We are pleased to announce a brand new website for the Concrete Washington Chamber of Commerce!
The new Chamber website is built in WordPress, a content management system that provides simple management and editing capability, as well as some great, shiny new features:
A beautiful and dynamic new design.
Implemented google location maps on chamber member listings in the directory.
A blog – the beauty of a blog is not only that it’s a great way to organize and share news, events and info, but having regular, fresh content on your website is noticed by search engines and will pick up more visitors, increasing traffic to the website.
Interested in learning more about blogging? Curious about the benefits of WordPress as a content management system? Contact Us.
We are pleased to announce the launch of a new concept site for Desert Dove Bed & Breakfast located in Tucson, Arizona. This territorial adobe bed and breakfast is situated on four acres and nestled in the foothills of the Rincon Mountains, the closest inn to the entrance of Saguaro National Park.
Desert Dove was in need of a new website that lives up to modern web standards. Deciding to go with a concept site was a very important decision to improve their online marketing efforts and improve search engine visibility. The new website is easier to navigate and easier to update, both for the innkeeper and our updates team, therefore saving time and money.
Our Concept Sites are ideal for smaller inns or vacation rentals, and allow an innkeeper to have a great new modern site and blog, at an affordable price.
What you Get
A built in WordPress blog
The ability to add pages, images, galleries and edit text on your own
We add all your photos and text, and customize the look with your images, logo, fonts, and colors
We train you on how to use your new site and blog
A few examples of our Concept Site clients
Examples of concept themed sites. Colors, fonts, pictures, text and your logo will all be incorporated into the design, making it feel like a custom site.
Interested in learning more about a concept site for your Inn? ~ Please Contact Us Today by email. In the subject line please mention that you are interested in learning more about our Concept Site Options.
So you got a slick new website three years ago and want to know how it has aged. Does it keep up with your competitors who just got a brand new site? There are a few places you can check the status of the technology on your site.
The first would be the WC3 validator. The WC3 is the global standard setter for the internet. All standards that web browsers such as Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Chrome follow are set by the WC3. WC3 stands for World Wide Web Consortium. The validator can be found here: http://validator.w3.org/ Just put your web address in there. While the results will mostly only be useful for web developers and designers, it is still a great place to start. Errors in red are bad. Warnings in yellow are not great, but shouldn’t be too big a deal.
If you have more than a handful of errors, you will see a reduction in load times and possibly Google Pagerank as well. While errors you have today may not have been considered errors three years ago, they are not anymore and should be fixed to improve your site performance. Contact your web developer and show them your results.
Another great way to test your site is to see how fast it loads. The tool found here: http://loads.in/ lets you put in your website URL and see how long it takes to load. Page load times affect bounce rates and conversion rates as well as your Google Pagerank. Google wants to reward you for having a site that loads quickly. Things like large images and large slideshow Flash files can negatively affect your page loads. This tool is great because it shows you how a site will look while it loads at certain intervals. You can also change what country and web browser you want to have the site load time checked in. A load time under 4 seconds is great. Under 8 and you are doing okay. Above that and you should look into the reasons why.
These are two great tools to gauge the relative age of your site and see what you could improve on from a technical perspective. Neither of these tools care about what your site “looks” like, just speed and coding method. With the new HTML5 and CSS3 becoming more widespread, now is the time to update the functionality of your site to meet the current standards.
There have been some major leaps and bounds in social media this month. Read on to discover important features and enhancements in Facebook, Google+, You Tube and Twitter to help you navigate the social sphere of your marketing efforts.
What’s New This Month on Facebook?
1. Facebook Subscribe Button added to Personal Profiles:
Similar to the concept of following someone on Twitter, you can now allow people to subscribe to your Facebook updates, (non-Friends can only see posts you share publicly). Facebook users subscribing to your posts have the ability to filter the types of updates they want to follow including “Life Events, Status Updates, Photos, Videos and Games.” On a friend’s home page, click “Subscribed” then choose what content you want to see. Click to deselect items checked by default.
Customize the content you see.
2. Create Smart Lists to quickly view content posted by Friends.
Facebook automatically creates Smart Lists based upon profile information you and your friends have in common, as well as any lists you’ve created in the past. You can also create new Smart Lists, as well as add and remove people from the lists any time you like.
Manage your lists with Facebook Smart Lists
3. Filter Your News Feed: “Close Friends” and “Acquaintances” Lists
When you add people to your new Close Friends list their updates appear more frequently in your news feed. Your Acquaintance list will post only major updates from people in your news feed.
Close Friends list helps you manage the information in your news feed.
4. View Who Shares Your Pages Content
Now you can view Fans who share content on your Fan Page, or Pages you like. Under any wall post on a Fan Page, you can now click the link “View all shares” to see who’s shared the content.
View who shares your Facebook Pages content.
5. Sharing Via Google’s New +Snippets on Google Maps
With +snippets, Google+ users can share directions or places with their Circles.
This new feature makes it easy to visit a web page and then share it on Google+. +Snippets is now available with Google Maps and will roll out on other Google products soon.
Click “Share” in the Google+ bar to share your Maps with your Circles
6. Edit Your Previously Uploaded Videos Right Inside YouTube
There’s no re-uploading necessary, and your videos maintain their video IDs, allowing you to keep the comments and view counts you’ve acquired on your videos. YouTube is a powerful means of marketing and sharing your business, and also a well-used search engine
7. Twitter Web Analytics Now Available:
Wondering how effective your Tweets are in driving traffic to your website?. Twitter Web Analytics is a new tool being rolled out in stages to users, that shows your three things:
See what content on your website is being shared on Twitter, what traffic is coming to your website from Twitter, and how effective the Tweet Button in on your blog, posts or web pages.
Twitter Web Analytics "will be made available to all website owners within the next few weeks."
The Dresser Palmer House, an Historic Inn, was very much in need of a new site design. When they came to us for help, we were more than happy to put together a new proof to help showcase this beautiful Savannah Inn. This is not your typical inn, it has amenities normally found in much larger hotels yet the personal attention found at a smaller inn.
With 16 guest rooms, a massive porch and surrounding garden areas, The Dresser Palmer House was in desperate need of a new site design to share the bounty of offerings to potential guests. Not only will the owners get a chance to easily add photos, edit text and create attractions for their custom google map with their new WordPress site, but they now have a very powerful tool they did not utilize with their old site, a blog! Blogging is so important for keeping your site at the top of the search engines by consistently adding fresh content. Now we can sit back, and watch the rooms fill for The Dresser Palmer House in the historic district of Savannah, GA. Take advantage of the powerful client management system of WordPress and make managing your website easier, while increasing bookings. Contact us!
We are pleased to announce a brand new website for the Concrete Washington Chamber of Commerce!
