Denver Web Design & Denver SEO - The Katz Web Design Blog

Westside Business Builders is a networking group based in Golden, Colorado. Their website provides general information about the group, and it serves as a member directory. Katz Web Design is a member of the group.

The membership committee asked Katz Web Design to prepare a proposal for the WSBB website, and this Wednesday, the group voted to have KWD redesign the website to improve appearance and functionality.

(more…)

A lot of people have wanted to know who designed Barack Obama’s website. With good reason: Obama’s website is beautiful. It even conveys Obama’s message of hope in it’s wistful design. Well, here it is:

Barack Obama’s web designer is:

SimpleScott. SimpleScott designed Barack Obama’s website, so here’s to SimpleScott for a gorgeous design.

From Scott Thomas, of SimpleScott:

I am the creative director of New Media for Obama for America. The team consisted of many people in house as well as many volunteers. Project leads were myself and John Slabyk. We are maintaining site and brand in-house. Sol Sender designed the logo before I joined the campaign.

How did I find out SimpleScott was involved? Just check out Obama’s main style sheet. SimpleScott also uses CSSEdit, a great program for Mac CSS web design.

The CSS code gives it away:

/* @override
http://obama.simplescott.com/css/global.css
http://localhost:8888/css/global.css
http://www1.barackobama.com/css/globalv2.css
http://my.barackobama.com/css/signup.css
http://www.barackobama.com/css/globalv2.css
*/
/* CSS
Author: Scott Thomas
Client: Obama for America
Created: 12-15-07
Modified: 12-22-07
*/

The logo design is by Sender, LLC

Sender, LLC developed the Obama ‘08 logo.

From Brian Drum, of Sender LLC

Sender designed the original mark, but the site is developed and maintained in-house by the campaign’s web team.

Sender was involved *only* with the development of the “sunrise” mark, and had no role whatsoever in the design, development, or maintenance of barackobama.com.

Leave your reactions here

Do you like the design, or not? What aspects work best for you? Drop a line below.

The current KWD website was never a permanent solution, but it was the direction I had been going. That has changed. I am proud to officially announce a rebranding of Katz Web Design, and give a preview of what’s to come.

The new logo (draft)

The future website (draft)

Click on image for a higher-resolution screenshot.

What do you think?

Post a comment below.

I like to brag every now and then.

When we set out to design a landing page for my Denver client, we had our eyes set on a minimum 2% conversion rate for their pay-per-click campaign. Currently, we’re achieving a 15.94% overall conversion rate. I made some tweaks to the form design last week, and for the past 6 days, the landing page is getting a 30% conversion rate (that’s pretty good :-))

Focusing on the front door.

The reason we’ve been able to get such good results is because we’re focusing on one thing: having people sign up for a form. No longer is the internet about websites. The internet is now about front doors. Showing people exactly what they want to see — and sometimes only what they want to see — is how to improve your conversion rate.

Don’t lock users in and throw away the key.

Amazon cages me in. If you go to Amazon, place something in your cart, then begin the checkout process, they make it impossible (without clicking the Back button a lot) to return to their store. They throw away any chance of revising your order, adding a product, or just browsing around — they sacrifice user experience for the sake of conversion rates.

Guide users through a funnel, don’t force them

Amazon.com no longer shows you how much shipping will be until you’re at the final checkout page. They used to show you right up front, but now you have to get to the final checkout page to find out shipping costs. Very annoying. Always give users the information they want, even if it means some will choose an option you don’t want them to. Give users a way out.

Adding value to your landing page

Landing page design is focused on having a user perform an action. Every piece of content should revolve around why and how a user should perform that action. Landing pages don’t need to be dull or static, however. I’m going to talk about a simple way I spruced up a career-oriented landing page: a salary calculator.

At CareersWithDish.com, we wanted to entice sales professionals to apply for a job with Dish Network. We featured the standard landing page content, including:

• 8 compelling reasons to work for Dish
• Text and images that reinforce the upward income mobility
• Simple form with basic information fields as the focal point of the page

Let’s give’em something to talk about

Bullet points, text, images, and a simple form are good enough for a landing page, but we wanted to spruce it up a bit, so we added a calculator that shows possible income with live updating numbers.

What this simple calculator achieves is it activates emotion. It’s the same feeling as when you work for a company and are at the company’s Christmas dinner, wondering if you’ll get a bonus, and for how much…the calculator translates the language of “Total compensation up to $79,040” into “I can do this!”

So what’s the emotional attraction of your landing page? Does it have an interactive element? Even a simple slideshow can be the difference between a lead and a bounce.

Personalities and what motivates them

The calculator will be of interest to sales people; they often care about numbers and the bottom line.

What if you were designing for a baby carriage company…

What would interest mothers? Perhaps:

• Slideshows of babies in the carriages
• A video of how simple it is to collapse the carriage and put it in the car
• Swatches of color and pattern choices
• Diagram of how much storage the carriage has
• Long term warantees for normal wear and tear

This kind of brainstorming makes the difference between a mediocre landing page and a great one. Let me know what your favorite landing pages are, and why.

For those interested in how the calculator was created, I will write about that soon. It was created using the script.aculo.us slider class. Check out the code at the CareersWithDish.com landing page.

Katz Web Design has just completed a landing page for Dish Network (a Fortune 300 company) to help them streamline their hiring process.

(By the way, if you’re looking for a sales job near Denver, Colorado [in Littleton], check out Dish. They’ve got great packages for sales representatives.)

The purpose of a landing page (or “Squeeze page,” “Funnel page”, or “Lead capture page&rdquo is to keep the user focused on only what you want them to do. In this case, Dish wanted users to:

1. Fill out a form to start their job application process
2. Become informed of the job benefits
3. Get directions to the application location

The landing page design is done in PHP, allowing for future expandability. This allows the text and images to be swapped out dynamically. The one landing page design can be used for many different job positions and locations, even different languages.

I will be writing articles based on the research and results from the landing page design in the near future, including A/B testing, dynamic content with PHP, Google Analytics & Adwords tracking, and more.

What would you like to know about landing page web design?

Ignite Matchmaking is a professional matchmaker in Denver, Colorado. Sheryl Williams, President of Ignite asked Katz Web Design to increase the effectiveness of her website. The Previous Ignite Matchmaking Homepage was not visually interesting, had little information about the matchmaking process, and was not well constructed (using XHTML and CSS).

The new home page has a graphic that outlines the five steps and calls users to action with a simple choice: I am a Man or I am a Woman. The site now has a blog that will entice visitors to stay longer.