http://www.cygnus-es.com Cygnus Enterprise Solutions Inc. - Cygnus is a renowned leader Montreal web design, multimedia and IT solutions studio. en-fr All Rights Reserved © 2002-2007, Cygnus-ES.com Design and Reviews are copyrighted. 27 Feb 2007 16:11:02 GMT 27 Feb 2007 16:11:02 GMT Cygnus-es.com Montreal web design, Montreal graphic design, Internet marketing, search engine optimization, SEO, Montreal IT, Montreal Network Services http://www.cygnus-es.com/images/cygnus-feed.jpg http://www.cygnus-es.com 88 31 http://www.cygnus-es.com Cygnus web design studio is based in the heart of Montreal city, not only a web design company, Cygnus can provide services in all technology areas, from graphics to web design, from network solutions to software development, we are constantly evolving and always determined to bring the most efficient and interactive solutions to your business. By redefining the standards of interactive web design and development, our firm is shaping a new face of the web, media and IT solutions. We are always aspiring to find the perfect blend of form and function. With the combination of an unparalleled team of developers and by using cutting edge technology, we are on the never-ending quest of building and deploying the best solutions for your company. Cygnus Web Design 27 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.cygnus-es.com At Cygnus web design Montreal, our goal is to ensure that not only your customers but also your partners and employees have the most efficient way to do business. Your organization's frontline, the very point of interaction between you, your customers, partners and employees, is what makes your business so unique. Cygnus will help you to build and differentiate that frontline. Cygnus Goal 27 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.cygnus-es.com Cygnus provides complete computer and technical services to companies in the greater Montreal region as well as residential and particular services. We understand the technical challenges your multi-computer office faces and act like part of your business to provide the computer and networking support you need to keep your them running securely and smoothly. Our team will take care from setting up to maintain all aspects of your network needs, being your personal home network or your companie's Cygnus is the right choice. Network 27 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.cygnus-es.com Wish to perfect your business' visual identity? lntend to obtain a powerful marketing tool? Pursue recognition and solid identity? Cygnus provides complete computer and technical services to companies in the greater Montreal region as well as residential and particular services. We understand the technical challenges your multi-computer office faces and act like part of your business to provide the computer and networking support you need to keep your them running securely and smoothly. Our team will take care from setting up to maintain all aspects of your network needs, being your personal home network or your companie's Cygnus is the right choice. lt is really hard to recollect a company: the market is full of suggestions and the information is overwheIming; but A GOOD CATCHY LOGO, STYLlSH STATlONERY and OUTSTANDlNG WEBSlTE will make the task much easier. Here at Cygnus your graphic design company in Montreal we guarantee to deliver the best solution for your company. From a complete web solution (CRM, E-Commerce or simple information site) to all your printing and graphic design needs (Catalog, Flyers, Stationaries, christmas cards, etc) Cygnus is the right choice. Here is the list of clear benefits: Creativeness: Hhand-made, original logos, specially done to reflect your distinctive company image. Convenience: Logo and stationery are provided in all formats; easy-to-use Content Management System lets you change your website content and even its structure. Promptness: You will see logo drafts within three business days. Affordability: Your marketing break-through shouldn't make gaps in your budget. Graphic Design 27 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.cygnus-es.com/cygnus_links.html Marketing Creating a website is just the starting point, what happens next? We cannot send you off to figure it out for yourself, an aggressive promotion of the site is mostly important if you want to reach those clients, the competition is big and only a good internet marketing can put your company ahead. We strive to make your site a complete success from start to finish. Cygnus Enterprise Solutions Inc. - Montreal deliver an Internet-based marketing program that is cost-effective and clearly focused on the creation and maintenance of a strong return on investment. Our strategy is specifically designed to benefit the advertiser providing meaningful and relevant placements with a complete focus on maximizing the marketing dollars you allocate to Cygnus. Corporate Internet Marketing - SEO 27 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.cygnus-es.com/cygnus_links.html Project Management and Strategy Strategy will ultimately govern whether or not the most carefully designed piece will succeed. The truth is many companies are simply not equipped to offer a user experience that meets a customer's expectations. These same companies are scrabbling to ensure their own existence and as a result, command large budgets in order to facilitate their continuation. All too often the result of this is a poorly designed site that harms the brand rather than adding to the value. We have proven communication, team management, and project management skills gained from working with many major Fortune 100 companies down to the emerging start up. This ensures that the client's project is delivered on time and to budget. Strategy Solutions 27 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.cygnus-es.com/cygnus_catalogue.html Wish to perfect your business' visual identity? lntend to obtain a powerful marketing tool? Pursue recognition and solid identity? CYGNUS MONTREAL 3D - WHY? Your sales team will love 3D presentations that bring products to life. Not only will your materials look better and be easier to visualize, Cygnus Montreal solutions can also improve your ordering process. Increase the impact of your promotional materials and presentations through the use of interactive 3D graphics and video. Whether your product is a tangible or intangible, our product demos will reach your target audience in more than just a business angle. Engaging aesthetics and user experience is a necessary commodity in our product demos. 3D presentations of products enable the viewer to see and learn more about your product in detail. 3D Design 27 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.cygnus-es.com/cygnus_catalogue.html Cygnus Printing Solutions Montreal is committed to being your best single source of print, communications and graphic-related products for your business. We provide our customers with versatile and cost effective solutions to fulfill their business operations and marketing needs. Electronic Pre-Press A crucial element in quality printing, pre-press technology has evolved at a frantic pace in the last decade. Our knowledgeable staff uses the combined power of experience and state-of-the-art equipment to produce impeccable results, time after time. Cygnus offers a comprehensive range of capabilities encompassing all means of graphic communication and a variety of medias to provide our clients with turnkey solutions to even their most complex marketing challenges. More. Post-Press The finishing touch Automatic counting/tabbing Binding, Cerlox Cutting Die cutting Folding Gluing Laminating Mounting Punching Stitching Booklet making Padding Shrink wrapping (including a large format custom built machine 19 1/2" X 96" with multiple height and width capacities) Printing Solutions 27 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.cygnus-es.com/index-2.html Good website design isn't just about pretty colors, groovy graphics, and knocking out code with software like Dreamweaver. While a terrible look can certainly kill a site, even the fanciest design can't help a site that doesn't provide reliable information of value to visitors in a sensible and easy-to-use format. Good website design requires substantial planning, and takes into consideration not just visual design but also content, tone and the way information is arranged, as well as accessibility and usability for people with varying degrees of ability. None of these things are developed in isolation: all of them ideally support one another. Montreal Web Design - Content Content ultimately is the standard by which your website's usefulness will be judged. To understand what your content should be, start by asking yourself these questions in order to create a good web design: Who is my website for? The answer to this question defines your target audience. Typically, it might be "prospective graduate students" or "our department staff" or "current students and faculty" or even "the news media and the general public." You can certainly have more than one target audience. Avoid making your reach too broad or too narrow, defining your target audience as either "everyone, everywhere" or "me." What do they want from the website/design? A good way to figure out the answer to this question is to ask. Track down a current student, a prospective graduate student, or a member of the faculty and get direct feedback. Whatever you do, don't believe for an instant that an on-line recreation of your print brochure will be adequate. And don't fall into the trap of assuming your website users will be interested in something just because it's "cool." A two-minute Flash animation opening sequence is interesting only once (at most), and becomes an annoyance when what you really want to do is find out quickly whether your faculty adviser has office hours on Thursday. What do I want from the website? Your own goals for the site are important too. Think in terms of what you want to make happen with your web site, as well as what you might want to keep from happening. If you want to motivate prospective graduate students to apply, think about how to make it easy for them. If you want to make sure current students don't tie up the department phone line asking who is teaching Research Methodologies next semester, what time the Friday colloquia start, or how to get a computer account, how can you make sure they can get the information they need? What can I realistically provide and maintain? This is perhaps the most important point of all. Unless you are one of the lucky few with staff dedicated to updating your website, you will want to think long and hard about this question. Current students might like a weekly "department round-up," but can you commit the time and resources necessary to create a new feature every week? Base your decision on how critical it is to your mission and goals to provide the feature or information, balanced by your time and staffing resource realities! Montreal Web Design - Tone Tone tells the world what kind of department or program you have and is reflected in your choice of content, how you present that content, and the look and "feel" of your web site design. Begin making decisions about tone by asking questions about what you want visitors to think and feel. The only "right" answer is the one that best represents your program or department. Come up with words or word pairs that describe the impression you want visitors to gain from your site. For example, your tone might be any one of the following: Formal. Intellectual but fun. Business-like. Creative and sophisticated. Scientific and cutting-edge. Exciting. Academic but friendly. Informal but smart. Think about how you want to be perceived. Then make sure your choice is reflected in the way your content is written, the overall web design of your site, and the visuals you choose. Montreal Web Design - Organizing information, or information architecture Information architecture is webspeak for the way you structure the information on your website design. If you have a very complex website design with many sections and pages, you may want to leave developing an information architecture to the professionals. But if your site is simple and straightforward, staying mindful of just a few rules of thumb can help you create a good information architecture. Information should be categorized logically, and labels should make sense to visitors, not just to you. Be wary of talking to yourself in language that only your department or function understands. Think about your audience. Information should be placed where people might logically expect it to be, and cross-referenced where it makes sense. Every page should provide something more than mere navigation. Avoid pages that are nothing more than long lists of links with no other content. On pages with the sole purpose of providing links, each link should be annotated or described. Pages should deliver what they promise. For example, a page entitled "Application Form" should bring up an application form, rather than being a generic link to the University's Undergraduate Admissions department. If you can't provide an application form, change the name of the link to accurately reflect what it provides. All pages should contain navigation to enable the user to get back to the starting point. Montreal Web Design - Visual design Many amateur web design developers misunderstand the real purpose of visual web design. In reality, the job of visual design is to support the information architecture and further the accessibility of the website rather than to wow visitors with graphics and animation. Some key points to remember: Make sure your text is easy to read. Keep readability in mind when choosing your font, type size, page positioning, and colors! Gray type on a white background looks chic, but is nearly impossible to read, especially in quantity. Choose strong colors for links and visited, to make them stand out as much as possible. Think carefully about graphics. Do they add value to the site? Do they support the statement you're trying to make? Colors matter. Your color choices should reflect the personality of your program or department, but definitely should not inhibit readability. Don't place anything on your site that doesn't serve a purpose. Montreal Web Design - Accessibility The last piece of the puzzle discussed here is accessibility. When developing websites that are an official part of University X web presence, you must keep in mind the fact that we are required by Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act to assure those sites can be used by people of varying abilities. That means accommodating users who are colorblind, have visual impairment, are deaf, or experience mobility or coordination challenges. This is not as formidable a task as it might sound. By following a few simple rules, using the right tools, and expanding your way of thinking slightly, you can create a beautiful, effective website with design that people of all abilities can use. Avoid Flash! Avoid nested tables; use single tables sparingly. Use Cascading Style Sheets to control layout and positioning. Avoid or modify javascript drop-down menus. Use alt attributes for all graphic images. Don't rely on icons or images to communicate, especially in navigation. Keep visual design clean and simple: No frames! Make sure your information design is solid and logical. Check your site with online accessibility tools, like WAVE. Run your site through a screen reader or try to navigate it using only keyboard navigation; ideally, enlist differently-abled people to test your site and give feedback on its usability. Tips for Wen Design - Montreal 9 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.cygnus-es.com/index-2.html One of the elements of good web design is a lack of the elements that make bad web design. Cygnus Montreal web design studio can help you to archieve a great looking web site integrating functionality and design. There are a few simple steps to create and archieve a great looking website, keep these concepts in mind: Montreal web design - Text features Background does not interrupt the text Text is big enough to read, but not too big The hierarchy of information is perfectly clear Columns of text are narrower than in a book to make reading easier on the screen Montreal web design - Navigation features Navigation buttons and bars are easy to understand and use Navigation is consistent throughout web site Navigation buttons and bars provide the visitor with a clue as to where they are, what page of the site they are currently on Frames, if used, are not obtrusive A large site has an index or site map Montreal web design - Links features Link colors coordinate with page colors Links are underlined so they are instantly clear to the visitor Montreal web design - Graphics features Buttons are not big and dorky Every graphic has an alt label Every graphic link has a matching text link Graphics and backgrounds use browser-safe colors Animated graphics turn off by themselves Montreal web design - General Design features Pages download quickly First page and home page fit into 640 x 460 pixel space All of the other pages have the immediate visual impact within 640 x 460 pixels Good use of graphic elements (photos, subheads, pull quotes) to break up large areas of text Every web page in the site looks like it belongs to the same site; there are repetitive elements that carry throughout the pages Web Design Montreal Tips 9 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.cygnus-es.com/index-2.html We are surrounded by graphic design from the time we awake to the time we shut our eyes each day. A lot of it is mediocre, some of it is awful, and some can be inspiring! It’s important to know the difference, too, because as business owners, we’re all going to use design to represent our businesses. From business cards to billboards and from postcards to websites, good graphic design can help to solidify our business’s image in our target audience’s eyes. What is good graphic design? What makes a good graphic designer, and how can you be sure of getting good graphic design? The graphic design market can be confusing. At first sight, inexpensive graphic design looks readily obtainable, because there are a lot of good people out there eager to get some references. But for the customer, getting the right graphic design is not easy. In fact it's a problem. Because what is the right graphic design? Just because someone can work with Photoshop or has a graphic design qualification does not necessarily mean they are a good designer. An able designer needs far more qualities than just a good eye for colour, form and detail. Design is an entity. Good graphic design tells a visual story. Good graphic design employs succinct psychological tools, such as reactions to and associations with forms and colours. But above all, good graphic design is a visual expression that functions in optimised interaction with communication and strategy. This makes heavy demands on the designer's ability to integrate design into the whole. It also calls for considerable insight into the customer's firm, the purpose of the message and the underlying strategic thinking. Because like communication, design must reflect the customer's profile, appeal to the customer's buyers/partners, and also distance the customer from his competitors. A good designer must therefore be able to be creative within the framework laid down by the customer. Bubbling creativity is of no use without a sense of context and economic realism. A designer must be capable of focused working within financial and time limitations. This is the challenge, and it is one of the areas a good designer gets paid to master. That the designer must work within the framework of the customer's situation and market can surprise no one. But this does not mean it is the customer who sets the limits. The customer possesses an in-depth insight into the circumstances of his business. But precisely because he is so deeply involved it is important that fresh eyes should be brought to bear. Innovation is a word commonly used in the value sets of many companies. But being innovative means being willing to move boundaries – not least within oneself. There is a difference between being creative and being innovative. Being creative means getting the best out of the given framework. This can be done by any good designer. Being innovative means thinking beyond the given boundaries to take a fresh look and set new boundaries. This takes courage and trust – on the part of both customer and designer. The best graphic design is therefore produced by a designer who knows the key questions to ask the customer and who transcends the conventional, and by a customer who has confidence in the end-result, dares to break limits – and to invest in the future. Creativity, inspiration and above all motivation must never be forgotten. Because being a good graphic designer means being thoroughly tuned in, finding inspiration in the oddest things, and preferably also having access to exactly the right sources. An awareness of current and future trends is thus an integral part of a graphic designer's toolbox. This awareness provides the source of the inspiration that the designer passes on to the customer, but is also enables the designer himself to achieve self-renewal and find fresh creativity. It should be clearly understood that a professional graphic designer does not necessarily have his own style. This is because the designer's job is to supply a message that has to fit the company's view of itself, the company's strategy, and the company's desired market position. Another reason is that the design must appeal to the values of the users. Good design must be design that works: design that helps generate revenue and optimise the understanding of the message. Such design can only result from thorough preparation, an analytical appreciation of the company's message and market, and naturally a creative mind. Graphic Design Montreal Tips 9 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.cygnus-es.com/index-2.html Your Competitor Has A Web Site Customers use the Internet to find everything. A small competitor or start-up gains instant credibility with a well-constructed web site design. If theirs is the only site found, that's who your potential customer will buy from. Don't let your competitor be the first to construct a web site. It takes months for a site to become visible in the Search Engines. Internet marketing is a track meet. Get off the blocks first! Satisfied Customers More Easily Tell Friends An email with your web site address is a lot easier than finding and faxing or mailing a brochure. A web site = easy, efficient referrals. A Web Site Beats Hiring A Salesperson When the number of clients generated by a web site are compared with advertising and salesforce costs, a web site provides a much higher Return On Investment (ROI). Customers Look For You On The Internet Using Google to find a person's or company's phone number or address is so popular it's called "Googling." Make sure you're there when you or your company is "Googled." The Best Customers Use The Internet Well-funded, well-equipped businesses use the Internet extensively for email and to gather information. These are the most valuable prospects- they have money to spend! If they can't find you, they may go somewhere else. Customers Investigate Before Making Contact The anonymity of the web has given the customer an advantage-they can investigate without personal contact and avoid repeated sales calls or giving away information through personal queries. They can visit your site and decide if you have the goods or service that they want. This also means that the customer who makes contact is "pre-qualified" - they already know you have what they want, making your job easier. Web Site ROI, Much Better Than Brochure ROI When the cost of creating, printing, distributing and updating a brochure is taken into consideration, your more-easily-maintained web site is a better investment. We know a brochure can be important, but, if you have a brochure you should have a web site. If you don't have a brochure, you should create a web site first. A Web Site Makes Your Business Card More Effective A business card is low-cost and gives your customer a way to remember you. But, the most common information kept is the email address and the web site address. You Can Tell Your Story Since you control your web site's contents, you can tell your complete story. It's the one arena you control absolutely. Most customers will not visit your offices and they may miss or ignore advertising. The secretary who answers the phone may flub the call. But you control absolutely how your web site presents itself. It serves as a credibility and competency check for every visitor. The Bottom Line Every business needs a web site. This may be most important for a small business that cannot afford missed opportunities and needs the most efficient way to conduct its affairs. What Should You Do? Already have a web site? If so, unext step is to make it visible by search engines SEO, Cygnus can help decide if anything more needs to be done. Don't have a web site? If this article makes business sense to you, contact us (info@cygnus-es.com-514.999.5303) and let's talk about what we can do for you. We can build a web site in stages, starting with a small site designed for easy, logical expansion as you gain more confidence in this new medium. Web Design Montreal - Why is Important? 9 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.cygnus-es.com/cygnus_links.html Montreal SEO Company Tips: Did you know that, before search engine users visit a specific Web site, they already have made four separate and distinct choices: Choice number one: They choose to use the Internet to find a specific product or service, to research an issue of interest to them or solve a problem, as much in their professional careers as in their personal lives. Choice number two: They choose one of the five to six major search engines on the Internet to launch their search, the most popular by far being Google. Choice number three: They choose a particular keyword or phrase as the basis of their search, trying to narrow it down as best they can. Choice number four: They discriminate among the first ten search results on the same, first page. Then they take their final decision as to wich web site (or company) will get their business.These are your ultimate targeted web site visitors. These web visitors are already fifty to sixty percent of the way toward reaching a final buying decision as a result of having taken the initiative to use a good search engine to investigate or research a specific product or service. This is exactly the visitor that you want to attract to your web site. These are real, serious buyers. A few tips on increasing your rank and optimizing your website for search engines - Montreal: Be bold. Use the bold tags around some of your company web site keywords on each page. Do NOT use them everywhere the keyword appears. Once or twice is plenty. Deep linking. Make sure you have links coming in to as many pages as possible. What does it tell a search engine when other web sites are linking to different pages on your site? That you obviously have lots of worthwhile content. What does it tell a search engine that all your links are coming in to the home page? That you have a shallow site of little value, or that your links were generated by automation rather than by the value of your site. Become a foreigner. Canada and the UK have many directories for websites of companies based in those countries. Can you get a business address in one of those countries? Newsletters. Offer articles to ezine publishers that archive their ezines. The links stay live often for many years in their archives. First come, first served. If you must have image links in your navigation bar (avoid at all costs), include also text links. However, make sure the text links show up first in the source code, because search engine robots will follow the first link they find to any particular page. They won't follow additional links to the same page. Multiple domains. If you have several topics that could each support their own website, it might be worth having multiple domains. Why? First, search engines usually list only one page per domain for any given search, and you might warrant two. Second, directories usually accept only home pages, so you can get more directory listings this way. Article exchanges. You've heard of link exchanges. Article exchanges are like link exchanges, only much more useful. You publish someone else's article on the website with a link back to their site. They publish your article on the top ten articles, with a link back to your site. You both have content. You both get high quality links. Titles for links. Links can get titles, too. Not only does this help visually impaired surfers know where you are sending them, but some search engines figure this into their relevancy for a page. Not anchor text. Don't overdo the anchor text. You don't want all your inbound links looking the same, because that looks like automation - something Google frowns upon. Use your URL sometimes, your company name other times, "X name related" occasionally, etc. Site map. A big site needs a site map, which should be linked to from every page on the site. This will help the search engine robots find every page with just two clicks. A small site needs a site map, too. It's called the navigation bar. Your ultimate strategy Did you know that, after investing thousands, sometimes hundred of thousands of dollars developing a Web site, Montreal businesses often discover that the site is invisible in the major search properties. Failing to take your Web site's search engine and directory visibility into consideration when making site development decisions is an untimely and very expensive mistake. As a direct consequence, companies must either reinvest in a post-launch redesign of their site, or accept the extremely limited results that they will achieve with their site, if any. By recognizing both the importance and the need of search engine optimization Montreal Cygnus in the development of your Web site, you hold a significant advantage over your competition. As an example, after making the decision to implement a website positioning strategy, one Rank for Sales client now maintains a sizeable advantage over its competitors. Boasting significantly more and higher rankings in every major search engines including key players such as Google, AltaVista and Yahoo! Because of their decision to implement a website optimization strategy, companies in Montreal, our client has since closed a number of new business deals through search. Users of Internet search engines are on a "mission" to solve a "problem." How quickly they are able to find an answer to their problem is directly related to customer satisfaction. How quickly they are able to find your website, if they are searching for you by name, is directly related to their opinion of your brand. Where and if your website places itself in a priority position on top of the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) is entirely up to your site's optimization features, or lack thereof. So a lifetime relationship with your brand is very literally at stake every time someone conducts a query via a search engine. Divide and conquer Did you know that, Search Engine Optimization (SEO - Company Montreal) can be a very controversial and hotly disputed subject and is actually a discipline finding itself in a constant state of movement. Major search engines such as Yahoo!, Google, AltaVista and the others are relentlessly changing their search engine ranking algorithms and related criteria on which they determine what factors they consider important for delivering the most relevant results to user search queries. Search engine optimization Company Montreal and positioning is taken by us as an art as well as a science. These criterias have an extremely powerful influence on your search engine rankings. Montreal company, What's more, partnerships change, new search properties emerge, mergers or buyouts happen and others disappear altogether. All of these changes can directly impact your search engine rankings. Montreal SEO Companies - Tips 22 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.cygnus-es.com/cygnus_services.html 01 Complex Data Applications automate any part of any business The internet is the perfect place for websites that automate internal business communications and information processing. Move your data communucation applications to your website: from Sales Management to Project Management. Your employees (and clients if you wish) can access and manage information from anywhere in the world at any time. Manage and coordinate project and payment status, file, document and image changes, and manage information from anywhere in the world at any time. Different levels of authorization protect your information, allow administrative review of transactions, and provide mamagement reporting, goal statistics and visibility. ________________________________________ 02 Complete Content Management infinite pages, navbar control, images, and much much more Infinite Pages and graphic images Content Managed nav bars Infinite internal and external hyperlinksComplete control Often without argument, the most commonly requested element of any website that we create is the ability for your clients to make additional changes easily without complex tools (and without incurring additional cost). The term Content Management is an often misused (or misunderstood at best)! Cygnus Enterprise Solutions Inc. provides content management in a great variety of ways from simple text and graphic image changes to screen layout changes and even the addition of new links on navbars referencing new pages. From text based changes to record based changes. All of our websites allow the client to create new data such as product classifications and listings and to customize descriptions and even the emails that their website generates for their customers. We believe that websites should allow clients to manage and direct the processes and the experience that their customers have on their website. ________________________________________ 03 Online Reservation Systems yes! for services, venues, products and more ! Cygnus Web Design Montreal can provide online reservation systems for both appointment reservations (e.g. for hair salons or doctors or dentists) and for hotel, restaurant and event reservations as well. Both types of systems use a calendar to assign and manage availabilities. Special details can also be specified and searched such as the type of services requested (for appointment reservations) of the type of room or other characteristics (for hotel or event reservations). Other types of reservation systems may also be customized as well. ________________________________________ 04 Website Content in Many Languages allow new languages to be added and edited online Present your Website in many different languages. Allow your clients to create any number of new languages for their website easily. Translation Agencies can log in and adjust the content whenever they wish. ________________________________________ 05 SMS Text Interfacing receive SMS texts and queries ! and send automated information Owners can receive SMS texts in a great variety of circumstances to let them know what is happening on their website. And their customers can receive SMS texts to let them know when things have occurred that might be of interest to them (e.g. an Estate Agent might have just published a new property - the website can automatically notify customers who have requested information on certain types of matches). The website can receive SMS texts and process them like any other query - perhaps sending a reply with the information requested or updating some of the databases with information from the received text. Many people have “Call Me Now” buttons on their websites for their customers. An SMS text is sent immediately to the designated sales person or owner and an immediate follow-up call can be made to the customer. ________________________________________ 06 MMS Mobile Interfacing send audio clips, video clips, images and even ringtones Your website can send images, sounds, ringtones and even audio clips and short films to mobile phones. These can be combined with short codes to charge for these items if desired. ________________________________________ 07 Estate Agent Management Systems from detailed searching to automated matching SMS texts When (and how) do your clients learn of new listings? How can you accelerate that process? Can an SMS text be automatically sent when a match occurs? Which criteria are essential to them? Which criteria are desirable to them? Can you quickly deliver what they are looking for right now? Often a sale is closed before most competitors know of the opportunity. Make sure your website keeps you ahead at all times. You should be able to easily create and manage listings, enter descriptions and post photographs. You should also be able to enter a variety of criterion that your clients use to search and discover exactly what they are looking for. ________________________________________ 08 Ecommerce Solutions accept credit-card payments - single and recurring - and more Often business is best conducted at the moment that your customer wishes to make a purchase. This might not be during business hours. Often your customer has made a choice and does not wish to spend additional time with details. Many of your customers anticipate that business can be concluded with a credit-card transaction on line. We have been fully integrated with dozens of ecommerce providers and can handle all sorts of transactions from single transaction purchases to recurring fees that are dynamically calculated depending upon the services actually requested. ________________________________________ 09 High Volume Membership Sites with large-scale sophisticated pattern matching High Volume Membership Sites need special consideration. Members and Customers do not appreciate waiting for several seconds when they request information or select an action. Large or complex data-driven systems need the real-time performance that only comes from customized “high-octane” designs using the latest b-tree technologies and caching systems tuned to your specific databases. Was that complex? Well that is what website “engineering” is all about. We work that way so that your customers can rest assured! ________________________________________ 10 Event Ticketing Systems with or without assigned seating or allocations Ticketing Systems can be used in a great variety of industries. Attendees can review and select dates and venues and then either reserve or purchase entrance or seating online. Ticket sales may be limited to a general count or tickets may correspond to assigned seating with potentially different pricing for different seats or general areas. ________________________________________ 11 Context Sensitive Advertising clients have individual interests Context Sensitive Advertising is useful in a great variety of ways. Your website should be gathering demographic and purchasing information each and every day for your clients. Customers will appreciate seeing only the products and services that are most relevant to their needs and interests. Some websites charge clients differently for advertising space. By displaying ads strategically and limited by customer interest the website owner can often take on more advertisements. ________________________________________ 12 Extremely Detailed Visitor (and Staff) Tracking with keystroke details and timestamps It is essential for businesses to know what their website visitors are experiencing on their website. What did they click on and what did they NOT click on? How much time did they spend on each page? Which pages did they NOT visit? Did they review pricing more than once before they left? Did you or your sales staff have a chance to contact them before they moved on to competitive sites? Which pages are working FOR you and Which pages are working AGAINST you? You need to know! ________________________________________ 13 Forums and Discussion Groups freeform or moderated, extensive options, completely managed In many cases your customers are like a community. They need to share ideas openly and to make recommendations and you need to know what they are saying. Perhaps your website has been designed to support a community. People need to be able to create new forums or discussion groups express their views, and support each other. The internet is a great place to do this but unfortunately moderation is often required. Support discussion groups but do so responsibly. Cygnus Web Design Montreal can help. ________________________________________ 14 CV Processing and Matching Systems increase automation within your office CVs (and other documents) should be (automatically) scanned for relevant content and be made available to all of your other applications. This should include filtering and matching and should allow multiple levels of priority notification. Your visitors should not be asked to submit documentation more than once! If their name and address is on their CV then do not ask for it again (or at least initialize the data fields accordingly! Since searching is already required for your website why not manage your company clients on line as well?! This way you can research opportunities and matches from anywhere and manage new potential matches with ease. ________________________________________ 15 Newsletters Automated publish, distribute, archive and search Many clients publish periodic information that is essential to their customers. A website is an excellent place to present this information. Clients must be able to edit their newsletters either online or offline with one or more simple templates that support both text and graphic images. It is also important for their customers to be able to review, archive and search the content of previous newsletters. A newsletter or document that is available for a short time and then disappears is of little benefit to anyone on the internet today. ________________________________________ 16 Inventory Management Systems to assist customer online ordering Most of the companies that sell products online would strongly benefit from an inventory management system. What happens when products run out? In a store, the product is simply no longer displayed. On the internet, customers not only continue to see products that are no longer in stock but they are likely to pay for them in advance and expect immediate delivery! Some products have longer lead times than others or perhaps some are kept in stock in limited numbers. Inventory Management tools are helpful in managing orders and in tracking what is in stock and when additional purchases should be made (based upon statistical purchasing patterns) . ________________________________________ 17 Online Project Management Systems track projects and deadlines Time Management is important ! Publishing project schedules and allowing contributors to enter new information as it arises in real-time is essential to insure that schedules are accurate and are of use to your organization. Real-Time data is essential and required if you are to be able to adjust resources to meet committed schedules. Make sure that all contributors can easily and readily add information to the current project status. ________________________________________ 18 Online Sales Management Tools call tracking and other sales tools Online Sales Management Tools allow centralized control of your Sales organization and also allow your Sales team to work from anywhere in the world. Sales tools developed by Cygnus Web Services Montreal include client database tracking by dates and next action, sales call tracking (and duration timing), and full contact list support. Manage your customers so that they feel they are at the top of your list each and every day! Extensive report data is of course available for administrators. ________________________________________ 19 Automated Email Management send prewritten emails at the touch of a button How often have you written that email - or cut and paste it into a reply? Automate that process with a database for your clients that allows you to reply appropriately and personably to each and every email at the press of a button. Select a group of clients and select a customized email. It is as simple as that! Have periodic emails (daily, weekly, monthly etc.) automatically sent based upon time and status to your own distribution lists. Make sure that your customers feel cared for! ________________________________________ 20 Accessibility Issues support all audiences on the internet Are you ready for the new changes that were introduced this year? New standards were established this year to insure that visually or audibly impaired individuals are able to use the internet. Do you know what they are? Automated and public tools are available to see if your website currently meets these standards! If you are not sure if you are compliant then - well - you probably are not! If you have a need for multilingual content then Cygnus Web Site Design Company Montreal can help create any number of parallel text streams without the need for separate pages. Make sure that your website reaches the largest possible audience. ________________________________________ 21 Note Systems for internal or external communications While email is often a great way to communicate it has its disadvantages. Communications between members might need to be sent anonymously or perhaps your communications may need to be automatically saved, archived (or published) for later consideration or review. Or perhaps correspondence needs to be targeted to multiple individuals within each department (through auto-routing or transparently through bcc). Make sure that communications go exactly where they should go (and that they do not go where they should not). ________________________________________ 22 Online Games and Quizzes such as Scrabble or Hearts - keep them coming back Online Games and Quizzes are often required in websites that target certain “communities” of individuals. From online Scrabble to Hearts - multi-user games and quizzes have been shown to accelerate membership rates and increase active member retention. Games are fun for everyone - and quizzes are as well. Make sure that your clients can change quiz content regularly and easily! People talk about websites that are fun and this brings even more new members to the site. ________________________________________ 23 Business And Private Chat freeform or recorded minutes Online Chat can be used in a variety of ways in business. Often one-on-one chat is one part of a complete customer service package. Other companies use chat to hold meetings on the internet as an alternative to videoconferencing or teleconferencing. Chat meetings are often preferred as it is an excellent way to insure that accurate minutes are recorded and published. ________________________________________ 24 Receive SMS (Short Code) Payments Receive Payments online for Products or Services from mobiles Your website can collect immediate payments online from mobile phone users. This is a convenient and fast way for customers to order products or services. Because it is from a mobile phone there is no need for your customers to enter credit card information. They simply enyer a five-digit short code and that is it! In some markets (e.g. teenager demographics) credit cards are often not available and short-codes are the perfect solution. Montreal Web Design Solutions Companies - Services 4 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT