We'd like to take a moment to introduce you to one of our newest clients, and a website project that we are very proud of. Fantastic Sams Florida has been selling Florida hair salon franchise opportunities for many years from their headquarters in Clearwater, Florida.  

The new website that we created for them includes an eye-catching custom design, lots of video, photos, and well-organized content to attract potential franchisees and answer most of the questions that they might have. It also includes a full-featured blog to update visitors on the latest happenings and keep the content of the website fresh. Additionally, what you don't see behind the scenes is a content management system with custom features such as a custom Fantastic Sams hair salon supplies ordering system, a file management system, and a discussion forum.

As you can see, Mandalay Solutions has done a lot to enhance the online brand image of Fantastic Sams Florida. What can we do for your brand today?

Mandalay Solutions, Inc. has been around for a long time.  Well, ...a long time for a website design company, anyway. (bear in mind that the worldwide web as we know it has only been around since about 1993)  We began as a small website design company in 1999. Even at the very beginning, we stood out among other web designers as a company that focused on customer service, doing the job right, and taking the time to explain to our clients the benefits of doing things right.

After nearly a decade in the website business, we began to realize a few things. First, we realized that the clients who had been following our advice and allowing us to handle the bulk of their marketing efforts for years had become very successful! Then we realized that we were doing a lot more than just website work for those clients, and that we were good at what we were doing.

It suddenly dawned on us that we were no longer "just" a web design firm. After some introspection and discussion, we determined that what we are is a branding agency. We perform brand image research and compile the results into comprehensive brand analysis reports to help our clients develop a strong brand marketing strategy. Then we help them to implement that strategy in any way that we can.

Today, we unveil our new website!  The culmination of over 6 months of work, and the final step in our transition from "Mandalay Solutions Web Design" to "Mandalay Solutions Brand Development".  That's right, the branding agency has finally finished branding their own company!  And it feels good!  

For more than 10 years Mandalay Solutions Inc. has been helping their clients create compelling websites, and making those websites work to bring more dollars to the bottom line.

Developing compelling websites goes beyond just attractive design. It includes easy to understand navigation, the use of photographs to help tell the story, easy to read and understand text, and proper optimization for the search engines, so that potential clients can find your business.

Mandalay Solutions can help you through every step of the process, even if you know absolutely nothing about the internet, or web sites. We have experienced and knowledgeable people who can explain it all in easy to understand layman’s terms.

We also handle every aspect of web site development, including hosting your site, so that you don’t need to worry about anything. From concept to completion, Mandalay Solutions will make the entire process easy and rewarding.

Mandalay Solutions also does “facelifts” on existing websites. If you have a website, but it’s not working effectively for you, consider a fresh design, the addition of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or upgrading to new features to create a more effective marketing tool. The internet is a rapidly developing environment. Trust Mandalay Solutions to keep you abreast of the latest developments, and to guide you to what works.

To learn more, visit the website, or call (727) 374-7060. They’ll be happy to put you in touch with some satisfied customers, so that you can discover just how easy it is to work through the creation process. Any and all questions you have will be happily answered, and a competitive price quote will be generated for you.

When you’re ready to get serious about marketing your company, get serious about choosing the right web site design company. Choose Mandalay Solutions Inc.

More Mountain Dew, Please

Unlike the content development phase, the actual creation of a website is the domain of the web programmer. We lock them in their dark room with a box of Twinkies and a case of Mountain Dew, hand them “the website plan”, “the content” and “the design”, and they magically meld it all together into a website. Okay, not really. Sometimes we bring them a pizza.

In the previous article, we discussed the extreme importance of content development and ongoing search engine optimization. In this article, we’ll talk about graphic design, and how to program modern functionality and features into a website. Again, we will try to be as non-technical as possible and touch on only what you need to know.

Who Is The Designer?

“Hey, I’ve got a cousin who’s an interior decorator and did newspaper ad layout back in the 80’s, maybe he could do the graphic design for my website and save me some money?” Um… maybe not! The Internet is a unique medium, unlike anything that came before it in a lot of significant ways. It’s not a static medium like a billboard or a magazine ad, no matter how many people try to make it into a video-only medium… it’s not television. The primary purpose of a website is not to grab the attention of a person who is driving by on the highway, or about to turn the page to finish reading an article. The primary purpose is to present information clearly and concisely. So, while there are graphic designers with talents and experience in a wide variety of media, if they don’t have the website design experience, they can’t produce a “good” website -- perhaps a “pretty” website, but not a “good” one.

Let’s take a moment to think about “bad” websites. What makes a bad website? Truthfully, you can get away with a lot of poor design choices as long as the site functions well and provides the information that the user seeks. (Content is King!) But, in general, the sites that strike us as being “bad” are those with a disconnection between graphic design and functionality. How does that happen? It’s very simple. The design process is both a graphical problem and a programming problem. Graphic designers and programmers are more often than not very different personality types! There are those rare few graphic designers who have programming talents, and programmers with some graphics skills, but the BEST of each of those worlds is rarely present in the same person. With the differences in graphic artists and programmers in mind, let’s take a closer look at “bad” websites. How many websites have you visited that functioned well, but just didn’t look right? The chosen colors and graphic elements were bland, or just “wrong”, it just wasn’t pleasing to look at -- but, it worked perfectly! That’s a typical “programmer-designed” website. At the opposite end of the spectrum, how many sites have you seen that look fantastic, but are completely useless? You click on things and they don’t work, or don’t do what you expect them to; the artwork is great, but the positioning and layout might be a little off; you can’t find the information you’re looking for -- but, it looks great! That’s an “artist-programmed” website. Both of these fundamental problems are very common.

So, who designs the website? It has to be a designer who understands the requirements of the programmer. If the designer and the programmer are the same person, that is great. (Assuming that person is truly qualified to do both!) Otherwise, the designer and the programmer need to work together as a team to reach the goal of a visually appealing website that is functional.

Where Do We Begin?

It all begins with graphic design. If the client’s business has a logo, that is normally the best place to start. Select colors, fonts and graphical ideas that mesh well with that logo. The client’s desires must also be considered. Does the client want the site to look “professional” or “casual” or something in-between? This is the realm of the graphic designer.

We like to turn our graphic designers loose with as little guidance as possible. Just give them the basics and let them run with it. We have them create two or three basic designs, present them to the client, and then either refine a final design based on what the client liked about one or more of those designs, or completely start over with a better understanding of what the client likes and dislikes.

Making It Work

Okay, we’ve settled on a design that the client likes and that meets the needs of the programmer, now what? The programmer puts it all together and makes it work! It might sound like the simplest part of the process, but it is usually the most complex and time-consuming because there are so many facets to consider. For each of those facets that goes ignored, your website loses some of its potential, so it is critical that you understand what is required.

What’s On The Menu?

One of the first things to be considered is the website navigation system. How does the user find the page they are looking for? A very basic website might have a simple list-style menu with just a few pages to choose from, but those sites are becoming more and more rare. More often, we will use a multi-tiered menu system with pages categorized into logical groups so that the user doesn’t have to sift through 20 top-level menu items. Six to eight top-level items is usually best, and if a sub-menu has more than about 10 items, additional grouping is wise.

The general rule of thumb is that a user should be able to reach any page on your website from the home page within three clicks. Click-click-click-answer! That is the ideal website navigation. If you have sufficient depth of content, you may need to extend that rule to 4 or maybe even 5 clicks… but ONLY if required.

The navigation then blurs the line with graphic design, as it has to be styled to match the graphical theme of the website. Designing a proper menu is a topic worthy of its own article, so we’ll just leave it at that for now.

This Page Looks Goofy

Have you ever run across one of those web pages where the formatting is just so messed up that you wonder how the designer ever left it that way? Odds are that they didn’t... or at least they didn’t think that they did. Let’s back up a little bit and talk about standards. This won’t hurt, I promise.

The Internet is built on standards. HTTP, HTML, CSS, the list goes on and on. Most of the network-level standards are pretty concrete and adhered to, but as you get up into the standards that affect how pages are displayed in your web browser... well, things get a little goofy. There are standards. Programmer-types like standards. They make things predictable. Stuff either works or it doesn’t. Or not.

We usually blame Bill Gates. Oh, it’s not really his fault (or is it?), but he’s the head of Microsoft, and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) browser is pretty much the root of all evil as far as web programmers are concerned. Why? Microsoft likes to bend the standards and sometimes even make up their own standards. They get away with it because their browser is the most popular web browser on the planet. We all want (need!) our websites to display properly in IE, so we bend (oh, how we bend!) to the whims of the latest version of IE. We even bend to the quirks (yeah, go ahead and search Google for “IE quirks” when you get a minute) of the prior two or three versions of IE just because so many people are still using them!

So, why not just design everything to work with IE in the first place? (Ol’ Bill would like that, wouldn’t he?) Because, even though IE has historically been the most popular web browser, sometimes taking close to 80% of the market, that percentage has been steadily declining. As of 2009, to design strictly for IE would be ignoring well over 50% of the market! Other browsers in use include Firefox, which is getting closer to 50% of the market every day, and a few less-popular browsers, such as Safari, Opera and the new Chrome browser from Google. Fortunately, IE is the only one that’s truly “quirky”. The other browsers generally play by the rules. Go figure.

Back to our page that looks funny. What happened to it? Well, oddly enough, most programmer types like to use Firefox as their own personal browser, and sometimes they forget to recheck their work in IE to be sure it displays properly, especially when just making a quick update to an established page. Or... a somewhat wiser website programmer might check his work in IE, work around all of the IE bugs, then forget to check it in the other browsers. It’s easy to make such errors, and not nearly as easy as it should be to avoid them. Each new version of Microsoft’s browser is getting better, though.

A Different Perspective

Content, check; SEO, check; graphic design, check; programming, check; browser compatibility, check. We’re done now, right? We could be. A lot of websites stop there (if they even cover all of those bases), but there are a few more things to at least consider, even if you opt to not act on them. We talked about all of the standard web browsers, like IE and Firefox. But, there are other ways to browse the internet.

The big one these days is mobile devices. Everything from the tiniest cellular phone to the latest Blackberry or iPhone is capable of accessing the Internet, and you’d better believe that if you have a website, somebody is going to try to access your website on one of those devices. Even if they’re just looking for your phone number, or trying to find your address so that they can swing by your office on their way home, they need to be able to access your website. It would be unwise to overlook the potential marketing value of mobile compatibility.

Another one to consider, and a lot of government and public service websites are required by law to address this one, is being accessible to the visually impaired. To meet this goal, your website needs to be able to be “read” by a person who cannot see it, or has a limited capacity to see it. They need to be able to peruse your menu, follow all of your links, make sense of your layout, and even know what the images on your site represent, all without any visual cues at all. Fortunately, there is special software available that strips out most of the formatting (similar to the mobile browser) and reads the text only. For the most part, as long as we’ve built a site that is compliant with standards (here we go again) and followed a few simple courtesy rules, like including alternate information for each image, and using tables sparingly and logically, the visually impaired can navigate your website pretty well. But, if you expect them to make up a significant part of your user base, or if you just want to be accessible because it’s the right thing to do, at a minimum, your website should be tested for compatibility.

Obviously, any of these methods of alternate browsing bring a lot of discussion to the table... and potentially a lot of additional cost.

Wrap It Up

Wow, it’s hard to write a “short” article about web design that has any real value! We hope this article taught you a thing or two that you didn’t already know about modern web design. We’ll be following up with specific articles about many of the details that we had to cut short in this article. Look for them on our website!

Cheetos & Mountain Dew?

If you’re reading this, you’ve surely heard of this thing called the Internet, and you’ve probably visited your share of websites. But, how much thought have you put into the design of those websites? Probably not a lot, you just expect them to be there and provide you with easy access to information… and that is as it should be.

Most of us tend to think of a website as being designed in a dark room by some nerdy guys with a bag of Cheetos and a couple cans of Mountain Dew nearby. That’s often not too far from the truth! But, those guys are doing a heck of a lot more than you might think they are.

In the early days of the Internet, there really wasn’t much to consider in designing a website. Choose a background color, choose a text color, sprinkle a little bit of clip art here and there, add your text content and call it a day. While those things still need to be done, a successful modern website requires a great deal more attention to detail in many different areas.

While we could easily write a book on Modern Website Design based on our experience in the field, we’ve decided to narrow the focus of this series of articles to appeal to the business professional who doesn’t need to know how to design a website, but just needs to know a little about the process in order to make more informed decisions about who to hire and what to ask for when they are faced with the need for a new website. This series will be presented in two parts. This part will cover the content of the website, and the second part will cover design and programming. Both of these topics are probably much broader than you expect!

Let’s brush the Cheetos crumbs to the side and take a look, shall we? Don’t worry, we’ll keep this article as non-technical as possible.

Content Is King!

First, let’s be perfectly clear, the most important part of any website is the CONTENT of that website. We like to say that “content is king”. We can build a fancy website that looks awesome, has great functionality, and might even have good search engine optimization, but it will ultimately fail to meet its objectives if the information on that website does not address the user’s needs. The modern Internet consumer expects a great deal of information to be available and presented in an easily digestible manner. This is the on-demand Internet age, and every question a person might have, they expect to find a quick and easy answer for. If your website isn’t providing that information and your competitor’s website is… guess who’s getting the sale? Content is king, and it’s worth whatever it costs to gather, develop and present it.

Generating effective website content means a lot more than just having a knowledgeable person free-associate a stream of everything they know about a business and it’s products and dumping it on a page with some photos. (though, that isn’t a bad place to start!) That information needs to be organized and presented in a logical manner so that it meets the needs and expectations of your website visitors.

There are two primary types of Internet users that will visit your website. Those who just want a quick answer and need to be able to find it quickly, and those who are there to read and learn everything they can. Most users will be closer to the “quick answer” type, which is why a well-organized menu and website structure, and well-organized and written content on each page are critical to the success of a website. We can’t overlook those who want more in-depth information, however -- website content needs to enlighten and entertain, as well. Website content must provide a balance that will appeal to both the fact seeker and the more casual browser.

Lost & Found

Okay, so you’ve come up with thorough content and taken the time to organize and structure it so that it makes sense to people… now, how do you keep it from becoming lost among the millions of other websites on the Internet? This is what is called “Search Engine Optimization” (SEO), and while it is a fairly simple concept, it does take a great deal of work to do effectively. How do we get your website “found”?

It all starts with research. Words and phrases (we call them “search terms”) related to your business are examined to see which ones are most used in actual web searches. We then gauge the depth of competition for each of those terms, and whether that competition is related to your business or not. Synonyms and related terms are also examined, sometimes those that you might not have considered. A list of the best terms related to each page of your website should be compiled and used to optimize the content on that page.

Now, remember, we said “content is king”… and that is SO true that if your content is thorough, well-written and relevant to your business, the optimization of that content becomes much easier. With a good content base, we will often merely have to make slight adjustments to the content to emphasize the most important terms. We call this “natural” SEO, and it is invariably the most effective method of SEO. Search engines get more complex and “intelligent” by the day, so any tricks applied to your website to fool them will ultimately fail. The search engines are learning to see the true content of a page and rank it accordingly, so if your content “naturally” fits the bill, it should always be ranked well.

Of course, there’s much more to it than that. Search engines also look at how popular your website is, how long it’s been around, and many other things that they just plain don’t tell us. So, no matter how good of a job we do optimizing a website, we can never guarantee how well that site will rank in the search engines. (and anybody who tells you otherwise is lying to you!)

50 Million Visitors – 5 Sales

Having lots of people find your website is a good thing, right? It means we’ve done our job, we’ve succeeded at this “SEO” thing, right? Wrong! It can be easy to get found on the search engines and generate traffic. As easy as inserting (intentionally or otherwise) a controversial word or phrase, or something related to a certain three-letter word that begins with “s” and ends with “x”! But, if the traffic you’ve generated is the wrong traffic, it is of no benefit to your business. What you really want are “qualified visitors”, visitors who are truly interested in your product, and might actually generate revenue for you. You’ll hear this referred to as “improving conversion rate”. You want to “convert” those website visitors into sales.

How do we find qualified visitors and improve conversion? Simply by doing more thorough research to learn what people who are interested in your products are actually searching for. Not just what “everybody” is searching for, but what “your target market” is searching for. It’s not as easy as it sounds, and sometimes it takes careful review of the statistics of the website itself over a period of time to learn about how visitors are actually finding using the site.

A 6-month SEO review can tell us an awful lot about how a site is working and how to improve it. What terms are people finding the site with? Which terms are resulting in visits that “bounce” (immediately leave the site because it wasn’t what they were looking for)? Which terms result in visitors that spend a lot of time on your site and view a lot of your pages? And lastly, which terms have the most visits that end with either your “contact” or “checkout” page, achieving the ultimate goal of conversion? Learning which terms work will help us to make them work better. Learning which ones DON’T work (especially if they are terms that “should” work) helps us to learn which areas of the website content may need improvement to better meet the needs of your visitors.

So, while the monthly services that some “SEO Experts” might try to sell you are almost certainly not of great value, revisiting your website statistics, SEO and content periodically can pay big dividends to your bottom line. A quarterly or bi-annual website review his highly recommended.

Now What?

Did you notice that we haven’t actually started designing a website yet? We’ve got good content and a plan for how to structure it on the website, but no website at all! And so it goes. Really, it is as it should be. In fact, if you’ve heard of “Web 2.0”, it’s all about separating content from presentation… and that’s exactly what we’ve done. It is pointless to have a design with no content! Be sure to read the second article in this series to learn about building a proper website to display the content.