Westchester, NY (November 10, 2009): All Paws Aboard Inc. is happy to announce the launch of its new website.  The pet sitting and dog walking company, local to Westchester County, officially launched their new web site on Tuesday November 10, 2009.  All Paws Aboard Inc. is a professional and dedicated pet sitting company whose services are accompanied by small town and neighborhood charm.  All Paws Aboard offers Westchester County pet owners a variety of services including daily dog walking, pet setting, pet sit over nights, and dog boarding. 

The website, located at http://allpawsaboardinc.com/, was designed in Westchester, NY by the web design firm, Black Rhino Marketing Solutions.  The owners of All Paws Aboard Inc. hope that the website will make it even easier for visitors to access important information regarding their company’s services.  If you are interested in learning more about All Paws Aboard Inc. please visit their website at www.allpawsaboard.com.

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It feels like people from my generation are the last of a dying breed – those who still use or make use of print.  Those of us who can still find “ink on our fingers,” so to speak. From news and advertising to everyday communication and commerce, it’s no secret that we have become a digitalized world of bloggers, e-vendors, and online media socialites.  For those of us that started out that way and who were born into the World Wide Web, well, the issue of what to do with all that paper that adds up over the years doesn’t even come about. So what about those people, whose livelihoods relied upon and were surrounded by the world of print?  How are they fairing in a world that runs along the digital highway and waits for no one?

The sad but true reality of the state of the print world is dismal. We’ve all read about the folding of major newspapers, magazines, and the demise of various other facets of the print world that have existed for almost a century. While many companies and technical savvy individuals have been able to keep up with the times and adopt the ways of the digital world or make that transition to the web, a small, yet important demographic still lags behind – that of the small business.

Small businesses, particularly successful, small businesses that have been around for years seem to have the most trouble with transitioning from print or pen and paper to the web.

Having worked with a number of clients that are small businesses looking to make this important transition, the following are just a few suggestions on how to properly make the leap from print to the web:

1. Setup a blog, a website or both. Whether you’re selling shoes are publicizing your latest book – creating a blog or website is key. For blogs, we suggest using Word Press. It’s much more flexible, you won’t have to advertise (like you have to advertise with blogger). With Word Press, you also have the option of setting up a content management system, which allows you to create multiple pages and an actual website with other pages. Making a website for your company allows for an endless amount of possibilities. You can start with a simple, 5 page web  site just to get your name out there, what you do and communicate with your target market faster and easier. Eventually, you can put more work into your site’s SEO and SEM for web advertising or setup e-commerce to start selling your products or services via the web.
2. Plan your Design. If you plan to use current publications or text there are a couple of things to consider when it comes to typography and images. When it comes to designing your website or blog, these two aspects of your web publication are the most important things to be aware of. The way something looks on paper will appear different on the computer screen. For this reason, you should familiarize yourself with how font type and size differentiate from print to digital. Also take into consideration various font colors and how they will appear best on whichever background you are looking to use on the web. Print best practices normally use a 10 or 11 point font. This size font is not legible on the web and should be increased to either 12 or 14 when using text on the web. Also consider using a sans-serif font as opposed to serif fonts – they are known to have a much higher readability level for most people viewing the text on a screen.It is also important to consider color and contrast of the text and its background when publishing on the web. For example – it is important to be careful to steer away from grey or light colored fonts that will be hard to read on a white background.Common problems with design transitions from print to web also include image size and dimension after compression. Things to consider are your images dpi (dots per inch), the document/image format – we recommend using either a JPEG or PNG.
3. Educate yourself on the best ways to market and advertise your website or blog. Things to consider are SEO, email marketing, RSS feeds or visitor/user subscriptions to any publications you might be offering the public.

The above are just a few of the significant things you should take into consideration when transitioning from print to web. While there is a great deal of information and things to watch out for during this process it has proven to be one that is well worth it. The best suggestion we can offer those of you looking to take the leap is to make use of the internet and all of the other information out there regarding this process.

Black Rhino Marketing Solutions founded itself on the very principle that  highly affordable websites and web marketing tools could (and should) be provided to small and large businesses alike.  The reason being, that the software  and the computers used to design and create websites today aren’t what’s running up the client’s bills.  On the contrary, its the cost of labor.

The most valuable aspect of the graphic and web design industry is the knowledge and the know-how of how to create the product that your client wants.  By knowledge, I mean two things – the ability to code the way the website functions and the creativeness to design the website that your client describes to you or envisions.  (So maybe there are really two uber valuable aspects of this trade).  Regardless though, the pricing structure is elastic enough to work in favor of the client, particularly in times of a recession (like, say for instance, today).

Don’t get me wrong, being creative and being able to come up with visually powerhouse graphics ALL the TIME for people you don’t know that well is hard, its sometimes really hard.  Then tailoring your own creative license to your client’s taste, well that can be the biggest challenge of all (and the most time consuming).

Same goes for coding.  Writing computer language codes for the web is tedious, it requires an INSANE amount of attention-to-detail, and a sick amount of passion for the job.  If you don’t love to code websites, there is no way you’d A) understand what you were doing or B) have the patience to sit in front of a computer for hours upon hours typing letters, numbers, words, and algorithms out to tell the website how to work.   That said, its no wonder companies and freelance website designers charge thousands upon thousands of dollars for simple websites or even for the dreaded website template.

The thing is, the Generation Y’s (who’ve all been tapping away and computing since they came out of the womb) are starting to enter the workforce.  Because technology comes easier to these guys the IT industry doesn’t have as much of a monopoly on the general public as it once had, especially when it comes to web design.  For that reason, Black Rhino Marketing Solutions established its pricing structure based on the following principles:

1. Provide custom websites to clients at affordable prices.
2. Work with the client to provide a product they are 100% happy with.
3. Build strong, lasting relationships between businesses for mutual and future benefit.

We believe in the age old, simple saying, “quality over quantity,” in our work and our pricing structure.   Having a web presence is the future of today – in order to help propel businesses it truly is important to hop on the digital highway.  Its our philosophy at Black Rhino Solutions to allow people to take a recess from the recession with our affordable website marketing tools.