Improve Content

Increasing your website appeal will keep the user engaged, help spread the word and keep users coming back. You can achieve this by keeping your content fresh with news, events, data visualizations, and even a blog. You can use these opportunities to share industry tips and information that are from your unique perspective. Sharing such insight provides an insider feel to the content that visitors cannot find duplicated anywhere else. If your schedule is tight and you don’t have the resources to create such content, you can share interesting articles from other industry insiders and share your thoughts in an opening paragraph to position yourself as an industry leader. By keeping the focus on topics you are knowledgeable about, your shared insight will give users a glance into your business experience, which will help you gain a valuable asset – trust.

In today’s technology-driven world, visiting a website before you walk into a store or plan to attend an event is the norm. Potential customers will interview you based on your website before they ever speak to you. According to Nielsen NetRatings, out of the 53 Billion website requests every day the average person usually visits 59 domains, views 1,050 pages averaging 45 seconds for each page, and spends about 25 hours a month doing this! Ensure your website is up-to-date and review your website (monthly or bi-annually) in addition to keeping the content fresh.

Revise User Experience

After your website launch it is important to look back at the analytics you have (hopefully) been collecting. This will give you great insight on your successes and failures from the user perspective. This is valuable information because no single website is perfect and you can discover ways to improve your user experience once your website begins receiving traffic. By looking at where users spend most of their time, what they do, and where they leave your website, you will know where to focus your attention and improve your quality of service. By enhancing the pages that users visit the most you can capitalize on your investment more effectively.

Your goal should be to make an easier and more intuitive experience for your users to find what they are looking for. This can be done with a few simple changes, yet those simple changes often have dramatic effects. Some of the most effective methods of utilizing your data are increasing the number of photos, improving descriptions and adding related links or other clarifying information. By anticipating user needs and improving your offerings over time you will organically increase exposure and awareness. In order to move beyond relying on data alone, however, you’ll need to speak to users directly.

What’s Next?

When you launch a new website the first concern is to make sure you are found within the sea of 11.9 million e-commerce and online business websites, 4.3 million entertainment sites, 3.1 million finance-related sites, and 1.8 million sports sites. With so many choices, how will you increase your traffic?

By utilizing some of the methods named above in combination with effective networking you will begin to funnel in new and past users. This is accomplished by increasing incoming links from high ranking websites, internally cross linking your valuable pages, utilizing keywords and improving your search engine optimization.

It’s never good practice to launch a new website and let it sit and become stale over time. Many of our clients receive over 50% return visitors and growing search engine referrals as their main source of traffic. Secure your investment by taking advantage of Taylor Digital’s new annual support program that lets clients invest proactively in their website. Call or email Julie Reid at 949-269-3086 x711 for more details.

Daymark Realty Advisors, Inc. is one of the country’s leading providers of strategic asset management and structured finance services to private and institutional owners of commercial real estate. Daymark provides a fully integrated platform of services that focus on maximizing property value and performance, and offers proven expertise in the repositioning of distressed assets, debt restructuring and property recapitalizations.

Visit: Daymark Realty Advisors
View: Grubb & Ellis Forms Daymark to Manage NNN Realty’s 33M SF Portfolio

Are you faced with presenting key data to your stakeholders this year? Part of your initial planning for the release of your message should involve thinking about how you will package your data and present it in the most engaging way to the end user. In this article, we have provided for you a variety of examples that will hopefully spur your imagination in terms of creative ways of presenting your data. Remember, information presentation can be “graceful and explanatory” at the same time.

Randy Taylor
CEO/Taylor Digital

Intro

Immense amounts of data can be cumbersome to users if presented in an unfriendly way and may actually deter readers than attract them. Data presentation can be creative, graceful, and explanatory. There are many ways to illustrate data today with the traditional pie chart or bar graph due to the availability of Microsoft Office. In any case you will need to best convey your data in a way that readers will understand and digest effectively. In order to do this, occasionally more than a simple pie chart of your data is required. There are many improved, informative and creative ways to implement data visualization. These creative approaches can not only enhance your content and make complicated data simple, but improve your overall user experience.

Image 1.0 Compares the number of iPhone applications per category on iTunes with a simple, circular infographic.

Enhance Content with Data Imagery

Data visualization and infographics are used to enhance content by creating a graphic representation of statistics, concepts or other information. When used properly, users can at-a-glance understand an otherwise large amount of information. By taking away the opportunity for frustration or confusion by presenting content in a friendlier way, you increase overall user satisfaction. Your data visualization should be designed with your company branding in-mind and contain an easy-to-use key.

Image 1.1 Helps understand quickly that Mexico produces 11 products the website wants you to be aware of and the icons use common imagery. Once you look over the simplified information you can then pursue more detail.

Turn Complicated Data Into Simple Imagery

When creating a data visualization or infographic, it will only help users by reducing complexity. That being said, build it so that way a teenager can comprehend the data. In both print and web design the visualization of data will strengthen the information by putting it within context and provoking interest. You can take a few lines of information or pages of data and convert it into a graphic for digestion. To convey ideas effectively, both aesthetic form and functionality need to go hand in hand. With a combination of colors, symbols, and shapes you can provide insights various data set by communicating it’s key-aspects in a more intuitive way.

Image 1.2 Helps you immediately understand which airline has a larger fleet and increased destinations. Without consuming the actual numbers, the infographic easily displays the data. Utilizing the website colors, the graphic easily works into the website branding.

Conclusion

We have seen how seemingly overwhelming amounts of data can be converted into friendly visualizations that attract readers instead of deter them. By making data presentation clever, practical, and illuminating you have helped your readers overcome a barrier that would have prevented them from understanding your data. Taking the data you have and turning it into a visualization will take time, some thought and possibly the help of a agency or designer. By understanding color impact, user interface and typography you can guarantee that your visualization helps, instead of hurts. Bad design can leave you worse off then when you started, so choose a capable team to help you accomplish your goals.

Image 1.3 Takes complicated population density data and helps viewers see right away that the east coast is more dense and contains some of the most densly populated areas in the entire country.

With the New Year upon us, it’s a great time to look at your website with a fresh perspective. Whether you need a complete overhaul or a simple refresh, making an investment in your presence on the web will yield a worthwhile return when you follow the best practices. Working with a team of professional web developers is always a wise decision, but there is a lot you can do, before you even involve an outside team, by setting your expectations, evaluating your site, and determining the project scope. I hope this information has been helpful to you and your team. As you move forward, remember the language of the net is “change”.

Randy Taylor
CEO/Taylor Digital

Exceptional Website Design

Designing a website is no menial project by any means. Even small 10-15 page websites require some assistance and direction to prepare. Exceptional website creation depends upon the resourcefulness of a designer paired with complete follow-though by a developer. All websites have similar needs, though the outcome is different for everyone.

Communicating your brand message effectively is very important and here at Taylor Digital we take that very serious. A website can be an extension of current branding (i.e. fliers, brochures, catalogs, sell sheets or business cards). When you approach a web design company to help accomplish your goals, usually there is an overall concept, while the details are more flexible. In this article we will cover expectation, planning, color, demographic, appearance, layout and budget.

The look and feel of a website should grab visitor attention and direct them with a call-to-action. Once you gather your audience the ultimate goal is to keep their attention and convert, however that may be measured. An exceptional website design will accomplish all of this with a sleek user interface (UI). In the world today there are many tools are available that will help you publish your own website, though the expertise and assistance of a professional will ensure all bases have been covered for the best user experience. A web designer will understand you needs, rely on past experience and known how common users interact when presented with certain layouts/designs.

Website Design Expectations

Before the design phase even begins it is important that to review your expectations as a client. Attaining perfection is no easy task and may not be possible within your budget. With that in-mind it is important to focus goals and resources on building a strong foundation for a thriving future on the web. While perfect may not be possible, the key is to get as close as possible.

When having a website created, it will be an extension of your brand online and represent your company to anyone who will find it via search engines or otherwise. Making sure you articulate your needs and explaining the details that are most important to you will help this new creation become a success for both you and your customers. Once you pass the ball, it’s up to the design team you’ve selected to concentrate on details, from conception to launch and deliver an exceptional website design for you.

Coordinated Planning

Starting right away with a planning meeting will prevent any confusion or misconceptions with your design team. You can take this opportunity to remove any confusion, readdress any concerns your designer may have and get involved in the web design project at the beginning, instead of waiting until it’s almost complete. This will keep you in the loop for all design phases and present a clear line of communication with your designer.

Once the design team has heard your expectations and requirements they can move onto planning. Understanding items that are most important and indicating items that can be approached in a later phase will help prioritize. Let’s suppose you wanted a really fancy animated map with pop-up windows because you saw one on a competitor website. It will be up to your designer to determine how much time this will take, review similar options and plan accordingly. Brainstorming and discussion will always help weed out ideas that may not bring as much value as other and aide in effective planning.

Selecting Color

Color is often an effective secret source of communication in that colors have hidden meanings. Effectively using color to reach out to customers can be the difference between a visitor and a conversion. Trusting your designers experience and integrating company branding will help best communicate the principles and focus of your company. You may have a preexisting color scheme in place from a current website or need new recommendations. Whatever the case may be, a color scheme will need to be developed for your exceptional website design. With a capable designer on your team, selecting a color pallet that will subconsciously guide users, is a familiar task.

Exploring Demographic

When creating a brand message to represent your company online you must keep in mind that you are targeting the same demographic and reaching out to a larger audience. An exceptional website design must keep your target demographic in-mind. For example, if your company produces chocolate, you will will use an appetizing brown dominant color to get visitors thinking about your delicate sugar treat easily. Secondary to colors you will work-in your original identity and branding for a unique appeal. Keep in-mind that various demographics are attracted to different things, so be sure to keep focus.

Appearance & Functionality

When designing an exceptional website two important factors are appearance and functionality. These two key items go hand-in-hand. If your site does not look professional/exciting enough to attract your demographic, it will struggle to be successful. On the contrary, you can have an amazing website design with poor functionality and users will likely be too frustrated to stick around and learn about your product or service. Finding a balance between a strong visual design and a functional interface will attract users, gain their attention and keep them eager enough to digest your content.

Content Layout

As a designer, they should be expected to create a professional design with a functional layout. The content layout should pull important items onto the homepage that will likely be dynamic and help users easily navigate your website.  During this process, understanding the content that will be on the site is important. Without properly understanding the content, a functional content layout will be difficult to develop. While this part will be taken care of by your design team, they will expect feedback at the point of review.

Realistic Budgets

In today’s market, the design of your website is leveraged on the estimated total budget for your project. Keeping your budget in-mind when requesting new features or late-phase changes will help decide on priority when completing the project. Discussing your budget and needs with your design team early on will help create an understanding of the projects direction. Once the budget has been decided, the design time will utilize available resources without sacrificing quality. Obviously, the larger the idea, the more resources needed to accomplish the project goals realistically.

Conclusion

A company website plays a very important role in online branding, marketing and awareness. If executed effectively, business opportunities will be available that were not before. Finding a design team that you trust and know can get the job done the first time is important. Creating an exceptional website design is not an easy task but when you take into account expectation, planning, color, demographic, appearance, layout and budget you have begun down the path to success. Above all, be involved in your project and pass on the passion for your business to your design team so they are able to let the same passion show through to your customers.

Website Submission

Search Engine website submission is how someone can tell a search engine that a website exists and often what pages are located within the website. Search Engine submission in itself should not be thought of as promotion, but rather laying the groundwork for success.  Currently all major search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and MSN/Bing all use web crawlers that scour the internet to index website listings. Because of this, website submission is especially valuable for websites that are new and websites that have have pages changed or added recently. Below we will discuss in more detail, Search Engine website submission and Directory website submission to help understand how taking several steps may help the future success of your website listing.

“93% of consumers use search engines to find and access content.”
- Forrester Research

Search Engine Submission

Having your website indexed in major search engines such as Google, yahoo!, and MSN/Bing is important; though not a standalone factor to a successful listing. When you visit the Google submission, Yahoo submission and Bing submission pages it is also good to take additional steps to insure success. Next you will want to have an effective, thorough sitemap and utilizing the Google webmaster tools, Yahoo Site Explorer and Bing Webmaster Center. Learning more about these steps for Search Engine submission will add to your search engine optimization (SEO) knowledge and online success.

Going straight to the source to submit a sitemap is always best.

Thorough Sitemap

Without having a sitemap (in addition to effective navigation) Search Engine crawlers will have a hard time tracking down every page within your website. Sitemaps are used to provide a structure of an entire website, from top-tier pages down to PDF resources. The sitemap leads the search engine crawler directly to a page instead of having to discover pages by following links.

“57% of internet users search the web every day.”
- SRI

A sitemap is sometimes neglected during development and can lead to a lack of page indexing. If there are 300 pages but only 150 are effectively linked, you run a change of Google never knowing the additional 150 even exist! While a number of things can remedy this issue, a sitemap is a fast and efficient way. Sitemaps assist web crawlers in indexing websites for users to search.

XML sitemap sample code.

Google provides the ability to generate a sitemap, one can be created manually using XML format or a sitemap creating website can be used. Sitemaps pass on information on all the pages on your site, which pages are most important to you, and when those pages change.

Google Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster Tools can be used by anyone with a website, no matter how large or small. The tools provide a free and easy way to make your website more Google-friendly.

Before you can begin using Webmaster Tools, you will need to have an active Google Account. Once you have an account, go through a quick verification process to confirm you do in-fact own your website, and then you can get started. The below list about is a good overview of what you can expect with the Google Webmaster Tools.

Once inside the Webmaster Tool you will have access to:

• View which of your pages are included in Google’s index.
• See any errors encountered while crawling your site.
• Find search queries that list your site as a result.
• Find out which sites link to your.

Yahoo Site Explorer

Yahoo Site Explorer can be used by anyone with a website, to provide insight into a website’s visibility in Yahoo!. The tools provide a free and easy way to make your website more Yahoo-friendly.

Before you can begin using Site Explorer, you will need to have an active Yahoo Account. Once you have an account, go through a quick verification process to confirm you do in-fact own your website, and then you can get started. The below list about is a good overview of what you can expect with Yahoo Site Explorer.

Once inside Site Explorer you will have access to:

• View which of your pages are included in Yahoo’s index.
• Find errors on your website to correct them.
• Explore all of your websites pages that are indexed by Yahoo.

Bing Webmaster Center

Bing Webmaster Center can be used by anyone with a website, to give feedback on a website’s visibility in Bing. The tools provide a free and easy way to make your website more Bing-friendly.

Before you can begin using Webmaster Center, you will need to have an active Windows Live ID . Once you have an account, go through a quick verification process to confirm you do in-fact own your website, and then you can get started. The below list about is a good overview of what you can expect with Bing Webmaster Center.

Once inside Webmaster Center you will have access to:

• View which of your pages are included in Bings’s index.
• Discover potential issues with your website that will affect crawling.
• See backlink data about your referring links.
• Download data for the first 1000 results in a CSV file to analyze.

Directory

By submitting your website to industry specific, local and open directories you can increase visibility and enhance your link building strategy. As of 2008, Google noted that it has indexed 1 Trillion unique URLs. Every website on the World Wide Web is constantly competing for attention and submitting your site on online directories may provide some help. Even before many Search Engines grew in popularity, many users depended on directories to find their content and many of these websites hold a high pagerank to this day. Did you know that Yahoo! was at first a large directory that was a definitive guide to all websites worth viewing?

Directories today are used to display refined search results listed by specific categories for users to browse. Online directory submissions will help you directly reach out to your target demographic and pull specific traffic to your website. In addition, such directories are usually ranked very high in search engines and will increase your links popularity. By having the added credibility of being added to a major directory it will help users realize that your content is relevant to their interests.

Does your company need a better Search Engine ranking and increased traffic? For a customized Search Engine Optimization program, Contact Taylor Digital Today.

Welcome to the World of Tomorrow!

Google, the world’s dominant search engine on the internet, has been experimenting with another type of engine that tests the limits of how different technologies can be combined. These self-driving or autonomous vehicles have driven over 140,000 miles using video cameras, radar sensors and a laser range finder to “see” other traffic as well as detailed maps to navigate the road ahead. Aiming to to dominate the highway and information superhighway with their technology, Google will utilize information previously gathered for Google Maps to make sure vehicles don’t drive off of the road.

Dmitri Dolgov, a Google engineer, in a self-driving car parked in Silicon Valley after a road test.

Combining effective mapping technology with vehicles will help solve many problems commuters face on the road. With the combination of digital road maps and data gathered from Google’s streetview vehicles, there is more information available for robotic driving than ever before. With this technology, safety can be improved to prevent accidents due to user error and commuters who are always on the road can free up their time to attend to other matters with using an autonomous vehicle. Using exact GPS coordinates, mapping the roads path, knowing speed limits for roads and being able to sense other vehicles is just as important as the technology that processes it. This means that if executed effectively, drivers will no longer have to worry about the many hazards on the road. The fusion of this data and how it is being processed is still a mystery, but one can guess that is will eventually be a base for all cars, if successful in the future. While Google is working hard at paving the way for the future of driving, there are vehicles available at your local dealership that have impressive features to help you drive.

Stanford engineers have developed a third autonomous vehicle. The car, named Shelley, is scheduled to race up Pikes Peak without a driver at the end of the summer.

Peer into the Future

In the vehicle market today there are many advances in technology that were only an idea years before. Now this technology is integrating itself into our everyday life through vehicles, just as Google hopes to do. GPS Navigation is slowly becoming standard in most vehicles, giving drivers the ability to find the fastest route to their location without having to leave the drivers seat. Today this technology is even made available in the palm of your hand, as long as you have a wifi or cell signal handy. GPS navigation has become fundamental from finding the nearest gas station, a local restaurant or directions to your grandmothers house in Kalamazoo. Even more recently we have seen the addition of Self-parking, backup camera, and parking sensors in vehicles for drivers that would like help getting into a tight spot while trying to park. Stanford University students have already begun to combine this technology into a self-driving, self-parking Volkswagen.

While reading through all of this new technology, the staff at Taylor Digital couldn’t help but to think of how we can utilize the combination of effective technology to accomplish goals. After all, technology is progressing just as rapidly on the web too isn’t it? We have seen much progress in the last five years with the explosion of mobile development and many advances in web languages that allow for more fluid designs that will work in various browsers. As a constantly evolving web development company, we at Taylor Digital have to make sure to keep moving with the technology, its adaptations and combinations.

As we prepare for the future, how fast can the technology be implemented?

Advancing with Technology

Here at Taylor Digital we combine many technologies together to achieve client goals on a daily basis. Depending on the client need we can use Facebook Connect to aide client login, streaming video across multiple platforms, working with Paypal payments or implementing search engine optimization across various content management systems. There are various ways we have kept ourselves updated in web development with books, blogs and magazines but as a team we always walk away more fulfilled having experimented hands-on. Ben Stein once said you need to “Jump into the middle of things, get your hands dirty, fall flat on your face, and then reach for the stars.”

Dixon Sports has 17 years of experience covering major sporting events and is the world leader in logging/managing sports video.  Dixon’s sports loggers make in-depth logging easy and fast. They have a full range of workflow products to quickly get video where it’s needed and in the right format.

Visit: Dixon Sports

Animal Dermatology Clinic is comprised of many specialists that stay current on new research, treatments and are often actively involved with cruelty free research, bringing that important first hand knowledge back to their clients. Their dermatology practice is not limited to small animals and they often have equine and occasionally exotic patients, who present with dermatology cases. By building a sense of community among the patients families on the website, Taylor Digital was able to offer ADC a web platform to engage their clients – through the news, events, education and other important patient specific information.

Visit: Animal Dermatology Clinic

Volume 2 of The Web Designer’s Idea Book showcases more than 650 new websites arranged by theme, which delivers an organized overview of what’s happening right now. Sites are categorized by type, design element, styles and themes, structural styles and elements.

Not only are we inspired by this amazing collection, but one of our client websites is featured and will provide inspiration for other designers for years to come. In the real estate website section, JP Realty is showcased among other related websites. We are both honored and humbled that our work was selected for publishing.

Being on at the cusp of innovation with the creation of websites using technology that is constantly advancing, Taylor Digital is constantly honing our design and development skills. Being able to research our clients competition and their current (if any) website is important to developing a useful roadmap for the future. We analyze design elements, styles structures and themes on a daily basis to best utilize principles of design when working with our clients.

Volume 2 of The Web Designer’s Idea Book by Patrick McNeil is a timely addition to our bookshelf and will help our team stay innovative and inspired to raise the bar in our latest design and development projects.

If you have a current project that you would like to engage our team on, or would just like to talk over a new and important idea you would like to incorporate into your current web platform, we are available to discuss your ideas and would welcome the opportunity to talk through your web development thoughts and plans. Call us toll free at (888) 785-0507 or Contact Us through our web form and lets start looking at what your companies next steps are in terms of innovation on the web.

To accomplish their needs, Taylor Digital implemented a 3-step visitor interaction for Professional Tax Resolutions homepage. To help speed up the information gathering process Taylor Digital implemented a no obligation consultation form that gives users the ability to identify their tax issues, upload files and leave a comment for swift follow-up from a tax professional.

Professional Tax Resolution is an experienced CPA firm representing clients before the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and California state tax board. They are an honest firm with big values. They meet with you one on one and customize a resolution plan that will work with your needs.

Visit: Professional Tax Resolution