ATILUS - Web Design | Internet Marketing

The Importance of the Physical

Thought I would take a quick minute to write about something we usually don’t write about - physical stuff, working out, eating right, etc.

How would you like to work harder, but have it be easier than ever before? You can and here’s how…

Well, before I get to that I highly recommend checking out the following video by Rob Dyrdek (it’s worth it, wait until the 0:30 mark): 

Rob’s right, and after 4 years of business, I realized how much of a pain in the ass business can be - and it trickled over to my physical body and personal life. It’s a downward spiral, business stress = physical stress = bad habits/poor body = even more business stress. So lately, I’ve put my personal well-being, mental/physical at the top of my priority list and feel it’s trickled over into every aspect of my life, including business. Because you can’t take care of anyone else, until you’ve taken care of yourself - particularly in business.

Too often people equate working out and proper eating with ONLY looking good, or being less susceptible to disease. BUT NO!!!! Your brain, your mind, your ability to think is just as important, if not more important than these, and are as greatly affected by good (or poor) body habits.  

Much Ado About Browser Fonts

Being a designer I am constantly trying to be innovative or at least keep up with the trends of today and tomorrow. So when I go about creating a site I always want to use cool fonts that I find that would fit perfectly for the design. But then I’m reminded of how limited we are to font selection when it comes to plain text being displayed in our browsers. Designers and developers all have to follow the least common denominator rule of font choice. This kind of sucks. We have been using the same fonts choices over and over again and it is getting kind of old. Here you can see the limited choices we have; some of which aren’t even a viable choice (e.i. Comic Sans).

Well out of necessity and boredom comes a solution. Many solutions actually.

Embedded Fonts

This is an old technique that Microsoft came up with long ago when we were kids. It allows the user to embed any font they wish into their CSS file. All you have to do is create the EOT font file and put it on your server. Then link that to your CSS file and voila, you have your fonts being displayed in the browser. You find out more about it Here. Warning: this is an a very old posting.

Drawbacks: Doesn’t work on Macs or anything else but Internet Explorer (So pretty much useless).

Typekit

Here is an upcoming company started in 2008 to help expand the possibilities of fonts on the web. Typekit is an online browser font distribution company (for lack of better definition).

About Typekit:

“Typekit is the easiest way to use real fonts on the web. It’s a subscription-based service for linking to high-quality Open Type fonts from some of the worlds best type foundries. Our fonts are served from a global network on redundant servers, offering bulletproof service and incredible speed.”

What they do is allow you to link to fonts they currently have under license to use on your site. They have an extensive list of fonts built up so far. I think this is a great idea and should be something to definitely look forward to in the future. Check them out HERE.

Drawbacks: It costs money $$$. There is a trial offer but is limited. If user doesn’t have Javascript turned on then it won’t work (let’s face it if this is the case they don’t deserve to see the fonts anyway).

sIFR3

sIFR3 is a project started a few years back to help with displaying the fonts you want on the web without any embedding of fonts. This is because it is all done through the magic of Flash.

About sIFR3:

“sIFR, or scalable Inman Flash Replacement is a technique for displaying typography on the web, without requiring your visitors to install the font you’d like to use.”

sIFR3 is what I currently I use today for any font replacement. It works great and can be completely manipulated like any regular font using CSS. Plus it has the added bonus of Flash qualities such as text effects (e.i. drop-shadows). sIFR3 is best for heading replacements but can be utilized for all text on your site. You can put as many font styles as you like at a time. There is a small learning curve to getting it up and running on your site but it is worth it. Learn more about it HERE.

Drawbacks: User must have Flash installed and Javascript running in their browser (if not the would-be replaced text will show which obviously can be styled using CSS. So there really is no reason not to use it.)

What do you think about the standard browser fonts? What else should be done to fix the “problem”? Do you know of any other solutions out there? Let us know.

What does a website cost? Web Site Development Costs

UPDATED FOR 2010 (PRICES LOWERED BECAUSE OF CHANGES IN THE MARKET, ADVANCEMENTS IN PROCESS, AND TECHNOLOGY)

You probably came here in the process of doing research. Are you a small business looking to build a website, but you don’t want to get taken for a ride? Or maybe you’re a web developer considering branching out on your own and REALLY want to know what the going rate for website developments costs are. Regardless of who you are, having a baseline to work with is always a good idea. Atilus is always upfront about pricing and believe everyone needs to be too (although honestly many in the Internet marketing field are not - charging clients different amount based on their situation and income). Before we get to the pricing, I want to ask you… do you think you need a website?

This is important… and let’s just get this out of the way…

you need a website.

Period.

And not just any ol’ website, but a great website with a clear, crisp easy to navigate design, with superb usability and functionality. Furthermore, YOU need to be able to easily update that website.  It doesn’t matter if you are a national corporate brand, a smaller brick and mortar with ‘plenty of business’, a brick and mortar with only local business, or an ice cream shop that only sells to people between 5’10 and 5’11 wearing baseball hats before 3 pm… you still need a website! Your business can be broad or niche, it can be large or small, and despite what you may believe… you need a website!

Now, what does a website cost?

Like the businesses they represent, websites are not all created equal and serve various purposes, therefore they can vary greatly in cost as the level of design and functionality increases and becomes more complex to suit your company’s needs.

Basic Website - $1000

$1000 A basic designed website, acts primarily as an online brochure, establishing a necessary presence online to answer your customers’ questions “do you exist?”, “are you professional?” and “what do you do?” A basic website can be done for a mere market average of $2000. This website will not allow you to interact with your audience (social networking, blog), transact business directly through your site (ecommerce), or enable you to manipulate and update the pages and content within your site without hiring a web programmer/designer to do it for you (Content Management System does enable this for more $$$). A basic website site will serve to help brand and market your company, showcase your products and services and inspire sales as a lead generating tool.  Unfortunately, the design of your website will be templated at such low costs. This means that your site probably mirrors that of other sites on the web.  With our firm, these sites will be CSS and XHTML Coded to allow your site to look the same on nearly every computer/device and will be Search Engine Optimized (SEO) for greater natural search engine ranking success. But not all firms code the same and have SEO as a top priority. Also, web analytics are provided with every site we build to track and ensure your web success.

Custom Website - $1500-$3500

$1500-$3500 Custom designed websites, with all the aesthetic beauty that you can possibly envision, cost a market average of $2500. These sites are still not quite as functional as other sites, but are extraordinarily pretty and all design elements are created and designed specifically for your site and tailored to your market needs. These sites will still not enable audience interactivity, ecommerce, or content management. The sites cost is due in part to the number of hours it takes to create your company’s custom design.  The site will serve the same necessary purposes that a basic designed website will but will be far more aesthetically pleasing and custom to your businesses desires.  Again, with our firm, these sites will be CSS and XHTML Coded to allow your site to look the same on nearly every computer and will also be Search Engine Optimized (SEO) for greater natural search engine ranking success. Web analytics are provided with every site we build to track and ensure your web success.

Content Management System (update it yourself) - $3000- $8,500

$3000- $8,500 Depending on the level of aesthetic design that is requested Content Management System (CMS) websites will run at a market average of $5,750. These websites are created with both functionality and design in mind, as you will receive both custom art design and mid level functionality including the ability to manage and update all content, images, and text contained within the pages of your site (infinite number of pages possible). With a CMS capable website, your site will have endless possibilities as a pluggable, flexible web application capable of adding additional features as you desire.  These websites are built with the idea that you will have a significant number of changes, additions or updates to be made to your site in the near future. Instead of being charged hourly rates to make such changes, a CMS system enables you to do a majority of the basic additions without prior coding or web designing knowledge.  Social interactivity with your site visitors is possible with a site of this caliber, as a BLOG will be present within your site enabling you to place posts of content that you believe is relevant and desired by your audience. Your audience can choose to respond to your blog posts and each others comments allowing for 2 dimensional interaction between you, your audience, and within your audience.  Some ecommerce and real state listing sites can be created within this price range depending upon level of functionality and design.  Also, sites of this caliber have varying prices with regard to design elements. These sites do have custom design work, but more expensive elements like Flash Art creation will affect pricing.  Again, with our firm, these sites will be CSS and XHTML Coded to allow your site to look the same on nearly every computer and will also be Search Engine Optimized (SEO) for greater natural search engine ranking success. But not all firms code the same and have SEO as a top priority. Also, web analytics are provided with every site we build to track and ensure your web success.

Anything Additional/Custom - $12,000- $100,000

$12,000- $100,000+< If you are looking for advance functionality including social networking, blogging, ecommerce, or any other web application topped off with the markets leading design elements, you should expect to pay a market average of $25,000! Like I said before, some ecommerce and web applicable sites can be created for less, while most successful ventures are created for much more.  Sites that have fallen in this price range include Facebook.com, Orkut.com, BestBuy.com, and WGCU.org to name only a few.  A site within this price range will be built and hand coded from scratch. That means your site is unlike any other and requires the attention and expertise of an experienced web application developer(s) and web site designer(s). A site that falls into this category requires months of market analysis, software research, consulting, database design and implementation, software development and integration, site quality assurance and testing. This is the mother load and it is priced accordingly.  I know what you are thinking, ‘who knew it was so expensive?’ And the only answer I can give is that web design and creation is like any other craft or trade and requires a high level of knowledge and expertise. Furthermore, with the rapid rate that technology and the internet is constantly changing, the gap is beginning to seriously widen between web amateurs and professionals. Can you still get a website for $500? Sure you can, but it will not display and operate like a professionally designed website will and it will be as ineffective and unsuccessful as the individual who designed it.

Need more?  Read this.

Massachusetts Online Credit Union

Atilus is proud to announce the launch of the Quabbin Online Credit Union website. Out latest client has successfully launched their new website and we would like to congratulate them. This is a landmark occassion as Quabbin is the only online-only credit union in the country. Through their innovative use of technology they hope to slash conventional banking/credit union costs, all while providing customers the best rates and giving back to the Massachusetts community. Although Atilus was not instrumental in the development of the website, we have helped them launch a strategic marketing campaign including pay per click marketing.

Congratulations again to everyone at Quabbin. It has been a pleasure working with you so far!

http://www.quabbinocu.com

Haiti Earthquake a Call to Duty

Rele Anmwe - Call For Help - Appeler à L’aide

If you’re looking at our blog, or have read our newsletters chances are you and I have had a conversation on the phone or in person.

AND, if that is the case you probably inquired about my accent.

I am from Haiti.

I was born and raised in Port-de-Paix, Haiti, 100 miles north of the epicenter of the earthquake that hit in January. I learned of the news much like the rest of the country, online, on television, on the radio. I had many friends and family in the center of quake. And much like you, I’ve seen the pictures from volunteers, news organizations, even friends. They are devastating.

But, this event wasn’t entirely tragic.

The Quake has been a wake up call for many to volunteer and help out in whatever way they can. And not just in Haiti, but around the world. Everyone I know has helped out and done what they can, from donating money, to providing blankets, food, and supplies, for those on the ground. In general many of us seem to have a renewed sense of compassion for our fellow man.

Thank you.

For nearly a year I had been working on a project in Haiti centered around telecommunication. The quake and devastation hit, friends, and partners were lost, and we had to scrap the project. 

But, from the wake of the initial idea and the course of events over the last 2 months, the project has been renewed - with a new purpose. I have teamed up with new friends and partners to develop an automated phone line that provides free information for those in Haiti.

Only about half of the Haitian population has access to telecommunications devices (phone line, cell phone, computer or VOIP).

This was always a challenge for those wishing to communicate in Haiti, but in the days since the quake has proven even more problematic. People need to find information and resources in order to survive. They need information immediately. They need it at no cost.

With this system those on the ground can locate basic services such as food, hospitals, shelters, distribution centers, and more…

If you have any friends or loved ones in Haiti, or simply wish to spread the word about this service, please do so.

To learn more about Rele Anmwe please visit the site www.releanmwe.org

Thank You