ITzetta Blog

Your Company’s First Website Part I

Elisabeth Windsor - Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Starting the process to create your company’s first website can be intimidating, and for good reason. Your website is the face of your company. This series is to help you know some of the steps to getting the best website for your company. In this first post, we’ll list some of the things to consider before you start the web design process.

The very first thing to decide is what your website’s purpose should be. This is what you want to get out of having this website; what you want it to do for you. The purpose of your website will drive everything about its design and content. There are many different purposes your website could serve.

Some of the possible things the purpose could be include:

• A simple contact point for your customers
• To build brand awareness
• To sell products
• To provide customer support
• To offer news and information
• A gallery or forum

You also need to determine your target audience. Knowing your target audience will allow you to build a site that appeals to those people. You will need to have a website that caters to their needs and wants. This is almost as important as your site’s purpose.

What will make your site unique? Your site needs to be able to stand out for a reason and solve a problem that your competitors can’t. If it doesn’t, there’s no need for anyone to visit your site.

Decide on a budget. Consider your company’s income, what this website will do for your company, and what you expect out of a design company. It’s also a good idea to look at different web design companies and their pricing. If you expect to pay less than a design company expects to be paid, a good web design firm will tailor a project to fit your budget.

Know your company’s branding. This is look and feel of your company. Your branding should be consistent in everything your company does, including its website. Providing a design company with a mood board of your company’s branding will be a huge help in generating the website you want. If you don’t already have branding, this would be a good time to get it. Most web design companies can also create company branding.

This is also a good time to start thinking about what content you want on your site. A good design will be shaped to the content. The sooner you are able to provide a designer with content, the faster and more effectively they will be able to work. Remember that content doesn’t mean just plain text, but any logos or images your site should include.

These are only the main things to consider when deciding to get a website for your company. Each business is different and will have different needs. Here at ITzetta, we are even able to help you make some of these decisions if you are unsure.  Check back soon to learn about choosing the right web design company for your website.

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Modern SEO

Elisabeth Windsor - Thursday, November 17, 2011

SEO is an ever-changing game. Only a year ago, Google’s search results looked drastically different. Before, a search would greet you with a list of normal websites. Now when you search, you’ll get the most recent news, maps, reviews, Google places, videos, social cues, and more.

If you’re relying on these search results to get your business out there, you need to use new techniques. Here are some things to consider from Mashable’s “6 Best Practices for Modern SEO”.

Local SEO

Many things you search for today will have related local businesses and organizations. These places will show up in Google searches, and people are looking at them. An eye-tracking study proves this.

So what should you keep in mind if you want to grab that spot on Google Places? First of all, Consistency is important. Make sure your business information is presented the same exact way in every place online. If you write your phone number (555) 555-5555 on your website, don’t write it 555.555.5555 somewhere else.

Next, remember your Google Places pages needs to be optimized just as your website does. Direct your Places page to a city-specific landing page if possible and include matching categories.

Finally, the more (positive) reviews, the better! Even though Google only shows Google reviews, having reviews on sites like Yelp or Superpages will boost your ranking.

Social Cues

Social cues heavily influence search results. You need to have a social side to your business to compete in the online market. Tweets, Facebook likes, and other social bookmarks allow Google to provide personalized search results for each individual based on what they like.

People-friendly Keywords

People are making searches, not robots. Make sure to use keywords and content that have the answers people are looking for. Try not to think of a keyword as just another bit of data, but think of what the person behind the screen might be searching for.

Great Content

Some companies may be tempted to generate spam or paid links to get traffic. Google will recognize these for what they are right away. The best long-term SEO strategy is always to keep the content on your sites relevant, useful, and fresh.

Back-end Work

Rich snippets allow you to let Google know what information to include along with your search results. This could be things like a short description, recipe cooking time, items for sale, reviews, etc. With that, people get more information to base their click off of.

Google, Yahoo, and Bing have also built Schema.org to makes it easier for search engines to know what your site it about, so they can index it correctly.

Data

It’s critical to see the results you’re getting. Keyword ranking is useful, but with Google’s private searching, it’s impossible to get a spot-on picture. Key performance indicators (or KPIs) such as how many landing pages and keywords bringing users to your site you have, can provide a more accurate description of your site’s success. Google Analytics provides all this information for you.

Here at Itzetta, we offer four different SEO packages to meet your company’s needs. We see how SEO standards change, and keep up to date on those changes so we can provide you with the best services possible.

Thanks again to Mashable for their post on this subject.

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Google - more than just Pandas

Elisabeth Windsor - Friday, November 04, 2011

Google has just made a significant change to their search algorithm. The search engine giant is saying that this will affect 35% of web searches. So what does this change do? Google’s newest update partially determines your search’s need for “freshness” and provides you with results that are weighed by that (if freshness is relevant). As TechCrunch puts it, “For example, a search for a favorite recipe posted a few years ago may still be popular enough to rank highly, but searches for an unfolding news story or the latest review of the iPhone 4S should bring the newer, fresher content first, followed by older results.”

So now if you search a time-sensitive topic, the latest news will come first, even if you don’t specify the time period. If you look up your favorite car, the newest model will automatically show up first. This update is bolstered by the previous “Caffeine” update that allows Google’s search engine to find new content faster than ever. Google also recently trashed their Realtime Search offering which pulled from Twitter, but this new update replaces that by integrating real-time results into everything you search for.

ITzetta’s customers have nothing to worry about with this latest update. Useful, quality information on your site and white hat SEO will always be the best ways to get those top search rankings, no matter how search algorithms change.  ITzetta SEO techniques keep your website content fresh and relevant by employing content distribution techniques and constantly creating new content. Blog and article content is syndicated through multiple channels ensuring your content gets the maximum exposure. The methods we recommend and SEO programs we offer are already in line with the newest Google Search Engine algorithms to keep your site at the top of the rankings.

Thanks to TechCrunch for the information, check out their article to learn more!

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Elli vs. Aaron (part one)

Elisabeth Windsor - Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Hello internet! This is the very first of a series of monthly blog posts we’re going to call Elli vs. Aaron. Apparently every month Aaron and I are going to duke it out, with the result being a blog post containing gold nuggets of our wisdom on different web development topics. Plus, you get a sneak peek into the thought process and work behind our websites.

For this premier post, Aaron and I both read a great article from Smashing Magazine, HTML 5 and the Document Outlining Algorithm. (By the way, if you’ve never heard of Smashing Magazine, you should check it out. It’s an awesome resource for web developers and designers.) We’ve both written up our own opinions of how we should adapt the HTML 5 Document Outlining Algorithm to ITzetta’s coding standards.

That should be all the introduction needed! I’ll start off with what Aaron had to say, because I think he explained the new HTML 5 feature more clearly. Coding is his area of expertise, where mine is more on the side of design.

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Aaron:

As time goes on, more and more HTML5 features get integrated into modern browsers. So as the technology evolves, we need to adapt to continue to offer our clients modern, well designed, aesthetically pleasing, search engine optimized web sites.

One of the HTML5 features that is being standardized are Article, Section, Aside, and Nav. These tags have no visual effect on your site. What they do instead, is separate out your content. Not for you to see visually, but for the back end of the website, and for search engines.

                Here is an example of content without Article and Section tags.

<div>

                <h1> Page Title</h1>

<h2> Product Category </h2>

<h3> Product Title </h3>

<p> Here is where the product information goes </p>

<h3> Product Title </h3

<p> Here is where the product information goes </p>

<h2> Product Category </h2>

<h3> Product Title </h3>

<p> Here is where the product information goes </p>

</div>

Now, as you can see the content is separated out, but after a while, this format can tend to get a bit messy and discombobulated in the back end of the website, especially with in-context editing. Now, here is an example with HTML5 tags included.

<div>

                <h1> Page Title</h1>

<section>

<h2> Product Category </h2>

<article>

<h3> Product Title </h3>

<p> Here is where the product information goes </p>

</article>

<article>

<h3> Product Title </h3

<p> Here is where the product information goes </p>

</article>

</section>

<section>

<h2> Product Category </h2>

<article>

<h3> Product Title </h3>

<p> Here is where the product information goes </p>

</article>

</section

</div>

Now, as you can see, the content is much easier to follow. With the HTML5 tags, everything is more fluid, broken-up, and easier to read. The use of these tags will make all ITzetta websites much easier for clients to understand from the back end.  While not having an effect on SEO at the moment, I predict that in the future, it will be a major piece of optimizing your website for search engines. It will be important to make sure all of your content is broken up into Sections and Articles.

While the integration of HTML5 into your website will be a big step towards the future, it is a process that needs to be done slowly. Right now only modern browsers (Chrome, Internet Explorer 9, Firefox5+, and Opera) support HTML5. So while I believe these new features are great, and will optimize the website. It is a process that will have to be done as the older browsers become obsolete and die.

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Elli:

HTML5 brings us a brand new document outlining algorithm. Before this, pages were outlined using the various header tags as guides. Within HTML5, there are four different elements used by its outlining algorithm. These elements are section, article, aside, and nav. In the future, these can completely replace the need for using different levels of header tags to organize content. But for now, since some browsers still don’t support HTML5, it’s a good idea to cover your bases both ways.

I think the best idea for now would be to use both header tags and HTML5 outlining elements, section and article for the main content on pages. You can use an h1 tag to label the page, followed by an h2 tag within a section element for a subheading. Inside the section element, you can use article elements to further organize content. These should be complimented by an h3 tag to keep older browsers happy. Paragraph content goes under whichever h1, section and h2, or article and h3 is suitable for it.

As far as nav and aside elements go, I don’t see these as being very useful yet. To quickly explain these, the nav element is for categorizing the main navigation and the aside element is for secondary content (think sidebars). Unless you know the target audience for the website you’re creating is using a browser that supports HTML5, I think it’s better to use div and ul elements for these for now.

This is my recommendation for how we should implement these elements into ITzetta’s coding standard. This way we are able to take advantage of the new features of HTML5 and stay current with new technology while still allowing our websites to function in older browsers.

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So, I hope that gave you a little insight into how things work here at ITzetta and helped you understand what goes on behind the pretty faces of the websites you see. You’ll hear from me again in a month in the next installment of Elli vs. Aaron.

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Charging in Blind

Aaron Miler - Sunday, July 17, 2011

One of the best parts of the ITzetta Catalyst system, is that you can go in and change your content any time you feel like it. However, many people may be a bit hesitant to do it thinking “Well what if I break my site?” Don’t be afraid of the Catalyst system, if you want to change something, change something. If something breaks, we are here for you, to get your site back in working order.

For example, on a couple of occasions now, I’ve had clients wanting to make changes within the website template. By no fault of their own, the template just happened to break when they applied their change. On both counts, I was able to go in, identify the problem, and solve it. The total down time for both sites was probably in the ball park of fifteen to twenty minutes. While also keeping the changes that they applied. So really all that happened was the site went down for a couple of minutes.

So as you can see, with an ITzetta website, you also get security. We’ve got your back. Just in case something does go wrong. So don’t be afraid to explore the system, use it to its full potential. If something happens, we are only an e-mail or phone call away.

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Star Wars Lightsaber Effects

Tyler Wall - Monday, October 25, 2010

Light Saber Effects are hard

So I tried to build the mandatory Star Wars lightsaber effects, and it turned out okay. I never knew how they were made, and we got the Adobe CS5 Master Collection so we had the software. I now have a new found respect for the artists that made the star wars movies special effects. The original movies most have been such a pain in to illustrate. Anyways the first video is below. 

I think I am going to end up making at least one more movie with my two boys in it. Once they saw this one they wanted to do it too, and I could really use the practice.

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Green Screen Studio Up

Tyler Wall - Thursday, October 21, 2010

Our New Photo/Video Studio is Done

New Features:

• Green Screen Capabilities
• HD Video

Our First Video:

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Preparing for HTML5

Tyler Wall - Wednesday, October 20, 2010

I just started two new design layouts using HTML5. It has been an easy transition although I keep resorting to article and section tags when ever I want a div tag. I am not sure if I am using too many divs, sections, or asides but I am sure I will get the hang soon.

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New Store in Sandy Oregon

Tyler Wall - Wednesday, October 20, 2010

    We just finished moving into our new Office Space in Sandy. After about 90 days in the barn we ran out of space. We are sure that the rabits will miss us.  The move has been alot of work, we painted, steamcleaned, and shamppoo'd and everything looks new. We were shocked when we started moving in our office furniture, and the front desk was a dead on match with the new color on the walls. 
    All of the primary equipment has been moved in and we are back in operation. The new business hours for ITzetta are 11:00 am until 7:00 pm and we are open everyday but Sunday.
    The new office is about three times the size as our old one on Vista Loop so we really needed to scramble to find enough furniture and decoration. We were able to get a new confrence table for our confrence room which we are looking forward to using. Also we added a few new desks for our equipment, and our new digital studio. Soon we will have a functioning green screen inside of our photo studio. I was lucky enough to get some painting prints from my mom to round out the decorations.

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Eastco Goes Bowling

Tyler Wall - Monday, October 04, 2010

Eastco's Bowling League at Rose Bowl in Portland.

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