Website Update: Accounted For

Accounted For is an accounting business operating in Bracebridge, Ontario and serving the Gravenhurst and Huntsville vicinity. The owner of the business, Laura, visits many of her clients in person, and deals with others by computer and telephone.

Accounted For provides personalized tax filing, payroll services, and bookkeeping. Whether you have a unique personal income tax situation (truck driver? stock trader? rental properties?), want to get your business finances tightened up, or just have some simple routine filings, she'll get the job done, and at an amazing price. She can also explain CRA correspondence and help you with audits if necessary.

This has been a top-10 ranking website since it was built many years ago, when the owner was originally in Peterborough. This change is a partly cosmetic, but primarily to re-target the website to residents of the Bracebridge area.

The site has just one page of content, designed to help a visitor determine if Accounted For provides the accounting services they need. It is modest compared to other accounting sites with many pages and flashy designs, but her clients aren't looking for a huge international accounting firm, and the simple look reflects the small business owners who form most of her clientele. I'm happy to continue providing this terrific small business with top-10 rankings in a field of much larger competitors.

10 Reasons To Never Use Auto-Playing Sound or Video

Here's why auto-playing audio and video on a business website is a pointless, irritating interruption that should never be done (in no particular order):

1) people surf the web while listening to TV, music, audio books, etc.; sudden overlapping noise is baffling and infuriating

2) people surf the web while on Skype and other chat programs, and now you've pissed off everyone involved

3) for people listening to music wearing headphones, unexpected sounds are even more shocking

4) only people with their speakers/headphones turned on will hear it anyway, so why bother?

5) some devices don't even have speakers; why auto-run something if users can't experience it?

6) the volume can be too loud, but also too quiet; users may not realize anything is playing

7) audio and video eats up expensive bandwidth for users, especially on cellular and mobile networks

8) people will leave rather than waste time figuring out how to turn it off

9) it's a horrible reminder of long ago when audio/video was a new gimmick web designers could offer clients

10) click-to-play is the solution, and gives you analytics that reflect intentional listens/views instead of meaningless "plays"

For The Record - NSA Leaks Tweets - June 2013

Although the Snowden/NSA/Prism leaks fall in line with things I'd normally tweet about, in this case I decided to keep my own to a minimum because of the predictable flood that would come due to the magnitude of the issue. I posted a total of 12 tweets over the last two weeks of June, starting the day of the first leak, linking to the original story.

June 06
Serious concerns: either the U.S. gov't hacked computers secretly, or the companies are lying (Guardian article) http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data

June 08
So many questions about U.S. hoarding data on innocent people, but we do know only a few senators saw this coming, the rest were too stupid.

June 09
Your government has enough info about you to successfully frame you for any crime, anywhere, any time. Have a nice weekend.

June 13
Once again, a key point missing from the NSA story is that databases get stolen. Huge danger when gov'ts compile data about innocent people.

June 15
Demand senator Lindsey Graham's email passwords, lol. He talks a mean game, now can he walk the talk? - https://secure.freedomworks.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1087

June 16
In case you missed it... The (supposed) PRISM logo used by the U.S. gov't is a stolen photo, lol - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/12/nsa_logo_scandal/

I wonder how many people in positions like Ed Snowden just keep their mouths shut and sell data to criminals and other countries.

Dear NSA: sounds like the terrorists have already won. They've got you spying on your own innocent citizens and lying about it under oath.

So... thousands of NSA "employees" (incl. subcontractors) CAN listen to phone calls any time they want, no warrant - http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589495-38/nsa-spying-flap-extends-to-contents-of-u.s-phone-calls/

June 17
The world is right to be mad at the US, but don't lose site of the cyber criminals still stealing credit cards, identities, etc. Be safe.

June 28
NSA says anyone using encryption is suspicious. Which means lawyers/doctors/accountants using secure email with clients are terror suspects!

June 29
Next NSA trick? Since terrorists can write letters, the NSA will pretty much have to start opening, copying, and resealing all postal mail.

Website Redesign: Buckhorn Sand and Gravel

We've finished a new website for Buckhorn Sand & Gravel. They sell sand, gravel, and stone, and also offer construction and landscaping services. They've been in operation since 1963.

Their website was never a major channel of marketing or communication, the telephone being the main point of contact. This explains why the site became neglected, and why they were still so busy despite it: their abandoned website honestly wasn't a detriment to business. But at least they realized the website didn't represent them, and made a wise call getting a new one built.

The goal here was to create something new, modern, and with better information, yet remain simple enough for their customers. Visitors get a thorough idea of their product line and range of services, and plenty of carefully selected photos (that pop-up to large versions). Customers will still phone or email regarding their projects, but the website is now much more useful to start with.

Colors stem from their logo's white and orange, with a textured rock background throughout. The site already appears in the top-10 search results for aggregate products and landscaping services in several of their target geographical areas.

Website Update: Maxama Protection

One of our existing web design clients, Maxama Protection, wants to grow their business in the Oshawa and Durham region. The company is based in Peterborough and provides security guards and marked cars throughout central Ontario. Their existing website is a top-ranking success that draws many inquiries.

After some discussion we decided the best approach would be simply adding a page to their site about Oshawa security guard and patrol services. We could have created a second small website or tried adjusting the wording and content throughout the existing site to rank for Oshawa searches, but both those ideas are spammy and unprofessional. So we created one clean and focused page.

After about one month live, this page now ranks in the top 10 search results for Oshawa security guards! This is no doubt due to the high quality of the site we started with, plus the simple straight forward targeting of the new page.

Website Redesign: Pharaoh Scents

This client sells aromatherapy sprays made with essential oils. The feel of the new site was to be very slick and atmospheric, fully themed with the product line.

While not the worst website out there, it sure needed help. The sprawling white pages were too bright with little imagery to compliment the text. It was a design that worked with monitors available at the time of creation (i.e. 1024x768 or smaller), but with today's laptops and large desktop monitors, the dynamic layout was very strange looking.

The central work included nice clear recreations of the logo and other artwork, new product photos, and top-to-bottom code rewriting. It lacked even the simplest elements like H1 and ALT tags! This website had a full range of typical deficiencies, never mind SEO.

Online shopping will be added to the site in coming weeks, but the redesign is basically complete. Work will now continue towards improving the search rankings and driving traffic, with ongoing adjustments to the content and copywriting, as well as reaching out through social media. There are also several legitimate directories this company should be in that are specific to the products they sell.

Top-Ranking Success: Naylor Systems

Naylor Systems manufactures very high quality marine equipment like aluminum docks, boat lifts, roller ramps for boats, and much more.

They're a market leader in Ontario, with over 50 dealers selling their products. By virtue of their genuine popularity and credibility the website was actually ranking ok, the main issue was the look. Extra planning was needed to ensure smooth redirects from old pages, clear on-topic content, and continuing ranking success.

This was another tale of a site built by a prior employee and now outdated and not representative of their business. The photos were blurry, the layout confusing and inconsistent, product information was both old and not prioritized well, and the look was late-1990s at best. Not to mention the automated Flash slideshows with background music! I hadn't seen such a thing in years. I thought the internet was free of such insanity!

Many of the photos sent by the client were taken during a thunderstorm, with dark skies. And since this redesign was occurring in October and November (when people pack up their docks and equipment), there was no chance to get better pictures. Much time was spent to salvage these otherwise good photos.

The website really turned into an online sales brochure, focusing on the details of their products. A lot of information is provided, yet the site remains simple and easy to use. Some of this was accomplished by putting non-core information in pop-ups (using pure CSS, so they work even on Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP!). Great client, great business, and now a great new website with compliments coming in!