In today’s competitive economy, you may find yourself wondering “Is there a need to redesign my website?” There are many answers to that question, all of which may be affecting the number of potential clients/customers who browse around your website long enough to find out what your company is all about and what services or products you are offering. If your competitor has a nicer website than you, they are going to get the website traffic and the business you want.

Below you will find a few reasons why it is important to update your website often and why it's important to consider a website redesign:

Your website is at least two years old:

If your website was built at least two years ago it would be wise to evaluate the platform and technology that was used to build it. Older technology can lead to problems with browser compatibility, search engine placement or if you use flash... even load times. All of these of course can lead to user frustration and even a high bounce rate.

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If you own a business and have an active website you have probably been told that you need to " blog " more. You are probably wondering " What in the world should I blog about" or " What does that even mean? ". Having an active blog on your website can be very beneficial for many reasons but one of the most important reasons if for SEO ( Search Engine Optimization ). Google " likes" websites that are consistently giving out free useful information to the public. If you build a website and it just sits dormant.. you will most likely not rise to the top of those search engine rankings like your competition does, and lets face it.. We all want to be number one.

So.. what to blog about? Believe it or not.. this is the easy part.. Just ask yourself.. " What are 10 things my clients/customers always ask me about? " and " What are 10 things my clients/customers are not asking me but should? ". Placing these questions and answers on your website will not only help your rankings but will also help your clients/customers find the answers they are looking for. You may also want to consider blogging about specific events/sales/community events your business will be actively involved in or contributing to. This is all great information that you are supplying and only adds value to your website.

So now you ask.. "How often should I be blogging"? This is completely up to you but the more information you place out there on the web.. the better! You should find time in your schedule to blog at least once a month, if you can do it more than that.. great! If you currently do not have a blog set up on your website, ask your web designer to do this for you. For more information on search engine optimization and blogging on your website, please contact UrbanDesignFirm.com in Boise at 208.342.2244.

Shopping online has now become the norm for a lot of people. People enjoy shopping from the comfort of their own homes and enjoy the ease of a smooth checkout process. As time goes on and more people become comfortable with the idea of shopping online many of you will want to incorporate an E-commerce shopping cart into your website. An E-commerce shopping cart is a great add on option for any business wanting to sell their products or services via the web. If this is something you are considering, below you will find a few tips & thoughts to consider before configuring your online store.

Organization - Do you have all of your product descriptions/options, pricing and photos together?

Organization plays a large role when hiring a web designer to build your online E-commerce store, In fact no one knows about your products or services better than you so you will want to make sure that before you begin this process you have all of your products/services, pricing, descriptions and photos organized and ready for installation. Doing this will not only help the website designer but will also make the process more smooth.

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When a page loads, the browser parses the HTML provided by the server and creates a data structure known as the Document Object Model (DOM). Normally, the Document Object Model stays the same after it is rendered, until the user exits the page.  However, JavaScript is a scripting language that has access to the Document Object Model.  By manipulating the DOM, Javascript can tell the browser to do several things such as move elements on the page, or make them more or less transparent.  This has several implications regarding what can be done, but one of the big things you can do with JavaScript is create animations on the page.

It would be easy to get carried away with ideas that clutter the website's design and make it too busy, but it's usually best to make the end product appear to be relatively simple. Some good javascript animations that don't clutter the web design are the drop down menu animation and coupon slideshow on a website like bruneeltirefactory.com, and the content slider on a website like Anequipment.com. You might notice that the sliders draw the users attention to the images or content inside of them, but they aren't enough to annoy the user or seem out of place.

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