Web Design FAQs

Over the years, Trig Web Design has developed and perfected fast development techniques that very few other web design companies use. These tools are designed to help us build your website very fast, usually within 7 days for a standard design project.

That being said, the timescale of a web design is still very much dependant on the client, and how fast they can get their information to us. If you already have a website, and you we are rebuilding it using existing content, your site will be completed very quickly, usually ready to go live within 14 days of signing with us!

Websites are probed by hacker and spammer programs every day, especially when your site becomes popular. Trig Web Design uses secure hosting on Linux servers for maximum security. Just for good measure, we block all IP addresses on known blacklists, and most traffic from China, India, Russia, Ukraine and other countries known for hacking. If you need your site to be seen in these countries, don't worry; we have other security precautions for your website.

Our client email systems are protected by built in virus protection, and optional spam killers. Of course we suggest you employ a PC based anti-virus program suitable for your computer, and it wouldn't hurt to install a copy of Spybot-Search and Destroy for Anti-Spyware (it's free).

When you have a picture you want on your website, it is very important to keep the file size of that image as small as possible. That doesn't necessarily mean the picture has to look small; it just means that the size of the image file should be. The best format to use is jpg, as it is a compressed format for images. Most digital cameras use jpg by default, but also take pictures at 2560 pixels wide at 300dpi (dots per inch). A web friendly picture should be no larger than 500 pixels wide, unless it if for a "blow up" of a product. Most monitors are set for a resolution of 1024 or 1280 pixels, so for blow ups, use a size of 1024 pixels max.

PNG files are nice to use, because that can have transparent backgrounds (jpg has white backgrounds by default). PNGs are much larger files because they are not compressed; so use PNGs sparingly, especially if the background doesn't have to be transparent.

Absolutely, yes! Trig Web Design is an SEO expert, and makes sure that every aspect of your new website will be optimized for the search engines. We start with keyword research, and choose the most popular keywords that apply to your content, in the proper density. We then add relevant keywords to your image title and alt tags, even use them in links within your pages. Our CMS websites have the latest SEO modules and plugins to create META code automatically based on your content, and generate sitemaps for Google, Yahoo and Bing to index your site easier (they love that).

Even the structure of your website is important to SEO, so we avoid common mistakes in web design like using tables and embedded styles. Our sites are created using DIV statements, and compressed CSS style sheets for fast loading and more uniformed typography. Even the layout of your articles are important, as Google and other engines like to see your content laid out like a newspaper article; with headlines, sub headers and paragraph tags to break up the page and let the bots see the most important keywords in the page.

If you have a Joomla! CMS website by Trig, you will have the most advanced Editors available for Joomla! sites. You will be able to edit any page on your site by logging in and clicking the "edit" button only you can see (Admins, Authors, Editors and Publishers). We use JCE editor, a more user friendly editor that allows easy image upload and placement, familiar editing tools and easy to understand buttons with overlib text to explain their functions. If you can use Microsoft Word, you can easily use one of our Joomla! websites from either the front end or the back end administration of your site. Our developers will train you on how to use these systems before your site goes live.



We also program special links into your User Menu that only you can see when logged in that will let you submit and publish new pages in your Blog, News or other areas of your website. We take every step possible to make adding pages to you website as easy as possible without having to know HTML or programming.

Websites that are completely Flash based have two major flaws. First, Flash is invisible to the search engines, making SEO very difficult. Two, mobile devices have trouble with Flash, and large Flash boxes do not fit well on small screens We employ some flash, but usually in image slideshow and maybe a header or two, to avoid image theft and provide an entertainment factor. Three, menus created with flash are not seen by search engines, leaving a major SEO component (Backlinks) out of a website. So for SEO, flash is definitely bad.

Research shows that people who surf websites are not really impressed with Flash on a website, as it gets in the way and doesn't provide the information they're looking for. Some of the most basic sites like Craigslist are wildly popular, and have no flash or even images for that matter. Less is sometimes more.

Yes, and for many different components. But to take credit cards, you will need a payment gateway like Authorize.net as well as a merchant service. These two entities work together to process your visitors credit cards through your website (Payment Gateway) and then deposit that money through your merchant service into your bank account. A good merchant service company will help you get accounts with American Express and Discover, as they are separate from standard Visa / MC.

You can also accept PayPal on your website, and it's free! PayPal has become the norm for e-commerce sites as well as programs like donation systems, online bill pay, even event registration. Our systems are generally designed to accept multiple payment gateways, including but not limited to PayPal and Authorize.net. Our developers will work with you to help you select the best options for your situation.