Website: http://chicowebdesign.com
Profile: Born in Southern California, transplanted to Grass Valley California, Jeff pursued and received a business degree from California State University, Chico. Focusing on project management Jeff worked as a business analyst for a fortune 100 company in the Bay Area. After realizing the corporate cubicle world wasn’t for him, he quickly returned to the quaint town of Chico California where he started Chico Web Design from a spare bedroom in 2003.
Chico Web Design is teaming up with 51 Fifty Energy Drink to make a website to display their product catalog, purchase online, and display their event calendar!
Chico Web Design has already helped 51 Fifty Enterprises create 51 Fifty Apparelwhere they have an online ecommerce store for their apperal.
Mobile web development is here in 2011, and is the hottest topic in our industry right now. Millions of users are going online with their smart phones so it is crucial to offer a mobile optimized experience to them so they can easily find information or purchase your products.
Angry Birds Tees mobile optimized website allows users to access angrybirdstees.com from your iPhone, Android, BlackBerry or Palm device, with an easy to follow user experience. Allowing the customer to easily shop and find the product that they are looking for, and then easily purchase it, was our goal from the onset.
If you were to visit the website before it was optimized for mobile, the website would show up in it’s traditional state, in need of zooming, to experience and view the content.
To make it easier on the mobile users, we optimized the Angry Birds T-shirt website for mobile phones. What this means is that when you view their website on your mobile phone it will fit the screen so there is no need to zoom in or out or scroll side to side. The easier it is for users, the more time they want spend on your website which can increase re-visitation. AngryBirdsTees.com is fully optimized for your mobile phones making it effortless to shop for your favorite Angry Birds T-shirts.
We took some screen shots of the new mobile website to show you just how good it looks, check them out below.
Chico Web Design and Fifth Sun are collaborating on a ecommerce website for their exclusively licensed Angry Bird tee shirt line. On the new AngyBirdTees.com, you will be able to purchase Angry Bird Tee’s & Tee Shirts for Men, Women, and Juniors. Look for the Angry Birds ad in the Superbowl!
As technology progresses and smart phones become the norm, having a web presence that is optimized for Android, iPhone, or Blackberry is becoming more important. The word is still out on how much commerce will be done via smart phones, but at the very least, making sure your website works with the most common mobile devices is crucial.
Most smart phones, by default, will display your website in a fairly usable and understandable manner. However, having the information optimized, precise, and easier to find, may help a potential client or customer find your phone number or address more easily while in the car, or walking around. Keep in mind that with an optimized mobile website for iPhone or Android, you get the flexibility of quicker load times which works well over a standard 3G network.
We recently launched our optimized iPhone, Android, and Blackberry mobile website. We kept the design and functionality to a minimum because we feel that most people visiting our website on their phones, will be looking for basic information like phone number, and address. If they want a full experience, and are looking to hire our firm to create a web presence, I would only presume that they would be using a desktop or laptop computer to do so. Therefore, we took the most relevant content, created a few new design templates, and created a mobile website.
This is a relevant question that I, as a business owner, debated before going down the mobile website path and here is why.
Cost
The cost to develop a mobile website is far cheaper then developing an application for a specific device. Our mobile.chicowebdesign.com took about 15 hours total.
Multiple device compliant
This was probably one of largest factors in my decision to go the mobile website route. Do you make an app for iPhone, Android, or Blackberry? Or do you make one for all? Since we opted to not create a specific application for each operating system, we are essentially providing the same value no matter what phone or device that you are on. Therefore, like your Mac or PC, we are suited to handle any request by any device. Not to mention, if someone wants to visit your site, they do not have to download, enter passwords or go to any app stores to get it. Therefore, our exposure is higher.
No eCommerce
Since there is no shopping done on our website, we decided again, to not go the app route. If there were transactions taking place, I.E. bill payment, or product purchasing, we may have considered it.
Content Value
Since our mobile website is purely informational and content driven, this lead to the fourth and final check mark as to what to design. We aren’t releasing a game, and we’re not providing any entertainment value other then information, phone numbers, and addresses.
If you or your company is interested in optimizing your website for mobile browsing on an iPhone, Android, or Blackberry, contact us today for a quote.
As a well known law firm In California, McCarthy & Rubright needed a website that would match the professionalism of their reputation.
Today is a major milestone for me and my company. We’ve now moved on to our fourth major portfolio redesign steaming from 2004 when this business was officially, official. It’s pretty astonishing to see how far we’ve come as a creative firm in such a short period of time. Six years to a large businesses can be just a blip on the radar, but to us it’s a true testament to our team of talented graphic designers, web developers, and network administrators that have lead this business to it’s success over these years.
To say that the landscape of Web Design and Web Development hasn’t changed much, would be a complete fallacy. Six years ago there was one major browser, we all used “tables” to develop our websites, and the world of freemium and dynamic websites was still in it’s infancy. Today we must code for over 6 various web browsers, one line at a time, and dynamic interactive websites are the new black. Gone are the days of throwing together a “simple” 5 page website, and in with the days of “does it work in Internet Explorer 7.0, 8.0, 9.0, Safari, Firefox, and Chrome”?
Every great design firm must have a web site that showcases their talent and gives potential clients an idea of what they can get by hiring that firm. The challenge is how often we get to do that. In a normal year, we may work on upwards of 75 projects. Having time to update our own website sometimes falls to the back burner and has for almost 3 years. If a design firm has the time to update their website too often, it may make you wonder…”Shouldn’t they be actually working on paying clients”?
Today we launch our fourth major overhaul of Chico Web Design, a business started in a spare bedroom six years ago and today employees seven. We did not take any shortcuts on this website. We are pushing the boundaries with the brand new technology of HTML5 & CSS3. I could get into a lengthy conversation about Transitional HTML5 & CSS3, however we’ll save that for another blog entry, but just know that very few sites have adapted to this technology. If you are using an older browser such as Internet Explorer 6.0 or Firefox 2.0, you will see a degraded version of what more sophisticated web browsers will view. The beauty of Transitional HTML5 is that it gives us the availability to be backwards compatible with all older browsers.
A special thanks to the Chico Web Design family, Sean, Brent, Ben, Ryan, Dennis, and Neil for being apart of all this and to your families as well for letting you work so hard!
Below are the four major website revisions captured. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do!
Chico Web Design has been in business for 7 years offering creative design services to businesses that are in need of a fully functional and effective websites that will help increase traffic and lead generation for their websites. Our services that we offer include website design, website development, print design, web hosting and others. These services are not only offered to Chico, Ca but to businesses around the country, including Sacramento, California. Chico Web Design has over 20 years combined experience creating countless websites and online software solutions for a variety of different business including law firms, boutiques, restaurants, online retailer, music industry, you name it, we can design it.
In this day and age, web presence is essential to any business large or small. Whether or not you need an online brochure to explain your business, or a solution that enables you to change content and interact with users, it is a necessary step for a business nowadays to get your web presence known to attract more qualified prospectors. Web design is the most effective way to advertise your business currently and there are now more people searching for business services through the web, then the traditional methods such as the phone book. Instead of spending money on traditional advertisements, which can be pricey depending on how long your campaign goes, a website is the least expensive way to advertise and the easiest way for customers to acquire information about your business. In large cities around the nation where people are bombarded with advertisements, a web design for Sacramento businesses is becoming essential for the growth of any business.
At Chico Web Design we guarantee our customers satisfaction. We work closely with our clients to acquire the appearance and the functionality that they want for their business or website. We make sure there is a consistency between your brand and the business throughout our creative efforts. We want your website to reflect your brand identity and the corporate image of your business. A consistent look and feel goes a long way in establishing a strong presence in the viewers mind and reaffirms your brand identity. Creating brand recognition is important and will set your business apart from the rest. Sacramento is great example were there needs to be creative brand recognition with the variety of retail, restaurants, and law firms.
Usability element holds vital importance in website design. Sacramento web design makes it easy for your visitors to be able to navigate through all of your pages on your website. Good usability means that visitors are able to make the most of their time on the website. We will make the navigation simple and logical, so that visitors don’t have to go out of their way to find the page that they want to view. Businesses in large cities have many competitors, just like Sacramento, and if your websites usability is not easy to navigate, visitors will just move on to the next business that has a better user experience.
The time it takes for your website to load is crucial, if the page takes awhile to load most visitors will leave your site. We construct your website so that your graphics and images are optimized properly so that they have optimal load performance. We don’t want visitors to be easily influenced to leave your website.
The layout of the website defines the presentation of its content. A nice layout enhances the look and feel of the website and is more visually appealing to visitors. While we are designing a website, we keep your long term goals and objectives in mind, to better focus the areas you want to present to your end users.
Let our work speak for itself and view some of websites that we’ve designed at our Portfolio and Testimonials page.
Chico Web Design has been crafting websites for over 7 years and has experience developing countless websites and online software solutions for businesses both locally and around the country. Last week, during our weekly CWD meeting, we were discussing some of the attributes us as designers thought made for a quality online user experience based on our knowledge of the industry.
When designing a website for a client we often ask some basic questions such as; what is the target demographic? What will your clients or customers be looking for? Knowing your audience or target demographic is key to help building a professional look and feel for your website. If your target demographic is other businesses (B2B), then perhaps you may not want to build a website with florescent text and technicolor blinking backgrounds. Potential clients will leave your website even if you have great content. A theme for your website should be kept consistent so every page looks alike and is easily readable. There are a lot of websites that are difficult to read due to font choice, size or color. Make sure that there is enough contrast between the color of the text and the background because we don’t want users straining their eyes to read the content on the page. You have three seconds to capture their attention. You better act fast!
If users cannot figure out how to navigate your website quickly, they will most likely exit your website. Throughout your website it is ideal to keep your navigation structure consistent. When designing navigation for your website make sure that your links stand out and do not look similar the rest of the text on the page. There should be a navigation link to go to the homepage on every page of your website. A common practice is to make the main logo a link to the homepage. The desired content should never be more then “2 clicks” away.
“A picture can speak a thousand words.” This is a very old but true statement. Not all users enjoy reading. In today’s world, everybody wants everything right now. And there’s no better way to illustrate what a piece of content is about than a visually striking image. Making your website visually stimulating is the goal. When adding an image to your website make sure to give it a file name related to the image. Search engines like Google and Yahoo cannot read images but can read titles, file names, and alternate descriptions. Image alternate descriptions lets the Search Engine fully understand your image by adding alternate attributes to your images. These alternate attributes should include keywords describing your image. Reducing the images file size is very important because people who have slow Internet connections or people using PDA’s will lose interest if the page takes too long to load. You want to give users a fast load time by having the highest quality image and the lowest possible file size.
Responsive and fast loading websites make users feel empowered and in-control. You can get faster load times by properly sizing images, audio, and video. If not resized properly they can drastically reduce your page load speed. “Who wants to sit around for 10 seconds and wait for a page to load?”…Not us! The benefit of a fast loading time, from a search engines point of view, is that faster loading pages provide a better browsing experience for the user, which translates into the kind of quality links that they strive to deliver. Recent statements from Yahoo and Google about slow load times is that it may effect your website’s Search Engine rank.
By definition, cross browser compliancy refers to the ability for a website, web application, HTML construct or client-side script to support multiple web browsers. It is important for your website to be usable across all operating systems, web browsers, devices, mobile devices, and any other platform that displays your website. The problem with cross browser compliancy is that there are new browsers and devices debuting what feels like monthly, yet we still have the older web browsers like Internet Explorer 6 lingering around. In order to maintain cross browser compliancy, you must adhere to standards based compliant HTML code. This will ensure the highest likelihood that your website will look identical on all devices and browsers.
When developing your website it is imperative to make sure that it is coded properly using standards based HTML and CSS. HTML provides a means to create structured documents by denoting structural semantics for text such as headings, paragraphs, lists, links, quotes and other items. The title tag is what is displayed at the top of your browser. This gives users a brief description of the content on the page. Search Engines display the title tag when listing results of a search. CSS deals with the website layout, color, font, backgrounds, and other items. CSS defines how HTML elements are to be displayed. Styles are normally saved in external [.css] files. External style sheets enable you to change the appearance and layout of the pages in a website, just by editing one single file.
Good quality content on website is vital. It is important that your content is relevant to your website. Paragraph lengths should be brief and only be about 1-4 sentences long. It is recommended to not have long blocks of text. The sentence length should be about 10 words or fewer. If you do have medium to long sentences they should be spread out and not clumped together. Lists are a great way to make the page look more organized. Bullets and numbered lists help keep those long sentences out of your content. Your content should contain numerous terms that are related to the keywords you wish to target, as well as variations of those keywords. Spelling and grammar should be double checked to ensure that Search Engines will not drop your rank due to misspellings. It is recommended that you or your company frequently update your content as much as possible. This lets your users and Search Engines know that your website is being maintained and that new content is added on regular basis.
Client: Boys & Girls Club of The North Valley
Location: Chico
Industry: Community Service
Spotlight: Content Management, Multimedia, Calendar of Events, Blog, Ecommerce Donations
Technologies used: PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, HTML & CSS