As with most of our clients, Penny Leong come to Imagine Design Studio via a referral from valued, existing clients. Penny needed a new website to spread the word about her new dental practice in Ballard. We worked the existing logo Penny had designed, the color scheme of her new offices, and created a WordPress-driven new site representative of dental practice.

One of the things we enjoy about our work is working in new areas. We just completed a new logo, website, letterhead, business cards and brochure for Peggy at Way to the Quad financial planning. College finances being what they are, it is great to know there are professionals like Peggy to help students and their families navigate the college financial planning waters. Check out the new website we built for her.

Following up on a referral from one of their members, we were able to work with the Whatcom County Association of Realtors on a budget-friendly redesign of their website. In addition to the redesign, the site was also migrated over to WordPress so staff could do regular updates to the website.

One question we get asked often is about whether a business should be using Google+, and if so, how much and how often. We’ve read many articles on the topic, and this one does a great job summarizing many of the benefits, including:
– Google is the most popular search engine in the world
– Google+ is free advertising
– Google+ is easy to setup
– Google+ will help market your videos

Those are some pretty good reasons, and you can read about them in more detail as explained by Denise Martinez in her article.

The Heartbleed Bug is a newly discovered threat which puts password security at risks. Many service providers such as Google, Amazon, Facebook and more have patched their servers against this very serious issue, but it is still recommended that users change their passwords to protect against possible compromise of personal information.

Mashable posted a nice table outlining which services are at risk and where users may want to update their password. In addition many tech sites, such as CNET, have posted FAQs on the bug.

In general, we recommend clients change their passwords on a fairly regular basis, that they use “secure” passwords, and that they don’t use the same password across multiple logins. A great tool to manage your passwords is 1Password. 1Password allows you to have a password vault accessible across multiple devices and platforms, and it creates stronger passwords.

Many website do not have to be elaborate in order to meet the needs of most companies. As we met with Leigh of Personal Growth Hypnotherapy, it was clear the focus did not need to be on the form as much as the function of her WordPress website. We worked with Leigh to clean up her existing website and to brainstorm ways she could get timely and important information to her clients and those potentially in need of her services. With the changes we made, Leigh now blogs more often and is seeing higher enrollment in her classes.

Incredible! After finding out about Kidstown through a friend we wanted to be a part of their mission. We worked closely with Matt to not only build them a new website, but to make various improvements to the functionality as well. And a new logo as well. Kidstown does incredible work by helping orphans in India, Nepal and Romania.

It happens that I have a discussion with a client about social media we do NOT touch on the topic of how much value it has to them. Ultimately the value of social media efforts comes down to understanding the reach social media has to not just existing clients but to future, possible clients. Gary Vaynerchuk, a prominent speaker on the power of social media, speaks to how “everyone is reachable” via social media in a recent video.

I was reading an article this morning about setting and realizing social media goals. There were four keys listed, all or which are important steps. The third step explains why it is important to know where your web traffic comes from.  When you know where your traffic is coming from you better use the time you spend on your social media. It is one of the best uses of Google Analytics reporting.

To do see where your social media traffic is coming from in Google Analytics, assuming you have logged into your Google Analytics account, go to the Acquisition section, then Social section, select Network Referrals.

On the Network Referrals page you will be able to see a list of social media networks websites sending traffic back to your site.

By clicking on our example you can see that YouTube and Facebook are the main social media sites that drive traffic.

It seems the number of ways to engage existing and potential customers is increasing at an exponential rate. Everyone knows of Facebook and Twitter and YouTube, but there are many more players in the game. The key for business owners is to know where to engage their largest audience, and that often can boil down to knowing the demographics of your audience. For example, did you know 45% of those online over the age of 65 now use Facebook?

Read more about eight social communities you may not be aware of, including Snapchat, WhatsApp, Tumblr, Vine, and more.