This website has gone through a recent redesign to bring its look more up to date. The back end still features a ZenCart e-commerce system for selling of their sporting goods. It also has some customized work done to allow them to post up individual “Online Stores” that are dedicated to a single sports team in a school.
Name: Designer Sports
Website: www.designer-sports.com
Features: ZenCart E-Commerce, Customize Online Store feature
This website is brand new and uses a rotating banner and a jQuery plugin for mouse over functionality to better display features of the services offered by the company.
Name: Flickers Entertainment Rentals
Website: www.flickersrentals.com
Features: Static Website, Rotating banner, and jQuery Mouse overs
This website has gone through a recent redesign. It features a Members only section and a custom Join form. It caters to customers looking for authentic varsity gear.
Name: National Varsity Club
Website: www.nationalvarsityclub.com
Features: Static Website, Members only section, Join form
This website has gone through many years with Nani Design, this was its 3 Design as the company evolved with the advances in website technology. This site features jQuery fades to the images and video work. The video was edited from original copies to a more suited size for a website.
Name: EDS Builders
Website: www.edsbuilders.com
Features: Static Website, Rotating banner, and custom videos
A redesign of an existing site to get them off of a “website building” system. Includes custom imagery for the Twin City skyline and areas where the companies own car was used. A custom registration form was put in to replace the PDF form that was always emailed out instead. The Online form includes features to import into a pdf, so the company can easily fill out their existing form from the data entered into the website.
Name: Twin Cities Dream Cras
Website: www.tcdreamcars.com
Features: Custom Design/Imagery & Custom Registration Form
There are probably thousands of articles on the web talking about Google Analytics, such as how to use the free reporting tool, how to set up Google Analytics for your website, and what Google Analytics reports you can take advantage of. This is all great information, especially for novice website designers. What is missing is the most critical piece of information, which is “How do I analyze these Google Analytics reports in order to actually make impactful changes to my website?” In this article we are going to answer that question, as well as, provide you with some examples of taking certain data from Google Analytics, analyzing it, and then using it to make changes to your website and/or website marketing.
Tools like Google Analytics allow you to check your website traffic data as frequently as you’d like. I definitely recommend keeping an eye on your Google Analytics reports daily or weekly. With that said, we all know that checking your reports and actually taking time to analyze them are two different tasks. This is why I recommend that every website owner take a full day each quarter to analyze their reports and implement any needed changes to their website based on what the data is showing.
It’s easy to get lost in Google Analytics. There is SO much data that you can analyze. Not only is there a ton of data, but the ways in which you can slice it up seem almost endless. Every website owner is going to have different reports to focus on, but there are a few main data points that all website owners should be aware of during their quarterly reviews:
Now that we have an understanding of some of the most important reports to analyze for your website, let’s dig into each of them to provide examples on how you can use the data to make real impactful changes to your website and website marketing.
Knowing which keywords to optimize your website with is crucial in attracting the right visitors. Here’s how you can utilize the Keyword reports in Google Analytics:
By analyzing your Traffic Sources – Keywords report and following the steps above you will significantly increase your website traffic for those specific keywords.
Once you have completed this first main Keyword optimization during your Quarterly review, go BACK through your Keyword report and sort the results by Average Time on Site. Find five keywords that might not be driving a lot of traffic to your website right now, but the traffic that is coming to your site from those keywords tends to spend a lot of time on your site. These are your “growth keywords”. Repeat the steps above using these keywords to see if with a little more use throughout your website they can produce more traffic.
Knowing which websites (or social media channels) around the web that are referring the most traffic to your website is critical. As a website owner you only have so much time in the day to market your site. It’s best to use that time wisely. Follow these steps in order to analyze your traffic sources and make impactful changes to your website marketing:
Using the Referral Sources report in Google Analytics will help you become more efficient with your marketing time and more effective at driving traffic to your website.
Analyzing your Visitor Profile through the Visitors Overview report in Google Analytics will let you know how much of your traffic is composed of ‘New Visitors’ and how much of your traffic is composed of ‘Repeat Visitors’. You want to encourage new visitors to become return visitors, as well as, continue to attract even more new visitors. Here are a few ways that you can take your data from the Visitors Overview report and actually use it to improve your website:
Understanding what content is resonating with your visitors will help you come up with new content topics for the next quarter.
Producing more of the content that your visitors are finding valuable will keep them coming back, get them to share your website with their friends, and attract new visitors.
Are the weekends a popular time for your website or do most people visit your website during the week? Knowing what days are high traffic days for your website and what days are low traffic days for your website allows you to be much more strategic in regards to publishing new updates to your website. By analyzing the Visits report in Google Analytics you can see which days seem to generate the most traffic. Make a list of your high traffic days and then start taking advantage of those high traffic days in the following ways:
Knowing when, and when not to, publish new information to your website can drastically alter the number of views your new updates receive. Be smart about when you publish new content, news, events, etc. Use the Visits report in Google Analytics as your guide.
Google Analytics is great. The website data provided by Google Analytics can help website owners learn a ton about their website. With that said, unless website owners take time to review and analyze their reports on a regular basis, and then take time to use that data to make changes to their website, they are missing out on the biggest advantage that Google Analytics provides. Google Analytics provides you with a blueprint for giving your visitors what they want, when they want it. Be sure to take advantage of that.
There is always vast room for improvement with any website, and small business websites are no exception. With the phone book a communication tool of the past, establishing a solid online presence is at the forefront of a lot of small businesses.
If you’re a small business owner, your website is a pivotal part of your marketing and branding, and shouldn’t be taken lightly. It’s integral to not just focus on appearance – but usability – as this will play a major role in how long your customers stay around.
In this article we will address the areas that factor into whether a small business website is ultimately successful or not. Pay careful attention to these areas in your next design for a small business, as they will reap benefits in the long run.
In today’s society buzz words are a thing of the past. Freely express your vision for your business with the world on your website. You can start by asking yourself (or your client) these three questions:
After answering these three questions your can begin to develop a creative strategy for your website that will ultimately make it more effective. These questions hold the key to making marketing decisions, branding your business, building fierce loyalty within your customer base, and a lot more.
Keep these tips in mind in creating copy for your site:
You’ve spent hours upon hours designing a beautiful website for your clients, complete with custom illustrations and a flashy new slideshow, but your client isn’t getting any new business. A fundamental error of many small business websites is they fail to include a clear Call to Action. If you aren’t leading users to commit to an action (buy a product, contact you or subscribe, for example), then you are losing them.
You may have spent a lot of time driving traffic to your client’s website, ultimately to only have these customers not convert into new business. If a call to action is a small link buried in a sea of text, it’s easy to see how these customers got away. To achieve a business’ goals, creating a successful call to action to guide users where they need to be should be at the forefront of your web design check list.
The call to action button above is placed in a prominent location; it’s large and has a distinctive color with respect to surrounding elements. To provide additional context on what it means to “Purchase the book”, the call to action button is followed by text explaining cost and available format (traditional book or PDF).
Keep the following in mind when creating the right call to action:
We all love a beautiful website, but when that website loads slowly or gets in the way of accessing pertinent information, it’s time for some restructuring. It’s important to address what is the ultimate goal you wish your visitor to achieve in visiting your site. Your site should ultimately draw focus to the content, and all those bells and whistles are just icing on the cake.
Most people won’t read everything on your page, so it’s critical to decide the most important content that needs to be there. This can be achieved through a visual hierarchy that guides the user through the page and creates a more enjoyable user experience.
Here’s an article on Eye Tracking to give you a better idea of how to structure content.
Here are some tips to keep in mind when structuring your content:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) should also be addressed in your overall website strategy. Quality content with legitimate mentions of key words and topics related to your business will help to bring more business your way. What’s best is results are now consisted of all kinds of content, including videos, images, maps, business listings, tweets and even Facebook Page posts.
Mailchimp
MailChimp helps you design email newsletters, share them on social networks, integrate with services you already use, and track your results. In addition to a user-friendly navigation, a prominent call to action button is displayed, encouraging users to get started.
Craft Coffee
Craft Coffee is a coffee discovery service that explains the value it brings to customers as soon as they enter the website. After highlighting their services, they direct users to “Buy a Tasting Box” with one of their highly visible call to action buttons.
Your Web Job
Your Web Job is a hub for job-seeking web professionals — project managers, copywriters, SEO experts, usability folk, social media gurus, and designers and developers — and for those who want to hire them. A call to action button is placed right at the top of the page, encouraging visitors to submit jobs right away.
These simple procedures in web design are just stepping stones on your way to creating a memorable website for your business.
Most people don’t think too much about a business card when they get it. You see people stuff them in their pocket in the middle of drinks on Friday night after work.
However, your business cards do make a definitive statement in that second or so, they are first viewed. Despite the old saying, we do judge a book by its cover, and this is why it is essential to get your business card printing right. Here is a look at some important issues, the changes in what business cards are used for, and a guide to make your business cards really ‘pop’!
If you like this article, you might be interested in some of our older articles on Business Card Templates, Unique Business Cards, Cool Business Cards, Business Cards Designs, and Business Card PSD.
This is absolutely crucial to getting the right options, the right materials, and the quality you need. You cannot afford to take short-cuts here. Look for printers, who can handle a whole range of items, from booklet printing, to books, magazines and posters. You might want to use that printer for other promotional materials in the future. If you can stay with the same printer, you know that you are guaranteed to get the consistent quality throughout. There will always be differences from printer to printer. Look online for larger companies that specialize in making your job easier. It does not have to be an arduous task.
Business card shape is very important. If you want to stand out from the crowd, using size and shape to be different is one of your best options. Remember, business cards are not used in the way they once were. They used to be an important way to store details. Now, everything is online, and keeping that in mind, you can see how important it is to make an impact when you hand over your business card. It is not even important if someone keeps your card any more. They are less likely to keep it if they are not interested by it. If you have their card, you can instantly send them an email from your smartphone so you know they have your contact details.
Your business cards need to be in sync with all of your other printed and electronic materials. That does not mean they all need to look exactly alike. However, they do need a common thread and branding. Spending the time to get your initial designs right, is well worth it. A good online printing company will have templates to handle this if you do not have a full branding kit of your own.
A business card needs to be simple and yet push the right buttons instantly. They are a miniaturization of your whole business message in an instant. Interesting job titles and intelligent logo bi-lines will get attention. You only have a few seconds to impress or intrigue the mind of your potential client. Creative typography and terminology are the skills of a very qualified copywriter, and so you might want to consider professional help. If you ever doubted how important words are, look at a blank piece of paper.
Creative and high quality business cards make a real statement about you and your business. Invest the time to do it right.
Let me tell you WHAT TO DO by telling you WHAT NOT TO DO:
Write about topics your audience cares about. Like what? Find out, by conducting a poll (like I did), scan some relevant bulletin boards or forums, look for common topics in customer emails, or do some keyword research. There are great free keyword tools like the Google Keyword Tool or SEO Book’s Keyword Tool and loads more. The plan is not to spend your life doing keyword research but just to get a general idea of what your visitors are interested in.
Once you have a topic for readers; help search engines find it. Keyword Density is the number of times a keyword appears in a page compared to the total number of words. You want to make sure your keywords are included in the crucial areas:
Most people aim for a keyword density of 2% (i.e. use the keyword 2 times for every 100 words). But what if your keyword phrase is “SEO for Web Designers and Web Developers” how many times can you repeat that before it sounds just plain unnatural? Write for your readers not for search engines. If you follow the tips in this article you’ll be writing naturally for your readers; which works for the search engines too.
Warning: Do not over fill your page with the same keywords or you might be penalized by search engines for keyword stuffing.
In this article, it makes sense to mention topics like “keyword research”, “search engine crawlers” and “title tag use”, but what if I mentioned a highly trafficked term like “cell phone plans”… kind of out of context right? So use other keywords and topics that make sense to your audience, the search engine measures keyword relations to determine relevancy too.
Do you want the search engine to see every page on your website? Help the search engine spider do its job. There should be a page (like a sitemap or blog archives) that links to all the pages on your site.
Tip: You can promote the more important pages by inserting text links within body content. Make sure you use relevant linking text and avoid using “click here” (as mentioned earlier).
You should always search for and fix the broken links on your site. If you’ve removed a page or section, you can use the robot.txt to prevent the spiders crawling and indexing the broken links. If you have moved a page or your entire website, you can use the 301 .htaccess to redirect to a new URL.
Tips: You can use the Google Webmaster Tool to find broken links and your 404 Not Found errors.
To search engines, a www and a non-www URL are considered two different URLs. You should always keep your domain and URL structure consistent. If you start promoting your site without the “www”, stick with it.
Semantic and standard coding not only can make your site cleaner, but it also allows the search engines to read your page better.
Coding and setting up your site to be SEO friendly can improve how well a search engine can access your website, it doesn’t guarantee you’ll end up at the top of the search engine result page (SERP). There are many factors in determining the search result position, but here are the basics:
Some professional SEO’s pay attention to Google’s PageRank and some don’t. In my experience it doesn’t hurt to have a high Google PageRank. It’s a nice little benchmark to let you know how important Google sees your web page as. You can improve your PageRank by following the tips above and building-up quality backlinks. If you want to learn how PageRank works, Smashing Magazine has a very good article.
You might be surprised to learn that domain age is also a factor in the search engine algorithm. Older domains have a history, and their content is looked at as more credible than the website that got started last week. Older domains sometimes get the edge in search results.
You may have done every single thing right., but your site is still not showing up in the search engines for your target keywords. Why? Because everything takes time. It takes time for the search engines to index and rank your site (especially for new domains). So, be patient.
Another reason — it could be the keywords that you’re trying to target are very competitive. Try altering the keywords on the page and you may have different results. Remember, you are competing with millions of web pages on the internet.
This website is brand new and is using WordPress as a CMS so the client can maintain the website themselves. It is successfully using the “protected area” feature in WordPress to allow for a ‘members only’ section of the website. We also build a custom flash map to showcase their service areas in Carolina.
Name: Appraising WNC
Website: www.appraisingwnc.com
Features: WordPress CMS & Custom Flash Maps
