 |
Did you know that Incitrio designs and programs ecommerce websites? Whether you’re looking for a way to showcase your product or want to sell seats at an event, Incitrio is ready and able to design and program the perfect site for you.
Take a look at one of our latest ecommerce sites, Pharma-Choice.com.
Add comment May 10th, 2012
The Social ExpressIncitrio’s latest work in web design for The Social Express™ combines fun with a professionalism to create a memorable experience for each visitor. By developing a blog strategy and showcasing the software product’s best features, Incitrio created a website that is functional and compelling. Most importantly, the site produces results.
At just over 4 sales/day with limited marketing, the client is deliriously happy with the results. Incitrio has built a strong platform from which to launch compelling marketing campaigns that are guaranteed to convert.
And, as if conversions and a bounce rate of under 40% weren’t enough, the client has complete control over content and images through the WordPress integration. The client has taken this control and run with it, blogging often and tweaking content as need be.
Does your company’s website send the right message? A custom website from Incitrio provides a great user experience (and looks pretty awesome, too). Integrating your website into WordPress allows you to edit content, saving you from costly maintenance fees and allowing you to be the boss of your own website.
Take control of your website in 2012. From now through February 15th, receive a free custom Facebook page ($750 value) when you sign a contract to create your custom WordPress website with Incitrio. Request a quote >
Add comment January 24th, 2012
2011 is almost over and all of us at Incitrio have really enjoyed working with you this past year. We had the opportunity to work on some really amazing projects. And, while it’s hard to pick just a few, we managed to narrow down our Top 5 Favorite Projects of 2011. They’re in no particular order. (Hey, it was hard enough to pick just 5!)
We are extremely proud of the work we did for The Social Express, an innovative software for children with autism, Asperger’s, and other social learning challenges. We designed and programmed a fully functional WordPress website with fully integrated ecommerce functionality. Within three weeks of launching the website, there were over 1,000 downloads of the lite version (an average of 75 downloads a day), 1,000 unique visitors, and a bounce rate under 40%. The best part? Visitors spent an average of 1½–2 minutes on the site. Not only is the site engaging, but with minimal online marketing, it’s already generating 4 sales per day.
Visit the site at: http://thesocialexpress.com/
Have you ever felt that your company is complicated and your process is challenging for people to understand? You’re not alone. Many companies face the same issue, including CRS Financial Management Solutions. Founder and CEO Marilyn Magett was producing amazing results for her clients, but offered so many services for such varied scenarious that potential clients had difficulty appreciating how she could help them. Incitrio created a transmedia video that combined a motion graphic, an interview with Ms. Magett, and testimonials from three clients to create a 24 hours a day/7 days a week sales asset. The video explains CRS’ offerings in a visually appealing, straightforward manner, leading to better pre-qualification and higher conversion.
Watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1BhaeUuFmA
The Jewish Federation of San Diego County came to Incitrio to rebrand the organization and set the stage for the 2011-2012 campaign. The organization has strong roots in the community and needed collateral that told their story in a more compelling manner. They were a joy to work with, and we loved designing and writing their Program and Impact stories as well as thier Case for Giving brochure. The collateral will be an integral part of their 2012 fundraising and outreach efforts.
See an example PDF here: http://www.incitrio.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/JFS-100_GivingBrochure_v.10.3_FINAL_LR.pdf
Some websites need that extra something special because they offer a unique experience. Nulu Languages is just such a site. Nulu Languages is an online software designed to help foreign language teachers and students connect and learn in new, more effective ways. Incitrio designed the user experience section of the Nulu website, everything before the user logs in. And, the SAAS UI Design, everything after the login. Post login, students can read articles and respond, review flashcards, and discuss content with their fellow classmates. Teachers can assign readings and monitor students’ progress. And, administrators can manage multiple classes, teachers, and languages.Throughout the design process, the Incitrio team also participated in the software ideation process to suggest feature enhancements and functionality benefits. Pre-login, the site acts as a visual sales power, educating the prospective client as to the benefit of this new way of language learning. The site officially launches at the beginning of 2012 and already has several thousand students registered.
View an example PDF here: http://www.incitrio.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/NULU-Website-.pdf
The City Heights Partnership for Children is a collective impact created to combine the forces of many powerful organizations and leverage their impact on the City Heights neighborhood of San Diego. Incitrio performed a series of focus groups with key audiences culminating in a brand positioning strategy, name, and, ultimately, a logo that over 150 people agreed upon. No small feat! The name and logo represents the core values of empowerment, collaboration, nurturing, and trust. It is our sincere hope that this initiative will pave the way for future collective impact initiatives in other similarly impacted neighborhoods.
View the logo here: http://cityheightslife.com/?attachment_id=711
Add comment December 28th, 2011
Discovering New Content on a WebsiteAt Incitrio, we have the opportunity to look through our clients’ sites and discover the wealth of information provided. We absorb as much as we can from each site in order to become experts in the field. Then, we can make educated recommendations on how to improve a website. In order to make a relevant and appropriate recommendation, we must spend a great deal of time on a website to discover the content on each page or blog post. Navigating through the site is generally easy, but takes time. Just like a normal visitor to the site, we must rely on links to find what we are looking for and to discover new content.
Links come in many forms, such as buttons, images, and anchor text. In order to find the content we are looking for, we rely on visual cues such as underlined text. Images relevant to content are often linked as well. So we visually rely on our cursor turning into a small hand to decide if an image is linked and will take us to another page. Needless to say, discovering all of the pages on a website can be time consuming. But there is a simpler, more user friendly way to navigate a website: a sitemap.
There are two types of sitemaps: an HTML sitemap and an XML sitemap. A sitemap is a page on your website that hosts all of the links to each page on your site. A sitemap is a perfect place for a visitor to quickly access all of the content available on your website. Sitemaps help visitors who have difficulty finding specific information through conventional navigation methods. Although not every visitor to your website needs to view your sitemap, it helps those visitors that need additional tools to navigate your site. Often times, that small percentage can mean the difference between attracting the lead and making a sale. Any website owner looking to improve user experience and come up higher in search engine results should consider creating an HTML sitemap. It’s easy to create and makes your site more complete. In the big picture, a website that manages to cater to as many people as possible will be the website that attracts more visitors and keeps them from bouncing off of a site to a competitor’s site.
Search engines love HTML sitemaps because it is a page that provides all of the content on your website, served on a silver platter. Normally, search engine “crawlers” or “bots” (those little pieces of code that scan your website and report their findings back to search engines) scan your website from the top to the bottom. The bots arrive at your site, look through your content, and attempt to discover what the site is about. If a bot comes across a link, it follows the link and then scans that page. By adding an HTML sitemap, you provide all of the links to existing pages on your website, making the work easier for the search bots. The bots still deploy throughout the rest of your website through conventional methods, but you reduce the risk of them failing to index important information before they bounce to another site.
Often times, pages aren’t indexed completely. Bots sometimes abandon a website before scanning the entire site. Bots usually leave a site because inefficient code gets in the way (such as lengthy tables, too much javascript, or there are too many links pointing to outside sites). In addition to adding an HTML sitemap, you can also keep bots from abandoning your site by adding “no-follow” attributes to links, optimizing your website for table-less designs, and reducing the code in your head tag. You can also create an XML sitemap.
An XML sitmap is a sitemap created specifically for search engines. It is a file that notifies search engines when new content is added to your site. An XML sitemap, unlike an HTML sitemap, ignores all design. An XML sitemap is only a list of code. You won’t find any traces of branding. There are no logos embedded in an XML page. It is simply a page search engines look at before they see the rest of your site. It saves search engines time, greatly increasing the chance that bots will scan and index your entire site. You can directly submit your XML sitemap to various search engines. If the sitemap is dynamic, bots see if there are any new links posted and if a page was recently edited. The bots then continue on to scan the new new and edited content first before moving on to the rest of the site. This method is the most efficient way search engines can index your website’s content.
To get the best results, create both an HTML and XML version of your sitemap. Include your HTML sitemap in your navigation. Many companies include the HTML sitemap in the footer of their site, while some websites with more complicated navigation may include it in the main navigation (towards the top of their site). Either way, make sure visitors can locate the sitemap. You don’t need to link your XML sitemap to your navigation. Adding it to your website and submitting it to search engines is enough for it to make a difference. Of course, it is a good idea to keep an eye on your monthly analytics to see if adding the sitemap(s) increases traffic to your site. If your website has been difficult to index, you may be facing the consequences with reduced online visibility. By adding an XML and/or HTML sitemap, you could potentially help increase traffic to your site. Remember that a sitemap is only one piece of the puzzle. For best results be sure to follow all of the best practices possible when creating your website.
Incitrio is a San Diego based marketing firm specializing in web design, branding, search engine optimization, email marketing, and social media. We work hard for each client to provide visible results. If you own a website and think you may need help in attracting visitors or need help in improving a visitor’s experience on your site, contact us today at 858.202.1822. We appreciate interesting comments and invite you to participate in the conversation.
Add comment October 13th, 2011
When one thinks of today’s hottest and most successful companies, one of the first things that come to mind is their logo. A company logo can say a lot about a company. In 3 seconds or less, it can tell you where the company was, where it is, and where it is headed. Communicating these company-specific attributes in such a short period of time is not an easy task. It takes asking the right questions, finding out who is the target audience, and it requires the study of all past branding efforts.
If done successfully, a logo can become ingrained in the minds of your market, being easily recognized no matter the size, or upon the background in which it is placed. A successful logo will set the intended tone of your company, and will communicate the most important aspects of your brand quickly and efficiently. Unfortunately, many companies who have never considered the benefits of a professional logo, or who have relied on a stock image and refer to it as their “logo,” have potentially lost out on years of positive branding opportunities. These lost branding opportunities add up to a significant loss of company value when one understands this philosophy: Your brand is only as strong as your clients say it is.
This philosophy is why a unique symbol that relates to your market is important. It is suppose to represent everything about your company, and is your seal of authority. It is the face of your company when no customer representative or sales person is around. It must not only look good, but most also tell a story. For companies who have employed an unprofessional logo for many years, a logo redesign is necessary to capture the attention of new clients, while maintaining the recognition necessary to avoid confusing current clients.
Logo Redesign Process
A strong brand can double the value of a business specifically because of the intrinsic value between your brand and your clients. Can you imagine if Nike stopped using their famous logo on all of their products? Stocks would plummet as high school kids and athletes around the world would abandon Nike for the next best competitor. A change in logo would lead to confusion causing many people to think twice before buying a Nike product, and would keep many from buying simply because of the fact that many people buy Nike products for the logo alone. For these people, the Nike logo is more than just a simple stroke, it is a symbol of status, of athletic prowess, and a symbol of fashion. The perception of the company is very strong not only because of their millions spent in marketing, but because their brand is also committed to constant improvement. By improving their products each season, testing, and modifying accordingly; Nike has successfully positioned itself as the premiere sports apparel company in the entire world. Customer loyalty is through the roof because they love the way Nike shoes feel and they like the way they look. Year after year, customers return because they know that the company is committed to excellence in design, in quality, and in athletic fashion. Athletes buy their shoes because they know that Nike has spent many years researching the best ways to design and manufacture athletic shoes. They trust their feet to only the best. In addition, the shoes look fast, making the athlete feel fast. It is only natural that the Nike logo would look fast too. Like a wing in flight, the ultra sleek swish looks almost weightless. Even this logo, as simple as it is, tells a story about the company and about the people wearing it.
A logo cannot do the job alone. It takes a repetitive positive experience with a company and the repeated visual experience with the logo to build value. If you have been working with a logo that does not cater to your market, you have likely had to work really hard elsewhere to pass along your message to your client base. Wouldn’t it be nice to let your logo express this message for you? Companies who feel they have a great product or service have the most to gain from a logo redesign. Implementing a new logo within a framework geared around a positive customer experience will only provide positive results. In this situation, a logo that builds on your past efforts and that caters to your existing client base will prevent confusion and will help you to gain a higher level of recognition in the competitive marketplace. A new logo redesign will give you the base on which to build your marketing platform. It will give you the direction you need and will allow you to make sure you are sending the right message. You will also gain the confidence to place your logo on any surface, knowing it will look good, and that it will stand out.
When properly designed, a logo can last a lifetime. It is one of the most important and most necessary steps when creating a company or when updating your company brand. It is unfortunate that many business owners still do not recognize the importance of a professional logo, rather choosing a cheap alternative, not understanding the long term value it will add to their everyday business. In today’s economy, presentation still matters. You do not send your sales team to an important meeting wearing mis-matching clothes or outdated attire, so why shouldn’t you treat your company the same way? It’s time to ditch that old logo, only taking from it what works, and using it to create a new one. Get a great logo redesign from a creative logo design company that understands your needs and the needs of your market. Find a company who asks the right questions in order to provide you with an industry leading logo design.
If you own a website, find out whether you can benefit from a logo redesign. Contact Incitrio at 858.202.1822 for a free brand analysis. We are a San Diego marketing agency focused on short and long term client success through integrated marketing, website design, advertising, email marketing, search engine optimization, social media, and CSS programming. Visit our testimonials page to take a look at what some of our happy clients are saying about us and visit our portfolio page to check out some of our award winning logo designs.
The logo redesign process
Add comment June 6th, 2011
In the cut-throat competition for first page search engine rankings, having a competitive edge is more important than ever. Most companies with a website understand the importance of online marketing, but too few of them know how to tell whether their website itself is efficient. Efficiency makes a difference in many ways, including faster load time and faster indexing time by search engines. There is no way of being more efficient than by creating a table-less, CSS based website. It is the perfect platform on which to build your organic search engine optimization campaign.
CSS (cascading style sheets) is the term referring to a file type and coding style. It’s a way of programming that allows you to add all of the styles of your website, including fonts, colors, backgrounds, and even layout on a separate .css file. This leaves your html document clean of style code that slows down your website, and only leaves your content for search engines to see.
When someone performs an online search, the search engine looks through its internal index, not the Internet. This is done for speed and performance; it’s the only way of getting immediate search results. Different websites get indexed at different intervals. News sites, for example, may get indexed daily–even hourly–while small company sites may get indexed every 2-4 weeks. If you are in this majority, you can understand the importance of getting indexed quickly. Missing out on being properly indexed can mean weeks of search engine invisibility. It is important to cater to these search engines in order to be found. Providing them the most useful information as quickly as possible, in the most organized way possible, will ultimately benefit your website SEO and will help improve your rankings. Consider CSS as one of your first steps in improving your search engine optimization efforts.
When your site is being indexed by search engines, they deploy bits of code referred to as “bots” or “crawlers” that scan your website code and rank your site according to the website’s content. These bits of code will scan your website code from the top down, ultimately reaching the content and links, which allow it to also index other pages within your site. It is within every website owner’s interest to allow these bots or crawlers to find this information as fast as possible. Depending on the complexity of your website, removing all the styles from your html document can often reduce the amount of code by more than half. This means that a search engine bot will only have to do half the work on each page, reaching the important content faster and increasing the chances that each page within your site will be fully crawled and indexed.
Bots and crawlers will not always scan an entire website. If your site is too heavy in code, the bot may only scan half of your page before leaving and reporting back to the search engine index about your site content. If your important content is low on your site, the likelihood of it being indexed drops significantly. This problem can be solved with CSS.
There exists two different presentations of your website. The website design that the human visitor sees and the website presentation that the bots see. CSS layout allows you to place the important content at the top of the code, regardless of where it appears on the viewable page. This ensures that the important content is a priority where it counts, in your search engine rankings. Additionally, your visitor will enjoy a faster load time, reducing your website bounce rate and helping your visitors stay as long as possible.
Creating a CSS based website will not only help your loading and index time, but will also help with your user experience. CSS is fully integrated by most search browsers such as Firefox, Safari, Chrome and the most recent versions of Explorer. CSS is also capable of rendering websites equally throughout each one of these browsers in most instances, reducing debugging time. This means you can avoid cross-browser glitches and special coding “hacks” to make a website look and work the same across multiple browsers.
If you own a website, find out whether you can benefit from CSS. Contact Incitrio at 858.202.1822 for a free website analysis. We are a San Diego marketing agency focused on short and long term client success through integrated marketing, website design, advertising, email marketing, search engine optimization, social media, and CSS programming. Visit our testimonials page to take a look at what some of our happy clients are saying about us.
2 comments May 10th, 2011
|
 |
|
 858.202.1822 | |
|
 The Networker is the best bi-monthly listing of San Diego marketing events. Sign up today. |
|
