Web Development and Design

Whether you need a brand new website or an updated look to your existing site, we can help you get what you want and what you need to improve your online presence. Having a business online obviously starts with having a website. Having a website isn't just about exisitng on the web or looking cool to competition and customers. It's about getting you more business. If you're website isn't converting more customers or consistently providing fresh content, what is it doing? We can make sure your website is looking good, working well, and is optimized correctly so that when your potential customers are surfing the web they find you quickly and easily. Every website should have this basic goal: easy to find on search engines, easy to navigate through, easy on the eyes, easy to understand the content, and must deliver results (products or info) immediately to the end viewer.

The Mobile Web

Does Your Website Look it's Best on a Mobile Phone?
96.2% of Websites Don't...

Most websites are NOT mobile friendly. By the end of the year, 64% of web traffic will come from smart phone users, which means your website better be mobile-friendly. We mobilize websites and make sure they are ready for the coming trend.

If your website isn't mobile-ready, it can be difficult for the viewer to navigate or load the website.

When your website has been mobilized, it can function almost like a web application (smartphone app) and therefore translate the functions of your website to be more more mobile-friendly. This makes it easy for the viewer to look at your website and get the information they need. For example, potential customers can call you at the push of a button, find you with a GPS map feature, connect to your social networks and more. A mobile site operates like a smartphone app so your visitors will find the features intuitive.

Having a mobile-version of your website doesn't mean you are replacing your existing "desktop" website. It simply means having a mobile version so that when your viewers visit your site via their smartphones they are instantly directed to the mobile version of your site.

To learn more about getting a mobile-friendly version of your website Contact us HERE

So...What's the Difference Between a Regular Website and a Mobile Website?

The example to the right explains the visual difference between a regular (non-mobile website) and a mobile version of the same website. The content on both sites are the same. The main difference is how the site functions and how the navigation works. A mobile site uses all the same information and content as the regular (desk top) website does and converts into a more mobile-friendly version.

At any given moment around 64% of the people surfing the web are using their mobile phones. It's important to your potential viewers to find your website easy to navigate through and view from their mobile devices otherwise it's frustrating for them and will only encourage your viewers to leave your site.

When looking at a non-mobile website you may notice you must zoom in to read content or click on links correctly. With a mobile website there is no zooming in and unintentional link-clicking doesn't happen on a mobile website.

Articles, image galleries and videos are clear and crisp on a mobile website. It's easy for viewers to get addresses and phone numbers from a mobile website and store them in their Smartphones or better yet, call a business simply by clicking on the phone number on the mobile website.

Since more than half of web surfers search the net via their mobile phones, it's important that your website is mobile friendly. In other words, viewers shouldn't be squintting their eyes or zooming in really close just to read the information on your website. A mobile site should only provide content that works on mobile devices. Missing content or info that doesn't work will result in viewers leaving the mobile website (the last thing anyone wants). A mobile site is a mobile version of the 'desktop' (version) of a website. The mobile version may include features that allow the viewers who are using their mobile phones to surf the site to instantly call, get directions to a business or order food, for example. Mobile sites can also work like regular ecommerce sites (online stores). It's not uncommon to shop for things on a mobile phone these days, yet another reason to have a mobile friendly version of an ecommerce website. It's ideal to make checking-out easy on the customer.

Web Hosting...

If you want a website (mobile or desktop) you need hosting. Web hosting is digital space that anyone can "rent" for a period of time. That "rented" space is reserved for website files. Depending on how big and active a website is will depend on how much storage space and bandwidth is required from the hosting account. BlackWire has been providing hosting services since 2001.

Domains and Your DNS...

A domain name (URL) is the address to a website. The Domain Name System (DNS) is what translates domains into IP addresses. An IP address is a unique identifier for a web server and every time a domain name is looked up, the DNS service must translate the name into the corresponding IP address. The DNS system is, in fact, its own network. If one DNS server doesn't know how to translate a particular domain name, it asks another one, and so on, until the correct IP address is returned. When switching hosts it's required to update the DNS of the soon-to-be transferred domain.