Category Archives: Web Design

Interesting information on the web design industry. New trends, tricks and techniques.

Online Shopping Explodes with Mobile E-Commerce Websites

E-Commerce Websites and In-Store Shopping Transforms Buying Experience Together

The Holidays are upon us and that means holiday shopping is underway. With Black Friday doorbuster deals, consumers are looking for the best possible prices on hot-ticket items for the whole family. This year, more consumers are using their mobile devices to help find and purchase those items, without even stepping foot in the physical store. Continue reading

How Much is Too Much for a Website?

How much should a good website design cost?

Don’t ask the US Government!

What should you expect to pay for web design and development?

How much is too much to pay for a website? Does paying a lot for a website guarantee quality work? According to the results of HealthCare.gov, no is clearly the answer.

healthcare-gov-websiteHigh prices usually indicate that you can expect a high quality product. But everyone is buzzing about the skyrocketing costs of the new Healthcare.gov website. Estimates of the cost of the new healthcare website range from $200 million to well over $500 million. Granted, the website technological infrastructure, interfaces and exchanges are complicated by having to connect to other older .Gov websites. This requirement was probably (we suspect) the ball and chain that’s stifling this project. While there is some disagreement on the final bill, it is clear that costs have soared over the initial $93.7 million cap. So the US Government just paid millions for HeathCare.gov – and it doesn’t work. How much should your company pay for a website and how do you avoid cost overruns like this? Continue reading

San Francisco Web Design Companies

Why Choose a Local San Francisco, Bay Area Web Design & Marketing Company?

Here are 10 reasons why you should only pick a LOCAL Bay Area web design company:

  1. Local knowledge of your playing field is super valuable. Just ask the San Francisco Giants or Oakland A’s, and they’ll tell you knowing the idiosyncrasies of their home ballparks is a huge advantage. The inside-the-park home run at AT&T Park last week was proof of that. When it’s time to select a web designer and internet marketing specialist, you need someone who understands the Bay Area culture and who is geographically familiar with the area.
  2. Exceptional Service is a lot more likely when a designer knows that you can show up at any moment for a face to face meeting. I can’t tell you how happy our clients are when they call and we pick up, and when we meet with them at the last minute for a meeting. They always show appreciation that they can talk directly to the graphic designer, the web developer, the SEO and social media marketing specialist and the owner.
  3. Quality of work. The San Francisco Bay Area is packed with tech heads and fine young (and old) artist. In fact, some of the best in the world are here.
  4. Access to help. Web designers and online marketeers have tons of resources at their fingertips here in the Bay Area. If they get in over their head, they probably know someone who can help. If you have special needs for your project, a local team can be partnered up quickly.
  5. Time zones. There are good web designers all over the world, but dealing with time zone issues is a hassle. Even working with East coast web designers and SEO Pro’s is cumbersome.
  6. Shop local and support your neighbors. It amazes me how many companies shop overseas and out of state to save a couple of bucks, but yet where the US flag all over their branding and cry about the 3rd world companies stealing their business. We’ve got to stick together here in the Bay Area. KO gives back to the Bay Area community too.
  7. Keep the crazies off your streets! We employ 8 local people and 3 local contractors. And we fill an otherwise vacant office space in the San Francisco, East Bay. KO Websites is the American machine at work. Help keep it chugging along by shopping local.
  8. Reputation Management. It’s a lot more risky to provide poor service to someone local, than far away. Despite the popularity of social media and online rating websites, the old fashion word-of-mouth is still the most powerful rating tool. The closer to home, the more powerful it is.
  9. Training. You can get hands on training on how to use your new content management systems (CMS) if you need it. Maybe you need training and support on how to use your new shopping cart. A local Bay Area web design firm can provide this for you.
  10. Local referrals you can trust. We mentioned the importance of word-of-mouth, but what if you don’t know anyone who has worked with a web design company lately? A local web design company like KO can give you a list of local names and numbers for you to call and see what the relationship was like (or is still like).

3056 Castro Valley Boulevard #53
Castro Valley, CA 94546
(510) 276-9902

Local San Francisco Bay Area Map

KO launches 3 new WordPress website

3 new great websites by a San Francisco Bay Area leader in WordPress web design

KO Websites, a San Francisco Bay Area web design company announce the launch of 3 new WordPress websites. Two of the new websites are Responsive web designs and one a non-responsive web design. All three use the WordPress CMS. All three sites are very smart phone friendly, particularly the two responsive web designs that look great on any mobile device, including Ipads and any other tablet. Continue reading

HTML5 Website for Bay Area K-12 School

HTML5 web design

Redwood Christian Schools (RCS) hired local website design and marketing firm, KO Websites, to build a new and improved website that will allow the school to better connect with students, parents, staff, and alumni. The new site can be found at www.RCS.edu. The website is built on a WordPress platform that offers a more user-friendly interface. The website serves several RCS schools and organizations operated by Redwood Christian Schools.

“Basically, we broke the website and content up into three sections,” says Ken O’Donnell, owner of KO Websites. Continue reading

KO Launches another WordPress website

MB Development Gets a new WordPress website

By KO Websites, a Bay Area leader in WordPress  web design,
SEO and Internet Marketing

Bay Area logo designMB Development came to KO Websites with the desire of getting a complete marketing make-over. From a new logo, new website, Mobile website, strong and effective SEO to full service social media marketing. “KO Websites is unique in that we have separate in-house teams dedicated to each of this clients needs.” said Ken, President at KO Websites. Continue reading

Best WordPress Web Design

KO Websites Launches Another
Great WordPress Website this week

KO Websites welcomes aboard Save A Lot Solar, a Bay Area residential solar panel and solar system installer.

When Save a Lot Solar wanted to expand their San Francisco, Bay Area residential solar installation operation, they chose to market online. To start, they needed a new WordPress website along with a long list of other online marketing assets. They wanted a single company and point of contact that could meet all their Internet marketing needs. This marketing firm would be held accountable for all their internet marketing assets, including Google Adwords.
Continue reading

KO Launches new WordPress Websites

KO launches new WordPress websites for SIMMS INK, a Hayward, CA tattoo shop.

Simms Ink put KO Websites to the test with this web design project. A complex design we would have just two years ago, used Flash for the coding. But with the impending HTML5 on the horizon, we chose to build it with WordPress, staying within the HTML5 standards. Another reason for using the WordPress application was their easy to use content management system (CMS) and we needed to add an online shopping cart; another good reason to use WordPress.

The first challenge was making all the animation and roll over effects work on the home page without slowing down the website download too much. Next the client wanted custom fonts and minimal text, which always makes SEO a challenge.

Next, we needed a photo album for both the artiest and the tattoo specialist, as well as the shop tour. Then we added a dynamic “Event” page and the shopping cart connected to PayPal.
Continue reading

Award Winning Web Design Company

What Does an ‘Award Winning Web Design Company’ mean anyway?

About 8 years ago, I went to a meeting at a PC keyboard company in Oakland, California for a discussion about KO Websites building a new website for them. The meeting went very well, but was typical, in that there was one person who was trying to trip up the web guy, proving they knew more tech than the web guy did. I was used to this and survived well until the last question was thrown at me…It was, “so how many awards has your company won?” Continue reading