If your website was not made in the last couple years, chances are good that you need special software to update your website. And if you have more than one person updating your site, you have to pay for a copy of the software for each of them. And you may all still need knowledge of HTML and other web programming languages.

Get a new look and edit your site…whenever you want

T&S decided a long time ago to do things differently. Our clients in Edmond, Oklahoma City, and around the world can go to any computer, log into their own website, and update their own website. We use a content management system (CMS) called WordPress, which allows our clients to…

• Edit the text on pages
• Upload new pictures and remove existing ones
• Delete pages when needed
• Add new pages, and insert those into their menu
• Blog

We install the WordPress software for you, along with a few plugins we’ve found and developed that make WordPress even easier to use.

Keep the same look and gain editing capabilities

You may be saying to yourself, “That’s great, but I don’t need a whole new website. I’m actually pretty happy with how my site looks, I just need to be able to edit it.”

Great news, we can still help! We can actually take your current site and convert it to use WordPress. Typically there are very minor tweaks here and there so your site is compatible WordPress. But once we’re done, you have basically the same site (with just a bit more consistency throughout), and you can log in and edit the site on your own.

If you need to be able to edit your site on your own, contact us at info@tandswebdesign.com or by calling us at 405-285-0348. If you’re in the Oklahoma City metro area, we’d love to meet with you in person to discuss your options. And if you’re elsewhere, we’d be just as happy to set up a phone meeting.

Check out our next blog post where we discuss a solution to Issue #3 – trouble finding your website on Google and other search engines.

Sound familiar?

This is a common issue our clients have before their first meeting with us here at T&S Web Design. Luckily, we have some fantastically creative designers who will know exactly how to beef up your new website. Of course, the pretty websites wouldn’t function without our super talented programmers.

In some ways, it doesn’t matter whether you choose our Premium, Standard or Starter website package. Any of the three website packages can greatly improve the look of your site.

Premium Package

Our Premium Website Package is for those wanting a new, top-of-the-line look. This type of site is essential for companies that need to convey that their product or service is worth paying extra for.

Brent Fuchs – Premium Website

MIDCON Data – Premium Website

Standard Package

Our Standard Website Package is great for someone who wants a completely custom website, and wants full control over how that site looks. This site is perfect for any business that plans to use the internet and their website as a major marketing tool.

Harding School of Theology – Standard Website

Summit – Standard Website

Land Roofing – Standard Website

Starter Package

Finally, even our Starter Website Package will often be a great improvement over your current site. Like building with a certain type of interlocking block (you know the bricks I’m talking about), there are some limitations, but our design team at T&S can still deliver extremely creative, original solutions.

Cuppie Cakes of Edmond – Starter Website

Oklahoma CattleWomen, Inc. – Starter Website

The Nephesh Nuevo Project – Starter Website

Ready to find out which website package fits your business?

Contact us today at info@tandswebdesign.com or by calling us at 405-285-0348.

We love helping companies get ahead of their competition by having an updated, user-friendly website. If you’re a nonprofit, remember that our Starter Website Package is available to you on a pay-what-you-can basis.

Stay tuned for the remaining posts of this series! We will cover many other issues you may have with your website and/or social media.

We do get clients in who are just forming businesses and therefore getting a website for the first time. But the majority of the businesses and nonprofits we meet with already have a website, or at least some sort of web presence. Therefore, the reason they’re meeting with us is most often because they’re not happy with something about their current website or current social media presence.

Here are some of the things we hear most often:

• I can’t update my website.
• My website can’t be found online.
• My website doesn’t look good on my phone.
• My website is ugly and outdated.
• Facebook and Twitter aren’t working for me.
• My current web company is terrible at communication.
• I’m not getting enough online leads.

And finally, one we don’t actually hear directly from clients, but is still fairly common.

• I’m not an internet expert, and don’t want to be taken advantage of.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to take a look at these issues to let you know how T&S can help. Be sure to check back, and/or feel free to email us if you have questions in the meantime!

Absolutely! Now that many Americans have smartphones, mobile websites more important than ever before. Let’s look at a few statistics on smartphones and the mobile web in general.

The research company Nielsen estimates that by the end of 2011, about 50% of Americans will have a smartphone. That’s up from about 20% in the end of 2009.

The analyst firm Gartner recently reported that in 2011, new handsets will be able to access the mobile web. And that doesn’t even include smartphones!

Desktop websites on mobile phones

Usability expert Jakob Nielsen performed a study to see how mobile websites performed versus desktop websites being viewed on a phone. While each website had a different goal, they were measurable goals, so Nielsen could see specifically if the goal of the website was accomplished or not.

The success rate of the mobile websites on touchscreen smartphones was 75%, much higher than the 53% that desktop websites scored.

The conclusion that Nielsen drew from the study was that it’s not enough for your website to just “work” on a phone. Your content, website navigation, and even website code needs to be optimized to perform well on mobile devices.

What people look for on websites

The most popular type of information being looked for on websites is an address, more information on a business in the area, and a phone number. These are being looked for by people on the go, and mobile websites can give these visitors exactly what they want.

So whether you go out and hire a web design company to build your website or try to do it yourself, you’ll need to keep one very important thing in mind: Your visitors have different goals when visiting your mobile site than they do when visiting your desktop site.

With the content on a mobile site, less is more. You’ll want less pages, less text and fewer images. You still need to have all those things, but just not as much as you have on your desktop site.

And some things will just operate differently. On your mobile website, a “Call us” button can actually dial your store. And a “Find us” can launch the visitor’s map program on their phone and even show them how close they are to your location.

Once it’s launched, your desktop website should automatically send mobile users over to your mobile website. And it should give them an option to switch back to the desktop site if they’d like, and vice versa.

So chances are half of your potential customers are using a smartphone. Make your website easier for them to use by getting a mobile website, and they’ll be that much more likely to buy from you.

*Illustration by Emily Spirek

Fantastic news, and now we know we’re capable of great schools in Oklahoma! But why is the school system in the capital of our state suffering?

Oklahoma City Public Schools facts

The statistics are absolutely shocking when it comes to the Oklahoma City Public Schools, and honestly quite depressing. Here are six of many reasons why we are reaching out to them.

1. In 2009, OKCPS became the largest school district in the state.
2. Of the 42,457 enrolled, 38,310 students live at or near poverty. That’s 90%!
3. 1,719 students are homeless.
4. 1/3 of the students don’t even graduate high school.
5. Of the ones that actually go to college, only 28% earn a degree.
6. 1 in every 3 teacher spends more than $1000 of their own paycheck on school supplies every year.

As you can see, there are plenty of reasons to start revolutionizing the OKC Public School system.

How Team UP OKC is helping

In 2008, 3,000 misprinted pizza boxes were donated to The Foundation for OKC Public Schools. Within days, all boxes had been picked up by teachers for art projects and more.

The need was apparent, so The Foundation for OKCPS introduced the TEACHERS WAREHOUSE, a program providing free classroom supplies and equipment that teachers can order, once a month, from an online catalog.

Because of Comtech Print & Design & Panera Bread teaming up with some amazing organizations, Team Up OKC launched last year in 2010. Here are a few other sponsors to give you an idea of how many people are supporting the cause.

Sponsors

• Bank of Oklahoma
• Feed the Children
• Hertz
• Oklahoma Gazette
• Oklahoma City Barons
• Jason’s Deli
• And so many more!

These organizations are donating time and/or money in order to make the school supply drive a success. The supply drive will occur November 1-15th, and all of the supplies will benefit the Teacher’s Warehouse of The Foundation for OKC Public Schools.

How you can help

You can donate needed materials at one of the appropriate drop off locations. Even if you think it’s simple and cheap, those supplies will be put to use! Backpacks are one of the most needed items, along with paper, pencils, crayons, etc.

If you’re near Oklahoma Christian, T&S Web Design is a drop off location! Here’s the map.

Donating school supplies may not seem like we are changing the world, but in order to educate the younger generation, we need resources. Education is so important, and I think the smart thing to do is focus on our children in order to provide them with a more positive future!

Team Up OKC Website :: Facebook :: Twitter

One example of a full-screen site

Hey, everyone! Time for a technical tip for those tweaking their website on their own. If that’s not you, feel free to skip this blog.

One cool way to use photography on your site is to have a photo set as the background image on your home page, and have it take up the whole background space, resizing to be bigger as you make your browser bigger (or smaller). Don’t trust me? Check out 75 cool websites using full screen photo backgrounds for yourself.

How is this accomplished? Well, traditionally there was some JavaScript hacking necessary. Fortunately, with CSS3, the solution is now much simpler. Here is some sample code:

body {
background-attachment: fixed;
background-image: url(my-background-image.jpg);
background-origin: content-box;
background-position: center center;
background-repeat: no-repeat;
-o-background-size: 100% 100%;
-moz-background-size: 100% 100%;
-webkit-background-size: 100% 100%;
background-size: 100% 100%;
}

Of course, this doesn’t work right in versions of Internet Explorer before 9, so if you want to support that as well, you’ll have to use some jQuery trickery.

This year we need one programming intern to work around 20 hours a week. As usual, we’re not too worried about experience level, but are most interested in someone who wants to learn.

If you’re interested in becoming an Orangite, give our job hotline a call at 237-8080. Be ready to leave a detailed message with the following information:

1. Your name
2. Your telephone number
3. Your email address (please spell it out)
4. Where you go to school
5. Tell us why you think you would be perfect for this job

It’s okay if you get confused, just hang up and call back again. But try to do it before the tone sounds. We don’t need to hear a message with your heavy breathing on it.

Oh, and we’ll be taking applications through the job hotline until midnight September 11th. The internship will be for the duration of the 2011-2012 school year. Once again, the number is 237-8080.

Maybe I’m a little nostalgic, but I love looking back and seeing the company’s progress over the years. I started working at T&S in 2007 while I was still in school, and the logo was the very first thing I updated for T&S’ identity. So, you could say I hold it near and dear to my heart.

Below, you can see the evolution of our logo over the years. The biggest update in the past 8 years was upgrading the very first logo design. With some embarrassment, Tim did give me approval to reveal it. Regardless, he is still a good designer for being a programmer, right?

UNVEILING OF THE NEW LOGO

We decided to stick with the same concept of our identity, but give it a fresh and innovative look. We wanted it to express more of our personality (we take our work seriously, but not ourselves), yet still keep it professional and simple.

Like all rebranding, it takes a while to transition everything. But we are so excited to have a fresh, updated identity. Let us know what you think!

First, a lesson about what it is. Then, a lesson about what it is to you.

What is it?

QR Code = Quick Response Code. And they do mean quick.

It’s a simple 2D code that you generate (for free) and people scan it with their extremely intelligent, camera-enabled phones. Immediately after they scan the code, the application will direct them straight to your website.

Typing out a domain name? Psh. That’s in the past.

It can be used for other things as well, including, virtual business cards, phone numbers or even sending a text message.

We all know how creative the young generation is, and they will find plenty of uses for these codes. I even read an article about a guy putting a QR Code on his mother’s tombstone, which directed people to a memorial website he created for her. Weird, yet extremely innovative.

What is it to you?

1 in 2 Americans will have one of these super awesome smartphones by the end of 2011.

Meaning, people will have the ability to use these QR Codes…everywhere. Make it easier on your current and potential clients/customers – who doesn’t want instant gratification?

Karan Ediger, General Manager of the Edmond Business Times, wrote an article about this new phenomena. She admits that she’s “no genius when it comes to digital technology,” but she’s been quite impressed with this new fad.

She has great tips for incorporating the QR Code into your business’ marketing. She says to ask yourself, is it to:

• Increase awareness about a new product or introduce a new service
• Announce a big sale
• Increase efforts on a charity fund drive

Decide your goal, and the QR Code has great potential to aid in the success of your business.

If you think the code is a bit ugly and would make your designs lose their snaz, remember, there is some room for experimentation. Check out these awesome business card designs (as well as ours pictured above). It might give you a little hope.

Consider this!

Once you add your QR Code to your business card, flyers, etc., think about what you’re directing your clients to. Most people are scanning these codes with their smartphone, meaning they’re navigating your website on their phone too.

Consider getting a mobile website design, which is a simplified version of your full site. One-touch calling and map functions are ideal for on-the-go purposes. Scan our QR Code above to check out the mobile version of our website!

If you subscribe to our Ezine in the bottom right corner of our site, we will give you a free business card design with your sparkly new QR Code! Just purchase a mobile website (starting at $595) by August 31st, and we’ll design you a new business card (200 awesomely-printed cards included).

There you have it. Two birds with one stone.

We’ve got two sets of tickets. One set has 4 tickets and the other has 2.

Just comment on this post to be entered for a chance to win!

Deadline is Tuesday, June 21st!