Some new and exciting changes have been going at Cavendo. Most importantly, we have revamped and improved many of our internal processes. These changes will allow us to better serve our valued clients.

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Search engine optimization is tricky business. It’s part art and part science. No one knows exactly what needs to be done to achieve optimal results. The hardest part of SEO is keyword selection. You have to research how people are finding your web site, what terms they use and patterns they follow. It’s not easy. However, the good thing about SEO is that those patterns do exist. You just need to find them and optimize your web site to take advantage of them. This involves implementing the correct keywords throughout your site in a meaningful and effective manner.

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All too often, a web site breaks one of the cardinal rules of web design: Don’t use Comic Sans as your font! Anywhere! Not only is this infamous font found on web sites, it also makes appearances in email signatures, and printed newsletters and brochures. Why is this font so dreadful?

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We’re all familiar with Flash – it’s the glitzy and literally flashy presentations and functions that have invaded the Internet. Flash may look nice, but used out of control, can cause some major usability issues. Take for instance the Flash splash page. These splash pages serve as the gateway to the homepage and try to force users to watch a clever animation describing what an organization does. Many hours go into preparing this splash page and the expectation is that it’ll drive visitors right into the web site, eyes wide and excited. The truth, however, is that visitors don’t like these splash pages. They’re annoying. They’re slow. And most importantly, they get in the way. You have a short time in which to catch a user’s attention. Flashy animations are too slow and cumbersome to achieve this goal. Unless the Flash serves to supplement content, you’re going to run into trouble. So always make sure your focus is on good content rather than flashy gimmicks.

What turns prospects off of your web site? We’ve compiled our own top ten list of tried-and-true reasons why a prospect will leave your web site. Beware – some of these are harsh.

1. Your web site looks like it was sloppily put together by your 10-year-old son or daughter.
2. Your web site has old, even ancient content that makes one wonder whether your organization still exists.
3. Your web site has slow-loading, irritating graphics and gizmos that look like they’ve been transported from 1995.
4. Your web site is disorganized and hard to navigate, leaving visitors lost and confused.
5. Your web site lacks content of any real substance, and as a result, any value.
6. Your web site has no call to action or "next step" instructions for visitors to follow.
7. Your web site is missing pages, has bad links or non-functioning tools.
8. Your web site doesn’t work in other popular web browsers such as Mozilla Firefox and Apple’s Safari.
9. Your web site has nothing for visitors to interact with.
10. Your web site doesn’t have a problem with prospects leaving – it has a problem with prospects finding your web site in the first place.

How important is a good email address to your organization? Obviously, the email service must be reliable and provide relatively good junk filters. But for some reason many people don’t consider a “good” email address as being branded to their organization’s web presence. This means saying goodbye to AOL, Earthlink, Comcast, so on and so forth. If you’re the Smith Agency and you have www.smithagency.com, then why are you still using smithagencyrules@aol.com? Not only are you giving AOL some free advertising, you’re shooting yourself in the foot.

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In the first post of our “Is Your Site Stale” series, we posted a picture of an old bag of potato chips. The picture was actually a last minute addition. An incidental inclusion. What was interesting was the attention it garnered. After showing the site to a handful of various people (prospects, partners, journalists, clients), all eyes immediately darted toward that bag of stale chips. We were asked immediately, “So what’s up with that bag of chips?” What’s the point? Something as simple as a photo can catch the attention of people. What on your site gets people asking questions and reading more into your content?

The hardest part of keeping a site fresh is setting aside the time to actually do it. At first, it seems like an exercise in futility. You may spend hours every week keeping your site fresh only to see your traffic go nowhere. It can be frustrating. However, keeping your site fresh isn’t an overnight project. It takes persistence and craftsmanship. We can even throw in the old “building a house” cliche. Laying the foundation is the hardest, most time consuming aspect of the process but once it’s done, you can build anything. In other words, you need to establish a foundation on which you can constantly update your web site quickly with useful information. What does this mean exactly? Let’s roll through a list of actions you must take.

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The Internet has transformed into an interesting playground. Various tools – or toys depending on how you look at it – have enabled people to generate creative streams of content. From the now widely accepted blog to increasingly popular tools such as YouTube, your web site is your canvas. So, what are some "brushes" to paint your canvas with? Below are the top five methods of freshness that we like to advocate to our clients.

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Stale is a word commonly used to describe those old potato chips sitting at the bottom of your pantry. In the case of your web site, staleness takes on a similar meaning. Have you ever found yourself on a company’s web site with its latest press release from 2004? 2004. Four years ago. Four years of seemingly nothing happening at that company.

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