Small Business Design Resources

What is Flash and is it suitable for your business?

Flash is software that uses animation to create multimedia elements for websites. Flash on a web page is usually used to establish interactivity with visitors. It could be a button, form, movie, cartoon, or even a game. Take a look at the following examples of different uses of Flash:

Flash focused sites (full Flash sites):
Moodstream (brainstorming tool)
Uniroyal Fun Cup (racing game)
Chipotle (restaurant)

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Website Critique: Jewelry inspired by nature

Arjeent is a unique jewelry making website. They make jewelry inspired by nature and also custom jewelry taken from a provided photo from a customer. The video website critique of their website www.arjeent.com gives suggestions on how to improve the navigation and make finding the right type of jewelry to purchase much easier for the average user.

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Quick Tip: Do Keyword Research Before you Write your Website Content

Before you or your copywriter creates content for your website be sure to do your keyword search. Having the keywords ready before you write your website content will save you time and make it easier to optimize your content for search engines. Here are the best SEO keyword research tools to get you started.

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Landing Pages: What They Are and Why You Need Them

If you’ve been considering an online advertising campaign for your small business, you’ve probably come across the term “landing page.” The concept of a landing page is new to many small business owners, so don’t worry if you aren’t sure what it is or how it’s different from the other pages on your website. It’s actually a very simple concept that can really increase the effectiveness of your advertising campaign.

What is a landing page?
A landing page is exactly what it sounds like—the page a potential customer lands on after clicking a link. Technically, any page on your website can be a landing page. However, the most effective landing page is one that was created to match the needs of the person who clicked on the link that leads to it. The goal of a landing page is to capture the visitor’s attention and get them take an action you desire—make a purchase, for instance, or fill out a sign-up form.

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Quick Tip: Install an Analytics Program to Check Website Progress

Having an analytics program on your website helps you see what pages bring in more traffic, what needs to be changed/improved, what keywords people are using to find your website and many more factors that can effect your website performance. The two of my favorite are Google Analytics and StatCounter, both are free and simple to use.

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Social Media for Businesses: Empty Hype?

I’ve been observing my small business design clients for the past couple of years to see how they choose to use social media to promote their businesses.

My unscientific conclusion: small businesses seem to either love social media and use it as much as they can, or avoid it completely. There’s almost no middle ground, and it’s especially interesting to me that the clients who avoid social media are almost, it seems, afraid to use it.

Businesses worry about using social media for several reasons. The main reason is that they worry they will be wasting valuable time and resources on something that is no more than a hype – a passing trend that will disappear within a few years, leaving all those businesses who poured time and money into social media marketing with nothing.

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Quick Tip: Use Stock Photos to Reduce Photography Cost

Stock photos can add a great value to your website when you have a need for generic images. Keep in mind to only use photos that are relevant to the topic that you’re covering. Take a look at this article that covers adding images to your website.

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Someone Has My Domain Name – Now What?

As a small business owner, you surely put a lot of thought into choosing the perfect name for your business. Now that you’ve decided to take advantage of all the opportunities offered by a small business website, you will need to purchase a unique domain name to serve as your business’s online presence. The obvious choice is yourbusinessname.com—but what do you do if someone already owns “your” domain name?

You basically have two options for securing a domain name that has already been purchased by someone else: Read more »

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Quick Tip: Write Content for People NOT for Search Engines

We all heard the ever-popular phrase “content is king”. Yes, it’s still true that search engines like websites that have lots of content that’s updated often. But this doesn’t mean that what you write should be computer lingo. Your content should be directed directly to your target audience because they’re the ones who will be reading and engaging with your website.

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Quick Tip: Use a Clean and Simple Navigation

Make browsing your website a pleasant experience, by creating a simple and user-friendly navigation. When the navigation is easy to use the users are comfortable using your website and can look through your website to find what they need.

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