Friday the 13th was a great day! Finally after 7 years we have secured the domain name www.freshwebsites.co.uk.

For the eagle eyed viewers reading this you will notice that our company name is “Fresh Websites” so why is our domain www.freshwebonline…….? This is because some guy bought the domain a few months before we started Fresh and for the last seven years we have been trying to get in contact with him to buy it.

It was so difficult to get in touch with the owner because of data protection laws, it seemed, in no sinister way that the guy has hidden his details from the who is register (The tool that tells you who owns a domian) www.who.is

We have been watching the domain closely and the owner did not have a website and was not registered as having one for this domain, nor did he have a company called “Fresh Websites”

Luckily the domain name was not re-newed and we snapped it up in a flash as soon as it was available to buy!

Wishing you a very merry Christmas from all at Fresh! What a fantastic year we have had here, breaking all records in a turbulent economic time. This little blog message is to thank all of our customers for their continued business, we appreciate every job!! We all hope that 2012 is a prosperous one for all of our customers and working partners. We look forward to providing web design services for all in the new year.

Fresh website design is a tough cookie to crack! With so many different things to squeeze in to one home page it is very easy to stuff loads of buttons, boring text and over used stock photography. To create a functional website that is easy to use and stimulating to the user is a structured process, a few tips below:

• Keep it simple
• Logo top left
• Telephone top right
• Look hard to find the right images that are unique
• Make sure you have a clear call to action: “Click here” “Buy now” “Apply online” etc etc.
• Use Google Analytics to see how your users are using your site.

A very common question we answer at our web design company is “What is a bounce rate?”

A simple question that is answered very simply, a bounce rate (BR) is terminology first brought to us by Google – you can see your bounce stats on your Google Analytics  dashboard. This statistic represents the percentage of users that hit your home page and do not visit any other pages in your website.

Why do visitors leave before visiting any other pages? Many reasons, the page is taking too long to load, the content is poor, hit wrong website by mistake, the user needs a specific piece of info such as telephone number or address if they are on your home page. I have even seen a high bounce rate because every employee has the company home page set as the default page when a browser opens.

Who looks at your bounce rate? It is mainly search engines look at your BR to check if the users are getting the correct user experience from your site by judging you on your BR – the higher the BR the lower you quality score it.  More importantly, you should be looking at it closely. If your bounce rate is 50% or more then the fact is 50% of higher of your visitors are not visiting other pages in your website. If it is the latter of the two mentioned above you can sort it fairly easily, if not then you need to investigate.

The long and the short of it is that Google are continually pushing the boundaries in their attempts to deliver great content for THEIR users.

What does this mean? Well as always Google are trying to wipe out link farms, nasty black hat SEO firms and poor quality websites full of adverts and rubbish quality content that have gained the position by cheating their way to the top! Simple.. Good will always rise to the top…

Good luck Google, the cheaters will always find the loopholes but it is good to keep you on your toes hey?

A Quick list of things you need to watch out for:

• Poor quality links in to your website – links on sites that are blacklisted by Google
• Keyword Stuffing – Repeating your key phrase loads of times all over your site to the point it looks obvious.
• A low amount of original content on a page or site.
• Page content and page title tag not matching the search queries
• Share expert content in your blog
• Keep main content and blog updated at all times

I am all up for the good of Google, at least those of us who work hard on our sites will benefit from this re structure of the algorithm.

Fresh Web have a retro VW Golf GTI Convertible on loan for 2 weeks whilst the sun is out! If you are lucky enough to see us this week then we might just take you out for a spin!!

1. Short, descriptive web page titles

Google only look at the first 68 characters. Do not make the title longer, because the results are shown as a chopped down version in Goole’s listings. It looks poor!

2. Find keywords/phrases that are converting

Sometimes it is not the phrases that you think are obvious that generate the most traffic. Use the Google Keyword Finder to research the key phrases and what gets most clicks for your industry.

3. Most important first

Your most important key words or phrases go first through to the least important at the end.

4. Target your keywords/phrases

Choose specific keywords for your title in order to have more targeted traffic.

5. Get the content right

Don’t try to blag it! If you sell tennis rackets make sure your title says that and the content of your page also reflects what you are saying – DO NOT put your company name in the title until the end, the content will not reflect your company name and unless it is word of mouth, no one will search for your company name, how do they know who you are? Users find you by searching for the things they are looking for. “Tennis rackets” You have “We Sell Tennis Rackets” in your page title then you are telling the search engines exactly what you do and so on!!!

6. Make it unique

How ever hard it may be take the time to create unique titles. Don’t just copy your competitors – it’s a big no no.

7. Do not stuff keywords

A title with 30 keywords rammed in it looks terrible, creates poor click through ratios and will have a detrimental effect on your search position. Use unique combination’s and be descriptive.

8. Use different titles for each page

Make sure that you use targeted titles that are relevant to the content of each page. DO NOT use the same title twice. Each page must have it’s own title that describes the page.

Follow our web design company on twitter

When producing websites the difference between a good design and a great design sometimes comes down to the fonts you choose.

There are millions of font faces, themes and looks to choose from it can take hours to find the right one. While there are countless wonderful and affordable fonts to buy, every now and then you can get some amazing ones for free. More than ever some great typography designers and type foundries are sharing some of their beautiful fonts with the design world for free!

Here are 3 of our favorites:

> NEVIS > WALKWAY >  TELEGRAFICO Follow our web design company on twitter

Do you ever get time to blog? Well you should, even if it is once or twice a month you should always make time to blog.

Studies show that websites with regularly updated blogs gain more natural traffic.

With modern technology there is no excuse, blogging, tweeting and the phenomenon of Facebook is now made easier by all of today’s tech like mobile phones, iphones, Blackberry’s, PDA’s, tablet pc’s and a whole load of other gadgets enable us to socialise more easily than ever before whilst on the move.

All forms of social networking and blogging are only just the beginning of a change. Follow our web design company on twitter

Website design

Where do you start?  Do you sketch your thoughts out on paper? Or do you try to do it an a computer?  Do you have a logo? Do you put the web page on the left of the screen? Do you have the page in the center of the screen? or Do you stretch it out?

So many questions to be answered! We get asked them all…

We always start with pen and paper, it is the oldest and best way to get the ideas you have out of your head. There is no use having loads of brilliant ideas flying around in your head, get them on paper and you will be able to see what you have missed. The most important thing is that you must have a clear purpose for your web design.

Once you have dumped your brain on paper in a sort of wish list you can then start to sketch a crude layout (you don’t have to be a designer to draw boxes) at this point, all you need to do is mark out simple layout – no Picasso attempts yet.

A basic web design has 3 fundamentals:

• The HEADER – the bar at the top with your logo, navigation and telephone number.
• The CONTENT container – the middle of the page with the main content and images in.
• The  FOOTER – at the bottom of the page.

So, you now have a wish list, a basic box layout with header, content and footer containers sketched out. You now have to add the wish list items to your sketch, make sure you leave enough room for them all and DON’T clutter the design – keep it fresh, clean and easy to navigate. Make sure that you get all of the important information included at the top of the page – (above the fold). Another important factor in web design is the message, the header message – Try not to use “Welcome to our website” You need to get your message across quickly and effectively.

The current standard for websites is to deliver the information in the center of the page, not on the left of the screen. Websites are no longer built to stretch with the page. We use a 960 width grid system that ensures that all websites fit within the smallest of screens with the weirdest resolutions set.

Some good things to remember are:

• Do not use too many different fonts
• Do not use Time New Roman as the font
• Do not use too many colours
• Keep your navigation simple

See some of our other blog posts to give you further ideas on web design.