How Browsers Affect Your Website's Appearance

We take browsers for granted. Most folks still use Internet Explorer 6.0 or have upgraded to IE7.0 by now.  Less used browsers include Google Chrome, Opera, Firefox and Safari (for Mac users). Netscape, one of the first browsers, sadly closed its doors in 2008. 

We know browsers open up web sites for us, help us search and keep our "favorites" stored away for later use. Some block pop-ups, warn us if a website has criminal intent (like stealing our passwords) and prevent bad guys from running damaging scripts on our computers.

Other than that, why should we care about which browser we use?

Think of it this way: your browser interprets all the programming code that goes into a web page, then displays it so a mere mortal can read the text, see the images, hear the sounds and watch the videos.  

Unfortunately, not all browsers interpret web code the same way. Sometimes the differences are subtle. You may see a collection of images looking one way in Explorer and another in Firefox. Text can be floating around, or an image not centered, for example. This is because each browser has different nuances on how it reads the "tags" in your programming. Tags are programming commands enclosed in brackets <> and when a browser sees it, it follows the direction. This tag system goes back 30 years to the first mark up languages on the internet and in publishing. It's been revised, obviously, over time.

All that said, you should care because if your web designer can't adapt your site for viewing in each browser, a significant portion of your visitors will be turned off by its appearance!

Internet Explorer 8.0 has been released and many websites that have not been upgraded to the new programming standards will look terrible in this browser. If you're not sure how this will impact your web site, call us or write and we'll take a look at your programming code.

Keep your website beautiful by adhering to the web's programming standards.

What is the definition of search engine optimization

Search engine optimization. What a mouthful. What's it mean and why should you care?

Search engine optimization--or the short term--"SEO"--makes or breaks a website.


For example, you own a successful health foods store in Raleigh, NC. You're encouraged by the growth of your business and want to add revenues by selling your supplements online. You go to Google or Yahoo and search on "health food stores raleigh, nc" expecting to see your business listed in the "search engine results pages," or SERPs as they called.


Oops. You're nowhere to be found. What's up with that? You are in Raleigh, you are a health food store, so how dumb is Google?


Unfortunately, your webmaster forgot one final important step: optimizing the site for search results. Google, Yahoo and MSN all have rules you must follow. If you don't know what these rules are, give us a call.


Here's a short answer: each web page has a title. This needs to accurately reflect what the page is about. None of that "for excellence in superior widgets, call ABC Company." Too vague. Each web page has words and phrases that appear only in the programming code. They are called meta tags. The meta tag called "description" is critical. It must be a concise, brief summary of what the page contains, and include words or phrases from the title for best results.


Your website content (that's the text on the page), must contain the words found in the title and description and be written in natural sentence structure. Write like you're talking to your grandma. Don't repeat a keyword 15 times just because you think you'll fool Google and get better ranking. Forget it.


Google could care less about images. So if you paid a ton of money for a fancy flash intro that requires the visitor to "skip this intro" to get to your site, you just threw your money out the window. Same for billboard-sized graphics of smiley employees or happy workers on their cell phones. Ditto for menus that feature goofy buttons that change color when you put your mouse over them.


One more critical component of SEO: fresh content. You need to update your site frequently with fresh content, add pages, tweak, tweak and tweak again until you are getting the results you need.

Remember, only 1% to 3% of your visitors will convert to customers.


Give us a call if you'd like some professional SEO consulting!

How a Greenville NC Law Firm Increased Their Web Traffic

The LeonLaw Firm in Greenville, NC asked Digital Business Services to solve this problem: how to drive traffic to the site -- www.leonlaw.org -- and yet retain the graphic treatment that was already in place.


We did an analysis of the old site and found the previous website production company had created lengthy text pages with "anchors" embedded in the page programming. These are the long pages you have to scroll through, read your information and then click "back to top" to navigate. These are quite common, but problem is, they don't take advantage of breaking out the information into separate pages to make the site more search-engine friendly.


Search engines love content. The more pages, the better. Plus, each page can be optimized to draw traffic into the site.


What we did then, was take each "subtopic" on the long, dry pages and turn them into separate pages focusing on the firm's offerings: business law, job discrimination, accident victims, non-compete agreements and the like. We then added a fluid, easy-to-use navigational bar and optimized each page for its content.


We're happy to report the client is thrilled with the results as traffic as gone up and inquiries from other North Carolina markets have increased as well.


Take a look at the site: www.leonlaw.org and see for yourself what we mean




Professional service companies: attorneys, accountants, consultants, often do well on the web by providing fresh content through articles and news feeds to establish themselves at experts in their fields and draw traffic.