Too often, businesses don’t get the website they require. Webcopyplus recently spoke to Tamara Brooks of Vancouver’s Syntric Design about how to get the most from your web designer and attain a website that will serve you well.

WCP: What are the first steps to creating a well-managed web design project?
TB: Creativity is subjective but the process should not be. A professional web design firm will desire a strong briefing document, and this is the groundwork of any successful project. In addition, be sure that you have the decision maker at your company interacting with the account representative at the design firm.

WCP: Can you elaborate on creative briefs?
TB: It’s a complex structure, a briefing document clearly articulates your company’s design needs. The process for developing this understanding precedes the web design stage and is one of the most important factors in the outcome of a website. It establishes a mutual understanding of the scope of the work, the project objectives and specific deliverables. It defines the tasks to be completed based on the agreed on estimate or proposal. If the website is complex and includes a large budget, this design brief should be agreed on and signed by both the design firm and the client, and should also be reviewed at a meeting with all stakeholders prior to project commencement.

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The BBC reports Google sees voice search as a major opportunity to generate presence on the mobile web.

Vic Gundotra, Google’s Vice-President of Engineering, made the comments during a wide-ranging discussion at a recent Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco.

“We believe voice search is a new form of search and that it is core to our business,” he stated.

Read Google sees voice search as core.

Forrester Research recently noted that making the leap from technology-centric architecture to business-centric architecture might be enterprise architects’ biggest challenge yet.

“Business architecture is not simply another enterprise architecture view,” reported the research company’s Jeff Scott. “It is an entirely different way to think about architecture with its own set of goals, processes, and deliverables. Though the shift to business technology will be difficult, the rewards will be great.”

He went on to state business architecture will provide the major vehicle for aligning IT capabilities with business outcomes. For instance, a well-defined business architecture will provide new business insights, uncover unseen opportunities, and guide business investments to where they deliver the most value.

Scott suggested CIOs should direct their enterprise architects to sharpen their business skills, increase their business interactions, and develop their business architecture road map.

Our take is the architecture of an enterprise exists, regardless if it’s documented in detail. However, architecture must go beyond technology and the business. To lead the way, companies must embrace a customer-centric focus, along with effectively integrated systems.

As online visitors often jump from one link to another, you should treat your links like headlines. They should deliver your primary message in as few words as possible.

In fact, a recent study by Jakob Nielsen suggests the first couple of words in your links are imperative.

Nielsen reports: “Online reading is often dominated by the F-pattern. That is, people read the first few listed items somewhat thoroughly — thus the cross-bars of the ‘F’ — but read less and less as they continue down the list, eventually passing their eyes down the text’s left side in a fairly straight line. At this point, users see only the very beginning of the items in a list.”

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As newspapers continue to experience decreasing ad spends, they’re looking for ways to maintain relevancy and existence.

And the slow economy isn’t helping. Some of the papers’ biggest customers – retail, auto and real estate – are hurting badly.

One way newspapers seem to fit nicely into the overall information delivery system, is by getting the Web to grab readers and allowing them to get in-depth information from print sources.

That could definitely work for some years, or at least until screens provide the same readability as paper and people learn to cuddle with their Sumsungs.

If you’re looking to expand your reach with .pro domains, consider the fact that the .pro domain extension transcends language barriers.

Indeed, these three letters begin the word professional in many different languages:

• Albanian–profesional
• Catalan—professional
• Croatian—profesionalne
• Danish—professionel
• Dutch—professionele
• English—professional
• Estonian—professionaalne
• Filipino—propesyunal
• French—professionnel
• Galician—profesional
• German–professionelle
• Indonesian—profesional
• Italian—professionale
• Latvian—profesionālās
• Lithuanian—profesinės
• Maltese—professjonali
• Norwegian—profesjonell
• Portuguese—profissional
• Romanian—profesional
• Spanish—profesional

So, if you’re looking to buy .pro domains, think big. Think internationally.

.Pro domains are available at select hosting companies, such as Network Solutions.

Like keyword-rich website content, link building is an essential element to achieve high search engine rankings.

The more websites that link to your site, the easier is to get high rankings on Google, Yahoo and MSN. Links to your site are like votes – the more ‘link love’ you receive, the more the search engines trust you.

But it’s important to get the right links. Links from related websites, which are also credible (for instance, they’re
 popular and have been around for some time), help your search engine rankings more than links from websites with limited inbound links.

On that note, search engines are not fond of paid links, which, if reported, can actually get your website penalized. That’s black hat SEO, and it’s bad news.

Effective ways to get others to link to your website include providing useful tools, as well as insightful articles or posts. When you offer something worthy, website owners are generally quick to make reference to your website, and reward you with that all-so-valuable link.

Whether you’re a New York IT firm or a San Diego design studio, SEO copywriting services can help you tap into a new stream of leads and sales.

The fact is that 85% of all new traffic to websites arrives via search engines. And it’s no secret that Google owns close to 75 per cent of the market. Hence, if SEO copywriting services get you to rank top 10 on Google, you’ll achieve a powerful return on your investment.

On the topic of investment, website owners often ask what do SEO copywriting services cost. Some supposed ‘SEO experts’ make themselves available for as little as $150 a project, while large SEO agencies can charge tens of thousands of dollars per month.

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Rogers’ executive team should monitor and attempt to influence what shows up on the Web. Case in point: the following screenshot reveals Google’s results when searching Rogers Customer Service (click on image to enlarge):

The number one result is a blog post critical of Rogers Customer Service, complete with dozens of subsequent comments that slam the company. The post is consistently in Google’s top 10 results, and often ranks above their official websites.

It all started with a blog entry I posted about Rogers’ no-shows and screw-ups that fell upon deaf ears for more than a year. Dozens of others vented as well, including customers, ex-customers and even employees. So, when consumers type Rogers customer service into Google or other search engines, the company’s poor service is often brought to their immediate attention.

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Here’s a list of 30 fresh design blogs that are worth checking out, brought to you by Six Revisions. Get inspired and dig up tips on everything surrounding web, graphic, and print design.

Worthy web design blogs that were missed include Web Designer Wall and Web Designer Depot.

Are you a web designer? Here’s an article featured on the Guild of Accessible Web Designers that discusses how to get ahead in the Web world.