PSPINC Official Company Blog

Website Design Tips for Non-Designers

Jan

25

Creating a visually appealing website is crucial for any business. But it can be a daunting task for a non-designer. Perhaps that’s why many businesses outsource this task to companies like Pacific Software Publishing Inc. (PSPINC) who have the expertise to not only design websites but build them as well. But there are a few things every business owner should know when it comes to website design.

Visual Hierarchy

website design outline drawn in a notebook with a phone sitting next to it

For a website, a visual hierarchy controls how the end-user receives information. In other words, it tells users what to focus on first. When looking at the sizing of content, whether it be text, images, or videos, our eyes immediately go to what’s biggest first. So, with that knowledge, it’s easy to see why enlarging content is the most effective way to tell users that it’s the most important part of the site. Additionally, you can use text and different colors to signify what’Fs important. For text, the use of headings, sub-headings, and body text tell users what to focus on first. And this, again, is because of the sizing.

As for colors, this can be a little trickier to get right because it’ll be different for every site. Of course, certain colors work well together, but a lot of this will come down to branding guidelines and streamlining the user’s experience. But a good rule of thumb is to have black text overlaying a white background. It’s usually the default choice in a lot of website builders and it’s the easiest to read. But adding other colors to the site’s overall design will be up to you, your brand, and what values your business wants to represent.

Readability

laptop open to a site called Swagger with Swagger-branded items placed next to it

There’s no point in anyone visiting a website if they can’t read anything that’s on the page because everything’s a different color, size, or font. It sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised at how many sites do this. Whatever color you use, keep your brand in mind. If your website looks completely different from your company’s logo and social media content, it shouldn’t be.

As for text on your site, sizes, fonts, line spacing, weight (bold or not), and colors should be consistent throughout all pages on your website. Regardless of color, here are a few things to keep in mind: use headings, sub-headings, and images to help break up the body text. Not only will this help improve your site’s overall SEO, but it’ll also increase the likelihood that users will stay on your webpage. After all, no one wants to just read a huge block of text online.

UX Design

UX design, for those who don’t know, stands for user experience and refers to how people interact with a product. From a web designer’s point of view, it includes keeping the overall look of the site consistent across all pages. This means that the navigation bar, color scheme, fonts, and writing style look the same on every page a user views. But before making it all look pretty, focus on usability first. By that, I mean, make sure that everything on the site works the way it’s supposed to. The design is moot if the site doesn’t work.

From a web development standpoint, you’ll have to use responsive design. What that usually entails is using percentages as opposed to pixels or inches when writing out your CSS code. However, large website builders have this already built-in for you, which makes it easier for you.

Mobile Optimization

Last but not least, is mobile optimization. Making sure your site’s optimized for mobile is increasingly important because more than half (almost 93%) of website traffic is mobile, according to Statista. But mobile optimization means more than just making sure your site’s accessible via a mobile device. Rather, it involves making sure that your website visitors have a user-friendly experience on your site when using their phones. What this means is making sure that users can still navigate the site well and that there isn’t content that’s being cut off.

A site that’s well optimized for mobile devices usually includes moving the main navigation bar to the side (opposed to the top) and resizing practically everything on your site. But like I mentioned earlier, that’s what responsive design is, which is what big website developers already have built in. However, get in the practice of manually checking anyway, just to be sure.

But if you still need help building and/or designing your website, contact PSPINC for all your web development and design needs!

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#blog #businesstips #color #design #mobile #mobileoptimization #pacificsoftwarepublishing #responsivedesign #smallbusiness #text #tips #userexperience #uxdesign #visualhierarchy #webdesign #webdevelopment #website #websitedesign #websitedevelopment

PSPINC What's New Newsletter Vol. 99 "Authenticating companies with domain names"

Jan

20

Why do companies, organizations, and sole proprietors have websites with their own domain names? Have you ever wondered why you need a unique domain name for your website? The answer is simple. It’s to drive awareness towards the existence of your company.

There are many ways to share information about your company. There are numerous social media platforms like Facebook, Yelp, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and many more to do just that. However, it’s hard to authenticate your company’s presence just on these platforms. It’s easy to create a page on any of these social networks. Anyone can do it, and they can do it for free. So, it’s unfortunately not clear proof that the company really exists just from social media profiles alone.

A domain name, on the other hand, belongs to the company or organization that registered it. No one else can have it because of that. Additionally, SSL certification guarantees the company’s existence while also encrypting communications. To authenticate the information you have on Facebook, Yelp, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and any other platforms you use, you’ll need to operate a website with your own domain name. So, naturally, you should also run your email on the same domain.

While Gmail is convenient, it goes without saying that it’s more trustworthy to use your domain name in your email. But it’s also useful to note that you can use your domain name for your email but still use Gmail to send and receive emails. If you have any questions about getting a domain name and creating a website, please contact Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. at any time.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.
info@pspinc.com
https://pspinc.com
1404 140th Place NE, Bellevue, WA 98007 USA
800-232-3989
425-957-0808

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#authenticity #business #businesstips #company #domainnames #domains #email #facebook #gmail #instagram #linkedin #smallbusiness #socialmedia #socialnetworks #sslcertification #tech #technology #twitter #webdevelopment #website #yelp #youtube

PSPINC What's New Newsletter Vol. 98 "Using Forms on Your Website with Informakers

Jan

13

Have you ever wanted to collect information from your customers on your website? There are many times when you would like to receive your customers’ input. And many do so by creating a survey or an inquiry form. Without input from your customers, your website is just a medium for transmission and reporting.

Since its beta release in 2011, Pacific Software Publishing Inc. (PSPINC) has been operating Informakers, a system to collect information from your customers by easily creating forms on your website. For anyone with a little HTML knowledge, it’s easy to use. If you simply don’t have the time to create your own, we can create and design one for you in a short amount of time.

For example, we created the Contact Us page on our site using Informakers. This service is available for $8/month but is free for customers that already use our hosting services.

For more information about Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.'s hosting services, please visit our Dreamersi page.

If you have any questions about building your business on the Internet, from domain name acquisition to website creation, please feel free to contact us.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.
info@pspinc.com
https://pspinc.com
1404 140th Place NE, Bellevue, WA 98007 USA
800-232-3989
425-957-0808

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#blog #businesstips #form #forms #informakers #pspinc #smallbusiness #webdevelopment #website

Custom Branding QR Codes Feature is now Available on Click It Audio

Jan

4

We are thrilled to announce that we've released an all-new feature to Click It Audio that allows users to add a logo or image to their QR code. If you already have an account with Click It Audio, all you need to do is:

Login to Click It Audio

Click the QR Code icon

Upload your image under "Add Logo Image"

Resize your image using the logo image scale

Save your custom options, if desired

Download your QR code

What is Click It Audio?

Click It Audio

allows you to grab the attention of your visitors by embedding audio in your website or by scanning a QR code on any print collateral. Upload an audio file and grab a small code snippet to embed it into your website. For QR codes, Click It Audio will generate a dynamic QR code which you can then download and use for your business card, menu, or any print collateral.

Try it out for yourself! Sign up for FREE at Click It Audio Click It Audio

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

The term "QR Code" is a registered trademark of DENSO WAVE INCORPORATED.

#audio #audioembed #blog #businesstips #clickitaudio #embedaudio #pspinc #qrcode #qrcodes #seo #smallbusiness #technology #webdesign #websites

PSPINC What's New Newsletter Vol. 89 "Vertical Application Development"

Nov

11

Have you ever heard of the term "vertical application development"? In the world, there are computer applications for everyone, such as word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations. These are called horizontal applications. In short, these horizontal applications are application programs that can be used regardless of industry, and are also called general-purpose programs.

Do you know what kind of program is a vertical application? It means a program that is developed and used for each industry or business. For example, factory machine control, distribution systems, warehouse management, hotel reservation systems, etc., you can't just buy a program that is sold to the public and use it. Therefore, software for such vertical markets needs to be developed from scratch.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. has a long history of developing vertical programs using Internet servers and the Internet as a communication environment. Online shopping is a given, but we have also developed systems for hotel reservation systems, agricultural product shipment management, parking voucher issuance, car rental reservation systems, and online ordering of printed materials.

If you think your business can be automated, we would like to talk to you. We believe that vertical applications can save you time and money and are a great return on investment.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.
info@pspinc.com
https://pspinc.com
1404 140th Place NE, Bellevue, WA 98007 USA
800-232-3989
425-957-0808

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#BusinessTools #SmallBusiness #VerticalApplications #WebApplication #WebDevelopment

PSPINC What's New Newsletter Vol. 88 "A product that everyone will like"

Nov

4

When you are thinking of creating a new product, it is natural to think about who is going to use the product. The market is the target audience that is likely to buy it. The value of a product is often expressed in terms of what percentage of the market it has. This is another way to advertise the value of a product, not by its function, but by its market share.

Needless to say, when we design a product, we target the one with the largest market size. Is this the right way to think? For example, when considering the U.S. market, there is a way to create a product that can be used by anyone living in the U.S. and make it known to a large number of people, but in reality, the larger the market, the more difficult it becomes to advertise.

If this is the case, it is more reasonable to market to a limited number of people even if the product itself is the same. For example, a service that targets only Japanese speakers in the U.S. is a small market, but one that is easy to identify. Many people in the U.S. come from Mexico and Central America, so it might be a good idea to market to Spanish speakers.

There is also a way to market based on race. In this case, marketing only to Caucasians is likely to be controversial in the U.S. right now, so it may be a problem. However, I don't think there is a problem with services that target minorities. We need to stop thinking that the bigger the market, the better, and start thinking about marketing to distinct groups.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.
info@pspinc.com
https://pspinc.com
1404 140th Place NE, Bellevue, WA 98007 USA
800-232-3989
425-957-0808

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#BusinessDevelopment #MarketShare #ProductDevelopment #Products #SmallBusiness

Employee Spotlight: Meet Marcus

Oct

19

At PSPINC, we pride ourselves in offering our customers the best in customer support. This is thanks to our amazing support staff. In this series, we will highlight and showcase a number of those friendly faces who are standing by to take your call and/or email, help with your IT problems, and assist with your online solutions.

Meet Marcus

Marcus is one of our Support Technicians. We sat down and asked him a number of questions to get to know him better!

What do you do at PSPINC?
I help customers with questions or problems they are facing with email, their website as well as some general PC questions.

What does a typical day on the job look like for you?
We go through emails and phone calls from customers to solve their problems. If needed, we report issues to our R&D department.

How did you first learn about PSPINC?
I learned about the position at PSPINC through a friend.

What’s your favorite part about working here?
Helping customers troubleshoot and fix their issues.

How has PSPINC helped you in your career development?
I have learned a lot about how things work in the background for websites and email.

What are three words to describe PSPINC?
Diverse, supportive, and welcoming.

Before working at PSPINC, what was the most unusual or interesting job you’ve ever had?
I worked as a game tester. It was a very good experience working within a big company and being able to play games before they came out.

What advice do you have for prospective candidates?
Searching and investigating issues on your own will teach you a lot. However, you can always ask your colleagues if you have questions.

What are some of your hobbies?
Watching American football.

What is your favorite food?
Pho

What is your favorite movie?
Die Hard and The Lord of the Rings.

Where would you like to travel to?
Arizona to see the beautiful desert.

Any other random facts you would like to share?
I also like playing video games.

We hope you enjoyed getting to know Marcus today! If you are experiencing any problems with your website or email call Marcus at 1-800-232-3989. He is standing by, ready to help you out.

Do you like what you heard about PSPINC? Check our open positions, we are always looking for talented individuals looking to fast track their career in technology!

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#CustomerSupport #EmployeeSpotlight #Employees #blog #business #businesstips #customerservice #itsupport #pspinc #sales #smallbusiness #tech #technology #website

PSPINC What's New Newsletter Vol. 72 "How do you deal with bad reviews?"

Jul

15

Vol. 72

The Internet has surpassed media such as television and newspapers in terms of being seen by many people. It has become commonplace to use social media and other mediums to promote a company. When you use social media in this way, you have to understand that it is not a one-way platform like TV or traditional print material.

What I mean by that is with social media, not only the sender but also the receiver can write comments and evaluations. Naturally, some of the comments and feedback are positive (favorable), but there is also negative (unfavorable). Naturally, you would want to erase the bad comments. However, there is no value in a social media platform that can erase all bad reviews. Social media is a place to create opportunities for those who send out information to improve if there is room for improvement.

Often, the first response to a bad review or a problem is to defend oneself: "That's not true,” or "We don't have a problem.” This is the same as deleting bad reviews, which can cause what is often called "flaming." When a flare-up occurs, the story expands to something completely different from the facts, this should never happen.

If you receive a bad review, the right thing to do is to apologize to the other person. Even if you did what you thought was correct, if you made the other person feel bad, the proper way of handling it is to apologize. After that, it is necessary to conduct an actual investigation to clarify what went wrong. Even if it turns out to be a misunderstanding on the part of the other party, don't just say, "That's it.”

I believe that bad publicity is not always a bad thing. If you are in business, it is very difficult to be liked by all people. Try to understand where the other person is coming from, and think about how to respond in a way that is understandable to them and you, so that a response will not cause a flame war.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.
info@pspinc.com
https://pspinc.com
1404 140th Place NE, Bellevue, WA 98007 USA
800-232-3989
425-957-0808

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#Business #CustomerFeedback #CustomerReviews #CustomerSupport #Marketing #OnlineReviews #PSPINC #Reviews #SmallBusiness #SocialMedia

PSPINC What's New Newsletter Vol.71 "The grass is always greener next to you...it's not."

Jul

8

Vol. 71

If you look at the pages of any company website, you will find only good things about them. This is because they believe that marketing is to always make yourself look big, the way a blowfish swells up to make itself look bigger when it meets an enemy. They try to attract customers by constantly saying that they can do this and that. However, I think that they have been doing this too much lately and have lost sight of the scale of their business, the scope of what they can do, and the characteristics of their company.

No matter how much you try to look good and big, there are limits to what you can do. So, instead of trying to make yourself look big, I think it is important to market the business that you are best at. What is it that you do best right now? Does your website do a good job of describing it?

It's hard to develop a broad and shallow scope of business because the market is too big. No matter the size of your company, it doesn't take much money or time to focus your marketing efforts on one specific point. The first thing to do is to think about what your company's strengths are. The smaller the scope, the better. The Internet market is huge, so no matter how small your frame of reference is, it will be enough for the market size.

Once you have decided on this, create a website to make it known to as many people as possible. Also, be sure to follow up with social networking sites and blogs related to this point of focus. If you are successful, then you can expand your target audience little by little. If you spread a big net from the beginning, you will not catch anything and it will be difficult to continue.

Create a focused website at a reasonable price, give us a call. Marketing is the place to start, ignoring the noise around you and showing what you're good at.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.
info@pspinc.com
https://pspinc.com
1404 140th Place NE, Bellevue, WA 98007 USA
800-232-3989
425-957-0808

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#Business #Marketing #PSPINC #SmallBusiness #Website

Benefits of Business Blogging

Jul

6

A blog is defined by Wikipedia as a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries.

So we know what a blog is, but now the question is - why should you as a business owner blog? There is more than one reason that your business should have a blog. So let's talk about the benefits of business blogging (I love alliteration)!

Make a personal connection with your customers

We are all looking for that edge that sets us apart from our competitors. One thing that we absolutely value at PSPINC is the personal customer support we offer. If you talk with one of our support technicians you will learn their name and be able to contact them easily again in the future.

Blogging is another way to establish that connection. It allows the author to speak in an informal manner to their customers and create a relationship of sorts. If a customer follows your blog, they may be more likely to call and request the blogger by name. Think of it as a way of laying the foundation for future lead generation and sales.

Good for search engine optimization

We’ve talked a lot about search engine optimization in the past because it is so important to get your website seen. Blogging has the potential to be a big part of that for a number of reasons.

Provides fresh content on your website which tells search engines that your site is actively being updated. This encourages search engines to crawl your website more frequently.

Blogging allows you to use keywords that your customers are likely to search to find your website. The more those keywords are organically found on your website through blog content, the more likely it is that a search engine will serve your site to your customers.

Allows you to reach a specific audience with each post. At PSPINC we offer numerous different types of services, from web design to web and mobile application development to technical support. Often each service caters to different types of customers. The keywords one type of customer uses in search engines to find you may be different from another. Blogging allows you to fill the gaps and cast the widest net possible.

An avenue for showcasing your company culture and news

When a customer is deciding whether or not to do business with you, or a potential job candidate is trying to determine if your company is the right fit, the company blog lets them know what you are all about. It’s an invaluable tool to share company culture, latest news, as well as brag a bit about your many accomplishments!

Those are just a few of the many benefits of business blogging. There are many blogging platforms out there that make it really easy to get started. We even have our own platform called Bloguru. Bloguru is totally ad-free, can be embedded on your website, and presents your content to Bloguru’s loyal and established user base to get extra eyes on your content. In fact, the blog you are reading right now was published to Bloguru. Did we mention it is totally free to sign up?

If you have any questions on blogging or need help getting started, please contact us by phone at 1-800-232-3989, by email at contact@pspinc.com, or by our online contact form.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#blog #bloguru #businessblog #customers #pspinc #seo #smallbusiness #techsupport #webdesign #webdevelopment

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PSPINC Official Company Blog

freespace

Website Design Tips for Non-Designers

Visual Hierarchy

Readability

UX Design

Mobile Optimization

PSPINC What's New Newsletter Vol. 99 "Authenticating companies with domain names"

PSPINC What's New Newsletter Vol. 98 "Using Forms on Your Website with Informakers