Archive for June 2011

0

Best Wordpress Web Host

Choosing a host for your new website can be a daunting task since there are hundreds, if not thousands. I have worked with many and though I love to support local, small businesses, this is one area where the national brand is the better way to go. When you have a national company competing with others, you end up getting easy customer service 24/6, a great control panel, easy to understand tutorials, and usually money back guarantees. One of my favorite companies to work with is GoDaddy.com. They are great for general html sites and WordPress sites, as well as other options.

In building new sites and redesigning sites with hosts that clients currently work with, I have come across numerous different host and domain providers. The reason I prefer GoDaddy.com over many of the other large (and small hosts) is the following:

• Their control panels are very easy to navigate and work with, for both developer and client.
• They have a wide variety of tutorials for all of their products that are easy to access and understand
• I have had the least amount of problems with their hosting and transfers with them than any other host I have worked with.
• They have expedited transfers for me, allowing client websites to have minimal down times.
• Though I have seen some slower service for their Economy WordPress hosting, their Deluxe and Ultimate packages have produced faster load times for client websites.
• Customer service. I have had some problems with them with a couple clients (but less than with other hosts) and when that happened, they refunded the full amount.

All hosts boast that they do not have problems, even though all hosts have a problem here and there. That said, GoDaddy has provided more consistent service than any other host that I have used.

How to Purchase the Top wordpress website hosting

1. Go to GoDaddy.com and go to the menu HOSTING If you are getting a WordPress site, go to WORDPRESS hosting
2. If you will only have a few images and don't care about loading speeds, choose the Economy Plan. If you are going to have more than a handful of images and want faster loading times, choose Deluxe Plan (12 months is recommended for both). If you are going to have an eCommerce site with onsite payment processing, then choose the Ultimate Plan and you will get a SSL certificate for free for one year.
3. Don't add anything else on the next page and proceed to checkout.*
4. *If you do not have a domain name, go to DOMAINS and select a domain name. The .com and .net are preferred.

GoDaddy is my favorite website host because they take great care of you, have exceptional services and integrative options, as well as numerous tutorials that stay up to date. If you are planning on getting a website, I recommend GoDaddy for your hosting. However, be sure to talk to your web designer first to make sure that you are purchasing the correct plan for your site.

0

Free small business marketing ideas

Marketing your small business can be overwhelming, especially when you are busy running your business. With the hundreds of available options, it can be even tougher figuring out where to start. Here are a few FREE options of ways to help get your name out there (and it only takes a few hours):

• FREE BUSINESS LISTINGS: Google, Bing and Yahoo: Here's a link to one of my blog posts: http://www.sarazimmerman.net/2011/05/16/get-seen-on-google-and-yahoo/. In the 6th paragraph or so are links to set up FREE listings for your business at Google, Yahoo and Bing. Add your info and images if you have time. This will take about a half an hour to do for each.
• FACEBOOK: Make a personal Facebook account and make some “friends.” Then, login to your Facebook account and go to the help page (at the bottom) and type in Create a Facebook Fan Page. Then follow the instructions and set one up. Once you have one, add info, add images, etc. This will take about an hour to do. Then add a post once a day for 7 days, then at least once a week after that. Once you have something up there, send an invite to your personal “friends” to become a fan of your business fan page.
• LINKEDIN: Start a Linkedin.com profile. Please add as much information as you can, as well as links. This will take about an hour too.
• YELP: If you have a storefront, start a business account at Yelp.com. Ask former clients to rate and review you.
• EMAIL NEWSLETTER: Do you have an email mailing list? If so, send it through an email newsletter provider where you can track it and make it have your branding. MailChimp.com is great and free up to 2,000 contacts. Create an account, then login again and fill out your profile. If you have time to watch or go through a tutorial, please do. You will need to set up a list for first, last name and email. You can start a general list. Then you can start a template, if you like.

There are hundreds of things to do. There are just a few things to help you get started, but keep in mind, you need to keep up with it to make it effective. If you have any problems or want some help to bring your branding through your marketing efforts so it looks consistent, please contact me. Happy marketing!

0

Last chance to buy Laughing Sun Clothing

Laughing Sun Clothing is being absorbed in Sara Zimmerman Art, Illustration and Design. NONE of the current designs will be reproduced. We have limited quantities of the designs you all loved so get them now while we still have your size. Everything is 50% off.  While items last, save up to 50% on clothes online at LaughingSunClothing.com or visit our booth at Truckee Thursdays.

1

Booth at Truckee Thursdays 2011

Come by to see me, checkout my new greeting card line, and buy the discontinued line of Laughing Sun Clothing (now on sale at 50% off) at our booth on Truckee Thursdays. I will be there Thursdays June 30, July 7 and 14th from 4 to 8 pm at downtown Truckee. See you then!!

0

Laws of good branding

Branding and corporate identity are what gets your business seen and remembered. Investing into good branding makes all the difference in the world.

Imagine you are an upscale restaurant serving entrees that start in the $35 range. Imagine you decided to skimp on paying for good branding and lettered your own sign, your business cards are do-it-yourself from VistaPrint, and your menus are black and white photo copies with a little clip art of some shrimp scampi at the top. What does this say about your restaurant? To me, if a business deliberately shows that they are skimping on their branding, it makes me feel like they may be the type to skimp on other important items like their licensing, quality of products, etc. Therefore, good branding is imperative on so many levels.

So what is good branding? Logo Orange breaks down branding essentials into 22 laws in their post called the Big Page. Here they review the items most necessary to getting branding that works for you, including Expansion, Quality, and Publicity. Click to read more about the steps involved in good branding and work with your designer and marketing consultant to get you a brand that speaks to your customers (and entices them to make a purchase!).

0

Art Workshop Survey

Interested in an Art Workshop? Throughout the last year, numerous people have approached me asking me if I would do an art workshop. If you are interested in an art workshop, can you please take 2 minutes and complete this 7 question survey to help me? Thanks in advance for your help!

0

Truckee Thursdays T Shirt Design

Truckee Thursdays is a super fun outside festival that happens throughout the summer months in Truckee, CA. It's an event of all ages, featuring music, food, beer garden, play area for kids, and vendors of all sorts. This year, the Truckee Downtown Merchant Association launched a t shirt contest for Truckee Thursdays. The idea was to capture the feel of Truckee Thursdays while being appealing to both men and women.

I created a concept, sketched it out, then painted it with inks. Once dried, I scanned it, cleaned it up in Photoshop, then imported and outlined it in Illustrator. I added some features, tweaked some things, and brought in a fun font. The final design was submitted and accepted as winner of the 2011 Truckee Thursday t shirt contest. To purchase your own, look for the Truckee Downtown Merchant Association's booth during Truckee Thursdays. Then come by and see me as I will have my own booth too!

0

New Summer Artworks

The idea of summer has been in my hear for the last few weeks despite the cloudy days. I thought that if I could paint it, perhaps the sun, the bright green leaves, and bluebird skies would appear. And guess what? Here they come! These summer days are so inspirational- I just love the amazing life that the greens of the new leaves present- they are so bright with chlorophyl that they are almost bursting at the seams with potential energy.

Check out some of the new artworks I recently made to capture this essence in Lake Tahoe, Truckee, and Emerald Bay. Many of these are also available as greeting cards and prints, starting at $4.

0

Launch of Truckee River Watershed Council Website

The Truckee River Watershed Council is a non-profit organization that manages numerous events and activities. Their site needed to be able to manage all of this activity while maintaining the look of a professional non-profit site. This website was a major undertaking due to the amount of actions that needed to take place on the site itself and started 6 months ago. I first met with them to give suggestions of how the site should work and after many meetings, worked with them to streamline their wireframe. Then the fun started.

WEED REPORTING: Working with local programmer SunMie Won of SW Programming, we created an interactive website on the Joomla platform. Working with iphone and Droid application developers from the invasive species site What's Invasive, we customized a weed reporting tool that would work with the iPhone and Droid AND would upload reports visually on the TRWC site using Google technology. Furthermore we added an identification section where viewers could search the site for invasive weeds.

DONATION MANAGEMENT: The needs of TRWC's donation management exceeded most donation software so we integrated the CiviCRM module and customized it from there. TRWC can now accept online payments as a one time or an ongoing pledge option through their secure website.

EVENT REGISTRATION: TRWC hosts numerous events and meetings and needed a calendar that could not only be updated for events, but could accept registration. The registration aspect notifies registrars and then sets the registrar up on a separate list on the backend so TRWC can choose to do an email to all those who signed up for a particular event.

NEWSLETTER: TRWC sends out regular newsletters so we integrated an online newsletter option for viewers. TRWC can now use their customized template to send newsletters with their look and feel, as well as track them.

CUSTOM DESIGN AND ILLUSTRATION: To make the website pop and to further the education of the watershed, TRWC needed a map of the Truckee River Watershed. I hand painted a map if the watershed that I later integrated into the homepage slider and the projects maps.

SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATION & eCOMMERCE: Since the TRWC website is so large, we need to help them with their system's administration and migrate them to a virtual dedicated server. Additionally, we assisted them with the integration of their eCommerce using authorize.net and their merchant account.

Overall this is a large site with a lot of customization and forms. It allows the Truckee River Watershed council to not only have one place where donors, volunteers, and residents can learn more about the watershed, but a place where they can manage it all in the back end as well. TruckeeRiverWC.org

0

Greeting cards now available in local shops

My greeting card line is taking off! You can now purchase individually wrapped cards or card 6 packs online or from one of the 3 new places in Truckee:

• Riverside Studios at 10060 Donner Pass Road, Truckee, CA
• Bookshelf Stores (next to Safeway), 11310 Donner Pass Road, A2-3, Truckee, CA
• Gratitudes in Downtown Truckee, 10112 Donner Pass Road

I have already had great response in the few weeks that they have been at Riverside Studios so am excited to see them bring joy to the customers of these other stores. Additionally, I have recently teamed up with a wonderful sales rep to help get my cards into more stores throughout Northern California and Nevada. If you know of a store who needs some fun cards to sell, please forward me their name and contact info. In the meantime, these cards are only $4 each- that's less than many box store cards. You can buy them online at sarazimmermanart.net.