Website updates - Old City Web Services

5 Seasonal Updates Your Website Needs

October 13, 2011 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

Keep your website fresh and up to date with these seasonal changes.

1. Business hours.

Summer is long gone and the holiday season is around the corner. Has your business changed its hours accordingly? Make sure your website has the correct hours displayed on every page.

2. Holiday promotions.

Are you offering any specials for visitors during Thanksgiving or Christmas? What about discounts during non-peak hours or mid-week? You should let your clients know by displaying the information on your website.

3. Seasonal events.

Is your business participating in a seasonal event? From special tours to Christmas open houses, get the information out there now so that people can start making plans to attend. Also include details on where customers can purchase tickets to your event (if necessary).

4. Holiday Closings.

If your business is going to be closed over the holidays, let your customers know with a short message on your website along with the dates and/or hours that you will be closed.

Special Tip for Restaurants: Let people know now if you will be open or closed for Thanksgiving and/or Christmas so they can make their plans accordingly! Also give out information if you’re offering a special holiday meal on those holidays.

5. Photos and graphics.

Last but certainly not least, decorate your website for the holidays with seasonal images and graphics. If you don’t have a content management system that allows you do this yourself, give us a call and we can give you some information and ideas on what we can do for you!

5 Ways to Add Extras to Your Website

August 31, 2011 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

Add function and flair with ease.

Many websites today go beyond the basics to provide visitors with interactive tools and professional displays that help illustrate the importance of your business. If you have a content management system, Old City Web Service can add these extras for you to take your website to the next level:

1. Monthly Calendar: Share events and activities on an easy-to-use calendar that you can update from home.

2. Photo Gallery: Display photos in a professional slideshow or give visitors to the option to browse through a thumbnail gallery of your images. Either way, customers will be impressed with what they see!

3. Mobile Plug-In: Are your customers constantly on the go? Let them view your website on their phone with a mobile plug-in. This addition will automatically convert your content into a mobile friendly format.

4. Contact Forms: Give potential customers an easy, instant way to contact you with a short form that’s sent directly to your email.

5. Social Media: You can not only add a link to your Facebook/Twitter, you can display recent posts/tweets and other features from your social media pages right on your website.

Let us help you make your website more exciting!

To add some new features to your website (including a content management system) contact your team at Old City Web Services via phone 904-867-4112 or you can send an email to us at letusmarketyou@oldcity.com.

Time to put on those gloves and weed your website.

May 5, 2011 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

With summer just around the corner, now is the time to clean up your website in preparation for a fruitful year. As technology grows and changes, some things that we once needed on our website become unnecessary and actually hold us back from a blossoming business.

We have put together a few suggestions for some of those “weeds” that we could help you remove from your website.

1. Copyright dates: Look down at the very bottom of your website—do you have a copyright clause written in the footer? Some clauses include dates and if yours is more than a year old, you should think about updating it or removing it all together. Simply stating that the website is a copyright of your business keeps the site timeless and keeps you from worrying about updating it every year. Otherwise, having that old date can make your website look…well…dated!

2. Hit counters: Back in at the start of the new millennium, designers used hit counters so that website owners could track the number of people visiting their website. Now we can use sophisticated tracking codes from Google Analytics to not only count the visitors to your website, but obtain crucial information about them to help you structure successful marketing and advertising campaigns for your business. Trade in that old hit counter for a free Google Analytics account, we can have it set up for you in less than 24 hours.

3. Auto-play Music: Once upon a time, it seemed like a great idea to use music to set the tone for your website. Visitors would arrive on your home page and immediately be greeted by a nice melody. But maybe after a few years, that music has started to get a little redundant. It can also be inconvenient for users who are surfing your website at work or on the go. Consider changing the music so it only plays when visitors press a button or we can just remove it all together.

4. Flash introductions: Although an introduction page with moving animation can add a lot of visual appeal to your website, it can also hurt you in terms of search engine optimization and usability. Search engines rate your website based on text, but text from within a video can’t be seen by search engine crawlers. Flash animation is also unsupported on a lot of mobile devices, meaning that you could lose traffic because people can’t see your website when they’re surfing on iPhones and iPads. Lastly, people who visit your website often can get frustrated with having to sit through the same introduction every time they try to access your site. Call us and we might be able to convert your introduction into a video that can be added to part of your website so people can still see it if they want to, but it won’t hurt your business.

Visit our blog to read more about why these “weeds” are hurting your website: https://oldcitywebservices.com/index.php/blog/

Need help getting started? We are a phone call away!

Old City Web Services can remove these pesky weeds from your website and help you spruce up your site in a few other ways, too. Give us a call today and we can get to work improving your business’ website.

– Old City Web Services

Give your business a competitive edge with the latest technology.

April 26, 2011 by anoadmin

Five years ago, only a handful of people had ever heard of social media. It certainly wasn’t a tool that businesses were using to promote themselves on the web, but now social media has become an essential component of every successful marketing campaign. This is just one example of how quickly technology evolves and how important it is as a growing business to stay on top of these changes.

We strive to stay on top of new technology as well so that we can provide the latest tools to our customers. Our goal is to keep your business one step ahead of your competitors when it comes to online marketing tools and services.

Take a look at these new FREE tools and let us help you put them to work for your business:

• QR Codes

You might have seen these little boxes of black and white pixels on recent advertisements. It’s a special barcode that smart phones (with a camera and a barcode reading application) can scan to receive information. The barcode can send the mobile user straight to your website or provide a message such as a discount coupon code.

How is this an advantage? Well, if you’ve ever searched the web on your mobile device you know that it’s not always a quick and easy process. Instead of making someone pull up their mobile browser and search for your website or type in the address, they can simply scan the bar code and go straight there.

• YouTube Direct

Have you ever wanted to harness the power of YouTube on your own website? With YouTube Direct, you can add a video uploading and rating system to your site so that clients can upload their own videos and rate them without having to go directly to YouTube.

While this tool isn’t for every business, attractions and other businesses that offer an experience to their clients could benefit from adding video interaction. It also generates more content, which in turn gives people more ways to find you on the search engines.

• Google Places

Customers who search for your business on Google are most likely to come across your Google Places page first. This free page built right into Google features a map with your location and some basic information, but it can be so much more. You can add photos, videos, hours, a short business description, a link to your website and more. Just visit the Google places link, enter your address, and supply the necessary information. Google will send you a postcard or give you a call with a verification code so that you can certify that you are the business owner.

Once you’ve got your Google Places page set up, encourage your customers to go and leave a review of your business. The review system on Google Places is one of the biggest advantages to the system. More reviews and high ratings will help your website move up in search engine rankings while also providing potential customers with positive endorsements. Google Places also pulls reviews from other sites like TripAdviser, Hotels.com and other sites with reviews and ratings.

Want more information? Give us a call!

Old City Web Services can help you get set-up with all of the above services on your website. Just give us a call today for estimates and pricing.

Spring forward with your website changes.

March 9, 2011 by anoadmin Leave a Comment

Saturday, March 13^th is the day to get your spring chores out of the way—turn your clocks forward for Daylight Savings, check the batteries in your smoke detector, and update your website!

Your customers want to know what’s new at your place of business and we can help you get the word out. Here are a few questions you should ask yourself to determine what updates you can make to your website:

Will you change your hours for spring/summer tourism traffic?
Do you have a new spring line of products or services?
Are you offering discounts to spring break travelers?
Is there a calendar on your website without any current events listed?
Do you have upcoming events you would like to promote on your website?
Are there any weekly specials you offer such as buy one/get one promotions or discounts on certain days of the week?
For restaurants, do you have any seasonal dishes to add or remove from your menu?

Most simple text and photo changes take less than a half hour for our designers to complete, which means you could have an updated website for less than $50 and just a few minutes of your time.

Call us today and we’ll get started on making your changes!

Facebook Logo

Facebook now offers business pages without a personal profile.

Great news from the land of social media! Facebook has finally updated their fan pages so that businesses can start their own fan page without having to create a personal Facebook account. Now you connect with your clients where they spend the majority of their time—right on Facebook! Give us a call to find out how we can set up a Facebook page for your business.