Web Designers New Jersey

Web Designers are not Created Equal

admin — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 19:07:55 +0000

Each day, more and more businesses find their way online. With all these new online stores comes the increased demand for web design services. One of the biggest questions an owner of a business asks these days is how much professional web design will cost. Especially since the recession, no one is looking to squander even a cent. So how can you go about getting the services you want, with the quality your business needs to be successful and not break the bank? Well, your web design needs are an investment for your business and they need to be treated as such. There are multiple levels of web design, with different price ranges, that a company can pursue. Knowing what you need is a big help to the process, but the most important concern is to find the best value for your money.

There are quite a few web designers out there. You have students and other amateur designers that know enough about web design and development to create basic websites, with few pages. Then you have the freelance designers and small agencies that perform the same work as the amateurs, but often have limited services and capabilities. If you only need a cookie-cutter website or one that does not require a hefty amount of technical savvy, they are a fine choice. The last level consists of the professional web designers and companies dedicated to offering their clients the necessary tools to succeed online. They are the more expensive of your choices, but they also have the most resources and usually have a team of web designers working for you, rather than just one person.

As with the services you receive, the costs are different for each level of web design. A simple, 5-page brochure website could be completed for very cheap by the amateur, most likely a few hundred dollars. If you decide to work with a freelancer or small web design agency, the price will likely double, as they can offer slightly more value. For that extra money, you’ll get a plan of action and a quicker turnover on the project. Though, their resources are most likely limited and while they can do web design, they may not offer SEO or other web marketing services along with the web design. If your website is not optimized as it’s made, then its chances for ranking well in search engines is greatly decreased. As we all know, working with professional web designers is the more costly approach. However, it is also the only option where you are sure to have guarantees and fully laid-out plans that incorporate the services your business needs.

So it comes down to the best value for the money you will surely spend. To get the job done right, with the most value for your dollar, the best way to go is with a professional web design team, where you will have guarantees of work and scheduled progress. A professional and experienced team will have the resources to provide all types of services, from e-commerce development to hosting, support and maintenance. A lone amateur is not likely to have the means and a small agency not likely to have the experience. Get both with a team of expert web designers and get everything your online business needs, the first time around.

Share and Enjoy

Latest Posts

Successful Business Owners Never Stop Learning

admin — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 20:15:02 +0000

The business world has never been one to stay the same. Change runs rampant through it and those that do not adapt are left in the dust. On the Internet, the process happens even faster. Entirely new trends appear overnight and disappear just as quick. As an owner, it’s probably a good idea to keep current with the new methods, techniques and technology developed for increasing the effectiveness for any aspect of your business. And when I say ‘probably’, I mean definitely.

New Jersey is on a small business kick right now. Organizations that are normally kind of quiet have been quite boastful about seminars, classes and other functions that are geared towards giving business owners in the state a leg up. One such organization is the New Jersey Small Business Development Center (NJSBDC). They are running classes and training seminars throughout the winter right now, though most of them are angled towards helping newer business owners. You can even participate in one of their business tax workshops, as none of us can ever learn enough about that. It’s always a good idea to be well informed about the ‘how’ and ‘why’ when the government is taking money out of your pocket.

Of course, the state government is getting into the act as well. Have you been to NJ.gov lately? Their business page boasts the state of NJ as being “…one of the best business locations in the United States”; yeah, if you don’t count the ridiculous amount owners pay in taxes. Still, the officials in our state government are working hard to make this a business friendly state, though they need to take a few more pages out of Nevada’s playbook.

In the meantime, do yourself and your business a favor: attend the events that are being held specifically to increase your business acumen. They are affordable, local and packed with useful information.

Share and Enjoy

Be a Successful New Jersey Business in 2011

admin — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 05:25:44 +0000

The New Year always comes with new opportunity. It has been a rough couple of years for business, especially small business, in our state. There has been a lack of skilled workers to higher. There has been a lack of sales for our products and services. There has been a lack of help from the government side, lowering the business tax to a level that lets New Jersey businesses put some of their profits back into their companies.

However, with the bad, there has been some good. Internet sales for NJ businesses have increased. The unemployment rate has stopped rising. Governor Christie is hopeful on making business tax cuts that will help most NJ businesses, instead of only a handful. These good things will continue and grow in 2011. Along with a few other helpful hints, take the steps to make your business successful this coming year.

Think global. Get online and allow customers to access your products and services from anywhere in the world or at least, anywhere in this country. Once you have a website, it removes the limiters of how big you can grow and where your customers can come from. Another exciting opportunity it opens up is the chance to hire outside the state. There has been a shortage of skilled labor for high level positions in companies for New Jersey. If your business is online, it doesn’t much matter where your employees are located. Recently, I took a look at the fastest growing companies in NJ for 2010. Every company on that list has a website. Now there is something to think about.

Go mobile. Just a friendly reminder to most retailers: Your customers are way, way ahead of you when it comes to using mobile as a resource. Make sure you are doing one of two things: making your e-commerce website compatible to mobile devices or create a mobile application for your store. People want to know the special offers and coupons for your store, especially if they are in it. Next to that, they want product pricing. Is it cheaper to buy in-store or online? Which store has the better price? These are the things your customers want to know. Make it available to them on their smartphones and half of them will choose you over a competitor every time.

Have pride. Sure, business is about making money, but that is not everything business is for. It’s a great way to prove you can be successful. It is a great tool to create change in the world, making it better for you and those around you. Recall any ethics class or discussion you’ve ever had and remember that it is important, vital even, an owner have pride in their business and the products or services it offers. Your business in New Jersey is a reflection of you personally, on a level. Whatever it is your business does, do it with vigor. Get excited and get motivated about letting everyone know your business, its products, services and employees are amazing.

As we all know, the previous years have cleared out quite a bit of former competitors in this state, so 2011 is ripe for good business to grow fast. Get your website up or have it tested and overhauled, but start making the decisions that will put your company on the list for top growth next year.

Share and Enjoy

Tax Cuts Again

admin — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 05:23:30 +0000

Winter has arrived and begun to settle in as it approaches everyone’s favorite time of year – tax season. Well, I guess we still have a little bit of time; after all, it’s only December. It seems that Governor Christie might have plans for making some favorable changes to the income and business taxes in New Jersey. The Governor may propose business and income tax cuts as soon as January, according to Robert Grady, chairman of the governor’s Council of Economic Advisors.

Maybe, if we’ve been good, Santa will bring us tax cuts.

Naughty or Nice Business Checklist:

Did you donate to a local charity?
Are all your business finances properly updated and filed?
Does your business owe the government any money?

Listen, if you expect good news about business tax cuts, you better break out every good deed in the book to get some positive karma going. If there is a tax cuts Santa, I’m sure he checks these things more than twice. Unsatisfied, he may convince the Governor not to be nice, who has enough bad information already. Apparently, New Jersey tax revenue is up, way up. New Jersey tax revenue is outpacing projections by 3.8 percent in the first five months of the fiscal year, the Treasury said Tuesday. Income taxes in New Jersey brought in the most money, helping to deliver revenue 12.7 percent over projections.

Alone, this statistic seems like it should be good news. The state government is ahead of its budget for the fiscal year. However, lets combine that knowledge with other stats describing the current economy in New Jersey. The unemployment rate is a hairs breathe away from 10 percent. The expected revenue from sales tax is down 1.4 percent, from predictions. That means people are still not spending nearly as much as economists and government officials expect. A survey of New Jersey small businesses showed that most of them are still working very hard to stay in business. Taking these two factors into account seem to paint a different picture than the excess revenue from New Jersey taxes.

Hopefully, Governor Christie and his staff will take the time to look over all the data and come to the only conclusion that makes sense. Tax cuts are needed for the majority of state residents and for New Jersey businesses. Ease the burden that we are carrying, our backs are tired. Less money being taken means more money can go into expanding small businesses locally and online. Introduce tax cuts that are effective at reducing the yearly robbery that takes place for New Jersey residents and businesses, and we’ll give back. Maybe.

Share and Enjoy

The Local Hotpot from Google Places

admin — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 04:27:33 +0000

Usually, it’s the big companies that are able to capitalize on the new innovations Google produces. From search engines to advertisement, the people at Google have turned around and added new dimensions to entire elements of the Internet. To properly take advantages of these changes and additions, time and money needs to be spent on planning and implementation of new ideas. That’s why companies that have the money to pay teams of experts are often first on the scene to use the new technology. Lately, web solutions teams, that specialize in making these transitions easier for small businesses easier have gained more notice. Short of their reliable services, small businesses online were left to fend for themselves. Now, Google is making an effort for the little guys, by launching Hotpot.

Its an extension of Google Places, the local search database of more than 50 million locations in which merchants can claim their businesses, provide their addresses and other information, and engage with customers. Hotpot adds two important new features into the mix: user ratings and recommendations from friends. Using a 5-star system, the ratings made are always public. The idea is for people to leave reviews of local places online, for others to stumble across, should they find themselves at the same establishment.

Frankly, any business would be better served by creating a website and having a team of expert web marketers carve out their presence online. Hotpots may be starting with 50 million locations and adding more all the time, but it’s not really all that helpful to local business. It’s still a much better plan to advertise your own presence on the Internet, rather than relying on databases like Hotpot to do the work for you.

Share and Enjoy

Latest Posts

The New Crime Show in New Jersey

admin — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 01:33:03 +0000

Have you heard the news? Crime and punishment is taking on a new tool: public shame. What’s that you say? This is far from new? Well, not the way they are going about it. We aren’t talking about building a stockade or parading criminals out in the streets with funny signs to be battered by rotten fruit- this isn’t the 1600′s. In a move that will have you saying ‘It’s about time’, in some places, local criminal cases and their mugshots are now available in a Facebook profile.

Just think, now when someone is hauled into the precinct to have their fingers printed, likeness captured from multiple angles, and the whole rigamarole, the details will be available online at your local police departments Facebook profile. Of course, this has yet to become a wide spread practice. Right now, Evesham, New Jersey is one of the few places employing this tactic. It has possibilities and frankly, I think we are all surprised this step has not been taken sooner.

Why should celebrities be the only ones to have their face plastered all over the main waterholes online? Sure, they may not get in much trouble, but everyone knows when they do something wrong. Well, soon that bit of public shame may be available for the criminals in every town. The real question is: How quickly will this new practice spread through New Jersey and what kind of results is it supposed to produce?

Is it being done to help our hardworking civil servants catch the bad guys? Is this new method of public humiliation for keeping the local communities informed for their own protection? Or is this just what it looks like, an old practice of public shame revamped for modern times?

Share and Enjoy

Measuring Performance: Company Blog

admin — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 05:06:38 +0000

The first step, of course, was creating your company’s blog. It is an important addition to your online business, as it is a great way to connect with your consumers. After you get it going, the next step is to check back and see if it’s accomplishing the goal. Is it making a connection with your customers? Only one way to find out and that’s by taking a look at the metrics that matter for blog posts.

Number of visits – Know how many people have clicked to view your company’s blog posts. Usually, this number reflects the interest garnered by the title. If it’s high, consider it a sign that people like your title or at least considered it a ‘hot topic’. Recognize key phrases if they were included in the title and remember them for later use.

Average visit length – They liked the title, but did they bother to read the post? Find out how long people are spending on your pages and that will give you an idea of their interest level. Did they read the blog? And if they did, is that all they did before clicking away? If so, that is a good indicator that the other content on your website needs to be more engaging.

Navigation summary – For those visitors that do go to other pages of your website after reading the blog, take a look at the pages they hit. Use the navigation summary to track what the most popular pages are after a person reads the blog post. Are they going where you want? Are they converting into customers? After reading your posts, the idea is to have readers become connected with your services or products. Therefore, keep that goal in mind as you check into the navigation habits of your visitors when they come to your website.

Bounce rate – Maybe people are not staying after they read your company’s blog posts. The bounce rate shows you what percentage of visitors stay to navigate to other areas of your site. If they are leaving right away, then the content you are sharing isn’t getting the job done. Use this knowledge to make changes and track improvements to increase your traffic and conversion rate.

Referral links – Checking these is a good way to see who is taking an interest in your blogs and linking back to it. Find out what ideas are resonating with others and who is finding value in them. Its also good to find out what keywords are being used to find your blog. Use that information to drive more traffic to the blog by including it in future post titles or as a keyword in posts. Optimizing your posts for keywords is a great way to bring in more readers.

Share and Enjoy

Latest Posts

Measuring Performance: Lost in Twitter

admin — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 05:01:56 +0000

All over the internet, you hear how great Twitter can be for your marketing efforts. From the research we have done, there is a lot of truth to those claims. The problem, as one of our customers brought to our attention (thus, the reason behind this article), is people tend to love it or hate it. If they decide to love it, they get too into it and get lost among the millions of tweets. Obviously, the ones that hate it usually remain steadfast against using it altogether or leave the details in the hands of someone else, allowing them to ignore it while making use of it. The truth is, no matter what business you are running, you should definitely be on Twitter. The effort is worth the reward as long as you are making proper use of this internet marketing tool. Look into the following elements of your Twitter account and find out for yourself how well your efforts are being received.

Followers
It’s fairly easy to track this since Twitter does the work for you. The number of people following you is important to monitor. Record it and measure how many new followers you get over each month. This will help to track the growth of your follower base over time.

Interactions
Followers don’t mean much unless they are active. Check to see what yours are doing. Are they mentioning you to others? Are they retweeting your content? How many direct messages are you getting from them? All these questions are designed to find out if your followers are active and interested in what you tweet or if they are Twitter duds, just taking up space. You want followers that are active and engaging with you. Until you have that, you are not attracting the right people.

Influence, Reach and Credibility
The most difficult part about measuring the performance of an social media is the business of tracking how far your message really reaches. Tools like TweetReach estimate the number of users you reach per tweet and the types of tweets people use to interact with you (retweets and replies, for example).
Other tools like Klout and PeerIndex rank you in comparison to other Twitter users based on the number of engaged followers you have, your activity and your influence online. These programs and others like them are your best bet for tracking the effectiveness of your tweets.

Conversions
Ultimately, success on Twitter boils down to how many people you drive back to your website and become your customers. Using programs such as Google Analytics will let you track traffic to your website and URL shorteners like bit.ly to track how many clicks a specific link gets.

Share and Enjoy

Latest Posts

Developing Web Design in NJ

admin — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 04:52:41 +0000

New Jersey is stepping up it’s involvement in increasing knowledge about web design and development among it’s students. The New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) has been holding a Web Design Competition for a few years now. It has increased interest in the field among students in New Jersey and brought many new ideas to the forefront. The competition is exactly the kind of event this state needs more of to spread the talent and necessary knowledge to give future generations the tools they’ll need to find success. Our company, just like yours, knows the importance of preparing the youth for their future and do what we can to support that goal. Right now, that means supporting NJIT in it’s efforts, as there is no better stimulus for ideas and innovation than competition.

The competition is sponsored by the Information Systems Department at NJIT’s College of Computing Sciences and held at NJIT’s University Heights Campus in Newark, New Jersey. They encourage teams to form and enter from high schools across the state. They even allow more than one team to represent each school. These teams consist of 3 to 4 members and can choose to participate in two ways:
• Web Information System Design- Teams prepare an educational web site based on a set of professional design guidelines. Teams submit their designs a couple of weeks before the day of competition. In addition Category I students may demonstrate their sites on campus during the event. The guidelines.
• Rapid Design – On the day of the Design Competition, teams are given an existing, poorly designed web site and a set of design requirements, and must improve the web site to comply with the requirements. A beginning knowledge of web design skills is expected and a time limit given. The guidelines.

Not only does the competition feature the creation of some great websites, sporting fantastic new design ideas, it also identifies and encourages future talent in this area. And that is something that will benefit all of us.

Find out more about the competition and how you can help support it here. While you’re at it, take a look at this years winners.

Share and Enjoy

Latest Posts

‘Small Business Saturday’: Did it work in New Jersey?

admin — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 04:40:20 +0000

Governor Christie joined with many others in New Jersey and across the nation to promote Small Business Saturday this past weekend. If you haven’t heard, it was an effort to help support small business in through their local communities. Finally, the slow pokes responsible for measuring growth in the country have come across the undeniable fact that small business is one of the main elements responsible for pumping jobs and money back into our economy.

Frankly, this is the first show of support from the government that had a chance of having a positive influence on small businesses everywhere in this great nation of ours. As small business owners, I’m sure you are all quite aware of how ineffective tax cuts and other such forms of so-called small business support from the government have been. This ‘movement’, as it has been called by some local New Jersey residents, is a great way to fill the gap between Black Friday and Cyber Monday (the busiest online ordering day of the year). Turning it into a traditional day of spending at the small businesses in your local community is as good a use of Holiday spending as its counterparts.

Highlighting one town in particular in New Jersey, Maplewood really went out of its way to embrace this new promotion. Maplewood Mayor Vic DeLuca and the Maplewood Village Alliance manager Julie Doran knows that for every $100 you spend locally, about $70 goes back into the local economy. With that little fact fueling their fires, they helped to launch the promotion in a big way for their town.

Said Doran, “Small Business Saturday recognizes the importance of small businesses to the overall economy and local communities. It’s a day to support the small, independently owned businesses we can’t live without and to raise awareness about the importance of small businesses to our communities.”

Since the numbers are not in yet to really gauge how successful this promotion was, we need you to tell us. Did your business benefit from incredible gains on that day? Let us know and we’ll showcase you in our follow up report on the results of Small Business Saturday.

Share and Enjoy

Web Designers New Jersey

Web Designers are not Created Equal

Latest Posts

Successful Business Owners Never Stop Learning

Related Posts

Be a Successful New Jersey Business in 2011

Related Posts

Tax Cuts Again

Related Posts

The Local Hotpot from Google Places

Latest Posts

The New Crime Show in New Jersey

Related Posts

Measuring Performance: Company Blog

Latest Posts

Measuring Performance: Lost in Twitter

Latest Posts

Developing Web Design in NJ

Latest Posts

‘Small Business Saturday’: Did it work in New Jersey?

Latest Posts