Art Urie, owner of Lake Farm Realty in Concord, New Hampshire, has been a loyal Union Street Media client since we launched his original site in July 2005. When it launched, the Lake Farm site gave Art a great platform for showcasing his listings and offered his clients a sophisticated but easy-to-use tool for property searches. Union Street Media’s content management system also offered Art an easy, efficient way to maintain contact with potential clients throughout their property searches and home buying experiences.
Six years post-launch, Art’s site was still providing him with a professional web presence, but was becoming outdated in a landscape of ever-evolving web trends. Additionally, Art recognized the need for his site to serve not only as a customer service tool but also as a lead generator.
Through a Design Refresh, we were able to upgrade the sites conversion and search tools, property detail views, and overall functionality. Our Design Team made sure to incorporate some of the imagery and essence of Art’s old site into the new one to maintain Lake Farm Realty’s consistent vision and identity.
By choosing to combine his Refresh with a Dedicated Internet Marketing package post-launch, Art will see data driven, ongoing optimization to maximize the impact of the new design. Our Internet Marketing team will be focusing on expanding the reach of the site to pull in new visitors who can take advantage of the improved forms, tools, and ultimately the professional, personal service Lake Farm Realty offers.
Check out our new Exotico UI Set. Free and premium versions available.
When you’re building a website it’s all well and good embracing a fancy design and making plans for strategic SEO, however what’s also vital is that you ensure your site is built to convert.
Below we take a look at five high-converting sites and investigate what it is that makes them so successful.
As a creative professional, you need a repository of your work that you can show other people. This is called a portfolio. Since we now live in the internet age where anyone can access anything anytime, it is imperative that you have an online portfolio. The only real problem is figuring out where to put your work – there are so many online portfolio tools and communities, it can be challenging to determine which one will work best for you. I’ve written this article to help you decide how to get your portfolio up and running ASAP.
Dribble is a portfolio networking platform where designers share “shots,” small screenshots of the designs and applications they are working on. All types of creatives are welcome here – Dribbble is designed for show and tell – to promote, discover, and explore design.
Over the past few months, Pinterest has exploded in the social media world. While the majority of its users thus far have been women in their 30’s-50’s who love crafting and planning weddings, things have changed a bit, now that more people are using the site. Brands have begun tapping into this market with subtle product promotion and brand identity creation. If your company has a product or service that relates to women of this age and interest, you should get on Pinterest right away.
What is Pinterest?
It’s a visual-based site which allows users to create boards (think virtual bulletin board) and “pin” items of interest to them. The idea is that you can separate craft ideas, products you love, etc. into categories using different boards. You can also “re-pin” things you find on other people’s board and save them for later. Pinterest has become a very popular social media site that allows people to save projects, home-improvement ideas and the like for later, in a magazine-style layout.
How Does This Affect My Brand?
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As we all know typography is a very important part of every design. So in this roundup we have collected some awesome typography for inspiration. If you like these beautiful you might also want to check out our previous posts below.
45 Creative Typography Print Ads
One year ago we launched the Freelance Starter Kit, which has become our most popular product at Vandelay Premier. We launched the product to provide freelancers with easy access to important resources like contract templates, invoice templates, proposal templates, letterhead, informational ebooks on different aspects of the business of design, and interviews with successful designers.
Over the past year we have added to the kit and more than doubled the size and value. To celebrate the first year and to make the resources accessible to even more people we’re offering a limited time promotion to save $20 on the Freelance Starter Kit. The regular price is $49, but through April 9, 2012 we will be offering it at just $29 (more than 40% off)!
Our goal with the Freelance Starter Kit is to help designers with the business side of things, freeing up more time for actual design work. Many of our customers find the contract templates alone to be an invaluable resource, but there is much more included to help you market your services, communicate with clients, and learn more about running a successful business. Here is a look at the resources that are included.
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Infographics are incredibly popular right now for communicating statistics, presenting a message, and for displaying information in a visually appealing manner. A well-designed infographic can get more attention than the same information presented without the visual appeal.
Many companies are now using infographics in the link building efforts because they tend to get a lot of attention and attract links from blogs and social media.
In this post we’ll showcase 10 examples of effective infographics for your own inspiration.
Gardener's Supply Facebook Page
As of March 30, 2012, Facebook will be switching the layout of all pages not yet on the new Timeline format. This should not be a surprise if you log into your account regularly—Facebook has been posting alerts about the change for weeks. Most likely, you’ve noticed some of your connections’ pages have changed in appearance as they’ve switched over. As of next week, all pages will have this same style.
The instructional videos that Facebook put together are informative and easy to follow, and I recommend watching them. Allyson Locke’s earlier post “Introducing Facebook Timeline Brand Pages” also provides a good overview of the changes. For those who need a quick cheat sheet on the most important changes and new features to be aware of as we approach the switch-over date, read on…. The Cover Photo. The new layout includes a “cover photo,” which is a large image spanning the top of your page. Your profile image, which will continue to appear next to any comments or updates you post on Facebook, will show in an inset box in the bottom left corner of your cover photo. While your profile picture should be an image that represents your brand, such as your logo, the new cover photo gives you room for some creativity. Use a fun or offbeat photo if you’d like, a picture of your staff, or your office or your town if your business is locally focused. Ideally the cover photo is visually interesting and engaging while reflecting your business in some way. (Some good examples: Cabot Creamery Cooperative, Green Mountain Coffee) Tabs and Landing Pages. Be aware that Facebook no longer allows you to direct visitors to a customized landing page, such as a sale announcement or intro message. Your wall will always be the first thing people see, and from there they can click through to any tabs you’ve set up, if they choose (they’ll appear beneath your cover photo, to the right). Milestones. The new format allows you to track important events in your company’s history as “milestones.” To add a milestone, click “Milestone” in the status box. Facebook will ask you to start by adding the year that your company was founded. From there, you can add whatever significant events you’d like to share with visitors. You can also now edit dates on posts by hovering over the top right corner of the post, clicking on the pencil icon, and selecting “Change Date.” Pinning Posts. If you’ve posted something that you would like to remain at the top of your timeline, even as you add new posts, you can now “pin” it. Your post will stay pinned for 7 days (unless you un-pin it) and then drop to the place it belongs in your timeline. You can only have one post pinned at a time. To pin a post: Hover over the top right corner of the post and select the pencil icon, then “pin to top.” A yellow flag-like icon will show in the top right corner of the post, as long as it is pinned. Starring Posts. If you’d like to highlight certain posts, you can star them by clicking on the star icon that appears as you hover over the top right corner of a post. Starred posts will expand across both columns of your timeline so that they stand out. Admin Panel Updates . Facebook has also added some features to the admin section that make it easier to view information about activity on your page. While I won’t go into detail about the admin updates in this article, I do encourage you to click on the “Admin Panel” button at the top right of your page and explore.
When you’re ready to upgrade, simply log into your Facebook business page. If you haven’t already switched to Timeline, you’ll see a message asking if you’d like to preview your page with the new layout. Facebook has made the upgrade process extremely easy. Take some time this week to learn about the new features, select or create a great-looking cover photo, and turn on the Timeline!
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With so many options of video players out there, it’s hard to choose which application will be best for you. I would suggest keeping things simple and avoiding future headaches of video player upgrades, new features, and bug fixes. Stick with an online based video player that will take care of all of that for you and make your job easier. If you are in to easier ways of doing things and keeping things simple, you may also want to check out www.wix.com.
Wix is an easy drag-and-drop online system that is unveiling a free HTML website builder on the 26th of March, 2012. Wix has already gained widespread popularity for their drag-and-drop Flash website builder that allows users to easily build complex, powerful, and stunning websites. Whether you’re looking for an easy way to put together site with a full screen background, or display your portfolio online, Wix is certainly worth checking out. It doesn’t matter if you’re a seasoned web developer or an ambitious do it yourself-er, creating a free HTML website or SEO friendly Flash website has never been easier.
Ever since Google’s Panda Update last year, many website owners have become concerned about duplicate content–which they should be, but there is more to it than that.
At the heart of what Google does, is ensure that quality results are shown for searchers. Part of the drive behind the Panda Update was to eliminate not only duplicate content but also “thin content” that has little or no value.
At the core, thin content is basically not enough information on a website page. Content needs to have enough to it to engage a visitor and drive them to take action. When a site page doesn’t engage or answer primary questions, it fails. It is hard to answer most questions effectively without writing an average amount of text. The same goes for action. There needs to be enough trust gained via the text to make the action worthwhile.
Since it is hard for Google bots to gauge quality from a human perspective, Google uses a rudimentary approach and measures the amount of words on a page. Although no one but Google knows the exact amount of text to have on the page to look good to the bots, the 300-500 word mark is a good number to target. This is based on what works for regular blog posts to be effective with SEO as established by Copyblogger and others.
Search Engine Optimization
