Syracuse Design Group - How we think.

Welcome to the new SyracuseDesign.com

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0500

We spend a lot of time making our clients look good... thought it may be a good idea to pamper ourselves with a new look. What do you think?

Ask us for a behind-the-scenes tour of the Content Management System (CMS) on this site, everything on the site, all content, links, nav, blogs, images, SEO, etc. is managed from a simple, intuitive admin panel behind a secure login. it is reliable, powerful, scalable and simple to master – very cool and we never tire of showing it off.

So, let us know what you like, and what you don't, even better, give us your thoughts on what should be different or could be better, for our site visitors. After all, you are our target audience!

TourCayuga.com coming soon!

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The team here at Syracuse Design is proud to announce that in the coming weeks, we will be launching a brand new website for the Cayuga County Conventions & Visitors Bureau! The site is set to launch in mid-March, and is the product of many hours of planning, collaboration, design, development, sweat, and elbow-grease.

Our newest baby

TourCayuga.com took over four months to complete, with a significant amount that time spent in the early planning and design phase. Syracuse Design is the only web firm on this project, and is responsible for all design and development. This is our newest baby. We worked closely with Meg and the team in Auburn to deliver exactly what they needed to achieve their marketing goals. After several trips to Cayuga County, we were able to nail down the specifics of the project, and then build wireframes, data models, and initial design specs to fit their needs.

Business listings across the board

The new website features rich business listings for people living in, traveling to, curious about Cayuga County. Are you planning a romantic getaway for two? The wine trail, bed & breakfast, and spa listings will certainly be of interest to you. Being a off-the-beaten-path destination, Cayuga County is trying to build their conventions and meeting business. The website has rich tools for finding the appropriate venue for any gathering, as well as group-friendly hotels, restaurants, attractions, and the like.

From A to B ( to C to D to E) - Plan your entire trip

The glue that holds all of the individual listings together is the Trip Planner. As visitors are browsing listings, they can add their favorite destinations to the Trip Planner. The Planner will then show all of their destinations, in order, with directions between them all. Want to go to lunch after a morning wine trail? No problem, drag that listing up one slot, and the map and directions automatically reset to show you the new route. Are you driving in from Syracuse? The Trip Planner allows you to add your home address to the mix, so you can get to Cayuga with ease.

An Introductory Guide to SEO & Web Analytics

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500

There are many methods used to convert random people on the internet into clients, all of which begin with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Web Analytics.

SEO is the art of linking web users (consumers) to your website via non-paid links from search engines.
Web Analytics is the process of looking at your website visitor data to identify trends and patterns that are useful for making decisions about how to to increase that traffic.

No matter what business you are in, the goal of any SEO strategy is to increase profits. Simply building web traffic is not enough. It's easy to forget this simple point, so keep it in mind when reading this post.

Part 1: How is your site doing right now?

How well are you doing? A quick and dirty SEO website analysis can be done in 3 easy steps.

Search for your company name Google. What do you find? Are you the top result?
Now, search for one of your top products on Google. Where do you stand now?
Assume the role of a prospective client. What are you searching for? What will you type into a search engine to find the product you desire? Search for those terms and see where you are in the rankings.

The last step is critical. Sure, it is easy to find a company's website if you know the company's name, but those users will find you regardless. SEO aims to bring as many of the Step 3 people to your website as possible.

Be sure when searching for your company and products that you take note of where your competition stands in the results. Which keywords are you ranked higher for, which do you need to improve on?

Part 2: Who are your website users?

In order to increase traffic, you need to understand your current traffic. There are many freely available tools that give you statistics about your pages, your visitors, and traffic sources.

Which pages on your website see the most web traffic?
What keywords are users currently typing into the major search engines to reach your site?
How often do visitors come back to your site after their last visit?
Where are your visitors located geographically?
What proportion of your visitors are using a mobile device (iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows Mobile, etc.)?

This is where web analytics comes in. You need to know the answers to all of these questions, and many more. There is no pre-set group of questions you need every time. Every website is different, and depending on your business model, you need to analyze the data differently. There is no one-size-fits-all solution in Web Analytics, which makes it so fun and frustrating.

Part 3: Where does web traffic come from?

Traffic generally comes from 4 distinct sources:

Organic search. People search for you and click on your non-paid website link in the search results listings.
Referrals. People click on a link from another website to get to your website.
Direct traffic. People type your domain into their browser or click on your bookmark.
Ad Campaigns. All traffic for your online ad campaigns, if applicable.

For a healthy website, search engine traffic should be about 45%, direct should be 20%, referrals should be 25%, and campaigns should be 10%. For many smaller sites, search engine traffic is more in the neighborhood of 70%, which means the other sources are suffering. This is bad because search engines identify your website as less important because no one is linking to it and no one has it bookmarked. Very bad.

Part 3: Increase traffic

The best way to get higher on search results is to have a great looking, easy to navigate, content rich website that is "search engine friendly".

Being a search engine's friend is mostly a behind the scenes operation. The structure of the code on your website needs to be presented in a way that the search engine indexing bots can read and understand your content. There are also steps you can take to communicate with the search engines directly. It helps to submit sitemaps, directory listings, and other qualified referral links.

From this foundation, there are many SEO "tricks" that can be used to boost your rankings, however none of them will make up for a bad website. Plan and execute your website content strategy, and take time regularly to re-evaluate and adjust as needed. More content is always better than less content. A regularly-updated blog is a great, easy to implement solution here.

Part 4: Increase Profits

Remember, all of your effort should be to achieve one goal: increase profit. This is the measuring stick you should use to determine if a SEO campaign is working for you. Sure, you've increased traffic by 400%, but your sales are still in the toilet. This means either,

your site is ugly, hard to navigate, and turns users off, or
there is no call to action that drives users to buy your product, or
users that land on your website are not finding what they are searching for, or
your product stinks

For the first three options, there is a lot that can be done to convert web traffic into profits (the fourth problem is another story). This is especially true for organic search results and ad campaigns. Every user has a reason they arrived at your site. You need to know how and why they got there, and then present a call to action to them that relates to their needs. For example, if you sell scissors, and someone searches for 'paper cutting products' and gets to your site, you better have a big, fat, and grabbing link or image that makes the user want to stay on your site to learn more, and ultimately purchase.

The same idea applies to non e-commerce sites. You need to somehow measure how many leads are generated by the website, how many of those leads are converted, and what the profit margin is from those leads. If you have this information, you will know your exact ROI for your SEO campaign.

A popular method for measuring is to count the number of times a contact form or request for proposal form are filled out with genuine leads. This data can of course be linked with keywords and another web analytics metrics to identify what sort of web traffic are the most profitable (see where this is going?). Along with measuring form input, actually asking your customers where they heard of you is another great option for smaller firms. Between the two methods you can get a great picture of how much money you're generating from your website.

Your customers are mobile and you should be too

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0400

A great post recently from Michael Gray - Graywolf's SEO Blog highlights the necessity for a mobile web presence to round out your online brand.

"If I had the ability to reach through the screen, grab you by the shoulders, look you in the eye, and tell you that building a mobile version of your website should be your number one IT project this year, I would."

You could have the most beautiful, easy to use website in the world, but if that site is hard to read on a cell phone, then you are missing out on potential business. All of the big guys have mobile sites. ESPN, Facebook, and Home Depot are three giants that stand out in this area. Try them out on your smart-phone, and then go to your website. See the difference?

Your mobile website should be

Easy to use and read on tiny cell phone screens. This includes a variety of devices from a variety of manufacturers, none of which are the same. Your site needs to look good on all of them.
Optimized for the needs of the mobile user. Mobile users visit your website for a specific reason, and then they leave. Does a mobile user want to read in-depth company history on-the-go? No, they want to find your address, directions, phone number, product photos, etc. Highlight the important stuff and make secondary content less prominent on the mobile website.
Easy to navigate. Steer the mobile user to the content they are looking for. Remember, phones are slower, so don't make them click on several links to get to what they want. Put the good stuff right out in front, and make sure the links/buttons are easy to hit with a finger.

Mobile websites are easier to design and implement than most people think, for three key reasons:

Your mobile site will most likely have less content than your main site.
The content on your mobile site will most likely have duplicate/similar content as your main site.
Your mobile site will most likely have a more basic look and feel that is optimized for smaller cell phone screens.

Think of your mobile site as simply a different version of your main site. The main site has all the bells and whistles, but the mobile version is simply more convenient to use on a cell phone. 'Easier to use' does not mean 'dumbed down'. Creating a mobile site is an art in itself.

Are you losing business by not having a mobile website?

Why users are abandoning your website and how to fix it

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0400

When planning websites, we find that many people forget one key stakeholder: the website visitor. It is easy to design a website that makes sense to you, the owner of the business. But where does that leave your website visitors, your potential clients?

The people who use your website are who the website should be designed for. The 'user experience' will shape the way people view your company, and it cannot be ignored.

A phenomenal article from OneExtraPixel showcases user experience (UX) and what it means for your business. The key takeaway is that when building your sitemap and navigation, you want to get inside the mind of the user. Why are they visiting your site? What did they come there to see? By asking these types of questions, you can organize your content in a way that will keep users on your site.

A related statistic is the 'bouce rate' of a website. This ratio measures the number of people who visit your site, and then 'bouce' away from your site without viewing any sub pages. Basically, they walk in the front door, take a peek at the merchandise, and they walk right out. If your bounce rate is over 60%, then your website traffic is either coming from unqualified or mis-represented sources, or your content is just plain boring. Either way you have a problem.

The easiest way to lower the bounce rate is to put your most interesting content right out in front, make it eye catching, and make leave the user wanting more. A user will decide whether or not to bounce from your site in seconds, meaning you have very little time to grab their attention. Don't make the user work for it.

Whatever website visitor tracking software you use on your website, make sure you check the bounce rate regularly. Keep it low and you will see a greater ROI on your website investment.

Growing your email list

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Tool for signing up email subscribers.

The FREE WiseStamp app for Constant Contact users makes it easy to add a customized signature and mailing list "sign up" link to your personal emails. So now, when a reader clicks on the link, Constant Contact will automatically add them to your contacts list – saving you time. It is available at MarketPlace.

Syracuse Design Group has been a Constant Contact Solution Provider since 2007 - Learn more...

Keep visitors on your site longer with well-crafted intro text

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0400

The first few sentences on your home page are obviously some of the most important content on your website. Other than the design/graphics, this text will immediately set the tone of your website and tell visitors what to expect. Craft it well to keep visitors sticking around.

We recommend to our clients several key goals when writing intro content:

Get to the point. There is no need to ramble endlessly. We all know that consumer decisions are made in a blink of an eye. Tell them why they are here.
Tell the visitor what to do. Make sure you have an attractive call to action with an obviously click-able link.
Include a header. Use a short, attractive header before your intro paragraph to pull readers in. Avoid, cute; keep it simple and descriptive.
Avoid industry jargon. The intro text should be clear, concise, and easy to understand.

Most of the websites we develop include some form of a Content Management System (CMS). You have the power to control the content of your own website, which can be a blessing and a curse. Web content is not print content. People have certain expectations when online, and unless you have a specific set of reasons why you should stray from the beaten path, then don't.

A List Apart has a great article related to writing content for the web. Read more at A List Apart - The Discipline of Content Strategy.

Time for lift-off: are you ready?

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Time to launch your new website! It's the final countdown, are you ready for lift-off?

More than flipping a switch

Many things need to happen before your new website can go "live". This process of transitioning from your old website to the new can be tricky. To make sure there is absolutely no downtime during the switch, you need to know what you're doing.

For most companies, the biggest thing to keep in mind is the DNS settings at the registrar. The wizards behind the curtain, governing the link between human friendly addresses like syracusedesign.com and computer friendly IP addresses, such as 75.98.164.72, are hardly of any importance to most. What you need to know is that right now, yoursite.com is "pointing" to one hosting server, and you want to point that same domain name to your new website on your new hosting server. Most important of all, you have to make sure that there is no downtime during this transition.

Again, the process is tricky, but that's what web shops like Syracuse Design are for: we take care of all of these hassles. Launching hundreds of websites has made us pretty good bringing our product online without any hassles.

Other items to consider

The domain name trickery is only the beginning. We make sure all of the following are in order before we launch your website.

Email
What will happen to all of your emails once your site is launched? Can you still check iheartkittys@yourcompany.com after the site goes live, and your website is hosted at a new server? What about your old contact and emails - are they gone forever?
Broken Links
What about people that had your old webpages bookmarked? Or the links from external websites pointing to your website? Are the URLs of all pages on your old website the same as the URLs on your new website? Probably not. Hello 404, goodbye web visitor.
SEO
Search engines have indexed your old site, and are serving it up to users in search pages. How will Google know about your new site? How long before your new website shows up in search results?
Analytics
How will you be tracking your web traffic on your new website. How many people came from search engines, and what did they search for?
Getting the word out
How will you let your clients/stakeholders know about your new website? Is a traditional, printed Press Release enough? What about social media - will you be posting to Facebook and Twitter?
Other domain names
Who owns www.yourcompany.com? What about yourcompany.org, .net, .co, .info? Are you sure there is no yourcompany.xxx?

What if it all goes wrong?

We've seen it before.

A recent website redesign we did went just about as badly as it could've. We created the new website, and set up hosting on our servers. The registrar, which the client chose to use, was a very popular company that we've had to interact with before. They stink. Everything they do gets botched, and this website launch was no exception.

Upon changing the DNS to our nameservers, it took over 2 weeks for the website to become live for everyone on the internet. During that time, you had about a 50/50 chance of seeing the old website. The only mistake that anyone made was using this particular registrar company.

The lesson here is that our experience with many, many registrars and hostings companies has given us a great perspective on who knows what they're doing, and who's out there to scam their customers. Our 10 years developing websites has given us the insight and experience necessary to avoid such problems in the future.

TourCayuga.com is finally here

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0400

We've been talking about it, and now it is finally here. Welcome to the new TourCayuga.com.

We're proud of every single thing we've accomplished with this website. With a totally new look and new features, the Cayuga County Conventions & Visitors Bureau website is our newest creation. Some highlights include a custom Trip Planner, hundreds of business listings and related information, a custom CRM solution, Google Maps integration, YouTube and social media integrations, Travelocity integration, and much more.

Our pre-launch blog post has a lot more information, and so does our Cayuga County CVB portfolio page. Please have a look and read all about it!

Safe Passwords are Worth the Effort

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Nicole Perlroth, technology reporter for The New York Times, covers cybersecurity and privacy for the Bits blog and for print. Her recent post: How to Devise Passwords That Drive Hackers Away is written in her easy to understand - and tell me what to do - style. A worthwhile read.

8 Features that Every Brochure Website Needs to be Great

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0400

A brochure website is a showcase of what you do, how people can get in touch with you, and some method for visitors to interact. A printing business might want to show some samples of their work, some pricing guidelines, their phone number/address/map, and a simple email contact form to get more information. Nothing seems terribly complicated, but so many people get their brochure websites wrong.

1. Clear purpose

You know you business through and through, but your website visitors do not know you at all. Within the first few seconds of landing on your website, they need to have a clear idea of what your business is all about. Sounds too simple, but we see it all the time.

2. Obvious call to action

I've landed on your website, now what? Tell visitors what you want them to do very clearly. Your call to action should be emphasized, clear, and easy to accomplish.

You need to define your goals. What do you consider a successful web visit? Possibilities include,

filling out your contact form,
signing up for your e-newsletter,
interacting with your page on Facebook,
downloading your application forms,
picking up the phone and calling

Rank these items based on their importance to you, and then make the first item the most prominent on your homepage and inside pages. Other calls to action can be interspersed throughout your website as well, but try not to over-emphasize everything, otherwise your main calls to action will be lost in the clutter.

3. Contact information on every page

It's a brochure website, intended to increase brand awareness, but more importantly, to generate leads for your company. Outside of the call to action mentioned above, you need to include your contact information on every single page of your website. At the very least, include your phone number.

The footer is an obvious choice for many brochure websites. People are used to seeing contact info down there at the bottom of the page. A more aggressive approach is to put this info right in the header, up by the logo. People will unquestionably find your contact info, and from there they can get in touch with you the old fashioned way.

An even more aggressive solution is available as well. Why not include an actual contact form on every page? We are having great success with the contact form on the footer of all of our pages, as is BR Johnson with the contact forms on the sidebar. As long as this approach does not take away from the aesthetics or user experience of the website, it can be a very effective lead generation tool.

4. Standout portfolio of work samples / products

If photos of your work exist, then they better be an integral part of your website. For many of our clients, we use large, scrolling photo-bars that can display high quality, eye grabbing photos of their products, work, or services. Of course, we include links to the full portfolio right alongside those scrolling photos - call to action. Again, if people cannot figure out what you do within 3 seconds, then your website is too difficult to understand.

5. User-friendly navigation

Being a brochure website, you probably don't have 3,500 pages of content. It's more likely 20 pages or less. To make sure your visitors aren't missing anything, you need to present your navigation in a drop-dead simple way. If it takes any brain power at all to find your portfolio or contact page, you've failed.

Also, it's not a bad idea to include a "Back to Home" button in the header for those folks who can't handle being away for so long.

6. Social media integration

If you're not on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and the like, you should be. It's a no brainer, and once you are established in social media, make sure you add links to your various profiles on every page of your website.

If you choose not to implement social media (why!?), then there is still hope for you. Website visitors still want to share your content with their friends, despite your lack of reciprocity. Make sure to add sharing buttons to your website to allow your visitors to promote your content for you.

7. A reason for users to come back

Bringing people back to your website is the key to building brand recognition online. One visit might not lock in the sale, but if people come back every so often, they are much more likely to become one of your clients.

The best way to get people back to your site is to have great content. Content that is useful, insightful, relevant, and fresh. It's no easy task, but when you can provide web visitors this kind of content, you're sure to be bookmarked and revisited.

This content can come in several forms. One of the most popular is a regularly updated blog. A news or press release section is a great source of recurring traffic as well. A third option relates to the social media mentioned earlier: if you regularly post links on your Facebook page to relevant content on your website, the traffic will increase. Regular coupons, recurring product giveaways, and regular product updates all make people want to come back and consume your content. The possibilities are endless, but the goal is always to keep them coming back for more.

8. Active Promotion/SEO strategy

The problem with brochure websites is that they are only useful if people visit them. Visitors will not appear out of thin air. Promotion can come from online and offline sources.

The easiest thing to do is to just get the word out with people already affiliated with your company: customers, staff, friends, etc. Make sure to put your web address on all company documents, fliers, email signatures, and your signage. Promoting your web address will let people know you have an online presence, and that your are a savvy, forward-thinking company.

SEO, on the other hand, is all about bringing new people to your website via search engines. Read our introductory blog post for some background information on SEO. SEO needs to be developed simultaneously along with the website, as well as well after the website is launched. SEO is a process, and constantly bringing new people to your website can be difficult, as other brands are competing for the same keywords. You need to start thinking about your SEO strategy, and who you'll have manage it, right from the beginning of the website development process.

How We Track and Generate Conversions on our Website

Wed, 30 May 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Making conversions on your website is a fundamental concept that is often overlooked. All the tweeting, friending, blogging, and pinning can only get you so far - at some point you need to measure the ROI of your web presence, and to do that you need to think about conversions.

What is a conversion?

That can be a tough question, and the answer mostly depends on your business model. In some cases, the answer is easier to arrive at. For e-commerce websites, when someone buys a widget online, that is a conversion.

What about websites where you can't actually buy anything? A brochure website, for example, generally doesn't have any e-commerce capabilities - but measuring conversions and ROI is still important.

How can I measure conversions?

If you don't sell anything online, then you need to decide what you consider a "successful web visit". What is the best case scenario for a person who comes to your website? On SyracuseDesign.com, we do not sell anything directly, but we do track a few things that we consider successful web visits.

Filling out the "contact us" form - this directly generates a new lead for us.
Signing up for our newsletter - again, this is a fresh lead.
Sharing our page(s) on social media - boosts our brand recognition big time, for other prospective clients to see, as well as helps us with SEO.
Viewing 5 or more pages - big boost for brand recognition, and demonstrates the value of our content to our readers.

All of these things are tracked automatically, and we regularly check our real-time reporting tools to make sure we can identify new trends as they happen.

Where does ROI fit in?

You know what it costs to operate your website, but how much revenue do you generate with your website? What is the value of a Facebook "like"? Do retweets add to your bottom-line?

These are tough questions to answer, and unfortunately, there are no straightforward answers. It's tough to link ultimate buying decisions with the combination of factors that caused a consumer to choose your product over competing products. Add in the instability and ever-changing, on-demand nature of the internet, and you've got a nightmare on your hands.

How can I measure success on the web?

What we know about our website is the average revenue a person who submits the contact form is worth. Of all the people who've done that, we know what they've spent. We know that people who share our content on social media are higher in frequency, but lower in revenue. This is expected: a simple share or like is a lot less time consuming than filling out the contact form with genuine interest. We also know which social media outlets proved higher quality visitors: visitors who spend more time on the site, view more pages, come back more often, and ultimately fill out the contact form. In the end, we know which of our efforts result in the highest yielding conversions: contact form submissions.

We don't try to nail down the exact ROI of our website. We keep an eye on all relevant trends so we know how to best engage our visitors, knowing that visitor engagement will result in quality conversions.

Mobile Websites are better than Native Apps

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0400

We know that a mobile-optimized web presence is an imperative for your brand - but don't be fooled by the allure of native apps. All of our clients agree - mobile websites are best suited for their needs. If you need to reach the widest audience possible, keep costs and maintenance time low, be easy to find on search engines, and allow users to share your content, then a mobile website is your best choice.

What's the difference?

A native app is one that is downloaded from the iTunes Store, Google Play, or the like. It is installed on your phone and can be accessed anytime, and probably has an icon on your home screen. Occasionally, you may get notifications about updates.

A mobile website is one that can be accessed in the mobile browser, and is designed specifically for viewing on smaller screens. It has content that is similar to your "main" website, or may even mirror the content of your main website.

Reasons you should choose a mobile website

More Compatible
A mobile website will look the same on any phone - be it the iPhone, Android, Windows Phone, or BlackBerry. To achieve the same level of compatibility with a native app means you must design, build, and maintain a new app for each type of phone.
Always On Demand
Your mobile website is always online and ready to be consumed. There is no need to go to the app store, search, download, and install your app. It's always there for everyone.
Easy to Find
Mobile websites are tracked and indexed just like any other website. You can be found in search engines, listed in online directories, and mentioned on other websites in blogs and articles. There are many ways for users to find your mobile website - to find and use a native app requires going to the app store.
Easy to Share
Because a mobile website is just that - a website - users can share your URL with their friends in all the usual ways: email, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, etc. And, of course, their friends can view the mobile website easily because it works on all phones and platforms.
Easy to Maintain
Your mobile website usually has very similar content as your main website. Because the information is similar, you only have to maintain content in one CMS. Having to update your content on the main website and then on four other native apps is an administrative nightmare. Also, even if you choose to develop a native app, you will still need a mobile website for users who access your URL on their mobile phone.
Less Expensive
Development of native apps is considerably more time consuming and expensive. The process is much more involved than creating a mobile website. Of course, you will need to create several apps - one for each platform - making for a very expensive mobile presence.
Uncensored
Apple regularly removes apps from the iTunes App Store that it deems inappropriate. Big Brother can remove your app from the store at anytime for just about any reason. Your mobile website however will be alive forever, or as long as you need it to be.

When you should choose a native app

Native apps make sense in several situations. If your content must be available offline, then a native app is your only choice. Also, if you need access to the phones camera, or need to use phone resources to store information or process complex data, then a native app will most likely be your best bet. Angry Birds, Facebook, and Bank of America all have great native apps. But, of course, these brands also have mobile websites as well.

Unless you are a Fortune 100 tech company, you probably will need a mobile website instead of a native app. If you are a decision maker at Citi or Google, then thanks for reading our blog! Otherwise, do yourself a favor and go for the mobile website.

5 reasons Adobe Flash is killing your website

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The web is constantly evolving and changing, almost always for the better in my opinion. One positive change over the years is websites moving away form Adobe Flash. Remember those long winded Flash intro pages, or splash pages, that were so prevalent online? They are disappearing, yes. I still see top navigation, or headers for sites that still use Flash. Or even worse, entire websites built in Flash! Yes, they still do exist.

For everyone still using Flash, I hereby proclaim my 5 reasons to abandon your video:

1. Flash cannot be indexed by search engines.

Your beautiful, soul-expanding, triumphant Flash video moves website visitors to tears. Everyone who watches your intro video immediately buys your product. Too bad no one will ever find your website. When the Google-bot indexes your site, it skips right on by your video (the Google-bot doesn't have a soul, anyways). The text in your video is never analyzed by Google and never used in keyword search.

2. People are not going to sit still and watch

The web is not TV. YouTube has its place, and in a way, it can be used as TV. Your website is not YouTube. Your website is competing for web visitors with countless other sources of information. If you get 5 seconds of someones time, you better make use of it. Please, I beg you, do not use those five seconds making the user idly watch intro video, only to bounce away, having already forgotten you.

3. Apple and Flash cannot coexist

The iPhone and iPad are the future of mobile computing. Your Flash video is not compatible on these devices, it never will be. If you are using Flash on your website, especially for anything important, you are basically telling all iDevice users to go away and never come back. Is that a segment of the market you feel safe ignoring?

4. Flash is commonly used for online advertising

Wow, cool ad. It's like a movie, with sound! No one wants to watch ads though, so many people turn off Flash so they don't have to see them. Then they come to your site, and your corporate logo and navigation bar are blocked because they are Flash.

5. Flash video takes forever to load

Again, no one cares enough about your site to sit around. Do not make your users wait for your bloated Flash video to load. When I think of all the things I could be doing while your video loads, I am already itching to hit the back button away from your site.

What's going on in Central New York?

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Visitors, locals, tourists, transplants, expats, promoters, sponsors, advertisers, bored kids, conventioneers, shoppers, recruiters, reporters, and just about anyone else who might be wondering what there is to do, finally has a place to find out what is going in the area!

Don't just read about, check it out here. It has Monster Truck competitions, New York State Fair acts, Scottish games, brew fest, nature walks and everything in between. You can search by events type, date, or venue. Even better: just search by featured events to see what's hot.