Blog Archives - Page 4 of 7 - Baseline Creative | Wichita Web Design and Integrated Marketing

Nov 24

The word Search appears on a computer screen

What is Search Console?

By Baseline Creative Blog

Google Analytics is one of the best tools on the market for analyzing web traffic. Included in Analytics, is a separate, but powerful tool called Search Console. This month we examine this tool and why it’s important.

Another Tool in Analytics

Search Console is a set of tools that helps measure search traffic on your website, measure performance, and helps identify issues that could be hindering your site in search results.

One of the most important features of Search Console is the ability to track how you acquired users. Within the tool, you can see which landing pages get the most impressions and clicks. When analyzing your data, it’s important to see which pages are getting the most traffic and which pages could use more optimization.

This tool also offers insights into bounce rates (how long a user stays on the page) as well as how many pages a user visits during each session. Data on how many impressions your website has on a desktop versus mobile and tablets and which countries your users are coming from is also included. Queries in Search Console allows you to see what users were searching for when they found your website.

Additionally, Search Console reviews websites and sends performance reports detailing elements that need to be changed to improve your site ranking.

Why is Search Console Important?

Knowledge is power, so knowing where your customers are finding your website, and what they are doing when they get there is critical information. Search Console allows us to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of each website.

We can see if a landing page needs to be optimized or updated because it’s not showing up in results. Search Console tells us if a blog post is driving significant traffic to your website—or not. When we understand what people are searching for when they find your website through queries, we can optimize keywords or create Google Ads with those terms. Through performance reports, we can see any design elements and page speed issues that might affect search results. This reporting is important because the more we know about how a site is performing, the more we can adjust as needed to improve—and that increases your bottom line.

What Do You Need to Do?

Baseline Creative helps many clients each month with Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing such as Google ads, and website maintenance. If you are interested, we’d love to hear from you! Contact us to learn how we can help.

Nov 24

The Importance of a Good Business Card Design

By Baseline Creative Blog

Business cards may be the smallest tool in the toolbox, however, they can have the biggest impact on your company’s success, even in a digitally-dominated world.

Design matters

Have you ever received a business card that is plain boring, or poorly-designed? Both of these can ruin a first impression and may cause people in your network to avoid doing business with you.

Business cards don’t have to be boring! In fact, they can incorporate fun designs and colors while still being professional. Including a fun and personal touch on your business card design can make you memorable while standing out among the rest. Baseline Creative has designed hundreds of business cards over the years. From the concept to the design to the print production we help businesses put their best foot forward.

What are the benefits of keeping business cards in your toolbelt?

4 Benefits of Business Cards

First, business cards provide an opportunity to make a good first impression on a potential customer.
Second, it allows you to give people the most important information they need to know about you, including your name, company, email, and phone number.
Also, business cards are a great networking tool as they can help establish personal relationships with individuals in all industries, ultimately building trust.
Lastly, business cards are an inexpensive way to build your brand awareness and identity from the get-go.

Need a New Business Card Design?

Although we live in a digital world, business cards are still relevant. Furthermore, the power of a good business card can’t be underestimated.

If it’s time to update your current business card, or create a new one that reflects your identity or brand, Baseline Creative can help!

Our skilled team of designers are equipped to create one-of-a-kind business cards that capture the essence of your brand. In addition, we offer logo design, web development, marketing strategies, and more. Reach out to learn how we can help with your next project.

Nov 24

Case Study: SafetyTec Services

By Baseline Creative Blog

For over ten years, Baseline Creative has had the pleasure of working with the SafetyTec team on websites, print collateral, logo design—even animations. As one of the top fire prevention services companies in the region, SafetyTec has steadily grown and Baseline has been honored to be part of that growth.

Growing Together

SafetyTec serves Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Nebraska providing commercial hood cleaning, ceiling tile cleaning, wall cleaning, fixture cleaning, and most recently, fire suppression services. “We love seeing SafetyTec expand and grow their business into new markets,” Williams said. “

“We’ve just found that the responsiveness and the understanding of our business, and the collaboration that we’ve been able to achieve has really taken us to where we are today,” said Andy Jacobs, SafetyTec Services President.

Nathan Williams, Principal at Baseline agrees with Andy that the collaboration with Baseline and SafetyTec has produced amazing work and a wonderful working relationship. “Andy and his team are good people. We love that he trusts us to fulfill his vision and is always open to new things.”

Website Design & Social Media

Andy’s vision for a new website was something that was modern and interesting. Using the SafetyTec brand colors, and black and white photography, Baseline designed and developed a website that is striking and contemporary. SafetyTec worked with a videographer to capture a video of their crew on the job and Baseline used that motion throughout the site. “We have probably one of the best websites in the industry and we could not have done that without Baseline,” Jacobs said.

Each month the Baseline digital strategists create content for the SafetyTec social media channels. “We’ve seen over the years that consistent, high-quality content on social media, has increased the brand awareness for SafetyTec and drives people back to the website,” said Andrea Anglin, a digital strategist at Baseline. “We love coming up with new and interesting ways to tell the SafetyTec story.”

Baseline Creative is proud to work with SafetyTec and their team to build brand awareness, generate leads, and help them tell their brand story. If you need assistance with your brand, contact us. We’d love to help!

Oct 27

This illustration shows an open laptop with a tablet and a mobile phone open to the same website to show mobile responsiveness.

Mobile Responsive Design Matters

By Baseline Creative Blog

Have you visited a website that requires you to do more work when you land on the page? For example, having to zoom in and out, panning, and unnecessary scrolling? This can be frustrating nonetheless and can steer you away from a website completely.

What is Mobile Responsiveness?

A website with good mobile responsiveness automatically scales all content, images, and elements to the browser, screen, or device that it’s viewed on—most often, that’s on a mobile device.

Website responsiveness is an investment for any business—a very worthwhile one at that. Therefore, if your site is lacking mobile responsiveness, it may cost you sales from potential customers.

3 Benefits of Responsive Websites

Opportunity to reach customers on all devices
Consistent user-experience
Improved SEO ranking

Having a mobile responsive website provides you with an opportunity to reach visitors on any device. According to Search Engine Land, nearly 60 percent of searches start on a mobile device. To clarify, mobile responsiveness is an easy and effective way to increase your brand’s reach on tablets and smartphones.

Furthermore, a mobile-optimized website presents visitors with a consistent user experience. Site visitors are likely to stay on your site if it’s easy to navigate, compared to a poorly-designed website that can drive visitors to a competitor’s site. Further, responsive sites can decrease bounce rates, improve conversions, and can help generate leads.

Lastly, developing a mobile responsive site is the recommended approach by Google. In 2015, Google rolled out its mobile-friendly update, which helps sites perform better in search engine rankings.

Above all, you want your website to be easy to navigate so that visitors are likely to come back and do business with you.

You Dream It, We Do It

Does your website need some help when it comes to mobile-responsiveness? Our team has expertise in building websites that work. Whether you’re looking to build from scratch or optimize your current site, we’re ready to help! It all starts with a conversation. Contact us to learn more about our services!

Oct 27

Sperra Studios – A Case Study

By Baseline Creative Blog

This project was no challenge for web development and design superheroes at Baseline Creative.

Sperra Studios approached the Baseline team for help developing and designing their new website.

Sperra Studios produces motion content for some of the most popular movies within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Their team does it all, including creative writing, design and motion graphics, sound for picture, and more.

Marvel Cinematic Universe

Some of Sperra’s well-known work includes user-interface design and animation for the movie, Captain Marvel. The team was tasked to create ‘90s-inspired content for the major motion picture, including original design and animation, portrayed through flight controls and a vintage web browser window.

Another iconic project by Sperra Studios consisted of creating unique assets for Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol 2. Their scope of work included graphics and user-interface design for the cockpit dash screens for the Guardian’s Milano ship. In addition, Sperra Studios has worked on animations and UI design for movies like Bumblebee, The Gifted, Transformers: The Last Knight, and TV series The Passage.

Web Design and Development

Sperra Studios needed a creative and innovative way to portray their capabilities and work through a well-designed website. This website needed to showcase their one-of-a-kind works of art while being visually-compelling.

The team at Baseline Creative designed and developed a user-friendly website that highlighted all of their work, including the details—big and small. Most importantly, the new website for Sperra Studios needed to not only feature their best-known work but also tell the story of their brand, in a fascinating manner.

In addition to web design and development, Baseline Creative worked on optimization efforts to ensure the site was navigable and user-friendly. Search engine optimization also helps generate organic traffic to the website.

Launch into the Digital Universe with Help from Baseline Creative

If you’re searching for strategies to manage your company’s brand, website, or digital marketing efforts, look no further than Baseline Creative! Our team is passionate about developing strategies that work. We have the capabilities to help your brand soar, whether you need assistance with your website, social media, or other marketing efforts. Get in touch with us to learn how we can help you!

Oct 27

This graphic depicts a laptop with an email marketing window and dollar signs.

Does Email Marketing Work?

By Baseline Creative Blog

Does email marketing work? Absolutely. According to Hubspot, 99 percent of people check their email every day and list email as their preferred communication from brands. The best way to get subscribers is to have them opt-in to your communications. This not only keeps you from violating privacy laws but ensures that you are sending emails to people who actually want to hear from your brand. There isn’t a better target audience than the one that asks to be targeted!

You can build your mailing list multiple ways including sign-ups or opt-in opportunities at events, or on your website. You can promote your newsletter and invite people to subscribe to all of your social media accounts as well. If your donor management database doesn’t have an email campaign functionality, you can use an email client like MailChimp or Constant Contact. The monthly cost will depend on the size of your mailing list.

What Kind of Content Should We Include?

Email marketing gives you the opportunity to personalize content like no other medium. You can segment out your customers based on where they are in their purchasing journey (i.e. returning customers vs new customers) and can develop specific messages for those audiences. There are a couple of common types of content for email marketing that we will discuss below.

Communicate Sales and Other Offers

When the beauty story Ulta sends an email with a sale or other offer, customers are going to go check out the sale. Make that sale a limited time offer with a prestige brand, and engage “fear of missing out” otherwise known as FOMO. In fact, 60 percent of Millennials (ages 24-38) say they make a “reactive purchase” within 24 hours of receiving a FOMO offer.

Introduce a New Product or Service

Give your customers a sneak peek of a new product offering or service. You can associate the new product with a sale or simply just let your customers know about the latest and greatest you have to offer!

Drive Traffic to Your Website

Ultimately, email marketing drives customers to your website where they can make a purchase, sign up for a demo of your product, or read a blog.

Inform and Educate Your Customers

Provide educational content to continue to build credibility and trust with your customers. A hardware store can offer tips on fire safety in an email that also includes information about smoke detectors they sell. Even if a customer doesn’t purchase at that moment, some trust has been built that the hardware store cares about the safety of its customers.

Stay Connected

Create a community of passionate fans, increase sales, and leads, and drive traffic to your website with email marketing!

The answer to the question, “Does Email Marketing Work?” is yes. If you’re looking for assistance, Baseline Creative would love to help! You can contact us to learn more.

Oct 27

A man is holding a shopping cart in his hand through a laptop to depict holiday e-commerce sales.

E-Commerce for the Holidays

By Baseline Creative Blog

Do you remember holiday shopping? Some of us loved the hustle and bustle of Black Friday and the thrill of finding a great deal while in a throng of like-minded deal-seekers. In the past 10 years many retailers have opened up on Thanksgiving Day, but as Covid has changed the way many do business, that too has changed. For small businesses, this change could even the playing field with e-commerce becoming an even bigger part of holiday shopping this year.

According to an article in the Search Engine Journal, 60% of people have been shopping more online since Covid, and of those, 73% plan to continue to shop online even after the pandemic. This opens up the opportunity for businesses to increase e-commerce for the holidays now and moving forward.

How Do You Prepare for Holiday E-commerce?

It’s important that your e-commerce site has updated Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Are the terms on your website the ones in which you actually want to rank? Are your products optimized for SEO? The first step this season for e-commerce for the holidays is to ensure that your business and your products or services can be found when searched.

Make sure your cart functionality is working on your website. This is including a process to notify customers when they have left something in their cart, but haven’t completed a purchase. Sending a notification and persuasive message to these potential customers that they have an abandoned cart, can sometimes double or triple the click-through rate and increase sales.

Start your promotional plans now for the holidays! What should your promotional plan include? It depends on where your audience is located. For most retail and service industries, you can find and target audiences on social media. Google Ads are another effective way to target your audience and show up in search results as well as on other websites (such as a news outlet), or on YouTube. Email marketing is also a fantastic way to connect with your current customers and deliver deals, sales, and product information directly to them.

Time to Get Started

It’s not too soon to start thinking about your e-commerce solutions and holiday promotions. If you aren’t sure where to start, contact Baseline Creative to start a conversation. Regardless, may your holiday sales be plentiful!

Sep 23

Closed Captioning for Videos

By Baseline Creative Blog

Videos are a great marketing tool, especially when used on Facebook. But as engaging as videos can be for your marketing efforts, it’s important to make sure they are captioned. There are several reasons captioning is important, the most critical being accessibility. In addition, how users interact with videos on social media is another factor for captioning.

Closed Captioning for Accessibility

Accessibility for hearing impairments is an important part of any video creation. The population of people with hearing loss is growing and is expected to reach 630 million people by 2030 according to the World Health Organization (WHO). As our population grows, and grows older, there will be more people who experience hearing loss. Also, some infections, medications and environmental factors such as noise pollution can also cause hearing loss.

Regardless of why we have more people with hearing loss, it’s important we make sure that videos are accessible to them. Captioning, or subtitling videos is an important step. There are tools available in social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to caption videos either automatically or manually. Although this step takes more time, it increases accessibility for viewers with hearing loss.

People Prefer Soundless Video

Accessibility is just one reason closed captioning is significant to video production. The way in which social media users interact with videos is also key. According to Facebook, most people view videos without the sound on. Most Facebook users view the platform on their mobile phones and 80% of users have a negative reaction to an ad with sound. Facebook said it’s important to design video ads with silence in mind. They recommend using captions, logos and visuals of products to convey your advertising message.

Videography and Social Media Marketing

Baseline Creative has videography and social media marketing services. If you have a video that needs to be captioned or if you need a video, we can help. Contact us!

Sep 23

Case Study: EPIC Vets

By Baseline Creative Blog

In 2017, veterinarian and entrepreneur, Dr. Lonny Pace reached out to Baseline Creative to rebrand an emergency pet clinic located in Temecula, California. The Emergency Pet Clinic of Temecula, now called EPIC Vets, needed an all-new look including a new website, new branding, social media management, and reputation management.

Brand Identity, Web Design & Social Media

The designers at Baseline worked to create a new logo and identity for EPIC Vets. As the new owner of the clinic, Dr. Pace wanted to breathe new life into the business. The new logo, identity, and brand standards were created and used in print collateral including updated business cards, brochures, and promotional items for EPIC’s staff and patients.

The website EPIC had needed a design update and needed to be optimized for search engine optimization (SEO). Baseline built the new website and focused on organic SEO which was lacking in the previous website. Traffic increased on the website 100% from January 2017 to December 2017. Organic traffic accounted for 56.5% of the traffic to the website and paid search (Google campaigns) accounted for another 12.2%. In the past year, online forms and even an app for EPIC has helped them process patients faster and more efficiently—including communicating new Covid precautions.

The Baseline team also created social media content and began managing all the platforms for EPIC, increasing their social media presence and their brand awareness. Social listening and quick responses helped the page grow and helped the EPIC team manage and respond to reviews. EPIC fans are engaged and enjoy the educational and playful content created for the brand.

Reputation Management

Reputation management, including online reviews, was important to EPIC. As an emergency vet clinic, the patients they see are often critical. As a result of the stressful and emotional nature of clinic visits, some online reviews were negative, especially if animals were not able to be saved. EPIC began using Baseline’s Full-Service Review survey tool to survey patients’ families immediately after treatments. The survey allowed EPIC patients to link directly to Google and Facebook reviews for people who scored EPIC with 4 or more stars. For those with negative feedback, their results were immediately directed to the clinic where the team could assess the situation and reach back out to the reviewer to resolve issues before they were online. The result is that the average review for EPIC increased from 3.1 stars to 4.1 stars.

Why Baseline Creative?

Since starting work with EPIC Vets, Baseline has built a great relationship and has been involved in many additional projects for Dr. Pace. When asked why he enjoys working with Baseline Creative, Dr. Pace said, “Baseline follows the ‘yes’ philosophy to customer service that we follow at EPIC. If you can dream they will find a way to make it happen.”

Sep 23

Pinterest Marketing

By Baseline Creative Blog

Early on, Pinterest garnered a reputation for being the place to go to find recipes and “pin” them to a personal feed to be referenced later. When launching in 2010, Pinterest was mostly focused on crafts, gifts, interior design, and fashion. Since then, it’s grown into a powerful sales platform and Pinterest marketing has become a powerful tool.

From Inspiration to E-Commerce

Pinterest has become “shoppable” meaning, users can be served pins based on keywords that lead them to promoted pins, which are ads. Research from Pinterest showed that 83% of pinners made a purchase based on the content they found on Pinterest. As a highly visual platform, Pinterest is a great way to show off your products.

In addition, the Pinterest algorithm serves up pins that are based on your personal preferences, increasing the potential for products to be purchased. In fact, ads on Pinterest deliver at 2.3 times lower cost per conversion than other ads on social media.

According to Pinterest, 97% of top searches on Pinterest are unbranded. This means that users don’t come to Pinterest with a specific brand in mind, but rather search for categories—which is great for small businesses!

Ways to Shop from Pins

Pinners can shop directly from a board which means that they will be able to see a Shop tab, and in-stock items will be displayed on boards they have created with a search term. For instance, if someone pins “Dining Room Furniture” they will see those kinds of items on that board.

Pinners can also search for items in the app and will be served in-stock product information from businesses. Users can search for “sunglasses” and will be served products as well as pricing and brand filters.

Shopping from pins has been made much easier. Pinners can simply click on the pin to shop and will also see similar products they might be interested in purchasing.

Browsable style guides are another way in which users can find products to purchase. Now, when Pinners search for home-related terms style guides will display guides for style categories like “mid-century, contemporary, and rustic.” This is a helpful visual search tool for those who are interested in making a purchase or researching a purchase.

Do You Find This Pinteresting?

Baseline Creative has a digital marketing team with specific experience in Pinterest marketing. If you’re interested in learning more about advertising on Pinterest, contact us!