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 June launches:

• Advance Electric Motor & Pump
• First Baptist Church Hodgenville
• Kentucky High School Basketball Hall of Fame
• Lentus
• Lewis Auction Company
• Make It Happen Realty
• The PAC
• Grandforest Floors
• KSC Law Firm

Once your new website is complete, how do you tell people about it? Announcing the new launch of your website can be done in a number of ways in order to get the word out and help drive traffic to your new site.

If this is your first website, make sure that you get the web address printed on your business cards and brochures so that people know there is an additional way to get in touch with your business now. Also, connect with your social network followers and tell them about your website launch. Make a post on Facebook and Twitter with the link to your site so that your followers can go directly to the new website to check it out. It might also be helpful to encourage feedback about your site so that you know what your customers think about it from the get go.

In addition, you could submit a press release to local news sources to let people know that your business is now online or that you have redesigned your website for an improved user experience. If you offer special services or features on your website such as ordering online or a blog, include that in your announcement so that users know their experience can be interactive.

On that same note, if you have a blog or news manager on your website, use it to help announce your new website. Make your first post about your new or improved site and take users on a tour of your pages. Tell them what they can find on your site and what they can do while they are there. This is also a great way to encourage feedback about your website.

Launching a new website is just the first step. Once you have your site, you need to let people know it is there. Spread the word and drive traffic to your website using these quick and easy tips.

You may not be a search engine optimization expert, but it doesn’t hurt to learn the lingo so you are more informed about what can be done with your website to help it rank on search engines. Here are a few of the most important terms to learn. And don’t worry, if you don’t understand them, just ask us and we will help. Or if you are interested in boosting your website’s SEO after learning more about it, give us a call – we can help you with that too.

301 Redirect – permanent redirect of one domain to another domain, or one page to another page. This comes in handy if you have multiple domains or if you need to change page names.
Adwords – a Google based program that helps you to target specific keywords or phrases in paid per click advertising.
Algorithm – the formula used by search engines to compile search data based on the users search term.
Alt text – alternate text used to describe images for blind viewers or when images cannot be viewed.
Analytics – Google based program that tracks traffic and search data for your website.
Anchor text – the text that is used within a link tag to describe that link.
Back link – an incoming link to a page from another page or site
Black hat – bad SEO techniques that go against standard guidelines and are frowned upon by search engines
Bounce rate - the percentage of visitors who leave a site without viewing any page other than the landing page.
Heading – the title of the page in the content area of the site. This usually has an H1 tag which is read with more weight by search engines. There can be up to 6 different heading types on a page.
Index – means that your site has been found by search engines and added to their list of websites that can show up in search results.
Keyword or key phrase – the word or phrase that is the focus of your content on that page. It is also the word or phrase that you will most likely rank for in search engines.
Keyword density – the amount of keywords that are in the content compared to the amount of text
Keyword stuffing – overusing keywords or phrases in content in attempt to skew the keyword density of a page.
Meta description – the meta tag that describes the content of each page.
Meta keyword – the meta tag that lists the key words and phrases of each page.
Meta tags – HTML tags that describe the title, keywords, and description of each page to search engines.
Meta title – the meta tag that describes the title of each page. This shows up in the tab of most browsers too.
Nofollow – tells a search engine not to follow a link to a certain page, index that page, or pass page rank to that page.
Organic rank – your website’s natural rank in Google. These results show up in the center area of search results. Paid results will generally show up on the right or above organic results.
Page Rank – a website’s popularity as measured by the search engine rankings
Search Engine  - an online tool for users to search for and find websites by enter a search term.
Search Engine Optimization – optimizing a website for search engines so that users’ search queries will match the content of that site.
Search Engine Marketing – encompasses the overall marketing strategy to search engines.
SEO – Search Engine Optimization
Site map -  a page that lists all pages of a website with links.
Stop word – a word that is so commonly used, it is ignored by search engines when finding results (such as prepositions and conjunctions).
White hat – good SEO techniques that follow standard search engine guidelines.

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 April launches:

Assisted Transportation Systems

Blakey Printing

Central Kentucky Distribution

Coffeys Ornamental Concrete Kreations

Green Dot Bowling Green

Leitchfeild Exterminating

Maywood U-Store-It

Nagasaki Inn

Oshea's Family of Irish Pubs

Service First Warehouse

Starkeeper

Swope Charity Cornhole Event

Tender Touch Senior Services

The Rental Stop

YPBG

There are some things that users get tired of seeing, or not seeing on websites. These things may seem like great ideas in the beginning, but really, they may just turn users away from your site. If your website has some (or all) of these things included, you may want to consider updating your website and adding or removing some of these things to create a better user experience.

1.    Pop-ups
Users generally do not like to be bombarded with a pop up windows when the first visit your site. Let them make their own decisions about what they want to do once they get to your site.

2.    No contact information
Leaving off contact information is always a bad idea. That is one of the top things that people visit a website for. You want to give them a clear way to get in touch with you. After all, you want them to buy your product or services don’t you?

3.    Automatically playing multimedia
Again, people want to make their own decisions about what they want to hear or see when they visit your site. A video or music automatically playing can distract them and make them close the window on your site.

4.    No social media links
With the ever-growing popularity of social media, people want to be able to connect with you on all levels. Plus, it is a great way to stay in contact with your customers and clients and reach them on a more casual level.

5.    No blog
Blogging is like social media. It gives you another way to connect with people in a more casual way and allows you to present more information on your site. In addition, that content is always changing and it gives people a reason to come back to your website.

6.    No call to action
It is important to show people what your ultimate goal is for them. You can guide them with calls to action on how they should navigate through your site as well as the purpose of your website.

7.    Confusing layout and content
Just like with calls to action, your content and overall layout of your site guides people to what they need to look at. If your content is laid out in a confusing way, people will get lost in the information.

8.    Flash websites
Flash websites may look cool, but they cannot be viewed on phones and tablets. This is a major downfall if you do not have a separate mobile version of your website.

9.    Slow slideshows
Let’s be honest – people are impatient. They do not want to wait for a slide to change so that they can see the next deal or special. If you are going to use a slower slideshow for a certain reason, be sure to give the user controls to navigate through the slideshow on their own.

10.    Dizzying background images
Your background image and colors should be pleasing to the eye and not too distracting from the main information of your website. You don’t want to hurt someone’s eyes because they stared at your intense red colored background too long!

These things tend to drive people crazy when they visit websites. You want to provide your users with a pleasant experience when they visit your site, so that they come back for more.