Announcing the unveiling a redesign of Joe Sherman’s Photographic Artistry website!  We upgraded this site from a static HTML website to an interactive WordPress site and gave it a fresh, up-to-date look.

I have added videos to display galleries of photos in several sections, which helps to protect Joe’s copyrighted work, as well as giving the site some “action”.  By posting the videos on YouTube, we are taking advantage of additional potential traffic that might search on that site for photographers in the Plainwell, Michigan area.  Additionally, it adds a few additional inbound links, which are valuable for Search Engine Optimization.

To make the site even more SEO friendly, Joe will be starting a blog on the home page, giving valuable tips to his readers about photography, how to dress for senior pictures, and more.  What does blogging do for your small business?  This great article  gives Six Reasons Every Small Business Should Blog —

1. Gain Visibility as a Thought Leader
2. Engage Customers in a Dialogue
3. Every Blog Article is an SEO Opportunity
4. Blogs Are Link Bait
5. Humanize Your Brand
6. In Google, Fresher Content = Better Website

Congratulations, Joe, on your decision to move forward with your marketing efforts and determination to ramp-up your online presence!

Susan at Thornapple Financial Center took advantage of a special “current client-only” promotional offer to update the look of her website and convert it to WordPress.  WordPress is an easily-to-update user-friendly content management system that Dramatic Design has chosen as a specialty.

Direct Comparison:

As you can see, the old site (left) looks dated and lifeless.  It was passive and static.  Now look at the newly redesigned site on the right.  What a difference!  The colors draw you in and envelope you–the green and gold play with the type of business the site describes.  It invites you to participate with comments and to spread the word with social networking!  Important announcements are conveniently located right in the sidebar, so you don’t have to hunt for them.

The new Thornapple Financial Center website also includes an email form that invites clients to sign up to receive her newsletter by email, instead of snail-mail, thus, saving her company money and perhaps saving a tree or two along the way.  Category pages allow visitors to look directly at the posts that interest them and an interactive Google map allows visitors to get direction from their location to the Thornapple Financial Center office.  This is a site for 2009!

 

Kim has built our website and it is fantastic!  She is professional, always has insightful ideas and is very patient with ALL of our questions.  Her prices are competitive,and more importantly you get a great return on your investment.

Kris Foote, Thornapple Financial Center

The above screenshot is a redesign for the Business Referral Group that I belong to offline.  The previous design was a modified template, but the new one is completely original and custom for this group.

As you can see, the new design is a fresh, updated design with a semi-transparent background and section for book recommendations.  The sidebar showing the Amazon widget is only one way that you can monetize your site.

The blog feature is actually located on the “Members” page, as that is the most frequently updated page for the site.  This allows for easy updating whenever a new member joins the group.