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Here are some photography tips specifically tailored toward business leaders who use iPhones! High-quality photography is important for every website and social media page, but what exactly makes incredible iPhone photography? Although mastering photographic moments is something that challenges even the most experienced professionals on a day-by-day basis, business leaders...

Several Tandem Design Lab clients have recently experienced email difficulties, so here’s how to fix these issues! We’ve recently been hearing from some of our clients about how their email accounts are rejecting other people’s emails and kicking messages back to senders. This is an unfortunate communication mishap for any...

The state of Colorado is leading the way in website accessibility. Colorado is taking the right to equal access to web content seriously by making it easier to prosecute agencies that don’t provide equal access to the information or services obtained on the internet.

Your website is accessible and ADA compliant, but what about your PDFs? If you have any PDFs on your website they may not be fully accessible. If you are striving to make your website inclusive to people with all different kinds of abilities, you will want to ensure the PDFs...

Does my Website Need to be ADA Compliant? The legalities of your website needing to be ADA compliant are a little bit murky, but there are definitely advantages to being ADA compliant. First, we need to start with what ADA compliant means. ADA stands for the Americans with Disabilities Act....

The cache on your website browser is a little picture or memory of all of each website you have visited. Your browser uses this memory to load content faster. However, when your browser is using the cache, you may be missing updated information. The cache also takes up resources. Deleting...

Our founder, Kristylee, was featured in Denver based magazine, Shoutout Colorado We had the good fortune of connecting with Kristylee Gogolen and we’ve shared our conversation below. Hi Kristylee, is there something that you feel is most responsible for your success? Here at Tandem, we operate under the concept that...

Is your website bringing in enough leads? If not, poor usability may be the culprit. Website usability is the way your content is organized, and how it funnels users to conversion. Here’s a few questions to ask yourself: Is your contact info easy to find? Does it feel cluttered or...

When discussing marketing with a client, one of the first questions I ask is “How’s your social media going?” This is usually met with a long awkward pause. Most know that they should be on social media, but are unsure of how to utilize social to get leads or just...

Here at Tandem, we believe that quality is evident in the finer details. We sweat the small stuff. And choosing a font for your website, while it may seem minor, is an important part of branding. Every font has a personality and you need to find the right font for...

Website Security. If you haven’t thought of this, you need to. For most websites, it isn’t a matter of IF you get hacked, but WHEN you get hacked. Most websites will degrade and eventually be susceptible to hacking. We’ve compiled a list of things you can do to keep your...

Working from home can be rewarding. You avoid traffic and save commuting time, and can have lunch with your family. Your day pajamas can be considered “business casual”. But it also comes with its own set of challenges. Many of these challenges can be surmounted, with a few solid habits....

Practical ways to support and grow your business throughout this period of social distancing.  I’d like to talk about some practical ways you can support and grow your business throughout this period of social distancing and business closures. We all know that this has been devastating for many business owners,...

The CV Closures have been rough on small businesses, that’s no secret. But there are many who are still hustling and have made some amazing pivots to keep in business. I am so impressed with their resilience and commitment to the community and their staff! To inspire us as well...

Running a small business can be overwhelming. That’s no secret. The “To Do” list only grows and never seems to shrink. But why not take this downtime caused by the CV closures to work on your business and improve your structure and marketing platforms? Why not use this time to...

We hope you all are well stocked up, and happily hiding out from the craziness going on around us. Just wanted to give you all an update on how things are over here. At Tandem, all of our team members work from home, so not much has changed on that...

Hashtags! The ever mysterious hashtags. I get questions from clients about hashtags more than any other topic regarding social media marketing. So few know how to use them to their full potential. They can be quite powerful, and can generate a lot of extra traffic for your posts, so you...

For this week’s Tip Tuesday: SEO Series, I’d like to talk about Title and Description tags. These tags are arguable the most important bit of code on your website, for SEO purposes. Yet they are often forgotten or ignored because they are not visible on the front-facing aspect of the...

For the next few weeks, we are going to do a series of SEO tips, designed for the small business owner to improve their own SEO. Check in each week for your Tuesday Tip: SEO SERIES. For this week’s #tiptuesday, I’d like to discuss keywords. Keywords are the building blocks...

The pros and cons of social media have been a topic of discussion for years. There’s no doubt that counting and comparing likes can become a self-esteem boost … or deflation, depending on how your social media is received. Too much focus on how content is received also tends to...

This day and age there are a plethora of content management systems on the market. You’ve probably heard a few of the names bounced around: WordPress, Concrete5, Magenta, SquareSpace or Wix. But which is best for your small business? While no two businesses have the same needs, there are clear...

The past week, WordPress 5.0 was released, and along with it a brand new editor that will dramatically change WP. Here's what you need to know.

On occasion, it is necessary to check your email on a browser. Not only is your email accessible from any computer or location, but the webmail has a ton of extra information and settings that are important.Here's a quick tutorial on how to check your email in a browser.

KL Creative Design has now become Tandem Design lab. Learn about how we've grown!

Isn't this the most beautiful time of year? The bright green mountains contrasted against the stark white peaks and the vibrant skies. And if you slow down enough to look around, the wildflowers are blooming everywhere.

Google is changing the rules in regard to SSL certificates and you need to know about it.

This past month, Kristylee had the pleasure to team up with the Keystone Science School and volunteer at the Tech Retreat for Girls in STEM with the Keystone Science School.

This site was a lot of fun to build! We started from the ground up, building out a new logo. Right from the start, we knew we were going to want some bells and whistles in the form of some custom animations. Our custom animation on the logo, built in...

Branding is the first impression someone might have of your business. Branding is the visual message. What is your visual message?

Dwell Summit, property management company and realtor, came to us in need of an upgrade. Check out what we came up with!

We love learning about Colorado's wildflower so much, we created a database of them!

This past weekend, I (Kristylee) worked at the Keystone Science School for their Girls in STEM program, a program's with the goal to empower girls and build leadership and collaboration skills through the STEM arts (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math).

Your car regularly gets tune ups. Your lawn gets mowed regularly. Your computer even needs a little help once in a while. What about your website?

Building a business can be hard work, and is often thankless. As many of you have experienced, it can take years before you even see some positives in the vast sea of challenges and struggles.

We now have an office on Main Street Frisco.

Social Media Marketing has caused more than its fair share of whining amongst small businesses. They struggle with it. Learn how to do better.

Can I mobile app help you attract more visitors to your Colorado tourist destination?

Branding is the visual message that represents (or doesn’t represent) your business. What does your brand say?

If you’ve used WordPress at all, most likely you’ve had some experience with WordPress’s wealth of plugins. Learn about how to choose the best plugins.

I, Kristylee, am super stoked to announce that I will be attending WWDC, Apple’s Developer Conference in San Francisco.

2 days ago, WordPress released what they called a “critical security release” for all previous versions. This new release patches a vulnerability that was found in the commenting of WordPress which would allow a potential hacker access to your site. This comes on the heels of several other vulnerabilities found...

If you’re reading any tech news, you know that WordPress has been subject to a number of hacks and security issues in the last few weeks. Being in the limelight as one of the most popular CMS’s available puts it into the target scope for hackers. Hacking happens, that is...

Google’s newest algorithm change and what that means for you. Did you know that 80% of small business websites are not optimized for the mobile device? This is the first time I have ever written about a Google algorithim change. This is because I believe this one is of particular...

As of the writing of this post, Google reports that there are 644 million active websites on the internet. That’s a whole lot of websites! That begs the question, how do you make your website stand out? Well, that’s a question keeping many a marketer up at night! But we...

If you have a completed site with Tandem Design Lab, then you will have a Google Analytics account. Perhaps you received an email with the subject line “You have been granted access to a Google Analytics account”. This is notifying you that you have received access to an existing Google...

I wager that most of you have never questioned whether or not you own your website. But do you? You’d be surprised to learn that a large portion of you might not own your own website. You might not if you fit one of the following criteria: You use one...

I’ve been getting this question a lot lately, so I thought it might be time to address it. What is the difference between a custom designed website and a pre-made template website? Which is right for you? First let’s start with some definitions. Pre-made Template Websites Pre-made templates designs cut...

Keywords are the building blocks of any digital marketing plan. If you are considering starting or have started a online marketing plan, you are sure to have heard the word tossed around. So why are keywords important for you? Let’s break it down. What is a keyword? A keyword is...

Come learn about some practical things you could do to your website for FREE to improve your website’s ranking in search engines! Kristy Lee will be speaking this upcoming Thursday at Elevate Cospace, 5-6:30.

As an owner of a small business in Grand County myself, I understand the need to lower costs and cut corners. The question I’d like to address here is whether or not a website builder is a viable option for cutting corners. Of course, my opinion is going to be...

We all know content curation can be a point of struggle for many a business owner. Graphics in particular can make or break a website’s aesthetic. To help you with the process, I’ve compiled a few stock photography sites that offer free images. Not a bad deal! Unsplash This site...

We are hiring! KL Creative is looking for a WordPress guru for project based work, averaging around 10-20 hours a week. General duties would entail converting Ilustrator files to WordPress themes, setting up plugins, installing content, basic HTML. Experience with social media profile construction and basic PHP knowledge a plus!...

If you’ve heard me speak before, you know that I’m a big fan of social media marketing tools such as Hootsuite, WordPress or using Jetpack to funnel your social media posts. As the owner of a small business myself, I know that time is gold and often in short supply....

1. Logo Let’s face it: we are visual people who put far too much empathsis on what something looks like. Your logo will be the first impression people have of you. Is your logo memorable? Is your logo scalable and adaptable to all mediums? Read more about what makes a...

Lately Yelp has been getting a lot of bad press. It’s being sued by a number of business owners who believe that Yelp has purposefully manipulated its review rating system to favor paying advertisers or penalize those who do not choose to advertise. In short, bad reviews are featured (allegedly)...

I really like this image. It is easy as a small business to get caught up in doing what has been working well enough, instead of moving forward to discover what works best. Running a small business requires a lot of personal effort and development. Whether you work from home...

For this week’s post, I’d like to tell you about two upcoming events that i’m super excited about. The first, August 14th, is the Colorado Health and Wellness Symposium, put on by the lovely folks at the Northwest Colorado SBDC. This event is for people or business owners who are...

Ember needed a stylish and elegant website, with a design that highlighted their creative menu and artistic decor. They also needed a flexible backend where they could update the menu regularly, add new photos, pages and reviews. We built them a WordPress custom theme with some subtle animations. This fully...

I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately about some best practices for social media. Investing in social media can be a daunting task for small business owners. As a public forum, it can be intimidating to throw your hat into the ring and start learning how to participate. I’ve...

Logos are one of the hardest parts of designing a website. It is usually our starting point, as it is influential to everything else down the line. When done right, a logo is just a part of the whole. When done poorly, a logo will effect every aspect of your...

75% of Americans admit they have brought their phone to the bathroom. You know it’s true, you’ve done it too. That phone is always with us! Sure, it may be annoying if you are trying to talk to your kid and his/her face is buried in the screen, but as...

Bloom came to us wanting to upgrade their online presence with a new design aesthetic. Their floral arrangements are just stunning and our graphic designers wanted to find the best way to display it. We came up with a website layout that was clean and simple, letting their work speak...

Writing web content can be a difficult task for business owners and I’ve seen many a savvy business owner that has struggled their way through it. But don’t despair, you, as the business owner, is best equipped to write your own content! Below I’ve detailed a few guidelines about what...

Ty: Good morning, welcome back to the show; just moving along, we’re about half way through this week edition of Summit Sunrise. Now joining me in the studio is Kristy Lee of KL Creative Design. Good morning. Kristy Lee: Good morning. Ty: How are you? Kristy Lee: Good. Ty: Yeah,...

Do you have a Facebook page for your business? Great! But can you stop there? Is your Facebook page enough as a web presence for your business? While, yes you should be on Facebook and you should be engaging with your existing clientele on Facebook, here are a few reasons,...

After doing an extensive analysis of their website, keyword research and market research, we created a plan involving search engine optimization, branding and social media. Now, just 2 months later, they are ranking #1 on Google for all of their targeted keywords! Many of their keywords are ranking 2 or 3 times on the first page!

Okay, so you figured out that you need marketing. The next question then is what kind of marketing do you need? PPC, Pay Per Click, and organic search engine optimization are a great place to start. Short answer PPC is paid; organic is not. Long Answer PPC Let’s take a...

You heard it right. We are expanding! We will now be offering a myriad of services in the Grand County area, such as online marketing, website design and mobile websites. Our second office will be based in Granby, Colorado. Halfway between Grand Lake and Winter Park, Granby is a great...

I get this complaint from prospective clients a fair amount. The clients usually have a decent website, but have done little to no search engine optimization. In past years, building a website was enough to show up in search results. This is no longer true. As of April 7th, 2014,...

Google values websites that have fresh content and that are up to date. They value them higher than just static websites. It’s super important that you are constantly keeping your website current, adding sales, deals....

Creating a solid logo is a point of struggle for many a small business owner. A good logo is crucial to a branding program.

Lindsey: The main thing that we’ve been focusing a lot lately with KL Creative Design is SEO and with that is tied into keywording which is our topic today. Inform us all about that. KL: Keywords are searchable terms that people might enter into Google to find you. Ideally, you...

How does the small business, with limited resources and the never ending task list, participate in content marketing? I’d like to show you that content marketing is attainable for you and your business with a few practical examples of content marketing.

Phew! It’s done. After many late nights, much debate, building and tearing down, and the occasional scream of frustration our new website is live and in the wild! We’re pretty excited to see the new site in action and proud of our work. Not only do we have a new...

According to Wikipedia, content marketing is “any marketing format that involves the creation and sharing of media and publishing content in order to acquire customers.” With the constant barrage of advertising, we are becoming increasingly creative about avoiding it. It becomes like white noise in the background- just another person/product...

How many times have you visited YouTube this week? Today? According to recent statistics, 55% of users have watched a YouTube video today and 80% in the past week. Alexa ranks YouTube as the third most visited website behind Google and Facebook. Let’s face it, the popularity of YouTube (and...

Lindsey: Hello everyone. I’m in the studio here with Kristy Lee from KL Creative Design. Welcome. Tell us about KL Creative Design. Kristy Lee: KL Creative Design is a web development firm with a focus on mobile development. Lindsey: Let’s talk about social media and marketing, how everyone can benefit...

I had a potential client ask me recently if KL Creative offers any guarantees or can warranty any specific SEO results such as rankings or traffic. We don’t. Here’s why. Short answer, taken straight from Google’s own website about SEO: It’s not possible. No one can guarantee a specific result...

Did you know that 56% of the world’s population has a internet ready phone? About half of these people use their mobile device as the primary vehicle to access the internet. What does your website look like on a mobile phone? Perhaps you should ask your customers! There should be...

According to google, the majority local searches happen on the mobile phone. Think about that for a minute. The next logical step to that is that people who are locally searching for your small business are viewing your website on their mobile phone. Now think about what your site looks...

Social Media Marketing has baffled business owners since it bomb-blasted its way into our lives not too long ago. By now, most of you realize that you should be doing something with Facebook and twitter….but the question is WHAT?? The Why I don’t need to tell you that users spend...

In June of 2012, Google announced its preference for responsive websites for mobile design. While it may not yet penalize for sites without a responsive design or a mobile friendly content, it seems clear that this is important to them and will somehow factor in the ranking of a website....

Nothing stops a potential client quicker than suggesting they start a blog. “What would I write about?” “I’m not a writer.” “Who has time for that??” But before you dismiss the idea, let’s talk a bit about Google. Google is constantly banging the drum of CONTENT. In order to increase...

How do you communicate with your clients and potential clients? Do you ever feel like you are shouting in a loud crowded room? Using cans on a string? Carrier pidgeon? What if you could get your message directly at the fingertips of your clients, exactly when it is most relevant...

In case you haven’t heard, Google has issued some new info in regards to link backs. This news has taken the SEO world by shock as it will force a lot of SEO experts to revamp their format a bit. But let’s discuss the changes and break it down. Linkbacks....

So you’ve got a business. Most likely, you even have a website. But the question is how do you make your website work for you? How can you get the most from your website? Lately, I’ve had a lot of people ask me about online marketing. This is sort of...

Rosaleen asks… Hello, I’m creating a professional training website where one of the pages will be dedicated to the bios of the trainers. What size and resolution photos should I ask the trainers to send me? Thanks in advance for any advice. Kristy Lee answers… The answer to this question...

Let’s learn a bit about fonts. There are two main categories of fonts: serif fonts and sans-serif fonts. Serif fonts have small lines attached to the end of the characters, like a small tail or stroke, that give it a bit more flair. Sans-serif is a simpler, cleaner font without...

Speaker 1: Hey guys, welcome back. Hanging out with Kristy Lee from KL Creative Design. First of all, let’s just tell everybody what KL Creative Design is. Kristy Lee: KL Creative Design is a full service web development group. We do everything web related and mobile related. Speaker 1: OK....

I want to talk briefly about website hosting, as I get this question a lot and it can be a bit confusing. Most of my clients already have a website of some form when they come to me, but rarely understand how to access it or what info we will...

Everyone seems to be talking about it but no one quite knows the difference. So I would like to break it down nice and easy. Firstly, what is a mobile website? A mobile website is a website built specifically for the mobile platform. Usually this is a version of a...

Google Authorship. Have you seen it before? It’s fairly new but occasionally you will see a small photo next to a google result. This is Google Authorship. Basically, this is a verified link between your website content and your Google+ profile. If you have a blog, you may have heard...

As you may know, I am a huge proponent of WordPress. Not only do my clients love it and find it easy to use, it is almost limitless in functionality. With the right skills or custom templates, you can do almost anything. I’m not the only one who thinks this....

You’ve probably heard it all before. I know I’m starting to feel like a broken record. MOBILE MOBILE MOBILE. The point of this post is not to convince you why you need mobile. Instead I’d like to talk about a few things to consider when looking at your site from...

Mobile optimization is a method of building a website that not only works on a desktop with traditional screen sizes but also is specifically optimized or built to work well on a mobile device. Mobile device may be a smart phone or a tablet. Why do you need mobile site?...

This week I’d like to talk briefly about how and why you should edit your own website. This post is not about DIY websites. (Read a good article about those here.) DIY websites often cause more hassle than they are worth. What I am talking about is hiring a professional...

Branding can be a daunting task for business owners, especially if you are less than design savvy. When deciding how to visually present your business, it usually seems to come down to “well I like the color green?” Here’s something you need to know when branding your business: Your website...

Every day it seems I see another commercial for a free or cheap do-it-yourself website. While I understand why small business owners would go this route, I often find the ads a bit misleading. In this post, I’d like to discuss the pros and cons of the free DIY website...

In our previous post, we talked about a few questions to ask yourself before building a mobile app for your business. A mobile app takes lots of planning and marketing before, during and after. Now that you’ve committed to a mobile app and you still think it’s a good idea,...

I get questions about these kind of emails all the time. Often they are spam and scammers trying to get a few bucks out of you! But let’s do some research first just to be sure. Let’s look into your domain name and figure out where it is registered. Most...

You’ve got your mommy bloggers. You’ve got your angry critics. You’ve got your free-spirited travel bloggers. What about blogging for your business? Now before you freak out and tell me you have nothing to say (we will get to that as well), let me tell you how blogging can help...

Search engine optimization, the art of to get your website higher in the search engine rankings, is a complicated art. For many, it may require a full restructuring of your website or the help of a specialist. But I’d like to discuss a few things to get you started on...

It seems this word is being tossed around all over the place these days. Just yesterday I got a call about my best practices for building a mobile website. So here it is: In simplest terms, a responsive website is a website that responds to the size of the device...

Mobile apps for small businesses seem to be the newest marketing fad. Lately I’ve been getting a fair amount of calls from people about mobile apps for their business. I find that most of them don’t entirely know what this means, but just heard about it somewhere. Now I’m not...

Lately I’ve been getting lots of calls from people who have a website but aren’t quite getting the traffic out of it they want. There are many factors which effect a website’s success. Search engine optimization, which I talked about a few weeks ago here, is a big part of...

1. Fresh content Content should be regularly updated. For one, search engines LOVE new content. It will improve your rankings. Secondly, users expect to see up-to-date content. If your content is static or outdated, they will lose trust (and interest) in your site as resource. 2. Mobile accessibility/Responsive layout More...

Did you know that you can search engine optimize your YouTube videos? YouTube is quickly becoming a big player in website marketing. Like Facebook and Twitter, video content and YouTube is a whole separate platform for marketing your business and reaching clientele.

Chances are if you are looking into building a websites, you’ve heard of WordPress. It is by far the most popular CMS to date. So what is it? And more importantly, how can WordPress help you and your business? WordPress is an open source content management system. In laymen’s terms,...

It seems everywhere I go it seems people are talking about mobile apps and mobile websites. But it seems most people don't quite know which is which or even exactly what they are. But everyone seems to think they need...one of them.

Search engine optimization, or SEO for short, is the process to make your website come up higher in search engine (google, bing, yahoo) results. What good is a website if it can’t be found? Even the prettiest website or the best product should be marketed. So should your website. And...