The answer I believe is to focus on what your website visitors, who are potential new clients and existing clients will want. How much website animation is too much is a very good question. Having no animations is a good thing but then again, having some animation on your website can be effective visually.  Too much website animation can weigh down the speed of a web page too which can affect search engine rankings. Having some animation like light text animation can be a very nice touch on a website. Just that any website page animations should be light weighted and fit the need for visual effect while not irritating visitors who want to read your website content.

For example, if you want  your text and graphic to fade in from the left or right when a visitor scrolls down, it can be an interesting way to show your content. That said, you do not want the first paragraphs doing this based on scrolling, otherwise the visitor is presented with a blank white screen and may not scroll down to make the text and graphic content appear.  The search engines will also frown on that.

For this reason, the very first content of images and text should either not be animated or it should automate on page load and load quickly. Then the content following may be able to animate based on scrolling.

That said, the goal is to not make reading your content irritating to the visitor or they may just leave your website and you have lost a potential customer.

My advice is to go static with the content and maybe have a fixed background image so when you scroll down, the background remains constant but gives the visitor something interesting and non invading when they read your content and view your web page images.

That stated, there are times when animating makes sense, but it should be used sparingly in my professional opinion.

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This is likely one of the top questions that a small to medium sized business owner has. After all, everyone has to think about their budget.

Usually, it is a very time consuming task. Going from one web designer’s website to another, filling out a quote form for an estimate based on many factors. Are you getting good price quote or are you getting a price based in what the web designer thinks he can get from you?

Website projects for small and medium sized business can vary in an enormous way. Any where from $500 offshore designers to $1000 to $20,000 plus. It is true that the specifics of what a client wants can vary, but if you want a website without advanced custom developed applications, like large corporate entities may require, why is their big differences in pricing and rates?

One reason is the proven experience of the website designer. This is worth more than anything to your business.  Also, is the web designer only quoting on website creation and graphics? Do they take in consideration for Search Engine Optimization, web hosting services and ongoing website support, maintenance and website security?

Canada Web Pro is owned and operated by a Canadian website designer with experience since 1996, in web design, SEO and web hosting. Great looking websites that really are all- inclusive to having a successful website for your business. With many years of website design services, Canada Web Pro knows what it takes and costs to be online. My pricing model has very little guessing involved and is fully transparent for 90% of most small business needs and wants. And if you need anything additional, it can be extra quoted.

Canada Web Pro has a very transparent pricing model that is fair for just about any budget, starting at $899CAD all inclusive. Our website design packages are affordable and reflect the web services and level of experience offered to your business. All our pricing is available for anyone to view 24/7. Completely transparent.

View various website project options and pricing here.

Have questions? Contact me for a chat.

Don Gerrity
Website Designer | Owner
Canada Web Pro (Webnetave.com)

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Canada Web Pro is a London Ontario web design service for all of Canada and is managed and owned by myself, Don Gerrity, a Website Services Specialist with 29 years experience in the web services industry in Canada. When the Internet was first becoming a mainstream service, all the way back in 1996 when we were using 14.4 modems making all that noise, I was there building and hosting small business websites under a web hosting company I started called Miditech. Back then, businesses were unsure about going online. Those that did go online starting feeling the momentum and power that the Internet would one day become. I operated and managed Miditech until 2008. I now am focused on small to medium sized business website design services that offer all the web hosting options as well. A different approach and focus.

Over the years, large corporations started to setup shop offering extremely low rates. Along with that came a deficit in the service side of the equation for website design services. Many large web host firms also offer a website option but it is very basic and does not take into account Search Engine Optimization. The other thing to realize is that most of these do-it-yourself online site builder services are based on template websites. And the thing is, you pay for a subscription to use the website, but you do not actually own your website. Your website will not be as unique as maybe it should be for your small business either. These site shave their place in the web industry for SOHO businesses but eventually as the business grows, more will be required.

That is what my website services are all about. You will have no call centres to deal with at Canada Web Pro. Instead you will have a reliable and highly experienced website designer that keep your clients in sharp focus. Taking care of all your webIT tech for you. A person you can build a long term business relationship with. At each communication, I will know you and your business and goals and you will know me because I have earned your trust.

Since 1996, things have radically changed online. Mobile phones have surpassed desktops as the most popular choice and desktops and laptops are still being used. Your website must be responsive to different mobile device screen sizes and even TVs. Every website I design for clients is mobile ready.

That is where Canada Web Pro was born. My website services are not mainly a web host company, although I offer all the web hosting services you can image. The business is focused on your small medium business and is not a product commodity based model. Instead, I sell my personal service and experience backed by highly reliable web technology. And you focus on running your business. Nor is Canada Web Pro a corporate web firm. The pricing model reflects what you will receive; specialized Canada Web Design and management services for SOHO startups, small business and medium sized businesses.

You will find me one of the most accessible web professionals for your business by phone, email, and text. I become your WEB GUY. As soon as you visit my website you will see there is something different about my service.

Based in London Ontario Canada and serving any business within the borders of Canada, you will receive personal service. Distance is not an obstacle.

As a small to medium sized business looking for a new website designer or web hosting provider, why not contact me. I may just save you money, and provide you with exceptional and very personal service for your small business website, SEO, Email and web hosting.

Don Gerrity
Website Designer | Owner
Canada Web Pro (Webnetave.com)
Based in London Ontario. Serving Canada Wide.

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Everyday many businesses are approached by SEO Firms that are ‘promising’ search engine optimization and top ranking if you will just pay them thousands of dollars. Some offer a guarantee that they can help you achieve top ranking in the search engines. You really need to be careful when you hear such extravagant statements like this when it is tied directly to your hard earned money.

Do not misunderstand me in making this statement. I am NOT saying that Search Engine Optimization on your website design is not important, because it is actually very important. What I am saying is that you must realize that Google, for example, tries to give searchers the most relevant search results to the keyword phrases that they enter when searching. That is the whole purpose and is the reason why they are the number one search engine right?

Yet, the fact remains that most keyword phrases are now saturated because basically almost every business has a website now. And so, gone are the days of just using keyword phrases to get highly ranked.

Link popularity is another method the search engines use in determining if  website receives top ranking. If your website is linked from popular websites, that likely means that your website service is more valid and so it helps boost your ranking. Then came those trying to get around the Google guidelines, who started making link farms just to get ranked highly.

It worked for while and these SEO marketers were guaranteeing ranking because of what they were doing in ‘tricking’ the engines into believing the websites were being linked from popular websites. And well, it was working. It worked so well at first, that SEO marketers charged big money to businesses to get that high ranking position. Businesses spent more money than it cost to even build their website! They were so successful they even started guaranteeing ranking results! With such a guarantee, businesses paid the high cost and low and behold; they were ranked highly and then signed off! Businesses seen how highly ranked they were and paid the money happily in fact. And the SEO firm went off to approach the next business to sell their services too.

AND THEN…UH OH!

Google seen how this scamming was going on and this trickery by SEO marketers attempting to get around the engine rules. Google started putting an end to that rather quickly by updating their search algorithm. These Black Hat SEO methods were strongly discouraged and frowned on by Google. And so, they started penalizing all sites that were using these shady methods of getting around Googles goals!  All of a sudden, websites that were highly ranked who were found using these Black Hat SEO, unethical methods, found that they were not just bumped down in ranking; they were penalized huge! Their ranking dropped right off the map! All that paid money to SEO firms guaranteeing results – gone. Wasted. In fact, it really hurt their businesses and it took quite a while to recover from being penalized.

This is just ONE example of what is called a Black Hat SEO method. An unethical method of providing SEO services for businesses. There are many unethical methods still being used this very day. You must be careful when choosing an SEO provider as some SEO firms state that they “guarantee” you a specific page rank. The truth is that only the search engine provider decides who will be placed in a specific ranking and they accomplish this by adjusting their engine algorithm rules on an ongoing basis.

In fact, google changes it’s algorithm over 600 times per year! Just try to keep up with that! If a Search Engine Optimization firm finds a “loop hole” in the algorithm to help their customers get ranked highly and they get the customer ranked as they said, the customer is happy and pays the provider what is owed.

However, when the search engine finds out about the “loop hole” and corrects it in their algorithm (and they WILL!), that business has a big problem. Why? Because all websites that used that Black Hat SEO (unethical) tactic will suddenly find that their website is not only not visible for what they paid, but the search engine may even penalize the domain and it can be hard to come back from such an occurrence and regain visibility again.

My point is this: Don’t be ripped off!

There are lots of SEO firms out there. Are they all bad providers? Well, no. Yet, how can you tell? Realize that with some of these firms, all they want to do is take as much money from customers as possible, knowing full well this is the truth. And chances are they do not manage your web services or website design and hosting – so they just move on to the next customer desperate to become visible online and leave the last paying customer in the dust to deal with the next search algorithm rule change.

Using White Hat SEO & A Long Term Strategy Is Best

It is best to see what Google says you should do to reach your intended marketplace. Using their own methods will give the best results in the long term. The struggle is their algorithm changes very very often and they do not publish what their algorithm changes are. So what can we do to help increase visibility online?

On Page SEO Methods – On Page SEO is altering your web page(s) text content to include keywords and keyword phrases that searchers may use in trying to find your kind of business offerings. This does not mean overusing keywords or keyword phrases either, because that will have a negative effect as Google may see doing this as a way to surpass their rules. Also, the content should read smoothly to readers and make sense. It is not about jamming as many keywords onto a web page. It is altering sentence structures to include he keywords and phrases, while keeping the content completely readable to website viewers. It is known that the search algorithms can actually detect when a reading seems to be “off” by use of a keyword.

The More Web Pages Your Website Has, The More Focused Your SEO Can Be – Using too many keywords per page will work against the search algorithm. Knowing this, it is best to have lots of useful content on your website for the search engines to scan. Each page using Whitehat SEO methods based on specific keyword and content your potential customers may search with to find your type of business.

How Often Does Your Website Content Change? – You see, if Google sees that things are changing when they scan your website periodically, they think this is a very positive thing. To them, it means that someone is actually minding the online website business and so that gives your business website more weight as being legit over a static, hardly ever changing website. Website updating and content updating play a big part in being ranked better.

The Power Of LOCAL – Target marketing is what this is all about. And if you focus on more LOCAL target markets with your On Page SEO, you will find that you get the best results. The pool of other competing websites locally is less than on a national or international scale as well.

Canada Web Pro uses only White Hat SEO methods with a long term approach. Our affordable website design packages included a set number of hours of website updating after launch date. Things do not end with the website designed and launched. You need to be sure your website keeps up with the current trends and each new web page has an ON PAGE SEO service applied.

Instead of paying a SEO firm thousands and thousands of dollars, not knowing ‘how’ they are going about ‘optimizing’ your website, you may be better off spending money on adding web pages to your website. Add a blog and start writing content about  your business services and sharing your expertise. Keep updating the website weekly. Add a new article. New products. Discuss services. This not only has a positive effect with the search algorithms but it also has a great effect on your customers! They too will see that you are minding the website. And those businesses that do not treat their website as just a static advertisement, but instead treat their website as a new business location are the most successful in reaching and gaining new customers.  Then add the element of utilizing social media and you can have a winning combination to help your business thrive online. Keep looking at the long term – not the short term. That is the best approach.

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When it comes to offline business the majority of small to medium sized businesses have systems and processes in place to protect their valuable business assets. Yet, when it comes to their Web Assets – are they really protected? Small business needs a website disaster recovery plan too!

Being in the Web Services industry for 29 years now I have seen some amazing things which most business owners would never think possible to happen regarding their online Web Assets. Losing Domain Names with no way to get them back, complete loss of website designs and content, and I have even seen some very shady web service providers holding their customers ransom to get back the web assets they bought from them! Then you have shady Domain Name Registration service providers that look up Domain Name contact information and send out “Invoice looking Renewal Notices” when in reality they are forms that if signed, transfer the Domain Name from their current provider to theirs, and then they lock them in.

Some big mistakes by business owners that I have seen are regarding one of their most important Web Assets; their Domain Name Registration. A business Domain Name is a business asset of such importance because it is almost as important as their business registered name offline ! It is a Web Asset that customers KNOW and use as part of their very business branding. It needs to be a very secure Asset.

The problem is most business owners are very busy people right? And not everyone is Internet savvy to a degree that is required to managing Web Assets properly. A proper website disaster recovery plan seems to fall behind on their online business strategy many times. After all, that is why businesses like mine exist. If Domain Name Registrations are not renewed on time – that can cause big issues. Sometimes very expensive ones! sometimes it can mean LOSS of the Domain Registration as someone else registers the Domain Name! The problem comes when a business trusts someone who says they know what they are doing – but who actually do not even understand how important a Domain Name is to a business!

As a business owner, do they know who the contacts on the Domain Name Registration are actually set as? I have had potential customers come to me for my expertise in a panic because the person who registered their Domain Name, placed all contact information and email addresses in their own personal name – and not the business owner’s name. In effect, it becomes a not so easy process to regain access to control over the Web Asset because the Registrar must abide to the contact information on the Domain Name.

I have also seen where a web host company just completely goes out of business and the lights suddenly “go out”. It happens. Web providers are businesses too. We see this happens in offline businesses right? But for some reason many business owners do not consider what will happen to their Web Assets if their provider ends up in this position? Without a proper Web Disaster Recovery Plan it could mean a huge disaster on their hands. This can be avoided!

There are things that can be done to protect your Business Web Assets!

#1 Item Of Importance: Keep Your Own Backups!

Keeping plans in place to keep your website, online databases and web files backed up on an ongoing basis is important. Most business owners would say. “But why? My provider backs up my data.”

Yes, most web host providers do backup their servers in case of a disaster, hardware failure or server failure. They can restore data onto a new server. However, this is usually a server wide backup to restore and not individual account holder restoration of data; especially on a shared hosting plan which most small businesses host their website with. So, web providers tell customers that their data is safe and secure and backed up.  It is true. They are doing due diligence in backing up your web data (well most providers are, that is.)

Yet, small business owners need to understand that backups can FAIL. And then where is the security? The Terms and Conditions fine print will clearly show that web hosts NEVER GUARANTEE THEIR BACKUPS!  My own Terms and Conditions of Hosting for Canada Web Pro (Webnetave.com), states the very same thing. Why? Because that is just the truth of the matter. As a web host provider, is due diligence is being done to protect my customer’s data? ABSOLUTELY! That said and being done, even backups can fail. The bottom line is that ultimately, it is the responsibility of the business owner to protect their Web Data Assets.

If you do not manage your website files yourself, then you need to have a discussion with the web provider, or web designer, to be sure you have access to keep backups yourself. With my company Canada Web Pro (Webnetave.com), this is something I planned into my Web Services. On shared hosting plans we use cPanel and one nice features of cPanel is that it has the ability to back up all your web assets (websites and even databases) with a one click tool. Customers have access to keep backups and it is so important to have as a business owner. WordPress websites that we design and manage have an export tool for their website. It is one of the great things about WordPress (there are many more though! – that is for another article!) Now whether these tools are being used is another question. Canada Web Pro does provide the tool to do so though. I also decided in setting up my Web Services business to offer a fully managed service as well. Yes, the price is higher for such a service. But a big part of the manged services is providing the customer with backups and keeping their Web Assets safe and protected as much as possible – without breaking the bank.

Canada Web Pro also offers every website design customer an option to add a CodeGuard Automated Website Daily Backup service. Most of our Website Design Packages include this service because it is vitally important to protect your online assets.

What If Your Business Is Already In A Panic Emergency Mode Because You Think You Have Lost Your Web Assets?

Are you in a bad situation right now? Has your web designer disappeared and you have no way to access your website? Or worse yet, has your website disappeared and your email is offline for days on end with no resolution in sight? Does it mean you have to start all over?

You are not alone. It happens! NOW…… take a deep breath a moment. I may be able to help you with solutions to get you back in business in an urgent emergency care mode.

Why not ask Canada Web Pro for some help? Canada Web Pro can certainly look into the feasibility of recovering as much of your web assets as possible. Even if your website was hosted with another web firm, there is still a good chance that we may be able to retrieve the design of your website and reintegrate with a new website for you.

Canada Web Pro Can:

• Work QUICKLY and in an emergency urgent mode of operation.
• Investigate what is possible to recover and what is not.
• Put together a quick interim plan of action to get your online services back up and running with an interim website, domain name DNS management and email restorations.
• Once the interim web presence stage is completed, Canada Web Pro will provide you with a detailed proposal for your website services and web assets, including a Website Disaster Recovery plan to be put in place.

And we will not charge you over priced rates when you have been hit with a hard punch either! Normal rates will apply!

And , if you are happy with the results, please consider Canada Web Pro as your new web service provider. Canada Web Pro is eager to earn your trust and we can put into place a proper disaster recovery plan so that you do not have to go through this ordeal again.

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