My Web Design Source » Web Design – Articles, Tips and Resources

Helping clients with their mock site & web concepts

Ryan Gagajena — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:10:38 +0000

Starting a new website from scratch can be a daunting tasks for our new clients. I recently came across this “FREE” online software ( no downloads required or flash ) that makes it easy for “non technical” computer user to easily create a “mock site” or web concepts so that we can make the web designer process easier and faster. New clients usually have an idea of what they want to include in their website but does not have a web tools to express those concepts other than in pencil and paper. Well here is the great resource, www.gomockingbird.com – “wireframes on the fly”

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www.primeconcepts.com Ford Saeks online marketing tips

Ryan Gagajena — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 20:40:35 +0000

I often find good online resources as a web designer. Ford Saeks’ useful advice and topics has added to my knowledge base as a web designer and hope to pass along to my web design clients. Check out Ford’s video below and to me it really makes a lot of sense.

www.primeconcepts.com – Profit Rich Marketing

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“Crush It!” – Marketing Online with Social Media

Ryan Gagajena — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:20:17 +0000

Online marketing trailblazer Gary Vaynerchuk (VAY NER CHUK) is a 33-year-old entrepreneur whose dual identity as both business guru and wine guy has made him known as the “Social Media Sommelier.”

A business friend of mine, Gregg Towsley from www.wsiqualitysolutions.com sent me this info ! Thanks to Gregg, its a great way to start the New Year by sharing this as well to my clients.

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Non-Profit Organizations using Websites

Ryan Gagajena — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 17:35:13 +0000

Many of our past clients come from non-profit organizations such as the Occupational Theraphy Training Program ( www.ottp.org ), Ateneo Alumni Alliance USA ( www.ateneoalumniusa.org ), The Youth Science Center (www.youthsciencecenter.org) and Philippine Womens University Alimni Association of Southern California ( www.pwuaasc.org ) to name a view.

They use the web to help bring their members together with the following web features.

Pay membership or recurring donation online
Post news and events
Online calendars
Photo and Video galleries
Online Forums
Source of contacts and other information

Featured Websites for Non Profit Organizations

Occupational Therapy Training Program (www.ottp.org)

Ateneo Alumni Alliance USA (www.ateneoalumniusa.com)

Youth Science Center ( www.youthsciencecenter.org)

Philippine Womens University Alumni Association of Southern California (www.pwuaasc.org)

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Ecommerce case study & design for Target.com

Ryan Gagajena — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 21:44:20 +0000

I’ve had lots of ecommerce experience since 2002 and throughout the years I’ve build numerous ecommerce sites. In one of my recent ecommerce project inquiry, I created a case study and looked at www.target.com as an example. I usually tell my clients to look for “live” websites out there and see what they like in look and feel, color schemes or navigation flow. We can usually copy any website out there and make it our own. Here are my “Target.com” notes I sent.

Case Study – Home Page Presentation

Home Page - Graphics

Case Study – Home Page

Home Page - Detail

Case Study – Product List

Case Study - Product List

Case Study – Product Details

Case Study - Product Details

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Twitter & Facebook a visual concept notes by J.A. Byrne

Ryan Gagajena — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 23:16:26 +0000

Visual notes of John A Byrne of Business Week’s talk at the 140 Characters Conference. Source link.

I’ve always been a visual learner and having John A. Byrne cartoon these social media trends (www.twitter.com and www.facebook.com) was really refreshing and had to share to my clients.

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Twitter In Plain English – Twitter Revealed

Ryan Gagajena — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 07:21:46 +0000

Twitter is an internet phenom of lates… here is a great video that explains it.

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Client Sample Presentation Jan 13th, 2009

rgagajena — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 07:25:31 +0000

I did a presentation today for a good size Architect firm with around 50 full time employees. A few of the partners where there as well as a several key staff involved in choosing a web designer to revamp their current site. To show the flexibility of WordPress, I posted the notes on my website instead of a typical “PowerPoint” presentation. I knew coming in that their website needed to be have some sort of Content Management capability. Their site won’t be in WordPress for sure but instead be a hybrid of flash, javascript and custom made content management systems. Notice also that I did not stop at the web design aspect but also discussed the Search Engine Marketing efforts we can offer.

With all our potential clients, we do a “mock” or sample site for free at no obligation. This helps the client to determine if we are right fit for their project and beats out any of our competition! I won’t disclose the mock site we did as this project is still under development but all I can say is the turn around time for a full flash mock for them was around 3 days and we worked on it over one weekend. I like the client’s challenge, thus the extra effort in the “Free” mock Flash Site!

Here are my notes that usually applies to many of our new potential clients as well.

Why A Website?

Goals
Current
Expected Results
Budget

who is your target audience
features
functions
visitor experience
future changes & updates
marketing efforts

Current Web Development

With all our potential clients, we do a “mock” or sample site for free at no obligation.

Web Design Ideas

Jovaniusa.com Flash, Java Script, html text, css
CoastalTiles.com Picture Gallery
TruckerDeals.com Flash Print Catalog Pages

Search Engine Marketing & Beyond

Google Adwords
Organic Results – Blogging, Directory Submissions, Search Engine Optimization
Marketing past, current and future clients.

Blog

Web 2.0

Usability
Participation
Convergence
Design
Standardization
Blogs
Video, Audio
Ajax
Focus on Simplicity
Recomendation

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Content Management System

Ryan Gagajena — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 02:00:10 +0000

Often, I find really cool articles regarding a subject that I need to explain to new clients. Here is a great article I find very informative and well written.

Do you need a Content Management System?

Within the last 3 months, many of our clients have been coming to us wanting to be able to update their own website. Some clients are sick of waiting for days or even weeks on their “web guy” to make updates to their website. Others make changes so frequently they’d just rather do it themselves than pay someone the hourly fees. Here are some things to things to think about when considering if your website needs a content management system or not.

What is a Website Content Management System?

A Content Management System (CMS) is a web-based program or application that allows you to create, edit and manage your website content. A web designer can create a custom design for you and then integrate it as a “theme” or “template” for the CMS being used. Most of the data or content for your website is stored in a database instead of flat files (multiple HTML files linked together). A CMS website is sometimes called a “dynamic website” because the data is being stored in a database and not using flat files.

With a CMS comes more advanced functionality than a flat file website. Some typical features include a news/blogging tool, contact forms, simple file/image uploading, user roles or permissions, photo galleries, etc.

How a Website Content Management System can help

With a Content Management System, you as a client can make updates to your own website without the need to call a “web guy”. Usually we get clients who ask for a CMS because they have finally become tired of their web guy taking way too long to make simple text changes to their website. Another positive is that the cost to maintain your website goes down since you are doing the regular content maintenance. Instead of paying a web guy an hourly fee for updates, you make the updates yourself and they get published immediately. With the right CMS and the proper instruction from your web developer, your CMS should be very simple to use and make updates.

Which Website Content Management System is best?

Each website has unique requirements so not every CMS is right for every project. You first need to analyze your needs and what is most important for your website. With those requirements, a web developer should be able to select the proper solution for you. In our experience, we have found the open source community to be a great fit for most of our clients. When certain website requirements are very specific to a client’s needs, we will implement a custom solution. However, we have found that WordPress seems to be the one solution we come back to time and time again. I’ll be adding another blog post in the near future about our experiences with WordPress and why we always seem to choose it as the best solution for our clients.

So do you need a Website Content Management System?

Here is what we always ask our prospective clients when they ask us about a CMS:

Are you planning on making updates more than once a month?
Do you ever have time sensitive updates that require immediate publishing?
Are you comfortable paying more upfront but saving money on hourly updates over time?

If you answer “yes” to any of these questions, than a CMS might be a great fit for you. If you only have a small, brochure type website with content that changes on a very infrequent basis then the additional cost to setup a CMS may not really be warranted.

Source: Derek Ashauer, AshWebStudio

Here is a great explanation as well from www.creativemediaweb.com

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My Web Design Source

Ryan Gagajena — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 23:41:57 +0000

My Web Design Source is a group of creative individuals joined together around a couple of driving passions… a commitment to build up and provide web based solutions to small and medium sized businesses with strong internet appearance and style!

My Web Design Source provides you with affordable website design services in a professional manner backed up with a top priority customer service. A professional website design company does not limit its service in building up your website but also extends its services to properly market of your web presence to the potential online clientele.

Irrespective of your budget, My Web Design Source will provide you the absolute best solution to accomplish your online presence needs.

Call Us Today for a Free, No Obligation Consultation! Visit us or we can also visit you in your business or your local area Starbucks!

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