Using Wordpress as a content management system

January 27, 2010 | Leave a Comment

At Sanctuary Media Group we’ve become very fond of the Wordpress software platform. It’s a valuable and affordable tool for our clients and we are dedicating ourselves to working with Wordpress for blogging, custom website development and for a robust content management system for our sites ongoing. The great thing about Wordpress is that it’s open-source software which means that it’s free to use. For our clients, there are no fees to purchase the software and we only charge a small fee ongoing to keep the software updated for bugs and security releases. So it’s a very affordable way to gain control over your website without paying a web developer to make changes.

We’d like to invite you to review this four part introduction about why we think Wordpress is a great solution for managing the content of your website. It’s only 20 minutes total. It’s a great overview if you are considering Wordpress for your website and it serves as a good, educational overview for those that need a basic introduction on how to use the software. Read more


Posted by chris.auman | Filed Under Blog 

E-Commerce

January 18, 2010 | Leave a Comment

8 Elements of an effective E-Commerce website

As you may know, e-commerce is a big deal these days. According to comScore, $29.1bn was spent online in November and December, 4% more than the 2008 holiday season. The fastest growing e-commerce categories were jewelery and watches, and consumer electronics. According to a Motorola study 51% of shoppers overall and 64% from the 18 to 34 age group used their mobile phones for in-store shopping-related activities during the holiday season. This included comparing prices, finding user reviews, and making a purchase via mobile devices.

So now you’ve decided that it makes sense to take your own business online? That’s great. Here’s a few things we always consider when designing an effective e-commerce website. Read more


Posted by chris.auman | Filed Under Blog 

Notes on the 22 Immutable laws of marketing

January 15, 2010 | Leave a Comment

For those of you that are interested in learning about basic marketing principles I’d like to recommend The 22 Immutable laws of marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout. This is not a book review, this is just a summary of some of the points that the authors cover in the book. I thought it might be a good resource to scan if you need a refresher from time to time. Maybe you’ll gain a little nugget of information that will help you expand your marketing ideas and techniques online.

1) The law of leadership – it’s better to be first than it is to be better – marketing is the battle of perception, not products.

2) The law of the category – Promote the category. If you can’t be first in a category just create your own new category. (Examples: multimedia computer, magazine for mature women, Clothes for tall people, etc.) Read more


Posted by chris.auman | Filed Under Blog 

SEO Friendly Design – Part 6: Goals and consistency

January 15, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Continuing our discussion of search engine friendly design considerations I offer you part 6 of a 6 part series on SEO friendly design:

Design your page with your goals in mind.

Part of SEO is allowing for easy feed subscription, encouraging links to your content, easy newsletter sign-up, clear membership information, ease of product navigation and easy access to contact information. Many people might wonder what this has to do with search engine optimization and I’m here to tell you that it’s all very important.

Your job when designing your website is to encourage links back to the content. You do this by providing ways for people to bookmark the site, subscribe via RSS and signup for a newsletter. This will keep your site “top-of-mind” with people that are interested in your content and ideally they’ll be reminded to read and continue to link.

One of the most popular and simple ways to encourage linking is to include an RSS feed and to provide a clear way to subscribe to your feed. If you use Wordpress like I do, the feed is generated automatically. Services like Feedburner and Technorati can help you easily distribute your feed and allow easy subscription too. Read more


Posted by chris.auman | Filed Under Blog 

Duplicate content (Good or Bad?)

January 8, 2010 | Leave a Comment

For writers such as myself it makes sense that I want as many people as possible to read what I have to say. The first way to do this is to get my site and my content ranked well on Google for valid searches that I write about. The second way is to syndicate my content and share it across many partner sites in the hope that someone will stumble upon it, read it, follow the link to my main site in the footer and possibly bookmark and continue to read my main body of content.

I’ve heard some discussion about duplicate content lately and I wanted to set the record straight here about what Google thinks about a writer distributing content to other sites. The issue here is this: Google does NOT want their users to do a search and get links to the same content in the results. They want a varied list of options so the user can choose and get as many links as possible to multiple sources. This makes so much sense in my mind that I’m surprised that I had to even research it. Read more


Posted by chris.auman | Filed Under Blog 

SEO Friendly Design – Part 5: Readability & coding

January 8, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Continuing our discussion of search engine friendly design considerations I offer you part 5 of a 6 part series on SEO friendly design:

Readability

SEO is important but with a little style and effort you can get the job done without compromising the “vibe” of your site. Presentation is everything and people do not visit or link to sites that are hard to read and do not please the eye.

I’m sure you’ve seen the culprits in the past where people have clearly “tried” to optimize their site for specific keywords and you’ve asked yourself as you’re reading through the text “Has this person made it through high school English?”. Words seem to be out of place and overused, possibly repeated in places where they’re not necessary. Below is an example of what I’m referring to. (Reminder, this is bad so I’ll keep it short) Read more


Posted by chris.auman | Filed Under Blog 

Design is a critical element

December 8, 2009 | Leave a Comment

I’m a designer by trade. I have a degree in graphic design and illustration and design is ultimately what I’m really good at. I appreciate all aspects of design from cartoons to web design to interior design and everything in between. Since I’ve traveled down the web design path I obviously deal with how my client’s web presence is presented to the world and I believe that the most subtle details are incredibly important. I have experience with what works and why – so I appreciate it when a client lets me fully do my job because design is CRITICAL to the successful translation of your business to the web. Read more


Posted by chris.auman | Filed Under Blog 

Starting and marketing a new business online

December 2, 2009 | Leave a Comment

startingFor those intrepid, brave souls who just started a business or recently moved to the web you might be wondering where you should start? How do you get customers to your website and make money? The internet is a vast imbroglio; a complicated maze of digital wonderment. How can someone find little ol’ me in the endless maze of the web? In essence you are the smallest needle in the world’s largest haystack. Welcome to the wild, wonderful world of starting and promoting a business on the internet. Read more


Posted by chris.auman | Filed Under Blog 

SEO Friendly Design: Part 4 – Text design and Page Elements

December 2, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Continuing our discussion of search engine friendly design considerations I offer you part 4 of a 6 part series on SEO friendly design:

Text design and page elements

When designing the text, information elements and links on your page consider the color, size and placement on the page. When I say this, I mean consider them visually and in the code. Many people consider this part of the process a “designer only” department but it’s not.

For example, your page titles should always be labeled with an H1 tag. The H1 tag not only presents the title of your page in a larger font but it also tells search engines that this text has a lot to do with the subject of the page. Most of the time it actually IS the subject of the page summed up in a couple words. Placing your target keywords within an H1 on the page will get you a long way to ranking well so make sure that your page titles are coded properly. Read more


Posted by chris.auman | Filed Under Blog 

SEO Friendly Design: Part 3 – Navigation

November 23, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Continuing our discussion of search engine friendly design considerations I offer you part 3 of a 6 part series on SEO friendly design and the important design aspects of website construction and how these practices relate to the subject of SEO.

Use text and css for navigation whenever possible.

Search engines love clear, keyword rich, text links. There is nothing more certain in the universe.

The second most certain thing is that designers like to create visually rich navigation schemes out of images. This is a mistake if you do it the wrong way. Your site navigation is a very important part of how search engines and users get around the site so you should make it extremely easy for them. Read more


Posted by chris.auman | Filed Under Blog 

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