Web Media Werks

02/05/2023

09/22/2022

Where the hell are all my FB people I have nothing but ads WTF

09/22/2022

This Sunday at 8:30 EST
Flower power peeps 💕

03/25/2014

HOW TO PICK A BLOG TOPIC

We all know that blogging, when done effectively and cross-linked to your website, can be a very effective way to increase your SEO and engage your visitors frequently. But sometimes, finding topics to blog about is difficult.

Here are some tips to help:

not like the other guy - try not to pick topics that your competitors are also writing about. Try to be unique - that can equate to higher rankings if there are fewer people blogging about the same thing
been there, done that - avoid topics that are already represented by other content on your blog or website. For example, if you are a REALTOR, don't blog about a new listing - that listing is most likely already present in the property search area of your website
local, local, local - search engines LOVE hyper-local content. Blog about things going on around you - events, seminars, community, neighborhoods, or even achievements of a business associate
read trade or industry publications to come up with trending ideas that others may find interesting
write a follow-up to a previous blog post that was read a lot or commented on a lot
sometimes your own hobbies can give you some great blog ideas
show me how - write a quick how-to or guide for something in your industry that you do well, and can perhaps help others to do better
don't be afraid to be funny - sometimes a blog post can go off the beaten-path and have nothing at all to do with your blogs usual posts. Jokes, funny happenings around you, or even a funny movie or TV show and provide humorous interludes for your blog that readers will appreciate

Don't be afraid to experiment. There is no WRONG blog post. Some may not be as popular as others, for sure. But if you experiment a little, you may stumble across a post that becomes more popular that you ever thought it would, and it turns out to be something completely different than you usually post about.

Do you post any blog articles with unusual topics that surprised you in their popularity? We'd love to hear about it!

03/11/2014

So who wants this nice weather to continue?

03/11/2014

Some tips about website design...

Too often, I feel, clients want to overload their visitor with as much information as possible, and lets face it, with only a few short seconds to appeal to each unique visitor to your website, it seems like the most natural course of action to give them as much as you can to try and appeal toward them. Unfortunately, that action couldn’t be further from the reality.

Keep the homepage clutter free. – This is huge. Cluttering up your homepage with added graphics, widgets and statistics that aren’t relevant to your overall goal (getting a buyer to register or contact you and make a sale) shouldn’t be on your homepage. Visitors are easily distracted and you don’t want them playing with your traffic stats widget or, far worse, not being able to find key elements among all the visual mayhem.

People are searching the Internet to find your product or service, not to know what the weather is like in your area. When someone visits your website make sure you have an impact statement and t does just what the name implies, makes an impact. Too often new visitors are confused on exactly what you do or what makes you so special. So don't add to the problem, try to help alleviate it.

03/06/2014

SHOULD YOUR NEXT WEBSITE BE RESPONSIVE?

Responsive website design allows your site to change orientation, resolution and layout based on the device a user is visiting from. But is that always the best option for every type of site?

Some sites that require detailed user interactions don't scale well to a very small device. A thorough site and usage analysis needs to be performed to determine the best solution for your website. Sometimes, a site with very specific pages designed specifically for phone-based users with options and content designed for a particular function, are more appropriate.

Let's take a travel reservation site as an example. Typically, the actual reservation process is done from a desktop computer, which offers multiple options for adding hotel and car reservations to your travel package. But once the travel reservation is complete, that user may only use the mobile version of the site to check in or confirm a minor change. The full compliment of reservation functions isn't used often and might not scale well responsively to a small platform. This might be due to technical limitations of technologies used on the desktop site not being deployable in a mobile form. It might also be due to space restrictions imposed on small devices. Or, your site might require extensive keyboard input, requiring the user's mobile keyboard to be visible most of the time, reducing the amount of screen visible to your application. But whatever the reason, a proper usage study is needed before you decide to invest in a mobile deployment of your web application.

With proper planning, the right choice can easily be determined. Have you recently built a mobile version of your site and see some shortcomings? We would love to hear from you.

02/27/2014

Last week, social media giant Facebook bought the mobile messaging platform WhatsApp for a cool $19 billion. So what does Facebook want with WhatsApp?

Well, maybe it's their 450 million users. And they've made it no secret that they want to be the focal point of your daily communications regimen. Recently, Facebook completely "un-bundled" their messaging app, Messenger, to run completely independent of the Facebook app on your phone. This is an attempt to brand the Messenger app and bring awareness to it as a powerful private communication tool (as opposed to Facebook wall posting which is generally public to all of your friends).

Facebook has stated that WhatsApp will remain completely independent with no changes in staff or pricing. But exactly what's different about WhatsApp that your regular mobile SMS can't do (or Facebook messenger). Well, first of all, it's GLOBAL. With WhatsApp, you can communicate with anyone who has the app installed. And of course, WhatsApp does not use your carrier's SMS plan. It communicates using your data plan. Some other notable goodies are:

simple to use group chat
voice messaging - speak into your phone and record a message that can simply be instantly played by the recipient
embedded audio and video capability
Broadcast messaging - send a message to a group without revealing all of the recipients to each other (like BCC)
GPS aware so it can send your location with a map link if desired

And what does it cost? Well, at the moment, it's completely FREE for the first year. And there are NO ads and NO pop-ups. After the first year, it's just 99 cents a year. Yup - 99 cents.

Give WhatsApp a try and let us know what you think. Is it useful for you?

02/21/2014

Quick Design Tip #1
Less really is more in this case.

The premise is we sometimes like to crowd our pages with lots of information which tends to leave your website looking cluttered. Give ample margin space to your images. We call it making a page "scannable" and it is basically the use of white space, bolding, paragraph headers, fonts and lists to make a page easy to read.

The white space created will draw your eye to the more important elements on your page. If your layout is unorganized or cluttered, your visitors will not know what to do and will quickly leave your site.

Want more tips, like this post!

02/20/2014

BRANDING YOUR WEB PRESENCE!

Branding is one of the top reasons why businesses create a web presences. Social networking is great for business but typically the site is branded (take Facebook for instance) over your profile branding; this is why you must be sure your professional site has effective branding. Otherwise what’s the point!

Branding:
Is your name and phone number in the header of your site?
Is your name and phone number in the footer of your site?
Is there a link to contact you in your navigation?
Are there calls to action on each of your web pages?
Are your social networking links readily visible?

Take a look and see if you make the cut.