Updating Your Web Site

Every now and then you should update your site. When depends on a few factors. One factor relates to how old your current site design is. Generally, a site will look current for two - three years. After three years, the site is probably going to show the signs of aging due to design trends of then and now.

Another reason to get your site a new look is if you've added a lot of content from when the site was first launched and it is getting more and more challenging to find places to fit the new pages in your navigation or to fit all the content on your existing pages.

The last reason to update your site is because you're changing your business model. Perhaps you first created your site when you were just trying out your business and you just wanted a simple web presence and now you want to take your business more seriously online. This is the case of the project we're featuring in today's post. Simply Organica came to us wishing they could have their web site reflect the branding that they recently had developed.

The project's before and after photos are shown in this post and give a great example as to how different a site can appear with a bit of redesigning involved. The site was reorganized in page structure, but it continued to maintain a very simple appearance and the site was kept small in size, as it was before, adhering to the company's goals.

The purchasing experience was also enhanced with product detail pop-ups, which allowed more product visibility on each page while not sacrificing the extra information that a careful consumer might desire. Have a look at the site, go to Simply Organica

Flash Movies in Your Web Site

Ever wanted motion in your web site? You can have it with Flash and many other media types. Be careful that what you put in your site accents the content you're trying to present rather than send an entirely different message or overpower the visitor. Remember that a little motion on your site goes a very long way, as is demonstrated by BubbleTV.net.

Bubble TV works with advertisers and creates video streams that incorporate ads and movie clips. You might have seen their work while waiting for your car to be washed. They felt it was important to draw attention to the media that they work with by incorporating a bit of it on their site.

Rather than have long load times with large video files, we worked with Bubble to incorporate a small branding video on their site. By small, we mean that it is small in dimension, so the rest of the site can be easily viewed and it is small in file size, so it doesn't slow down the viewing experience.

You can incorporate Flash movies in your site that play automatically, as Bubble's does, or you can incorporate clips that have players, allowing the user to start and stop the media as they feel fit.

Flash is a nice choice for web site multimedia because it condenses down nicely in size and it will begin playback before the entire file has downloaded, so that's less wait time for your visitors. Less wait time also means the visitor is more likely to actually view the video you worked so hard in choosing; remember a visitor generally gives up on your web site content loading in under 15 seconds.

Simple, Beautiful, and Effective Site

We're constantly asked about doing something we haven't done before. The two of us were silly and that thought that sort of thing sounded cool when we each got into doing web sites. It's silly to think that is cool because at times it can be a rewarding, fun process to learn how to add some sort of new interactivity to a site. Then there are the other times we have to admit we just don't know how and it would cost more for us to learn it than to have someone else do the job that already knows the technology the client is asking for.

But really, do you always need new, cool features on your site to have it appear modern and to have it be effective in reaching your business goals? Nope. Sometimes short and sweet is all that is needed if the information is direct, the design clean, and the navigation easy to use.

Enter Rumors Hair Salon, based in Scottsdale, Arizona. We recently re-launched their site and all it has is five pages and a link to a blog. The pages on the site provide all the information the visitor needs to know the salon is fun, forward thinking, and fashionable. The owner of the salon is smart because she uses the web site to promote products and encourage participation in salon events. This means she updates the site frequently and search engines love that.

Have a look: Rumors' Site.