An Infographic on Web Design & Key Elements for Online Success

October 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment

A Guide To Getting Started with your Web Design

As a digital agency, we are immersed in website design discussions with our clients on a daily basis and we know how overwhelming it can be trying to source and understand the online tools you should be using for your business. Where should you focus your energy first? What questions should you be asking? Is everything in place for your business to thrive online? Do you have the knowledge to implement an online presence yourself, or should you outsource to a professional agency like ours? Besides web design, what else is there? If you build it, won’t they just come?

Sweep away the cluttered confusion. Start with a clean slate. Take a look at our GPS Infographic; it’s a visual map identifying the KEY ELEMENTS to start with first. It should help get you started thinking about your online presence in a more organized way. We’ve even included an SEO Checklist. The major takeaway from our map is that each element will require a thoughtful approach and probably for most of you, some professional assistance.

Every time we meet with a new client it’s an educational process because although we “live and breathe” the world of technology they have other things on their plate. The main goal here is to tweak excitement about the possibilities for success and the potential paths available to get there. Think of this infographic as a partial immersion into an unknown world; but in bite-sized pieces. We haven’t added ALL the initiatives OR even all of the information about the ones that are in the infographic BUT it’s a great place to start…… and you have to start somewhere!

Feel free to share it around with people you think might benefit. We only ask that you keep the infographic intact and unaltered, with proper credit back to us.
Website Design Infographic

We hope you find our Infographic on Web Design & Key Elements to Online Success helpful for YOUR business. If you find yourself getting frustrated trying to do it all yourself (website design, shopping cart, promotional video, SEO, SEM and so much more) ask for help from a digital agency like ours to hook you up. In this virtual world, the only barriers that exist, are the ones you set for yourself.

Check out our case study for Surrey web design client, Real Smart Real Estate Training Center for some insight on how a marketing plan can get you started!

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Filed Under: Original Ginger Infographics, Web Design

Surrey Web Design Case Study – Real Smart Training Centre

October 23, 2012 By 1 Comment

SURREY WEB DESIGN CLIENT – REAL SMART

Surrey Web Design Case Study Real SmartSurrey BC based company Real Smart, is the creator of the “Original 5 Week Fast Track” UBC Real Estate course. For over 12 years Real Smart has maintained a proven track record of training success, with over 7,000 students passing the UBC exam. Real Smart first asked OG to help with refreshing their web design, followed by an overall internet marketing plan to increase traffic and convert website visitors into class registrants.

OVERVIEW
Real Smart needed to update their web design and required a solution that provided a user friendly and effective way of purchasing in-class and online Real Estate courses. They had previously worked with two web design companies who were unable to sort through the complex range of courses and deliver an integrated solution. OG’s challenge was to design a compelling online presence that resulted in increased online registrants.
SOLUTION
Real Smart’s existing web design had not provided a successful conversion rate of visitors to online registrants. The company wished to make its entire range of courses available online and allow its customers to register easily.OG delivered a complete and comprehensive solution that encompassed an integrated online brand program with a new website (including Mobile), e-commerce, email marketing and social media.
RESULT
The brand experience for Real Smart is now consistent between their website, email marketing and social media platforms.Since Real Smart’s re-launch:

  • 75% increase in business
  • 30% increase in online registrants
  • #1 on Google for “Real Estate Training Vancouver”
PROJECT FACTS
Technology: WordPress CMS, PHP, CSS, XHTML, Jquery, XML
Integration: Social Media, Email Marketing Service, E-Commerce Shopping Cart
Services Used: Internet Marketing Strategy, Web Design, Mobile Web Design, E-Commerce Store Setup, Social Media Action Plan, Copywriting, Email Marketing Service (all inclusive), SEO Foundation, Website Maintenance, Training (For all of above).
Surrey Web Design Case Study - Real Smart Testimonial

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Filed Under: Featured Case Studies, Surrey Web Design Case Studies

Facebook Privacy – Who Can See Your Personal Information?

October 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Facebook Privacy

Who Can See My Facebook Posts?

This is a question I often get from clients regarding Facebook Privacy. The answer is “that all depends”.

  • How have you set your privacy settings for your Facebook profile and/or page;
  • When you created the wall post did you leave the default of “everyone”, or did you change it to friends of friends, only friends, or a specific list of people before hitting the share button.

You might be asking at this point — how do I do either of the above? Also, what if I want to change the default Facebook Privacy from “everyone” to “friends only”?

Then, I’m glad you’re reading this because setting the appropriate Facebook Privacy on your profile, and sending messages to the appropriate target audience, are important.

Protecting your personal information is extremely important on the internet. The “everyone” default means absolutely everyone on the internet has access to that particular information. Check out the Facebook tutorial videos for information on how to control your privacy on Facebook, and understand how to control who sees your posts. These videos are available to everyone via Facebook’s Help Centre. If you still require assistance, call us at Original Ginger for some social media training.

This is one article in a series of articles on Facebook for Businesses. Interested in other articles from ‘Fresh Ginger’? Subscribe now to receive topics of interest delivered straight to your inbox.

Original Ginger is a Digital Agency located in the heart of historic Fort Langley, a hip and artistic suburb of Vancouver BC.

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Hot Tips On Email Marketing Campaign Content

October 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Email Marketing

Have you thought about how much time you are willing to spend sifting through your own Email? If you have, you know that you have a very short window of opportunity to capture your reader’s interest.

  • Keep your subject line to about 60 characters. Short and sweet! Include topic and possibly the issue if it’s a series.
  • Consider that the key calls to action should be present in the top 2 to 4 inches or top 300 pixels of the email (above the fold) — that is the average size of preview panes in email clients.
  • Personalize the emails — your email service provider should allow you tools to do this easily.
  • Keep your content clear, concise and well written (always proofread!)
  • Use a strong call to action.
  • Use lots of white space — eyes tire faster reading from a computer monitor than a printed piece.
  • Use a standard font size — going smaller to fit more content is not a good idea if it dissuades the subscriber from reading the article.
  • Use links strategically and make them one click that goes straight to the intended destination.
  • Always perform quality assurance on your HTML before sending the campaign.

As mentioned in a previous article, “What You Should Know About Boosting Your Brand with Email Marketing”, not every email client deciphers HTML design in the same way. Email clients are much more sensitive about rendering HTML than web browsers are for rendering web pages. Your email campaign may look great when you open it in your Outlook account but that doesn’t mean it looks the same for someone using GMail. That is why it’s important to go with an Email Service Provider who will allow you to test it BEFORE sending! At Original Ginger we have professional designers who can take this worry from your shoulders……. we design your branded templates, and you are able to test not only design but also check your content against spam filters.

This is just one article in a series on Email Marketing and small business. At Original Ginger, Email Marketing is part of what we do. We’re happy to provide these services for you. Give us a call at 778.298.1966.

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Original Ginger is a Digital Agency located in the heart of historic Fort Langley, a hip and artistic suburb of Vancouver BC.

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LinkedIn – How Exciting Are These New Changes?

October 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment

First Twitter; now LinkedIn. Everyone has new surprises in store for their social media profiles.

So just how exciting is the new change on LinkedIn? Well, they are really just emulating what every other social media platform is already doing….

What’s New:

  • Large brand image
  • Streamlined design
  • Greater prominence for status updates
  • Featured posts

Plus, Company Pages now appear on our mobile and iPad apps—so you can reach members wherever they are.

If you don’t already have a LinkedIn Company page, refer to our blog article on how to set one up.

Having said that, we’ve added our new large brand image and the page does look a lot nicer than before. It allows a little more brand expression to your LinkedIn following.  The reality is that you still have to work to get people to find your company page and engage with it before any of your status updates will reach them. If you’ve been using Facebook for business you’ll know that’s no easy task depending on the type of business you have.

Check out the snapshot of LinkedIn’s new company home page look:

 

The product page (screenshot below) remains pretty much the same as it always was with only some minor changes in formatting:

LinkedIn-Social-Media-Tips

 

Since there are a lot of image sizes to remember from one social media profile to the next feel free to refer to our Social Media Image Sizing Guide Infographic. That way you can reference sizing all in one place.

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Filed Under: LinkedIn Tips

Social Media Sites – Manage Them From One Dashboard!

October 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Social MediaHere at Original Ginger we sure love our online toys for social media. And if you want your business to have a successful online presence YOU need to get excited about them too! Here’s another shiny toy we think you should know about. Ooooh Ahhhhhhh – Hootsuite.

We LOVE Hootsuite and now they’ve got new applications available. You’ll be able to use the YouTube app to share video and the Flickr app to share images. How cool is that? All from ONE SINGLE easy to use dashboard and sending out to ALL of your various social media profiles with the click of a button. Following shortly behind will be even more fun applications to choose from. We can hardly wait! Just visit your Hootsuite dashboard, install the application of choice, and away you go. Don’t have a Hootsuite account? Well, don’t waste any time. Sign up. HootSuite offers both a free application and a paid application that costs only $5.99/month.

Hootsuite Pro does offer enhanced analytics and tools; but we find that the free version is quite generous in what you can do with it.

Did you know:

  • You can manage all of your social media profiles (LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter) from ONE Hootsuite dashboard;
  • You can manage both a Facebook personal profile AND Facebook pages from Hootsuite;
  • You can run reports on click throughs of ow.ly urls that are delivered straight to your inbox;
  • You can pre-schedule your tweets and posts in advance for whatever date and time you would like them to be published to your followers;

Not a techie?! Need some help? Not only, will we set you up with fantastic tools like Hootsuite BUT we can also provide training to show you how to best use those social media tools.

Give us a call at 778.298.1966.

We’ll schedule your personal one on one training and get social media working for you. Better yet…. allow us to put together a comprehensive digital marketing plan on how to best use digital tools for your business online.

Interested in reading more articles like this from ‘Fresh Ginger’. Subscribe now to receive more topics of interest delivered straight to your inbox.

Original Ginger is a Digital Agency located in the heart of historic Fort Langley, a hip and artistic suburb of Vancouver BC.

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The “Awesomeness” of Buffer For Twitter + Facebook

October 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Buffer

 

Buffer’s tagline is “Be Awesome on Social Media“. We’re all for that! Now, get ready for some bonus “awesomeness” — Buffer now works with Facebook too.How this nifty tool works is that as you cruise the internet at any given time and you see info you want to share, you use Buffer to share each item spread out throughout the day instead of in one big clump. Yep, it’s a handy dandy little tool and it’s FREE!

Here’s How Buffer Works:

  • You Sign Up for a Buffer Account
  • You install the Buffer icon on your browser toolbar. Buffer walks you through this in simple easy steps.
  • As you browse the internet, either via your computer desktop OR your mobile phone, you simply click the Buffer icon when you want to share an interesting discovery with your friends and followers.
  • Buffer takes that information and shares it out for you throughout the day instead of all in one big “share” clump.
  • Afterwards, you can go to your Buffer dashboard and view the analytics to see if your “shares” were of interest to people or not. How cool is that?!

We recommend that you use the Buffer tool in conjunction with other great tools out there — most of which offer FREE accounts to get you started.

Have fun with your social media, while still being productive with your online business marketing. Using FREE tools like Buffer can help you out with that and leave marketing budget dollars for other things.

Interested in more articles from ‘Fresh Ginger’? Subscribe now to receive topics of interest delivered straight to your inbox.

Original Ginger is a Digital Agency located in the heart of historic Fort Langley, a hip and artistic suburb of Vancouver BC.

 
 
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Twitter’s New Look…

September 25, 2012 By 2 Comments

Twitter’s Got A New Look!

Now that Twitter is stepping out with their brand new look and so many of you have been using our Infographic – A Guide to Social Media Images, we revised it for you with the new Twitter image info! Share it as much as you like — we hope it provides value for you. Have you heard about the attempts to resurrect MySpace? I guess we wait to see what MySpace has in store and how many people embrace them once again. In the meantime, here’s a link to the latest and greatest on MySpace.

Are there other infographics you’d like to see from us? Let us know by sending us an email or leaving your comments.

A Guide To Social Media Images

At Original Ginger, we know how difficult it can be for businesses to keep track of all of the latest social media trends and platforms. Currently, there are at least five major platforms that you should be considering for your business: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and yes…. even Pinterest! But each and every one of these social media platforms requires some savvy design from YOU if you really want to capture the attention of new fans and followers.

The problem is that each one requires varying sizes of branded imagery to show off your brand, products, and services. It’s getting tough to keep track of it all.

Well, we’ve got a tool to save you some time and keep the information all in one easily referenced place. It’s our “Social Media Image Guide Infographic”. This “hot” little jpg includes references to imagery you’ll need for all of the major social media platforms mentioned above. Feel free to share it around with people you think might benefit. We only ask that you keep the infographic intact and unaltered, with proper credit back to us.

As you create your images keep in mind that some social media platforms require that the images be either a jpg or a png. So if you’re trying to upload a GIF or TIFF and it’s not working, that may be why. Also, bear in mind as you upload social media avatars/icons that you should check to ensure that it looks good in all the various sizes. For example, although the Facebook profile avatar is sized at 200px by 200px, Facebook uses it in the news feed sized at 32px by 32px. Does your avatar still look good that small?

We hope you find this information helpful as you get creative and have fun with your social media profiles. Imagery is a powerful tool if you use it effectively to represent your brand online. Getting frustrated trying to do it yourself? Get some help from a digital agency like ours to hook you up across the board with a captivating social media presence.

Happy designing all!

Lisa Ostrowercha is a co-founder and Creative Director of Original Ginger, a Digital Agency located in the heart of historic Fort Langley, BC, Canada. We combine big agency expertise with boutique quality service to assist businesses with strategic digital marketing plans, brand discovery, website design and development, video production, marketing, social media, and more.

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Make the Most of Your Blog Posts With Social Media

September 24, 2012 By 1 Comment

Make the Most of Your Blog Posts With Social Media

 

So you’ve created your social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn). You’ve set up your easily remembered branded usernames and you have left your info unpublished until you’re finished entering all of your content. We recommend that you now set up your blog to automatically stream your posts from your blog to your social media accounts. On Facebook you can have it stream to both your personal profile and business pages; but at the very least it should stream through to your business page.

Why stream your blog through to Social Media ?

  • It creates fresh, relevant and interesting content for existing customers following you
  • It may engage new potential customers
  • It creates brand awareness
  • It drives traffic to your website
  • For Facebook in particular, when inbound links are relevant it boosts the page rank.

There are quite a few applications you can use to stream your blog through to social media. The  two applications we recommend are Networked blogs and RSS Graffiti.

Here’s how Networked Blogs works for Facebook (you can also follow suit with LinkedIn and Twitter):

  • Login to your personal profile
  • Start typing ‘Networked Blogs’ in the search box at the top of the page — you’ll see the application pop up
  • Select the application and follow the prompts to create your account
  • Select ‘Register A Blog’
  • When you are prompted “Are you the author of ‘Name of Blog’” – respond YES and select NEXT
  • When you are prompted to “Verify ownership of the blog” you will be provided with 2 choices (a) Ask Friends to Verify You (b) Use Widget to Verify Ownership — Select one of the options. If you have a WordPress website you can easily place a widget on your website yourself. That is the easiest method. If you don’t have content management access to your website, you’ll have to use the verification method. TIP: The message to verify does NOT go to the verifier’s inbox. Unless they are looking for it they may not see the request on their profile page in the notifications area.
  • When you are done with set up, you will begin to see new posts flow through to your Facebook business page.

Blog articles display as an excerpt on your page. To read the full article visitors can click on ‘Full Article’ and it will take them directly to your blog — driving traffic to your website where people can check out your services and products while they are there.

Here’s how RSS Graffiti works for Facebook:

  • Login to your personal profile
  • Start typing ‘RSS Graffiti’ in the search box at the top of the page — you’ll see the application pop up (screenshot below)
  • Select the application and follow the prompts to create your account
  • Set up is much more simplified than with the networked blogs application.

As you build your following on social media, new followers will be able to read your blog posts. If the information engages them enough they will share it with their friends. If you don’t have a blog, you should think about adding one to your website. It’s a great way to provide fresh content and engage new potential customers.

This is one of many articles we’ve written about social media and how you can use it for your business.

Interested in reading more articles from ‘Fresh Ginger’? Subscribe now to receive more articles of interest delivered straight to your inbox.

Original Ginger is a Digital Agency located in the heart of historic Fort Langley, a hip and artistic suburb of Vancouver BC.

 
 
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Blog Posts – An Easy Way to Boost Your SEO!

September 10, 2012 By 1 Comment

Blog Posts - An Easy Way to Boost Your SEO!

 

A blog allows you to share information with your readers in a more informal way. With our ‘Fresh Ginger’ blog we provide tips, tools and resources we think will be of value to our readers. Information covered in your blog will depend on who is writing it, what type of business you own and your brand personality.

There are many benefits for businesses to have a blog as follows:

  • Blogging can help create brand awareness and demonstrate your areas of expertise
  • Blogging offers a network opportunity with relevant complimentary businesses when you invite them to participate as guest writers. Reciprocal links between you can ultimately boost Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
  • Blogging is a great way to engage potential clients by allowing a place for comment
  • Consistent blogging means fresh content for SEO
  • Fresh blog articles give visitors a reason to return to your website at a later date, reminding them of your services or products.

How Blogs Work

A blog is typically set up to list articles (referred to as posts) in ascending order — the freshest, newest posts at the top and the oldest moving down the page.  Since most of the other pages on your website are fairly static information, a blog is a way to attract the search engines, given that content is updated frequently and consistently.

Get The Word Out

There are many ways to get the word out about your blog, and subsequently your website:

  • Provide links to interested parties in forums. Make sure that the information is relevant and useful to the audience — it’s about informing and sharing information.
  • Set up your blog to automatically stream through to your social media profiles;
  • Provide share buttons on your blog to make it easier for others to share your information via social media and email;
  • Network with other bloggers and reciprocate links.
  • Include blog links in your newsletter. Share specific post topics to segmented subscriber lists based on their interests.

Blogs Boost Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

  • Encourage people to share your blog posts everywhere — the more links you have out there in cyberspace the more the search engines will recognize and find you.
  • Write blog articles including links that track to other related articles you’ve written — search engines like this!
  • When someone searches for a specific topic using keywords contained in your blog content, the search engines will find it.

The time and energy it takes to write blog articles is time well spent in the long term. It’s about sharing information and building a rapport with your audience. If you don’t have the time to write the articles yourselves there are many agencies like ours who can provide copy writing expertise — so don’t let that stop you.

Interested in other articles from ‘Fresh Ginger’? Subscribe now so topics are delivered straight to your inbox.

Original Ginger is a Digital Agency located in the heart of historic Fort Langley, a hip and artistic suburb of Vancouver BC.

 
 
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