John Hoyle - Web Design and Consulting

This is just to let everyone know that I have updated both my main business website, www.Hoyle-Consulting.com ,  and my larger secondary site, www.SmallWebMaster.com.  These two sites are designed to promote my Salem, Oregon based web design and services business.

Remember that I also own and manage www.ALowCostWebSite.com, a full services domain registration service.  On that site, I provide very low cost dot-com domain names with prices starting as low as $3.99 for a “.com” and standard pricing of $7.99 and $9.99 for all other domain names.

ALowCostWebSite.com also provides hosting, server space, Email and E-Fax and other web based services.

I will be soon adding a company newsletter that discusses web design and Internet services in detail.  I will also be offering free EBooks that cover a multitude of subjects.

My next big project is to finish up my latest website project which covers Pacific Northwest lifestyles.  I am also establishing business relationships with several local artists to not only promote their own work, but also to provide illustrations and other art work for my future websites.

I expect to have a very busy year with a lot of growth.  My websites for Stephanie Stamos and Dick Kelly will see additions and changes over the next few months.  I will continue to provide website and marketing work for Marco at Compass Lending Corporation and some other Southern California real estate based companies.

It goes without saying that if you know of anyone looking to put together a new website or needs some help with an existing site, feel free to have them call or email me.

Products for Web Designers at Ebay

It’s become clear to me that 2008, besides being an election year, will also be the beginning of a major change in web design.  I want all my clients to know that I am on top of it all and am ready to live with the advancements that are ahead of us.

Quite frankly, web design has become rather boring over the past two years.  Every category has fallen into a rut.  Readers are becoming bored with seeing the same formats over and over, and are leaving sites within seconds after entering them.

Here’s where web design is heading over the next 18 months:

• Clean, easy to read, open designs.  More information, less clutter.
• Websites than can be read equally well on mobile phones and big screen monitors.
• Web pages are readable and look good when printed on plain paper - without ads.
• Home pages that make you want to go deeper into the site, not click away.
• Less of “look at how wonderful we are” to “here’s what we can do for you.”
• Interesting content, not just pictures of tall buildings or receptionists doing their job.
• Site maps that lead you to what you are looking for, not just content tables.
• Programming and design that is clean and highly functional.  No more FrontPage.
• The end of Flash pages that take forever to load and are irritating to viewers.
• Directory sites that actually lead to something besides spam pages.
• Search engines that actually sort by subject and location - why do we get Australian mortgage companies when we want a real estate office in Phoenix? 

Hoyle Consulting Services and the SmallWebMaster.com are already moving in this direction.  If you want a clean looking website that is not only inexpensive and easily maintained, then send me an email.  I’ll be happy to discuss how we can upgrade your old website or create a new one that you will be proud to show off to your friends and clients.

As many of my friends and family know by now, I have always put my clients’ website development and maintenance first.  As a result, I’ve put up a few temporary sites for my own business that have not shown very well.  Not only that, but I’ve let them languish and get rusty while I’ve gone on to work on other projects.

I’ve known for a long time that I wanted to incorporate Web 2.0 functions into my new sites.  The best way to do that is to make a daily blog part of the package.  But blogging has a downside and its own traps that most web owner and developers don’t discover until they are heavily invested in a site.

What I’ve decided to do with my newest sites, for both my own business and those of my clients, is to create a two part website that has both a static format and a blog function.  Using this approach allows my client to go in either or both directions.

Check out this new format and let me know what you think.  The blog is based on one of the most functional WordPress themes and can be designed with unlimited colors, graphics and options.  For those readers who are not familiar with WordPress, let’s just say that it may not be the “Cadillac” of widely available software, but it is at least a “Toyota” in terms of dependability, function, options, and ease of use.

Feel free to contact me if you would like me to upgrade your current personal or business website.  If you don’t have a site, let me provide a domain name, server space, and design services for you.  You’ll find that in most cases (there are always exceptions) I can do everything bigger companies can do, but do it cheaper, faster and with more flexibility.

Let me hear from you…