By Allan Emerson | May 26, 2011

website optimization...yes, it's just like this

To a web developer, website optimization* is a worthy goal all by itself. There’s a certain pride in managing to create a site with the fewest lines of code possible, only the most essential element ids and classes, a robust CSS file and nary an unnecessary <img> tag to be found. But this isn’t just web geeks trying to earn more points on our geek cards. There are also some practical advantages to website optimization, and choosing a good web designer will make sure you benefit from them.

Website optimization: Page Load Speed

Do you like waiting for a page to load? Does anybody? Several factors can add to page load times, from extra communication with the web server and lots of user-side scripting to plain ‘ol bloated code. But clean code reduces page load speed because the web browser simply has less to construct before showing you the page. If your web developer isn’t concerned with website optimization, they’re slowing this process down unnecessarily.

Furthermore, search engines know …Read more »

By Tony Dodd | May 25, 2011

The RSA web development team has been hard at work creating highly optimized, effective websites. We have many exciting sites we’re currently working on:

• City of Huron
• Scotchman Metal Fabricating Solutions
• Dawes County Tourism
• Kelly’s Frozen Yogurt
• CD Hopkins Financial
• Bridges to Buttes By-Way
• Murphy’s Pub and Grill
• Knecht Home Center and Mead Lumber
• RCS Storage
• Lehman Trikes
• Casey Peterson and Associates
• Waste Connections of Denver
• Faith Veterinary Clinic
• Sioux Empire Fair
• Wyoming State Fair

Also, coming very soon to the web, fresh from our team’s creative fingers:

• South Dakota Farmers Union
• Powderhouse Lodge
• Radiant Systems
• International Metals

We are also excited to announce our newest service offering: mobile websites! We’ve been creating mobile sites since early 2010, and would now like to offer it as a standard service. RSA can produce the mobile version of your website, which usually contains fewer graphics and more text, quickly and inexpensively.

We’re currently working on mobile sites for the Ramada Tropics Resort, Des Moines, and Ramada Sioux Falls, having just completed our own mobile website.

We’re always developing new, effective solutions in our creative and interactive departments, and our business is always growing and evolving. We have our clients to thank for that. Keep up the good work, everyone, and thanks for your business!

- Tony

By Tony Dodd | April 5, 2011

Smart Phones

Mobile devices are becoming more and more popular, and the mobile web is an alluring place for web surfers, offering all kinds of communications capabilities on the go. Yet it’s still a very new arena for many people, especially here in South Dakota.

The capabilities of mobile phones and devices now make mobile a serious contender to traditional website access. In the next few years this technology is predicted to surpass the amount of internet users currently utilizing desktop computers.

Why should I create a mobile website?

There are limitations to mobile web such as limited screen space & slower connections speeds. To date, a large amount of mobile web users are attempting to get to vital information about companies and topics quickly, but they can run into problems because many websites are not ready for mobile viewing.

A traditional website won’t always work. …Read more »

By Kyle McCabe | December 21, 2010

Ok where's the Easy button?

A client said in a recent meeting about his service (paraphrasing here):

“A lot of our customers want things very simple, and I always have to tell them the simpler you want it to be for you, the harder and more complicated it is for us to set it up.”

I heard this and thought to myself, wow – he could be talking about web development. He wasn’t, but I am.

The “Easy Website” Button

We also have many clients who come in and say they just want things to be simple and easy. This is understandable, as I imagine few people really enjoy complication.

So what does an “easy website” mean to our clients? Usually it has to do with the user interface and how difficult or easy it is to make changes to web content like events, blogs or photos. But often the easier this is, the harder it was to make it so. In other words the road to “easy” can be packed with complications.

You need drag-and-drop capabilities? We understand – that makes it way easy for you, or even your visitors. But to get that done we’re talking about quite a few hours of programming, or at least tossing a few bones at a third-party dev for existing software, which still needs to be integrated. Basically it’s easy for you, difficult and time-consuming for us. Which means it’s also expensive for you.

The trick is to find a balance between what you can spend and how easy you really need things to be. Can you live without drag-and-drop?

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Photo courtesy of James Cridland

By Kyle McCabe | October 6, 2010

Sometimes your color preference doesn't matter...

As Amanda mentioned in her recent post on designing professional logos, designers tend to approach their work in a different way than many people think. Our decisions aren’t arbitrary – it’s not like ordering food, where you just pick whatever you happen to like at the time. There needs to be purpose.

Many of the decisions designers make are based on some external criteria. In this business, that’s usually the audience being catered to. A common experience, however, is for the client on a project to override some such decision based on their own personal preference.

Often, however, the client isn’t even part of the desired audience. So while their preference might be relevant because they own the project, it doesn’t necessarily help the project be more effective. …Read more »

By Kyle McCabe | August 19, 2010

Lego Ninja is serious about content strategy.

In the late ’90s content management systems (CMS) were rare. Those that did exist were either underdeveloped, by today’s standards, or just slightly customizable template systems (RIP Geocities).

Back then we hand-coded websites, for the most part, and clients had very little access to make updates to those websites. The internet gods looked upon this and saw that it was good. So, of course, they changed it.

Enter the CMS

These days you can’t throw a cat without hitting someone who wants full access to change their websites. It’s now common for clients to ask for a CMS-based website, and I can’t blame them. …Read more »

By Tony Dodd | March 30, 2010

How can we solve this?

Using the internet is now mainstream; a way of life for the great many people who buy products and services online. In light of this, you might think more businesses would have a better online presence. So why don’t they?

Low budget = cheap website?

In my experience the top reason is budget. Businesses, usually those on the smaller side, tend to have limited financial resources to devote to web marketing. Now no one wants to settle on a poorly designed website, but some do because they think it’s all they can afford. Unfortunately a poorly designed website can often seem shady or unreliable …Read more »

By Kyle McCabe | March 2, 2010

Who cares what the glass looks like...is the beer any good?

Who cares how a website looks if it doesn’t work?

Well, the owner of the site, usually. Many of the websites I’ve built over the years have been for clients who care very much how their websites look, and often make decisions to enhance that aesthetic quality at the expense of usability (the ease with which a person uses the website).

Of course the “look” of a site is important. A website needs to draw and engage the eye quickly, or at the very least, not make the visitor puke on their keyboard (here, this might help you with that).

But drawing the eye is only part of the equation. Readers familiar with this subject might here expect me to talk about “function”, and how it needs to take precedence over “form.” In other words, don’t sacrifice usability for flashy eye-candy. But we all understand that, don’t we? …Read more »

By Kyle McCabe | February 4, 2010

"The cobbler's children have no shoes."

We’re entering 2010 with a new website, but also a fresh perspective and a new appreciation for the position our clients are in when embarking upon web development projects.

As an agency that offers web development as a core service, we’ve been painfully conscious of the need to update our website for a few years now. It took us a good long while to devote enough attention to getting our own work done, for the obvious reason of being extremely busy with client work. As Robert once put it, “The cobbler’s children have no shoes.”

Of course finding the time was only part of it. It’s often said “you are your own worst critic,” but we never thought we’d also be our own worst client. Turns out we are. …Read more »

By Kyle McCabe | January 14, 2010

Whenever I sit down to go through ideas for blog posts, I inevitably think of a few that sound great, only to realize hey, we already wrote that one. A lot of the things we wrote about last year are still relevant even now – maybe more so.

Looking back through our logs, it’s no surprise to find some content was more popular than others. After all, we’re still experimenting to find the sort of thing you, our readers, find most useful.

To make sure you didn’t miss any of the good ones from last year, here’s a short list of our most viewed posts from 2009.

Why Good Customer Service Is So Important

5 Reasons Not to Cut Your Marketing Budget in a Recession

Elements of Internet Marketing

Going Nuts? Don’t Cut your Marketing

Should You Put Video On Your Website?

Understanding Web Design

14 Practical Uses For Social Media

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Photo courtesy of kevinzim