How Do you get started?

You’ve got questions, Quora’s got answers! is a post from: Saskatoon Web Design | RawkMedia Web Design Group

Your brand is extremely important and an effective web design that reaches your audience and compels them to stay is likewise as important.  That said, however, the primary goal of your website should always be to not only inform your visitors and potential customers what your company does, but how it does it, where it does it, and most importantly that your company is the industry expert in what it is that you do.

Ever heard the expression, “content is king”?  When it comes to a business website, content truly is the king of all web design elements.  The more the better… okay, get the spam prospect out of mind for now, you do not want to push out spam.  What you want to do is generate informative, market focused, content.  The easiest and most professional way to do this is via a company blog or news page that allows for weekly / daily posts describing your market, your industry, and your products & services.

By posting periodic content to your blog or news page, you not only inform your website visitors and potential customers, you likewise inform Google that your company is an expert in your industry.  Google will in turn favour your website in google search results for the products and services that your business provides.

Below are a few examples of what type of content is common, acceptable, and easy to generate.

Content that builds trust - Inform your website visitors and potential customers.  Talk about your industry and how your products & services serve your industry and your customers.  Talk about the benefits and new developments in your industry in general.  As an expert in your industry, this should be easy.  In doing so, potential customers will not only recognize your company’s expertise, but its devotion to your industry.

Customer generated content – Admittedly, getting your audience to engage is difficult, however, with new developments in social media it’s getting easier.  Create a social media page or profile via Twitter or Facebook and pose questions to your audience, request feedback, heck hold a contest, do anything that warrants a response!  In doing so, you’re building an audience and a solid community around your content and your online profile that can be referenced by future visitors and potential customers.

Other people’s content – It’s not stealing or plagiarism to reference to content of others.  Find White Papers on your products, services, or industry material that you feel is valuable to your potential audience.  Do so on a regular basis, in doing so, you’re proving your commitment to your industry and your commitment to building trust and educating your audience.

As always, we’re here to help if you have any questions on how to ensure that your website is more than just a website.  Contact a RawkMedia Creative Consultant today to learn how you can build and engage an audience around your online brand.

Beyond Web Design.. Your visitors want something to read! is a post from: Saskatoon Web Design | RawkMedia Web Design Group

Google plus is a collection of different social products, either existing or new to Google, including Profile Stream, Sparks (a recommendation engine), Circles (a friend management service), Hangouts (a video chat service), Huddle (a group texting service) and Photos, with more features such as Games and Questions expected in the near future.

Google+ was clearly designed to compete directly with Facebook however, it does seem to have already taken a few steps in a somewhat different direction in the way they’ve allowed their users to interact and connect with one-another.  Unlike Facebook, a Google+ user can create their network outside of familiar relationships. Think Twitter meets Facebook, that’s Google+.

Here’s a video released by Google that offers a brief overview of the new Social Network.

What Is Google Plus? is a post from: Saskatoon Web Design | RawkMedia Web Design Group

Designing for Smaller Screen Sizes is a post from: Saskatoon Web Design | RawkMedia Web Design Group

A little bit of humour in the Web Designer – Customer relationship is a post from: Saskatoon Web Design | RawkMedia Web Design Group

We often get questions around how Facebook can be used for business and what impact the platform can have on a Small Business Marketing Campaign.. the answer is always to point to Facebook’s Business Pages.  With the new Facebook Business Page layout and functionality changes, released yesterday, we thought it’d be a good time to put pen-to-paper and offer a list of 5 ways your can improve your Marketing efforts via Facebook and the new page layout.

1) Upload and even tag photos. Facebook has moved business page images to the top of the page, similar to the layout you see in your personal profile.  This is cool for one specific reason, visual exposure to your products, services, and/or portfolio.  Take some time and put some thought into what images are best suited for the top of your business page to maximize exposure to your products and services.  Here’s a few examples of clever use of the image-top layout for profiles.

2) Optimize your home image. The default size for Facebook images is now 180 by 540 pixels, which means that any image you upload as your “avatar” image will be resized to match those dimensions.  First take some time to consider what your business page’s profile image is going to be (most likely your logo or marketing material that includes your logo) and then make sure it’s optimized for the aforementioned dimensions.

3) Create a custom landing page. Facebook has offered the ability to create a custom HTML page on your facebook business page.  This is huge! as you can now customize at least a page to be more consistent with your website’s design.  Furthermore, you can specify this page as your “landing page” or first page your facebook business page visitors will see when visiting your business profile.  See here for some examples of innovative uses of the customizable facebook business page.

4) interact with your business page as yourself. Because Facebook has taken a step in the direction to untie your personal facebook profile from your business page profile, you can now interact with your business page as yourself (without visitors knowing you’re infact the owner of that business page).  Interaction on your page is huge and very important in stimulating further conversation between your business page, your business, and your community.

5) Grow your community through business interaction. This last point is huge!  As mentioned earlier, Facebook has now given you the opportunity to interact with other facebook profiles and pages as your business profile (not your personal profile).  What this means is that you can now interact with other facebook pages and their community as your business.  Engage on other business’ profile pages and maximize your business name’s exposure.  This is a key way to growing your community.

As always, if you have any questions as to how you can grow your business through Social Media engagement, feel free to contact a RawkMeda Web Design Consultant today!

The New Facebook Business Page Design is a post from: Saskatoon Web Design | RawkMedia Web Design Group

Marketing With Facebook Places

Facebook Places is facebook’s location based service introduced several months ago. What Facebook places does is allows Facebook users to share their locations in the real world as well as passively see where their friends are.. It’s also become an extremely powerful marketing and customer engagement tool for brick and mortar Saskatoon businesses to offer potential customers incentives for taking a step out of the virtual world and into their store.

Whenever a Facebook user checks in to a registered location on Facebook Places, Facebook broadcasts that checkin to the visiting user’s friends’ news feed. This not only gets your company name infront of a broader audience (without you lifting a finger), but more importantly encourages potential customers to visit your store!

Getting Started

1. Find your Place Page.
   You then need to “claim” your business! This is extremely important… I suppose you could sue anyone who claims it before you, whether you’d actually win or not has yet to be seen.  It’s also a good idea to get your products and services out there before your competitors do


2. Merge Facebook Places with your Company’s Facebook Page and your website.
   By doing this, you’re ensuring that all of those Facebook users who’ve “Liked” your company’s facebook page, as well as those who will, will also receive “places” updates.


3. Encourage checkins.
   This is huge.  Use store signage or your social media network to encourage checkins.  Not only does this bring people to your store but it also offers you metrics by which you can measure visits and engagement.


4. Reward those customers who checkin.
   And finally, offer your customers incentives for checking in, not only for the aforementioned reasons, but to engage with your customers and create a dialogue that goes past “come again” .  As you’re likely aware, customers respond well to a two-way dialogue.

Get intouch with a RawkMedia Creative Consultant to discuss ways you can leverage Social Media and your Social Networks successfully.

Marketing in Saskatoon With Facebook Places is a post from: Saskatoon Web Design | RawkMedia Web Design Group

1. Mobile Web Design

2. Social Media Integration… true integration

3. The Year Of JavaScript

4. HTML5 and CSS3

Web Design in 2011 is a post from: Saskatoon Web Design | RawkMedia Web Design Group

Realtime Santa Tracker is a post from: Saskatoon Web Design | RawkMedia Web Design Group

The internet is rife with competition and getting your website infront of the potential customers searching for your products and services has moved from merely ensuring that the search engines know you, to ensuring that the search engines recognize you as a dominant provider of your products and services.  Enter the fields of search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), and the introduction of the Search Engine Optimization Company. Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing campaigns involve the practice of ensuring that your website not only communicates effectively with your customers, but likewise communicates your products and services properly with search engines.  A successful search engine optimization company will develop a search marketing campaign that will instruct the search engines to give emphasis to those marketing keywords that your business wants to rank highly for in search engine search results.

Sounds easy.. no problem right?  Well, the strategy is obvious, the means to achieving the desired results of your search engine marketing campaign is just that, a campaign.  As is the case with any worth while campaign (in the face of competition anyway), a search engine optimization campaign requires patience, time, and a lot of work.

1) Make sure that the Saskatoon Search Engine Optimization Company that you hire provides you with a strategy before hand.  Ensure that they discuss keyword or search term options that best fit your company’s products & services.  Also ensure that they provide a competition report and set appropriate expectations with regards to beating the competition.  Discuss a timeline within which your search engine marketing campaign will begin to produce results.  This timeline can be loose but should include metrics by which you want to measure your website’s marketing results.

2) Ensure that your website marketing campaign includes a social media marketing strategy.  Search engines are beginning to take notice of the migration from search to social media platforms in the way people discover information.  If your website marketing strategy is including a distribution strategy among a variety of social media profiles associated with your company, your search engine marketing campaign will bare fruit much quicker and more effectively.  Talk to you search engine marketing company about their social media marketing strategy.

3) Speak to your website marketing company about ways to create, post, and distribute content related to your company’s products and services.  Do they have an article distribution service, are they incorporated RSS feed submission strategies, will they design and distribute to social media profiles on facebook, twitter, linkedin, etc showcasing your company?  Will the distribution process be automated at the click of a button?

If you’re a Saskatoon based business looking to tap into those potential customers searching for your products and services right now, talk to a Saskatoon search engine optimization company today about your website marketing strategy.

Search Engine Optimization & Search Engine Marketing is a post from: Saskatoon Web Design | RawkMedia Web Design Group