Have you ever wondered what a search engine “sees” when reading your site? How many internal and external links you have on a given page of your site or the keyword density of a page? There are several “SEO Toolbars” that make it easier on the end user to see how their site looks from an SEO perspective.

Quake, www.seoquake.com, offers a free toolbar that allows you to view external and internal links on each page of your site, title and meta information, and the density of keywords on any page. This tool allows you to view the hierarchy of information on your pages in a similar way to how a search engine would see it.

Trellian’s toolbar, www.toolbarbrowser.com, packs the important SEO information into a button called “How Search Engines See This Page.” Clicking this button lets you see meta information and your content, as it appears to search engines. The display also calls out your heading information just as a search engine would.

Downloading these toolbars will provide an exciting glimpse into your site in a way you’ve never seen it before, and can answer some of your frequently asked SEO questions.

With the holidays approaching, email marketing is an important tactic for driving online sales. According to a recent eMarketer report, email marketing has the second highest success rate for producing high volume sales among online marketing channels, second only to paid search. But with so many email blasts being sent to your consumers, how do you ensure that your emails are not overlooked and left unopened?

Research shows that shorter email subjects are more compelling. Subjects with less than 35 characters have an average open rate of 19.6% and an average click rate of 3.1%, compared to subjects with more than 35 characters that yield an average open rate of 14.8% and click rate of 1.9%. Short, enticing subjects can help ensure the continued success of your email campaigns. Click here to read the full article.

We’re often asked by potential clients about recommendations for off-the-shelf ecommerce solutions. Our answer is always the same: we don’t recommend any of them.

When we started building websites, we did implement some of these solutions, but they never worked out. This is the plight faced by many web developers who would love to implement less expensive solutions for their customers if they could. Recently, we talked with another developer who described some of the issues he’s experienced when using a packaged shopping cart: they are difficult to maintain, customers experience inventory problems and Google integration isn’t possible.

While off-the-shelf solutions may be quicker to get up and running and seem cheaper in the short term, the costs add up quickly. Not only are there financial costs, like hidden fees and other ongoing expenses, but most carts do not integrate 100% with the look and feel of your website. This results in confusion for the customer and increased risk of loss of sales. Encountering these unforeseen issues and realizing additional needs, most users outgrow their packaged carts and eventually move on to custom solutions, meaning completely throwing away the money they have spent.

When we build a custom ecommerce website, we start by helping you spec out exactly what is needed. We’ve done it so many times, and have even been on the customer side of running an ecommerce site, so we know what features will make your endeavor successful. Building a custom ecommerce solution means that there are no limits on what can be done. We love having the chance to implement the latest ecommerce trends on our sites, which you can read more about here. We provide support for any problems you may have, and build our sites using ASP.net, a ubiquitous programming language so that you can work with a wide choice of developers in the future.   

Please feel free to contact us with any questions regarding custom ecommerce solutions.

We recently launched www.keenfootwear.com, giving customers the ability to shop directly from KEEN online. This was a custom-built site, so we were able to include features we think use the latest and greatest trends in ecommerce.

• Easy Navigation - Landing pages for Men, Women, Kids, Bags and Sox showcase all product categories and allow shoppers to easily navigate between categories, to a certain size or color or directly to a featured product page.
• Advanced Search Capabilities – Site visitors can search by product name, category, color and SKU, and then filter results even further if needed with easy-to-use search functionality. The RSS feed on the search results page allows customers to receive updates whenever products in their custom search become available. 
• Time-Saving Features - Roll-over quick views show multiple colors for each product while still on the product wall. On product detail pages, customers can easily see their recently viewed products as well as related products. 
• Buying Options – Customers have the option to buy directly from KEEN or from one of their online partners. A live feed ensures that only online partners with the exact product (including the selected size and color) will be displayed.
• Friendly Checkout Process – The simple checkout process only takes two steps. Once the purchase is complete, the products show up in the customer’s interactive KEEN Closet, for easy reference in the future. 
• Manageable Admin Site – The KEEN Team uses their custom-built admin site to easily update products, from color and size availability to complete lines and seasons. Real-time reports are readily accessible, giving them current information on revenue, top products and more. They can also easily manage accounts and access individual orders for superior customer service.

How do you say “snow” and “fun” in a graphic design through font choice? During a recent design project, we were tasked with creating a non-denominational holiday e-card that screams “winter holidays” without a religious connotation. After many attempts, we ended up with a good balance with the chosen font in our layout.

This design exercise reminds me of something I have been noticing a lot of lately in the form of political campaign signage, and what it makes me feel. Here are some examples we’ve been seeing so much of lately and what I FEEL as a graphic designer, when viewing the typography associated with the candidates’ signage:

Signage Font Notes: Bold, traditional serif. Light lettering knocked out of dark background: high impact. Contrast of scale and style.
What It Says: Careful balance. Instant impact with soft appeal. Feels contemporary, with a nod to tradition.

Signage Font Notes: Super bold, heavy, semi-serif. Single font throughout. High impact white on dark background color.
What It Says: Confident. Boad typeface feels positively capable. Extremely heavy.

For all types of projects, it is important to be aware of how font choice is crucial to the emotional response of your audience. We find this to be true everywhere from the fonts we choose for our websites, to the typeface used for the word marks and logos we design.