Entries Tagged as 'Development'

Why the Development of Your Website Matters

June 17, 2009 // Drew Stauffer

Whenever consumers decide to purchase something new, quality is usually a concern. The expression “they don’t make them like they used to” has never been more true when you look around at many items these days that are mass produced or, due to rigorous production timelines, simply aren’t rewarded the amount of attention they deserve.

With CMS (content management system) frameworks popping up everywhere and blog platforms making it as easy as 1,2,3 for practically anybody to have an online presence, consumers need to be aware that not all website development is the same.

The accessibility of your website and the semantics of the (HTML/XHTML) markup can make or break your search engine exposure.
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Got Hacked? How to Get Back on Track

February 17, 2009 // Drew Stauffer

So your website has been hacked. All your pages are gone and you can’t log into anything to make changes. What do you do and how do you fix it?

I’ve been hacked twice in the past 16 months, and the first time it happened, I was extremely scared, nervous and pissed all at the same time. The second time around I was able to handle the situation with a little more composure.
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Elements of SEO Update

July 30, 2008 // Drew Stauffer

***UPDATE: Elements of SEO version 1.3 is now available. Get it while its hot!

After submitting my theme to the new Wordpress Theme Directory, I was required to make a few tweaks. Elements of SEO 1.1 now has some exciting new features, including:

  • Gravatar support
  • Tag support

While I was making these edits I also decided to fix the widget bullets that were appearing. Ordinarily, if you downloaded the theme, uploaded it and didn’t activate any widgets then you would have the exact same setup in the sidebars as the demo site.

After reviewing a few sites that were using the theme, I noticed that a lot of people were implementing widgets. The problem that I was seeing was on the widget sections, there was a random bullet being added to the heading.

I didn’t really like how that looked since nothing else in the design had bullets styled like that, so I decided to remove them. Now you can add widgets all day long and it will look exactly the same as the demo site.

Download Elements of SEO 1.4 to get the new features and fix the widget heading bug.

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5 Steps to Improve Conversion Rates

July 23, 2008 // Drew Stauffer

Whether you’re redesigning your website or starting from scratch, you need to make sure that whatever you have online is converting users. Some sites sell products while others measure success by how many users contact them; either way, you have to be able to determine what’s working.

There are many ways to test your website, but the most important step is to just get started. You can debate with colleagues about color and style for weeks, but in the end you have to let the users determine what works and what doesn’t.
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SEO & Web Design - Are They on the Same Page?

June 30, 2008 // Drew Stauffer

When constructing a website, SEO design and web design don’t have to be two different functions. Sadly though, these two sets of features often come from different sides of the building.

Very few graphic people understand SEO or even what it entails and marketing people are focused on results and may feel that the design is secondary. But can combining SEO and web design be that hard?

If you breakdown the functions of both SEO and web design, they’re not really that different and can be easily and effectively integrated if thought through.
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Doing What You Love

April 1, 2008 // Drew Stauffer

Most of the time client work isn’t going to be that exciting or glamorous. But every once in a while a client comes along that lets you have fun. Chris Cote, Editor In Chief of Transworld SURF magazine, decided he needed his own blog. Having worked with Wildfire partner John King at Transworld SURF, he knew who to contact when it came time.

From start to finish the project took about a month. Chris knew John’s work enough to just let him go. Design gets approved, I build out the blog, and we’re live. A truly extraordinarily easy process, and cotescube.com is born.

I would love to describe it for you but I think he can paint a better picture. Here’s how he puts it:

Cote’s Cube is a place for you to find epic gear, supremely cool restaurants and bars, skate spots (for mediocre skaters like me), look at art, see what happens at lame parties, check out my friends being all friendly and shit, and you may even learn something (god forbid).

I highly recommend Cote’s Cube for anyone who reads Transworld SURF Magazine or anyone who just loves the industry.

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Zero Out Your Margins

March 6, 2008 // Drew Stauffer

Have you ever designed a beautiful website only to find that it doesn’t quite look right across multiple browsers? All browsers are not created equal, and often they have slightly different standards for presenting web pages. Internet Explorer can put a little margin here or Firefox can put a little padding there, and even the smallest differences can make your life a nightmare if you’re not prepared.

Developing websites without using tables can give a designer an extraordinary amount of control when it comes to how you want to style your design. Unfortunately with all that control comes a greater responsibility to make sure that each element stays in place across every browser that a user might open.
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Bad IE

January 15, 2008 // Drew Stauffer

Due to some nasty rendering in Internet Explorer were going to have to put the new theme on hold for just a bit. We should be able to get her back real soon.

IE Will Not Cooperate

June 4, 2007 // Drew Stauffer

IE positioning is fickle at best. I was recently designing a new site for a client when I could not get around this one bug that kept appearing in IE when I would test the site. No matter what I adjusted, nothing would correct the problem. Thank god I ran across positioniseverything.net. To my surprise I was dealing with the IE Doubled Float-Margin Bug.

I have a full summary with images of what happened on my other site, Drew Stauffer. If you’ve had any other problems with IE, or more importantly solutions on how to fix the problems, I would love to hear about them.

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The Power of a ReDesign

March 1, 2007 // Drew Stauffer

A few days ago I wrote a post over at Wildfire Productions, How A Simple Re-Design Can Increase Traffic and Sales. The article points out the benefits that can come with a simple redesign. From design, to development, and content to search engine optimization, everything about the site was redone with great success. Popoyo Rental is now listed on page 1 of Google, Yahoo, and MSN for many of its keywords.

Check out the article in full length for a thorough breakdown of what we did for each aspect of the site.

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