Before & After … Engravers Depot

http://www.engraversdepot.ca

Owner had a website for over ten years and was looking to give it a new face lift and improve on the navigation to find the multiple product listings of four print catalogues. Original catalogues were done for American audience so in some cases prices and wording had to be adapted for the Canadian audience. Engravers Depot is the Exclusive Canadian Distributor for Gravograph-New Hermes engraving products, materials and accessories.

Solution: Built a custom designed HTML format with CSS style sheet formatting, kept it clean and simple, easy to navigate. Used some FLASH technology for short introduction of offerings on homepage.

Before Image of www.engraversdepot.ca After image of www.engraversdepot.ca
Before After

Research; Watch/Listen, Read… 3 great tools

Before you go out and create a whole bunch of copy for your website, blog, newsletter or other communication tool, check out these online tools:

1. monitter which gives you real time tweets of what people are talking about utilizing the keyword phrases you put in.  Now you can’t believe everything you read, nor want to read, but watching this over time can give you a feel for what the buzz is about in your industry.

Monitter - Monitor Twitter
And if you want to localize your search, don’t forget to fill out, how many kilometers away from which city:

Add in some localization for your search

2. Another great research tool: Google Blog Search

To find blogs talking about your subject ideas, keyword phrases, type in the keyword phrases of your choice and see what others are writing about.

Enter your keyword and search the blog directories

3. With the fast amount of videos on YouTube tons of resources are being developed from the use of video phones to high production videos, businesses are getting their message out there. Check out this Video search to see what your competitors are up to.

YouTube search functionality

These tools will help you with your overall competitive analysis, not only is it helpful checking out their websites, but make sure to see what other digital assets they are deploying in cyberspace.  What unique offering can you provide for your clients and those interested to learn about. Remember these tools can be used for research when developing your own communications strategy.

New tool find… Goalsontrack!

Always on the look out for new tools to share with you, and came across this one. Whenever I do Internet seminars I am always talking about the importance of setting goals and clarifying expectations, no matter whether this is for your overall website strategy, social media strategy or in generally in business with a simple 90-day goal setting exercise. Well today I came across a handy easy to use tool that may aid you in this exercise.

Check this goal setting tool outA personal success system that will help you really accomplish goals by getting the right things done. …

Goals on Track simplifies the process of goal setting so you can create successful action plans, maintain focus & achieve the desired results that make success happen.

 

Features:

  • Set Goals
  • Take Action
  • Visualize
  • Track Time
  • Success Habits
  • Goal Journal
  • Review and Restart

Check it out, and see if this is a tool that will work for you, this web app encompasses all of the necessary ingredients for achieving a goal, large or small.

Speaking of linking – what makes a quality link?

Certainly not “click here” or “read more“. These descriptive links say nothing.  When calling a user to take action, use meaningful, brief text links, ones that provide information when said out of context.

For example,

To download the Quality Link Tip Sheet, click here.

change it to:

Tell me more about the Quality Link Tip Sheet and how I can make more sales.

Explain what the link is offering and do not use ‘verb phrases’.

Usability and SEO tip: Link Titles to Help Users Predict Where They Are Going

Titling your linksIf you find you have links that have no particular identification names, such as page numbers, as in the example shown in the image, consider adding a “Title” tag to the link, a descriptive, keyword rich title tag that not only tells the viewer what the link is about, but also the search engines will have extra text to index. Do not repeat the same text as is already shown in the anchor, and try to keep the text to about 60 – 80 characters. Shorter link titles are better. A viewer will see this as soon as they hover over the link.

A few other usability considerations as well – ensure that the active link (page 1) is shown in a colour different to the other links, and when you hover or go over the link, you can see it also changes colour. This is a visual cue to help viewers understand where they are and where they are going to.

All you need to do is “ask”

http://www.wilsonweb.com/linking/wilson-email-addthis.htm

This article is an excellent resource for building a loyal following from your website and your blog, I like the way Dr. Wilson gives you an easy step-by-step method to building quality in-bound links to your offerings and information. Follow this guide and you will be assured to build that loyal following.

If you need help in implementing this strategy in your website, feel free to contact us.

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