Seeking New Creative Outlet!!!

Seeking new web design, social networking, and/or content writing opportunities!! I am loving the whole social networking stuff... facebook, twitter and Word Press!
The economy is lame, so I am offering some excellent prices so you can improve your web visibility. Check out my design portfolio and a list of all I LOVE to do http://www.luluwow.com/portfolio.html
Lets chat!

Lifestyle and Leisure~

This post is NOT about web design or marketing, it's about reaping the rewards!

We all work hard, and many of us have had a difficult year. We all need to take the time now and then to reap the rewards of our hard labor and relax! If you are not fortunate enough to live here in Florida near some of the most beautiful beaches in the world, it may be time to give yourself a well deserved vacation. What better place to renew and refresh yourself and soak up the sun and culture than Anna Maria Island Florida and the surrounding Gulf Coast!

Pristine beaches, award winning restaurants, world class shopping and a special place for every mood that strikes your fancy. From charming and quaint beach houses to sophisticated and luxurious condominiums or homes, Anna Maria Island and her sister islands - as well as Sarasota and Bradenton, offer something for everyone.

Want to make your island vacation plans easy and stress free? I recommend Island Real Estate for all your Florida vacation or real estate needs. This Real Estate company has been around since 1970 and they know their stuff and truly enjoy assisting you with your dream vacation or real estate desires.

Whether it's a few days or for a lifetime ~ Island Real Estate can find you the perfect "peace" of mind.

The Economy & Advertising...

The economy is in a terrible state and has been for a long time now, and there is no reason to believe it will improve anytime soon. Most people and businesses are probably feeling the crunch. What's a person to do? You need business and customers. How will you get their attention in the most affordable way?

Your website and global Internet marketing is still the most affordable way to be visible and attract potential customers. Available 24/7 to the world. There is no other advertising option that can do that! As an example, take a $1500 website. Do the math!

• $125 a month
• $28.85 per week
• $4.12 per day

Now that is amazing! So put your advertising budget to proper use and make sure you have a good functioning, properly executed web site that is visible. If your website is not bringing you positive results, you need to re-think your marketing strategy and update or re-create your web presence NOW!

Email me your needs and desires and let's talk about it. :-)

Marketing

Research - analyze - implement. Basic steps to your website visibility. Social networking sites also play a vital role in your site being found in search engines. What would YOU type into that little Google box to find a business like yours? This is a good place to start. Proper keyword phrases are critical. But it goes much deeper than that! Code, website structure, relevant links and Blogging are also a must for visibility.

Give me a shout... let's talk about it!

Take control of your business growth...

Growing your business or company is much like growing plants. It all starts with an idea, a vision of something beneficial or needed. The SEED must then be planted, nurtured, cared for. A decision of where to plant it, research on how to help it come to fruition, and how to help it survive once it is rooted and growing. Once it "sprouts" you have to continue to care for it or it will wither and die. Poor planning in the conceptual state could result in no growth, stunted growth or it being lost in a forest.

Your website presence needs the same things as the plant. Take the time to understand what it is you want, (VISION/IDEAS) what you want the results to be, (SALES/MORE BUSINESS/RECOGNITION) where you want it to grow, (TARGET AUDIENCE) and how you will maintain it. SEO/UPDATES/NETWORKING.

With a good plan and time spent wisely, your business website presence and marketing should reap the results you desire.

Happy gardening! :-)

Creating The Feel & Look of Your Web design

The look and feel of your website must reflect your over all vision for your company or business. In my opinion, the "Header" is a very important aspect in creating the over all look. If the client has a logo, that is always taken into consideration, and a priority factor. Then the task of finding just the right visuals - image - to incorpoate into the over all feel. "Every picture tells a story," "a picture is worth a thousand words," you know the sayings, and it's true! I usually pull the entire color theme from a single picture, perfectly coordinating it through out the design.

It would be nice IF we could use beautiful high resolution images all over the website! BUT, this would not be wise as the pages would become to heavy, making the site useless. Always optimize your photos to the best download size while retaining the optimal quality... easier said than done sometimes. One or two fantastic images is always better than many images of less quality and impact.

It is always helpful IF the client has an "image" in mind or available. While working on http://www.wisernow.com/, my client had an image of an apple. That was all we needed, and the entire look took off beautifully!

Keep in mind that knowing WHAT you desire, and being prepared from day one in providing examples will only result in a more satisfying web experience.

In my opinion, the entire web page should not exceed 50k at most.

Woman With Websites...

Marketing to woman, woman owned websites, or a web audience that focuses on the female market, is proving to be very beneficial. The new year is off to a great start as LuLu Wow has attracted 5 new clients. Two are powerful and accomplished women that are authors and public speakers. One is a women Realtor, another, a women owned website, and lastly, a school in California owned by a women.
Marketing to and for women is specialized and a very needed service in the web community. I am enjoying all of these new projects enourmously!!

Marketing Events

With the holidays approaching - is your website ready? By now you should made some changes to your web site, a holiday promotion, thought, image... something to update your website to keep it fresh and interesting for your web audience and the search engines. These ongoing changes, be they small blurbs or big announcements are very important in keeping your website alive! Think of it like other media industries , print, TV or radio. You would not keep picking up the same magazine, or watching the same TV program if it was the same every month... ditto for your web marketing!
LuLu Wow includes monthly maintenance for all of our web design clients. If you happen to have a website that is basically dead because you have no way to add fresh information, give us a shout. We can provide you with this valuable service at a very reasonable fee.

Vision...

Vision - n.
The faculty of sight; eyesight: poor vision.
Something that is or has been seen.
Unusual competence in discernment or perception; intelligent foresight: a leader of vision.
The manner in which one sees or conceives of something.
A mental image produced by the imagination.

Creating a website begins with "vision." A spark, an idea that flows into the mind. What creates this "spark?" For me it is usually something as simple as a word, a picture or a color. Turning that VISION into a workable and awesome CONCEPT come from communication with my web client. Every client has a vision of what they desire their website to look like. Since we all see things differently, communication is the key to a beautiful and positive result. We will talk about color, shapes, style, emotion, and all possible aspects to have a genuine meeting of the minds. Then OUT vision begins to unfold and ultimately produce the desired outcome. Talk to me about your VISION!

LuLu

Using old browser platforms.

Okay, I have a huge pet peeve! Why in the world would anyone not update their web browser?? It's fast and FREE. Who would choose to keep an old - outdated browser? As a web designer I am not fond of Internet Explorer to begin with. Yes, IE7 has made progress, but they have a long way to go! Firefox renders properly and is totally up to speed. I know that I am supposed to work like hell to make my designs cross-browser compatible, but why should I have to continue to do this. Honestly, if someone is still stuck with IE5 I don't care how their web page looks. That may sound rude, but I will not cater to those that can not keep current with simple technology. I am starting to feel this way about IE6 users too! I would love to hear how everyone feels about this!

Go PINK for October!

I am "going PINK" for October breast cancer awareness month! Come on women of the web, and men too ... swap out your background webpage color to pink (I just did) add a "going pink" graphic, spread the awareness and be part of a solution! Let's PINK it up!

Visit http://pinkforoctober.org/ and get involved.

New SEO and Marketing Project

I am always excited when I get a new project, design, marketing or search engine optimization. Each project lends a new opportunity to be creative, solve problems and help clients with their web presence. This SEO project is for a major Art Appraisal website and will be a great challenge!

Niche marketing for women

As defined by Wikipedia - A niche market is a focused, targetable portion (subset) of a "Market sector." By definition, then, a business that focuses on a niche market is addressing a need for a product or service that is not being addressed by mainstream providers. A niche market may be thought of as a narrowly defined group of potential customers.

When I created http://www.luluwow.com/ a little over a year ago, I quickly realized that I wanted to focus on marketing to women. I defined my target audience into this smaller sector for several reasons.

1. I felt there was a real need for the focus on women
2. I knew it would be extremely difficult to get the attention and clients I wanted if I was vague, ie; website design.
3. I understood the old saying "you can't be everything for everyone!"

This marketing strategy has proven to be wise and successful.

I currently rank #1 on Google out of 133,000,000 for "web design for women!"

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=web+design+for+women&btnG=Google+Search

I firmly believe that the first step of business, on the internet or off, is clearly defining your marketing and goals. The 5 W's, who - what- where-why - when , have got to be completely understood before you begin and then completely conveyed to your potential market.

You really can not do it all and be everything to everyone, so DEFINE what your great at and what you are passionate about and do it right!

New Web Design for LuLu

Fresh new web design look for http://www.luluwow.com/

I am liking this new design and felt it was time for an overhaul. Change is good and I like to keep things interesting. This web design CSS validates and is easier to navigate than the last design. Soon I will re-design this blog - again! I selected colors and content that i felt women could easily relate to. Let me know what you think!!

Relax~

I take an honest and genuine approach to doing business. First of all, I LOVE what I do, so it does not seem like "work." This is important... one has to like doing their livelihood, or they will stress out and not do it well.

I want my clients to know that when we work together it is their best interests and goals that are priority. Buying a web presence should not be difficult or stressful. This is an enjoyable situation that will benefit the client as needed. So, relax and lets have some fun with this! I will do whatever I can to assist and make your web site a pleasant experience.

Work at your Web marketing...

"If you build it... they will come." Ha, wouldn't that be nice, IF it were true. The fact is, having a website designed and out on the big wide web will produce little if any results... UNLESS your web site designer knows what they are doing with design search engine optimization , and YOU, yes you, spend some time working at getting and keeping your URL on the web map and keeping it there. What, you mean I have to be involved in all of this? Yes mam, or sir, you do! Unless you want to spend oodles of cash on paid advertising... and who really clicks on those anyway?

I can not stress the importance of you being involved in keeping your website fresh and interesting and your roll in helping lead people to it. Here are some sweet tips!

1. Update your web content regularly. No one likes to see or read the same ol' stuff. Google as well as many other update their "look" daily. Provide your web designer with new images, text, or ideas often, or do it yourself with a content management system.
2. The Blog. This has got to be the easiest way to make changes and provide interest to your website audience. I suggest having one on your website and several others.
3. Social networking. Find forums related to your web market and make posts. Write articles about your area of expertise and submit. Join groups or start one related to your market and share information.
4. Press releases to your local print media. When you have something going on with your business, release the news to the press.
5. Be sure to always cross market your web site with all other forms of marketing, print, TV, radio, you may be doing. I can't believe how many times I have seen print ads where the company did not list their website in the ad!!

Yes, marketing yourself or business is work, but the rewards will be plentiful.

Feel free to contact me if you have a question, idea or just wish to chit chat!

Setting the mood~

mood~ creating an emotional tone or general attitude.

With web design, creating the mood is done with color, images, sound, font type and the over all layout of the design. creating the correct feel for your audience that really relates to your business is very important. It will set the tone for the way your web presentation is viewed and reacted to.

A well versed webdesigner will have studied color theory and typography, design elements and art composition. Designing an attractive website is like painting a picture, or taking a great photograph. All the elements need to convey the right message.

Keep this in mind so your are prepared to work together with your designer to produce optimum results!

Marketing for Women and Color

I have a new website design for a Sarasota business that will be marketing exclusively to woman for sports wear. All I have to go on is a black & white logo and figures of women, so I did some research. What I found was very interesting. Some generalizations are possible based on various color studies.
Female Top 3 Favorite Colors: Blue, Purple, Green (all cool colors)
Purple stands out as a feminine color because it is chosen almost exclusively by women as a favorite color and is disliked by men. Women tend to prefer cool colors over warm and soft colors over bold full tones.
When marketing to women color is one important aspect of the design.

LuLu

PRE-Website Design 101

Not just another pretty face/space. You need a website, or you need to "spruce up" your existing one. What should YOU do first to ensure that your website will portray the web image you want?
1. Research your competition.
Sit at your computer and type in the key words and phrases that you personally would use to find a product or service similar to your own. Study the results on the first 1 or 2 pages. This IS your competition that you will be trying to beat with search engine ranking. Click the "view source" tab from the View menu at the top of your browser. Notice the TITLE, DESCRIPTION and KEYWORDS these websites have in place. Take note of which sites you like and dislike, the style, the tone and the content.
This research is the foundation of your website presence, and must be considered prior to thinking about design.
2. Now it's time to get 'physical."
What type of designs please you? Simplistic, complex, straight forward? Modern, retro, technical? What colors best suits your image. It is best to stay with no more than 3 or 4 main colors. Do you like horizontal or vertical menu navigation. Do you like a lot of white space?
3. Words, words & more words.
In most cases you will be responsible for writing the content of your website.. it is your business after all, and you should know it best!
Do you prefer the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person? Do you want to be more conversational or informative in your tone. What writing style best suits your image? When writing good web content, remember to answer the users question of "so what?" Remember the rules of "who, what, where and why." Involve the user.. don't go on and on yourself. The "me-me" approach is most always a turn off. What can you do for THEM? Remember those keywords and phrases noted earlier.. use them, but only in the correct context.
4. Every picture tells a story.
Photographs, graphics and images give your website "personality." Do you have good quality images? Is your logo and branding material up to date and appropriate? You can purchase affordable and quality images for your website. Be very selective in your images. I personally like Stock Exchange or DreamsTime

5. Now you've got it!
After this careful consideration defining your website marketing and presence goals, you are now ready to select a web designer that will listen and respond to YOU. I take my clients vision very seriously and then through communication we come up with a smashing result!
Give me a shout so we can talk about it!

VISTA

I just purchased a new computer (long over due) and am getting acquainted with "her" and the new VISTA os. So far, I like VISTA... it is sleek, more convenient, even friendlier and snazzier to look at! As for my new computer? Well, the online world is a prettier place with a 19" wide screen, and FAST is always a good thing!

This will allow me to do twice the research, studying, and web productivity in half the time!
LULU on steroids... *smiles*

How did the human race function pre-computer technology? Isn't it wonderful that that will never be a concern again.

On live technology!