There’s a misconception out there that every web designers’ the same. This is such a bad assumption. Just because some people call themselves web designers doesn’t mean they know how to design a good website. A professional web designer will know what fonts to use, how big the headers need to be, what colors to use and what not to use and how much text to put on a page before the reader pops a blood vessel in their eye. I say talented web designers need to stick together and join forces to fight against bad websites. So many times I see a business owner decide to go with someone who calls themselves a marketing company or a web designer that has poor taste. They think if they pay money for these services, that means they’re going to get a great site. I know I seem pessimistic and harsh, but I’m getting tired of hearing the same old stories. I say to you business owners do your research! Find out who’s working on your site and I don’t mean just the company you’re going with. I mean the actual designer. How much experience does he or she have? Did he or she ever take art lessons. Make sure you convey what you want on your site. Get down to the details. Remember, it’s your money, you’re business.

We are proud to launch a redesigned website for our client Scott Shaw of KLS Controls LLC! KLS Controls‘ website had many challenges. We turned those challenges into a website with several integrated features such as Blog Integration, Database Driven Web Pages and a Content Management System. With these new features, our client will be able to deliver up-the-moment company news and product updates in his industry. He will also be able to have exclusive access to make modifications to his website without relying heavily on a developer. These features will not only lower his maintenance costs for his website and marketing, but they will add value to his business.

At Gobie Creative, we want to wish Scott Shaw good luck with his business KLS Controls LLC, and remember as Scott perfectly states, “Keep Life Simple!”

We are waiting to launch a new website for this month of December.  The official launch date for klscontrols.com is December 4.  Stay tuned for more this week!

Also, we have been busy with other exciting new projects that will be finished up in January. Sorry we can’t tell you, you’ll just have to wait and see.

Make sure you check back with us periodically after the holidays for more tips and marketing specials. It will be like Christmas all over again!

We are very excited about some of our new developments this month! Some of these developments include a new website redesign for KLS Controls LLC and a logo design for a new company called Expert Car Care, Inc. We were very fortunate to take such important roles in the marketing for both companies.

KLS Controls is a company that handles product lines for automation manufacturing. It’s based out of Menomonee Falls, WI and is run by Scott Shaw. KLS will be launching a brand new website in the first week of December 2009.  There were several challenges to implement into the new design. We wanted the website to be more user-friendly and updated with a sophisticated, clean style.  We also had to implement Search Engine Optimization and a Custom Blog Integration along with some database pages.

Expert Car Care, Inc. is a automotive repair shop located in West Allis, WI. The owner Ben Marjamaa needed a logo that stood out from the rest. We created the logo in Adobe Illustrator using the gradient mesh tool. We didn’t want the logo to look flat, but rather with a more 3-d style to it…something that you can almost touch and feel the chrome texture. We will also be looking forward to designing new business cards and a website coming soon in January 2009.

We will keep you posted on these developments and more in the next couple months! Stay Tuned!

Ever wonder how many people are going to your website? Can they even find your website? How long do they stay on there to read all of your content? These are very typical questions asked by several owners of websites.

Google Analytics is a free and powerful traffic reporting system that you can easily find the answers you’re looking for regarding your website. It measures the amount of traffic and behaviors of your visitors each day. You can get in-depth results about your site on printable reports or you can e-mail them out to whomever. Using Google Analytics will save you alot of time and money figuring out where your audience is and how to connect with them. You can use it to your advantage for your marketing strategies and campaigns.

This tutorial will be an overview on how to get started and understanding the basics of Google Analytics. In future articles, we will go into more specifics.

Please check out this video on how to setup a free Google Analytics account first before reading on. It will show you step-by-step how to get started.

The Dashboard

Now that you an account, we can start analyzing your website! You have several features in the Dashboard section including what looks like a blue graph. Scroll over the dots. You will notice the date and amount of visits per day. If you want to see the amount of visits per week or month, click on the small square icons in the top right corner to change the views. Okay, let’s explore the other features.

The Site Usage section gives you a nice summary of Visits, Pageviews, Pages/ Visits, Bounce Rate, Average Time on Site and New Visits. Here’s each feature broken down:

1. Visits give you the number of visits within a certain time period. You start off with 30 days, but you can later change this number once you get more comfortable.

2. Pageviews is the amount of pages visitors viewed.

3. Pages/ Visits is the average amount of pages a visitor viewed when visiting your website.

4. Bounce Rate is the percentage of visitors that realized after getting to your website, they were “bounced” out of your site. You can use this percentage to figure out if people are using the back button or realizing your website is not exactly what they had in mind. Use this to your advantage. Know what can attract visitors to stay and read your content. Try to keep you percentage below 30-25%. If it’s too high in the 50’s, consider doing some house cleaning on your website. Add some cool images, check you content, make sure your navigation is user-friendly and your search engine optimization is working.

5. Average Time on Site is exactly what the title says. It’s the average time a visitor spends on your website during a visit.

6. % New Visits is the percentage of visitors that are new compared to your overall count of visitors. You can see higher results especially when you implement a new marketing campaign. If the percentage is low, it just means that you have repeat visitors that keep coming back for more.

The Visitors Overview is a summary of who’s going to your website and how many in the last 30 days. You can scroll over the blue buttons just like in the top graph. It works the same way by telling you how many visits per day. To get more detailed, you can click on the “view report” in blue. In the report, you can see a breakdown of the action on your website. Feel free to take the time to look at each feature. We will go over these report in more detail in our next tutorial.

The Map Overlay is really handy because it gives you a geographical layout of your visitors’ origin. It pinpoints even down to the state/ city. You can use this tool to see where your market is coming from. Are you attracting more from your local area or is it globally? You can click on the “view report” to see more details and the breakdown of each visitor.

The Traffic Sources Overview is one of my favorites in Google Analytics. This gives you insight of where you traffic is coming from on the internet. Do you have more visitors from search engines or are your external links such as Facebook and LinkedIn doing their job? Again, you can click on the “view report” to see the exact websites that are helping you out.

Finally, but not least, Content Overview is one of the most valuable features to study. This overview will help you get understanding of your website and the people who visit. This feature lays out all your pages within your website to help you see who’s going where. Are visitors clicking on the contact page more than the services or are they just not even interested in contacting you? Do they get bored with you about page? These are vital questions you need answers for. This knowledge will help you design a successful website.

Thank you for reading our tutorial on Market Your Business Using Google Analytics: Part 1. We will be posting more articles that will explain each feature in more detail and how to use them to your advantage in marketing for your business. If you have any questions about Google Analytics, please contact us.

We have just added another service at Gobie Creative, Custom Blog Integration! Custom Blog Integration will help your website traffic and search engine rankings. We will be posting another article soon telling you how and why. Stay tuned for more details or if you can’t wait, send us a message!

A huge part of marketing your business is networking. It’s all about who you know. Sure ads, brochures, coupons, etc. are all good selling points, but they cost money…sometimes a lot of money. Networking can be little to no money. Tell everyone you know about your business. Sooner or later, this person you know will tell someone else and so forth. Don’t burn any bridges. Utilize that connection somehow. You never know when it will come in handy. Here are some tips about networking:

1. Get some business cards….hand them out to everybody, I mean everybody.

2. Maintain a good relationship with people.

3. Tell people about your business. Offer your services in the most discrete way. Make sure you don’t stalk them though.

4. Look to your family and friends for connections. Have them send an email to everyone they know about your business.

5. Get on the Social Media “train.” Use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. This is the easiest way to connect with a large amount of people without having to set up appointments.

6. Offer a good will gesture to someone. Who knows, someday he/she will return the favor.

7. Be genuine and down to earth when you do meet with people. Don’t come off as a salesman.

8. Tap into your community. Join a chamber of commerce. You can get yourself listed on their directory, receive area discounts and earn credibility.

9. Keep up with your current clients. Don’t let them think you forgot them. Drop them a line to just say hi and how are things going.

10. Follow-up on conversations with people. Let them know you are still there. Repetitiveness is the key to being remembered.

There many elements you need to remember when designing your website. Sure there are millions of websites out there, but are they good? Do they look nice? Can you navigate easily throughout the site? Here are some good tips to keep in mind:

1. Keep your text legible, but don’t make it huge. A good size font is 10px to 14px at the most. Sometimes search engines look at huge text as spam.

2. Use nice size buttons. Don’t use flashy huge buttons. It can tend to cheapen your website.

3. Focus on your main message. Don’t start listing a bunch of text just to fill spaces. Search engines hate lots of text and so do your readers.

4. Don’t bury your information. Use the 3-click method. It should usually take at the most 3 clicks for your readers to reach what they want to read about. Also, make sure your navigation is consistent and easy to find.

5. Carry same colors throughout your website. Keep a consistency going. It will bring all your pages together and give your website branding.

6. Use short, but capturing headers for your sections of text. Bring the reader in.

7. Make sure you use a nice background image that doesn’t interfere with your text or your images. Nothing more tacky than having some ugly distracting tiled background that takes the focus off of your content.

8. Have your links colors coordinate with the rest of your website. Also, don’t use “click here” for your links. Search engines hate that. Use the description of your content to create a link.

9. Make sure your colors you use on your images, website pages and text are web safe colors (hex colors). When making your images in photoshop, use RGB not CMYK.

10. Don’t use a lot of flash. A whole site built on flash can hurt your search engine visibility. Use it tastefully…maybe one element on your index page, but that’s it.

I hope some of these tips were helpful. You can find great books on website design everywhere or do a search.