With every passing day, people are depending more on mobile devices. And it holds true for all kinds of works. More so for going online. People love to remain busy while traveling. The internet-friendly mobile devices provide them with this opportunity. However, the problem with the mobile devices is that they do not show every website in a proper manner. Not unless they are designed in a responsive manner to appear perfectly in all internet-friendly devices. That’s why responsive web design is a must-have these days.

Fresno, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 09/29/2014 -- Giving any website a responsive design ensures that it can be viewed without any hassle in almost all kinds of internet-friendly devices. You can view it on desktop computers or a laptop in a proper manner. And similarly, the website will appear perfectly in any mobile device, such as a cell phone or a tablet as well. This is driving the popularity of responsive web designs to a great extent. However, with increasing popularity, several misconceptions about this form of web design have also emerged. Here's a quick look at some of these responsive web design myths that have also been debunked.

Myth 1## Responsive Design is Only for Mobile Devices

Well, it's true that the concept of creating responsive design was driven by the emergence of internet-friendly mobile devices. However, that does not mean that this form of design is limited to the mobile devices only. The basic concept of a responsive design is to perfectly fit the device, which is being used to view the website. So, no matter whether you are using a desktop, a laptop, or a mobile device to view the website, a responsive web design should drive better user experience by appearing in perfect shape in all these platforms.

Related Resources from B2C

" Free Webcast: The 7 Deadly Sins of Lead-Gen Landing Pages

Myth 2## Responsive Design has a Negative Impact on the Site's Typography

Well, this is probably one of the most common issues that are blamed on responsive web design. However, it is not entirely due to the responsive design. Usually, while creating a responsive web design, the designers and the programmers focus more on the responsive part – both the designing and programming aspects of it. Hence, little or no importance is imparted on selecting the fonts properly. This hampers the readability of the website and hence, the user-friendliness is compromised. However, this has got nothing to do directly with the process of responsive web design. Websites can be given a perfect look with absolutely impeccable font selection even while making them responsive.

Myth 3## Content can't be Read Properly in Responsive Websites

Although this is actually absurd, this myth is also attached to the concept of responsive web designs. The concept of responsive websites came into being with the view of ensuring that the users can have a better experience. This form of web design is meant to create sites that can be viewed flawlessly across a wide range of devices. So, it is quite obvious that the activity of reading the content will not be obstructed even when a website is given a responsive design. In fact, embedded content can be excellently used in responsive web design.

Myth 4## Responsive Websites are Heavier and So, Slower

It's not the fault in the methodology, but in implementation. This can be proved by showing a number of websites, which have used responsive web design, but still loads pretty fast. So, it is the designer who has to implement the responsive form of web design in a prudent manner. The pages of the website should be designed with lighter materials to ensure that they do not take a lot of time to load. Otherwise, it might result in higher bounce rates, as the visitors will go for other websites.

Myth 5## Only the Content Needs to be Repositioned for Responsive Design

Well, the name of the concept itself proves this to be a myth and not the truth. Responsiveness is more about web designing than just dealing with the content. So, it is important to ensure that the designing part is also implemented perfectly while making the responsive web designs. The content repositioning, however, is also extremely important in the process of turning a website responsive.

With the rising popularity of responsive web design, more myths are expected to gain ground. It is important that you are aware of these myths to debunk them and create responsive designs for websites in a more effective and efficient manner. This will not only help you design the website in the best possible manner, but will also do away with the chance of falling prey to the common mistakes that are driven by these myths.

About Web Design Fresno
Web Design and SEO Fresno is the search arm of Cloud1 Marketing and is California's #1 SEO & PPC Company. Web Design and SEO Fresno specializes in ensuring that small and medium businesses get prominently displayed in search results of leading search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing and more, to help small & medium enterprises connect with customers searching for what they offer on their website.Cloud1Marketing

For more information about their Web Design Fresno SEO & PPC services, please visit http://www.cloud1marketing.com/ or call Paul Singh http://www.cloud1marketing.com/Website-Design-Fresno

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

The Candy Crush Saga is growing at a phenomenal rate. An expected 44 million people have the app with a reported 6 million people using the app each day. In his blog, Billy Canu discusses why micro transactions is one of the most successful business models today.

Fresno, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 09/24/2014 -- In 2013, the Candy Crush Saga app game is expected to reach a gross revenue figure of $240 million. Ranking in as the current number one app in the World (AppData) an approximate 44 million people have downloaded the popular app with a reported 6 million users engaging every single day.

But what is making the app popular? It certainly isn't a Call of Duty or Mario Party. If anything, it seems to lend its platform from the age old Tetris and more recent Bejeweled games.

Billy Canu, entrepreneur and founder of the Fresno Web Design, online marketing company, SEO Fresno and website design company, Cloud1Marketing wrote about the popularity of the app and why its business model is the key to its success, using a trend that's proving to be one of the most financially rewarding of all time.

The game uses a popular business model called MicroTransactions. Which essentially means you can download the game for free. Models like this have become increasingly popular while also coming under fire. Usually a user is allowed to download the application of the game for free and is given free levels in order to entice the user and inject the addiction.

"Micro transactions are a huge money-maker, and Candy Crush Saga has driven this point home to business owners and industry watchers around the world. Now, micro transactions are being rolled out by everyone from EA Games to Sony. Companies like Square and PayPal base their whole strategy for expansion with the idea of vendors like pedi cabs, farmers markets, etc. running transactions of under $12.00."

"When you don't pass a level, there's the feeling that you're losing at something you should easily be winning at. This evokes the "Cheat Factor" – You realize you can buy your way out for the situation, and become obsessed."

The opportunities for additional levels and lives with Candy Crush are endless. But is there a fade factor? What could eventually bring down 2013's most popular application game.

The great news is that if one get the basics right the website can operate as a highly effective, efficient and influential communication tool that, on its own, can elevate one above the competition and project the business as an industry leader.

About Web Design Fresno
Web Design and SEO Fresno is the search arm of Cloud1 Marketing and is California's #1 SEO & PPC Company. Web Design and SEO Fresno specializes in ensuring that small and medium businesses get prominently displayed in search results of leading search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing and more, to help small & medium enterprises connect with customers searching for what they offer on their website.Cloud1Marketing

For more information about their Web Design Fresno SEO & PPC services, please visit http://www.cloud1marketing.com/ or call Paul Singh

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

We all know how responsive designs have benefited us! The impact is such that some clients have started refusing to pay if their transaction is held up for extra time. Whenever something new comes up, myths about that get generated. It’s in human nature to create rumors so as to affect the common people.

Fresno, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 09/24/2014 -- These misconceptions can be one of the biggest barriers while planning, scoping, estimating, and executing your next responsive project. So, here is our effort to bust 8 common responsive web design myths:

#1: Responsive design has to be all about mobile:

It may be a fact that the sudden growth of the mobile web is the actual reason why the idea of responsive design came to life. But we also have to take into account the different levels of users involved whenever we are working with responsive websites. We need to take into account the device a user can use (whether it's a mobile or a desktop or even, a TV); we need to consider their locations and the approach they have while accessing the particular web design. If your users are relaxing and playing beach volleyballs, then it will not matter how well your content is if the page takes an eternity to load itself.

Content matters, but what matters more is how you approach towards presenting it to the user. Think about the resolution, layouts, and text sizes and in whichever way you can, please give a thought on increasing the performance of the design. It's not all about mobile. Context shifts, and so it's really important to maintain all the other aspects of a website while designing and developing it.

Related Resources from B2C:

" Free Webcast: Blogging in the Age of Modern Marketers
#2: You can't get a responsive design for each and every use case:

Use cases matter, a lot. A design is not responsive if it can't take into account each and every use case. The website should work for anyone in any situation, and that 'any' includes 'everything'.

#3: Your device breakpoints matter in responsive designs:

Most developers nowadays have this style of developing websites where they scale the resolutions down to fit those of particular devices. This is wrong! If a design is being claimed as a responsive one, then one has to make it accessible for all devices, not just some particular ones.

Developers need to be aware about having some king of framework to work with, which will help them to deal with breakpoints. Better still, build your own framework. Get yourself a few wireframes in order to get a general idea about the whole thing, and then get started off with putting down the pixels. Creating a live prototype maybe one solution. In fact, if you do that then you can also add breakpoints after creating yourself a fluid mock up.

#4: Typography gets harmed due to responsive designs:

This is one big flaw associated with many responsive websites. Most often in these cases, the typography is not taken care of properly as the developers think more about the device than the design. This is not the approach for building a responsive website. You have to think about the user who is the ultimate consumer of the content your website contains. The content should be readable. If you throw the typographical aspects of your website to the dogs, then the website loses half its meaning and intent.

Try using relative units to ensure readability of your website contents. Font-size, margins, padding and layouts need your attention. Proportionate your layouts properly, the rest will fit in. Remember, the user is the king. Focusing on a particular design will not take you far. Focusing on the general user will.

#5: Content gets hidden in responsive designs:

This is a really absurd myth; probably the most absurd of all. The whole idea of responsive design is to make the websites accessible to all. Then why should anyone give any thought to hide contents? Hiding content is seldom a brainwave. Most importantly, if you have to hide content, then what was the point in putting it in the website?

It's not a good idea to hide content in a design where you have used your imagination in order to come up with a decision. It's likely that because of your unnecessary assumption, a user somewhere in this big wide world is up to his neck in trouble. Mostly these assumptions are done in the navigation areas of a design. A better way to approach the whole thing is to get the idea of hiding content away from your head while you are sitting down to build a responsive design. Accessibility is all that there is to it.

#6: A Heavy page load makes these designs slower than others:

This is a very thin ice to walk on. Is it really the methodology at fault here, or is it the person who implemented it? One always ends up blaming the other, as such giving rise to a transparent argument. There are several sites which are built on the idea of responsive designs. They provide a desktop experience to all their users, no matter what device they are using. But in case the users use a mobile, it takes the page a little while longer to load. But this is not the actual point of the whole thing. Not only will the page lose some properties while taking a longer time to load on a mobile device, it will also result in the user visiting some other site instead.

This can never be blamed as a methodology issue. If a programmer writes a bad program, you can't blame the computer language for that. Similarly, the person implementing the methodology is actually at fault here. Ensure that you have performance considerations listed in your list of requirements while you are building a website.

#7: Universal image optimization is required for all screens:

Let us use the example of Foundation to explain this issue. The framework you work with, while developing a responsive design, is not built to work well with images which are larger than the container size. You need to tone it down so that it fits inside the grid. You have the background size property to scale down background images. In practice, even large images are toned down to fifty percent of their original size on new-age devices.

A Media Query, in order to load large images uses a pixel ration of 2. This way, it tones down the size to fifty percent. As a result for retina displays, an absurdly large image only gets loaded on the retina. These may not be perfect ways, but nonetheless they are hugely effective in implementing the basic idea behind building responsive designs.

#8: Make the design universally acceptable by testing it on all kinds of devices:

This is just reiteration of the mantra of Responsive Designs. It's "Design for all". This doesn't mean that one has to literally test their designs on each and every device available in the market. That's neither a practical, nor a feasible solution. Just one brand has around a hundred devices in the market, and even then, each has variations.

Small samples are the solution. Test on a select few such that all the basic aspects get covered.

Conclusion:

The internet explosion has occurred and with the new-age smartphones flooding the markets, any content anywhere is now accessible. The real importance lies in reaching out to all of your users and giving them exactly what they want. Responsive design is the solution to this phenomenon.

Perhaps we're conditioned to frame environmentally-friendly choices as sacrifices, but it isn't so with the web. We can have cleaner, greener websites while also making users happier and improving the bottom line. And while the problem may be large, as any dietician can tell you, small changes add up. Why wouldn't we get started?

About Web Design Fresno
Web Design and SEO Fresno is the search arm of Cloud1 Marketing and is California's #1 SEO & PPC Company. Web Design and SEO Fresno specializes in ensuring that small and medium businesses get prominently displayed in search results of leading search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing and more, to help small & medium enterprises connect with customers searching for what they offer on their website.Cloud1Marketing

For more information about their Web Design Fresno SEO & PPC services, please visit http://www.cloud1marketing.com/ or call Paul Singh http://www.cloud1marketing.com/Website-Design-Fresno

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Interesting News | The Top 7 Online Marketing Trends That Will Dominate 2014 The Internet has drastically altered the way in which information is shared, and has had a profound impact on marketing. Over the past few years, there has been more of a shift toward inbound techniques, while many outbound tactics have become antiquated. More businesses are finding success publishing original content rather than embedding advertisements within external content, because of the additional benefits these tactics offer, such as branding and audience growth.

Fresno, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 08/20/2014 -- 1. Content Marketing Will be Bigger Than Ever
One of the main ways that companies are establishing authority and gaining trust with consumers is by consistently creating valuable content through a variety of channels. This typically involves relevant industry information that provides insight or entertainment to an audience. Doing so allows a company to steadily build rapport with its demographic and develop a loyal following. According to the Content Marketing Institute, the top B2B content marketing strategies are social media, articles on a business's website, eNewsletters, case studies, videos and articles on other websites.

By using one or more of these channels, businesses are able to build a positive reputation within their industry. This trend suggests that marketing to the masses through techniques like television ads and radio ads are becoming less effective. Instead, it's better to concentrate on inbound marketing, by producing valuable, engaging content designed for a specific audience. For help designing your content marketing strategy, see my articles "11 Places to Find Awesome Content Marketing Ideas," and "How to Build a Kickass Content Strategy."

2. Social Media Marketing Will Require More Diversity
Just a few years ago, businesses were limited with regard to the social media networks they could implement into their marketing campaigns, with the biggies including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Now, it seems like new social media sites are appearing all the time. While some never really get off the ground, others like Pinterest, Google+, Tumblr and Instagram have surged in popularity and have provided businesses with a plethora of new options that allow them to produce engaging content in a variety of media forms and build their audiences across more channels than ever before.

Consequently, it has become common for businesses to branch out and experiment with multiple networks with the aim of reaching the maximum amount of consumers. This diversification seems to prove fruitful for many companies because it often builds brand equity by making it easier for consumers to recognize a particular brand. For help figuring out which social media networks are right for your business, see my article "How to Determine Which Social Media Network Fits Your Business."

3. Image-Centric Content Will Rule
As consumers are hit with an increasing number of advertisements, it's becoming more important to make content easily and quickly digestible. If you look at the social media sites I mentioned previously that are on the rise, three of the four have a common characteristic…they place an emphasis on images. The rapid rise to success of Buzzfeed and Pinterest are testaments to the power and viral potential of image-based content.

Successful blog posts that receive the most social shares also usually have a common characteristic: they pepper in some well-placed pictures to break content up and emphasize certain points. Another example is infographics, which combine images with a minimal amount of text to explain a topic and provide statistical information or data from research studies.
While I doubt that traditional text-based content will ever completely go out of style, it's pretty clear that incorporating images is beneficial to a marketing campaign.

4. Less Will be More
One notable trend is the apparent shift in consumer preference regarding simplistic marketing messages instead of in-depth messages. When you think about some of the top brands in the world like Apple and Google, they clearly value simplicity. A large part of Pinterest's appeal is its clean, uncluttered, and minimalist aesthetic.
With many consumers feeling burned out by a constant barrage of information and advertisements that scream "look at me", some of the most innovative marketers are going the opposite direction. The're now making efforts to tone-down their campaign messages and not overwhelm consumers with hype.

Perhaps an article by Forbes said it best: "there is a sense that from the hyper-connectivity of our highly-digitized lives to the bright, flashy, complicated sensory input we're fed everyday, there is no way to continue at this pace. As a result, 2013 is likely to be a year where the most successful marketing strategies will be ones that are not only simple in nature, but promote goods and services that serve to simplify the consumer's life, or even just their customer experience."

5. Mobile-Friendly Content Will Be Necessary
Due to the widespread (and quickly growing) use of smartphones and tablets, it's necessary for companies to create content that's accessible to mobile users. According to Forbes, "87% of connected devices sales by 2017 will be tablets and smartphones." Whether it's creating an alternate mobile version of a website or utilizing responsive web design, it's important to provide a positive experience to users that are browsing via a mobile device.

Otherwise, it's easy to lose customers to competitors who have adapted to this trend. As the shift from traditional PCs and laptops to mobile devices continues, businesses that aren't onboard are likely to suffer.

6. Ad Retargeting Will Grow in Effectiveness
This is a marketing strategy that has really caught on recently. In a nutshell, it works by utilizing browser cookies to track the websites that users visit. Once they leave a certain site, the products or services they viewed will be shown to them again in advertisements across different websites.

It's fairly obvious as to why this technique can be so effective. With only two percent of web traffic converting on the first visit, ad retargeting works to increase the overall conversion rate by reminding consumers of the product or service they viewed. This keeps the brand and the product at the top of the consumer's mind. There are even psychological studies that have shown that simple exposure to brand names and logos creates familiarity, which builds trust and makes consumers more likely to make a purchase.
Even if there's no immediate purchase, this can really pay off in the long run. Due to the success that many marketers have had with ad retargeting, there's a good chance that it will become more mainstream in 2014.

7. SEO and Social Signals Will Become Even More Intertwined
Although social signals still don't typically carry the same weight as traditional inbound links, it's pretty undeniable that they play a role in organic search rankings these days. After all, they're one of the three pillars of SEO. Since the goal of Google and other search engines is to provide users with the most relevant and highest quality content possible, it makes sense why they would factor in the number of social shares that a blog post, article or product page receives.

The more people that are sharing a piece of content, the higher quality it's likely to be, and therefore its position should increase within the search engine results pages. It's no coincidence that the top-ranking search results tends to have lots of social shares, while those ranked lower have fewer.

Besides this, social shares can serve as a stamp of approval (ie, a trust signal) for visitors landing on a page. If they see that it has hundreds or thousands of shares, it's likely that there's something of value. That's a big reason why so many businesses are installing social share plugins and encouraging consumers to share as much as possible.

As we continue these shifts toward an increasingly online economy, though, we'll also soon be welcoming five billion new users to the internet. As the internet's overall share of world climate pollution continues to grow, so does the climate responsibility of those who architect it. But by building lean and clean, we can reduce the damage—and make happier customers and profitable businesses to boot.

Perhaps we're conditioned to frame environmentally-friendly choices as sacrifices, but it isn't so with the web. We can have cleaner, greener websites while also making users happier and improving the bottom line. And while the problem may be large, as any dietician can tell you, small changes add up. Why wouldn't we get started?

About Web Design Fresno
Web Design and SEO Fresno is the search arm of Cloud1 Marketing and is California's #1 SEO & PPC Company. Web Design and SEO Fresno specializes in ensuring that small and medium businesses get prominently displayed in search results of leading search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing and more, to help small & medium enterprises connect with customers searching for what they offer on their website.Cloud1Marketing

For more information about their Web Design Fresno SEO & PPC services, please visit http://www.cloud1marketing.com/ or call Paul Singh http://www.cloud1marketing.com/Website-Design-Fresno

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

A growing number of industries are trying to reduce or at least curtail carbon footprints and energy use. Emissions standards have been set for the automotive, construction, and even telecommunications industries. Yet the internet’s carbon footprint is growing out of control: a whopping 830 million tons of CO2 annually, which is bigger than that of the entire aviation industry. That amount is set to double by 2020.

Fresno, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 08/18/2014 -- It is time for web designers to join the cause.

Right now, at least 332 million tons of CO2—40 percent of the internet's total footprint—falls at least partially under the responsibility of people who make the web. It needn't be that large, but with our rotating carousels, high-res images, and more, we have been designing increasingly energy-demanding websites for years, creating monstrous HUMVEE sites where we could be just as well served by slender hybrids or, better yet, bicycles.

The good news is that we have several methods for fixing obese websites and simultaneously attacking our industry's carbon footprint—methods that conveniently dovetail with good business practice: mobile-ready design demands a thoughtful and efficient approach to page design, and increasingly sophisticated web ROI metrics are already driving businesses to pursue faster and lighter sites.

Before getting into the nitty-gritty, let's first look at how to estimate a website's footprint.

What is the web's carbon footprint?
Just as we refer to a car's energy usage in terms of miles per gallon, we can think about website energy usage in terms of the amount of data downloaded. This, in turn, gives us a framework for guessing the relationship between page size and carbon footprint. Unfortunately, working out a website's carbon footprint is, on the best of days, tricky and imprecise. Here's my shot at it:

A 2008 paper from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory suggests it takes 13kWh to transmit 1GB.
According to EPA figures, the average U.S. power plant emits 1.2 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent (called CO2e) per kWh produced (other countries have higher or lower averages depending on their energy policy).
If we multiply 13kWh by 1.2 pounds, we get 15.6 pounds of CO2e—and that's just to transfer 1GB of data.
If one million users each download a typical page, which now averages 1.4MB, that's a total of 1,367GB of data.
At 15.6 pounds per gigabyte, that's more than 10 tons of CO2e.
Mobile data, with its reliance on 3G/4G, is up to five times more polluting—77 pounds CO2 per gigabyte.
If a million mobile users on 3G download a 1.4MB page, that's 1,367GB times 77 pounds, which totals 52 tons of CO2.

Based on these figures, we can estimate that a site the size of Tumblr, with 183 million pageviews per day and approximately 10 percent of those from mobile, has the potential to be responsible for a staggering 2,600 tons of CO2 daily.

That doesn't take into account important factors like how much of the data center's electricity comes from renewable or fossil fuels or end-user electricity usage, both of which could significantly influence the total. But these numbers do give us a framework for seeing the relationship between page size and carbon footprint—and make it clear that cutting gigabytes saves CO2.

The first place to start trimming? In our designs.

Reducing CO2 by tackling page bloat
At 1.4MB, today's average page is 15 times larger than it was 10 years ago, primarily due to images (881kB) and script (224kB). Plain old HTML totals just 54kB—but when's the last time you saw an HTML-only site? This average page also makes more than 100 HTTP requests. Whether they fetch a big object or a small one, these add up to more delay and more power wastage. The average site is also slow: Alexa's top 2,000 retailer sites now take an average of more than seven seconds to load—much longer than users consider acceptable.

BUDGETING FOR A LEAN, MEAN, AND GREEN WEBSITE
No one intentionally sets out to build a 1.4MB page, but clients often demand eye-catching images, advanced social features, and plenty of design bells and whistles, and that's pretty much all it takes to get to that size. The best way to prevent this kind of obesity is to set a page size budget: start with a target page size, and stick to it.

At MadPow, we've adopted the page size budget approach to help us chase better page-load performance, with the holy grail being a page that loads in two seconds or less. Of course, the more page weight we shave off, the smaller the site's carbon footprint. To keep track of this, I multiply the page size by analytics on user visits to arrive at a rough total for site traffic, not forgetting to separate out the more-polluting mobile traffic and account for caching.

Sticking to the page budget means considering data-weight at each stage of design:

Content strategy: If you are retrofitting a site to reduce page weight, a quick fix might be to trade higher-weight content for lighter alternatives, like still pictures instead of video, or text instead of images—so long as the same user and business goals are served. Better yet, if you use a "content first" approach, you can bake the size considerations into your content planning, so as to make content choices that are appropriate for the audience and the data budget.

Interaction design: The experience definition phase of design is the perfect time to intercept the more data-hungry site features that threaten a page budget. The ubiquitous carousel is a prime offender—a typical one has three to six big images, plus the JavaScript needed to make it move, typically adding up to hundreds of kilobytes. The value of carousels is debatable anyway; if you need to make a metrics-driven case for reduction or replacement, take the Brad Frost Carousel Challenge. Other candidates for reappraisal include sharing buttons, embedded maps, auto-play video, Flash, ads, and syndicated third-party content services—all of which come with a hefty data overhead.

Visual design: Images are the largest part of the footprint for most sites (60 percent on average), and are ripe for data reduction. To start, can you get by with fewer images? Many images on the web are also saved in the incorrect format, are improperly sized, or are badly optimized. Free services like smush.it can optimize your images better than your regular editing tool, and they'll do batch processing, too.

Consolidating all the small images on your site by using CSS sprites or web icon fonts will save data and HTTP requests; pure CSS icons will be the lightest-weight option, when browser support catches up. And since mobile data is so much more polluting than wired data, make sure responsive sites use a working responsive images solution. Good optimization could shave 72 percent off mobile image weight.

Code design: Front-end optimization is burgeoning with low-hanging fruit: shrinking scripts, compressing downloads, setting appropriate caching times, and combining files can all help reduce data overhead and HTTP requests. For a quick taste, point Google Page Speed at your site, and it will identify which techniques could be applied to help speed it up. For a deeper dive, I recommend reading "Web Performance 101," or Lara Swanson's recent ALA article.

Green hosting: Even before you start minimizing your site's carbon footprint through design and optimization, you could consider moving to a green host. Many of these are powered by renewable energy—particularly in Iceland, where data centers have opened to take advantage of cheap geothermal power. Green hosting might not be for everyone yet (it can be more expensive, and Iceland might be far from your customers), but more local green hosts are starting to appear. Some cloud-based services are getting greener, too: Google, Apple, and Rackspace get some of their power from renewables, though according to Greenpeace, Amazon Web Services does not.

Offsetting the rest: Even after applying a lean design, optimizing, and moving to a green web host, your site will still have a carbon footprint. To account for that, you can buy an offset, which typically costs $19 per ton, depending on the project. Offsetting doesn't actually take the CO2 out of the atmosphere, and it is a poor substitute for reducing emissions. However, many programs have additional benefits, such as funding education in the developing world or protecting fragile habitats.

PERSUADING PEOPLE TO OPTIMIZE
Optimizing for lower emissions is tantamount to optimizing for general performance, so even non-green businesses have several compelling reasons to put their site on a diet: faster pages make for happier users, especially on mobile; they convert better and have better SEO, too.

Adding climate benefit to that list makes an overwhelming case for cutting page size and data, especially for companies that are already sympathetic to a climate case (such as those that have signed the Climate Declaration).

The internet as climate hero
Despite its huge carbon footprint, the internet could also be a climate savior. The transition of old industries and services to the internet has the potential to save eight billion tons of CO2 by 2020, more than counterbalancing the projected 1.4 billion ton 2020 internet footprint.

For instance:

Teleconferencing has already reduced business travel by 30 percent.
Home sharing (like AirBnB) is 66 percent more efficient than staying at a hotel.
Car sharing services are taking cars off the road—as many as 20 regular cars per shared one, according to ZipCar.
Meshing.it, the directory for the sharing economy, lists a further 8,000 startups, all focused on spreading ownership amongst communities, thus reducing consumption.
Also in Issue ? 383
The Web Runs on Electricity and We're Running Out

by Dorian Peters

As we continue these shifts toward an increasingly online economy, though, we'll also soon be welcoming five billion new users to the internet. As the internet's overall share of world climate pollution continues to grow, so does the climate responsibility of those who architect it. But by building lean and clean, we can reduce the damage—and make happier customers and profitable businesses to boot.

Perhaps we're conditioned to frame environmentally-friendly choices as sacrifices, but it isn't so with the web. We can have cleaner, greener websites while also making users happier and improving the bottom line. And while the problem may be large, as any dietician can tell you, small changes add up. Why wouldn't we get started?

About Web Design Fresno
Web Design and SEO Fresno is the search arm of Cloud1 Marketing and is California's #1 SEO & PPC Company. Web Design and SEO Fresno specializes in ensuring that small and medium businesses get prominently displayed in search results of leading search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing and more, to help small & medium enterprises connect with customers searching for what they offer on their website.Cloud1Marketing

For more information about their Web Design Fresno SEO & PPC services, please visit http://www.cloud1marketing.com/ or call Paul Singh http://www.cloud1marketing.com/Website-Design-Fresno

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

For any online business, the one single metric that overrides all others in significance is conversion rate. Conversion rates mean business. To convert, you need to get a few things right, including content, SEO, social media, advertising and website design. Let’s start by understanding the role that website design plays in boosting conversion rates.

Fresno, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 08/04/2014 -- The principles of good website design remain the same, whether it is a large website or a landing page. For website design to improve conversions, consider and optimize the following:

Foster usability. Is the site intuitive and user friendly? Those are a key design factors influencing conversion. Usability is measured in terms of the ease with which users can perform tasks on the site and the speed with which they can complete them.

Usability features will differ with the intended utility of a website. Elaborate drop down menus are not required on a landing page but are essential for easy navigation on an ecommerce website.

A visitor's opinion about a website's usability is formed in their first few seconds on a page. When designing a website, the can pick up usability ideas from the competitor's websites, from the own existing websites and by running tests with user groups on one or more design templates.

Have conversion-centric design features. Certain design features have a direct influence on conversion. When we get these right, visitors will be nudged to take the action the desire.

Put large headings on the most important elements and vital pieces of information on the page. Maintain font hierarchy. Readers derive important cues from it about the nature and importance of the content.

Place the important elements above the fold but do not clutter the page. Social proof, navigation buttons, a search bar, sign-up forms, call to action and social media links are website elements that belong above the fold.

Make sure the website loads fast. The best and most insightful content in the world won't entice visitors to stay on a slow-loading website. To speed up web load times, combine multiple scripts and stylesheets into one. Use CSS instead of images, background colors, buttons, etc. and avoid Flash. Test the website speed and get insights directly from Google here.

Related: Web Design 101: How Typography Affects Conversions

Adhere to web design aesthetics. The communicate through ones website. Pleasant communication makes visitors feel welcome to the website and more inclined to extend their stay.

Colors and visuals influence purchase decisions, affect emotions and boost brand recognition. Images, text, arrows, lines, buttons and white spaces can all be used in an aesthetic manner to direct the visitor's attention to the call to action.

Delight the customers. When dissatisfied customers complain, news travels fast.

Poor design, too many clicks to get things done, inability to easily locate content or to smoothly execute a transaction on an ecommerce site will keep the business from from fulfilling its income-generating potential. The cost of correcting these issues is always higher than getting them right in the first place.

One'll always be testing and tweaking, but don't leave money on the table from the start. Understand the customers, know what they're coming to the site for, make it quick and easy for them to accomplish it and they will love the for it.

About Web Design Fresno
Web Design and SEO Fresno is the search arm of Cloud1 Marketing and is California's #1 SEO & PPC Company. Web Design and SEO Fresno specializes in ensuring that small and medium businesses get prominently displayed in search results of leading search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing and more, to help small & medium enterprises connect with customers searching for what they offer on their website.Cloud1Marketing

For more information about their Web Design Fresno SEO & PPC services, please visit http://www.cloud1marketing.com/ or call Paul Singh http://www.cloud1marketing.com/Website-Design-Fresno

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Many business owners with websites think of website design and SEO as a one-shot deal: fix your keywords and your website and leave it alone to do its job. Unfortunately, SEO strategy is an ongoing project that must constantly be redesigned, tweaked and fixed to meet changing circumstances in the market and on the web.

Fresno, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/24/2014 -- SEO website design is not like painting a house, which can be done once every 10 years. Instead, it is like vacuuming or laundry; it must be done on a regular basis to prevent problems.

For this reason, many SEO experts that specialize in website design, charge a monthly retainer fee. This fee can include all the services that must be performed on a regular basis, such as checking competitor's sites, changing keywords, refreshing web pages, updating coding standards, browser compliance, and tracking metrics or analyzing performance. In some cases complete redesigns are necessary, as in the example of implementing a new responsive design from a former design.

However, randomly performing these tasks will not give the results you want. Website updates and other tasks must be scheduled on a regular basis with attention to best practices in SEO web design. Standards are available that help you know when to perform certain tasks and optimize web site performance, no matter who is doing your SEO.

Developing an Update Procedure for Your Website

Having a list of things that should be done and the frequency with which these tasks should be performed is a useful resource for website managers and business owners alike. With a well-planned schedule, everyone will be included in the decision-making process about how to achieve top SEO results. Developing a "style guide" can help everyone involved in your SEO process understand your goals and what you have already done toward building strong SEO. Some things that should be included in this list are:

File naming. The naming conventions used for new website pages, image files, audio and video files and all other types of content should be clearly defined and checked on a regular basis. File names should describe the contents and ideally will include specific keywords.

Directory structure. The directory structure of your website can make it easy or difficult for search engine bots to find you. A well-defined silo structure, which uses top-level themes and builds downwards, is often the best choice for websites.

Redirects. Best SEO practices indicate that the ideal number for redirects is 301. Redirect codes should always take into account your SEO strategy; failure to consider this in redirection planning could lead to less-than-optimal results. Routinely, webmasters or SEO experts should also remove pages that are no longer working or are no longer needed.

Linking. The exact procedure for identifying links and keywords should be written out so that everyone understands the process. Guidelines for linking should be established before the linking activities begin.

New pages. Before a new page is added, there are several important questions that should be answered, such as: What keywords are we using for this page? What is the purpose or goal of this page? What silo does this page support? The page should be designed with the answers to these questions in mind.

Style guides can make ongoing website development and SEO a clear and straightforward process for new coders and programmers adapting to your needs for expansion. Make sure that everyone involved in your IT team is clear on company objectives, technology requirements, and equally as important, search engine trends.

Guest blogging was probably the biggest buzzword throughout 2013. SEO professionals and online marketers preached the value of this tactic for building links, brand authority, credibility, and myriad other benefits. For many marketers, that was all turned upside down when, in his January webmaster video and blog post, Matt Cutts made the startling and controversial pronouncement: "Stick a fork in it: guest blogging is done."

In response to misinterpretations of his statement, however, he scaled his announcement back by differentiating 'good' guest blogging from bad. In short, 'bad' guest blogging means doing so solely as a means of getting links; 'good' guest blogging means contributing excellent content to build your audience and reputation.

He writes: "There are still many good reasons to do some guest blogging (exposure, branding, increased reach, community, etc.). Those reasons existed way before Google and they'll continue into the future."

Guest blogging will continue to remain an excellent strategy for building your audience, your brand and your personal thought leadership plan. And yes, those inbound links will still count. However, spammy, low-quality guest blogging is a thing of the past, and smart marketers will focus instead on using guest blogging for the many other benefits it provides

SEO is becoming more expensive as it becomes more difficult to get inbound links and create link-worthy content

Pre-Panda, producing content that would rank highly was relatively easy. Slap up some keyword-rich content, get a few keyword-rich links to it, and you were good to go.

But as ranking well becomes more difficult, marketers and business owners are realizing the need to increase their investment in content creation and link building in order to rank in the search engines.

Roles like Content Manager, Director of Content, and Content Marketing Officer (CMO) are becoming increasingly mainstream, as is the outsourcing of content creation and link building. I predicted the rise of this responsibility in a June 2013 post titled "The Job Title That You'll Need to Hire by the End of 2013."

According to recent research by Kapost, 54.1% of marketers are prioritizing content marketing team hiring above any other sub-discipline.

This hefty investment in content creation and SEO is meaning brands are having to carefully re-evaluate the types of content they're producing, and actively track whether that content is helping them achieve their goals.

About Web Design Fresno
Web Design and SEO Fresno is the search arm of Cloud1 Marketing and is California's #1 SEO & PPC Company. Web Design and SEO Fresno specializes in ensuring that small and medium businesses get prominently displayed in search results of leading search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing and more, to help small & medium enterprises connect with customers searching for what they offer on their website.Cloud1Marketing

For more information about their Web Design Fresno SEO & PPC services, please visit http://www.cloud1marketing.com/ or call Paul Singh http://www.cloud1marketing.com/Website-Design-Fresno

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

In-house SEOs are becoming coordinators for actual fulfillment work. With the increased volume of tasks and the wider range of skills needed for content creation and SEO, in-houses SEO professionals are increasingly being called on to coordinate the fulfillment of work, based on their technical knowledge, rather than completing it themselves.

Fresno, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/22/2014 -- Guest blogging was probably the biggest buzzword throughout 2013. SEO professionals and online marketers preached the value of this tactic for building links, brand authority, credibility, and myriad other benefits. For many marketers, that was all turned upside down when, in his January webmaster video and blog post, Matt Cutts made the startling and controversial pronouncement: "Stick a fork in it: guest blogging is done."

In response to misinterpretations of his statement, however, he scaled his announcement back by differentiating 'good' guest blogging from bad. In short, 'bad' guest blogging means doing so solely as a means of getting links; 'good' guest blogging means contributing excellent content to build your audience and reputation.

He writes: "There are still many good reasons to do some guest blogging (exposure, branding, increased reach, community, etc.). Those reasons existed way before Google and they'll continue into the future."

Guest blogging will continue to remain an excellent strategy for building your audience, your brand and your personal thought leadership plan. And yes, those inbound links will still count. However, spammy, low-quality guest blogging is a thing of the past, and smart marketers will focus instead on using guest blogging for the many other benefits it provides

SEO is becoming more expensive as it becomes more difficult to get inbound links and create link-worthy content

Pre-Panda, producing content that would rank highly was relatively easy. Slap up some keyword-rich content, get a few keyword-rich links to it, and you were good to go.

But as ranking well becomes more difficult, marketers and business owners are realizing the need to increase their investment in content creation and link building in order to rank in the search engines.

Roles like Content Manager, Director of Content, and Content Marketing Officer (CMO) are becoming increasingly mainstream, as is the outsourcing of content creation and link building. I predicted the rise of this responsibility in a June 2013 post titled "The Job Title That You'll Need to Hire by the End of 2013." According to recent research by Kapost, 54.1% of marketers are prioritizing content marketing team hiring above any other sub-discipline.

This hefty investment in content creation and SEO is meaning brands are having to carefully re-evaluate the types of content they're producing, and actively track whether that content is helping them achieve their goals.

About Web Design Fresno
Web Design and SEO Fresno is the search arm of Cloud1 Marketing and is California's #1 SEO & PPC Company. Web Design and SEO Fresno specializes in ensuring that small and medium businesses get prominently displayed in search results of leading search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing and more, to help small & medium enterprises connect with customers searching for what they offer on their website.Cloud1Marketing

For more information about their Web Design Fresno SEO & PPC services, please visit http://www.cloud1marketing.com/ or call Paul Singh http://www.cloud1marketing.com/Website-Design-Fresno

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Fresno, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/18/2014 -- Specialist search marketing agency SEO Consult has reacted to Google's head of web spam outlining his employer's policy on the penalisation of websites that sell and buy links.

In a video as part of his weekly video blog collection, Matt Cutts answered a question from a webmaster who wanted to know how his site would be affected if it had a link pointing to it from a site that had been found to be selling links. As Google no longer trusts these types of sites and issues severe ranking penalties, the webmaster addressing the question to Cutts was worried whether genuine, organic sites that have links from these black hat SEO sites will suffer similar punishments.

However, Cutts responded by explaining that any link from a link buying site will no longer have any value as is it is coming from a site that Google does not hold in any authority. Any website that has a link pointing to it from one of these sites won't be penalized, but any links like these that it has will no longer have any impact on ranking performance.

As a Google AdWords certified company, http://www.cloud1marketing.com/ monitors industry developments like this very closely. This news will also reassure the agency over any of its clients' websites that may have links to them from these link buying sites.

"The issue of penalties due to bought and sold links is one that has been discussed a lot in industry circles in recent times," said Liane Grimshaw, Managing Director of http://www.cloud1marketing.com/. "This news will be welcomed by any of our clients whose sites may have links to them from these particular link buying sites."

This technique is fully supported in modern browsers, such as IE8+, Safari, Chrome and Opera, as well as mobile devices that use these same browsers (iPad, iPhone, etc.). Older browsers and Firefox degrade nicely and still resize as one would expect of a responsive image, except that both resolutions are downloaded together, so the end benefit of saving space with this technique is void.

About Web Design Fresno
Web Design and SEO Fresno is the search arm of Cloud1 Marketing and is California's #1 SEO & PPC Company. Web Design and SEO Fresno specializes in ensuring that small and medium businesses get prominently displayed in search results of leading search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing and more, to help small & medium enterprises connect with customers searching for what they offer on their website.Cloud1Marketing

For more information about their Web Design Fresno SEO & PPC services, please visit http://www.cloud1marketing.com/ or call Paul Singh

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Almost every new client these days wants a mobile version of their website. It’s practically essential after all: one design for the BlackBerry, another for the iPhone, the iPad, net-book, Kindle — and all screen resolutions must be compatible, too.

Fresno, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/17/2014 -- In the next five years, we'll likely need to design for a number of additional inventions. When will the madness stop? It won't, of course.

In the field of Web design and development, we're quickly getting to the point of being unable to keep up with the endless new resolutions and devices. For many websites, creating a website version for each resolution and new device would be impossible, or at least impractical. Should we just suffer the consequences of losing visitors from one device, for the benefit of gaining visitors from another? Or is there another option?

Responsive Web design is the approach that suggests that design and development should respond to the user's behavior and environment based on screen size, platform and orientation. The practice consists of a mix of flexible grids and layouts, images and an intelligent use of CSS media queries. As the user switches from their laptop to iPad, the website should automatically switch to accommodate for resolution, image size and scripting abilities. In other words, the website should have the technology to automatically respond to the user's preferences. This would eliminate the need for a different design and development phase for each new gadget on the market.

The Concept Of Responsive Web Design
Ethan Marcotte wrote an introductory article about the approach, "Responsive Web Design," for A List Apart. It stems from the notion of responsive architectural design, whereby a room or space automatically adjusts to the number and flow of people within it:

"Recently, an emergent discipline called "responsive architecture" has begun asking how physical spaces can respond to the presence of people passing through them. Through a combination of embedded robotics and tensile materials, architects are experimenting with art installations and wall structures that bend, flex, and expand as crowds approach them. Motion sensors can be paired with climate control systems to adjust a room's temperature and ambient lighting as it fills with people. Companies have already produced "smart glass technology" that can automatically become opaque when a room's occupants reach a certain density threshold, giving them an additional layer of privacy."

Transplant this discipline onto Web design, and we have a similar yet whole new idea. Why should we create a custom Web design for each group of users; after all, architects don't design a building for each group size and type that passes through it? Like responsive architecture, Web design should automatically adjust. It shouldn't require countless custom-made solutions for each new category of users.

Obviously, we can't use motion sensors and robotics to accomplish this the way a building would. Responsive Web design requires a more abstract way of thinking. However, some ideas are already being practiced: fluid layouts, media queries and scripts that can reformat Web pages and mark-up effortlessly (or automatically).

But responsive Web design is not only about adjustable screen resolutions and automatically resizable images, but rather about a whole new way of thinking about design. Let's talk about all of these features, plus additional ideas in the making.

Adjusting Screen Resolution
With more devices come varying screen resolutions, definitions and orientations. New devices with new screen sizes are being developed every day, and each of these devices may be able to handle variations in size, functionality and even color. Some are in landscape, others in portrait, still others even completely square. As we know from the rising popularity of the iPhone, iPad and advanced smartphones, many new devices are able to switch from portrait to landscape at the user's whim. How is one to design for these situations?

Portrait Landscape
In addition to designing for both landscape and portrait (and enabling those orientations to possibly switch in an instant upon page load), we must consider the hundreds of different screen sizes. Yes, it is possible to group them into major categories, design for each of them, and make each design as flexible as necessary. But that can be overwhelming, and who knows what the usage figures will be in five years? Besides, many users do not maximize their browsers, which itself leaves far too much room for variety among screen sizes.

Morten Hjerde and a few of his colleagues identified statistics on about 400 devices sold between 2005 and 2008. Below are some of the most common:

Sizes
Since then even more devices have come out. It's obvious that we can't keep creating custom solutions for each one. So, how do we deal with the situation?

PART OF THE SOLUTION: FLEXIBLE EVERYTHING

A few years ago, when flexible layouts were almost a "luxury" for websites, the only things that were flexible in a design were the layout columns (structural elements) and the text. Images could easily break layouts, and even flexible structural elements broke a layout's form when pushed enough. Flexible designs weren't really that flexible; they could give or take a few hundred pixels, but they often couldn't adjust from a large computer screen to a netbook.

Now we can make things more flexible. Images can be automatically adjusted, and we have workarounds so that layouts never break (although they may become squished and illegible in the process). While it's not a complete fix, the solution gives us far more options. It's perfect for devices that switch from portrait orientation to landscape in an instant or for when users switch from a large computer screen to an iPad.

In Ethan Marcotte's article, he created a sample Web design that features this better flexible layout:

More Flexible
The entire design is a lovely mix of fluid grids, fluid images and smart mark-up where needed. Creating fluid grids is fairly common practice, and there are a number of techniques for creating fluid images:

Hiding and Revealing Portions of Images
Creating Sliding Composite Images
Foreground Images That Scale With the Layout

For more information on creating fluid websites, be sure to look at the book "Flexible Web Design: Creating Liquid and Elastic Layouts with CSS" by Zoe Mickley Gillenwater, and download the sample chapter "Creating Flexible Images." In addition, Zoe provides the following extensive list of tutorials, resources, inspiration and best practices on creating flexible grids and layouts: "Essential Resources for Creating Liquid and Elastic Layouts."

While from a technical perspective this is all easily possible, it's not just about plugging these features in and being done. Look at the logo in this design, for example:

Cropping Logo
If resized too small, the image would appear to be of low quality, but keeping the name of the website visible and not cropping it off was important. So, the image is divided into two: one (of the illustration) set as a background, to be cropped and to maintain its size, and the other (of the name) resized proportionally.

"The Baker Street Inquirer"

Above, the h1 element holds the illustration as a background, and the image is aligned according to the container's background (the heading).

This is just one example of the kind of thinking that makes responsive Web design truly effective. But even with smart fixes like this, a layout can become too narrow or short to look right. In the logo example above (although it works), the ideal situation would be to not crop half of the illustration or to keep the logo from being so small that it becomes illegible and "floats" up.

Flexible Images
One major problem that needs to be solved with responsive Web design is working with images. There are a number of techniques to resize images proportionately, and many are easily done. The most popular option, noted in Ethan Marcotte's article on fluid images but first experimented with by Richard Rutter, is to use CSS's max-width for an easy fix.

As long as no other width-based image styles override this rule, every image will load in its original size, unless the viewing area becomes narrower than the image's original width. The maximum width of the image is set to 100% of the screen or browser width, so when that 100% becomes narrower, so does the image. Essentially, as Jason Grigsby noted, "The idea behind fluid images is that you deliver images at the maximum size they will be used at. You don't declare the height and width in your code, but instead let the browser resize the images as needed while using CSS to guide their relative size". It's a great and simple technique to resize images beautifully.

Note that max-width is not supported in IE, but a good use of width: 100% would solve the problem neatly in an IE-specific style sheet. One more issue is that when an image is resized too small in some older browsers in Windows, the rendering isn't as clear as it ought to be. There is a JavaScript to fix this issue, though, found in Ethan Marcotte's article.

While the above is a great quick fix and good start to responsive images, image resolution and download times should be the primary considerations. While resizing an image for mobile devices can be very simple, if the original image size is meant for large devices, it could significantly slow download times and take up space unnecessarily.

FILAMENT GROUP'S RESPONSIVE IMAGES
This technique, presented by the Filament Group, takes this issue into consideration and not only resizes images proportionately, but shrinks image resolution on smaller devices, so very large images don't waste space unnecessarily on small screens. Check out the demo page here.

Filament Group Image Resizing
This technique requires a few files, all of which are available on Github. First, a JavaScript file (rwd-images.js), the .htaccess file and an image file (rwd.gif). Then, we can use just a bit of HTML to reference both the larger and smaller resolution images: first, the small image, with an .r prefix to clarify that it should be responsive, and then a reference to the bigger image using data-fullsrc.

The data-fullsrc is a custom HTML5 attribute, defined in the files linked to above. For any screen that is wider than 480 pixels, the larger-resolution image (largeRes.jpg) will load; smaller screens wouldn't need to load the bigger image, and so the smaller image (smallRes.jpg) will load.

The JavaScript file inserts a base element that allows the page to separate responsive images from others and redirects them as necessary. When the page loads, all files are rewritten to their original forms, and only the large or small images are loaded as necessary. With other techniques, all higher-resolution images would have had to be downloaded, even if the larger versions would never be used. Particularly for websites with a lot of images, this technique can be a great saver of bandwidth and loading time.

This technique is fully supported in modern browsers, such as IE8+, Safari, Chrome and Opera, as well as mobile devices that use these same browsers (iPad, iPhone, etc.). Older browsers and Firefox degrade nicely and still resize as one would expect of a responsive image, except that both resolutions are downloaded together, so the end benefit of saving space with this technique is void.

About Web Design Fresno
Web Design and SEO Fresno is the search arm of Cloud1 Marketing and is California's #1 SEO & PPC Company. Web Design and SEO Fresno specializes in ensuring that small and medium businesses get prominently displayed in search results of leading search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing and more, to help small & medium enterprises connect with customers searching for what they offer on their website.Cloud1Marketing

For more information about their Web Design Fresno SEO & PPC services, please visit http://www.cloud1marketing.com/ or call Paul Singh

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

#1 SEO company in USA, Cloud1Marketing is known for its excellent services of internet marketing. The company offers varied services of email marketing, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), PPC (Pay Per Clicks), link building and many other such services.

Fresno, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/16/2014 -- #1 SEO company in USA, Cloud1Marketing is known for its excellent services of internet marketing. The company offers varied services of email marketing, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), PPC (Pay Per Clicks), link building and many other such services. The company employs a team of experts with vast knowledge and experience who can execute any internet marketing task and produce desired results. The company backs all its resources with the latest technological equipment and makes sure that all their resources are well versed with all the techniques of the industry. Profit By Search holds discussion about the latest development in the industry in its premises every week and as a part of it, this week the discussion was about Matt Cutts's latest move on assessing quality of a page without links.

Head of Search Spam Team, Matt Cutts explained, "You need to judge the content based on the words on the page and the more often the words are on the page, in a diminishing scales type of way, the more likely the page is about that word." Without links it is going to be very difficult for Google to assess the quality of a page, people may have to go back to the days when the search engines used to work the primitive way.

With six years of experience and over 300 satisfied clients spread across the globe, Profit By Search stands as one of the most competent companies in the SEM industry committed to deliver the best services.

"We will continue to evolve as our industry evolves. We will adapt to our client's needs, Google's methodologies, and our customer service. We offer a learning center on our website, for people to better understand search engine optimization, and Google's best practices. We have access to all of our client's webmaster tools so we always monitor anything that would prevent us from doing our job." Said Paul Singh, CEO are Cloud1Marketing.

This is the sort of content that Google actually wants ranking in their search engines. These are the strategies that Google rewards."

The great news is that if one get the basics right the website can operate as a highly effective, efficient and influential communication tool that, on its own, can elevate one above the competition and project the business as an industry leader.

About Web Design Fresno
Web Design and SEO Fresno is the search arm of Cloud1 Marketing and is California's #1 SEO & PPC Company. Web Design and SEO Fresno specializes in ensuring that small and medium businesses get prominently displayed in search results of leading search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing and more, to help small & medium enterprises connect with customers searching for what they offer on their website.Cloud1Marketing

For more information about their Web Design Fresno SEO & PPC services, please visit http://www.cloud1marketing.com/ or call Paul Singh

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Cloud1Marketing a provider of premium multiple IP hosting and international SEO hosting, has reminded clients and other site owners of the continued importance of backlinks to search engine optimization.

Fresno, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/15/2014 -- CLOUD1MARKETING, a provider of premium multiple IP hosting and international SEO hosting, has reminded clients and other site owners of the continued importance of backlinks to search engine optimization. The reminder was prompted by the growing feeling among site owners that, in the wake of improvements to Google's algorithms, investing in link building and outreach is of reduced importance relative to other SEO strategies.

While it's true that the improved algorithms of Google and other search engine providers now rely more heavily on a mix of signals, especially following the Panda and Penguin updates, links remain enormously important and are likely to do so for the foreseeable future. In recent Webmaster video, Matt Cutts, the head of Google's webspam team, affirmed the continuing importance of links as a signal for determining a page's search engine rank, saying: "Backlinks have many years left in them."

High-quality content is provides the necessary foundation for link building, and social signals, authority, and on-site factors are likely to increase in importance, along with improvements in the search engines' ability to extract semantic cues to determine relevance and quality. Nevertheless, a strong inbound link profile is still the strongest signal that a page contains valuable information and has received approval from the online community.

It is worth noting that Google's ability to discriminate the quality of backlinks has improved, so not all links are equally beneficial. Spam link building techniques like comment and forum spamming are no longer viable long-term strategy and are likely to have a negative impact, potentially leading to penalties. White hat link building techniques, including publishing valuable, shareable content, outreach to relevant sites, and high-quality guest blogging retain their effectiveness.

"We see a lot of coverage in the SEO space focused on the increasing intelligence of search engine algorithms and their ability to determine page quality using authority, semantic signals, and social signals," commented CLOUD1MARKETING's Vice President of Customer Relations, Daniel Page, "We felt it was time to remind site owners than in spite of Google's continued improvements, PageRank and backlinks are still the major component of search engine ranking technology."

CLOUD1MARKETING is a leading provider of premium SEO web hosting, with a comprehensive selection of multiple IP hosting products, ranging from shared hosting to dedicated server hosting, situated in both the US and EU. CLOUD1MARKETING's SEO hosting products are built on their high-performance platform and include round-the-clock support from a dedicated team of SEO hosting specialists, easy-to-use and comprehensive configuration options with the industry-leading cPanel control panel, daily and weekly backups, and unlimited email, MySQL, and FTP accounts.

The great news is that if one get the basics right the website can operate as a highly effective, efficient and influential communication tool that, on its own, can elevate one above the competition and project the business as an industry leader.

About Web Design Fresno
Web Design and SEO Fresno is the search arm of Cloud1 Marketing and is California's #1 SEO & PPC Company. Web Design and SEO Fresno specializes in ensuring that small and medium businesses get prominently displayed in search results of leading search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing and more, to help small & medium enterprises connect with customers searching for what they offer on their website. Cloud1Marketing

For more information about their Web Design Fresno SEO & PPC services, please visit http://www.cloud1marketing.com/ or call Paul Singh

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Web Design and SEO Company Fresno Cloud1Marketing analyzes the latest Google algorithm update, Panda 4.0 in a recent article.

Fresno, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/15/2014 -- The consternation felt across the internet marketing world on May 21st was ignited by a simple Twitter update. Matt Cutts, head of Google's WebSpam team, announced that they had rolled out Google Panda 4.0.

Because of limited official information about the update from Google, http://www.cloud1marketing.com/Website-Design-Fresno marketing team dedicated time to assess the effects of the Google Panda 4.0 update, and what it means for businesses and internet marketers.

In the article,http://www.cloud1marketing.com/Website-Design-Fresno briefly reminds their readers of the purpose for the original Google Panda algorithm— "This particular Google update was created with the sole purpose of weeding out 'thin' website content. The update primarily affected those companies marketing with spammy content that was highly duplicative and mostly unoriginal. This latest update will do the same."

Since the initial Google Panda was installed, they note that the ongoing 'rolling' monthly updates to the Panda algorithm have served to further hone this updates impact by creating greater and more targeted restrictions in regard to website content. Interestingly, http://www.cloud1marketing.com/Website-Design-Fresno suggests that this latest update seems to have been designed to assist the small business owners, showing a softer and gentler side of the Panda algorithm.

Of course, some sites are still getting hit hard by Panda 4.0. Cloud1Marketing states that the latest update appears to have been expanded to more closely evaluate press releases, a common culprit of poor quality content, and catch those websites that escaped prior penalties, or have failed to make adequate changes to their website content.

"Rather than focusing on the impact of the Google Panda 4.0 update," Cloud1Marketing suggests to other 'white hat' internet marketers, "we recommend focusing on good promotion – implementing internet marketing services that provide genuine value to your potential clients and audience.

This is the sort of content that Google actually wants ranking in their search engines. These are the strategies that Google rewards."

The great news is that if one get the basics right the website can operate as a highly effective, efficient and influential communication tool that, on its own, can elevate one above the competition and project the business as an industry leader.

About Web Design Fresno
Web Design and SEO Fresno is the search arm of Cloud1 Marketing and is California's #1 SEO & PPC Company. Web Design and SEO Fresno specializes in ensuring that small and medium businesses get prominently displayed in search results of leading search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing and more, to help small & medium enterprises connect with customers searching for what they offer on their website. Cloud1Marketing

For more information about their Web Design Fresno SEO & PPC services, please visit http://www.cloud1marketing.com/ or call Paul Singh

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Fresno, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/15/2014 -- Last week was a period of restlessness in the SEO industry around the world when the search engine giant, Google announced the rolling out of Panda update 4.0. The roll out was announced by Matt Cutts, the head of search spam team at Google on his twitter account. Google rolls out such updates in order to check online spamming and make internet a better place for users. This update was meant to take down all the poor quality content that enjoy top positions on search results. While everybody was busy monitoring the ups and downs of their websites, http://www.cloud1marketing.com/Website-Design-Fresno took the initiative and discussed this update at its premises in order to update its strategies.

"These regular updates are meant to smoothen the user experience on the internet. Spamming has been destroying the quality of user experience that the internet promises.

"There have been many other updates in the past from the search engines giant and each one of it has its own importance, like this one was produced to check poor quality content that enjoyed higher visibility," said a spokesperson from Cloud1Marketing.

http://www.cloud1marketing.com/Website-Design-Fresno, #1 SEO Company in USA provides excellent set of services in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) which also include packages of link building, PPC (Pay Per Click), email marketing and all the services of online marketing.

The great news is that if one get the basics right the website can operate as a highly effective, efficient and influential communication tool that, on its own, can elevate one above the competition and project the business as an industry leader.

About Web Design Fresno
Web Design and SEO Fresno is the search arm of Cloud1 Marketing and is California's #1 SEO & PPC Company. Web Design and SEO Fresno specializes in ensuring that small and medium businesses get prominently displayed in search results of leading search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing and more, to help small & medium enterprises connect with customers searching for what they offer on their website. Cloud1Marketing

For more information about their Web Design Fresno SEO & PPC services, please visit http://www.cloud1marketing.com/ or call Paul Singh

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

There was a time when the priority of a good seller was to stock quality products. Now, things are different after the emergence of e-shopping.

Fresno, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/15/2014 -- Now, it is marketing which has attained top priority. Of course, one cannot survive for long by selling counterfeit products, irrespective of the vigorous style of marketing. But as long as the products and services are of an acceptable quality, they will sell well only if they are marketed well and they will lie unsold if they are ill-marketed. Strategic marketing stems from creative web designs. Web design geniuses have jumped on the stage. Now is the time for them to shower the with their tricks and magic. Excellent design can take the site to meteoric heights. On the other hand, if the site is ill-equipped to take the load of mass surfers, it will crash occasionally. It can be quite a turn-off even for the most loyal customers.

Web designing is not solely gift-wrapping the site as many assume it to be. Most people unfortunately suffer from the notion that web design translates into a deluge of graphics and animations. Flying butterflies and musical invites are passe. Now, they don't create a buzz amongst internet-smart people anymore. Besides, web designing is more about optimizing than about visual presentation. A site which has been aptly designed will have the right volume of codes. It will be able to ensure the load just in case it is accessed by hundreds of people at a time. It will not crash or at least it won't crash easily. It will upload in a fraction of a second. Something that is a big turn-off in today's time-strapped age is a slow site. If the site takes more than five seconds to get loaded, it is time that the consult a web design expert. Ignorance on the part will drive away the readers and will lower the page rank further.

There is another new development in the world of internet and e-marketing today. Mobile phones have suddenly gained the significance nobody thought they would. People tend to access the internet or just toy with their phone almost anytime and every time. So, when they are traveling and there is nothing much to do, they will just randomly flip through apps and games. This has started the happy story of mobile app development.

Now, all the big businesses mandatorily have their personal mobile apps. Even the small businesses are going for it. It does not take much money to get an app built. The rewards, on the other hand, are excellent. It is a smart way to let people know of the existence and also to remind them of any developments in the business. If the have fresh deals or plans, the quickest way to convey the message across is through the mobile phone.

So, most businesses are finding it viable to opt for mobile app development. It is quite affordable and can be conducted by tech specialists. In the near future, its significance is only going to grow.

The great news is that if one get the basics right the website can operate as a highly effective, efficient and influential communication tool that, on its own, can elevate one above the competition and project the business as an industry leader.

About Web Design Fresno
Web Design and SEO Fresno is the search arm of Cloud1 Marketing and is California's #1 SEO & PPC Company. Web Design and SEO Fresno specializes in ensuring that small and medium businesses get prominently displayed in search results of leading search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing and more, to help small & medium enterprises connect with customers searching for what they offer on their website. Cloud1Marketing

For more information about their Website Design Fresno SEO & PPC services, please visit http://www.cloud1marketing.com/ or call Paul Singh

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Fresno, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/14/2014 -- Recently, Matt Cutts, Head of Search Spam – Google, released a video note in which he provided an answer to the question that has haunt webmasters from time and time again. The question he answered was whether to go for responsive website for once and for all or to develop a different mobile website for users keeping Google pagerank and web search rank in view.

In the video, Mr. Cutts stated that there is no SEO disadvantage in using responsive design instead of separate mobile URLs. He further clarified his point by pointing out that, there is no duplication of efforts when it comes to linking and Pagerank as the content is same for website on any platform. Instead, this adds to the benefits of responsive website over mobile URLs.

Web Design Fresno, USA's #1 SEO Company, discussed this statement from Mr. Cutts. Paul Singh , CEO at Web Design Fresno, said, "This statement from Mr. Cutts will help in clearing the doubt that webmasters used to have regarding model of their website. We have always favored responsive websites over conventional one and mobile one as it reduces duplication and keywords remains same on any platform."

"Responsive websites gives the users familiar feel of the website on mobile as the site remains same, only page has been re-sized according to the screen resolution," he further added.

There are many web design companies catering the need of responsive web design, but Web Design Fresno, USA's #1 web design company, has always provided its clients with proven results. The web design company, along with Web Design Fresno, has helped thousands of clients from all over the world by providing them with reliable responsive design and business centric SEO result.

The great news is that if one get the basics right the website can operate as a highly effective, efficient and influential communication tool that, on its own, can elevate one above the competition and project the business as an industry leader.

About Web Design Fresno
Web Design and SEO Fresno is the search arm of Cloud1 Marketing and is California's #1 SEO & PPC Company. Web Design and SEO Fresno specializes in ensuring that small and medium businesses get prominently displayed in search results of leading search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing and more, to help small & medium enterprises connect with customers searching for what they offer on their website. Cloud1Marketing

For more information about their Web Design Fresno SEO & PPC services, please visit http://www.cloud1marketing.com/ or call Paul Singh

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

The website is an incredibly important representation of the business. When people visit the website their experience is assimilated, both consciously and sub consciously, as being highly indicative of the business as a whole, and they will make decisions on whether to engage with the business solely based on that experience alone.

Fresno, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/14/2014 -- The website is almost always the first place someone will go to introduce and familiarize themselves with the business and its products or services. So one needs to approach the website design in the same way one would an introductory meeting with a potentially high value client - one has got to look good, communicate well and be very organized.

The website's visual presentation, content and user experience are the three main ways through which the prospects will form a first impression of the business.

1. Visual Presentation

If the visual and aesthetic design of the website looks dated or unattractive the visitor has no option but to project that impression onto the business itself and its products or services.

The web design needs to be professional, modern, clean and aesthetically pleasing. When something looks good people feel confident and reassured, and they naturally feel like they want be a part of what they're experiencing. When addressing the design of the website make sure one work with an experienced and talented web designer and be aware that web design trends change quite quickly, be prepared to redesign the look of the website every two years.

2. User Experience

If the website is designed in such a way that it's hard to navigate, difficult to find information and it loads slowly the visitors will intuitively assume that dealing with the business is going to be frustrating and difficult.

The website navigation needs to be clear, logical and intuitive. Information should be easy to find and easily understood. Ideally one are aiming to present the visitor with the information they need before they even know they need it. The website must load fast and display well on every browser and any device. With such a huge, and growing, number of internet users using mobile devices the website absolutely must be mobile friendly.

3. Content

If the website content is vague, long winded and unhelpful one will not connect with the visitors and they will perceive the business as one that doesn't really understand their needs.

The content needs to be concise, to the point and delivered in easily digestible amounts. A great starting point is a carefully crafted 200 word business pitch which is often perfect for the home page. In addition to the information about the business and services the website needs to be rich in valuable content that is focused on fulfilling the intrinsic needs of the target market above and beyond the promotion of the own business. One need to provide helpful information that establishes one as a credible resource and trusted leader in the industry.

The impact that a website design has on a business is a lot more significant than the majority of business owners realize. It's essential to know what the most important elements of a website are, or to work with an experienced website designer that does. This article, The 8 Essentials of Successful Web Design, is a great reference document.

The great news is that if one get the basics right the website can operate as a highly effective, efficient and influential communication tool that, on its own, can elevate one above the competition and project the business as an industry leader.

About Web Design and SEO Fresno
Web Design and SEO Fresno is the search arm of Cloud1 Marketing and is California's #1 SEO & PPC Company. Web Design and SEO Fresno specializes in ensuring that small and medium businesses get prominently displayed in search results of leading search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing and more, to help small & medium enterprises connect with customers searching for what they offer on their website. Cloud1Marketing

For more information about their Web Design Fresno SEO & PPC services, please visit http://www.cloud1marketing.com/ or call Paul Singh

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Head of web development Alan Rowe shares his thoughts on wearable technology and web development, with a look at what the future could hold for portable ‘always on’ devices… are we all going to turn into cyborgs?

Fresno, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/07/2014 -- First, a disclaimer. Google's I/O conference is underway right now in San Francisco. There's going to be a lot of tech-focussed talk including, possible, some more announcements about Glass, Google's much-hyped piece of wearable tech. (They've already announced a 2GB RAM upgrade, as well as a tonne of new apps.)

Some of the stuff I've written about in this blog might become old news very quickly if Google decides to update Glass's web browsing capabilities.

That said, I've been doing a lot of thinking about wearable tech and what it means for web development and design. And with the conference at full-steam ahead, now is as good a time as any to share my thoughts on the subject.

Living in the Jetsons age

For those of us who grew up in a world before smartphones and broadband, it can be easy to paint technology like Google Glass as a seismic shift – the kind of improbable and esoteric technology only before dreamt of in TV shows like The Jetsons and Star Trek.

StarTrekGoogleGlass
Pictured: Not Google Glass (source: davitydave at Flickr).

But for web developers, these devices are simply the next logical step in the evolution of 'always on' technology. Techies are pragmatists, Trekkies are dreamers.

Are we prepared? Yes. Mobile First has been the prevailing philosophy in web design for years now. Put simply, it means designing with the least capable devices to ensure a good user experience across all means of access. Google Glass and associated technology promise to do wonderful things in terms of portable connectivity, but they're far from capable of delivering a desktop-style experience. Designing for wearable devices means taking what we've learnt from smartphones and tablets, and simplifying the user experience even further.

So is it going to be easy? No. First of all, wearable tech is but an amoeba compared to the smartphone's complex life form. Getting into the Mobile First mindset can be difficult even with today's pocket-sized powerhouses. Going from Mobile First to 'Glass First' will be a challenge even for the most accomplished web developers. I'm sure we'll all soon realise how much we take the capabilities of smartphones and tablets for granted.

The other side of the coin is that we don't know how quickly this technology will develop. At the time of writing, Google Glass pretty much allows users to browse through a site and click links – without form fills or any of the other essentials that make a commercial website, well, commercially viable. It may be that Google will announce an update at the conference later today, and I shall eat my words. Or it may be that this kind of functionality won't be available for months, or years.

Taking inspiration from the past

For all the hype around wearable devices as 'future now' technology, it's ironic that our best source of inspiration for future-proofing our websites may come from the past.

With Google Glass's current capabilities, users are limited to browsing up and down a page and clicking links. This means big buttons and clear calls to action to ensure the user can easily navigate through a site.

Sound familiar? It's all a bit like WAP, the primitive mobile browsing protocol that briefly ruled the day before smartphones came along and made everything better.

Here's WAP. (Source: James Cridland at Flickr.)

This is the mindset we'll be working from when developing for glass. It's Mobile First at its purest, most fundamental level.

And as we simplify and simplify and simplify some more, conversion thinking is pivotal. Developers need to clearly steer customers to desired outcomes and remove unnecessary elements or flexibility to create the best experience and generate the best ROI.

Implantable tech? – Looking to the future

As I wrote earlier, wearable devices are simply the next evolutionary step for 'always on' technology. We have to be prepared for the next stage in this process, which for my money will close the gap between device and user even further.

Implantable devices have already been developed to assist those with physical disabilities. These microchips 'learn' certain brainwave patterns and respond accordingly – by making a selection on a computer, or moving a robotic limb, for example.

Source: JD Hancock at Flickr.

As this technology develops, we genuinely should be thinking about the possibility of thought control for online interaction.

This technology may be a long way off. But it raises countless questions about user interactivity. And in a general sense, we as web developers should be ready to consider how the way users interact with our sites could change, and how we need to adapt our working methods to accommodate this.

About Web Design and SEO Fresno
Web Design and SEO Fresno is the search arm of Cloud1 Marketing and is California's #1 SEO & PPC Company. Web Design and SEO Fresno specializes in ensuring that small and medium businesses get prominently displayed in search results of leading search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing and more, to help small & medium enterprises connect with customers searching for what they offer on their website. Cloud1Marketing

For more information about their Web Design Fresno SEO & PPC services, please visit http://www.cloud1marketing.com/ or call Paul Singh

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Fresno,, CA . -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/03/2014 -- Investing in a new website can be a very expensive proposition. Before you settle on a website development firm, make sure you know what you're getting into! I highly recommend asking an exhaustive list of questions to each firm you're considering working with.

1. Do you handle all development work in-house? How big is your team? How long have they been working together? Many design firms do not have in-house development teams. This is typically a sign that the person selling you the website doesn't understand the technology that drives your website. Additionally, having a middleman between you and your developers is a recipe for disaster. You're actually buying the work of a third party that you know nothing about. Make sure the firm you hire has their own staff of web developers. Additionally, it takes years for a team of developers to settle on a set of technology and become experts. If a team has been together and focused on the same core set of technology for three or more years, they probably have a reliable web solution.

2. How long have you been deploying this technology? Can you show me the back-end of similar sites you've deployed? Getting an early peak at the "back-end" (content management system) will be very informative of what your experience will be when you get your website. Being able to quickly and intuitively edit your website is critical to the long term value of your website. If you have to contact your design firm every time you want to edit a word on your website, you're going to lose your shirt in costs.

3. Can you build the site responsive (so it will work on mobile devices and tablets). Over 50% of all websites are now viewed on mobile devices. Your website should be built mobile ready. These days, that means that the site is "responsive." In layman's terms -- the site design changes (responds) to the dimensions of the screen on which it is viewed.

4. Is your content management system (CMS)/technology proprietary or open source? What types of licensing fees are there? There are many content management options on the market. Software that is "open source" means it's created and maintained by the developer community at large and free to use (although it still costs money to implement) and frequently means there are more people that are familiar with it and use it. This drives development costs down. Proprietary software owned by a specific company and may be so custom that only the creators know how to work with it. Imagine buying a car with a new engine design that only one mechanic knows how to work on. It's expensive and risky. You want the cheapest, most widely adopted technology that gives you the functionality you need. When it comes to content management systems, for most small to medium sized businesses, that solution is WordPress.

5. Do you offer a warranty? If so, how long is the warranty good for? Maintenance plan? Service Plan? Hosting? What are those costs? A website is like a car. It requires ongoing maintenance and support (you have to change the oil!) Every single day the world wide web is changing. Web browsers are being updates, new viruses are being born and new functionality is being introduced. Your site may function beautifully today, and be broken tomorrow. You need to prepare yourself for ongoing costs. It's best to know how the firm you're going to hire for your website development is going to handle that.

6. How do you base your pricing? Will this be hourly, or flat-fee based on the project? How frequently do your projects go over budget? What is your payment policy? Is there a clear procedure for billing for extra features or work outside the project's initial scope? It seems to be common practice in this industry to do little up front discovery, underbid a project and then jack up the price on clients as the website is being built. Our clients frequently tell us: "Wow, your proposals are big!" Our proposals are big because we do exhaustive up-front discovery and write extremely details scopes. We want to know exactly what we're going to build before we give the client a price. This way, we can guarantee that we'll hit our deadlines and meet their budget. If the website development firm you're getting a quote from doesn't ask a ton of questions and write a detailed plan as part of their proposal, beware!

7. What is your estimated timeline to build this site? This is another good item to ask references about. What timeline did they give the client versus how long it actually took to build the site. Speed for development also goes back to question #1. A team that has worked together and on the same technology has probably encountered most bugs and can work quickly. A third party developer working on new technology is probably going to encounter new bugs and miss deadlines.

8. Can you talk me through your design process? Process is critical! A firm's processes and systems are a great sign of reliability, consistency and quality. At Go Media we may go a little overboard. We have a detailed 32 step process for our web development. Ok, we go way overboard with our systems and processes.

9. Will I have access to all my design source files for internal use? I've seen some firms hold their clients hostage. Know who owns the design files. My company's policy is to send our clients all their files (including design source files) at the conclusion of every project. If you ever have a falling out with your graphic design firm and realize you aren't in ownership of any of the design files, you'll really regret not asking this question up front.

10. How do you track the success of your websites? There are many ways to track success of a website deployment. Success may be traffic, conversions, sales, etc. Whatever your metric for success is, make sure that you have ways to track it and make sure the firm you hire includes that in their proposal to you. When the website launches, it should already be built into the site.

11. Can you provide references? I don't need to say much about this. This is just a good practice before making a major investment.

12. How long has your firm been in business? How big are you? You're going to want to stick with your web design firm for a while. Generally it is difficult for development teams to get into other firm's work. There is a ramp-up time that will cost you money. So, you want to work with a firm that isn't going anywhere. Size can also be a factor. Big or small they both have their pros and cons. Typically, the bigger the firm the more expensive the service. But size has it's advantages. If one employee at a large firm has a family emergency, there are other workers there to pick up the slack. I suggest picking a firm that is six or more employees. At six employees, a web development firm should have at least two designers and two developers. It's a nice layer of protection for your project.

13. Do you have a dedicated project manager that will be managing this project? It's very helpful to have a dedicated manager on your project. They build timelines, schedule meetings, coordinate feedback, review and organize content, etc. If the firm you work with does not have a project manager, be prepared to spend a lot more time dealing with web development minutia. And understand that most web development delays occur because of the minutia. It's the little things that cause the biggest delays!

Once the've built their site, it's important that the continue to follow SEO best practices in terms of content, link-building and social media. This will mean integrating Google Authorship, following on-page SEO strategies and building high-quality links to their site.

About Web Design and SEO Fresno
Web Design and SEO Fresno is the search arm of Cloud1 Marketing and is California's #1 SEO & PPC Company. Web Design and SEO Fresno specializes in ensuring that small and medium businesses get prominently displayed in search results of leading search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing and more, to help small & medium enterprises connect with customers searching for what they offer on their website.

For more information about their Web Design Fresno SEO & PPC services, please visit http://www.cloud1marketing.com/ or call Paul Singh

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

At the Google I/O conference this week, the company vigorously lobbied developers to adopt a new programming model, one that could, the company asserted, make it radically easier to build Web applications.

Fresno, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/02/2014 -- In multiple sessions through the conference, Google engineers spoke about Web Components, an evolving World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standard designed to help organize complex Web pages by providing a mechanism to assemble them using small single-function components.

"Web Components utterly change the Web platform. This isn't hyperbole. This actually changes everything," said Matthew McNulty, a Google engineering manager, during a presentation at the conference, which was held in San Francisco.

The standard could be important because "it introduces a new world where components from different vendors can live together on the same page. Apps can be crafted from parts found on a massive shelf," McNulty. "It's about composability. It gives you just enough of a container that the Web becomes composable."

Meet Polymer
Google has been working on its own library, called Polymer, that makes it easier to use and extend Web Components. "Polymer does all the hard work to make [Web Components] a cohesive system," McNulty said.

"The idea behind Polymer is to leverage the Web Components standard," said Al Hilwa, an IDC research program director for software development.

Hilwa noted that Polymer is an attempt to bring advanced extensibility to the Web platform, in much the same way that the Java Enterprise Edition and Microsoft .Net allows developers to share components and rapidly build applications using the work of others.

Although work on Web Components has been going on since 2010, the technology now seems to be picking up momentum.

Google's Chrome 36, which will ship in a few weeks and is ready in the beta channel now, will support Web Components. It is the first browser to do so.

"This is a milestone in Web development," said Eric Bildeman, a Google engineer working on the Chrome team, during another presentation on the technology.

In many ways, Web Components finally delivers the advanced coding tools and techniques that developers in other languages have long enjoyed, such as objects, templates and data binding (though the data binding is offered by Polymer, not Web Components itself).

HTML running out of steam?
Despite its almost universal use over the past decade, HTML, which provides the basic mark-up format for building Web pages, hasn't been advanced much in terms of helping developers build complex Web applications, Bildeman said.

For instance, there is no one standardized way in HTML to load additional elements into a Web page without help from external technologies such as PHP or Apache modules. Both JavaScript and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) have long offered the ability to call in external files when a browser renders a Web page.

The recent emergence of HTML5 has provided a lot of support for advanced technology, such as local storage, geolocation and semantic tagging. But Web components are designed specifically help to make developers more productive, Bildeman said.

However, Web Components does require a different way of thinking about how to build Web apps, Bildeman said.

Web Components is actually an umbrella term, covering four different specifications that, when used together, provides the foundation for building a componentized Web pages.

Perhaps the core technology for Web Components is an import tag for HTML. While it sounds simple, the HTML import tag can save developers from what is known as dependency hell, in which they must declare, in the body of a page, all the libraries that will be needed to execute the code.

Instead, developers can embed that information within a component, and have the page call the component. The component can then be used by other pages as well.

The import tag allows developers to define their own elements, which can then be called by the browser.

Users can write their own elements, use those written by others, or even extend the elements that others have created with new features. Elements can also contain connections to other resources on the Web by wrapping around external APIs (application programming interface calls).

"There is logical separation now. It's about compartmentalizing the problem, so it's no longer just a bunch of JavaScript, HTML and CSS that you are hoping will work together," Bildeman said.

Support coming from other browsers?
Beyond Google, other browsers makers seem to be taking a hard look at the technology.

Mozilla has already included a number of functions to support Web Components, and Apple and Microsoft appear to be investigating the possibility of including support in their browsers. Opera, because it uses Google Chrome Blink layout engine, will support Web Components by default.

Google has been testing Web Components in its own operations. The Polymer site uses components. Google's site for documenting the progress of Chrome development also uses components to fetch data from a database and render it on screen.

The ChromeOS operating system, used in Google Chromebooks, uses Web Components to power its virtual keyboard and media player.

Interest in Web Components seems to be growing elsewhere as well. A number of component registries where developers can use and contribute their own components have popped up, including Custom Elements, Component Kitchen, and WebComponents.org.

"This ecosystem is just getting started," McNulty said.

It's time to say goodbye to design trends which have rightfully gone out of fashion. Web design is always changing, and if one cling to old trends, one 'll soon find their shop left in the dust.

Web Design and SEO Fresno, #1 SEO Company in Fresno Californa provides excellent set of services in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) which also include packages of link building, PPC (Pay Per Click), email marketing and all the services of online marketing.

About Web Design and SEO Fresno
Web Design and SEO Fresno is the search arm of Cloud1 Marketing and is California's #1 SEO & PPC Company. Web Design and SEO Fresno specializes in ensuring that small and medium businesses get prominently displayed in search results of leading search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing and more, to help small & medium enterprises connect with customers searching for what they offer on their website.

For more information about their Web Design Fresno SEO & PPC services, please visit http://www.cloud1marketing.com/ or call Paul Singh

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Fresno, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/02/2014 -- Following are 8 of the most important factors the should incorporate if the want a site that's both usable for their visitors and optimized for search engine visibility and traffic.

1. Proper URL Structure
When determining what type of URL structure the're going to use, it's important to make sure their URLs clearly indicate the topic of their content. This means they should be static and descriptive, and should contain relevant keywords so both the search engines and visitors know exactly what their page is about.

When using multi-word URLs, the industry standard is to use dashes ratheir than underscores (and this is, in fact, what Google recommends). Avoid using ID numbers or otheir convoluted and irrelevant terms or characters in their URLs; both Google GOOGL +1.17% and their site visitors will appreciate short, simple URLs that clearly convey the subject matter of their content.

An example of a good URL could be: www.example.com/best-tools-for-web-designersAn example of a poor URL would be: www.example.com/?sns/8900/cat55322. Simple and Descriptive Navigation

Ideally, the want their navigation structure to be simple, efficient and easy for Google and their visitors to follow. Typically, sites will place their main navigation menu across the top of the page, or vertically down the left side of the page; while some site owners are tempted to put their menu elsewhere, many eye-tracking and usability studies have shown that these positions work best.

Dropdown and flthet menus are okay, but should be used with care as they can potentially be more difficult for both human and robot visitors to navigate. Text links are ideal, as is keeping the number of menu items manageable (6-7 is good) so as not to overwhelm visitors with unnecessary options (although some research has shown mega-menu drop-downs do well when structured properly).

3. Responsive Design
To ensure their visitors can properly access their site regardless of which device they're on – smartphone, computer or tablet – having a responsive website design should be a priority. A dedicated mobile-only site can work as well, but a responsive design helps the avoid sticky issues like duplicate content and having to build and maintain two separate sites.

And although it's beyond the scope of this post, recent changes to Google's algorithm have also changed how we need to approach SEO in terms of our content strategies. For more on this, see my post Google Hummingbird: A Mobile Content Marketing Strategy Just Became Essential.

4. Social Media Integration
We now have evidence that Google isn't currently using social signals from Facebook and Twitter as part of their ranking algorithm. However, the indirect benefits of social media for their website have been proven time and time again: social media sharing propels their content around the web, getting it in front of more people, gaining more mentions and more links, and theireby increasing their search engine rankings as well as their brand awareness, credibility, authority, and reach.

Some best practices for incorporating social into their site include making sure the have easy-to-find social media share icons on all blog posts and product pages, promoting content on their website via social media channels, and enabling social sign-in if the have an e-commerce site.

5. Properly-Optimized Images
When the're designing their site, ensure that their images are the minimalsize needed to still provide a good user experience (somewhere between 20-100kb). A good standard practice is to resize their images to the size the want them displayed, ratheir than shrinking them in the source code, as this can significantly increase page load times. This is important because slower page load speed has been linked to worse user experience and even organic search rankings.

Their alt image text is also still important, so remember to properly incorporate their keywords into their logo image, header image and all buttons and otheir graphics the include in their site design.

6. Incorporate Keyword Research From the Beginning
Performing keyword research at the outset of their web design project not only means increased SEO benefits, but an overall better user experience. Even doing some basic keyword research using the Google Keyword Planner can make a big difference; by researching words and phrases related to the main topic or theme of their site, the can not only find out which terms their target market is actually using to find their products or services, but the can drill down to find popular and relevant sub-categories as well.

Understanding which topics and sub-topics their visitors will be looking for will be a major benefit when deciding how to structure and name their navigation bars and category and product pages. For help with keyword research, see this collection of keyword research resources.

7. Optimize Page Load Times
An efficient load time for their site is more important than ever. According to this infographic from Kissmetrics, the website abandonment threshold is now 5 seconds for mobile and 3 seconds for desktop. This may mean (among otheir things) properly sizing their images, minifying their CSS and Javascript, leveraging browser caching, and enabling compression. To see how quickly their site is loading, try using a tool like WebPageTest, or Google's own toolPageSpeed Insights.

8. Proper Use of Sitemaps
Be sure to include both an HTML sitemap for their website visitors, and an XML sitemap for the search engines. This will ensure their visitors can locate exactly what they're looking for, as well as ensuring complete and efficient indexation by Google. If the're using WordPress, theire are plugins that can help with both: the HTML Page Sitemap plugin and the Google XML Sitemaps plugin.

Once the've built their site, it's important that the continue to follow SEO best practices in terms of content, link-building and social media. This will mean integrating Google Authorship, following on-page SEO strategies and building high-quality links to their site.

About Web Design and SEO Fresno
Web Design and SEO Fresno is the search arm of Cloud1 Marketing and is California's #1 SEO & PPC Company. Web Design and SEO Fresno specializes in ensuring that small and medium businesses get prominently displayed in search results of leading search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing and more, to help small & medium enterprises connect with customers searching for what they offer on their website.

For more information about their Web Design Fresno SEO & PPC services, please visit http://www.cloud1marketing.com/ or call Paul Singh

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Fresno, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/02/2014 -- #1 SEO company in California Cloud1Marketing is known for its excellent services of internet marketing. The company offers varied services of email marketing, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), PPC (Pay Per Clicks), link building and many other such services. The company employs a team of experts with vast knowledge and experience who can execute any internet marketing task and produce desired results. The company backs all its resources with the latest technological equipment and makes sure that all their resources are well versed with all the techniques of the industry. Profit By Search holds discussion about the latest development in the industry in its premises every week and as a part of it, this week the discussion was about Matt Cutts's latest move on assessing quality of a page without links.

Head of Search Spam Team, Matt Cutts explained, "You need to judge the content based on the words on the page and the more often the words are on the page, in a diminishing scales type of way, the more likely the page is about that word." Without links it is going to be very difficult for Google to assess the quality of a page, people may have to go back to the days when the search engines used to work the primitive way.

With six years of experience and over 300 satisfied clients spread across the globe, Profit By Search stands as one of the most competent companies in the SEM industry committed to deliver the best services.

"We will continue to evolve as our industry evolves. We will adapt to our client's needs, Google's methodologies, and our customer service. We offer a learning center on our website, for people to better understand search engine optimization, and Google's best practices. We have access to all of our client's webmaster tools so we always monitor anything that would prevent us from doing our job." Said Paul Singh, CEO are #1 SEO company in California Cloud1Marketing.

About Profit By Search
One of the premier providers of SEO Services #1 SEO company in California Cloud1Marketing not only serve the purpose of increasing a client's website visibility on major search engines, but it also helps solve various technical problems of a website like providing a client with unique content to keep the website away from getting slapped by the Google Panda, improvise on methods to improve lost rankings, helps fight better with the bounce rates, maximize the rate of return on investment for advertising budget and many other such services.

SEO should be a part of every websites marketing mix, they deliver result for companies around the world so if one wants Profit By Search, India's #1 SEO Company to help with their big plans then they would take their own initiative to chat about India's finest SEO Service offerings.

Web Design and SEO Fresno, #1 SEO Company in Fresno Californa provides excellent set of services in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) which also include packages of link building, PPC (Pay Per Click), email marketing and all the services of online marketing.

About Web Design and SEO Fresno
Web Design and SEO Fresno is the search arm of Cloud1 Marketing and is California's #1 SEO & PPC Company. Web Design and SEO Fresno specializes in ensuring that small and medium businesses get prominently displayed in search results of leading search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing and more, to help small & medium enterprises connect with customers searching for what they offer on their website.

For more information about their SEO & PPC services, please visit http://www.cloud1marketing.com/ or call Gurpal Singh

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Here are seven things that will drive your users crazy.

Fresno, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 06/24/2014 -- To supplement the research the independent research team also connects with client references provided by the competing services. When connecting with clients the research team delves into the client's overall satisfaction. Opinions from clients is used to better interpret the strengths and competitive advantages of the services being investigated.

Here are seven things that will drive your users crazy.

1. Requiring users to signup before browsing your site

Nothing gets people's blood boiling as much as having to signup for an account before they can view a website. Sure, this is one way to build out an email list, but think about how many folks you're losing.

2. Forgetting about multiple screens

This may come as a shock, but people no longer browse the Web only on their desktop. I know… shocking.

Stop cramming down a desktop experience on the small screen and start developing for mobile. In the long run, it's better to give your users flexibility.

2 Barney 7 Web design disasters that drive people crazy

3. Having ridiculous forms to fill out

No one likes filling out lengthy online forms, especially on a smartphone.

When possible, eliminate fields or trim down options that are unnecessary—if you don't ship outside of the US eliminate the country field all together.

3 forms 7 Web design disasters that drive people crazy

4. Using hard to read or cutesy fonts

You want people to be able to read your website and take you seriously, right? Your font is your first impression so don't make a bad choice.

Leave Papyrus and Comic Sans back in the first grade—it's time to grow up.

4 little kids laughing 7 Web design disasters that drive people crazy

5. Implementing a Search bar that sucks

When the Web was a disjointed collection of pages and sites, people had low expectations for search results. That's no longer the case.

Onsite search functionality that returns results that 1999 wouldn't even be proud of incites the ire of your users.

5 can crushing kid 7 Web design disasters that drive people crazy

6. Bombarding the reader with a wall of text

The Web is a visual medium. It's more glossy magazine than dusty novel.

Break up the text on your site with graphics, photos and videos. Not doing so will incite a yawn fest for your readers.

6 dog yawning 7 Web design disasters that drive people crazy

7. Displaying your products with low-res images

If one operate an e-commerce store, the Web is your showroom. So don't have grainy product images that are the size of postage stamps? Not only should your images be high quality, offer multiple product views for your shoppers.

It's time to say goodbye to design trends which have rightfully gone out of fashion. Web design is always changing, and if one cling to old trends, one 'll soon find their shop left in the dust.

Web Design and SEO Fresno, #1 SEO Company in Fresno Californa provides excellent set of services in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) which also include packages of link building, PPC (Pay Per Click), email marketing and all the services of online marketing.

About Web Design and SEO Fresno
Web Design and SEO Fresno is the search arm of Cloud1 Marketing and is California's #1 SEO & PPC Company. Web Design and SEO Fresno specializes in ensuring that small and medium businesses get prominently displayed in search results of leading search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing and more, to help small & medium enterprises connect with customers searching for what they offer on their website.

For more information about their Web Design Fresno SEO & PPC services, please visit http://www.cloud1marketing.com/ or call Paul Singh

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Ever since Tim Berners-Lee decided to organize information and make it accessible through the now ubiquitous Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), humans have been forever changed by the Internet.

Fresno, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 06/23/2014 -- On top of that achievement he created HTML markup to build web pages, and thus the first inklings of a modern web browser were born. The most recent period of transformation during the rise of 'Web 2.0' saw enhanced media capabilities and the emergence of HTML5 web applications in a browser.

But the latest developments in the mobile computing space, have yet again added to a tremendous shift in how the web is used to display information and interact with users. Smartphones, tablets, and the mobile apps that populate such devices have forever changed the approach to web development as we knew it.

Screen Size Has Changed Everything

One of the biggest changes in computing to impact web development is screen size of mobile computing devices. Tablets and smartphones not only have a unique user interface (UI) but the actual size of the interface is constrained compared to a desktop website.

The iPhone clocks in at about 4", while larger (borderline phablets) come with 6" screens. The most obvious difference between mobile and web development stems from the screen size. Page elements, functionality, and even written content work differently on a mobile app than compared to a website.

Full flown paragraphs and long diatribes describing a company's history cannot feasibly fit inside a mobile app screen. And users are not interested in straining their eyes to read a bloated product description. Things like video, HD images, and short bursts of focused and strategic content have emerged to better communicate information through a mobile device.

These approaches have extended beyond mobile apps for tablets and smartphones, and have begun to pervade websites. To create a website that is not only accessible to mobile visitors, but optimized for them, brands and organizations must create websites that are primed for mobile.

Techniques such as responsive web design (RWD) equip a site to adapt to screen sizes. This leads to a site that can look-and-feel like a desktop site while on a PC, yet shift elements and present itself in a similar form to that of a mobile app. Thus mobile development techniques have proliferated throughout the web.

From Keyboard, to Mouse, to Touch Screen

In addition to the actual screen size of smartphones and tablets, the multi-touch technology that premiered with the iPhone in 2007 has had a dramatic impact on the way designers and developers build websites. Everything from buttons, header menus, and drop-down menus have changed drastically as a result.

Mobile app interfaces and design techniques are comparably different than their desk bound counterparts. Specifically as a result of the touch screen, designers have been forced to rethink their approach to graphics, buttons, and other content. Increased usage of white space for instance helps to reduce the number of mistakenly pressed buttons from a user's fingertips.

Touch screens have had a profound impact on the way designers approach UI on the web. Flat design emerged as a direct result of the attempt to cater to touch screens. In the early days of touch screens, skeuomorphism was the go-to school for designing for touch. This trend attempted to replicate physical objects (such as zippers, denim, or 3D objects for buttons) as a means to communicate capable functions on touch.

Due to the familiarity with traditional mouse click, touch screen interfaces needed to communicate function by replicating the physical world. Now that users have had close to seven years to become familiar with touch screens, flat design has emerged as a cleaner cut approach. A majority of enterprise and corporate brand websites implement flat design (take a look at either the Square or Apple website).

Opening Up Access for Optimal Traffic

The primary push that has app-ified websites stems from the goal of reaching customers wherever they are. Mobile devices are being used for researching products, reading reviews, and comparing prices while browsing the aisle. Brands are acknowledging this trend as a legitimate opportunity for reaching customers.

Websites must now be built to accommodate mobile visitors. Whether they access a brand's website via tablet, smartphone, or desktop, the content and functionality of a site needs to adapt and respond to the form factor being used.

Dedicated mobile websites which offer specific content targeted to the context of mobile visitors, have also emerged. While some mobile sites may stick to the bar-bones functions and information from their desktop site, there is nothing stopping a brand from creating a dedicated mobile site that functions like an app in terms of applications and capabilities.

Development trends such as HTML5, have led to the development of web applications with enhanced functionality (such as geo-location features, offline storage, and enhanced graphical capabilities). Whereas in recent years, Web 2.0 became a buzzword for enhanced media and rich web content, the web as we know it today has become mobile friendly and browsers are capable of running powerful web applications that replace bulky software.

The (Increasingly) Mobile Web

Mobile apps have skyrocketed expectations for what a high quality digital experience can be. And as a result, the standard website has officially become app-ified in an attempt for brands, organizations, and webmaster to maintain attention for the somewhat struggling desktop browser.

Web Design and SEO Fresno, #1 SEO Company in Fresno Californa provides excellent set of services in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) which also include packages of link building, PPC (Pay Per Click), email marketing and all the services of online marketing.

About Web Design and SEO Fresno
Web Design and SEO Fresno is the search arm of Cloud1 Marketing and is California's #1 SEO & PPC Company. Web Design Fresno and SEO Fresno specializes in ensuring that small and medium businesses get prominently displayed in search results of leading search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing and more, to help small & medium enterprises connect with customers searching for what they offer on their website.

For more information about their Web Design Fresno SEO & PPC services, please visit http://www.cloud1marketing.com/ or call Paul Singh

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Responsive Mobile Website Design is Becoming More Important Than Ever

Fresno, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 06/20/2014 -- With mobile internet users outgrowing desktop users (in some countries) mobile friendly websites are a must.

In the past we have often recommended a solution of a one page mobile friendly website on a subdomain like m.example..com, redirecting all smartphone traffic to that page. It's not the best solution but it was the most affordable solution.

But we have stopped recommending that solution a long time ago as Google has made it so clear that they want each desktop page to have its own mobile counterpart either on a different URL with a redirection or using responsive design where the same URL will serve all devices.

See also: Q: What URL Should I Use For My Mobile Website? A: Responsive Design
Google has been encouraging web masters to create mobile friendly websites following their best practices for years, showing the tremendous advantages of having a mobile friendly website (read: responsive design)

Google's recommendations for building a smart phone website
Google : Why responsive design
How responsive design can prevent page rank loss
Bad Mobile Gets Bad Google Rep

Google has decided to take action against misconfigured mobile sites that do not follow Google's best practices, specifically sites that redirect all internal URLs mobile traffic to home page.

Mobile users will see a warning in Google SERP underneath the URL that redirects mobile users to the home page (not the same URL that the user sees in the SERP). Google had given previous warning this would happen:

"To improve the search experience for smartphone users and address their pain points, we plan to roll out several ranking changes in the near future that address sites that are misconfigured for smartphone users."

Here is how the ranking changes they have made look like:

search result redirect

How To Find Out If the Site Is Affected By This Change?

Visit Google home page using the smartphone and type in site:yoursite.com and click on any link other than the home page, if the are redirected to the home page then you have the mis-configuration issue that Google is referring to (doesn't mean necessarily sites are affected by the warning yet, we need to follow the next steps to confirm that)

Visit Google home page using the smartphone then search for a keyword where an internal page of the site is ranking for, if we see the warning "May open the site's homepage" then the site is affected by the change. [1]
Check Google webmaster central smartphone URL errors (Faulty redirect)

I do not think web design companies or SEOs need more reasons to recommend mobile friendly websites to their clients but this is just one more reason for clients to expedite the process of redesigning their websites into smartphone friendly websites following Google's best practices. Responsive design is recommended in almost every post Google does about mobile website design.

Does Responsive Get Ranking Love?

Finally comes the biggest question, is there any preferential treatment for responsive websites in Google Mobile search now? What about the future?

According to Google the answer at least for now is NO however this is very similar to the site speed issue, as super speedy site may not give one a higher rankings in Google results but a slow site can negatively affect the rankings. A responsive design may not give one better ranking but if the site is misconfigured for mobile users the ranking on Google's mobile search could be affected with a warning in the SERP that will reduce the click through rate for sure.

Conclusion

No one can predict what other actions can Google take against misconfigured mobile sites or even desktop only websites in the future but everyone should know that it is time to take actions and make sure that every site site has the best users and search engines mobile experience.

It's time to say goodbye to design trends which have rightfully gone out of fashion. Web design is always changing, and if one cling to old trends, one 'll soon find their shop left in the dust.

Web Design and SEO Fresno, #1 SEO Company in Fresno Californa provides excellent set of services in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) which also include packages of link building, PPC (Pay Per Click), email marketing and all the services of online marketing.

About Web Design and SEO Fresno
Web Design and SEO Fresno is the search arm of Cloud1 Marketing and is California's #1 SEO & PPC Company. Web Design and SEO Fresno specializes in ensuring that small and medium businesses get prominently displayed in search results of leading search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing and more, to help small & medium enterprises connect with customers searching for what they offer on their website.

For more information about their Web Design Fresno SEO & PPC services, please visit http://www.cloud1marketing.com/ or call Paul Singh

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm