Web Design Blog - Bry.Net Web Services

Choosing a web design firm.

2008-02-28T16:16:00.003-05:00

While you are searching the web, or asking friends and family for references on a good person to help you design your website. Keep several important points in mind:

Check out your potential web design person's website. If it isnt amazing, that is a bad sign.
Uncle Billy's nephew may not be the best person either. You want someone who does this full time.
Ask them how they program or create it, they should walk you through a design process, and give you a hint of the tools they use. If they use Frontpage that is another bad sign. Frontpage is like using the fisher price tool set to fix your car.
Front page animations. It is tricky but basically anytime a web designer wants to help spend your hard earned money on flashy items instead of productivity items like shopping carts or contact forms, you should be raising a red flag.
If your web design person says your website will be best viewed in Internet Explorer, or Firefox only, then it is clear he does not understand web standards. There is no reason why your website should not look amazing in almost all browsers and media types.
Counters are not cool anymore. Sure you want to know how many people visit your website, but your web designer should be showing you amazing statistics programs that analyze your traffic from multiple data points.

Basically your website is going to be a key aspect of your business, much more so than a yellow page ad, or a brochure that is out dated almost instantly. You want your business to have the best it can, and have your money spent the most cost effectively.

You dont let your grandfather do your business taxes right? You dont let the neighbor kid down the street help design your business cards and brochures. Don't let them work on your website either, make sure you are working with a proven professional.

Of course if you've read this far in our blog post, perhaps you are in search of a great designer. We highly recommend Bry.Net Web Services, for all your website design and hosting needs.

Know your customers

2007-11-16T10:13:00.008-05:00

One of the most important aspects for all businesses is to know as much as you can about the people you are selling your products or services too. Big business has done this for years, they have shopper club cards, and online profiles for you to fill out, all helping them gauge how much they can charge for the new products that are coming out soon.

As a small business you need to connect and really KNOW what your customer is looking for from your business. Perfecting your online web presence through email and a great web design is key.

With a website you can target your customers better by knowing exactly how many times a product has been looked at, helping you know which are fading fads, and your new hot items. You can track customer satisfaction through online surveys. You can gather feedback and reviews on your products.

Email is the perfect tool for businesses to use to reach out to their customers. You ask for it when they are checking out. You then use it for sending them special offers, or a thank you for shopping with us note, or ask them for feedback. It is perfect in the sense that it wont cost nearly as much as a post card with printing and mailing costs, just to get tossed out with the other junk mail, it can be personalized to help ensure they respond, and it is not as bothersome as a phone call interrupting dinner or another important event. It quietly waits in their inbox until they are ready to take action.

All these great options can be a little overwhelming so if you are a business looking for help with your website take a minute, and contact Bry.Net Web Services.

We would be glad to discuss our inexpensive and reliable ways to help you reach out to your customers more.

Part 6 - Join the community on the net

2007-11-16T10:13:00.005-05:00

In the sixth installment of our ongoing series on how to increase traffic and sales to your website we are going to look into making you have a little bit of fun while promoting your website.

How can running your business be more fun? By contributing content back to the internet. My guess is that your passionate about your business, you want it to succeed. You love talking about it to almost anyone who will listen.

Take that passion, and pour it into the internet, there are a million ways to do so. We'll look at a few of them.

Message boards and discussion group forums - There are people just as passionate about your products or area of service. Seek out these groups on Yahoo groups, Google groups, or specific message boards all over the internet. Create an account, and start contributing, post a question your having a hard time answering yourself, or help someone else learn about something you know all too well. The key to it all is to mention your business, either in the signature part of your message, or as part of the actual answer.

Bry.Net Web Services' goal is to build your website, help you promote your website, and help with marketing your website to clients. With that in mind, we constantly are finding we can help fellow web designers learn more about Search Engine Optimization, or HTML. And we use these same forums to learn things ourselves.

Blogs and Video Blogs - There again are other people in your line of work, they probably have a blog. Find them, and leave them a comment, encourage them on a great job, or help them learn something they didn't know. Again the key is to leave your website link on the form, so they can come back and visit your blog or website as well.

The key to all of this contributing though is to be consistent. Again set aside 15-30 minutes once or twice a week, or less depending on your schedule, and find these places online, and check back, update a post, or add a new one. Slowly over time you'll build up a massive collection of links on the internet all pointing back to your domain. All while helping others learn more about your products and services, and they didn't even have to find your website directly.

We hope you've found this article useful, if you have any questions or suggestions, please let us know!

Part 5 - Email Newsletters - a key to good web design.

2007-11-16T10:13:00.003-05:00

In our continuing series on ways to get new customers, and get the old ones to come back to your website we are looking at email newsletters.

If people have purchased something from you before, there has been a certain level of trust between your business and them. They obviously like what you are selling or providing, so allow your customers to be added to some kind of list.

Email newsletter lists are one of the best and easiest ways to help, they have several great points to consider.

1) Extremely low cost - sending out an email newsletter only costs a small maintenance fee, usually included in your website hosting, and a little bit of your time. Any other communication method with your customers is going to cost exponentially more.
2) Be sure your customers know what they are signing up for. Some companies want to keep you informed about new products. Others want to give you tips and ideas to help you. Some want to have a monthly special or promotion, many companies do a combination of all of the above.
3) Use your newsletter email system wisely. Too many emails going out will seem like junk mail, and people will unsubscribe and be unhappy. Too few emails lets them forget how great your company is. You will know your clients best, but a good way to start is at once a month. This gives you a regular schedule to stick too without taking too much of your time initially to see how it works out.
4) Include links back to your website. Besides informing them of the specials, or giving them a quick tip. Invite them with teasers or links to more information back on your website. Remember our goal here is to get them to buy something, they need to visit your website, or contact you to do that. So don't give away all the secrets right inside the email.
5) Make it easy to subscribe and unsubscribe, it should be in the footer of each email you send out, and be available online someplace on your website as well. Further more encourage people to forward your newsletter to friends and family as well.

There are many other great tips and things to consider when sending out an email newsletter, but either way Bry.Net Web Services strongly encourages you to give them a try. If you have any questions or want information on the email marketing and newsletter services we offer, just contact us.

Part 4 - Create competition

2007-11-16T10:13:00.001-05:00

In the fourth installment in our series on how to increase website traffic, and in turn sales. We turn to a core value of democracy. Competition.

Of course there are other people out there selling the same products or services that you are. That is not the kind of competition that we're talking about. We're talking about your customers. Or people in general. They like to find a good deal. People like to find something that is special or one of a kind that they found.

A website that gets people coming back more often, makes more sales. Again I defer to on of our favorite websites, www.woot.com. They have perfected this model. Each day they have a new product, that is usually priced much lower than the competition. They only have so many of this product, whether it be 10, or 1000. In any case though, once they are sold out, that's it. No more.

So some ideas for you and creating a competition on your website. Give something away for free. Pick a product or service everyone would love, and give one away, say once a week, or once a month, or how ever often we want people to come back. Let them enter their email address, and get a chance at winning. It helps to build your newsletter base up, and gets them to come back once per day. Or offer them a chance to email this offer to their friends, to help spread the word.

If giving something away for free is too much for your business model, then give something at a good discount. Why does the grocery store sell that gallon of milk at such a low price? Because they know everyone needs milk. They are hoping that you also grab those oreo cookies on the walk back to the dairy section in the back. Most people will add those complementary products to help make their purchase complete.

So pick the services, or products you can give away for free, or at a deep discount, and start watching people stop by more often.

What do you think about Bry.Net offering a free website to a client? Would you stop back to enter your name into a hat? Let us know, we're trying to figure out what our contest and competition can be.

Part 3 - Update your site regularly

2007-11-16T10:12:00.000-05:00

In our continuing series on how to increase traffic and drive more business to your website, we are looking at keeping it fresh and updated.

Your website is not a business card, brochure, or yellow page ad. You decide what it looks like once a year, if that, and it manages itself. A website is a constantly evolving project that takes constant attention and updating to make the most of it.

One of the most important aspects of your website is keeping it up to date, and relative to what is going on in the world. For example a car dealership is constantly changing its signs, balloons out front, commercials, and many other aspects. Just to help catch your eye and get you to stop back into their dealership and check on that new model.

Your website should be doing the same. If I stop by your site today, what is going to get me to come back tomorrow, other than I lost your phone number, or need directions again? Nothing. Keeping it updated, and adding in dynamic features will not only get your customers visiting more often, but it will help Google, Yahoo, and the many other search engines realize that something is new and different. They will come back more, and it will lead to increased rankings in the search results.

If I stop back to your site, and see a new special deal, I may read it. If I see a new blog entry, I'll read that too. If I see a different catchy graphic that is explaining a new procedure or how to, I may read that too. I mean I did come to your website at some point in time because I wanted to know something about it.

So keep in mind each time you change your store window layout, or update your answering machine message, or send out a new flyer in the mail, that you should also be doing the same thing to your website, if not sooner. It will really help in the end.

It doesn't have to be anything fancy either, spend 30 minutes once a week on it. Slowly over time you'll see it turn into the website you want and need it to be. Best of luck!

Part 2 - Topical Web Sites

2007-11-16T10:09:00.001-05:00

In this second part of our series on how to increase traffic and drive more business through your website we need to look at another important aspect of the Internet. Knowledge.

More and more people are turning to the Internet for knowledge, information is power. From simple things like what is your companies phone number or email address, to more detailed things like how to make a superb soufflé, or where can I buy a Venus fly trap.

In whatever your business, you know your customers best. Help them realize that your website is a wealth of knowledge, and they will keep coming back for more "free" information. This will lead to them trusting you more, showing that you know what they really need, and in turn they will not mind paying a few dollars more for your product versus someone else, or they will check out the product on your website first.

So gather up all the one off emails you've sent to customers over the years, create a Frequently Asked Questions page on your site. Provide full detailed articles in how to hang curtains, or the best way to irrigate their flower beds. Whatever your business is strive to become an expert in that area, and share that information with them.

As you can tell, that is exactly what we are trying to do here with this blog. Show you that Bry.Net Web Services is more than just a website design company. We are here to make sure your Internet venture is a success.

Part 1 - Get customers coming back to your website.

2007-11-16T10:00:00.000-05:00

Over the next several weeks, we are going to look at the many ways we can get customers coming back to your website. From product based sites, to service ones, or even ad revenue based websites.

So you have just built your website, or maybe it has been up and running for years. Once you have attracted a new customer, how do we get them coming back over and over again?

Short term specials are one unique aspect to explore. There is a fine balance too, as you will know your clients and how hard you can push them to come back. If your product/service is a low cost item, but one they may need weekly, then a weekly special is probably best, if it is longer term, you still want them to come back say once a month just to see if you have anything new to offer.

www.woot.com is one of our favorite websites, if you haven't seen it before, check it out. Their whole business model is based on the short term special. In fact it is a daily special. Each day they sell one product. From small headphones, to large plasma televisions. Each day is different though, and I find myself wandering back there at least once a day just to see what they may have.

Woot is much more than just what they have each day, it is the fact that they have it at an amazing price. It is usually well below the normal market value for the same product from other places like amazon.com or yahoo shopping. Then to top it all off, they offer 5 dollar shipping on everything. Even a 100lb plasma television.

So pick a product, make it a "loss leader" knowing that you'll loose money on that product or servce today, in the hopes of getting them to come back again soon, or to get those few other things they need right now as well.

The internet is a place to find the bargains, help your clients out by showing them.

Website pictures, a key element

2007-11-07T17:18:00.000-05:00

A picture is worth a thousand words. How many times have you heard that phrase? How many times more do you need to hear it to let it sink in?

In the world wide web, anyone with Internet access can view your webpage. That includes everyplace around the globe. Although the more common language on the net is English. It should be said that very careful consideration should be given to each picture and photo on your site.

I know when I purchase something online, it gives me a sense of comfort seeing the picture next to it, knowing that is what I can expect. But it goes much further beyond product pictures.

Pictures can be used to represent a high level of quality that shows the service, not product, you are offering is neat, friendly, has great customer service. Photos can be used to provide more words than you can imagine.

Why are hollywood movie studios cutting out more dialog, and adding in more explosions? Because the explosion is universal, everyone can comprehend it right away.

So take a moment, review the images, and photos on your website. Minimize trying to describe an explosion, and put a photo of it in there instead.

Thank you pages

2007-10-29T12:22:00.000-04:00

Almost every website today has a form on it, where customers can go and ask questions, post comments, etc. After the user has found your website, dug around a little bit, then said you know what, I have a question to ask, or a comment to post.

They navigate over to your form, spend a few minutes typing it in, and press send. Then what happens? Well besides the email getting sent to you.

The user see's a confirmation or thank you page. Typically these need to contain a few important elements.

A thank you message, they did just spend a minute to tell you something, tell them thank you!
A response time, let them know how soon they can expect a reply
Urgency reminder, let them know that if it is important, they can call you! Or stop by. Perhaps they just couldnt find your phone number, here is how to remind them.

Those are the basic things, but really, you should take it one step further. We don't want these thank you pages to be a dead end. A place where they are stumped and just go on to a competitors site, or someplace else.

We have an opportunity here, a rare one where a potential, current, or past customer just took a moment to inform you of something. They wouldnt do that unless they were happy or confident in your ability to meet their needs. Sieze that opportunity, enhance your contact page by doing something in addition to saying thank you! Things such as:

Giving them a discount for letting you know something
Tell them about another product or service they may not have even known about that you offer. Link them to that page.
Give them an opportunity to tell a friend about how great your X, Y, or Z is.
Directions, perhaps they just wanted to know where, give them a link to your location page.
Hours - restate your hours again.
Promote a great resource, you are probably an expert in your product, what is your favorite resource to learn more about this, either it is your own site, or an associates. Get them more involved, so they will buy or do more with you in the future.

The internet is amazing, it has everything you can think of on it, but it is also a great tool for communicating, building a community. Use your site to help build and foster a community, it will help set you apart from the competition.

So I encourage you to all take a few minutes today, and update your contact form, that part that a user see's after they have sent you a message.

Customer Portal

2007-07-15T16:40:00.000-04:00

Our customer portal is starting to take off a little bit more. We are working hard to add more features and options into it.

You can check your balance, make a payment, open a support ticket, review your website statistics, and manage all the content on your website.

I think that is one of the important features to really highlight. We know how important your website can be to your business. We stand our from many other website design firms with our ability to give you more control over your website.

Our content management system is an easy to use interface to change many aspects of your own website all by yourself. It displays a list of the webpages you can modify, and with a single click you get a "Microsoft Word" like interface to make those changes.

Thats it, nothing complicated about this like some other content management systems.

And it helps you keep your website costs down in the long run. We don't charge you the small fee's to update this word here, or add that image there, you can do it all yourself.

This lets you spend your money on adding new features, to your website, and building a website that can be compared to a big fortune 500 client.

Search Engine Optimization

2006-07-25T17:31:00.000-04:00

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the new game in town. You probably in fact stopped by this website because of just that. You typed in "Rochester Website Design" or perhaps "Wooster Website Design"

SEO is simply optimizing your website to draw in the clients that you want based on keywords they use to search on Google, Yahoo, MSN, and others.

Both of our search terms mentioned above will bring up this very website, in the first, second, or third positions on Google. Why? Because that is our target market. We want to show you that our SEO techniques work, and we can prove it. That and also we want to solicit new clients.

I've personally been to several conventions where website design companies are giving presentations and touting their SEO techniques. I take their brochure to review the competition, when I apply the same search words, or various others, our company website, www.bry.net, always comes up before theirs.

Be a smart consumer, a little research on the internet will help you shed some light on how good a potential web design company is.

Wireless Internet Needed Here

2006-05-26T08:33:00.000-04:00

I love the fact that when I see a Starbucks sign, I know there is a place I can hop online. McDonald's now does the same thing. In fact most coffee shops do have wireless Internet available. The airports do too. But as a gas guzzeling American, I find myself at the car dealership, or some other auto repair shop at least once a month.

Whether it's for a quick oil change, or a state inspection, to something a little longer rotating tires, or a regularly scheduled maintenance item. How come these places dont have wireless internet? Who ever comes up with a nice marketing plan to roll out "Garage Internet" is going to make a killing.

Of course there is no stopping me, I have the aircard from Verizon wireless, lets me continue developing webpages, and blogging from almost anywhere at near to broadband speeds. :)

3d for Free!

2006-05-22T17:23:00.000-04:00

Google launched a wonderful new 3D tool called Sketch Up. It is completely free, you have to download and try it!

If you are just starting out in the 3D world, this tool makes things incredibly easy, just download 3D objects from the library, and drag and drop them into your 3D world.

Practical applications are for helping to layout meeting rooms, helping to design that new deck or addition on your house, or for architects doing all kinds of layout and design elements.

The items you create can even be saved, then imported into Google Earth.

Tivo Tips

2006-03-27T13:42:00.000-05:00

So we stray from a website tip this time, and go into the world of Tivo. Tivo is by far the best Digital Video Recorder (DVR) out there right now. With the home media options, and streaming music, photos and more from your local desktop or the internet. What more could you ask for.

All for around 150 dollars, and a small service fee each month. You can't build your own for that much, and the one from your local cable company will charge you per month anyway.

I've recently setup our Tivo's at home, so we can download the programs from anywhere on the internet! Sure my connection is a tad slow at home, but start downloading something at night before bed, and when you wake up in the morning it should be finished. You can then watch it on your laptop, or transfer it to your "travel" tivo like we do.

Do do this you just need to configure your home router to forward ports 80 and 443 to the tivo box IP address. Then to get started type in /">https:/// and your all set.

Happy Tivoing.

2006-02-02T19:35:00.000-05:00

There are news websites like CNN, who post news articles from their reporters in the field. Then there are news websites that let users like you and me post. Some cater to technology news, other science. They work on the principle of community.

I submit a story, other registered users then read my story, and if its good, give it a thumbs up, if its bad or a duplicate they mark it as such. Within a matter of an hour or so you'll know whether your story is going to be a great success, or a flop.

For example my favorite one of these sites is www.digg.com. They post news stories on science, cell phones, and other computer related things. But when an earthquake hit california someone posted a quick story on it. Within about an hour and a half the story had recieved so many thumbs up, that it was promoted to the homepage. CNN on the other hand took around 4 hours to have their first report.

The people have spoken with customized detailed news, they know quicker, and care more about the things they want to know about. Check Digg out today!

Wiki's

2005-10-12T19:38:00.000-04:00

I'm sure if you are a smart individual who scours the net, you've already come to fully love and appreciate the Wikipedia. And as a Rochestarian you love all things to do with Rochester, from the Garbage plates, to the George Eastman House. Now you can get all that information and even help keep it accurate at the Rochester Wiki.

So check it out today, and add it to your frequently used bookmarks.

Identity 2.0

2005-10-04T15:40:00.000-04:00

http://www.identity20.com/media/OSCON2005/

Its a 15 min video. I love everything about it.

Especially:

The concept, single sign on universal on the internet, we should integrate this into our applications somehow

And

The presentation style, if you can memorize your slides the right way, that is an amazing presentation technique...

Google Sidebar and Desktop

2005-09-21T09:58:00.000-04:00

Google has impressed me yet again. The new Google SideBar is very neat. I used to have my instant messenger (Trillian Pro) docked on the left side, with the auto hide feature. Now I have side bar on the left as well, and Trillian just pops over the top of it when I mouse to the edge of my screen.

What is SideBar then and why is it so cool? It lets me track my stocks, weather, email, latest news, and web clips (other people's blogs). It has a few other features and what not as well, such as a scratch pad, so when I need to jot down a quick note, and can't find my pen again, I simply use that.

Anyway, check out this great way to help you out with staying in the know.

Wish Lists

2005-08-27T11:05:00.000-04:00

Almost every website you visit today has a wish list of some sort. A way to get you to register and put everything in one simple list. Of course I dont know of very many people that actually can find EVERYTHING they wanted from Amazon or Think Geek.

So Bry.Net has created a wish list program, and if interest is there, we'll develop more features. But basically you create a list, and add the various URL's to this list. A place for you to have one master wish list from all across the internet. Check it out today, let us know if you like, or dislike it and any other comments you may have.

Or if you are bored, see what neat things I want. :)

CSS, what it is, and some great examples.

2005-08-02T10:33:00.000-04:00

CSS - Short for Cascading Style Sheets, a feature added to HTML developed by the W3C, that gives both web site developers and users more control over how pages are displayed. With CSS, designers and users can create style sheets that define how different elements, such as headers and links, appear. These style sheets can then be applied to any web page.

A great example of how CSS can be applied to change a website is the CSS Zen Garden.

If you want to dabble with CSS yourself, another great starting point is The Layout Reservoir.

2005-08-01T13:31:00.000-04:00

One technical aspect to websites that is rarely talked about is the Privacy Policy. Any company that is going to sell products, or gather information from the end user needs to have a page on their website that states what it does with this information.

This helps customers feel more secure with ordering, or giving out their e-mail address, and is in general good website design practice.

A few tips to keep in mind when creating yours:

Make the policy easy to read, easy to understand and easy to find on your Web site.
Promote your policy internally in employee communications. Consumers are concerned about this issue, and your employees should know how your company responds to those concerns.
Promote your policy with key stakeholders, including customers, investors, contributors, and policymakers. Privacy policies put consumers in charge of their information.
Update your policy as needed to stay current with changes in your business.

For a completely easy way to create your Privacy Policy, visit the Direct Marketing Association's Privacy Policy Generator.

The UPS Store

2005-06-22T10:24:00.000-04:00

UPS bought all the Mailboxes Etc. a few years back. They now offer both shipping, copying, and a multitude of other services all under one umbrella.

Combine that with the power of the internet, and you have a one stop shop for all your packing, and document needs.

Check out the brand new www.penfieldupsstore.com or give Lew a call today!

The Wiki

2005-06-15T08:20:00.000-04:00

Check out the Wiki! What you may ask is a Wiki? Well it is a few things, number one a way to collaborate on documentation about anything. The general Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia.

Any person can go and find an entry, then update it. So if you are an expert on Dinosaurs, you can go and add in some knowledge on them for the rest of the world to read. Others can come in and correct your bad spelling, or delete things that they don't think are accurate.

A community is built that fosters constant knowledge improvement. Instead of 20 experts writing for Britanica or World book, we have 1000 dinosaur experts writing on all aspects of them. The work is constantly improving and expanding, and growing in more detail than any encyclopedia you can buy otherwise.

Sure people can come in and delete whole pages, but then the other dinosaur experts get an email notification and revert back to the previous version.

On another front it is taking your discussion board forums, and moving them to the next level, software developers create a product, then create a Wiki, and fill it in with basic text. The users of the software then come in and write the rest of the documentation for you! Which in turn helps the new users to get the most value out of the software, reduce your support calls, and overall improve the software.

Long live Wiki.

2005-05-02T15:01:00.000-04:00

Google has tons of beta programs, the one I've been checking out a lot lately is Google Maps www.maps.google.com

If you type in pizza near 12 pinewood knoll, rochester ny - my address, it's like magic. All the pizza locations near me show up.

Its great for directions, and you can drag the map to slide it around. Its worth a bookmark.