Webmaster Blog

As the saying goes, first impressions are everything. If you’re on a blind date and you trip and fall within the first 10 minutes of the evening, you’re probably going to seem like a klutz for the rest of the night. If you spend the entirety of a job interview complaining about the bosses at your last gig, you probably can’t count on starting at that company anytime soon. The same thing goes for running your own web-based business. If your site looks like it was designed all the way back in 1995, your potential customers are likely going to doubt your company’s credibility -- not to mention your choice of outdated gifs and word art. So why give them the opportunity to second-guess your service at all? It’s 2014 now, and more than ever, successful and strategic web design has become paramount to a website’s general success. Studies estimate that 94% of a web visitor’s first impression of a site he or she has never clicked on before is related to the overall design. In other words, if the average web surfer thinks your site could use a few tweaks to better improve its functionality, it probably could. And you...

It’s no secret that the web is becoming more mobile by the minute. In fact, studies project that in only a year or two, mobile web use -- that’s browsing on your smartphone or your tablet -- is poised to overtake the entirety of desktop computer use. Data like that would seem to make one thing abundantly clear. Whether you’re a blogger, a browser or a business owner, the mobile frontier is your new destination. But research from KissMetrics, a web analysis group, reveals that 60% of all mobile web users run into at least one problem while trying to visit a site via a tablet or smartphone. In an industry where first impressions are everything, a bad introduction to a poorly optimized mobile site can be quite a bad omen. The fact that some sites still not optimized for mobile viewing can typically be blamed on poor web development or negligent maintenance of a site’s operations and navigation. It’s clear that the more time you spend ensuring your user can find his or her way around your site (especially on an iPad or Android tablet), the better off you’ll be, whether you are a business, a blogger or a casual...

      2014 is poised to be the biggest growth year in the IT and web development sectors in recent history.  Look at the statistics: Nearly 70% of CIOs polled said they are looking to hire IT professionals for open positions, marking an 8% increase over the last six months of 2013. Yet the type of IT skills being sought out have drastically changed in the same time period. Whereas before it was enough to hire an IT generalist, someone who could dabble in web design, data management, and networking, companies are looking for specialists in 2014. Specifically, they’re looking for experts in mobile web development and data storage management. Mobile Development Is the Key to A Rapidly Expanding Market Since the introduction of the iPhone in June of 2007, mobile usage has skyrocketed, both in the United States and across the world. According to the Pew Research Center, more than half of Americans use a smartphone to access e-mail, social media, and eCommerce websites. It shouldn’t be any surprise, then, that mobile web searches showed a 65% increase in 2013. Even with a clear need for mobile optimization, KissMetrics statistics show that 73% of mobile users have experienced a...

How to optimize your site for mobile users, best practices and suggestions. Smart phones enable an increasing number of people to connect to the Internet without laptops and office computers. For this reason if you can benefit from successful searches that lead an increasing number of people to your web site, you should investigate how mobile searches can help your business. Background of Mobile Search The first cell phones that were able to access the Internet were only able to deliver low bandwidth versions of the sites. These were usually just in the form of straightforward text and looked nothing like the web site itself. But with the birth of the first "smartphones", the results became more and more like those you would see on your computer screen. Today there are a range of search possibilities, and many people prefer using their mobile phones to search the Net quickly instead of their computer – even at home. So don't ignore these people when you optimize your web sites. Locality Affects Mobile Searches It might seem a bit scary, but the giant Google can see exactly where you on when you search with your mobile device – that is if you are...