Where we share our insights about all things web design, development, and marketing.

May30

Getting more out of your contact page

Your contact page is one of the most valuable opportunities to connect with your visitors and motivate them to get in touch with you.  It is an essential element to most websites and it is the best way to display your contact information to give your visitors a way to get in touch with you. But simply putting your address and phone number may not be enough.


There are many different ways to beef up your contact page so that you give your visitors more information and encourage them to contact you. Typically, a contact page includes the address, phone number, email address, and any other main contact information for the business. In addition, you can include a contact form and map to your location. These are all great things to have, but there are things you can add to make your contact page stand out from the rest.


Consider adding contact information for different departments so that visitors have specific contact information if they know what they want to ask. You can also include your social media and blog links so that visitors can find you elsewhere on the web. You can offer a specific phone number for immediate or emergency requests, or encourage them to sign up for email updates from your company. This can all be done with additional text, buttons, or calls to action on your contact page.


Now let’s talk about the contact form. It is a great resource to include on your contact page so visitors have an easy and immediate way to get in touch with you. But did you know you can collect much more information with your contact form? Generally, contact forms collect names, addresses, other basic contact information, and the visitor’s question or comment. You can take this one step further and ask them if they would like to receive further updates from your company, give them an opportunity to enter a testimonial, or specific information about your products and services.


Essentially, one of the main goals of a website is to get visitors to contact you or act on a certain item. Your contact page is an integral part of your website and you should use it to its full potential in order to motivate your website visitors to get in touch with you while displaying and collecting information.


May18

SEO Vocabulary

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.


May10

Website Slideshows

Website slideshows are frequently used these days; we use them on our websites all the time. You may even have one on your website. It is a great tool to use, and a great way to show off several images that convey your business and brand while giving your website some pizzazz.


Slideshows can make your website more interactive with endless possibilities of how to use them. The most standard use is a rotation of images to show off products or services. But this website feature can be used for much more. Your slides can include headlines and calls to action, testimonials and quotes, news articles, or other buttons. The question is when and how to use them.


When adding a slideshow to your website, it is important to consider the purpose of having it. Is it necessary? How will it enhance the user’s experience? Will it add to the overall website or take away from the more important features? After asking yourself some of these questions, you may think that a slideshow could greatly benefit your website. So, then how do you want to use it?


Rotating images are great for businesses that want to simply display several of their products and/or services. Image slideshows are great for photographers or retail companies and can be made large or small depending on how much focus you want put on the images.  Headlines and calls to action are a great way to add more focus to your slideshow. Each slide could have a specific purpose that details a product or service and then links to that page. If you display news articles or events on your home page, you could utilize the slideshow as a way to feature those and promote upcoming events. Using the slideshow for rotating testimonials allows this feature to display what others are saying about your business, which will more than likely catch the user’s attention. They will also see multiple testimonials as it scrolls through several quotes.


As you can see, slideshows are a great feature that can be added to your website. The trick is determining whether it is best for your website, and how to utilize the tool. When used to its full potential and fit to your site, a website slideshow can be an excellent addition.


May08

Tips for small business blogging

Are you blogging for your small business? If you have already started a business blog, you are on the right track, but how to you use it to its maximum potential? Follow these tips for a more successful business blog and you could help to improve your overall brand image and customer connection.


1.    Make your content shareable – and share it yourself


You want to make it easy for your readers to share your blog articles with others. If they read one of your blog posts and are impressed by it enough to share with their friends, you should give them the option to immediately share it on the most popular social networks as well as by email. You should also share your own posts on your business social networking pages to let people know there is a new article to read. You are more likely to get readers and followers that way too.


2.    Choose a good topic

Topic is key. People want something interesting to read. It is important to make sure that your articles have interesting and informative content that will catch the readers’ attention, while sticking to the focus of your business blog.

If you are out of ideas, try out some of these:

•    Company milestones
•    Answer customer questions
•    Write how-to articles related to your products/services
•    Featured customer/client
•    Compare your products or services
•    Announce new products or services
•    Give suggestions to your customers


3.    Be consistent

You want your articles to be relevant to your company, not about some random thing you saw on the internet that you liked. It is important to keep a consistent string throughout your posts that tie back to the reason you are writing blog articles for your business. It is also good to keep your tone consistent too. You may have multiple people writing articles for your blog, but make sure that they are written in similar form so that they come off consistent to readers.

4.    Use keywords

We can’t say this enough. Keywords should be in everything that you write for your business or website. This will be a major boost to your search engine rankings if you are using the right keywords. Posting blog articles to your website keeps your content updated, and search engines like new content. If you are unsure of what keywords to use, do some research first and come up with a list of general words to include in your articles.


These simple tips will help get you on the right track with your business blog. The more you do it, the more you will get the hang of it, and before you know it, you will be blogging like crazy.


May04

April 2012 Launches from TWG

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