Do I Even Need a Website?

The short answer, YES. No I don’t know what your business is, I don’t know what you’re trying to do or sell, but the answer is still yes! Now let me explain why.

E-Retail (online) Sales vs in store sales

The days of everyone driving to the local store, browsing the shelves and buying what they need are over. Now people want more options with less work and all in the comfort of their own home (or why their supposed to be working, but that’s another topic). Gas is too expensive and traffic is too congested so consumers would rather stay at home to shop. The internet provides many more options to search through then any store can provide. You may have a wonderfully successful store front, but if you’re not online also, you’re missing out on a big piece of the pie. Everyone knows were in a recession, times are tough, sales are down. However according to comScore, 2010 US e-retail sales jumped 9.8% from 2009 totaling over $142 Billion worth of merchandise! Wouldn’t you like to have even a small piece of that pie!

What if you don’t want to sell online

Maybe you don’t have a need for a e-commerce store. Maybe you provide a service instead of products. Don’t think a website can benefit from a website? Of course it can! Even if you don’t plan to sell online, you still want customer, right? With over 153 Million people online, you cant afford to not reach these people. These days, with the growing popularity of iPhones, Androids, and other smartphones, many people use search engines instead of phone books. Even if all you have is a very basic website with your contact info, business location, and services offered, this can help more potential customers find you. According to Juniper Research, half of small businesses with 10 employees or less do not have a website. I have seen small businesses spend thousands of dollars a month on advertising when they have not taken the simple step to get a professional website. You website can display as much information about your company and services as you want, interact with customers, all 24/7 without any work on your part. Now what part of that sounds bad?

Ok, I need a website, now what

Well, that’s where we come in. It’s not as bad as you may think. An Opus research survey reports that most small business owners think they cannot afford a website, e-marketing is too complex, and 15% think it will take too much manpower. All of these are completely false. RDO llc can provide a custom solution to accomplish all of your online goals and all for a reasonable price. Let us handle your online needs so you can focus on your business.

All of a sudden, Google search results and many websites have a new “+1” icon. Well if you haven’t already hard about, +1 is one of Google’s newest initiatives to help provide better, more relevant search results. In a nut shell, +1 is Google’s version of the well know Facebook “Like” feature.

 If you look to the right of this column, you will see the +1 button we are talking about. When you visit this page, or any other page that you like you can click on the +1. I'd like to assume you like my site so please, go ahead and click the icon to try it out. (You may see a window popup asking you to confirm it). Now when someone in you Google contact list searches for something similar, in the search result for this page it will have at the bottom “your name +1’d this”. This is to let your contacts know that you liked it, so they may like it too.

Google says “Content recommended by friends and acquaintances is often more relevant than content from strangers. For example, a movie review from an expert is useful, but a movie review from a friend who shares your tastes can be even better. Because of this, +1’s from friends and contacts can be a useful signal to Google when determining the relevance of your page to a user’s query.”

Although Google +1 is still relatively new, and still gaining popularity, it can be a valuable resource used to drive traffic to your website. These days it is very common for a search to provide hundreds of thousands of results and you want your website to be at the top of the list. Although that takes a lot of time, work, and effort to reach the top, Google +1 is one more tool that can help you achieve that goal.

For more information, visit:

http://www.google.com/intl/en/webmasters/+1/button/index.html

What is Web 2.0?

This seems to have become one of the biggest keywords that many web design customers are looking for these days; however few seem to understand what it is. I am constantly receiving questions from clients such as: “Do you know Web 2.0”, “Will my site work with Web 2.0”, “Is this Web 2.0 compliant”, etc, etc. First of all, I always applaud a client for taking a true interest in their website and make sure they have everything they need. However, there seems to be a lot of confusion surrounding “Web 2.0”.

                OK, so what is it? Well the term is not actually as new as some think; in fact, it was coined way back in 1999 by Darcy DiNucci in her article, “Fragmented Future”.  She writes:

“The Web we know now, which loads into a browser window in essentially static screenfuls, is only an embryo of the Web to come. The first glimmerings of Web 2.0 are beginning to appear, and we are just starting to see how that embryo might develop. The Web will be understood not as screenfulls of text and graphics but as a transport mechanism, the ether through which interactivity happens. It will [...] appear on your computer screen, [...] on your TV set [...] your car dashboard [...] your cell phone [...] hand-held game machines [...] maybe even your microwave oven.”

                So does this mean, for my website to be Web 2.0, my microwave has to be able to view it? No, were not quite there yet… Then what does this mean? Well in a nut shell, it means that the new internet is interactive, dynamic, and available on a variety of hardware. When I first started building websites 14+ years ago, everything was built using HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language). HTML is still used today since it is the language that web browsers use to display a website. The difference is websites are not actually written in HTML, or at least not only in HTML. Today, a single website will use 2-5+ different programming languages to build one page. You will have a base Server Side programming language such as ASP.net, a database to hold the dynamic content, CSS to make the site look the way you want it, and one or more client side languages to make the site interactive, such as jQuery or AJAX.

                Do I need Web 2.0? Yes! Despite the confusion, this is becoming the new standard for websites. Users expect so interactive component to websites they visit, either Social Media Integration, user Blog, fourms, user recommended content etc. If your website is static, meaning it does not change, the same content each time, people are a lot less likely to come back and visit your site again. You want your customers to be interested, find your site useful.

                I hope this has help to clear up some of the confusion around Web 2.0. Yes the internet and web development is changing, but it does not have to be as confusing as it seems! RDO llc strives to stay on top of all new technologies as they evolve so we can provide you with exactly what you want. Not only do we want to give you what you want, we want to understand what you have and what you actually need.