Check Our References is the newest ad campaign for Prudential Waterfront Properties in a long list of award winning creative GO Interactive has produced for The Willard Companies.
ADM Corporation, located in Meddlesex, New Jersey, is a leading supplier of pressure-sensitive envelopes, stretch wrap, stretch banding and reclosable and polyethylene bags for companies including FedEx.
GO Agency has launched and designed the new website and transitioned corporate email to Google Apps.
We inherited this site the first time the Lake Geeks went out of business so it was a relief to finally give Mangos a nice face-lift. Nothing spectacular as far as design but light years ahead of where they were.
Main Street Bank Shares is a the holding company for a local bank. Wordpress CMS Custom Design. Literally blowing up right now with like 10 websites in the queue – expect frequent launches this week.
Seems like its the season for a new Trade Show booth. We have recently switched to a new vendor and stopped production in-house of Trade Show booths. We were able to get the price down under $1,000. for this 10 x 10. The poor Epson 46″ plotter downstairs gets no love anymore.
Hit refresh on the home page and you will see all the various ads currently running. We launched the site back in January but hadn’t completed the New Ad campaign for the web intro headers.
Be ready for the trade show season with this 10 x 10 trade show booth starting at $1,000. See specs below…
Product Overview:
The Wingspan Pop Up Display comes with everything you need to effectively promote your product at any trade show for a fraction of the price of other displays.
Display Size: 10′W x 7.6′H x 3′D
The package includes:
• Extruded Aluminum Frame(1)
• 3-section Channel Bars (7)
• Halogen Lights (2)
• Graphic Panels (4 center panels/2 end panels)
• Half hard case for storage Repair kit
Graphic Panel Material: PVC
Graphic Turnaround Time:
Graphics turnaround 3 business days after proofs are approved.
We have enjoyed working with the Parrot Cove team on bring their marketing materials and website up to the 21st century. Register To Win A Houseboat Vacation
Common Wealth Care, launched nine new websites for each of its facilities today. GO provided the custom design and Content Management Solutions for each.
WakeNSkate Wakeboards Facebook Fan Page added 1,000 new fans in the month of December. Like to know how to do this for your business? Call the GO Agency.
Rocky Mount, VA, December 10, 2009 – Tracie Ayers of Rocky Mount received an early holiday present this week when she was announced as the winner of Franklin Community Bank’s $500 Holiday Cash Giveaway.
“I am very excited to be the winner and I plan on picking a couple of angels off the angel tree to splurge on for Christmas,” said Ayers, who has been a loyal client of Franklin Community Bank for 6 years.
Ayers’ name was drawn at random from more than 600 participants who completed a survey on the bank’s web site (fcbva.com). The survey asked 16 questions regarding participants’ banking habits and preferences.
“We are always looking for ways to improve the way we serve our current and prospective clients,” said Larry A. Heaton, President and CEO of Franklin Community Bank. “The results of the survey will help us gain a better understanding of what consumers in the community are really looking for from their bank.”
Franklin Community Bank recently launched a new marketing campaign, designed by the GO Agency, a full-service advertising and web development company headquartered at Westlake Corner in Franklin County. Agency President Micah Gaudio said the survey results will be used to tailor the bank’s message to current and potential clients.
The great thing about putting a video on your home page is you can spoon feed your visitors the information you want them to see without leaving them guessing where to click next.
The current MLS System for the RVAR is just clunky and hard to find or search for anything. We were happy to frame in a new MLS system for MaryLouMcDonald.net that will surely make home hunting an easier task.
Grand Home Furnishings is planning a huge charitable event at the Waters Edge March 6th, 2010. Its about time Smith Mountain Lake came up with a new event and GO is proud to be a part of it. Check out the launch or grandwintergala.com later today.
GO Agency designed and developed a custom Wordpress site for our new client, ServPro of Lynchbrg. ServPro specializes in fire & water damage cleanup and restoration. Check them out here.
We’ve been using WordPress & Joomla for nearly five years and its nice to know that out 1,000’s of Content Management Systems we already have chosen to work with the two best in the industry. Sorry Drupal.
WordPress was one of three leaders in both rate of adoption and brand strength as measured in the 2009 Open Source Content Management System Market Share Report. The second edition of this report, authored by water&stone and CMSWire, was released today and concludes that three brands – WordPress, Joomla! and Drupal – are dominating today’s market for open source CMS. The report looks at download rates, evaluation and trial usage, and third party support to estimate adoption. Brand strength is evaluated by assessing search engine rankings, Google PageRank, mindshare, social media prominence and reputation.
We’re happy to see WordPress recognized again as a strong CMS option for publishers. The free 96-page report is available at CMSWire.
We just built a new email newsletter for The Water’s Edge Country Club Homeowners Association (WEHOA). For more information on The Water’s Edge click here
A change in the Creative Director position at Laker Media created a temporary gap in the non-stop graphic design cycle of the bi-monthly lifestyle publication, Smith Mountain Laker Magazine. GO Agency stepped in and worked with the editor and publisher to layout and design the entire September/October issue without even hitting so much as a speed bump in the publication process.
A Live Website for Your Business In Less Than 6 Hours for Only $600!*
Talk about simple! Tell us how many web pages you need and we’ll give you a choice of 3 custom headers and a complete website design all set-up and ready for you to add your own content. If you know how to create and edit a basic Word document, you can add new pages and content to your website! But just to be sure, our $600 website package also includes 2 hours of website training!
*6-Hour time frame is contingent upon receiving a signed proposal, client sitemap, domain and design approval. OUR BASIC $600 WEBSITE PACKAGE BENEFITS:
- Go Live, Same-Day Service!
- Your Choice of 3 Custom Header Designs!
- A Complete Content Management System — You’re In Control!
- Accessible by Multiple Editors!
- Business Blog Included!
- No Web-Knowledge Needed!
- One-On-One Website Training & Support!
- Financing Available!
NEED MORE?? ADD-ONS TO FURTHER CUSTOMIZE YOUR WEBSITE: $250 – Annual Website Hosting
$30 – Annual Domain Registration
$200 – Social Media Package - Includes set up of Facebook and Twitter Page and updates automatically from blog $200 – Custom Twitter Background
$200 – Business Directory Module
$200 – File Management Module
$200 – On-Line Invoicing Systems
$200 – Website Photo Gallery
$25/page – Content Management Services (We add the content for you)
$25/page – Copywriting Services
Your website is a resource for your current and potential customers as well as a sales channel. Use your site to build brand recognition, credibility, and utility.
According to MoreVisibility (morevisibility.com), “It’s never too early to consider reevaluating the performance of your website and investigating the viability of a redesign project – large or small. But, whether it’s a complete rebuild or a ‘look and feel’ facelift, redoing all or part of your site can be a daunting and scary task. Even if you know your site isn’t performing at the level you need it to, change is nerve racking, and there is no guarantee that you’ll feel confident knowing how to “fix” what’s wrong and get the site in better shape.”
According to the white paper (linked at the end of this article), you should keep these ten key components in mind when upgrading your website:
Points of Conversion
What do you want site visitors to do on your site? Purchase something? Make a purchase decision and find a retailer? Sign up for your newsletter? Something else? Identify these objectives first – make a list of each action you would want a visitor to take – prioritize them and plan them into your site redesign.
Aesthetic Look and Feel
Does the website still match your brand? Does it seem outdated in its use of imagery or multimedia components, such as flash and video? Is your site design in-line with current usability trends? With the bar constantly being raised on these components, you need your site to “keep up with the times” to reflect positively on your brand.
Content and Content Management
Does your site contain all the content that your visitors are looking for: text, PDF documents, imagery, and videos? Is it managed in a way that makes this content easy to control and update? A content management system (CMS) that suits your needs makes it easier to update any site – leading to fresher content and a better visitor experience.
Organization/Taxonomy/Information Architecture
Organization of content. “The naming conventions used to identify navigational items, headers, and text, all serve an extremely important role in orienting both users and search engines throughout your site.” Any redesign process should spend time on these aspects before a graphical design is created.
Functionality
What do you want your site to “do” for your visitors? This can range from helping them “buy” a product to configuring a custom multi-product solution that is right for them or a login that allows visitors to save information on your site. If there are simple tools your customers need – develop them and put them on your site.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
It is likely that a majority of your traffic already comes from search engines. Imagine doubling that… Moving to a SEO-oriented platform can do this.
Timeline
Plan ahead and be realistic about your timelines. A good redesign strategy often includes a number of “phases” to allow you to get the site up quickly and continue to improve it over time.
Budget and Resources
How much time and money do you have to spend on the new site? This is an important consideration in scoping the work – taking on more than your organization can handle can lead to project failure.
Analytics / Results
“When considering all your redesign options from aesthetics, to content, to functionality, etc., it is especially informative and valuable to refer to the performance of your current site via your analytics suite and closely analyze what is and isn’t working.”
Marketing Plan
How will you announce your new site to the public when it is complete? Consider this when designing the site – where you will send people, what features you will announce, and so on.
Your website is not just a portfolio but a viable part in your business and sales process so read this twice and call us if you have any questions.
Get Your Web Hits! See who is visiting your site, where are they coming from, how long they are staying and what pages they are viewing. Remember, you have a control panel and you can view your stats and web hits at anytime. If you prefer, we can email them to you monthly or weekly… just let us know and we will set you up.
Are You Listed on Google Maps? If you are not already listed, make sure this is a priority. If you want to add your listing with a logo or picture, you can do it yourself at http://maps.google.com/maps , or we’ll do it for $50.
Register Your Domain For 10 Years. According to a statement in a Google patent, domains that expire in 10 years are more valuable and legitimate than domains that will expire in less than a year. We have always renewed your domain for $30 annually. If you want to get better Google search rankings, make sure we register your .com domain for 10 years at $159.90.
Buy Your Piece of Local Search. Buy your piece of Google by zip code, city, state and region. If you are interested in how geo-targeting is going to change your business, read “What Every Business Should Know About Google” at http://blog.goagency.com/?p=41. We also will be giving a seminar for the Roanoke Regional Chamber on April 23rd, covering topics on Local Search and Social Media.
Attend a FREE Content Management Seminar. We will host a Joomla Content Management Seminar on Monday December 1st, at 4:00 pm in the GO Agency Blue Conference Room. If you want to train new people in your organization or brush up on your skills don’t miss this seminar. This will be a 45 minute overview of Joomla covering how to add text, images and how to publish and collaborate with your team for successful website. We will not cover Joomla modules such as calendars, directories, ecommerce etc. RVSP to web@goagency
If you are a Contribute User and have interest in us holding a seminar for best Contribute practices please email us.
Register For Agent IDX. If you are a Realtor, then surely you have heard the Agent IDX is now available for the RVAR. You can purchase the link for $29 a month from NAVICA Web Solutions and we will frame it in to your existing site for a one time set up fee of $600. We have built a few already and the results are amazing… no more having to add listings in three different locations!
We have been so busy building new sites that we wanted to take the time to say thank you for your business and we are never too busy to help you update and keep your site current.
Did you know Google knows exactly where you are sitting right now? That’s right – it knows exactly where you are stroking those keys on your keyboard. And because Google knows exactly where your computer connects to the internet, the search-engine giant can customize your search results based on your location, which is good news for local businesses.
Last December, a major update to Google’s local search and geo-targeting pay-per-click feature went relatively unnoticed by most. That is everyone except sales reps for the over-abundant phone books, who now seem more interested in selling Google Map listings than listings in their own print product – and with good reason. From plumbers, attorneys to landscapers, more and more people are turning to Google to find local services. According to data from ComScore and TMP Direction Marketing, search engine use to find local businesses was up 4 percent over printed yellow and/or white page directories from 2007.
In the past, Adwords and pay-per-click advertising seemed out of reach for most local businesses. They simply couldn’t compete with the marketing budgets of national companies. Now, even small companies can afford broad terms like “florist,” “Botox,” and “insurance” while geo-targeting their customers by zip code, mile radius, state or region. You can even draw in the territory you want to reach. Our favorite is the Roanoke/Lynchburg zone pictured below.
Sound too good to be true? Wait, it gets even better. You can set up a campaign for as little as $10 a month and start getting hits on your website immediately. Of course, pay-per-click advertising is a bidding process, so as more of your competitors catch on, the price per click may go up. Starting your local search campaign now will help you get a leg up on the competition and increase your quality score, which Google uses to maintain a good user experience. Best of all, you can actually track the terms that are sending you the most traffic.
So how do you get started? Simply visit google.com/ads and set up an AdWords account. If you’re having trouble and don’t see the results you think you should be getting, it’s best to call a professional who specializes in search management services. Make sure he or she shows you credentials such as screen shots of successful campaigns. The best companies will also set up customized landing pages tailored to your keywords, help you set a fixed monthly budget and even forecast the number of clicks you are likely to receive. Call some of the company’s current customers and find out what results they are getting.
In case you haven’t noticed, Google just changed the rules on you again and will continue to do so until they get a monthly payment from you and every small business in the country. Don’t believe me? Pay attention next time you search; if the search result listings on the right side of the page have a fourth line like “Virginia” or “Roanoke-Lynchburg,” you know it’s a local search.
