Category Archives: Trends

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Hiring WordPress and Joomla Developers

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WordPress Developer

We are looking for an energetic and experienced developer skilled in WordPress and Joomla plugin and theme development. The successful candidate should show proven experience in developing using the WordPress and JOOMLA.

Skills should include:

Excellent PHP/Javascript development with an understanding of SQL
Building web applications/services with advanced functionality
Proven ability to work with the WordPress API and JOOMLA
Good communication skills
Experience using project management applications such as Basecamp by 37 Signals
Ability to function within a small time with tight deadlines
Working knowledge of linux systems administration and configuration

Graphic Designer

We are looking for a skilled designer with an eye for creating striking websites using WordPress. The successful candidate should have the ability to develop WordPress themes using the WordPress API. Skills should include:

Excellent web design skills
Some familiarity of PHP
Examples of design work (logos, print, WordPress themes, JOOMLA themes)
Understanding of User Interface design
Good communication skills
Ability to function within a small time with tight deadline

 

If you are interested please send us samples of  your work to chakery(@)gmail.com. Please include links to your best work.

The Elements of Web Design by Malcom Chakery

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Your website is an extension of your company. Or, in some cases, it may be the primary location of your company. So, as the virtual representation of your business it is vital that your website be all it can be in order to build a successful business. So, if you are designing your own website, it is important that the final product contain 4 essential elements, so let’s get started.

  1. Balance- A webpage should have visual interest. From colors and shapes to the sizes of your graphics and fonts, your website should encourage guests to interact without being distracting. This best accomplished by having a balanced appearance. You may chose a symmetrical  plan in which elements of your site are evenly spaced (e.g. a graphic on the left with text on the right) or perhaps you will opt for an asymmetrical plan in which unlike items of equal weight are used.  As you design your webpage, try several design layouts to find the one that encourages guests to stay.
  2. Repetition- Sometimes referred to as rhythm, repetition is the use of a pattern that gives a consistency to your site. This rhythm makes it easier for your customers to understand. Having sudden changes in the patterns, size or spacing will create an exciting rhythm but may not impart the feeling you want for your company. Keep in mind the features of Gestalt-proximity, similarity, continuance, closure uniform correctness and 1+1=3 effects.
  3. Emphasis- Often called dominance or the focal point, this is the element that lets people know who you are. Some ways it can be accomplished are through semantic markup, changing font sizes or images, the use of bold black type for headings, contrasting colors, putting important info in a text box or written on a curve or by using an unusual font for the most vital information.
  4. Proximity or Unity- Be sure elements are placed in such a way that they belong together. Use visual cues to let readers know an article is a unit-item near each other are related; those far apart are not. Unity can be established by consistent fonts, repetition of shapes, color or texture and thematic visuals of similar colors, sizes or shapes.

Using the principles is a must for having a website design that attracts and retains guest to your site. Each of these elements work together to create a site that is sure to encourage guests to spend some time getting to know you.

About the author

Founder and President of Chakery Design, Malcom Chakery has extensive knowledge and experience in the workings of a web based business operations. Possessing great amounts of expertise in regard to marketing, seo, web design and development, Malcom is extremely comfortable handling all details regarding the day-to-day operations as well as the sales and support of his many high profile clients. With a clear plan in place regarding operational procedures, all aspects of website design, seo, and promotional activities are managed and overseen by Malcom before they are completed. As a stickler for detail, Malcom believes in providing greater than expected support, superior customer service, and innovative programs, making sure to go above and beyond customer expectations. To learn more about Malcom and his companies please visit www.chakery.comor www.chakeryseo.com.

 

Time to Make the Doughnuts: Dunkin’ Donuts Goes Local

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For several years, Dunkin’ Donuts had a rather generic website that served as the go to place for all information on Dunkin’ Donuts. And while the site had great information about Dunkin’ Donuts  from a national viewpoint, there was little information regarding the local shops. However, not too long ago this lack of local focus changed.

The new site was inspired by feedback from Facebook fans who wanted to know more about what is going on at their local Dunkin’ Donuts store. The result is that Dunkin’ Donuts redesigned their site to meet this interest and made it available via Google Local to both the standard PC and their mobile devices. To learn what is happening at your local store, simply enter in your zip code or use the GPS function on your smartphone. This local feature also allows you to keep up with store openings, hours and ultimately, special promotions.

In addition, Dunkin’ Donuts has also added a blog and is streaming content from feeds on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. To make Dunkin Donuts more appealing to the health conscious consumer, the company has also added an “eating smart” menu along with an assortment of iced coffees around the holidays.

Dunkin Donut’s move to being a Google Local site is one that many businesses are making. After all, when your business is listed on Google Local you have an even larger customer base resulting in more consumer awareness and ultimately higher revenue. If you are interested in joining Dunkin Donuts and many other businesses by having a customized Goggle Local site, be sure to talk to the professionals at Chakery Design. We will be glad to talk to you and help you determine how to make the most of a Google Local site for your company.

About the author

Founder and President of Chakery Design, Malcom Chakery has extensive knowledge and experience in the workings of a web based business operations. Possessing great amounts of expertise in regard to marketing, seo, web design and development, Malcom is extremely comfortable handling all details regarding the day-to-day operations as well as the sales and support of his many high profile clients. With a clear plan in place regarding operational procedures, all aspects of web design, seo, and promotional activities are managed and overseen by Malcom before they are completed. As a stickler for detail, Malcom believes in providing greater than expected support, superior customer service, and innovative programs, making sure to go above and beyond customer expectations. To learn more about Malcom and his companies please visit www.chakery.com or www.chakeryseo.com.

Things You Need To Know About Flickr

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I have had a Flickr pro account for about 5 years. The pro account is the paid version for $24.95 per month you get unlimited uploads and storage of your images and videos. Ad free browsing and sharing, and HD quality playback of your videos and a few other features that the free plan does not offer. Well say for example if you have uploaded two thousand photos and one thousand videos over the years and you have in that time also had a computer crash and thought ahh no worries you have flickr so everything is backed up in the Flickrverse yeah I just made that up.. “FlickrVerse”!! So where was I? Yes your computer crashes and you want to find that picture of the cute little kitten that you got for Christmas in 2009. So you log into your Flickr account using your Yahoo ID username and password since it is a Yahoo service only to find a message that appears stating that you can only see 200 pictures at the moment until you renew the service for the additional year for $24.99.  Unfortunately you can not see the kitten until you pay the $24.99. So now at this point if you had decided that you were going to download all of your photos and videos from the past 5 years and wanted to stop paying yearly for the paid service and wanted to take advantage of the free service you can not do it. You can not access anything past those 200 images or videos whatever they decide to give you access to. You know when a person receive’s too many parking tickets they sometimes put a yellow boot on the car tire to stop that vehicle from moving. Essentially that is what Flickr is doing to your personal images that you uploaded on to their servers. Till you pay them the $24.99 those images stay locked up on their server. So  you pay them the $24.99 They now have you for another year and most people are going to simply stay until it happens again, like I have for the past 3-4 years. I am telling you this because many people are unaware of this until it happens and many people can not afford to pay for these extra services but are forced to do so to get the photos that are very important to them.  There was an incident where one user had 600 photos deleted without his knowledge because he claimed that he was not notified. Here is a link to his story http://goo.gl/GN1nX .

The  moral of the story is if you are trusting an online site with your photos make sure that you have those images backed up somewhere. Not just on your computer because a hard drive can and will crash. Back them up on a CD/DVD or a Thumb Drive. Thumb Drives have come down in cost significantly. If you are internet savvy try to figure out a way to have your images hosted on your own server or your own network so that you don’t have to depend on someone else’s network availability and security. Also in this day and age Flickr is also known for Geo Tagging images…Geotagging is defined by adding your personal location information to things like a photo.
So here is an example. You take a picture of your family at your home during Christmas morning showing everyone the new iPad2 and the brand new Sony Big Screen TV that you got for Christmas and you upload it to Flickr. What you didn’t know is that it was Geo Tagged and that it gave the exact latitude and longitude and the time the picture was taken and the type of camera used of course. It might look something like this.

GPS Latitude                    : 57 deg 38' 56.83" N
GPS Longitude                   : 10 deg 24' 26.79" E
GPS Position                    : 57 deg 38' 56.83" N, 10 deg 24' 26.79" E

Just make sure you set your settings to have Geo Tagging off  if of course you do not want to have your private information out there for the world to see. Because in the case I described above. A criminal with a computer no longer has to go door to door he simply has to go to flickr, facebook, or twitter and look for the right victim and look through the images and see what the data looks like in the images and see how far it might take him. Take a look at the image below where Flickr is asking me to renew. I have all of my images backed up of course so I have no need whatsoever to renew.

 

Flickr

 

Dealing with Disaster: When Your Website Gets Fired On

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When it comes to show business, many would tell you that there is “no such thing, as bad media attention” because publicity is a good thing. However, in the world of the Internet, this is not always the case. Thanks to sites such as Yelp, RipOffReport.com and others, dissatisfied consumers, or perhaps former employees, are able to blast your business from the privacy of their homes. Before you know it, your business website may be at the top of a search list—just not for the reasons you would desire.

If this has happened to you, then you are likely looking for ways to overcome the problem. If you have not needed to deal with being blacklisted online, then count your blessings and file the following information away in case you should have to deal with a disgruntled former employee/customer later on.

  1. If you have not already done this in building your brand, go to sites such as Yelp, Google Local, City Search and others and identify yourself as the official business owner. Be sure that the company profile, policies and resolution records are up to date. If possible, link to your BBB ranking or RatePoint status.
  2. Be sure your profiles are current and that you have used keywords for your site in them. these keywords should be a part of your Title, Company Description and other elements listed.
  3. Reach out to loyal customers, explain the situation and ask if they will help you by posting reviews on Yelp or  Places.Google.com . You may even want to offer them a small gift or gift card in return for their support. You could even add a comment to your voice mail that says something like, “Post a review online and get a gift. Thanks for allowing us to serve you!”
  4. Use social media sites to promote your product and to track what people are saying about it on Facebook, Twitter and others. There are many tools available to help you keep up with what is being said about your company.

As you begin to recapture your audience, you will soon find your company website ranking back where you were before the damage. In fact, it may even surpass its previous ranking, as now there have been so many additional reviews and comments left online.

About the author

Founder and President of Chakery Design, Malcom Chakery has extensive knowledge and experience in the workings of a web based business operations. Possessing great amounts of expertise in regard to marketing, seo, web design and development, Malcom is extremely comfortable handling all details regarding the day-to-day operations as well as the sales and support of his many high profile clients. With a clear plan in place regarding operational procedures, all aspects of web design, seo, and promotional activities are managed and overseen by Malcom before they are completed. As a stickler for detail, Malcom believes in providing greater than expected support, superior customer service, and innovative programs, making sure to go above and beyond customer expectations. To learn more about Malcom and his companies please visit www.chakery.com or www.chakeryseo.com.

 

Do You Know the Code?

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If you have paid much attention to packages, magazines and even billboards these days, chances are you have seen a few QR codes. The QR code, standing for quick response, is a square shaped black and white symbol that in many ways is not much more than a kicked up barcode. However, thanks to their design, they can do more than simply identify what and how much and item is.

A QR code, unlike a barcode, can be used to encode information in a 2-dimensional space that can be read both horizontally and vertically in a tiny grid of squares. This difference offers a great deal of potential to anyone looking to market their business using a more advanced technology. Some of the ways you can a QR code are:

  • Contact info for an individual or company
  • Phone numbers that are embedded can be dialed automatically
  • URLs are immediately connected
  • View a calendar event with full details
  • Coupons
  • Sign-up forms
  • GPS/physical address
  • Product information
  • Customer Support information

This information is accessed when consumers use their mobile phone to decode the QRs. This ease of access makes the QR code one of the most beneficial tools available for promoting a business. But even better than the multiple uses of a QR code is that it is free.  If you are considering a QR code for your business, then you can check sites like:

Once you have created a QR code for your business or event, then you will be able to include it on items such as invoices, event tickets, assorted signage, email signature lines, on your website and on virtually any item that can be printed. In addition, when you use a QR on your website you are showing search engines that your web pages have changed and they will index it accordingly.

So, if you are looking for a way to update your website as well as promote your business, check out one of the preceding sites and design a QR code of your own! With just a few minutes of your time, you can have a QR code that can promote your business anywhere you want.

About the author

Founder and President of Chakery Design, Malcom Chakery has extensive knowledge and experience in the workings of a web based business operations. Possessing great amounts of expertise in regard to marketing, seo, web design and development, Malcom is extremely comfortable handling all details regarding the day-to-day operations as well as the sales and support of his many high profile clients. With a clear plan in place regarding operational procedures, all aspects of web design, seo, and promotional activities are managed and overseen by Malcom before they are completed. As a stickler for detail, Malcom believes in providing greater than expected support, superior customer service, and innovative programs, making sure to go above and beyond customer expectations. To learn more about Malcom and his companies please visit www.chakery.com or www.chakeryseo.com.

Is Your Website Mobile?

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Recently a friend shared an experience with me regarding internet use. She had wanted to download tickets for a local event. Unfortunately, the site was not compatible for mobile users, so  she was unable to follow the link that was sent to her for printing the tickets. Happily, she was able to contact the person heading up the event and get her tickets that way, instead.

However, her frustration made me wonder how many sites there are that have not updated to suit the needs of today’s mobile consumer. After all, if you are trying to sell a product or service you don’t want to lose customers simply because your site cannot be navigated on a mobile device.

If you have yet to update your website for the mobile user, consider this. Cisco has predicted that worldwide mobile traffic will increase by 25 times between now and 2015, largely in part to the extensive amount of video consumption on today’s mobile devices. (Website Magazine, April 2011) So, if you have a company that is primarily a web-based business and have yet to make your website mobile-friendly, then you will ultimately loose a large percentage of new customers—and perhaps some of the existing ones.

In a day where money and budgeting is tighter than it has been decades, this is not the time to decide that upgrades are unnecessary. After all, you want your website to be user –friendly so your sales increase and your site guests can’t wait to come back and visit again. Make sure your website is on the move so your customers will not move on to someone else!

About the author

Founder and President of Chakery Design, Malcom Chakery has extensive knowledge and experience in the workings of a web based business operations. Possessing great amounts of expertise in regard to marketing, seo, web design and development, Malcom is extremely comfortable handling all details regarding the day-to-day operations as well as the sales and support of his many high profile clients. With a clear plan in place regarding operational procedures, all aspects of web design, seo, and promotional activities are managed and overseen by Malcom before they are completed. As a stickler for detail, Malcom believes in providing greater than expected support, superior customer service, and innovative programs, making sure to go above and beyond customer expectations. To learn more about Malcom and his companies please visit www.chakery.com or www.chakeryseo.com.

How Google Search Is Changing

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Have you been posting articles on your favorite sites, or writing blog post but have not seen any increases in revenue, site guests or SERPs in the past few weeks? If so, don’t despair. At the end of February, Google changed their algorithm, which affected websites of every type and size. This algorithm, dubbed by many as Farmer, is designed to weed out sites where there is an abundance of duplicate and less than stellar quality content. As a result, many site owners saw a significant downslide in revenue and a lowering in page rank.

When asked, Amit Singhal  of Google, explained that the weeding determinations were made by sending  questionnaires to testers and asking them to rate sites based on questions such as “ Would they be willing to share their credit card ?”, “Did they feel there were more ads than content?” and “Do you feel that this site is authoritative?” Once they had their answers, Google made changes.

To fail to do so, will mean one’s site(s) will rank low. If you are one of the 1,000’s who were affected, you may be wondering how to climb back up the page rank ladder. Here are several steps to help you recover:

  • Trash any web content that does not add site value.
  • Protect what is yours. If you run across content that was unique to your site on another page, run a WHOIS search to locate the site host is, then firmly request that your material be removed from the site.
  • Be creative! While imitation may be the highest form of flattery this not so on the web. Write original articles and blog posts so that your site will stand out from the crowd-not blend in at the bottom of the list.

By making just a few changes in your style, before you know it, you can soon be back where you were before the “Farmer” weeded the Web.

About the author

Founder and President of Chakery Design, Malcom Chakery has extensive knowledge and experience in the workings of a web based business operations. Possessing great amounts of expertise in regard to marketing, seo, web design and development, Malcom is extremely comfortable handling all details regarding the day-to-day operations as well as the sales and support of his many high profile clients. With a clear plan in place regarding operational procedures, all aspects of web design, seo, and promotional activities are managed and overseen by Malcom before they are completed. As a stickler for detail, Malcom believes in providing greater than expected support, superior customer service, and innovative programs, making sure to go above and beyond customer expectations. To learn more about Malcom and his companies please visit www.chakery.com or www.chakeryseo.com.

A Place of Hope International Website Goes Live!

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We are so pleased to announce that A Place of Hope International – a Chakery client and all-around fantastic organization – have successfully launched their new website, which can be seen online at http://www.urmyhope.org/. The group, which establishes orphanages around the globe, needed a new online platform to raise awareness, attract donations, and be able to show people about the fantastic work they do.

The centerpiece of the new site is its clean, functional design that allows visitors to quickly find the latest news, learn more about ongoing projects, or donate via the Internet in a matter of moments. As online fundraising is becoming a larger and larger part of any nonprofit organization, we knew it was critical that they be able to use their new site to raise funds and attention in a way that’s convenient prospective donors.

At Chakery, we’re proud of every project we get to work on, from the simplest website design to the most complicated search engine optimization plan, and we have been lucky enough to work with a number of well-known companies like American Airlines and Lockheed Martin. But our recent successes with organizations like A Place for Hope, not to mention the universities and hospitals that we’ve been able to assist, hold a special place in our hearts. There’s nothing quite like helping such a special set of people who want to change the world.

With that in mind, we encourage you to visit A Place for Hope online and get a sense of how our good work highlights theirs. We want to thank them again for the opportunity to help, and hope that our contribution will add to the great things they do a meaningful way.

Chakery Design’s Phone Number has Changed!

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Please get out out a pen and a piece of paper or you can pull out your iphone or your iPad. The phone number 214-281-8404 will no longer be in service. We are getting rid of that number. Please use the following numbers to reach Chakery Design. You can always email admin@chakery.com if you have any questions.

Main: 214.295.5550
Toll Free: 1.800.757.7128
Fax: 1.866.855.2311

Malcom Chakery