I have been working on a lot of websites lately. Building some new sites and updating some existing. I really haven't build these kind of business to customer oriented sites in a very long time, or dealt with customers like the ones I have in a very long time.
Way back when, when I started in the commercial website business it was hard to convince companies that they needed a website, at times it still is, but for the most part companies have a website or if they don't they know they need one.
Well now with the New Web as I call it, there are new things companies need to consider. I say New Web, not to be confused with Web 2.0, a lot of companies don't know what Web 2.0 is and it scares them. They just got up to speed with Web 1.0, they feel they will have to start over to get a Web 2.0 site. That isn't true, but not the point of this post.
To me the New Web means that your website has to be accessible to a lot of different platforms. With all the smart phones out there now and the ability of those phones to use a wireless network, blue tooth networks and the cell networks to access the internet, your website had better be accessible and usable via these devices. The iPhone and upcoming Google Android Smart Phone OS will make this much more important. If you are investing in a site or re-design of a site right now and it isn't Smart Phone accessible you are wasting your money. More and more people are using the internet via their phone. This is the new internet, better to be a head of the curve that is quickly approaching.
The other thing that drives me crazy about websites is when they don't have what is called a favicon. It is a little icon that shows up next to the web address in the browser bar in most browsers. Internet Explorer SOMETIMES shows these. Firefox always shows them. But in a browser that you can use multiple tabs, it makes it so much easier to find the tab you want when you see the company or sites logo in the tab. As I say this I realize my blog doesn't currently have a favicon. But I will correct this ASAP! But as I finish sites now days, I always make a favicon for the site. Found a great free site that will take an image and create the favicon in the proper format for you. It is www.favicon.cc. Works great! Got to love sites like this. If you don't want to create your own, you can download one from their galary. The code to add this to your site is below. Put this between the head tags for all your pages. Be sure to update the path to your favicon.
<link REL="shortcut icon" HREF="/favicon.ico">
But over all my methods and ideas for a successful site continues to change and hopefully advance. But these are a couple of things to consider with your site. Both of these items can be updated with your current site and should be considered when developing a new website.Labels: Technology, Web Design
|
