GREAT WEBSITES THAT WORK

Carla Pendergraft

Carla Pendergraft Associates Web Design

www.carlapendergraft.com

UNIVERSALITY OF PRINCIPLES

The principles and trends we will go over

apply to virtually all industries and types of

businesses.

Non-profits

Destination management organizations

Commercial businesses

GREAT WEBSITES THAT WORK

What makes a great website?

What are the trends in web design today?

What about mobile devices and tablets?

What do websites cost today?

Google AdWords Basics

WHAT MAKES A GREAT WEBSITE?

Home page tells you if you’re in the right

place

Easy to navigate

Updated

Interface is “familiar” – you can figure out

how to get around and get what you want

Looks modern

Rich in content

WHAT MAKES A GREAT WEBSITE?

Graphics are changed every year or at least

every other year

Yet, the cost of building a site makes that

prohibitive, right?

More on that later!

BAD WEBSITES

Random navigation

Confusion reigns supreme

BAD WEBSITES

•Waggling flag

•Blinking text

•Ugly colors

•Awful graphics

BAD WEBSITES

•Awful navigation

•Minimalism run amok

TRENDS

Smaller, simple header w/logo

Horizontal navigation with drop-down

submenus

Use of “sliders” or slideshows

Wide format photographs

Icons for social media

Icons used to give visual cues to user

Integrated blogs

TRENDS

Header or banner

Navigation bar

Slider

Icons

MORE ON ICONS

Simple icons are well

understood by most

visitors.

TRENDS IN WEB DESIGN

Flash is dead

Rise of Jquery/JavaScript, CSS3, HTML5

Use of themes as a design framework

Rise of mobile/tablet

Decline of the desktop

Rise of open source content management

systems

TRENDS

Blogs are now integrated into websites

Rise of third-party add-on software

PayPal

Helper programs of all sorts

THEMES

Themes are not templates. Themes are a

design framework or layout.

Themes are very powerful!

One theme may have many options for

color scheme, placement of elements, types

of sliders, etc.

Themeforest.net – my favorite

THEMES

“Shortcodes” – bits of code you can use to

make buttons, alerts, multiple columns,

galleries and other elements

Each theme has various shortcodes built in

Themes may have special “widgets”

THEMES

Once the CMS is installed, you can switch

out themes to get a whole new look to your

site.

Get a new website without paying for a new

website!

MOBILE WEBSITES

We cannot ignore the fact that a greater

percentage of visitors are using their

smartphone to access our website.

Each brand may render your site differently.

And also iPads and other tablets

And what about PCs with wide, wide

screens?

MOBILE WEBSITES

MOBILE WEBSITES

MOBILE WEBSITES

It’s no longer good enough to be “mobile

friendly”

(A tiny version of a website built for the

desktop)

We need a website that is designed for

smartphone, iPad, desktop, all of it.

Enter the “responsive” website!

RESPONSIVE WEBSITES

Responsive websites have a mobile style

sheet that senses when a mobile device or

tablet accesses the site.

The website coding renders the website in

a way that works for that device.

It uses special scrolling menus for phones

It is not just a “small version” of the website

DEMAND A RESPONSIVE WEBSITE!

TAKE OUT YOUR SMARTPHONE!

Look at www.earleharrison.com

Note the scrolling navigation designed for

the smartphone.

The website is built of “boxes” and the

boxes stack in the mobile browser.

RESPONSIVE WEBSITES

RESPONSIVE WEBSITES

When you have a mobile stylesheet, you

only update the main website. The

stylesheet does the rest.

There is only ONE website.

This is such a new concept, many web

designers are not familiar with it yet.

CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Here are the major brands of Content

Management Systems (CMS) today:

Joomla! – open source PHP

Drupal – open source PHP

WordPress – open source PHP

Custom-coded (ASP or PHP)

WORDPRESS

WordPress is powering 51% of the world’s

new websites today.

OPEN SOURCE WARS

WORDPRESS DRUPAL AND JOOMLA!

8,039 / 7,608

885/unknown

1.6%/2.7%

$5,000 - $50K

Plugins: 14,629

Themes: 1,392

No. of Top Sites: 14.3%

Avg. Setup: $250 - $15K

Currently the most

popular CMS in the world!

CAUTIONS

WordPress is still weak in e-commerce

Not all web designers understand security

needs

Government and specialized industries

may have needs not covered by these open

source programs.

WEBSITE COSTS – THE OLDEN DAYS

$2,000 - $10,000 for graphics

$2,500 - $15,000 for custom programming

Hosting/domain name costs: $120-$600/yr.

Search engine optimization up to $25K/yr.

WEBSITE COSTS –MODERN DAY

Use an open source (free) content

management system

Get a web designer to install it and move

the content over – generally $800 to $3,000

Update the “slider” (slideshow) to keep it

fresh

Change out the theme each year using

same CMS

WEBSITE COSTS – CAUTIONS

Must keep CMS and plugins up to date!

Just like apps you download for your phone,

the CMS and its plugins issue updates

frequently.

Updates are often to plug security holes

Ignore them at your own risk.

COOL WEBSITES

COOL WEBSITES

YOU GET THE PICTURE!

GOOGLE ADWORDS BASICS

WHAT ARE GOOGLE ADWORDS?

GOOGLE ADWORDS

Use Google AdWords when you have a lot

of competitors

When your audience is not just local

When you want to reach “the world”

When you want to sell via your website

GOOGLE ADWORDS

Introductory Video on Google AdWords:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx2L6EGa9DY

Do some research on your competitors – look at

their Google ads.

GETTING STARTED WITH ADWORDS

Go to Google.com/adwords to get started.

Decide on your daily budget. ($10-$50)

Set an email alert for when you’ve spent

your daily budget.

You can edit, pause or delete a campaign

anytime.

No minimum spend.

GLOSSARY

Clicks

A user sees your ad and clicks it to get to your

website.

Impressions

How often your ad is shown on Google.

Click through rate (CTR)

# of times your ad is shown / # of clicks

Manual vs. Automatic bidding

GOOGLE KEYWORD TOOL

You put in a few starter phrases

Google will expand this and tell you actual

searches per month on your search terms

and related terms.

GOOGLE KEYWORD TOOL

KEYWORD RESEARCH

Google set

my bid at

$1.38 per

click.

ADWORD CAMPAIGN DASHBOARD

THE FINAL AD

Organic

position is

also

important!

My ad,

minutes

after

campaign

was set up.

GOOGLE ADWORDS EXPRESS

Use when your target market is mainly local

Restaurant, retail, etc.

Pay-per-click

Very simple to use. Similar to Adwords.

You don’t even need a website.

LET’S LOOK AT SOME WEBSITES!