Widgets are fun. Period.

That was my opinion when I first discovered that widgets like ‘noughts and crosses’ games and ‘cartoon of the day’ could be peppered across a website or blog to liven things up.

From then to the present, I have added informative, useful, adaptable and a host of other really nice adjectives to one of my favorite parts of Web 2.0- widgets. There is simply nothing that cannot be done with the right widget in hand.

One of my favorite widget-loving blogs, Snipperoo has this really great post about some common misconceptions about widgets.

You don’t need to be a professional in website design to add rich applications like widgets and neither do I need to be a whiz at web development in Dubai to implement them. All I need to do is customize a widget of my choice and voila, I have something on my blog or website that will not only add value to user-experience but to my business/service as well!

For instance, we decided to add this snazzy corkboard widget from Rock You! on one of our blogs. A couple of photos, sticky notes and funny graphics was all it took to give readers on this business blog a glimpse of the online shopping portal attached to the website it was promoting.

The returns and site visits it helped bring in- in terms of online marketing was immediately noticeable.

Cosmos Creatives Dubai stuck to a minimalistic blog, with the focus on content (as any good blog ought to do). The various widgets added in were more than just icing on the cake- they had a purpose, viz. promoting the products and services.

Smart website promotion, what say?

A 404 error page is something you should avoid having on your website if you are an entrepreneur looking to increase website traffic. They could be a step back in search engine optimization in Dubai efforts and are more likely than not to prevent your site from getting indexed.

In plain speak a 404 DNS error or a File Not Found error is what the server spits out when someone types in a URL that does not exist on your website or is under construction and is hence unavailable. A page or two that give out such errors on your website can be tolerable for most users. Search engines on the other hand, don’t like them.

Known to affect the visibility of a particular website in SERP’s, a File Not Found error can be turned to your website’s advantage with customized pages that cloak the error though.

A stand-by page called a 404.htm page is an excellent way to get past the 404 error and can benefit your SEO efforts enormously. Take a look at the File Not Found error pages put up on Smashing Magazine.

These stand-by pages not only provide the user to your website something to chuckle/think/learn about, but also encourage the search engine to include the page as relevant to the website and hence index-worthy.

Absolutely do not tell your Dubai web design professionals to create a 404 error page that is an exact copy of your homepage- its not going to win your website any popularity points. Encourage user-friendliness and accessibility- after all that’s the main aim of any website.

Know more about how you can win more users and enhance your website design in Dubai efforts at Cosmos Creatives Dubai.

Image credit: Flickr

Ages ago optical illusions held tremendous fascination for the ancient Greeks. Centuries down the line, they yet hold the human mind in a strong grip inspiring many architectural masterpieces and works of art.

The animations used to make cartoons and films are the manifestation of the optical illusion of motion caused due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision. Modern animated images were initially executed using writing and drawing tools and paper. But this changed with the growing influence of the computer and advanced drawing technology.

Computer animation received form with the introduction of the revolutionary Flash software developed by three men with the vision of making it easier to draw using a computer than pen and paper. Web animation did not take much time catching up with the creative communities for web design in Dubai and elsewhere.

A figure crossing two million professionals in website design currently make use of Flash and the scope for the implementation of this software is staggering. From mini films and cartoons to advertisements, feature films and interactive web content, the uses for Flash animations are still being discovered.

Tap into this well of innovation and adapt Flash animations for your website to give your business a whole new look. The web development in Dubai and graphic design in Dubai experts, Cosmos Creatives Dubai intermingle and implement ideas to make sure that search engines do not lose sight of your website even if there are Flash animations, Flash templates and Flash banners used.

While the popularity of Flash is well established in the Dubai web site design community, its functionality in the online marketing community is heavily argued. This argument has made a lot of web development in Dubai professionals ponder upon its use.

The highlight of Flash is a dynamic interface, one that is constantly changing and at times interacting with the user. A lot of websites who take the Web 2.0 meme really seriously go for complete user interaction with the help of Flash templates and Flash animations.

Critics of Flash state that Flash animations and splash screens deflect the visitors to a website from the content that they are looking for. It is also true that browsing the Internet for websites that incorporate Flash as opposed to regular HTML or CSS is rather useless as the keywords, anchor text and other searchable features are rendered useless when included in Flash content.

When web development in Dubai professionals develop a website for the purpose of online marketing, they encode a website using either HTML or CSS which are decidedly search engine friendly. Another drawback of using Flash animations instead of HTML or CSS for website design in Dubai is its inability to load on handheld devices like PDA’s, smartphones and car displays.

From an internet marketing professional’s point of view, a small section but one that is a significant revenue drawer is completely eliminated due to the use of Flash animations. The best way to ensure ranking in search engines is to marry Flash animations with HTML or CSS making the website appealing as well as search engine friendly.

Image credit: tarotastic

Let’s get the basics out of the way first. AJAX or Ajax is essentially the acronym for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. The Dubai web development techniques that constitute Ajax (DOM, CSS, JavaScript, XHTML, etc.) are primarily used for generating web applications that encourage interaction. Ajax finds its best example in the Google Maps application.

Professionals in web development in Dubai have come to realize the merit of using Ajax  in generating websites as it is very efficient and lends a dimension of greater functionality and speed. Each time a user modifies or performs an action, the web page remains unaffected. This is achieved with the inclusion of the XMLHttpRequest object.

One of the main advantages of Ajax that Dubai web development and professional website design experts enjoy, is its ability to save up on bandwidth usage and reduce server load by a considerable level. Ajax developed pages exchange small amounts of data with the server, making this possible.

Where search engine optimization in Dubai is concerned, the use of Ajax techniques in a website has to be done carefully as search engines are not that partial to websites that have dynamic content.

To know how you can overcome this hurdle you can get in touch with the SEO’s and web developers at Cosmos Creatives Dubai. We have the solution to all your website design and Dubai web development needs.

Nobody likes spam, not even spammers like the spam that they shoot out on unsuspecting users. But yet, each day robots and human spammers religiously work to flood inboxes, blogs and various other susceptible spaces with obscene amounts of spam mail.

It is one thing however to string incomprehensible sentences with some relevant keywords in a spam mail and quite another thing to keep your e-mail from being treated as spam.

The best way for a retailer or online marketing professional to avoid this from happening is to offer the consumer the option of subscribing to the product or service in the first mail.

Another effort the retailer can make towards establishing quality is by having a professional website design team that can create any newsletter, e-mail, brochure or flyer in a layout that invites a second look. Innovation and originality is of prime concern out here.

A good website design company in Dubai can help the retailer with small details like adding a personal touch when inviting people to sign up for e-mails. Segregate different parts of your business based on how the consumer categorizes his interests. This will prevent you from sending the same mail more than once.

When followers of the Web 2.0 era put their minds together, there are three words that are prominent in any idea they come up with- stylish, sleek and rich. It is how they entice the consumer. When online marketers keep these three magic words in mind, they can accomplish more than half their work with minimum effort.

Working closely with professional website design experts, online marketers formulate user interfaces that are immensely appealing to the end user while pleasing the search engine. One art style that has caught the fancies of a growing number of website design artists is vector art. Though the concept has been around from a long time, advertising campaigns like the iPod silhouette as well as a lot of promo art used on TV channels like MTV have led to its recent revival.

The advantage that a vector image has over the conventional raster image is its sharp image quality. While raster images are pixel based, vector images are made up of geometrical components. This allows an image to be moved, enlarged, scaled down or tweaked without losing out on quality.

Our Dubai website designing team like designers elsewhere find this art style immensely helpful as it has immense potential for flexibility. Almost any design can be created using the vast range of brush styles and image shapes that vector software come with.

At Cosmos Creatives Dubai, we utilize the best software available to produce visually striking websites. Vector art is just one of the art styles our Dubai web designing company is proficient in. Get in touch for a stylish, sleek and rich online presence.

A growing fraction of businesses, large and small alike, is tapping the power of the internet to expand their reach. Online marketing and website design techniques have proved to be effective tools in today’s technologically advanced world.

By taking away time and space barriers, advanced and professional website design has bridged the gap that existed between the buyer and the seller. Opening and closing hours no longer matter to either.

Integrating the offline advertising campaign of a particular business with the online marketing one is necessary if a wider market has to be accessed. The web address of a company can be displayed on business cards, letterheads used for correspondence, flyers, etc.; while the company logo, products and services can be displayed on specific locations on the web site by way of a good Dubai web design company.

Tools like pay-per-click, RSS feeds, blogs, etc. are also very effective in educating the target audience about a company’s goods and services. Cosmos Creatives Dubai makes use of all of these tools besides others to increase traffic to a business’ site.

Additionally, our web development in Dubai team is able to implement features like shopping cart, easily navigable interfaces, feed back forms, etc. which not only help the seller in analyzing his market but also enabling him in building a database. 

The consumer is always important for us, and our professionally designed in Dubai websites always keep their needs in mind.

A visual treat is sought continually by mankind. Some fine examples: the Seven Wonders of the World, Las Vegas, Zen architecture, haute couture, million dollar houses, etc. It’s a continuous quest for visual gratification. When Aristotle classified the human senses into smell, taste, touch, hearing, and sight eons ago, he could not have envisioned the importance that today’s dotcom world places on the latter sense.

On the internet, attractive web spaces that capture the viewer’s mind similarly are possible thanks to a professional in graphic design in Dubai and web developers.

Using technologies like Microsoft FrontPage, Dreamweaver, MySQL, Linux, Javascript, Flash, etc. an expert in web development in Dubai can create and provide a business with a dynamic online presence. The more appealing and inviting a webpage is, the more a surfer and even a potential buyer will pay attention to it. How else would your web page stand out from the scores of pages that come up in search engine results?

Web development in Dubai and the professional website design sector has experienced a fast-paced growth since the mid 1990s. The dip in web development in Dubai and elsewhere as well as hosting costs have been substantial, allowing for more and more large businesses and small firms alike to add a quality look and feel to their web space with minimal costs.

At Cosmos Creatives Dubai, our team of professional and experienced web developers and designers pay great attention to detail and have an exceptional sense of design and layout. We’ll ensure that your Dubai web development and graphic design in Dubai needs are met.