Images on your Website

After your website is up and running there may come a time when you need to edit your images to fit in a specific area or to edit your image to increase the contrast and generally make it look better. There are several free online tools that can make this task a little less daunting. But first there are some things to understand about your images for use on the web.

  Images are comprised of pixels, hundreds of thousands of tiny squares of color. The picture you take with most cameras nowadays have are way too large for use on the web. You can still upload them, but for the sake of saving space on your server and fast loading times, it is imperative that you decrease the file size. Most images you take with your camera will be between 300-600 DPI or PPI; That's Dots-per-inch or Pixels-per-inch (which for all intents and purposes are used interchangeably). But for the web these images only need to be 72-100 DPI. Most of these free imaging programs will only have one option, and that is too save your image at 100 DPI. So that takes care of the size issue for you.

 When sizing an image for the web, there are two elements to be concerned with...the width and the height of the image. On your website this will be listed in px or pixel dimensions. Some images like for that of an Image Slider like the one on my front page requires a specific sized image (ie.  840 × 270). The first dimension is always the width and the second is the height. When using these online image editing tools, there is usually an image resize option. When resizing the image, make sure that you do not crop the image to less than both the width and height.

  Cropping is a matter of resizing your image by cutting out everything but the part of the image you need. Many online image editors have a selection or cropping tool that will allow you to outline the area you want to keep and then click the crop link. This will automatically resize the image to that cropped space selected. The only problem with this, is that the area may be too narrow or too wide and the results will show the image as skewed.

When uploading and inserting the image into your website, if for instance the image is too narrow, it will still expand to be the width of the required area, and this results in your image being blurry or pixelated and in some instances being stretched so that it fits the height and width requirement, and overall looking very shoddy. So make sure when cropping your image that it refects the width and height values required.

Blogging for beginners on a business website.

When sitting down and talking to people about SEO, the conversation usually turns to having a blog on their website. And it almost never fails that, though people feel completely comfortable with sharing their opinion, that they don't feel the same with writing about it. So, we would like to set the record straight about blogging, what it is and what it is not.

 There are professional bloggers that make money from promoting their website and getting followers. For the most part, this is not what you will be doing. Blogging on a business website is about marketing your website and helping search engines, list your products and services in a better ranking than they would otherwise list them. Its a much more casual way of blogging than being a professional blogger. Lets also take off the table that you need to blog everyday, or every week. The more content that is added to your website, the better of course. But look at is as a cumulative type thing instead of wanting a bulk of content right here and now. If you write a good website blog every couple of weeks or so, that is good enough.

When writing a blog post you should concentrate on using the keyword phrase as much as possible without making your post sound like a mantra. We suggest limiting your keyword phrases, as too many can make your blog post sound like you are a customer service rep from India. You will most likely have menu pages on your website as well as blog posts. Your pages for your products and services should be writing in a professional descriptive way, whereas your blog posts will represent your personality and opinions.

 So what do you write about? We suggest to start, that you do either promotional or tailgating type of blog posts. Promotional blogs are simply letting your customers know about a sale or event where you will be displaying your wares or services. Be as detailed as possible and you can repeat information listed other places on your website, but worded in a different way.

 The other type of blogging you can start with, is tailgating. Keep in mind, you don't always have to write about your products or services. And tailgating is a great way to do this. You simply find an article, news story, or another blogger's post; and write a blog with your opinion about someone else's news. You can reference that news story, and it helps if its a story folks are already aware of. And if you can tie in your product, all the better. Remember to use those keyword phrases to help boost your search engine ranking.

 Once you have a fair amount of blog posts, you can experiment with writing about different topics and expand your blogging portfolio.

Credit Cards Accepted

Every year the amount each person buying online is increasing more and more. Part of that is because the trust that was built by companies like PayPal and Authorize.net, but I think it’s also because the internet is no longer brand spanking new, and it’s becoming just another tool that we can use that is secure. In the olden days, to accept credit cards you had to have a merchant account and the equipment to accept the credit cards that was bulky and expensive. Most independent business owners started out with those but gave it up for cash only policies, just so they didnt have to deal with the hassle. Its just a smart move nowadays to accept credit cards, and it’s very easy to setup a PayPal account. It’s even considered standard operating procedure to set a different price for credit than for cash, to cover the 2-3% cost to that it takes to accept them. And Bang! The evolution just of accepting credit cards online has just moved to the Square. You can check it out at Squareup.com. After you sign up, they send you a small square card reader that plugs into the earphone jack of your phone. Just download the app and youre in business. Now you don’t have to worry about manually entering the credit card number, expiration, or security code into your phone. It’s very simple and easy. I highly recommend the Square!]]>

Colors have psychological, spiritual, and cultural meanings; and the interpretation of them gives an impression that is long lasting. Advertisers have been using colors as a way of  leading the viewer since the inception of color media. But what does this mean for you as a business owner? For starters, your business colors  and the color theme of your website reflect how people perceive your brand. And knowing is half the battle. Similar to keywords used by Google and other search engines, by knowing what expectation people place in specific words and phrases, by using specific colors you can make a lasting impression on potential customers. First we need to understand the color meanings. And how they currently represent wants and needs in media today. Have you ever noticed that during the hot summer months, you will see advertisements of cool blue skies and shimmering clear lakes; and then in the chilly winter months you will see advertisements of warm comfortable fires and suntanned people on hot beaches? There is a method to the madness. Weather is an easy trigger, and for advertising media, a predictable campaign. The following is a list of some colors and their meanings:

• Red:  Confidence, Vitality, Passion, and Courage
• Pink:  Love, Beauty
• Brown: Warmth, Earth, and Convention
• Orange: Fun, Light-hearted, and Youthful
• Gold: Wealth, Wisdom, and Good Health
• Yellow: Wisdom, Joy, and Happiness
• Green: Life, Nature, Fertility, and Well being
• Blue: Honesty, Youth, Spirituality, Truth, and Peace
• Purple: Royalty, Magic, and Mystery
• White: Purity, Cleanliness
• Black: Death, Earth, and Stability
• Silver: Sleek, High-tech, Modern, Pure, and  Graceful
• Gray: Sorrow, Security,and Maturity

When creating a website, the colors you use are very important. Its like color matching when painting your house. You dont want conflicting colors from room to room. Like Black and Orange, they may be great halloween colors, but mixing the two can be calamitous. Black representing death and orange representing youth, these colors will confuse your clients if not presented correctly (ie. referencing Halloween). Its not chance that most credit unions have the color green in there logos, nor is it coincidence that most banks have gold or blue in there logos. Not all certainly, but a fair amount of these companies have done their research and found that having a color meaning represented in their logo, creates an impression for their clients. Here is a link to a site called Logo Critiques that shows the representations of color in some popular logos and brands. Knowing that colors have meaning and power over people's emotions can help you when you are creating a logo, a website, or marketing campaign. By finding what the potential customer is looking for in a product or service, you can then create a website that caters to them.

Common Questions

How can I get listed high in search engines if I don't have a lot of content to for my brand new site?  The answer is provided here straight from the horse's mouth and here in understandable terms. Most web designers will tell you its all about keywords integrated into your text content, but that is misleading. With a site that has a great deal of text content, this would be the way to go, but most new sites start off with very little text content. There are SEO Wordpress plugins that will help you format your text and give you suggestions on how to format your website to maximize your ranking and that will take care of most of your content SEO; but there are other things you can do for your new website, that will maximize your SEO. Like getting a domain name with optimized keywords within it or choosing a reputable hosting company that doesn't have a bad rep for hosting spammers.