Re-designing your Web site can be a daunting task, but if you plan ahead and map out the purpose / vision of your site from the get-go, it can save a lot of confusion and heartburn. SitePoint has posted a brief but helpful article regarding the five points to keep in mind when re-doing your Web site:

1. Simplicity = Good.
2. Know your audience.
3. Who are you?
4. Get and stay usable.
5. Trendy is not necessarily good.

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Considering A Site Redesign? 5 Tips To Get You Focused

A page that can be found on nearly every individual or company Web site is the “About Us” page. It tells your visitor who you are, what your intentions are and gives them a feel for who is behind the Web site they happen to be visiting.

It is no surprise that the “About Us” page is one of the most frequently accessed pages of any Web site (aside from the home page obviously). Therefore this highly-viewed page should be given the same amount of design attention as your home page!

Smashing Magazine has posted an in-depth compilation of some of the best and most visually attractive “About Us” pages from across the Web .

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Best Practices For Effective Design Of “About us”-Pages

Giving some thought to re-designing your “About Us” page? Contact us today to see how we can help!

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be considered a science and there are many people out there that make a “killing” on helping people tweak their Web sites to battle for prime search engine positioning. To me it comes down to common sense…having relevant text and content on your Web page.

However there are a few things that you should know about search engines and how they are working nowadays. Gone are the days of submitting your site to “search engine directories” and loading your sites meta tags with keywords. SitePoint offers up some of the newest trends in a recent article.

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SEO: What’s Hot and What’s Not

Today Webdesigner Depot published a blog entry regarding 10 suggested tools that can help you gauge and improve your Web site’s interface and ease-of-use. While some of them I would not recommend (soliciting your twitter followers for free feedback is equivalent of using the pay-to-use service Feedback Army), there are some great suggestions such as Five Second Test and the Google Web Site Optimizer.

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10 Tools to Improve Your Site’s Usability on a Low Budget

Putting the appropriate value on your Web site and being willing to invest in top-notch marketing materials to establish your brand is a must  to achieve success. I like to quote the adage “you get what you pay for”. It is understandable that businesses want to achieve the best bang for their buck, but with professional services (carpenters, doctors, mechanics and Web design / development companies), those whose prices are too good to be true usually just that.

Eric Karjaluoto of Ideas on Ideas presents a short story on the failure of one law firm to see the value in having a marketable Web site, and why it makes no sense to spend lavishly on other business features but let your brand suffer.

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Sweatpants Forever?

The blog Mens with Pens has a great post on the possibility of online videos turning away your audience or intended customer. Their reasoning is that if watching a video is the only option to receive content (especially in regards to a tutorial of some sort), then those who are visual learners are going to be at a disadvantage.

I agree with them….not only in regards to tutorial content but all online content. While there is nothing wrong with video as a communication format, when it is used to teach or present an update of some point, I become disengaged. I want the ability to be able to skim through content, skip what I am not interested in (or already know) and get to the good stuff. This is much harder to do with a video player than it is a readable, searchable and “take at your own pace” blog post.

The solution: Present an alternative format in addition to the video (text, PDF or a downloadable transcript of some sort).

Read the full article here:

Do Your Videos Shut Out a Third of Your Audience?

This article over at SitePoint gives some great examples of creative and eye-catching copy for Web site introductions. Remember, when a visitor navigates to your Web site, you only have a second or two to maintain their interest. Otherwise, they may quickly lose attention and leave your site.

Our recommendation is to keep your Web site introduction short, to the point and set in large type.

Read the full article here:

You Had Me At Hello: 10 Examples Of Website Introductions