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 equipped backend allows them to edit all aspects of their content, putting the power in their own hands.
And have we mentioned it is also fully responsive? With a big chunk of traffic attributed to mobile devices how could it not be? Responsive column design on the content and a sleek mobile menu for improved usability. Click here to check it out!
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 put together a basic overview of some of the most popular social media sites to help you get started. Keep in mind, a good social media marketing plan involves a lot of testing and tweaking. What works for one business might not work as well for another. These are general guidelines and it is important to keep your particular industry in mind when creating a social media marketing plan. I suggest that you take a look at the below sites and pick 2-3 that best fit your industry.
Facebook
Overview: Facebook is obviously the biggest player in town. Everyone is on it. It is also the hardest to get any results from. Facebook is all about social. Users are there to socialize, look at photos or just goof off. They often don’t want to think about business or work related things.
Posting Guidelines We suggest no more than 2 posts a day. Any more will be crossing the line into annoying. Statistically, the best times to post are weekday afternoons. The optimal time frame to post really depends on your market. If your target market is a younger crowd, you might also want to consider the early morning time slot as 80% of users check their phones right after waking up. If your clientele is more middle age, after work hours might be better.
Tips Facebook posts with photos get markedly more likes and comments than posts without.
Twitter
Overview Twitter is best described as a personalized a news feed. Twitter users are most receptive to marketing, news and brands of all the social media sites. It is much less personal or social/
Posting Guidelines The average life of a tweet is about 18 minutes. Because of this, you can post at a much higher frequency, and even repeat some posts, throughout the day. It is generally suggested to post anywhere between 10-30 a day. Posts should be around 120 characters and no more. If you are linking to articles, link to the article direct instead of a post on another social media site.
Tips Twitter has a very high percentage of mobile users. Keep this in mind when you are linking to external sites.
LinkedIn
Overview LinkedIn is most used by professionals. The crowd is older, more educated and not looking to goof off or waste time. It works well with business to business markets or networking.
Posting Guidelines LinkedIn users value quality over quantity. Post no more than once a day. Best times to post are 12-5 weekdays only, as LInkedIn users are not likely visiting the site on the weekend.
Pinterest
Overview I like to call Pinterest bookmarking on crack. It is most used for finding inspiration or saving ideas. It does well for design and craft industries, cooking, travel, retail or fashion. It has a very strong focus on the visual and a picture is required for posts. A high percentage of its users are female, and they are 3x more likely to be on the mobile phone.
Posting Guidelines Unlike LinkedIn, weekends and evenings are active times for Pinterest users. Your photo is the most important part of a Pinterest post (or pin as it is called), as this is what users first see. Descriptions can also be searched, so don’t forget to add those.
Well let’s hope this gives you a good start. It’s easy to get overwhelmed when getting started with social media marketing. I suggest starting small with a few posts a day. Try out Hootsuite to help with scheduling your posts. It often helps to set it up once a week and then you can sit back and watch it go…
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 business.
We also continually see online logo companies that sport increasingly lower costs for a logo, or logo competitions that allow designers to whip up something for you and throw in their hat to be chosen from hundreds. The inverse of that is that you are one of hundreds that they are currently working on, they know nothing about your business and are likely just recycling a logo they submitted last week.
As with everything in life, you get what you pay for.
When beginning a website redesign or branding, one of the first questions I ask is about the logo. The logo dictates the direction of the website layout which in turn dictates the content layout. The logo is created first and the remainder of the branding follows its lead. Because of this, its important to not corners on your logo. Nor does a logo have to be expensive. So what makes a logo a good logo? What should you be looking for when choosing a logo?
Types of Logos
There are 2 main styles you will see: font-based, iconic. Understanding these will help you understand which you need for your business.
Font-Based Logos
Font-based logos are just that: your name in a fancy or fitting font. They are usually the simplest and most cost-effective. That’s not to say they are not relevant or useful; sometimes simple is what works best. Examples of this are the Disney logo or the Facebook logo.
When choosing a font based logo, it’s important to keep the main characteristics of a good logo in mind (as discussed below), as this is where things can fail quickly. Choose a font with a thicker line so it stands out on transparent background. Handwriting fonts can be useful and stylish, but should be legible across all mediums.
Both the Disney logo and the Facebook logo started out as font based logos, but have become iconic logos. Both the “D” and the “F” can be used alone to represent the brand.
Iconic Logo
An iconic logo is an illustration or icon that in some way represents the brand or business. In some cases, such as in the case of Apple computers or Nike’s swoosh logo, the icon doesn’t seem to have any connection to the industry or business. It may be a random shape or a simplified version of something that no longer bears much connection to the original. Either way, you associate the brand with the icon in your mind’s eye.
Other iconic logos may be more literal, such as the silhouette of a dancer for a dance studio. This sort of icon is helpful when a viewer might not know offhand what the business does, whether this is because it is new or because the name doesn’t make it obvious. The icon supports the message.
Many logos are actually a combination of both font based and iconic, and both parts can be used together or independently. This helps with scalability, as you can choose which logo works best for which medium.
Guidelines for choosing a logo
Below are a few guidelines to keep in mind when choosing a logo.
Adaptability.
When choosing a logo, test it on many mediums and in many sizes. How does the logo look across all mediums such as business cards or a large storefront sign? Can you print it on T-Shirts? I frequently see logos that work great on websites, whether they have a nice background, gradient or too much detail. Take that same logo and put it on a banner and it is hard to read, looks messy and unfocused or at worst, requires awkward backgrounds and containing boxes.
A good logo should scale to all sizes or color schemes and should be simple enough to be adapted to all mediums without losing the message or idea it portrays.
Target Market
This one seems like it should be common sense. But it can be difficult to distinguish between what you like and what your target market likes. When designing a logo or anything for that matter, everyone comes to the table it with a picture in their head. Being able to get that picture out of your head and translated unto paper is a sign of a good designer. These design preconceptions should be analyzed and compared to good design practices as well as your target market.
Your logo needs to visually represent your brand with a quick glance (which is all the time you have). Resist the urge to overcomplicate the logo by adding every facet of your business into it. Yes, your logo should represent your business, but the reality is that most people don’t read into it what you will. Viewers see color, shape general theme. Beyond that, you have lost them. If you try to get too literal, you are likely to overcomplicate things. Err on the side of simplicity, as this will make the logo more memorable.
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 a business owner, you can leverage this! Americans spend an average of 2.7 hours per day on their mobile phones.
Mobile internet usage is projected to overtake desktop usage this year!
With mobile traffic no longer just a fraction of viewer, mobile website design is becoming an absolute necessity for business owners. Your mobile traffic cannot be ignored. Your website needs to be fully optimized for the device using responsive web design.
1/2 of all local searches are performed on a mobile device
What does this mean for you? For one, it means that most people are researching on their phones. While they are shopping in the store, they are comparing prices on their phones. While walking around town, they are on their phones looking for a place for dinner.
They begin the process of purchasing something, whatever it may be, on their phones FIRST which means that mobile is their first impression. Any business owner knows that the first impression is key to sealing the deal. This makes online resources such as Trip Advisor, Yelp, social media or just plain search engine optimization crucial for creating conversions. 40% of users have admitted to choosing another source if the website they visited is not mobile friendly.
70% of mobile searches lead to conversion
Let’s break this one down a bit. Mobile users are more focused and purpose driven. They aren’t browsing around wasting time. This means that the mobile lead is of higher value. The conversion rate of a mobile user is nearly 3 times higher than a desktop user! Mobile users are ready to buy. The question is whether or not your website can seal the deal.
47% of emails are opened on the mobile phone
Again, first impression. If you are participating in email marketing of some sort (and if you aren’t, you should), your emails as well as the links in the emails need to be mobile friendly. After all, what are the chances that a user who opens an email on the phone will come back to view it on the desktop later? Unlikely.
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 for themselves.
After creating a custom layout, we coded their website in WordPress for ease of editing. The main focus of the website is the galleries and photos, which allows clients to browse the photos easily and comfortably, from their tablet, smartphone or desktop, of course!
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 works online.
Make your web text scannable
Web readers are lazy. Unlike other forms of content, web users will not “read” your page. They scan the page for highlights that are interesting. Keep paragraphs short and sweet. Nothing will turn away a user quicker than long unbroken blocks of text.
Break up your content with descriptive, keyword rich titles.
Think about the way people read. They often “jump” between sections, reading only the first line of a paragraph. Titles provide jumping points (or anchors for those particularly lacking attention) for web readers, holding them to the page. Use bold and italic when relevant to provide secondary jumping points or anchors.
Images can also serve the same purpose. Break up text and support your text with visually compelling images.
Not only good for scanning, titles are also important for search engines as they can be highlighted (in the code) and show search engines that this is a relevant keyword on the page. This will help your page rank for particular keywords.
Be concise
8 seconds. That’s the average attention span of a web user. (Source). Do you know what the average attention span of a goldfish is? 9 seconds. Keep that in mind.
Web readers are like wild animals hunting for that one bit of content they need. Don’t try to be clever or creative. Get them the info they want before they lose interest and head back to google.
The Voice: Be professional AND human.
Avoid the temptation to add too much marketing jargon. People don’t want to feel like they are being sold something. In this day and age, we are constantly being hit with ads from every direction. Don’t add to the clamor. Find a way to present your company clearly and confidently, without losing your humanity. I’m a firm believe that people respond better when they can see the man behind the curtain.
This is also called front-loading the paragraph. Add the conclusion first followed by the how and why and other lesser points. This allows users with shorter attention spans to still digest the relevant content and helps with scanning.
This entire article could be summed up in one phrase: simplify, simplify, simplify! Don’t try to wow and amaze your readers. Start with the basics and tweak as necessary. Just like any marketing plan (and your website is a big part of your marketing), you may need to modify the plan as you go. Hope this gets you started!
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, well let’s jump right into it. KL Creative, what exactly is your focus? What’s the business?
Kristy Lee: KL Creative is a full-service web development group with a focus on mobile technology.
Ty: Right, because that only continues to get larger and larger.
Kristy Lee: Right, right.
Ty: When you talk about mobile technology though, what exactly are you talking about, because there’s several products there?
Kristy Lee: Right. What that means is that all of my websites, out of the box, are mobile friendly. We make websites that not only work on the desktop, but also work on the mobile phone. What happens is the content rearranges on the screen in order to be best optimized for the phone.
Ty: Right, because as we know you’re working on a desktop computer …
Kristy Lee: Right.
Ty: You have a mouse, the keyboard, larger display.
Kristy Lee: Right.
Ty: On a cell phone, touch screen, different interfaces would require …
Kristy Lee: Make the font bigger, makes one column instead of three, so there’s no pinching, no zooming.
Ty: Nice.
Kristy Lee: No hunting around to find that one piece of information.
Ty: I’m sure you guys have done this before if you’re using a smart phone.
Kristy Lee: Right.
Ty: Open up a web page that is clearly not a mobile web page. It’s really small to see, and I’m zooming in, and now all of a sudden the links aren’t operating as smoothly as they can.
Kristy Lee: Right.
Ty: Then before you know it you’re not really interested in that website.
Kristy Lee: Right, absolutely.
Ty: Now you are willing to work with anyone who is trying to get into that.
Kristy Lee: Right.
Ty: Break into that industry.
Kristy Lee: Absolutely, and we … because everything is over the internet, I do meet people face-to-face, but a lot of things also happen over the internet and over phone. It could be anywhere and anytime. I’m also offering right now services in the Grand County, Colorado area as well.
Ty: Nice.
Kristy Lee: Offering services over there with project consultations, where I’ll come sit down with you and talk over your project or whatever you’re working on these days.
Ty: Okay, not in just in Summit, you are expanding you’re into new markets. Big thing with KL Creative is the SEO fortunately.
Kristy Lee: Right.
Ty: The getting people recognized and out there. You can have the best app or the best website possible, but you still have to be found.
Kristy Lee: Right.
Ty: Why is that so important? How does that actually work though?
Kristy Lee: Well SEO you consider it marketing for your website. You can’t just build a website and throw it up there, there’s 1.79 billion websites on the internet right now; you’re going to get lost, you’ll never be found. This is marketing for your website, and we do is we study the market, we study your website, we study your particular industry. Then to that, we apply specific keywords and specific style of coding and specific tags.
Ty: That will help.
Kristy Lee: Right, right.
Ty: Filter it up toward the top of the list.
Kristy Lee: Exactly, yes.
Ty: Okay, that is something I didn’t really know, in terms of understanding, what makes this particular company sitting on top of my search engine. Why are they sitting here versus someone else that I was actually looking for?
Kristy Lee: Right, right.
Ty: That’s good to know, and you can help out with all that.
Kristy Lee: We can, yes.
Ty: That’s great. Well if somebody wanted to get in touch with and talk about that consultation, what is the best way of doing that?
Kristy Lee: My website is KLCreativeDesign.com.
Ty: All right, perfect. Go online, it’s that easy. Of course a website business on a company website. You can find out all that you need there and more. Well good luck with expanding into Grand County, Colorado.
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, why that should just be one part of your online presence.
Limited View
Did you know that the majority of users don’t ever see your posts? If you look at your Facebook page, you should see a table with a column called “Total Reach”. This is the number of people who have “seen” your post on their wall. You might be surprised by the number, as it’s usually a fraction of your users only. Do you also see the link to the right of it that says “Boost Post”? This is because Facebook would rather you pay for exposure instead of giving it away for free. Facebook is a business with its own interest in mind, not yours.
Along the same lines, you don’t own your Facebook page or even have full control over the content you upload. Facebook can at any time change the rules or settings and there is nothing you can do about it. They can change the algorithms (and do) without regard to how that would effect your business.
Limited Searching
Have you ever tried to search for something on Facebook? Without a direct link it can be really complicated to find someone on facebook. There isn’t really the ability to search like you would on google. For example, if you had a coffee shop in Winter Park Colorado named All about Coffee, you would be searchable by that term only. You couldn’t search “Coffee shop in Winter Park Colorado” and be found. This limits your reach to people who already know about you and know exactly what the name of your company is, limiting you to new and loyal followers only (which you have already won over).
Facebook is perceived as less professional.
It’s free. It’s easy to set up. And let’s face it: minimal investment often equals less professional. In this day and age where the internet is such an integral part of life, a business without a website is not taken seriously.
Less control over branding and SEO
Limited SEO capability, limited branding capability, limited content. Obviously if you have a Facebook page, you have to play by Facebook’s rules. You get one small square image and a large banner image. While you can edit descriptions, you can only do limited search engine optimization on the page.
Facebook can be integral part of social media marketing. But it should be one path to funnel traffic to your website, which is the final stop. It should not be the only path available.
I don’t like to brag, seriously…but I’m going to make an exception here because I am just excited about our latest online marketing project!
Sage Massage and Acupuncture, located in Grand Lake Colorado, reached out to us recently because their website wasn’t visible in Google. Their website wasn’t ranking for any of their keywords.
Well, that’s a problem we can fix!
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!
If you are a business owner, then you know how important your search engine ranking is. Latest stats count 1.79 billion websites on the internet. Without a presence on Google and other search engines, you are likely getting lost and losing out on a large share of the market. Here at KL Creative, we like to see small businesses succeed. We hand tailored our marketing plans, website redesigns and branding so you can get the most bang for your buck. Our websites and marketing plans are affordable and long lasting. Oh and did we mention mobile optimized? Every one, out of the box.
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 look at a standard goggle results page. See the section at the top, above the thin line, and the right sidebar? Each of these results has a small yellow icon denoting it as an ad. That’s PPC and they are paid ads. You literally pay per click. Generally you would have a monthly or daily budget and the adwords software would post up your ad until you spend your daily budget. The price of each click is dependent on the competition for a particular keyword or phrase and can range from cents to dollars per click.
For PPC, Google doesn’t really care where you are sending those clicks. They don’t care about the quality of the website, and you should see traffic almost immediately. You are essentially buying relevant ad space.
On the inverse, when you stop paying for PPC, your traffic comes to a screeching halt with no long lasting results.
Organic SEO
Organic SEO is bit different.
Now look at the results below the thin line, or on the left larger block. These are the organic results. These results have earned their way to the top of the page by being ranked well by Google and providing relevant info to the keyword you searched for. They earned this spot. And if you are like me, you will prefer the results that are naturally acquired and ignore the paid results which may or may not be relevant.
Organic SEO is all about improving the quality of your content and your website to rank higher. It takes time and effort and may take 1-3 months to see results. Inversely, these results last a lot longer and once earned, don’t depreciate as fast.
Personally, I prefer organic SEO, as you come out with a higher quality product in the end. It lasts longer and results in a higher quality website and better leads, better traffic. That doesn’t mean PPC doesn’t have its place. If you need results fast or only short term, PPC can be very effective. If you have the marketing budget, organic and PPC can work together to really put your website on the map. But if you are like many small business owners with more limited budgets, organic SEO is the way to go.
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 central location for the county.
And for all you long time Summit County faithfuls, don’t worry—we won’t be neglecting you!
Coming from Summit County, we are still able to offer our expertise in the unique culture of mountain and tourist towns to help your business succeed online.
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, there are 1.79 billion pages on the internet. So while your site is likely being indexed, it is being lost in the sea of other websites, isn’t indexing for the proper keywords and only comes up for your company name or domain name.
Obviously, this is a huge problem. What good is a website if no one can find it? 68% of users click on the first 3 results only. Even if you are buried on secondary pages, you are unlikely to get a lot of exposure.
Here’s where search engine optimization comes in. Consider it like marketing for websites. Whether we are editing the on page text for keywords, altering the code of the page to contain important tags, social media or content marketing, SEO is essential for creating exposure for your website.
Just like marketing, SEO is not an exact science. We do extensive research to learn what keywords have the best opportunity for your business. Often we see specific keywords that are highly competitive and others that have great room for growth. Our job is to find those opportunities and capitalize on them.
Would you start a business without marketing? No. Likewise, you can’t build an online presence without proper marketing in the form of SEO.
Overview: Facebook is obviously the biggest player in town. Everyone is on it. It is also the hardest to get any results from. Facebook is all about social. Users are there to socialize, look at photos or just goof off. They often don’t want to think about business or work related things. 
Overview Twitter is best described as a personalized a news feed. Twitter users are most receptive to marketing, news and brands of all the social media sites. It is much less personal or social/
Overview LinkedIn is most used by professionals. The crowd is older, more educated and not looking to goof off or waste time. It works well with business to business markets or networking. 
Overview I like to call Pinterest bookmarking on crack. It is most used for finding inspiration or saving ideas. It does well for design and craft industries, cooking, travel, retail or fashion. It has a very strong focus on the visual and a picture is required for posts. A high percentage of its users are female, and they are 3x more likely to be on the mobile phone. 
They begin the process of purchasing something, whatever it may be, on their phones FIRST which means that mobile is their first impression. Any business owner knows that the first impression is key to sealing the deal. This makes online resources such as Trip Advisor, Yelp, social media or just plain search engine optimization crucial for creating conversions. 40% of users have admitted to choosing another source if the website they visited is not mobile friendly. 
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! 
For PPC, Google doesn’t really care where you are sending those clicks. They don’t care about the quality of the website, and you should see traffic almost immediately. You are essentially buying relevant ad space. 
And for all you long time Summit County faithfuls, don’t worry—we won’t be neglecting you! 
As of April 7th, 2014, there are 1.79 billion pages on the internet. So while your site is likely being indexed, it is being lost in the sea of other websites, isn’t indexing for the proper keywords and only comes up for your company name or domain name. 
Here’s where search engine optimization comes in. Consider it like marketing for websites. Whether we are editing the on page text for keywords, altering the code of the page to contain important tags,