As you probably know, when it comes to fonts Your Web Department websites are not restricted to the usual "suspects" – Arial, Verdana, Georgia, etc. There are a bunch of other fonts that are natively supported. In addition, people can choose from hundreds of free fonts from the Google Web Fonts Library and then load them into their YWD website.
Welcome to TypeKit
TypeKit provides a subscription-based library of thousands of hosted, high-quality fonts from different type foundries such as T26, Veer, FontFont, Adobe and a bunch of others. Your YWD website can now use any of them, which gives even more flexibility for designer.
To use one of their fonts in your YWD website you neet to register and create your kit at www.typekit.com first. Their Free plan allows you to do a lot of experimentation, and actually includes some cool fonts. Make sure you add both the YWD back-end interface as well as your website domain to the list of domains from where the kit can be served.
You then input the required information into YWD Designer, so you can then select it as the *** External font *** in the various 'Font' dropdowns: for regular copy, any of the 6 levels of headings, navigation links, etc.
For a step by step guide on how to use TypeKit fonts on your website, please refer to this page in the YWD Help.
Don't have a Your Web Department website? Sign up now or try it for free at www.yourwebdepartment.com
WedLuxe.com is a Canadian website about weddings. Entirely built and maintained by the client using the Your Web Department platform, it has tons of information ranging from wedding shows, real wedding videos, directories for all sorts of professionals involved in
beauty, cakes, catering, locations, transportation and much more. It’s also a printed magazine, and the website allows them capture subscriptions. They also have an impressive list of advertisers, an important source of revenue for their business.
Keeping the content fresh
Over the years since they moved to Your Web Department they’ve been able to build a large and loyal audience, and they want to keep them engaged. The key to that is to maintain the content fresh, and the best to achieve that in their case was to use a blog. So they brought their blog to their Home page, and the results have been amazing.
They have stunning photography and the blog is kept fresh with frequent updates, with new entries being added almost daily. And their website design is elegant, delicate and non-intrusive, adequate to the subject. They’ve been able to customize the website look using the many options available in YWD Designer, including typography, the colour palette and more. Not only that, they have been able to fine-tune the blog itself to match the tone, and also accommodate the paid advertisements in the right column of the page.
Engaging with the audience
Central to their approach is the seamless integration with social media that YWD offers. People bookmark any entry to the network of their choice (the designer opted to offer buttons for Facebook, Twitter, Google+ as well as a myriad of others using the AddThis “Share” widget). They can also add their own comments directly into the posts using Facebook. That’s a powerful driving factor to a blog, and as you can see people do take advantage of that.
Integration with the website
WedLuxe’s blog is an integral part of their website, which has literally hundreds of other pages. The Blog is a native tool in the YWD platform, and as such can be simply inserted into any page -- just like a form, a content slider, and image gallery and many other types of tools.
This makes it very easy to use. In fact, you can have multiple blogs within the same website. And you can manage blog users, which allows you to define people who can only update the blog but not the rest of the website, for example.
The Blog tool is included with YWD’s “Small Biz” and “The Works” packages. It can also be added to the “Basic” package as a separate tool for just $10/month.
Don't have a Your Web Department website? Sign up now or try it for free at www.yourwebdepartment.com
I came across this great info graphic from Business2Community.com and decided to share it with you. It depicts the anatomy of a perfect blog post in a way that is easy to follow and emulate. Don't think you are wasting your time if you don't do everything to the letter. Look at this as a guide and do what is possible for you. Almost forgot to mention: you can certainly apply all these tips on your YWD Blog. Learn more about YWD Blog
Author: Brian Rice
Illustrated by: Dan Criel
Post Title:
It should be creative and contain your main keywords/phrase. Tip: Keep it under 15 words.
Opening Paragraph:
It should clearly lay out the objectives of your post. Tip: include your main keywords / phrases and variations in the 1st and 2nd sentences.
Body Copy:
Emphasis should be on clearly stating your case. Tip: Naturally use your main keyword / phrases and variations throughout.
Conclusion Copy:
Emphasis on lessons learned and/or actionable insights. Tip: Ask your readers to share thier thoughts on the topic.
Social Share Icons:
It's important to make it easy to share your post. Tip: focus on the most common share icons.
Image:
When possible include an image in the upper left-hand corner. Tip: always include a caption that includes your main keywords.
List:
When possible include a list to strengthen your message. Tip: use a <h2> tag and bold the title of your list.
Comment Section:
It is important to make it easy for readers to comment. Tip: Help keep the conversation going by responding to all comments.
Relates Pots:
Help keep readers on your blog by highlighting additional; articles they might enjoy. Tip: Focus on featuring the 5 most popular posts that have a similar theme.
Data shows that web sites with blogs generate 55% more web traffic than sites without. When you blog regularly you generate more content and more links, which ultimately enables you to build your reputation and increase brand recognition as well as produce better search results and ultimately more traffic to your site.
Blogging and Social Sharing
Each time you create a blog post, you create another opportunity to share your content with social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Linked in (add ones you like). Each share means links back to your site. This growth in inbound links is something that search engines interpret as credibility and ultimately helps with your search ranking.
Building reputation and brand
Chances are you are an expert in what you do and that is why you do what you do - so why not talk about what you already know an love? It is the engaging content - the story about the small farm where you source the meat for your restaurant, or the expert advice you share about how to get a new job, or even the story that inspired you to start your business - that people will read and share. It is these stories and how they are shared that over time help you build up your unique brand and your reputation.
Building your client base
Blogging enables us to explain how our business or product works in more detail or how it relates to a specific client need - in some cases enabling business owners to expand how even they thought their product could be used. Like the natural soap maker whose customer discovered the product cleared up her eczema.
Starting the conversation
Blogs at their best generate discussion. And as the business owner and the blogger you can control the direction of the conversation by stating the conversation and using a blog entry to clarify misinformation. If you blog please enable comments and be sure to respond to those who take the time to reach out to you in the form of a comment.
Blogging with YWD
Your Web Department's $49/a month package includes a blog tool that is fully loaded with all the social sharing tools and can easily be integrated into your YWD website if for example you want to feature your latest post on the home page of your site. Learn more about YWD Blog
Join is over the next week as we share tips and tricks for how to launch and maintain a blog that can help you grow your business.
Are you tired of searching the Internet and finding too MUCH stuff? Are you tired of seeing the same search results pop up over and over again? Do you suspect that there are great businesses out there that you are missing because they don't come up on the first or second page of a Google search?
There may not be any cure for the first question, but there is an interesting tool out there to answer the remaining ones. It's called www.millionshort.com. What's fascinating about it is that it is designed to lop off the first million search results. So what comes up on the first page are all those laggards who aren't optimizing their websites and those that just don't have the cash to compete with the people who are spending a ton to do so. So, what you get is a very refreshing list of 'those other companies' that would never come up during a standard Google search.
Millionshort.com has other options to just lop off the first 100, or the first 1,000, or the first 100,000 also. I have found it really fascinating to use. It feels like I have been freed from the tyranny that is Google. The idea that if your company does not show up on the first page then it's crap! I think people kind of make that unintended connection. But just like fair trade is no guarantee of quality coffee, only that it's fair trade, Google ranking is not a guarantee of quality websites.
Searching through MillionShort.com results reveals lots of great businesses and services that I would never have found through the Goog. It has brought serendipity back to web searches, something that is now lost from Google searches. I'm really enjoying it and most importantly of all, I'm finding good stuff.
Soon SEO professionals will now be targeting you with new services, "Forget about first page of Google, I'l make sure you're in the bottom millionth."
If you find it useful, I'd like to hear your thoughts.
This past week: I read a lot about social media and small businesses, as usual, it is a topic that really interest me. As YWD is still a small business (with a big client list) I'm always looking to the new and current marketing trends; with the goal to maximize time an effort. A goal I'm sure we share with all SMBs, and with that in mind I've collected this list of tweets. These tweets are tips, advice and ideas on how to do better business online.
YWD Testimonial by Context Creative Andy Strote and Lionel Gadoury [ViDEO]
Andy and Lionel is one of the creative agencies that use YWD to quickly deploy websites for their clients. In addition to the websites they have launched using YWD, they also use YWD also for short term promotional campaigns. They have created a collection of landing pages for different successful marketing campaigns.
What do you think? -> Will LinkedIn Outlast Facebook?
Rachel Parker makes a good point. Would the commercialization of Facebook kill its current appeal? I have to admit of all the networks I work with, I prefer Facebook. Is the same for you?
Do you use Klout? I found myself in it-> 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Klout
I got an invitation to Klout and I was curious, so I open the account hooked up all my social networks and my score doubled in a couple of days. Now the question is: What is the value of Klout? A self patting on the back? Certainly not something to use in your hiring process.
We don't have incentives nor penalties, now I think we need both-> Small Business Payment Trends
We are all going through the same tough economic environment. Late payments are just a consequence of this financial uncertainty, is time to add incentives for prompt payments?
The Evolution of the Blogger [INFOGRAPHIC]
Great infographic of the history of blogging. For SMBs blogging it is becoming a need, there are way too many benefits to not do it.
Next Friday I'll have another round up, in the meantime you can follow me and YWD on the networks below:
I came across this great infographic "The Evolution of the Blogger" (source: NYMag.com) and made me think that we don't promote enough YWD Blog. If you are not using it, most likely you don't know about it. Though we have many clients in YWD that are currently using our own blog tool and very succesfully, it is not widely used. Our clientele base is the small business and according to HubSpot, business blogging leads to 55% more website visitors. That's right, more visits and more leads!
As you know, it's pretty easy to create image galleries in Your Web Department. You simply select the images you want in the gallery, then add it as a content block to any page.
You have several display styles to choose from. The Lightbox display style – which launches an overlay of the images above the content underneath -- has been replaced by a more modern implementation of the Lightbox effect. The gallery can be launched either by thumbnails of the images (they're created automatically for you) or by the initial image (displayed at full size),
The new features:
Gallery integration with Twitter and Facebook. Visitors can now tweet/like any picture direcetly from the gallery!
Ability for visitors to switch to slideshow mode using a "play" button even if the gallery was not launched in autoplay mode.
Slicker interface. When people rollover any image small interactive thumbnails appear at the bottom, allowing direct navigation to other images.
Faster loading.
Loading indicator.
jQuery-based like YWD's content sliders -- both can be used on the same page.
For an example of a Lightbox gallery launched by thumbnails, check this page of our Help. For one launched by the gallery's initial image in full size, check this other page.
By now, you probably know that Twitter is used by of millions of SMBs each day who share, connect and promote their businesses online and for free. Here are a few reasons:
Connect
You can grow a community of followers who will have a direct connection to you and who recognize your name and business brand. You can also barter, search for independent contractors or find employees. Twitter provides a great platform to connect with the right people to fit your business needs. In addition, this is great way for existing customers to provide feedback.
Twitter is also a great way for you to keep an eye on competitors. Monitor your rivals so that you know what they are up to! It may provide inspiration and also help you to gain a competitive advantage.
Market
Most small businesses have a very small marketing budget which results in continuously looking for low cost and innovative ways to leverage their products or services. Twitter is a free social network that can be a rewarding marketing tool for your business.
Sell
By using twitter to announce upcoming sales or events, you will drive potential customers to your website or physical location.
Integrating Twitter with your website
Once you create a Twitter account for your business and start tweeting, you can easily integrate your feed with your website in Your Web Department.
In addition to adding a button linked to your Twitter page to all your website pages (using YWD’s Global Content feature) you can embed the Twitter feed itself into any page, without any programming. You simply add a Twitter Feed content block to any page. Type in your Twitter username in the field, change the default colours and width if you want and click ‘Save’. That’s it! YWD will automatically start fetching your tweets and displaying them on your website.
Still not convinced? Don't have the time to tweet? You can still use Twitter to your website's advantage. You can add a social bookmarking widget – similar to the vertical badge you see on the left of this blog page – so visitors can bookmark your page directly to Twitter or any other social networking service of their choice. With 1 click, a link to your website will appear on their Twitter feeds, driving trafic to your website. You can add this vertical badge (or several other layouts and combinations) in YWD. Again, no coding is required.
A Twitter Feed content block dialog form
Don't have a Twitter account? Get one for free at www.twitter.com
I honestly try to fill these posts with information designed to help the small business owner without resorting to overt pitches for YWD. But there have been several situations where it was clear that many people just don't understand what makes Your Web Department truly different from every other website option. So, here it is right here for all to read. A no holds barred 'explanation' of the advantages of our service. No apologies.
This is a special message for small business owners, only.
If your marketing person, your IT person, your consultant or your best friend has recommended anything else besides Your Web Department for your website then you've just been lead down the rabbit hole of despair and unhappiness. But let's say that in a positive way. Your Web Department is the absolute best decision you can make for your next website. Why didn't we just say that? Because then we wouldn't have gotten your attention, and besides it's true. The majority of people come to us because they've had a horrible previous experience. Maybe not descending into despair and unhappiness but pretty close.
If you're a marketing-type sneaking a read of this post then be warned. You now have the responsibility to investigate YWD. You've let the genie out of the bottle and there ain't no way of stuffing this sucker back in, baby. With knowledge comes responsibility and now you have the responsibility to at least check out our outrageous claims. Remember this simple fact. If your employer cannot program and if you've built him/her a website that requires a programmer to even add a rudimentary design update, then you've just hung them out to dry. Yes, we know you are thrilled to have your job, your employer is great and your plan is to be there for a long while but nothing is forever. So, what have you left your employer? Have you left them a system they can't add new features to without expert help? There is an alternative that provides all the design and marketing fulfillment you've been hired to provide and that is our YWD platform.
If you're a business owner you rely on your people to make enough right decisions that your company doesn't go into that rabbit hole of despair and unhappiness. Ideally, you want it to prosper and when it comes to your website you can do better than what you are doing now. Here are some things that SHOULD be important to you. No one else is going to tell you this except us because no one else cares as much as we do. And we really do care.
Do any of these things hold true for you?
You don't know who manages your domain.
You don't really know what a domain is.
You don't know who registered your domain.
You don't know who's email is attached to the domain for renewal purposes.
You don't know where your website is-
Hosted by your webshop?
In your building?
In a co-location facility?
Included as part of your domain service's package?
In the web programmer's basement?
You don't really understand the implications of the choices that other people have made on your behalf because that is technical stuff that you chose to leave to those more knowledgeable than yourself.
And besides, you don't have the time
Do you have to pay every time a change has to be made to your website?
Is it built using a content managed system?
Do you know what a content managed system is?
There have been times when you needed to make changes to out-of-date, embarrassing information left on the website but the people who built it:
Are no longer employed at your company
Are no longer in business
You don't know where they are
You don't know who they are
You've wanted to add a feature based on new Internet standards but you were told the website would have to be totally redeveloped to add it.
You wanted to add mobile compatibility.
It wasn't available with your present platform
There would be a programming charge
Your site was built in Flash. Flash doesn't work on iPads and smartphones. Why did they recommend Flash?
Every issue described above is an issue of continuity. Your Web Department was designed to address them all. That is why it's unique. You have been cowed into thinking that a website is a technical challenge. It is not. It is a business continuity challenge. Our business model is designed to keep up with the changes to the Internet and update our service on a regular basis so you don't have to. Most updates are part of the monthly licensing fee so there is no added programming costs.
Your Web Department is the only service that offers business owner's website continuity. We offer piece of mind to you the business owner. We do only one thing and that is to maintain your accessibility to YOUR website. No matter who fiddles with it. No matter who updates it, redesigns it YOU will always be able to access it, change it, update it and all without having to know a stitch of code. And if that little bit of access is intimidating or you just don't have the time to do it, then we are a mouse click away.
It seems that there is only one way to create a websiste, ie: hire a designer, hire a programmer, build site, launch. That was the same process you used to build the site you have now that YOU HATE? If 80% of the websites out there are crap then why are you doing the same thing all over again? Are you hoping because you have a different designer and programmer that things will be different? Perhaps, but perhaps it's the tools they are using that are broken. Einstein said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
Open your mind to Your Web Department. It will be enlightening.
Book a webinar at yourwebdepartment.com/webinar and we'll prove to you why we are the only website service designed with the small business owner in mind.
The latest tweets from @ywd follows in periodical format
Yes, we want to be completely straight up about this blog. What are you going to get from this blog? If you're a small business struggling with how to approach building a website that works, then this is a great place to find inspiration and honest truths written by Paul Chato. If you're a Your Web Department™ customer then you'll find great information about YWD and design links to inspire you written by Flavio Mester. Finally, if you're a link jockey you will find some really amazing interconnected thinking put together but Gustavo Jabbaz. You have been warned.
VIDEOit: describe your company, product, promotion or service using video Get 10% off your first video just for being a Your Web Department™ customer
Box.net: box.net Securely manage, share and collaborate on your company's important files Enjoy a FREE 14-day box.net trial courtesy of Your Web Department™.
TypeKit provides a subscription-based library of thousands of hosted, high-quality fonts from different type foundries such as T26, Veer, FontFont, Adobe and a bunch of others. Your YWD website can now use any of them, which gives even more flexibility for designer.
Data shows that web sites with blogs generate 55% more web traffic than sites without. When you blog regularly you generate more content and more links, which ultimately enables you to build your reputation and increase brand recognition as well as produce better search results and ultimately more traffic to your site.
Are you tired of searching the Internet and finding too MUCH stuff? Are you tired of seeing the same search results pop up over and over again? Do you suspect that there are great businesses out there that you are missing because they don't come up on the first or second page of a Google search?
By now, you probably know that Twitter is used by of millions of SMBs each day who share, connect and promote their businesses online and for free. Here are a few reasons:
If your marketing person, your IT person, your consultant or your best friend has recommended anything else besides Your Web Department for your website then you've just been lead down the rabbit hole of despair and unhappiness. But let's say that in a positive way. Your Web Department is the absolute best decision you can make for your next website. Why didn't we just say that? Because then we wouldn't have gotten your attention, and besides it's true. The majority of people come to us because they've had a horrible previous experience. Maybe not descending into despair and unhappiness but pretty close.
YWD™ Incentive Program
YWD™ Search Engine Optimization
VIDEOit
Box.net
