My Web Design: Windsor Squash & Fitness

Those of you who know me, know that I've been working out at the Windsor Squash & Fitness club for the last few years. Walking in and out of that place on a daily basis you get to know pretty much everyone behind the front desk. As I was leaving one day I had a chat with Brian Porter, the general manager of the gym. We got on the subject of his website and began discussing a re-design. A few weeks later, I had completed a fresh web design for his fantastic Windsor gym!

 

As you can see from the image above, it's a very open concept website. What I mean by that is, the site is constricted within a box like my Montessori Early Years design. This allowed me to overlap different aspects of the site with the background and really get creative. Along with the web design, I also did on-site search engine optimization, site administration and I incorporated their Facebook page with the website. One thing that Brian really loved about the site is the potential "leads" that can be acquired through the "free email signup" at the top of the page. I also did a bit of work on their Facebook page by creating a longer and more creative Facebook profile page image.

Working with Brian and everyone else at the Windsor Squash and Fitness club was a great pleasure. I look forward to working with them on updating the site and creating a real social experience for his members. Keep an eye out for the mobile version of the website coming soon!

My SEO Skills: Tony Rauti Luxury Homes

Just wanted to write a quick post today talking about the search engine optimization work I did for my client Tony Rauti Luxury Homes. One of the first things they wanted to talk about in our initial meeting was how they could get better results in Google. I explained to them the ways in which I would try to get them better rankings. The first thing I asked them was which search terms they'd like to rank for. Initially they said generic terms like "custom home builder" or "luxury homes". I explained to them that since they're a local home builder that most of the people searching for those type of terms would most likely attach a city to the end of them. We collectively decided to go for the terms "custom home builders windsor" and "luxury homes windsor". I did both on-site and off-site search engine optimization for them and after just 5 months here are the results when searching on Google.com.

"Luxury Homes Windsor" - Result #2

"Custom Home Builders Windsor" - Result #5

I'm the first to admit; the competition for these two keyterms isn't as great as some of the more generic terms however, considering the fact that the domain is only 6 months old and the site is only 5 months old. I'd say I did a pretty good job optimizing this website.

Google Places A Big Help To Small Businesses

It's become very clear in the last couple of years that Google really wants to tailor their ads and search results to where you are in the world. One of the biggest signals of this is in their local search service called Google Places. If you have a Google account and you've added your location, chances are you've already seen these ads.

Anytime you see a little orange balloon type icon next to a result, it's Google Places. They even have an entire section devoted to Places. If you look in the left column, you'll find a link that says Places. This will give you all the place results in your area.

This is a big help to small businesses who have trouble optimizing their site for Google. After you submit your website to the Google Places, they send you a postcard in the mail with a code to insert to verify your Place. After that, you're good to go. Sometimes your result will show up in search results, which is a bonus, but it will always show up in a Places result.

The Google Places account I created for Tony Rauti Luxury Homes, showed up right away in the Places results. Eventually I optimized the site enough that I didn't really need the Places result, however it's always good for a small business to have.

My Web Design: Tony Rauti Luxury Homes

I've had a couple of requests lately by potential clients asking to see some of my recent web designs. I figured I'd start off with one the small business web designs I'm most proud of Tony Rauti Luxury Homes. They're a custom home builder in Windsor Ontario and the surrounding area. A friend of mine referred them to me and in a matter of days I was meeting with them to discuss potential ideas. Here's what we came up with after all was said and done:

This is a very elegant design done primarily with HTML and CSS. Showing off their recent works was something they were very interested in doing so I figured I'd make 60% of the homepage a content slider of the exterior and interior designs of their custom homes in Windsor. Along with the web design & development, I also did a bit of on-site search engine optimization, and social network marketing. I also implemented a beautiful photo gallery using Lightbox.

All in all it was a delight to work with the people at Tony Rauti Luxury Homes on their web design. I look forward to working with them in the future!

Must Have's When Optimizing For Search Engines

The other day I was working on a web design for a client who had purchased my basic plan of search engine optimization as well. When they first approached me about designing their website, one of their concerns was being ranked highly for a specific local term when it was searched on Google. I explained to them the difference between my SEO packages and they agreed that the most they needed for now was on-site SEO.

There are several must have's when it comes to on-site search engine optimization. The first comes right at the top of your website. You have to have properly described <title></title> tags for each page on your website. When someone performs a search, this will be the title they see on Google. Another must have is the <meta description> tag. This should be a short paragraph consisting of no more than 150-160 characters. It should describe your website and/or your business. This is usually what Google pulls in search results under the title of your website. Check out the image below to see what I'm talking about.

Those two tags are absolute must have for every page of your site and each should be unique. They're both easy to add and will be a big help when it comes to search engine optimization.

Google's Latest Algorithm Change

I'm beginning to really wonder what effect, if any, this latest Google algorithm change had on their search results. Since I'm a web designer who is into search engine optimization, I try to keep a close eye on what happens when major changes are made to the search algorithm.

I had read reports that cheap article sites like eHow.com had been hurt by the latest change, but then I did a search today for "hamburger patty recipes" and the first result was a lame article from eHow. The link was titled exactly what I had typed in. I was actually fairly surprised to see that it was still there, so I clicked the link to see if the information was useful. NOPE. Not at all. Just another article listing about nothing. You can clearly tell this site was optimized for the search engines and not end-users like myself.

I guess it may still be early to tell, but it seems to me that Google needs to continue to work on getting these content farms out of the top 10 of their results. As a website designer, it's always frustrating to see a clients site pushed down because of some crummy written search engine only optimized article.