"Business Creative" Web Design

Stu Macik, Broken Sky Studio Web Design & Development, Branding, Marketing, and Technology Solutions

Another new project launch from Broken Sky Studio LLC this time for Linda Lupatkin of  The Imagemakers, Ink! LLC in Denver, Colorado. This project is a unique visual design with 3D style custom graphics and entirely hand coded with valid, semantic HTML5.

On the sites “Accolades” page a very cool background hover effect is utilized to highlight each testimonial from the others to make it easier to read since we had to use a smaller font size on the testimonials to fit them to our preferred page height.

Thanks Linda!

-Stu

Another new project launch from Broken Sky Studio LLC this time for Jo Myers of Jo Myers Real Estate in Denver, Colorado. This project is a clean custom design with custom graphics and entirely hand coded with valid, semantic HTML5.

One interesting aspect of the project was that we wanted an easy way for Jo to be able to add her listings to the site herself as she needed without using a CMS (content management system) which would have been overkill on this site. We did a little “out of the box” thinking and came up with the idea of using Tumblr for her listings since Tumblrs “photo” post turns a set of photos into a very nice slide show. Add a text post after the photos and the listing is complete.

If you’d like your next website project to use some out of the box” thinking. Give us a call at 303-800-7617, we’d love to hear from you.

Stu Macik, Broken Sky Studio Web Design & Development, Branding, Marketing and Technology Solutions

Ok, this is a really big deal. We’ve got some “thinking” to do here.

The content of your small business website is ultimately what’s going to determine if you’re going to have a new customer/client or not, so you need to have a well thought-out strategy as to what is most likely to “convert” a consumer who visits your site into profit for your business.

As is the case with most marketing this is not only not “easy”, it’s actually a big-time pain in the butt that most small business owners would rather not think about or deal with, but “think” you must. If you don’t have a strategy and a decent information architecture then you may be staring down failure when we all know you can be a success if you can just get the (right) word out.

Since failure is NOT an option for you, here are a few things to “think” about when putting together the copy for your website that have proven over and over again to increase conversions if applied in a calculated and consistent way.

First off, think about “pain points”. What exactly is your customer or client’s problem(s) that you can help solve? This is where it’s important to approach your website copy from the consumer’s point of view rather than as the owner of the business. If you can specifically state, in no uncertain terms, how you understand and can take away their “pain”…you can get their attention and be able to lead them into “stage two” of the strategy.

What’s stage two? Well, that’s when you answer the question…Why Should I Choose You?

I mean after all, there are ten other guys out there on Google that do what you do, what makes you so special? “Think” about it. You know your competition and what they do. Put that knowledge to use and explain, without going all nasty on the competition, how and why you can do what you do better.

Are you more experienced or skilled? Are you less expensive? Are you faster? Are you the better value (even though you’re not the cheapest)? Do you have a niche that perhaps the competition lacks? What makes YOU and YOUR BUSINESS different and better.

If you can communicate these things in a thoughtful and articulate way your small business WILL win on the web. That’s right…even in today’s tough market!

“Think” about it…and grow rich!

-Stu

Stu Macik, Broken Sky Studio Web Design & Development, Branding, Marketing and Technology Solutions

I love WordPress. So much so that I decided a while back to use it as my primary blogging platform. It’s absolutely the best when installed on your own domain and I recommend it without hesitation to all of my clients who want to add blogging to their arsenal of web marketing tools.

I also love Twitter. It’s become a “must use” in my opinion for any small business because of it’s ability to “instantly” disseminate information to potential customers and clients as well as the fact that all those tweets are now being indexed by Google.

The problem that I was running into is that there are a lot of times where I want to post a tip or some advice for small businesses that’s too long to tweet and too short to blog.  What’s a Web Marketer to do?

Well, the answer my friend is Tumblr. Tumblr flat out rocks at being the “in between” Twitter and a full blown blog. I can’t say for sure if that’s what the Tumblr guys were aiming for, but what they’ve come up with is an incredibly useful tool that I’ve now started to integrate into my clients web marketing portfolios.

Tumblr’s interface is incredibly intuitive (not to mention gorgeous) and excels at getting you up and running with a “Tumblog” in a very short time. Just fill out a few information fields, pick your theme, and start Tumblogging. You can even host your Tumblog on your own domain, if you choose, just like WordPress.

The free themes for Tumblr are very nice indeed, much nicer than say WordPress.com or Blogger themes. The premium themes are some of the best I’ve ever seen for any blogging or CMS platform, check out my Tumblog for Broken Sky Studio to see one of the premium themes in action.

Bottom line? You’ve got to check out Tumblr as a marketing tool for your small business. In my mind Tumblr, along with WordPress and Twitter have become the holy trinity of Blogging tools for small businesses looking for exceptional results from their online promotional efforts.

-Stu

Stu Macik, Broken Sky Studio Web Design and Development, Denver, Colorado

I just wanted to wish all the small and medium businesses (and business owners) out there a very happy and prosperous New Year in 2011.

At Broken Sky Studio (our web design, development and technology company) 2011 will the year that we will fully embrace the new HTML5 front end web development standards as an everyday “best practice”. We’ve decided to go in this direction because we believe, that with the pending release of a stable version of Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) early this year, that we want to give our clients more choices by giving them access to all the wonderful benefits that HTML5 brings to the table. HTML5 video (which is the video standard supported by Apple’s iPad and many other mobile devices that do not support Adobe’s Flash) being just one of the “becoming necessary” benefits of HTML5.

We also feel that by developing with HTML5 we’ll be able to build in superior progressive enhancement (easier to update and stay relevant in the future) in the sites that we design and develop even if the client doesn’t need all of the goodies that HTML5 provides right away. Of course, we’ll still build in backwards compatibility for older versions of Internet Explorer (all other browsers already support the new standards) but hopefully the day will soon come where all the older versions of IE become obsolete (as IE6 recently has) so that we as designers and developers can “move on” so to speak from having to support outdated technology that stifles what’s possible on the modern web.

At any rate, here’s to your business growing and prospering in 2011 and beyond!

-Stu