Category: Blogging

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St Louis web designer tip of the day: Give your blog a boost

Blogs are a great way to promote your services, improve your search engine ranking and provide a great way to interact with your readers.

Here are some quick tips to give your blog a boost and grow your readership

  1. Write it regualry – at least twice a week.
  2. Comment on other blogs- in the comments box there is often an opportunity to include your own website or blog URL.
  3. Title your blog posts with keywords you are targeting.
  4. Submit your blog to a blog directory such as blogcatalog
  5. Give your readers different options to subscribe to your content. e.g. sign up through a reader – try Goggle Reader or sign up to receive via email.
  6. Start a Twitter account and use it to promote new blog posts.
  7. Use a free pinging service such as Pingoat

St Louis web designers tip of the day!

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Are you all blogged out? Chicago Web Designer’s tip of the day

If you are blogging for business, pleasure or both there will be days /weeks, when you come up empty in creating that next killer blog post. Welcome to Bloggers Block .
blogging block

Here are some of the tips I use to keep those creative juices flowing.

  1. Keep a running list of blog post ideas and add to it frequently – skim over your list and pick something that appeals to you.
  2. Think about recent interactions with clients. What types of questions have they asked. Can they be worked into a blog post?
  3. Got a new client, launched a new project or service? Blow your own trumpet and blog about it.
  4. Flick though a magazine or newsletter relevant to your business, industry or organization. An image or article may be all the inspiration needed.
  5. Member of any social networking sites, Twitter, Facebook LinkedIn? Check what’s happening with your friends/followers.
  6. Get away from your computer. Sitting in front of a blank “New Post” screen desperately thinking of something to share is not conducive to ideas. Go for a walk, have a cup of coffee, crank up your favorite music on your ipod.
  7. Find inspiration from the natural world…everything from systems, processes, life cycles, shapes color, texture
  8. Lastly don’t sweat! While posting to a blog regularly is important missing the odd day or even week is not the end of the world.


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Adding a blog to your Internet Marketing mix?

2009 brings us to our 4th year of blogging, which is not bad considering our blog was started as an experiment.

There are many business advantages to having a blog but my favorite is what they can do in terms of your Search Engine Marketing

To search engines, like Google, content is king and fresh content rules the day. Writing regular posts on topics relevant to your business will help people find your web site more easily as Google will visit your site more frequently and quickly index anything new. Blogs can really help your page rank too.

If you are looking to add a blog to your internet marketing mix contact us to learn how we can help.

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Our web and graphic design blog

We started our blog in June 2005 and nearly three years later are still going strong.

You may find this blog intresting if you are looking to hire a web or graphic designer, you are interested in web site usability and search engine optimization or are a web/graphic designer looking for some tips and tricks.

Today I am going to talk a little about the sort of subjects we cover here for any of our new readers. Each of our posts are given one or more label to categorize them so I thought it would make sense to talk about our categories:-

  • Design Snippets
    We cover subjects here that are useful to graphic and web designer. For example Meaning and associations of color, What is Ipsum Lorem and Favicons.
  • Eye of the St Louis Web Designer
    A picture speaks a thousand words and most of the photographs we feature in this section are of something that has given us inspiration, from a fabulous natural color palette to a great texture or pattern. As mentioned thoughtout these posts a designer’s eye never sleeps
  • FREE
    Who doesn’t like free stuff. We cover everything from free custom i google designs, the free definition phase or our projects to our much visited recipe for a garden deer repellant.
  • Graphic Design projects
    A showcase of graphic design projects, from brochures, letterheads, banners, menus, logos, newsletters, greeting cards and packaging.
  • Indigo Tips
    Tips to improve your productivity and internet experience
  • Internet marketing
    The ever changing world of  Search engine optimization.
  • Logos
    A showcase of our logo design
  • Project Progress
    We multi task big time and this section illustrates the current projects we are working on
  • Random Thoughts
    I think everyblog needs a section like this..a little bit of everything here..and as the title suggests …random
  • STL Marketing executive
    A category written by our guest writer. He shares perspectives drawn from his experience of branding, global business management and marketing in a B2B environment.
  • Web design Projects
    A showcase of our web design projects
  • Web Site Usability
    Considerations for giving your site visitors the experience you want them to have.
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Blog widget: The web poll.

Blogs are becoming an increasingly popular marketing tool for companies, both big and small. They allow you to update your readers with company news, offer tips, tricks, promote products. The list is endless.

Blogs can now also be enhanced with widgets.Widget are small applications which have a specific function to perform on a blog or web site.For example some widgets allow you to show videos play music, and while this might not be relevant to a business blog there are plenty of widgets out there that are.

For example a web poll widget.

Widgets like increase the interactivity with your readers just that one step further. They require little technological know how to add…cut and paste some code and your are ready to go.
What’s more most of them are free.

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Celebrating a blog milestone


Writing a blog takes commitment. Obviously there is the element of time it takes to write a post but there is also the commitment to deliver quality content and post regularly.

Today we are celebrating our 200th post!

A tool I have recently started using to read blogs is Google Reader Another great free application from Google, Google reader allows you to subscribe to your favorite blogs and then delivers any new posts to your iGoogle page via a widget. (For more information on iGoogle see this post). Using the reader allows you to keep up to date with the blogs that interest you and saves time from actually visiting the blogs.

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Your blog voice

In a post I wrote last week I talked about creating branded blogs and mentioned we were currently creating one for St Louis based Throttlenet.

The blog is now up and running, visit it here>> ThrottleBlog

Throttlenet have their blog set up so various team members can contribute, which is a great approach for a multi faceted corporation. It will give the blog a very rounded “voice“.

We have two “voices” on this blog me..St Louis Web Designer and St Louis Marketing Executive

We have very different styles but that is exactly how a blog should be. Each contributor has a unique voice and personality, and brings to the blog something that no one else can.

It takes time to develop a blog voice but the more you write the more your style and voice will evolve.

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A Selection of our St Louis Blog Clients

Blogs have become a great way to interact with your site visitors, providing them with fresh news, stories and events. A blog can be easily added to an existing web site and requires no technical knowledge to use.

Very often the blog will be the first page visited on your web site and your first opportunity to present your visitor with your brand image. If you use one the standard templates offered with say Google Blogger, your blog might have all the functionality you wish but the opportunity to engage your visitor with your brand lost . As the saying goes you only have one chance to make a first impression.

We specialize in creating a blog which compliments your brand image.

Here are two example of our blog work in action:-

Citizens for Modern Transit Working to expand St Louis Metrolink ..topical issues

Cynthia Reeg News from children’s author Cynthia Reeg

Also in development are blogs for two other St Louis based companies, Throttlenet and Loomis Bros.

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Our blog gets a shake up

This blog is nearly two years old …and 176 posts later I thought it was about time it had a little more order.

Having reviewed it’s common themes it has been categorized into the following:-

All posts from now on will also be open for comments

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Blogging: A tool for your St Louis Business?

Most business owners understand the important of having a presence of the web. As the internet has evolved it has offered more and more platforms for interaction and one of the most popular to emerge over the last few years is blogging …both for business and on a personal level.

So is your business ready for a blog? Here are the top 5 reasons you should start blogging

  1. A business blog is a excellent way to get found by people searching for your type of product or service.
  2. Search engines love fresh content and will visit a blog more frequently than static page websites.
  3. A blog shows your personality, your expertise, and your character; people will hire or buy from you when they feel they trust and like you.
  4. A blog expands your global reach, pulling in qualified prospects you would never have reached before.
  5. A blog allows you to interact with readers, get feedback, introduce them to your ideas, and builds relationships.

Blogging is easy to do and requires no technical knowledge to execute on a day to day basis.

If blogging is a tool you would like to add to your marketing mix then contact us today. We are experts at configuring and integrating blogs to both new and existing web sites.