Indigo Thoughts

Follow the money

2009-11-09T07:59:00.004-06:00

Over the weekend I cleaned out some business paper work and came across a registered $1 bill I'd been meaning to register on www.WheresGeorge.com.

It will get spent today >> follow my dollar bill

2009 © St Louis Web Designer

New logo for HardscapeSTL.com

2009-11-06T10:53:00.004-06:00

We are well underway with the creation of a new website for hardscapeSTL.com. It is due for launch early in the new year and will be a great resource for home owners in the St Louis area looking to upgrade their hardscape - a new patio, wall, walkway, driveway or maybe even an outdoor kitchen.

Here is a sneak peak at the new logo.

2009 © St Louis Web Designer

How to Subscribe to a Blog: St Louis web designers tip of the day

2009-11-04T07:30:00.000-06:00

If you, are like me, and read a lot of blogs, it is not a good use of time to visit your favorite blogs every day just on the off chance there is something new to enjoy. A far more effective way is to subscribe to the blog and have new content delivered to you as and when it is published.

For those of us who have been blogging for many years this may seem like second nature but there are plenty of people out there for this is a whole new arena.

On a well designed blog there will be a button looking something like this

which is the universal icon for RSS feeds - a file associated with your blog.

Clicking the button will lead you to a page like this

Once on this page you are offered an abundance of ways to receive the content from the blog. One of my favorite is Google reader, which sends the new content of all your subscribed blogs to a single page - you can visit this page or set up a simple widget on your Google home page which allows you to read your content from there.

If you prefer you can subscribe to receive content from your favorite blogs via email.

The St Louis Web Designer's tip of the day!

2009 © St Louis Web Designer

Can blogging help my business?

2009-11-02T10:45:00.009-06:00

Last month I wrote "Can twitter help my business?" this month question is
"Can blogging help my business?"

Visibility
Blogging regularly about topics relevant to your business and target audience is a fabulous way to increase your visibility among the search engines. Over the last year the client web sites I have launched with blogs, get listed faster and rank higher with the major search engines. For search engines, content is king and blogs, by their very nature, rule the day with their fresh new content.

Reputation
Whatever your area of business blogging is a great platform on which to build your authority and reputation. Write about issues relevant to your services, use your blog to pose questions to your readers, offer solutions to problems. Your expertise will show through.

Interaction
Engage with your readers through blog comments and don't worry about your blog being blighted by spam. All good blog platforms have the ability to moderate comments, they can be configured so you can see the comments and approve them before they appear on your site.

If you can commit to writing a post at least once a week then a blog can definatley help your business.

2009 © St Louis Web Designer

Selecting a web designer.

2009-10-29T07:22:00.004-05:00

Selecting a web designer to work on your project can be a daunting task. Where to start?

A Google search? The phrase "St Louis web designer" yields a whopping 2,270,000 returns. Clicking through and visiting the sites on just the first pages can be overwhelming (as a result of excellent SEO we do feature on that page!) Once on the sites you can check out the portfolio, evaluate the skill set of the company but often the most telling way to get a feel if they are a company you'd feel comfortable working with is to see if there are any client testimonials.

Here is glowing testimonial from St Louis celebrant, Ruth Hasser, www.ruthellenhasser.com which really speaks volumes about how we can help clients with their projects.

"Zoe Feast worked with me every step of the way to design and optimize my first website. She listened to me, understood what I was going for, was wonderfully patient with my inexperience, and delivered what I needed in a professional and timely manner. As a result I get regular compliments on my website and, more importantly, customers are finding me! I will continue to rely on her expertise and thoughtful support. Thanks so much, Zoe."

Thanks Ruth for taking the time to write this!

Interested in more client testimonials ?

© St Louis web designer

Web design creative block? Try color sampling

2009-10-27T08:41:00.002-05:00

Suffering from creative block? Try color sampling a photograph you are drawn to. The result, a color palette which may kick start your web design process.

St Louis web designer tip of the day.

© 2009 St Louis Web Designer

Google Sidewiki and the Webmaster

2009-10-26T08:15:00.000-05:00

On the whole I love the applications offered by Google but they have recently launched one that stops me in my tracks and makes me ask "why?". I am talking about Google Sidewiki.

Google Sidewiki can be downloaded with Google tool bar and enables anyone with a Google profile (if you use gmail you have one) to write comments on any web page they visit. The results of anyone who has commented on the page show up in a sidebar which is layered above the page.

Google has essentially introduced a comments forum for every web site on the internet. You can gets comments on your site for the whole world to see whether you like it or not.

As the owner of a Google Validated site (which is achieved using Google Webmaster tools) you get the chance to have "first say" with a comment which will always feature as the first post. But as far as being able to control what visitors see in the Sidewiki, the buck stops there. As a webmaster there is no easy option to turn off the Sidewiki and no functionality to moderate the comments. If you get a spam or a detrimental comment there appears to be be very little you can do about it. Also there is no functionality to let webmasters know they have new comments. The only way to find out is to visit each and every page of your site. How useful is that?

I have put in a complaint to Google and hope that if they continue with Sidewiki they address these problems soon.

© 2009 St Louis Web Designer

Website in progress: In St Louis, need a new patio?

2009-10-23T08:50:00.003-05:00

We have just won the contract to create an exciting new web site to assist users looking to beautify their yard with a new patio, retaining wall or any other Hardscape feature.

The site will be targeted for the St Louis market and will launch early 2010, in conjunction with TV and radio campaigns.

© 2009 St Louis Web Designer

Custom Cartoon Illustrations for your Website?

2009-10-21T17:05:00.001-05:00

As a graphic and website designer sometimes my design tool of choice is simply a piece of paper and a pencil. This is especially so when a web site calls for custom cartoon illustrations, these work really well on websites targeted towards kids. The result is a very original feel to the graphics of the final site.

Here are some examples of custom illustrations I created for children's author Cynthia Reeg. I let my pencil flow freely, scanned the drawings and imported them into Adobe Photoshop. Then they were brought to life with the magic of color.

The graphics for Cynthia's site are incorporated into the template of the page, used as navigational elements and add interest to sections of the site. Although all different they have a very branded feel due to the hand drawn and colorization techniques used.

Are you looking for custom illustrations for your new or existing web site? We can help

© 2009 St Louis Web Designer

Eye of the St Louis Web Designer

2009-10-20T09:02:00.003-05:00

There is something so tactile about a carpet of moss, which is abundance in St Louis at the moment after our recent abundance of rain.
I love the variation of textures in this photograph, the simplest of pictures often serve as a great inspiration source when designing new websites.

© 2009 St Louis Web Designer

I can't see the changes to my website: Browser refresh

2009-10-15T09:19:00.005-05:00

You have just heard from your web designer that all the changes you wanted made to your web site have been made. You visit your site to check things over and nothing appears to have changed. Does that sound familiar?

If so, the most probable cause is that you are looking at a cached version of your web site. The solution is easy - simply refresh your browser.

If you are using one of the more common browsers, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari or Google Chrome, it is as easy as clicking on the refresh button and to make it even easier we have put together a set of graphics below to show you the location of each button

Internet Explorer

Firefox

Safari

Google Chrome

The St Louis Web Designer's tip of the day

Can Twitter Help my Business?

2009-10-14T08:00:00.000-05:00

I have been using Twitter on a regular basis for nearly 7 months now, the results of my experiment started back in April are ready to be published! In that time I have tweeted 315 times and amassed 343 followers and followed 442 tweeters. Not huge numbers but I belong to the quality vs quantity school of thought.

Here are the questions I asked myself at the start

This is the big one. Can I use twitter to secure new projects?
Too good to be true. The answer is no... not yet anyway

Can Tweeting increase the traffic to my website?
I have promoted every new blog post using www.bit.ly to shorten URL's and track click though rates. I have seen a definite increase in traffic to my blog, so the answer is YES! More traffic is a good thing.
A client of mine recently experienced the viral nature of Twitter with an enormous spike of hits to their site. It was due to a British actor picking up on a blog post they had written and tweeting about it.

What other ways can I use Twitter to help my business?
Twitter has been a useful tool for trouble shooting. I have had questions quickly answered on problems I was having with Quickbooks and a Dreamweaver quirk. Tweets pertaining to problems really benefit from using # tags e.g #dreamweaver or #HTML.

All in all it has been a successful experiment and I will continue to use Twitter. Be warned though, if you tweet about the weather, what you are eating for lunch, or start tweeting philosophical quotes, I am very likely to "unfollow". If you are interested in following me click stlwebdesign

Eye of the St Louis Web Designer

2009-10-13T08:02:00.003-05:00

Fall is undoubtedly here in St Louis.

Free Credits for istockphoto

2009-10-09T07:08:00.005-05:00

Here is a great tip if you are looking for free credits for iStockphoto.com

I regularly use them to source images for web and graphic design projects. They have a wealth of very reasonable priced images which is always popular with my clients. The cost of stock photography can really rocket if you are not looking in the right places.

Their stock is priced in terms of credits and they offer three options to purchase these credits via "pay as you go", subscriptions or via a corporate account. Pay as you go works well for me.

However there is also a way to earn free credits. If you have incorporated some istockphoto stock into a project you can submit it via the Designers Spotlight page, you do need to be a member but membership is free. Every piece goes through an approval process but if it is approved it gets added to the new projects album and you are awards five free credits.

Don't you love free stuff!

Generate revenue from your websites: AdSense

2009-10-01T14:01:00.005-05:00

Looking for an easy way to make some additional revenue from your web site? Try Google AdSense.

A small snippet of code placed on your web site will generate Goggle ads earning you revenue based on a cost per click or cost per impression basis. You can fine tune the look and feel of the ads to compliment your site, have control over the size and shape and even block competitors ads from appearing on your pages. It is completely FREE .

Is Adsense right for your website? Here are a few things to consider

What levels of traffic does your site experience? Sites with a high volume of traffic will bring in more revenue.

Does your site rank highly for any popular keywords or phrases? Our site on counterfeit detection ranks very highly for the key phrase "counterfeit detection". Due to the popularity of this phrase there are plenty of Google advertisers bidding on this phrase for the display of their adverts and hence no shortage of ads to display on the site.

Are you comfortable having advertisements on your site? Despite the high traffic and favorable key phrase ranking Indigo Image gets, we are not comfortable having Google Ads featured on our site. They could offer our visitors a reason to leave and explore the services offered by another web design/ graphics arts company. It is possible to block competitors sites but blocking all advertisers bidding on a generic key phrase, e.g. in our case something like logo design, is not feasible.

Do you have a suitable area on your site to display ads? To get the most out of the ads they need to be placed in a prominent place. Does the design of your site accommodate this?

I have a couple of personal site with pretty high traffic and excellent rankings on the search engines that are a perfect platform to display Google ads. The ads were configured to compliment their color schemes and feature prominently at the top of each site without being too intrusive. They provide a steady stream of revenue.

New website for St Louis based Big River Associates

2009-09-29T09:07:00.005-05:00

Launched today is a new web site for Big River Associates. They offer a wealth of business expertise from Corporate Strategy to Franchising, Mergers & Acquisitions to Team Building and can leverage their experience in a wide variety of business disciplines.

Based on a custom designed, clean template with a palette of cool blues and grays the home page pops with a vibrant slide show featuring the key expertise of the business. Easy navigation allows the site visitors to transverse effortlessly through the site.

The web site is the latest brand elements developed for Big River, earlier this month I wrote about the creation of their logo and Stationery set.

Website Copyright Infringement : An update.

2009-09-21T06:58:00.005-05:00

I recently wrote a post titled " Has your website content been stolen" after a client discovered another website owner was using her copy. I did a quick check on Indigo Image, using the tools I described in my post, and found that not one but two two web design companies were using chunks of my copy.

I contacted both companies and pointed out my areas of concern asking them to change their copy. After two days I hadn't heard back from either it seemed they were both taking the "lets bury my head in the sand approach and hope this goes away". I contacted their hosting companies and made a copyright infringement complaint. Both companies, Bravenet and Bluehost, took my complaint very seriously. My issues were run through their legal departments. The end result, both offending web design companies have had their sites suspended.

©Indigo Image 2009 at the bottom of each page of the web site is there for a reason. Everything from the design and copy is copyrighted material and can't be used in any form by someone else unless they have authorization to do so.

Have you checked your web site recently? Is your web site copy being used by someone else?

Free Vector Art Brush set for Adobe Illustrator.

2009-09-14T12:45:00.003-05:00

During this recent project, I made good use of one of my favorite tools in Adobe Illustrator - custom brushes.

In under ten minutes I have produced this complicated graphic, simply by designing a set of custom brushes and applying them to a circle.

Here are the brushes I generated:-

They are yours for free. Download the zipped file Here

To install

unzip the file
Copy the file to your Illustrator > Presets > Brushes folder
Restart illustrator.
Illustrator>window>brush libraries>indigo_image_1

The brushes will now appear in your brush palette.

Enjoy!

Has your website content been stolen?

2009-09-11T08:22:00.007-05:00

Last week a client contacted me with news that she had discovered a web site that was using her web copy. It was a site offering the same type of service and operating in the same geographic area. Not good news.

I suggested she contact the site owner to point out the obvious copyright issues. After an initial acknowledgment and a promise to fix things the site owner is now refusing to make any changes.

Turning to an attorney is the next step but I have also suggested contacting the hosting company of the offending web site and making a copyright infringement complaint. I took this approach many years ago when copy and images ( even code) from this web site were taken. The hosting company suspended the infringing site very quickly which paved the way for immediate discussions and a solution.

My customer's experience has spurred me to to a little research on our own web site today and low and behold I have discovered a web design company who have stolen huge chunks of our copy. They have been contacted and ask to amend the site and I have put in a copyright infringement complaint with their hosting provider.

Here is a list of resources that can be useful in these sort of cases.

www.whois.net
Useful for details of the domain name registrar and hosting provider

www.copyscape.com
Search for copies of your page on the web. Has a premium service

www.plagiarismchecker.com
Free service to check for plagiarism, simple enter your URL

www.archive.org
The way back machine. Useful for establishing timelines

www.google.com/dmca.html
Notify Google of the infringement - must be done via snail mail or fax

Banner Designs for St Louis Retail Center

2009-09-10T08:17:00.003-05:00

This was a fun project. We were commissioned to design a set of "trendy" banners for a St Louis metro retail center. At 18 by 10 ft each they will be hung and illuminated in vacant stores.

Logo and stationery set for Big River

2009-09-09T11:48:00.002-05:00

Here is one of the latest projects we have been working on; Big River Associates.

Here is the logo and stationery set. A web site is in the works.

Eye of a St Louis web designer

2009-09-04T14:33:00.002-05:00

Today marks a very special day for the St Louis web designer. My husband and I were sworn in as American citizens.

Here we are with Honorable Frederick R. Buckles, who presided over the ceremony and led us through the Oath of Allegiance.

New website project for St Louis Plastic Surgeon

2009-08-31T11:47:00.003-05:00

We have just been awarded the contract to create a new web site for Plastic Surgery International, the practice of Dr Helen Tadjalli. Looking forward to getting started on it!

New web site Goley Insulation

2009-08-26T13:01:00.002-05:00

This morning we launched a brand new web site for Goley Insulation.

The site features a wealth of information on types of insulation for both the residential and commercial customer and with a well thought out navigational structure users are able to quickly zone in on their area of interest. Engaging photographic imagery, application videos, plentiful resources and a news blog allow Goley to interact with their customers on a whole new level.

Eye of a St Louis web designer

2009-08-20T11:22:00.002-05:00

One box of old, but loved chalk pastels + a spare 30 minutes = A splash of color for my office wall.

Ways to unwind by the St Louis web designer.