Blog
11.06.2010
For those of your branching out to try something new in this recession, you know you’re going to need a website. A new venture requires an online presence, and it’s not that hard to get it done at a price you can afford.
Let me start off by saying that I’m a firm believer in shelling out the dough for a professional to design your logo and website – not because I’m a professional and I want you to give me your money (hehe), but because a professional designer is trained in the art of designing for business.
The key thing a designer can give you (that you can’t do on your own, unless you have design experience) is a true vector logo. A vector logo is created in such a way that you can use it for all kinds of applications, large or small. It can be scaled to any size without losing quality. A pro designer knows the computer programs to create this type of logo for you. If you’re thinking of throwing together a text logo in Photoshop, think again.
Your pro designer is experienced (hopefully!) and can guide you in creating something unique for your business. It takes time, and logos do not come cheap, but the money is well spent. Your designer should do research to make sure your design is unlike anything else out there, and should also make sure you aren’t violating any copyrights. Your logo is the face of your business and will be with you for many years. Don’t skimp.
Another thing your designer can give you is a professionally designed website with good search engine optimization built right in. Sure, lots of people can build a quick site in Dreamweaver, but it takes a pro to get the search engine particulars just right. A pro web designer can coach you on the proper way to write content for your site, how to structure pages so they make sense to the user, how to choose the proper keywords (It’s not as simple as you might think!) and a million other things that non-professionals don’t think about (because they aren’t aware!). Again, don’t skimp.
I said all that to say this – you want to start out on the right foot. Set yourself up for success. Hire a pro, save yourself a headache, and get it done right the first time around.
Posted in Blogging, Business, Products We Love, Web Design, Wordpress | No Comments »
05.17.2010
This private Seattle bed and breakfast had a website, but the Innkeeper wanted to increase search engine optimization efforts. To give Soundview Cottage an instant boost, we moved the site to WordPress, a content management system that includes wonderful SEO benefits right out of the box.
We designed the new Soundview Cottage website to look very similar in style to the old website and used WordPress’ capabilities to add a blog and photo gallery to the site.
In addition to designing a custom WordPress theme for Soundview Cottage, we used advanced SEO techniques to help Soundview rank for their most important search terms.
Working with Annie from Soundview Cottage is truly a pleasure. If you’re going to be in the Seattle area, I highly recommend inquiring about a reservation!
Tags: Clients, SEO, WordPress Websites
Posted in Clients, Wordpress | No Comments »
09.01.2009
We heart WordPress and we’ve officially made the move to a WordPress-based website! Woohoo! Please stay tuned as we will be adding new projects to our portfolio and moving all of our previous blog posts to the new blog. We’re stoked and we hope you like the new look!
Tags: Branding
Posted in Blog, Branding, Wordpress | No Comments »
01.28.2009
Wanna know a secret? Sure, you do! There is a surefire way to help your business grow. It’s not shameless promotion (well, some of it is), and it’s not whoring yourself out to people for too low of a rate. The secret? Blog. About everything. It’s not hard. I’ll give you a perfect example of how and why blogging for your business works.
Let’s use my dear friend Mirella, who creates beautiful wedding flowers, as an example…I know she won’t mind.
Mirella started her floral business in 2008. It was getting steady, but not really taking off the way she wanted. Mirella starting blogging. Religiously. So much so that I’m embarrassed by my puny amount of posts!
So, she blogged. Then she blogged some more. And you know what? She’s still blogging. Mirella writes about things other than flowers. She writes about wedding planners and graphic designers and anything she thinks might interest her clientele. The woman is a blogging machine. She also promotes her newest creations, seasonal flowers, and wedding shows that she’s attended.
To help further boost her traffic and get some qualified leads, Mirella developed a contest for new brides on her blog. The contest has helped her gather incredibly hot leads for new brides who need wedding flowers. And she blogged all about it.
One of the most interesting things I’ve found is how Mirella’s blogging has boosted traffic to my own site. She interviewed the Mad Hatter on her blog and that one post sends tons of traffic to my site. Mirella’s efforts to boost her own traffic are spilling over into the worlds of those she blogs about. What a fabulous way to build business relationships and trust with other business owners! Just fab.
Ok, so it’s not really a secret that blogging works for business, but so many people don’t do it (or slack off, like me) and there’s just no excuse. It’s one of the cheapest, easiest, most effective ways to drive traffic to your website. Let’s not neglect blogging any longer!
So, if you’re not sure how to get started with your blog, it’s best to talk to a *cough* blog designer to find out. WordPress blogs are pretty simple and straightforward, but you’ll want to host it on your own domain – none of this WordPress.com stuff. Again, if you’re not sure what this means, I know an awesome WordPress blog designer who can explain all the technical stuff!
Happy blogging, people!
Tags: Blogging, Business, Wordpress
Posted in Blogging, Business, Clients, Wordpress, rAnts aNd RaVeS | 3 Comments »
01.15.2009
I purchased the Rockable Press How to be a Rockstar WordPress Designer this morning and let me tell you, it is awesome!! You need to have a good grasp of HTML and CSS before taking this course, but other than that, it’s a great way to get started designing your own themes! You get demo files and themes to work with when you purchase the book! It doesn’t get much better than that!
Too cool!
Click here to check out Rockable’s awesome products!
Oh, and you can click the Rockable Banner in the sidebar to purchase it directly!
Posted in Products We Love, Wordpress | No Comments »
