Joseph Oregon and Wallowa County
Web Design and Marketing
Jump to »Welcome and thank you for the visit-
Choosing who designs your web site today is difficult because you have so many choices. While most base their decision on style, a great deal more is involved in making a site that serves a goal. Beyond the pretty page is the need to get visitors and keep them interested enough to stay and come back for more.
Goal-oriented design by definition requires a broad set of skills; any lack of knowledge in any one of them can adversely effect your sites purpose.
In addition to a detailed understanding of web programming, your design person should have expertise in usability, search engine marketing, web graphics and accessibility, along with the professionalism required to make timely changes and adjustments.
Please read the article that defines my approach to site construction. Besides being a good introduction, you'll be made aware of all the considerations involved in making sure your online project is a success.
| Description | Unit | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Whole Site Design. Get the Look and Feel you and your customers expect. Find the Right Photos and Develop Graphics, and get it all to load fast enough keep your clients happy. Also see Costs | Per Hour | $35 |
| Web Site Optimization- Making you page rank high on the major search engines is paramount to success. Making it load fast keeps them there. | Per Hour | $50 |
| Instruction: Web Graphics, Site Design, | Per Hour | $40 |
| Write HTML Java VR Tour Page for your site. You can then easily use it as a template to create additional pages | Per Hour | $40 |
| Shoot and/or edit video, add music, titles, compress to Flash or DVD | Per Hour | $40 |
| Description | Unit | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Simple text changes. Via e-mail * *Note: Five changes of this kind are included with Joseph Oregon Artists $50 or $100 a year hosting fee. See JOA Join Us page |
ea | $5 |
| Picture, fixed and optimized, with text; added to existing page | ea | $10 |
| New Product Page, with text* *Note: Two pages of this kind are included with Joseph Oregon Artists $50 or $100 a year hosting fee. See JOA Join Us page |
ea | $20 |
Top ^
Client List:
- Wallowa Mountain Properties
- Joseph Oregon.com- Panorama Page and Site Photography
- Sam Collett Fine Art
- Kelly's Gallery on Main in Joseph
- Uptown Art
- Robert Dawson Photography
- Fire Works Clay Art
- Cowgirl Heaven B&B in Joseph Oregon
- Mountain High Broncs & Bulls, Enterprise Oregon's Rodeo
- Alder Slope B&B in Enterprise Oregon
In addition I created Joseph Oregon Artists and trained David Jensen and Mary Edwards to do their sites.
I began designing web pages in 1999 when my Wife (Michele) went to work for the local Joseph Oregon real-estate company, Wallowa Mountain Properties. I knew that the Internet was important to her business simply because of out-of-area interest. I also knew that the company's web site was poorly developed for that goal.
After intense study I put to practice the principles learned and redesigned the company's web site. The result was a 6700% (thousand) increase in visitors over a five year period. It remains one of their greatest sources for leads.
Design for Success
The following article explains how I handle my approach to designing for the web. Its based on proven advice that you can find scattered around the web. These are the important and necessary basics to creating a site that will serve its owner in a positive way. I know it's long but I've purposely left out other aspects for the sake of brevity. Feel free to skip to whatever section you like, but if your seriously considering a web site, don't skip "The Rules." (ugh! more rules!)
Article Navigation »» the rules:
First define your sites purpose and develop a marketing strategy. Decide who you want your web site to attract before you design. This step dictates how the site will be laid out and presented to potential clients. This step also defines how to make the site attractive to the search engines.
Provide useful content that’s relevant to the searcher for the search terms you are trying to target. Content is king: to be strong, you'll need to provide more than your competition.
Design a user-friendly site. Lay out the site in a way that users are already habituated to. Put the navigation where they expect to find it. Keep it simple and clean. Keep the sub pages consistent. People scan sites for information instead of reading line by line, so make the main subject matter easy to identify. Don’t confuse your audience, instead make their visit easy and rewarding.
Design a site that looks appropriate to the product you're marketing. Hire a good graphic designer if you want a slick image. A recent study discovered that people make up their mind about a site in just eight tenths of a second. Good graphic design creates a good first and lasting impression. My local choice: Chuck at Moonlight Graphics.
Make it load fast. Although many people have broadband access, about 23% nationally rely on dial-up. That number is certainly higher in our area. There’s no reason why your main home page should take longer than 20* seconds to completely load on a slow (28k) dial-up connection. Remember that 'back button' is always there, and after 20 seconds, people start to use it- great for your competition.
*The old rule used to state 10 seconds, so the 20 second rule is a compromise because of broadband, but just further aggravates the dial-up users. The latest study (2006) reaffirms that speed equals sales.
Study after study confirms this simple fact: People want information from the Internet that’s easy to find, and they want it fast!
These design practices will give you the best chance for success on the web. They are sound and simple principles, however, they can be difficult to implement depending on your goals and where your product fits into the greater World Wide Web market.
Top ^» the rewards:
With the application of these design practices you can expect increased traffic. While having traffic is vital to success, you still won't be able to sell snow cones to Eskimos. If you have a real product with a good market the reward can be impressive. Example: Last year a minimum of 40% of my wife’s business in real-estate came through web-generated leads. The application of these rules brought her company's site a 6700% (thousand) increase in traffic over a five-year period, now bringing in up to 485 visitors daily.
(update 6-07: up to 1028 visitors)
These design principals are time proven and work. You shouldn't skip any of them if you want results. If you own a business, you should expect your site to become your most cost effective form of advertising. Site maintenance is cheaper than most forms of advertising, and although your initial set-up may seem expensive, if done right, it will garner excellent returns. This reward will only get better as the under 30 crowd grows older- they already collect the bulk of their purchase information not by TV or newspaper, but by.. you guessed it- the Internet.
» real life choices:
These design practices are nothing new. You can find article after article expressing the same principals. They're just the basics and you could do more. Depending on your goals and expectations they could also be ignored all together. An example of this would be an artist who just wants an online portfolio. My feeling is that even if all you want is a simple web presence, taking a few steps to gain a greater audience is worth the effort. If your trying to make sales, then by all means, analyze the market and optimize your site to rank well for your product(s).
Even the best design work will be all for not unless you give the search engines what their looking for.
» search engines:
Having a web site, and making it productive, depends on getting your pages to rank well with the major search engines. There are many search engines, but for the most part, you only need to concern yourself with the big three (Google, Yahoo, MSN). They cover about 80% of the search market.
Search engines like Google (48% of all web searches) have recently become particularly picky about what makes a site worthy of a high ranking. Most new sites are now believed to be “sand-boxed” off the first few pages until they have real content and have been around longer than a year. There are also all kinds of rules to follow so you don’t get de-ranked. To make matters worse, the rules change and differ from one search engine to the next. To get and keep a top slot requires that you analyze the competition and exploit their weaknesses. It also requires interlinking or cross-linking with other sites, but even the impact and method of this practice has changed recently.
Ranking is a cryptic endeavor, part art, part science. It takes study and analysis to pin it down. It requires patience and regular analysis to reach and keep a top position. There are tools that make this easier, and rest assured, I use them, but there’s still no good tool for old-fashioned detective work and human analysis.
This is certain: People choose in the top five search results most of the time and only about ten percent bother to click to the second page. Therefore, if your page is located on the third page for your target keywords, some say you don't even exist. Without high search listings, no matter how good your product is, you won't generate the visits that translate into sales.
See Rates or Cost for pricing.
Top ^» form & function
Additionally, make sure your site is built using valid markup. "What's that?" you say- it's the programming code behind the page your reading right now. The World Wide Web Conference (the people who set the standards for the web) have been encouraging designers to comply with their specifications. We designers (myself included) have been guilty of sloppy and incorrect markup that fortunately the browser software in the past has handled quite well.
With the push towards standards compliance comes the risk that substandard and depreciated design techniques may have a rough future. Invalid markup causes unpredictable results on different computers and browsers. Because browser manufacturers use the standards to develop their software, standards compliant sites are far more universal and 'future proof'. If you have a web site or are considering another designers services you might want to check their work at the W3C Validator Service.
We are also being asked to bring our sites into a form that separates the style from the content. It means separating the look of the site from the text on the page. This method preserves the original layout of the document so its elements remain intact, semantically speaking. A blind person using a screen reader can understand a page designed in this manner because it reads and is ordered just like any other document. This is now standard at all federal and most states public web sites.
Another benefit of this design technique is that it is easier to maintain. Changes can be made site-wide with a simple change to one file. That translates into lower site maintenance costs. It's also more efficient, resulting in quicker page-loads. Since it doesn't rely on java scripting (many people block this feature for security reasons) your site will function correctly for your 'cautious' users as well.
While obsolete design practices and invalid markup make getting at the real text content on the page confusing or impossible for the disabled, it also can place keywords you are trying to target further down the page. This negatively affects search rank and might make it impossible for search engines to even index your pages correctly at all.
All my designs are guaranteed for valid markup. When new browsers come out (new Internet Explorer™ 7 out now) my sites should keep displaying correctly. In addition my goal is to make all new sites easy for people with disabilities; it's a common courtesy that has definite benefits.
» in summary:
My goal is to build sites that look sharp, load fast, are simple to navigate, validate, are friendly to people with disabilities and most importantly, bring targeted visitors to you.
If you want to profit from the web, then a holistic design approach is, in my opinion, your only option.
» the cost:
How much will it cost to build a web site? Unfortunately there is no “one” formula that can cover all the variables listed above. I know not everyone has the budget to do everything, and as you would expect, a large polished site with good graphic design and search optimization will cost several times more than a simple web presence.
Because each job has its own unique challenges I find it more appropriate to charge a flat fee of $35.00/ hour. I can and do provide bids, but it takes time, and you know what they say about that.
Optimization for search terms and general marketing is a cost that's hard to justify initially because the results are often not seen for some time. On new sites I prefer to work out a compensation plan based on achieved, pre-defined goals so nobody feels shorted. This unique offer sets up a negotiated contractual relationship that is extended only to qualified clients with realistic goals. I don't think you'll find anything like it on the web. Otherwise, optimization services are available at the rate of $50/hour.
You can trust me when I say: “When you win, I win”. -If your site doesn't produce tangible results, then I'm not happy (or paid).
Thank You
-Jeff Baird • 541-426-9017 • 63872 Pine Tree Rd • Enterprise, OR • 97828
© 2005 Jeff Baird