Written by Brad on March 8, 2010 @ 12:15 PM. For the past few months I’ve been thinking about writing a series of posts on the effect of marketing/advertising’s on our society. At the most basic level, much of the inspiration for my designs come from studying how people interact with the world around them, whether that be how they scroll a page on a web site, flip open a brochure, or look at signage in the mall. For that reason, I’m starting this series; we’ll see how many articles we can come up with. The first installment: Saturday Morning Cartoons.
[full article] Written by on February 25, 2010 @ 4:46 PM. Website redesign requires special skills. It's not the same as creating a site from scratch. There is a lot more that needs to be considered. So, I thought I'd share a little bit about how Crashbox Creative handles website redesign using a recent redesign of the Warren Lamb & Associates website.
[full article] Written by on December 2, 2009 @ 11:03 AM. Most people think layout and design is all about making your marketing materials look pretty. That's not surprising. Most designers think the exact same thing. But, great layout and design does far more than that.
[full article] Written by on October 7, 2009 @ 8:15 AM. If you know a little bit about search engine optimization or have read our post on SEO Basics, you know that the title and meta description are critical elements of ranking well in the search engines, but there's more to a great title and description than just SEO.
Wait! Where are My Title and Description
The title and meta description are both found in what web designers call the header of your page. It's just a little bit of code that a web developer puts into your website. The code looks like this...
<title>Title and Description for Marketing and SEO | Crashbox Creative, LLC</title>
<meta description>Title and description are for more than just SEO. They are the only thing that gets searchers to click to your site. Craft them carefully.</meta>
[full article] Written by on September 29, 2009 @ 2:55 PM. Problem: Need for More Content
Search engine rank is a key concern for Discount Online Parts. High search engine rank means more traffic for the outdoor power equipment dealer and adding more pages means more opportunity to rank well in search engines.
Solution: Add a Blog to the DOP Website
One of the best ways to add more content to a website is by developing a blog.
When regularly maintained, a blog continually adds pages to a site. Adding pages makes a website fresh, and that's something that search engines like. Each page gives us the opportunity to optimize another page for ranking in the search engines.
[full article] Written by on September 22, 2009 @ 1:21 PM. Emarketer.com has released their study on where marketers are moving their marketing budgets, to ride out the economic downturn. The biggest moves in 2009 were to use electronic marketing tactics more.
Biggest Marketing Increases
According to the 2009 Media Survey Results & Analysis released by Emarketer.com,
- Investment in email marketing (emails and e-newsletters) is up 40%
- Interactive (blogging, social media, etc.) is up 31.3%
- And search marketing is up 23.5%
[full article] Written by on September 9, 2009 @ 12:04 PM. We design a lot of websites, and there’s one thing our clients are always asking about... SEO.
SEO basics boils down to two things: On-Page Optimization and Link Building.
On Page Optimization
On page optimization is about getting the right keywords on your site and getting them in the right positions on your page.
 The Right Keywords
Great keywords have two qualities. 1) Lots of people are searching for the terms, and 2) the terms bring people to your site who are actually interested in what you have to offer. If either of these conditions is missing, you don’t have a great set of keywords.
For example, the keyword phrase “healthcare” gets millions of searches every month. If your golf pro shop ranked high for that keyword phrase would get millions of views. Unfortunately, most of those visitors would not be interested in your pro shop. Even those who enjoy golf wouldn’t be interested because they’re searching for healthcare at the moment.
On the flip side, if you target the phrase “callaway golf club clone” as your keyword phrase, you’re definitely targeting the right group of people, and you might even rank #1 for this phrase. The problem is that no one is searching for it. If no one is searching for the term. You get no traffic.
You need to find a nice balance between these two factors to have an effective set of keywords.
[full article] Written by Brad on September 1, 2009 @ 11:33 AM. 4 Suggestions for Marketing from the American Marketing Association.
A recent survey from the AMA (see full survey here) picked the brains of marketers from around the country. The result boils down to 4 key concepts to get the most out of your marketing now and into the future.
1. Focus on your company’s message, not your price point
Sales are temporary. If you cut your prices now, you send the message that your product has always been overpriced. Instead, focus on what makes you different and valuable in your industry. Take a close look at your current message to see if there is a better way to connect with your target market.
[full article] Written by on August 25, 2009 @ 12:10 PM.  Several clients with brand new sites have emailed me asking why the can’t find their site in Google. So, I thought I’d take a little time to address that.
When Does Google Index?
Typically, Google’s spiders are on about a 10-day rotation. Every 10 days they’ll come back to your site to see if anything has changed. If something has changed, they’ll plan to come back in another 10 days. If nothing has changed, the spider will figure he doesn’t need to come back as frequently.
[full article] Written by on August 14, 2009 @ 9:08 AM. The new Crashbox website is live and we’re pumped.
More Services Than Ever Before
We’ve added a host of products and services to our quality web design, logo design and branding. Now you can get electronic newsletters, SEO, professional copy writing, print media, and lots more.
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