Creating Creative Web Sites

All the web sites we create are creative to varying degrees. Clients that are in particular industries need a more creative site than others. For example, Gregory Collett, actor, required not only a graphical creative web site but he also needed a showcase of his work, both print and film. This requirement brought some challenges and, in my opinion, wonderful results.



For example, his still pictures needed to be displayed with something more than just thumbnails that you click on to make them larger. So we used a script and created this photo gallery:

You don't really see the 'beauty' of this until you start to look at the photos. First you can pick the category from the drop down side menu (series). When you land on the page it is on Basketball and Soccer. Now if you take a picture and drag it up the larger area it shows the larger photo with the small thumb at the side. Try another - again the larger picture in the main area and small thumb at the side. To see other types of still photos just click on the drop down box and different images appear.

Photo and move reels is a page with thumb nails of movies Gregory have done. See here. There are thumb nails that when clicked on take you to a new page with some stills showcased, or in the example of Boring Or, for example, you can also click on 'movie reels' and see a sample of the film.

Of course the resume rounds out the actors portfolio.

It's challenging and fun to do a creative site like this for actor Gregory Collett.

I will show you a different one next time.

Click here to view our gallery of web sites we have created.

Jan

Alt Tags

What is an alt tag, you may ask - well an alt tag is a text description for images.

There are two important reasons to use alt tags.

1. Accessibility for vision-imparied visitors. The software will be able to describe to the user what they can't see.

2. Search engines cannot see images but the can read the content that describes the image.
This is an example of how you would use it:

img alt="description of image and do use keywords if appropriate for the particular image" src=imagename.jpg" (Do make sure you put this inbetween < > If I try to do this it says the image is not valid :)

Having said that, don't keyword stuff your alt tag. That will hurt you more than help you. Just be reasonable and ensure the keyword(s) you use represent the image and the subject matter of the page.

Read more articles here: http://www.jbcr-virtualsolutions.com/tips-and-articles.html

Jan

Do You Depend On Google Searches?

The saying "don't put all your eggs in one basket" comes to mind IF you depend solely on Google searches. With constant changes in their algorithm you can be listed on the first page one day and the 1000 page a month later. No don't get discouraged, sometimes it is a shift that will be adjusted and you will see yourself back in that spot, other times it is website owners who are working their sites and it starts to pay off, or....

Work Your Site?

Yep! As much as it would be nice to just upload the site and wait for traffic that is just not going to happen.

First - focus. Take a broad key phrase and narrow it. As an example, as a web designer if I type in 'web site design' in Google I get 1,090,000,000 results . Being found for 'web site design' is so broad I would be lucky (to say the least) if I was in the top 10. But narrow it down to 'web designer Canada' I get 126,000,000 results. Yes of course still daunting, and this is not what I target for, but you can see what I am saying.

So yes absolutely work your site for search engine searches but don't rely on them completely. You need to work your website and that means starting a blog (or two), submit articles, social networking, etc.

Read more about this and other informative articles here:
http://www.jbcr-virtualsolutions.com/tips-and-articles.html

Jan

Advertising on Second Life

We have been on a search for land at Second Life and have finally bought land!

Our goal to buy land is to build a business for my company and help my clients build a business in Second Life. There are many businesses and companies in Second Life and I know this will continue to grow.

Of course we want to advertise, but since we are new and just 'found land', one thing we did was create a tshirt with our company info, logo and web site address on it - we wear our advertising.

Here's a pic:



To do this you need to create a texture on a basic shirt. Here is what the texture looks like when you upload it to Second Life:



Of course there are many different ways to advertise, which we are going to do, once we get a shop built. For now this is a start.

Are you interested in marketing in Second Life? Click here to read more.

If you are not a member and want to join Second Life? Click here . Do say HI when you join!

Jan

Creating a Business In Second Life - Buying Land

I have talked about my 'quest' to buy land in Second Life and build a business, for myself and to help my clients, and my 'quest' has taken a nice turn. I finally found some land in Second Life.

Read more about it here:

http://secondlifesnippets.com/