Tag Archives: events

10 Sources For Web Design Freebies

Posted on June 25, 2013 by Hosting

While “Content is King” still rings true on  many levels, it no longer tells the entire story of digital marketing. Content might prove the foundation for your kingdom, but it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Web design, SEO, user navigation and social media strategy are just a few of the other key players required for long-term success. Chuck Longanecker of Digital-Telepathy , a user-experience design firm, knows the importance of good web design in internet marketing. In a post at Mashable, he wrote, “the ‘beautification of the web’ is upon us.” But don’t confuse the idea of web beautification with fancy graphics and expensive landing pages. Just look at Pinterest and Tumblr to see how simple, clean design can attract an enormous following. Fortunately, enhancing your web design doesn’t have to cost a small fortune or take a lot of time. Here are ten design freebies that can help enhance your web presence today:   Premium Pixels Find handcrafted micro icons, textures, brushes, iPhone chat bubbles, textures and more at Premium Pixels . Unlike many free web design collections, these can be used for both personal and commercial use. BittBox BittBox offers design tutorials, along with vectors, high-resolution Photoshop brushes and textures. Look for posts in the series Freebie Fridays and Free Texture Tuesdays for fun giveaways, featuring everything from weathered wood designs to grunge splatter brushes. These freebies are yours to use as tools during the design process – even if you’re planning to sell your creations. Just be aware that users can’t redistribute or post them for download in their original state. Open Source Web Design Download and share your own free web design templates at Open Source Web Design . If you’re not sure where to start, look through the OSWD’s collection of Favorite Designers or share an idea through their Suggestion tab. There’s plenty of great stuff to be found! Design Moo Dubbed, “The world’s greatest source of free and commercial design resources,” Design Moo features free PSDs, vectors, textures, patterns and fonts, among other design goodies. Become a Design Moo member for quick access to a robust collection of design elements. Or, upgrade to a paid membership with access to exclusive design resources, perks and the ability to sell your own creations. Best PSD Freebies Best PSD Freebies offers icons, sliders, buttons, banners, ribbons, web themes, Photoshop files and more. The site has earned its bragging rights with over 200,000 downloads to date and no signs of slowing down. Flickr Creative Commons Don’t forget the photos and other images when it comes to web design. Flickr offers photographers and artists the option to offer their work through the Creative Commons license at Flickr.com/CreativeCommons . Flickr uses ridiculously easy license icons to show how each image can be used. Some allow you to use the image in any way you see fit, but only if credit is given. Other artists choose the option, “No Derivative Works” – meaning that others can copy, distribute and display verbatim copies of the work. Icon Finder Hunting down just the right icon can be a taxing and time-consuming chore. Save yourself some time and head to Icon Finder and do a quick search for anything from “mobile icon” to “social media icon” and find a comprehensive list. Not all icons are free, but clicking on the “Free” tab will help narrow down your results significantly. Pixeden Download free design templates, tab bar icons, iPhone mock-ups, PSD frames texts effect and other web sources at Pixeden . The site was designed as a one-stop shop for developers and designers in need of free elements to get their projects in gear. A premium membership grants you access to support services and the ability to make further modifications to their design elements in your projects. Smashing Magazine Though Smashing Magazine is an online publication for design pros – not a design element repository – it also offers a freebie category . Past freebies included “Typeplate: A Starter Kit for Beautiful Web Type,” free WordPress themes, icon sets and templates for mobile projects. Best of all, Smashing Magazine’s target audience of designers, meaning that all the freebies that are up for grabs have been looked with a discerning eye. Da Font Where would your content be without a good font? Da Font hosts an archive of free downloadable fonts organized by style, author, popularity or alphabetically. There’s not much you won’t find here. The site’s font collection is vast, ranging from groovy to “foreign look” and plenty of scripts.   With so many freebies readily available for use, there’s really no excuse to neglect your web design. But there’s also no shame in asking for help and tapping a professional to usher in the next stage of your design strategy. That step might mean a complete design overhaul or a simple logo update to better align with your brand and overall messaging. Remember there’s no magic formula to web design. Start by integrating a few key elements, from icons to a new web template, to refine your site’s style and usability. Keep making adjustments until you find the right combination for your growing online presence. Continue reading →

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The Adventures of Snappy: Houston Aquarium Edition

Posted on June 24, 2013 by Hosting

In recognition of June being National Zoo & Aquarium Month, Snappy decided to visit The Houston Downtown Aquarium .  This Aquarium holds over 500,000 gallons of water and is home to over 200 species of aquatic life from around the globe.  With all that sea life on premises, would anyone even notice a blue gator wondering around? Snappy made it inside the lobby of the aquarium and was just having a look around, possibly performing some body-builder poses and showing off his ample biceps… …when he was introduced to none other than Sharkey!  Sharkey and Snappy made fast friends and Sharkey agreed to show Snappy around the aquarium, personally. The first stop was the stingray reef exhibit.  The exhibit was very imprssive and included the ability to touch and even feed actual stingrays. It did seem like perhaps Snappy was getting hungry himself, watching these tasty morsels swim around right in front of him.  Stingrays are fairly close relatives of sharks though, so Snappy figured it’d be better to make the stingrays be friends and not food. Snappy was understandably a huge hit with all the children throughout the Aquarium.  He had to often stop for photo ops and to take time to high-five and even break into the occasional dance to entertain all the kids. Not wanting to steal too much thunder from the stingrays, Snappy and Sharkey decided to head out into the blistering Houston heat in search of some games to play.  Who knew a shark and a gator would grow to be such fast friends? We will state, for the record and in the interest of full disclosure, that Sharkey won at the water gun shooting game.  They agreed to a rematch at a future date though, so keep an eye out for Snappy’s return to the Aquarium! Sharkey suggested they go for a ride on the carousel.  Snappy had never been on a carousel before, as there are sadly no carousels in the swamp.  It was great fun, and you an even see video of Snappy riding the carousel on the YouTube video at the bottom of this post! After the carousel ride, it was almost time to head back to the swamp.  First things first, Snappy needed to hang out with some more children who were very excited to meet him! As the Aquarium is quite literally located right by downtown Houston, we couldn’t resist getting a picture of Snappy in front of some of the skyscrapers. As mentioned above, here is a short video documenting Snappy’s visit to the Aquarium: We want to thank the Houston Downtown Aquarium for the hospitality, and for introducing Snappy to Sharkey.  To see more of Snappy’s aquarium adventure, follow HostGator on Instagram ! June is, once again, National Zoo & Aquarium Month.  Snappy recently visited The Houston Zoo and he had a great time at the Aquarium!  We would like to encourage you to visit the zoos and aquariums in your town.  Maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll even see a blue gator there! Continue reading →

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Smart Ways to Update Your Stale Website

Posted on June 18, 2013 by Hosting

Does your website feel stale and uninspired?  Have you avoided making any updates to your pages, due to a lack of time or technical “know how?” Well, then, it’s time to move past these trite excuses and start updating your stale website! In today’s digital world, websites must be more than simple, static billboards that telegraph the same information day in and day out.  Your users are expecting an engaging, dynamic presence – and the easiest way to convey this feeling is to regularly update your content.  At the same time, regular site changes are important from an SEO perspective, as the search engines value and prefer to reward websites that feature “fresh” content. You don’t need to undergo a complete website redesign every month to keep things interesting.  Instead, consider the following strategies for ways to update your stale website without a significant investment of time or energy:   Tip #1 – Add a blog Blogs are great from both a reader and an SEO standpoint.  When you install and regularly update your company’s blog, readers come back again and again to see what new information you’ve posted.  The search engines also reward your site, as the inclusion of more content naturally creates more opportunities to get picked up for different keyword-specific search results pages. Installing a blog is easy when you use tools like WordPress or Joomla.  Truly, the harder part is setting and sticking to a consistent publishing schedule.  Though it can be a challenge to marshal the resources necessary for proper editorial standards, the effort is well worth the rewards of a regularly updated site.   Tip #2 – Revise your “About” page Most companies slap together a generic “About” page – only to realize later on that it isn’t connecting with readers in a meaningful way.  If you find yourself in this position, don’t worry.  It’s easy to update your “About” page in order to make this content fresher and more engaging for viewers. To revise this all-important page, start with the “5 Ws”: Who are you? What do you do? When did you open for business? Where are you located? How are you achieving your business’s aims? It’s a simple framework, for sure.  But by following these guidelines, you’ll create the kind of punchy “About” page that both answers readers most pertinent questions and encourages them to dive more deeply into your other content.   Tip #3 – Add a new special to your home page Want a quick and easy way to freshen up your website’s content?  Simply post a new special on your home page!  For example, you could: Offer a special discount on shipping costs to new customers Give away free product samples with purchases over a certain dollar amount Provide discounts in exchange for referrals to your business Remember – your website visitors are always looking to get the best possible deal they can.  Adding any of the different specials described above to your home page both captures their attention and helps them to believe that their getting great value by working with you.   Tip #4 – Feature a new product or service Similarly, showcasing a new product or service on your website connects with readers in the same way as featuring a home page special.  Most shoppers like to believe that they’re on the cutting edge – that they’re “early adopters” who try new things before others.  Featuring new products or services on your home page appeals to this instinct, while also putting different offerings in front of your regular readers’ eyes. You don’t even have to launch a new product or service to take advantage of this effect.  If you offer a product or service that doesn’t generate many sales, giving it a spotlight on your website’s home page can help to freshen the look of your site while also raising the impact of underperforming offerings.   Tip #5 – Try a new template Finally, if you want to go all out and truly freshen up your website, you can’t do much better than trying a new template. If your website operates on WordPress, Joomla or any other popular CMS, updating your stale look and feel truly is as simple as purchasing and uploading a new template.  Of course, with any template swap, you’ll likely have to do a bit of clean-up work to ensure that your information displays appropriately within your new site.  However, the time and cost of doing so still comes in dramatically lower than having a custom site built from scratch, making this a smart way to update your stale website. Do you have any other ideas for ways to freshen up the look and feel of a dated website?  If so, share your recommendations in the comments section below! Continue reading →

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How to Optimize Images for Your Website

Posted on June 13, 2013 by Hosting

“A picture is worth a thousand words” – and that’s as true when it comes to SEO as it is with descriptions. Images play a huge role in website development, as their visual appeal is a powerful way to attract and retain reader attention.  However, the way that you incorporate images into your site can also influence the way your website is handled by the search engines.  To get the best SEO bang for your image buck, consider taking all of the following steps to optimize images for your website:   Step #1 – Check your licenses First – before we even get into the meat of modifying your images to make them more appealing to the search engines – take a few moments to be sure you hold the appropriate licenses to the images you plan to use. Smart webmasters know that you can’t simply right click and copy an image from anywhere on the web to use on your site.  Instead, you’ll need to download royalty free stock imagery, find images that have been licensed for commercial use under the Creative Commons license or purchase images from stock photo websites. Making sure that your image licenses are in order won’t improve your SEO, but it will prevent you from receiving DMCA notices from angry photographers who have the power to otherwise disrupt your business.   Step #2 – Resize your images Once you’ve appropriately sourced your images, take the time to resize to the exact dimensions at which they’ll be displayed on your website.  Photoshop and SnagIt are two popular image editing programs that you can use for this purpose, although the PicMonkey website represents a great free alternative for beginning webmasters. The reason that it’s important to do this before you upload your images is your site’s speed.  Forcing your website to reload images on the fly (because you’ve uploaded large images and told your site to display smaller versions) consumes digital resources, which can slow down your site’s operations.  And because site speed is becoming a major factor in your SEO performance, anything you can do to minimize the number of resources used is to your benefit.   Step #3 – Compress your images At the same time, don’t just resize your images – compress them as well! Both the size of your picture and the amount of information it contains (as in, whether it’s a high resolution image or low resolution picture) determine the number of resources required to load it to your site.  And since most websites don’t require the same level of photographic detail needed for art prints or printed pictures, you can safely compress your images without compromising their display value. To compress your images for free, check out Yahoo’s smush.it tool.  With just a few clicks of the mouse, this service will remove unnecessary bits from your image without changing its overall appearance – speeding up your site and improving its SEO performance.   Step #4 – Add target keywords to your image file names Once the size and compression rate of your images have been optimized, it’s time to start integrating your target SEO keywords.  One place in particular to do this is your image file names. As an example, if you run a website that sells fine jewelry and are in the process of uploading a picture of a gold watch, don’t leave your files names in their original photographer formats (for example, “IMG_023490.jpg”).  Instead, replace it with a keyword-optimized version – for example, “fine-jewelry-gold-watch.jpg.”  Doing so will help the search engines to better understand the content of your images, as well as how they should be treated from an SEO perspective.   Step #5 – Add title and ALT tags to your images In addition to optimizing your file names, you can integrate keywords into both the image title tag and ALT tag fields.  But that said, don’t treat these two areas as repositories for all the different keyword variations you can stuff into them. Think about the original purposes of these fields, which were to assist both the search engines and website visitors using adaptive technologies to better understand what they were seeing.  For this reason, any optimized tags you add should be descriptive in nature.  Don’t stuff your keywords into these fields – instead, create natural-sounding image descriptions that include mentions of your target keywords when it’s appropriate to do so. When it comes to image optimization, approach the process from a holistic standpoint.  Take as many actions as you can to improve your page load times and the ability of the search engines to parse your content, but don’t go overboard.  Including too many keyword repetitions or optimizing every single image on your site perfectly could set you up to experience an over-optimization penalty down the road. Continue reading →

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Is User Generated Content Right for Your Website?

Posted on June 11, 2013 by Hosting

Content marketing is the hottest marketing trend out there right now, as the regular publication of fresh content can be a huge differentiator for your website. From business blogging to “how to” videos, this engaging content comes in many forms. However, most businesses find that it can be overwhelming to keep up with the demand for new content, as it takes time and effort to regularly develop high quality content. As a result, many businesses opt to have users generate content for them, either in place of or as a supplement to the content they’re already creating. If this all sounds appealing to you, read on to learn about what user generated content (UGC) is and how to decide if it’s right for your business.   What is User Generated Content? User generated content comes in many forms. This can include product reviews, guest posts, customer images and more:   Product Reviews Product reviews are often used by consumer goods companies. If you sell a product or range of products, you may allow customers to review them directly on your site. Some examples of companies using this tactic include Modcloth , Zappos and Babies R Us . Product reviews can include information on the quality of your product, how quickly it shipped and more. Some sites even provide categories for their products to be reviewed on “like,” “fit” or “ease of use,” depending on what type of good is being sold.   Guest Posts Sites that include a business blog can rely on guest posts as a huge source of user generated content. Guest posts allow users to share their opinions and experiences on industry topics, easing the burden of regular content creation while also driving traffic from the guest poster’s site. As a result, this technique can help you to create buzz about your blog and to enjoy the flood of traffic that comes when your guest posters promote their posts on their own social media profiles.   Customer Images Customer images can be an especially valuable type of user generated content and involves customers posting images of your products – perhaps either using or wearing said products. Alternately, you can create a meme encouraging users to interact with your brand by posting photos of themselves in a certain pose or location. A great example of this type of UGC is the True Blood “Show Your Fangs” campaign . Fans of the HBO show came out in droves to post photos of themselves “showing their fangs.” This helped to create enormous buzz for the show’s sixth season. Finally, many brands also encourage fans to create their own content from scratch. This can include videos, artwork or comics that fans create based on your products or services. This particular type of user generated content has been extremely popular with brands that have cult followings, as it provides a creative outlet that allows die-hard fans to feel more connected to the company.   Pros and Cons of User Generated Content Flow of Content User generated content can significantly decrease the amount of content your team is directly responsible for creating. However, for this strategy to work, you need to have a strong base of users who are willing to generate this content. Often, the first step to creating UGC campaigns is to find the most easily accessible way for users to contribute. You’ll need to decide which types of user generated content are right for your brand. From there, you’ll want to let your users know that you’re interested in seeing their content. Letting them know that you want their reviews, guest posts, photos or other content pieces encourages them to help support your content strategy. From there, it’s also important for you to like, comment on and share the content they create. Users are most likely to continue to create and share content for you if they feel that you’re engaging back with them. Ultimately, this strategy can be a time saver that also increases your reach by piggy-backing off the relationships you have with your followers. But that doesn’t mean that you’re completely off the hook. Without engaging with the users who are creating this content, it’s likely that the flow of content will trickle to a halt.   Quality of Content Just because you’ve found users who are willing to generate content for you does not mean that all the content you receive will be of the highest quality. It’s very possible that you’ll receive fuzzy photos or guest posts that are inappropriate for your brand. In fact, you may even receive some poor reviews. Before you launch this type of strategy, think about how you’ll address low quality content or negative reviews. It’s also important to decide whether you’ll share all the content that’s created by your campaign or only that content that you deem “worthy.” Launching a user generated content marketing strategy without knowing exactly what your quality standards are can seriously undermine your campaign’s success. However, as long as you know how you’ll treat these situations, they aren’t a good reason to avoid user generated content.   Legal Concerns It’s also important to determine whether user generated content raises any legal concerns for your brand. Some companies make users sign terms and conditions statements that release the brand from liability should the user post something inoffensive or inaccurate. Speaking with legal counsel before launching any user generated content strategy can be beneficial. Again, this isn’t a reason to avoid this type of campaign. It’s simply something you’ll want to address before starting so there are no unpleasant surprises.   Is User Generated Content Right for You? Given all these different considerations, how do you know if user generated content is right for you? For starters, be aware that user generated content is beneficial for nearly all business in one form or another. If you don’t yet have a strong fan base, it may not be the right time to start a user generated content campaign. However, if you’re already up and running with a loyal following, this is a logical step for your business to take. User generated content vastly increases your reach, creates positive buzz for your brand and can be a lot of fun in the process. If you’re looking to increase your web presence, it’s likely that user generated content is a good fit for you. Laying out your strategy and addressing any legal concerns before you get started will allow you to experience this new marketing strategy as a fun, innovative way to promote your business. Continue reading →

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