Here’s a logo that we recently completed for Great Built Construction in Boerne, TX. Below you can also see some of the logo concepts that we sent them at the beginning of the project.

Of course there are hundreds of thousands of images to be found on other websites. Is it acceptable to copy someone else’s picture and incorporate it in your website or blog?

The short answer is: NO. Unless you have paid for a photo or have been granted explicit permission to use it on your website, the safe choice is not to use it.

Just typing a subject into Google Images and copying something is easy, but it’s not the best idea if you want to avoid a lawsuit. New services like TinEye can allow photographers to find out what you’re up to with their photos.

Copyright Law

Before we go any farther, a disclaimer. I am not a lawyer (insert lawyer joke here). The details of copyright law as they apply to digital works can be complicated, and they are constantly changing. Do not send us copyright questions.

First, some basic copyright facts. In the U.S., pretty much anything created privately and originally since the late eighties is copyrighted and protected AUTOMATICALLY, whether it has a notice or not. The upshot of this is that small businesses generally don’t need to worry about posting complicated copyright notices on their websites.

Also, copyright can still be violated whether you charge money or not on your website. Copyright laws are becoming more serious, and new laws are constantly moving copyright violation into the criminal realm (corporations and lobbyists, go figure).

The “fair use” exemption to U.S. copyright law was created to allow things such as commentary, parody and news reporting, and doesn’t require the permission of the author. However this mostly applies to written content, such as quoting from a New York Times article. More on fair use can be found here.

Be careful with images obtained from 3rd party sources, such as sites that offer free images, or even sample images purchased with a site template. If those images weren’t licensed correctly, the company that owns them could sue YOU.

Legit Ways To Obtain Photos

The ideal choice, of course, is to use your own photos. There are countless tutorials online that can help you to improve your photography skills. That’s not always possible or practical though, so instead you’ll want to look to trustworthy ‘stock photo’ websites.

The safest options are sites that sell images, or more accurately, they sell rights to use photos on your website. We like iStockPhoto and VivoZoom because of the large selections, powerful photo search features, and their warranties, covering you up to a set amount if you get sued for using one of their images.

Images purchased this way cost just a few dollars, depending on the size of course. Definitely consider purchasing a few images for your primary pages, as professional images can make a good impression on visitors.

How To Get Free Photos

There are many free options also. Probably the best place to start your search is Stock.XCHNG, which has hundreds of thousands of photos and a more strict uploading system, which reduces the chance that you’ll get an image that is stolen.

Other good sources of free photos include StockVault, OpenPhoto, FreeMediaGOO, MorgueFile and Unprofound. There are many more out there of course (here’s a more extensive list of free stock image sites) but be cautious when using unknown sites, which may offer images without the author’s permission.

Photo sharing sites like Flickr contain a wide variety of images with different licenses. The image license determines whether you have permission to use a file or not. For example, not all licenses allow their photos to be used commercially. Visit the Creative Commons website for details on image licenses.

Another interesting options is to use Google’s image search to find photos with a free license. Just go to ‘advanced options’ and choose images that are ‘labeled for reuse/commercial reuse’.

Finally, always remember to consider the source. Just because someone slaps a Creative Commons label on a photo doesn’t mean that they own the photo or even understand what the label means. For more information on photos, copyrights, licenses and such, visit www.copyright.gov, www.photolaw.net, www.dom4j.org and photography.about.com.

Design

An effective website has to do more that ‘wow’ visitors with fancy graphics and effects. People are busy, and generally aren’t willing to invest much time on a business site, especially if their search involves visiting several sites from a list of search site results.

That’s why it’s important to focus on appealing to busy people. You have to be able to make an impression in just a few seconds. We create sites that are professional looking, easy to navigate, and easy to use.

Through the use of short teasers, for example, we are able to catch a visitor’s interest quickly, build trust, and explain what you do in just a few seconds. See our portfolio for examples.

Technology

We are familiar with the latest website technologies. For example, our sites are built using CSS, PHP and (X)HTML, which makes them cleaner, easy to maintain, and compatible with portable devices like smartphones and tablets.

We know how to use other stuff like Java and Flash, but more importantly we know how to use these technologies wisely. Simple is better. Complication can cause broken sites, slow downloads, and annoyed customers.

Hosting

Every website needs a home, or ‘host’. We’ve been reliably hosting customer websites for almost 10 years. Our hosting service includes e-mail accounts, full site statistics, and supports all the latest web technologies. And don’t worry, we can handle all the details associated with the setup and maintenance.

Promotion

What good is your shiny new site if nobody visits? We’ll help you draw more visitors by helping you promote it and assisting you in keeping the content of your site fresh. We don’t rely on gimmicks like ‘submitting to search engines’, ‘tweaking meta tags’ and other outdated tactics.

We’ll explain how to really get more customers to your site, and then help you do it. It can take time to develop a popular site; so we work with our customers each month to improve the site and tweak things to bring more visitors and keep their interest.

Things change quickly when it comes to online marketing. We make sure that you’re taking advantage of the latest methods and technologies, social networking and search engine optimization. If you will be engaging in e-commerce or your website involves licensed products or images, working with someone familiar with internet law and guidelines is essential.

Custom business listing

It’s free to get your business listed on Google Maps. This makes it easier for customers to find you, because your listing can appear in a map search as well as a basic web search. You can include an image, a link to your website, operating hours and contact info.

Use the Local Business Center to create your free listing. When potential customers search Maps for local information, they’ll find your business: your address, hours of operation, even photos of your storefront or products. It’s easy, free, and you don’t need a website of your own.

Sign up now for free at the Google Local Business Center.

Why is this important?

If you are a new business or an established business we can help you build and establish a payment history with Net 30 terms. This helps your business to establish or rebuild your business credit history.

We want to help our clients build their businesses.

Download our credit application: credit.pdf

Recently, we streamlined the design and layout of his site. Mr. Burke has a simple online store allowing the purchase of hand-blown glass pieces in addition to an online gallery to show off his custom glass creations.

To browse his site, go to:
www.vitroyoyo.com

Here’s a logo that we just completed for Junk Unlimited, a waste and recycling hauling service.

How and why does Google pick these Star Wars sites out of the millions of others?

First, you need to understand how popular search sites like Google and Yahoo work. Let’s discuss Google, since they handle the vast majority of the world’s website searches. First, on Google’s Technology Overview page, they have a brief explanation of their ‘PageRank’ technology:
 

Traditional search engines rely heavily on how often a word appears on a web page. We use more than 200 signals, including our patented PageRank™ algorithm, to examine the entire link structure of the web and determine which pages are most important. We then conduct hypertext-matching analysis to determine which pages are relevant to the specific search being conducted. By combining overall importance and query-specific relevance, we’re able to put the most relevant and reliable results first.

Years ago, ‘traditional’ search engines only looked at the words on the page, and in meta tags. Of course, that made it very easy to ‘cheat’ the system by repeating words, putting incorrect info into meta tags, adding hidden words to pages, and so forth.

But notice that Google bases their search results on the entire link structure of the web. Modern search sites determine a site’s importance by looking at, among other things, who links to that site. Normally a better site has many other sites linking to it, whereas a fake or inferior site doesn’t.

So the point is that it is very important to convince other sites to link to you; otherwise your shiny new site with all those fancy keywords will be mostly ignored. But how do you get other sites to link to yours? Stay tuned for more info, or contact us now to have your questions answered!

Q: Where are your clients located? Do you have references I can talk to?
A: Our clientele is spread across the US. Feel free to ask for contact details of our references.

Q: How do you communicate with your clients?
A: We can talk on the phone, chat on an instant messenger, through e-mail, or in person if you live in the San Antonio and Austin, Texas area

Q. Do you offer business credit terms?
A. Yes. You can build your website and your business credit at the same time. Our website services cater to small and new businesses. We offer business credit terms to sole proprietors, new corporations, and LLCs. We Net 30 accounts without a personal guarantee from the corporate officers.

If you are attempting to get business credit established for your company, we can help you to establish a payment history.

To open up your account only takes about 10 minutes over the phone.  (210) 745-2711