His latest venture, Dog Talk Professional Dog Training, was no different. He wanted a logo similiar to what he has for his other business, Wag & Wash, but with a striking, high contrast style and the image of a black lab prominent.

I went with a funky font to bring some movement and action to the logo and it worked! The final logo is here:

Once you have a Roboform Online account, you can download the bookmarklet by going here:

https://online.roboform.com/bookmarklet/install 

Please read the instructions carefully and install it on your system, as well as adding it to your favorites so you can easily access it later.

When you are ready to login into a site, enter the login information you have for the URL (such as 1shoppingcart or wordpress):

Next, click the Roboform bookmarklet.

If you are not already logged in, you will see a login box. Enter your USER ID and PASSWORD.

Next you will see the following:

Enter a name for the login. Try to keep to the standard that’s already being used to make it easier. Such as name – cart.

Press Continue. Finish typing your login, if you haven’t already and press login ON THE WEBSITE YOU ARE SAVING THE LOGIN FOR:

Once you press login on the URL, you will get one last box that tells you that your login was just saved:

You can press CLOSE or wait for the box to close by itself.

That’s all there is to it! Now you can add your own logins to the Roboform Online Bookmarklet!

So, you have a Flash file and you want to be able to click on a portion of it and have that click open a URL of your choice. Some of the problems I ran into is that the getURL command is no longer functional in Actionscript 3.0, which is the current/latest version.  The code involved with the getURL command is much shorter but don’t be discouraged; it’s still a very easy thing to accomplish using the code I’ve listed below.

NOTE: there are a couple items you need to make certain of before you use this code:

1. The instance name of the button/movie clip MUST be named to match your code below. If you don’t have the exact same name in both the Actionscript and as the instance name of your clip/button, it won’t work. Period. In this example, it’s named

   my_btn

2. It’s best to put this code into a NEW LAYER in your Flash file. I call this layer ‘actions’ and it’s ALWAYS best to keep it separate to avoid any code issues.

Ok, here’s your code:

my_btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, mouseDownHandler);

function mouseDownHandler(event:MouseEvent):void {

    navigateToURL(new URLRequest("http://www.wickedrelevant.com/"));
}

If you need additional help with this, or you’re a beginner with other questions, feel free to send me an email.

A simple but striking website was needed as a ‘go to’ location for information about the event. We decided to use bright colors and also a picture of a dog and cat that is related to one of the sponsor’s products.

A first draft was produced and I’m happy to say, it was approved immediately!

The site went live in early September and the owner was extremely pleased! As promised, a single page poster that matched the look and feel of the website was produced, as well.

All in all, this was an extremely fun project to work on and I think the results were excellent!

Why get a website? It’s very very important in business to make your customer feel comfortable with you; that’s how you get them to trust and then purchase from you. A website is an important part of the current trust relationship.

Why?

Build credibility

Having a website to send potential customers to, even if you don’t sell retail items on your site, but instead sell your services, builds credibility and makes your business seem professional and worthy of trust. Likewise, having domain-specific email builds trust, as well. Also, it makes it clear that your business intends to stick around.

Online brand

Think of your domain name and your website as your online storefront. It’s your virtual location and should be considered an extension of your brand – to mesh nicely with your other marketing materials.

Traffic

With a large percentage of potential customers searching online for products and/or services BEFORE making a purchase, an effectively built, relevant website is extremely important. Traffic from type in traffic, search engine results pages, referring websites or even from Pay Per Click marketing is an excellent way to help increase your reach.

Is this important? YES! Think of your domain name as your online calling card, your go-to location, your i-Home. It’s the place where potential customers will gather to check out what you have to offer. Some things to think about:

Pick something people can remember.

I can’t stress this enough. If someone remembers your domain name, they’re more likely to come back.

If you can, pick your domain name based on your business name. That way, they’re tied together in the visitor’s mind.

If you can’t pick your domain name based on your business name, stick with something memorable. For example, if your business name is Big Tech Web Hosting and your first choice, www.BigTechWebHosting.com is taken, think about something that will both represent your business as well as stick in someone’s mind.

Maybe something like www.HostAtBigTech.com or www.GetBigTech.com. The point is to find something catchy that is both easy to remember and still represents your company.

Short and sweet.

In other words, make it short and easy to spell because people are going to misspell it if they can.

Try for keywords, but ONLY if they directly relate to your business and it makes sense to have those keywords. For the most part, a domain that contains keywords is going to rank higher for THAT keyword than another domain name will.

Example: www.WEBSITE.com is going to rank higher for the keyword WEBSITE than www.DesignersDream.com simply because the keyword is in the domain name. USUALLY.

There are exceptions. And given the fact that getting a domain name with keywords is fast becoming almost impossible, it’s not a HAVE TO DO type of thing. If you can, do it; if not, don’t sweat it.

Remember: your website is often a potential customer’s first look at your company. With nearly all, if not all, of your competition sporting websites of their own, you have to be able to stand out from the crowd and present an online ’storefront’ that makes you visually appealing and worthy of a second look.

That said, having just a small amount of the needed skills isn’t enough for a couple of reasons:

• Time – the time it will take you to create a professional looking website is going to be exponentially higher than simply hiring a company to do it for you
• Presentation – it is very likely that you will not possess all of the skills to produce the type of website you are after
• Website builders DO NOT work – they are time consuming & cumbersome to use and typically turn out sites that look, well, like they were built with a website builder.

The skills you will need to design and build a professional website include:

• Design ability – this includes access to and proficiency in one of the many graphic design software programs available, such as Photoshop (the #1 choice).
• Artistic ability – this means you have to be able to take your skills in the design software and turn it into something creative and attractive, as well as functional.
• HTML/coding ability – you will need to take the artistic design you’ve created and know how to get it onto a web page.
• Programming ability – this means that you can make your website do the things you want it to do, such as submitting forms, allowing customers to access a login area, add interactive functions or integrate it with a database.
• SEO/Marketing ability – there’s more to it an just posting a website; people have to find the website for it to be effective.

In short, building a website is a complicated process. Simply OWNING programs like Photoshop or Dreamweaver does not make you a web designer!

There is often the illusion that anyone can make a website; that may be true, however, not everyone can make a professional, attractive website that converts visitors into customers. It may be that you have some of these skills but not all of them. It’s possible to hire a company to do as little or as much of your project as you want them to do but remember, it shouldn’t be about the money.

The money saved by you often comes out as a huge amount of your time spent out of your depth. Meaning that your main concern should be getting more sales/customers to your business and that is where you time is probably best spent. You may save money in the short run, but in the long run, it’s unlikely. If you already have a company brand, hiring a professional website designer is a must to maintain and further your branding and your business’ image.

Ready to hire the best designer for your website design project? Contact me today!

People have emotional reactions to colors; that in turn, can make or break the visitor’s feelings about your website, your brand, your company and ultimately your entire business. Keep in mind that a lot of these reactions happen on the ‘gut’ level, meaning that people don’t even know they are having these reactions!

Also, just like scents, color reactions aren’t the same in every single person, but when you’re dealing with the internet, first impressions (and other people’s first impressions) count a lot!

Let’s take a look at colors and what they ‘mean’:

White – purity, virginity, cleanliness, hope.

Gray - conservative, reliable, maybe a tad boring. Gray is a standard in business clothing.

Blue – calm, trustworthy. Blue is used very often in the financial and health care markets.

Red – anger, violence, lust. Red is a great color to attract attention but should be used sparingly.

Yellow - warm, happy. Has a relationship to eating (McDonald’s arches aren’t yellow for nothing).

Brown – earth, nature. Can also be seen as dirty or unclean.

Black – power. On the internet, black is too often used on pornographic sites, or other sites that are ‘dark’ in nature.

Orange - halloween. Works well and is often used with the soothing power of blue.

Pink – a pale cousin of red, most often associated with feminine pursuits.

Green - money and wealth.

Purple – creativity to a point. Too much becomes garish and dated.

Colors Online

All monitors will display colors differently. There are 216 web-safe colors. If exact colors are important, look into web-safe colors.

Things to consider with colors and website design

• Text – do not use colors or white text on black backgrounds; it’s extremely hard on the eye. Likewise, other light colors on dark backgrounds are very distracting. Unless there is a good reason not to, always stick to dark text on a light background.
• Consistency – colors should be used sparingly and in a consistent manner across a website. For example, if your navigation is black text on a creme background on the home page, it should be the same or a complimentary variation throughout the site. Discordant colors are jarring and leave the visitor feeling ‘unsettled’.
• Bright colors, such as red, yellow, orange, etc., should be used to make points and should not be the main ‘theme’ of a site.
• White is good – white space should ALWAYS be used as a design element. It helps line everything up to the eye, as well as giving the eye ‘resting’ points so that it can fully enjoy the colors in other locations

Bottom line: color is EXTREMELY important, both in attracting a visitor to your site, keeping them there, and making the sale.

What do you think? Do you have the same reactions to colors as I listed above or are your experiences different?  Do you ever use color to make a statement? I’d love to hear your comments.