Website Design and Redesign

The What and Why of Web Design

So you're looking for a Web Designer? Well, you've found a whole team of enthusiastic, professional, and experienced Web Designers! As with all of our services, we approach Web Design with a practical approach, assuring that the needs of your business and your users are met at every step along the way.

Our design process includes thorough Discovery where we learn all about your existing web efforts, your new plans and needs, and your users' technical requirements. Then we take a look at everything your competition is up to online, figure out how you can best acquire more marketshare, and plan your new site. After we've figured out what you want to say, and how you're going to say it, we determine how it's going to look.

Our Web Design Technologies

Do we do Flash™? When and where it makes sense. Too often websites try to impress users with eye-candy but end up driving them away with slow loading times and animations that interfere with finding information or accomplishing tasks quickly--the ultimate goals of every user at every website. Though sometimes it's just what the doctor ordered.

Studio1 believes in designing websites from the technological ground up. We use cutting-edge standards-compliant XHTML and CSS to build sites that will last years into the future, will be easy to maintain, and will be accessible to the broadest variety of users. We specialize in writing custom data-driven websites written using open-source technologies to further enhance the delivery of user-optimized content, the scalability of a site, and the dynamic nature of the web.

Website Maintenance and Repairs

Website Maintenance

Studio1 Interactive can provide you with an appropriate package for keeping your site up to date and all maintenance is guaranteed to be on time. Some commone site maintenance needs include:

  • Adding new content
  • Updating existing content
  • Cascading Style Sheet changes
  • JavaScript improvements (form-checking, etc.)
  • Link maintenance (both internal and external links)
  • Online-community monitoring (Bulletin Boards, etc.)
  • Site optimization for faster page-loading
  • Site optimization for Search-engines
  • Improve Accessibility

 

 

 

 

 

Accessibility & Section 508 Compliance

Why Web Accessibility Matters

As Web technologies grow and develop into sophisticated and complicated information solutions, the disabled population tends to experience greater difficulty in navigating websites. Not all people with disabilities have problems using computers to access the web, but some disabilities can present severe obstacles. Those most associated with access difficulties are:

  • Visual Impairment: Low vision, restricted vision or color blindness.

  • Motor Skills: Inability to use a keyboard or mouse, inability to make fine movements, hearing impairment.

  • Cognitive Abilities: Reading difficulties, dyslexia or memory loss.

  • Low Grade Technology: Slow connections or old versions of software.

The bottom line is that websites should be easy for everyone to use, including people with disabilities. Web Accessibility refers to the design of individual Web pages that conform to set Accessibility standards such as the WAI put out by the W3C to ensure that all users can access the information on a site.

Who Web Accessibility Affects

In early 2000, the Americans with Disabilities Act was amended to include Section 508. This is an extension of the general requirements to make our facilities and services available to those with disabilities to include information on the Web. It is assumed that Section 508 will one day apply to all businesses, but currently in only applies to government agencies and their websites.

For the ordinary business, there is no legal ramification for not having an "accessible" website, but there are social ramifications and business consequences. While you may not be legally obligated to make your website accessible, not complying with the most important accessibility techniques can create the impression that you don't care about the needs of people with disabilities.

An interesting side-effect of making your site accessible is that search engines are better able to index your site, thus increasing your ranking at search-engine industry-leaders like Google. Not to mention that disabled visitors still have money to spend and not allowing them full access to your site decreases the likelihood they'll spend it at your site.

What we do about Accessibility

It is possible, and relatively simple to increase the accessibility of your site one phase at a time. On the initial sweep through a site, we address images and hyperlinks, ensuring that these navigational elements provide alternate text descriptions to help users without images understand the content on the site. At the next phase we perform an in-depth accessibility analysis that examines the behavior of specific HTML components like tables, frames, and scripts. As the W3C recommends, if it is not possible to modify an existing site, we suggest creating a text-based alternative site for users who are unable to access the site in its current form.

Accessibility Links and Resources

The Official Section 508 Website
The government's portal for Web Accessibility issues and compliance. A great resource for learning more about accessibility online.

The Web Accessibility Initiative
WAI is a workgroup of the W3C whose concern it is to ensure that new technologies are accessible to everyone. Their website provides checklists, guidelines, and other resources for creating accessible websites.

Bobby Worldwide
Bobby is a comprehensive web accessibility software tool designed to help expose and repair barriers to accessibility and encourage compliance with existing accessibility guidelines.

Google it: "Web Accessibility"

eCommerce Implementation and Strategy

eCommerce Solutions

eCommerce can be a scary prospect for a business looking to make its way online. We help make eCommerce easier through explaining the technology in a way non-technical types can understand it, working as a liaison to Hosting Vendors and Merchant Account firms, and providing training and tools for someone at your company to keep the eCommerce portion of your website up-to-the-minute.

Studio1 is able to work with any existing eCommerce system, written in any language and using any database. We have a special bias towards working with systems built for PHP and MySQL, especially OSCommerce.

PHP and MySQL are open-source technologies that are as robust as their proprietary counterparts, and they're free--this saves our customers money. Also, OSCommerce is open-source, also saving our customers money. OSCommerce is easier to use and implement than other open-source shopping carts like Red Hat's Interchange (formerly Akopia), while remaining just as functional and scalable. OSCommerce features easy self-administration, secure shopping, database support, and more. It can even be modified to have a Macromedia® Flash™ interface, providing your customers an exceptional online shopping experience.

Usability Analysis and Testing

The What and Why of Usability

Usability, as it applies to websites, is the ability of a user to navigate through and complete tasks successfully on a site. This is so important because every website visitor comes to a site to accomplish something.

Usability means knowing your users and knowing why they are at your website. It means understanding that people go online to get information and accomplish tasks. It means knowing that people are at your site to accomplish a specific task. It means eliminating unnecessary steps in, or better segmenting the processes of accomplishing tasks online. It means using clear links that build the user's confidence that s/he is accomplishing what s/he came to do.

Make Usability Work for You

At Studio1 Interactive every website is created with the user in mind and we usually opt not to move ahead ideas if they cannot be implemented in a way that doesn't interfere with the usability of a site or a site's task.

We can evaluate your website, triage the usability issues, and implement the changes. Then we'll work with your own staff to help ensure new projects don't get implemented with serious usability issues. For innovative projects or custom applications, we can arrange for usability testing through local usability specialists, and then translate the results into actionable items to improve your online efforts.

Contact us about improving the usability of your site!

Search Engine Optimization

The What and Why of Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Marketing has sprung up as it's own little cottage industry...except it's not so little and it's a great way to get ROI on your website. You can build a great website, but if nobody finds it, it was a waste of money"--what matters is how effectively you drive traffic to your site in the short- and long-term.

Today, through careful Search Engine Marketing, Studio1 can help you ensure traffic to your site, not just today (and we don't really mean today, as it takes a few days for accounts to activiate), but for years to come. At Studio1, our Search Engine Marketing efforts include Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Submission, and Pay-per-click opportunities. We arrange for immediate traffic opportunities, and help you build long-lasting solutions so your customers can find you online--instead of your competitors.

The Proof is in the Pudding

Knowing what to do in order to get the best search engine listings is only half of what makes a good SEM firm. The other half is proven results of attaining consistently high listings in various engines and directories.

What We Do with Search Engine Optimization at Studio1 includes:

  • Understanding how each Search Engine and Directory ranks a page or site.
  • Analyzing a page or site's current listings in targeted Search Engines and Directories
  • Analyzing key competitors' listings in targeted Search Engines and Directories

  • Implementing the techniques that Search Engines and Directories use to rank a page or site, including:

    • Frequency of keywords in Title tags
    • Frequency of keywords in the alt and title attributes of images and links, respectively
    • Frequency of keywords in Header tags
    • Frequency of keywords in the Content on any given page
    • Relevancy of submitted keywords to site content
    • Number of other websites linking to a page or site
  • Rewriting site content to optimize use of keywords and phrases
  • Regularly re-submitting to Search Engines and Directories where this is expected
  • Developing a Reciprocal Linking Program to increase page or site popularity
  • Tracking which Search Engines and which keywords are actually contributing to website traffic

Search Engine Submission and Marketing

The What and Why of Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Marketing has sprung up as it's own little cottage industry...except it's not so little and it's a great way to get ROI on your website. You can build a great website, but if nobody finds it, it was a waste of money"--what matters is how effectively you drive traffic to your site in the short- and long-term.

Today, through careful Search Engine Marketing, Studio1 can help you ensure traffic to your site, not just today (and we don't really mean today, as it takes a few days for accounts to activiate), but for years to come. At Studio1, our Search Engine Marketing efforts include Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Submission, and Pay-per-click opportunities. We arrange for immediate traffic opportunities, and help you build long-lasting solutions so your customers can find you online--instead of your competitors.

The Proof is in the Pudding

Knowing what to do in order to get the best search engine listings is only half of what makes a good SEM firm. The other half is proven results of attaining consistently high listings in various engines and directories.

What We Do with Search Engine Optimization Search Engine Optimization at Studio1 includes:

  • Understanding how each Search Engine and Directory ranks a page or site.
  • Analyzing a page or site's current listings in targeted Search Engines and Directories
  • Analyzing key competitors' listings in targeted Search Engines and Directories
  • Implementing the techniques that Search Engines and Directories use to rank a page or site, including:
    • Frequency of keywords in Title tags
    • Frequency of keywords in the alt and title attributes of images and links, respectively
    • Frequency of keywords in Header tags
    • Frequency of keywords in the Content on any given page
    • Relevancy of submitted keywords to site content
    • Number of other websites linking to a page or site
  • Rewriting site content to optimize use of keywords and phrases
  • Regularly re-submitting to Search Engines and Directories where this is expected
  • Developing a Reciprocal Linking Program to increase page or site popularity
  • Tracking which Search Engines and which keywords are actually contributing to website traffic

Search Engine and Directory Submission

We have carefully created a suite of search engines and directories for submitting our clients, based on a balance of how much traffic the listing can be exposed to and how much it costs to submit. In other words, we recommend submission to, and do submit to the following search engines and directories:

  • Google (It's free, extremely popular, and it provides search results to many other engines.)
  • Open Directory Project (Also free, extremely popular, and it provides search results to many other engines.)
  • Looksmart (A pay-for-placement directory that fuels popular search engines such as MSN and AltaVista.)
  • Inktomi (A search engine that supplies MSN, Overture, and Looksmart--too name a few)
  • Teoma (A fairly inexpensive up-and-comer with a lot of potential.)
  • Lycos (An old standby with a large, loyal following--also fairly inexpensive.)
  • Yahoo! (Some people are now questioning the necessity of submitting to Yahoo! as it is expensive and draws it's results almost entirely from Google, however there is some evidence that it is helpful to formally submit--and pay a lot of money for the privilege of--directly to Yahoo!'s own directory.)
  • Overture (While this can be expensive, you pay-per-click for the top spots in a great deal of popular search engines, and you can garner nearly immediate results, too.)
  • Alltheweb/FASTsearch (this one is free and it claims to be able to "spider" Flash™ websites, too.)

Additionally, we seek other relevant online advertising opportunities for you which don't make use of banner advertising. We believe that content links are a better (and cheaper) way to drive pre-qualified traffic to your website. For example, if you were a dentist, we would want to submit you to the ADA (American Dentist's Association) Online directory and similar find-a-dentist websites.

Web Anayltics

Web Analytics is what ties it all together.

  • Understanding your users' interaction with your website, how they move through it, where they enter and exit it, will help you continually improve it and tune your sales messages.
  • Knowing what technology your users have can save you money in the form of development time in the future.
  • Tracking how users get to your website--from which of your marketing campaigns (email blasts, banner ads, search engines, pay-per-click ads, affiliates programs, etc.)--is a vital part of obtaining that ever-so-elusive ROI that you've heard so much about.

Web Analytics with Studio1 Interactive

There are different levels of knowing what is going on on your website, and they exist because not every company has the same needs. Studio1 understands this and believes Web Analytics to be so vital to your online business, that we offer a variety of ways to bring you this service.

  • Free Web Analytics Applications. There are a variety of free web applications out there that will do basic user-tracking and give you answers about how people are getting to your website. We can work with your web host, web administrator, or even host you ourselves to provide you with one of these applications.
  • Fee-based Web Analytics Applications. Studio1 can also implement popular programs like WebTrends, NetTracker, and HitBox to help you get the analytics ball rolling. These programs are comprehensive and offer most businesses more information than they'll ever use--and range in price from inexpensive monthly fees to larger one-time license fees.
  • Custom Web Analytics Applications Here's where it can really get interesting. If you have tried other methods and feel like you still want to know more, or better yet, you want your website to automatically tune itself based on the traffic patterns on your site, we can build you a suite of tools and applications to make that happen.

Contact us about putting Web Analytics to work on your site!