Putting a Value on Website Design Budgets

A number of clients have asked “what’s the cost of a website?” There’s a loaded question. Design on the Web is as important as packaging design, product design and corporate identity. This is becoming increasingly so. The value of good website design is in some ways subjective. Website design implies more than just the “graphic” element of a website. It must also include User Interface (UI), the “tools” that may deployed on a site to invite participation and sales conversion, the type of business model and the backend of the site. The “technology” that makes everything work. Here are some guidelines in determining what value you want to put on site design when seeking quotes. Continue reading »

SEO, Don’t forget the content.

Gone are the days when you could rank high in Google and other major search engines with loads of directory submissions and article marketing. During early times, blog comments provided valuable back-links and made life easy for the SEO folks to improve the page rank and overall performance of the site pretty quickly.

As a matter of fact, folks used to even run extraneous blog commenting campaigns, doing up to 100+ comments on a daily basis to quickly gather valuable back-links, drive more traffic and rank higher in the Google search results. Continue reading »

Web Analytics for Key Performance Indicators

Key Performance Indicators or KPI’s as anyone who has implemented them or is responsible for their ongoing management can tell you, are painful at the best of times. But KPI’s can play a vital role in the strategic management of an organization large or small. One of the biggest challenges with KPI’s is where the metrics come from and how they are integrated. an ERP program, once successfully running (are they ever?) can be a prime source for data. As the Web becomes more entangled into businesses, KPI data will presumably become easier. We have found that Web Analytics data, properly used, can be used as a Leading Indicator in your KPI program. Continue reading »

The Problem With Users

Talk to almost any Web design firm or interactive agency and they will talk about how “users” use and interact with your website. It’s all about “usability” and where the “users” will go, and how the “users” will navigate through your Website or campaign. Continue reading »