Pittsburgh SEO – SEM – SEA | Internet Marketing and Website Design | Blackball Online

Are you saying to yourself, “Why doesn’t my website rank on Google?” or “How can I get my website to show up on the Search Engines?” or “How can I get my website to the first page of Google?” then we are the Website Design company for you. Watch our short video on Pittsburgh Web Design then visit the link below to our Pittsburgh Website Design page and get more info.

Pittsburgh Website Design Video by Blackball Online Marketing. We design websites that rank on Google and Bing.  We build all our sites with sound fundamental site architecture and classy website design. Add to this great content and you have top Organic search rankings and more business. Don’t hire a website designer or agency and then think about search engine optimization as an afterthought. Get it all in one web design project that is ready for marketing. As always our initial consultation is free.

SEO, Speed, and the ridiculous Internet Exploder

Google now puts a heavier premium on speed. I suspect it cared before but now with Instant, speed is a major factor. As a Pittsburgh SEO company and web design firm, we are always looking for ways to boost rankings for our clients. To increase speed, we’ve already covered the need for a strong web host in a previous post so now it’s time for the browsers to step up to the plate. When the browsers support innovative and less cumbersome markup, the speed rises and resource usage falls.

CSS3 (cascading style sheets v.3) offer an even more diverse set of styling selectors to speed the crawl and load times of your site. CSS3 also allows for graphic manipulation and generation without the images. http://www.css3.info/ is an awesome site for testing css3 selector compatibilities for your browser and we thought we’d share our findings with you.

Microsoft has been ignorant to the user for long enough now. (Never mind the developers.) The weak link has always been IE. IE9 is now a Beta release and has been for some time. A complete rewrite and standards compliance are the only things that will sell me.

Because the everyday user gets this prepackaged and spoon fed to them and because of the enormous war chest M$ have acquired peddling this crap (Vista, IE…)  we will have to live with IE inadequacies for some time I fear. Microsoft doesn’t force users to update their browsers and it should. This would eliminate the need to provide backward compatibility to all the old non compliant browser versions of IE out there.

On to the statistics:

Results from FireFox 3.6.10

From the 41 selectors 41 have passed, 0 are buggy and 0 are unsupported (Passed 574 out of 574 tests)

Results from Google Chrome 6.0.472.63

From the 41 selectors 41 have passed, 0 are buggy and 0 are unsupported (Passed 574 out of 574 tests)

Results from IE8

From the 41 selectors 20 have passed, 1 are buggy and 20 are unsupported (Passed 345 out of 574 tests)

Results from IE9 beta

From the 41 selectors 41 have passed, 0 are buggy and 0 are unsupported (Passed 574 out of 574 tests)

Results from IE9

From the 41 selectors 41 have passed, 0 are buggy and 0 are unsupported (Passed 574 out of 574 tests)

I haven’t even bothered to test IE7 and I think you can see why from the results of IE8.

This is very promising from an SEO and web developers standpoint. IE9 seems to pass all of the CSS3 selector tests. If it finally gets on board with the W3C standards for rendering you’ll hear a collective sigh from all the developers who toil to produce workarounds and patches for IE. Rendering has always been an issue with IE.

****UPDATE****

As seen above IE9 passes all tests with its official release. Microsoft must have finally felt the pinch of losing so much of it's browser users to Firefox, Opera, and the others. better late than never. No data on the rendering issues that previously existed and drove developers batty for years and I think this is good news. I did a Google search on "IE9 rendering issues and got old posts so I think this issue is fixed.

I'll leave you with a quote from a friend. "Microsoft is an ad agency that just happens to push software." I wonder how many billable hours have been spent fixing something that should have been right all along?

Blackball Online Marketing is a Pittsburgh Web Design and SEO Company.

Marketing your Small Business on the Internet (Part 2) Hire a Professional Web Designer

Pittsburgh, PA – While image isn't everything, perception is. Have you ever been to a Website where you just knew the author wasn't a professional? The viewers of your business Website need to see your company in its best light. It may be the only chance you have to gain or keep a customer. Your Website reflects your image, which reflects your work. The viewer will see your work or product as inferior if your Web presence is amateurish. The good news is that we offer you a solution right here at Blackball Online.

Intent:

Professional Website Design consists of much more than just the visual appearance of your site. The first order of business is to decide what you want your site to do. What is the purpose? Is it to drive customers in flocks to the phone to call for your services? Is it to provide specific details and information about which you excel? Only you can answer this question.

Layout and Colors:

Based on the intent and the products or services you sell, it's now time to choose your colors and a layout for your Website. Our staff consists of graphic designers as well as professional advertising personnel that provide the experience necessary to bring your Website to life.

Content:

If you haven’t heard it before you’ll hear it now; content is King. Who knows your business better than you do? To be effective, being involved with the content compilation of your Website is a must. This will increase the value of your site by including things about your business that a designer would not know, or think to ask. Industry specific terminologies and processes are very valuable to your site as keywords to differentiate it from the competition.

Marketing:

If you painted the Mona Lisa in your basement and no-one saw it what, would this do for your painting reputation? On-site and Off-Site Search Engine Optimization is the key to the visibility and market reach your Website will enjoy. After all the work that went into your Website you want it to reach as many prospective clients as possible. We provide a Level 1 SEO package free with all basic Websites designed by Blackball Online. We’re well versed in applying a sound SEO initiative to gain and maximize your Internet exposure. Visit our SEO page on the Blackball Online Website to learn more.

Finally - the cost issue. If you were worried about cost from the beginning of this post when I mentioned the word “professional,” don't be. There are many do-it-yourself Website Design packages out there; too many to mention any specifically. The decision is yours, but unless you have the time and access to a skilled developer who can provide consistent support you’ll find yourself spending a lot more time than you wanted on things, accompanied by the ensuing frustrations that can follow.

With that said, let me put your mind at ease. Your time is worth money. We have developed a strategy that enables us to bring you a high quality Website at an affordable cost, very quickly. For more info visit our Website Design Services page for all the particulars. Give your business what it needs: a professional Website that serves you well and achieves its goal – showcasing and driving your business.

Contact Us at Blackball Online for an evaluation of your business needs and a strategy for resolving them.