Help Me Buy an Apple iPad

Post Update:  I got some feedback from people on this post and here is the summary.

Robber

Do ya think we came down in the last shower Kieran?

120 Euro for that – feck off!!

So in the spirit of Harvey Norman – if you want to haggle drop me a line and we can negotiate a price that you think is worthwhile for the offer below.  Worse case is that you will get a free report!!

Apple fans are  buzzing with expectation for the new Apple Tablet and I want one really badly.  So you can help.

If you have a website and think is needs updating or improvement or you think it isn’t working for you I will

Spring Clean Your Website Today!

We can all become a little apathetic from looking at our websites too much.  But there are all too many website designs out there that do not adhere to what I think are really important principles of design and do not answer simple questions that I always ask when laying out a site.  Here are my top 5 principles.

Simple Website Design Works Best

I spend an unhealthy amount of time on the internet looking at websites and my design approach is simple.  Simple well structured layout works best.  This is a school of thought that not all designers buy into but it is mine.  Fast loading,  grid based layouts are my favorites and it is my design principle.    I believe in classic typography and well chosen fonts.  I have designed complex sites using these principles.  In fact I would even call it design more along the lines of layout.    People

Make Sure of Your Web Plan for This Year

The picture of the clown here is here for a reason and is more of a joke than a statement. Don’t clown around with your web plan for the year ahead

Too many people worry about setting up a web site for their business and keep on putting it off because of either price or lack of understanding or not speaking to the right people. But if there is one thing that you should do this year is register your business domain name.

It doesn’t cost a lot and even if you do nothing with it today it at least makes sure that nobody else takes it.  It takes less than 10 minutes and is step one of your web plan for the year ahead.

Standard Website Content

 My basic brochure website comes with the following features as standard. The price depends on the depth of complexity you want on the site in terms of features. So the list of items below is what every single client gets no matter what price they pay.

1. Registration of Domain Name e.g. www.mybusinessname.com
2. A years hosting with a reputable domain hosting company.
3. Installation of a Content Management System to allow you to add / delete / edit the content on your site
4. Layout and structure of your site up to a maximum of 10 pages.
5. Contact Form Page to allow customers contact you easily.
6. 5 E-Mail addresses that can be auto forwarded to an existing e-mail addresses of your choice.
7. Addition to Google Local
   
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Search Enigne Optimisation Cork

Yes the title is misspelled but having read a blog post by PrimaryPosition about the whole topic I decided to try and rank for a misspelled term referring to SEO in this case Search Enigne Optimisation Cork.  By typing the word “Engine” as “Enigne” it is interesting to see in the Irish or Cork market if I can get any position ranking.

Now I as I repeatedly state I am quite happy to explain how to do SEO for your on-site but when it comes to ranking on an enigne (oops there I go again) for a competitive keyword then go to the experts.

How do I try to do it for this post.  Here is simply what I did.

• Put the title in the post that I want to be found for.
• Have it in the post – not too often but at least mention it.
• Use the All In One SEO
  
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Wire Frame Your Site

Sometimes it makes sense to wire frame your site before sending it to be designed.  This is simply sitting down with and working out the structure of your site.  It can help you understand the path that you want people to take through your site and where you want them to ultimately end up.

You can use a piece of paper and pen, Visio, Word or one ot he off the shelf packages that create more complex layouts.  You could even do some rapid prototyping of the site layout using HTML itself.

Either way it helps you think about your site and the structure of it.  Most web design companies can provide the service to you but it often helps to jot down your ideas in advance.  Here are 5 simple tips for a basic site.

• Don’t plan too deep.  Think 3-4 clicks to your goal.
• Less is more.  Think of combining information
  
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Web Design Cork – On Page SEO

After my Banana Picking post recently to demonstrate very basic on page SEO someone dropped me a note saying (correctly) that all I had demonstrated was how to rank for rubbish keywords.

So as I am a website designer and web design pays for my lavish jet setting lifestyle  I said I would try and demonstrate how one post on this blog could (or maybe could  not) influence ranking for the keywords web design Cork.   The cornerstone of ranking on content alone is that the content is relevant and fresh.  There is no point me stuffing the pages with web related terms and the word Cork in anticipation of getting onto page one of Google for those terms.  SearchEngineLand is one of the most read SEO websites speaks about this

Register .ie Domains

Today I am going to talk about probably one of the top ten questions that I get.  It is when people ask for a failry simple site to get them started.  I agree wholeheartedly with this approach as the important thing is to get on the ladder to allow them get the website up.  However to register a .ie domain requires some basic information to allow me to request the domain name for them.

• First is the actual business name and then either
• a registered business number and/or a VAT number.

Not all businesses have a VAT number and many dod not have an RBN but you need this to lay claim to the domain name.  It is an easy process and you need to go to the Companies Registration Office at CORE where they can fill in the form online for a 20 Euro payment.

When you fill out the form

5 Simple Website Design Tips

I readily give people free business website tips to help them understand the process of getting online and the potential obstacles.

Generally they are the same tips each time but they all have held true over the past few years and if kept to deliver a useful site.

What you have to do initially is aim low make a simple maintainable design and build on that principle.  So here are some tips that I think will give you the best website design.

Launch the Website and Make it Simple and Fast

Get a site up fast.  Don’t worry about colours, fonts or snappy graphics.  The website designer will help you later with this detail.  One page simple graphic, contact details, some simple text.  Add contact page, about page and some product information.  Make it easy to read and in English that people understand.  Don’t use complex language.  Assume people really don’t know too

Upgrade Your Website Today

It is easy to critique a website design when you first see it and think that with some changes to layout, colours and design that the site would look so much better.  But this isn’t enough in today’s changed  web design environment where browsers and technologies for viewing websites are changing literally by the day.

There are too mau sites on the market that were developed to display in older browser technologies nd now look dated and do not fit into the modern browsers that we have installed on the latest machines.  A browser that is the bane of designers lives  is IE6 for which in Cork and Ireland there are hundreds of websites that were designed when this was the dominant browser on the market and since then may have been untouched.  In the meantime many