Great Web Designers Fonts

Posted on June 23, 2010 by William

Fancy Website textWeb Designers have long awaited the ability to use better fonts on websites they design. Having to tell the customer that the choices are extremely limited has always been a real sore spot for me. Thanks to scripting, and libraries that has all changed. As exciting as being able to control fonts in a much better way is the upcoming CSS3 that promises a virtual candy store for the web developer.

Want to add some nice heading fonts to your website? Here is the way to have nice fonts like the Lobster font used here at Logistics Studio.

What you will need:

  • Basic html and css knowledge
  • Access to your site files probably with an ftp client
  • A text or html editor
  • Google Font Directory

That is all you really need to get your website fonts looking a whole lot better.

What you need to do:

  • Access fonts at the Google Font Directory and select a font, we will use Lobster for this tutorial. Acquire the embed code 
    <link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Lobster' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>
  • Use the embed code in the head of your html page, header.php, or equivalent
  • Acquire the css from the Google Font Directory and apply it to the elements in your css that you wish to have display Lobster 
    h1 { font-family: 'Lobster', arial, serif;}

The embed code only needs to be added one time per document, however it is possible to style as many of your text elements as you like using the new font through the CSS.

Adding shadows to the text in a document really is cool, however there are certain browsers that do not support this feature, but for those that do it is a nice treat. The results will look like this.

The Test Shadow

If you want to walk on the wild side by adding shadows to your website fonts then add this little text-shadow code to your CSS. 

  • h1 { font-family: 'Lobster', arial, serif;text-shadow: 2px 2px 2px #000;}

Typekit offers a similar service for fonts. The resources at Typekit are quite extensive, and work similar to the Google Fonts. Typekit offers a free trial offer with two fonts, and three other paid programs.

Wtih the Google Font Directory, Typekit, and who knows what other provider there is no reason to have boring fonts in a website anymore. Display sizes can vary like with all fonts with different weights so be sure to double check the size with the alternate selected. Have fun with font

Posted in Design, Web Design, Web Development | Leave a comment

Web Design and SEO

Posted on June 22, 2010 by William

SEO balloonWeb Design and Search Engine Optimization should always be considered necessary for each other on any website.  However, many people never take the time to perform even the slightest SEO strategies when adding pages, and images to a website.

Simple steps that are consistently taken will ensure a website that has the necessary factors for search engine readiness.  There are many different philosophies, software programs, and expensive courses from some guru on how to get traffic to your site all will point back to the basics at some point.  Funny how the basics never seem to go out of style.

Basics in SEO are pretty straight forward.  They can be put into two categories, on page optimization, and off page optimization.  Let us define what these are.

On Page SEO

  • <title> The title of the site should always include the page name as well as the site name.  Shows in search results.
  • <description> Grammatically correct description of what the page is all about.  Shows in search results.
  • <keywords> The words placed here should accurately reflect what is on the page.  Spam in this area only hurts ranking.
  • Content is where the magic really happens.  Think of the content that you like to read, and create keyword rich text with anchor links/links.
  • Images should be optimized for size, name, title, and alternate text.  Always replace 45020929.jpg with something meaningful like red-robin.jpg.
  • Navigation title should reflect keywords, and frequently are also the title of the page.
  • Use the footer area to list an auxiliary navigation to legals, contact, etc., as well as copyright info.

That is pretty much the recipe that all SEO professionals will work with in the on page optimization of a website.  These principals have proven to be somewhat timeless in these early years of the world wide web, and should always be considered necessary for traffic.

Off Page SEO

  • Submit url with accurate descriptions to Google, Yahoo, Bing, and DMOZ at a bare minimum.
  • Become interested and educated in using the webmaster tools provided by the large search engines.
  • Place business on every map, and subscribe to business listings with search engines.
  • Join social media groups and get involved.
  • Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon your good work.
  • Find communities, and forums that resemble your business then get involved.
  • Start a link building program.

There are many off page avenues that can bring traffic to your website so be creative.  Getting involved in worthy areas is always worth much more than the fly by night push button software that solves all your problems.

Search Engine Optimization is a very demanding, precise method that can make a website attractive to the search engines, and to the visitor as well.  SEO that is done correctly will place a site somewhere in the mix of the competition, and provide a good foundation from which to improve.  There is no secret code, magic bullet, or super program that does this work for anyone.  Take the work at hand one step at a time, do things correctly, and most of all be patient because good ranking takes time to build.



Posted in Search Engine Optimization | Leave a comment

3.0 Thelonius Ease

Posted on June 20, 2010 by William

WordPress LogoMaking the perfect website can at times be a little overwhelming with all the wonderful functionality that exists today. Every platform varies according to its underlying structure, and is only able to carry certain types of plugins, extensions, and so on.

Ease of use versus functionality is the place where we end up making the biggest trade offs. That is where WordPress comes in very big way. Yes, there are other platforms out there to install, great platforms, but none with the simplicity of WordPress for the non tech user. There are more robust applications like Joomla, but unfortunately all the options come at the cost of being user-friendly.

WordPress has just released version 3.0 Thelonius, and I think it is a landmark for the blogging platform. Thelonius is really a huge leap forward toward making WordPress a worthy content management candidate for small companies, and personal sites as well. Users are now able to customize the look of their basic site very easily, edit photos for inclusion, have featured images for the header on each page, and do it all with a stock version of 3.0.

As usual, WordPress has awesome SEO features right out of the box, with a little research it can be modified to be even better with pretty permalinks, plugins, and consistent effort when writing.

WordPress becomes more user-friendly with each release, and in my book worth promoting. Logistics Studio works with a variety of platforms that have more bells and whistles, but none have the ease of use that WordPress consistently delivers for the inexperienced user.

Posted in Web Design, Wordpress | Leave a comment

WordPress 3.0 Thelonius

Posted on June 17, 2010 by William

Rainbow WordPress LogoLogistics Studio has been using 3.0 for since development started with no issues, and today have upgraded several sites to the platform flawlessly.

We converted our old theme to a customized version of the Twenty Ten Default theme about a month ago. Since then a deep appreciation of the new release has developed inspiring us to use this theme as our development base much like Kubric had been used for years.

As always before updating make sure that your database, wp-config, and all of wp-content are backed up just in case.

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Marketing Perspective

Posted on April 21, 2010 by William

Plane Flying a Marketing BannerMarketing perspective can become a smoke screen for any promotion. I recently attended a seminar put on by the local television station that made me think about this overused technique. All the standard marketing techniques were used to sell the product, but they would have had you believe of course; it was brand-new.

People buy from one of two perspectives most of the time, pain, or pleasure. By activating one of these emotions in the customer, and then taking them to a call to action we make sales. We all know that, right?

Ever since snake oil salesman plied their trade on fearful or greedy people marketing has never been the same, nor have the tactics. How then do we sell to people with the highest degree of integrity, and close the sales that are motivated by these very powerful emotional forces? Is it the quality of the product? Is it the look of the salesman? Is it the location or the media used? While all these factors play a part in the whole there is one aspect that is critical for success, and that is the marketing perspective.

The perspective that we use to view the product we are trying to selling is the single most important factor for the sale, period. This perspective has to establish a sense of uniqueness, rarity, and value in the eyes of the potential client. Now we will look back at the television station and their marketing of an Integrated Marketing System. Of course, they are trying to fill their advertising coffers with clients in this lean economy, so they devise a plan to co-op television with the Internet for their advertising clients. Brilliant! However, things are rarely what they appear.

Making reference to advertising numbers the station quickly points out that television has 54% of the effective advertising while the Internet has 14%. At first glance, one would think TV is the only answer, however, the real numbers may prove otherwise. Say your city has one hundred thousand people, but your product could be sold globally then 54% local versus 14% of 1 billion Internet users makes the scenario look quite differently. Marketing perspective is crucial for businesses to effectively market and profit from their advertising investment in the coming years. You see while proving locally that your dollars may be well spent they failed to include the vast number of customers excluded by their narrow minded marketing approach.

Look at the big picture before investing into any marketing program. Carefully evaluate your businesses unique marketing perspective, and determine whether it has global potential or not. Locking into an advertising program can be the best thing that ever happened to your business or might stifle national or international growth.

Posted in Internet Marketing | Leave a comment