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Services

Website Design & Development

Conscientious design from the ground up

We treat our websites like our babies, and so we want the best for them. That’s why every detail of your Good Egg Design website will be given a great deal of attention. Web technology is ever-evolving, so it’s very important that a website is properly coded to W3C standards using compliant XHTML and CSS code. Sure, we want them to be beautiful, but we also want them to grow up big and strong.

Homemade, freshly baked code from scratch

We hand-write all the code that makes up your web pages, and test extensively in all major browsers including Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Opera, and Internet Explorer. We don’t just test for cross-browser consistency, but we strive to ensure that your pages validate to standards “as-coded”.

The web is for people, not just the “bots”

Having standards-compliant web pages will not only help you today by assisting search engines to properly index your site so that people find you, but more importantly, it will help cater equally to folks using assistive technologies like screen-readers for the blind, and alternate interface devices for people with special needs.

Those among your users using old technologies to view your site will also not be alienated, as a site coded to current standards will “degrade gracefully” to produce an acceptable result in older browsers. A poorly-coded website can easily diminish the potential size of your market, and that problem may only get worse with an outdated site using deprecated scripting techniques.

Saving you money down the road

We all know that doing it right the first time is the best practice, whatever that might pertain to. When it becomes necessary to update your website due to advancing technology, having properly composed web pages will greatly decrease the time needed to make your site compliant and current. You will be forward-compatible with a website that was already well written to standards, thereby saving you time and money.

You wouldn’t let a plumber who used to dabble in transistor radios re-wire your home, would you? Besides it being a bad idea, your electrical wiring wouldn’t be done to code, and you would end up having to hire a bona-fide electrician afterward to clean up the mess.

Hiring an egghead to code your site is the right decision in getting the job done right in the first place.

Take it from another “good egg”

For the information junkies and savvy shoppers, don’t take our word for it. Instead, enjoy this video featuring guru Jeffrey Zeldman as he explains a little about the “old days” and the importance of web standards.

What are web standards and why are they important

Website Repair & Redesign

Consider us your “open-web” surgeons

We can operate on your website and bring it to full health. Just as in life, surgery can be major or minor, and can be classified in one of three ways:

Elective: your website is healthy, but needs a tummy tuck

More often than not, this is something that would be periodically requested from an existing client, though it can be done for anybody who would like to freshen things up a bit. For a website that is already well-coded to standards, minor procedures might involve things like a colour palette change, some tweaking to the website’s typography, or maybe the addition of a web contact form.

A major procedure might constitute a complete cosmetic overhaul including a large volume of original digital photography and graphic design work, a shiny new company logo and branding, a complete re-writing of the style sheets (CSS), and trimming down some of the “code-bloat”. It could be that your budget didn’t allow for very much “fancy stuff” at the time the website was conceived, but now the funds are available to jazz it up.

Required: your website is very sick and is only getting worse

Perhaps you’ve had a website for a number of years, and for a while, it was doing all that you wanted it to do. There was information instantly available to anyone visiting your site which gives them a good sense of you or your business. Given how people use the internet today, however, it’s becoming apparent that the high hopes you’ve been having for your site are falling steadily. It may not be easily accessible for some users due to now-old web building techniques, and even “looks” dated. If you’ve stopped referring people to your website because you’re unhappy with the way it looks, or if you would like to bring it into the modern web era and add some functionality, we can help.

Urgent: your website is flat-lining

Virtually one hundred percent of these cases requires major surgery. Unfortunately, too many kind folks become disillusioned with web designers, and in some rare cases, justifiably so. Consider this hypothetical example, which is not entirely fictional…

• The Diagnosis:

  The website you paid Company X a healthy amount of money for is “broken”, and as technology advances, the situation’s becoming dire. After extensive research into hiring a web designer, you believed you’d found one that could be trusted to do the job right. Now, however, you’re left with a Frankenstein’s monster of a site that doesn’t render correctly in some browsers, has a half-hidden company logo, is plagued with broken links, and customers call occasionally to complain that they can’t find what they’re looking for. Worse yet, some users get so frustrated that they just leave the site altogether, and you don’t even know it.

  If all of this isn’t bad enough, the company you paid to do the job is either non-existent for all intents and purposes, or refuses to do anything about it without being paid more money. You find yourself being told by a customer service representative who is clearly reading from a script, that “cross-browser compatibility and link assessment are part of their Platinum Package which also includes Search Engine Optimization”, and they highly recommend it. Well, of course they do…they charge $300 more a month for the Platinum Package.

  This is the very darkest side of the web design industry, and is thankfully not the status quo. Lamentably, however, such companies exist and this scenario does play itself out for too many people.

• The Band-Aid:

  You could opt for “Company X’s Platinum Package” but that’s really just a dirty, non-sterile band-aid. Their performance has already demonstrated that they have no real interest in your satisfaction. It’s highly likely that because of your budget constraints, you were sold a stock website template that was old and deprecated, and even when it was made didn’t adhere to web standards. For “Company X”, focusing efforts on the “big fish” is the only thing that they can justify fiscally, so they churn out mediocrity for the average client.

• The Cure:

  Hiring the eggheads at Good Egg Design is our preferred solution, but beyond that, there are things to look for in a web designer when first setting out, and when seeking help in fixing a botched job. Above all, if you don’t get any “warm and fuzzies” at all, then perhaps it’s best to move on. You should never be sold anything too quickly that you don’t fully and comfortably understand. Most people in sales would definitely tell us we’re wrong and that closing the deal is all that matters.

  Our experience has taught us this: a client that has been made comfortable in understanding what they are paying for will be satisfied on delivery. A freelance web designer, or web design company, that looses you with too much technical jargon usually does so in the hopes that you’ll understand very little of it. At the same time, they’re counting on you viewing them as experts and therefore trusting them with your project.

  A good doctor explains the procedure ahead in understandable human terms, and answers any questions the patient might have. A good web designer should do just the same with every redesign client.

Domain Registration & Hosting

Painless registration and great uptime

If you currently don’t have a website or even a registered web address (URL or URI), we can help with all of it.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

First, you’ll need a hosting package. All this means, is that if you’re going to have a website, a server (a box much like your computer) will be needed to house your website so that folks can visit it. If you’re having the eggheads do your website, we’ll take care of all this for you. We already manage the servers that hold our clients’ websites as well as our own.

You can trust us that the equipment is solid, especially since that’s where our own website sits, but if you would like to talk geek stuff about hosting server specifics, that’s no problem. You can give us a call, or you can ask your question(s) via our contact page.

Registering your address

Next you’ll need a domain name. We’ll discuss possible web addresses for you, and research availability of your top choices. Again, Good Egg Design can be your “one-stop-shop”, and we can take care of registering your URI for you. You will be registered as the web address owner, and we will be listed as the technical contact.

Please note that we currently don’t provide domain registration and hosting alone. You must be a Good Egg Design Website Client to take advantage of these services.

Logo Design & Company Branding

Allow us to introduce you

Consult with an egghead, and we’ll learn about who you are, and what you represent. Then, once we know you as well as family, we’ll help you to develop your identity to the world.

How will you be remembered?

Logo design shouldn’t be trivialized, but nor should it be over-complicated. Think of some of the most memorable logos in the world, and what’s most striking about most of them, is their simplicity. They convey a “feel” for the company or group they represent, without complicating the landscape. Fancy Photoshop techniques do not a logo make. An understanding of what kinds of symbolism embodies the subject is far more useful. Trust us to understand you, and develop your mark.

Who are you, really?

Establishing a brand encompasses the proper execution of many things. Having a neat symbol for a logo next to your company name done up in a really snazzy font (note the way we poke fun at ourselves) isn’t necessarily wrong, but it isn’t necessarily “branding” either. Colours that help inspire the feelings you would like associated with your brand, typography in your marketing materials that help convey a sense of your mission, are also important, but still do not create a brand by themselves.

Your brand lives in the hearts and minds of your customers, both current and prospective. Good Egg Design will help you to develop all points of public contact. Our goal will be to inspire positive perceptions in your prospects, and create great experiences for your customers.

Email Marketing & Contact Management

Farm-fresh egg delivery

Today’s web is more involved with creating communities that help shape a website’s content, than just static informational pages. The phenomenon of websites like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are certainly a testament to that. Social networking sites aside, companies can benefit from creating a following, or community, as well.

We’ll help you make friends

There are people that want to know all about you or your company. Unfortunately, too many companies stay way too tight-lipped. Inviting your customers, as well as your prospective customers, to keep up with all that’s new and wonderful about what your doing is not just a great idea. In today’s market, it’s absolutely necessary to cultivate great relationships with your customers.

We’ll help you keep friends, and make new ones

It’s not a secret. Email marketing campaigns that work are anticipated, personal, and relevant. That’s what will get people to care about your message. They’ll care enough, that they’ll share it with others they know who might also be interested.

Yes, it will all be legal and informational

There are laws that govern how email marketing happens. Subscribers must be able to unsubscribe easily, and you can’t just send stuff to anybody. Folks have to “opt-in” to your list, or to put it plainly, they have to be expecting the message. Good Egg Design keeps up with all that stuff so that you don’t have to.

Beyond making sure everything is on the up and up, you won’t believe how measurable your email marketing can be. After each campaign, you’ll get a report telling you most everything you might want to know about how your message performed, such as;

• How many deliveries were successful
• How many recipients opened it
• How many people forwarded it to a friend
• How many forwards were opened
• How many people unsubscribed
• Number of recipients who clicked
• How many clicks per unique open
• The last date and time that someone opened it
• Where in the world your subscribers are
• and more…

Beyond that, we’ll tell you how your campaign performed against your industry standard. Additionally, you won’t have to worry about being penalized for constantly sending emails to bad or incorrect addresses. We’ll manage your list for you so that any “hard bounces” are removed from your list. We’ll try four more times with the “soft bounces”, and if they keep bouncing, we’ll remove them too.

Our list management is designed to save you time and money, and continue ensuring that you’re only marketing to people who want you to market to them.

Marketing to your fans is so easy and reasonably priced, you’ll wonder why you didn’t start sooner.

Custom CMS (Content Management Systems)

D-I-Y…sort of

You’ve heard it before. “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and feed him for a lifetime.” That’s kind of the philosophy behind a content management system. Good Egg Design can create a new website built on a CMS, and you’ll have control and autonomy over your site’s content.

What exactly is a CMS?

Basically, it’s a website that’s tied into a database. Also, it has a back end login for the website manager, or “admin”. The back end administrative area is usually very easy to use. Some are more complicated than others, but generally with a little practice, anybody who can manage to send email can master it.

I specialize in developing for WordPress, but can create projects using Joomla, e107, Drupal, and more.

The biggest advantage to this kind of website, is that it affords the client direct control over the website’s content. Many updates can be done without the need to contact your web developer. Depending on the type of CMS used, the client may even be able to manage more than just web content. Users, navigation, and even plug-ins are among the things that you can control.

This type of site comes with a bigger initial price tag, and may have a higher hosting cost depending on the size of your database, but can save you money on periodic updates or support calls. Also, given that updates are in your hands, there’s no waiting. New content can be posted as quickly as you generate it.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Get found by the people looking for you

When you have your site created by an egghead, good, solid SEO is already included. Much of the SEO is taken care of during development, organically, just by doing two things. Coding the site to web standards using best practices, and making certain that content is relevant.

By coding to web standards, things like image “alt” tags (which means “alternative”, text that describes what the picture is) and proper header text ordering is built right in. These are things that will help your website’s organic search engine ranking. After that, we examine things like “keyword density”, and keyword specialization (or single subject relevance) on each page.

We keep up with current SEO strategies and best practices so that you don’t have to.

SEM (Search Engine Marketing)

Put yourself front and center

This is totally different from Search Engine Optimization. This is the actual committing of dollars to secure web real estate. If you want to put yourself in the sponsored link sections of thousands of web searches for keywords specific to you, we can help. A focused marketing campaign with a budget that you set can yield several clicks a day, by pre-qualified buyers.

Digital Photography

A picture is worth a thousand clicks

Part of conveying your message is in the graphics to be found on your site. Especially if you sell a product that can’t be readily seen, it’s necessary to have photos available for perusal.

We can send an egghead to photograph your business front, your products, or your people. That way, your site visitors can get a feel for what you’re about without leaving home.

Print Media

We’ll arm you for hand-to-hand contact

The internet is definitely the way most people find anything nowadays, but there’s no question that certain other business tools are still necessary.

We can design your print media to match your online branding, including;

• Letterhead & Stationery
• Business Cards
• Car Door Magnets
• Banners
• Signs
• Brochures
• Flyers
• T-Shirts
• Posters
• Gift Certificates
• and more…

Consulting

Friendly advice in regular human terms

You know your business better than anyone. Sometimes, though, business owners need help, especially when they’re pushed into a realm that isn’t familiar to them. That’s where the eggheads come in.

Even traditional marketing requires most business owners to learn new things. Either you learn how to hire and work with an agency, or in the case of most small businesses, you learn how to do your own flyers, ads, and more.

We can help you with your “e-marketing”, as well as traditional marketing strategies. We’ll ensure that your brand comes through consistently across all your efforts.

• Hiring the best web designer you can find

  • Do you get the “warm and fuzzies”?
  • Is your web developer ready for next year and beyond?
  • How much does a website cost?
  • Keep your friends close, but keep an egghead closer

• Email: eggheads(at)goodeggdesign.com
• Tel.: +1-519-257-9860
• Skype: goodeggdesign