Archive for the ‘websites’ Category

Custom cms web design and custom graphic art services are being moved in 2012 leaving JimDegerstrom.com as my personal site.

Moving forward in 2012 I have decided to move this commercial website from JimDegerstrom.com, and make that a personal site as appropriate for it being just my name. In addition, I will split and transfer up to 500+ pages of content to two new websites.

My core business is custom cms web design. Custom graphic art design is secondary in revenue, and evolved as clients wanted artwork for print to match their site.

As such, the two new sites will focus on just one of the two niches.

Web design www domain: custom-cms-web-design.com
Graphic art domain: custom-graphic-art-design.com

Both new sites launched in July with a simple home page and a contact form page. They have very similar looks except each has a different color scheme.

Content to each will be moved gradually from JimDegerstrom.com as appropriate. This may take months because 500 pages are being split up and moved, yet that strategy allows the new sites to inherit search result ranking in Google. Some older or obsolete content may be deleted and marked as 410 gone meaning permanently removed.

Stay tuned. Readers may want to visit Facebook pages for each new site, too.

View the Custom CMS Web Design page and Custom Graphic Art Design page on Facebook and “Like” or follow to see updates and news during the redesign progress.

A new 2012 SEO report released today “Catchphrase Secret for Online Success” provides advice for SEO best practices for 2012 and beyond. This 5 page illustrated report compares two websites that I designed, and the difference made between a 10 year old website that has not followed my advice compared to a 7 month old website that does.

The catchphrase is “Add original quality content often, and get social”. This new 2012 SEO strategy for attracting traffic from Google may seem simple, yet each word in the entire phrase is important. You cannot drop words like “original” or “quality” and achieve better results than your competition if they implement the search engine optimization strategy that I advise.

My specialty is custom cms web design that allows a site owner to take over their website to manage content and add, edit, or delete material without advanced technical skills. This gives them the ability to control the growth of their website to help meet the goal behind “Add original quality content often, and get social”. The cms, or content management system, is ideal for small business owners with limited time or resources to keep their website updated.

The strategy is based on more than 15 years of web design experience, and depends on natural methods of attracting search engines. Google publishes resources to describe the type of website that will succeed. Design for visitors not search engines.

Google further warns website owners against hiring SEO experts who make outrageous claims or any promise to get your website on Google page one. If you ignore the advice in this new 2012 SEO report and launch a small website that doesn’t grow, you may have problems with high ranking no matter how many experts you hire.

Unlike the natural methods I use and recommend, those self proclaimed SEO experts likely use deceptive methods that may work short term but could eventually get your website blacklisted. Google advises website owners to create content that provides a positive visitor experience. Original quality content will do that.

Read the 5 page illustrated 2012 SEO report (pdf, 226Kb) online or download a copy to read later or share with friends or business associates. View the graphics to see the big difference in traffic between that 10 year old aged website and that 7 month old new custom cms site.

The Catchphrase Secret for Online Success report ends with an invitation for readers to have me evaluate your website with a no cost or obligation review and summary report. Contact me today to request the free review.

Custom cms web design services for small business owners is about more than providing a wow first impression to succeed. A fancy website in flash with talking characters or video with music that launches automatically is what I call “Let me entertain you web design”.

I’m currently working on a custom cms web design project redesign of a recently launched website that blasts music automatically. They’re getting next to zero return traffic. People coming to your website want information, not entertainment. An exception might be a famous recording artist website where you expect music or video on autoplay.

Anyone looking to spend money for a product or service will search the internet for information first while doing comparison shopping before ever placing an order or even contacting you. Music or talking characters in a custom web design for a small business website is a distraction.

Imagine a person at work doing a search on company time who lands on your website, and is met with loud music that their boss overhears. That potential new customer for you could be fired, and I guarantee they will remember your website and their horrible experience.

Your primary web design goal should be attracting potential customers and convince them to buy your product or service.

Next, you want search engines like Google to send you visitors. Information may include nice graphics with descriptive text about what you offer. That text including key words that people may use searching for your product or service is what Google will use to rank your site to determine if you belong near the top in search results.

Getting that traffic from Google requires common sense and natural methods. Do not hire a SEO search engine optimizer and self-proclaimed expert who promises top listing. I know about disappointing results from customers who spent $1000′s to get on Google page one without even $1 in ROI before finding me.

9 out of 10 so called SEO “experts” know just a little more about site optimization and SEO buzz words than the site owner, yet cannot provide evidence to prove similar high ranking results for their site. How can a person expect them to achieve those same promises for a client?

In summary, avoid autoplay audio or video with sound, include key word text that describes your product or service in common terms a visitor is likely to place in the Google search box, and don’t hire an SEO expert if they cannot prove success for their website.

This post provides antivirus advice for those small business web design clients wondering about Flamer Virus protection options.

Flamer is a sophisticated viral toolkit that remained undetected for nearly 2 years, and was recently exposed to become a high profile media topic.

Should the average web design client be concerned? Most likely not.

The primary targets being infected are not individuals or small business owners but sophisticated networks, and more specifically computers in the Palestinian West Bank, Hungary, Iran, and Lebanon. Some reports indicate smaller outbreaks elsewhere.

The apparent purpose of the virus is cyber warfare to disrupt Middle East threats to worldwide interests.

File types being infected include documents, graphics, and CAD or Computer Aided Design drawings. One component of the sophisticated Flamer Virus controls the spreading mechanism via USB sticks. Another will erase the digital trail needed to track down the source.

View reports and press releases from high profile antivirus software companies including Kaspersky Lab, BitDefender, and Semantec who produces Norton Security that I currently use.

The best antivirus advice for web design clients to protect their computer systems is keep their programs, operating system, and antivirus software patched and updated real time. The Norton Security flamer graphic illustrating this post is similar to one received today via email from Norton to assure its users that their computers were secure against the Flamer threat.

Most advanced antivirus protection software costs less than $100 a year. If not already using a top brand, my advice to web design clients is investing in one today and keeping it up to date.

Your website or computer may not be the target of Flamer, yet 1000′s of other hackers are actively trying to get around security software for malicious reasons that do require prevention. Avoid identity theft. Protect your accounts and passwords. Use common sense before following links from unfamiliar sources.

Finally, besides protecting your web design content from hackers, avoid losing data from a hard drive crash and install some form of automatic file backup system. A redundant copy to store off-site in case of fire or natural disaster could be a lifesaver for your business, as well.

This WordPress page comments tutorial explains how to easily set the WordPress 3.x page no comments setting without code edits. Comment settings for blog posts and pages are controlled under the admin menu option for Settings, and then Discussion, yet the only choice is a check box to allow comments, or not.

People want a better choice to allow or not allow WordPress page comments without affecting blog posts.

Custom web design clients with the WordPress platform as a CMS Content Management System usually want comments on blog posts, but not on pages. As WordPress continues to gain popularity as a CMS solution, it doesn’t make sense to have static looking pages like the Home page, About Us, or Contact forms with an option to leave comments.

The ability to add, edit, or delete content without advanced technical skills means “keep it simple” for novice site owners. Currently as of the date of this tutorial, a formal feature request to set the default for pages and posts independently under the setting for discussions remains open 6 months after the request was made.

Easy Solution for WordPress 3.x Website Page Comments Settings

This illustrated tutorial provides an easy 3 step process for setting “no comments” on WordPress 3.x pages while you are actually creating a new page. Note: Illustrations are smaller than actual size.

Click any illustration for an enlarged full size view.

Step One: Click

Click the “Screen Options” in the far upper right of your admin edit screen next to the Help button.

Step Two: Check

Check the box for “Discussion” from the popup section that appears.

Step Three: Uncheck

Uncheck the box for “Allow comments” further down the page just below the page text edit box.

If you overlooked the settings and notice pages have the comment section, return to the page edit in admin and follow these same steps.

Publish your new page and the comment section will not be displayed at the bottom of the published page. If you are doing an edit of selections on an existing page, select the “Update” button instead of “Publish”. You’re done.

Again, this WordPress page comments tutorial is a fast and easy solution as of the date of this post to the current WordPress version 3.3.1. Once the feature request is implemented in a future WordPress update this tutorial may not be needed.

The best solution is WordPress core files that provide a separate allow comments checkbox for posts, and another for pages, so you never have to remember to reset it for new pages in the future.

Maybe the WordPress team will surprise us and make the default setting already unchecked for allow comments on pages!

Learn web design solutions for email in your web design to give a professional first impression, add credibility, and avoid spam. Nearly half the websites for custom web design clients I’ve helped over the last 15 years use a free email service like AOL, GMail, Hotmail, or Yahoo because it is familiar and easy to use.

This tutorial is intended for small business or sole proprietor owners where one person handles email.

My advice is having email links in your web design that send email to info@[your domain] as the primary. Having multiple email addresses on your website like sales@, service@, or even employee names is fine, too.

The key to giving that positive first impression that adds credibility is having an email address that matches your www domain name.

An email address to match your domain is more professional and shows sophistication.

Internet service providers who provide www domain name registration and monthly hosting include email packages. Choices are direct email where you select the prefix like info@ and a password to access email, or forwarding where your email is set up to be sent to another email account.

Whether direct or forwarding, you can have an email link in your web design that matches the domain.

With a direct email account that requires a password, the site owner can then use whatever email program they have on their computer to receive incoming email and reply directly without logging on to a website to view email or reply.

If you only use forwarding, your incoming email arrives automatically to the forwarding address, so if using one of those free email services, you would log on to their website with your existing password to view your inbox. Using Yahoo as an example, the downside is you can only reply with that Yahoo address.

Email replies with an address from a free service are more likely to be sent to your spam folder, or marked as spam by the customer because it is suspicious. Why risk losing a sale because your email reply address was unfamiliar?

Personally, I prefer using both direct and forwarding.

By using info@ as the primary direct email address you only have one email account to set up on your computer. Additional forwarded addresses used as email links in the web design for sales, service, or other departments are forwarded to the info@ automatically.

As a result, when I click the receive button on my computer, emails from any links on my website all arrive in one inbox. Regardless of the incoming prefix, all return replies are sent from that one info@ address, so the matching domain will be familiar, more credible, and less likely to be trashed as spam.

If you never bought premium email software, not to worry. All computers have at least one free email program that you can use. The most common email software packages for free from my experience are Outlook Express or Windows Live Mail.

Your domain, hosting, and email service provider likely has written step by step instructions with settings for creating the email account on your computer. Search their help files or contact them for assistance.

Finally, don’t make the mistake of hard coding your email address in your web design.

Spammer robots surf the internet looking at code and will recognize email addresses to harvest and use, or sell to other spammers. You should cloak your email so it cannot be recognized. View and download this PDF, 4 pages, titled web design email link tutorial to begin protecting your website from spammers.

Having a web design that gives a professional first impression, adds credibility, and avoids spam is not difficult. Work through the advice given to enhance your website email links, and ask for assistance from your service provider if needed to start using an email address that matches your www domain.

Another custom cms website design launched earlier today with a custom cms attorney web design for Komara & Cranton, P.A.

Partners Kenneth Joseph Komara, Esq. and George D. Cranton, Jr., Esq., serve Osceola County and Orange County in Central Florida, and specialize in Family Law, Personal Injury, Criminal Law, Traffic Cases, Juvenile Cases, Forfeitures, or Record Sealing and Expungements.

Komara & Cranton, P.A. has an office in Kissimmee, Florida, one block south of the Osceola County Courthouse.

The initial custom cms web design includes pages for Home, Staff, Individual Profiles, Legal Services, Location, and Legal Links. For now the site navigation includes main horizontal tabs with dropdown menus under the Staff tab with links to individual profiles of each attorney.

This web design was an upgrade to an older site on a different domain with outdated information, and includes a bolder new look appropriate for an attorney or law firm website.

A key advantage of a custom cms web design is the ability to easily add new content for less than the cost of static pages. Advanced features to add easily include video, audio, or contact forms, and the cms website may be expanded in the future with a matching blog if needed.

Wondering if a custom cms, content management system, web design is right for you? Contact us today with any questions.

The website optimization strategy in the SEO for 2012 Report tutorial released last month works, and this case study provides evidence. You must invest time to improve and promote your website to achieve online success.

A recent custom cms web design implementing the principles in that seo search engine optimization strategy blog post has performed beyond expectations in less than 2 months.

Launched on 4 December 2011, the new dog rescue custom cms website for Lifeline Dog Rescue, a division of Central Florida Weimaraner & Dog Rescue, Inc., demonstrates remarkable success.

In summary, the first strategy for attracting search engine traffic begins with providing a positive visitor experience by creating high quality original content often. You cannot launch a new website and then ignore adding fresh content if you want to motivate happy visitors to return.

Likewise, a dynamic site that changes often will attract search engines to return and index updates frequently.

The second strategy is creating off site content in social communities that directs visitors to your website. The seo report recommends becoming active on social network websites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and even Flickr. A key feature on this new custom cms web design is social network icons linking to those sites and social bookmarking sites.

Those icons and links make social interaction easy. Being active on social networks and interacting with your contacts provides real time off site quality content that enhances your positive reputation for visitors and search engines.

Consider the following milestones achieved with the custom cms web design and social network accounts for Lifeline Dog Rescue. Clues to the success may be found by viewing the social site icons and statistics at the bottom of their home page.

In less than 7 weeks as of 31 January 2012, the stats show 92 likes on Facebook, 146 tweets on Twitter, 2 Google plus one shares, and 16 links to social bookmarking sites. Keep in mind those numbers are just for their home page.

Next, consider Alexa traffic numbers for the Lifeline website. Lower ranking indicates higher traffic in comparison to competition between 100+ million other websites. Lifeline launched ranked at 16 million. As of the date of this post the rank is 797,404. Any number under 1 million puts your website in the top 1%.

Stats tracking likewise shows 1) a steady increase in traffic, 2) a very low bounce rate meaning visitors land on one page and continue to expore more pages, plus 3) the rate of return visitors continues to climb which indicates popularity.

Why does this seo search engine optimization strategy work so well? It depends on quality content and natural methods for attracting search engines. The strategy is forward looking and considers the importance of human interaction and not just mathematical algorithms of Google crawlers to determine website ranking.

Is it simple? Yes. Is it easy? Not really. You must still invest time on website content and social connections. Site owners who recognize and implement this simple strategy will reap the benefits of staying ahead of their competitors who do not.

View and download the 2012 SEO Design Strategy Tutorial (pdf, 13 pgs., 96kb) and then apply these principles of website success.

Improve and enhance SEO search engine optimization of website content with this 2012 SEO web design strategy tutorial. Unlike printed marketing materials to promote your business product or service, your website content is easily changed.

This new 13 page SEO search engine optimization tutorial download provides readers an up to date strategy to implement on their website to enhance their online success in 2012.

Please note that you do NOT have to register or reveal your email address to get this free SEO and web design tutorial. Simply click the link in the last paragraph below.

Website owners can perform this annual website content review even if they outsource the actual web design to a web developer or delegate the task to an employee. Take one day to invest the time in learning these basics to apply to your website and help promote your business online, and then review the results with the person responsible for managing your website.

View the 2012 SEO Design Strategy Tutorial (pdf, 13 pgs., 96kb) online now, or open it to download to your computer and read later.

A new web design and matching blog launched earlier this month with a custom CMS for Lifeline Dog Rescue. A CMS or content management system style of web design allows the owner to take control and manage site content without advanced technical skills.

In addition to the main website and blog design, social site pages were created for the client and the site features links to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube.

Lifeline Dog Rescue is a non-profit caring for Weimaraner and other breeds of dogs providing shelter, fostering, and adoption. They are a division of Central Florida Weimaranaer & Dog Rescue, Inc., a Florida non-profit corporation since 2011.

Headquarters are in Davenport, Florida, and the 3 acre rescue property with private lake and enclosed on all sides with fence, is in Okeechobee, Florida. Plans for the future as early as 2012 include doubling the size of the dog rescue property, and the number of at risk dogs being rescued and placed for adoption.

Visit the Lifeline Dog Rescue Florida non-profit website to learn more about their work and how you may help.