This site was one of the most enjoyable websites I’ve designed so far. Not only because I’m a shopaholic and love looking at fashion clothing, but loved developing the brand of this particular site.
“Sparkling Closet” is an online shopping outlet for the latest designer clothes for the ladies primarily looking for dress wear as well as high end boutique-like fashion brands. The inspiration of the design came from the goal of keeping it simple yet sexy and feminine. There was no other color to express this better than black, and black never gets old. The brand was very similar to the clothing brands of “Zara” and “Club Monaco” that also use the black and white design aesthetics.
Those of you who are running a search engine optimization campaign must be prepared for the traffic that’s on the way to your website. Like they all say, first impression is the most important so you need to make sure that every single page on your website meets customer expectations. After a great deal of effort and you finally rank high on the search results but what if your website fails to communicate well with the users? That makes all that hard work pretty much go to waste. Most online users just skim through the landing pages and spend only a matter of seconds before they decide if a site has got something to offer for them or not. For this reason you need to optimize all the pages of your website very properly understanding search engines and your customer’s needs.
We all know a website is the most important tool in creating a web presence, but not everyone knows the key elements that make a website successful. So before you make a website or even want to evaluate your current one, check out the 4 important elements that are ‘must haves’ for a strong website.
1. 3 Required Pages
There are three pages that you should most certainly have. First, it’s the homepage. Your homepage should tell the users very clearly on what your business does. Simple as it sounds, this is actually very difficult. What colors does your industry use? What layout is the most appropriate for your content? Which products or services do you want to focus on? The content of the homepage should be chosen very wisely, as well as the layout of teach content. This is the page where users will make their decision if they will continue to look around your site or not so think through it. There’s also the About Us page. The About Us page is where you will explain how you are different from the competitors and a further explanation about your company. You could write your company’s history and background to have them get to know you more to build a little more trust. Lastly, there is the Contact Us page. This page should clearly tell you how they could get in touch with you. The location of your company, emails, phone numbers or contact forms should all be listed and easy to find on the page. These three pages are the basics and you should not be missing even one of them. [Read More]
Beshe – one of the leading suppliers of human hair wigs and extensions based in NJ has launched their website this week. This was actually one of the smoothest projects that were completed. The UI design, front & back end development were all done in a breeze. Some of the highlights of this website include the beautiful minimalistic design, user-friendly navigation of products, and most importantly, the product search function on the homepage. Three drop downs of product brand, style and length were chosen to make the search of hair wig products quick and accurate. A challenging part of the website was structuring the database. There were about 500+ products in total, and considering the different characteristics of each (material, length, style) and the dynamics and variety in length and color; it had to be categorized wisely. The result was 10 main categories with 50 products in each. The Flash on the homepage was something I really enjoyed doing. It took only one shot in placing each element of the banner in the timeline, and the client loved it. This website was a real success.
To those of you who have been wondering why Apple mobile products are so anti-flash, there was a really good explanation published by Steve Jobs recently that we thought could be helpful for the consumers. In a nutshell, the reasons were not business-related –it was more technical.
First, Flash websites rely on the arrow of the mouse and does not support touch based devices. If you look at some really nice Flash websites, a lot of them have rollover effects –all depending on where users point the mouse. We thought this made total sense. How would an iPad’s touch interface support that kind of action? [Read More]
Quality link building is the best way to position your site on top search engine results. Having quality websites link back to your website helps the web crawlers in the search engine find you very easily. Of course it’s easy said than done, because acquiring the opportunity to have your website linked to the best websites is the most challenging part in search engine optimization campaign.
We are proud to announce the launch of ajwashroom.com (A & J Washroom Accessories) – one of the four biggest worldwide suppliers/manufacturers of washroom accessories in the country. Serving a unique industry targeting a niche market, it took us more than a clever design concept and advanced back end programming to get the job done right.
After 1 full month of Quality Control, we have launched the Woori America Bank website at last. Targeting the Korean market, one of the main goals the client wanted to achieve was to globalize or should I say “Americanize” the Woori brand and transform it to fit today’s web standards to successfully serve the US market as well as the rest of the markets throughout the world. This hybrid of Korean – American born website was made possible by keeping the original Woori design from Korea consistent throughout, but changing the information architecture to fit the users’ needs a lot better. Through organized, streamlined content – every piece of information was placed to enhance the user experience which I thought was the most successful part of the website. [Read More]
Most people think search engine optimization is all about driving traffic to a website and gaining top ranking on search engines. In reality, SEO is about building a strong brand identity for your business to the online community. Building strong brand awareness naturally attracts users to visit your site, which would be the greatest advantage of launching an SEO campaign. Here are three common ways on how SEO campaigns can help build brand.
We are proud to present the launch of wenwenlin.com – beautiful portfolio site made fully in flash. One of the highlights of the website would be the flower sprouting action script at the first opening of the website. It sets a perfect tone and fullfills that elegancy the client was trying to achieve. The scrolling thumbnails at the bottom of each page was the perfect solution in displaying the client’s work, considering there’s limited page scrolling abilities. The most challenging part was the Commercial Videos page where it required a fully customized template, but overall, it was a success….
There are numerous techniques in SEO that could help your website’s rankings. Although they could be helpful and merited from search engines, be careful not to overuse the same techniques because some search engines penalize you for it. Understanding how the rankings work can definitely help you come up with unique strategies to get your site to the top.
Early this week Andy Rubin, Google VP of Engineering, posted a clear commitment on Adobe blog to bring Flash and AIR to their new mobile device.
“Google believes that developers should have their choice of tools and technologies to create applications. By supporting Adobe AIR on Android we hope that millions of creative designers and developers will be able to express themselves more freely when they create applications for Android devices. More broadly, AIR will foster rapid and continuous innovation across the mobile ecosystem.”
I believe quite a number of creative professionals reached their limit in expressing their design without Flash platform. Google, by making such a clear statement, apparently wants creative professionals to target the Android platform.
Shooting movies with a DSLR has made a giant leap forward. An entire season finale of House-popular TV series was shot using a Canon 5D Mark II. This is huge because House airs in 66 countries, using one of the biggest networks in the world, and has an audience of 81.8 million worldwide. I mean it when I say it’s popular. To those of you who are not familiar with the DSLR (Digital Single Lens Camera),it’s the middle playing field between the amateurs and the professional shooters. These cameras will definitely find its place in the future soon.
The show’s director Greg Yaitanes opened himself up to discussion over Twitter about his experience shooting the show with a DSLR if you’re interested: http://www.petapixel.com/2010/04/09/house-season-finale-filmed-entirely-with-canon-5d-mark-ii/
We are living at an exciting time – the digital age. Thanks to the internet, web 2.0, and new technology, our lives are so much easier. It’s the source of commerce and businesses, the avenues of success and a route for businesses to excel. So it is without a doubt that any business existing today needs an online presence to be successful in this digital world. Marketing being the backbone for any business requires adapting to the latest strategies to optimize online marketing. Actually, all online marketing efforts ultimately need results from the search engines. Therefore, SEO should be the stem of all online marketing. With millions of websites being made every day, the competition to be on top of the search engine is obviously tough. To compete, your website needs to first be visible. This means your website has to generate some kind of traffic. This is actually difficult since there are no clear steps or rules on doing this nor are there any shortcuts to achieve genuine results.
Papervision3d has been loved by many flash programmers for its extensive capabilities in creating virtual 3D space in web medium. Using Papervision3d, the latest technology in Flash programming, Digimi introduces a neat avatar generator.
Digimi is a well-known publisher for 3D character creation for creative professionals. Employing Papervision3D technology, Digimi introduces how web users can create, manipulate and publish 3D avatars of their own with minimal effort. See it in action here: http://devcenter.gizmoz.com/newsite/devcenter/unity/papervision1/demo1.jsp
Inside the developer’s center, http://developers.digimi.com/, they give access to people to download their full API documentation. This project looks pretty impressive since it provides fairly an easy start for game developers and 3D character creators without having to start from scratch.
This past weekend, Hiroshi Ishiguro (creator of the Geminoid HI-1) showcased his newest creation, the Geminoid-F in Osaka, Japan. This thing could replicate lifelike facial expressions through a rubberized face that’s seamlessly controlled through a computer. Now you don’t need an imaginary friend if you’ve got the money. And believe me, it won’t be cheap. The Geminoid-F priced at roughly ¥10,000,000 ($105,780). Check out the video to see a preview.
Some e-commerce sites follow all the rules and do everything the SEO expert tells them to, but their increased traffic isn’t getting them anywhere. More traffic is one thing, but that should not be the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal for any Ecommerce website should be if the users are actually making a purchase or not. So how do you get them to buy more? Here are the most important things an e-commerce site specifically needs before you launch your SEO campaign.
Before you start an SEO campaign, do some online research and understand exactly what it is and how it will help your business. Understanding how SEO works will give you a certain level of expectation and you’ll see the bigger picture on the results, how long it will take, basically an overall scope of the project. Let’s go over some basics:
