Selecting the name for a company can be tricky business.
When we came up with Indigo Image ( 12 years ago now) we wanted a name that would convey creativity, give an indication of the nature of the business, stand the test of time and was available as a domain name. No small task.
The company name was the subject of my very first blog post 7 years ago
Blue, purple ?..Indigo is one of those colors often open to interpretation. It was named and defined by Issac Newton when he divided up the optical spectrum:- red, orange, yellow, green, blue, Indigo, Violet. As a graphic/web designer it is my job to interpret the objectives of my clients and create an “image” which delivers results ..hence Indigo Image
Domain name availability was quite a challenge, even 12 years ago but we acquired a wide range of domain name extensions including
indigoimage.com, indigoimage.org, indigoimage.net, indigoimage.biz and indigoimage.us
The philosophy behind the name still hold true despite the huge changes in the internet we have seen over the last 12 years. The name Indigo Image has stood the test of time.
The woodlands in the Chicago area are quite spectacular in the spring, I don’t think I have ever seen so many natural spring flowers …a treat for the eye of the Chicago web designer
Working to a deadline can be a challenge especially in the design world. The last thing you want is for those creative juices to dry up and the dreaded “creative block” to descend. Fortunately I work really well in a time crunch and when a client called on Wednesday calling himself “Panic Man” saying he needed a logo and business cards for a new business venture by Friday, I assured him it was completely feasible.
He had a really good idea of what he wanted in terms of design and color. I created a range of logo design options and then fine tuned his favorite one.
And here is the finished logo and business card. I also created a stepped up page of business cards so they could be easily printed at somewhere like Kinko’s as a stop gap measure.
So if you are looking to get a logo designed in a hurry give me a call 847-607-8679.
Gone are the days when people would use the trusty old “yellow pages” to search for services they require. Now the first port of call is the internet and many times will turn to an online local directory such as Yelp.
Does your business have a local search presence? Getting listed in local online directories can help the overall ranking of your site and give you more opportunities to connect with potential customers.
There has been a real growth in local directories over the last couple of years and generally getting listed in them is easy…although quite time consuming.
Here is a list of 43 directories that offer FREE listings.
If you have just started blogging, or even been blogging for a while here are a few tips that will make your images more friendly to both the search engines and your site visitors.
Before you upload: Optimize your image
Scale
Scale your photographs to the exact dimensions which you wish to use them, don’t rely on your blog to re-size your photos, they will download much faster if they are scaled pre upload.
File size vs quality
Ideally your photographs need to be small in file size but in great quality, large files can take a long time to download frustrating your readers and driving them away.
How?
Most image editing software will allow you to easily optimize you images to be web ready, however if you don’t have access to anything suitable try Pic Monkey . It will allow you to crop re-size and add text and graphic overlays
Rename your images
Most camera will name photographs some like D03456, an arbitrary number that means nothing. Re-name your photographs so they encompass the following.
The content of the photograph
The content of your blog post
A phrase that someone may search
e.g You are about to write a blog post all about how to make some rope pencil pots.
The image below is named rope_pencil_pots.jpg, which reflects the composition of the photo, the content of the blog post and could feasibly be a phase that someone would use as a search query. Each word with an under score _, but is perfectly OK to separate with a hyphen instead (rope-pencil-pots.jpg)
Why?
When search engines visit you site they are unable to “see” a photo of a rope pencil pot, all they understand is the code (HTML) powering the site which in this case looks like this.
By giving the photo a meaningful file name it essentially helps the search engines ” see” the photo.
You have uploaded your photo now what?
Add an ALT tag to your photo
What is an Alt Tag?
Alt stands for “Alternative text” and adding an alt tag to an image further enhances the ability of the search engine to understand the content of the photo.
In the case of my rope pots my alt tag would be
alt=”rope pencil pots”
As you can see the phase I am using is the same as the name I gave the image file.
How To Add an ALT Tag
The ease in which an alt tag can be added to a photo depends on which blogging platform you are using, WordPress is much easier than Blogger.
And because this is difficult to explain in words I have made a video which covers adding an Alt tag to your images in both Blogger and WordPress (and just in case you are wondering the accent is English!)
Is it worth the effort?
And here is a little test to show you this effort does pay off. Click the link below, it is the Google image search for Rope Pencil Pots …now look at what they have listed as the first image!
Ruth has two sides to her business, weddings and funerals, or life tributes. As you can imagine the target audience for each is very different.
A first generation site, designed and developed in 2009 for her wedding business, served her well and really helped grow her client base as a lead generation tool.
“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!”
But like all tools they need to be refined to offer maximum effectiveness, so this second generation site offers social media integration allowing her clients to connect with her via Facebook and YouTube and we took the opportunity to move the site to the more robust blogging platform WordPress. This has the added advantage that Ruth now has full editorial control of the content of the the site. Ruth was happy with the look and feel of the first generation site so we kept the design the same but did increase the width to accommodate the most common screen resolution.
A website dedicated to the funeral side of her business is a new endeavor. We kept the brand image the same as the wedding site but used different imagery and a more muted color palette.
Switching from Blogger to WordPress can be a little daunting for a client and there is definitely a learning curve. As well as training we also provided Ruth with a set of screen cast videos which outline how to do the most common updates such as publishing a new blog post and uploading photographs.
I have been working recently on a number of custom WordPress sites.
The first is a double project for Ruth Hasser, a St Louis celebrant. Ruth wanted to move her current site over to WordPress so she could take advantage of the content management (CMS) it offers. She also needed a new site for the funeral and memorial side of her business.
We have kept the design the same for the wedding side of her business ( she loved it so why change it) but designed a slightly different look for the funeral site, with a more muted color scheme and different imagery.
The second custom WordPress site is for a Chicago group, The Humble Catholic.
This site will serve as a community allowing users to upload prayer requests, affirmations and suggest stories, all driven by the excellent blogging capabilities of the WordPress platform
The site is just going through some final testing and client review.
Sitting beside me as I work on this grey dreary Chicago day, is a vase of beautiful tulips. Nature does a wonderful job of creating color palettes and my eyes keep drifting from the website I am designing to these beautiful blooms. I had to photograph them to capture the fabulous colors.
I am working with long a long standing client at the moment to convert her website to be powered by the WordPress platform. Her current site is constructed of static HTML pages and a blogger powered blog but the conversion will put everything under one roof and give her much more control of not only her blog posts but the rest of her site too.
Pros of using WordPress?
CMS: WordPress is a powerful content management system and gives you complete control to update the content your website yourself instead of relying on your web designer.
Design: The design options in WordPress are limitless. There are plenty of free templates around but with some technical knowledge a completely custom look can be created and you are not limited to using an identical template across every page on your site
Pages: With a self hosted WordPress installation there is no limit to the number of pages you can have on your site, pages can be easily ordered, sorted into menus and even hidden. The look and feel of pages can also be changed by apply a different template to the page.
SEO: Compared to blogger WordPress offers much better SEO ( search engine optimization) functionality. Using a plugin like ” All in one SEO”, enables each blog post to be given a search engine friendly title, description and set of keywords. The same functionality can also be applied to pages
Users: You can set up administrator, editor, author and contributor accounts, which allow different users different levels of access to the site.
Cons of Using WordPress?
The main con of using WordPress, for a client, is the learning curve associated with the administrative dashboard. It is definitely more complex than Blogger but we offer comprehensive training on posting, editing and uploading images/files etc.
Ready to move?
Do you have a static web site or blog that could benefit from power of the WordPress platform? We can make the transition as seamless as possible. Contact us today for a free evaluation of your site or blog/
I recently had my personal blog, Creative in Chicago, reviewed in an anonymous review process. The reviews were great but it did get me thinking as to how much I share about myself. In general I like to keep my personal life to myself and am not one to share what I had for lunch on Twitter or announce my exact location via Foursquare.
But in the essence of giving a little more of myself I thought I’d share with you today 10 things you never knew about the Chicago web designer!
First off my name is not Chicago Web Designer, it is Zoe Feast. It is amazing how often it is mispronounced. I recently received a phone call from someone asking to talk to Zoo Fest!
I originally come from the UK but became a US citizen in 2009 . I have yet to lose my English accent despite living in the States for over 15 years.
I am passionate about what I do and love the ying/yang aspect of my job; putting on my creative hat for the design part and swapping it out for a technical one when it comes to coding a project. I sometimes dream about coding which is the geek in me surfacing.
If that wasn’t geeky enough I have a degree in Physics and a Masters in Engineering.
My favorite type of project is building brand imagery from the ground up. Everything from a logo, to establishing a color palette and typefaces then putting it all together in an engaging website. Fun!
I moved to Chicago 18 months ago and live in the North suburbs. For the first 6 weeks of so I was completely reliant on my GPS … Arlington Heights, Buffalo Grove, Deerfield, Lincolnshire, Highland park and the other North Shore suburbs are now my friends!
I am most productive in the morning and dynamic weather such a thunderstorms or wild winds really help me focus my creativity. Weird right!
I work on a PC not a MAC
A friend help me come up with the name of my company ” Indigo Image” . We were eating curry at the time.
I cook from scratch nearly every night. I have eaten horse, kangaroo and ostrich but never snails.
The first is a double project for 
The second custom WordPress site is for a Chicago group, The Humble Catholic.