The eye of a St Louis web designer
As a web and graphic designer my design eye never sleeps. Driving along in my car I am constantly evaluating the logos on the sides of trucks … and some of them are so bad, sitting down in a restaurant a menu provides another source for “critique”
…that’s with my two eyes…
Did you know a bee has five eyes! What do you think they make of this lavender?
Web Site Statistics.
How many people have visited your site today?
How long did they stay on your site?
How many pages did they look at?
What key words are people using to get to your site?
A good web site statistics program will provide all this information and more, enabling you to see if your site is performing it’s objectives and highlighting any problems.
e.g. You have an online store selling pens and have 3000 visitors a day. 1000 of these visitor load up their shopping cart and proceed to the checkout. However 800 visitor abandon their carts at this stage. Why? it could be there is a problem with the check out process ..maybe it is time to re-evaluate the process design.
You can also use the information to evaluate the success of a particlar marketing campaign
e.g You place a print ad in an industry magazine directing visitors to a particular page…how many people are visiting that page and what actions are they taking?
Web statistic packages are valuable tools and are generally provided free with hosting acounts.
Free web site analysis
How is your web site performing, are you achieving your online objectives?
Does the design of your site reflect your marketing materials giving you a branded image?
Is the navigation on your site making your visitors think too much?
These are some of the questions we will address during the evaulation of our
FREE WEB SITE ANALYSIS
If you are looking to better your online presence contact us today at info@indigoimage.com and we will review your site for free.
Website Maintenance: The Options
One of the most common questions we get asked when working with web design clients is:-
“How can I update my site?”
Keeping the content fresh and up to date is an important part of any website and we offer a number of solutions to do just that.
Self Maintenance
Unless a client is particuarly “HTML” savy we suggest one of following options for self maintenance.
- Content management systems (CMS)
There are many cost effective online content management systems that allow sites to be easily updated. They allow the site to be accessed from anywhere and edited through a custom interface directly in the users browser. There is an anual fee for using such a service (around $99)
- Contribute
Contribute is a software package developed by Macromedia which allows users to update their sites. The only out of pocket cost is purchasing the software( currently retailing at $79) and edits will only be able to made using the computer on which the software is loaded.
With both self maintenace options there is a learning curve in becoming acqauinted with the applications and a certain time commitment to make updates.
Indigo Image Maintenance
The majority of our clients want nothing to do with “Self Maintenace” and prefer us to take care of all website edits.
We offer both web maintenance contracts or an “as required” service.
Protect your passwords
I recently had a call from a long standing client asking if I knew anything about a company who had been constantly calling them requesting the user name and password to access their hosting account.
The answer was no and the company in question was obviously up to no good.
My client had the good sense not to give out the user name and password. As a web design client of Indigo Image you will never be asked to give out your user name or pass words.
New Branding for St Louis Real Estate company
One of our latest projects has been creating a complete branding for a St Louis real estate company “Realty Quest”
Operating in both the residential and commercial markets and targeting both buyers, sellers and renters the brand we created had to appeal to a wide target audience.
We started by designing a logo, developed a tag line and went on to create business cards, stationery and a Thank You card.
Website usability
How many times have you visited a website with a “funky, cool” flash animation only to sit there rapidly trying to find a “skip intro” button or waiting for the animation to work itself through?
What purpose is that animation serving and how is it contributing to the usability of the website?
We create websites that focus on usability ..sites that are simple to use, easy to navigate and deliver information without making the visitor think. We combine good function with compelling design and focus on design elements which will support the message of the website not overwhelm it.
There are occasions when e.g small animation or sound byte, enhance a site and used sparingly they can be very effective, but we always ask ourselves…in using this element is it contributing to the usabilty and message of the website?
What’s the Font?
As a graphic designer I often come across type faces in print that would work wonderfully in a current project but have no idea what it is. A great detective tool, to save the often fruitless job of ploughing through typeface catalogs, can be found at www.myfonts.com/whatthefont/
Upload a scanned image of the font and instantly find the closest match in their database.
A great printer
As a graphic design company we have worked with many printers. By far our favorite is Printing for less. They take the pain out of buying four-color printing with an instant online quote system, online proofing and are great at answering all of our technical questions.
Visit them at http://www.printingforless.com/ and get $25 off a first order with the promotional code RP1I8DF78
New website for St Louis Golf Club
We have recently launched a completely re-designed website for Paradise Valley Golf Club located in St Louis.
The site uses custom shot photography illustrating the “scenic beauty ” of the course. It also promotes their junior golf academy and event facilities.
The size and amount of information presented on the site was a navigation challenge. However we overcame this by designing an elegant drop down menu and offering sub menus within each category ..thus building a muti redundant navigation tool.
Visit the site at www.paradisevalleygolf.com
