Category: Creative Programs and Systems - page 24

In the past, the role of the web designer was rather straightforward and simple — their job was to create a website for you that was visually appealing, and functioned in the way that you wanted it to. However, just as the internet has aged, or “added on years”, the years have added new requirements for the aesthetic designers of days past. Overlooking all of the visual changes of recent years — from the basic text websites of the 1990s to the flash-and-flaunt designs of the late 90s and early 2000s — there are new requirements that are demanded of today’s website designers. Today’s web designers not only must possess the ability to deliver a high-functioning website, they must have a solid understanding of SEO, or search engine optimization, so that their end-result designs — your website — is prepped and primed to compete in today’s competitive search engine marketplace.

Today’s website technologies are significantly more advanced than those that were available even just five years ago. Dynamic functionality is the norm, rather than a luxury reserved for those who can afford the oft-called ‘geeky play toys’ and the servers needed to run them, and online competition increases exponentially by the day for many competitive markets. When you hire a website designer today, your website’s search engine placement and positioning should not be an afterthought, rather, it should be planned beforehand and be integrated into the very core of your website’s design and structuring.

Now, this does not mean that a website design company needs to also provide SEO services, or search engine placement services, themselves to be considered a good website design company. Rather, what is important is that your website designer of choice understands the basics of search engine optimization and designs your website that allows for easy optimization of all of its important elements. What would be tragic, especially in this day in age, is to purchase professional website design services only to realize later that there is no easy way for you to create unique page titles for every page, or to use user and search engine friendly page names instead of the generic, and less-than-helpful for search engine rankings improvement query strings for dynamically-generated pages.

Just because you hire a website design company, this does not mean that their only job should be to create a visually-appealing and functional website. There is too much competition online these days to leave your website’s search engine optimization as an afterthought rather than an integral part of your website’s initial design and layout. Again, we are not saying that it is your website designer’s job to create keyword-focused page titles, or to come up with your website’s meta description tags, but it should be their job to create a website that can easily be modified to import these important search engine optimization elements.

While the role that website designers play has not changed a lot over the years, creating a search-engine-friendly design is one of the more important requirements for today’s website designers. Bottom line — if your website design company of choice doesn’t have the ability to create designs that are easy to optimize for search engines, there are a thousands of other designers — both freelance and corporate — who are more than willing to take on your website design project.

CPS is a website design company offering search engine positioning services to Pinckney, Howell, Brighton, South Lyon and all of Livingston County, Michigan.

Spyware is an all-too-real, but definitely unwanted, reality that faces PC owners today. There is computer software that comes pre-installed with spyware, websites that embed spyware into your computer without your knowledge, and unfortunately, even anti-spyware software that actually proliferates your computer’s infections due to malicious intent by savvy but morally bankrupt marketers. For as much as anti-spyware software is advertised online, and for as user-friendly as many tout it to be, removing computer spyware can be a risky endeavor for those who are not computer savvy. So, the question remains — is removing spyware on your own the best choice, or is it something that should be left to the professionals?

The reality is that in order to remove spyware and viruses from your computer, there’s a good chance that you’ll need to alter your computer’s sensitive records — most notably, registry entries. For those who do not know, your computer’s registry is like the ‘brains’ behind your computer, and if your registry becomes corrupted, or entries are accidentally removed, this can have devastatingly-negative effects on the functionality of your computer.

It’s the same when you want to remove viruses just as it is when you are trying to remove spyware from your computer — these malicious files are generally embedded into your computer so well that they require several tedious, and manual, steps in order for you to completely remove the spyware-laden or virus-infected files, and all their associations, from your PC. Oftentimes, this includes manually editing your computer’s registry, which, again, is not something that should be done by the average computer user.

If your computer is infected, it is highly recommended that you attempt to rid your computer of spyware as soon as you can, but also that you do it safely. Because of the huge variance of requirements to remove different types of malicious bugs from your computer, we also highly recommend that you take your computer to a professional who can remove the spyware, and any other infections, safely, without risking your computer, its functionality, or its data.

These days, website design services are a dime a dozen. Which, this can be good or bad, depending on how you look at it. What it means for you, however, as a website owner, is that you have a lot more choices available to you when you’re looking to choose a company to create or re-create your online presence, and hopefully you’ll find one that can do more than just a basic website design.

In the past, getting your website listed, and ranked, in search engines was much more simple than it is today. In fact, each year that the internet ‘ages’, it is getting incrementally more difficult to get first-page placement for your chosen keywords. Now, even if your website designer does not understand all of the up-to-the-minute nuances of search engine marketing, if you want effective website design, your website designer should, at the very least, understand the basics of search engine optimization.

See, today, website design is not just about building a pretty or functional website — it’s also about preparing your website to compete in the increasingly competitive search engine marketplace. Any semi-skilled 12-year-old can design a web page, quite frankly, but website design is just the framework that will support your website on the internet superhighway. Website design without structural SEO is like owning a Dodge Viper that’s powered by an 8-horsepower Briggs & Stratton riding-lawnmower engine. While it may look pretty, it isn’t going to take you very far.

While a good website design company should also offer search engine positioning services, at the very least, your website designer of choice should have a solid grasp on what it takes to create a search-engine friendly website. Without these skills, you’re left with nothing but a Viper backed by a lawn-mower engine — it might be a conversation piece, but it won’t get you the results you’re looking for in the online race to the top of the search engine results pages.

CPS provides website design and search engine placement services to Brighton, Howell, Pinckeny, Novi and all of Livingston County.

While website design is a much-needed service for individuals and companies looking to build an online presence, design services alone are not enough to put you on the map, so to speak, when it comes to being listed in search engines and receiving free search engine traffic. Unfortunately, too many people assume that website design is the one-step processes needed to enjoy the benefits of owning a website, when, actually, it’s just the first step in the process. Not all website design companies offer search engine placement, but there are those that do, and here are a couple of reasons why you should choose a website design company that also provides search engine placement services.

You can save money

All-in-one services, or website development and marketing packages, tend to cost less than purchasing website design services and then adding the search engine optimization and marketing aspects later on. This is a common occurrence in many industries; your insurance rates are lower if you purchase home, auto, and life insurance through the same company, and you pay less for your food at McDonald’s if you purchase a value meal than if you bought each food-and-drink item individually. All across the board, bundled services are cheaper, and this is definitely true when you’re dealing with website design and search engine placement services.

Your website is built with search engine placement in mind

If you hire a web designer who does not have a basic knowledge of what it takes to make a website ‘friendly’ for search engines, you are really at a disadvantage. Everything from content structuring, internal link usage, and keyword usage is important when it comes to improving a website’s search engine placement. If your website is developed without considering these elements, it will take more effort, and thus more money, to improve your website’s layout for better search engine positioning in the future.

Unless you have an unlimited budget, it’s a good idea to search for a website design company that also provides basic search engine optimization services, or ideally, search engine placement services. Cheap, no-frills website design services may be budget-friendly in the short term, but if you’re looking to get the most out of your website, they certainly are not the cost-effective solution.

Visit CPS for website design services with search engine positioning options for Pinckney, Brighton, Howell, and all of Livingston County.

Viruses, spyware, and adware are all annoying, and they can be dangerous, but not just in the way that you’re probably thinking. Yes, a virus, trojan, and other nasty computer bugs can compromise your privacy; computer viruses are a contributing factor in today’s identity theft statistics. However, oft-overlooked problems with computer viruses are the damages that you inflict when you, through trial and error, attempt to rid your computer of viruses yourself. Even though computers are typically durable on the outside, they are delicate, precision machines on the inside. One wrong move in an attempt to clean a virus from your computer can result in catastrophic data loss, but fortunately, this catastrophic loss is avoidable.

Those in the Livingston County area, specifically Brighton, Pinckney, Howell, South Lyon or Fowlerville, can take their PCs over to Computers Plus Service (CPS) to remove viruses, remove spyware, or any other malware infection to have them clean the virus from your computer. They have over 50 years of combined experience in computer virus removal, and are able to help you get your PC clean the first time around, without having to worry about losing all of your computer’s files and software.

The best way, and some would say the only way, to remove a virus from your computer, safely, is to have a professional do it. While the DIY approach (do it yourself) may work well for a while, playing the guessing game with virus removal is like playing Russian Roulette with your PCs data — eventually you will lose that game.

If you want to remove a virus that you just can’t get rid of, or if you want to avoid playing Russian Roulette with your computer’s files, check out CPSs virus and spyware removal services, and contact them for a quote so that you can get rid of your PCs spyware and viruses for good.

Anybody who lives in Michigan can attest to the fact that Michigan winters are cold. While some winters are colder than others, every year, at some point, you are almost guaranteed weeks of sub-zero temperatures and nasty windchill temperatures to boot. It doesn’t really matter how you heat your home — a log-burning wood stove, natural gas, or electricity — when it’s cold outside, especially if you have a larger home, you have to use more resources to keep your home warm. This is where a thermal energy analysis can help you to save some money this year on your home heating bills.

Also known as infrared thermography, or thermal imaging, thermal energy analysis allows you to view unseen parts of your home — in terms of energy savings, this type of analysis allows you to see cold and hot air ‘leaks’ coming into, and leaving, your house. So, if you can see where your heated air is escaping your home, or where cold air drafts are coming in heavily, you can fix those problem spots, keep your home warmer in the winter while spending less money on heating your home.

Saniglow of Brighton, Michigan offers home thermal imaging services that can help you to pinpoint hot and cold air leaks in your home. Alongside showing you home energy leaks, however, Saniglow’s thermography services:

• Can pinpoint electrical ‘hotspots’ that may post a fire hazard
• Identify moisture buildup that can cause dangerous mold inside your home
• Highlight areas of low or missing insulation within your home’s walls

If you own a home and you live in Brighton, Howell, South Lyon, or anywhere in Livingston County, Saniglow’s thermography services are a must for homeowners who want to not only protect their investment, but to keep their home heating costs low, especially during Michigan’s harsh winters.

Visit the Saniglow cleaning services website for more information on their cleaning, flood repair, and thermography services.

The New York Times issued readers of its website on 9/14/2009 to beware of a virus pretending to be an advertisement.  If the New Your Times website isn’t safe, are any?  I doubt it.  Today with viruses being designed to take over your computer without you even knowing; it is imperative to keep up to date on virus protection.  One of our favorites is www.avira.com.  It is a low cost solution that protects everything you need.  Take a minute right now to make sure EVERY computer in your office has anti-virus on it, and is up to date.

CPS is a Livingston based company focusing on website design and computer consulting.

Website design work requires a complete team of people to assemble.  From graphic design to general layout to text that is ready for Google and Yahoo to managing SEO effort, social networking, press releases and more.  It is important to find a reputable web design firm, and then find out what it should cost.  Most websites that do not offer ecommerce should run between $1500 and $4000.  Ecommerce sites (depending on web design and layout) should only add another $1500-$3000.  SEO marketing for most small businesses should be under $600 to get started and then progress as your budget does.

I’ve seen too many people pay $15,000 for a site that should have cost $2000. There are a ton of cons out there, so it is very important to do your homework.  Ask for references, web site design samples, and make sure you have a good vibe with the owner.  Any honest business person should be able to tell you what realm your project should cost, what you can expect realistically from search rankings, the benefits of search placement, and EXACTLY how they plan on designing your website.

Be wary of anyone promising you anything on search engines.  Many firms will guarantee 1^st page rankings, ask them what their guarantee is.  Will they refund you all of the money for the project? How about some of the money? If not is it really a guarantee or just some hype work they are throwing around.

CPS is a Livingston based company focusing on website design and computer consulting.