SEO Werkt!

With a boring website, you are getting further and further away from attracting traffic to your website. Come to think of it, what’s the use in having a website without traffic? Well, you agree that you would want visitors into your business website. Hence, you need to begin with getting a website and a reliable website design company that has all the support and help that you need.

In this modern age of technology, everyone has turned to getting their answers from the internet. You cannot afford to disappoint such people. You would only remain competitive in the marketplace if you get rid of that boring website and at least got a website with a design that will appeal to your target market. In the section below, you will get to know how great website designs can profit your business and some of the ways through which you would get to know the right website design company to work with.

Why insist on a great website design

It is one thing to build a website and completely a different one to have a website with a beautiful design. The latter is the best as it presents several advantages to businesses that are worth looking into. For instance, the beautiful design of the website would ensure good usability and you can be sure that this is something that your visitors will enjoy.

The business world is quite competitive and you would want to impress. With the appeal that comes from the beautiful designs of the website, you will be able to get rid of that boring website and impress visitors to your website that will no longer be boring.

Great website design guarantees responsiveness, elegance, and search friendliness. As you may already know, internet users are the least patience lot. They will not have the time to wait on a non responsive site; instead they will click away to a responsive one. A great design also means elegance and search friendliness which cannot be achieved when it is not well designed.

It also goes hand in hand with search engine coding as this is the first step towards getting better ranks in the worlds of Yahoo, Google and Bing.

How to find appropriate website Design Company

With the above advantages of a great website design, the next important question is to find out where you would get the services from. There are several companies that provide the services but not all of them will give you that great overall quality finish on the website.

Hence, it is best to take time and scan the different companies and then make a decision based on your analysis. There are about 4 main qualities that you may want to check on when you are looking a company to task with the website design so that at least you get a responsive, elegant and search friendly site for your business.

• The website design company should be in a position to customize your website in a way that makes it unique while still remaining search friendly and lively.

• The company should be willing to allow you to modify or add content to the website. As a matter of fact, the website belongs to you hence you should be in charge of content management. You should be able to add or delete pages from the website without much struggle and at your liberty.

• The company should provide you with post project support. Website design does not just end with the creation of your website. You therefore need to have support for some time so that you are able to understand it better.

• You should also be granted full copyright. The website is yours to keep.

Yes, there is a website design company named www.serpholic.co.uk that is willing to help you maximize your business revenues by creating the best website for you where great sense of business, innovation and professionalism remain as the drive. You should get a free estimate and make your selection.

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/complete_business_systems/5654600691/sizes/s/

How a Good Website Design Leads You In The Market is a post from: We Blog Better. © 2012. Share it freely, but please link back to this source.

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A guest post by John Mataraza of Digital Influence Group.

We’ve all made the association that bigger is better. That saying more means you have more to say. That the more we pontificate, the more likely we are to eventually say something smart. That the longer our PowerPoint presentations are, the more astute we are going to seem. That a 100-page deck with complex measurement readouts and vague meaningless “results” is better than a distilled and focused one-page dashboard.

The truth is: A great idea is only great when others can understand it and easily act on it. The best ideas are similar to magic; they are amazing yet easily understood on the surface. In a time of an overwhelming abundance of information, data, and options, the more efficiently you can explain your strategy, the better it most likely is.

Strategic Elegance

Strategic elegance is critical to how well your ideas or strategies are received.

My take on how to explain elegance in regard to strategic storytelling is related to the formula for density (below in gray), which basically defines how much stuff is crammed into a defined space. I’m defining elegance as how much “space” you need to convey your thinking. Examining the red formula below, strategies (m) told without the need for a ton of pontificating (V) equate to ideas with a high elegance factor. Those strategies tend to be more understandable, which is the first step of making them actionable and sellable.

Building in contrived complexity to make it seem like you “put a lot of work into this” serves only to keep your ideas from becoming actionable. Complexity makes your idea seem too hard and casts doubt regarding how feasible it is to implement your idea. Ever notice people don’t like ideas that they perceive will result in a lot of work for them?

Unfortunately, it’s easier to complicate something than it is to simplify it. Making brilliant ideas seem simple is a unique and invaluable talent. Doing so requires much more thought. You need to conjure up the brilliant idea—and do the thinking for the folks to whom you are going to present this idea. You need to make your brilliant idea easily understood.

On the other hand, it’s easy to just throw all the charts and words you can together and submit a 100-page measurement deck because maybe your audience will find something of value in it. However, that 100-page deck betrays an incredible lack of confidence in what you are saying. In giving a long-winded presentation, you aren’t saying anything at all. Details are critical but should never be used as a crutch. Elegance with respect to analytic storytelling continues to be an anomalous occurrence.

This propensity for pontification is tied, in part, to fearful corporate cultures where taking action seems scary. There is comfort in size. The notion that a deck should have a “thunk factor” (named as such for the sound your ridiculously bloated presentation makes when it is dropped on a desk) only shows you didn’t invest the time on your reader’s behalf to determine what was important. Instead, you crammed it all in and hoped the deck gives the impression that you know what you are talking about.

It won’t.

Distilling simplicity from complexity is not easy. However, being unafraid to commit to a clear point of view is true thought leadership—and we need more of it. Nobody has the time or desire to wallow in a sea of unnecessary details that only obfuscate your strategic intent.

Sure, there is safety in numbers, but there is power in simplicity.

John Mataraza is the director of marketing at Digital Influence Group. You can connect with him on Twitter @jmaz3 or on LinkedIn.

(Photo courtesy of Bigstock: Bright Idea)

For many fans of Instagram, the news that Facebook is acquiring the photo-sharing mobile platform is a little like hearing that your best friend is engaged to that jerk. She might be thrilled. But you can’t help but feel a sense of doom about the whole arrangement.

The sense of foreboding is because Facebook announced today that it is acquiring a much-beloved network with gallons upon gallons of that sweet nectar called user engagement. Where Facebook engenders distrust, Instagram inspires affection. Where Facebook feels invasive to many, Instagram creates profound connection.

This afternoon, my social streams were stuffed full of Instagram fans who now worry that Facebook will monkey with the magic somehow, hobbling it or killing it completely. “Not sure I’m excited about our new Facebook overlords,” one person said. Others tagged their announcement of the acquisition thusly: #endofdays #instagramsellout and #keepingthesame. This fear has some precedent: Facebook offed social-location app Gowalla after purchasing it in December.

When the Instagram news broke earlier today, Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg took pains to point out that Facebook is “committed to building and growing Instagram independently.” In other words, Facebook plans to keep the service intact, and it won’t screw with features that make Instagram what it is: for example, the ability to post photos to other services—Foursquare, Twitter, and Flickr (and not just Facebook).

Still, some of the 30 million people who use Instagram tweeted their shock and disappointment, and some vowed to delete their Instagram accounts. Around 60% of those who responded to a Mashable poll today expressed disappointment at the pairing (“I think Facebook will find a way to screw Instagram up.“) You can see the latest poll results here.

Elsewhere (also tellingly), Mashable suggested how people could delete their Instagram account but still save their library of images.

I look at the acquisition through two lenses. The first: it makes total sense for Facebook. The second: it’s an apparent loss for Instagram fans.

Why it’s a great fit for Facebook

It’s not just that the Instagram network of 30 million is huge and has incredible momentum, growing at 2+ million users per month (last week, within 24 hours of the introduction of its brand-new Android app, it swelled by 1 million folks).

It’s also not just that it’s the largest mobile-social network—in other words, a social network in which the majority of activity takes place via mobile devices.

It’s that it’s the most successful mobile-first platform: a platform created initially as a mobile app, and not built first as website with a mobile app added later (like, well, Facebook).

If you’ve ever accessed Facebook on your smartphone, you know that mobile isn’t Facebook’s strong suit. Clearly, Facebook will benefit from acquiring the sharp mobile development chops of the Instagram team.

Why Instagram fans are upset

That growth momentum of Instagram speaks to its unique strength versus that of most any other large social network, and it’s that unique strength that fuels its rich relationship with the people who love it—and accounts for the wailing at the news that Facebook has acquired it.

What strength am I talking about? At its core, Instagram allows you to tell stories visually, with a simplicity and immediacy that mobile users expect. And it does so with elegance and artfulness. That’s what makes its “stories” so appealing, and (for me) why it breaks new ground in a world where great content is at the heart of online relationships and brands.

In other words: It’s not just a network of shared photographs, but a platform built on the shared experiences of visual stories. The images on Instagram are at once intimate and broadly appealing, at once personal and universal. The platform allows you to create visual stories with an artfulness and elegance and a special kind of significance that inspires true connection between the people and brands active there.

As Om Malik writes at GigaOM, Instagram created a platform “built on emotion.” Instagram’s growth is fueled by the richness of its platform more than anything else.

To its fans, Instagram is a social network that many value enough to potentially pay to access. Yet it was purchased by a network many would never pay to access. And that, I suppose, is the nature of irony.

As the saying goes: If you’re not paying for it, you’re not the customer—you’re the product.

Belvedere vodka's recent tradition of whipping up cutesy little ads for its Facebook page hit a snag Friday, when it posted the image above—featuring a dude who clearly doesn't know when to say when. The brand's Facebook and Twitter pages were immediately inundated with howling protests, and the image quickly disappeared—replaced by notes of apology. "We sincerely apologize to any of our fans who were offended by our recent post and related comments. As always, we continue to be an advocate of safe and responsible drinking," the brand says. The ad is way more meatheady than what Belvedere usually posts, which errs on the side of faux-elegance. Check out some other recent ads after the jump.

PayPal is set to launch a competitor to media darling Square at an event in San Francisco scheduled for tomorrow, according to GigaOm and Bloomberg.

Mobile payment enabler Square has set the benchmark for small business applications in terms of design elegance and simplicity. Here’s what I’ll be looking for in the PayPal announcement:

Hardware

It will be interesting to see if PayPal goes with simple hardware similar to Square’s iconic dongle or tries for a PCI-compliant solution. Such devices are significantly more expensive, require power and are more secure. Competitor VeriFone tried to make a big deal out of the Square dongle’s security risks last year with an open letter claiming, “In less than an hour, any reasonably skilled programmer can write an application that will “skim” – or steal – a consumer’s financial and personal information right off the card utilizing an easily obtained Square card reader.”

I consider VeriFone’s attempt just a lot of fearmongering. All the information you need to process a credit card transaction is printed on the piece of plastic you give to your waiter, so by comparison the Square dongle’s security risk is trivial.

User interface

As much as people like to focus on the Square dongle, the real brilliance of the service is in the elegance and simplicity of the user interface of the applications. There are some tweaks that I’d make to it, but on the whole it does what it needs to do quickly and efficiently.

That’s the exact opposite of PayPal’s online interfaces. Every time I complete a PayPal checkout, I think I hear a user-interface designer crying. The design isn’t geared toward completing your task as fast as possible; it’s about avoiding the traps that PayPal puts in place to get you to do what it wants. The only flow that I’ve seen that is consistently worse is United’s online check in, which tries to get you to buy premium seats, extra bonus miles, priority access, etc.

Time to task completion is even more important in retail point of sale than online, because a customer may be holding up the line.

Fees

One of the big potential advantages that PayPal has is that it has money on file. Many of PayPal’s more than 100 million active users keep money in their PayPal accounts. Because this doesn’t have to hit the credit card or debit card networks (which Square’s service currently does), PayPal could offer such transactions for free to merchants. As of December 31, PayPal had more than $4 billion on file, according to eBay’s annual report.

But according to the Bloomberg report, PayPal isn’t going to be that aggressive. Citing unnamed sources, Bloomberg says that PayPal will charge 2.70%, compared with the 2.75% that Square is charging. For this market, a 5 basis point difference is irrelevant.

Distribution

Getting the reader into hands of small businesses is going to be critical. Square readers can be purchased at more than 11,000 retail locations, including Apple stores, UPS stores, Best Buy, and Target. These are all places small businesses frequent.

International

PayPal is available in 190 markets and supports 25 currencies. If PayPal launches in markets other than the U.S., that’s a big deal.

With as many users as PayPal has, it would be foolish to dismiss them, despite Square’s early lead in the offline payments space. Square’s currently at a run rate of $4 billion in transactions annually. In 2011, PayPal processed more than $118 billion in transactions.

If I were at PayPal and trying to compete aggressively with Square, here’s what I’d do:

• Eliminate the transaction fee on all transactions under $25. This would be a significant differentiator. Low dollar value transactions are a money-loser for Square; they could be free for PayPal.
• Rebate a substantial portion of fees for money-on-file transactions.
• Seed the existing 100 million+ customer base with special offers to use PayPal at small offline retailers, much as American Express has done.
• Focus on consumer- and merchant-friendliness in the application and customer service.

Rocky Agrawal is an analyst focused on the intersection of local, social, and mobile. He is a principal analyst at reDesign mobile. Previously, he launched local and mobile products for Microsoft and AOL. He blogs at http://blog.agrawals.org and tweets at @rakeshlobster.

Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat

I took my first Kodak Photo Spot (wiki) pictures at my spring break trip to the Disney World in the mid-1990s, and through all these years I’ve never stopped admiring their genius. It’s a marketing idea whose elegance has rarely been emulated. I love how organically spreadable the signs were, how they subtly nudged you to spend another scarce frame of  film, and how they made people’s lives a little bit better by giving their memories just the right composition.

Of course today the Kodak Picture Spot is something that could probably be built straight into the digital camera wired to recognize the subject and to statistically analyze thousands of photos taken from the same spot to recommend the optimal composition and camera settings.

Eastmanhouse.org:

“As photography became more engrossed in American culture in the early 20th century, The Eastman Kodak Company began to look for new ways to advertise photography and its cameras. With the rise of the automobile industry and the development of American highways, the company began a campaign called “Kodak Scenic Spots.” Starting in 1920, Kodak began to place signs throughout American highways that advertised both their name and the practice of photography by marking interesting and beautiful scenery.

Initially, these signs appeared on the roads outside of Kodak’s hometown of Rochester, NY in order to test the effectiveness of the idea. Within a year, they began sending members of their advertising department across the country to select the most scenic views to be awarded signs. By 1939, Kodak had placed 6,000 scenic spot signs across the country.

The exact phrases used in these signs changed over time. When the company began the campaign, the signs read: “Picture Ahead! Kodak as you go.” Eventually, the use of the work “Kodak” as a verb was stopped and the signs were changed to read: “Kodak Scenic Spot.” After the initial campaign ended in 1939, Kodak continued to place these signs sporadically in theme parks and tourist locations until the late 1980s. These signs also carried a new label, which read: “Kodak Picture Moment.”

Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs loves Instagram, the iPhone app that encourages users to share filter-treated photos.

“Instagram allows you to create visual stories with an artfulness and elegance and a special kind of gravitas that’s at the heart of good content,” Handley writes. She adds, “The images on Instagram are at once intimate and broadly appealing, at once personal and universal. Hence, its popularity.”

Handley also points to Ben & Jerry’s, GE and McKay Flooring as shining examples of brands that understand how best to use the Instagram platform.

“General Electric might be an old-school brand, but it’s using Instagram in innovative ways. In fact, that’s how it sees its broader mission there: Turning innovative GE technology into Instagram art,” argues Handley.

Jason Keath, founder of Social Fresh, notes that Instagram’s growth (14 million members and counting) is pretty amazing, especially when you consider that the app is only available on one mobile platform at this time. The app will be coming to Android handsets in 2012.

Keath also generously shares a list of 23 brands using Instagram to tell their stories. From the looks of it, Burberry, Gucci, Red Bull, Threadless and others are all putting up interesting images.

Genomineerd voor Tijdschrift van het Jaar zijn Elegance (Pelican Magazines Hearst), Flow magazine (Sanoma Media), Grazia (Sanoma Media), JAN magazine (G+J Uitgevers) en Linda. (Mood for Magazines).

Lees verder

Genomineerd voor Tijdschrift van het Jaar zijn Elegance (Pelican Magazines Hearst), Flow magazine (Sanoma Media), Grazia (Sanoma Media), JAN magazine (G+J Uitgevers) en Linda. (Mood for Magazines).

Lees verder

Genomineerd voor Tijdschrift van het Jaar zijn Elegance (Pelican Magazines Hearst), Flow magazine (Sanoma Media), Grazia (Sanoma Media), JAN magazine (G+J Uitgevers) en Linda. (Mood for Magazines).

Lees verder