Web Design Melbourne | Web Development Melbourne | Pixel8 Studios

Pixel8 supports Queensland flood relief initiative

Jim — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 06:42:23 +0000

In a combined effort with our friends at Sill Marketing and Intuitive IT that took us well into the early hours of this morning, we were able to turn around a website within 24 hours for the Victorian Restaurants Unite initiative, just in time for their appearance on ABC 774 Melbourne radio.

The website has been set up as a central place for restaurants, suppliers and staff wishing to participate in the initiative on Australia Day, Januaury 26. All money raised will go to the flood victims and their families in areas of Queensland that have been classified as disaster areas.

So if you are in the hospitality industry and are interested in participating, or know of someone who might be, you can find out more information at http://www.victorianrestaurantsunite.com.au, or on their facebook page.

Latest website design

Jim — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 01:22:29 +0000

Our friends at Intuitive IT recently contacted us looking for some consultation on a refresh for their existing site. We had worked with them on a number of projects in the past, and were happy to help them on this latest one. Intuitive IT is a Melbourne based IT company providing a full range of IT services ranging from Outsourced IT to SEO services. Through a collaborative effort, this is the design we came up with.

Choosing a domain name

Jim — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 01:03:50 +0000

When it comes to choosing a domain name, there are a number of things to consider. You want a name that is short, easy to remember, and relevant. You also want it to be something that can be easily typed into a browser. While including keywords in your domain carries weight with the search engines, and may give you an initial boost short-term in rankings, you don’t want it coming at the cost of building a brand for your business.

Unless you are an already established brand who can get away with just having their name as the domain, you ideally want to choose a domain that contains both your brand name, and a term related to your product or service. So for example, if I was a start-up, looking to establish myself in the business insurance industry, I’d choose something like xyzinsurance.com (xyz being the brand name), over something containing only keywords, such as insure-your-business.com. Having your brand in the domain name makes you unique, and is great for long-term recognition.

Including keywords in your domain name helps to establish trust with the search engines. It is also a good way to market yourself to someone who has only just heard of your domain name for the first time by helping them make the connection to what your website is about. This is good for start-ups who haven’t built their branding yet and are looking to establish themselves.

Another major benefit of having keywords is they also act as good anchor text (the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink) for when other sites link back to your site using only your domain name. The actual text used for inbound links to your site is one of many ranking factors search engines such as Google take into account when determining your sites relevancy for a particular keyword, and is usually something you don’t have much control over.

Other tips:

It is best to get a .com, com.au (for Australian businesses), .net or .org domain since search engines tend to give less trust to others
Avoid hyphens if possible
Try to keep it less than 3 words

Having a good domain name for your website is a good first step in doing well in the search engine rankings. Good domain names are becoming harder to come by, but with a bit of creativity and some luck you should be able to find a good domain name that suits you and/or your business.

Pixel8 Studios website launch

Jim — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 07:13:30 +0000

Pixel8 Studios is proud to announce the launch of our new website! It has been a work in progress for a while now, as we went though quite a few design changes before we reached the final one you see before you, but in the end, we feel the extra time and care taken has been worth it as it has resulted in a website we are very excited about, and proud to have represent our business.

The launch of our website is only the beginning though, as we intend to have it continually grow through regular updates to our portfolio section and our blog. The blog will primarily be used for updates of our latest work, but will also be a place where you can find articles and news related to the web that we feel are worth sharing, and can be of benefit to you. As well as website updates, you can also follow us through our twitter and facebook pages for latest news and updates, as well as for any promotional offers we may have on offer.

We hope you enjoy the site, and maybe even hearing from you in the future!