Things that annoy website users (and quickly lose valuable traffic)
Posted by Dave Wiltshire on April, 6th 2011There are many seemingly ‘cool’ things that you can do to a website which instantly annoy any users. Below are some annoying web design choices that can scare away your valuable traffic:
Auto-Playing Videos or Music
You can play a video or music file as soon as a visitors enters a webpage and buffers the media file enough. Some sales websites will quickly show you a video of their main product perhaps or a pop up person walking along the bottom of the website. Personal or ‘arty’ websites may force their favorite piece of music upon the hapless website browser or have some relaxing background music which repeats forever.
There are many situations when people DON’T want a video or music file automatically playing, a few examples are below:
- They have their speakers on maximum volume after watching a DVD
- They have opened 10+ tabs on their browser at once [...]
Using Stock Photography in Web Design
Posted by Dave Wiltshire on March, 29th 2011
Stock photography can either be used very well or very badly when it comes to graphically designing a website, so what should you look out for?
How many times have you seen clean-cut, generic, world-friendly images (like the one on the right) appear on websites, magazines and brochures? These common photo stock images usually have an underlying message within the image with a cheesy title such as “man frustrated with laptop”, “woman smiling on a beach” or “corporate business handshake”.
The more specific the stock photo title is, the more likely it will get found using specific searches on websites such as iStockPhoto and DreamsTime. A funny example of ultra-specific stock photography is the “woman laughing alone with salad” list at TheHairPin.com, check it out!
The problem with stock photography is that most images and models have been used [...]
Google Web Fonts
Posted by Dave Wiltshire on March, 21st 2011
Good news… upcoming ‘Web Fonts’ from Google mean that websites in the future are going to look much, much more interesting and still adhere to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) friendly standards!
CSS design in the past has been hampered by the lack of font support on older computers. Using a “Helvetica” H1 tag for example may show up perfectly well on web designer’s iMac (with lots of fonts installed) but not on an average 6 year old PC with a limit set of default system fonts.
Converting a HTML heading into an image means that search engine spiders cannot read the text within the tag, also the heading cannot be converted into a traditional hover-over link. Turning a whole website into a set of images to keep a certain font has several major disadvantages towards SEO and can hide entire [...]
Social Shopping
Posted by Dave Wiltshire on March, 14th 2011
Here at Juno Media we believe that ecommerce sites shouldn’t have separate work on brand design, web development, marketing and SEO. From the initial concept to the final design, all these aspects of ecommerce need to be considered at the same time and work together in harmony for maximum results.
Social media is now playing a bigger and bigger role in online promotion, there are literally millions of people using social sites such as Twitter and Facebook everyday in the UK alone for example. With social media apps running smoothly on smart-phones and tablets, people can now interact with each other on the move and at any time during the day; social media is definitely here to stay and continue growing for many years.
Usually social media was an after-thought for ecommerce websites, something you would ‘bolt-on’ to the side [...]
How to edit your hosts file
Posted by Dave Wiltshire on March, 7th 2011Clients often as how they can view a website before it goes live on their URL, this is done through editing your local “hosts” file. Essentially this method makes your computer point a domain name at a specific IP address, instead of using the internet DNS record. We have outlined below the simple process:
Instructions for modifying the “hosts” file on your computer:
Locate the file “Hosts” on your computer:
Windows 95/98/Me c:windowshosts
Windows NT/2000/XP Pro c:winntsystem32driversetchosts
Windows XP Home c:windowssystem32driversetchosts
PLEASE NOTE: Hosts is the name of the hosts file and not another directory name. It does not have an extension (extensions are the .exe, .txt, .doc, etc. endings to filenames) and so appears to be another directory in the example above.
You may have a file called “Hosts.sam”. This file is a sample Hosts file (the .sam stands for sample) and can be used by removing the .sam extension so the name [...]
Where to place your vital contact information
Posted by Dave Wiltshire on March, 1st 2011
Contact information is very important for business (brochure) websites yet it’s easily to forget to place it where everyone will find it online.
Hotels, restaurants, plumbers, DJ’s and wedding planners: all these businesses require someone to pick up the phone or contact them through an email to get the job. Your contact information is vital so ensure it’s visible in all of these areas on your website so even the most clueless person can find them. When thinking about your web design make sure to add your contact information in these places:
Header
If your phone line is the key to making sales then show it ‘Loud and Proud’ at the top of your main header. This means it should be in the top-left or top-right corner of your site, bolded, contrasting and a big [...]
Diecast Cars – Advanced Magento Ecommerce
Posted by Dave Wiltshire on February, 24th 2011
Here at Juno we believe that the right technology can overcome even the biggest competition and save time, effort and money.
Our developers have been researching and testing Magento ecommerce sites and have now produced the perfect framework for our latest ecommerce clients. The advanced Magento framework is ideal for site visitors, search engine optimisation (SEO) and back-end management.
The first website to take advantage of our new Magento technology is DiecastStars.com, seller of Diecast Models. Diecast models are scale miniatures of real cars, planes and motorbikes, the most detailed models have tiny engines inside, opening doors and steering wheels that work.
We encourage anyone to have a look around the site and notice these key technical features:
Filterable Navigation – Specific model cars can be quickly narrowed down with dynamic, filterable navigation. For example you can filter down results with a path [...]
Copywriting Nottingham Job
Posted by Dave Wiltshire on February, 14th 2011The best on-site SEO factor that Google looks at is regular fresh & relevant content towards the website’s niche. This is imperative to achieve top search engine positions along with other forms of web development and SEO.
We believe that search engine traffic is the most cost effective and lucrative way of gaining business online through a website. PR, Advertising and other forms of self-promotion can certainly gain interest in a product or a service but SEO can effectively leap in at the final moment when people search online for that same product or service and get that all-important sale.
Juno are looking to hire another copywriter in the Nottingham area to expand the team and help out some of our top clients. Other roles include blog creation for our own sites and creating press releases for the internet marketing side of the business. Our copywriting job will be [...]
Autotag, a new design for motor industry retailer
Posted by Dave Wiltshire on February, 9th 2011We have recently been commissioned to overhaul the online brand and website design for a well established automotive industry retailer, Autotag. Autotag are market leaders in their industry selling a wide range of car products from Key tags, key cabinets and car showroom paraphernalia to end user and to dealerships throughout the UK.
The Existing Autotag site is much in need of an overhaul in terms of design and technology. We have set out with the ambition to establish autotag as bes in class both in terms of design and technology to enable our internet marketing team to very quickly establish Autotag as the top dog.
Here is a preview of the new web design
Autotag Web Design
Here is a preview of the new web design
Google to target China
Posted by Dave Wiltshire on February, 3rd 2011Google seems to be going from strength to strength with regards to its ever-increasing online portfolio; however, it doesn’t intend to stop where it is. No instead ex chief executive and new executive chairman of Google; Eric Schmidt claims that the web giant’s next move is to once again target the country of China.
In an interview with the BBC, Schmidt reluctantly expressed his and the company Google’s interests in China. He stated that although the company pulled out of communication with China in March last year, he hopes to re-conciliate the censorship differences and once again merge Google back into the country.
Schmidt believes that with careful website design taking in to consideration different cultural sensitivities, he does not see why countries such as China cannot benefit from Google. This along with the specific governments playing a role in watching what Google does with reference to policy concerns and anti-trust [...]