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CONSTRUCTADMINISTERPROMOTE | LOOKOFF TOPIC
S P A R K Y O U R C R E A T I V I T Y . . .
Leap the communications gap and CONNECT with clients, customers, and the browsing masses ... in the new century's medium of choice.
After a decade spent riding waves of development, Webgraphica's purpose remains unwaveringly simple: to help clients define and achieve their online objectives. Our personalized support cuts through a web of confusing options, to help you identify and exploit fast-moving windows of opportunity.
King Kontent | Dynamic Rigor | CMS
The New Oracle
Just as the ancients sought their answers from an "Oracle at Delphi", people today are turning to the internet for help. With information and advice concerning virtually every aspect of our lives, the web is perceived by many as a powerful "wellspring" ready to solve every problem and assist every endeavor.
Meet the Wizard of IS
Who's behind the magical informative power of this new oracle? You are! If that seems like an awesome responsibility, relax: when Dorothy and her friends made their shocking discovery, only the Wizard's sage advice saved his hide. However, if your website fails, you won't need to sweat and ad-lib, because the customer will have clicked their "magic mouse" and flown to the next site. The worst punishment you might have to endure will be that of being ignored. What's the moral? While the web will never acheive 100% accuracy, that is clearly the goal, and the web has a built-in, very effective incentive/dis-incentive mechanism. ("hits." We all want them) The reward can be domination of your little (or not-so-little) "corner" of the cyber-universe. While abuse has jaded many, the public desire for an "oracle" (or "Wizard) has proven resilient - and honest, persistent efforts often lead to enduring and rewarding market shares. ^King Kontent's Rules
One of the more enduring web-design cliches is content is king. We'd like to add that if content is the king, then usability must be the queen ... and we all know who runs the castle! Like many who migrated to this medium from a graphic design background, we learned this lesson the hard way; trading a few (shall we say beta?) sites for a bounty of usability rules, herewith disguised as King Kontent's Kommandments:
- Every element of a web page must have a clearly identified meaning and purpose
- Meanings should be clear and easily understood, features easy to use.
- Pages must share a comprehensive navigation that is easy to understand and accessible
- Guests feel more "at home" when they know the layout of the house
- Does your redundancy "drive your message home", or simply drive readers away? Render your redundancies creatively!
- Economy is the author's watchword
- Plain-spoken language, clear options, no riddles, games or deceptions (totally taboo!)
- Fewer images command more attention (and load faster)
- Every page must accomodate its non-human "fans" (spiders and bots)
- The Index page should summarize content and inter-link with the entire site
If you find these topics interesting, you migh also try the musings of the "usability guru" we love to hate Jakob Nielson. ^
Is that a Static page ... or is Rigormortis setting in?
Can static pages serve a purpose? A list of Shakespeare's plays might never need updating, but add a review, invite comments - and static pages (like this?) seem quite comatose. In general the web has been moving from a static state to a dynamic one that changes through time. In the first decade of web development, updates usually called for the skills of the designer/developer. More recently, client controls have become increasingly powerful and affordable; which brings us to... ^
Content Management Systems
The advent of open source development, which led to rocketing growth of highly capable, yet widely accessible, web-based scripting and database languages ... all have contributed to the current proliferation of affordable CMS systems - applications that enable people with minimal programming/coding skills to update web pages and manage sites through an online, password protected control panel. More recently, the phenomonom of blogging has further "raised the bar" on CMS quality and access. Thanks to these innovations, the web's mass of older, static pages is rapidly being replaced by self-rejuvenating web content. A growing selection of "off the shelf" CMS software greatly reduces the cost of CMS web startups. Our first-hand experience with this type of software includes pMachine and Expression Engine.
Read more about:
Webdesign Practices
(also IA Think) and
Content Management Systems
| Admin Services |
Managing the Work in Progress
After your web application has been designed, approved and built to your satisfaction, we install it on the web server of your choosing. (We host about 80% of our clients). After your site has "gone live" a brief period of "check out" ensues, and a few adjustments may occur, probably with no interruption in "service". This marks the end of the Production phase, and the beginning of the Administration phase. A concurrent Promotion phase may also begin.
Administration Service Categories:
- Web Hosting Services - We host what we build, via one of the world's premier (top 5) hosting providers. This helps us to ensure you will always have broad selection, the latest technologies, and competitive pricing.
- Webmastering Services - Many clients lack the time to properly administer their sites, prompting us to provide these services too, ranging from simple maintenance checking, to comprehensive programs including user interractions such as email managements and select customer interactions.
- Content Management Services - Keeping content fresh falls high on the "to-do" list, if you want to maintain your site's effectiveness. We have a lot of ideas and proven techniques to help you do just that - or do it for you!
- Promotional Services - Last on the list, but never least! Search Response towers above the rest, but advertising management (we're AdWord's specialists), link exchanges, webrings should not be overlooked
This Time | ISO ROI | Domainia | Glory
This Time It's For Keeps
We recall how in the late 1990s, the web's developmental "sails" swelled with hot air and wild speculation - until the dot-com bust, reduced gale force winds to a whisper. Yet the breeze soon picked up again, and guided this time by more cautious lights, the sails were soon filled by a world-wide development community. Inquisitive, creative, developers; backed by serious, sober, long-term investors, built today's latticework of highly competitive arenas.
The Real Estate of Language
Foremost of these spectacles comprises the heart of the web: a domain registery that challenges existing notions of language, media and property with the parceling of over 300 million currently registered top-level domains (ref. www.isc.org). Less than 10% of these domains are currently linked to functional web sites. They are merely investments: words waiting for buyers that need them. However this is not "wild" speculation. These domain names command values that flow with supply and demand - as new web applications are created for companies, products, ideas. To create new alternatives, new domains have been introduced (.info, .biz, etc.), however ".com" remains the domain of choice for most commercial sites. More significantly, the language itself has responded in new and creative ways, as new uses, meanings and words are created in efforts to beat the "system". For example, one might expect the leading search engine to own the domain "search.com", but this is far from the case. (It was named after a number - of all things!) ^
ISO ROWI (Return On Web Investment)...
In our experience, most commercial websites do not reach a plateau of effectiveness before the end of their first year. Careful and thorough preparation of the design Specification will help ensure the new web venture launches in a trajectory accurately "aimed" at desired objectives. After the initial launch however, the "projectile" becomes subject to uncontrollable factors, (the economy, competition, politics, weather, tsunamis.. ) that could offset it's course by critical degrees, leading to missed objectives, opportunities and possibly customers. This all-important period of adjustment can last from months to years, or until such time that either objectives are met - or expectations are adjusted. During this phase feedback monitoring and adjustment become activities of critical importance - momentum can be increased by aligning content, features, prices, advertising, policies and other factors with objectives coming into focus. These on-the-fly adjustments often mean the difference between success and anything less. ^
Paths to Web Glory
We provide the full range of services clients need to advance toward their web objectives, including:- Effective search engine optimization
- Designing and deplopying paid advertising
- Detailing partnership and affiliate programs
- Link exchange and other traffic-building operations
Website Design Specification
Consider the building industries ... architecture, engineering, construction, materials and equipment, and so on ... Now add the things that make buildings functional - from furniture and furnishings to equipment and systems - and you have a basic analogy for web site development. Our point is; it's not a simple process. The web developer often not only builds the structure, but furnishes, equips, decorates and stocks it as well. In other words: we produce a complete, out-of-the-box online enterprise, ready for a client to step inside, plop down on the sofa, and invite the neighbors for a barbeque. (or am I mixing metaphors again?)Best of all, you get it all for just $199!* (*Choose from line of distinctive, pre-formatted, web-based potty palaces and feature-packed pet accommodations)
As we were saying, it's a complex business. Furthermore, the more you rush into this business, the more confidently we can predict your failure. Yes, that's an ugly word, but we must say it. You wouldn't be the first to fail. These are pitfalls have been around for a decade. Million have been wasted; thousands of online towers of Pisa errected. You don't want to find yourself staring at flatline usage stats, telling yourself at least I'm out there -- that's not our idea of web presence, nor your's, we believe. ^
The Web Specification is some combination of programming outline, architectural blueprint, movie script, business prospectus, and Bill of Rights. It is a flexible, adaptable document with the goal of defining your business on the web. It can take any of the forms listed above, that of a model, or simply sets of parameters, prerequsites, and multiple objectives that must be satisfied. Whatever the form, it must define terms, limits, and answer questions, such as the following:
- Who you is
- What are you selling, saying, doing, up to...
- Who are you talking to (or trying to)
- Where do they "live?"
- What's the point?
- What response(s) are you seeking
- How much are you willing to invest ^
The above may sound rather glib - but it's all true. These things matter and will make a real difference to even the smallest enterprise on the web. Unfortunately, since most of our clients are small businesses, real world economics generally prevent us from spending the time we would like to spend on the Specification. So we can only repeat ourselves: this is time well spent; an investment that pays dividends on the back end, after the building has been errected, furnished, and the Grand Opening winds down.
There are companies that specialize in website specifications, others that charge additional for it. What we prefer doing is to produce the Specification upon deposit. Then you have an option to accept our proposal, or, take the specification to another shop, put it out for competitive bid, etc.
No amount of technological prowess can overcome a lack of planning, so we recommend holding back the reins of progress until the Web Specification has been developed and approved.
Making Your Web Application Unique
The following catch phrases are somewhat quaint - but provide a start:Your application may resemble one or more of the above "types", or, combine attributes from several, all or none of them. Additionally, you may want to incorporate one or more of the features and capabilities listed below. At this early time, the only thing we can be certain of, is that your site render in modern browsers; including Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Netscape; comprising 98% of web traffic. ^
Features we have created for client sites:
- Searchable Company Database
- Searchable Catalog
- Secure Credit Card Ordering
- Email Applications
- Online Directory
- Automated Directory Listings and Payments
- Email Notification Systems
- Secure Log-In and Control Panels
- Database Management Tools
- File Uploaders
- Health Services Questionaires
- Health Services Assessment
Styles change ... Style Doesn't
While internet technology may be an "expanding universe", the communication arts are classic. Elements of style, taste and creativity empower your message and "image" to make a lasting impression on visitors. At Webgraphica, communication arts and technology work hand-in-hand to advance your online objectives.
Design ability - and sensibility - honed by many years experience in graphic design, publishing and advertising enables us to provide complete graphic media support; ranging from print advertising and direct mail marketing materials, to brochures, reports, publications, displays and related collateral items.
Listening for the Ka-Jing...
The transaction isn't complete until the money's in the bank. We can build your commerce-enabled website from the ground-up to handle that process in several ways, according to your customers' needs and your budget.
- CCMA (Merchant Account) Setup
- Real Time Card Verification & Processing
- Custom Shopping Cart
- Custom Ordering Forms
- Secure, Real-Time Check Processing
- Security Certificates, SSL
- Email Encryption, PGP
- PayPal Payment Links
- Desktop Management, and More
Hosting Essentials: Performance and Price
High performance means high speed, high efficiency and high reliability, all at industry competitive rates. A range of security options are available to suit your organizations needs.
As a Hostcentric/Interland reseller we can pass to our clients some of the country's most competitive savings ... more important, as your developer, webmaster and webhost, our service will be more comprehensive, personalized and concientious.
Unix/Linux Web Hosting: The speed, reliability and feature list of the Unix / Linux system explain its phenomonal leadership in business hosting. This fast and reliable platform for Web development includes leading tools such as PHP, perl, cgi and mySQL database support.
We recommend the Business Class upgrade when your traffic and storage requirements exceed the Basic levels shown above, or when advanced features such as multiple databases, streaming-media and other high-bandwidth applications are desired.
Webmastering Your Site
As the web becomes more dynamic, it also becomes - like the society it reflects - more of a work in progress that interacts and responds to its audience, other web sites, and the world. Affordable CMS software has made dynamic web sites easier to own and maintain than ever - yet in spite of these advantages, many clients simply lack the time and "manpower" to adequately manage their online operations.
At this juncture, we can step in to provide (in addition to basic hosting) a range of adminstration services covering basic site operations: performance, traffic and usage monitoring, user satisfaction and email management, and a wide range of content and promotional activities. ^
- Monitor usage, traffic and statistics
- Monitor and routing email
- Monitor competitive activities
- Respond to webmaster inquiries
- Respond to other inquiries (pre defined)
- Routine link checking and repair
- Content development
- Search response optimization
- Other services described in promotional section
- Other services described in content section
Here Today, Gone ... Today?
Web audiences are probably at least as loyal as those of a good restaurant. They develop habits and desire assurances their next information "meal" will satisfy. However when the quality suffers you can bet they will experiment with the competition"
So, what are the factors that can lead to disenchantment? Here are a few obvious ones:
- Stale and/or dated information
- Dropping server performance
- Broken links and/or features
- Stale or dated graphics
- Failure to reflect changing times and technology
- Static deadness - absolutely no change for years
- Disappearing or shifting market
- New editorial content and editorial graphics
- New product and/or website ID graphics
- Spot animations to add interest to your home page
- Functional gadgets also add interest
- Newsfeeds, Stock market tickers, Company or industry news scrollers
- Streaming Audio or Video (if your audience is bandwidth heavy)
- Flash introductions or features
- The list continues ...
This is generally a good time to perform an SEO overview; to examine Googlerank, and perform a deep SEO evaluation. These too will lead to a Specification and recommendations. If we find below-par rankings, we will almost certainly recommend having us rework your index page to our own SEO-Friendly specs. Naturally, any makeovers that we perform are always designed to in accordance with these (in house) guidelines.
Remember, from "cosmetic surgery" to "organ transplants", We do it right!
Advertising On the Web
The web has finally broken through the same age-old advertising paradigyms that have earned many an advertising endeavor (or medium) the label "crapshoot." Websites have the ability to sell not only "impressions", but also "click-throughs" - and we consider the latter form to be today's state-of-the-art in advertising - period.There are companies out there that have been in banner management since its infancy; and these may better choices to manage your large banner advertising budget. (Frankly we do not relish rolling the dice with large sums of other peoples' money (any more than we do our own) ...
Having stated the above, however, there are a few specializations in which we are developing special expertise. They are:
- Google Adwords campaigns
Traditional media (print, radio)
We also possess extensive experience in print media, including:- Publication design
- Newspaper and magazine advertising design
- Direct mail design and production
- 4+ color production management
Search Engine Optimization
Why pay us $100 a month to optimize a 3 search engines when others promise to submit you to hundreds of "engines" for much less? A few facts to consider:
- 3 Search databases provision about 99% of all searches.
- Many keyword searches retrieve 50,000 to a million or more pages, yet only the first 30 positions make a difference. You need results.
- Competition for the top 30 positions is growing exponentially, and the methods for obtaining them more complex and ruthless
- As more sites try to cheat the search engines, their rules grow ever more complex and their punishment (banishment) more commonplace.
- Top search rankings consistantly outperform banner advertising. (massively!)
The High Road to Web Riches: Affiliate Marketing
Google the phrase "affiliate programs" and you will receive a list of about 2,780,000 urls. Although this form of marketing has obviously found plenty of interest on the web ... the question remains: does it still work? Apparantly it does - as well as it did in 1995 when we built our first "Web Affiliates" program to market long distance telecom services.
Perhaps the reason it works is because it's such a good match for the web - since affiliate marketing is by design already a form of "network" marketing. After working with affiliate programs for two years prior to going online, we had a hunch they would be a natural fit. So did many others, apparantly, which accounts for the explosive rise of numbers in the genre. We are tempted to speculate that a sizeable portion of todays web actually consists of these and similar programs: forming a large "organic underbelly" fed by tens of thousands of these programs ... a massive matrix of "blood vessels" nourishing the superstructure just under the surface where branches collect and converge into larger vessels as they plunge deeper down to reach major industrial "organs" pulsing below. (ahem, er ... but we won't go there)
Fine, we can create an affiliate/affinity program if you happen to need one ... but what else? There must be something new under the sun ... and there is alright. There is something so big happening at the very moment that we're almost afraid to mention it. We're far too covetous and insecure to risk being upstaged by the likes of you! (But hey, it wouldn't be the first time, after all - so we'll be big and give it up:)
If you turn on your television - to broadcast, not cable - perhaps enlist the help of a neighborhood psychic - then wait a bit, until just around prime time. Listen carefully, and you will likely hear some quiet rumbling, far in the distance, and growing perceptibly louder. What you are hearing is the sound of executive feet ... thousands of them, all down on Madison Avenue shuffling in little circles (most are jogging in place!) ... Above those feet are executive eyeballs: looking about; squinting, peering into the distance. What they are looking for is the web. More specifically, for a destination. Why? Because the ground they are standing on is crumbling. That ground is called network television ratings, and it's sinking fast, and faster every year. ^
For a decade our Madison Avenue friends tried to ignore it, but they can no longer get away with that, because the numbers are shouting very bad things. TV ad "viewership" has always been a tricky thing to assess. The advent of remote control struck a crippling blow, but TV survived as the only mass medium available. Then the web came along ... and this time there's no getting around the facts: and the deafening silence. So where did tv's mass audience go? Hummm ... we think know the answer to that one - and so does Mad Avenue - but what they don't know is how to get there. In short, ad execs recognize that network television has been pre-empted by the web, but since there is no ready-made appratus to receive their $billions in tv formated ads, they are helpless. There is no single vehicle large enough to reunite them with any substantial number of the lost hoardes of coke swilling McDonalds eaters. The thing is ... somebody - maybe you - is going to solve this little problem. And whoever that person turns out to be; he or she is going to become one very - very wealthy - individual.
(Now, if you'll excuse us, we have some scheming to do... )
Back to the original question re "life after affiliate programs." (does it exist?) The answer is "yes", and it's called "pay per click" advertising. This is the marketing high-explosive thats blasting "impressions-based" media programs back to the advertising stone ages where they belong. Per-click is in it's infancy, but destined to become another major milestone of web innovation. Wherever Mad Ave winds up, it will likely be heavily per-click oriented - unless they are far more stubborn (and s---id) than we believe. If that turns out to be the case, then we expect to see a new generation of media mogels taking their place.
(C'est la vie!)
We're excited about programs like Adwords and Adsense. Work remains to be done of course, including safeguards against the web's insidious spam-virus-minded vermin, who plot and plan from behind their fake IDs and encrypted connections. We hope they eventually find the "excitement" they obviously crave (and deserve) - in spades.
Meantime we have joined the ranks of other committed web professionals that are happiest when we're discovering more ways to sow and reap from our fantastic new medium.
A Selection of Web Examples from Vlahos Design
An American health crisis, and the solution
It's nice to be good - better to be well!
While you're visiting the next world, a cozy spot for your body.
Another lovely spot for that "final nap."
Email Petition on Steroids?
Kangaroo Valley Australia! (home of the Pioneer Motel)
Reef Adventureland! (more great Aussie accomodation)
When Zeus gets a "powerful thrist," here's just the thing ...
Peter McCreesh and Son: roofers extraordinaire
Montgomery Recovery Services Inc.
F.E.Ciccone Inc. does doors
Bay Roofing - another great roofer from Jersey
The Blickensderfer Brothers roof it right!
The Sonata Forum (Under Construction)
Miller Creative Solutions (Under Construction)
20th Century Examples:
PreservationWeb catalogs the historic preservation industryThe Tile Man Inc. - the man to see about a tile - or 10,000!
Progressive Concepts
National Board of Forensic Chiropractors