Here are a few mistakes that small business owners can do when it comes time to start putting together a new website.

1. Take the time to learn your target market.  Instead of putting the primary focus on getting a website posted as fast as possible, take the time to learn who would want to use or buy your service or product.  From there you will be able to think of a better design.
2. A web design that is too flashy or busy.  The goal for the ideal website is for visitors to be able to find what they are seeking within three minutes.  Also, you will need to take into consideration visitors that use their mobile devices to view websites.  A busy website will be too hard to view.
3. What do customers do next?  Many websites are informative, but there is no direction.  A website needs to tell the customer where to go next if they want the service or product.  Purchasing the product or service, contact us, or subscribe to a newsletter?  Have a destination for your potential customers.
4. Do homework before hiring someone to design a small business website.  Have an idea of a budget and understand you get what you pay for.  If you pay very little for your site, you might expect just that.
5. Don’t get complacent.  Your site needs to have fresh content and have weekly changes.  When a website stays the same for long periods of time, people get bored and lose interest.

To avoid these common mistakes always take your time and realize that rushing and doing to many things yourself can be harmful.  A good website is put together in time and it has all of the necessary research completed to ensure the site is fluid and functioning.

Flat design consists of a few key components that make this design so simplified.

With the proper fundamentals and the ability to break down the barest elements, minimalist design is achievable and getting in touch with the current trends is simplistic.  Here are a few examples that will help a web designer get the simple web design appearance.

Less is More – this statement was popularized by architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.  The goal is using less to achieve more of an effect, which will achieve a simplistic yet functioning simple web design.

Omitting Needless Things – only focus on things that contribute to the content or function.  A terrific example is a simple grey background.  With simple typography and minimal effects, a website can have the simple flare that is desired.

Subtract Elements – crafting a simple website can also be achieved with subtracting elements until the site just doesn’t function anymore.  A great way to get this appearance is a simple single column body with a three-column footer.  Anything taken or added from this look would make the site less user-friendly.

Making Details Count – the most important fact about details is making each individual is a vital contribution.  Minimalist web design can be funky, yet modern and clean with sophistication.

Color – minimalist web design takes on a very interesting approach when color is added.  The right color or accent will be able to make the design of the website ideal.  The color white is also the backbone to any minimalist website.

Minimalist web design has been around for a very long time, and there are plenty of trends to this unique design.  The key is taking away from a website to the point it’s lifeless, then bringing back subtle hints until the desired look is achieved and of course – user-friendly.

How does matchist work? Imagine being a freelance developer or a development shop that can now focus on actual work instead of trying to scout out jobs and dealing with all of the legal and payment process. Not only are developers able to have better time management, but the projects are all specifically matched to their skills and experience levels. Matchist takes pride in making sure each freelance developer and/or development shop is the real deal in their particular field and even checks with former clients during the screening process. The overall screening is to make sure freelancers and shops can be given a job and it’s successfully completed.

Entrepreneur Stella Fayman is no stranger to development when it comes to being a part of a new company. She was a founding member of FeeFighters, a venture backed payments startup which was acquired by Groupon in 2012. She also was the co-founder of Entrepreneurs Unpluggd, a website dedicated to entrepreneurship education. A column in Forbes and she was also recently named one of Crain’s Chicago Business “20 in Their 20s.” Therefore, she has a strong background in developing and executing an idea. She and co-founder Tim Jahn saw a terrific opportunity to better assist great projects and recruit top of the line candidates for the completion of each development project.

Royal Deer Design is looking forward to all of the projects headed our way and will continue to strive in quality work with our client’s best interest always being our number one priority.

Here are a few awesome features to look forward too! 

WordPress also takes great pride in making sure Parker is also tailored to each user.  New perks such as eight new admin color schemes make it fun using your dashboard.  Also, choosing a new theme is better than ever.  Widget management used to be complicated, but now it’s a simple “drag” or a “scroll” and you have a handle on your widgets.

The leader for this new release is Matt Mullenweg.  There were also 188 contributors adding to the release of Parker 3.8.

One of the biggest changes for GoDaddy will be the website. Under Blake’s supervision and management, the site will appear less technical. That can be huge for people that don’t have the technical background for websites and design. This new look will be appealing for small business owners and marketers. With GoDaddy’s new look, the Media Temple website will be able to cater to more of a technical type of audience. The new appearances will be able to compliment both sites well, and make the overall experience for the user better.

Another big surprise about the acquisition is the fact that Media Temple will be operated as a separate company, and will not be integrated into GoDaddy. Any discounts and coupons will not be interchangeable between the two companies. Virb is a website builder acquired by Media Temple in 2012 will not be included in this deal. The original founders/investors will be purchasing Virb.

The new changes for Media Temple and GoDaddy are going to be new and exciting. With a bright new management team and an infusion of cash, GoDaddy is proving to be a fierce leader in technology and interactive with new improvements for both its existing customers and new customers. The information and data provided can be found at www.smallbiztrends.com.

Let’s take some time to review the statistics of HTML5 and how effective it has been with companies and generating revenue.

First, and most importantly, designing a website that functions properly on a laptop, tablet, and mobile device allows you to stay relevant in the marketplace. Individuals now rely on mobile devices and tablets predominately to occupy them when they are on the go. Thus, making sure that your website functions appropriately on these platforms will ensure that consumers are always able to reach you for any wants or needs. All it takes is one time for someone to try and access your site to no avail to forever deter them from your business/product(s).

Secondly, design your website to fit on all platforms if for no other reason than to save you money. For instance, if you design a website at the same size as the iPad you will save yourself time and money when bringing your site live. If you require resizing and designing a site according to platform you are virtually asking for a complete redesign and layout. This can be very expensive. Not only does this trick save you money and time but it also makes navigating your site easier for visitors as you don’t have to readjust to a new design depending on what device you are using.

2012 proved to be a year of tremendous growth for our company and its portfolio, allowing us to strengthen relationships with past clients and form meaningful relationships with new ones.

Below is a brief description of just some of our clients and how we were able to assist them this year:

• BDA LLC: A multinational corporation, BDA LLC needed assistance designing a website for one of their investment banking companies. Their website required multilingual capabilities as the investment banking company’s services are available in Asia, Europe, and the United States and needed to be easily understood by consumers around the world.
• Analystinstitute.org: Working with this analytics company, RDD helped create a secure and complex web-based communication exchange system.
• Yale University: RDD helped design and implement a large conference registration system hosted by The Yale International Relations Association (a 501c3 non-profit entirely student-operated organization headquartered at Yale University).
• MaxximaStyle: This Long Island based lighting company was in need of an e-commerce website that would allow consumers to not only learn more about their products and services, but also purchase products of interest.
• The James O’Reilly Group, LTD: This cabinetry and millwork company worked with RDD to develop a consumer-friendly website that provided potential consumers with information about services offered, a gallery of past projects, and a button that quickly and easily leads those interested to a quote.
• Areté Music Academy: RDD created this multifaceted website to allow both interested students and parents, and already enrolled students and parents, to easily stay up to date with the latest academy news, upcoming events, available programs, and general information about all Areté Music Academy’s offerings.
• Events Linked Live: This website helped ELL better reach their audience as well as potential new clients. This site showcases various aspects of ELL’s offerings, including products and their blog. The website also helps quickly and easily link viewers to various social media outlets where they can get better connected with ELL personally.

However, we did not only design websites in 2012. This year we also worked hard to continue providing SEO services and website maintenance to some of our long-term term partners like TheHookUp and Organice Your Life. We worked closely with these businesses to ensure that their ventures remained profitable and visible to the online world.

Here at Royal Deer Design we have always prided ourselves on working with the most efficient and advanced web design technology. 2012 was no different as we focused on building websites using high quality WordPress and Magento eCommerce CMS platforms. By utilizing these two platforms we were able to deliver the highest quality websites to our clients’. Our goal in 2013 is to continue growing our expertise on these platforms in order to ensure that our clients’ are always receiving the best possible services.

Though all of our websites and SEO campaigns proved successful this year our biggest achievement was the dramatic increase in traffic to OrganiceYourLife.com. Over a period of just 12 months RDD helped increase traffic to this site by 600%, making it receive over 12,000 monthly visitors. In addition to increasing traffic, RDD also helped to more than double the Facebook likes on the Organice Your Life’s Facebook page. Because of this Organice Your Life was able to establish a stronger brand platform and have heightened communication with users not only via their website but through various social media outlets.

Royal Deer Design is currently working with new clients on projects that will be finished and pushed live in 2013. With this we hope to expand our team and services offered. What does this entail exactly? Well, our hopes are that in 2013 RDD with be able to expand its’ hosting services to clients and increase training outlets to ensure that clients always stay aware and understanding of the latest website trends. The online world is ever changing and is moving faster than any other medium the world has ever seen before. We look forward to the updates and changes it brings to us in 2013 and are excited to work with our clients to incorporate them.