Month: March 2007

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Strategy For The Future

Few subjects are more talked about and less well understood than strategy. Countless theories have been developed and books written, many with completely contrary advice, so what should a business do when developing strategy? There is no easy answer, but one theme should guide your thinking from the start.

Strategy is about deciding where you want to be in the long term – that means at least five years in the future. First decide what you want your business to look like, and then decide how you will make it happen, not the other way around. Describe your business in the future in sufficient detail; don’t use generic language – instead be specific about as much as you can. If your “future” could describe just about any business you won’t be able to build a real plan to get there.

Strategy is simply the way in which you intend to get to your desired future. It’s no different to planning a journey – first decide on your destination and then pick a route.

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Managing your AdWord Campaigns

Purchasing Pay Per Click advertising (AdWords)with companies like Google or Overture, can be a great way to ensure your site is displayed for a particular keyword or phrase and can be an important component of an Internet marketing plan.

Adwords are the advertisment you see along the top-left and right side of search engines like Google.com and Yahoo.com. They are powered by a Pay per Click account which allows you to set up the ad, select the key words or phrases associated with it and bid on a price for each keyword or phrase. Every time someone clicks on your advertisement you are billed.

The bids for keywords can vary enormously depending upon the popularity of a keyword and you must outbid your competitors to remain “on top”. Paying $1.25 per click will list you higher than another bidding $1.00

Selecting your key words and phrases wisely will give you the best ROI. For example: you have an e-commerce store that sell all kinds of red shoes. Purchasing the key phrase “shoes” is going to cost more than say “Red Shoes” because the competion for a generic keyword like “shoes” will always be more costly than something more specific like “Red Shoes”. “Red Shoes” also has the advantage that more geared to your target audience.

Managing an Adword campaign over time is also very important as the internet is a dynamic animal … maybe the market place has been swamped with “Red shoe” retailers and they are outbidding your keywords!

If you need your adword campaign assessed we can help contact the St Louis web designer today

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Fresh look for Valor healthcare web site

Maintaining a consistent image across all communication media is an important aspect when it comes branding.
One of our clients, Valor healthcare, recently introduced an new logo and were eager to update their web site with their new identity. The introduction of the logo on the web site was also combined with a freshenup-up of the header graphics bringing the site in line with the imagergy Valor Healthcare use in their print material.

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The internet of the future: Second Life – St louis web designer investigates

Just about every publication I have picked up over the last month has had an article about Second Life. So a mission was set for the St Louis web designer to find out what all of the hype is about.

Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. It is accessed by initially registering at secondlife.com and downloading an application. Once the application is installed on your computer the door to the 3-d vitual world is opened by logging in.

Once in Second Life you are represented as an Avatar ..which can be customized however you want. Fat, thin, short, tall, ugly, beautiful and any type of clothing imaginable. If a human form is not to your taste you can designate your avatar as an animal. The permuations are endless.

Here is my Avatar (Indigo Oh)

The 3-d world is transversed by walking, flying or teleporting to a specific location and you are free to interact with other Avatars

You can buy a whole island, a parcel of land or rent a shop in a mall to stake a claim which is akin to buying hosting for web sites. Do you purchase a dedicated server or a space on a shared server. On you land you are free to do as you chose, build a vitual corporate office, sell t shirts for Avatars, set up a virtual university, host a corporate meeting. …the potential is huge.

These stakes of land in Second life will be web sites of the future and it is no wonder Second Life is the subject of huge media attention.

Our investigation will continue..watch this space!

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New web site in production for St Louis company: Throttlenet


We have just completed a design template for Throttlenet, a St Louis technology company.
The look/feel developed for the web site incorporates custom designed icon graphics for each of their main serivce areas, a clean intuative navigation and will be coded as a fluid site. This means the site will fill the entire width of a monitor irrespective of the users resolutions settings.