Ask yourself these questions:
- Is my website branding my business correctly?
- Is my website increasing or diminishing the credibility of my business?
- Does my website have well-written content?
- Are there outdated or poor quality pictures on my website?
- Is my website user friendly on mobile devices?
- Is my website recognized by search engines?
- Is there a blog platform integrated in my website so I can let my customers know about my latest news, products or events?
- Do I give visitors an option to share/refer my website through email and social media?
- Is my website actually a website, or is it made with one of the “favorite” and “free” blog/site templates out there? In other words, is it customized to represent my business accurately?

Talk to us about your business, how it works, who your customers are, what message you want to communicate. We have the capability to do photo editing, copywriting, logo work, redo or update, illustrations and more. The first step is developing content (words and images) and creating a wireframe which will define the structure, the main foundation of how the different pages of your websites will interact together to present your business in a non-confusing manner to the web world. You will obviously need a new design and more current and accurate copywriting. We can work from your existing website, pulling out the actual text for re-editing, select the color scheme, or we can review and redo your online content from scratch. Before we start developing with code, we will propose a design with a look and feel to make your business website work to its fullest potential. Next, after you have reviewed and accepted your new website and before we launch it, we will work on the codes – adding all the necessary elements for search engine recognition. After your website has been launched we will create a sitemap and submit it to the major search engines. 

Then the first and most important step for branding your business online will be done, but the work is not over…small and local businesses should be put on “the map,”  – the blog within your website should be updated at least on a monthly bases with new articles about your business such as latest news, products and events. Whatever you post on your integrated blog can also be emailed to your customers via an eNewsletter, should be posted on your business social media channels and linked to your website from there. Finally, it is a good practice to check the codes and scripts on an annual basis to see if any updates are necessary.

Check your business website for proper branding, credibility, well written content, outdated or poor quality pictures, mobile device functionality, SEO and social connections and contact us to discuss your business internet presence and how to reach your internet marketing goals.

Blog integration, where the blog becomes ‘resident’ on the website, is one of the most effective tools for businesses to use to keep their website content fresh and relevant, and for regularly generating links to the site itself. The bonus is, a ‘resident blog’ can help eliminate costly updates. Website owners can update the blog themselves and use this area for a variety of purposes such as updates on products, services, staff, photos, news and affiliations. With an RSS feed your clients and regular visitors can receive email notification every time you post something new. Social media sharing tools make it easier than ever for your viewers to spread the word about your business to their own network of ‘followers,’ so you can increase your viewing audience.

For more details and to discuss your business marketing strategy,  website design and development needs, contact Lavery Design Associates.

Article submitted by Rita Lavery
Copyright 2013. This content may not be reproduced without permission from the author.

Some businesses are not relying on search engines to bring traffic to their website and use their site as a resource for existing clients or as a place to send potential customers to learn more about their business and “validate their existence.” So for them, SEO may not be a factor, but refreshing the website’s look and being consistent with your company’s brand strategy or “brand standards” is important. Improved website layout, mapping and functionality is equally important. If the navigation, imagery and content is hard to understand, chances are that, visitors, will not understand your business. If the code isn’t up-to-date, they may lose patience trying to load your site or they may have a hard time scrolling through it on their mobile device and never get passed the homepage. Knowing your clientele and their website viewing habits would help you determine if your website should be responsive and adaptive to mobile devices. Currently, research indicates that more than 30% website of website visitors are viewing from tablets. And that number is rising quickly.

“Blog integration, where the blog
becomes ‘resident’ on the website,
is one of the most effective tools
for businesses to use to
keep their website content fresh
and relevant, and for regularly
generating links to the site itself.
The bonus is, a ‘resident blog’ can
help eliminate costly updates.”

Should you Stick to The Code & Forget An SEO Plan?
Clean code and page load speed are important factors in retaining visitors to your website and are equally important in search engine optimization. Cleaning up code on an existing website can in some cases be extensive. Depending on how the site was built and how long ago, it may be more cost-effective for a business to build a new website entirely. In many cases, the business mission and overall presentation has changed since the last build anyway. Identifying company goals, both short and long-term, communicating clearly and efficiently and creating a great impression doesn’t have to be an extensive task, but it is the first step in building an effective website, or any other marketing communications project for that matter. The more clean the code, the faster the website load speed and the easier it is for the search engines to find your website. There is no exact science to search engine optimization, but there is a logic.

Once all the right tools are in place, proper tags, search words, clean code, page load speed, blog setup etc., the site should be revisited periodically for any relevant changes that impact the navigation or the way the company should communicates about itself. There should be no need for ongoing monthly SEO plans that offer to update the code if the site was built with an efficient strategy in mind. Essentially, the codes should be left alone.

Blog Integration and Website Links For Search Engine Optimization
Building links on the internet is key to creating traffic to a website and helps tremendously in search engine optimization and ranking. Original and relevant content, continuous blog posts and sharing content through social media channels will help optimize the site.

Blog integration, where the blog becomes ‘resident’ on the website, is one of the most effective tools for businesses to use to keep their website content fresh and relevant, and for regularly generating links to the site itself. The bonus is, a ‘resident blog’ can help eliminate costly updates. Website owners can update the blog themselves and use this area for a variety of purposes such as updates on products, services, staff, photos, news and affiliations. With an RSS feed your clients and regular visitors can receive email notification every time you post something new. Social media sharing tools make it easier than ever for your viewers to spread the word about your business to their own network of ‘followers,’ so you can increase your viewing audience.

For more details and to discuss your business marketing strategy,  website design and development needs, contact Lavery Design Associates.

Article submitted by Rita Lavery
Copyright 2013. This content may not be reproduced without permission from the author.

Responsive Example: If you look at the desktop view of The Malden Bridge Chef Cooking & Pastry School website, shown at left, the logo is on the left and the menu is on the right.

Now, for the tablet portrait view, shown at left, notice that the logo is centered at the top and the navigation (or menu) is centered under it and all of the other elements on the page are displayed in a way that prevents having to scroll right or left to see the entire page.

Adaptive Example: If you compare the desktop view, at the top and the smartphone view, at right, you can see that the logo is on the left on the desktop and is centered on the smartphone and, more importantly, you can see that the navigation which is occupying most of the page on the desktop, now becomes a SIMPLE “menu” button on the smartphone view, so that you can see part of the page content, without having the screen cluttered by the navigation.

If you look at the top of the screen on the smartphone view, you can see a “bar” with an home icon, a select option with the words “connect with us” and a phone icon.

• The home icon is the home or “main site page” link button on the desktop view. It is removed from the navigation and put at the top left of every page so that users can have easy access to the home page from anywhere on the website.
• The select option picks up all of the social network links (which can be placed anywhere on the desktop view of the website) and places them accessible from any page on the site. We also add an easy “email us” link to the select option.
• The phone icon takes advantage of most of the modern smartphone features, which enables the user to automatically dial the website phone number with one click.

Also, on the smartphone view, we adapt the size of the font to be a little bigger so it is easier to read on a small screen.

You may see “responsive website” articles or advertising frequently these days but responsive-only websites do not have the features for smartphones stated in our adaptive example above.  This is why we build responsive AND adaptive websites. Because responsive alone simply isn’t good enough.

To test The Malden Bridge Chef website or other responsive and adaptive websites on your desktop, tablet or smartphone, click here

For more information about how Lavery Design Associates can build an effective website for your business, contact us.

Article by Jerry Mohr

• Communicate a quick strong message better than a simple sentence?
• Contain important information to help the viewer understand the idea or product?
• Portray a sharp, clean, interesting idea?
• Communicate Effectively?
• Tell a story?
• Backup your business brand identity?

If the answer is yes, it’s likely then that the image will be a strong element in the design and ‘speak’ to your audience. If the answer in no, continue on in your image selection search.

Article by Madeline Mohr