We also just recently launched Artisan Munchies, a gourmet family-owned business located in the heart of Wallace, NC. Artisan Munchies approached us with the goal to build an online presence and allow for the online purchase of their delicious products. Building the website through a Content Management System, and integrating PayPal, we created a clean and user friendly ecommerce site.

After months of planning, designing, programming and building, Atlantic Packaging launched their new website last month. Renowned for state of the art automation and integrated packaging abilities, Atlantic Packaging craved a website redesign that would build a strong online presence for the Atlantic Packaging name. Being a highly visual website, this site features custom database and flash, as well as an exclusive employee section. Also, embedded within this site is also the Prestige Label website, which is complete with videos and a custom quote form.

Hey Blog viewers, I just wanted to let you all know that LinkTech Couplings launched their new website on September 15th. Mimicking the look and feel of their marketing materials we previously created, this new website features an updated look, refined logo and for the first time in LinkTech history, all their updated products are featured online. The client is very pleased with this website and is ecstatic about being able to continually keep LinkTech’s products updated through the use of a custom template. Following this, we plan to create and print a complete catalog featuring these updated products.

I am pleased to announce Bridge Pointe Hotel and Marina launched their newly designed website on August 13th. This new website features an updated look and feel, new logo and also a really neat Google Map application that allows the client to continually personalize and place in local attractions. The new Bridge Pointe Hotel and Marina is complete with editing functionality and plenty of beautiful images. All in all, the client is satisfied with the website outcome and is now looking into working with us for a 2010 Internet Marketing plan for this hotel.

Surf Expo – Orange County Convention Center
Orlando, Florida
Wednesday, August 19 @1:45

TECH TOOLS: 10 THINGS YOU CAN DO TO IMPROVE YOUR WEBSITE
This seminar will give you tips to improve your website’s promotional strategy, social marketing, blogging and Web 2.0 results. This may be the most valuable time you spend as you will learn specific tactics to get your hands dirty and improve your online sales, and the overall bottom line. The seminar will present top tools and marketing strategies that can strengthen your website online marketing efforts at little to no cost. You will leave the seminar with actionable tactics you can use to make money NOW.

Unlike what some viewers believe, creating a design (ad, website, print pieces…etc.) isn’t just plopping a pretty picture on a page, throwing in some creative text, neatly tying a bow to complete the presentation and happily yelling, “Voila!” There are actually many steps and strategic thoughts that go into the creation and development of the perfect, eye catching, and memorable design.

Besides content, font, and image usage, and design layout are among the first thing the average viewer makes note of when studying a design. Grasping the viewer’s attention appropriately is so vital to the advertising world that currently numerous eye-tracking and scanning studies have been completed. Even Google uses eye-tracking technology to gather valuable information to better help with layout and ad image placements.

Recently, I came across a great article displaying search results completed by specialists Bunnyfoot and Think Eyetracking. These studies provided concrete evidence on how layout and chosen images affect the customer’s focus on the design. These studies deal with selected lifestyle images and where they are positioned. It is clear from these studies that image placement and the image selected does in fact influence your viewer’s eye placement. See for yourself. Where do you focus with the below ads?

As you can see from the below results, the model’s eyes influence your eye focus. The images selected here make a big difference—one image selected makes the viewer focus more on the product. Another you end up focusing more on the model, losing site of the product and purpose of the advertisement.

Try again! Where do you focus with this baby ad?

As you can see, image selection is huge! Selecting an image where the subject faces the content is most ideal. Your eyes tend to follow where the subject is looking.

Test it yourself! Next time you look at an ad, take note of the precise image selected and font placement. Take a few moments to perform your own eye-tracking scan and remember, the models used aren’t just a pretty face!

Usability is one of the most important (and often overlooked) elements of search engine optimization. If your website is designed for the end user, you’ll reap the benefits in your search engine rankings and your customers will be more likely to interact with your website in the way that you desire.

Keep these usability best practices in mind as you design your website to ensure a good user experience and better search engine results:

Navigation

• Include a clear navigation bar that links to every page on your website and appears consistently on each page.
• Link to pages on your website internally throughout the copy using relevant, keyword-rich anchor text.
• Use breadcrumbs to show users where they are and where they came from.

Accessibility

• File sizes for your pages should ideally be smaller than 200KB to optimize loading time and search engine crawling.
• Place copy in the first 100KB to ensure that your keyword-rich content is being crawled and indexed.
• Keep pages as close to the root as possible. Users and search engines should be able to reach each page on your site from the homepage in two clicks or less.
• Utilize permanent 301 redirects for known deleted pages to land users on a similar page and maintain links.
• Use a custom 404 page to redirect users and search engines that have reached a page that no longer exists on your site back to the most useful content on your site.

Readability

• Don’t use fancy fonts for your body copy. Simple fonts, preferably sans serif, are easiest on the eyes and most likely to display properly on all browsers.
• Write clear, concise content for each page. Web users get overwhelmed with huge blocks of text, so limit the amount of text on each page.
• Break up large blocks of text into bite-sized pieces with headers.

Simplicity

• Keep your on-page code as clean as possible by moving JavaScript and style sheets into external files.
• Use animation and Flash sparingly. Too much animation can be distracting for users, and while search engines are getting better at indexing Flash, it’s not perfect yet.

Optimization

• Focus on one page at a time in your optimization, and optimize it for no more than three highly relevant keywords. This will tell users and search engines what the page is about quickly and easily.

Finally, be sure to test run usability tests with several user types likely to visit your site to catch problems that normal users may encounter. Be sure to run tests on all of the major browsers (Internet Explorer 7 & 8, Firefox, and Safari). What works on one browser may not work on another.