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Alpine Web Design has just completed phase one of an ecommerce website which allows people in the French & Swiss Alps to purchase English style cakes online through JudesCupcakes.com.

As with all of Alpine Web Design’s projects the website has been setup with a simple to use content management system at its heart allowing the owner of the site to control all the aspects of the online shop themselves.

The system features a Product Manager to allow cakes to be added, edited and removed easily and efficiently. A Shopping Basket system and secure Online Checkout allowing customers to safely purchase products on the website.  The checkout process automatically calculates delivery cost based on the customers distance from the business location in Vevey. There is also an Order Manager to allow the sites owner to manage the orders including features such as automated emailing to confirm receipt of order and payment and a message system so all correspondents relating to a particular order are kept together.

www.judescupcakes.com

AutoRSS Original Feed Admin

Over the past few months I have been working on some projects who’s aim is to enhance and improve a websites standing in the various search engines, such as Google and Bing. There are a number of ‘monetary’ methods that a website owner can use to try and improve there ranking in a search engine, such as using the Googles Ad Words tool where your advert is promoted alongside the search results and you pay a samll amount everytime someone clicks the advert.

These methods can be very effective but it is also important to remember that the cost can quickly add up so it is also worth working on search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques which can be implemented at the design level of the website. There are many different design techniques you can use to try and enhance you sites search ranking and there is no set rule book or a one size fits all solution because of the number of variables involved in a websites design, construction, intended market, search engine competition, etc…

However, there are some simple things you can do when building your site that will help increase your chances of having good results. In no particular order, below are 10 of these items that I try to consistently use at Alpine Web Design…

1. Title Tag – It’s important to include a keyword or two in the title tag.
2. Meta Tags – Most noteably the description tag and keywords tag, although keywords is becoming less important due to keyword stuffing.
3. Proper Use Of Heading Tags – Use of heading tags helps users, web browsers and search engines alike know where the major key points of your copy are.
4. Alt Attributes On All Images – Enhances both SEO and accessability of your site.
5. Relevant Content – You can put all the keywords you want in the meta tags and alt image tags, etc — but if the actual readable text on the page is not relevant to the target keywords, it ends up basically being a futile attempt.
6. Social Media – Although technically not SEO, Social Media is such a growing factor in getting your web site noticed, that it’s an important element to include in your plan.

These are just a few of the many avaialable techniques you can use to try an implement a good amount of SEO on a design level. If you are interested in improving your sites ranking or just interested in finding out more about SEO drop me a line and I will be happy to answer any questions.

AutoRSS Original Feed Admin

AutoRSS Original Feed Admin

Have you ever received spam mail? I bet the answer is almost certainly yes. Well unfortunately when you have a feature on a website, such as the comments area on Alpine Web Design, you leave yourself open to receiving spam posts from automated bots that crawl the internet and fill in sign up forms, comment forms, etc…

Although I had anticipated this problem when designing the comments area of the blog, I setup some anti-spam functionality which prevented the comments from being posted live without me having to check each one, I was still required to clear my website database of all these unwanted spam comments each week.

The method I had chosen was intended to be the most unobtrusive for the user and in many ways it does work but in my experience it is far from ideal because you still have to deal with the spam even though it isn’t being published on your website. I am not a big fan of using CAPTCHA, a type of challenge-response image test used in computing to ensure that the response is not generated by a computer. Instead I decided to use a quick login solution to make sure all my comments are coming from real humans.

I have setup the login/register system so that it loads above the page the user is on so that it isn’t a major feature of the website, but is almost hidden until the point where the user actually needs it. This is intended to keep the site as simple and straightforward as possible in terms of usability and navigation to enhance the usability of the website. I have setup the registration procedure to ask for the minimal amount of details possible so as not to put off too many potential users. I know registration will put off some users, as will CAPTCHA, however if someone does want to post a comment I hope I have made the system quick and simple to use so that they will not be discouraged too much. Your feedback is welcomed, or course you will have to register first!

AutoRSS Original Feed Admin

I have completed work on the new CN-74.com website and it goes live today. CN-74, Chamonix Nettoyage, are a commercial cleaning & property maintenance company based in Chamonix Mont Blanc. They are the sister company of Chamonix Changeovers.

The site was built using CMS 1.6 and provides the company with a simple website which they can now take total control of in terms of editing and site maintanence.

This small project illustrates the benefits of building a website on a Content Management System. Excluding major upgrades the client is now able to manage the whole site including editing all text and images. This allows the client to keep the content upto date and as the business evolves so can the site without the cost of constantly employing a web editor to upgrade and update the site.

www.cn-74.com