The Silver Queen Fine Art Gallery in Park City, Utah had a very basic website and shopping cart already set up for their business, but there were ready to take their web presence to the next level, so we helped them not only create a more professional looking website, but also boosted their search engine rankings and made it easier for them to add new content to the website on a regular basis.

Here is a brief summary of what we did for them:

• Installed the WordPress content management system under the website root in order to make future changes to the website easier for gallery staff.
• Made it so new artists, pages, and products could easily be added to the website and navigation bar.
• Made it so the images on the homepage now rotate and can easily be deleted, altered, or added by gallery staff in the future.
• Created a new blog area where the gallery staff can talk about upcoming events and share important information.
• Produced a custom-made instructional video that teaches the Silver Queen owners and their staff members how to make changes to their new website.
• Re-designed the existing shopping cart area of the website so that it would match the design of the rest of the website/blog/homepage.
• Performed search engine optimization (SEO) work on both new and existing pages of the website in order to improve search engine rankings and overall traffic/sales.
• Gave a one-on-one caching lesson for gallery owner and staff on how to use the new website, how to add new products to the shop, how to perform basic SEO tactics, etc.

See the finished website at: www.silverqueengallery.com

The Specialty Advertising Association Of California (SAAC) needed to make some additional changes to their website at www.saac.net, so they came to us for their third major redesign in the last three years. This time, the design changes were focused largely on their homepage, where much of the clutter that existed previously was eliminated and the vital data (upcoming events and information about SAAC) was placed up front. Additional changes were made to the colors used on the website (so as to further brand the company with their other marketing materials) and supplemental blog/website pages. The image above shows the new and improved SAAC website as it appears today. To see what it looked like previously, just click here.

When the best-selling author of “The Four-Hour Workweek”, Tim Ferriss, set out to launch his second book, “The Four-Hour Body”, he went to great lengths to promote his latest work with an incredible 60-second commercial video. This video, which Tim talks about great length in this behind-the-scenes article on his website, is an excellent example of using a short video trailer to promote your product, service or (in this case) book.

Below is another short video that Tim created to promote “The Four-Hour Body”. This video, which is more like the ones profiled on this site by HearSay Social, Wave Accounting, and Volusion.com, is less flashy/professional than the video above, but is more focused on telling the viewer exactly what he/she is going to get if they go out and get Tim’s book for themselves.

This video is a bit long, but it a great example of an animated video with no actual narration. The purpose of the video is to get you to buy the book, Do More Great Work, and I think it does a good job of making you actually want to go out and get the book for yourself. The ending of the video could be better in this regards, but overall it is very well done.

There is no real purpose behind this video (other than to inform you of some interesting Facebook facts and maybe to get you thinking about signing up for/using Facebook for yourself), but the video is really well done, with superb titles, graphics and motion control.

The concept behind the business model at HearSaySocial.com is somewhat complicated. But the company’s intro video does a decent job of explaining what they are all about in a record-setting time. Like many of these short animated videos, HearSay Social’s intro video is prominently featured on the company’s homepage – which is exactly where it should be!

The introductory video at Volusion.com is another good example of using simple animation to quickly and easily explain your business model in approximately 90 seconds or less.

For many web-based businesses, the homepage is the number one location to recruit new users, customers, converts, raving fans, etc. The website at Shopify.com does an excellent job of telling people exactly what they do… and they make it stupid-simple for the user to sign up for their own Shopify online store. The image above shows what is currently on the Shopify.com website. What you see here is what appears above the fold, whereas there is a bunch of additional information below the fold that is not depicted in this screenshot. This landing page style homepage does five simple things:

1. Tells the customer what this website is all about (Shopify: Create your online store today).

2. Lists the four main reasons you should sign up for Shopify.

3. Shows what the Shopify user and backend experience looks like.

4. Has two, large buttons which can be pressed to sign up for a Shopify storefront (the large blue circle in the upper right-hand corner that says “FREE 30-Day Trial” and the large green button in the bottom left corner that reads “OPEN YOUR STORE NOW”).

5. And the “Featured In” section at the bottom of the page adds some reputability to the Shopify service (similar to customer testimonials).

If its good enough for Darren Rowse, its good enough for me (to at least try out on my own website (which is exactly what I’ve done with two of my ebook products – The Essential Guide To Touring Bicycles and Stretching For Cyclists)). Here are my similar buy now buttons (and they seem to be working):

When Darren Rowse, from Problogger.net, launched his new eBook, 31 Days To Build A Better Blog, I found this email in my inbox. It is short and sweet, but does exactly what is is meant to do – introduce you to his new product in a non-threatening way; quickly discover the benefits of the product (why you should buy it); makes it well know that the product is money-back guaranteed; and gets you to click on the link to buy the product for yourself. The bold headings and the two graphics aligned on the right side of the email turn this into more than just a regular text-based email, but instead, a personal sales letter with pizazz.