It takes a keen mind, one that can visualise how something will work from all angles. Think of it as Mechanical Engineering for the virtual world. Pretty intense stuff right? No need to answer, it is, and it’s the life these folks lead every day. Being in their minds must be like looking at the Matrix’s green code.

So the history and the future of websites, web applications and other software owes a lot to these monkeys and their strange minds the pretty stuff can be done by us designers.

At Brighten we like to think that we innovate when it comes to our work. We provide solutions to any problems our clients bring to us, as well as our own problems with our own projects. Innovation and invention generate improvement. That’s a weighty statement for you to digest.

Now, looking at the web as an ever-evolving entity that cannot be caged, or restricted, at least not in a worldwide manner, it’s hard to believe that people with so much knowledge, influence and funding, would produce a browser that is so outdated that it is the single focus of such bewilderment and annoyance from most, if not all web developers.

To give you a better understanding of the environment; the old inner workings of web design agencies was that the designers would create layouts, pass it to the developers who would explain the boundaries that browsers have, and require alterations to the design. Eventually an agreement was made and the developers would then code up the site, checking it works in all browsers of the day.

Nowadays browsers are much more advanced, varied and numerous. The most popular being Internet Explorer (IE), followed by Firefox, Safari and more. This allows designers to be a lot freer with their work, less to and fro between designers and developers, and better results all round. With all the shiny features and capabilities, modern browsers should be a dream to code for right?

Wrong. There is a hellish little cousin that’s supposed to come around for major family events, but seems to be there all the time, who you just want to go away in some horrible accident, preferably initiated by you. That little hellboy is Microsoft’s IE (all of them). There have been many reports of IE6 being the worst of all, not conforming to coding standards accepted by literally every other browser, being completely incapable of dealing with image file formats like png, the list goes on.

Lets put it this way; if you purchase a new computer, you find there is a bunch of preloaded software on there right? This mainly applies to Windows rather than Mac and Linux. So you are not very likely to actually use much of this software, and those damn pop up messages in the bottom right corner asking you to update them all the time is enough to drive you to drink! So you decide to ditch them and clean out your system. Think about this, one of those is IE. Free software, as all browsers should be, but why choose the one that was preloaded? You have just spent time removing all that junk that was preloaded right so ditch that one too! Get yourself a shiny new browser, one that can cope with the whole Internet.

The main problem is businesses that purchase a bunch of computers, set up their intranet and whatnot, put a block on their systems so their employees cannot download from the Internet. Now this is a great idea, because who knows what people will do. But unfortunately this means that these computers are stuck with whatever browser was preloaded, and yes you guessed it, Internet Explorer. Dammit! The secondary problem is that people are just ignorant to the flaws in IE. They choose IE because its there and if there is an issue with a site, they simply say, “well that’s a crap site, can’t even see the imaged properly!” Now this is partly true, a good web development agency should be able to cope with IE, but that doesn’t mean they have to, there’s an alternative…

I enjoyed reading an article titled; “It’s time to bring down IE6” in a web magazine. I think it’s time to bring down all IE browsers. They bring out new versions claiming they are more web friendly, cope with all sorts of eventualities, but it’s just not true. The same goes for their operating system, but that’s another story for another day.

IE is the thorn in our industry’s foot that can be removed if we work together to teach users that there are far better alternatives. Now this may involve sites that purposefully redirect any wayward browser using IE to an alternative browser download page. Very sneaky, and potentially detrimental to the website, but worth the sacrifice for the big picture? Who knows?

However there are other uses for Intranets, such as a communication basis between departments and employees within a large organisation, or a monitoring framework for individuals to keep track of the tasks at hand, even as a portal for clients to monitor progress of a particular project. Intranets are very versatile both their abilities and their delivery.

We often receive enquiries from clients for software solutions to their requirements, we advise them that the exact needs they have can be fulfilled by an Intranet system without the need for bloaty software and at greatly reduced costs, and if their needs increase, then the system can be added to easily, and more importantly, cheaply.

One huge advantage of choosing an Intranet system over software is that it can be accessed from anywhere you have a web connection. No need to install software onto all of your machines, or carry a CD around so you can run it on computers while on the road, just log into your admin portal, and you are good to go.

Unless your site is targeted towards a market where there is such stiff competition that it would take years to build the SEO that gets your site organically at the top, you are probably best off paying for an SEO campaign that focuses on things such as site content, Meta Data and inbound links. Excluding the importance of a great web address, these three things will be the pivotal points from which organic SEO is based.

We think it’s important to know that these things are not magical processes that can only be orchestrated by the most skilled individuals. They are tasks that can be performed by anyone who can operate a computer and has Internet access. That is why, when we are asked to carry out SEO, we make sure our methods are crystal clear, so that once we are finished, our clients are able to continue where we left of, keeping there site highly ranked in search engines. Here is a short introduction to the sorts of things you can do yourself to get your website indexed properly by search engines:

1. Ensure Content is relevant and in sync with Meta Data i.e. keywords and phrases. This means make sure that your keywords and phrases are mentioned at the very least once in the content of that page. That way search engines will read your Meta Data, and see that it comes up frequently in your pages, meaning that your site is relevant to those keywords and phrases.

2. Try your best to get other sites linked to yours, creating more traffic and also pushing your ranking higher. The more relevant to your content the site that is linked to yours, the better your ranking will become. You can submit your site to directories, create partnerships with other sites, exchange links, submit articles to sites and create blogs, all linking back to your site, and all containing similar content to your site.

If you want to learn more about this, do not hesitate to get in touch.

We believe that a little knowledge can go a long way, and in our case providing you with even a little information could help you make the right decisions to suit you and your business. That’s why we have created our VideoBlog section, to help you gain a bit of knowledge before you approach someone, hopefully us, to design & build your website, carry out branding and graphic design.

So, we figured we would tell you a couple of basic points that we think you should consider before you undertake a website project with us, or anyone! We are confident we will guide you in the right direction, but we cannot speak for other web design agencies.

Do you need that website?
Would money spent on a website provide you with the desired business in enough time? It’s worth thinking about this as you may find that the vast majority of your custom comes from non-web users, or people who are not likely to buy your product or service via the Internet, they would perhaps prefer to meet in person or communicate. So choose the website that best suits your needs.

Does the site need Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?
Yes, yes, yes! Whether it’s building your site with SEO in mind, which by the way should always be the case, or taking out a full blown Google Ad Campaign, SEO is so vital in the modern web. If your site is never seen, then you are wasting your money. SEO makes sure the major search engines on the web, Google, Bing, Ask, AOL etc. have indexed your site’s pages under relevant, and more importantly desired, search terms.

For example, if you have a beautiful site selling Birthday Cards, and your site has been indexed under search terms such as “Greater London” and “100% recycled paper”, then you will soon find that the people you want to visit your site are not finding it. SEO solves this problem.

How important is the Design of my site?
Being Design Driven, most of our staff will shout, “INCREDIBLY”, and they are right. The look of your site is just as important as your site working. We are not saying you need beautiful floral images on every page to attract everyone to look at it, but if your site is poorly arranged, difficult to navigate, a struggle to read or is less than fluid to use then you are going to lose viewers, and fast. First impressions are everything in life, and this is true for the web too. Your viewers need to know exactly what is going on the second they see your site, and our designers help make that happen.

We go through all of these points with clients before we undertake any project so rest assured you will be on the right track.

With the launch of our new site, which we hope you like by the way, we thought it was about time we started blogging for the company as well as personally. We intend to focus mainly on providing you guys with some free information on our industry and what you will find useful to know when you start talking to people, hopefully us, about online and graphic projects. Firstly though, lets tell you about our site, and its lovely features that will also help you come to decisions before contacting anyone.

Firstly, we have created a VideoBlog section on our site where we will be talking about all things web and graphics. If you have some questions about web design & development, graphic design, SEO, CMS or anything web, or if you simply want to watch to see if you can learn something new, then you may find our videos useful. We will cover a range of subjects, including things to look for and look out for when embarking on Corporate Branding and Web projects. So we highly recommend watching some of them before you pick up the phone.

Have you ever wanted a quote immediately and been unable to get it? We are sure you have, because we have! And we hate sifting through sites that have a whole range of products and services yet seem to think its acceptable to hide their fees and costs from you. We disagree with this shady practice, after all you’re going to pay anyway, why not find out a rough idea of how much that will be first.

So we developed our Guesstimator for those people who need a rough idea on how much they are likely to spend on our services before they go ahead and contact us. You don’t have to fill out a form and wait for an email, call someone and wait until they punch the numbers, simply put your desired services in and we will come up with a rough quote. No waiting around, no tiresome calls, just quick answers.

We hope you enjoy using our new site and it’s neat little features, we certainly enjoyed building it!