We are growing and changing… from a company that built and maintained traditional websites to one focused on marketing and exciting new technology. Of course we still build websites, but now we are helping our clients in two important new ways:
We have been going like gangbusters the past six months, expanding in several directions at once. Our two biggest new areas are social media marketing and responsive design technology.
Our new Social Media Specialist, Harmony Keeney, has been handling our growing Social Media practice. We have responded to the ever-increasing inquiries from our clients about why and how to use these outlets. She can make sense of it for you. And she’ll help you decide the best answer for you. Not everything is for everyone. Who has the time? So she will strategize with you about your best choices, those that you can realistically do and most benefit from. Whether it’s a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a blog or LinkedIn, or a way to manage all four from a single platform, Harmony can set you up and get you going. We are seeing the rapid rise of Pinterest, Scoop.It, StumbleUpon and many more. Let us help figure out what is right for you.
I read recently that in as little as two years, tablet computers will outsell both desktop computers and smart phones. Regardless of whether that comes to pass, your website had better look good on tablets, and on smart phones as well. It is no longer enough to design a nice website that looks good only on the desktop. Responsive web design (RWD) is a set of tools we use to create websites that function well on all devices. No more need to pinch and squeeze your smart phone screen to read it. No more searching for a phone number of a web site you want to contact from your cell phone. We are building just about all our new websites this way. It is the way of the future.
We are pleased to announce that Harmony Keeney has joined the Nexxite as an Intern. A talented and successful jazz singer, Harmony is seeking to develop her web skills by learning and working with us.
A quick study, she is already gaining a grasp of the intricacies of Social Media Marketing. We think her growing expertise with Facebook, Twitter and other online venues will be of great value to our present and future clients.
This is the “Post-PC Era” and more and more people view websites on small portable devices like smart phones and IPads. In fact, it is predicted that as soon as 2014, more websites will be viewed on portable devices than on desktops. That’s why your website needs to be as easy to read and navigate on these smaller devices. That’s where Responsive Design comes in.
With Responsive Design, websites are built so they respond to whatever device they are viewed on. So your website looks like it is designed for the Apple 5 when it is viewed on that phone. And it will look like it was designed for your desktop when it is viewed on your desktop computer. Before this, you typically needed one set of files for the desktop version and a different set for the mobile version(s). So it was usually complicated and expensive to maintain, if you had a mobile version at all.
Another way of illustrating this is to look at a site like www.bostonglobe.com. The Boston Globe is one of the few sites already using Responsive Design technology. On your desktop, you see three columns. On say, an IPad, it is reduced to two columns and on your smart phone, it becomes a single column. It intelligently repositions and changes the presentation of its content depending on screen size.
This is trickier to do than may sound. We have spent months getting it down. It is important because it will no longer be necessary to create different sites for different devices. One design will fit all. Furthermore, since there is only one set of files for the site, the search engines don’t get confused with where to send people searching for your site.
At Nexxite, all our new websites will be built this way. Retrofitting an existing site with this technology can be a challenge, but it may be worth doing in some cases. We have other ways of creating mobile versions as well, for existing sites. If you would like to discuss your options, please contact us.
Some of you have Flash running on your websites. Unfortunately Adobe, the maker of Flash, and Apple just don’t get along. And with more and more people using IPhones and IPads, that is becoming a problem. Other smart phones appear to be dropping support of Flash as well.
We have recognized the issue and have built some of our more recent sites using alternate means to achieve much the same effects as Flash. You can see this technology on the Frog Tennis site (www.frogtennis.com) and on the Hit Men site (www.thehitmenlive.com). One advantage is the animation on these sites will play on Apple devices as well as on all other platforms where Flash would not.
If you are already running Flash on your site, you may want to consider replacing it. There is a cost to doing it, but the benefit is you’re not left out of the Apple world.
Nexxite has launched a special subsidiary, dedicated to the legal profession. Our new division is called SEO Websites for Lawyers. (You can tell we had search engines in mind when we came up with that name.) The new division targets attorneys who do not yet have a website or want to improve one they already have.
The key difference between us and our competitors is our new websites are designed at the outset to facilitate getting good search results immediately. We build in our SEO expertise from day one. We believe the extra time and effort is worth it since it helps the law firms get found more readily when potential clients are looking for the kinds of services they offer.
Take a look at our home page (www.nexxite.com). We have totally revamped it, removing the Flash and any text that was not vital. This is the direction the Internet is taking lately. Google provided the world with the best example of an extremely simple interface. Their home page just consists of their name and a search box. What could be simpler?
We live in a short-attention span era. That’s why we are focusing on simplicity and speed.
The world is going mobile. Apple is selling over a million IPhones a month. Android smart phones are even more popular. Increasingly, your customers are looking at your website on a mobile device. If your site is not optimized for mobile, it probably should be.
Nexxite can get you there. We have an easy, affordable solution that is ideal for many websites. For approximately $200 plus an annual fee of $160, we will create a modified version of your existing site that is easily viewable on mobile phones. These mobile versions are designed to get right to the point for viewers. Visitors see your phone number (and can call immediately by clicking a link on the screen). They also see your main menu so they can quickly go to whatever section of the site they wish to visit. The point is the initial view is easy to read (no straining the eyes to read micro-print) and gives people easy access to what they need to know.
Here’s an example of one we did recently. Try looking at this site on a smart phone: www.realestateacademy.com
We can do the same thing for your site. Our prices are extremely competitive for this service. We do it quickly and securely. Join the mobile generation!
February 28, 2012 marked the tenth anniversary of Nexxite. Over these past ten years, we’ve worked with approximately 150 clients, designing and building (or rebuilding) their websites, providing Internet guidance and search engine optimization (SEO) services, and/or serving as their Webmaster. It has been a pleasure and we plan to continue for many more years. I hope we have contributed to your success.
Okay, admittedly these three tasks are much easier said than done. But let’s look at each one individually.
Presumably, you’ve already done this or you wouldn’t be receiving this newsletter. But there are always important considerations that are worth revisiting (and these may change over time). Does your website convey clearly what you do and what you are offering? This would seem to be obvious, but you’d be surprised how many websites fail to explain succinctly what the enterprise is about. If it is not absolutely clear, then you need a paragraph on your home page that tells anyone who might be unsure precisely what you do.
Second, are your most important messages presented on your home page? Don’t make people look through your site to find what you want them to know first and foremost. Lastly, is your site well-designed? Don’t underestimate the value of an attractive, well designed site. People judge you by what they see. If it is jumbled, too busy, badly laid out or otherwise poorly designed and organized, you are sending the wrong message. So, even though you already have a site, look at it with these questions in mind. If you can’t say with certainty your site meets these criteria, consider redesigning it.
There are so many ways to promote your site and increase the number of people who look at it that it is almost impossible to list them all. Approaches can be divided into online and offline efforts. I won’t go into much about the offline approaches, but they include any promotion you do that is NOT on the Internet. So that would include advertising in traditional newspapers, magazines and trade publications. It can include writing articles in print outlets and giving speeches. It can be as simple as networking and handing out business cards.
Online promotion is equally wide-ranging. I like to start with optimizing a website for well-thought out keyword phrases. After that, there are many choices available. One is paid search engine listings, such as Google AdWords. Another is obtaining reciprocal links from other relevant and important websites. And there is advertising on other sites, publishing online articles, getting listed in directories and placing ads and links on complementary sites. Then there is the whole growing area of Social Networking. This includes writing your own blog, responding to others’ blogs, creating a Facebook fan page, becoming active in LinkedIn and much more. In short, you can announce your product or service any number of ways on line and cause more people to go to your website.
All right. You’ve built a great site and now you have plenty of visitors. You still have a problem at this stage if your visitors just look at your site, say “that’s nice” and go away. Now that you’ve gotten people to your site, most website owners want them to DO SOMETHING. It may be you want them to call you, email you, fill out an order form, download an article, pay for a product or service, or sign up for your newsletter.
Whatever it is, somehow you want to engage them. You want your visitors to act and you’d like them to come back in the future. So, the question is how do you come up with a good “call to action?” This question has different answers for different types of websites. A non-profit typically seeks a donation, so what prompts people to donate? It may be an explanation of what your money actually accomplishes or it may be a statement about being a “special” person who cares in this way. For a law firm, the goal may be to get a phone call from the visitor and the inducement to take that action could be the fact that an actual lawyer will be on the other end of the line when you call. A third example might be a travel company where signing up for a trip online earns the buyer a special free gift, like a camera. Free giveaways are always good. Likewise, a chance to enter a contest can appeal to certain visitors. A good call to action requires careful thought tailored to the specific enterprise and its target market.
If you want help with any of these tasks, please don’t hesitate to ask us. We’re here to help make your enterprise succeed.