Digital marketing has proven itself to be one of the best marketing strategies.

It is fast and much more effective than the rest. There are countless types of online digital marketing available for businesses. But we do not recommend that all businesses indulge in all of these types. Some businesses do a lot better through SEO marketing than PPC whereas others do better with social media than email marketing.

The best method to figure out which one will be better for your business and your financial budget is to consult someone who can analyze your business, audience, market and niche to determine the best plan for you!

Web Design

Having a properly designed website is the most important step in digital marketing of a business. If your company has an old, poorly built website, then please go get a new one for such websites give a very bad impression about the company.

No matter how well established your company is the very first impression your customers get of you is through your website. So make sure it gives the right image!

Making a graphically vibrant website with the correct information can be a very painstaking process. Most of all, choosing the right web design company for your company’s website is extremely crucial. And for that, you will have to do a bit of homework!

Follow these three simple steps in order to make a good website for your company:

1. Establishment of Goals
2. Determining the budget
3. Choosing the right website services providers

Establish Your Goals

Before you start your “web-design company hunt” it is better to sit for a while and establish a list of goals for the website. Why does your company need it, and how will this website affect your company’s progress? Answers to these questions are important, so that you know what to expect from your website.

Take your time and answer each and every question that comes to your mind on the same lines. Furthermore, these are some of those questions your web design company will ask you too. Once you have this sorted out, you won’t have to worry about what sort of a web designer you require, because everything would be crystal clear in front of you!

Determine Your Budget

How much money can your company afford to spend on this website? Website design costs vary within a range of $100 to $100,000 depending on what goals you have set up for this website. Know your spending budget before going to the web designer. And once you’ve done that, don’t ever tell your web designer what your budget is!

Pick a Web Design Company

Your choice of a web design company is a very important step. Take your time to investigate all of your options. Here are some important items to consider.

Design vs. Build - Depending on the outreach of your company and its website, you might want to consult two website designers. There is a difference between building a website and designing a website. Building is a highly technical process whereas designing is a creative one. It might be that one designer is good at “building” whereas the other one is great at “designing”.

Many advertisement firms specialize in creatively designing the websites whereas they might not be good in terms of development. So make sure, you keep both aspects in mind when making the right decision.

Evaluate Experience - Has the web designer you have chosen for your website had any experience in making the type of website you want? Has this design company had any experience working with the same industry? This is one of the considerations you would have to take, because this affects the web design a lot. Do not hesitate to ask the company these questions.

Review the Portfolio - A well-established web design company would have a maintained record of websites it has created in the past. In other words they would have a website “portfolio”. Ask them for the links to those websites. Once they do give you the links, scroll through the websites carefully. Do you like what they’ve created? Would you want your website to be designed the same way?

Compare Prices - Don’t just go to one web designer. Visit a few web designing companies who you think are capable enough to design your company’s website. Once you’ve listed down the top five firms, compare their prices. Which one of them would be most suitable for your requirements and be economical for your company too. Be rational: even if you can afford any kind of service, don’t squander money on something you do not need.

Just remember, there are numerous web designers nationwide who could fight for your business! So be choosy! If a web designer dismissed any of your queries and concerns, take your business elsewhere! Trust me, you have the right to do so!

Brendan Egan is a digital marketing guru and runs a successful marketing business as well. His company, Simple SEO Group, provides all kinds of marketing services online. To contact Brendan or find out about the services, please visit SimpleSEOGroup.com.

Mikal has been creating in a variety of forms for several years. Once he picked up a can of spray paint and aimed it at a canvas, he never looked back. Sprayntings are a combination of canvas, spray paint and creativity. Mikal started spraynting an exciting world of space, planets and stars across the institutional white walls of his bedroom. That opened up the world and he has barely put the spray paint down since then.

Snowboarding, music and painting are all influenced by Mikal’s unique perspective. He is constantly experimenting with color and texture to improve his creations. You can follow Mikal on Twitter @MikalDavisArt.

Tell us about Sprayntings.

I like sharing it with people and hearing how it makes them feel and their interpretation of each painting.

“Sprayntings” is the name I’ve given to my style of abstract spray paint art.

My style of art and the techniques I use with spray paint set me apart from graffiti artists and other abstract artists in that I combine them both into a new form of art. I leave my paintings to be interpreted by those viewing them.

I’ll have my own idea of what I see when I look at them, for instance a Dragon breathing fire in “Aerosol Dragon”, and someone else will see something completely different.

I love that about my work.

I like sharing it with people and hearing how it makes them feel and their interpretation of each painting.

It drives me to keep creating new and more elaborate pieces just to hear what the next person will say.

How did you become interested in art?

I’ve always been interested in art from the time I was a little kid.

I owe a lot of my creativity to my aunt.

When I was younger she would encourage me to paint or to color. She took a lot of time in letting me explore things on my own and encouraged me to just create. When I was 7 I wrote a series of short stories about my stuffed animal Pup and drew pictures to go along with them.

I think having such a creative influence in my life drove me to where I am today.

The thing that really set me off in recent years was painting my room in the attic. My aunt and I wanted to change it from dull white walls into something more aesthetic. I took the opportunity to give myself the universe and pained it on my wall. I painted my entire room black and added variations of blues, greens, oranges and other colors to make planets and nebula’s pop out of the walls of my room.

I had so much fun doing it that I decided to take what I had done on my walls and continue with it on canvas. I started out making 3 canvases with the paint I had left over and one of my aunt’s friends said they were good so I bought more canvas and continued working at it.

I love it; I spend hours a day painting in my garage.

To date I’ve created over 100 paintings and sold a dozen.

Where do you find inspiration for your work?

I find inspiration in sets, most times.

The way the clouds blend together with different colors inspires me to blend colors together the way I do.

I also get inspiration on how I’m feeling at the time.

If I’m happy I tend to use brighter colors or use more subtle lines and blending than I will if I want a more aggressive piece with more emotion and energy.

Music also has an impact on how I paint.

The way you move your arm, the speed at which you move it and the angle all affect the paint as it makes its way onto the canvas.

Lighter sprays from farther away will produce a splatter paint effect while direct sprays from closer will produce thicker, more distinct lines.

The music I listen sets the mood for how I’ll attack each piece depending on the tempo and overall feeling of each song.

How do you use blogging and social media as a way to advertise your work?

I spend a lot of time on Twitter, Facebook and my website to promote my pieces.

I post pics to Facebook as I’m doing them, then I crop them and watermark them to put on my website.

My direct friends on Facebook are the first ones to see them and give me feedback. That gives me a general sense of how they will be perceived when they are in public on my website and for my twitter followers to see.

What’s the most difficult part of being an artist?

Apart from finding a name suitable for each piece I’d say supporting yourself 100% as an artist is the most difficult.

I’ve sold quite a few pieces but no where near what I’ve sunk into spray paint and canvas.

It adds up quickly.

What “feelings” do you put into your work?

From an overall stand point, not just each piece individually, I’d say there is a lot of feeling behind my work.

At the time I started painting my room I was going through a tough time with a loss of a family friend and the unexpected termination of my job.

I’ve also been dealing with depression for a number of years.

Everything culminated at one point where I felt I wasn’t going anywhere and I had nothing to hold onto. Once I started painting it felt like I’d been given a second chance; a reason to work for something, something to keep me happy, something I was meant to do.

Painting makes me happy.

Whether it’s finishing the edges of the paintings I did the night before or making a 32in x 40in painting that takes days to finish I love every minute of it.

I think that’s the most important aspect of it. The fact that I enjoy it makes it that much more free flowing to be creative and try new things I’m not sure will work.

It’s that way with everything in life.

The more you enjoy doing something, the better you tend to be at it.

If you were to give some advice to a beginning painter, what would it be?

My advice for someone who is just starting out in art is to find a style that you enjoy doing and want to improve on.

Make sure you’re painting because you want to not because you feel you have to.

If you feel you’re painting just for the sake of it you won’t take the time to think about how you feel about your piece which will detach you from it and it won’t be as good.

Also, make sure you paint every day.

Whether its for 15 minutes or 2 hours, make sure you find the time to do it everyday.

The more you surround yourself with your own creations the easier you’ll be able to create in the future; you’ll get better at with your techniques and it will also become a larger part of who you are.

What would you do with 60 minutes of spare time?

If I had 60 minutes to spare there’s no doubt I would spend it painting.

I’ve got a quarter of my garage made into a small studio; one wall is just a tarp hanging from a rope with another made out particle board.

I spend hours out there everyday.

I’ll purposely leave my cigarettes in the garage so I’ll go back in there and work.

It’s great; there’s cement patio stones on the ground where I try out new techniques and stencils to see how they look.

Some of Mikal’s Sprayntings

Janet Brent is a Filipino born, Pacific Northwest raised Filipino American back in her motherland to pursue her renegade design career online and prides herself in being a “professional hobo” (homeward bound). She blogs at Purple Panda where she recounts the trials and tribulations of “lifestyle design” and tweets @janetbrent and is preparing a new web design launch for her services on November 11th, 2011. To view more of her work, go to byjanet.net.

How did you become interested in design?

I’ve always wanted to be an artist, writer and teacher growing up.

My artistic side seemed strongest since I’ve been drawing at a young age and started painting in high school. A job shadow assignment in high school during my sophomore year got me turned on to “graphic design.” I had no idea what that was but I knew it had to be artistic, so I ended up job shadowing a graphic designer who worked for a sewerage agency. Not the most glamorous job at ALL, but he was so excited about his work and the passion was contagious!

From that moment on, I knew that I would go to school to become a graphic designer. It seemed like the most ‘practical’ profession to do your art and not be such a starving artist.

In what ways do you differ from other designers?

I’ve always had a strong ethical pulse that has pulled me away from the corporate path. I’ve struggled with my role as designer because I didn’t want to be designing ads to promote meaningless consumption. I’ve always felt like a designer with heart and that the regular industry is no way to change the world.

I decided to go renegade and quit my job.

It wasn’t the fulfilling work experience that I had imagined after college. It was more like that dead end Kinkos job, and even though I say I’m anti-corporate, I wouldn’t have minded getting more traditional industry experience and working up the ladder, just to taste the other side and keep up with my skills. Instead, I felt like I was wasting away and not growing as a designer or utilizing my skills.

Now, I find myself rebuilding my career completely from scratch as an indie web designer for the holistic and creative arts. I have never done this professionally until now but I taught myself html way back in the day when I was 13 and updated myself with WordPress expertise. Like so many “lifestyle designers”, I decided I needed to move back to the Philippines where I was born so that I could build my online business in a place where I can basically afford to be broke because of the cheaper standard of living.

My life is completely different now, and I’m living like a local in a poor community while I build my new business and hopefully move out soon, travel and pay off my student loans.

If that’s not renegade, I don’t know what is!

Tell us about your experience at the Art Institute of Portland.

Like I said, I had a strong ethical pulse that even surfaced during college! I had a lot of mixed feelings about my major and what I was getting myself into. A lot of people around me wanted to move to New York and make it big or start off with $50k a year right off the bat.

I just couldn’t relate with that at all.

The art critiques toughen you up though but I had a lot of anxiety about my work and feeling like I wasn’t good enough. I’ve struggled with self-esteem even up to today. It challeged me to be a better designer and I’ve improved a LOT since my very first assignment that I still remember. A menu and logo for a fictitious restaurant called the Dilly Deli. Looking back at this time, it was one of the happiest points of my life even though living it felt like a much different story.

Being in a state of learning and growth is the best way to live and college challenges you to that by default.

How do you feel the web will change in coming years?

That’s a good question. I really have no idea! So far, I know about responsive design which makes it easier to view things in smaller screens like mobile devices and allows images, backgrounds and the whole content structure to resize as you move your window. There will be more of that.

Looking at current trends, the way people deal with SEO will completely change. It will be more about social media and networks than keywords. Google+ will rise and Facebook will be a memory. There might be more rules and regulations as more and more people do business online.

Could you describe a successful “branding” philosophy in just a few sentences?

Branding encapsulates your core values and attracts your target audience by being able to convey your top three personality traits within seconds in a clear and straight to the point manner.

Who you are as a person, brand, or company and what makes you unique is part of a remarkable brand.

What are some of your favorite movies?

I love movies!!

I’m partial to foreign films and indies. Such a cliche, right?

I love I Heart Huckabees, Waking Life, Amelie, American Beauty, Buffalo 66, Brazil, any David Lynch film, and Metropolis (both the Anime and silent 1920′s film). I have so many!

I also love a good 80s movie like my all-time favorite, The Breakfast Club.

Where do you find inspiration?

I try to find inspiration in my life and experiences, ‘good’ or ‘bad’. I am inspired by the people around me, my amazing boyfriend, and the awesome clients that I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with.

I’m inspired by bloggers I read, videos, and good typography. I love just grabbing random brochures or flyers that I think have good design.

What has designing taught you about life?

How existential! I think that designing has taught me to see the beauty in life, and disregard the negative. It’s taught me to focus on the details, and I try to be as positive as I can be in my outlook.

My design philosophy goes hand in hand with my life philosophy. Help as many people as I can and make the world a better place… One design at a time!

Samples of Janet’s design work.

Anne Emberline has a Certificate in Writing and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in visual arts, with training in drawing and design. She’s been writing and illustrating since she was a kid, and is currently working on the fifth draft of her first novel. Her freelance art and design work can be seen at EmberlineArts.com.

How long have you been producing art and designs?

I started drawing when I was ten years old and have done it pretty consistently since then.

As for graphic design, I started that in high school when I designed and printed my first self-published magazines of my own writing and illustrations.

What do you do to produce blog traffic?

My blog is relatively new so I haven’t hyped it up much yet, but I’ve had some good traffic from Twitter.

In the future, when I’ve got more content up, I’d like to start doing guest posts and maybe some art giveaways on other blogs.

 Where were you trained in your skills?

I went to university for visual arts and specialized in drawing and digital art. Even though digital art was a focus at school, I’d say I picked up most of my skill with design software after I graduated.

Being a musician, artist, and writer, I always had a project to promote, so I was designing promo materials for my own projects all the time and gained a lot of expertise with the software along the way.

 What’s helped most in improving your art?

Practice!

I wish there was an easier way to get good at drawing, but there isn’t. In my 3rd and 4th years of university, I drew almost every day, which went a long way towards honing my drawing skill. I did life drawing, drawings from photos, drawings from imagination, abstract drawings, conceptual drawings, self-portraits, digital drawings, etc.

Doing all that helped me build a great foundation of technical skill, but it also helped me find my style as an artist.

What are some of your passions?

Reading! A couple months ago, I started keeping a log of all the books I read, and I average about five or six books a month, half novels and half non-fiction. Psychology is one of my favourite topics, particularly anything that involves brain science. I’m a sucker for that!

I’m also really passionate about my other creative pursuits in writing and music. Right now, most of my non-art creative energy is going into the fifth draft of a novel that I’ve been working on almost daily for two years now. You definitely need passion to get through an epic project like that.

You have 60 minutes of spare time, what do you do?

Well, I’m adamant about having lots of empty space in my day to let creative ideas simmer, so if I have 60 minutes of spare time, I’ll probably just sit on the couch with my brain set to “off” and avoid doing anything productive.

Or, if it’s around four or five o’clock, I’ll take a nap! (I recently blogged about how I use naps to fuel my creative work)

To the beginning artist, what advice would you give?

You’re going to make a lot of bad art. Get used to it!

It’s not the end of the world, and it doesn’t mean you’re doomed to make “bad art” forever. It means you’re learning, and the more you can let yourself fail in your art making, the faster you’ll learn. It’s a fact! So go make something awful, figure out why it’s awful, and then make something slightly less awful.

In a nutshell, those are the baby steps to greatness.

Some of Anne’s art & designs…

If you’re interested in showcasing your work and being interviewed on Smart Boy Designs, just contact us here.

WebGuru India has been a pioneer in the field of website design and flash design services since 2005. We have written and published numerous articles on logo design, graphic design, web development and SEO and internet marketing.

There was a time when the website designers made websites keeping in mind compatibility with Internet Explorer- the web browser that comes bundled with Microsoft Windows. They did not have much choice for website designing either. IE became the dominant browser in the late 1990s and dominated the market for a few more years owing to Microsoft’s aggressive promotion and marketing strategies. The rival browsers were not strong enough to take on IE and they did not enjoy the backing of a software behemoth either.

However, things changed drastically after 2005-06. Firefox emerged on the horizon and in 2008 Google Chrome made a powerful entry in web browser segment. The sheer speed and functionality of these browsers gave Microsoft enough reason to worry and its developers went back to the drawing board to revamp IE.

The Birth of IE7 & IE9

The result, IE7, was an improvement on the sluggish and buggy IE6 by a margin but it was still not good enough to thwart the march of the rivals. IE 8, its successor was another big improvement but its market share did not grow phenomenally either. With a large section of users switching loyalty to Google and Mozilla candidates, Microsoft realized the need for an overhaul in browser development. The result was IE 9 which was touted as the next best thing by the company in web development and browsing.

The web developers have agreed that IE9 is a much faster and feature rich browser but they have doubts on its ability to cater to the need of modern website design. This is because the web design industry has been going through significant turmoil and changes in recent times. Several new standards have been embraced by the web designers that are not fully compatible with IE9.

Microsoft boasted of the hardware acceleration capacity of IE9 before its release which takes advantage of the GPU in a PC to display complex graphics and web animations. This can help the online gamers for sure but for business websites this feature remains a glorified calculator.

IE9 Doesn’t Support Windows XP

The number of users sticking to the 10 year old OS, Windows XP is not insignificant! After the failure of Windows Vista a lot of Windows users decided to stick with the old OS and many of them are unlikely to upgrade in near future. Sadly, in its attempt to make IE9 future ready, Microsoft dropped support for XP. Therefore, making a website compatible with IE 9 is equivalent to largely ignoring the people who use Windows XP. In fact, the number of Windows XP users worldwide is more than the Vista and Win 7 users combined. This is what a website design company should consider while making websites that leverage exclusive features in IE9.

The major caveat of IE9 is undoubtedly its lackluster support for CSS3. A web design company that makes use of CSS3 for dynamic website development will find several compatibility issues with IE9. This is where the rival browsers have left IE9 behind by a large margin.

In conclusion.

Despite the brouhaha made by Microsoft about IE9 being a ‘modern’ browser, it falls short on several counts from a web designer’s perspective.

The CSS 3 incompatibility issues may thwart its success as a web development platform.

Renee Lico is a designer and social media marketer living in Seattle, WA. She is a full-time student and single mom, who will be graduating with a multimedia design degree in December. She has an entrepreneurial spirit with 2 freelance businesses, Re.design Studios for graphic design and photography and StarShine Social Media. She is also co-founder for BoodleBags (handmade diaper bags) and DoodleDogs Pet Services.

Tell us about achieving your Multimedia Design degree in December. Was it difficult? How has your life changed?

I LOVE design so working towards the degree was the fun part.

I had classes in the entire Adobe Creative Suite, pre-press, motion graphics…a great combination of classes to have a firm understanding of old school vs. new school of design and technology.

The difficult part was getting to the point in my life to decide to go back to school. It has been life-changing as I have gone from a stay-home mom to a full-time student, single mother trying to balance it all. I am blessed to have amazing family and friends to help keep me on track and moving towards my goal.

You specialize in photography, design & social media. How do you balance your interests?

Life is all about balance right?

Photography is spur of the moment for me, I could never plan it so making a living at it would be difficult for me. I prefer to just take photos with no desired outcome, it is strictly free-flow for me and very personal.

Design is similar to photography because you are using the same creative “eye” to capture something. I again use the word flow…you can’t work too hard at it, you have to just let it rise to the surface.

Social Media is a great way to combine design and marketing! It all relies on communication and even empathy to achieve success.

I see all 3 as related.

How will the online world change in coming years?

I see smartphones and tablets as the world of the future, everyone will have one. Desktops and laptops will fade away, the government will have more control and advertisers will be dominating.

Social media is a powerful way to generate interest in products, websites & companies. How do you harness that power?

There are many ways to harness that power but I believe the best way for individuals and companies to generate and KEEP interest will be from being open and transparent about their products and services.

People are tired of the “sales pitch” and social media has changed the game and allowed consumers to take control of who and what captures their attention.

What are some of your goals & pursuits for the future?

My current goal is to complete my AA degree in Multimedia Design by December this year. After that, I will keep growing my two businesses and keep learning about the ever-changing landscape of technology, design and social media.

On a personal note, raise my son to be an amazing person, successfully help him with math homework without losing my mind and I also want to purchase a RV within the next 5 years.

What are some of your favorite movies?

My Neighbor Totoro (well, any Hayao Miyazaki films), Where the Wild Things Are and Once.

Do you have any favorite books?

My all time favorite is The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo, followed by The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery.

What can companies do to prepare themselves for an online presence?

Determine who they are and who there target market is.

Develop a mission statement around that and listen to their market. Have a social media strategy. Don’t just create a Facebook profile and expect it to just work. Content is essential!

Some of Renee’s work…

Allyson Stewart is a web designer who shares tutorials on creating websites and using office software at the beginner level at Dollar Templates and Fonts. She’s been in the web design industry for over a decade and is passionate about helping others work more efficiently.

Sometimes simplicity is key on a website. Tons of animations can slow down a page, turning visitors away from your amazing work of art. Don’t get me wrong. Animations have their place on some websites where a lot of movement is expected. When in doubt, design for the majority of your audience.

Spicing up a drab website is possible with a few, simple tricks. These six tips can help if you’re short on time or ideas, bringing you repeat visitors if you have great content to go with it.

Add Fast Loading Images.

Not only do images fill up empty areas, but they also make pages more attractive. You can use images to illustrate a tutorial or to liven up your text. Be sure to use images that relate to your content, however, rather than images that are off topic.

If you’re afraid of page load time, optimize your images beforehand. You don’t need to purchase a separate image editor to do the job. There are a number of free online editors that can optimize your images too.

When you link to the image, don’t forget to include alternate text. Alternate text describes the image within the code and is a must have for users with disabilities.

Use Color.

Have you ever noticed how color instantly changes your mood, whether it’s a piece of clothing or room in your home? The same is true for web pages. In fact, research shows that colors can liven up our mood or dampen it. The color blue, for example, is often used in business because it signifies stability, strength and trust.

You can use colors to your advantage on a website. To spice up your pages, add colors that represent your company and goals or the mood you want to stimulate. It’s important however, not to use too many colors on a web page.

Incorporate Bullets.

Bullets are a simple, but effective way to spice up your text. Thanks to CSS, a code that helps you format web pages, you can turn simple bullets into graphics. Bullets help you separate text on your page, drawing readers to a particular section you want to highlight.

On the other hand, bullets are only effective when used properly. Using bullets unnecessarily (just for the sake of adding them) defeats the purpose. Instead, apply the bullets to a list or specific area of your page. Indenting them also makes them more visible.

Add an Amazing Header.

The right header can do wonders for your website, and you only have to create it once. Since the header displays on every page, your creativity extends throughout the site. The possibilities are endless as far as design is concerned. Just be sure to add a header that works with your overall theme.

Include Headings and Subheadings.

Like bullets, headings and subheadings help people locate information more quickly. Additionally, they add variety to a page, giving the eyes a break.

If your web page includes lots of text, insert headings and subheadings above sections or related content. Instead of manually formatting every heading or subheading, put CSS to work. It’ll make your headings and subheadings consistent, so people can easily identify the sections on your website.

Eliminate Broken Links.

No one can help a few broken links here or there. Even if you check for broken links often, they have a way of creeping back in. If you have several broken links, however, you probably haven’t updated your website for a while. And your visitors can tell. In fact, too many of these can send your readers packing.

To improve the usability of your website, check for broken links and fix them periodically. You can use a broken link checker to scan your pages for any hidden links you may have missed. This saves you time if you don’t want to check the links manually.

In closing, sometimes it only takes a few changes to get your website back into shape. Most of these tricks apply to visual changes rather than background changes, but there are several more, too many to discuss in this post. If you’d like to share additional tricks you’ve either tried or observed, I’d love to hear your thoughts.