based in Houston, TX. We strive to go beyond the initial design and emphasize the establishment of your Web Presence. We specialize in Web design, new media, Web optimization, and application development.
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We are so very excited to announce our success in bringing three GHBA Houston's Best Awards to our clients! Poetic Systems' dedication to web marketing in the Real Estate industry in conjunction with Boe Creative Services has aided Friendswood Development Company and Houston Newcomer Guides in becoming some of Houston's Best. We are proud to have helped bring in:
Houston's Best Internet Marketing Campaign - Developer - Friendswood Development Company and Boe Creative Services
We would love to thank and congratulate our clients for their patience, trust, and skill.
We would also like to congratulate a few of our friends in the Real Estate industry, including Caldwell Companies, Partners in Building, L.P., and Bridgeland, L..P., all for being some of Houston's Best as well!
Tomorrow, Poetic Systems is taking a trip to the Lodge at the Heritage at Towne Lake for Friendswood Development Company's Social Media Event. There, Matt and I will talk about how Social Media, New Media... whatever you want to call it, will benefit those in the Real Estate industry if used effectively.
With over 500 Real Estate professionals planning to attend, we hope to spread the "good news" to a good chunk of the Houston Realtor community. We plan to discuss the concept of community on the Web and how being an active community member can only benefit your business. We will highlight the impressive growth in social networks and their usage and how it is arguably vital to Realtors' businesses to jump on the bandwagon. From Twitter to ActiveRain to their personal Websites (our specialty), we intend to provide substantial food for thought. Afterwards, some of our staff will be on hand to answer questions and guide guests online through the Social Media madness.
The event will also have some other great perks like food, a martini bar, a candy bar, a band & dancing, a showcase by Stubbs Cycles and Northside Lexus, and a giveaway of 20 flipcams.
The relationship between a business and its web designer is not one to be overlooked. A happy, professional interaction can lead to a fruitful transaction, while a distant or uninvolved relationship will most certainly hinder the potential of your website or web application.
Obviously, we can say be nice. Still, there is so much more. If you would like to get the absolute most out of your website - and there's no reason you shouldn't - you should absolutely heed these notes.
You are the "Patient"
If an oncologist diagnosed you with cancer and prescribed you a treatment, would you question them? Maybe - but you would at least have to acknowledge his extensive background in experience with and treatment of cancer. He probably studied it extensively in school. Perhaps he happens to have a number of successful cancer survivors as patients.
The doctor-patient relationship is a great parallel and reference to the client-web designer relationship. You, of course, have the final say on what happens to your body and with your treatment, and if you have a good doctor, he will listen to what you have to say. However, how often do you take the stethoscope out of his hands?
That would be Carson interviewing Houston business professionals on behalf of Poetic Systems at El Tiempo Mexican Restaurant. Matt is the man behind the scenes working the camera. This was over a year ago!
Facebook is well known to many, but its usefulness may not be as familiar. What may be a waste of time for most can bring a great return on investment of time to others. Below is an overview of steps that should be taken to promote your business using Facebook.
What Can Facebook do for My Business?
Facebook has a LOT of users. Those users may be your business’ potential clients. If you are trying to promote a website, spread product awareness, or target consumers, then you should be on Facebook.
Facebook is one more place to put a link to your website.
A Facebook Page can be a relevant, positive search result that comes up in Google when someone researches your company.
Facebook can target consumers based on their interests.
Facebook can spread awareness of your company/product.
Getting Started
Create an account at Facebook.com. The person who will control all Facebook affairs for your company should be the person to create or use their current account on behalf of the business.
That person’s profile should be filled with information about himself or herself. They should be active participants in the Facebook community, and should not be on Facebook for the sole purpose of promoting the company.
For SEO-friendliness, the user should probably put a link to the company website on their personal profile.
Do NOT create an account for your business. That is what Facebook Pages are for.
Pages
Facebook found that users wanted a place to promote their products and businesses, but it made no sense to use the same fields (like About Me, Interests, etc.) for a business. This is why Pages was created. Users can create a Page about a business, store, or product, and fill in relevant information (like parking information and hours of operation). How to get established with Pages:
While logged in, create a Page for you business/product.
Choose your business type. Be logical. (Example: For Poetic Systems, we chose “Local: Other Business”, because we didn’t quite fit in the other categories).
Edit your Page. Fill in as much information as possible through the backend of your page. Be sure to add a link to sites where you would like to drive traffic (like your company website).
Upload a main picture. If you have a central location, maybe use a picture of the storefront/signage. Otherwise, a logo is a good idea.
If your company website has a blog or news section that has RSS, do the following: From your Page, go to Edit Page >Notes > Edit > Import a blog. From there, import your blog using the RSS address you have. From now on, when your company website has a new post, so will your Facebook Page.
PUBLISH YOUR PAGE. At the top of your Page, there should be a red link that reads, “publish this Page.” Now others can find the Page.
To invite your friends on Facebook to check out the Page and become “Fans”, use the “Share +” button located in the upper right section of the Page. This tool will give them a link to immediately become a Fan.
When a person becomes a Fan of your Page, all of their friends will see what they are up to, and may go to see what your Page is all about. So, the more people who are Fans of your Page, the more likely more people will become Fans.
The issue of copy and content often gets pushed to the side in the realm of web design. In today's age, some weight is put on blogging (for the sake of search engine optimization), but still, copy writing and even the actual content going onto your future website is a mere afterthought. Poetic Systems does not find it uncommon to struggle with clients, dragging out completion of websites and launch dates because of a lack of content.
Considering copy last could be viewed as natural, but we would like to stretch your perspective a bit. Think about order of necessity. What really matters most when someone visits your website? As the experts, we'd like to give you this brief outline:
Functionality
Content
Design
We find ourselves nitpicking back and forth with out clients about the design of a website, but when it comes time to fill 'er up, it's oftentimes hard to get people excited.
Website Functionality
Functionality gets the number one spot because: if your website doesn't work, visitors won't stay. We can honestly say that if it doesn't serve a purpose, it shouldn't be on the web. There is nothing more unappealing to us than clicking on a button and getting an error message or a blank page. Lucky for you, creating a functional, efficient, useful interface is our specialty and responsibility. While your input and ideas are essential, we hope to alleviate some stress in this arena.
Website Content
Content is number two on our list, but should be number one on yours. Whether we produce it or you do, content via copy and blogs is what gets search engines going and what informs your clients. An empty website is just as useless as no website at all. At the same time, a website full of useless content is much more unpleasant than no website at all. This is why we ask you to reflect on the issue of content. Whether your professional copy writer is in-house or through us, make sure your content is useful AND optimized.
While the journey has been arduous, we have made it through!
For those of you who didn't know, just two weeks after we moved into a brand new office and launched a virtually "new" Poetic Systems, Hurricane Ike hit Houston and our building. Wind tore off the building's roof and the next day rain did the rest. The entire building, including our office space and furniture, were ruined. We had no option but to go back to designing websites at home. For about a month, employees worked right off my kitchen table.
We were eventually blessed with an opportunity, and our good friends at Creative Switching Designs took us in. Meanwhile, we wondered for months when on earth we would ever be back in our office. Well, we finally have a date!
We have been given February 1st, 2009 as the day our building should be like new. The wait has been irritating and frustrating, but it has also been healthy. We now view the hurricane as a mixed blessing, because we have proven just that much further that we can make it through quite a hit. From mail-forwarding issues to clients thinking we were out of business to some random missing office chairs, these past few months have definitely been a test of patience.
I have been asked to explain what makes a good blog post, or at least how to effectively blog, write well, SOMETHING to help with bloggers' issues. What style, format, length, etc. is appropriate? And for which situation? I intend to touch on a few things in order to point the lost in the right direction.
What to Blog About?
What moves you? Or what do you think will move other people? What is useful? What is relevant? What is interesting? If you don't know the answer to any of those questions, then don't try. Fitting any of those categories can be enough to qualify, but without that qualification, you have made your post a burden and an annoyance. News, tips, and personal thoughts are all perfectly acceptable as long as they fit with one of those questions.
What Format?
Aside from a few exceptions, begin with some sort of introductory paragraph or sentence. This keeps readers from wasting their time, so they know if they've found exactly what they're looking for. Whether you make it epic or to-the-point is completely up to you. Either is fine.
This all depends on the content, but just be logical. If you are sharing a short story you came up with, write in traditional format. Most posts, like news will be similar. Break sections and use headings properly. Before you begin think about what pieces of the post go together well and clump them accordingly. If you list features, use bullets. Number instructions. If you have a big quote, block it out.
Yesterday, Matt and I hit up the Houston Interactive Marketing Association’s Interactive Strategies Conference at the Angelika Theater downtown. The event ended up being an awesome learning experience, which means good news for our clients.
We stayed in the SEO/SEM track for the entire day and heard four top search engine-marketing gurus spill on vertical search, SEO for sites, tech tools, web design for ROI, and more. We plan on taking our new knowledge and giving it straight back to clients by making our web sites even more findable and user-friendly.
By far, our favorite session had to be the SEO Site Clinic, in which Tony Wright of Wright IMC looked at audience members’ web sites and ripped them apart from an SEM expert’s perspective. We offered up houstonnewcomerguides.com and were luckily chosen. Even better, Tony had a hard time finding something wrong with the site… at first.
He gave Matt some great pointers on internal things that will speed up load time and on ways to use title tags to target search terms we weren’t grabbing. These pointers of course were not exclusive to houstonnewcomerguides.com, and we will now be keeping them in mind on every site we build. Other than those few pointers, we got lots of praise on the design and content as well as for reaching the number 1 spot on Google, which should tell us and you that we are definitely doing something right.
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