Are you using video on our website? Are you using it effectively?

Don’t let your company suffer from a lack of common sense.

http://yogurtvilleusa.com

JUST LAUNCHED! Azure is pleased to announce the launch of Yogurtville’s website. Yogurtville is the place for great frozen yogurt! It features great tasting frozen yogurt and toppings, in a fun, clean atmosphere.

Yogurtville takes pride in being different. They know that when it comes to deciding upon where to go for a healthy and delicious snack, the buying public is looking for a place that is out of the ordinary.
The Yogurtville management team has gone to great pains to combine the things they know that people want in a place where they can enjoy a snack and just unwind.
Things like a clean, comfortable environment. Friendly, helpful staff. And the most delicious array of healthy frozen yogurt treats, plus a huge array of toppings, all to assure each patron can create a snack or dessert that perfectly suits their taste

In tandem to the main corporate website, Azure also built blog infrastructure that allows each store to market themselves. Each store can manage the content on their blog, giving them the ability to publish specials, new flavors,  events, or just about anything that is going on at their store.

Azure provided design concepts, graphic design production, web development, and web hosting for this project. We are excited about the results. Check out Yogurtville!

One of our latest creations! The new Paragon Support website, for a world-class outsourced IT management and solutions provider. They encouraged us to be really innovative, in both development and site design. We’re pleased with results, which is phase one of a larger plan.

http://paragonsupport.com/

This is an event opener created for a themed customer event just completed. It was run to get the 300+ attendees wide awake on Day One of a sales conference – you should’a seen and heard it in the “real” big-screen environment. WOW!

You make a good first impression.  You’re a business owner who does a lot of networking events.  You are out at lunches, chamber meetings, association seminars.  You work the referrals you get from other clients.  And you wonder if you really need a Web site.

I have met you when I am out networking.  When I tell you I work on marketing communications projects, including Web sites, you don’t seem to think that it is important for your business.  You’re doing just fine getting referrals and changing them into business.
So how does your Web site fit?

Your Web is your second impression.  You made a great first impression, but now I have your business card and I am sitting in front of my computer.  I’m nosy, so I type in your Web address and check you out.  And your Web site is a mess – it doesn’t look or sound like the intelligent person I just met.

Your Web Site Takes the Place of a Brochure

There was a time when a printed brochure was your second impression.  It was saved and filed, used when the customer needed your services.  Now, we have the big file drawer called the Internet.  Your customers look for you when they need you.  They save your business cards but throw away the brochure.

Your Web Site Reinforces Your Message

When we met at the meeting, your elevator message was compelling enough for me to visit your site.  Unfortunately, you lost me when your site wasn’t as impressive as you were in person.

Your Web Site Doesn’t Wear the Latest Fashion

Your site went live over three years ago and you haven’t changed it since.  The navigation is out of date, the colors are dark and hard to read.  Just as you would get a new suit or outfit when the cuffs are frayed or a seamed ripped, you should keep your Web site wearing the latest fashion.

Search Engine Optimization has improved a great deal in the last few years.  Google is now how people find you.  Are your pages optimized?

Your Web Site Needs to Be Current

Have you moved, has a person left your organization, have you dropped an affiliation?  You need to clean your site of dated information.  The impression dated information leaves can hurt your business.

Your Web Site Promotes Other Aspects of Your Business

Your elevator pitch only told me about one aspect of your business.  On your site, I now find that you do several other related products – products that I need.   This happens to me a lot.  I talk to someone at a networking event and give them my card.  Later, I’ll get an email saying that they had visited the site and discovered the other things we do. Turns out that we never had a long enough conversation with the customer to understand all their needs.

Your Web site should reinforce that first impression.  And it should reinforce those second and third impressions that occur after each sales meeting or service call.

Honey, I need a web site.

That’s what my self-employed husband said.  Why did he think he needed one?  Because he got the domain for Boyle Aviation.  Go Daddy had a special and he got it for a year free.  So he decided he should have a web site.

OK, so I, who just happens to have worked on bunches of web sites as a project manager, writer, etc., got the job to build the site. I got a template and started on the layout.  I discovered that my design skills are very limited.  I had trouble sizing the picture.  And getting the Google map into the home page was an all-afternoon effort.

When I was finally done, the husband reviewed the site, changed a few words and … it’s published.

The site has been up for a month now.  I haven’t touched it since the launch. If you google Boyle Aviation, you won’t find his site.  Who has time for that search engine optimization stuff, updates and getting links from other web sites?

Several sole proprietors that I know have had the same experience.  Family members who have read up or taken a class in school have offered their free web services.  And what happens to my husband happened to them.

Here are a few things to consider before you place a large part of your business marketing into the hands of a friends or relative:

Skill Level: There are plenty of products that take the coding out of the job.  The advantage is that it’s easier to build a site.  The disadvantage could be that you’re stuck with a fixed template that you can’t change.  This just happened to an author friend of mine.  Her spouse couldn’t get around the template to correct some small issues, so there they remained.  Therefore, someone with HTML skills that can fix that photo just right or wrap that body copy by digging into the code in a template can help.  I don’t have those HTML skills and it shows.

Creativity Level: It is rare to find someone who can handle both the coding and creative sides of Web design.   These are very different, very necessary skills for a successful web site. Too many times, a programmer tried to do the layout, it looks like everything is packed into one tight page.  One good programmer and one good designer are what you need.

Writing Ability: We all took English in school and passed.   This does not make us creative writers.  Good, short copy for web sites is an art.  So, now you are looking for a writer, in addition to a programmer and a designer.

Who has the Time: Once the site is up and running, does your friend or relative have time to monitor, update and tweak your site?  Analytics, search engine optimization, blogs, and social networking all require daily attention to keep your site fresh and bringing in business.

I generally follow the old adage that – friends don’t let friends design their business web sites.  Take a good long look at your site and see if you need to make a change from a family run site into a managed communications tool for your business.

The buzz surrounding Twitter use has grown exponentially, driven by recent news stories such as then-presidential candidate Obama’s use of Twitter as a direct-to-voter communication vehicle, and most recently by the tabloid-esque story of actress Demi Moore’s tweet-inspired intervention to save the life of a Los Angeles area follower threatening suicide.
To be sure, within the realm of dedicated social media vehicles, Twitter enjoys a unique degree of hype, because of its quirky functionality (140 character mini-blog messaging) and celebrity user base.
However, behind the hype, inclusion of Twitter as a key element within a larger social media marketing strategy provides a method for fulfilling serious and valuable communication goals for companies of all sizes. Note the mention of a strategy. Like most media choices, strategic communication goals must be defined. A combination of communication vehicles (like Twitter) can then be aligned to achieve those goals.
Central to social media marketing tactics is need for cultivating a more direct, personalized connection with buying audiences, along with ability to quickly gather focus group-like insights to fine tune proffered offerings well before mass distribution.
Serving in this marketing-centric role, Twitter users have available a huge potential audience of fellow Twitter subscribers (or “followers”) for rapidly spreading word of a company’s latest news and developments. However, like so many social media vehicles, using Twitter successfully in this guise requires an investment of time to cultivate a reputation built on credibility, plus personality to attract followers, thereby growing the available audience.