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;">&nbsp;</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.

Visit website: RaceZoneBarandGrill.com

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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