Overview of Our Services
We are web design and development experts. We’ll create something just for you to reflect your company’s personality and successfully build your online business. Whether your needs are straight forward or complicated, you don’t need to worry, we’ll take care of everything from the basic structure to the final multi-technology graphics.
Building a polished, professional web presence doesn’t have to cost tens of thousands of dollars but it does require research, planning, analysis, creativity, and devotion to be successful. It also requires the combination of design, coding, and marketing. We understand this and work hard to make sure each one of our clients maximizes their potential. To learn more about our services, click on the links to the right.
Interface Design
A good user interface design, or website design, can spell the difference between success of a website or its failure. It seems obvious, but it’s so often overlooked and underestimated. Time after time, we hear from entrepreneurs and business leaders complain that their current website is too difficult for their users to understand, or that it is too cumbersome to manage. “As long as it works” all too often seems to be the group mantra. However, no other single attribute is as important to user satisfaction as the design aspect, even if we, as consumers, generally think very little about it (consciously at least). A well-thought out, well-executed user interface will have a dramatic impact on repeat visitors. As Jeff Hawkins, founder of Palm Computing and Handspring, has philosophized “The interface is sacred”.
We believe that a successful user interface begins well before the first pixel is created. It requires an investment in time, patience, and planning to create an intuitive and inviting design that focuses on what matters most, the end user. Items such as color choice, font usage and readability, navigation, graphics, consistency, speed, and layout are all considered and all contribute to the site’s personality. But the best designs are those that are the least noticed because the design itself has led the user to feel comfortable moving right into the process of interaction, finding what they want and moving on. Simply put, your website is a reflection of your company, and more often than not, the first impression. These impressions are made in a fraction of a second. That’s how long you have. It’s that important.
Programming
To use the word programming is using a broad term that would normally merit a very long discussion and breakdown. What we mean with our definition are online applications. Some examples of whole website application ideas include:
Some examples of small applications to fit in a website include:
These are just a few examples that can be done on any scale. The ability to make these online applications is easier than ever, limited only by your imagination.
Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a key to any successful internet marketing strategy. An understanding of the search engine requirements and a solid execution of an SEO strategy will provide your website with a higher profile on the search engines. But with different search engines comes different algorithms that determine the importance of any website. Although we can define three of the main engines – Google, Yahoo, and MSN, we have discovered that optimizing for Google will give us the greatest success on all three as their algorithms tend to be the most strict. Having said this, however, the best practices for search engine optimization have not been completely defined through proper numerical analysis. The algorithms Google employs are closely held secrets and do change. What may be ranked on page 1 one day may find itself on page 5 the next. But we do know what Google values and optimizing a site based on those values will always have a positive impact. The goal then is to continually optimize, monitor, and test different approaches to keep our site at the top.
We can break down SEO into two umbrella sections – on-page optimization and off-page optimization. On-page optimization refers to activities pursued on the website itself to boost rankings on the SERPS (search engine results pages). This involves a number of items including making sure the titles, headlines, and body copy contain proper keywords, making sure there are no errors on the site that would make it difficult for the search spiders to crawl your site, placing the most important content near the top of the page, etc. Off-page optimization examines the ability to gather traffic to your site by marketing it through various channels on the web. Submitting articles to Digg.com, editing Wikipedia articles, sending out press releases, and others are used for off-page optimization efforts. There are many facets to both on-page and off-page optimization and finding the right mix for your organization is what it’s all about.
Many people come to us and say that they want to be on page one. The truth is that promises like this cannot, and should not ever be made. We work under White Hat SEO guidelines, which are considered appropriate and acceptable to the search engines. Many companies that promise you page one rankings are more than likely not following White Hat SEO guidelines, but rather Black Hat techniques, which are not acceptable to the search engines. Black hat techniques are similar in nature to spam – create tons of links from fake sites, blogs, etc to boost rankings. While it can be said that Black Hat techniques will usually outperform White Hat techniques in the short term, you are opening yourself up to getting penalized and possibly even banned from Google and the other search engines. Undoing this can be extremely costly and can take many months. As a rule, we don’t guarantee page one rankings. But we understand what Google and the other engines value and we work under those guidelines in the most optimized way for your website to get you solid, long-term growth.
If you’d like to learn more about search engine optimization, you may request our SEO white paper report that goes into greater detail about search engine optimization and our approach.
Ecommerce
Ecommerce has exploded in the last 10 years. The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce announced that the estimate of U.S. retail e-commerce sales for the fourth quarter of 2007 was $36.2 billion, an increase of 4.6 percent from the third quarter of 2007. Total e-commerce sales for 2007 were estimated at $136.4 billion, an increase of 19.0 percent from 2006.
So what does this mean? Small business owners who have extended their business online say it was the smartest, most productive, competetive step they’ve ever taken and want to know how to further capitalize on this market. If you’re considering this move, there are a dizzying amount of questions for any entrepreneur. How do I set up an e-commerce website? What are my competitors doing? How will people shop? How will customers pay online? What sort of security is required?
According to the research firm IDC, the cost of setting up a website has dropped significantly since the Internet boom years of the 90s, when business owners could expect to shell out $10,000 for a site. Now, it can be done for as little as $2,000. An AC Nielson survey recently reported that 53% of online shoppers planned to buy even more on the internet in the coming year. It seems that customers who were once reluctant to try online purchasing have found a new level of speed, convenience, selection and security.
Still many entrepreneurs are reluctant to move online for fear of the cost of maintaining an online operation, fear of the technology, or perceptions of the complicated and large set-up process. All three are valid concerns, but today entrepreneurs have access to a host of packaged ecommerce programs that are easy to use yet quite powerful. Equipped with the right tools, resource and expertise, the time has never been better to take the plunge and make the move to the web.
Any business owner, from a sole proprieter to an employer of hundreds, can deploy an effective ecommerce program. Turning to a web expert is highly recommended for a smooth and successful transition. It’s possible to go to large corporations like Yahoo or Google for your ecommerce needs, but those companies usually lure you in with a low starter cost and little to no customer support. Rudy Interactive prides itself with being a business partner, giving it our all to help you be successful. We’re continuously researching the best technology at the most affordable prices. As a business partner, you can turn to us to help with the planning process, the design, the marketing strategy, and finding the right technology. We value our clients. Your success is our success as well.
Content Management Systems
A content management system (CMS) is an application designed to allow users with little or no knowledge of programming languanges to create and manage content with ease. They are a web-based system, allowing one or many people within an organization to manage published web content creation, control, editing and other essential functions. There are a number of pre-packaged CMSs on the market today, some offered for free, some for a fee. There are also different CMSs depending on whether you plan to open an ecommerce shop or not.
We work with a number of these content management systems and found a few of our favorites:
The one thing these all have in common is that they are open-source, meaning the code to make these are freely available to anyone to modify, making any changes a customer might want, feasible. Because of the fact that these are open-source, these CMSs are offered as skeletons, with some basic functionality already installed. Modules are used to add additional functionality, depending on your needs. There are many modules available, often more than one for any particular function. Modules can also be programmed to suit specific needs. And if there isn’t a module close to what you need, it can be created as well.
Our first job is to help you identify your needs, and if a CMS is what will work best, to help find the best fit. After that, we’ll put it all together for you, including a custom interface, module development and integration, and marketing.
Marketing Materials
Print is still a marketing necessity for many organizations. From brochures to invitations, training materials, business cards, logos, letterheads, and annual reports, these materials bring your image and message to the world. As with your website, we can develop a consistent creative concept, design and copy for your collateral.
Email campaigns can help you share the latest news, send surveys, promote products, and send invites. We use leading technology such as iContact and ConstantContact to build, manage and secure your marketing contacts, track and report clickthru rates, and help make sure the email complies with the latest regulations so it doesn’t wind up in the junk folder.
Web Hosting
Rudy Interactive have partnered with Basiclink to offer exceptional hosting at a very affordable and reduced rate for Rudy Interactive clients. Basiclink’s hosting is fast and reliable with excellent customer support. Their basic package starts at $20/mo and includes the following:
Domain name registration is also available for $15 per year. To search for a domain name, use our domain finder application.
