We just launched a new directory of Boston web design firms. Listings are free for any Boston area web design companies. Just follow the directions on the "get listed" page. If you provide search engine optimization services check out Boston SEO Firms as well.

We've been planning on opening an office to provide search engine optimization and web design services in Boston, Massachusetts for years, and 2008 is looking like it will finally be the year it happens.

I keep forgetting to post about new projects. There are just too many. The latest is a website we designed for Details Living, a designer and builder of custom, modular homes. If you're not sure what a modular home is, then you're with the majority. We didn't know what one was when they came to us, and what we thought it might be didn't exactly make us want to move into one. But now we're wiser.

Web designers know these sites all too well, but they might be new to those of you who make up the general public. One of the secrets of designers is that they almost never create designs that are 100% of their own making. Most website designs are inspired by one, two, or ten other websites. Sometimes they're inspired by brochures. Sometimes they're inspired by packaging. Designers are always seeking inspiration and creative elements they can tweak until it is their own unique design, and there are several websites that cater to this need.

Want to make $500 for almost no work? Of course you do, it's the American dream. Here's how it works. Simply place the following link on your website: "My Web Design Company". On September 10th, 2007 I'll check Google and randomly select one of the backward links. I'll then find out who owns the website linking to MyWebDesignCompany.com, and I'll send them a check for $500. It's that easy.

Those of us providing web design services struggle with the fact that what we produce is not a tangible product. You can't touch it, feel it, lift it, smell it, taste it, and when you're seeing "it" what are you really seeing? I say we struggle with it, but it's really our clients who struggle with it. There are companies out there that will spend $20,000 on a big sign for their building, but would balk at paying the same price for a website, simply because the sign is something that is big, heavy, and tangible. But companies that discount, consciously or subconsciously, the value of a website simply because of it's intangibility might be putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage.