Aaron Weiche

I've long been preaching the team effort of how great web design and great search engine optimization work together, each benefiting the other.  I'm of the opinion these days that you can't have one without the other.

SEOmoz posted the same thoughts today looking at 7 Cutting Edge Web Design Trends That Can Actually Improve SEO.

The opening graphic on the mesh of SEO and web design growing importance on today's web is a simple, but great one.

For too long, many web designers and SEO's have treated their skills on separate islands, but that's changing.  It takes great interface design and code to properly structure your contents value and position and vice versa. 

It takes these elements working together, in a crowded space to attract links, attention, traffic and then convert that attention into something more valuable.

I'm always a fan of web designers and businesses sharing their web design and redesign process with the masses.  The latest I ran across to do so was the BBC.

The BBC website redesign is coming later this month and they put out a great post on their thinking behind their most dramatic redesign since 2003.  You can see a slideshow of screenshots as well. In delivering massive amounts of content daily, the BBC outlined their goals with the redesign.  These items are all contributing to the goal of making their website as EASY to use, read and share as possible. 

Their website redesign improvements include:

• a fresh, updated design, with more space for the main stories of the day
• better use of video and images
• clearer and more prominent labeling and signposting of key stories, whether you are on the front page or a story page
• a better indication of which are the most recent headlines
• easier ways to share stories with others, for those who wish to

Also of note is that the BBC will be rolling out a North America version as well with the redesign, another step in improving the users experience by considering where the user is located.

Now that I have been eliminated from my fantasy football league, I can finally post on the NFL.com web design that I can't get enough of.

Every Sunday I sit down and watch one game on TV and interact with about 5 others to track my fantasy players at any given time via NFL.com.  The improvements the website unveiled prior to the 2009 season have made the site a favorite of mine. A great blend of layout, data and usability is in this web design.  Let me highlight just a few of the features:

Complete scoreboard on every page. Integrated into the header is every game's score, time and more.

Alerts and highlights. Not only does the scoreboard bar display the score, but it offers alerts for big plays, scoring plays and red zone plays. I can stay up on every game's big plays and scores at once.

The Game Center.  I can watch a game unfold with the Game Center. The game center page is a great blend of visual data, stats, play-by-play, player stats and more. It's the closest to complete detail you can get without video ... and they do post video highlights just minutes after many big plays.

Fan Interaction.  With areas for fans to both discuss the game as it unfolds and rate the game overall, NFL.com involves the heart of their product, the fan.  Although I don't partake, I do find some solid entertainment in the fan discussion. :)

I have only touched on a few of the great things the NFL's web design involves. It really is a complete web tool as it combines usability and feature rich content for any fan to learn, interact and enjoy.

My only gripe for the NFL on the technology side of things  ... get an App for the iPhone!  Major League Baseball has an incredible iPhone App that the NFL could learn from and even further their domination as the US's top sport.

I'm not on Target.com enough to know exactly when it took place, but in jumping on to scout some Christmas gifts today I noticed they finally went wide in the last month or so.

Target finally pushed its web design layout out to around 970 pixels wide, from the old school 725 pixels wide (for 800x600 browsers).

It looks as they're still working on expanding the interior content pages to the new width, but the header and navigation stay wide throughout the site.  Many of the product detail pages are in the wide format and offer great spacing, layout and usability.  They have improved the navigation and drop down menus too with the added real estate.

Walmart.com still sits at 725 pixels wide and I wonder what % of visitors they have with a browser resolution at 800x600.  Obviously Target's was low enough to make the move ... and probably has been for quite some time.

Back to the reason I visited Target.com, the 3 year old in my house is hoping for Santa to show up with this tool bench.

Five Technology is currently being featured through December 30th on Around Town TV, a Twin Cities cable program that airs on cable Channel 6.  Around Town TV has been a client for a number of years and is currently undergoing a redesign as well.  Here is the Five segment:

You can also catch the full episode (No. 16 for 2009) on their website.  Around Town has been featuring great local businesses for many years and you can catch host Carla Beaurline and the current episode multiple times weekly.

Our office had a lot of fun with the lights, camera  and action.  Thanks Carla and crew.

One of my favorite aspects of my profession is when I get to talk, present or interact with a group on web design or Internet marketing.  I recently had the fortune of speaking with marketing profesionals of community banks in Minnesota that belong to the ICBM on social media.

I enjoy bringing my passion, experiences and ideas to those that may not look at things the way I do.  There are so many areas to discuss when it comes to conducting business online that you can explore numerous interesting and engaging topics. The biggest thing I strive to do is bring clarity to the topic by providing strong analogies and great examples.

Most often I'm covering 3 specific areas in my speaking events:

1. Web design, specifically good, usable web design

2. Search Engine Optimization

3. Social Media & Small Business

If you have a business group or organization that would like a 30 minute to 2 hour, engaging, thought provoking presentation on these topics or other Internet marketing related areas, drop me a line (aaron@fivetechnology.com).  I love talk it, teach it, create it and bring clarity to it.

Our web design firm is seeing a solid increase in requests for mobile web design and that will only continue. Smashing Magazine wrote an excellent post on mobile web design tips and trends earlier this year that I wanted to touch on it.

A Different View For Mobile Web Design
It's not hard to notice that you have less screen to work with.  With this, you have to change how you look at web design for mobile devices like Blackberrys and iPhones.  This leads to the two most important aspects of mobile web design:

1. Clean - With mobile web design less is more.  Less graphics, no flash, clean code, semantic structure and plenty of white space is a must. Things need to center around simple with the mobile web and anything less than clean, will be ignored or not used.

2. Meaningful - Once you simplify and consider the limitations you quickly understand your mobile web content must be meaningful.  In stripping down the visuals and even the amount of content, you need to understand what will be most important for your mobile web users.  Store locations, directions, hours, recent news are all examples of what might be meaningful content.  Prioritizing your content and users needs will make your mobile website valuable and visited often.

Of course there are technical aspects that need to be considered from domain structure to mobile browser detection, but with a clean and mean approach you can create a mobile experience worth experiencing.

We are all aware of the real estate and construction decline over the past 2 years and their continued challenges. That said, Five Technology has seen a big boom in our business come from this industry this summer.

We've created some great websites for real estate brokers, Realtors, home builders, architects, remodelers and other services tied to real estate.  In working with these clients, we know they are continuing to succeed in a tougher market due to their expertise, knowledge and marketing dedication.  While their competition might be scaling back or even folding, they are improving their businesses and putting themselves in great position for the uptick.

Here are the links to these web designs and clients below:

• Iron River Construction & Remodeling
• Real Estate - Dick Rosen
• Real Estate Portal - Ranchline Network
• Buffalo, MN Realtor - Marci Weiche
• Reno Smith Architects of Colorado
• Custom Home Builder - Scott Breuer Homes

Guess what?  We're not done yet.

Just in time for the Fall Parade of Homes that started last week in the Twin Cities, we launched a new website for Scott Breuer Homes. 

Scott Breuer Homes is a Minnesota custom home builder and has one of their models features in the Fall Parade, Model #184.  The web design project offers a number of features to market their neighborhoods, model homes, remodeling and custom home building services.

Visit website:  http://www.scottbreuerhomes.com

From blueprint to final project, we completed a new web design for Reno Smith Architects in Coloroado.  I really enjoy clients that have phenomenal photography and Reno Smith is bursting with it.  Take a spin through their luxury home gallery and you'll see exactly what I mean.

Visit website: http://www.renosmith.com