The Dawg Blawg || End-to-end E-Commerce Everything

Stock Images for your web site

2007-06-08T11:55:00.000-07:00

Finding the right imagery for your site is so important! The photos should have meaning, tell a story to your viewer and at the same time following your brand. A lot of our clients ask us where to find the best pictures for the best price. Check out istock photo. This is a great resource and images are as low as $1

Tell Google Your Business Location

2007-04-24T16:06:00.000-07:00

Google wants to know your business location. Why not help them out (and yourself) by filling out their online application ?
Go to the Google Local Business Center and fill out all the necessary information. Shortly after you submit your details, Google sends you a postcard in the mail. On the postcard is a PIN number, which you input back into the Google Business Center in order to be verified.

It says on the postcard that your business will be listed in about 6 weeks, and you can check its status by returning to the Local Business Center.

The postcard also comes with a coupon for "Free Google Advertising Credit". If you've been thinking about giving AdWords a try, then here's a bit of incentive. Google recommends a budget of about $25 / month, to start an AdWords campaign. The campaigns are easy to setup and the ads only appear to those in your target area.

This ties in with an announcement made by Google on February 2, 2007 to start personalizing search results. Basically this means that there could be different search results for different people. A great article by Dave Davies outlines a few of the possible scenarios which could arise from this change.

Google Sandbox - Tips to a site launch

2006-11-27T16:38:00.000-08:00

The Google Sandbox and your new website?

The Google Sandbox is a system made by Google with the purpose of filtering out spam sites by placing all new websites under a hold for a period of 3-6 months.

Although the Google sandbox was designed to filter out spam sites, in reality it affects all new websites. Your new site will sit un-found for up to 6 months from a "launch date"

The way YellowDawg launches sites is forward thinking in its procedure. Once we start on a new project the first thing we do is launch a welcome page for your site. This welcome page has a brief overview of your products and services and your contact information if needed.

The page is created with proper keywords and title data and is search engine spider friendly. This way we are able to work on your project over the next month or two depending on size and let Google and other search spiders determine your site as valid.

Rebuild or update?

2006-09-01T10:03:00.000-07:00

Here's the scenario. You have an art company. You have an old website that you love. It works well for what it is, but you have a major content update to do with many new pieces and copy. You have different categories of updates which are not accomodated on your old site, which will require part of the sites navigation to be overhauled, as well as many pages to be updated.

So what are your choices? Well there are two clear choices. Update the site or make a new one. What? Make a new one? Lets break this down.

Advantages for staying with current website:
Cheaper than getting a new site done
The site is familiar to regular visitors
The update would happen a little bit faster than re-doing the entire website this time around
Requires little time to request the site update

Advantages for having a new site done:
New web technologies, such as Content Management Systems (CMS), allow for massive updates that do not break the structure of the site. The other benefit to using a CMS is the speed of the updates is always faster.
Planning a site with realistic business objectives in mind always produces a finer product. Chances are that the requirements have changed or have become more clear -- IE: Where are you making your money? Lets talk about that.
Is it time for a company re-brand? Are you already in the process of re-branding? A new website is the perfect opportunity to launch a new identity, including logo and taglines.

Optics to consider with staying with the old website:
It's going to stretch the website to it's limits at best, appear cluttered at the end, and ultimately make you look somewhat disorganized.

Items to consider with going through the process of building a new site:
Since this is your second time around, it is likely that you will have a much more straight forward idea of what the new site needs to accomplish for the business. You have the experience of the process already, and know where to start. This isn't your first time, so it ought to be an easier process. That being said, you also know it takes time to carefully plan it out and execute the plan. Understand that it is going to cost some more now, and that it is an investment that is strictly for 1) making the company more money in a direct or indirect way and 2) save money later by being considerably faster (and hence less expensive) to update.

In this day and age, everyone who is really in business has a website, but that doesn't mean that it's doing anything for them. I highly encourage you to speak with an expert about your site in business and marketing terms if you are unsure about your current site and what it's actually doing for you. It could make an enormous difference to your online presence.

The Value in Connections

2006-08-21T09:31:00.000-07:00

This isn't specifically design related, or even marketing related, but it is business related.

"I know this guy who knows this girl who knows this guy and he does exactly what you're talking about. You have to meet him." How many business relationships start this way? I read the other day in some business piece about how acquaintances [much] more frequently turn into successful working relationships than good friendships do. So, there is value in just saying hello and making idle chit chat while in traffic.

Opportunities work that way.

And being open to communication from strangers is your conduit for such activity. So, unless you're having a really bad day, take out your earbuds, get off your cell phone and take in your surroundings -- and give your surroundings a chance to take you in as well. Say hello.

Planning: Worth Money

2006-08-18T15:13:00.000-07:00

Lets get right to the point here. Smart planning has always saved money in business. In this day and age, it starts with your business plan. Plan what you are going to do, how you're going to do it, and when.

It's like anything else. Going to Staples without a list of what you need will certainly yield you a good solid hour of looking at black leather dayplanners (if you're a guy) or color coded paper products (if you're a girl) and maybe you'll leave with a red stapler, wondering what just happened. When you get back to the office you will come to the startling realization that you went to get ink for the printer, and you'll have to spend the time to go back, get what you really needed in the first place, and come back.

So then, lets say it takes you two hours instead of an hour to get an ink cartridge. If we are to measure the value of ones time in ink cartridges, an hour of ones time would be worth half an ink cartridge at this point. I know, that sounds bad. It is.

You haven't just wasted time; you have effectively cut the value of your time in half.

Lets apply this to a business process of a marketing campaign; lets say it is a poster job for your new music store. You see two or three draft designs to start off. You sign off on the direction of one of them. But you haven't done your business plan yet and you don't know what genres you will be specializing in. You see a beautiful final version of a poster with awesome colors, your logo looks fabulous, and there is some young good looking person on it listening to music on their iPod. The approved poster goes to print; ten thousand copies, appearing all over the city in brilliant full-bleed color. A week later, you have nailed down that you are specializing in Country music, and you fill your boots with the first order form with your music suppliers. Cowboy up! Posters go up, the store opens, and everyone is excited that you have the new Eminem since they saw him on the poster for your music store. What? Who? Uh!

In the few seconds that it took you to say "yes that looks great," a significant portion of your marketing budget, if not all of it, has been decimated by sheer and utter lack of planning.

You may think this is an unrealistic scenario. It is not. Once the wheels are set in motion in business, they can only be reversed with money. Be wise with yours. Plan ahead.

Gently Shifting Blog Content

2006-08-10T09:24:00.000-07:00

Hello all, my name is Davin Greenwell and I am the Production Lead and Junior Art Director at YellowDawg. Here, I do everything from file management to photoshoots, content gathering to design, corporate identity to marketing strategy as well.

In the past I have worked in web management at the provincial government level, done public relations for crown corporations, spent 5 years in community and commercial radio, and also run a music label on the side. All of this combined will give you an idea of where my perspective comes from -- it's that of a marketer, getting one message to the masses with utter success. If you've made it here, I can assume that you want to do the same. So over the next while, I'm going to share some secrets, some stories, and some tips on how to make the most of your marketing efforts from the start.

New blog author party time!

Also Jordan, our Creative Director here at YellowDawg, will be joining me in this here lil blog. He will also bring a wealth of business, design and marketing experience -- so stay tuned.

The Year of The Dawg!

2006-08-03T15:14:00.000-07:00

The entire team here is excited to share with you the new face of YellowDawg: End-to-End E-Commerce Everything.

We've grown tremendously over recent months to round out a comprehensive service offering, encompassing business-winning design, industry-standard custom web programming, and best-of-breed search engine optimization and marketing.

Why the Dawg? We've always identified with our mascot's values of approachability, friendliness, loyalty and reliability. We invite you to explore the new site and contact us with feedback and any questions about how we can work together to energize your business.