Web Design and Development Blog - Rochester MN

We are proud to announce the launch of Heartman Insurance, a full service independent insurance agency headquartered in Rochester, MN. We worked closely with the Heartman staff to develop a website that met their company goals and vision. Heartman Insurance offers personal and business insurance from over 50 providers to find you the best rates around. If you are looking for insurance be sure to contact the Heartman team.

What makes a good website? This can be a very subjective topic as people like different things, however, as we can’t define what a “good” website is, we can define what makes an effective website.

To make your web presence effective you need to be aware of these four key components: content, design / layout, usability and ability to be found. Let’s start off with content.

In the search engine world you’ll hear “content is king” over and over again, and while this is true not everyone understands why. Sure, you can have a ton of content on your website, but if it is not written well people will be less enticed to read it. You want to make sure that your web content is written at a 6th grade or lower level, this helps to ensure that your audience will be able to understand what you are presenting them with. If your topic is extremely complex be sure to explain it thoroughly. If you’re not a great writer, have a professional copywriter Keep in mind that it is the content on your website that is keeping your visitors there, not the flashy design or because you found them through a search engine.

This leads us nicely into the design & layout aspect of your website. You do not want to neglect your website design as the graphics and layout lend credibility to your organization. You have probably been to a website of a store that you frequent and even though their store front looks great their website looks dingy and old. Imagine that you have never been to the store front location. The dingy old image is all that your customer has of you. Be sure to hire a professional web design & development company to handle your website design.

Having a great design can help retain your visitors interest longer but having a site that is not user-friendly will drive them away faster than anything else. Your web visitors have a very short attention span and if they cannot find what they are looking for within the first 15-30 seconds they will leave. Studies show that more than half of those visitors will never return. Having a qualified web development company build the structure and layout of your website will ensure that users will be able to find the information they are looking for. Don’t neglect this area of your website because you “know a friend” that can build websites, they need to understand what makes an effective website and what doesn’t.

The ability to be found online is one of the most important aspects of having a website, after-all what is the point of paying good money for a website and having nobody go to it? Search engine optimization can be a quite complex task and a good web development company should know what to do to make your site as friendly to the search engines as possible. Your web developer should be building your site using the latest web standards to ensure compatibility across various browsers and platforms. They should also not rely heavily on images or flash animation as the search engines cannot easily “see” what is in those files. Your web developer should also know how to use headings, lists and other HTML codes to their advantage to boost your search rankings.

Reynolds Design Studio can handle all of your web development needs from content, layout and design to custom programming, functionality and search engine optimization. Call us today at 507-358-9098 or email sales@reynoldsdesignstudio.com to get started on your web development project today.

By now you have probably heard about HTML5, the upcoming revision to the current HTML standard on the web, however you may not know what it can actually do. HTML5 (when fully launched) will allow for rich website development content to be displayed directly in the code. This means that technology such as Flash may become obsolete upon its launch.

Now before you throw your current version of flash out the window, HTML5 won’t be fully released for at least 5-10 years. Developers around the world are meeting on a regular basis to determine what the final functionality of the language should be.

There are ways to start using some of the new HTML5 functionality in your current website applications. Browsers such as Firefox and Chrome are already supporting certain tags. It also appears that Internet Explorer 9 beta also supports a few HTML5 tags.

Right now HTML5 is an important new technology to keep up to date with, but unless your audience has the latest and greatest technology  it would be best to not rely on this technology until it has been officially released.

You can learn more about HTML5 here.

We are proud to announce the launch of RAK Chiropractic, a full service husband and wife chiropractic team based in Rochester, MN. Having recently acquiring their degrees in chiropractic care Ryley and Katie Layden needed to get their office up and running. They came to Reynolds Design Studio to create their branding campaign.

Reynolds Design Studio created a business system (logo, letterhead, business cards and flyer) and website for the new chiropractic team. If you are in need of chiropractic care in the Rochester, MN area be sure to look them up.

RAK Chiropractic can be found at: www.rakchiropractic.com

The RDS Gallery has been a staple of our web utilities for a few years now, and after lots of good feedback we have decided to rebuild the gallery from the ground up. This gallery now allows for multiple image upload, larger thumbnails, better search engine capabilities and before / after photo galleries.

We have are looking forward to making some additional revisions to the gallery within the next couple of months to allow for more customization by the gallery owner.

~RDS

Reynolds Design Studio is proud to announce the website launch of Rochester Feed & Country Store. We decided to go a different route in the building of Rochester Feed and utilized a customized version of WordPress to allow the customer full update capabilities of their website. Rochester Feed was needing to add and remove various pages of content throughout the course of the year based on specials and other events going on at their location.

We felt that WordPress would give them the best solution to their needs while providing a highly search engine friendly platform to help them rank in Google, Yahoo and Bing.

We look forward to building a lasting relationship with the staff at Rochester Feed & Country Store and providing great quality work in the future.

Reynolds Design Studio is proud to launch the redesign of Bella Photography. We have been working with Bella Photography for 4 years and have been happy to help them grow as a company. We provided a customized version of our RDS Gallery solution, flash animation and a revised design.

We are actively pushing their site to the search engines to help them rank better for photography related terms throughout Minnesota.

We are excited to see how the new website we created will help their business.

Reynolds Design Studio will be participating in the 20th Annual Paws & Claws Charity Auction on Saturday, November 21st, 2009 at the Kahler Grand Hotel Ballroom.

We are donating our web site design and development services to one lucky bidder. A $2,500 value, so be sure to attend this great event to help dogs and cats in the Rochester, MN area.

More information can be found out about this event at www.pawsandclaws.org

Reynolds Design Studio is proud to annouce the launch of Quarry Hill Vet. We have a long standing relationship with Quarry Hill Vet of Rochester MN and are excited to see their new site go live. We made the site fun by giving a professional presentation with cute animal silhouettes and paw prints throughout the site.

The home page features an employee of Quarry Hill Vet along with some information about them. Quarry Hill Vet offers great small animal care in Rochester Minnesota and the surrounding areas. Their doctors have over 100 combined years experience so you can be sure your animal is well taken care of.

We are very pleased with the feedback so far on the site and look forward to seeing it grow with their business.