Occasionally we get a chance to develop a website for an organization that will make a real difference in today’s world and Yeah! Yeah! Out Loud is one of those projects.
Yeah! Yeah! Out Loud has created a program to build self-esteem for children 3-8 years old. Their program is about empowering kids to discover their inner “cheer” leader. The call letters YYOL make up the faces of their characters.
Through the characters Hur-Ray and Kiddazy®, children are taught to identify their “inner” voice. By helping children identify the “inner” voice, they can name that voice and start to give the voice power. Children’s self esteem is critical to the growth and maturity of every child in the world.
Kathy Carpenter, founder of Yeah! Yeah! Out Loud developed a program that is both educational and motivational for kids. Their program uses puppets and education materials to teach materials such as Math, Science, Reading, Language Arts and Interfaith programs. This program is also targeted for ministers and child care providers. More on the Yeah! Yeah! story.
The program promotes children’s’ ability to appreciate themselves as remarkable pieces of work as well as nourishing their minds and bodies.
The programs new in 2007 are already finding their way into schools. They are in trial programs in:
- Battle Ground WA School District
- Vancouver WA School District
- Special Education: WA, MN
- Home School applications: OR
Kids and educators alike are embracing the Yeah! Yeah! Out Loud program because it entertains, educates and motivates. Kathy Carpenter envisions the day when the YYOL puppets are in every school.
When asked if this YYOL will go main stream with books and television, Kathy Carpenter responded with: “This is certainly something that we would like to see.”
Miniature dollhouse furniture company Zoolabees.com has launched their new eCommerce website this past week. Zoolabees is a one year old company that specializes in 1:12 scale dollhouse furniture. For the past year Zoolabees has operated exclusively as an E-bay store and has enjoyed strong growth in every month since they opened. Now they will be marketing thru their own website.
Selling such brands as Hansson dollhouse furniture, Zoolabees plans on stocking thousands of dollhouse miniatures by year end.
They are using business blog marketing to educate and reach prospective customers. Their eCommerce store is designed in bright, cheerful colors and sporting a new logo designed by Doug Williams and Associates. Their store accepts credit card through a payment gateway as well as payments thru Paypal.
For those hobbyists out there, Zoolabees is the website to watch.
Let’s say you are looking for an Allis Chalmers 1000 HP, 2300 Volt motor because the one on your centrifugal blower just died. Or maybe you need a second Parkson, Model 32FT2 Gravity Settler because you need to expand your industrial plant’s waste treatment system. Well you have to look no further than Kravas Equipment in Amboy Washington. They actually have many thousands of pieces of surplus equipment. Chances are if you need a key piece of process equipment, they have it.
This is actually one of my favorite stories. They have over 150 acres of land in Amboy, Washington. The president, Bill Kravas, has been buying surplus equipment since 1985 and he is very good at it. The problem is that they are one of the best kept secrets around. They are now the largest surplus equipment dealer west of the Mississippi. Bill Kravas has pretty much filled up all the existing buildings he has and is adding more storage space so he can continue buying more equipment.
Their new website is part of their new marketing effort being headed up by Demetri Kravas and Dawn Lingle. Their job is to reduce their extensive inventory so Bill Kravas can continue purchasing more surplus equipment.
We produced their new website design and development to integrate with their in house database that they use to track their inventory. Their new website allows you to search or browse thru their equipment listings. With a single click, add equipment to a shopping cart and you will get a quote back within 24 hours. If your need is urgent… then give them a call at (360) 247-5151 and ask for Dawn or Demetri.
One of our most satisfying web design – SEO projects was working with a local non profit school who trains blind and visually impaired for a career in piano tuning. They bring in students from all over the United States for training. Training is a two year program with only two months off each summer.
The School of Piano Technology for the Blind approached us to re-design their website to help them attract new students. Their old website was home made type design and was all but invisible on the search engines. They needed their new website to be completely handicap accessible for the blind. This was our first website designed for blind “viewers.”
They wanted to be highly ranked for people searching for “piano tuning school for the blind.” We asked why? You are much more than that… you are offer careers for the blind. They agreed.
We quickly learned about screen readers such as JAWS (Job Access With Speech). This software converts words on the screen into an audible voice. We added jump boxes which allow easy navigation using screen readers and the website was designed in XHTML and CSS for maximum compatibility. A high contrast viewable mode was added for the visually impaired.
The result. Their have great search engine positions on Google, they are extremely happy with how their website functions and most of all their classes are now running at capacity with new students finding out about their school and coming from across the nation.
Doug Williams, Internet marketing Consultant
Employers Reference Source NW does pre-employment background checks. They are a licensed private investigator firm and does comprehensive checks for references and criminal background checks. They don’t rely on the database searches that are highly inaccurate. They do an extensive amount of work by phone, fax and email to carefully verify their information. They are used extensively by major employers.
You can imagine that their business is booming because of the high quality of the service that they provide. Our job at Doug Williams and Associates was to creative a website design with a professional image that showed off their private investigative approach to employee background checks.
We started by developing a logo and corporate identity. We carried this over and developed a very professional website that incorporated an eye catching Flash Animation to tell the story of what they do.
We then carefully researched traffic and competition for keywords and settled in on a family of keywords centered on pre-employment background checks. We needed a number of first page Google rankings to bring in a flow of new clients.
We then put together a PHP programmed back end to the website to gather reference check requests electronically and automate some of their business processes. These were designed to integrate with their in-house business computer systems.
So how did we do? Well they are very pleased with their website and the new business that it is bringing in. As far as the rankings we are seeing as of today: investigation checks (#1 on Google); previous employment history (#2 on Google); job screening (#3 on Google); criminal background jobs (#6 on Google); washington state education verification (#8 on Google).
3D landscaping software company Idea Spectrum has moved from being a new player to the market leader in just 3 years. We would like to take credit for their success with our web design, PHP web development and search engine optimization work, but the fact is that Idea Spectrum has simply produced a superior product.
Idea Spectrum produces 3D landscape software for both the home owner as well as the landscape designer. They produce 3 versions of their software that ranges in price from $60 to $100. The Pro version, Realtime Landscaping Pro, has an extensive plant library designed to show realistic 3D models of what the finished landscaping will be like.
Jim Napier, President and chief developer, is a former Microsoft animation engineer. Earlier in his career, Jim produced popular home design software such as FloorPlan Plus 3D. Jim started his company with his first landscape design program Watergarden Studio. Since then he has come out with a range of high power yet easy to use home landscaping programs.
Our goal was to produce a professional web presence that would allow them to sell and deliver their software completely online in an automatic ecommerce mode. Web development included a custom order wizard with serial number generation and rotating testimonials on their home page. Graphics required extensive photo galleries to show off their design capabilities.
Search engine optimization was one of the most critical requirements and having a great position on Google for terms such as “landscape design software” and “landscaping software”. They are now #2 for both these terms. They also enjoy number one rankings on Google for terms like home landscaping software, 3d landscape design, and 3d landscape software. More SEO results. This has allowed them to greatly reduce their PPC campaigns while greatly increasing sales.
What’s next? Doug Williams and Associates will be assisting with additional marketing and promotional campaigns as they continue to grow and add more software products.
BeachcombersNW.com is the vacation rental advertising website of choice for beach house rentals in the Pacific Northwest. They have a large database of available vacation rentals that can be searched easily by area, number of bedrooms, price, pet friendly and other options.
They have a large number of number top listings on search engines such as Google for search terms like “beach house Washington” and “beach house Oregon” which brings in large numbers of visitors to shop for beach house rentals. See more #1 search terms
BeachcombersNW serves two groups: vacationers and vacation rental owners. For vacationers they provide a large selection of quality beach properties that can be easily searched, navigated and browsed. Availability checks and questions to owners are easy to do. There are travel resources and area maps to help in planning
For vacation rental owners they allow reasonable advertising rates and exposure to tens of thousands of potential renters. Listings can be done online by the vacation rental owner or for those that want personal service, can be done by beachcombersnw staff.
For traveler resources they supply events calendars with a vast number of local coast events for both Oregon and Washington. For those that like to search visually, there are clickable Oregon and Washington maps where a click will take you to available vacation rentals.
Website design, database design and search engine optimization were done by Doug Williams and Associates. Quality website hosting and website maintenance is also provided by Doug Williams and Associates.
Color is a powerful communicator in website design, advertising and branding. Sometimes a color is selected for the sole purpose of drawing attention to the product or ad. Color will also produce memorable ads for branding. The best colors for advertising are those that make people comfortable or stimulate their senses. Color effects and directs the decision making process of the customer. It identifies a company, its product lines and the quality of the merchandise.
It’s quite well known that the color red inspires impulsive buying. Our eyes are drawn to the color like bees are to honey. A color scheme that incorporates warm colors encourages people to linger, leading restaurants to choose deep burgundy, burnt orange and similar colors. Bright red and yellow are hot colors, indicative of fire, and they stimulate excitement. We talked before about how color communicates in web design
Building Sign Example
Here is a good example about how color communicates in a building sign. Earlier this year we moved to new offices and I asked one of my new designers to create a design for our new sign. When I saw the design, I was less than impressed. It was technically correct, but it lacked the attention getting element.
The designer thought white would make the text stand out. So we decided to give it a try and see what would happen. I went ahead and had his design made into 4 foot by 5 foot street signs. The result… after 3 months we had no drop in traffic and even clients driving to our office would miss our sign. It just blended in too much.
New Signs
I went back to one of my long time designers and asked for a memorable and eye-catching design. I wanted a colorful design that used our branding colors that we use on our website and business cards. She soon came back with a design that I loved. It was full of color and grabbed your attention. We had new signs made up and put up. The result… within the first week we had two walk in prospects and one very promising phone lead. Wow… what a difference color can make.
Colors are more than a combination of red and blue or yellow and black. They are non-verbal communication. Colors create a physical reaction and are a key part of branding for your business
Doug Williams, Internet marketing consultant
