As sure as these crazy April showers will soon bring the May flowers, there is good reason to be optimistic about the near future in the web design business. This may be the best time ever to be a web designer. Just consider this fact, in just a little over a decade, we’ve gone from 216 “web safe” colors to the over 16 million in the hexadecimal spectrum.
Beyond this, we also now have web-based fonts, transparency, blending, and mainstream animations along with ever-evolving tools and frameworks based on HTML5 and CSS3, which has just come of age within the past few years. What this all means is richer, more attractive, and better functioning websites at lower development and maintenance costs.
Thank you all for your support and we look forward to the future!
Ric Albano
Owner and Chief Web Designer 33 Dimensions LLC
2020 Vision
In our last newsletter celebrating our 5th Anniversary, we reflected on our first five years in business and how much web design has changed in these past 5 years, including our own development practices. Now we are looking forward to the next half decade or so and how will we use social media, user generated content, eCommerce, smart phones, smart homes, smart appliances, etc… as we enter into the 2020’s.
33 Dimensions is committed to providing our customers with the best tools to effectively operate and promote their business or organization, both today and tomorrow.
Client News
4th Annual Plein Air Camp Hill Festival
It is nearly time for Plein Air Camp Hill, which will hold its 4th annual festival in mid-May, starting with a new Scavenger Hunt during the week of May 12th, with many more events during the weekend of May 16th to 18th. The annual festival focuses on artists and photographers, with juried competitions, “Quick Draw” and “Quick Shoot” contests, and painting “in the open air” for participants of any age group. There will be plenty of family-friendly activities, workshops, music and food happening throughout the borough of Camp Hill, PA during this wonderful Spring festival. Check out the ,a href=”http://www.pleinaircamphill.org/2014Festival.php#2014Schedule” target=”_blank”>full schedule of events.
33 Dimensions is proud to have re-designed the website for 2014, adding responsive features, online forms and payment options.
The Bagman Goes Green
We’ve also updated the website for R. Davis Enterprises at RonTheBagman.com. Ron has expanded his business to recycling plastic and cardboard with the entire process done in the U.S.A.
Many New Websites in the Works
May is going to be an extremely busy month for us, with many new and remodeled websites under development. We’ll have more details on these in our next newsletter.
Whether starting from scratch or adding features to an existing website, 33 Dimensions will provide you with a professional and effective design that is highly functional, informative, and accessible. We also offer many related services to help promote your website and your business and will customize an affordable solution for you.
Check out our Online Portfolio and you will see that there is no job too complex or too small for us to handle for you. Feel free to give me a call at (717) 829-4221 or email me ric@33dimensions.com and I will personally negotiate a great deal to fulfill your online needs.
Five years ago today I came up with the crazy name for this enterprise, based on that day’s date (3/3) along with my interest in string theory and a desire to highlight the many “dimensions” of the professional service I had to offer.
Working with small businesses, non-profit organizations, artists, and individual entrepreneurs has been extremely rewarding as this business has steadily grown over the past half decade, with these first few months of 2014 being the peak of business volume. Of course, running a business is never easy and the climate sometimes gets unpredictable. We’ve faced our share of challenges and frankly, stared down extinction more times than I would’ve liked. But we did persevere through the rough times and we are stronger because of it.
As we complete our 5th year as a business, I am proud to announce that 33 Dimensions is able to offer more high-quality services, including specialized website re-design, online marketing, and multimedia services, than ever before.
Thank you all for your support and here’s to the next five years!
Ric Albano
Owner and Chief Web Designer 33 Dimensions LLC
Meet Jake
We’d like to welcome Jake Albano as our new content and technical specialist, who will be supporting many of our new and existing websites. Jake is a high school student who also works as an on air personality and radio DJ at WMSS in Middletown, PA.
Feel free to drop an email to Jake and congratulate him on his new role: jake@33dimensions.com
Client News
4th Annual Plein Air Camp Hill Festival
We are happy to be re-designing the website for Plein Air Camp Hill. The annual festival celebrates painting “in the open air” and will be held this year from May16th to 18th, with many family-friendly activities happening throughout the borough of Camp Hill, PA.
33 Dimensions is working with EMR Strategies to redesign and re-brand the online presence for Cumberland Masonry Inc. in Lemoyne, PA. Cumberland Masonry has been in business since 1980, offering concrete, masonry, and excavation and more for both residential and commercial customers.
Biagio’s Subs n’ Suds in Hazleton, PA is now under new ownership but 33 Dimensions will continue to provide web service for “Hazleton’s Best Sub Shop”. We’d like to Congratulate new owners Nicole and Vianney and look forward to a long working relationship.
Whether starting from scratch or adding features to an existing website, 33 Dimensions will provide you with a professional and effective design that is highly functional, informative, and accessible. We also offer many related services to help promote your website and your business and will customize an affordable solution for you.
Check out our Online Portfolio and you will see that there is no job too complex or too small for us to handle for you. Feel free to give me a call at (717) 829-4221 or email me ric@33dimensions.com and I will personally negotiate a great deal to fulfill your online needs.
If there are two lessons that everyone should come away from 2013 learning about websites, I would say it would have to be these:
1. There is absolutely no such thing as a “free” website!
2. A website should not cost over $600 million!
I will tackle the second point first because that is much easier to grasp. Of course, what I’m referring to is the “Obamacare” website Healthcare.gov, which amazingly did not work when it was launched on October 1st (it is now about 75 days later and the jury is still out on whether it actually works).
To be exact, it was reported by Digital Trends that the contractor CGI Federal received $634,320,919 to construct Healthcare.gov. Now to appreciate this amount, it is more money than Facebook spent in its first six years of existence (you know, the years went it went completely viral) and it is also more than the amount spent building two more recent services – Linkedin and Spotify – combined. All that money spent and it didn’t work for at the least its first two months of existence.
As a small business web developer, I’m sure I could have figured out a way to get competent developers to complete the site on time and working for, I don’t know, about 1/1000th of that cost! But they never asked me.
Now for the first point, the opposite end of the money spectrum. There is absolutely no such thing as a “free” website! Whenever you hear such a claim to “build a website for free”, what you are actually getting is a new example of an old trick that big companies do to try and squash small competitors (in this case, small business web developers like myself) by cleverly masking a false offer. You’ve surely seen or heard of these free website offers, many from three-letter companies that start with the letter ‘w’ and only disclose the fact that you have to pay a monthly fee in order to keep your “free” website in the cluttered disclaimer at the end.
For companies who are serious about starting and staying in business, such offers do not stand up in the long run for two primary reasons. First, you lose the ability to expand unless you pay the fixed price arbitrarily set by the company. This ties in well with the second reason, you ultimately do not own anything – neither content nor domain name. It is almost akin to those fake houses on a Hollywood set, nice enough to look at but totally impractical to live in.
So, if you’d like a website which is neither free nor $600 million, check out a quality website developer like 33 Dimensions and you will actually get what you pay for (if not more!)
Once you make the decision to establish a strong Web presence for your business, there are several steps that should be taken in order to build this online foundation. The process may seem a bit cumbersome or even overwhelming at first, and getting used to new technologies and fully realizing their benefits takes a little discipline and patience. However, while each business may vary on their specific requirements, the following ten items are general enough to be utilized by most business start-ups.
The first three steps should be done in this order.
1. Create and Register Your Domain Name
Establishing a domain is where your online life begins. The trick is finding one which isn’t already being utilized. If you’re lucky (like we were) you can use the dot-com of the exact name of your business. In all likelihood, you may have to be a little creative. There are many online tools for checking if a domain name is available and registering a domain is still pretty inexpensive at about $15 per year.
2. Find the Right Hosting Plan
“Hosting” is the physical location where your website will reside. While it is certainly possible to host a site on your own computer, it is not optimal in most situations because your computer would have to available to international traffic 24/7 and, without advanced security, may be vulnerable to cyber attacks. For these reasons, most small business owners will enlist a professional hosting company to host their website(s) with costs that can range widely, depending on the type of hosting. When choosing the right hosting plan, you want to get enough storage, bandwidth, adaptability, security, and performance without going overboard and incurring unnecessary costs.
3. Building Your Website
This is, by far, the most important, complex, yes stress-inducing step in establishing your online presence. There are literally a million ways to go, from companies with big names which will offer you “free” business websites (of course, they’re not really “free”) to an assortment of web design firms and freelancers. Here are some of the vast subjects which may need to be considered and/or included with your website:
The Message – the most important information that you want conveyed about your business, from its location and hours of operation to what service it provides and need it fulfills.
Branding – the logo, colors, styles, and appropriate look/feel along with any trademarks or catch phrases.
User Experience (UX) – a simple, concise, and consistent design throughout the website which gives the user the ability to logically navigate and find vital information.
Content Management – a system which allows for easy updates and additions without “breaking” the original design or UX.
Responsive Design – designing your website to “respond” to any screen size on any Internet-ready device by presenting the most optimal display.
Website Maintenance – keeping your site fresh, relevant, and secure.
Steps 4-10 can be done in any order (or all at the same time), after the first three steps have been completed.
4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is an ongoing process of keeping your page relevant to search engines and achieving the best search results. Each year, this process gets more and more complex as major search engines like Google constantly change their algorithms in order to produce the most valid and natural results for any searched word or phrase. Optimizing a website involves several diligent practices:
Solid HTML Design – the foundation of good SEO is clean and professional design. Avoid “website builder” tools if at all possible.
Page Title and Descriptions – succinctly describing the page’s content.
Use of Relevant Keywords – when posting articles to align with the page’s title and description.
Non-duplicated Copy – the latest search engine algorithms penalize sites for duplicated articles and page titles.
A Constant Stream of Fresh Content – with a site map which is updated regularly.
Analytics – the art of monitoring a website’s performance and making adjustments accordingly.
5. Social Networking
In today’s world, it is important for businesses to establish a presence on social media. While some dismiss social media as a fad which will soon run it’s course, there is little doubt of the advertising and awareness value of a social media presence. While Facebook and Twitter are the most popular and have the most users (so they are usually the first social media channels utilized), there are a few other technologies and techniques businesses should consider.
LinkedIn – many experts say LinkedIn is critical for businesses, as it connects you with other businesses. Along with your personal page on LinkedIn page, you should also establish a LinkedIn company page.
Google + – Google has been increasingly tying some of its SEO with its own social media channel (more on this in step #10).
YouTube – a free and easy way to promote your business with short (often homemade) videos. YouTube also allows most videos to easily be embedded in your website and many other social channels.
Local Citations – claim your physical address by registering with Yelp, Google Places, and other local search sites. Be sure to be consistent and use the same format, spelling, and syntax for your physical address (without abbreviations) wherever it is listed.
6. Email and Marketing
Recent studies have shown that, despite the meteoric rise of social media, Email marketing far surpasses any social media medium when it comes to return on investment. While this is one of the more highly regulated areas of the online experience, there are several fine services which help you manage and gather contacts and construct professional Email newsletters while keeping your company compliant with spam laws.
7. Cloud Storage
This is a relatively new but fast growing requirement for an online presence. It is important to be able to quickly and effectively share files, documents, and media using a business-oriented storage service. This is also often used as a safeguard for disaster recovery. Being so new, there are many (relatively untested) options to choose from, but some of the emerging leaders in this market include; Dropbox, Google Cloud Storage, and Carbonite.
8. eCommerce
We’re all in business to get paid and it has become increasingly easier to accept payments online. With Ecommerce, there is a wide range of possibilities, from simple PayPal transactions to complex online shopping carts which require huge databases to function. Further, recent years have brought us great online invoicing services like Fresh Books and cool mobile credit card scanners like Square.
9. Security
This is probably the most gut-wrenching subject to think about, but also the most important. Truth is, there are less than honorable people out there who think it is good sport to prey on honest services, businesses, and consumers. While the dynamic nature of technology makes it hard to pinpoint exact measures (books have been written and will be re-written), a balanced, common sense approach should prevail.
10. Your Toolbox
This is an ever-expanding, catch-all of “other” online tools which may be beneficial to your business:
Surveys – attractive ways to spark interest, there are several free and low-cost services available.
Virtual Phone Numbers – it is getting hard to justify a traditional land line and many of us do not want to use our cell phones as official business lines. An emerging service is “virtual” phone numbers, which route customers domestically and internationally and can provide a 1-800 number.
CRM – A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool is like an electronic “Rolodex” which not only stores your contacts, but is also interactive with many other of the online tools and channels mentioned above.
Google
One more thing. While I tried to stay as general as possible with these ten items, the truth in mid-2013 is that you’ll find Google involved in most of these steps (probably all seven of the bottom steps). If you have a Gmail account, that account is now your login for Google +, Google Places, Google Maps, Google Drive, AdWords, Analytics, Webmaster Tools, YouTube, and scores of other related services (including the good ole search engine itself). While there is no doubt that this can be a great convenience (not to mention virtually free), we can only hope that competition will spread these services out in the future while maintaining the incredible technical advances of recent years.
My wife’s sister Diane turned 36 years old yesterday. When Diane was 30 she had a massive stroke which left her fighting for her life. In fact, doctors said it was unlikely she would survive a week. But Diane fought back and, although she continues to struggle with health issues daily, Diane continues to be in good spirits.
Three years ago, on Diane’s 33rd birthday, we held a fundraiser concert in her honor. We also collaborated with some of Pennsylvania’s finest musicians for a unique compilation album of original music. Since the beginning, we’ve sold this album for $5.00 with all proceeds benefiting brain injury research and a scholarship fund for Diane’s young daughter.
Ric Albano Owner and Creative Director
33 Dimensions LLC
New Website, New Design
We are working on a whole new website with a new design (note the new logo on top) in time for our 4th anniversary in March. The new 33 Dimensions website will include regular articles with valuable information for our customers as well as many more features on small businesses and news concerning the web design industry.
Kids Theatre News Central PA will be officially launching in the Spring, we currently have a sneak preview at KidsTheatreNews.com. Started by a theatre mom, the site will be a resource for busy theatre families, providing information about upcoming performances, auditions, local theatre companies, instructors, classes and camps, as well as resources and news pertinent to the industry.
There is lots going on at The Cornerstone Coffeehouse in February. There will be several salon gatherings, fund raisers, and great culinary cooking classes. In fact, we will soon be designing a website specifically for the Cornerstone Culinary Kitchen.
The Cornerstone regularly features an incredible selection of coffee and tea, and a grat lunch menu includes salads, hearty sandwiches, and savory soups.
We strive for the growth and success of all our customers!
These Are Great Days for Web Design
If there are two lessons that everyone should come away from 2013 learning about websites, I would say it would have to be these: 
Once you make the decision to establish a strong Web presence for your business, there are several steps that should be taken in order to build this online foundation. The process may seem a bit cumbersome or even overwhelming at first, and getting used to new technologies and fully realizing their benefits takes a little discipline and patience. However, while each business may vary on their specific requirements, the following ten items are general enough to be utilized by most business start-ups.
Happy Birthday to Diane!
