As an actor, having a website is essential. It’s a great way to display your resume, headshots and contact information. Ed Diaz realized this and took the first steps toward having his own website by registering his domain name and signing up for web hosting himself. But the next step was unclear to him. He wanted a basic site that would allow him to tell the world who he was and how to get a hold of him, but he did not know anything about web design or developing. That’s when he contacted JL Designs. The web hosting company that he signed up with offered WordPress, which is a content management system (CMS). WordPress is a very user friendly platform, but to the beginner, all the options can be a little confusing. We installed WordPress for him and completely set it up so that he did not have to worry about any of the settings. His budget was very small, so we helped him select and install a ready made WordPress template theme instead of creating one from scratch. Ready made WordPress templates may be fine for basic sites, but they lack the individuality of a customized theme that is designed with the customer in mind. Therefore, we would not usually recommend these ready made templates unless you’re budget does not permit for a customized site. Once the new site was setup, we loaded in basic content that the client provided for us which consisted of his resume, headshots, contact information and even a few of the movie posters from the movies he appeared in. Ed Diaz has made several appearances in Film, Television, Commercials as well as performed Voice Overs for several projects. You can view Ed’s actor website and professional resume at...
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While every one’s visual tastes are different, there are several universal principles that successful websites embody. We’ve distilled these down for you into a simple list of critical success factors. As the web matures, visitors come to your site with higher expectations. Failing to satisfy those expectations can dramatically reduce the effectiveness of your website. 1. Quality Content People visit your site to view content, so providing worthwhile content is one of the most fundamental issues that website owners need to address. The quality of your content not only plays a vital role in converting visitors into results, but also directly impacts your search engine rankings. Good content is time consuming to produce, so ensure that you make adequate allowances for content production in your planning. 2. Usability Many sites on the web – even cool ones – fail because people either can’t figure out how to use the site or couldn’t be bothered trying to work out the innovative navigation that the web designer spent countless hours inventing. To ensure that visitors find your site easy to use, it is advisable to run some simple tests with a small number of people from your target demographic. Just ask them to perform some basic tasks on your web site (such as “purchase 2 widgets using this credit card”). You may be surprised at the results and the findings may vastly improve your website overall. 3. Accessibility People access the internet in many different ways using an increasing number of connections, browsers and devices. From fast corporate connections, high speed cable and DSL, to mobile broadband, Android Phones & iPhones, speech browsers, old browsers through to old fashioned dial-up the range is enormous. Your site needs to be usable on any of the platforms that people are likely to access it from. The key concept here is “graceful degradation”€ which simply means that whilst a simple device might not display your web page in all its glory, it should still display in a respectable manner. 4. A Good Strategy A good strategy is essential to gaining a good return on the money invested in developing your website. Ensure that you know why you have a site and what business outcomes...
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What Is More Important, Website Design or Website Content? You have recently launched an awesome new website with a great design and layout. But the content on your site is not up to par. How long do you think people will continue visiting your website? There might be a strong influx initially because your website is new, but the flow may soon trickle down when they see that your website is not offering them value. On the other hand, you may have great content, but the website design and layout is drab and uninteresting. There is no doubt, that a visually appealing website layout will increase your chances of attracting and retaining visitors. The big question is, what is more important, web design or web content? A Look at Website Design Web designers mostly design websites to fit a business objective and initially, there may be little thought put into the content side besides the usual generic pages like “About Us”, “Services”, “Products” and “Contact Us”. This is usually the standard approach that a business takes when they are starting out on the Internet and do not have someone to guide them. When a website is well designed, it indicates to the visitor that your company is professionally managed. But, on the other hand, if your website does not look good due to a bad design and layout or does not function correctly, it can make your company look very unprofessional. Many companies make the mistake of taking their website visitors’ expectations for granted. Note that if the visitors do not like what they see, they will quickly leave your website and head to your competitor’s site. For some small businesses, a company website is probably the only visible aspect of your business. Therefore your site visitors will judge your company by the way your website looks. The design gives directions to the visitor and is responsible for setting the mood. A Look at Website Content A well designed website is only the first piece of the puzzle. Content is responsible for giving information to your site visitors, getting you higher rankings on search engines, bringing value to your site and increasing your organic search visibility, which improves your...
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