Tag: Internet Marketing

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Business Owners, are you using Google Offers?

Moving my web design company to Chicago a few months ago has kick started a re-optimization of my web site to better serve my new Chicago location.  I have also created my business  profile in a number of local business directories such as Yelp and Merchant Circle to build  a local reputation.

In my quest for relevant directories I came across Google Offers today,  a FREE marketing tool which works in conjunction with Google maps.  If you would like to take advantage of this, here is the Chicago web designer’s tip of the day.

  1. List your business on Google Places using your Google account login information. Company name, address, telephone, email and category are required fields. Optional fields include hours of operation, photo upload e.g logo,  description, and even a video upload.
  2. Verify your business. This is easily done by an automated phone system – the quick way or via a PIN sent to the business address. Once verified your business will appear on Google maps.
  3. On your main Google Places Dashboard click “Offers” and select +add  new offer
  4. Complete the offer form and hit submit.
  5. Once your offer is live you can edit, pause or delete it.

Here is the offer I created today: Free website review

Enjoy!

©2011 Chicago web designer

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A to Z of a Great Website

CHICAGO WEB DESIGNER

A is for Architecture
A great website starts out with a well thought out information architecture. This is best done with pencil and paper before a pixel ever hits the screen.

B is for Blogging
The benefits of blogging are many. A blog offers a great platform for quick updates, got a new product, won and award, got a great testimonial, blog about it. Interact and build relationships with your visitors through comments. What’s more the search engines love blogs, content is king and fresh content rules the roost.

C is for CMS
CMS stands for content management system and is an application which allows clients to update  sites themselves. If you are looking to make regular updates to your site it is wise to have your site built on CMS application and this is something your web designer will need to know up front. There are many CMS systems out there, WordPress, Joomla, Dot Net Nuke, Drupal to name a few.

D is for Domain Name
Yourcompany.com,  gone are the days when it was easy to get a domain name of your choosing as so many are already in use or have been “reserved”.  Select your domain name carefully.

DO

  • Pick one that is short and sweet
  • Get the .com version
  • Protect yourself, purchase the same domain name with additional extension such as .org, .net, .biz etc. the last thing you want is someone else using the same domain name for a similar business.
  • Try and get a domain name that includes one of your most important key words or phrases. This is what I have done with my Eye of the Chicago web designer blog http://www.ichicagowebdesigner.com

Don’t

  • Select a very long winded domain name
  • Use hyphens

E is for Email
Many times people visiting your web site are much more comfortable contacting via email than picking up the phone, so it is important to offer an easy to find contact email on a site. Don’t use a personal yourname@aol.com type email,  it looks unprofessional. Make  use of that carefully selected domain name, something generic like info@yourcompany.com work best.

F is for Facebook
Facebook has become a very popular platform for social networking. If it is a tool you intend to use as part of your marketing strategy make sure visitors to your site can connect to your Facebook profile directly from your site.

G is for Google
Lets face it Google is the mother of all search engines but Google offers a wealth of tools useful to both surfer and website owner alike. e.g Google Analytics is an excellent web statistics application which provides information of the number of visitors to your web site, which pages they are visiting, what key word or phrase they used to get there etc. All it requires is a small snippet of code added to a site.

H is for Hosting
Having a good reliable hosting company with which to host your site is crucial. The last thing you want is your site to be down because something has gone pear shaped at the hosting company. We are big fans of CrystalTech.

I is for Internet marketing
Internet marketing is the process of essentially “getting your site out there” and driving traffic to it. Listing it with the search engines, managing pay per click campaigns, email blast campaigns, setting up social networking profiles, advertising via banner ads. etc.

J is for Junk
It almost goes without saying that if you have a web site then you are going to get junk email. Spamming  is a monumental pain in the rear end. However there are steps you can take to minimize its invasive nature.

  • Make sure your email account has a junk or spam folder. These can be easily set set up on at the webmail level and with careful filtering ( usually recommended by the web hosting company) a junk folder can filter out a large amount of spam. Do make sure you check it occasionally as sometimes genuine emails do get stuck there. To minimize this set up a trusted sender list so their emails will never go to the junk folder.
  • A lot of spammy junk can come through contact forms. If this is a problem on your site a CAPTCHA  element and script can be added to verify the sender is a human and not a spam bot. A CAPTCHA element is a small image string you have to type in before submitting the form.

K is for Keywords
Key words or phrases are those words that you want to trigger the listing of your site within the search engines. To work best, key words will be woven into the code and within the copy of your site. Phrases work better than single words as words can be too generic and produce such an abundance of listed sites your site will be lost.

L is for Links
Got links? The more sites link to you the better your standing within the search engines, but they have to be quality links from reputable sites to count. One way to built quality links to your site is to comment on blogs with links to your products, services, relevant information. Don’t be spammy though or you are just wating your time.

M is for Metadata
Meta tags such as Title, content, keywords, description are included in the code of your site and can be used by the search engines when it comes to ranking your site.  Google uses the title meta tag information to return results for a particular search.

N is for Navigation
The navigation for a web site should be intuitive and employ the “don’t make me think ” principle.  Text navigation is much better that an image based navigation as the search engines can “read” it and it is easier to update.

O is for Optimizing
Search engine optimization is the art/science of tweaking a website to maximize it’s potential, generally in relation to key words and phrases. e.g if one of your key phrases is “coffee cup cakes” it is much better to name the file related to your product “coffee-cup-cakes.html”  rather than just “cakes.html” The same principle applies to name image files.

P is for Passwords
Make sure you use good strong passwords to access anything you need to log in to. Add numbers, characters upper and lower case letters. Don’t use the same password for everything or anything obvious such as “password1”

Q is for quality
Quality counts, does the design of your web site look professional,  is the copy well written and concise?

R is for RSS
Got a blog? then you have a RSS feed ( Really Simple Syndication) which enables your content to be easily distributed via blog readers such as Google reader or even delivered to readers via email. You can subscribe to this blog here .

S is for Search engines
The one we all know and love is of course Google , Yahoo and Bing are the other two biggies. It is important your site be listed with these three But there are plenty of other search engines out there and the more search engines with which your site is listed the better.

T is for Twitter
Twitter is a micro blogging platform and another great social networking application to add to your marketing mix. Use it to build relationships, interact with your site visitors, announce news, new blog posts etc. Twitter is free and your Twitter home page can be customized to match your brand image. Follow us on Twitter

U is for URL
URL or “Uniform Resource Locator” is the address of your web site on the world wide web e.g https://www.indigoimage.com/index.html

  • http://:  type of file
  • domain name:  location of the file’s web server is at indigoimage.com.
  • backslash,then file name /index.html

V is for Visitors
Your site needs to offer the best experience for your visitors as possible.

  • Is it compatible for all browsers and platforms?
  • Is it fast loading? – you have just a few seconds to make an impression or your visitors will be hitting that back button
  • Is it free of technical errors, broken links, missing images, scripts that don’t run?
  • Are there call to actions?

W is for Webmaster
A webmaster will help you manage your site to keep it at optimum performance and up to date.

X is for XML
OK X was a bit of a challenge for this list. XML is a Extensible Markup Language; a flexible text format for creating structured computer documents. We use XML on a regular basis for submitting sitemaps to Google.

Y is for Youtube
Video is a fabulous way to add an extra dimension to your marketing mix and while there are lots of video sharing sites out there the most popular is YouTube. You can set up your own channel ( follow us here) upload your videos and embed them within your site.

Z is for Zoe Feast
A great web site starts with a great website designer, contact me,  Zoe Feast, to see how I can help you today.
Telephone: 847 607 8679

2010 © Chicago Web Designer

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Video Internet Marketing: a New Service from Chicago web designer

Since moving to Chicago I have been busy networking and last week met with a very interesting local business that offers video production for the web. Adding a video element to an online marketing strategy can reap huge returns.  While many samll business owners are eager to jump on the video bandwagon, once they have their video what do they do with it?

We now offer video internet marketing services and what better way to present them than a video!

2010 © Chicago Web Designer

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A letter to Chicago from the Chicago Web Designer

Dear Chicago,

Hello! A week ago today I was packing up my St Louis web design business and today, here I am firmly planted in Chicago. It may be a while before I am fully unpacked but I am really looking forward to getting to know you, all your fabulous businesses and getting down to work as the Chicago web designer.

Here is what I do:

Web Design

  • Custom Web Site Design
  • Web Site redesign
  • Banner ad Design
  • Email templates
  • Blog Design, wordpress, blogger
  • Internet marketing ( SEO)

Graphic Design

  • Logos and corporate branding
  • Presentations
  • Brochures
  • Advertisements
  • Traditional graphic design

I have been in the web and graphic design business for over 10 years and am truly passionate about what I do.

One question, as a city you have a lot of nick names. Which one do you prefer, Chi town, ChicagoLand or the Windy City?

Yours Sincerely

The Chicago Web Designer

2010 © Chicago Web Designer

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Blog Post and SEO

I have been writing this blog since June 2005 ( quite shocking!) and in that time I have seen the internet do it’s magic and produce and ever increasing stream of traffic to my site via my blog. I have accumulated readers, subscribers and clients as a result, I thank you all.

It’s not really magic at all, its a combination of consistent posting and writing unique posts relevant to my business area, web and graphic design.  Here are a few tips for blog posts that will help generate traffic via SEO or other means

  • Select a good title for each blog post which contains  key words relevant to the post’s copy.
  • Write something unique and make sure you include the key words or phrase you have in your post’s title.
  • If your post contains an image, include key words in the image file name. Also make sure the image size is optimized for the web.
  • Share your post, include links to common social media networks like Twitter or Stumble Upon
  • Comment on other blogs and if appropriate include a link to a relevant post you have written. Do not spam other blogs though.

Blogging can be an excellent internet marketing tool, it has certainly worked for me.

2010 © St Louis Web Designer

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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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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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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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Brand Consistency

Do your web site and brochure have a consistent look/feel and convey the same corporate message, are they offering the same customer experience? Do your business cards still have your old logo even though you had a new one designed 6 months ago?

Having a consistent use of brand elements is imperative to the success of a company.

Here is a quick checklist of common areas where your company branding elements can be applied:-

Business card
Letterhead
Envelopes
Fax Forms
Invoices
Folders
Brochures
Web Site
E- newsletter
Advertisements

Here is a recent branded magazine advertisement we produced for Sarah Grus Weddings which carried through the design of the company web site into a print medium.