The WebSpecialist Blog

The best and brightest in Maryland website design will tell you that it doesn't matter how small your business is or how unknown you are — a new website can transform your brand's image.

The city of Manhattan, Kansas learned this recently when it hosted the "Little Apple Hackathon." Teams of designers competed for Best Overall Design and Best New Functionality. The Hackathon was a unique response to the city's problem of having an outdated and hard to use website. After months of building mock-ups and reviewing new ideas, a winner was chosen by the city this week.

The slick winning website features a brand new logo, a video hub to watch live feeds of city meetings and new images and photos to show off the beauty of the Little Apple. Manhattan may only boast a population of 53,000, but the new website has a chic, big-city feel to it, proving that power of good website design is something everyone can experience.

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Facebook is talking about it. Google and Bing are allegedly obsessing about it. And all the little guys are even wondering about it. The "it" in question is local web optimization. So why is everybody buzzing about local when once upon a time the desired SEO goal was global domination?

Easy. As searches become more specialized, users are directed to businesses, people and places within steps of wherever they're using their laptop or smart phone. Therefore it's more vital than ever for small businesses to make sure their hours of operation, location and services are correctly listed online. Updating business profiles on search engines should be part of a local SEO strategy. Now more than ever, small companies are invited to be empowered by staying in control of their website, social media and search engine results. And we think that's great news. Viva local!

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Lately while working with a few clients on their own computers, we've noticed some minor but slightly annoying issues with the way some websites were being displayed in the 2011 release of Internet Explorer 9 (IE9). They typically involved slight overlapping of images and text, or slight misplacement of graphics. However, in one particular case, we noticed and entire website menu that was displaying vertically instead of horizontally - and consequently making the site almost impossible to navigate.

If you use IE9 and have noticed any of your favorite websites looking a little wonky, it may be that you have the browser set to display in "compatibility view." We can understand why some of you may have chosen this view when installing IE9; after all "compatibility" sounds like a good thing, right? But if you choose to use Internet Explorer*, we think you'll have a much better browsing experience if you turn off compatibility view, and instead let websites display as they were intended.

To turn off IE9's compatibility view, do the following:

1. Open Internet Explorer.
2. Press the Alt key on your keyboard to display the "File menu."
3. Click on "Tools" in the menu bar.
4. Select Compatibility View Settings.
5. Remove the check mark for "Display all websites in Compatibility View" and close the Compatibility View Settings window.

We'd love to know if many of you have had this issue, and if the steps above actually improve your browsing experience. Add your comments below!

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If a terrible website has pushed you into searching for the best in Maryland web design, just remember your website could always be worse. Like, a lot worse. We've decided to share this PC World slide-show of the Worst Web Design Mistakes from last month as an example of what not to do — and as proof that small changes can make a big difference.

Some of the commonly-made mistakes called out by PC World, like over-clutter of social media widgets and incessant apologizing for not updating, are easy things to fix. Others (poor color contrast between text and background or annoying side scrolling) are more a matter of lack of direction and support from the web designer. Mainly, all of the items on the mistakes list (even the laughably bad ones like the Comic Sans font overkill) are things that can be caught and fixed way before a site ever goes live — if you're working with somebody who knows what they're doing.

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Mobile websites are the smartphone-friendly way for small businesses to communicate with followers. Yet a new study from analytics firm Flurry suggests that when it comes to smartphones, users are more interested in apps than browsing.

Flurry reports that the average smartphone user spends 94 minutes a day on apps and just 72 minutes on web browsing. These numbers are drastically different from last summer, when 81 minutes were reportedly spent on web browsing. App usage continues to grow — jumping 15 percent in December alone. The waning interest in mobile browsing could come from users switching from the web to an app to access social media sites like Facebook. Nevertheless, mobile websites are still a bright idea. Gigaom.com notes that with the arrival of HTML5, many apps will soon be accessed like traditional web pages, meaning a hybrid between mobile browsing and apps is just around the corner.

Have you considered either an app or a mobile website for your business?  Have you decided on one over the other?  What was the deciding factor?  Share your company's experience below.  

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Mobile websites that function just as well as, if not better than, their online counterparts are what every small business hopes for. Yet for businesses that offer a variety of savings on goods and services, the mobile website also has to serve as their customers' personal, on-the-go deal finder. Thanks in large part to the success of sites like Groupon (where iPhone and Android users can get the 411 on the latest discounts in their area), websites that are in the business of offering savings are seriously upping their game to meet the needs of the mobile world. Take the travel website Orbitz for example.

The airline and hotel deal broker has been pushing out savings on travel packages online since the early days of online vacation shopping. Yet in order to outpace with the plethora of travel websites, each of which says they're cheaper than their competitors, Orbitz has aggressively launched a mobile website redesign that could be game changer. Released last week, the faster, sleeker mobile website has taken a page from the book of Groupon and catered to shoppers who use their smartphones to get what they want. Users of the mobile site have access to last-minute deals and mobile-only specials on hotels in a section called "Mobile Steals."

Orbitz officials say the move was strategic — a full 65 percent of mobile bookings are for the same day. Mobile Steals features exclusive savings on resorts and spas that aren't featured online. And for folks who perused flights at their laptop but waited to buy, Orbitz now has a solution for them, too. The new mobile site remembers what deals users looked at from their computer and saves them.

Orbitz's move to a fast and user-friendly mobile website is on par with the trend of businesses to have their websites speak directly to smartphone users.

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If the unimpressive look of your website has you scrambling to find the best in Harford County web design, you are not alone. Even the big brands who have had success with the same website for years get tired of looking at the darned thing. Take, for example, the recent Google makeover. It was subtle and gradual but soon every Google product from Gmail and Google Documents to Maps and even YouTube got a hipper, fresher look. Even though Google and its jillions of apps, products and other websites worked just fine before the facelift, the brand forged ahead in the mission of creating a prettier, more design-savvy Google. But why?

The image overhaul started last summer and, according to top Google employees, the goal of the new look was to be modern and simple but packed with the company's signature power.

“We want to keep our look simple and clean, but behind the seemingly simple design, use new technologies like HTML5, WebGL and the latest, fastest browsers to make sure you have all the power of the web behind you, "said Google's digital creative director Chris Wiggins in an interview with Silicon Republic.

Sure, some critics have blasted the redesign as "hard to use" and "unnecessary." But it's hard to fault the company for trying to improve a product already so widely used and ripe for bashing. Google's goal — to strip down the image while having it all work a little harder and faster — appears to be one that they passed with flying colors. Here at WSI, we're particularly impressed with some of the changes to the Google Analytics interface.

The big thing brands of any size can learn from this very expensive overhaul is that you don't have to throw out the things people love about your website simply in the name of a makeover. Website redesigns should toss out the parts of your website that don't work while making the parts that do work even better.

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It's no secret that most government agency websites are much like government agencies themselves: They do their function without many bells and whistles in the best case scenarios, and in the worst case they're messes of ugly design and slow to do the job at hand. We're pretty sure no one has ever uttered the words, "Wow! The Motor Vehicle Administration has the best website ever!" So we had to chuckle at a recent press release that touted a contest for government websites to win an Extreme Website Makeover. (Not that the lameness of government websites is anything to laugh at, mind you.)

Nevertheless, this much-needed contest from a Kansas web developer is meant to ignite city governments to care about their website design. And hopefully contests like this inspire government agencies at every level to give a hoot about their websites. But just so you know, if you're looking for amazing Maryland web design with usability and accessibility in mind, you don't have to enter any contests. Just contact us to set up an appointment to discuss your agency's needs.

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File this one under "Well, aren't they clever!" The southern town of Mobile, Alabama is no longer just The Port City. It's also now home to Google's latest campaign to get small businesses interested in mobile websites.

According to The New York Times, Google chose Mobile (pronounced Mo-Beel) as the hub of its campaign for several reasons. First off, it's got a clever name! Trust us, Google wouldn't have been as excited if it were Sylacauga or Vestavia Hills, Alabama. Winking name aside, Google also had its heart set on Mobile because of the demographics. The city has a population, according to the Times, of 200,000, but that number swells to upwards of 600,000 if you include the surrounding rural areas. This small but healthy-sized city is the perfect place to launch GoMo, as it's being called. The GoMo campaign consists of around two dozen Google employees showing small business owners the benefits of having mobile-friendly websites. Small coffee shops and local clothing boutique owners are getting one-on-ones with Google's mobile website experts — all in the name of good PR. Plus a Mobilizing Mobile Expo is being set up in the center of town where small business owners can see the magic of mobile marketing firsthand.

And why not? Google is rightfully trying to show small business owners the advantages of mobile websites, which include faster load times, and a simpler user interface that doesn't require "zooming." The Times says that Google's research shows that 89 percent of people who own smartphones say "they use them throughout the day in places like stores and restaurants, while traveling, or while waiting in line or in doctors' offices." Google and marketers alike are sinking big bucks into mobile sites and marketing plans. But like the good people of Mobile, Alabama are discovering, anybody can mobilize their website.

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Lately, we have seen a lot of big brands, including Perrier and Virgin, jump head first into the mobile marketing game. Marketing big shots spend tons of time mulling over what their mobile websites should look like and how they should function. Meanwhile, every publication and blog from The Wall Street Journal to TechCrunch and beyond continues to weigh in on what an effective mobile marketing plan should consist of. But maybe, just maybe, you're already using a rocking mobile marketing plan — you just don't know it.

Is it finally safe to assume that in one way or another, all businesses, big and small, have a digital marketing plan that includes social media and directing traffic back to their websites? Our culture's collective romance with smartphones has eliminated the once very clear line between mobile sites and regular ones. All of the functionality and accessibility of shopping websites like Amazon and Groupon, as well as those of small businesses, are at our fingertips. We now use our phones to keep us in touch with our most-used websites and to help us find new ones. And social media is helping us bridge that gap even more.

Question: Does your business website display properly on tablets and mobile phones? Could anything be done to improve the user experience on these devices?

Consider this: Last month, a new study from comScore reported that social media use on mobile devices had grown a whopping 37% over the last year. This means more and more people are using their phones to check in with brands and friends. In fact, 69.5% of mobile users rely on their smartphones to update their statuses, tweet and create new content. Each time we tweet about our company's new products or post pictures on our business' Facebook page, we're actually engaging in mobile marketing. We no longer have to wait for our target audience to get home and turn on their computers. They can learn about our business' brilliant innovations from wherever they are.

So while we'd love to talk with each of our clients about their mobile marketing strategies, maybe we don't actually need to over-scrutinize. Maybe we just need to make sure they have an an easy-to-use mobile-ready website that helps them continue to do what they're already good at.

Care to tell us about your company's mobile website or mobile marketing? Got any interesting success stories? Sound off below with your comments.  

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