1. learn the difference between high resolution and low resolution images. If you download something off the web its low resolution unless you can buy it from a stock photo company. The reason I know this is that all computer monitors only display 72dpi (that’s dots per inch), so all imagery on the web is optimized to display fast and quick on your 72 dpi monitor.

In printing we need to use 300dpi imagery. That’s because we want our graphics and images to be crisp and clear and not pixelated or blurry. You cannot upsize an image. Yes, photoshop does a good job at increasing the resolution of an image, but to the naked eye you will be able to see the difference. Low resolution images will produce an unprofessional result 100% of the time.

2. Always use vector art when possible. photographs are bitmap images, they are also referred to as raster. Fonts are a type of vector artwork, you can scale them any way you please and they will always be crisp and clear. Your logo should always be created in illustrator, not photoshop. Your business card should be in illustrator file as well. If your designer works in Adobe Illustrator you will always get a crisp clear image.

If you need printing, chances are I can get a better deal than you… contact design chef!

do you need social media marketing or web design in rochester ny contact designchefstudios.com

1. generate content. you need to decide what you want to write about. I always start out with a post about each question I get asked frequently. After that focus on the latest news in your industry so that you position yourself as a thought leader.

2. get a blog… you can call me to have one attached to your website, or you can just sign up at wordpress.com

3. post frequently! At least 1 time per week, 2 is preferred.

4. link, link and link. the only way you are going to generate more traffic to your site is if you link from your blog to your website! Do several links everywhere in the content, and also a call to action at the top and bottom of the post and in your sidebar.

Do you need a blog, contact Design Chef for a lesson on social media marketing!

do you need social media marketing or web design in rochester ny contact designchefstudios.com

Those of you with kids and backyard playgrounds…
Are they really worth the money?
Do your kids use them often?

A slew of responses followed in the next two hours giving me the information I needed to make the best decision for my family. Social media and Web 2.0 have revolutionized our searching. We are able to quickly gather the opinions of our friends and the general public instead of only the experts.
So what will be the next evolutionary step for the web? How will our information gathering be any different? The answer is the use of artificial intelligence integrated into our search tools. Web 3.0 will bring browsers that can track your likes, dislikes and common searches you make to learn about you as an individual. All of the information you’ve been adding to the web over the years will now be a useful tool for your browser to determine the information you’ll truly be interested in learning about.
With our browsers now getting smart, our keyword searches can become sentences which can be analyzed so that when the information we need gets returned there will be less junk to sift through, making our searches more efficient. An example of a search query could be this:

I want to go to a hot yoga class then have a turkey burger for lunch…

The browser would use GPS to locate me, and then tell me when the next yoga class is in the area that has a restaurant near by with food I like. In comparison, today I would first need to visit a map site locating all of the yoga studios, then visit all of their sites to find out when the next class is, then cross reference that with a search for a good turkey burger. What a pain, right?
Additionally, there is speculation from Biznetix, a web design firm in Rochester, NY, that a site designed with web 3.0 technology will allow you to download apps to it just like you would with your smart phone. This idea is fascinating to me because it means that there could be ready to use web features available in an app store that will allow designers to easily integrate new technology into their site without the use of a programmer or extensive usability research.
One exciting new feature I’ve seen comming out lately is being able to customize how your web pages look. Google and Yahoo both offer a homepage you can customize to show your interests. Firefox allows a user to install a theme, changing the design entirely. It will be interesting to see the expansion of features such as these with the integration of artificial intelligence.
The web will now doubt continue to play an increasingly important role in everyone’s life making the free sharing of information and also the gathering of information much easier.  The key principles of web design — simplicity, clarity and visual interest — will be as important in Web 3.0 as today.

References:

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/web-301.htm

http://webtrends.about.com/od/web20/a/what-is-web-30.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_1.0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0

Conversation with Biznetix, Rochester, NY
Conversation with Customericity, Rochester, NY

www.designchefstudios.com

do you need social media marketing or web design in rochester ny contact designchefstudios.com

7. Google Website Optimizer is a tool that tests your website’s content for accessibility. Using it will help you design more effective sites that do a better job for your users and get better search engine rankings.

• You can find it at:

https://www.google.com/analytics/siteopt/splash?hl=en
And finally — be sure to check out Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and Webmaster Tools.

8. More is better. The more pages you have the more likely you are to hit all the search terms your users could possibly be using. More pages means more links, more URLs, more title tags, more key word rich content, more spider food!

9. Including a blog on your site that is constantly being updated is a great way to improve your search engine ratings. Blogs provide lots of new content, new pages, and new links.

10. Search Engine No-nos, or How to Get Thrown Out of the Game

There’s no doubt about it — search engines are smart. They have learned how to spot a cheater. Here are some of the more common cheats that can get your site in big trouble with the search engines:

• Illegible links and text – links and text have to be visible to the average, healthy human eye. That means the search engines will take a dim view of styles that match the color of the background or specify illegibly small font sizes.
• Text or links too small to read – see above.
• Same color as background – all text and links must be in a color that contrasts with the background color.
• Going crazy with the meta tags – be judicious in the number of key words you use in the meta tags. Keep the descriptions reasonably short.

Content

• The content of the web site provides value to the user.
• The writing supports the reader’s task.
• The user is not required to read or navigate through irrelevant material to reach relevant material.
• The text includes a call to action.
• The reader interacts with the text as much as possible.
• The information is accurate, authoritative, and up to date.
• The information will be easy to maintain.
• Items that need to be regularly updated have been documented.

Readability

• The text is comprehensible and targeted at the right reading level.
• Sentences are short, direct, concrete, and active.
• New information is rounded in known information.
• Text is in lay language, avoiding jargon, insider references, and obscure humor.

Legibility

• The typeface is legible and the font size is sufficient.
• Italics are avoided except at large sizes.
• Boldface and all caps are only used for short pieces of text (Boldface is preferred over all caps).
• Text has sufficient contrast with the background color and is not placed over a conflicting pattern.

Scannability

• Emphasis is provided with appropriate headings, lead-ins, and pull quotes.
• Opening sentences and paragraphs summarize the content.
• Text is short, simple, and concise.
• Text is specific and objective.
• Text is broken into useful chunks and bulleted lists.

Orientation

• Page titles provide useful orienting clues.
• Headings match the reader’s goals.
• Readers know where they are and what each page is about.

Pagination

• The text is divided between pages based on user tasks (i.e., pages are divided so users can skip portions irrelevant to them).
• If scrolling is required, the user has appropriate cues within the text that more material is present, and horizontal rules are avoided.
• Pages are self-explanatory, each page stands on its own.

Technique

• Fundamentals are sound; grammar, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.
• Tone is natural and accessible.
• Style is consistent.
• Terminology is unambiguous.
• Active sentences are used.

Links

• Static text is never blue or underlined.
• Text links are left in the default color.
• Different types of links are distinguished graphically (e.g., audio clips vs. video clips).
• Link text is descriptive and specific.
• Email links explicitly show the email address.
• Links don’t cross punctuation or line breaks.

Forms

• The order of steps through the form is clear.
• Submit buttons are clearly labeled with descriptive text.
• Reset buttons are avoided. Required fields are clearly labeled.

Metatext

• Metatag description and keywords are provided for each page.
• Non-body text is specific and consistent; titles, ALT text, captions, headings, and buttons.

Writing for Screen Readers

• Text is concise.
• The top of the page contains meaningful, page-specific information.
• Link names are self-explanatory.

Format

• The layout does not depend on a specific typeface or font size.
• The specified typeface works well on all platforms.
• The default font size of the browser is used.
• Semantic tags, rather than format tags, are used wherever possible.
• Text aligns with graphics on the page and with other text blocks.
• All centered text on the page is centered on one axis of symmetry.
• Related text doesn’t appear in multiple columns.
• Headings are closer to their body text than to other text on the screen.

Intellectual Property

• The copyright notice is present and in the correct format.
• Trademarks and service marks follow corporate standards.
• Company branding is strictly adhered to.
• No information is confidential or sensitive.

Standards

For each of the following, specify the standards this site will follow:

• Person, 1st and 2nd person (recommended), or 3rd person.
• Commas before the last item in a list: “A, B, and C” (preferred), or ” A, B and C”
• Punctuation within quotes, traditional punctuation (“text, “), or logical punctuation (“text”,) (preferred)
• Header alignment, left, center, or right.
• Paragraph format, double-space between paragraphs, or indented opening of paragraphs.
• Common spelling, hyphenation, and capitalization conventions, e.g. ” Internet or internet, web site or website, email or e.mail
• Preferred file format for text files (e.g., plain text, RTF, Word, HTML).
• Preferred file format for figures (e.g., EPS, Photoshop, TIFF, PICT, BMP, gif, jpeg).

This style guide provides your client organization with standards for developing and presenting text. Such standards minimize the complexity of editing content for consistency. Specific standards will almost certainly vary for each organization. A style guide should rarely allow poor usage (such as using blue text for headers), but may often disallow perfectly good usage in order to maintain a coherent style (for instance, this guide strictly prohibits text in all caps, which might otherwise be acceptable in some limited contexts).

This document establishes some standards for writing in order to achieve a consistent voice and content that is both readable and effective for website users. These guidelines will also be used by the website developers to proofread webpages.

Writing Style:

• Use the active voice.
• Refer to our company in the first person (when pronouns are used at all), such as, “We put our customers first.” (That is, never refer to our company as “it” or “they” or “the company.”)
• Refer to the reader in the second person, as in “Our customers are important to us. Your needs drive all of our efforts.”
• Use direct, simple sentences.
• Divide the text into small, easy-to-read chunks.
• Provide factual and content-rich information. Avoid anything that would be perceived as advertising copy or fluff.
• Put the main themes at the top of every page. Put the main themes in the first sentence of each paragraph.
• Present lists as bulleted items, not as prose.
• Use clear section titles, and liberally include headings where they help users to quickly find information.
• Avoid ambiguity. Avoid trying to draw people in with incomplete teasers. Give them the information they need as soon as possible and as succinctly as possible.

Formatting:

• Align all text to the left, including headers and paragraphs.
• Separate paragraphs with two line breaks. Put one blank line before headers and no blank lines after headers.
• Don’t use smart quotes (curly quotes). Use only straight quotes and apostrophes.
• Avoid special characters that may not be available in HTML. If you have the opportunity, you can save the developers a lot of time by providing a printed copy of any pages that use unusual characters, with those characters highlighted. Examples of special characters that may require extra work to reproduce include em dash (-), copyright (©), trademark (™), registered trademark (®), cedilla (ç), umlauts (_), micro (µ), yen (¥), pounds (£), degrees (º), and Euro (€).
• Use bold to highlight words and phrases. Do not use italics (which can be difficult to read on the screen). Do not use all caps.
• Do not rely on variations of font and font size. These are not reliable across platforms on web browsers or with different user preference settings.

Spelling and Trademarks

• Make sure all trademarks, service marks, and registered trademarks are labeled according to the standard corporate reference.
• “Web site” is two words.
• Use American English spellings throughout.

Writing for Search Engines

• Make sure you know what information will be important for your user/reader. You’ll want to get feedback on how they would to search/retrieve this data. These will include common terms that may be used to search for your information. This is the stage for ensuring that you have the correct meta data to describe the content you plan to make accessible over the web.
• For each page, provide a one-sentence (25 words or less) description of the page that will be used in a hidden description field (this is the description many search engines will provide in their listing of search results).
• For each page, provide a short set of keywords that will be used in a hidden keywords field.
• With your keywords, include common misspellings and alternate spellings (e.g., “web site” and “website”).

Content Delivery Format

• The web site development team can convert between several text formats, including Word, PowerPoint, Excel, plain text, RTF, Quark, and PageMaker. However, new content will be easiest to work with if it is created in Word or in plain text. Please do not convert your text to HTML. It is also helpful to provide the development team with a paper version to verify the format of the text and for proofreading.

• Graphics content can be delivered in almost any standard graphics format, including EPS, Photoshop, TIFF, GIF, JPEG, Freehand, Illustrator, BMP, and PICT. To maintain the highest quality, avoid using a compressed format, such as GIF or JPEG, and provide the highest-resolution version you have. If electronic versions are not available, we can scan camera-ready print versions.

It is a fact that the internet is all about content. And internet marketers realize that content is king and good content is what moves their business. Content is a basic tool to set up our sites, create backlinks, build lists, create relationship with our customers and generate traffic. It is an indispensable component for a profitable selling effort that every good internet marketer needs

However composing content is a drawback that a lot of internet marketers have to deal with. Not all good marketers have the writing skill to write good content. And other marketers who are endowed with the savvy to write find it difficult to insert article writing into their busy calendar and would prefer to focus their efforts on the more important tasks of implementing their business and selling strategy. The time-consuming and oftentimes tedious task of content writing, more often than not, takes a huge portion of your workload, taking very important time that you could have used more efficiently and profitably.

You Don’t Have To Do The Work

Rather than laboring on this time-consuming and frequently tedious task of creating content, a better alternative would be to have others do the task for you. There are freelance services available that can do this for you but good content written by freelance writers solely for you can be availed of with a considerable price tag. And because these services are costly going this route will only take a considerable portion off your profit pie.

One option would be to reprint or republish articles from article directories. But this option requires you to use the articles in its original form, with the author’s links and all, causing a leak in your link juices.

Content created your way, right away twice a week.

designchefstudios.com

• Choose 4-5 key phrases you think people search for. Get into the mind of your customer, what language do you think they would use to search for your product or service? Is what you do commonly mis-spelled- if so use the common mis-spelling as one of your phrases. for my site I use “website” and “web site”

• Do you serve a certain geographic area or can you go anywhere? If so then you need to add the cities or towns to the end of the phrase ie- graphic design rochester ny, web sites rochester ny (do not use a comma between the city and state, to a search engine this means more information)

• add alt text to all of the images on your site that is the same as one of the key phrases you have decided to use. Here’s a sample of what the code looks like: <img src=”filename.jpg” alt=”graphic design rochester ny”/>

• meta tags: this is a list of all the key phrases you are using. The code is located in the head tag of the site. Here’s what the code looks like:

<meta name=”keywords” content=”graphic design rochester ny, websites rochester ny, web sites rochester ny, business cards rochester ny, seo rochester ny” />

• the last thing you need to do is to implant the key phrases in your text on the site. So, if you were to write an article about “best ways to optimize your site” your title should actually say “website seo rochester ny”

2. off-site seo

• begin blogging. Not only does it add a ton of value to the users of your website, but it also creates a source for back links. Back links are when you have a link to your site from another site. I prefer the word press format, currently it’s the industry standard and is well read by the search engines.

• create a place page on the search engines site. Many of them list places of business. Is your listing accurate? Is the listing not appearing? Make sure it’s right, enhance it with photos and videos. If it’s not there at all, make one.

• use social media… this has become a powerful force. Create accounts and use them! It gives other users a chance to rate you, like you and recommend you.

Finally, always be professional while on-line. If you are running a reputable company and want people to find you on-line then you should always put your business face forward while on the internet. Do a search for yourself in a search engine, what comes up? Is it good, bad or otherwise? If I’m searching for a financial planner and I find his name tied to a site or organization that’s controversial or doesn’t comply to my family values or political beliefs I probably am not going to use that person to manage my money.

Everything on-line is tracked and documented! when you post information onto a website that information becomes the property of that company. If you aren’t signed on to a secure site (one that has pages not isn’t listed/crawled in the search engines) then be careful the information you share. For instance, if I have a visitor to my site, it’s documented in my analytics, I know the ip address of the computer they used to access my site, where it’s located on the earth maybe even a businesses name of where the computer is located, what search engine they used, how long they stayed on my site and what pages they looked at.

for more information on seo and services i offer visit my site: www.designchefstudios.com

When you are on Facebook, or linked in or any other network take advantage of your friend’s friends. They may know someone you been wanting to meet. Use it to your advantage! Your message may read “Hi, I notice we have a mutual friend in (your facebook friends name). I’d love to get together with you. Maybe we can exchange some business together.”

Whatever you do make sure it’s genuine. Eventhough it’s not a face to face meeting at first people can tell through your writing if you are being sincere or if you are just looking to exploit their connectedness.

Alas, if you have no desire to do this on your own there’s plenty of social networking nanny’s out there who will do the work for you at a reasonable rate.

www.designchefstudios.com