Author Archives: Inventive Web Design

Get Noticed Online

Social MediaThe number of websites out there today are in the millions. Internet users in the North America alone are over 270 million. So how do you get your site noticed? Many of my clients are small business owners that are competing for a piece of the local market and they all want to be number one on the search engines. You can read every article out there about getting there but the fact is competition is tough. You can try to get links to your site from other companies and make sure your site is using good SEO practices. These are all important but they take time. Your web site will creep up the list but what can you do to get noticed online today? Here are some ideas.

Be active with your site

Add a blog to your site. Post news about your company. It can be anything from a job that you recently completed to some simple tips about keeping your product clean and working for your clients. You want to give them a reason to visit your site again and in the mean time add new content to your site. Even if you post only once a week or once a month, you still have a higher probability to increase the popularity of your site than if it just sits there doing nothing. The more the search engines see new content published on your site the more they will come back and the more you will move up in their rankings.

Get on Social Media

Many of my clients are very hesitant to do this. They don’t like Twitter and want to stay away from Facebook or they just don’t have time to keep things up to date. I would suggest asking your web designer if they can help with automating things a little. You can post some news to your site’s blog and it can automatically be posted to all of your social media pages, saving you hours. Also, look for the person in your office who uses social media regularly. They are probably already visiting those sites during work hours so you might as well encourage them to do it for work.

Use your existing network

Making contact with everyone on social media is great but you probably already have your own network of people in place. Send your online updates to your current and previous clients via email. They may be interested in some of your tips or news and will be reminded of the great service or product you offer. If you are going to do an email campaign regularly, be sure to study it a little beforehand or use a service like MailChimp or constant contact so that your email address doesn’t end up being marked as spam.

Go Multimedia

If you really want to get the word out about your company you should get some videos out there and connect your site to your new youtube page. You can create videos for anything related with your product. How to, do it yourself, tutorials, or dog training. Add a link that shows in your videos to give people the ability to get to your site if they find you in some other way. Add a special page on your site for videos or even a place on your homepage to put the latest video on.

Announcing the launch of a new site for Compass Logistics!

Compass Logistics LogoCome check out this great international website! Based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Compass Logistics offers freight forwarding services to assist in getting shipments across oceans and through customs with speed and efficiency. It was a pleasure to work with Alejandro Arlotti and since Inventive Web Design offers bilingual (Spanish <> English) translation services in connection with Linardi Translations it was easy to for him to get a site that reaches two of the most popular languages in the world!

www.CompassLogistics.com.ar

Four Tips for a Holiday Web Campaign

Christmas Web Design

Image courtesy of zolakoma

  1. Redesign your site: You should think about adding a winter/christmas theme to your website. To capture the festive mood that everyone is in you should be adding some holiday elements to your site. This will make people want to stay longer on your site and shop around a little. You can add a little snow covering to your existing design or have Santa landing on the top of your site. Talk to your web designer for more ideas about a Christmas or New Year’s layout.

  2. Coupons and Discounts: You may be planning to have several discounts and offers on your products or services over the Holiday Season. These offers will bring you business while offering your customers a little bit of savings. So how are they going to find your special offers. If you already have a strong Social Media base you should be letting your followers know on a regular basis. Send out tweets and updates daily at different times of the day. There are sites out there that allow you to set up a schedule of updates so you can just work for an hour or so setting it up for the entire season. If you don’t have any social media, we suggest emailing your current clients and even advertising on popular web directories or online advertisers like Google Adwords.

  3. Content marketing: Content is king. Getting your site noticed by search engines is all about adding new content regularly. By marketing your content (articles, press releases etc.) you can get higher on search engines and grab more clients. You should publish any new content on various directories and social media. Also you can redo some of your current content to add some holiday cheer.

  4. Get the advertising out there: As I mentioned before, it is a great idea to start up a pay per click (PPC) campaign. If you have a little extra advertising cash go setup an account on Google Adwords or other such companies and get your ads out there. Put your discounts in your ads and make sure that they link to a landing page that has your discounts on them.

10 Questions to Think About Before Starting a New Web Design.

Questions

Printable version (.doc)

Knowing what you want out of your web site is key to the success of your new web design. Helping your web designer understand what you want is just as important.

Ask yourself the following:

Purpose:

1. What is the main purpose and what are the secondary goals of the web site?

Target Audience:

2. Who is your target audience? Think about who will normally use your site, their occupation, gender, age range, nationality, etc.

3. What might a normal user do on your site? Will they look for contact/company info, purchase something, make inquiries, sign up for a newsletter, login/register, etc.?

Communication Strategy:

4. What is the overall message you are trying to convey to your target audience (informative, entertaining,
reliable, etc.)?

5. How will you convey this message (through the design, content, etc)?

6. How will you measure the success of the site?

Competitive Positioning:

7. Who is your competition (give the name and website of at least 2)?

8. What do you like about their site that you want incorporated into yours?

9. How will your site be different from theirs (what do you dislike)?

10. List other sites that you like/dislike and what you would like/dislike about them (navigation,
design, header, footer, etc.).

News – ATE Conference Selection of Matthew Minten

Matthew Minten (owner of Inventive Web Design in Reno, NV) has been selected to represent Truckee Meadows Community College and the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) at the eighteenth national ATE National Principal Investigators Conference in Washington DC.

The conference brings together approximately 800 people to focus on the critical issues related to advanced technological education. Conference attendees represent community colleges, business and industry, secondary school systems, four-year colleges, and research and development centers covering projects in a wide variety of areas such as: information technology, engineering technology, micro- and nanotechnologies, chemical technology, biotechnology, and others.

It is sponsered by the National Science Foundation and the AACC.

Congratulations Matt!

Choosing a Color Scheme for a Web Site

One of the most important choices you can make when designing your web site is the colors. The user can tell a lot about your product and your company by the use of color, without reading anything on your web site. You need to think about this when discussing the design of your site with your web designer.

The best way to choose colors for you web site is to look at what your competitors are using. For example medical and banking institutions usually use a relaxing color like blue. If you see that the majority of your competitors are using a specific color scheme you should use it to. Your customers will already be used to seeing those colors and may automatically relate them to your product.

Color Theory

You may remember some basic color theory from your childhood. The primary colors are red, yellow and blue. Mixing them gives you secondary colors: yellow and blue make green, red and blue make purple, and so on. You can continue to mix these colors to get tertiary colors like blue-green and red-orange.

Color Wheel

If you look at the standard color wheel you will see that red yellow and blue appear to be at equal distances from each other. The secondary and tertiary colors are found between them. The colors on the red side of the color wheel are considered to be warm colors and the colors on the blue side are cool colors.

Color Schemes

There are thousands of different color schemes available for you web site. There are multiple ways to create a color scheme for your site but they all break down to drawing lines between these colors. Below are some of the most common.

  • Monochromatic: These are usually shades and tints of the same colors (light blue, blue, gray-blue). They can be more authoritative but are less vibrant and lack diversity.
  • Analogous: Are 3 or more colors that are right next to each other on the color wheel (e.g. blue, blue-green, and green). Analogous colors are usually found in nature and are very pleasing to the eye.
  • Split-Analogous: Two colors that are right next to each other and one from across the color wheel (e.g. red, blue & violet).
  • Complimentary: These are colors directly across from each other on the color wheel. These colors used together offer more of a visual impact (think red and green of Christmas).
  • Split-Complimentary: Four colors in total consisting of two colors near to each other and two more from across the wheel (e.g. red/violet & yellow/green).
  • Triadic: Three colors that are equidistant on the colors wheel. Just draw a triangle between three colors.

Colors and their Emotions

One reason why color is so important a choice for a web site is that colors are suggestive of emotions and many have a cultural significance. In western society, pink is associated with love and babies, in eastern societies with marriage, and in Korea with trust. Knowing your market and cultural differences can mean everything and may help get your visitors to stay longer. Check out our previous article on Colors and their Meanings.

For a site that looks professional and serious you want a monochromatic or analogous color scheme. Pastels are good for wedding and baby sites. For more visual impact use a complimentary color scheme. Choosing the right color scheme for your web site is a all about determining what colors will carry your desired message to your target market.

5 Search Engine Optimization Tips

SEO - Search Engine OptimizationSearch Engine Optimizations can help your small business rank higher in search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. This can result in bringing in a ton of potential customers through your site. Here are 5 simple SEO tips for small business owners that they can use to get improve search engine rankings as well as a giving their customers a better overall experience while on their web site.

1. Find your Target Keywords

Focus in on 10 – 15 main keywords you think are relevant to your site and for each page in your site. Research your chosen keywords – Sign up for Google Adwords and learn how to use the provided “keyword tool” and “ad text ideas” generator. Learn how to use Wordtracker (paid) and/or the Keyword Difficulty tool (free).

2. Unique SEO Friendly Titles

Every page on your website should have unique, search engine friendly titles. This means that your target keywords for that page should be in your title section. You should keep your webpage titles to 70 characters including spaces. Your website page’s title is actually shown in search engine results and your page title is the true indicator of that page content.

3. Use of Keywords in Meta Description

You should be including your target keywords once or twice in your meta description section. Most of search engines use to showcase your meta description against your website title in search results. You should make sure each page on your website has a unique description.

4. Use Keywords in Page Content

Aside from using your target keywords in web page title and descriptions, you should use your keywords in page and section headings, as well as in the paragraphs. You should be using targeted content from the beginning to the end of page. Use your keywords in a naturally throughout your website and do not over crowd each page with the same keyword over and over again.

5. Good Website Structure

You will want your main keywords in your website URL’s. Your website should have an easy to use navigation structure. You website should not have many sub-directories or slashes. Especially for a small website. Your website page’s URLs should be your main domain plus one or two levels down that include the Titles from Tip 2.

Search engines will keep changing their algorithms, but the above seo tips will help make your website search engine friendly. If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment or contact us.

Colors and Their Meanings

Color WheelColor means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Some of them may be positive or negative. Thinking of a “Clear Blue Sky” brings about a completely different emotion than thinking about “Feeling Blue”. Below are some general meaning for a few of the many colors that are out there. You should take color psychology into consideration when getting ready to design your website.

  • Red>Red – Excitement, energy, passion, love, desire, speed, strength, power, heat, aggression, danger, fire, blood, war, violence, all things intense and passionate.

  • PinkPink – love and romance, caring, tenderness, acceptance and calm.

  • YellowYellow – Joy, happiness, betrayal, optimism, idealism, imagination, hope, sunshine, summer, gold, philosophy, dishonesty, cowardice, jealousy, covetousness, deceit, illness, hazard and friendship.

  • BlueBlue – Peace, tranquility, cold, calm, stability, harmony, unity, trust, truth, confidence, conservatism, security, cleanliness, order, loyalty, sky, water, technology, depression, appetite suppressant.

  • TurquoiseTurquoise – calm.

  • TealTeal – sophistication.

  • AquamarineAquamarine – water.

  • PurplePurple – Royalty, nobility, spirituality, ceremony, mysterious, transformation, wisdom, enlightenment, cruelty, arrogance, mourning.

  • LavenderLavender – femininity, grace and elegance.

  • OrangeOrange – Energy, balance, enthusiasm, warmth, vibrant, expansive, flamboyant, demanding of attention.

  • GreenGreen – Nature, environment, healthy, good luck, renewal, youth, spring, generosity, fertility, jealousy, inexperience, envy, misfortune, vigor.

  • BrownBrown – Earth, stability, hearth, home, outdoors, reliability, comfort, endurance, simplicity, and comfort.

  • GreyGrey – Security, reliability, intelligence, staid, modesty, dignity, maturity, solid, conservative, practical, old age, sadness, boring.

  • SilverSilver – calm.

  • IvoryIvory – unification, quiet and pleasantness.

  • BeigeBeige – unification, calm and simplicity.

  • WhiteWhite – Reverence, purity, birth, simplicity, cleanliness, peace, humility, precision, innocence, youth, winter, snow, good, sterility, marriage (Western cultures), death (Eastern cultures), cold, clinical.

  • BlackBlack – Power, sexuality, sophistication, formality, elegance, wealth, mystery, fear, evil, unhappiness, depth, style, evil, sadness, remorse, anger, anonymity, underground, good technical color, mourning, death (Western cultures).

5 Tips for Designing your Web Site

Website Design DraftSo you are getting ready to build a website or redesign your current website for your small business or company. There are so many options out there today that it may feel a little overwhelming at the start. It is best if you are well prepared before meeting with your web designer. Here are five tips to help you figure out what you want to from your new web design.

1. Look at what’s out there.

When you are surfing the web think about what makes it easy on you. Which sites do you go back to and why? Check our your competitor’s websites and the style and web design that they are using. You may see an element that will work well on your own website. What is the first design aspect which you see that appeals to you? Is it the logo or an image? Is the navigation system easy to use? Make a short list of websites which have designs that you were impressed with and what design elements you liked best so when you meet your web designer they will get an idea of what you want.

2. Color and branding.

Your website should blend in with everything you use in your business. If you already have a logo or letterhead think about how you can incorporate that into your site. What colors would you like to see in your website’s design? Take a look at any print material you use for marketing and bring them with you when you meet your web designer.

3. A picture is worth a thousand words.

Most people don’t even spend a minute reading the content of your web site. They read it similar to scanning a newspaper, check the headlines, look at the pictures and then, maybe ready what comes next. Do you have any product images or examples of the work that you do? Try to find 5 or 6 pictures that you would use to wow your clients and use them to grab their attention while they are on your site. Have your web designer link your photos to a related page to draw the user farther into your web site.

4. Keep it simple.

Web design is a process. At Inventive Web Design we take the time to go over various designs with our clients. When looking at each web page design, think of how it affects you when you look at the initial design. Is it cluttered or do you feel relaxed while looking at it? What excites you about the webpage, where do you want to click or what design element just stands out like a sore thumb?

5. Who is your market?

Know your clients and what they need and want. What message do you want to get across to them? What services or products do they find most useful? Use this information when designing what pages to include in your web site. Make sure your content and images are directed at them and easy for them to access.

Even though designing a new website may seem a little daunting at first using these simple steps can help you along your way to getting what you want out of your site and making your customers want to come back.