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Posts Tagged ‘Web Design’

Check out Referral Key | Web Design Greenville SC

Monday, June 20th, 2011

What is Referral Key?

When your colleague finds someone who can use your service, they simply click “Send Referral”, and provide the contact information of the person they’re referring. You’re immediately notified of the new lead waiting for you on Referral Key. It’s now up to you to contact the client, and close the sale!

Give rewards, get referrals. Give referrals, get rewards
You can grow your business by offering rewards to other people who send you successful referrals. You can also receive rewards for sending referrals to other members. Choose from Cash, Omaha Steaks, L.L.Bean or Callaway Golf gift cards.

Get free leads from consumers in your area
Thousands of consumers use our Pro Portal everyday, looking for quality service professionals like you! Consumers simply enter their contact information and the type of service they’re looking for and we pass the leads on to matching members.

Check it out at: https://www.referralkey.com/mojoe

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Posted in IT Consultant, Miscellaneous, Web Site Design | No Comments »

Content Management Systems AKA (CMS) | Web Design Greenville, SC

Monday, February 14th, 2011

Drupal, Joomla, WordPress, and DotNetNuke….Oh My!

Which content management system to use? What happens if my site is done in one content management system but my developer quits, takes up another job, or decides not to be a web developer anymore? Then, with some CMS, the developer or the company that created your site you are stuck. Why, you may ask? Well the reason is easy: Most CMSs are fundamentally complex because they are powerful;  require time to learn; and most web hosting companies only know one or two major CMS. Here at Mojoe.net  we have used all of them—at least the four major types– in some form or fashion and we have to say that while some are free to download and use they require the user to navigate risky file downloads from the internet and navigating ‘permissions’ on web server for files and databases.  Here our expertise is critical.

The two main ones that we use and support are WordPress (WP) and DotNetNuke (DNN). We have also used Joomla and Drupal for clients who have required that we use their preferred or ‘legacy’ CMS when deploying or developing their web sites.

WordPress, is a great free CMS that allows anyone to maintain their web site;  WP  includes a blog, e-commerce, videos, slideshow, or 1000s other plugins– a vast majority of them free. WordPress has been around since about 2001 and has grown into a well-supported CMS with themes, plugins, and mobile support. WordPress, can be installed with Apache or IIS Web Server and uses MySQL as the database engine. We recommend this to our clients that would like a small to medium web site that they can grow themselves. We even use the system ourselves for our own blog. We have the ability to customize our clients theme by styling each WordPress via a custom cascading style sheet (CSS); plugins; Google Analytics; tags; categories; and then submit the site to search engines.  You can find out more about WordPress by visiting: http://wordpress.org/about/,

DotNetNuke (DNN) is our premium CMS and is the one that we recommend for clients that are looking for medium to large business web sites. This CMS is based off of ASP.net which is conveniently integrated into other business applications based on Microsoft’s .NET platform. DNN can be installed in IIS and typically uses SQL Server for its database engine. DNN has a free version as well as an enterprise version. We use the enterprise version for our clients which allow for developer support as well as we can customize each web site ‘portal’ to each specific client. This CMS allows the installation of modules which can be added some for free but the majority cost to add to the system. The cost can vary depending upon the type of modules that you wished installed, modules can vary from chat systems, ecommerce, newsletters, email blasting, blogs, video, slideshow rotation, wiki, RSS feed, announcements, Google Analytic, and many more.  The great thing about Mojoe.net is that we can program our own modules, custom design your ‘skin’ (the look, feel, layout, fonts, and colors of your web site), create a custom CSS, optimize your site, add Google Analytics, and then submit the site to search engines. If you would like more information you can visit: http://www.dotnetnuke.com/

Drupal. This is a free content management system that is community supported but can be troublesome at time. This system uses PHP and can run on Apache or IIS while using MySQL as its database engine. In the last year,or so though the support and the community have grown a great deal, and the number of themes that are available run in the thousands. Drupal, is a good content management system but to integrate into other business applications without long development times and bugs can be an issue that can cost time and money. To find out more about Drupal please visit: http://drupal.org/

Joomla, this is another free content management system that is community supported and has its bugs.  This CMS can run on Apache or IIS web server and uses MySQL as its database engine. Joomla, is the most recent CMS (2005) from the 4 CMS in this post. We recommend this one the least because of its issues as well as the fact that the support base for this CMS has not grown has fast as the others. This CMS uses PHP and is primarily deployed on Linux-based OS (Operating System) but can be deployed on Windows Servers just like Drupal. To find out more about Joomla please visit: http://www.joomla.org/

Ask Questions, Questions, Questions
So in conclusion, do your homework about what CMS you would like to use, see if your web design company or web developer knows more than one CMS, check and see how difficult or easy it will be to move your site to another hosting company / provider. Find out what platform your web site is using, such as Linux or Windows? What CMS is your web developer using? Do they know more than one CMS? If so what are they?

What about Mac and Magento? – I will save this for another post all unto itself.

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Posted in Content Management Systems, Development, Web Site Design | No Comments »

Are Mood Boards necessary for Web Design?

Sunday, November 7th, 2010

When I first begin designing web site’s over 10 year ago; I did not know what a mood board was or that it would become an essential tool in the design and development of a web site.

Recently, I had a potential customer come to me with a design from another development company. They had been through quite a number of revisions. I was asked to review the revisions and determine what was wrong with the design of the site. There were several issues with the web site; the logo was not very appealing and it did not establish the web site or the company with a strong brand. The font size was extremely small for the main text as well as for the main H1 tags. The main image or hero image on the main page had no reference at all to what services the company actually preformed. The overall colors of the site were not very complimentary to each corresponding color, nor were the hyper-link colors very noticeable as to what was a link and what was not a link.

This could have happened for several reasons; one the client was not very forthcoming with ideas and suggestions, the communications between designer and client was mis-understood, or the client conveyed his/her idea but the designer did not do enough research to produce what the client wanted.

So why use a mood board well the answer is clearly above; the design team above had been through 9 revisions before I reviewed one of the latest design attempts. It is my firm believe that if the design team above had used a mood board initially then they most likely would not have gone through 9 revisions.

So your next question must surely be, “What is a Mood Board?” Well, I am about to let you know. A mood board is a pre-comprised board of images, colors, fonts, and a layout style that you are proposing to your client. There are several industries that use mood boards; such as, fashion designer, landscapers and interior designers. You want to inspire your client by the mood boards that you present to them and not frustrate them in this process. This part of designing a web site can be one of the most frustrating and time intensive parts of developing a web site. So take your time and listen to your client spend time asking questions, about their brand, colors, fonts, and style that they are trying to achieve.

I did not originally create this idea; I got this information from Web Designers Depot. Here are some useful links from Web Designers Depot

Why Mood Boards Matter
Massive Compilation of Designer Tools
Case Study on Virgin Atlantic Airways

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Posted in Design, Development, IT Consultant, Web Site Design | No Comments »

Web Site Design and Photography

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

In designing a site I always ask for as many photos as I can from a client. The more images you have for a site the more visually appealing the site can become; but if a client does not have any images then we go to a photographer to take pictures for the customer or more commonly we go to a stock photography site. The old adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words” is very true when it comes to web design.

When developing a piece of marketing whether it is a brochure, billboard, flyer, or even a web site. Society reads on an 8th grade level, which lets us know how visually-based our society has become. So when designing a web site the more pictures you can use the more you’ll be able to draw in your visitors.

When developing a web site; I always start out with a two hour meeting where we go through a creative strategy process where we ask the client a great deal of probing questions; such as, what colors do you like, what type of feel are you going for on your website, are you selling a product, and so on. (More to come on Creative Strategy in my next article) Once I have gathered this information I then go on and construct a light-box of images whether the images are from the client, a photographer, stock photography web site or a combination of the aforementioned sources.

So when you begin developing a web site for a client it is very helpful to start out by presenting them with a light-box of images. This is a great way to spawn ideas for the development of the site as well as get additional direction from the client. This allows you to develop a visual story for the client and will help visually layout the site with the images you have chosen. For you newbie’s out there I am sure you are wondering by now what is a light-box? Well, here is the official definition: “A folder used on stock photography site to allow a user to organize digital photos.”

When picking photos for a light-box there are several great stock photography sites out there; such as, www.istockphoto.com, www.bigstockphoto.com, www.shutterstock.com, www.rubberball.com, www.jupiterimages.com. I personally use www.istockphoto.com because the image quality is superior and the price is very reasonable when purchasing photos. Istockphoto.com also has a built in light-box which you can create for a specific client and then send the client a link to that light-box so they can review the images that you have chosen.

Here is an example of one of the light-boxes that I created for a client. Click Here

When purchasing photos make sure to keep a copy of all photos not only for the client that you have purchased them for but also to keep a copy for yourself. I have done this for the last 10 years and I have built up quite a collection of photos for my own library of images. I use these photos as my go too photos for clients before I purchase any additional.

Once the client has chosen the images that he/she wishes to use for construction of their web site I begin designing a Mood Board for their website. “What is a Mood Board you ask?” Well here is a link to the article that gave me the insight on Mood Boards.

Best of Luck in designing and developing your own web sites, please feel free to email me at dwerne@mojoe.net for any questions or comments in regard to this article.

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Posted in Design, Photography, Resources, Stock Photography | No Comments »

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