Website tips - Old City Web Services

7 Site Characteristics to Ditch

November 26, 2017 by anoadmin

As a business owner creating and managing a website can be difficult. Your expertise is in your business and not graphic design. However, a compelling website is just as important as a business manager. With the Christmas approaching, you'll want to be sure that visitors are captivated by your site because they have a limited attention span.

While holiday shopping, or preparing their own businesses for the holidays, the chances are that your visitor has a lot on their mind already, just like you! To ease their navigation issues, it is important to eliminate pesky site characteristics.

As a web design company, we urge you to consult with us with any of your web design issues. If two of these items are applicable to your site, we insist you call.

1. The site is not responsive.

If a website is not responsive visitors will have trouble viewing and searching for information. Text and photos that are designed for a desktop site appear small and difficult to read on a smartphone. Or, worst-case scenario, smartphone visitors will have to scroll up and down AND left to right - this can be frustrating.

Responsiveness is not a new concept. For years users have browsed the web using devices such as smartphones, laptops, and tablets. In fact, in November of 2016, mobile browsing surpassed desktop browsing.

2. Contact information is replaced with a form.

Did you experience an outage after hurricanes Matthew or Irma? If so, then you understand why it is irritating when a company doesn’t have their phone number and email address readily available on their website. Basically, it is only acceptable for Florida Power and Lights to hide their contact information from their customers.

Old City Web Services Contact Page is a good example to follow - it includes contact information and a contact form.

3. An irrelevant About Page.

As soon as a visitor lands on a site several things should be apparent to them, for example, the company mission. At this point, if there is any confusion on what services, products, or advice the company provides visitors will navigate to the About Page. If the About Page is still unclear and has a ton of script that doesn’t describe what the business is selling, providing, or producing the visitor will move on to the competitor's website.

An About page shouldn't be boring, but it should be informative.

4. Pages with too little text or too much text.

Website content should be balanced. If each page has a few sentences on it visitors won’t stick around long enough to get a full grasp of your product. In the same sense, visitors are unlikely to read an enormous block of text. Break up large blocks of text with headings and subheadings and combine pages that have only a few sentences of text.

5. Too many Popups.

Advertising and call to actions are important site characteristics and depending on the business, they are non-negotiable. However, if popups are stopping users from navigating to different pages or straight up pesky, chances are they will opt-out of a site faster then they opt-out of spam emails.

Site Characteristics

6. Information is hard to find.

Websites should not resemble mazes - but sometimes they do. Information for visitors needs to be plentiful and well-placed. Large blocks of content, missing details, or missing prices will only frustrate site users and lead them elsewhere. For example, if you are a historic inn or bed and breakfast then your website should include prices, amenities, and the location of your business. Focus on which aspects are most important for your potential customers and be sure to add it to the website.

7. It is messy.

Websites that are eyesores are less likely to engage visitors for long periods of time. Eyesores can include different font styles, mismatched color combinations, blurry or too many photos and random placement of photos. This may seem petty, but if a website is tacky chances are so is the product.

When in contact with your customers or the public, it is extremely important to provide quality customer service. A friendly, courteous disposition goes a long way. That includes answering the phone with a smile on your face; it can be heard in the tone of your voice. Put the shoe on the other foot and treat your customers the way you would want to be treated.

Mission Statement

Our mission at Old City Web Services is to navigate the world of web design, web development, and advertising for our clients so that they can focus on what they do best – running their business! Our business intentions go beyond the metrics of graphics, coding, and SEO. Located on Florida’s First Coast, we run a personable home front service and consider our relationship with our clients as a partnership in their success. If you are looking to increase your business’ visibility give us a call at 904-867-4112 or contact us today.

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6 Tips for A Unique About Page

November 12, 2017 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

About Page

A customer’s first impression of any company is the About Page. It is just as important as a first interview and needs to stand out in order to wow an audience It is a critical element of each website. Every About Page should include factors such as a description of the company's mission, the company’s history, and what makes it unique. However, to grab the attention of an audience use these methods below.

1. Speak to your customers.

Every About Page describes the company’s purpose, but not every page stands in the shoes of the customer. Further entice an audience by meeting their needs off the bat. To do this it's important to understand what solutions the company provides. A local pub might say, “if you are interested in trying numerous local craft beers and unique beers on tap, head to our pub”, versus “our pub offers numerous local craft beers along with unique beers on tap.”

Every audience is concerned with their own problems. The sooner their headaches are relieved, the easier it is to earn their trust.

2. Add creative media.

There are a few ways to make an About Page visually stand out and media is one of the top methods. Since most pages include a large text and a few photos, consider using videos, charts, and unique employee or customer photos to stand out. A short video (under three minutes), describing the company’s mission is unique and visually appealing. Photos of creative workspaces, holiday work parties, or employee pets are also attention-grabbing. Or, consider displaying a timeline of the company’s growth like Moz.com does on their About Page.

3. Make your backstory relate-able.

Although every About Page should touch on the company's backstory, not each story is entertaining and sympathetic. If we’re being honest, most businesses don’t have an incredible startup story. Many business owners run into luck or money, have extra time or ambition, or the business is passed down from a family member.

Use the factor most unique and relate-able from a backstory and expand on it. For example, maybe you loved ice cream as a child and hence decided to open an ice cream shop. To sum it up, a relate-able story will win the sympathetic vote with an audience.

4. Speak in layman’s terms.

This may seem obvious but unfortunately many websites use terminology that is unfamiliar to their clientele. This applies to all businesses regardless of their products or services. The worst thing you can do on an About Page is to confuse potential customers. For example, words as simple as cataplana, (frying pan mainly used to cook shrimp), may be unfamiliar to some customers and might deter them from visiting a restaurant.

5. Include customer testimonials.

Customers largely rely on customer feedback from sites like Yelp and Google reviews when researching a company. Therefore, adding reviews to an About Page saves the customer a step and allows the business to monitor the reviews they have access to. Even if a company has received a few bad reviews, making the great reviews standout will reassure the audience’s nerves. Make sure the reviews are up to date.

6. Highlight products or services.

Do you offer a specific service or line of products? Your About Page is a great place to highlight what is available to your audience. This element on an About Page provides easy access to customers and depicts their relationship with a business. For example, the owner of a local bar, might highlight specific events regularly scheduled. Or maybe there are certain cocktails or food items that are unique to the restaurant. Brag about the business and highlight key products.

Other things to add

The list above is intended as a guide to make About Pages unique. They aren’t necessary but will help any business stand out. However, there are a few elements that each About Page needs to incorporate such as a mission, a backstory, and a method to contact your company.

The word responsive has many meanings, but in our industry, it is a word that is critical to your online presence. In fact, it is essential that we make it easy for our clients to use our sites regardless of the device they are using; a phone, tablet, pc, or laptop. Stay ahead of your competitor and make sure your site is responsive. Want more information on what all that means? We are a phone call away, email away, text away - we have the answers to your questions.

5 Things You Need to Know About Websites

November 30, 2011 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

1. Every website MUST have a specific purpose.

Why do you have a website? That’s the first question you have to answer before you even begin to think about design or anything else. What do you want someone to do when they visit your website? Do you want them to purchase one of your products online? Encourage them to contact you by phone to schedule an appointment? Get them to come visit your physical business location? Your website is built around what you need it to do.

2. Websites do not generate traffic on their own.

If you opened a new storefront somewhere, you might get a little traffic from people who pass buy, but you won’t be able to sustain your business unless you tell everyone where to find you and what you offer. Advertising, search engine optimization and word of mouth will all generate traffic for your website and the more traffic, the better your business will be.

3. Content is the key to solving #1 and #2.

Driving people to do what you want them to do on your website starts with content. Text and photos have to tell people what your services/products are and what they need to do to purchase them. Content will also help you attract search engines to generate more traffic for your website.

4. Flash animation can only do so much to benefit your website.

Websites with flashy intros and other moving graphics might impress first time visitors, but they don’t do much else to benefit your website or your business. Search engines can’t read graphics, so there’s no benefit there for your rankings. The best way to use an animated image is to have a professional slideshow system (like SlideShowPro) with text captions that the search engines can read, giving you a benefit in both areas.

5. Update. Update. Update. Update.

When you live in the same house for a while, you start to realize things are looking a little dated and worn. Eventually, you might have to spend a little money to update your kitchen or your bathroom, but it adds to the overall value of your house. The same goes for websites. As times and technology change they get a little out of date and you have to make some updates to improve the value of your website and business.

5 Things You Need to Know About Writing Excellent Web Content.

August 16, 2011 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

Once you’ve got a great, professional web design, the next step is to create professional text that will inform your potential customers about what your business does and how they can sign up for your services. We have put together a couple of quick tips to help you write excellent website content:

1. Be Original: Don’t start off your home page web content with a generic “Welcome” message. As soon as a visitor sees a standard greeting like that, he or she will stop reading and move on to something else. Grab their attention, give them the information they need to know and finish with a call to action.

2. It’s okay to be repetitive: Users can enter your site on any page, so it’s okay to repeat some content. Make sure the key points of your business—services offered, target clients (are you reaching out to contractors or soccer moms?) and a point of contact—are mentioned on every page.

3. Break it up with headlines: Separate long paragraphs of text with headlines to point out certain sections. This is another way to grab the visitors’ attention and pull their eye to certain sections of text, it also creates visual appeal in your content.

4. Keep it relevant: Focus on the most important things you want your customers to know. You want your text to be long enough for people to get your message and decide that you’re the right business for them. Any extra information will just create confusion and steer them away from what you want them to do.

5. Call them to action: Just like the rest of your marketing materials your website should drive users to contact you. Close out every page with a call to contact you for more information or to schedule an appointment, whatever it is that people need to do to engage your services.

We can write professional website content for you!

If your time is maxed out doing all the other things it takes to run your business, contact us about writing your content for you. Whether you have a new website in progress or an old website that needs some updating, we have talented writers on staff who can write great content for your website.

For more information call 904-867-4112 or send an email to us at letusmarketyou@oldcity.com.

5 Things You Need to Know About Website Navigation

August 10, 2011 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

When it comes to websites, the buttons or “tabs” that allow visitors to move between pages are referred to as “navigation”. This navigation is key to creating a user-friendly website that will allow your visitors to find what they need to know about your business. This week we’ve put together some quick tips to help you create the best navigation for your website:

1. Keep it simple: Less is more when it comes to web pages and navigation. Don’t spread a few sentences of content over many pages, requiring your visitors to move through page after page just to get the information they need. Most businesses only need three or four pages to get across their services and contact information. This will keep your navigation and subsequently your website very simple and easy to use.

2. Use standard terms: A little creativity with your page names can be okay, but when it comes to the most popular pages–Home and Contact–go with standard titles. Most people are used to looking for Home or Contact on a website, especially when they’re ready to take action and contact your business. The worst thing you can do is slow them down by making them hunt for the right page. Stick to the standard terms and they will easily be able to find the right information.

3. Make it readable: Don’t use fancy fonts or small typefaces that make it difficult to read the navigation titles. You also want to be sure your navigation is in a prominent place on your website—most are at the top or the left side where they are easy to spot.

4. Be consistent: Your navigation should be in the same place on every page and list your pages in the same order. Visitors will get frustrated and confused if they have find the navigation every time they change pages. Having it in one place also makes it easier to make adjustments down the line if you add more pages.

5. Plan for expansion: Horizontal navigation is the most popular in today’s design, but vertical navigation has more room for growth if you plan to add a lot more pages to your website. Vertical navigation is also best for eCommerce sites with lots of product categories and selections. Know where you plan to go with your website so you can choose the best navigation style for your website.

Let us help you put together a user-friendly website!

From navigation to design and everything in between, Old City Web Services can create the perfect website for your business. For more information call 904-867-4112 or send an email to us at letusmarketyou@oldcity.com.

5 Things You Need to Know About Great Website Design.

August 3, 2011 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

Over the next month we’re going to take a closer look at the most important components involved in creating a good website, starting with design. With every custom website design we create, there are several principle factors we take into account, including:

1. User Friendly: The most important factor in any design is the ease of use it provides for visitors. Clean lines, clear navigation and a simple layout will make it easy for visitors to find what they’re looking for. Our user friendly designs also help direct visitors to do exactly what you want them to do—whether it’s to fill out your contact form, call you, or visit your business’ physical location.

2. Great Photos: Users are most often drawn to a website by engaging, professional photography. You provide your own photography or allow us to select images from stock photo sites. If you decide to use your own photography, be sure to get signed releases from your subjects, use a camera with good resolution and make sure you have ample lighting (outdoor shots are usually best!).

3. Clear Message: Your website must convey the message of the company through appropriate design elements. The design has to match up with your company’s brand so that the visitor will have a clear perception of your message.

4. Complimentary Content: The best designs are balanced with just the right about of text and information. We often don’t think about it, but text has a certain design appeal to it as well. A combination of headlines, short paragraphs and bulleted lists provide design balance. Additionally, sites with sidebars should be mindful of having so much text in the side column that it runs longer than their primary content column.

5. Viewer Readability: Along the same lines, we want to be certain that your selected fonts are easy to read in all sizes. Scripted or highly stylized fonts should be reserved for headlines and titles while primary text should be displayed in simple fonts for easy reading.

Click on one of the “Read More” links above or visit the Old City Web Services blog for more details on each of these five design essentials.

We’re ready to create a professional, custom design for you!

The Old City Web Services staff features talented designers who can create professional web designs just for your business. For more information call 904-867-4112 or send an email to us at letusmarketyou@oldcity.com.

Get ahead of the tide with a mobile website.

July 18, 2011 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

Is your website mobile friendly?

If you don’t know the answer to the above question, ask a friend or family member to visit your website on a cellphone or iPad and see if they are easily able to navigate from page to page, find important information (hours, location, etc.) and contact you by phone or e-mail.

With a growing number of people searching the web on mobile devices, it’s more important than ever to make sure you have a version of your website that can be easily viewed on a small screen on a slower connection speed (which most cellular web providers have).

To give you an idea of how much growth we’re seeing in mobile traffic, our web portal, OldCity.com, has more than doubled its mobile traffic since January. In the last 30 days we received over 10,000 visits from mobile devices accounting for 15% of our overall site traffic.

Take a look at the following two example websites on your desktop or laptop computer, then visit them on your mobile device and compare the two:

http://sunsetgrillea1a.com
http://thecornerbar.gypsycab.com

We created both of these websites as well as their mobile counterparts to meet the needs of regular internet surfers and mobile internet surfers. The system automatically detects mobile devices and re-directs them to the mobile site, no extra domain names needed. It’s that simple!

Call us to find out how you can start a mobile website.

For more information, call (904) 829-2772 or send an email to us at letusmarketyou@oldcity.com or take a look at some of our previous blogs about mobile devices:

– Your Customers Will Be Outside This Summer, Can Your Website Go With Them?: http://bit.ly/oh3KLP

– Give your website a mobile advantage: http://bit.ly/iavnja

Time to put on those gloves and weed your website.

May 5, 2011 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

With summer just around the corner, now is the time to clean up your website in preparation for a fruitful year. As technology grows and changes, some things that we once needed on our website become unnecessary and actually hold us back from a blossoming business.

We have put together a few suggestions for some of those “weeds” that we could help you remove from your website.

1. Copyright dates: Look down at the very bottom of your website—do you have a copyright clause written in the footer? Some clauses include dates and if yours is more than a year old, you should think about updating it or removing it all together. Simply stating that the website is a copyright of your business keeps the site timeless and keeps you from worrying about updating it every year. Otherwise, having that old date can make your website look…well…dated!

2. Hit counters: Back in at the start of the new millennium, designers used hit counters so that website owners could track the number of people visiting their website. Now we can use sophisticated tracking codes from Google Analytics to not only count the visitors to your website, but obtain crucial information about them to help you structure successful marketing and advertising campaigns for your business. Trade in that old hit counter for a free Google Analytics account, we can have it set up for you in less than 24 hours.

3. Auto-play Music: Once upon a time, it seemed like a great idea to use music to set the tone for your website. Visitors would arrive on your home page and immediately be greeted by a nice melody. But maybe after a few years, that music has started to get a little redundant. It can also be inconvenient for users who are surfing your website at work or on the go. Consider changing the music so it only plays when visitors press a button or we can just remove it all together.

4. Flash introductions: Although an introduction page with moving animation can add a lot of visual appeal to your website, it can also hurt you in terms of search engine optimization and usability. Search engines rate your website based on text, but text from within a video can’t be seen by search engine crawlers. Flash animation is also unsupported on a lot of mobile devices, meaning that you could lose traffic because people can’t see your website when they’re surfing on iPhones and iPads. Lastly, people who visit your website often can get frustrated with having to sit through the same introduction every time they try to access your site. Call us and we might be able to convert your introduction into a video that can be added to part of your website so people can still see it if they want to, but it won’t hurt your business.

Visit our blog to read more about why these “weeds” are hurting your website: https://oldcitywebservices.com/index.php/blog/

Need help getting started? We are a phone call away!

Old City Web Services can remove these pesky weeds from your website and help you spruce up your site in a few other ways, too. Give us a call today and we can get to work improving your business’ website.

– Old City Web Services

Give your business a competitive edge with the latest technology.

April 26, 2011 by anoadmin

Five years ago, only a handful of people had ever heard of social media. It certainly wasn’t a tool that businesses were using to promote themselves on the web, but now social media has become an essential component of every successful marketing campaign. This is just one example of how quickly technology evolves and how important it is as a growing business to stay on top of these changes.

We strive to stay on top of new technology as well so that we can provide the latest tools to our customers. Our goal is to keep your business one step ahead of your competitors when it comes to online marketing tools and services.

Take a look at these new FREE tools and let us help you put them to work for your business:

• QR Codes

You might have seen these little boxes of black and white pixels on recent advertisements. It’s a special barcode that smart phones (with a camera and a barcode reading application) can scan to receive information. The barcode can send the mobile user straight to your website or provide a message such as a discount coupon code.

How is this an advantage? Well, if you’ve ever searched the web on your mobile device you know that it’s not always a quick and easy process. Instead of making someone pull up their mobile browser and search for your website or type in the address, they can simply scan the bar code and go straight there.

• YouTube Direct

Have you ever wanted to harness the power of YouTube on your own website? With YouTube Direct, you can add a video uploading and rating system to your site so that clients can upload their own videos and rate them without having to go directly to YouTube.

While this tool isn’t for every business, attractions and other businesses that offer an experience to their clients could benefit from adding video interaction. It also generates more content, which in turn gives people more ways to find you on the search engines.

• Google Places

Customers who search for your business on Google are most likely to come across your Google Places page first. This free page built right into Google features a map with your location and some basic information, but it can be so much more. You can add photos, videos, hours, a short business description, a link to your website and more. Just visit the Google places link, enter your address, and supply the necessary information. Google will send you a postcard or give you a call with a verification code so that you can certify that you are the business owner.

Once you’ve got your Google Places page set up, encourage your customers to go and leave a review of your business. The review system on Google Places is one of the biggest advantages to the system. More reviews and high ratings will help your website move up in search engine rankings while also providing potential customers with positive endorsements. Google Places also pulls reviews from other sites like TripAdviser, Hotels.com and other sites with reviews and ratings.

Want more information? Give us a call!

Old City Web Services can help you get set-up with all of the above services on your website. Just give us a call today for estimates and pricing.