There are a few easy and basic things you can do for your Wordpress or concrete5 website to make it load pages faster and increase the page speed.  It will usually take less than 5 minutes to get done and you'll have a better user experience and possibly better SEO rankings, buy that small time investment.

When I first started writing this post, I wasn't sure what I would be writing about.  But as I started thinking about what we did this year we accomplished some amazing things.  Late last year we opened up our new office in Midway, Utah, just outside of Park City.  We continue to do great stuff in Denver, working with some very innovative companies and doing unique campaigns.   I think some of the most interesting projects we did in 2017 were for clients around the United States.  A couple were the first websites on their kind for their industry and are already having very interesting results.

Years ago I used to be asked about enterprise level content management using the concrete5 CMS.   I don't hear those questions quite as much anymore.  The U.S. Army uses concrete5 to manage content across all of their garrisons websites.  Pixo has managed a Fortune 500 companies websites for years. All of 100+ sites all run on the concrete5 CMS.  They chose concrete5 because of the flexibility it gives them to manage a number of different things as well as low level training required for their different entities to manage their websites. 

For that same Fortune 500 company, we've launched 31 new websites in just two weeks for the client.   Many of these websites are relatively large, but the tools in concrete5 allow us to easily setup new sites, add content and push the sites live in a relatively short amount of time.

To learn more about our enterprise level content management solutions, website design and development services, visit our Business Packages page.

It is rivalry week again.  Our Denver clients might be a little less familiar, but our Utah clients know the "Holy War" is firing back up again on Saturday.  From December 16th to December 22nd, get 20% off a new website for new clients or free search engine optimization (SEO) setup (our best offer of the entire year) if the BYU mens basketball team beats Utah.  Hey, we'll even give Utah fans 20% off, because we love all fans.  Custom design, mobile friendly and powerful business websites built to your specifications.  Please take advantage of this great offer.  Contact us today! 

Had an interesting conversation with a client this weekend about his ranking in the search engines.  When you do a search for 'Roatan real estate' on Google he has come up in the #1 position on Google ever since we started doing search engine optimization for him.  However, this last week, when he started doing searches he started seeing himself in the #2 position.  When I do the same search it always come up in position #1 and in my third party rank tracking report he has come up #1 every week for months.  So his question was why did he drop?

The answer to that question is he didn't (kind of).  Multiple things can influence search results outside of the typical ranking  algorithm.   I thought it might be interesting to cover some of those here.  

Looking for a concrete5 video for the latest version of the concrete5 CMS?  You've come to the right place.  This full training video will show you how to edit content, add pages, add blocks and much more in this complete concrete5 tutorial.

Are you looking for a great eCommerce for your concrete5 5.8 website? The Community Store will be the solution for you.  With the Community Store ecommerce add-on for Concrete5 you can easily add products to a great shopping cart system with a number of great tools.  Community Store is simple to use.  See a real site in action here. 

Some of the features include:

• Full shopping cart functionality
• Multiple payment gateways to choose from
• Multiple shipping options
• Easy to customize

Need the Community Store add-on customized for your concrete5 website?  You've come to the right place.  We have a great deal of experience with both concrete5 and eCommerce systems and can build you a great eCommerce website, with the features you need.  We can also build a custom concrete5 theme to your specifications, utilizing the latest techniques in user interface design to help drive sales.  Let us know what we can do for you.

I always start off discussions with clients about website content with this.  "It will probably take more time than you think, but it will be a great process for you to help define your business."   Quality website content is not easy to write because not all of us are writers, but more importantly it can be a challenge to define your business, be engaging and differentiate yourself from your competition.  Really, quality content isn't something Google defines for great rankings.  It is really the reverse.  Great content can drive great website rankings.

One year ago today, we opened our new office in Midway, UT (just outside of Park City).  What an incredible year!  The community really embraced us more than could be expected and we've done some amazing things for local businesses.  Only weeks after moving in we started search engine optimization (SEO) work for one local power equipment rental company and literally within three weeks we had them up on page #1 of Google.  Built a website for a new clinical counseling service company in Heber City and in the first week they got a new client from off the website.  Also, had some very successful campaigns for local recreational vehicle rental shop and a really amazing landscape design company in Midway, to just name a few.

When we aren't working hard, we play hard.  And BIG.  For ten years how we've grown giant pumpkins in the Pixo garden.  We have fun here.  This year we are hoping the pumpkin will be over 1,000 pounds.  The picture below is not Photoshopped (if it was Photoshopped we would have made it even bigger--lol).

I remember in late 2008 getting calls from wise business owners who were looking to drive new business at the start of the Great Recession.   They had slashed their marketing budgets, but still need to find new business and online marketing was their best strategy.   Basically you can market online to most any segment with any amount of marketing dollars (large or small).  Often times startup businesses, companies that are re-strategizing or business in a depressed market can revitalize their business by strategic investing in online advertising and marketing such as Adwords, Facebook ads or search engine optimization.  

Almost two months ago we were contracted by a well established Denver/Arvada business that was looking to revitalize their online presence.   By their own admittance, there website had been neglected some and where they use to get new leads on a regular basis they were getting none. 

We did a review of their business goals and their online marketing and immediately found fixable problems.  An outside service (yellow pages) was doing their Google Adwords campaign, which was poorly designed and over priced.  We immediately rebuilt that and the client notified us that immediately they started seeing leads from it.  We then conceptualized a new website to build their brand, improve their mobile presence and renew search engine optimization efforts.  Their previous website use to rank, but had fallen behind the times and as a result wasn't showing up as well in the search engines as it once did.  The new website was an immediate success with additional leads coming from the search engine optimization (SEO) efforts.   They literally, in a month's time, went from mediocre visibility in Google, to being on page #1 of Google for 91% of their keywords that we are optimizing. 

What was their return on investment (ROI)?  From what they were saving in costs to their former Adwords service provider it will nearly pay for their website in the first six months.   Not to mention the significant increase in business that has come from their updated Adwords campaign and their new website is having a substantial impact on their business.  Needless to say, we've found a good new friend in Denver.

Could your business need an online revitalization?  Or are you starting a new business and need website consulting, design and development services?  Let us show you what we can do for you. 

Amber, VP at Pixo and social media guru, recently made some interesting observations.  There has been a trend in the industry towards campaigns on Instagram and away from bloggers in recent years.  I get that.  You go where the people are and Instagram is the current darling, with double digit growth in recent years.   To some degree moms have been replaced with the "pretty people" on Instagram. Again, somewhat understandable, but there are some missed opportunities when doing an Instagram campaign verses a blogging campaign.

Local searches on mobile devices are growing 50% faster than mobile searches overall.  If your business wants local traffic, this is a quick little search engine optimization (SEO) trick you can use to get your page on page #1 of Google for a local search.  Simply add the text "near me" on a page that is optimized for local searches.  So, let's say you are a website design agency that has two main local pages.  One is optimized for Denver and Arvada website development and the other is optimized for Park City and Heber City website development.  On each of those page simply (and appropriately) add the text "near me" on the page.  Preferably close to where you mention your location or city.   Why?  Because a growing phrase that is getting used more and more for local searches is "near me." 

I have to tell you about a new client that we've been working with for about a months now on a new website design and search engine optimization.   They were looking to start a new business in Heber City and explained that they didn't have a lot experience with what was needed for their website and wasn't sure what to do.  Frankly, they seemed a little lost and scared and said that they wanted to meet in person because they needed to know who they would be working with before they started the project.   That all made sense to me so I started asking questions about what they would be doing with their business, where they wanted to go and started talking about different online marketing strategies with the pluses and minuses of each.  After about 30 minutes, I asked when they would like to meet.  The response made me chuckle, because I had heard it a couple of times in the previous two weeks.  "We don't need to meet.  I know I want to work with YOU.   You are the first person who has told me what I needed to know and told it to me in a way that I could understand."

Three weeks later we put up a new website for this client and immediately started putting the finishing touches on their SEO.   A few days later the client called and said, "I've already got my first patient from off the website!"  I was thrilled for her.  I told her that wasn't typical to see traffic off the site already, but hopefully it would be the first of many.

If you need a website, online marketing consultation or SEO for your Heber City, Park City or Midway business give us a call:  435-767-7496.

Are you looking for amazing search engine optimization (SEO) services to not only drive local or national traffic to your website, but to increase conversions?  You've come to the right place.   Pixo Web Design & Strategy gets Park City and Heber Valley businesses to page #1 on Google.   We use the latest Advanced SEO techniques to find the right keywords and niches to drive quality traffic back to your website and get your website ranking.   And we aren't expensive.  Some might even call us cheap.  Ask our clients.   Our services provide a lot of value.   One of our higher profile clients, who are located close to Wal Mart in Heber, after many previous failed attempts, where up on page #1 of Google within just one month, because we were able to identify issues and get the right pieces in place to get them ranking.  What can we do for your business?  Give us a call for your local SEO or Advanced Search Engine Optimization needs.  We are located in Midway so we know your local community and know the SEO services you need.  Call now:  435-767-7496.  Also ask about our website design and social media services.

For all intensive purposes, Brain Hacking is the art and science of creating emotion in users that makes a website stand out, easier to use and make a user want to come back.   When you brain hack in website design, you increase time on site, reduce bounce rates, increase conversions and make the website sticky.   All buzz words the essentially say that website is working for you and your business.

We launched an amazing life insurance website today.   One that is going to change the industry.   Have you ever need to get a quote on a website and it took you 5-15 minutes to complete the online forms, only to be disappointed in the end?  A new website changes everything.   With lifesbestinsurances.com you can now get life insurance quotes in as little as 10 seconds from up to 50 different name brand carriers.  Life's Best Insurances is a new breed of concrete5 CMS website that uses Intellasearch technology that helps users find the right policy for their situation in the least amount of time possible.   Give it a try!

Pixo Web Design & Strategy has long been known for our great mommy blogger and social media campaigns.  Amber Johnson, Vice President at Pixo, was contacted a week ago to talk about family travel (one of our specialties) for an article in the Wall Street Journal.  What an honor!   The focus of the article was getting kids involved in vacation planning so the article was a family affair.   My children did an amazing job talking about their experiences with planning trips.  I was really proud of them.  Over the years they have had opportunities to work with Disney, Hawaii Tourism Authority, Southwest Airlines, Colorado Ski Country USA, Park City Resort and many more great organizations in experiencing family trips (aka spoiled rotten travelers).   It was great to see that the miles they had logged had also created some learning experiences.  Read the Wall Street Journal article at https://www.wsj.com/articles/dare-to-let-the-children-plan-your-vacation-1494947476

Sometimes I'll hear from clients that they aren't receiving emails from their Concrete5 and Wordpress contact forms on their website.  Usually the assumption is that something is broken with the forms.  Typically that isn't the case however.   Here are some things to try if you aren't receiving emails when the forms are submitted:

• Check to make sure an email address has been entered into the contact form to send emails to when the form is submitted and check to make sure their isn't a typo in the email address.
• Check to make sure the DNS zone isn't set to local on your server if you are using a 3rd party email address.  If the DNS zone is set to local then all the emails get routed locally on the server so the emails never go out.
• Make sure that in your domain name's DNS a SPF and DKIM record is setup so that your server can be authenticated by other servers receiving the emails.   SPF and DKIM records essentially tell other servers that the server the email came from is "approved" to send emails for a particular domain name.  Some email servers, particularly servers with spam filters that are turned on high, will block emails that can't be authenticated.
• This tool can also help you find specific issues with your DNS.

If you are still having problems, contact us and we can help you fix the form to make sure you are receiving emails from all of your contact forms.  Or give this tool a try: mail-tester.com

People have just stated talking about it, but we've been talking about it for months.  Google has announced that “[in] October 2017, Chrome will show the ‘Not secure’ warning in two additional situations: when users enter data on an HTTP page, and on all HTTP pages visited in Incognito mode.”  What does this mean for website owners?   You need to add an SSL certificate to your website now or else website users will get a warning message on forms and search boxes on your website.  Those kinds of warnings could be devastating to business that rely on contact forms for new business communications.

An SSL certificate simply verifies as website and encrypts transactions to secure them.  You see secure pages on credit card payment pages in the past, but now you'll want to secure your entire website.   Having an SSL certificate on your website is a ranking factor (although small) and to help secure communications and transactions of your website it is a worthwhile investment to add an SSL certificate to your website.

Pixo can add an SSL certificate to your website for as little as $45 per year.   Let us know how we can help secure your site.  720.334.PIXO (7496).

Note:  Have a concrete5 CMS website?  Let us know for additional savings on your SSL certificate.

I love sports.  And I love to draw business ideas about creating teams and starting a business from my sports experience.  The competition and people trying their hardest for perfection and to win both as individuals and teams has always been something dear to my heart.  This is especially true during March Madness.  I'm an Advertising major alum of Brigham Young University (BYU).   Long before I was a student, I loved watching BYU sports.  

In the 2016/17 season BYU had more ESPN top 100 recruits on the team then ever before.  Season ending injuries to their only two seniors meant that the starting lineups consisted of all freshman and sophmores and gave them a depleted bench.  I believe at the time of the injuries all of the starters at that point were the ESPN 100 recruits.  Some of the best young talent in the nation, but they were young and "inexperienced" players who didn't have the calming leadership of a Senior on the floor who knows what to do in specific situations to stay out of trouble.  Because of this wild shots were sometimes taken and there was often a lack of effort on defense that hurt the team.

The BYU team lost (and somewhat badly) to inferior teams that they never should have lost to this last season.  They were also the only team to beat Gonzoga in the regular season when they were the #1 ranked team in the nation, messing up their undefeated season the last game of the year on their own floor.   Talent wise BYU could keep up with any team in the nation I believe.  The problem is that they didn't always want to play defense and too many guys on the team wanted to be "the" guy.  There was a lacked leadership and experience, because of the youth and it showed in more than one game.  There is something to be learned from that.

I just came across this handy little website that you can use to check your email address to see what you can do to improve it so your emails won't get caught in spam filters.  Give it a try.  You simply just send an email to the email address that is displayed and then click the button to see your report.

Yesterday I attended the Heber Valley Chamber of Commerce meeting and met a lot of bright people.   A couple of weeks ago, Amber Johnson (VP at Pixo) spoke at a Heber Tourism meeting, speaking about social media and search engine optimization for local tourism businesses.   What I recognized from both meetings is how small town businesses have some great opportunities with digital marking to increase their exposure and business in simple ways online. 

At Pixo, we've been doing search engine optimization (SEO) since the very earliest days of search.  If you remember when their wasn't a site named Google and Yahoo was a manually done search index then you would know how long we've been doing SEO.  Oh, how times have changed.

About 7 years ago search, in my opinion SEO started to get dark.  Google wasn't "smart" enough in those days to figure out what sites were about from the content so they asked site users to do a lot of things to explain what the site was about and any kind of a backlink from any site was a "good" backlink.  I remember thinking how strange it was to try to get a link from another website in order to get your website to rank we'll instead of to drive traffic.  But that was how the system worked.  Google didn't want for it to work that way, but they had created that environment and as a result a lot of sites ranked that frankly weren't always great sites.  I remember 10 years ago being frustrated because a nudist website outranked my wedding website for a while for the search phrase "wedding website service."

For one of our larger and more innovative clients we have recently been finishing up a larger project that will go live in the next couple of weeks.   After building out what will be a truly revolutionary website for the industry we did focus groups on the website to get user feedback so we could make adjustments to get the website perfect.  We gained a lot of great feedback.  Most of it was what was to be expected but some insights were pretty interesting.

As a side project for the same website we were challenged to come up with a new form that was different than anything the industry had seen before as a test.  I can't go into the specifics of it at this time, but think of a quoter form being meshed with an instant messaging user interface and you would have a ballpark idea of what I'm talking about.  There are websites that currently have something similar to this, but I'm not aware of any website in this same space that has something as unique as this.  In the interface it appears like you are talking with someone at the company, but you obviously are not.   A series of questions, like you would have in a form, appear and the user simply answers the questions.