Tag: Blogging

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Your blog as an Internet Marketing Tool – Six Tips

Blogging is a great way to market you products or services. But are you making the most of this internet marketing tool?

Here are six tips that will help maximize your blog’s potential.

  1. Post Title Use key words in your blog post titles and make the title meaningful.
  2. File Naming Ensure that the file name generated by your blogging platform for each of your posts includes the keywords you want to target. Google’s blogger will automatically generate the file name from the title of your post but WordPress need to be configured.
  3. Post Content Write content that will engage your visitors, use imagery to add interest and format text so it is easy to read. Remember to include the key words you have targeted in the post’s title.
  4. Promote New Posts
    • Use social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook to announce new posts. Facebook can actually be configured to pull all new blog content directly into your page.
  5. Subscription Offer your visitors a number of subscription options. For example allow then to subscribe via a reader such as Google’s Reader or have new posts delivered as an email.
  6. Comments Make sure visitors can comment on your posts. All good blogging platforms can be configured so you can approve comments before they get posted to your blog and answering  comments is a great way to engage with your visitors.

2010 © St Louis Web Designer

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A ROI Website Success Story

Anyone starting a new business venture understands the importance of having a website, it can be tool to showcase their products or services, streamline their business operations or act as a lead generation platform.

Depending upon the complexity of the site it can be a sizable investment and the return on investment (ROI) is high on the agenda for any savvy business owner.

Last year we launched for a website for Ruth Hasser, a St Louis wedding Officiant and she has seen a huge increase in her business as a result.
Here is what she has to say

“Last year at this time, pre-website, I had one wedding scheduled for 2009. By the end of the year I had done 25. Right now, I already have 17 weddings scheduled, and I have been receiving an average of one lead per day since the beginning of January- outstanding!”

You gotta love those leads!

The site ranks very well in the search engines thanks to excellent search engine optimization (SEO), a successful link building campaign and Ruth’s regular blog posts.

2010 © St Louis Web Designer

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Need a custom blog? A showcase of our blogging Clients

Looking for a custom blog? Already have a web site and want to add a blog but need it to integrate smoothly within your site?

We can help. Take a look at some of our custom blogs.

What’s New with Cynthia Reeg

Goley News

Loomis Brothers:Featured Items and News

Ruth Ellen Hasser: Wedding Officiant

Pharmaceutical Sales Job Spotter

Throttleblog

2009 © St Louis Web Designer

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How to Subscribe to a Blog: St Louis web designers tip of the day

If you, are like me, and read a lot of blogs, it is not a good use of time to visit your favorite blogs every day just on the off chance there is something new to enjoy. A far more effective way is to subscribe to the blog and have new content delivered to you as and when it is published.

For those of us who have been blogging for many years this may seem like second nature but there are plenty of people out there for this is a whole new arena.

On a well designed blog there will be a button looking something like this

which is the universal icon for RSS feeds – a file associated with your blog.

Clicking the button will lead you to a page like this


Once on this page you are offered an abundance of ways to receive the content from the blog. One of my favorite is Google reader, which sends the new content of all your subscribed blogs to a single page – you can visit this page or set up a simple widget on your Google home page which allows you to read your content from there.

If you prefer you can subscribe to receive content from your favorite blogs via email.

The St Louis Web Designer’s tip of the day!

2009 © St Louis Web Designer

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Can blogging help my business?

Last month I wrote “Can twitter help my business?” this month question is
“Can blogging help my business?”

webdesigner blog

Visibility
Blogging regularly about topics relevant to your business and target audience is a fabulous way to increase your visibility among the search engines. Over the last year the client web sites I have launched with blogs, get listed faster and rank higher with the major search engines. For search engines, content is king and blogs, by their very nature, rule the day with their fresh new content.

Reputation
Whatever your area of business blogging is a great platform on which to build your authority and reputation. Write about issues relevant to your services, use your blog to pose questions to your readers, offer solutions to problems. Your expertise will show through.

Interaction
Engage with your readers through blog comments and don’t worry about your blog being blighted by spam. All good blog platforms have the ability to moderate comments, they can be configured so you can see the comments and approve them before they appear on your site.

If you can commit to writing a post at least once a week then a blog can definitely help your business.

2009 © St Louis Web Designer

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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.