It’s that time again…time to present the names of our new and newly designed client launches for the past month.

TWG Design Studio proudly shares our January launches:

Harley's TLC

Heartland Contracting

Adoption Assistance

Arnold's Loyalty Program

Bullitt County Court

Mid America

Alpha Salon

Janitorial Services--SP Cleaning

Be sure to check out these fantastic sites; and for ways to see how your business name can be added to a similar list, give us a call at the office, 270-765-4478, stop by to visit, or send us an email, info@webguysonline.com.

For all who have wised up and invested in a business website: Good for you!  Now for a tough question…are you maintaining that site as you should? 

Like any other form of marketing, websites need to be adjusted over time.  As with any medium used to advertise your business, you need to be certain that the information available on your website is current and reflective of your business now and tomorrow, not yesterday.  Maintenance of your website comes with the territory.  Otherwise, the up -front investment is only worthwhile for a year or two.

Regular updates to your website offer many benefits to you and your over-all website marketing needs:

• Keeps you current with search engines
• Offers accurate information to your site viewers
• With-holds your brand identity for your business
• Updating with website add-ons helps make your website a more profitable tool
• Regular updates to your site are an easy and very cost-effective method more so than updates and changes to print pieces, signage, print ads, commercials, or radio ads.

There are several things to keep in mind when preparing to update your website, especially when the changes have been a long time coming:

• Is your website in-tune with current website standards and sizes?
• Is the information on your website accurate?  Have you altered any services, hours of operation, locations serviced, or team members?
• Does your site look like a leading, ahead-of-the-competition sophisticated design?  Or does it look old, historic, and unappealing to those viewing it?
• Are there any tools you could invest in now, to make your job, the tasks of your employees, or ease-of-use to your consumers a top priority in the near future?
• What exactly do you need from your site going forward?  What functions do you need from it---what do your viewers need to be able to do through your website to become loyal consumers?

Updating your site may be a little tedious.  It may not appear to be a top priority—but bear this in mind: Your website is available when you are not.  Be certain that the statement that it makes is the best message you can send out on behalf of your business.

"Relying on her years of college studies in Communication and English at the University of Louisville, Suzanne seeks to focus on advertising and public relations through a communicative standpoint with an emphasis on uniting communication, business, and creative ideas. "

You may have heard about the latest and greatest Facebook change coming your way, and you may already be using it. The Facebook Timeline will forever replace our beloved Facebook profiles in the coming weeks; and by February 1st all profiles will be switched to the timeline. Timeline offers a variety of new features, but like all other changes with Facebook, it will take some time to get used to.  In order to help you with this process, here are some quick tips and info to help you learn the new timeline and how it will affect your business page.

What you need to know about the Facebook update:
Your personal profile will now have a new look. All of the same essentials will still be there, just in a different layout. Your profile picture will now be a large image across the top of your page and will be called your cover. This gives you the ability to do something really creative with your page – but more on that later.
You will still have the ability to update your status, “like” business pages and make friends, and add photos and videos. However, these items will be grouped a little differently. Here is the info you can now find at the top of your page:

• Work and Education
• Family and Relationships
• Living
• Health and Wellness
• Milestones and Experiences
• Other Life Event (for those odd balls that don’t fit into a predetermined category)

The point is to tell your life story over time. Your posts will display in a timeline (hence the name) and you can star your favorite moments to make them widescreen, or remove the ones you want to hide. Facebook has added new sharing features that will allow you to control what moments of your life are shared and with whom.

How it affects businesses:
Timeline may also have an effect on business pages, too. But, this could actually benefit your brand’s page tremendously. Here is an example of what the sites could potentially look like with timeline:

Photo courtesy of Mashable

The key here is this– more pictures means more branding opportunities. Let’s face it, people are naturally drawn to pictures over text; and the majority of people remember pictures more than words, anyway. So if there are bigger images available, you can use those spaces to display your products or services and design them to be specifically branded for your business and message. The cover is the perfect spot for a current promotion or brand image that will allow you to be more creative and interesting with your page – which will ultimately attract more interaction with followers.

The visual appeal of the timeline pages will be sure to be an advertising and marketing benefit for business pages. An article on Mashable.com explains that according to ExactTarget, “of the people who "Like" Facebook brand pages, 40% are doing that to receive discounts and promotions. Now with the larger post size and photos, Timeline can easily serve as a brand blog, providing fans with frequent and engaging updates in a neatly packaged profile."

In the mean time, there are some things to be aware of that will affect your posting strategies. With timeline, users have more control over what displays in their news feeds. In the top right corner of each story, users can choose to “unhighlight the story” or “hide all stories” from a certain person or page they follow. Facebook will use that information to edit what shows up in your news feed. So for those of you with boring posts – you will show up less in your follower’s feeds. What to take away from this: take notice to what you are posting and how often you are posting on your business page and put more effort into your content.

It is important to become familiar with this new Facebook change so that you can continue to use your business page to its full potential. While it is still unknown if these changes will make their way to business pages, you want to be ready for the switch should it come later.

"Rachel is a graphic designer who is passionate about combining function and style into stylish websites that truly do the brand justice. Rachel uses her experience in a variety of areas including design, marketing, advertising, and social media to give clients the complete package."

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These days, social and search are so closely related, that it is essential for businesses to get involved and set up a social media marketing strategy for their business. Search engines are changing the way they display search results, and social media is the number one reason for that.
Bing, Google, and most other major search engines have started including social data in their search results. So when you search for a certain word or phrase in your favorite search engine, you will likely see social results right next to the traditional website search results. Your search results may be different from your friends based on social signals like your Facebook likes, +1s and tweets.

The affect of social media on search
We all know that social media is taking over the world. But, social networks show us what real people like and want to share with their friends. So search engines are taking advantage of that information in order to give you better results when searching for items or info on the internet. Users are now able to “vote” for their favorite content with clicks, bookmarks, tags, and ratings. These things signal search engines so that your search results are more personalized based on what you and your friends like. Search engines are now taking into consideration the opinions of people to determine which websites are most popular.

Make your social media accounts more specific
With hundreds of different social media networks out there, the first step is to narrow down the options and decide which ones will benefit your company the most. The most popular networks are free, so it is very beneficial for most businesses to take advantage of these. But your business is not like everyone else’s business, so your social networking strategy should be different, too. Research what each social network will do for your business and make your decision based on your industry and target market. Once you get your social network accounts set up and running, figure out a schedule to help you keep track of how you are managing each of them.

Quality content – use your keywords
Just posting on your social media accounts is not enough. With the growth of social networking and its connection to search engine results, the quality of your posts is just as important. Content quality will always reign supreme with search engines, and this is no different for social media.  After all, the search engines are pulling your content for search results. So the better your content and the more keywords used, the higher your social networks will rank in search engines.  Keep your social posts full of interesting and unique information that engages your users and the search engines will be engaged as well.
Remember to keep in mind that each social network is different, and they each deserve different attention. Don’t make the same posts on Facebook and Twitter every time. You have a different audience for each network and you should tailor your posts and activity to that network. Also, you don’t want to duplicate your content too many times on the web. Regardless of where it is located, search engines frown upon duplicate content.

Social Sharing
Another important SEO strategy related to social media is social sharing. If your content is easy to share with others, it will help drive up your search results. The more people that read and view your posts, the more likely it will be to show up higher in search results. Plus, with real-time search results, social media updates and posts are obvious additions to the immediate results people love so much.

By no means does this mean to drop all search engine optimization on your website, but it does mean that there might need to be an adjustment to your strategy. Combining SEO on your website with social media just makes your overall ranking and web presence stronger.

The focus and keywords need to be the same across the board on your SEO to make sure that you are enforcing your efforts and not competing with them. A successful collaboration between your website and social SEO will help you win over those search results we all strive to get.

"Rachel is a graphic designer who is passionate about combining function and style into stylish websites that truly do the brand justice. Rachel uses her experience in a variety of areas including design, marketing, advertising, and social media to give clients the complete package."