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Rose32 Bread

Mission Magazine Radio

KidzTimez

Bank Street Theater

Carmel Cinema 8

View other sites that we have created at our online web portfolio and contact us anytime to see what we can do for your next web project.

We know you will be very pleased with the quality, Mike!

Thank you to everyone who entered, and we hope you will visit our new KatArt Visuals and KatArt Graphics Fan Pages and LIKE US if you haven’t already.

Click on the images below to view their sites.

Grays Bridge

Big Wave Events

We hope you are going to do the same, and that you all have a fun, and relaxing long weekend.

KatArt is closed Monday, May 30th, but we will be back at our desks on Tuesday.

See you soon! The KatArt Staff

Jenifer needed us to design and build a website to promote her book “Whatever the cost: One Woman’s Battle to Find Peace with Her Body” and her blog “Sunday Morning with the Girls.” We first met with Jenifer to go over the details of what she wanted to include on her new website. In order to promote her book, she needed the option for readers to browse excerpts from the book as well as a simple way to purchase it. And, as any author should, she needed to have her blog as an integral part of the site with the ability for readers to subscribe by email or rss feeds. This is a simple way for Jenifer to stay closely connected with her readers. The final site also needed to be a helpful resource for those who need guidance and support.

Jenifer had some very helpful input regarding colors and themes she had been thinking about, which gave us a good starting point to begin the design process. Our team of designers came up with a couple of ideas that reflected Jenifer’s vision. Through email and phone calls, we worked closely with Jenifer to improve upon our initial concepts and settled upon a final product that we all are pleased with, all done in a relaxed and timely manner.

Designing the site is just the first phase of this project. Jenifer’s website, www.jeniferbeaudean.com, is built as a Content Management System. She can now create her own blog posts, add photos and easily keep her site fresh and up-to-date. We met with Jenifer to show her how to post to her blog, upload photos and manage her subscribers. Now, as questions come up, Jenifer will send an email or call us, and get a prompt response such as additional instructions on how to add YouTube links or schedule posts in advance when she is going to be away. Jenifer’s site can now be maintained and updated anytime and anywhere from a computer or smartphone.

Jenifer has positioned herself for success. She realized early on that she needed a website and blog to promote “Whatever the Cost.” That’s where we came in. Partnering with our clients to help make their dreams and ideas a reality is what we love to do.

We are really proud of the end result of our partnership with Jenifer. This site is a very good reflection of her – her bravery, professionalism, and strength. We encourage you to visit her site, read her book and subscribe to her blog. Jennifer’s is a very inspiring story and her blog is an absolute pleasure to read.

Jenifer knows that we are always here to help and support her along the way. We would love to do the same for you. Visit www.katart.com to view our portfolio and find out more about us, or give us a call at 800.410.0553 and let us help you with your next project.

In our first meeting with Bob and Adele McCarthy, owners of Artistic Irrigation, we were asked to redesign their current website. The site needed a complete redesign to give it a fresh, new look. But we wanted to accomplish more than that, we also wanted to develop a site that would load quickly and was easy to use. For visual impact we were fortunate that Artistic Irrigation provided us with beautiful photos of their outstanding work. Showcasing them in an easy-to-navigate portfolio gallery created a stand out focal point for their home page. An earth-tone color scheme was chosen to reflect the fact that Artistic Irrigation is also an environmentally conscious company. The new colors and textures, combined with stunning photography gives the site the more modern, elegant image that our client was looking for.

We went further than just creating a new, visually appealing website. The new website is built around a powerful Content Management System (CMS) called WordPress. This gives them full control over the content of their site. When Artistic Irrigation completes a new project, they can easily add photos and a description to share with the world. WordPress is also perfect for keeping in touch with existing and potential clients with tools such as blogs, events and social marketing integration. We hope you will visit artisticirrigation.com to see their new look, get acquainted with their business and see the possibilities for yours.

If you would like to see our growing online portfolio, visit us at katart.com, contact us by email at sales@katart.com or call toll-free 800-410-0553. We would love to talk to you about how we can help with your next project.

It’s something I hear quite a bit. Half complaint and half frustrated rant, many small business owners tell me they simply can’t compete with the big boys. Even online they find their sites at the bottom of the rankings and, if they do rank well in the engines, their conversions are low.

The bad news is, this immediately tells me there are most probably some very common mistakes being made on their sites. The good news is, these errors can almost always be corrected so the site produces better results.

Once fixed, you’ll find you’ve created an easy trail for customers to follow that leads directly to your door. Let’s look at the top three.

#1 Poor Title & Description Tags

This is your prospect’s first exposure to your site so it had better be good. Instead, all too often I see title tags that read something like:

Blue Suede Shoes | Red Suede Shoes | Green Suede Shoes

A list of keywords may have appeal to a search engine spider, but it does very little to let your prospect know why s/he should click to your site as opposed to the 1,459,327 others that pop up in the Google search results.

Instead of simply stuffing your title tag full of mere keyphrases, give it some human appeal.

Buy Blue Suede Shoes; Save 25% | Free Shipping on Blue, Red & Green Suede Shoes

Several important things have happened here.

1. You’ve included a call-to-action using the word “buy.”

2. You’ve differentiated yourself by including a discount amount and the benefit of free shipping.

3. And you now have a title tag that actually says something valuable to a human being rather than a mere (boring) list of keyphrases.

The same applies to your description tag. Continue with the topic you used in your title tag (savings and free shipping) and go into more detail when you write the description tag. Answer your customer’s burning question, “Why should I click on your listing instead of all these others?”

#2 Unrelated Page Copy

There’s a flow…or at least there should be…when a prospect enters your site from a banner ad, a search engine listing, an email, etc. The headline and page copy need to be consistent with the title and description tag, the banner ad, email text, etc. If it isn’t the customer gets confused and leaves.

If your title tag reads “Buy Blue Suede Shoes & Save 25% | Free Shipping…” then your page needs to clearly communicate the details of this. Likewise, a local veterinarian wouldn’t want to place a banner ad on a pet supply website that read “New patients save $20 on first annual exam” and lead visitors to a website page that says nothing about this offer. From whichever trigger (traffic generator) the prospects comes, follow up with the information in your page copy.

#3 Unclear Call-to-Action

Once on your site, don’t be shy about letting visitors know what to do next and how to purchase. As the old marketing saying goes, “If you don’t ask for the sale, you won’t get it.” Service-based businesses need to have obvious and easily located contact us forms. Ecommerce sites should employ clear sales funnels that explicitly direct customers through the shopping cart and payment process.

Draw a map. Where are your visitors coming from? And once on your site, where do you want them to go? Now outline what needs to happen to get them from point A to point B. Chances are, when you use a human-friendly, informative title and description tag, clear and enticing page copy and input an easy-to-follow sales funnel, you’ll see conversions increase dramatically.

Article by Karon Thackston. See original at: www.site-reference.com

You may have made your resolution for 2011, but do you have ready your marketing-strategy checklist? This is the year to step it up, but it’s important to remember that what works for others may not work for you.

For example, if you’re a small-to-medium-sized business (SMB), your marketing-strategy checklist will look different than that of a national brand. Also, take into consideration that technology seems to be moving faster than the speed of light. A marketing solution that may have been just a consideration last year may now be considered a mandatory solution in 2011.

Google Places: Claim It, or Suffer the Consequences

Broken record or not, every change that Google has made in the last couple months continues to prompt me to give this public service announcement: claim your local-business listings!

Nearly three years ago, I started preaching this sermon and I haven’t stopped since. Now that local search is ingrained in us, Google has changed the way it shows results on the SERP by putting increased relevance on local listings. Today, you’ll see this in the form of Google Places listings that now outrank other listings in SERP.

Overall benefits:

Claiming your Google Places page is free.

Local-business listing verification helps you rank higher in Google Maps and on Google SERPs.

Google Places pages can include photos, videos, ratings, reviews, product/service information, and more. Or if you’re a franchise, it can also include any other collateral from corporate to keep consistent brand messaging.

Content-rich Google Places pages increase relevance for consumers, and, in turn, may increase leads to advertisers’ businesses (in the form of calls, in-store visits, or clicks to their website).

Facebook and Twitter: Be There, or Be Irrelevant

Even up until last year, advertisers could get away with just testing social media opportunities. In 2011, though, a presence on Facebook and Twitter will be a must-have. Consider the facts:

According to Experian Hitwise, Facebook was the top-visited website for the first time, accounting for 8.93 percent of all U.S. visits between January and November 2010.

Although Twitter has amassed nowhere near the popularity of Facebook, the company announced in December that 100 million new accounts had been opened in 2010. Furthermore, usage among those users is growing.

What does this mean to SMBs? With Facebook being dubbed “The Second Internet” and with Twitter users amassing, it’s more important than ever to ensure that local consumers know you have a social presence. This is the space where advertisers can engage consumers, build loyalty, and actually get closer to word-of-mouth marketing than ever before.

Other benefits to SMBs:

Having a basic social presence is free; the only thing it costs is time.

To engage consumers, SMBs can use this space for promotions, customer service, daily specials, contests, and more.

Contrary to belief, you can track activity on most social properties, which means social media can be used as a lead-generation tool.

Monitor and Track Like Your Business Depends on It…Because It Does
You don’t know what you don’t know. But what you don’t know is definitely hurting your business.

This can be broken down into two main areas: monitoring consumers and other entities say about your business, and tracking how consumers are interacting with you.

Monitoring

When it comes to monitoring, most people think that it revolves around ratings and reviews. Although that’s a huge part, it’s also important to find out how your business is perceived by those on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social property.

Search engines are also taking into account what others say about your business. Google recently dismissed the “any news is good news” theory, taking some steps to give more importance and visibility to local businesses that have positive ratings and reviews. No longer will businesses be able to rank higher just for having any type of ratings and reviews.

The solution? At the least, set up Google Alerts to find out what others are saying about your business. Then, keep an eye on your various online platforms and attempt to rectify negative comments or reviews with positive solutions.

If you want to take this a step further, you can use various free tools, or you can pay for tools that provide more in-depth information and a broader range of applications.

Tracking

Tracking is more for an advertiser’s benefit, but it is a necessary means for discovering which programs are working and which ones need improvement. The type of tracking available for various online programs will vary, but, at minimum, track what you can.

Most local listings and social properties have at least basic visibility, so start there to see how your programs are performing. For more ideas on where to go from here, check out “If It Can Be Measured, It Can Be Optimized.”

Must-Haves and Then Some

Should your checklist for 2011 stop with the above? No.

The local landscape is continually evolving. Right now, the latest and greatest includes testing local-mobile opportunities like Foursquare and deal-a-day sites like Groupon. Months from now, the focus will change to something that helps SMBs get even closer to their local consumers. So stay tuned, it’s gonna be a fun ride.

Read original article by Gregg Stewart at: searchenginewatch.com

More money is wasted on advertising than any other business function. That is not to say businesses shouldn’t advertise but rather people should understand how advertising works. There are many ways to characterize ads, but for our purposes let’s make it simple and separate advertising into two distinct approaches: saturation and emotional.

One of the things I’ve learned over a long career is that business folk invariably take their lead from the wrong sources. Small and medium size businesses look to the mega corporations to learn their tricks and adopt their attitudes when they have little in common – advertising being no exception. Since our clients are mostly medium or small size companies we try to help put some of these issues into perspective.

If you’re big enough and have the money available, there are all kinds of marketing initiatives you can invest in, but if you have a limited marketing budget you need to be smart about how and on what you spend your advertising dollars. And the most effective and cost efficient place to spend those dollars is on your website. Yes you need to attract people to your site, but if once they arrive they find it lacks intriguing, engaging content, then you’ve wasted your money. So what tactical approach should you take to deliver your marketing message?

Saturation Advertising
The first approach is saturation advertising like you see on television. Anyone who has spent an evening sitting in front of the TV set is familiar with what I am talking about: the constant repetition of the same commercials over and over until the ads become an unwelcome irritation. The fact is no matter what you do to avoid commercials they eventually seep into your head. Even fast forwarding through commercials on a recorded program has an effect. Saturation advertising depends on repetition not quality, which is why some of the worst and/or stupidest commercials can still be effective.

There are some great commercials on television that do engage the audience with an entertaining, memorable, marketing message that enhances the brand and generates leads, but when push comes to shove, television advertising is all about repetition not quality.

Does Saturation Advertising Work?
Does saturation advertising work? The short answer is yes it does, at least for a television audience it does. Most people believe that it works on others but not on them, a phenomenon, psychologists call the Third Party Effect. The fact is, repeating something automatically makes it appear more believable.

The majority of people will respond that they don’t pay attention to commercials, but inattention does not protect you from the influence of repeated messaging. In fact bad commercials work better if the audience isn’t really paying attention, and fail when the audience is actually listening carefully. Careful attention brings to light all a message’s conceptual, technical and performance issues.

Will Saturation Advertising Work For You?
But saturation advertising is expensive because it relies on huge media buys in order to get the required number of repetitions needed to worm its way into an audience’s collective consciousness. It’s a messaging tactic that depends on deep pockets and that rules it out for most companies. Advertising that depends on constant repetition just won’t work on the Web unless it’s merely to supplement an existing extensive integrated television and print campaign.

Just as an aside, the music industry uses the same tactic. The constant repetition of a song, even of inferior quality but with minimum rhythmic value and a repetitive catchy chorus, can become a hit if heard often enough on the radio or on television in a music video. And like most saturation advertising it’s controlled by whoever has the most money available to purchase audience access. The same holds true for political advertising. Politicians can get away with the most incredible nonsense if they raised enough money to drown-out their opposition.

The Web is a different communication environment compared to television. Where television and the Web converge is with programming: your website is not an advertisement, or at least it shouldn’t be if you want it to be effective; your website is the equivalent of the program not the commercial, and that is why the key to success is the ability to turn advertising into content, and content into a memorable experience. You need to engage your audience with the same kind of techniques and messaging that is used in the programs you watch and not in the commercials you try to ignore.

If You Don’t Establish Your Brand, You Won’t Have a Meaningful, Memorable Message
If you can’t saturate the market with your brand then you have to find a better, more cost effective way to influence your audience. I use the word brand instead of product or service because that is where you have to start – you have to think ‘brand’ not product/service. What we’re talking about here is advertising intended to promote and grow your company within the context of a long term marketing strategy rather than a promotional ad intended to let your audience know about a particular sale or promotional event. Companies that stick exclusively to a promotional format are basically teaching their customers to only purchase goods and services when there’s a sale, and that’s a tough way to make money on a long-term basis.

We all know how popular the Google AdWords program is and we all know how expensive it can get in order to gain access to the keywords that trigger your ad placement. The Google system is basically relying on the same principle as television advertising: big audiences and lots of placements equals lots of leads.

The problem in addition to the continual expense is that even if you attract a large initial audience, that audience will not stick around long enough to get your brand story if that story is not at least as interesting and entertaining as the television programs they watch. And even if that audience manages to stick around a while, if your site isn’t interesting enough, they will never come back and that reduces your chances of being remembered. Unlike television where the audience is captive to the commercials, a Web audience is not. Unlike television where the experience is generally a compromised group decision, Web viewing is not.

For most Web-based businesses their website is their best and potentially most effective advertising venue, but people only go to websites that interest them, and they will leave in an instant if a website doesn’t engage, inform, and entertain them.

Emotional Advertising
“People forget what you say, but they remember how you made them feel.” – Warren Beatty

Everyone likes to think of him or herself as a rational, intelligent human being, but in truth, we are all motivated by the same hardwired emotional triggers. Our brains are marvelous, malleable organs that absorb information without us even knowing it; they process information, massage it, and produce instinctive responses to external stimuli. Our survival and dominance as a species depends on this ability. Our brains are not cameras that just record input; they are interpretive instruments that produce gut-instinct. As a consequence, successful long-term marketing strategies depend on an emotional brand association with basic Maslowian needs.

No matter who you are or what you do your competitors will undercut your price, add new and better features, or come up with superior alternative solutions. The business world is littered with the corpses of once proud companies that owned their market until someone came along with something better, or cheaper, or just different. No one wants a Polaroid camera when digital cameras are all the rage. Once proud Kodak has been humbled and downsized considerably because they saw themselves as a film company and cameras as merely a way to sell more film rather than tools of human creativity. Products and services come and go, but brands are forever, and brands are defined by their emotional appeal.

Coming up with the right brand message can be tricky. We know the motivational triggers that people respond to, so the objective is to find the right trigger for your company’s strategic vision and to frame it in terms that your target audience will accept. Knowing that your audience sees itself as rationally motivated is not an impediment to emotional motivational triggering. It is all a matter of framing the brand and providing the right context and subtext in your advertising and messaging initiatives, and most importantly on your website.

A Final Word
A company without emotional subtext is a company without soul, and it’s one that will eventually be superseded by those who understand the importance of brand and how emotional advertising works.

Article by Jerry Bader. To see original article go to www.sitepronews.com.

With a new year in swing, it’s time again to focus on setting new revenue records in 2011 by investing in the marketing strategies with the highest return-on-investment potential. Small businesses have more at risk than big companies when it comes to capitalizing on new trends, so your timing should follow the old saying, “The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.”

The following list features my top 10 online marketing trends for this year, as well as advice for whether you should be the bird (invest now) or the mouse (leave the trend on the sidelines).

No. 1: Location-Based Marketing
Advice: Be the early bird

Location is so relevant that Google has already started mixing local results and maps with other searches.

Get your business ready for location-based marketing by claiming your spot on Google Places. Make your website more mobile-friendly with clickable phone numbers and maps. Also, prepare for more marketing features to be added to search results, such as mobile coupons, custom tags and logos.

No. 2: Instant Search
Advice: Be the early bird

Since Google decided to make search results and suggested key phrases appear instantly as people type, look for some consumers to abandon their first-choice, shorter search phrases in favor of these more relevant suggestions. For example, a consumer searching “desk lamp” might go with the suggestion “desk lamp reviews.” If your business is optimized for shorter search phrases, it’s time to evaluate the longer phrases to make sure you aren’t missing potential customers.

No. 3: Social Media Monitoring
Advice: Be the mouse

This year, the reality will be revealed that social media conversations conducted by businesses aren’t as personal, memorable or profitable as they would like to believe. Spend your time and money building a fantastic customer experience. Then, let your fans do the positive talking as you leverage your social media properties to reach your customers with social marketing campaigns.

No. 4: Social Media Marketing
Advice: Be the early bird

Savvy entrepreneurs are abandoning chatter in favor of running actual marketing campaigns on social media sites. Try a social sweepstakes, contest, group deal or coupon. You can use sites like Foursquare to reward loyal customers who check-in to your business, and services like Wildfire to help you run promotional applications.

No. 5: Mobile Marketing
Advice: Be the mouse

While 2010 showed us that many people use text messaging, email and social media on their smartphones, most consumers still aren’t comfortable snapping a picture of a bar code.

If you want to dabble in mobile marketing this year, start by building an application, mobile website or text messaging campaign. If you own a retail store, try an in-store promotion so you can walk your mobile users through the process of snapping a bar code or texting a short code to retrieve a coupon and redeem it at the register.

No. 6: Online Advertising
Advice: Be the early bird

Banner ads may sound antiquated, but display advertising is destined to become hot this year. In fact, it’s now easier for small businesses to place display ads on millions of websites by going through a few ad networks that have purchased most of the space available on publisher websites. Those ads can be tailored by geography, behavior and category of interest. It’s a great way to boost the results from your pay-per-click budget this year because combining search marketing with online display ads generally increases the results from both.

No. 7: Email Marketing
Advice: Be the early bird

Facebook has announced plans to add a more familiar looking email inbox and social media integration with email marketing tools is well underway. Mobile applications are making email easier to use on smartphones, and the HTML functions on phones are making branded emails look prettier on mobile screens. It’s probably time to give your email marketing a facelift.

No. 8: Social Shopping
Advice: Be the mouse

People already share their purchases socially, but newer social shopping technologies, such as Swipely and Blippy, make it possible to share with just one click or swipe of the credit card. If your products stir excitement, or you can offer a group discounts, give this technology a try.

No. 9: Instant Messaging
Advice: Be the mouse

This could be the year when website visitors begin to expect instant answers to their questions. If you have customer service teams or a sales force that are in front of computers or mobile phones all day, consider running an instant messaging test.

No. 10: Online Television
Advice: Be the mouse

Consumers will be able to customize their television feeds, browse the Web while watching shows, watch programs on-demand and even control their televisions with a mobile phone. Online television presents a huge opportunity for advertisers because the targeting options are so much better than traditional TV. However, you may have to wait to capitalize on this trend as the corporate television giants tend to be slow about making changes.

To see my predictions for last year, see “10 Web Marketing Trends for 2010.”

This article is by John Arnold is a Boulder, Colo.- based consultant, speaker and trainer specializing in marketing advice for small businesses. He is the author of three marketing books in the ‘For Dummies’ series including Web Marketing All-In-One Desk Reference and Mobile Marketing for Dummies. See the original at www.entrepreneur.com.