2013 Web Design Trends

Responsive Web Design

First and foremost, this one deserves recognition. It has changed the way we interact with websites as consumers because it no longer requires websites to be developed solely for mobile devices. Across tablets and smartphones, Responsive Design allows designers and developers to code websites in a way that creates a “responsive” action when a new browser size is detected. Furthermore, the web designer can dictate what should appear when the site is being viewed in a particular browser size. A great example of Responsive Web Design can be found at Weight Loss Rebels, a fitness website we recently launched.
Minimal Web Design

One of the most common finds on the internet now are some amazing uses of white space and minimalist design. Today, the goal of good design IS NOT to stuff as much content as you can on a site (we preach this to our clients), it’s about adding a little content that packs a big punch. One of my favorites lately is the website created for Ringle 39, a sailboat. Since I love sailing and I love great design, this one speaks to me. Minimal Web Design simply means the designers strip a design down to its fundamental elements, shapes, colors, textures and images.
Single Page Design

Single page designs are becoming more and more popular in the web design industry. Although they don’t have the SEO strength of a multi-page website, they allow website visitors to experience and learn about a company or product very easily. With Single Page Designs, the user generally clicks a navigation option and the site navigates the user, automatically, to the respective section of content. Single Page Designs go hand in hand with minimal designs because the combination of the two creates a great user experience. Our friend Google has done a nice job at a Single Page Design  with Atmosphere Maps.

Parallax Scrolling

Last, but certainly not least is Parallax Scrolling. Requiring some creative balls and a fair bit of problem solving, Parallax Scrolling can result in Hollywood like effects. Take a look at Head 2 Heart for a great example of how Parallax Scrolling can create an interactive look and feel withought sacrificing load time. I think you will see this style showing up more in the future.

If you know of some other design trends that should be added to the list, add them in the comments section.

WordPress websites are often attacked by malicious bits of code injected into the site by some pimply headed teenage hacker sitting in a dark room. This bit of code that they so generously added to your website is called Malware, and it can be a real pain. Before you get all excited and start considering jumping website platforms to something different, the most common reason WordPress websites come under these attacks is because the WordPress version, or plugins are not updated by the webmaster on a regular basis. Not updating to current plugin releases and WordPress versions can cause tiny holes in security, allowing the night dwelling hackers to fill it with Malware.

So what do you do when you type in your URL and are met by the nicely designed warning below?

Oh $4!t is probably the first response, but stay calm and read on.

Steps for Removing Malware from WordPress

1. Site Restore: If you update your site on a regular basis, simply revert back to a previously saved version and update your plugins once your site is back online. If you are not yet backing up your site regularly, we recommend Backup Buddy.

2. Create a backup: If you haven’t created any backups yet, go ahead and do so. You can create backups using the plugin mentioned above, or most other backup plugins available.

3. Site scan: The easiest way to get started in the right direction is to scan your site using a live site scanner such as the free one by Securi. Scan your site for Malware.

4. FTP acess: Open your preferred ftp software. A decent free open source option is Filezilla.

5. Search & Remove: With your Securi scan results open, access your site files using the FTP software. You will notice that Securi “discovers” the code that has been injected into your site, and will give you locations that the code was found. Access those files using the FTP software and search for the code identified. When you locate it, remove the malicious code from the file and save. Repeat this process until all the malicious code has been removed from the site.

6. Analyze: After removing the Malware from your website, run a new Securi live scan. If you located and removed everything, you will see that it cannot find any malicious files on the website, but the site is still being blacklisted by search engines. No worries, we will get to that.

7. Prevention: To prevent Malware from showing up on your WordPress site again, you need to do a little preventive maintenance. First, update your plugins and WordPress version. Second, check and edit your file permissions. Editing your file permissions will eliminate most potential attacks before they begin.

8. Beg forgiveness: Once you have completed the steps above, shoot on over to http://www.google.com/webmasters and either login or create an account. On the left side of the Webmaster tools screen click on Health then Malware. If your site has been blacklisted and it is now clean, submit the website for evaluation. A site evaluation from Google generally takes between 48 and 72 hours before your site will be taken off the blacklist

Some Other Removal Options

Anti-Malware Plugin by Eli – Download

Securi Malware Removal Service - Purchase

In April, Twitter made headlines for trying to address the growing spam problem on its platform by filing suit against companies utilizing the Twitter API to automate following and tweeting based on keywords.

Questions have arisen surrounding automation tools that allow users to manage their Twitter account and what qualifies as spam.

The process employed by the tools Twitter is targeting are similar to those used by many social media marketers. For example, some send automatic direct messages (Auto-DMs) to new followers. The question is is this a useful way to foster engagement or is it just another form of spam.

An Experiment

Some may argue that Auto-DMing shows interest in one’s followers and a source for increasing engagement. However, the actual goal appears to be focused on increasing click-through rates or increasing one’s followers.

An informal experiment using a dummy account to follow individuals interested in social media found that after following 938 different accounts, 68 direct messages were received from 54 different accounts with duplicate messages sent from some accounts.

Some of the more common exampled received from these accounts were:

• “Got a social media question 4 me? Or get lots of answer in my book”
• “Networking is the way to wealth they say, want to also connect on LinkedIn?”

At times it was difficult to tell the difference between the actual spam attempting to phish account data and those that were not. The account used in the study replied to every message possible with a question or witty response aimed to prompt another reply. Of the 32 responses sent, only two replied.

Professional Perspectives

Kate Gardiner, head of freelance web strategy firm Distill used to emply the practice of Auto-DMing as a strategy for acknowledging her audience.  She found that it helped to increase follower retention but had little affect on click-through rates. “We found we did better putting our great content for people to engage with consistently. While it took a lot more time and effort it seems to be worth it,” said Kate.

Leah Jones, a Vice President at Olson PR, found similar results as Kate but made a point that any one who employed Auto-DMing as part of their strategy didn’t do so under her direction. “Spam outside of email is in the eye of the beholder. If all of your users feel it’s spam, then it’s spam. I don’t see anyone on the receiving end of Auto-DMs who want to receive it. It offers very little value if any,” said Leah.

Based on their experience, Kate and Leah found that using Auto-DMs was not a viable strategy for engaging followers on Twitter.

Everything In Moderation

However, at times, automation of social media can sometimes be helpful. For example, pre-writing and scheduling tweets can help to optimize the dissemination of your content and create consistency that followers can rely on.

One of the most valuable aspects of social media is the ability to connect with your audience in a meaningful way. This benefit can be lost all together by using too much automation and lead to frustration among followers if they reach out and never receive a response. Social media marketers will benefit more from publishing and sharing great content and being more human than they will by sending Auto-DMs.

[Sources: Twitter, Beth McShane; Image credits: Jim Capaldi, Mai Le, Highways Agency]

One great example is Whole Foods Market, based in Austin, Texas. The supermarket chain, specializing in natural and organic foods, also promotes local, sustainable agriculture. It has built a large following for its Pinterest page without solely relying on beautiful photos for its pins.

Go Beyond Just Business

A common beast practice for approaching any social media platform is to behave like a person rather than a corporation. A person is much more than his or her profession and your social media presence should be the same. Whole Foods has implemented this idea in several ways. First, Whole Foods has pinboards dedicated to its charitable programs. For example, the board entitled “Whole Planet Foundation” features images of microcredit clients and their goods. Some pins also link to websites that allow followers to donate to microcredit programs in specific regions. In addition, Whole Foods created boards supporting Earth Day and recycling which are relevant to their commitment to sustainability.

Whole Foods also has two pinboards to showcase their local pride,  #WhyAustin and Texans are Pinning it BIG!. While the content of these pins has little relation to what you purchase at Whole Foods, it creates a bigger picture for the brand image.

Know Your Audience

Some believe that because of Pinterest‘s heavy focus on food, home decor, and fashion that the platform is not as useful outside of those industries. But those subjects don’t have to be restrictive. It’s true that Whole Foods has an advantage in that its merchandise fits into those topics, however the company hasn’t limited its pins to recipes and meals. They have boards dedicated to kitchen design, gardening ideas, and food tech. With this approach, Whole Foods has spread their pins across both popular and niche topics creating broader appeal. By tracking which images are most frequently re-pinned or liked, the brand can gain a clear ides of what their audience finds most interesting.

Stay Engaged

Once you have a clear understanding of your followers and what they are interested in, maintain those connections. For example, Whole Foods follows 1,111 Pinterest users. Some of those are relevant companies like Lindt Chocolate, or food related pages, however the majority are regular people. One of the key factors to Whole Foods’ success is that they actually communicate with the people they follow. By looking at their recent activity, it can be seen that they regularly re-pin images from pages they follow. They also reply to comments left on their images. Interaction is imperative to keeping followers interested and engage in your pins. It is also possible to allow others to post to your pinboards. This can create a sense of community and sharing, reduces the corporate atmosphere, and adds a human element to your Pinterest presence.

Keep Up With Regular Pinning

This probably seems obvious, but one of the most important parts of building a strong presence in social media is regularly updated. Pinning regularly will keep your brand in the forefront of you followers’ minds and makes it easier for them to engage with you. Whole Foods has found a good balance by adding images several times weekly without generating so much content that it overwhelms the pins of their followers friends.

[Image credits: Whole Foods, becky becks, Max Wolfe, zeevveez, Emilian Robert Vicol]

That brings you to a link building approach as a webmaster, business owner, or online entrepreneur as you commence 2012. The following are the top five link building suggestions you’ll absolutely require this year to improve your SEO:

1. Multiple, Applicable Links

Everyone desires a million links to their blog, and trust me, with a little cash, you can get them. There are many linkbuilding deals at site such as Fiverr.com and The Hoist SEO which will sell you virtually hundreds of hyperlinks. Trouble is, Google is searching for quality, not quantity, meaning pages linking to yours need to be complementary, inside the same marketplace area, plus in relation to the content. Your landing page must somehow be an offshoot of the inspirations presented found on the linking website. If that website has to do with fine foods and a page is addressed to unmarried parents, that link probably will not help you a great deal and will more likely damage your Google rank.

So just how can you get them?

* Contact site owners wanting to swap hyperlinks for starters, generally completed inside a resources page. This really is a sturdy technique plus has been about for a long time.

* Leave blog comments on posts with similar information as yours, particularly authority websites (more about this later).

* Distribute original articles for publishing on information plus blog websites similar content to yours.

* Post relevant links to your website on social media portals like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. The best are links to blog columns or landing pages relevant to Twitter trends or hash-tag lists and LinkedIn discussion groups.

2. Neighbors Like You

The world on online searches is putting more focus on local websites. Even when a organization is not constricted to where we live (like an online SEO website which can function for customers globally), it happens to be more beneficial than ever before for neighborhood businesses to be linking to yours. Socialize in a Chamber of Commerce plus motivate link exchange, keeping in mind, the more synonymous these businesses are to yours (plus they’re location), the greater off you’re. If a SEO establishment is within San Diego, motivate the neighborhood hyperlinks to state “SEO San Diego” to confirm a link is relevant to their audience.

3. Submit Your Work

There are 2 main types of authority websites on the web: big, very trafficked, content particular websites (consider Inc.com, Wall Street Journal), plus educational and governmental websites. Search engines continue to provide lots of credit to college .edu websites plus .gov pages, especially the federal government.

The main methods to get links from these websites are to offer useful, one-of-a-kind content through articles or to post comments to content already published on these sites. If you’re fortunate enough to be published on a high-authority site, it can do amazing things for  your link building efforts.

Don’t waste your time with auto-posting, that will write nonsense responses. They’ll post, but in many cases be deleted by the site monitor. You are able to browse the net and discover listings of wise PR .edu and .gov sites (ones with a PR of 4, 5, 6, 7) which enable for forum postings with links. Buyer beware and frequently test the websites, applying PR Checker.

4. Anchor Text Strategy

This really is something you are able to conveniently control utilizing Article Marketing techniques, where you submit content for syndication plus publication on excellent ranking websites. The words inside the hyperlink, called anchor text, need to be relevant to both the page found on the website which is featuring the function and to the destination site which the link goes to. That means that, in the event you are linking “click here,” you’re skipping half the advantage of the linking technique.

How does this function? Going back to the illustration of the fine cooking website, we publish a post about that website regarding the favorite techniques to employ cooking sherry, then throughout the body of the post we link a red wine reduction recipe to, a website which consists of precisely that.

5. Landing Pages

Not only should you landing page be relevant to the link. You should moreover be linking to numerous pages about a url, commonly called deep hyperlinks, not merely the homepage. This method should be simple when the url is structured correctly with a product page for every product plus an post for every idea you are linking to. This informs the various search engines that the domain is material wealthy on many pages, plus which is essential to you generating relevance.

Is doing these things simple? Nope, but that’s exactly the point. You are doing it the right way.

Social media. You better sit down for this one. After a website is created, you have to tell people about it. Social media is the best way to to it. Shocking, right? It’s not surprising, but in a such a fast paced world it is easy to forget or overlook the simplest things.

Be sure to include your website in all online profiles and participate in these communities. If you create a new blog post, share a link on Facebook, tweet about it, and utilize the social sharing buttons embedded on eery post. It may feel a little crude to +1 or Digg your own content, but there is nothing wrong with being proud of your work and it encourages others to do the same.

For the most part, social media has replaced mass emails and provided a platform for easily fostering connections. Make the most of it and have some fun while you’re at it. Your presence on social media helps define who you are and exposes you to new people you may not have encountered in any other circumstance.

Join a blogging network. If you have to pay to be included on a blog network, forget it. Paid for networking sites are a violation of Google’s Terms of Service and can crush your site’s ranking and cause it to be deindexed entirely from search engines. That is definitely not worth the risk. However, there are reputable blog networks out there that will enhance your sites visibility and provide a forum to engage in conversations with other bloggers. Look for one that is a good fit for your website and actively participate in the community for maximum benefits.

Make unique contributions to other sites. An excellent way to boost your visibility is to propagate the web with original content. A multitude of Web 2.0 properties are out there to help you expand your reach as well as promote your website. The key is to create unique, high quality contributions.

Search engines penalized duplicate content because it appears as spam. Despite supporting your primary website, these posts should also be able to stand on their own. Uploading photos to Flickr and videos to YouTube can also help drive a considerable amount of traffic to your website if they are done well.

Link to other sites.  A great way to enhance your content and build relationships with other websites is to post external links.

Many times, when you share a link to someone’s content they will visit your post. If they enjoy what they find, they may become a regular visitor or even link back to your content in the future. However, you cannot do this willy nilly. The link should be relevant to the content you are posting.

Link building has benefits beyond increased traffic, it is also a great way to generate ideas for content. Everyone is creatively blocked at some point and exploring others ideas is a a great way to get your own ideas flowing. Be inspired by another and add something meaningful to the conversation.

Sometimes we forget the most common sense steps for promoting websites. All of the tools are at your finger tips it is just a matter of the time and effort to use them. Taking part in global conversations across the web will do much more than enrich your site, it will in enrich your life.

If you reside outside of the ivory walls of the Fortune 500, it will occasionally appear like Google provides big brands all breaks. This isn’t merely sour grapes – certain examples are especially public. When JC Penney and Overstock got a slap on the wrist for intentional link manipulation, it was difficult to not feel slighted.

There’s been a great deal of debate regarding how Google, both manually plus algorithmically, might prefer big brands, nevertheless the debate misses anything more fundamental. Since the beginning of the web, the eventual benefit of big brands was just a matter of time. It was inevitable, why it’s not going away, plus what that you can do to compete.

The Wild West

In the early days of the public web, building a url was like heading into the Wild West – all we required to stake a claim became a wagon along with a frontier spirit, because lengthy because we survived the cholera, dysentery, starvation, plus bear attacks (i.e. understanding HTML)…

Sure, we didn’t receive various visitors, nevertheless at smallest it was quiet plus nobody minded in the event you wallpapered home with dancing hamsters. Then, along came the various search engines. At first, it was awesome – the pioneers got all visitors. With the allure of free land plus free consumers, though, the quiet didn’t last…

Much to the dismay of early adopters, it didn’t stop at a limited friends. Pretty shortly, folks began to create real funds online, and along came.

The Gold Rush

Big brands didn’t rush to the web early about considering they merely didn’t have any cause to. They let the pioneers do the work of attracting the maps plus clearing the brush, till the initial prospector noticed gold. Whenever online-only brands began to draw sky-high IPOs plus generate advertisement revenue, the big brands took notice, as well as the dot-com bubble began to inflate.

Before this becomes a history lesson, allow me cut to the point. The dangers in almost any uncharted territory are usually taken by the individuals that have nothing to reduce, plus that’s not the big brands. As soon because there was clearly gold to be had, the businesses with funds plus energy prepared their move to claim it. The early movers had a benefit, however, it wasn’t destined to last forever.

Googling for Gold

So, what does all this have to do with Google? While Google possibly has produced changes over the means which favor big brands (like 2009’s “Vince” update), most changes inside the search land certainly really reflect the broader development of the web. In other words, because big brands followed the gold, thus did Google.

Over time, signals which favor brand-building have naturally found their method into the algorithm. Let’s step back from any certain algorithm update plus consider the development of ranking data since the early days of look engines.

Declaring the “first” search engine is an argument waiting to happen, however, I’m going to pin the release of mainstream search about the time of Excite in 1993. The early engines relied virtually only on on-page ranking data, like keywords inside page titles, content, plus (at the time) META tags. This leveled the playing field for a great deal of little companies, because anybody may create content that has been keyword-targeted. Big brands may exert their influence by spending additional money, nevertheless the direct influence of their brands on on-page data was very weak.

Needless to say, the drawback of on-page data is the fact that they were additionally convenient to game, as well as the early search engines suffered from a great deal of spam plus standard issues. Then, along came Larry ans Sergey plus their PageRank algorithm, that relied about hyperlinks to rank sites. In 1998, Google officially established to the public.

Link-based rankings gradually gave big brands more of an advantage – their offline presence naturally led to news articles and write-ups, and they began to collect strong link profiles. I call this influence “Medium” because it was mostly indirect. Link buying was (and is) strongly discouraged, so big brands had to work through one-off channels, such as viral marketing.

What’s important to note here is that Google didn’t create PageRank and the link-graph specifically to hand big brands an advantage. They created PageRank as a response to the declining quality of search results powered only by on-page signals.

In 2009, with the success of social media sites like Twitter, Google launched real-time search. Soon after, both Google and Bing would begin to integrate social signals into the algorithm.

While the impact of social signals on ranking is still evolving, these signals are directly influenced by the power of a brand. Offline advertising drives brand awareness and mentions and this directly leads to social media activity. As social mentions begin to affect ranking more and more, brands now have a direct channel for their influence to impact SEO.

Step 1 – Get Over It

So, what are you able to do regarding the benefit which big brands have inside the evolving web land? First, some tough love – you need to overcome it. This was inevitable, plus whether Google was complicit to several degree doesn’t matter. The web was destined to reflect the offline planet, plus inside the offline planet big brands are wealthy plus effective. We had a good run, however, it was nave to anticipate which to last forever.

Step 2 – Act Like a Brand

Ok, so Step 1 wasn’t very helpful. I see too many SEO situations where people obsess about the competition and what’s “fair” – it’s time to step back and learn from the big brands. If your entire focus is on a few on-page factors and manual link-building, you’ll live and die by the algorithm. Big brands are part of the public consciousness – they bombard us on multiple channels, and don’t put all of their eggs in the Google basket.

Obviously, you can’t spend billions of dollars simply trying to implant your brand in people’s brains, but you can tap into the brand awareness you already have. Somewhere, your product or service – if it’s at all decent – has fans and evangelists. Engage with them, reward them, and start thinking about your brand as more than just Top 10 rankings. Social media is a perfect place to start – stop just Tweeting links and begging for Likes and build relationships. In other words, stop focusing on the direct SEO impact so much and start looking at the health of your brand outside of search.

Step 3 – Be a Pioneer (Again)

Search is changing faster than ever. I’ve seen too many companies recently that rely on Google for their survival and have watched their rankings slip over the past year or two. Many of these are good businesses run by good people, but they’re also businesses who made good on SEO years ago and, at some point, started to coast. Meanwhile, the internet changed, the algorithm changed, and the competition changed. If you’re resting on your laurels from 2005, you’re in for a wake-up call. It may not be tomorrow, but it will happen, and it will happen quickly and without mercy.

The early movers had an advantage on the internet because they were willing to take risks that the big brands couldn’t. You can’t live forever in the glory days of being the first person to set up shop. It’s time to branch out again – get active on social channels, including new and unproven channels. Try out new tags and on-page approaches (like Schemas). They won’t all work, but when they do, you’ll be somewhere that the big brands aren’t yet. Your greatest power as a small to mid-sized business is agility. You can set up a social profile or add a few pages to your site without a committee meeting, budget approval, and 6 months of deliberation. That’s a 6-month head-start, but to get it you have to move now.

Let’s say you’re piloting a tiny airplane to a holiday hotspot. The travelers anticipate that you will land the airplane securely and without incident.

Visitors have the same expectations for your articles whenever they visit a link.

Meet their expectations to gain their trust, grow the conversion rate, and build credibility by guaranteeing their landing plus remaining on your website.

10 Traits of Quality Landing Pages (and Websites Too!)

1. Relevance: The most important quality is the relevance a landing page or webpage has to the post or page that the consumer arrived from. This really is important whenever search engines are taken into consideration. Like us, search engines should guarantee a advantageous consumer experience by providing search results relevant to the user’s search question. Hence, the content is indexed by relevance plus possibly booted whenever irrelevant.
2. Navigation: Ease of use plus intuitive navigation are paramount. Skip difficult techniques like pop-ups or different techniques which either prevent or delay the consumer from exiting the url or landing page. Let fresh content be the key attraction to keep visitors on site plus motivate their return.
3. Transparency: Create an “About Us” page on your site which is accessible from a landing page. Illustrate the what, where, when, and why of the company or service plus include photos of the key members of the company. Be transparent plus include background info about the organization to build trust.
4. FAQ: Develop a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page about the webpage to expect issues regarding any goods, services, etc. you offer. This might aid leverage a credibility and you may become a point of reference for the audience.
5. Blog: Establish a blog to heighten the exposure, in addition to provide the visitors insight into the character of you or the company. Putting a face plus tone to a name is a good method to establish a relationship with the visitors.
6. Opt-In: Give visitors a reason to return and stay in touch with you and your business or service with a universal opt-in to build a list of subscribers for newsletters or alerts to new posts, ebooks, specials, etc.
7. Shop: If you have items for sale on your website:
   • Safety: Ensure a secure payment system. Anytime credit card info is requested, customers are naturally suspicious. Try reliable brands, like PayPal.
   • Security: Obtain rights to include safety seals from reputable online customer security programs like the Better Business Bureau, Chamber of Commerce, and/or SSL certificate services to confirm further security.
   • Service: Include a customer support contact page or contact link to guarantee visitors could address issues or supply comments/concerns.
   • Quality: Include top-quality pictures of the products; take it a step further with close-ups plus size comparisons when appropriate.
   • Transparent: Clearly document the Return and Refund Policy.

    

8. Feedback: Offer a page where visitors could post suggestions or ratings. Reviews and suggestions might eventually further the credibility plus grow audience involvement.
9. Content: Related to 1 and 5, providing special plus relevant content is key to building a fast audience (plus fast customers), and improving a ranking with search engines. Be consistent plus useful by providing fresh content regularly.
10. Overall: Consider the total aesthetics. Compare a webpage or landing page to sites or landing pages you’ve visited – both credible plus dubious. Does yours look credible? Does it function correctly? If not, establish an total well-designed, user-friendly, and trustworthy site or landing page. Trust is everything!

Visitors anticipate an conveniently navigable, wealthy, relevant, standard link. Assist create their landing secure by utilizing these 10 great attributes to amazing landing pages plus sites.

Want to learn more about turning your old beat up website into a good website design? Maybe you are starting a new venture and need a new website designed. Have a look at our packages and pricing. We are an affordable web design company that works with small and growing businesses to bring them online in a BIG way.

Below are 8 businesses which have selected the cover photograph as a method to show off their products, their people plus their missions about Facebook.

1. The New York Times

If personnel is a driving force behind your success, focusing on your employees can be a powerful image for your fans. If personnel is the driving force behind your success, focusing on your team can be a powerful image to present to your fans. The New York Times aced this approach with a wonderfully organized staff photograph which shows applauding employees standing about 2 floors of its newsroom. It’s an particularly effective image to employ for a brand which is predominantly focused about words, plus serves because a reminder of the human element which powers among the world’s top journalism entities.

2. Converse

Photo collage has proven a prevalent approach for the cover photograph. It’s an simple method to combine many facets of the brand, that is absolutely appealing whenever we run a diversified firm or market a wide range of products.

Converse offers a excellent illustration of the strategy with a grid of its boots used inside a range of artsy shots. The color filters plus fuzziness inside every pic provide an total retro vibe to the collage that’s perfect for the classic sneaker brand. This Page is reminder to consider regarding the way you may use technologies like Photoshop or Instagram to provide additional character to the brand’s images.

3. Ben & Jerry’s

The ice cream organization from Vermont has constantly been experienced at advertising both its community relations initiatives as well as its delicious product. Ben & Jerry’s is a brand with sturdy name recognition, and signifies the business will depend about its trademark visual design for a Facebook cover picture.

Its easy shape matches the vibe of the branding — no need for words should you have perfect images! The Page header doesn’t even mention the product till the final line of the Regarding page. Should you have nationally-known branding, employ it to the benefit to create a cover image which looks more approachable plus less blatantly like advertising.

4. Game of Thrones

One bold image could communicate volumes regarding the tone plus fashion of the product, inside this case, a tv show. HBO’s “Game of Thrones” created an image of the hand grasping a thorny crown. The harshness fits the show’s gritty, no-holds-barred fantasy planet.

The accompanying text is concise, complementing instead of detracting within the total impact of the cover photograph. Just as with Ben & Jerry’s above, simplicity is the friend. And this show proves which we don’t want a nationally-known brand campaign because a foundation for effective imagery.

5. Smirnoff US

There are numerous designers generating creative positioning of the cover photograph plus profile, however Smirnoff US is regarded as the greatest. The vodka brand generally favors the ambiance of the sexy young person’s party inside its advertising, and the cover pic for the U.S. company is not a exception. However the unexpected 3D impact of the hand reacjing out found on the left to grab the bottle inside its profile picture adds a whimsical twist to the otherwise standard advertising approach.

6. Zipcar

Brands relying on inspirational pictures are a dime a dozen. That’s to not state the approach doesn’t have its merits. However why not elevate the standard inspirational picture with smart text? Zipcar nailed it with this photograph of 2 females about a beach at sunset overlaid with all the text “Un-zipping-believable” plus “Get out and zip.” The copy conveys a carefree attitude of adventure up against the quiet force of the picture, creating it more powerful than the shot will be about its own.

7. Sharpie

Consider showcasing the product inside an unexpected light. Sharpie has a well-known product frequently associated with an workplace context, however the brand decided to highlight the potential for the creative uses.

Many visitors are impressed at the cover photo’s detailed pen drawings performed about paper cups. Art created by this unusual mixture of media lends a quirkiness plus individuality we wouldn’t naturally associate with workplace supplies.

8. 826 National

The appropriate photograph could highlight the mission perfectly, whether or not you’re marketing anything. This image for nonprofit 826 National shows the group’s focus about kids plus literacy, nevertheless has an extra charm which permeates the entire business. A boy lost the tooth carrying up a book with a story regarding the Tooth Fairy? Adorable. The lesson here is the fact that a honest presentation of the human interest side can be extremely touching (plus effective).

Let us help you build a stellar Facebook page. Click here to find out more.

[Image credit: Marco Gomes]

The Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth has studied the social media behavior of 7 of the best 25, an 28 of the best 100 firms within the 2011 Inc. 500 list.

Its newest report has revealed that blogging has declined for the first-time amidst Inc 500 businesses. Just 37 % of those studied employ a blog in their advertising efforts, compared to 91 % which utilize social media.

Unsurprisingly, Facebook is the best platform amidst the group with 74 % utilizing it. The social network narrowly beat out LinkedIn, that is chosen by 73 %. Twitter rounds out the best 3 with 64 percent.

90 percent of Inc. 500 firms believe social media is significant for brand awareness plus standing administration, 88 percent employ these tools for generating internet traffic, and 81 percent depend about it for lead generation.

While 92 percent of those polled accepted to acquiring blogging effective, the utilization of blogs has dropped to 37 percent from 50 percent in 2010. Fortune 500 firm blogs are furthermore found on the low side at 23 percent.

Social media is growing plus more marketers are turning into it to aid with firm objectives. But, whilst interest is excellent, we don’t suggest that you ditch the blog to focus completely about social platforms. Instead, it’s value re-evaluating the objectives plus determining how these tools — blogs included — will allow you to achieve them.

[Image credit: Panasonic]