Axel Project brand identity, designed by Dayzign Graphics

Randy and Jen Charrette had a vision to introduce and nurture a lifelong passion for cycling to children and their families.

With a dream of starting a nonprofit in their son’s name, they came to Dayzign with a clear picture of their brand: a fun, energetic kid on a bike that inspires enthusiasm for cycling. They also wanted a website that makes it easy to donate and see what’s happening in the organization. First we tackled the logo, perfecting the look of our pedaling kiddo! Then we refined the graphic, chose the color palette and digitized the file for marketing uses from web to print to hats and shirts.

With a limited budget that nonprofits often have, Dayzign chose a WordPress website template to customize with the new brand.  The template offered a clear Donation feature that linked right to a Paypal account. A blog slider up front takes viewers from Home page photos right to that blog post. A calendar plugin makes it easy to feed Events onto the sidebar, with more information just one click away.

In short, Axel Project got a fully sophisticated website and company brand by opting for the wordpress template. Although these templates are not nearly as customizable visually as a custom website, they are perfect for organizations trying to get a message across who do not need full control over every aspect of their website’s appearance.

To get a glimpse of the great work Jen and Randy are doing, please visit Axel Project and enjoy the ride!

Search Engine Optimization is a marathon, not a sprint

Today’s post is a guest blog by Chris Sharpe of SharpNET Solutions. Chris works with many Dayzign clients to improve their search engine ranks – and they rave about him! Read on to get his advice on how to improve your search engine rankings …

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of interacting with a website to improve search engine rankings for relevant search phrases. While this can be a wildly complicated process, there are some simple steps to take that can make a big impact on your search engine visibility.

There are three main components to search engine ranking, and why one website may outrank another.

1)     Content Optimization: The content on your website and how it communicates to people and the search engines. The primary components are the readable content, and META tags (Title and Description).

2)     PageRank: The popularity of your website, and how many other websites link to it. This also includes any “social media buzz” about your website.

3)     Quality: User interaction with your website in response to the generally quality or likability. The “quality” of your website includes things like the quality of the content or if there is duplicate content. The “likability” includes the ease of use for your visitors, how long they stay on the site and if they continue searching after visiting your website.

The best ranked websites out-rank competitor websites through a combination of the three primary factors listed above.  So… how can a business owner easily improve these key SEO factors?

Improving Content Optimization –

Of the three primary factors impacting SEO, content optimization is the easiest to implement and a few key concepts can help you on your way.  The primary thing to understand is that the search engines cannot easily rank a website for keywords that do not exist on the website. For example, a company offering Home Loans cannot capture “home loan” rankings on Google if their website doesn’t talk about “Home Loans.”  Think about the phrases that you would like to be found under when prospects are searching on a search engine. Incorporate those search phrases within the content of your website in a natural and tactful manner, so that it reads well. Then support that keyword further by incorporating it within the page META TITLE and Description tags.  (We can help with this part). Keep a narrow focus on only a few closely related keywords, so that the search engines understand which keywords are most important to you.

*Content Optimization Tip:

All content on the internet can be optimized, not just your website. The practical application of content optimization and keyword targeting applies to your blog posts, press releases, articles, social media posts, business profiles and anything else accessible to the search engines.

Improving PageRank:

Google assigns a PageRank value to every web page in the world… billions. PageRank is a scoring factor between 0 and 10, which works much like the Richter scale of an earthquake.  Only 3 websites are PageRank 3, being Google, Twitter and Facebook, whereas most websites are PageRank 1.  PageRank is on a logarithmic scale (factors of 10) so moving from a PageRank of 3 to 4 requires 10 times more PageRank. PageRank is best improved by having quality websites link to your website, which is hard to accomplish. A good place to start is by finding business directories, which can be national directories, or directories that represent your community or your industry. Be sure that these business listings allow a link pointing back to your website. Engaging in social media, blogs/forums that represent your industry, and other digital engagements will also be very helpful, but only if you have a link pointing back to your website.

Improving Website Quality:

Face it, the quality of your website matters. Just like you would feel uncomfortable shopping at a filthy grocery store, people will be turned off by a low quality website. What is surprising to people is that Google has a very good understanding of what is and is not a quality website.  In this competitive marketplace, it is not enough just to say “pick me!”  Your website must offer value to the customer, provide a professional image, contain unique and useful content, and offer something that your competitors cannot. Whatever time you invest into your website, your website will give back, providing that you take care of the PageRank and Content Optimization tasks outlined above.

By simply understanding what is important to a search engine, you can begin to improve in those areas. Try to pay attention to your website and slowly but surely tackle these key areas for SEO improvement. A slow-paced but methodical, long-winded approach works best. SEO is a marathon, and not a sprint.

“Three Ingredients to Outranking your Competition in Search Engines” was crafted by Chris W. Sharp, President of SharpNET Solutions, an SEO marketing firm based in Colorado.

Carmen Tucker shows how its possible to blossom, and just keep growing.

Sharing valuable content is a key component to building  business through your website. Make your reader’s lives better, and they’re likely to return – and therefore more likely to become a loyal customer.

Carmen Tucker is doing just that. Her natural healing business has taken a turn out of her home and into the world wide web. Dayzign created a website for the business where Carmen can grow her customer base by sharing valuable content in her new Resources section.

Along with a “Health Tips Blog”, where Carmen can share natural healing advice, Dayzign created a Resource section of the website where Carmen can share videos, books, websites and other health resources she finds valuable. All of these tools are easily integrated into her WordPress site, and serve to reinforce her clientele.

Carmen came to Dayzign with a simple business card that she loved. We took the colors and sunflower image and built the visual brand for her website – bright and cheerful, just like Carmen!

If you’d like to explore an alternative healing practice, visit Energetics and take a look at what Carmen has to offer. Her energy alone will inspire you!

Responsive Web Design adapts to varying screen sizes

2013 is all about usability, content and modern style. There are many trends for where web design is headed this year, here are our top picks:

Responsive Web Design

With more and more tablets and smart phones on the market, an increased share of your viewers are seeing your website on a mobile device. To build a website for each screen size would be costly.

Responsive web design solves this problem by adapting to various screen sizes with one fluid design. These designs neatly distribute content across a wide variety of mobile devices.  To see an example visit www.kelliedayart.com

If you’re making the investment this year to update your site, make it worthwhile by building a Responsive site. WordPress websites have excellent mobile themes that Dayzign Graphics can customize with your company’s visual brand.

Translating Branding through the Website

People should be able to recognize your brand in seconds. In 2013 designers will focus more on selecting design elements that will translate your business and brand through your website. This includes incorporating your company colors, typography and logo throughout more and more aspects of your site.

As web templates increase in popularity, you can leverage this trend by strengthening your visual brand throughout your website, to stand out in your market.

Typography – A Website Foundation

Which fonts to use for your site is no longer a small decision. Designers now have many web fonts to choose from, and the fonts you use will play a large part in how your site looks, and the hierarchy of how you lead viewers through your content. In other words: type creates a map for your message.

Quality Content – Get higher Search Engine Rankings

Google has changed its algorhythm to place more emphasis on quality content. This means it’s no longer enough to simply optimize your web pages for search engines. In order to build rank with google and build trust with your customers, web owners must create valuable, share-worthy content that shows off your expertise. This can include blogging, pod-casting, newsletters, and video.

Share worthwhile information with your viewers and improve the lives of the people you reach.

Contact Dayzign Graphics to discuss incorporating these trends into your website: kellie@dayzigngraphics.com

Following University branding guidelines, Dayzign took the client’s requests and built one snazzy site, all editable by the news department staff and students.

Website highlights include:

• An attractive and highly organized design that’s in sync with the rest of NAU’s sites.
• Featured writers such as the University President and guest columnists share their thoughts in regular columns.
• A Home page slide show brings attention to important articles  – all clickable to the full articles.
• Google photostream is fed into a snapshot view, clickable to larger photos.
• Each department, such as “Campus & Community”, “Faculty & Staff”, “Athletics” and more, has their own blog page where are articles are automatically archived.
• Campus & Community Events Calendars
• Subscribe option
• The NAU News site is tied in with the entire NAU University site, via a consistent header and footer that leads to the main University links.

Dayzign Graphics designed the site based on the needs of the News Department, and their desire to update the entire site from one office.

All of the above elements were organized with precision and built on a WordPress platform, making this site in sync with the main NAU website, and easily searchable.

Thanks to NAU for the opportunity to work with such a great team! Click here to see the new NAU News site!

With the recent merger of two regional mountain guiding businesses, the new SJMG owners wanted to send a clear message to loyal customers: We’ve increased our territory to provide even greater adventure in the one of the most incredible mountain ranges – right here in Colorado.

In creating a NEW visual brand for the company, SJMG wanted to join already-established marketing efforts to brand the San Juan Mountains as the “Switzerland of America”.

To convey this message, Dayzign Graphics worked with SJMG to design a classic, European-style logo.

Using fonts, an illustration style and a color palette of this flavor, Dayzign modernized the traditional, Art Deco European climbing poster. The visual brand carried through this classic style, with a modern edge, to convey the cutting-edge skills of the Guides.

Once the logo was finalized, the new website was designed to combine the two businesses, and carry through the new Euro-style mountain climbing brand.

Dayzign’s specialty is a strong talent for visual brand design – we also understand a good site needs more than that.

We listened carefully to the new owners about the information that needed to be conveyed on the site, and designed a site organization with a clear location for all content, and a user-friendly navigation.

“Kellie has a unique ability to provide national class design without sacrificing the neighborly touch and friendly working relationships – it was a pleasure from beginning to end, and the final product exceeded our expectations”, says Andrew Klotz, SJMG Co-Owner.

SJMG was tons of fun to work with, and Dayzign was honored to be a part their clear vision and dedication. If you’re headed into the mountains, don’t miss the opportunity to adventure with San Juan Mountain Guides. Visit their new website here.

The owner of Athenafit provides more than dead weight during personal training sessions…

Carolyn Parker, a.k.a. “Bad-ass Barbie” dishes out inspiration, nutrition and workouts, along with laughter and tears with her many, dedicated clients.

Parker has a growing business and a passionate clientele.

After building a new training studio, she teamed up with Dayzign Graphics to take her visual brand to the next level of inspiration. We started with her Greek-goddess inspired logo, Athena, and toughen her up a bit. There’s still love and compassion in the figure, but people don’t come to Carolyn Parker for compassion. They come to get hard bodies and set big goals.

Once the new logo was in place, we hit the ground running with an updated website design to match. The site layout, color palette and fonts were established and then built in wordpress. (Our fav!)

With wordpress we created key “categories” for Parker – “Athletes”, “Nutrition”, and “Workouts” – all components of a well-rounded, personal training business.

Parker’s clients come to her for the complete picture in training and health. The website had to offer that as well.

Each time Parker blogs about one of these categories, the site automatically propagates that page with content. And that content gets automatically archived. And so on. WordPress is a Content Management System that makes it easy for Parker to organize and add content, photos, podcasts, and videos – while pages fill with FRESH information. In other words, it keeps viewers coming back for more.

Parker’s “Athletes” page gives kudos to her dedicated clientele who have used the expertise she has infused them with to accomplish great feats.  They’re all singing her praise and so are we. Bad-ass Barbie has a powerful spirit, and here at Dayzign, we are proud to reflect that in a gorgeous website and logo design.

Read more about Carolyn Parker here.

Scouting locations in the San Juan Mountains

A week long snowshoe photoshoot in southwest Colorado – what could be more perfect? High peaks, rocky crags, icy creeks and just plain endless scenery.

Like every outdoor company, Kahtoola needed great lifestyle photos of their products for marketing. Website, catalog, trade shows – you name it – this growing Flagtaff, Arizona company was ready for it. When Dayzign spoke with them last year, we suggested southwest Colorado as the perfect fit. They went for it, and the planning began…

Photographer John Burcham in action

Models, location scouting, shot lists, clothing lists, and budgets. Dayzign teamed with Jen Saunders Design of Flagstaff and put together the perfect team. Photographer John Burcham, with his years of outdoor adventure photography experience, was the ideal person for the job. Dayzign began preliminary location scouting.

The shoot began with two days of final location scouting with John and his Assistant Ken Hamilton. Products to be shot were the fabulous Kahtoola Mountain Snowshoe, Running Snowshoe, Microspikes and Crampons.

Day two Art Director Jen Saunders arrived with the wardrobe. Jackets, shoes, hats gloves and products were organized to model sizes and shoot days.

Shooting snowshoes between 25 walls of avalanche debris

Day three our first models arrived looking fit and fantastic! We actually shot this day in the middle of a gigantic pile of avalanche debris – it formed a twenty five foot snow wall on either side of the road for 300 feet. It was an amazing feature, and a true photo opportunity.

The rest of the week we shot product close ups, big mountain views, hut photos, crampons on icy terrain and ski town views of models walking dogs in Microspikes. (Thanks to Dawn Glanc for loaning us her beautiful chocolate lab Lucy for the shoot!)

It was amazing to watch John, our pro photographer and his assistant Keny work through all the outdoor conditions, from warm and sunny to full-on 60mph winds at 12,000 feet on a snowy ridge. They were able to produce amazing work the entire week.

Professional photographers Kenny Hamilton and John Burcham shooting in a high mountain hut

Thanks to the entire crew for an amazing, fun and professional experience. We can’t wait to use John’s photos in Kahtoola’s marketing materials and website for 2012.

If you’re in the market for snowshoes or approach crampons or Microspikes, be sure to check out Kahtoola and their super high quality products. Be sure to check out John Burcham‘s photography as well.

If you have a product you’d like Dayzign to organize a photoshoot for, contact kellie@dayzigngraphics.com or (970) 626-4437.

For many personal, service based businesses such as health care – the question that’s often asked is: what makes a client choose to work with you over someone else? Answer: They have to feel comfortable with you, personally.

How do you instill this trust in a potential client before a personal contact is made?

For CoreBalance’s practice, the goal was to create the feeling of warmth and personal service through the new website design. Because today’s sophisticated market uses your website as a way to decide if they feel comfortable working with you,  CoreBalance made their website update a priority.

Here are a few things Dayzign and CoreBalance used to create a effective website and marketing tool:

We wanted to give potential patients a sense of what it feels like to be at the practice. So we designed a trustworthy, professional look and feel. Dayzign used CoreBalance’s website to strengthen their branding further by featuring their logo, company colors and graphic elements into a warm, inviting site. We also created a “header graphic” at the top of each page that reflects CoreBalance’s clients. The visual brand includes:

• A professionally designed brand and graphics
• Inviting, high-quality photos
• A user-friendly site organization

We backed up the design with substantial content. Dayzign built a blog into CoreBalance’s site where they published researched articles and physical therapy advice that address the concerns of their clientele. The site includes:

• Professional quality writing
• Informative writing, oriented toward what the VIEWER is looking for
• Showing their credentials and future testimonials

Lead every viewer to your site goal. Dayzign built the phone number and “Call to Action” at the top of each page, and additionally at the bottom of each page. A “Join our Mailing List” form was placed on every page as well, encouraging folks to share their email address for marketing purposes. To use your website as a effective marketing tool, be sure to include:

• A clear “Call to Action” to make a sale, educate or get a phone call, depending on what your site goal is
• Have a “Join Our Mailing List” form to collect emails for marketing
• Include your contact information in an obvious location

There are so many features that can be included in your website, depending on your goals, your market and your brand.

Dayzign additionally incorporated media pages with CoreBalance videos and podcasts, along with social networking logos and twitter feed. Through all of these interactive elements, CoreBalance can easily keep their site current, and develop their community following online by providing great content to their viewers.

Of the new website, Owner Amy Flory says,”Kellie has that amazing ability to translate your esoteric ideas into something better than you imagined. She was a dream to work with during the design process, very patient and  informative.  She is uniquely capable of making you feel quite smart while firmly guiding you in the right direction! We are very pleased with the end result and will definitely seek her services in the future!”

Thanks Amy, we loved working with you too! Visit the new CoreBalance website for great information on physical therapy.

For recommendations on your site, contact Dayzign Graphics for  today: (970) 626-4437 or kellie@dayzigngraphics.com .

Mountain Trip is growing fast! This year they were ready to update their website design, and create a more sophisticated website tool that functions as a client management system. They also wanted to capture their “family” style business environment within their online community. Here’s how we did it:

Dayzign updated the website design and added MANY new features, including these:

• Stellar photos and slide shows (Thanks to all our photographers!)
• A Home page slide show that doubles as a marketing tool by highlighting key trips and directing viewers straight to these pages
• Online community development features: Mountain Trip’s a family. We created media pages with videos, and incorporated their podcasts and social networking links throughout the site and blog, so fans can keep up on this adventure community. More planned for the future – stay tuned on this one!
• Of course it’s the details that make a site, so we added lots of classy design touches along the way

Simultaneously we developed a database behind the scenes that is two sided:

1. Clients can sign up for a trip online and their application goes directly into the database
2. Mountain Trip staff can access the database from an Administrative side and enter client data, do searches and export mailing lists for marketing purposes – more development to come!

Content is King

• Content is king in the web world, so Mountain Trip owners Todd and Bill put LOTS of personal touches in their writing.
• They’re also big on Giving Back, and the website features the charities they support, including climbing trips organized exclusively for fundraising
• Dayzign imported MT’s “Trip Reports” blogs from various expeditions, where families can follow their loved ones on their expeditions.  MT guides now update their trips, FROM THE FIELD, all into one website platform. So families have the latest news at their fingertips.

Finally, because the site is built on a WordPress platform, it’s easy for Mountain Trip to update, including adding photos to slide shows, creating new content, adding videos, and even adding Trip Reports remotely from Mt. Everest!

Hats off to Mountain Trip – they walk the walk and are a true role model for a business that does GOOD things. Visit their site for your next adventure!