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Web Design & Development: Why Simple is Hard Work

Sketching out the framework for a new site

Have you ever watched a figure skater all of sudden pull a triple axle out of thin air? One minute he’s gliding across the ice and next thing you know he’s twirled, almost clearing the boards and swoosh, down to the ice again. It all looks so effortless that in the back of your mind you think with a little practice, you too could pull off at least a double.

Of course the reality behind that super-human moment are thousands of hours of ice time and as many bruises along the way. But whatever the sport, it’s that moment where something is rendered almost simple that is the culmination of all your efforts.

And simple is precisely the user experience we seek to offer when visitors arrive at your website. As Steve Krug famously wrote about in his book, Don’t Make Me Think, a great website should allow users to accomplish their goal as easily as possible. The zen feeling of a well designed site belies the hard work that led to this moment.

5 Clear Cut Reasons to Budget for Video This Year

If you’re wondering if video is important for your site, if it would enhance your content and help build an audience, the answer is YES.

“But hold on,” you say. “You don’t even know me or my business.”

And you’re right but my answer remains a firm, enthusiastic YES! I can’t conceive of a business or other organization that would not benefit from video.

So let’s make the case right here and now!

An Introduction to SEO and What You Need to Know

Anyone charged with the responsibility of a website today is likely familiar with SEO or search engine optimization. Or more likely, you’ve heard of it and you know it’s important that someone on your team understands it.

For newbies to SEO here’s what all the fuss is about

Behind the list of results Google suggests in response to your keyword or phrase, is a complicated algorithm (actually algorithms, plural) that assess each possible website across a dizzying array of parameters for the query at hand. The main algorithm and bolt-on algorithms are being tweaked and modified regularly to keep black-hat SEO’s from gaming the results and to take into account changes in how content is judged to be relevant.

Taking Charge of Your New Website – 5 Reasons to Demand WordPress

It’s really important to ensure that your site is built on a content management system (CMS) that works for you. In fact, it’s a make or break decision.

After all, it is going to be your gateway – the interface – that connects you with your website.

If the way you update your website is clunky and difficult to work with, chances are, you won’t update your site nearly as much (or at all) rendering your new website static and keeping you from building a following for your fresh and useful content. Not to mention foregoing the SEO advantages associated with great content creation.

Why You Need to Plan for Success

Example of a website flowchart indicating content organization by gk media

Okay, we admit it – we’re a bit obsessive about the planning stage of our projects. Sure, we know, it’s not the sexy design stage that everyone wants to get to right away. It’s that eat-your-vegetables-discipline stage, that, *yawn* our clients are quite happy to have us fuss over.

But it is THE thing that makes for a successful project; it’s the glue! It is the blueprint for the structure of the site and it guides design by indicating what each page needs to accomplish and lead to, and it is a roadmap for client content creation.

Why the Success of Your Site Depends on Great Training

Great training is an important part of any new web project. The last thing you want to do is put your brand new site – an important investment for your organization – in the hands of an untrained staff member. (Trust me, no one wants to see Cookie font in flamingo pink announcing your new product).

As we’ve talked about in other posts about WordPress, it’s quite simply the best CMS we’ve encountered and we build into our code little features that make things work like you expect them to. But that said, it takes some training and reinforcement.

Why Good Hosting is a Safe Home For Your Site

Image of a bunch of nodes connected with one node lit up

When it comes to hosting our clients’ sites, the buck stops with us.

Many web designers and developers choose not to host their clients’ sites and require you to choose your own host relegating you to various virtual apartment buildings called “shared hosting”. Shared servers are to hosting as rogue space heaters or industrial strength hairdryers are to old apartment buildings – one bad appliance makes for a dark night for all.