Category: Web Design

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Mobile Website Redirection Tactics

I recently have been testing out mobile website design. Although there are some great free tools out there that automatically make a mobile website for you, I simply did not want THAT much content on my mobile site. I wanted a streamlined small interface with just my key services and phone links. PLUS I wanted the website files to reside on MY server, not over at Bing Local or over at Dudamobile.com.

I found a template at Dreamweaver to help me used JQuery to create a mobile website. You can check out the video and grab the files here. I was able to pretty easily customize the site and CSS, but really ran into a problem getting the site to show for mobile users.

Typically a “sniffing” script will be used to deliver content for mobile phones, but the scripts I found simply did not work. My Android smartphone still saw my desktop website. I found that the CSS declaration that identifies screen width and then redirects the used did not work for me, nor did several other php scripts. I ended up using a .htaccess redirect.

This is the code I used in the .htaccess file:

# mobile site redirection
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(.*).mccordweb.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/mobile/.*$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} “android|blackberry|iphone|ipod|iemobile|opera mobile|palmos|webos|googlebot-mobile” [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /mobile/ [L,R=302]

This worked for me. You can check out my mobile site at http://www.mccordweb.com/mobile/ but you’ll only see if on your smartphone, don’t got there with your browser. Mine is still a work in progress, but something that I am testing.

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Should You Use YouTube Embedded Video or Flash?

For web designers, it is a question that is troubling – should you embed a YouTube video in your website page or should you render the video into Flash. There are cases to consider using either.

Embed a YouTube Video

You want want to pull the “share” <iframe> video code to embed your website page if you have an active YouTube channel or want to drive traffic to it. Loading your video onto YouTube makes it shareable not only for your site, but for others as well. Additionally, YouTube makes sharing your video easy on a blog.

Render Your Video into Flash

This used to be the preferred way for a website designer to share a video on a web page. The super snappy load time and ability to control the size and frame design made it a preference, but not necessarily today in our world of smartphones. Remember iPhones still can’t read Flash. Using a Flash video solved the problem that some browsers USED To have with <iframe> code which is not a problem today.

My Preference

My preference is to use the <iframe> from YouTube for embedding video in website pages. Even just two years ago, the Flash route gave more compatibility, but in today’s world YouTube video embed code is definitely the way to go.

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Doctor Recommended Website Launched

Website completed for Doctor RecommendedWe’ve just launched a new website this past week and wanted to have you take a peek. You can view the site online at www.DocRecommended.com.

This new website is built on a WordPress backbone and is the SEO front end for an e-commerce store that sells acne products and anti-aging skin care products.

The shopping cart was managed and set up by Medallion Fulfillment & Logistics which is the firm which is handling the shipping and order fulfillment for the site owner.  The store site feeds directly into Medallion’s advanced ordering system.

This brand new site was just launched last week and has already gotten kudos for the design, ease of use, and informative information.

We invite you to take a look and take the Doctor Recommended skin care product store for a test drive. To find out more about our web design services, we invite you to find out more details about what we do.

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Working with WordPress Backbone Websites

I am in the process of finishing up and readying for launch a new website built on the back bone of WordPress. I have to say the website has turned out nice, but I wanted to share with you a few of my thoughts on using website built like this for search engine placement.

I think that if you want to save money on webmaster services, like the control of being able to add and update your content at will; a well designed website using WordPress has no comparison. But for people, like me, who are used to full and complete source code control for SEO purposes a website built with WordPress leaves much to be desired.

Professionals in my industry know that template based websites (and that is really what a WordPress built site is-  a custom template) do not allow you full source code control. Although the designers that have worked with me on building this site have really done a great job, there are instances when I wanted to name my uploaded images my own way; I wanted to custom design my site architecture and be able to change the names and structure easily if I needed to down the road; I wanted to add special design or style elements to my pages without having to create hacks to make the page work the way I wanted it to within the template constraints. In other words, there is an element of control, subtle though it may be, that is simply missing with a WordPress site versus a custom created, built from the source code up, website.

I guess with all new improvements to allow customers to control their own content there are trade offs, but I’m not sure that I want to lose that control for every customer.