Dear Friend,

Thinking about a website for your business? Or do you have a website
that is in need of work? We can help!

Greetings from Castleton Interactive Web Designs! We're a
professional and affordable web design company that is located in the
heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Our team of
designers have over 35 years of combined experience and have both
developed and designed websites for such companies as: Boeing, Novell,
John Hancock and CVS Pharmacy.

At Castleton Interactive Web Designs we believe that our total solution
is more than just a website. It includes many services like; Free
Consultation, Web Design & Development, Website Hosting, Website
Optimization, Domain Name Registration, Website Maintenance, just to
name a few.

We offer a package of services tailored to the unique requirements of
our client's designed to ensure a return of your investment. We also
offer a Free Phone Consultation with a member of our design team to
discuss what you are looking for in your website, and we quote each
client a price prior to beginning any work.

We also stay in close contact with each client during the development
of their website in order to ensure that the site meets expectations.

We want your website to be something that you can be proud of and which
accurately represents the message you wish to send.

"Manage your business and let us manage your website."

If your company is in need of a website or would like yours redesigned,
then please don't hesitate to call us today at (828) 688-4426 or toll
free at: 1-800-688-1775 for your free phone consultation with one of
our designers, or visit us on the web at:

http://www.castletoninteractivewebdesigns.com

We look forward to hearing from you soon!

Kind Regards,

Connie E. McEwan - Marketing Director



Top 10 Design Issues When It Comes To Your Website


When it comes to designing or re-designing your site, there are 2 ways
you can ultimately go.

a) Designing for yourself and no one else,

b) Choosing a professional web design company to do it to fit web
marketing and customer attracting methods.



Here are the top 10 issues you should always consider:

1) Flash vs. HTML vs. ASP vs. PHP

The type of programming code you use for your website may have a huge
impact on your online business success.

- Flash: is not yet ready to fully integrate within web marketing.
Although technology is advancing, search engines aren't moving quickly
enough to include this style of coding in their rankings. Flash is okay
in certain applications, but not always advisable.

- ASP: if your site is completely data base driven, make sure that your
code is written into the page, not being pulled from tables every time.
Also, make sure to pre-plan your Meta tags within the database. Too
many databases out there never implement a Meta tag strategy.

- PHP/Java: These are both safe programming methods; just remember to
keep it clean and simple. Make sure that your designer has tested it
for bugs.

- HTML: Probably always going to be the programming method of choice
when it comes to servicing search engines and user friendly web sites.


2) Make sure your web design company tests your site for bugs.

Even if you think that their programming is perfect, most times it's
not. Search engines and your Visitors will browse your website with
more ease.

3) Make your site looks as professional as it can.

Make sure that the web designer / graphic designer that you hire is a
professional. Check out the company's website to see how it looks,
and browse through their portfolio to see what type of sites they've
created.



4) Is that really your URL?

Chances are that if your website address is anything other than
yourbusinessname.com, or .net, .org, etc. Then you probably do not own
your own "branded" domain name. Domain name costs have been reduced
dramatically over the past several years, so owning your own domain
name can be very reasonable.

5) Promote proper "Title Tags"

Make sure to create a proper title tag that best describes your entire
site. Also, make sure that your site has been Meta-Tagged properly to.
You can have the best website in the world, but not be found anywhere
in the major search engines. Would you rather be in the top 20 searches
for your business, or the last 20?



6) Do you pages load fast enough?

This is a big issue. If your web pages are poorly designed and have too
many graphics, applets, flash scripts, etc. Your pages will take
forever to load for your Visitor, especially those using Dial-Up
connection. In return, the visitor takes his or her business elsewhere
and you have lost a potential sale.




7) Is your site being maintained and updated frequently?

Make sure that your web design company doesn't only create your
website, but that they will continue to maintain the code and the
updates for it in the future. The biggest mistake that your business
can make on your website is having Outdated Information such as,
Content, Products, Pricing, Sales, Contact Info. This is all a very
critical part of your businesses online success. Your website makes an
important statement as to what type of business you have and the kind
of business owner that you are.

8) Always expand your information.

Search engines / visitors get bored quickly with the same old website.
Bringing in fresh, new content will keep them interested and keep them
coming back. This is also part of making sure that your site is
maintained on a frequent basis

9) Try not to get wrapped up in the "Google Dance".

Too many people start watching their online performance instead of
increasing it. Promote your site daily and try not to worry too much
about how high Google is ranking you.

10) Can you afford to update or redesign your website?

Can you afford not too? Your website speaks to potential customers not
just in your local community, but to people from all over the world who
may want to do business with you. If your website looks bad, then it
reflects on your business. It's that simple. Business websites that
have been cheaply designed and just thrown together by so-called
non-professional web designers, or the do it yourself website templates
that so many people use, and don't realize how expensive they are in
the long run by paying additional monthly fees, and for all sorts of
extras that they don't need such as: high domain name registration
fees, high monthly hosting fees, etc.

We have heard in the past from our clients that have been to some
really badly designed and non-functional websites that it makes the
company look as if they haven't a clue what there doing. Do you
really want your website to reflect this?





Here at Castleton Interactive Web Designs we care about how your
website looks and functions on the Internet.

Face it, if your website doesn't look good, then we don't look
good!

We're here to offer big city website design for your business at
small town prices!

Please contact us at (828) 688-4426 or toll free at (800) 688-1775 for
a free consultation

..

Give Us A Try, You'll Be Glad That You Did!





Castleton Interactive Web Designs
"We Develop Websites that add Value to Your Business"


http://www.castletoninteractivewebdesigns.com



Castleton Interactive Web Designs
P.O. Box 894

Bakersville, NC 28705

(828) 688-4426

Are you in need of a couple of thousand woodturners to flood your email
expressing distaste for spamming their newsgroup?

Oh lighten up, Ron. It's just a little message offering a service. Lotta
woodturners have web sites...and...frankly, some of them could use a bit
of dressing up (mine included).



RonB wrote:
Are you in need of a couple of thousand woodturners to flood your email
expressing distaste for spamming their newsgroup?

OK.

Still spam.

Me myself and I wrote:
Oh lighten up, Ron. It's just a little message offering a service.

Yes, but this is not the place to do it. Its still spam. If every
webdesign service did this, or any other chancer trying to sell
something posted to this newsgroup, then the newgroup would be flooded
with this crap and it would not be the great place it is today.

If these people think that newsgroup spam is an acceptable practise,
would anyone really want to do business with them?

--
Derek Andrews, woodturner

http://www.seafoamwoodturning.com
Wedding Favors ~ Artisan Crafted Gifts ~ One-of-a-Kind Woodturning

On 20 Dec 2004 17:07:32 -0800, "Conkie"
wrote:

Helpful website resources from Tatem Web Design


Top Professional Website Templates:
http://www.tatemweb.com/Templates.html


Website Hosting Plans (Unix And Windows Plans available)
Starting at $14.95 per month
http://www.tatemweb.com/index-3.html


Froogle and Yahoo Product Datafeeds
http://www.froogledatafeeds.com
Please feel free to contact me with any questions 561-624-9585