website needs.

Many businesses, especially small business owners still rely on older print marketing methods. What business owners fail to realize is that nobody uses these sources to find information anymore. Search engines customize results to be local to your area, so having a website that ranks highly is essential to gain new customers and growing your business.

Now, business owners can go get a free website that they have little control over and can't update at all. While this isn't a bad start, a professional website developer is really need to create a web presence that will draw your customers in. Having a free website that is not flexible to grow with your business as well as capture customer information is not worth very much.

Having a website will allow your business to

• differentiate yourself from your competition
• build a reputation
• spread information and news about your business
• create a social atmosphere with your customers
• target local search engine optimization
• allow customers to request information
• have a 24/7 information source for customers

What do you need to do?

The first step is to contact us through our contact form or call Joe at 732-925-4044. In our initial conversation we will discuss what the goals of your website are and who your target market is. Next we will plan out your website, documenting all aspects to ensure the website meets all of your goals and needs. After all the planning is done, and a domain name and hosting account are bought, we can start actually designing and building out your website. Depending on the complexity of your website and our work load, your website can be done in as little as 1 week.

So stop losing customers because your business doesn't have a website or has a bad website and give us a call at 732-925-4044 or fill out our contact form to get started on building your web presence.

One of the hardest aspects of developing a website is ensuring that it's not confusing to your visitors. Chances are that you are trying to sell or provide more information about your products or services on your website. Usually with specified products and services there are industry terms and phrases everyday users may not understand the way you do. You have to think like the visitor and make sure your website is easy to understand for visitors. Here are 3 tips to avoid confusing your website visitors.

1. Confusing Navigation

If a visitor cannot navigate through your website, it's pretty much useless! Think about it. If you visited a website, wanted to learn more about a product or service, but when you clicked the link nothing happened or you're taken to another website. Your main navigation needs to be clear and to the point. Usually these are the standards: Home, About Us, Services/Products, Contact Us. These should be clear to a visitor so if they want to contact you, read more about your company, products or services, they can do so easily with a simple navigation system.

This doesn't mean it cannot have a complex design. As long as the website is cross-browser compatible and the navigation is easy to use, you will not have problems with confusing visitors.

2. Confusing Text

Every industry has terms and phrases that are specific to that industry, and you want to use them so others in the industry know that you are professional. However, over using industry specific terms can make reading and understanding your website content difficult. Try to keep the use of industry specific text limited to where it is necessary. When describing your services/products, or what your company does, industry specific terms should be kept to a minimum.

3. Confusing Calls To Action

A call to action is a distinguished area on a web page that usually leads the user to a form to request more information from you. The idea is to lure the visitor to click the call to action and submit a request for more information or purchase your product. Having confusing calls to action helps nobody. You will end up leading visitors away from where they really need to be and they will end up leaving your website. Keep calls to action simple and to the point and they will be successful.

Representing your business with a confusing website is unacceptable and if your website is confusing, you should be looking to fix it. Contact us today to learn more about our free website usability analysis and how we can help make your website less confusing to your visitors.

There are many reasons that business websites fail. Some websites can easily be fixed and some will take a little more effort. What's certain is that these tips will help your business website be more successful. Here are 5 reasons most business websites fail.

1. No Content or Old Content

Depending on how your website is setup, this could be easy or hard. With a content management system, adding new content and updating your website should be easy. If you don't have a content management system, you may need to hire a developer to add pages to your website, or add a content management system to your website. Whichever method you choose, get your website updated! And often.

2. No Way To Interact

Why would a visitor come back to your website if there's nothing in it for them? One of the biggest search terms in search engines is free. If you can give something away, offer specials to mailing list subscribers, and social media fans. The more you interact with visitors, the greater chance of them coming back and referring friends.

3. Ugly Design

Nobody likes an ugly website. Though, design should always be second to functionality, nobody wants to look at an ugly website. At the very least, ensure that your text is easy to read. Make sure your text color isn't too similar to the background the text is on.

4. Confusing Navigation

This is an issue I see way too many times. Confusing navigation. When considering your websites main navigation, think like a visitor. What do they want to know? Why are they visiting your website. If you offer a service, include a services link in the main navigation, if you offer products, include a products link in the main navigation. Other standards for main navigation include, home, contact us, and about us. Make it as easy as possible for users to find what you are selling them.

5. Errors

Coding errors on your website will turn off visitors. Coding errors can make your site not look good by distorting certain code, or make your website not even function at all. Ensuring your website is error-less in at least 3 of the most popular browsers will reduce your chances of losing visitors due to coding errors.

Need help making your website more successful? Contact us today and we will give you a free analysis to determine what you can do to make your website successful.

With the advancement of cell phone and other hand held technologies, the need to accommodate for different screen resolutions has become a popular topic. Should every website accommodate every different screen resolution? Which resolutions should you be concentrating on? This article will help explain what screen resolution you should be designing your websites for.

Use Your Analytics

The first stop is analytics. If you already have a website and have some analytical software, such as Google Analytics, you should be able to easily find out what screen resolutions your visitors are using.

If you are using Google Analytics, here is how to find what screen resolutions your visitors are using. After logging in to your account, click view profile for the website your are looking for. On the next page, there should be a link on the left hand side of the page that says Visitors. When the visitors page loads, you should see sub navigation under the Visitors link. Click Browser Capabilities then Screen Resolutions. Here you will see a list of all of the screen resolutions your visitors are using and how many users visited with that same resolution.

Do Some Research

Talk to your client about their products, services, and target audience. Your audience will play a major role in deciding what screen resolutions to design for. For instance, if you are targeting college students, including designs for hand held devices might be advantageous for you.

Fluid vs. Static Layout

A fluid layout can expand and contract depending on the screen resolution of the user. If including lower resolutions is important but you don't want to have completely different designs, a fluid layout might be what you are looking for. There are many templates out there for fluid CSS and HTML layouts. And if you don't want to use a template, custom coding a fluid isn't that hard. But that's for another article.

A static layout is a layout the has a set width and doesn't change with the users screen resolution. While a static layout is viewable on hand held devices, users have to scroll to the sides to view content that doesn't fit on the screen, which can get annoying.

How many times have you seen business owners with email addresses from yahoo.com or aol.com? How many times have you seen business owners with there own domain name that still use a yahoo or aol email account? Are you still using a yahoo or aol email account for your business? Here are 3 reasons why you should be using an email account from your domain.

1. Looks More Professional

Do you think receiving a business email from a yahoo email address looks better or an email address from a business domain name? Using an email address with your domain name will make you and your company look more professional.

2. Easier To Remember

Believe it or not, more people will forget an aol.com or yahoo.com before they forget your domain name. Associating your business name in your domain name will make it easier for people to associate you with your business and your email account.

3. Associates Your Company Name

Keeping your company name fresh in clients head is important and using and email address with your company name in it is a great way to do this. Including your company name in your domain name will help clients more easily recognize you and your business.

Do you need help setting up a domain name or email account? No problem! We can help you set up as many email addresses as you may need. Contact us today and let us know how we can help.

Inbound links build your reputation and credibility among search engines (and potential customers for that matter). These inbound links (often called backlinks) also allow search engines to more easily find you, rank you and get you on the search lists. Not all backlinks are created equal, however.

Links that come from legitimate sites are best. If you are linked from a very popular site – even better. But purchased links from “link farms” might actually do more harm than good. It may sound daunting, but you can build a solid base of backlinks the right way if you are patient and
consistent in your efforts.

The first step is to set up links from all of your own domains. Your blog, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and any other social media outlets should all include links to your website. When you post entries on these outlets, include links to your site, as appropriate. When others “retweet” these links, you get exponential exposure.

You can also ask partners and affiliates to add links to their websites. It’s probably a good idea to return the favor too. Consider a section on your website that highlights the “products I use” or “services I recommend.” You’ll be amazed at how this will not only help your SEO rank, but it will increase your referrals too.

When possible, try to insert keywords into the anchor text (the text that acts as the link, such as click here or learn more). A keyword rich link might read The Gilbert Plumber or My Web Design Business. This will greatly increase your keyword credibility and skyrocket your search engine rankings.

Local Search Listings

If you provide products or services to local customers, a local search listing is a great way to increase your search engine exposure. When someone is looking for a localized provider, Google will often send them to their local listings.

To put your business on the map (literally), go to www.google.com/places. Select “Add New Business” to enter your business address, details, category, photos and more. Google will have to confirm your address with a phone call or a postcard
sent to your address. Once confirmed, you’ll begin appearing in local searches… and your rankings will improve ignificantly.

Keywords, inbound links and local search listings are a great way to get your website recognized in organic searches. And the best part? It’s totally free!

Brian Ackerman of BAECA LLC decided that this was going to be the year he got online and created an online presence for his business. Though the website is very simple at this point, functionality can always be added as his business grows and is needed.

BAECA is a freelance drafting company that provides AutoCAD services for engineers, contractors and architects. Read more about BAECA at baeca.net.

This simple, yet stylish gallery is sure to impress your visitors. The Strip Photo Gallery uses 2 jQuery scripts including thickbox and jcarousel. Thickbox is used to enlarge the images when clicked on and jcarousel is used to actually display the images. With a little styling you can have a custom jquery photo gallery in no time!

Download the jQuery strip photo gallery here.

Step 1: Include javascript and css files

    <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/thickbox.css" type="text/css"/>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/tango_skin.css" type="text/css"/>
    <script src="js/jquery.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
    <script src="js/jquery.jcarousel.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
    <script src="js/thickbox.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Step 2: Initialize the gallery

    <script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8">   
        $(document).ready(function(){
            $("#gallery .open").click(function(){
                toggle('#gallery .active');

                $("#gallery_list").jcarousel({
                    wrap: 'circular',
                    animation: 1000
                });
            });

            $("#gallery .close").click(function(){
                toggle('#gallery .active');
            });
        });

        //<![CDATA[
        function toggle(id)
        {
            $(id).animate({"width": "toggle"}, { duration: 600 });
        }
        //]]>
    </script>

Step 3: the HTML

<div id="content">
        <div id="gallery">
            <a href="#" class="open" onclick="return false;"><img  src="images/photo_gallery_button.gif" alt="Photo Gallery"/></a>

            <div class="active">
                <ul id="gallery_list">
                    <li><a title="Your Caption" rel="gallery" href="images/1.jpg" class="thickbox"><img src="images/1.jpg" alt=""/></a></li>
                    <li><a title="Your Caption" rel="gallery" href="images/2.jpg" class="thickbox"><img src="images/2.jpg" alt=""/></a></li>
                    <li><a title="Your Caption" rel="gallery" href="images/3.jpg" class="thickbox"><img src="images/3.jpg" alt=""/></a></li>
                    <li><a title="Your Caption" rel="gallery" href="images/4.jpg" class="thickbox"><img src="images/4.jpg" alt=""/></a></li>
                    <li><a title="Your Caption" rel="gallery" href="images/5.jpg" class="thickbox"><img src="images/5.jpg" alt=""/></a></li>
                    <li><a title="Your Caption" rel="gallery" href="images/6.jpg" class="thickbox"><img src="images/6.jpg" alt=""/></a></li>
                    <li><a title="Your Caption" rel="gallery" href="images/7.jpg" class="thickbox"><img src="images/7.jpg" alt=""/></a></li>
                    <li><a title="Your Caption" rel="gallery" href="images/8.jpg" class="thickbox"><img src="images/8.jpg" alt=""/></a></li>
                    <li><a title="Your Caption" rel="gallery" href="images/9.jpg" class="thickbox"><img src="images/9.jpg" alt=""/></a></li>
                    <li><a title="Your Caption" rel="gallery" href="images/10.jpg" class="thickbox"><img src="images/10.jpg" alt=""/></a></li>
                </ul>
                <a class="close"><img src="images/gallery_close.gif" alt="close"/></a>
                <div class="clear"></div>
            </div>
            <div class="clear"></div>
        </div>
    </div>

As we move into a new year, trends are looking to stay similar to what they have been to effectively promote your website and company. Content is still king, email marketing is still the best form of marketing and search engine optimization is going to be around for a long time.

Content

As I've said in many articles, content is king. Keeping your website updated with fresh relevant content is a key part of search engine optimization. And it will also keep your visitors interested in your products and services. A website that has not been updated in several months looks like an inactive website. Keep your website updates with new fresh content.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is on the top of the list for marketing your website. Staying connected with your visitors through a personalized forum such as email helps build strong connections and encourages communication. Email marketing can be highly targeted and reach out to a huge audience for much less than any traditional marketing method.

Social Networking

Search engines now index the social content found on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.. So posting relevant content on these social networking sites will give search engines the idea that you have an active community of followers and your website is offering relevant information in your industry.

Even though it is a new year, website marketing trends are going to remain the same. The key word here is relevance. Have as much relevant content on your website and keep it fresh and your website will be a success.

With a new year coming up and a bunch of scheduled appearances at Barnes & Noble, Borders, and other book stores, Norah Marler's new website will assist in promoting her book as well as showcase her schedule of appearances, and methods to contact her for media interviews, speaking engagements, appearance requests, book signings, etc..

About Norah Marler

Norah Marler is the guardian spirit behind the popular new No More Dating Pigs website. The site has given women a supportive shoulder to cry on and a forum in which to kick their bad habit and reach for less hurtful, more nourishing lives. Norah greets her public as a friend. She’ls every woman, a single female with tons of experience, lots of friends, and twenty years on the dating circuit. Readers can trust her expertise. As a motivational and an author, she’ls is warm, authentic and “one of us.” Read more at norahmarler.com

A Simple High Quality Website, Done Extremely Fast

This website was designed and coded all in 1 week. With her appearances starting on January 8th, we wanted to have the website up and running as soon as possible to help promote her appearances. The site has to ability to grow and as the need come we will be adding more features in the future.

Visit website: http://www.norahmarler.com/

The new year symbolizes new beginnings. A fresh start. And why not start 2011 with an upgraded web presence for business. Here are 3 reasons with upgrade your web presence in 2011.

1. Get more business

Most people when looking for a product or service go to the internet. And it's easy to understand why. It's relatively easy to find information, and there is a ton of information available. The ability to compare products or read reviews of products or services can be the deciding factor for a visitor. A professional website developer will be able to assist in a website plan that will draw visitors and get you more business.

2. Be the first in your business

Many people think since none of their competition has a website, there is no need for them to have a website. If you think that nobody in your industry has a website, try searching for it. Go to Google.com and enter your product or service. If nobody else has a website then you are in a great position to be number 1 on Google, which leads you back to number 1. More traffic and more business.

While this would be great, but the it's highly unlikely that you will be the first to start a website in your industry. But this doesn't mean you can't still be number 1. With an interactive website and website marketing plan, you can compete on the internet with any website in your industry.

3. Develop better customer relationships

Giving your customers updates even just a few times a month will keep you fresh on their minds. So the next time they are thinking about your product, your name comes up first in their head. A website with a content management system will allow you to add content whenever you would like. This includes adding pictures, links, and formatted text with an easy to use Microsoft Word like text editor called a WYSIWYG(what you see is what you get).

My recommendation, do some research. Talk to a few web developers and get to understand the process that will be followed while your website is being developed. Know exactly what you are getting before signing any agreements. A website plan should be carefully planned out and agreed upon before any actual work begins.

If you're considering investing in a website for your restaurant, you may be considering whether you need a database or not. This can be a tough decision to make if you don't know exactly what advantages and disadvantages a database can offer your website. Here are 3 reasons you might want a database for your restaurant website.

Does your menu ever change?

Very few restaurant menu's stay the same. Of course, your diners favorites will always be on the menu, but sometimes changing things up can move old favorites out and new ones in. In order to get these changes on your website, in most cases a database and content management system make this process much faster and easier to accomplish.

A database offers a localized area for strictly the content of your menu. Without a database, you may have to edit multiple files, which you then have to test and ensure that you entered the content correctly. If you're changing specials or menu items often, you can see where a database would come in handy. Editing and testing many files will take time, and if you're paying to update your website, cost you more money.

Do you want diners to be able to sign up for your mailing list?

Mailing lists are a great way to build relationships with your customers, and to have a mailing list, you need a database. Even if the diners information gets emailed directly to you, you still have to store it somewhere, adding another step of manual work. With a database, you can store as many email addresses as you would like, for long as you would like, and access them whenever you would like.

Do you want to be able to add photo galleries to your website?

After having events, or adding items to your menu, or getting a new sign, you might want to show pictures on your website, and a database gives you the availability to store your photos and add and organize photo galleries. This can be accomplished without a database, but involves manually editing HTML files, and depending how many files the images are used in, you may have to edit many files. A database keeps everything neat and organized, making migrating to a new website a much easier process.

As you can see, technically, your restaurant website doesn't need a database. However, if you want great restaurant website, that you can easily update without having to constantly pay someone to update it for you, a database is the way to go. Still unsure whether or not your restaurant website needs a database? Contact us and we would be glad to answer any questions you might have.

1. Why most small business websites fail

Google has built a billion dollar business on a simple, powerful concept that can be summed up in a single word, Relevancy.

The problem is that most small business owners have this concept and fail to perform as a result. Understanding this concept and applying it will put you ahead of your competitors.

http://www.revolutionunlimited.com/news-and-articles/search-engine-optimization/2010-08-18/why-most-small-business-websites-fail 638

2. Simple show & hide with jQuery using an onchange event

Show or hide items based on a <select> option value

Recently I was working on a website with a registration page that needed to add a country selection. If you don't know, not all countries have states, and in this case I was adding Canada, and they have provinces. The solution, if a user selects Canada, show the province drop-down, if a user selects United States, show the state drop-down. Here is a simple script to show and hide form elements.

http://www.revolutionunlimited.com/news-and-articles/javascript-jquery/2010-09-22/simple-show-and-hide-with-jquery-using-an-onchange-event 265

3. jQuery Slideshow with the jQuery Cycle Plugin

Some of the most popular jquery scripts are slideshow/photo gallery scripts, and there are tons of them out there. This article is about one of my personal favorites, the jQuery cycle plugin. The jQuery cycle plugin provides many different type of transitional effects as well as support for pause-on-hover, auto-stop, auto-fit, before/after callbacks, click triggers and much more.

http://www.revolutionunlimited.com/news-and-articles/javascript-jquery/2010-05-19/jquery-slideshow-with-the-jquery-cycle-plugin 158

4. Show and hide with jQuery

Simple, yet very powerful, jQuery show() and hide() functions give you the ability to show and hide content on the fly.  These functions are useful when you have long content that may cause vertical scrolling, "tabbed" sections, and more.  Put together with the click() function, which you can read about in my article "jQuery for beginners", in this article I will demonstrate how to use the show() and hide() functions along with the click() function.

/news-and-articles/javascript-jquery/2010-02-04/show-and-hide-with-jquery 80

5. Fancy corners done the easy way, with jQuery!

Corners used to take time styling with css and images, but not anymore

The robust features and new jQuery plugins never stop amazing me. This one has been around for a while and is one of my favorite plugins. With the jQuery corner plugin you can transform any boring div, paragraph or button into a fancy designed box with a cool border. The jQuery corner plugin is light weight and has support for most browsers. The plugin has tons of options and with a little styling you can really make any element look different from other elements on your website.

http://www.revolutionunlimited.com/news-and-articles/javascript-jquery/2010-08-24/fancy-corners-done-the-easy-way-with-jquery 80

6. Fun with jQuery: Tetris

jQuery isn't all boring code

It's Friday and who wants to read another article about marketing your website? In the spirit of the Friday, I have a cool demo of a classic tetris game done entirely in jQUery, html and css. It's not the most robust game, but it sure is addictive.

http://www.revolutionunlimited.com/news-and-articles/javascript-jquery/2010-08-27/fun-with-jquery-tetris 68

7. 5 benefits of an e-commerce restaurant website

How can your restaurant website benefit from e-commerce?

Online ordering is the biggest trend in restaurant websites, and in order to keep up with the chain restaurants, you need to get on this trend. But don't just do it because everyone else is. There are many advantages to having e-commerce functionality on your restaurant website. Here are 5 benefits of having an e-commerce restaurant website.

http://www.revolutionunlimited.com/news-and-articles/ecommerce/2010-11-09/5-benefits-of-an-e-commerce-restaurant-website 45

8. Do you want an image gallery on your website?

Setting up an image gallery with jQuery is quick and easy

All over the internet, you can find beautiful image galleries. Some of these image galleries use flash, which can be really nice, but also cost a lot more and take more time to implement than a jQuery image gallery. This article will give you some examples of image galleries that are easy to implement, quick to code, and are simple to customize.

http://www.revolutionunlimited.com/news-and-articles/javascript-jquery/2010-07-21/do-you-want-an-image-gallery-on-your-website 43

9. 5 search engine optimization tasks you can accomplish in a few hours

You don't need to be afraid of search engine optimization, it's not that difficult

Search engine optimization is not that difficult of a task, and you can accomplish a lot in just a few hours. SEO is all about understanding your customers and your market, and optimizing your content for your customers. If you have thousands of pages, this may take some time, but it can be done. With a little research and patience you can optimize your content for search engines with ease. The following 5 search engine optimization tips are some simple techniques to help you optimize your content for search engines and your users.

http://www.revolutionunlimited.com/news-and-articles/search-engine-optimization/2010-07-28/5-search-engine-optimization-tasks-you-can-accomplish-in-a-few-hours 40

10. Email marketing: avoid hitting the spam folder

A big problem with email marketing is your messages ending up in the spam folder or not even being deliverd to the intended recipient.  Even worse, you can end up on black lists for sending out spam.  Once you get on a black list it is very difficult to get off.  Here are a few ways to avoid your emails ending in the spam folder.

http://www.revolutionunlimited.com/news-and-articles/marketing/2010-01-27/email-marketing-avoid-hitting-the-spam-folder/

"Cyber Monday", the online equivalent to "Black Friday", was the first day in history that online spending broke the billion dollar mark. Not only is this great news for the economy, it's great news for everyone who has an ecommerce website. This being the beginning of the season, it's expected that there will be more billion dollar breaking days for ecommerce spending.

The chart below shows the online spending totals starting November 1st, through Cyber Monday November 29th and the percentage change. In 2009, Cyber Monday spending totals were $887 million compared to this years $1,028 million, a 16% increase. Overall, every week since November 1st, online spending has been up every day.

The next graph illustrates the change in weekly spending. Online spending has was up last year, and from the looks of the graph, this year will be much higher than last year. The numbers are also higher than the numbers from 2007 which was before the recession. This shows that investing in an ecommerce website is well worth it.

It might be too late to start your ecommerce website for this years holiday season, but if the trend continues next year will be better than this year, with many days breaking the billion dollar mark. With aggressive online marketing plans, we may even see more days during the year exceeding the billion dollar mark. So if you're considering starting an ecommerce website, now is the time.

All of the charts, graphs and information in this article has been provided by comScore.com. comScore is a global Internet information provider to which leading companies turn for consumer behavior insight that drives successful marketing, sales and trading strategies. Read more about comScore at comScore.com.

Think like your customers

First, take your customers point of view. Think about if you were searching for a company that offers the products or services your business offers. What would you search for? What keywords would you enter into the search engine? If I was looking for a local catering company, I would search for "catering new jersey" or if I was looking for a local restaurant website designer, I would search for "restaurant website designer new jersey". Think of all the possible words you can. You can even try looking at other websites that offer the same products to see the keywords they are using for ideas.

Keyword research

Next, go to the Google Keyword Tool and start entering you keyword phrases. The Google Keyword Tool will also offer similar keywords, local search trends, competition, monthly local and  global searches. Choosing the right keywords from this list to optimize your website can be difficult. A search engine optimization expert will be able to help you choose the right keywords.

More keyword research

Another website to take a look at is Google Insights. Google Insights allows you to enter phrases and see which get the most searches. You can search for specific time periods or locations and compare which phrases would be best to optimize for.

Apply your keywords

After collecting a list of the best keywords, it's time to start using them! Try to include your keywords on every page of your website, in links, meta titles, headings, etc.. The more you use your keywords the better. Try to dedicate 1-3 key phrases to a page, but don't make your text illegible. Repeating keywords over and over is called keyword stuffing and search engines don't take kindly to it.

Check keyword density

This is important. After all of your research and updating all of your content and adding content including your keywords and key phrases, you need to check the keyword density. You should be looking for a keyword density around 4%, too much more than 4% and search engines may think you are keyword stuffing, which we know is not good. You can find free keyword density tools by searching Google.

Choosing the best keywords and phrases, and using them right, can be difficult. If you don't understand the data presented by keywords research tools and keyword density tools, you may be wasting your time. A search engine optimization expert will be able to help you choose the right keywords and optimize your content using those keywords.

Internetnews.com says "According to Web metrics firm comScore, which reported on Tuesday that sales for the first three weeks of November have surged 13 percent ahead of the same period a year ago." An aggressive email marketing and online advertising campaign can help your business reach these same numbers. An email marketing expert will be able to assist your business in getting more business through your website for the holiday season.

According to ecommerce-guide.com, online spending is supposed to pass totals from 2007 before the recession and reach the highest we have ever seen. If this is not reason enough to start selling your products online, I don't know what is. If online spending is going to be the highest this year that it has ever been, imagine what the future holds. Ecommerce-guide.com says sales are projected at around $32.4 billion for November and December. And this is fresh out of a recession.

What are the advantages of having an ecommerce website?

1. Open 24/7

Your website is open and can accept orders 24/7. This may be the biggest benefit to having an ecommerce website. Customers can shop whenever they want and you don't have to do anything.

2. Highly targeted advertising

Online advertising has been a huge part of the success of ecommerce websites. An email marketing company will be able to assist you in developing a plan that will entice customers to your website and figure out what they like, and what they don't.

3. Customer loyalty

Personally, if I have a good experience buying off a website, I will go back to order from them again. Having an ecommerce website that functions properly is essential to getting the best out of your website.

4. Analytical data

The data gained from your ecommerce website is invaluable. You can easily track what products customers are viewing most, buying most, and leaving in their carts the most. Following these trends you will be able to offer special deals on products you know your customers like the most.

These are just a few advantages of having an ecommerce website. Contact us to learn more about starting an ecommerce website and if an ecommerce website is right for your business.

Start the new year off on the right foot with a great website for your business! In the spirit of the holiday season, we're offering 20% off on all of our website design, website development, and website re-design services from now through January 1st 2011. The new year is a time to start fresh, so start it off right with a great website!

20% off all new website design, website development, & website re-designs

Website Design & Development

Need a new website for your business? Now is the time to get started with Revolution Unlimited's website design and development services. Included with your new website is:

• custom content management system
• custom website design
• search engine optimization analysis
• keyword analysis
• 20% off!

Start the new year off right with a brand new website from Revolution Unlimited! Contact us today to get started on your new website.

Website re-design

Have you been looking to give a face lift to your website? Or maybe you wanted to add some new features, a mailing list, photo gallery, etc.? The new year is a great time to start over. Show your customers that you want to start the new year strong by adding new features and making your website more interactive.

10% off on search engine optimization and email marketing

Email Marketing

Let your customers know about your big plans for the new year with an html email. Email marketing has the highest return on investment, yet I believe it is not used to it's potential by most businesses. Creating targeted emails can get great results for your business. Contact us today to learn more about our email marketing plans.

Search Engine Optimization

Get your website on page 1 of the search engines in 2011 with our search engine optimization services. Included with our search engine optimization plans is:

• keyword analysis
• keyword density
• meta tag optimization
• search engine submission
• content and link building
• 10% off!

Get started on your website resolution

What's your new years resolution? If increasing your business's online presence is on the list, and it should be, contact us today. The 20% discount is only good until January 1st, so don't wait!

1. Frog and The Peach

This is an example of a great restaurant website. It's has a lot of pages and they are all text based and easily crawllable by search engines. This gives visitors plenty to read about, share, and want to be a part of. All of the content is HTML and CSS based with flash and javascript to enhance the user experience.

Text menu

Frog and The Peach has their entire menu in text on their website. This is great for search engines. When a user is searching for ingredients on your menu, they will be led right to your website. They also have their Thanksgiving menu online, which has many marketing advantages, including my 5 restaurant marketing tips.

Online reservations

Frog and The Peach offer online reservations through a popular online reservation platform called opentable.com. This system works well, except for you have to go to opentable.com and leave your website.

2. Copeland: New American Cuisine & Martini Bar Morristown New Jersey

Coperland is another example of a great restaurant website. Though it's not as big as the Frog and The Peach website, it is HTML and CSS based which makes it easily crawlable by search engines.

Promotions

Coperland has their special promotions as a page in their main website navigation. Visitors considering dining at Coperland can see the special promotions and be enticed to dine at your restaurant.

Online reservations

Like Frog and The Peach, Coperland uses opentable.com to make online reservations. If your restaurant takes reservations, you should offer them on your website. That makes copelandrestaurant.com a great website.

What would I do differently?

Social networking

Facebook and Twitter at the very least. Facbook users can tag pictures with your location as well as post being at your restaurant. This will also be posted on all of their friends walls, it's pretty much free advertising. Twitter keeps getting more and more popular. Tweeting daily specials can gain a strong community of followers.

Email list

An email list is great for restaurants because you can offer great deals to your most loyal customers and keep them coming back for more. You can also learn from your email list, what specials your customers like and what they don't.

Is your favorite restaurant having a Thanksgiving day special? How did you find out about it? Was it through the restaurant website, by email, socail networking website, or by visiting the restaurant? If your restaurant website is equipped with the right tools, it can help get the word out about your Thanksgiving day specials. Here are 5 advantages of having a website for your restaurant on Thanksgiving.

1. Offer specials on your website

Your restaurant website is a great place to advertise your Thanksgiving day specials. According to Google, there are about 246,000 searches for "NJ Restaurant" per month. That's about 8,200 searches per day. Don't you want to get in on some of those searches? Since most restaurants specialize in 1 type of food, ranking highly in local searches for that term can be quite easy, as long as you have a good website.

2. Offer even better specials to mailing list subscribers

Your mailing list subscribers are like website visitors, but better. They are people who want to be updated about your specials and events. So if you haven't already, think of a special offer for your mailing list subscribers and send it out early so they get the first chance to make reservations

3. Early reservations

Making reservations for Thanksgiving day can be tough if you don't get to it early. So why not make it as easy as possible to make reservations on your website. If a visitor was looking for Thanksgiving day specials and found your restaurant website, you are already half way there to having them in the restaurant.

4. Post your Thanksgiving day menu

If you're restaurant is open on Thanksgiving, you're most likely offering a special menu. Let people know about your special menu on your website. This is great for search engine optimization because anyone who may be searching for what you're offering will be able to find it more easily.

5. Sharing is caring

Most importantly, having your Thanksgiving day specials on your website allows visitors to share your specials with their friends. I believe the best way to spread to word about something is through word of mouth and referrals. Your website is 1 of the easiest ways to share information.

These 5 benefits of having a restaurant website can help you increase your business when you have a special menu or offer. But if your website has not be developed to handle these activities you could be losing out. Contact us today and we can help make your website a hot spot for potential dining customers.

If times are tough or your just need a change, a rebranding might be what you need. Re-branding isn't just about appearance, it's about restructuring and fine tuning your business plan to help increase production and profit. Here are 8 tips hot to successfully re-brand your business.

1. Start with a good plan

As I always say, a good plan is key for anything, especially when it's your business. Really think out your idea and exactly what you want to do to re-brand your business. Create attainable goals and strive to meet them all.

2. Change is inevitable, be ready for it

No matter how good of a plan you have, things will change. So be prepared for change and having to make quick decisions in order to keep your plans moving along. In my opinion, this is one of the most important aspects of running a business. There will always be something to address and things to change to stay fresh and ahead of your competition.

3. Talk to your customers, employees, family and friends

Ask your customers, employees, family and friends what they think of your new ideas. Get feedback and make changes accordingly. Your ideas might seem great to you, but others may be able to help you think outside the box and make them even better.

4. Think inside and outside the box when marketing

Don't just research your core customer demographics trends and activities, think about other areas and groups you may want to target as well. Thinking outside the box can help you reach a potential customer base that your wouldn't have if you stayed inside the box.

5. Learn about your competition

Know your competition. See what they are doing and what is working for them. Chances are, if you're in the same niche, the same marketing techniques will work.

6. Rethink your customer base

This goes back to thinking outside the box. Of course, existing customers are going to be your main concern, but look out into other groups that your business may be able to help with your products or services and market towards them.

7. Create a plan of action and stick to it

Putting in time and dedication are essential to the success of any business. And that's why most businesses fail, because they don't want to put in the work. Re-branding your business can be a very time consuming but it will pay off in the end. And as your stick to your plan, you can adjust it to trends and see what works best and what doesn't work.

8. Communicate your plans clearly with your employees

If you have a staff, let them know your plans. Let them know about important deadlines and milestone dates so everyone stays on track and you meet your goals.

While re-branding your business, your website should be a major concern. Keeping it up to date and including the your website and social media in your new business image could be your key to success. Contact us today to get a free website consultation and we will let you know what you can do to re-brand your businesses online presence.

A new website will be coming soon from Revolution Unlimited and Pixel Progression. The Camerato Landscaping website will help with their business by giving their existing customers an easy way to reach out to them as well as giving new customers an easy way to find and contact them. The website will feature a custom design, custom content management system, a photo gallery, contact forms and more.

By having a website, Camerato Landscaping will benefit by having a 24/7 store front. When people need information about something whether it's a restaurant, landscaping company, or website design company, they go to the internet. Having a website with all of their information, including contact numbers, email addresses and contact forms, as well as links to social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter, will create a social networking hub centralized around their website.

Be on the lookout with in the next month for the launch of the Camerato Landscaping website.

Need a New Jersey landcaping company? Contact Camerato Landscaping at 732-553-9410.

A large number of new websites fail because of some very fundamental website design and development mistakes. Here are 5 reasons your website might be failing.

1. No/Bad planning

The most important part of a website is planning. If you use bad plans to build a house, the house won't stand. The same is true for your website. Planning is step 1 of our 6 step website development process and probably the most important step. Working with an experienced website developer will ensure your website is properly planned and suites your needs.

2. No website marketing plan

You can have the best website in the world, but if nobody can find it, what does it matter? Your website needs to be marketed towards your target audience using social media, print marketing, and email marketing. And your solution isn't going to be found using just 1 method. A combination of social media marketing, print marketing, and email marketing will get you the best results.

3. Inexperienced website developer

In tough economic times, investing in a high quality website might not be a top priority on your list, but it could be causing your website to fail. Investing in your website will leave you with an end product that you are happy with and suites all of your business or organizations needs.

4. Inconsistency

Consistency is key on the web. Your navigation should be in the same place on every page. Your page titles, links, and paragraph text should all look the same. This ensures that visitors will be able to easily identify key areas on your website and find the information they are looking for.

5. Lack of dedication and time

A website takes a lot of time and dedication in order to be successful. Patience is key. Before a website is even designed most people are asking how to be number 1 on google. You have to start at step 1 and develop a great website plan. Work with your website developer and plan the exact website you are looking for. After you have planned a great website, put time into updating it regularly and building links to your website. The more you put in the more you get out.

In order to prevent your website from failing, you need to choose a professional website developer. A professional will know exactly what questions to ask you and how to come up with the best plan for your website. Contact us to get started on your new website today.

With the growth of technology and the internet, more users have more experience on the internet. More experienced users expect certain functionality from your website and if you're not giving them what they want, they'll leave. Here are a few tips to help you ensure you aren't turning visitors away.

Cross-browser compatibility

Browsers have gotten much better over the past 5 years and are becoming more and more standard compliant, however, browser testing is still a must. Ensuring you're website functions in multiple browsers and browser versions is essential to a successful website.

Show how you're different

How are you different from the next guy selling the same service or product? What makes you better? Why should I choose you over them? Be sure to answer these questions with your website content. Establish what exactly makes you better or different from the crowd.

Convey your message

Build your brand. Have a theme that conveys how you want people to feel and think of you when they visit your website for the first time. This has become increasingly important with the growth of technology. Use your website to show a little more depth about you and your company.

Easy to navigate

This is a must. Users expect to be able to easily navigate through your content to find what they need. Utilizing CSS and HTML you can create a great navigation system. Try to stay away from navigation the uses images, relies on JavaScript, or flash. Not all users have these plug-ins installed and will not be able to use your website at all. Website usability 101.

Effective calls to action

Use effective calls to action to guide your users towards the end result that you are looking for. Whether it is getting a sales lead or selling a product, use effective calls to action to guide the user to do exactly what you want them to.

Content readability

Make sure you use proper grammar, spelling, and your text is easy to see. Everyone's monitor and computer settings are different. Try to get others opinions or use others computers to see how your website design looks in different circumstances. You would be surprised what you find.

This list will help you create a website that is usable for most users. But this is only the tip of the website usability ice berg. Click here to read more about website usability. Contact us today and we'll conduct a FREE website usability consultation for your website.

Online ordering is the biggest trend in restaurant websites, and in order to keep up with the chain restaurants, you need to get on this trend. But don't just do it because everyone else is. There are many advantages to having e-commerce functionality on your restaurant website. Here are 5 benefits of having an e-commerce restaurant website.

1. Convenience

Everyone is looking for convenience and online ordering is as convenient as it gets. All a visitor needs to do is find your website, and they can instantly place an order. Offering online ordering can increase sales by getting impulse sales as well.

2. Pick-up/delivery orders

What's better than a pick-up/delivery order? You sell your food for the same price, plus a delivery charge if applicable, and don't have to worry about sitting them, serving them, and cleaning up after them. Plus, many of the bigger chain restaurants offer online ordering with special parking for pick-up. Keeping up with bigger restaurants trends might be what your restaurant website needs.

3. Offer similar items

When a customer adds an item to their shopping cart, you can offer them similar items. During the website development process, talk to your developer about this. By associating items that visitor often order together you can make suggestions. Or you can set your website up to offer similar items yourself manually.

4. People order more

Especially when you show them similar items and tell them to! It's just like waiting in line at the grocery store. Occasionally you'll see a magazine or a candy bar that you can't resist.

5. Return customers

After a customer places and order, their information is saved in your database. You can use this information at a later date for email marketing and traditional mail marketing. You can also ask them for opinions and recommendations about your food, service, and website.

As you can see, having an e-commerce restaurant website has many benefits. Contact us to learn more about how we can plan the perfect e-commerce restaurant website for you.

According to merriam-webster.com, revolution is defined as a sudden, radical, or complete change; a fundamental change in the way of thinking about or visualizing something : a change of paradigm <the Copernican revolution>. Revolution Unlimited, to me, stands for constantly changing. Website design and development is all about change and keeping up with change and staying ahead of the curve is what sets us apart.

What's so different about us?

Everything. A unique partnership with Pixel Progression has lead to many innovative ideas. We think outside the box and apply it to the web. Almost anything is possible, all you have to do is be creative. When creating dynamic, interactive websites, you are free to do just about anything. So if you have an idea, chances are, it can be done!

Interactive website design

If you have a website it needs to be interactive. Think of ways to get your users active. The best approach to this is to research your visitors. Using analytical statistics about your website, you can come up with interactive ideas suited to your visitors. You can almost create a customized atmosphere for a visitor.

Coming soon from Revolution Unlimited

Revolution Project Management

Revolution Project Management is a free web based project management system. The uses technologies such as PHP, MySQL, and AJAX/JavaScript. Some features include client management, add and edit client information, and user management, add and edit user, and set a users access level as admin, manager, or employee. As well as a ticketing system, to assign and keep track of tasks. Of course all of this can be modified, just contact us if you have an idea. Read more about our free web based project management system.

EventRaisers

EventRaisers.com is a free web based fund raising platform. Users are able to create a profile, then add their fund raising events. Visitors will be able to visit the fund raising event page, create/join a team or register as a solo individual, set goals, and take donations online. The only cost is a percentage of the total you raise, nothing comes out of your pocket to get your fund raising event online.

It's all about balance. You need an interactive website. You need a nice website design. You need solid website development. But if you're website isn't usable, it's all just a waste of time. Website usability is about making sure your visitors can find the information they need easily as well as have some fun doing so.

Finding a balance

Website usability is the balance of a great website design, a highly interactive website, and errorless website development. If your website looks great, but is hard to use, not interactive, and full of development errors, it probably won't be very usable. Too much of any of these three aspects will leave you with a website that is not usable.

Why should you care about website usability?

Well, do you want a website that your visitors can easily navigate and find information or a website that looks really nice but has errors and is hard to navigate? Too many times before even getting started on a new website, the first question I hear is "how will I get on page 1 of google".  While ranking highly in search engines is very important, focus on creating an enjoyable experience for your users first. Search engine rankings will come naturally and last longer if you provide a good website.

We can provide a balanced website

With over 10 years of experience in website design and development, website usability has always been our number 1 concern. We can prove an interactive website, with a custom design, and errorless coding. Contact us today about our website design and development services.

Everyone knows what a blog is today, and almost everyone is blogging. There are millions of blogs on the internet about every subject you could possibly imagine. Blogging has grown from being more of a personal diary to a must have for your business. Here are 8 tips to help liven up your business blog.

1. Tag your blog posts with keywords

Make sure your tags link to a search page for the keywords as well. This will not only allow your users to easily find related blog posts, but is also great for search engines.

2. Use a human voice

The internet has become much more informal than it used to be. Your blog posts should have a natural feel, like you are talking to someone. Show off your compassion, knowledge, and charisma in your blog posts. This will lead to establishing yourself as an authority in your niche.

3. Host your blog on your domain

I believe this is one of the most important tips in this article. There are many free blogging platforms available such as word press and blogger, that you can easily create a blog. But to get to your blog visitors have to leave your website and most likely won't be coming back.

4. Pay attention to your blog titles

People who subscribe to your blog are going to be looking at your titles to decide whether or not they want to read your posts. Make sure to include keywords as well as short, to the point blog titles. Try to include some of the keywords you are using in your blog post in the title as well.

5. Get a custom content management solution

Prebuilt systems can be great, but when it comes down to it, you need a system that is going to do exactly what you need it to and make it easy for your writers. There are many systems available, do some research and try some content management system demos to decide which is best for you.

6. Use multimedia in your posts

Don't just write long textual articles. Add some images, videos, where appropriate. You don't want to go over board with multimedia and lose focus on your text or slow the page load time.

7. Rewrite URLs to be user and search engine friendly

User friendly URLs are easier to read and give the user an idea of what the blog post will be about. Keep your URLs short and to the point, and try to include some of your keywords. What looks better to you:

http://www.yoursite.com?pg=100

OR

http://www.yoursite.com/blog/website-design-and-development

8. Be original

I think this has become more and more important. Anyone can blog about anything and many people start blogs about the most popular topics to try and get more traffic. A better approach is to find a subject that hasn't been flooded with tons of other posts. The same with keywords, the more niche specific your blog is, the more traffic you are likely to get.

Do you have a website for your business? If you do, is it a good website?

The most important aspect of starting a website or re-designing a website is working with a professional website designer. Here are 5 benefits of working with a NJ website designer.

1. Dynamic websites

Having a dynamic website is one of the most important aspects of search engine optimization. A dynamic website is constantly changing by adding new content. For search engines, this translates as your website being an active important website in your industry. It also allows you to constantly give your visitors new content to look forward to, come back to, and recommend to friends.

2. Interactive websites

Visitors to your website want something. Whether it's a free download, to make reservations at a restaurant, or to find a restaurant. Your website needs these features. An interactive website designer will be able to make suggestions to offer your visitors the best experience possible.

3. Search engine optimized websites

A good website designer knows how to code HTML using the best search engine optimization techniques. Including your keywords in heading tags, <h1>, <h2>, etc., alt tags in images, and title tags in links are great search engine optimization techniques. Even better if you have a dynamic website so you can constantly have the most optimized keywords.

4. Experienced website designer

Experience is very important when designing a website. Understanding how to structure the website in a manner that is easy to use but also not boring is tough. It takes a good eye, an understanding of website usability, and creativity.

5. Excellent communication

The process of designing a website takes a lot of communication. It's important to hire a website designer that has excellent communication skills. Being able to take ideas and make them into user friendly websites can be time consuming, but you benefit by getting a website that is tailored to exactly what you were looking for.

We have over 10 years of website design experience. Get started with a great website by contacting us today. We'll give you a free quote and/or free website analysis.

Coming soon for FREE from RevolutionUnlimited is the Revolution Project Manager. The Revolution Project Manager will be available for download within the next month. The system features:

• Create and manage tickets
• Create and manage clients
• Create and manage users
• 3 user levels: admin, manager, and employee
• Ticket priority: low, medium, and high
• Ticket status: opened, in review, updated, closed

Who is this system suitable for?

Anyone! If you run a business, this is a great way to delegate work and manage your employees and clients. The easy to use interface allows any user with the least computer experience to manage projects and delegate work.

How the ticket system works

To start, you add all of your clients. After adding your clients, you can start creating tickets for those clients. Your tickets will store information such as a title, description, priority, status, date created, and date due. When creating a ticket, you assign it to your employee and they will receive and email notifying them that that have a new ticket and the status is set to opened. After the employee completes the work, they set the status to in review and the ticket creator will be notified by email. If the ticket needs more attention, the status can be set to updated and the user will be notified by email that the ticket needs more attention. Once the ticket is completed, it's set to closed and the employee and ticket creator will be notified.

Manage your clients and employees

Along with managing and delegating your work, the Revolution Project Manager gives you the ability to store all of your client and employee information. Looking for a client's contact information or employees phone number? Just look it up with the simple search function.

User restrictions

The simple 3 user level system creates 3 distinct levels of control. Admin level users can do anything, view, create, edit, and delete users, tickets, and clients. Manager level users can create, manage, and edit tickets and view users. Employee level users can update ticket status and view users. All users will be able to view all tickets and users to help ensure everyone knows what's going on at all times.

The goal of the Revolution Project Manager is to increase productivity, help organize client and employee information, and delegate work. If you have any questions feel free to contact us.

99% of the time, before anything else this is the first question I get. And of course before you agree to anything you are going to want to know how much it will cost. You don't agree to a service contract before knowing what you'll get right? Well a website is the same. The more involved and complex your website is the more your website will cost. Here are 5 factors that will influence your website cost.

Custom website design

A custom website design is going to cost more than a website template. A website template is a website that has already been designed. While there is nothing wrong with using a website template, if you want a custom design it's going to cost more. A custom design takes time, and depending on how many revisions you want to make, it's going to take more time and cost more.

Dynamic website development

You want a website that is going to be able to evolve over time. Adding new pages and content is a must to keep your website visitors coming back and for search engine optimization. A static website can be boring and offer your visitors nothing to look forward to.

Content management system

If you're going to be adding content to your website, you're going to need a way to manage that content. A content management system can make updating your website as simple as creating a word document. Don't believe it? View our content management system demo.  A WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor makes creating rich content a breeze.

Special forms

Custom forms to set up appointments or request information are great to have on a website. They offer your visitors ways to interact with your website and your business. However, these forms can take a lot of time to develop and test. And if you're going to want to be able to export these requests, that's going to take more time. Keep this in mind when you are planning out your website.

Functionality

Enhanced functionality can create a great experience for you users. The constant development of social networking API's and other web tools enable you to create customized experiences for your website users. These enhancements are great, but they can take a considerable amount of time to setup, test, and get functioning correctly.

Time is money. And the more time that goes into developing and designing your website, the more your website will cost. Makes sense right? Coming up with an accurate website cost will take some time as well. Often it will take a few conversations for the website development company to get a complete understanding of exactly what you need and come up with a quote to fit your needs.

Sales, special offers, and a lot of shoppers make the holiday season prime time for having a solid email marketing plan. These 5 tips will help you on your way to a strong holiday email marketing plan.

Code for mobile email

Many people receive their email on their mobile phones. Ensuring your email is viewable on accessible by mobile phones is a must. You can also include a link to a mobile friendly URL for users who cannot view your email on their phones. It is estimated that around 20% of your email list subscribers view your email on their phone*. That's a big percentage to just dismiss.

Give email list subscribers special offers

If you're having a sale on your website, let your email list know before the general public. This will make them feel like they are getting something out of being a part of your email list, rather than just updates or spam. You can also offer special "member only" coupons. This is a great way to get repeat customers.

Last minute sales

As the holidays get closer, your titles can make a huge difference. Phrases such as "last chance" or "final offer" will entice users to go to your website and purchase your products. If you're running out of a certain item, let your email list know first as they are most likely the most qualified traffic to come to your website.

Creative email subjects

Come up with creative email subjects to entice your subscribers. When you check your email do you open the emails with generic titles? No, because you already know most of them are spam. A creative subject will entice subscribers to at least open your email to see what you have to offer.

Encourage sharing and social networking

Include links to share your email with friends. This is one of the most valuable marketing techniques in my opinion. Customers are going to recommend pages that others will find useful. They aren't going to be sending your page to someone who could care less. Who has time for that? Encourage sharing and social networking.

These 5 tips are just the tip of the iceberg when considering your holiday email marketing plan. In order to get the most out of your email marketing plan, you need a website that can support it. You should always have an unsubscribe link and a link to view your email in their browser. We can help with your holiday email marketing plan. Contact us and lets talk more about what you can do.

* source: http://www.articlesbase.com/marketing-tips-articles/smartphones-and-email-how-many-people-read-their-marketing-emails-on-their-phone-and-why-is-that-important-to-you-2569868.html

It's Friday, and I know everyone is getting ready for the weekend. What better way to make the day go by than with a little Tetris? Every Friday we will be having a Tetris tournament.

Play Tetris!

An interactive website is just like it sounds, a website that allows it's users to interact. Interactive elements on a website include mailing list, sharing functions, comments forms, games (like Tetris); pretty much entertainment for users. The opposite of an interactive website is a static website. Static websites are composed of just text and images. There are no ways for a user to interact with the website. In other words, BORING!

Why do you want an interactive website?

That's a good question. Do you want users to return to your website, or just visit 1 time, read your information and never return? Interactive websites give your users something to look forward to and come back for. An interactive website will also be something your users might want to share with friends. This type of sharing is the best type of traffic you can get because it is highly targeted. You're only going to suggest something to a friend if they would be interested in it.

Don't go overboard with interactive elements

Including a few interactive elements on your website is great. But if your interactive elements are interfering with basic website functionality, you're in for trouble. Make sure no only that the interactive elements on your website don't interfere with your website functionality, but that they all work correctly on the popular browsers. Nothing is worse than searching for a web page or having a web page suggested to you just to find out it won't work on your computer. This is why testing is such an important part of the web development process.

So why is interactive web design a Jersey thing?

Have you ever been to New Jersey? Or if you're from New Jersey have you ever visited any other states? The pace in New Jersey is much faster than anywhere I have ever been. That means you can have your website done much faster, in some cases, in as little as just 1 week!

Don't wait a second longer to get started on your new website. Contact us today!

In the spirit of keeping things fresh, I decided revolutionunlimited.com needed a face lift. Most of the time when you talk about website re-design, you're not just talking about how the website looks. A good website re-design is a restructuring of the website and making it more user friendly. However, if you're website is already user friendly, your data is is stored in a database, and you used CSS, you can change the entire look of your website in a few days.

So, since I have a decent amount of pages on my website and they're stored in a database, managed by a content management system, and I used CSS, changing the look was easy. It was easy because my website is a dynamic css based website.

 

Dynamic CSS Based Websites

Changing the look was as simple as changing a style sheet (CSS) and the HTML templates. The great advantage about having a dynamic website that uses css is that it is very easy to change the look. All of the programming is already done which really saves a ton of time. So if you want to have a different theme for every season, it really isn't too tough to do.

Static Websites

Having a static website isn't a terrible thing, as long as CSS was used for your layout. CSS really makes it easy to change how most of the elements on your website look.

If you're looking to re-design your website, contact us and we'll give you a free website analysis!

Not only does your restaurant need a website, it needs a great website. Most people when looking for a restaurant go right to the internet. With the internet on cell phones and gps systems, it makes it easy to find a restaurant online. Here are 5 tips for a great restaurant website that will keep you in competition with the big chain restaurants.

Think locally

Local search engine optimization and marketing can play a major role in gaining new customers. Search engines show local results on top of the search results. Do a search with a location in it, such as "restaurants, Hunterdon, NJ". Notice at the top of the results are the local businesses. Optimizing your content and making sure your restaurant is on the maps should be a top priority for your restaurant website.

Don't just put directions on your website either. The availability of map website software allows you to put a map right on your website and pinpoint your restaurant. You can also have a simple form where a visitor can enter their address and can get directions right to your restaurant. You can't make it any easier to get directions and find you without any trouble.

Offer services on your website

The ability to order online and make reservations on your website makes it as easy as possible for browsers to turn into customers. Offer special discounts for ordering online or making reservations. Special offers will entice browsers into becoming customers.

Special "internet only" information

Add content about management, restaurant history, your chefs, etc.. The more content you offer the more trusting a visitor will become of your restaurant. Internet only specials are a great way to get people interested in coming to your restaurant.

Come up with a theme

You know how you want people to feel when they are eating your food and in your restaurant. Conveying this on your website helps customers understand what you are all about. Customers will appreciate it. If a family with children is looking for a restaurant and your bar/restaurant shows up at the top of the list, you won't have a happy customer.

Build a community

Interacting with customers is key to marketing your restaurant. Social networking allows customers to connect with your restaurant and have a more personalized experience. Interacting with your customers will keep them interested in your restaurant. So the next time they're thinking about going out to eat, your restaurant is on their mind.

Some great websites to take a look at are Chilis and Famous Dave's. Now I can't say I'm a fan of their food, but they have very good websites. They offer services such as online ordering, internet specials, and links to connect on social networking websites.

It may seem like a lot of work, it in the beginning it will be. But as your restaurant website gains momentum, it will start running itself. We specialize in restaurant website design and development and can create you a great restaurant website. Contact us today to get started.

It's Friday, and the Friday Tetris tournament is once again active. The high score is currently 36160! Think you can do better? Give it a shot!

Play Tetris

More games coming to RevolutionUnlimited.com

Lately I have been doing some work with gameQuery. gameQuery is a javascript game engine made with jQuery. Take a look at http://gamequery.onaluf.org/demos.php to view some demos of the poossibilities. I see a space invaders tournament coming soon!

Of course you do! Everyone knows, ranking highly in search engines is key to driving traffic to your website and getting more business. Here are 6 criteria to help you rank higher in search engines.

1. Use primary keywords in your domain name

Using primary keywords in your domain name instantly tells users and search engines what your website will be about. Do a search and take a look at the results for yourself. As you scroll through the results, take note at how many domain names include the word or words you searched for.

Recently it has been said keywords in your domain name carry less weight than they used to. The reason for this is spammers buy long keyword filled domain names just to rank highly for the keywords. However, if you can, try to get a domain name with some of your keywords in it.

2. Use keywords in page titles

Including keywords in your page titles will help search engines more easily find your website. They are also shown on many websites when linking to your website. Sites like google, yahoo, digg, and stumbleunpon all use your meta title to link back to your website. Unique titles on each page help your users know what page they are on and help search engine spiders understand your content.

3. Use keywords in meta description

You know how search engines show a description underneath the links? Those descriptions come directly from your meta descriptions. Use keyword rich meta descriptions on every page to help search engine spiders understand what's going to be on every page and index your content correctly.

4. Keyword density around 4%

This is an important one. Back a few years ago, website owners would use keywords over and over to easily get to the top of the search engines. Websites that used this approach are very difficult to read and just plain annoying. Have you ever read an article that repeats the same words over and over? You want to stay away from this approach. There are many free keyword density tools on the internet you can use to check that your pages are around 4% keyword density for a couple of words.

5. Target your local market

Some search engines have started to show local search results on top. Adding your business to your local maps, can help users find your business when searching for businesses in their local area. With your business listing, you can include pictures, links to your website, get reviews and more. And the best part about is it's free!

6. Google/Alexa pagerank

A lot of people make a big fuss about pagerank. While it is important, you shouldn't obsess about it. It takes a lot of time and effort to increase your rank. Inlinking is one of the best ways to improve your pagerank. Getting a few higher ranked websites to link to your website will tell search engines that you have good content on your website.

This is just the tip of the search engine optimization iceberg. Remember, getting ranked highly on search engines is going to take time and a lot of hard work. But we are here to help you. Contact us today to learn how we can help optimize your website for search engines.

Choosing a domain name, is not that difficult, but choosing a good one can be a little tricky. Don't be scared though, I have 10 tips to help you choose a good domain name.

Think of your keywords, and use them!

Research keywords and keyword phrases you will be using and try to incorporate them into your domain name. Come up with a list of 5 or 10 keywords and start pairing them together until you find a good match.

Avoid similarly spelled domains

If your domain name is being confused for a popular website owned by someone else, you could be in trouble. Try to avoid domain names that are the plural, hyphenated version, or misspelled version of an already popular website. You're just going to confuse people.

Get a .com

Using a .net or .org  is fine, but owning the .com domain name is important. Most people when typing domain names, they automatically assume it is a .com. So if you don't own that .com domain, your potential visitor is going to end up on the wrong website.

Easy to type

A domain name that is hard to type is going to be mistyped and you will lose traffic. You want to make your domain name as easy as possible to type so it doesn't get misspelled and your competition end up getting your traffic.

Easy to remember

Word of mouth is one of the best ways to promote your website, but if nobody can remember your domain name you lose  out on the marketing angle. A domain name that is easy to remember is hard to forget.

Keep it short

Shorter domain names are easier to type and remember. Both of which you should want. Try to keep your domain name as short as possible to allow for more characters in your URL.

Be original, come up with a brand

Come up with an original domain name. Something that's similar to another domain name is going to be mistaken for the other website.

Stay away from hyphens and numbers

Hyphens and numbers are hard to type and will be forgotten or mistyped. Do you want to make it harder for your visitors to get your website? I don't think so.

Use a thesaurus

Thesaurus.com. If your domain name is similar to another domain name, take the word you want to use and find some synonyms. You might come up with an even better domain name than the original.

User friendly language

No matter what industry you are in, not everybody is going to understand your industry specific talk. Using words that are considered industry talk can confuse users. It will also be harder to rank high in the search engines if you are using keywords that are not searched on. Do some research and choose a domain name people will understand.

Start now!

Domain names are being bought every hour. If you don't get your now you could miss out on that perfect domain name. So if you're considering starting a website, register your domain!

Need help choosing a domain name or registering a domain name? Contact us and we would be glad to help out.

You can have the best website on the internet, but that won't matter if you don't market it. Over 80% of all website fail because they are not marketed correctly. Here are 4 basic marketing tips you get you started.

Give something away for FREE

Free is one of the most common words used on the internet. Giving something away for free gives your users a reward for signing up for a mailing list or filling out a survey. And this doesn't have to be something that costs anything to you. Find a free e-book or write one yourself. Give away something that would be useful to your potential customers. If you sell golf clubs, give away an e-book about improving your swing, if you run a restaurant give away a recipe or some cooking tips.

Get an email list

Email marketing has a higher return on investment than any other type of marketing. An email list is a great way to build relationships and trust with your customers. Send out monthly or weekly updates, depending on how busy your business is, you don't want to turn your customers off to you. Include coupons and sales in your newsletters. This will intice your customers and lead them to your website and possibly to a sale.

Statistic tracking

Are you monitoring your website traffic? Do you know how many people visit per day, where they're coming from, what keywords they used to find you? There are a number of free website statistic tools, the most popular probably being Google Analytics. But any statistical tracking tool will help you streamline your business and market towards the appropriate audience.

Shopping portal submissions

Now this doesn't necessarily apply to all business, but if you sell a product, you should be taking advantage of all of the shopping portals on the web. A lot of these websites have a page rank of 5+, and for search engine optimization, having multiple sites with page ranks higher than 5 will increase your page rank and assist in driving more quality traffic to your website. Some shopping portals include bizrate.com, shopzilla.com, pricescan.com, dealtime.com, mysimon.com, pricegrabber.com, etc., the list can go on for days.

These basic marketing strategies will help your website get noticed. Need help with marketing strategies for your business? Contact us for a free consultation.

In today's world, a website is an essential part of your business marketing plan. There are many advantages to having a website over not having a website. But if your website sucks, it could be doing more bad than good. Here are 10 advantages of having a website that doesn't suck.

1. Cheaper and more flexible than print

The Internet is extremely different from print advertising. Space is cheap, your advertisement is accessible longer, the content can be changed easier, especially if you use a content management system, and it's easier to reach a wider audience.

2. You're open 24/7, 365

Unlike a brick and mortar office, your website is open 24/7. Imagine your customers being able to reach you and request information at anytime. In my opinion this is 1 of the greatest advantages to having a website. Holidays, nights, weekends, your office may be closed but your website is still open.

3. Offer Convenience

The internet has made researching products simple. Rather than having to get in the car are drive to a few different locations to compare prices and products, you can now click a couple times and easily see the price differences. You can even read reviews to see what others think about the product.

4. Value and satisfaction

Offering convenience, easy access to information and the feeling of individualized service, you are giving your customers value for coming to your website. A satisfied customer is a happy and returning customer. If your website keeps your customers happy, you'll get much more return business.

5. Standardize sales performance

The ability to quickly and easily change information will allow you to see what produces and what doesn't. This will allow you to narrow your approach down to what works, and not waste time on what doesn't.

6. Improve credibility

Your website gives you a chance to show potential customers that you are an expert in your line of work and that you deserve their trust and confidence. Many people use the internet to research products, read reviews, and determine whether the product or service is worth their time and money.

7. Promote your brick-n-mortar presence

Put directions on your website. There are apis available from websites like mapquest.com and google.com, where you can allow your customers to get directions to your location without even leaving the page. How much easier can you make it for your customers to find you? This will save them a lot of frustration in getting lost trying to find your address.

You can also promote your sales and special offers on your website. And why wouldn't you? Even if only 20 people see your promotion online, they may tell 5 people, and they may tell people, and before you know it your special promotion goes viral and everyone knows about it.

8. Growth Opportunity

A website is a great place to refer potential investors, as long as you have a quality website. You can show investors what your company is about, what it has achieved and what it can achieve in future.

9. Communicative marketing

24/7 customer service, enough said. There is no need to have 24/7 phone support. Your website, open all the time, offers customers the opportunity to contact you any time they need support.

10. Free market research

Polls, surveys, and analytical software enable you to learn more about your customers and how they feel about different aspects of your business. Analytical software, such as Google analytics, is free and offers a wide variety of information about your users such as referring websites, keywords search for, and geographical location of the user. Used properly, this information can help you target specific markets and take advantage of the fact that you know what your customers are looking.

The benefits of having a website that doesn't suck are pretty clear. So if you have a website that does suck, why are you still reading this? Contact us now!

Getting ready for the weekend? Trying to make the day go faster? What better way than to get lost in a few games of tetris! Every Friday come to revolutionunlimited.com and get in on the Tetris tournament.

Enough already, let me play tetris!

On Tuesday October 5th, I will be attending an internet marketing workshop. The goal of the workshop is to learn new cutting edge marketing concepts involving search engine optimization, social media marketing, and much more! I'm really exciting to be attending the workshop, should be a great learning experience.

The workshop is hosted by shopsonline.com

Too many times before I even get started with a web project, the first question I usually get is how will I get on page 1 of the search engines. What people don't realize is that getting on page 1 of google takes a lot time, patience and hard work. But if you focus on satisfying your users you will be much better off.

Paid advertising & PPC

I've seen companies dump thousands of dollars into pay per click marketing plans. And I guess if you have thousands of dollars to blow, this works, kind of. But if you're like the majority of small business owners, you can't spend that type of money on paid advertising. Even if you can afford to spend that type of money consistently on a month to month basis for at least 6 months, when your advertising budget runs out, your traffic hits the floor. Paid advertising, in my opinion, will never top organic search engine optimization.

Build a website for your customers

I can't stress this enough. The most important aspect of any business is what? Customers. If you're customers aren't happy, they aren't buying, and you aren't making money. When you start a new web project, your focus should be on what your customers are looking for. If you don't know, do some research. Find websites of companies similar to yours and see what they are giving their customers.

If your business is completely unique, which today is very hard to be, you can try a few different methods to get more traffic to your website. Give something away for signing up for a mailing list or write an advice column. Have a poll on your website to get your users opinions. Engaging your users and keeping them interested is the best way to get repeat traffic and get your website shared with that users network.

The bottom line

Keep your users happy. Customer relations, in my opinion, has died over the last 5 years or so. I have worked in the retail industry doing customer service, and I have seen this first hand. The same is true on the web. Most people just want traffic, and don't focus on what's really important, customers.

If you think website is lacking, we can help. Contact us today and we'll give you a free consultation.

Social networking website statistics and usage

As you can see, facebook is the leader of all social networking websites. This doesn't mean you should only be using facebook. Myspace still has millions of active users that could be potential customers. Find what social networking websites your customers are using and get on them!

There are a number of ways to protect your forms from spam. And if you have read anything about protecting your forms, you know that validation is key. Not only should you validate your forms on the server side with PHP or ASP or whatever language you are using, you should also validate on the client side using javascript. This article is an introduction to the jQuery validate plugin.

Getting started

First and foremost, you're going to need a copy of the jQuery javascript library. Next, you'll need a copy of the jQuery validate plugin. Download both of the plugins, unzip, and add the files to your web directory.

Including the libraries

Next, you need to include the javascript libraries on your page. In the <head> section of your website, you will need these 2 lines:
<script src="/your/path/to/jquery.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="/your/path/to/jquery.validate.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Pretty easy so far right? Now we can start to get to the good stuff.

The jQuery

In the <head> section of your document, below the 2 lines above, add this line:
<script type="text/javascript">
    $(document).ready(function(){
        $("#yourFormId").validate();
  });
</script>

The line $("#yourFormId").validate(); is telling the validate plugin to validate the form with the id of "yourFormId".

The HTML

Here you have a basic HTML form. Notice the ID attribute of the <form> element. This is very important. Also notice the class "required" on all of the form elements. This tells the validation plugin to make sure these items have a value before submitting. If you notice the class on the email field, "email required", this is telling the plugin that this field needs to have a valid email address.

<form id="yourFormId" method="get" action="">
  <fieldset>
    <legend>A simple comment form with submit validation and default messages</legend>

    <p>
      <label for="cname">Name</label>
      <em>*</em><input id="cname" name="name" size="25" class="required" minlength="2" />
    </p>

    <p>
      <label for="cemail">E-Mail</label>
      <em>*</em><input id="cemail" name="email" size="25"  class="email required" />
    </p>

    <p>
      <label for="ccomment">Your comment</label>
      <em>*</em><textarea id="ccomment" name="comment" cols="22"  class="required"></textarea>
    </p>

    <p>
      <input class="submit" type="submit" value="Submit"/>
    </p>
  </fieldset>
</form>

And that's all. Simple jQuery form validation. All you need is 1 line of javascript and a class on each of the forms you want to validate and you're done. If you need help setting up javascript form validation on your website, contact us.

It's Friday, and I know everyone is getting ready for the weekend. What better way to make the day go by than with a little Tetris? Every Friday we will be having a Tetris tournament.

Play Tetris!

In my experience, everyone in the website design and development industry, or any industry for that matter, is looking for the quick and easy way to get websites live within a deadline. They will cut corners, and find every way possible to get the job done quicker so they make more money. Not here. We cut no corners and give 100% on every project regardless of budget or project size. We will provide a website that will go above and beyond what you expect every time.

What makes us so different?

Our work ethic is like no other. When we commit to doing a job, we are going to do our best to make sure you get exactly what you are looking for and it get's done in a professional manner. Cutting corners to get a job done quickly is not an option. If we have to miss a deadline to give you a better quality project, we're going to do it. Not saying that we don't meet deadlines, but if there isn't enough time to get what you want done, we will let you know and provide a solution.

We want to work with you and build relationships

What makes us different is we want to work with you. Everybody has clients at their job that they dread having to talk to. How can you can a good business relationship if you can't stand the client? Too many times I have heard project managers and managers complain about their clients. For us, if we don't like working with you we aren't going to continue working with you. We want to build relationships the benefit the both of us. How can you have a good business relationship if you don't even like each other?

At the end of the day, it all comes down to hard work

We want to go above and beyond what you would expect from a website design and development company. Whether you are looking for website design, search engine optimization, or email marketing, we will give 100% to meet your goals and make sure that you come out on top. Our services will get you results because we will make it happen. Check out our testimonials to see what others have to say about their experience working with us.

If we seem like a company that you would enjoy working with, contact us. We would love to hear from you.

Recently I was working on a website with a registration page that needed to add a country selection. If you don't know, not all countries have states, and in this case I was adding Canada, and they have provinces. The solution, if a user selects Canada, show the province drop-down, if a user selects United States, show the state drop-down. Here is a simple script to show and hide form elements.

What you need

A copy of the jQuery library and a text editor, I use notepad, and that's all.

The form HTML

<p class="input" id="stateSelect">
    <label for="billstate"><span class="req">*</span>State:</label>
    <select name="province" id="province" style="display:none;">
            <option value="ON" >Ontario</option>
            <option value="QC" >Quebec</option>
            <option value="BC" >British Columbia</option>
            <option value="AB" >Alberta</option>
            <option value="MB" >Manitoba</option>
            <option value="SK" >Saskatchewan</option>
            <option value="NS" >Nova Scotia</option>
            <option value="NB" >New Brunswick</option>
            <option value="NL" >Newfoundland and Labrador</option>
            <option value="PE" >Prince Edward Island</option>
            <option value="NT" >Northwest Territories</option>
            <option value="YT" >Yukon</option>
            <option value="NU" >Nunavut</option>
        </select>

    <select name="billstate" id="billstate">
            <option value="AL" >Alabama</option>
            <option value="AK" >Alaska</option>
            <option value="AZ" >Arizona</option>
            <option value="AR" >Arkansas</option>
            <option value="CA" >California</option>
            <option value="CO" >Colorado</option>
            <option value="CT" >Connecticut</option>
            <option value="DE" >Delaware</option>
            <option value="DC" >District Of Columbia</option>
            <option value="FL" >Florida</option>
            <option value="GA" >Georgia</option>
            <option value="HI" >Hawaii</option>
            <option value="ID" >Idaho</option>
            <option value="IL" >Illinois</option>
            <option value="IN" >Indiana</option>
            <option value="IA" >Iowa</option>
            <option value="KS" >Kansas</option>
            <option value="KY" >Kentucky</option>
            <option value="LA" >Louisiana</option>
            <option value="ME" >Maine</option>
            <option value="MD" >Maryland</option>
            <option value="MA" >Massachusetts</option>
            <option value="MI" >Michigan</option>
            <option value="MN" >Minnesota</option>
            <option value="MS" >Mississippi</option>
            <option value="MO" >Missouri</option>
            <option value="MT" >Montana</option>
            <option value="NE" >Nebraska</option>
            <option value="NV" >Nevada</option>
            <option value="NH" >New Hampshire</option>
            <option value="NJ" selected="selected">New Jersey</option>
            <option value="NM" >New Mexico</option>
            <option value="NY" >New York</option>
            <option value="NC" >North Carolina</option>
            <option value="ND" >North Dakota</option>
            <option value="OH" >Ohio</option>
            <option value="OK" >Oklahoma</option>
            <option value="OR" >Oregon</option>
            <option value="PA" >Pennsylvania</option>
            <option value="RI" >Rhode Island</option>
            <option value="SC" >South Carolina</option>
            <option value="SD" >South Dakota</option>
            <option value="TN" >Tennessee</option>
            <option value="TX" >Texas</option>
            <option value="UT" >Utah</option>
            <option value="VT" >Vermont</option>
            <option value="VA" >Virginia</option>
            <option value="WA" >Washington</option>
            <option value="WV" >West Virginia</option>
            <option value="WI" >Wisconsin</option>
            <option value="WY" >Wyoming</option>
        </select>
</p>
        
<p class="input">
    <label for="billcountry"><span class="req">*</span>Country:</label>
    <select name="billcountry" id="billcountry" onchange="show_province();">
        <option value="US" >United States</option>
        <option value="CA" >Canada</option>
    </select>
</p>

Notice the onchange="show_province();" inside the <select>. This is telling the browser when the selection changes, call the show_province() function. Also, since the default country selection is usa, we set the province select box to display:none. This will hide it until we want to show it.

The jQuery/javascript

function show_province()
{
    var country = $('select#billcountry').val();
    if(country != "US")
    {
        $("select#billstate").hide();
        $("select#province").show();
        $("p#stateSelect label").html("<span class='req'>*</span>Province:");
    }
    else
    {
        $("select#billstate").show();
        $("select#province").hide();
        $("p#stateSelect label").html("<span class='req'>*</span>State:");
    }
}

Pretty simple, let me explain it. The first line var country = $('select#billcountry').val(); is getting the value of the select box with an id of "billcountry" and giving it to the varible country. We then use a simple if statement to check the value of "country" and show the approptiate select box.

This line $("p#stateSelect label").html("<span class='req'>*</span>Province:"); changes the value of our label. If the country is "CA" or canada, the label will say province, anything else the label will say state.

This is a simple example of how to show or hide elements based on the value of a select box. The same function can be used to show and hide pretty much anything. You can also use it on radio buttons, anchors, paragraphs, etc.. Your creativity is your only limit.

Need this functionality on your website? Let us know! Contact us today.

In my opinion paid advertising is a waste of money. While you will see a traffic spike, as soon as you stop your advertising campaign, that traffic is gone. This article will explain some cheaper/free and more effective methods to increase traffic and your web presence.

Email marketing

Email marketing still has the highest return on investment(ROI) compared to any other marketing outlet. If you are going to spend money on marketing, this is the best way to go. Work on building your email list by offering a free download or a free service. Give your users something for signing up.

Organic search engine optimization

Organic search engine optimization means gaining traffic to your website through optimizing your content for search engines. This includes analyzing keyword density, optimizing page titles and meta tags, and adding links and calls to action to your content. Organic search engine optimization is by far the best free method to gain more traffic and increase your web presence.

Social media marketing

Facebook, twitter, linkedin, myspace, etc.; all 100% free and used by millions of people daily. Why not take advantage of that? Find what social networking sites your customers are using and get on it. Create a community feeling for your customers. Don't just create a page and think that's all you need to do. Interact with your customers, give them something to look forward to.

Word of mouth

Tell everyone about your products and services. All of your friends, family, neighbors, etc., who ever you know. The more people that know about you and your products the better. I have gotten many referrals just by mentioning my business to friends. Let people know about what you do, they might know someone who needs your services.

Though these methods are cheap/free and effective, they are only effective if you work hard and do them properly. Create a plan and stick to it and you will see results. Need help getting started? Contact us and we can help analyze your business and come up with a plan that will bring you success.

So you want to start a new website or redesign your old website, great. But what can you expect when starting a new website development project? Most people are afraid of change, and on the web, change can be very difficult for you and your users. This article will explain how you can prepare for your website development project.

Know what you want on your website

You don't need to know exactly what you want on your website, but have a good idea of some of the features you would like. Do you want a mailing list? A flash slide show? Knowing the basics of what you want on your website will help your website development company understand what you need and provide a more accurate quote.

Know your budget

Have a price range. The features you have on your website will depend directly on your budget. The more features you want, the more time it will take to develop, and the more it will cost. Makes sense right? A professional website design company will be able to provide alternatives and suggestions to keep your site feature rich and within your budget.

Start preparing your content

This is possibly the biggest issue with new website development projects. Your website has been designed and developed but it's full of place holder text because you don't have your content ready. Do you want to launch your new website with place holder text? I don't think so. Now your new website launch will be delayed until you prepare all of your content, which can be very time consuming. If you're considering a new website, start writing your content, NOW!

Hire a professional website design and development company

Hiring a professional website design and development company will save you time, money, and tons of head aches. A professional website design company will be able to work with you and your budget so you get the most out of your new website. They can offer suggestions and alternatives which may be cheaper and more effective. They will also code your website using web standards and coding practices. Having worked on many websites that were not coded properly, I can tell you this will make a huge difference.

Before you jump in to a website development project, have a plan. Know what you want, your budget and make sure you hire a professional. If you keep these in mind will you are preparing for a website development project, the project will go much smoother and you will be much happier with the end result.

Need help preparing for your new website? Contact us today and we can help develop a plan that will prepare you and your business for a successful website.

The wise words of my high school history teacher. The same applies for your website. If your website isn't getting you results, it's time to make a change. And here at Revolution Unlimited we're all about change. Here are 5 ways we can help revolutionize your website and get you results.

1. Custom content management system

Is the content on your website months old? Do you think your visitors want to see the same things over and over? I doubt it. Give your visitors something stimulating to keep them coming back to your website. Updating your website frequently, I say atleast once a week, with a blog post, pictures, or videos will give your visitors something to look forward to. Have an email list? Send them weekly updates with your new content as well. View our content management system demo to see how easy it can be to update your website.

2. Search engine optimization

All of our websites are coded with search engine optimization in mind. With our content manamgent system, you will be able to change meta data, page titles, and headings (h1,h2,h3,etc.) to see what works best for you. We also code all of our website using divs and css, no tables here unless we're displaying tabular data. Read more about why you should have a css based website instead of a table based website.

3. Our experience

Our experience in website design and development and marketing will give you an edge over your competition. Our experience will also help give us a better understanding of what your business does and how we can help generate more business through your website. Contact us today and tell us about your business and we will let you know what we can change to help your website produce for you.

4. Mailing list management

Do you have a mailing list? Can you easily manage it? Our content management system give you the ability to export and store your mailing list. So when you need it, you can easily donload it in CSV format. You can then upload it to any email service provider, such as contant contact, and you're ready to go.

5. Contact forms

If you don't have a contact form on your website you could be losing out on business. Make it easy for your users to contact you. Posting your phone number and email address are great, but then a user needs to either copy and paste your email address in their email client or pick up the phone to call you for information. A contact form gives them the ability to contact you right then and there. And just like our mailing list management, our content management system will store contacts as long as you want and also give you the ability to export them as a CSV.

Don't be afraid of change. Our content management system is very easy to use. If you can use MS Word, you can use our content manamgent system. But you don't have to take my word for it, view our content management system demo your self to see how easy it really is. Feel free to contact us to see what we can do for your website.

Is you business on facebook? Do you have a custom landing page? A custom facebook business page allows you to brand your page to your business. While you can't change the design of the entire page, you can offer your visitors a little more about you and your brand with a nice looking business page.

Creating custom facebook business pages is all about your fans. What do you want people to see when they arrive to your page? Facebook has over 900 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups, events and community pages), what are you offering them that is different from the rest?

Its all about branding

Branding your facebook business page will give your fans and potential fans a better understand of who you are and what you do. Add custom images, videos, slideshows, forms, and more to your facebook business page will set you apart from other businesses. And that's what you want right?

Give your fans something to remember

Create an experience your users will remember. This doesn't mean you need to overload them with information. Look through some related business pages and see what they are offering their fans. A simple introduction with information about what you do and a creative design is a great start to getting more fans on your facebook business page.

Let your fans interact with your business

Do you have an email list? Can you request quotes on your website? Why not allow fans to do so directly from your facebook business page? You can setup forms and allow your fans to request information directly from your facebook business page. This gives you the advantage of getting the millions of active users on facebook to contact you without having to leave facebook and find the information on your website. You can also post polls and surveys to get more information about your users. The possibilities are endless.

Do you need help with your facebook business page? Contact us and we can get started creating a more engaging facebook business page for your business.

After developing the Foster and Family Services website, we sat down and thought this would be great to offer everyone. But we wanted to make it easy for non-profit organizations to get fund raisers online quick and easy and without having to spend a fortune. That's when the idea hit us and eventraisers.com was born.

Hosted Fund Raiser

Hosted fund raisers are hosted on eventraisers.com and are 100% free to setup. The hosted solution contains all of the features as the integrated solution, except it's hosted on eventraisers.com, not your website, and there are no setup or maintenance charges. Eventraisers take a percentage of what you make through your donations and cut you a check once a month. The great thing about the hosted fund raiser is you don't have to spend a dime. Absolutely nothing comes out of your pocket.

The hosted fund raiser is great because it gets promoted across all venues, social media, search engine marketing, and through our email list. Your website might not get a lot of traffic or you may not have to tools to properly promote your fundraiser. You will see all the benefits of our daily marketing efforts.

Integrated Fund Raiser

Want to take your fundraiser a step further? Our integrated fund raiser solution includes installing the eventraisers fund raising software on your website and branding it with your look. You pay a 1 time setup fee and a yearly maintenance fee, and all of the money you make is yours. You can host as many events a year as you would like and make as much money as you want for your cause.

The integrated solutions stands out because it is branded to your organization. It can also be customized to suite your needs. The Foster and Family Services website not only holds fund raising events, but they have other events that they sell tickets for. Anything is possible, if you want it, we can make it happen.

Eventraisers.com features:

• free hosting of your events
• free marketing
• the ability to accept donations for your cause
• host as many event as you want
• social network sharing tools
• create teams
• team logos
• custom user profile
• custom organization profile
• fundraiser sponsors
• and much more!

We are still in the development stage of this project and have a lot of work to go, but we feel it is a great idea. Eventraisers.com will give non-profit organizations with small budgets the ability to have their fundraisers online and receive donations online without having to spend a fortune.

If you would be interested in learning more about EventRaisers, contact us. We would love to hear your opinions on our newest venture. Do you think your organization could use this type of software? Let us know. Leave a comment or send us an email.

Since starting Revolution Unlimited in 2009 it has always been a goal to get more traffic to my website. Isn't that every business/website owners goal? More traffic means more brand awareness and more revenue. Through organic search engine optimization I was able to gain a lot of exposure. Here is how I did it.

1. Article writing

Since June, I have been writing articles on various topics. I've written about everything from website design to web programming tips to search engine optimization. The reason I started writing articles was to establish my expertise in my field, website design and development. Writing articles or blogging is a great way to let your potential customers know that you are a professional and an expert in your field.

One article in particular, Why most small business websites fail, got me the most traffic. The reason if got so much traffic was because it was posted on another website, dzone.com, which lead hundreds of qualified users to my website. The most consistent traffic I receive to my website comes from writing articles. Others article submission websites including digg.com, stumbleupon.com, and ezinearticles.com also contributed to a big portion of my traffic.I notice a 500% increase in traffic on days I write articles compared to days I don't.

2. Organic search engine optimization

Writing articles based around my services, with links to my services, has been one technique used to gain traffic to my services pages. Along with optimizing header tags, h1, h2, h3, <title> tags, image tags, and anchor <a href=""></a> tags, all of these techniques together have helped me gain more popularity to my website. My alexa page rank which was well over 1,000,000, dropped over 500,000 points just from these organic search engine optimization techniques.

3. Directory submissions

Every day, I try to submit my website to at least 10 free directory websites. Onewaytextlink.com, has a list of free directories and paid directories. You can create and account and mark which directories you have submitted to. But don't limit your self to just these directories. Do a search for local directories and submit your website to as many as possible. I have gotten the most hits to my website from my free local directory submissions.

You can achieve these results too, and I can help. Contact me today to learn how we can help you get more hits to your websites and more business.

From time to time everyone makes mistakes. And I know I've made my fair share. But your website doesn't need to be another bad decision. Hiring a professional website designer and developer will save yourself time, money, and a lot of headaches. Here are 3 mistakes that will save you a lot of trouble when looking upgrade your web presence.

A 5 page website seemed like a great deal

Don't be fooled by this classic marketing trick. Now I'm not saying you can't have a beautiful 5 page website, but do you really want a site that is limited to only 5 pages? Website designers offer great prices on 5 page websites but when considering your website, you need to think of the future. Think of your website as a marketing tool. Do your other marketing efforts stay the same or do they change with time?

Generating traffic to a website that may only contain a few images and paragraphs of text is going to be very difficult. Working for marketing and search engine optimization companies tought me many things. The first question when starting a search engine optimization campaign is "when did you last update your website?". Search engines are looking for active websites. A website that is never updated, potentially has little to nothing to offer users and will not be indexed well in search engines.

I got a great price on an outsourced website

I hear this way too many times. And the outcome is usually the same, horrible. I've worked on many websites that were originally outsourced and they all had a few things in common.

1. Bad coding

Not only have I found most websites that were outsourced to have basic html errors, but I've seen websites that were done using tables and with multiple php errors. You don't want a website that is full of errors. It makes you look unprofessional. You are basically representing your business with errors. Do you want that?

2. Communication barriers

How can you communicate your needs when you can't understand or speak the language of the company you are working with? Communication is key in any business, especially in website design and development.

3. Time constraints

Not only will it be difficult to communicate if there are linguistic, but how can you communicate with a company that is half way around the world? Are you going to be willing to after a long day spend even more time at home working on your business website?

Paid advertising

While this isn't a huge mistake, in my opinion, unless you have a huge budget to spend, paid advertising is a waste. You will get a lot of traffic from paid advertising, but once you are done paying for the advertisements, your traffic will drop off immediately. Organic search engine optimization is the way to go. You can achieve organic search engine optimization results by keeping your content fresh and giving your users something they can use. Blogging is one of the best ways to establish credentials as a professional in your field.

This is a short list, but trust me when I tell you it save you a lot of trouble. If you have already made some of the mistakes in this list or you are looking for a professional website designer and developer contact us and we can help you out.

Everyone with a website knows ranking highly on search engines will greatly increase traffic to their website and most likely business as well. But how do you get to page 1? These 10 search engine optimization tips will help you get started in moving up to page 1 on google.

1. Content is king

I've said if before and from the looks of it I'll be saying it for a long time. Content is king. Search engines are looking for relevant content. Don't create a website and focus all of your energy and attention on search engines. Create a positive experience for your users and you will be rewarded with long lasting organic search results.

2. Valid website

This is not so much for search engines as it is for your users. A website full of errors, that's not cross-browser compatable will make your business look bad. An invalid website may also make it harder to crawl for search engine spiders. Check with the w3c html validator to ensure your website is error free.

3. Use relevant keywords

Use, but don't abuse. A website with the same words repeated over and over is just annoying. When it comes to keywords, there needs to be a balance. You want to ensure that search engines rank your page for the keyword you're optimizing for, but you don't want your text to seem repitive.

4. Title tags

The <title></title> element of your website is one of the most important. It tells your users and search engines what page you are on. It should be distinct and contain your keywords. Try to optimize each page title with a specific keyword or two.

5. Headings h1, h2, h

Headings are often overlooked in the big picture, but they are a simple way to let your users as well as search engines what your page is about. Your <h1></h1> should be the main topic of the web page and can be the same as the <title> of the page. As you move deeper into the page, label paragraphs with different levels of headings.

6. Search engine submission

If you don't submit your site, search engines won't find it. Google, yahoo, bing, etc. all allow you to create a profile and submit xml site maps. They also offer valuable analytic data about your website. This should be one of the first steps in search engine optimization. You can create an xml site map for free at xml-sitemaps.com.

7. Social networking

Find where your customers and potential customers are hanging out and advertise towards them. If you have many customers on linkedin, get on linked in and start interacting. If your customers on facebook, get on facebook and start interacting. If you have many customers on.. you get the point. Find your customers and talk to them. Social networking is all about building brand awareness and building trust and relationships with your customers.

8. Directory submissions

There are tons of free directory websites on the internet. A quick search on google will bring up pages and pages. Try to submit to local directories and directories related to your field. At the very least, this will help you build some inlinks and get some traffic. Onewaytextlink.com offers an impressive list of free and paid directories. Sign up and start submitting!

9. Build inlinks

Get inlinks from quality websites. This is a little more time consuming but will pay off huge. A few links from reputable websites will build a good reputation for your website and keep you moving up the ranks on google. Make sure to use your keywords for title tags, alt tags, and your link text.

10. Don't pay, go organic

In my opinion, paid advertising (unless you have a big budget) is a waste of time. Yes you will get traffic and it will make you feel good about your efforts. But when you stop paying, your traffic stops. Try to develop a useful resource for your users. Write articles or blog. Keep your content fresh and give your customers something to look forward to. It may take long but organic search engine optimiztion keep traffic flowing to your website.

Need help analyzing your websites search engine visisbility or optimizing your content? Contact us and we will take a look at your website and let you know how we can help.

Choosing a professional NJ website design company can make the difference between your website being a success or your website being a failure. But how exactly do you go about choosing the right company? How can you tell what company will be right for you? In this article I will explain some characteristics to look for in a website design company.

Are they experienced?

And were not talking about Jimi Hendrix. Consider the level of experience the website design company has. Do they have website design experience in your field? Don't just look at the number of years a company has been in business. Research the company, their past work, and their clients. Are their clients happy with their work? Do they have any website design testimonials? All of these factors should be considered when analyzing experience.

Do they posess the skillset you require?

If you want to sell products online, can the website design company handle ecommerce? Do they have an ecommerce website design experience? Knowing what you are looking for will help when researching a nj website design company. Ensure that whatever you are looking for they can handle. Ask questions and request information. A professiona website design company will be able to give you clear and concise answers to your website design and development questions.

Are they personable and responsive?

When working on a new website it's very important to be able to communicate, and not just through email. Face-to-face meetings and phone conversations are imperative to developing a website that covers all of your business needs. Developing a good relationship with a NJ website design company will benefit both parties.

Did past and current clients enjoy working with them?

Check to see what others are saying about their website design experience. Are they satisfied? Would they recommend the company? Do some research on the company to make sure they legit and professional in all business affairs. This little bit of work will pay off with an enjoyable experience and a professional website.

Is their website valid? Function?

Analyze the company's website. Does everything function properly? Are their errors? Is it easy to navigate? W3C valid? If the website design company has a poor quality website you can assume that your website will be the same if you choose them. Don't just look at the overall design, look at how the site fuctions. The look of the website is personilzed representation of the company. If the site works properly you can be sure that your website will work properly.

Before diving in to a new website do some research, establish your needs, and choose a professional nj website design company, and your website will be a success.

Facebook is a great way to make new business connections and interact with your customers. With FBML on your fan page, you can easily create a customized experience for your users. Adding customized boxes on your page will give your users more ways to interact with your business, and when it comes to customer interaction, the more the better.

Step 1: Getting started

First, go to the static FBML application page and click "Add to my pages" under the image on the left hand side of the page. You should get a pop up where you can select what pages you want to add the static fbml application to. Select any page you would like, you can always add more or remove them later. Now you're all set to start creating your custom pages.

Step 2: FBML

FBML stands for Facebook markup language. Go to your fan page and you should see a new box the says "FBML 1" or soemthing similar. If you don't see it, click the arrow to see if it's listed. If not, go back to the static FBML page and ensure that you have added it to your page. You can click and drag the boxes to the order you would like them to be in.

Click on "Edit page" under your Facebook page image. Look through the list for your new FBML box. Once you find it click edit. This is where the magic is done. Here you can change the title of your new box and add html code to customize it.

Step 3: The code

Inside your FBML application, you can use any code you would like. For the purposes of this example, we're going to create a simple email list form to gather email addresses for your mailing list. If you use your website to manage your mailing list, you will need to create a page to process to request to join your mailing list.

The FBML form

<form action="http://www.yourwebsite.com/mailing-list.php" method="get">
    <p><label for"email" style="padding:2px 2px 0 0;float:left;width:150px;text-align:right;">Email:</label>
    <input type=”text” style=”width:140px” name="email"/></p>

    <p><label for"name" style="padding:2px 2px 0 0;float:left;width:150px;text-align:right;">Name:</label>
    <input type=”text” style=”width:140px” name="name"/></p>

    <p><label style="padding:0 152px 0 0;"> </label><input type="submit" value="Join" /></p>
</form>

As you can see, this is just a simple form. You can use inline styles to style your form. The action in the <form> element is the page that will handle the processing of your mailing list form. Whether it sends you an email, or enters the user information to a database, this is where it's done.

As you can see, this is just a simple form. You can use inline styles to style your form. The action in the element is the page that will handle the processing of your mailing list form. Whether it sends you an email, or enters the user information to a database, this is where it's done.

All in all, it's pretty easy to set up custom forms and content on your Facebook business page. The processing of the form can be a little difficult for the average user. If you would like to add a custom form to your Facebook business page, contact us and we would be glad to help.

It all comes down to where your customers are. If your customers don't use Facebook, what's the point of having your business there. However with over 500 million active users spending over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook(http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics) you can assume some of your customers will be there.

The basics of Facebook fan pages

Your Facebook fan page is a place for you to include all of the important information about your business. Facebook fan pages are very easy to update, and free. If your website is not set up with a content management system, your Facebook fan page can be a huge money saver. Your fan page should include:

• Company overview
• Your website
• contact information
• Press releases
• Videos
• Blog RSS
• Pictures

Putting effort into scoial media will pay off

Facebook, like all social media needs time and attention. Simply creating a page is not enough. You need to interact with your "fans". Regular posts to your Facebook fan page will show that your company is active and not just another blank page. Have you ever clicked the "like" button on an empty fan page? Your fan page should contain all or most of these:

• Links to your blog posts
• Links to related articles (yours or not)
• Videos
• Photos
• Discussions

All of these encourage interaction with your fan page, and with social media thats what you want. The more people to comment and like your posts, the more people will be exposed to your brand, and eventually lead to your website to buy your products or services.

Create a plan and stick to it

With anaything, a good plan will get good results. Set goals for what you would like to accomplish with your Facebook fan page. They can include:

• Getting 100 "Likes" per month
• Update your fan page at least once a day
• Make Facebook a top referrer to your website
• Get 5 people to interact with your posts per week

No matter what your plan is, stick to it. Persistance pays off and it will take time to gain popularity to your business Facebook page. If you stick to your plan and stay active your page will grow in no time.

Advanced interaction with your Facebook fans

Facebook is contantly changing and adding new features. One of the best features is FBML, Facebook markup language. FBML gives you the ability to add more advanced functionality to your Facebook fan page.

Start by adding the Static FBML application to your page. Go to http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=4949752878&ref=ts and click "Add to my page". Then go to your page and click the plus sign to add a new "box" along the top of the page. After you've added the box, go back to your fan page and click "Edit page" under your picture. A list should come up and your new FBML application should be listed.

From here what you do is only limited by your creativity. You can creat styled landing pages, email list signups, photo galleries and more. The possibilities are endless.

All in all, Facebook is a great place to expand your business. Many people say it's better than a website, but I disagree. Though the advanced functionality allows your page to be more branded towards your products, it will never replace a full website branded to your products. Untill Facebook allows you to completely customize the look and feel of your pages, a website will stay on top, in my opinion.

It's Friday and who wants to read another article about marketing your website? In the spirit of the Friday, I have a cool demo of a classic tetris game done entirely in jQUery, html and css. It's not the most robust game, but it sure is addictive.

Want to have a tetris contest on your website? A great way to interact with your users, you can hold a tetris contest and raffle off a prize to the person with the highest score. Could we see a tetris tournament on Revolution Unlimited? It's possible. Stay tuned for more on this.

Give it a try. Play Tetris.

Before you launch your website, make sure you have these basics covered and you will ensure a pleasant experience for your users. These items are often over looked in the race to get a website live. But if you take the extra time and ensure that you have all of these covered, your users will have a much more enjoyable experience on your website.

Titles And Meta Data

For search engine optimization, your page title is one of the most important elements on your page. It also helps your users by letting them know what page they are on. Every page should have a unique page title that relates to the page content. Your title tag should look something like this:

<title>Fancy corners done the easy way, with jQuery! - Website Development NJ | Website Design NJ | Revolution Unlimited</title>

Meta description and meta keywords aren't as important to most search engines as they used to be, but using them won't hurt you. Include unique descriptions and keywords for every page based on the content of the page for the best results.

Cross-browser compatability check

Your site might look great in your favorite browser, but have you seen it from other users perspective? Some of the more popular browsers include IE8, IE7, IE6, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera; and you should ensure that your website looks good in all of them. Yes it is time consuming, and yes it may cause many headaches, but your users will be greatful when your website functions properly in their browser.

Proofread, proofread, and proofread some more

This is an item that I cannot stress enough. Make sure you proofread your content. Sloppy content, spelling errors, and gramatical errors will make you look less professional. The best approach to proofreading is to have someone else do it. Especially if you have written all of the content on your website. Have a co-worker or friend take a proofread your websites content.

Check all of your links

Another item that is often over looked: links. Do all of your links work properly? Have you checked them all, or do you assume since they look like a link they work? Go through your website and click on all of your links to ensure they work properly and link to the right page.

You should also ensure that your links look different from the rest of the text on your website. Give them a :hover effect to differentiate them and let the user know they should click on them. Also make sure your logo links to your home page. This is standard website practice.

Functionality Check

Does your website function properly? Test to ensure that contact forms, search functions, logins, etc. all function properly. Have others who have never used your website test and see how they interact with your pages. You'll be amazed at what you learn from watching others browse your website.

Validation

A valid website is a properly functioning website. Though it may not hurt if your website isn't 100% valid, fixing the major issues will help your website function properly across all browsers. Even if your website is valid, you should still check other browsers to ensure cross-browser compatability.

Protect your forms from spam

Test your forms to ensure that you can't submit blank forms or invalid data. Simple validation can easily reduce the amount of spam you may be getting. Ensure email addresses are entered correctly, phone number fields are the correct length, etc.. Simple validation will turn most spam bots away.

Create a favicon

A favicon is your website icon that appears in the address bar of you browser and when you bookmark a web page. Your favicon should be named favicon.ico and stored in the root directory of your website. Some browsers will automatically recognize and add your favicon, but for the rest you need one simple line of code.

<link rel="icon" type="image/x-icon" href="/favicon.ico" />

To create a favicon, you can't just rename any image with the .ico extension. However, there are many free tools online that will allow you to upload an image and create the favicon for you to download. I like to use http://tools.dynamicdrive.com/favicon/.

Test with javascript disabled

Javascript can add some really cool effects to your website, but will your site work with javascript turned off? Turning javascript off in firefox is simple. Make sure you take some time to ensure that your site functions properly with javascript on and off.

Install analytic software

Analytic software is used to see how your website is performing. The most popular, Google Analytics, is free and easy to set up. Using analytic software you can track unique visits, page views, popular content, keywords, traffic sources and much more.

Get a XML sitemap

XML sitemaps allow search engines to easily index your content. Rather than having to crawl your entire website, your sitemap will tell the search engine spider what content is new and when your content was last updated. Your sitemap.xml file should be in the root directory of your website. You can create a free xml sitemap at http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/index.php.

Include a 404 page

When a user requests a page that doesn't exist, they are directed to the 404 page. Your 404 page should include useful information to the user. Let them know that they reached a page that does not exist and suggest some pages that they might find useful. Tell them to try searching for the content they are looking for using your search function.

Page load time

A page that takes to long is a ticket for your users to leave. Make sure your website loads quickly. User are impatient and if your website takes too long to load they will go to another website.

Even if your website didn't meet all of these requirements at launch, it's not too late. You can still upgrade your website to make you user experience more enjoyable for all of your users across all platforms. Contact us if you need help making your website more usable and enjoyable for your users.

The robust features and new jQuery plugings never stop amazing me. This one has been around for a while and is one of my favorite plugins. With the jQuery corner plugin(http://jquery.malsup.com/corner/) you can transform any boring div, paragraph or button into a fancy designed box with a cool border. The jQuery corner plugin is light weight and has support for most browsers. The plugin has tons of options and with a little styling you can really make any element look different from other elements on your website.

So let's get started.

First thing you will need is a copy of jQuery and a copy of the jQuery corner plugin. Once you have downloaded the files and added them to your web directory, you need to include the scripts in the <head></head> section of your web page.

<script src="/your/path/to/js/jquery.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="/your/path/to/js/corner.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Next, we start our block of jQuery, still inside the <head></head> section and under the included scripts. This block checks to see if the document is ready and the page has loaded, similar to javascripts document.ready.

<script type = "text/javascript">
    $(document).ready(function()
    {
        //jQuery code goes here
    }
</script>

For the purpose of this demo, lets say you want to make the buttons on your form have rounded corners. Now, in the past you would have to load up photoshop and create a button. If you wanted to change the style of that button you would have to open up photoship and create an all new button, which could take some time. But with the jQuery corner plugin you can change the style of your button in minutes.

Back to the jQuery, you have your submit button style with a background color:

<input type="submit" id="submitButton" value="Submit"/>

You need to have a background color to make the button work properly.

All we need to do now is add the code in our jQuery document.ready function and we're done.

<script type = "text/javascript">
    $(document).ready(function()
    {
        $("#submitButton").corner("round");
    }
</script>

And believe it or not, that's it. There are a wide variety of different options for corners such as:

• Round
• Bevel
• Notch
• Bite
• Cool
• Sharp
• Slide
• Jut
• Curl
• Tear
• Fray
• Wicked
• Sculpt
• Long
• Dog Ear
• Dog2
• Dog3
• Dogfold
• Bevelfold

You can combine corner styles, set the size, and specify which corner you want to style using top, botton, tl(top left), tr(top right), etc.. You can style your element with borders and background images(as long as you set the background color) and the jQuery corner plugin will take care of everything.

To view a complete list of options visit http://jquery.malsup.com/corner/.

Every website is different depending on what industry you are in. The basics are the same, you want to give the user as much information as you can in an organized fashion as well as provide them with a way to interact with you and your website. But when it comes down to the fine tuned details, every industry has specific needs. In this article I will explain what a restaurant website should have and why.

1. Your location

In my opinion this is number 1. The most important aspect of your restaurant website is giving searching diners the ability to find your restaurant. For example, say I want to go out for Thai food in Woodbridge NJ. I'm going to go to google.com, and search for "Thai restaurants woodbridge nj". If your restaurant website is not indexed as a Thai restaurant in Woodbridge NJ, I won't find you and I'll go elsewhere.

2. Your menu, and not just a pdf

Very close behind your location is your menu. And not just an image or a pdf. A full text menu including prices will get you the best results. Search engines can't index content in an image or pdf. They simply cannot read them. A text menu gives search engines the ability to crawl all of your content and index you based that content. So if someone searches for a specific item on your menu near your location, you will show up higher in search engine results and have a better chance of getting that diners business.

3. Directions

If customers can't get to you, they can't dine at your restaurant. With the advancement of map apis (google, mapquest, etc), customers can easily get directions directly to you right on your website. If you don't have a map, at least provide a few sets of directions to your restaurant from different locations. This will keep the user on your website, rather than having to go elsewhere to try and find directions to your location

4. Online reservations

Online reservations are extremely user friendly. If you take reservations at your restaurant, the ability to make reservations online is a must. A professional website developer will be able to assist you in creating a user friendly experience that is simple and effective.

5. Mailing List

A mailing list gives customers the ability to stay up to date with your news and offers. This is a great way to build trust and relationships with your users. By sending them updates once in a while, they will constantly know what's going on at your restaurant and you will always be on their mind when they think of dining.

This is a short list of some basic requirments for a restaurant website. If your restaurant does not have all of these elements you may want to contact us so we can help you upgrade your web presence and get you more business.

Potential diners are looking online when deciding ahead where to dine. They are searching for restaurants in their area, directions, and menus; and possibly to make reservations online. If they can't find your website, they'll find your competitors. You need to offer potential customers as much information as possible. Basicaly you're solving a problem for them. They are looking for a restaurant. You are a restaurant.

Your marketing should not just rely on your physical resturant, but also on your online presence. The sign outside of your restaurant is your physical presence, a website is your presence online. Not having a presence online, could lead to you losing out on customers.

What's in it for me?

When it comes down to it, the real question restaurants want to know is what's in it for me. I'm going to spend money on a website but what will I get out of it?

Your website should work for you, and if it does, it will pay off. Make sure you hire a professional website designer that understands what you need. If you need to make reservations, your website needs to be able to take them. Your website should also include your entire menu (not a pdf) and location, making it easy for search engines to find you when your food and location are searched for. A mailing list is also a good idea so you can keep your customers informed about events, sales, and special offers.

After building a database of emails of potential and returning customers, you can then market to them and begin building relationships with your customers. This is a great way to see what customers like, dislike, and keep them coming back for more.

The problem is that most small business owners have this concept and fail to perform as a result. Understanding this concept and applying it will put you ahead of your competitors.

Basic marketing concepts

1. A confused mind never makes a decision - especially a choice to purchase
2. The customer has a problem or a need not an interest in you
3. People buy when they feel comfortable and ready
4. Trust is the key
5. It takes an average of 7 communications to create a sale

Take a moment to look at your website and analyze it from your customers point of view. While analyzing your website, consider the following questions:

• Is your website focused on the problems or needs of your prospective customers?
• Does your website communicate the benefits of what you offer in solving that problem and meeting that need?
• Is your website clear, simple and uncluttered?
• Does your website compel the visitor to interact with it?
• Does your website provide 'high value' information that will build trust with your customers or is it stuffed with 'low value' sales content?

Now, take a look at your competitors websites, how well do follow the questions above? Is their website more customer focused or is it full of sales and marketing talk?

Most business web sites fail because they aren't designed on the needs of their customers. It's the classic business owner / website designer error. We are all consumers of brand marketing, therefore we all have an understanding of the basics of marketing.

Customers respond to certain triggers. Understanding what triggers your customers to purchase will give you the ability to use that knowledge to drive them to buy from you. As a business owner, you have the most passion and the best understanding of your products. Make sure your website designer understands what your customers need and what will drive them to purchase your products or services.

Your customers are looking for a solution

Potential customers and returning customers reached your website looking for a solution to their problem. Highlighting your products or services and putting them right in front of your customers face will help trigger them to make a purchase. If your website is full of useless information, your customers will go elsewhere, possibly to your competition. Customers aren't insterested in your history, your brand, or your news. They want the solution to their problem. So give them what they want!

Do you need help analyzing your website from a customers perspective? Or does your website need to be changed to better suite your customers needs? We can help. Contact us today and we can get started analyzing your website.

Using keywords and key phrases are a key part of search engine optimization. But you have to use them correctly. This article will give you some tips on how to use your keyords properly on your website and other websites.

Use keywords in your <title> tag

The contents of the <title> tag are displayed in the top of your web browser and in search engines when linking you your website. This makes the <title> tag one of the most important places to have use keywords. The title tag should be  around 6 or 7 words and unique for every web page on your website.

Use keywords in your URLs

Try to include your keywords in your links, http://domainname.com/web-services/seo-services, where “SEO services” is the keyword phrase you attempting to rank well for.

Use keywords in your inlinks

When linking to your website, try to use your keywords. This tells search engines that your website has relevant content for your keyword. It also tells other users what the page they are going to be visiting will be about. If you want to rank well for the phrase "new jersey accountant", your link would look like <a href="your-website.com" title="new jersey accountant">new jersey accountant</a>.

Use keywords in heading tags

Heading tags tell the use what your page is about. <H1> being the most important, should contain the main topic of the page. Use <H2> to <H6> tags for less important titles, but always try to use your keywords.

Use Keywords in <alt> tags

Search engines can't read images, but they can read the images alt attribute. Try to use keywords that describe the image.

Use keywords in meta tags

Though google doesn't really use meta tags anymore, other search engines such as Yahoo! and Bing do. This may change at some point but for the moment it doesn't hurt to use meta tags and include your keywords.

Research secondary keywords

Secondary keywords are important because they could be untapped resources. For example, trying to get ranked well for the keyword "restaurant" might be very difficult. If you add some descriptive words "barbeque restaurant", and even your location "new jersey barbeque restaurant", you will have less competition and rank better and more easily in search engines.

Keyword stuffing

Over use of keywords is a big problem with search engine optimization companies. And you see it over and over. If you look at a web page and see the same words and phrases over and over, it gets annoying. Use keywords and phrases wisely and optimize your text for your users, not search engines.

All search engine optimization comes down to is creating a web page that is useful to people. Don't worry about what page you are on google or other search engines. Create a website that is useful and a resource for people and you will gain traffic and search engine rankings without even knowing it.

 

They all know of search engine optimization, but not many really understand it. Over the past months I have had some conversations with business owners about their websites and their search engine optimization techniques. While speaking to them,I realized that they were focused on the wrong stuff. Focusing on keyword density and trying to get results too quickly were amoung the most common issues. The purpose of this article is to explain search engine optimization at the most basic level.

1. How search engines work

This image will give you an idea of how complicated google really is. In a nutshell, search engines crawl the web, cache the content of a webpage, and search the cahced websites when a search query is entered. How the results are displayed is a whole other story. Google will determine the websites authority on a subject by how many inlinks the page has, location, user preferences, and more. Search engine algorythms have gotten so complex and include so many factors, know the exact process is almost impossible. Which is why this is something you don't need to focus on, but understanding how it works will help you to understand search engine optimization.

2. Be patient

The first question most business owners have after getting a new website is how long will it take for people to find me on google. There is no answer to this question. It could take a month, it could take a year. Depending on the content of  your website and competitiveness of your keywords, it could take more or less time. Don't focus on what page you are on in the search engines, focus on creating a website that is useful to your customers. The more useful your website is to your customers, the more authoritive you will become in your area of business.

3. Content is king

Your website needs content. And not just some nice graphics and a list of your products and services. Give your users something interesting that will get them involved. Write articles, create a poll or contest, involving your users and giving them something to come back to will help improve your search engine ranking.

4. Pay-per-click vs organic results

Pay-per-click is great to get a quick boost in traffic, if you have the budget for it. Pay-per-click will boost your traffic and you will see the results almost instantly. But once you cut it off, all of that traffic is gone. The best way to get traffic to your website is through organic search engine optimization. This means filling your website with useful information for your users.

5. Good markup = better seo results

Make sure when searching for a website design company, that you choose one who is experienced and understands how to code a website properly. Errors in HTML code is not only bad for search engines, it is also bad for your users. Search engine optimization is all about the users. If it's bad for them, it's bad for search engines.

All in all, search engine optimization is about creating a useful resource for your users. Repeating keywords over and over won't get you anywhere and will make your website look terrible. Have you ever seen a website that just seemed to repeat the same words over and over? Did you enjoy it? Focus on your users and search engines will recognize it.

Website usability is about making your website easy to user for your users. Your users should be able to easily navigate through your website and find the information they are looking for. These are some broad guidelines for website usability:

1. Present the information to the user in a clear and concise way.
2. Give the correct choices to the users, in a very obvious way.
3. Remove any ambiguity regarding the consequences of an action e.g. clicking on delete/remove/purchase.
4. Emphasize important links and buttons

Here are 10 basic website usability factors for your website design & development.

1. Think like your users

Think of your website as your store. Customers are looking through your store, scanning the shelves and racks, to see if you have the product they are looking for. Web users do the same exact thing. They scan your website quickly to see if they can find the product they are looking for. If they see something they like, they will click a link to get more information, such as prices, colors, etc., then decide to buy or leave. Understanding this is key to laying out your website pages to draw the attention of your users.

2. Focus your users attention

Use text, images, and video to focus your users attention on the items you want them to focus on. Using formatted text, images, and video you can let the user know what is most important for them to see. The goal is to focus and guide the user to purchasing your product.

3. Don’t make your users think

According to the first law of Usability (Krug’s Law): A webpage should be obvious and self explanatory. You want to make your user experience as simple as possible. If a user has to ask questions about what something is, or what page they need to go to in order to find information, you could confuse them and end up losing out on business. If you display a product, it should only take 1-2 clicks to buy that product.

4. Make use of effective copy writing

Writing for the web is much different than writing for print. Users don't want to read long text articles with no images, links, or emphasized points. Writing for the web requires the use of emphasized text and images that enable the user the quickly scan the page and pick out the information they want to see,

5. K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple Stupid

Well written and designed content should your focus, rather than a pretty design. Focus on presenting important information to the user in a simple manner. Keep your designs simple and focus on highlighting the important information.

6. Give your text a break, use some white space

"White space" is areas on your web page that don't have any text or images. White space allows your users to take in more information and more easily understand and follow the flow of your text. If a website is too crammed, you can easily get lost between different texts. Give your text plenty of space and make it as easy as possible to for your users to read.

7. Use unique page titles with your keywords

Every webpage on your website should have a different title. Titles let the user know that they are on a seperate page and what that page is about. Including keywords that your webpage is focused on in your title is also an effective search engine optimization technique. Try to focus your writing and keywords for every page on a few select keywords.

8. Create scannable content

Use heading tags <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, etc., to separate the different sections of your content. Headings allow your users to easily scan over a page and find the information they are looking for. You can also include your keywords in the heading for search engine optimization, but don't over use your keywords. Nothing looks worse than seeing the same words and phrases over and over again.

 

9. Let your users search

Some users don't want to read through your website and look for the content they want. Providing a search feature gives your users a way to search for exactly what they are looking for. Giving your users what they need is what web usability is all about.

10. Broken links

Have you ever visited a website, tried to click what you though was a link and nothing happened? Broken links aren't good for anyone. Test your website frequently to ensure that all of your links work correctly and take you to the appropriate page.

Just having a website on the internet or sending out plain emails to your customers will not make you stand out anymore. You need to capture your customers attention with creative website designs and targeted email marketing. A professional email marketing design and website design will allow your company to compete with larger companies, making your company look like a giant!

Know your customers, your target audience

Knowing your customers is the most important aspect of any marketing campaign, and your website is your number 1 marketing tool. Your customer demographic information will help you create a marketing plan that is catered to them. If your customers are mostly women age 25-35, you aren't going to have models in bikinis in your marketing campaigns. However, if your customers are men, age 25-35, a woman in a bikini might not be a bad idea. There are many analytic tools available for free on the internet to help you better understand your visitors and customer demographic. A professional website design & development company will be able to analyze your data and help you understand your customers a little better.

Know your competition, do some research

Sun Tzu quotes (Chinese General and Author, b.500 BC), "Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.". Is your competitors website better than yours? Do they offer special deals and discounts? Are their products cheaper or better than yours? Or both? This is critical information when it comes to marketing. You can put millions of ads out, send out tons of marketing emails, but it won't matter if your competition has better deals. The internet makes it possible to find the best deals in minutes. I know when I am researching a product, I look for the best deals and go to that website first.

Professional website design and your customers

The internet has made it possible for any size company to compete with the giants. And a professional website designer knows how to leverage your brand and grow your web presence to do so. Knowing your target audience play a huge roll in your website design. You aren't going to be using bright colors and complex backgrounds if your customer base is 50+ years old. Providing your website designer with demographical information about your customers will allow them to determine the best design to suite your customers.

Professional email marketing and your customers

Email marketing is risky business. While the return on investment is high, you need to know understand your customers, your competition, and have a solid email marketing plan and design. Understanding what your customers are looking for will assist in an email marketing plan by leading them to your website, and ultimately getting a sale. Using email marketing, you can put exactly what your customers are looking for right in front of their face. It doesn't get any easier for them than that.

Understanding your competitors is key in email marketing, especially for small businesses trying to compete with larger companies. Sign up for their email lists, see how often they send them, products they are selling, and special deals and offers they are giving. Large companies do a lot of research into their marketing campaigns, and while it may not be right for your customers, you can get an idea of what you need to do to be successful.

Understand what your clients are looking for can be a difficult process. An experienced website design company will help you analyze your data and determine the best approach for marketing towards them. Make sure you choose a results oriented email marketing company and professional website design company and you'll be in good hands.

Revolution Unlimited and PixelProgression will be working together to migrate Rob Imperato's Certified Professional Life Empowerment Coach website from a wordpress based system to our custom content management system. The site will be re-designed and developed from the ground up. The current table/div based layout will be converted to 100% css/div based.

The site will feature:

• our custom content management system
• blog/article writing
• custom design
• search engine optimized copy and coding

The new website is scheduled to be up within a week or 2 so check back to see the new website.

Search engine optimization is not that difficult of a task, and you can accomplish a lot in just a few hours. SEO is all about understanding your customers and your market, and optimizing your content for your customers. If you have thousands of pages, this may take some time, but it can be done. With a little research and patience you can optimize your content for search engines with ease. The following 5 search engine optimization tips are some simple techniques to help you optimize your content for search engines and your users.

1. Add heading tags, <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, etc., to your content

Heading tags are used to display the topic of the content you are about to read. It is important in structuring your documents because it gives users and search engines the ability to quickly scan your content and know the content. Users can use heading tags to scan your content and get the information they need with out the hassle of searching. Even if heading tags didn't do anything as far as search engine optimization is concerned, they will help your customers find what they are looking for.

2. Use optimized title tags

The <title> element of your website is used to display your web page title in the top of the browser. You can find the <title> tag on your website by looking in the <head> section of your html/xhtml page. The title tag is used to tell the user and search engines exactly what is on the web page. Titles tags are usually formatted with the brand name first and your keywords after like this: "Brand Name | Primary Keyword | Secondary Keyword". Including your keywords in the title tag will help search engine spiders understand your content. The title tag is also used by search engines to link to your website.

3. Use simple text formatting, bold, underline, italics

I feel this is a commonly over looked item in search engine optimization. And even if it didn't matter for search engines, text formatting gives your users a way to scan through your content and pick out important items they want to read about.

4. Meta keywords & descriptions

Many search engine optimization experts consider meta tags to be dead, and for the most part they are. However, most of the same experts that say meta tags are dead still continue to use them. As far as I am concerned, nothing is dead and never will be. There are hundreds of thousands of search engines and directories out there. To say that meta tags are invaluable to all of them is unrealistic. The value might not be as high as it was, but there is still value in meta tags. Some search engines and directories will use your meta description as preview text for your website, do you want the description of your website to be ""? I know I don't.

5. Content, content, content

Content is king, and will remain king for a long time. The advancement of search engine technology has lead to huge changes in search engine optimization techniques. Search engines now look for relevant content about the keywords searched on. This is why understanding your market and customers is so important. If you have what they need on your website, they will visit and possible become a long lasting customer.

These 5 simple tips will help you in your search engine optimization tasks. A professional search engine optimization company can help you research your market, customers, and keywords to determine the most useful keywords for your business. This can be hard to do, but an experienced search engine optimization company will know what tools to use and use them right to come up with the most relevant keywords for your business.

Upgrading your website isn't just about getting a new look, it's about creating a system that will help you better manage your business. Depending on whether your business website is product based, service based, or lead generation based, your needs will be different.

Of course the end goal is always going to be to make more money, but there is much more thought that needs to go into what you need. Assessing your current website and business needs is a great way to start. You can determine what you your new website to accomplish.

Product based websites

If you sell products on your website, you might have a few different goals. Most importantly you want to sell more products. Adding related product, featured products, and call outs to sale items and hot sellers could be ways to help sell more products.

Aside from the most general need to sell more products, a new website can offer much more. Organization is key. The ability to categorize and sub categorize products will help you better manage your products and stay organized. A related product feature will let users know about similar products, which may entice them to purchase more. Reports about selling trends, dropped carts, and your user activity will better prepare you for email marketing campaigns and other advertising.

Service based websites

A service based website is a little different from a product based website. When selling services, you need to ensure the user is aware of exactly what they are signing up for. You also need to ensure that you capture all of the information required to properly bill the user.

Similar to a product based website, you want to sell more services. Adding call outs can be a great way to lead customers into purchasing your services. Simply a few images, banners, or text ads can get a users attention and lead them to purchase your service. I see many service based websites with no call outs at all. If customers can't see it they can't buy it. Call outs put your services right in front of their face, giving you a better chance of converting them into a sale.

Lead generating websites

Lead generating websites are the most different type of website, but probably the simplest. The goal of a lead generating website is to attract users to submit a request for more information or to contact them. Like product and service based websites, there are a variety of methods to generate more leads.

Call outs are a simple effective way to generate more leads. Let the user know if they contact you for more information you will contact them back within a few days. You can also give the user a free download or a discount, an incentive for them to submit their information. After generating more leads you are going to want to track your leads. Your website can help organize leads and track the status of your leads. The ability to export your leads as a csv file can be used to prepare for creating email marketing campaigns and mail marketing campaigns.

The big picture

The main goal of upgrading your website is of course to generate more income. But don't forget about the smaller parts that will make your website work for you and lighten your load. An experienced website developer or website development company can assist in creating the best solution for your business and even offer features you may not have thought about. Make sure you choose a website developer or website development company that is experienced and can handle what you need. It will be an investment, but if done right, it will pay off in the end.

In these tough economic times, it's hard to spend a large sum on a single aspect of your business. Whether it's a new brochure, business cards, a new website, etc., there are a lot of considerations on where to invest your money.

You may be considering a new website, but the cost can be an issue, and we understand that. That is why we are offering monthly payment plans. You can hire a professional website development company for as low as $100 a month. We will work with you and your budget to ensure we don't break the bank, and start building or enhancing the web presence of your company.

Benefits for small businesses and start-ups

We know times are tough for most businesses and that if you are starting a new business, your budget may be tight. This doesn't mean that you can't start building your web presence. Working with a professional website design & development company will give your company the edge over your competition. Your website will work for you by generating leads and providing you a way to inform your customers about your services and products.

Focus on your business and we will focus on your website

Adding another item to the list of daily tasks for a small business owner is out of the question. We understand that you already have other tasks and that you just don't have the time to dedicate to your website. While you work on your daily tasks, we can take care of your website. Our website maintenance plans are customized to fit your needs and your budget.

If you have any questions about pricing or payment plans for your web projects, contact us and we would be glad to help.

All over the internet, you can find beautiful image galleries. Some of these image galleries use flash, which can be really nice, but also cost a lot more and take more time to implement than a jQuery image gallery. This article will give you some examples of image galleries that are easy to implement, quick to code, and are simple to customize.

jQuery Cycle Plugin

This is one of my favorite jQuery image gallery scripts. Setup is a breeze and with some css you can make it look really good. The jQuery cycle plugin offers a wide variety of transitions and effects which makes it versitile enough to suite any situation. Read more about the jQuery cycle plugin at http://jquery.malsup.com/cycle/.

jQuery Thickbox

This is a classic jQuery image gallery script. You have probably seen it or a script similar to it tons of times. With the thickbox script, you click on a smaller image and the background is made dark and an enlarged version of the image is displayed in the center of the page. Thickbox can be used in many different ways. You can use the thickbox plugin to display a single image, multiple images, inline content, iframed content, or content served from an AJAX script. Read more about the thickbox script at http://jquery.com/demo/thickbox/.

jQuery GalleryView

This jQuery image gallery script is used to display images in a stylish way, with little work to setup and customize. The script has a large area to display the "main" image and lists thumbnails to be enlarged underneath. It also includes arrows to navigate between sets of thumbnails and view the next image. Read more about the galleryview script at http://spaceforaname.com/gallery-light.html.

Custom jQuery Image Gallery

There might not be an image gallery script that fits your needs, but they aren't that hard to custom code. A custom jQuery image gallery can be setup very easily. Using a few jQuery scripts you can have an image gallery up in just a few hours. These two galleries can be found on the Pennsyvania Dutch Design website.

Get an image gallery on your website

Image galleries don't need to be expensive or use flash to look good and function well. You can have a jQuery image gallery on your website in just a few hours. Contact us and let us know what image gallery you are interested in and we can help you set it up.

Now you can. And even better, you can host your fundraiser online for free. You pay a percentage of what you make through your fundraiser. No maintenance fees, no setup fees, no monthly fees. Coming soon from Revolution Unlimited and Pixel Progression.

Hosted Fundraiser Solutions

The hosted fundraiser is hosted on our servers. You pay nothing up front, no monthly fees, and no maintenance fees. Simply direct people to your page on our site and you can accept donations, create teams, and more! You pay a percentage of what you make through your fundraiser. There is no risk to hosting your fundraiser online.

The hosted fundraiser features:

• free setup & hosting
• the ability to sign up as an individual, join a team, or create a team
• accept donations
• setup personal goals, team goals, and event goals
• social network sharing tool
• paypal integration

Integrated Fundraiser Solutions

The integrated fundraiser is built into your website. You pay a 1 time setup fee and a yearly maintenance fee, and all of your donations come directly to you. Our software is integrated with your websites branding and look. Your visitors will not be taken off of your site to make donations.

The integrated fundraiser features:

• fully integrated and branded with your website
• the ability to sign up as an individual, join a team, or create a team
• accept donations
• setup personal goals, team goals, and event goals
• social network sharing tool
• paypal integration

Get your fundraiser online and maximize your profits

We can help you decide which option is best for you to get your fundraiser online. Contact us today and tell us more about your fundraiser and we would be glad to help.

It seems pretty straight forward, a developer develops and a designer designs. But what does that really mean and which will you need for your website? The answer really depends on what you are looking for. If you need help with how your website looks, graphics, colors, etc., you need to talk to a website designer. If you want to add functionality to your website such as a mailing list, blog, or contact form, you need to talk to a website developer. This article will explain what the difference is between website designers and website developers.

Website Developer

A website developer is responsible for programming your application. This is the backbone of your website. You usually don't see any of the code or really need to, but the website developer programs your application to function how it is needed.

The website developer can also be responsible for coding html and css. HTML and css are used to code the front end of your website. Though it can be argued that this is a job for the website designer, in my experience the developers are usually repsonsible for cutting and coding the design.

Website developers can use a number of tools to assist in programming. In my case, I program everything by hand. All of the php applications are hand coded specifically to the needs of the application. This keeps the code neat and tight. Some programs actually add code and create invalid html and css. I avoid all of that by coding strictly by hand.

Website Designer

A wesbite designer is responsible to for front end look of the website. This is what you see when you visit a website. Most think the website designer is responsible for the entire website. But often it is a combined effort between a website designer and a website developer to create a website.

Website designers usually use Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator to create website designs. Both programs are graphic editing programs and can be used to create logos, website layouts, any print materials, etc..

Can someone be a developer and designer?

Absolutely. It's assumed that most programmers are nerdy computer geeks that have no sense of design or style. Today, times have changed. Website developers are now capable of designing and developing full web applications. And that is where I fall in to. I am a website designer and developer. I believe developers should be more involved in the design because they have a close relation to the design and know what functionality can be added to make a website more interactive.

So, what will you need?

That depends on what you want to do. Contact us and let us know what you are looking to do with your website and we will help you decide whether you need a website designer or a website developer.

Wordpress is a great system, but many users find it difficult to use. From a developers stand point, I am not a fan. Adding modules to make a simple site function properly and add the basic features that should be in any content management system, such as metadata is time consuming and can be buggy. Try is for yourself. Wordpress Demo. Revolution Unlimited Content Management System Demo.

Simple to use

The Revolution Unlimited content management system is as simple as possible. When I was developing the content management system, I wanted it to contain everything needed to create web pages that are seo friendly, and can easily be edited and added. Using the Tiny MCE wysiwyg editor, you can easily format your pages, add bold text, links, images, and more. The word like interface makes creating a web page as easy as creating a word document.

After using many of the popular content management systems, drupal, wordpress, joomla, silver stripe, etc., I took the featured I liked and got rid of what was not nessesary. What I came up with is what I think is easier to use, but just as robust as any other system. Try the content management system demo and see how easy it is to use.

Metadata

Metadata is pretty much a summary of your web page. Metadata inludes meta titles, meta keywords, and meta descriptions. Search engines use metadata to determine what content is on your pages and where to rank you on searches for that information. It is extremely important for search engine optimization to use optimized metadata.

The Revolution Unlimited content management system comes standard with the ability to have custom metadata on every page. You can optimize every page on your website to include custom meta titles, meta keywords and meta descriptions.

Try it for yourself

These are just a couple of reasons to choose our content management system. But don't take my word for it. Try the content management system demo and see for yourself.

Your customers want character. They want to know who they are working with. While small businesses can show more creativity and personality, today larger companies can also show a little more personality. Your personality and creativity can all be unique selling points to your customers.

How is your business different from your competitors

Tell your customers how you are different from the rest or your competitors. They need to know why they should use your services rather than your competitors. Many business websites exclude this information becuase they have never thought about it. A simple paragraph about what maked you different is more to explain why someone should use your services or buy from you.

What does your company offer

Have you ever gone to a website and had no idea what the purpose of the website is? It happens way too often that companies don't describe their services or products thoroughly. If a potential customer doesn't see what they want, they aren't going to contact you to find the missing information. They will simple move on to the next website that has all the information they are looking for.

Contact information

This may seem like a nobrainer, but you would be suprised how many businesses don't include contact information. Including your address and phone number will help in building credibility and trust in your customers. Displaying your phone number and address will comfort a customer that your business is legitimate.

Third-party validation

Customer testimonials, client lists, case studies, awards, positive news clippings, etc. are all ways to let a customer know what your clients think of working with you. And your customers want to know others experience working with you. Any validation your company receives will hel your customers trust doing business with you and that they will have a good experience working with you.

Secure Socket Layer (SSL)

SSL is an encryption system that helps protect the privacy of data exchanged between a customer and a website. If you have an ecommerce website that takes credit card information, customers want to know that their information is safe. Let your customers know that their information is safe and they have nothing to worry about.

Ease of use and navigation

A website that is not easy to navigate is useless. If a customer can't get to the information they are looking for, about your services or products, how can they possibly buy from you? Ease of navigation and a site search gives the customer the ability to get anywhere on your site and search for the information they are looking for.

Define your processes

Let your customers know, step-by-step, your processes. You want to let them know exactly how to place an order and what to do if there is an error. Include contact information about who to contact about their order status. Clearly defining your processes will let the customer know exactly what to expect and more the transaction go smoothly.

Ability to give feedback

Encourage feedback about your products and services from your customers. Feedback will help you learn what you need to work on as well as let other customers learn about what others think about working with you. If you don't know your customer isn't happy, how can you fix the problem for future customers?

Calls to action

Customers need signs or buttons in order to act. Buy now buttons, click here for more information, sign up for our mailing list all give the customer a clear call to action. Many small businesses don't provide calls to action. Tell your customers what you want them to do and they will react.

Special offers and incentives

Small businesses can have an edge on larger companies by offering personilized sales and special offers. Give returning customers a coupon to use on their next order. Even a simple thank you email is enough to let the customer know you appreciate doing business with them.

You could be losing business if you don't include this information on your website. Contact us today and we can analyze your website and let you know what you need to get more business.

Email marketing is one of the best methods of marketing, if it's done right. With all of the different email clients and email service providers, designing emails that look good in them all can become difficult. This article will give you some tips on designing and coding html emails that will render best in most email clients.

Use tables for layouts

That's right, unlike websites where you want to use a css layout, with html emails you want to use tables for your layout. Email clients don't render css very well, so using nested tables is the best way to code html emails.

Setting the width of the table however won't work. Some email clients won't render the table width correctly, so you set the width of your <td> and the table will be rendered accordingly.

For background colors, use a container table

Background css tags in the <body> section will be ignored. To set the background color of html emails, you wrap the entire email in a table with the width set to 100%. Then set the background color in the <td> containing your html email content. You can use the same code to use a background image, however always supply a fallback background color.

Always use inline CSS

Some email clients will strip css from the <head> or <body> section of your html email code so inline css is the only solution. You can use a service, such Premailer, to move all of your css inline after coding, so you can get the most out of css in your emails.

Links

Some email clients will overwrite your link colors to their defaults. The best way to get around this is to set the link color within the <a> tag, and wrap the link text in a <span> and set the color. So your link code will end up looking like:

<a href="http://www.a-link-to-your-site.com" style="color:#ff0000"><span style="color:#ff0000">your link text</span></a>

Images in HTML emails

When using images in html emails, you have to keep in mind that most email clients won't load the images by default. So using images for important text in your email would be a bad idea. Try to keep designs simple and only use images to enhance the content of the email

This is just a short list of tips for designing html emails. Check back for more email marketing design tips.

In my time I have coded many, many different types of forms, some very complex and some very simple. All of the forms I code have at least 1 aspect in common, they are all as simple as possible for the user. And that's what you want. When a customer is looking for information, you want to make it as easy as possible for them. These 5 tips are some examples of programming standards for contact forms.

1. Simplify text fields

People don't like to think too much. Using radio buttons, check boxes and multiple choice selections give the user a quick way to scan and choose the selection that best suites them. This reduces the amount of time they spend filling out the form and getting the information they are looking for.

2. Subject/request type fields

Clearly define the reasons for contacting you. Subject fields are usually more helpful for the manager of the website in order to properly route the request. The best solution is to provide a few clear options to choose from with the options for "general" or "other". Using javascript or jQuery, you can even have a text box appear when "other" is selected for more specific information.

3. CAPTCHA

CAPTCHA is a great way to cut down on spam submissions, but can be difficult for users. Using a CAPTCHA system that is easy to read and offers the option to speak the letters/numbers will make it easier for your users. You can also avoid using a CAPTCHA at all by implementing a few other anti-spam techniques, but that's for another article.

4. Provide feedback after the form has been submitted

Have you ever filled out a form and been taken to a blank page or returned to the form with no information about your form submission? I've seen it too many time where I try to submit a form on a website and am not given any feedback. After submitting a form providing a thank you message and letting the user know that you will contact them with the information they are looking for lets them know that their request has been submitted.

5. Limit the number of fields you use

Too many fields can scare users. Many people do not want to give out private information such as phone number and addresses. Unless this information is absolutely required, either leave it out of the form or make sure it is easily made optional. Only ask for the information that is absolutely necessary.

If your forms do not follow these basic guidelines, you could be losing potential customers. We can help fix your forms. Contact us today and we can help you fix your forms and get more business.

If your website:

has old content
is not W3C compliant
uses a table based layout
is all flash
uses frames
is slow loading
is not cross browser compatible
needs a new look
has a confusing navigation system

If you checked yes to any of these you should consider a website redesign.

Old content

Old content is worthless. Your visitors are going to be turned off if they come to your website and see content that is not fresh. If they don't see anything new they will think you aren't doing any business and won't return. Search engines also rank your website highly based on for fresh your content is. Old content is going to cause your website to drop a few pages in the search engine results.

Our content management system gives you the ability to update your website as often as you would like. Don't let your content go stale again. Contact us for more information about getting the content management system.

Not W3C compliant

The W3C is the World Wide Web Consortium and since 1994 the W3C has provided the guidelines by which websites and web pages should be structured and created. The rules they outline are based on the "best practices" and while websites don't have to comply to be viewed correctly in Internet Explorer and other popular browsers that cater to incorrect design practices, there are a number of compelling reasons to ensure that you or your designer ensure that the W3C guidelines are followed and that your site is brought into compliance. Read more about W3C compliance.

Table based layout

Table based layouts load slowly and are much more time consuming and frustrating to deal with than css based websites. Read more about why you should trade your table based website for css.

All flash

While search engines are coming around to flash, flash is still considered hard to index or not indexable at all. Flash websites can also be difficult to navigation, load slowly, and confusing for some users.

Uses frames

Frames are long out dated and far from W3C compliant. If your website is using frames, unless there are extreme circumstances that makes them necessary, they should be avoided. If you are not sure if your website uses frame, right click on the background of your home page and select "view source". Search for tags like <frame or <iframe. If you find either of them, you are using frames. Contact us to help you get rid of frames on your website.

Slow loading

Slow loading websites turn off visitors and search engines. Using large graphics, tables, and poor coding can lead to your website loading slowly.

Not cross browser compatible

At the very least, your website should function properly and look good in Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari. Cross browser compatability is important because your visitors can be using any web browser. If your site doesn't work in all browsers, you are losing out on those customers.

Needs a new look

Does your website need a make over? Chances are if you don't think your website looks good, your customers think the same. A fresh look is a great way to gain new customers and loyalty from your old customers.

Confusing navigation system

If users can't navigate through your site, they won't be able to find what they are looking for and will go else where. Confusing navigation systems can also cause problems for search engines when trying to crawl your website. If they can't reach your pages there will be no chance of those pages being indexed.

This is a hot topic today. Most people are against outsourcing because they want to support their local economy and local businesses. While these are great reasons not to outsource there is much more to take in to consideration. I have never outsourced any of my work, mainly because it is all done in house, but I have read and been told many horror stories that are enough to influence my decision.

Communiction barriers

This is quite possibly my biggest reason not to outsource. Communicating your needs for your website design and development projects can very difficult when you can't understand the person in charge of your project or they can't understand you. While it may be a minor concern for some, if the project manager misses a key aspect of your website or misunderstands, you will be left with a half finished project.

Time barriers

Think about it. If you are working with a company half way across the world, it is going to be harder to maintain good communication, which is essential in any project, web related or not. Playing phone tag or communication strictly by email simply isn't enough some times. Outsourcing your website design and development projects can leave you with no options but to communicate via email or phone.

Poor quility work

I have worked on a few projects that were originally outsourced, and it was an ugly experience. Poor coding and commenting makes following the code and updating very difficult and time consuming. Your initial investment in your website might be cheaper, but if you want your website to grow with your business, you are going to want a site that is easy to add features and upgrade. Having a poorly coded website will leave you spending more to fix the errors, and even more upgrading.

Avoid scamming companies

Companies offer a great price but is it real or a scam? Before outsourcing your work you have to research a company adding more time and costs to your website design and development projects.

Build a good relationship with your website design and development company

This might be the best part of hiring a local website design and development company. You can meet face to face to go over your projects in details and really get a sense for who you are working with. You will be much more comfortable if you have a good relationship and trust your website design and development company.

New Jersey Website Design & Development

Save yourself the time and effort and hire a local website design and development company. We love meeting new clients and learning about their businesses and helping them make the best out of the web. Contact us today and avoid the headache of outsourcing.

Not only do you see the big pizzerias like Pizza Hut, Dominos, etc., offering online ordering, but now even smaller local pizzerias are begining to follow in the foot steps of the larger companies. And why wouldn't they? The internet offers excellent opportunities for pizzerias to target customers and gain more business by offering online ordering.

Target your customers with social network marketing

The advancement of social networking technologies now allows you to target customers within a certain radius of your location. This gives you the power to market directly to potential customers just by posting your specials and offers accross multiple social networking websites. This might seem like a large task but our custom content management system and social networking tools will give you the ability to update your website and multiple social networking sites all at once.

The pizzeria down the block already offers online ordering

Look up some local pizzarias in your area and you will see that they are all starting to offer online ordering. Don't be left behind while your competitors take advantage of possibly the best marketing tool available to you. Contact us today to learn more about our custom content management system, social networking tools, and ecommerce solutions for your pizzeria or restaurant.

In just about every article I write I talk about how important planning is. Everyone knows a good plan leads to good results. And when it comes to websites, this couldn't be more true.

Though we can have a basic website up in just a few weeks, if you are looking for complex functionality or ecommerce, you need to start planning now. Starting now will give us time to plan out exactly what you need, create a design and modify it to your liking, code the website, test, test, and test some more, and finally go live on time. Read more about our website development process on our 6 step web development process page.

Why should I start so soon?

You might be thinking to yourself, is he crazy? Why should I start planning so soon? In my experience working for website design and development companies I have learned a lot about the importance of starting website projects early. Especially over the summer, with people going on vacation it can be difficult to maintain good communication to keep the project moving.

This doesn't mean that you should just wait until the fall. Start now and get the ball rolling so you have enough time to test properly and add or change functionality. Even if you may be on vacation for a week, we can continue to work and make progress so that your website is completed on time.

Contact us and get started

Don't wait. If you are planning on having a new website for the fall, or even for the new year, you need to get started planning it now. Contact us and we would be glad to help you start planning you new website.

That being said, have you updated your website content today? This week? This month? This year!? In order to achieve and maintain a good position on search engines you need to engage your readers with interesting relevant content. Search engine optimized content will get the best results using keywords and keyphrases customers use to find your business.

Keyword rich quality content

Writing articles or in a blog about random topics without using keywords and keyphrases will get you nowhere. Quality content, when it comes to the web, refers to well written articles rich with your keywords and keyphrases, as well as inbound and outbound links. Writing good content will not only keep your readers interested, it will offer others a chance to link to your articles.

Inlinking is a great for search engine optimization

Google and other search engines when indexing your web pages, considers the number of links to your page an indication of the popularity of your content. The more inbound links from quality websites, the better your page rank will be and you will be indexed on a higher page. Keeping your content fresh, and rich with keywords, keyphrases, inbound and outbound links will keep you on a higher page on the search engines.

When did you last update your website?

After reading the few points in this article you can see why keeping your content fresh is so important. This can be an issue for some businesses because the cost for updating content on your website could be through the roof. But you can change this. Update your website with our custom content management system. We can take your existing website with the same design and content, and add our content management system to manage your content. With the content management system you can create new content, modify old content, add links, format text, and add meta titles, meta keywords, and meta descriptions. For the 1 time cost of setting up the content management system, you can update your content whenever you want.

Don't take my word for it, try the demo!

See for yourself how easy it is to manage the content on your website with little to no html or css knowledge. If you can create a word document, you can write rich web content for your website. View our content management system demo and see for yourself. Contact us for more information about getting a content management system for your website.

A cms, or content management system, is an online interface that gives you the ability to add, delete, and modify the content on your website. There are many different content management systems out there. We have developed a simple content management system that is easy to use yet robust enough to create rich content on your website with little or no html or css knowledge. Using a WYSIWYG html editor, you can quickly and easily create beautiful content for your website.

What is a WYSIWYG editor?

WYSIWYG stands for What You See Is What You Get. The purpose of a WYSIWYG editor is to give the user the ability to create rich content for a webpage with little to no html or css knowledge. With an interface similar to using Microsoft Word, a WYSIWYG gives you the ability to create complex layouts, add images and video, create links, format text and more.

Our content management system give you control over your website's content

Using the TinyMCE WYSIWYG html editor, our content management system gives you the ability to create rich content with links, images, and title tags. For search engine optimization,  our content management system gives you the ability to add h1, h2, h3, etc. tags, title and alt tags on images and links, as well as the ability to update and add and modify meta titles, meta keywords, and meta descriptions.

View our content management system demo and see for yourself

We have created a demo with 3 different templates, so you can see for youself how easy it is to update your content and how it looks in different formats. Login to the content management system demo using guest as the username and password. View the different templates by selecting a different style from the drop down on the bottom left of the page.

Have a question about our content management system? Contact us and we would be glad to answer all of your questions.

We are giving away a free website this summer. The website is valued at $5,000 and includes, a website design, our custom content management system, search engine optimization, search engine submission, and hosting and domain name consultation. The winner will be selected randomly on September 1st 2010. The contest is open to anyone who maybe be interested in a new website or a website redesign.

Fill out the form and you're in

Go to the free website giveaway contest page and fill out the form and you could win the free website. Duplicates will be disqualified from the contest, so only submit the form 1 time.

Tell your friends about the free website giveaway contest

with all of your friends on facebook, myspace, twitter, and by email. Even if you don't win the free website, you will be notified about any other contests we will be running in the future. This can include website discounts, free websites, free html email designs, and more! Contact us if you have any questions about the free website giveaway contest.

Many website design companies make the mistake of starting a website without a clear plan. This is a set-up for failure. There are 1000s of dead websites on the web due to lack of planning. Before designing and developing your website, we need to have clear plan of what you need, for right now and for the future, to allow your website to grow with your business. Our 6 step website design and development process will ensure your website is the most effective for your needs.

These questions will help you prepare for starting your new website

1. What Are Your Business Goals?

Wanting to "just make money" isn't a business goal. A clearly defined business plan and business goals will build a foundation for your business and website. Without a carefully layed out plan, your website will end up costing you more and being more of a headache in the long run.

2. What's the Purpose of Your Website?

Every business needs a website. But what will you include on your website? Your website is a marketing tool, and you have to include all the details about your business. You location, contact information, products/services, and more. For search engine optimization, the more content you have on your website the better.

3. What Type of Products or Services Will You Sell?

This coinsides with having business goals and a business plan. If you don't know what you are selling why are you starting a business? If you don't know what you are selling how can you figure out who to market to or what media outlets to use? It all comes down to having a good plan, and our experience will help you convert your business plan into a website plan.

4. Will You Sell Products on Your Website?

This will make a huge difference in the initial cost of your website. But when considering this question, you need to consider ther future. You may not want to sell your products online right now, but in the future you may change your mind. Having a clear plan of what you want out of your website will help your website developer plan a website that can grow with your needs.

5. How Many Variables Does Your Product Have?

Are your products available in different sizes and colors? Will you have multiple images of your products? When developing the Pennsylvania Dutch Design website, we had to ensure they could add all of the variable about their furniture including types of wood, stains, and dimensions. They are also able to add multiple product images, and select related products for each product. Our custom content management system demo will show you how easy it is to manage your products.

6. Will You Accept Online Payments?

Again, you need consider your plans for the future of your website. The structure of the your products and data will be different if you plan on accepting payments online. Planning for it when you start your website will save you time and money in the long run.

7. Do You Have a Web Hosting Plan?

Your web host is the physical location your websites files. You direct your domain name (www.yourdomainname.com) to your web host to display your website. Deciding on a hosting plan can be a daunting task. Many hosting companies offer different options depending on your needs. Contact us and we can help you choose the most appropriate web hosting plan for your website.

8. Will You Maintain the Website Yourself?

With our custom content management system you can maintain your own website with ease and little to no HTML or CSS knowledge. Or if you don't have the time to update your website, we can do it for you. Read more about our website maintenance services.

9. Do You Have a Marketing Plan?

Your beautiful website design won't make a difference in nobody knows about your website. You need to have a results driven website maketing plan to get customers to your website. Some website markting methods include, search engine marketing, pay-per-click, article submission, social media marketing, email marketing, etc. Website marking needs to be done consistently to be effective.

10. Will You Monitor Your Website Statistics?

There are website analytic services, the most popular probably being Goolgle Analytics. Google analytics provides information about your visitors, keywords, bounce rates, popular content, and more. Understanding these statistics can be difficult but we can help you. Contact us about your website analytics account and we would be glad to help you understand more about your website and visitors.

Do you have a website for your New Jersey, Pennsylvania, or New York based business? If not, you need to get one! Read this article about the importance of having a website for your business. Being a New Jersey base website design and development company we understand the budget concerns and marketing trends in the area. But, don't let your budget hold you back.

We can help with your website, no matter what your budget is

We aren't here to break the bank. We are a small business and understand the challenges small businesses have. We can provide a website design and website development solution that will suite your budget. We don't believe in cookie cutter solutions. We know that every business is different, has different needs, and most importantly different budgets. Workign together we will put together a plan that best suites your needsand gets you results.

Get started today, view our services and get in touch

We offer a wide variety of services including, website design, website development, email marketing, search engine optimization, eccommerce and much more. View our services page to view all that we offer and feel free to contact us anytime. We can be reached at 732-925-4044, email us at info@revolutionunlimited.com, or fill out our contact form on the contact us page. We look forward to hearing from you.

Looking at many websites, you can see that too many designers and developers still use tables for their page layouts. Tables should only be used to display tabular data, which is data that can be inputted to a spread sheet style format, not your main page content.

How do you know if your website is table based?

Open your favorite web browser and go to your home page. Right click on the background and select "view source" or "view page source". Search for "<table". If you see all of the content of your website inside of a <table> tag, your website is probably table base. If you need help figuring out if your website is table based, contact us and we would be glad to help.

Valid XHTML

This is the number one reason to use a CSS page layout. If you use tables for layout, you are writing invalid XHTML. Tables are only valid in XHTML when displaying tabular data. Using CSS to position and layout your pages instead of tables is the only valid way to code HTML page layouts.

Tables can be hard to understand, update, and change

Tables coded incorrectly could make your web page be a plain white screen. Unprofessional website designers and developers make this error by using tables that are created incorrectly and either missing tags or excluding closing tags. Even if the code is correct, nested tables can be very difficult to follow if the code is not neat. And if your website was coded using tables, we can assume it won't be the neatest.

CSS makes your website easy to maintain and change. Changing the look of your website can be as easy as changing a few items in your style sheet, rather than having to recode tables from the ground up. Professional website designers use css over tables to make restyling your website a much easier task.

Tables are inflexible

It as possible to design percentage based tables, but they almost always end up looking very rigid and not dynamic. They also will slow down you page loading time which is not very good for search engine optimization. CSS gives you the ability to make flexible layouts that can change based on the resolution the user is on.

Nested table load slowly and are hard to work with

Nested tables will cause your page to load slowly because it takes the browser longer to render the nested tables. Nested tables can also be very difficult to update. As I mentioned earlier in this article, 1 missed tag and your website will turn into a blank white page or a complete mess.

CSS loads much faster because you use less code. CSS page layouts are easier to maintain because everyting is kept inside <div></div> tags. If you miss 1 it is usually easy to find and wont cause your page to not load or display a white screen.

Tables hurt search engine optmization

The most common table created layout has a navigation bar on the left side of the page and the main content on the right. When using tables, this (generally) requires that the first content that displays in the HTML is the left-hand navigation bar. Search engines categorize pages based upon the content, and many engines determine that content displayed at the top of the page is more important than other content. So, a page with left-hand navigation first, will appear to have content that is less important than the navigation.

Tables aren't as accessible

Just like search engines, most screen readers read Web pages in the order that they are displayed in the HTML. If a screen reader were to read the same page described above, it is possible that the customer would hit the back button before the reader had even read through all the navigation.

With CSS, you can define a section as belonging on the left side of the page, but place it last in the HTML. Then screen readers and search engines alike will read the important parts (the content) first and the less important parts (navigation) last.

Tables don't print well

If you've ever tried to print a web page, you know that they don't always print well. Sometimes pages look decent and sometimes you will be missing content or the content will be on another page. Tables just don't work well with printing.

With CSS you can create a separate style sheet just for printing. 1 simple step and your website will print with almost no problems.

Is you website still table based?

The reasons above should be more than enough to convince you to get rid of your table based website. Converting a table based layout to CSS can be a pretty tricky task, but we can help you. Contact us today and let us know you want to get rid of your table based website layout and we would be glad to help you.

Like any other marketing outlet, your marketing efforts need to be dynamic and change. Your wesbite is no different. The idea of getting a cost effective basic 5 page website is obsolete. In order to keep traffic coming to your website and stay higher on the search engines you need to have fresh content. With most basic 5 page website packages, adding new content and functionality can be very costly, and turn your cost effective 5 page website into a sloppy, expensive mess.

Your website like other marketing efforts need to be able to change and grow. The ability to add or change services, products, and content should be easily available on your website. The advancement of content management systems no give you the ability to control all of the content on your website with little to no HTML or CSS knowledge and no extra costs. View our custom content management system demo to see how simple it really is to control your website.

Pay for functionality, not  for pages

Too many web design and web development companies base prices on how many pages you need on your website. The reality is, once you code 1 page, you can almost copy it and use it as a template for the rest of the pages. Even if you do have 5 custom pages, the basics are mostly the same and get copied on the rest of the pages.

When considering starting a website or revamping your current website, you need to think how you want your website to function. Adding functionality to your website is what should cost money, not changing or adding content. Functionality includes mailing lists, photo galleries, forms, etc., basically items that are not text based changes to your website.

Get some pictures on your website

Modern content management systems give you the ability to upload, resize, and position your images. Images not only make your website look good, it breaks up the content and gives the user a more involved experience. You can also use images to encourage users to contact you, view a specific service or product, the possibilities are endless.

This doesn't mean you should just upload any image. You need to ensure that your images are properly sized and don't cause your wesbite to load slowly. Users hate slow loading pages, so you may need a graphic designer to ensure that your images look good, and are correctly sized for your website.

You need a content management system

Pay a little more in the beginning and save your self the headache and unexpected expenses down the road. Our custom content management system gives your the ability to keep your content fresh and up to date. Click here to read more about our custom content management system and try the demo to see for yourself how easy it is to control your website. Contact us for pricing or questions about your website.

The structure of your website is like the foundation of a building, if it's flimsy it will eventually crash but if it's sturdy, it will last almost forever. There are many advantages to having a w3c valid website, from search engine optimization to creating an easy to use user interface and everywhere in between. This article will explain why it is important to have an errorless website.

What is W3C Compliance?

The World Wide Web Consortium, W3C, has provided the which websites should be structured and created since 1994. The rules they outline are based on the "best practices" and while websites don't have to comply to be viewed correctly in some browsers, there are a number of reasons to ensure that your website designer and website developer follow the W3C guidelines and your site is w3c compliant. A few reasons are:

• Ensure accessibility for the disabled.
• Ensure that your website is accessible from different browsers and devices.
• Ensure that regardless of the browser, resolution, or device, your website will look and function the same.

Search engines hate errors on your website

If the reasons above aren't enough to convince you that you need a a w3c compliant website, this is another huge reasons. Errors on your website can prevent search engine spiders from being able to access and index your content. If your content isn't indexed searchers will not be able to find your website and you lose out on a potential new customer. You don't want that. Contact us today and let us help make your website w3c compliant.

Give your users an errorless experience

Have you ever been on a website that is impossible to find information or you can't get to certain pages because of errors? This can frustrate a user and cause them to leave and never return to your website. Ensuring your customers can easily navigate your website and find the information they are looking for will create an enjoyable experience for them and possibly earn you a new customer.

So how do you get your website to be W3C Compliant?

The first step is to visit http://validator.w3.org/, enter your website url and see if your website is already w3c compliant. Next step is to fix the errors! You may need an experienced website designer or an experienced website developer to fix your errors. We can help. Contact us today and let us know that you want a W3C compliant website and we would be glad to help bring your website to compliance.

In today's digital times, email marketing has gotten more and more popular. With a higher return on investment and lower cost, email marketing has made traditional mail marketing obsolete. Email marketing is a cheap, and effective means of advertising generating $43.62 on every dollar spent. Here are a few reasons why you should invest in email marketing over traditional mail marketing.

Target your customers

With the advancement of email service providers and database intergration you can target the exact users you want to market to. This increases chances of your email being opened, read, and clicked through, which can lead to a sale or the growth of new relationships. It's not all about the money, but developing good relationships with your customers to get future business. Email service providers can generate personalized emails for each user, which will also help build on your relationships with your customers.

Email marketing is data driven

Robust reporting tools offer a large amount of data so you can see what works and what doesn't. Reports can tell you click through rates, how many people viewed the message, deleted the message, sent it to spam, etc.. This allows you to decide which links are most effective and what your users like and dislike.

Drives direct sales from your emails

Creating emails for promotions and other offers generate action. Whether you are trying to sell a product, offering a download, or trying to get customers to sign up for a special promotion or contest, custom personalized emails will attract customers.

Builds relationships, loyalty, and trust

Customized emails directed to a customer with your branding build customer loyalty and instill your brand. Personalized emails give the user a more intimate feel that will build trust and relationships with your customers.

Supports sales through other channels

An email marketing campaign isn't just about driving traffic to your website. You can use your email marketing campaign to inform your customers about instore specials or events. Keeping these relationships will help earn the trust and loyalty of your customers.

Get started with your email marketing plan

Email marketing is a great marketing method, but it has to be done right. Emailing all of your customers the same generic message with no calls to action and ineffective content will drive customers away. We can help you create a data driven email marketing plan that will get you results. Contact us to learn more about our email marketing plans and how we can help you.

In today's digital times, everyone is on the internet. Having a website offers great advatages to gain new customers and spread the word about your business. This article will explain 3 reasons why you should have a website for your business.

Your website is open 24 hours a day 7 days a week

This may be one of the biggest advantages of having a website. No matter when a customer is doing research, they can get information. Your physical location may be closed but your website offers customers information about your products or services, your business hours, contact information and more. Not having a website automatically excludes your business from a customers search.

A website can help you compete with bigger companies

Large stores often have large signs, large advertisements, and a large building. On the web, however, a website is a website. You can easily compete with larger companies on the internet by offering your products or services localized to your area. You may have better prices than the bigger companies, online a customer can easily see this and decide to buy a product from you, rather than the larger store. And again, not having a website automatically excludes your better price from a customers search.

In order for your website to compete with a larger company you will need a professional website design. The more appealing your site is to your customers eyes, the easier it will be get them to browse your website. A professional website developer will enable you to offer the same or better browsing and searching capabilities on you website.

Sell your products or services on your website

If you can sell somthing in a store, you can most likely sell it online. Millions of shoppers shop online daily for every product or service you could imagine. No matter how obscure it is, someone may be looking for it. Having a website gives the millions of shoppers looking for your products or services the ability to find find them and possibly make you money.

The bottomline is your business needs a website. Even if you aren't going to sell your products or service online, or you don't think people are looking for your products or services online. Millions of people use the internet to research companies before buying or even the visiting physical store. A professional website gives your company too much leverage to just dismiss. Contact us today to learn more and get started with your business website.

• a custom content management system
• featured products slideshow on the homepage
• rotating header banner
• full catalog of products & product categories
• related products
• search engine friendly urls

The product page features an image gallery, all product details including dimensions, stains, finishes, and related products. All of these product features are managed from our custom content management system.

From the browse product page of the content management system you can view all products and make them featured, active, or delete products with just one click.

When editing a product through the content management system, you can add multiple images, make the product featured or active, enter the product description, product dimensions, wood type, finishes, and prices for various finishes and stains. You can also select related products, which will display a link to that item on the item detail page.

Over the years of website development, website design, and custom content management system development, we have refined our system to make it as simple as possible yet rich with features enabling you to control almost all aspects of your website. No longer do you have to wait for your developer to change one link or add a paragraph of text to a page on your website. You no longer need to pay for simple text updates. You are in control of your websites content and can change anything you want 24/7, all you need is internet access.

Custom Content Management System Features

Control Your Page Content

• WYSIWYG text editor allows for HTML formating with no knowledge of HTML
• Add internal and external links to your content
• Add images to your content

Search Engine Optimization

• Customize meta titles, meta descriptions, and meta keywords on every page
• Add internal links to your website
• Add external links to other websites
• Customize alt and title tags of links and images
• RSS feed with all of your blog and product updates

Products

• Add all of your products and product images
• Activate/deactivate products
• Make featured products for display on the home page

Blog

• Add your news and events to keep your content fresh
• Newest posts displayed on the homepage

Content Management System Demo Access

View our custom content management demo to see the power and simplicity the system gives you over your website. Currently it is available in three different template designs, but everything is customizable. The design and content management system can be customized to best suite your needs.

To login to the custom content management demo, the username is guest and the password is guest.

Five Website Design Templates

Here are three sample website designs of the templates you will be able to control with our custom content management system. The purpose of the templates is to show the versitility of our custom content management system and how the same content looks formatted to a different design.

Visit website: fafsfoundation.org

Getting Started With Ajax

You will need to create two files for this example, test.html and process.php and of course a copy of the jQuery library, which can be downloaded here. The test.html file will hold all of your html code to display to the user and process.php will handle the ajax request. After you download jQuery, unzip the files to your web directory and include them in the <head></head> section of your test.html document. Now you are ready to start programming the ajax code.

Client Side HTML Code

This code will go inside test.html and will be displayed to the user. This code should be in between the <head></head> section of your html page.

function process_ajax()
{
   var dataString = '&name=' + $("#name").val();
   $.ajax({
       type: 'POST',
      url: 'ajax/process.php',
       data: dataString,
      success: function(data) {
         alert(data);
      }
   });
}

Pretty simple and straight forward. $.ajax({}); starts your ajax request. Type is the way the php will be able to get your data. It can be POST, GET, or REQUEST. Url tells the script to call the file ajax/process.php to process the request. Data is the javascript variable containing the data you want to process. Success tells the javascript what to do with the data sent back to it. All this means is that the script was able to communicate with the php without error. The alert() will display a pop up box with the data the php script sends back to it.

Now inside the <body></body> section of your test.html document you add this code:

<label>Enter your name:</label>
<input type="text" name="name" id="name"/>
<input type="button" value="Submit" onclick="return false;process_ajax();"/>

This will create a simple form with a text box to enter your name and a submit button. The onclick in the submit button tells the browser not to submit the form and to run the process_ajax function when the button is clicked.

Server Side PHP Code

This code goes inside the process.php file. Inside this file will be any code that you want to use process the data being sent. This is a very simple example but you can do anything with the data including insert or modify data in a database, check if a user name is already taken, etc..

<?php

   $name = $_POST['name'] ;
   if($name == "")
   {
      $message = "Please enter your name.";
   }
   else
   {
       if(date("a") == "am")
           $message = "Good morning ".$name.".";
       else
           $message = "Good afternoon ".$name.".";
   }

   json_encode($message);

?>

Again, very simple code here. If you do not enter your name, the code will return an alert message telling you to please enter your name. If you do enter your name, the line date("a") will determine whether it is in the am or pm and return the appropriate message to the user. This can be easily modified to be a simple mailing list sign up script, but I will save that for another article.

So as you can see, ajax is not that complicated, and jQuery makes it even easier. In todays web world ajax is used all over the place and can really enhance your website usability. It will also give the user an enriched experience. The only drawback is if the user has javascript turned off, they will not see any of this functionality.

Do you want this ajax functionality on your website? We can help. Contact us and let us know what you are looking for.

• a custom content management system
• featured products slideshow on the homepage
• rotating header banner
• full catalog of products & product categories
• related products
• search engine friendly urls

Getting Started With The jQuery Cycle Plugin

First, you are going to need a copy of the jQuery library. You can download the jQuery library for free at http://www.jquery.com/. You are also going to need a copy of the jQuery cycle plugin which you can download free at http://www.malsup.com/jquery/cycle/. After you download both, copy the files to your web server and you are ready to get started.

After you have included your scripts in the <head></head> section of your code, you can started using the plugin. As always, a jQuery block starts with:

$(document).ready(function() {

    // your jQuery code goes here

});

The jQuery cycle plugin is very simple to implement. You simply include all of your images inside a div with an id or class. Then you call the cycle plugin to cycle through the items in that div, choose what effect you would like to use and you are done!

The jQuery

$(document).ready(function() {

    $('.slideshow').cycle({
	  fx: 'fade' // your transition type, ex: fade, scrollUp, shuffle, etc...
     });

});

The HTML

<div class="slideshow">
   <img src="images/img1.jpg" width="200" height="200" />
   <img src="images/img2.jpg" width="200" height="200" />
   <img src="images/img3.jpg" width="200" height="200" />
</div>

This example is very basic. It is very easy to create custom slideshows with text, next/previous buttons, etc.. Want a slideshow on your site, quick and accessible without the cost and time needed to make a flash slideshow? We can help. Contact us and let us know about your slideshow project.

Choosing A Domain Name

This is a subject that is often not given enough time and thought. A domain name should be a keyword or include keywords that are relevant to your business. This will help with search engine optimization and marketing. Including relevant keywords in your domain name could lead a potential customers searching for that keyword to your site.

There are many sites avaiable for researching domain names. Godaddy.com has a domain search tool that will tell you if a domain is taken or not and offer variations of your domain name that are also available.

Choosing A Hosting Service

Choosing a hosting service can be a difficult task. There are many hosting companies that offer very competitive rates, but you have to be careful. Choosing a hosting company that is not professional major head ache. Often these servers are insecure, not updated with the appropriate patches and updates, and slow. Having worked with many hosting companies with bad servers, I have experienced all of these issues and more.

You want to research the hosting company you choose. Make sure they support the programming languages and technologies used by your web developer. You also need to ensure they have all the features you need such email hosting, mysql databases, ftp access, bandwidth, hard drive space, etc..

The Bottom Line

The bottom line here is to do your research before jumping with the first or cheapest hosting service and domain registrar. Ensure that the host you are looking to use can handle the technologies you need on your website and your domain name includes keywords relevant to your business.

Need help setting up a domain name and hosting service? Contact us today and we would be glad to help you choose a domain name and hosting service most appropriate for your web site.

301 Redirects

A 301 redirect is used to redirect from one page to another. When a 301 code is returned it means that the page you are trying to reach has been permanently moved and it should cache the new location. Search engines and your browser will then cache the new location and the next time you try to visit the old page it will know that it has moved to the new location.

302 Redirects

A 302 redirect is also used to redirect from one page to another. When a 302 code is returned it means the page you are looking for has been temporarily moved to a new location. Search engines and your browser will still keep the old url cached and redirect you to the new one. Eventually search engines may cache the new link, but this may take time and is 100% proven.

Conclusion

After reading this article it is plain to see that a 301 redirect is best for search engines. 301 redirects have been proven to be the most efficient way to redirect pages when you change directory structure or redesign your website. 301 redirect will also maintain your page rank in the search engines for that particular page.

I hope this article helped to shed some light on the 301 vs. 302 redirect dilema. If you have a question about what type of redirect is right for you, feel free to contact us.

Pre built content management systems

In the past I have worked with and customized over 10 different content management systems, custom and pre built, including Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, and SilverStripe, which are some of the more popular systems. And if you need a simple website live fast with strong community support and tons of templates, these systems are the way to go. With any of these systems you can have a basic website live in just a few hours.

The main drawback to these systems is they are hard to customize. Customization often requires a web developer who knows the system and is experienced enough to understand and customize the code. While there are many plugins available for most systems, the funcionality you want or need might not be or may require customization that can be difficult.

Another drawback of pre built content mangement systems is once your content is in the system and you have beein using it, it can be very difficult to migrate to a new system. After you start your website and may want to add features that aren't available with a pre built system, moving content to a system that can do what you need usualy requires extra time and money.

Custom content management systems

Custom content management systems are the best choice when you need specific funtionality not available with pre built systems. Though there are many plugins now available for the popular systems, they can be dificult to customize and might not fit your needs 100%. With a custom system, the functionality you plan for, test, and help put together will do exactly what you need from the start. As soon as your site is live, all the functionality you need is right there. No need for upgrades or plugins that can be a real headache.

Another advantage to custom content management systems is they often don't look like they are on a content management system at all. With pre built systems you can usually see be looking at it what system is being used. For me it is very easy to pick out wordpress websites. With a custom system, you decide what you want and where you want it. You can get creative as you want your web designer to get.

The drawback to custom content management systems can be a lack of support and upgrades. Once it's built, that's all. It's a good idea to research a company and make sure they can provide quality work that won't break or cause problems down the road. However, if you find a good company, you can often get new features and customizations added to your site at decent prices.

Both systems have their pros and cons. In most cases you have to make a decision based on what you need. If time is your biggest issue or you are just looking to blog for fun, pre built systems are the right choice. If you need specific functionality and time isn't too much of an issue, a custom content management system is the right choice.

Have a question about which content management system is right for you? Contact us and we can help.

• a new clean sleek design
• a products showcase
• Revolution Unlimited's custom content management system
• Ecommerce (phase 2 of development)

The new website is expected to launch the first of April 2010. Check back for more updates about this and other web development and design projects.

In the past this was done with Javascript. You would need to set up each button seperately and as you can imagine the code gets long an unmanagement. Not to mention if a user has Javascript turned off, they won't get to see your hard work to create the rollover.

In this article I will show you how to create a rollover with pure CSS (and a little photoshop) with no flicker.

Let's say you're making a contact us button, and you want it to look a little different and stand out from the copy on your page. So you design two images:

   

Your HTML would look something like this:

<a href="yourlink.com" class="contact-button"></a>

And your CSS should look like this:

a.contact-button
{
    display:block;
    width:168px;
    height:47px;
    background-image:url("images/contact.jpg") no-repeat top left;
}

a.contact-button:hover
{
    background-image:url("images/contact-over.jpg") no-repeat top left;
}

Simple enough right? If you use this code and view your HTML document in a browser, you will notice a "flicker" when you move your mouse over the button. This is cause by a delay in removing the old image and loading the new image.

No eleviate this issue, you need to create one image with both the "over" state image and the original, the original on top. With a few changes to your css you will have a clean functional image rollover with no flicker.

Your new image would look like this:

Your HTML would look the same as before:

<a href="yourlink.com" class="contact-button"></a>

Your CSS will have to change slightly:

a.contact-button
{
    display:block;
    width:168px;
    height:47px;
    background-image:url("images/contact-both.jpg") no-repeat top left;
}

a.contact-button:hover
{
    background-image:url("images/contact-both.jpg") no-repeat bottom left;
}

Rather than loading a new image, the image is simply moved up to display the "down" state of the button when hovered, and shifted back up when you move your mouse away.

Here are 7 benefits of using the smarty template engine.

1. Changing the look and feel of your site is as simple as changing the templates and style sheet. Your application code can stay the same.
2. Designers don't have to worry about editing templates. Since the application code passes data to the template, the designer can do what they need and not worry about the application code.
3. Your application code is completely seperate from your presentation code. This makes your application code lighter and easier maintain.
4. Since your application code is completely seperate from your presentation code, you can easily maintain the code without worrying messing up the design.
5. Smartys error handling makes errors easy to understand and fix.
6. Smarty has built in security to prevent presentation code from allowing a security breach.
7. Caching. Smarty caches the output of your site which saves time on executing the code each time the page is viewed.

These are just a few of the benefits of using the smarty template engine. Check out smarty.net to learn more about the smarty template engine and to download the latest version.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) benefits of using Cascading Style Sheets Benefits (CSS)

The biggest advantage of using CSS for search engine optimization is reducing the amount of code on your pages. Seach engine spiders don't like to go through hundreds of lines of code. Font tags, table structures, inline styles all bulk up your code and get in the way of search engine spiders. Slim, light code utilizing external style sheets allow search engine spiders to easily and quickly understand your content and not have to sift through design elements.

Another advantage of using CSS over tables is speed. Tables have to be read through two times before displaying any content; once to work out the structure, then to read the content. Tables are also only shown as a whole. This means the whole table has to be rendered before any content is actually shown. Not only do search engine spiders not like slow loading code, neither do users.

Putting it all together, CSS will not only help search engines crawl your site more easily, but they will make your code easier to maintain and more user friendly.

For this article imagine you have a product on your website. You want to display the products description and photos on the same page, but don't want your page to scroll vertically. A tabbed <div> can do just what you need.

In the image to the right, you have one section containing the description of your product, and the other containing your product images. When you click the pictures tab, rather than reloading the page, you want to hide the description section and display the pictures section.

Here is what the html markup should look like. Your markup may be different depending on how your site is layed out.

<div id="product_details">
<div class="tabs">
   <ul>
      <li class="description">Description</li>
      <li class="picures">Pictures</li>
   </ul>
</div>

<div class="text_area">
   <div id="description" class="active">
      <!-- My Description -->
   </div>
   <div id="pictures">
      <!-- My Pictures -->
   </div>
</div>
</div>

Your CSS should look something like this:

#product_details
{
    width:400px;
    border:1px solid #CCC;
}

#product_details .tabs li
{
    float:left;
    padding:5px 10px;
    cursor:pointer;
}

#product_details .text_area div
{
    display:none;
}

#product_details .text_area div.active
{
    display:block;
}

Now the jQuery magic to make everything work:

$("#product_details .tabs li").click(function(){
    var tab = $(this).attr("class");
    $("#text_area div").removeClass("active");
    $("#text_area div").hide();
    $("#text_area div#" + tab).fadeIn();
});

And thats all! With a little design and styling you can use this code for many different scenarios.

PHP can be embedded into any HTML page. All you have to do is change the file extension from .html to .php. All php code must be wrapped in (<?php ?>) tags. Here is a simple php script to get started with. Visit php.net to learn more about php.

<?php

   //This is a single line comment

   /*********************************************************

   This is a block comment

   **********************************************************/

   //This is how you print to the screen
   echo "Hello world!";

   //This is how you declare variables
   $first_name = "John";
   $last_name = "John";

   //This is how you get todays date
   $todays_date = date("Y-m-d");

   //Print all of the variables to the screen
   echo "Hello ".$first_name." ".$last_name." today is ".$todays_date;

?>

Here is a simple example of how to use jQuery. Simply copy the code, save it with the extension .html and open it in your browser. When you click "Click Here!" a javascript alert box will popup and say "Hello, how are you?".

<html>

   <head>

       <script type="text/javascript" src="jquery.js"></script>
       <script type="text/javascript">

               //jQuery code goes here
               $(document).ready(function() {
                   $("p").click(function() {
                       alert("Hello, how are you?");
                   });
               });

       </script>

   </head>

   <body>

       <!-- html goes here -->
       <p>Click Here!</p>

   </body>
</html>

Here is a little more complicated example. This example asks the user to enter their name, then says hello to them.

<html>

   <head>

       <script type="text/javascript" src="jquery.js"></script>
       <script type="text/javascript">

               //jQuery code goes here
               $(document).ready(function() {
                   $("a").click(function() {
                       var name = $("input#name").val();
                       alert("Hello "+ name +", how are you?");
                   });
               });

       </script>

   </head>

   <body>

       <!-- html goes here -->
       <label>Enter your name:</label>
       <input type="text" id="name">
       <a href="#">Click Here</a>

   </body>
</html>

Join social networking websites your customers are on

If none of your customers use myspace, why start a profile on myspace? Finding out what social networking websites your cusomers use is key to being successful with your social networking efforts.

Though, you may want to gain customers from other social networking sites, start small and develop your compainies voice on one site. As your community grows and strengthens, try some other websites using the same strategy.

Converse with your customers

Bring a human presence to your company by conversing with your customers. Many companies make the mistake of simply using social networking websites to send out marketing messages when they can be used for much more.

Listen to your customers opinions and ideas. Have a conversation with them. Unserstanding what your customers like and dislike can help make business decisions and gain more customers and customer loyalty.

Give your business a human face

Being a part of a community means having a human presence. Nobody wants to read constant "ads" trying to sell them something. Be friendly with your customers. Be human. Try using a picture of your face in your profile rather than a business logo. This helps establish you as an actual person rather than an advertisement for your company.

Add value to your profiles

Nobody is going to come around, nevermind stay around and return if all you offer is advertisements. Give your customers something of value, advise, tips, how-to articles, etc. All of this will not only help brand you as an expert in your field but will also keep customers coming back for more.

You can also use your social networking profiles to hold contests or create polls. Add engaging features to your social networking profiles and you are guaranteed to bring more people to read about your company.

In PHP, the mail() function is used to send emails. The mail function takes four parameters:

1. to email
2. email subject
3. email message
4. additional headers

Simple right? The to email is the recipient you would like to send the email to. Email subject is the subject the user first sees when recieving the email. The message is the content of the email, which can be plain text or HTML. Additonal headers can be anything from, a from email address, reply-to email address, carbon copy email address, blind carbon copy email and more.

Here is a simple example with no additional headers:

$to = 'email@domain.com';
$subject = 'My Email Subject';
$message = 'Thank you for filling out our form';

mail($to,$subject,$message);

Here is another example using some additional headers:

$headers .= 'To: Jane <jane@example.com>, Kim <kim@example.com>' . "rn";
$headers .= 'From: My Website <info@example.com>' . "rn";
$headers .= 'Cc: joe@example.com' . "rn";
$headers .= 'Bcc: mike@example.com' . "rn";

$to = 'email@domain.com';
$subject = 'My Email Subject';
$message = 'Thank you for filling out our form';

mail($to,$subject,$message,$headers);

As you can see, sending email messages using php is very simple. There is much more you can do, including sending HTML emails. Click here to read part two "Sending HTML emails from your website with PHP".

A reset style sheet resets everything to zero. Since most browsers have their own margins and padding on certain elements, resetting them to zero lets you start with a completely clean slate, not matter what browser you are using. This will save you time in the long run and are available for free.

2. Browser testing

While a reset style sheet will help in most cases, you should still test to be sure. Not all style properties work the same from browser to browser. It is important to test in multiple browsers and on multiple opperating systems if available to ensure consistenct accross all platforms.

3. Don't use inline styles

Inline styles should be avioded for a few reasons. The best reason being, if you want to update the look of your website, rather than having to edit one style sheet you have to go through the code and find the inline styles and update them. If you have 100 html files that need to be edited, this will take much longer than editing one file.

4. Format your style sheets

The importance here is keeping everything neat and easy to update. Reusability is a word thrown around in web development, and with css it's not different. Clean style sheets are easy to reuse, edit, and update, and will save you time in the long run. No matter how you format your style sheets, keep them clean and save yourself the trouble.

5. Not using shorthand

Shorthand styling is easier to read and can cut a style sheet in half. When setting the margin on a page, rather than using this:

margin-top:10px;
margin-right:5px;
margin-bottom:10px;
margin-left:5px;

Use this:

margin:10px 5px;

The difference is self explanitory. Save yourself the extra work and use shorthand styles.

1. Choose a developer and designer that is familiar with W3C standards. HTML errors in an email are the easiest way to end up in the spam box.
2. Before you send out your email, validate it. The W3C has a free validator that can tell you if you have an errors in your code.
3. Use a delivery monitoring system. Tracking how many emails bounce, are opened, read and clicked through is invaluable information about the users on your email list.
4. If you still find your email in the spam box, check your code. Every ISP and email server can have different filters and spam settings. So change your code around and see what gets you the best results.

In just a weeks time, we provided them with a design, developed the site and a content management system for them to update their content whenever they want. The site was coded with industry standard search engine optimizataion(SEO) techniques and allows them to specify meta keywords and descriptions for every page.

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The school is for kindergarten through eighth grade so we needed to provide a design the suited the age range and was also easy for parents to understand. We also needed to provide an area to show any urgent school messages such as closings, half days, etcetera. In the design we provided the colors are mellow and soothing but also highlights the urgent message section.

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