A company website should enhance your current business marketing plan.  It should be a piece of a bigger company picture.  Some companies believe that simply by having a website will automatically result in booming business – however it simply does not work that way.

When you think of the size of the Web, your website is competing with millions of other websites for visitors.  Even when you narrow down to your search to your city, there will always be competition.

You can have the best website in the world, but if you are not out there promoting the website, your company or your products/services, you mind as well not have a website at all.

The key is to set your company apart from your competition.

Ensure that your website explains how your company is different right on the home page.  There is the tendency to bury this kind of information in the About Us section of a website, when it should be front and centre.

Highlight any specialties your company has.  Do you offer any services that require specialization or additional training?  Are any of your products exclusive?

Provide a short overview of the services your company performs or products your company sells.  The end user may not know the technical differences which is common knowledge for those in the industry.

webAssist is proud to enter into this year’s Movember challenge, and as an added incentive, we want to challenge other companies in the London web sector to both a “best ‘stache” and top donation competition. This is an open invitation to any web development company in London to join us in this fundraising endeavor either by starting your own team or joining ours.

The goal of Movember is to raise money to support the research and awareness of prostate cancer. For one month, those involved will attempt to raise money by growing moustaches.

webAssist wants to help fuel the fundraising in the London web sector by a friendly competition. We have 3 men in the office braving a moustache for the month and taking in donations and will square off at the end of November against any other teams.

So the challenge is out! Are you man enough to start a company team and raise money for this event? Can you grow a moustache that will shock and awe others? Then let us know!

Prizes may or may not be given out to winners. No purchase necessary. Contestants must abide by Movember.com rules.

If you’re interested in helping out by donating, follow this link: Donate!

Your company brand (name, logo, colours and tagline) is how customers identify you.  Consistency between your print and online brand/identity is as important as spelling your name correctly.  You want your potential client to know that they’ve gone to the right website.

Each type of marketing should be consistent and complimentary.  Web and print are two completely separate realms and should be treated as such.  There are elements of print advertising that simply doesn’t translate well to web, and vice versa.  A website should not duplicate print material.  It should complement it.  Your website should be a condensed version of other in-depth marketing material that you use.

When a potential client gets to your website, they want to quickly and easily access the information they are looking for.  It is very unlikely that a visitor will spend more than 4 or 5 minutes on your website.  Use existing marketing material as a starting point for creating your website content.  Let your website serve as an introduction to your company and services/products.

If the potential client likes what they see, make it easy for them to contact you to start working with you.

If you are working on a website or if you are working with a website company, chances are that you will need FTP credentials. If you have no idea what FTP means, then this blog post is for you.

What does FTP mean?

FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. FTP credentials are login data which usually include the following information:

• Domain: example.com
• Username: SomeName
• Password: 12345

Why do I need FTP credentials?

You need your FTP credentials to transfer files from one host to another host, usually over the Internet.  If the username and the password are correct, then the user can access the information on the server. This would for example allow someone to download and upload certain files and information.

Where can I find my FTP credentials?

Usually, the first letter or email that you would have received from your company that hosts your website, would state your FTP credentials. If not, then you might want to give your hosting company a call.

So, next time someone asks you about FTP credentials, you should know what they are talking about. If you would have any other questions leave a comment below.

When you want to show viewers information on your website without taking up space on the page, a jquery popup is sometimes a great option. Popups have come a long way since the standard browser ‘error-type’ popups. They now hover above the normal content, can have no borders and are automatically resizable to the content shown.

Here are three types of popups that help showcase content:

1. ColorBox Popup

This popup is auto expanding or has a set size, hovers over the website slightly masking out the site in black or white. An ‘x’ or ‘close’ button is built in, or you can click beside it. Great for contact forms, image galleries or general ‘extra’ content. For a live example, see: http://siteassist.ca (Click ‘Start Now’ in the Contact area.)

 2. FancyBox Popup

This type of popup features no edges making it very clean. All aspects can be customized. This popup doesn’t include a standard close button like the first example, but can be coded within the box. Clicking outside the box doesn’t close it like the above sample. It can be set to popup on page load, or include an ‘only pop up once a month’ code. See http://gtautoparts.ca/ for an example of this popup.

3. FancyBox with Gallery Feature

Another way to use the FancyBox popup is with a gallery. Each image can be clicked on seperately on the original page, but then can be scrolled through within the popup. You’ll also notice that the box changes size based on each image. An automatic slideshow option can be added or the user can click through. See http://www.sifton.com/newhomes/gallery.html to see this gallery popup in action.

Popups can be added to any website, are useable on mobile devices (not flash based) and can help save valuable website space.

The United Way of London & Middlesex challenged us to put together some backpack for local students so they can start the new school year off right.  Now we’re challenging you to do the same!

Shannon Todd, Project Manager, is up for the challenge.

Please take up a collection to stuff a backpack and we’ll take take it down to the United Way on Wednesday.  We can also pick-up if that’s more convenient.  Click here to download a list of the supplies they are looking for.

A few days ago Adobe, the company who made Flash for websites, released their new alternative to Flash called Adobe Edge.

This release has come after a few years of battling with Apple who doesn’t allow Flash to work on their iPhone or iPad devices. What is happening is if your company had a flash-based website, and someone tried to bring it up on an iPhone, it would just look like a blank screen. With over 15% of web browsing done on mobile devices (and growing exponentially), your company’s flash website would be a hinderance to your brand.

Flash allowed for animation of images, menus or full apps on websites, bringing a more engaging aspect to a static webpage. Edge promotes itself as the way to make the pages ‘beautiful, even on iOS devices’. It even comes with mobile webkits to design for mobile-specific sites.

Edge utilizes HTML5, which outputs multiple interactive aspects of web design like JSON and CSS3, instead of outputting to the common Flash file.

What this means for companies with Flash websites is that, to stay on top of mobile browsing, an eventual conversion to HTML5 instead of Flash is necessary. There is no sign that Apple will give in and allow for Flash on it’s devices, and you don’t want your website to come up as a blank page to potential clients.

Edge is currently being previewed in a Beta form (50K downloads in 2 days!) with work still happening on the app, but look for Edge-made websites to start being seen in the next few months.

Whether you use Google Analytics or another tracking program for your website stats, it is important to review and analyze them on a monthly or quarterly basis.

Website stats tell you

• how many potential or existing customers are visiting your website
• what pages they are visiting most
• what keywords they are using to find your website in search engines
• how they are getting to your website (directly or using a search)
• how long they are staying on your website

When you analyze this data, you get a clear idea of whether or not you are achieving the goals you set out for how your website will impact your business.  You may be surprised at what pages people are visiting most or what keywords they are using to find you.  This data will allow you to strategically plan what areas of your website you will expand and which ones need additional content.

You wouldn’t go years without doing an employee evaluation of your staff.  Please don’t neglect to evaluate your website.