Salt Blog

The advancements in mobile phone software have led to a lot of new challenges for businesses. And with those challenges, new opportunities have arisen too. There are so many avenues to explore, many new markets being accessible, and a great new number of customers to gain access to. These avenues, markets, and customers were previously inaccessible, or very expensive to access. But all of that has changed now. You can access these markets and customers through mobile apps and websites. The question arises when we have to decide between any one of them. An app can be pretty expensive to have designed. A moderate quality app can cost approximately $30,000 to have custom designed to your exact specifications. Another problem that can arise with apps is that they have to be made for multiple platforms or operating systems. You have to make sure that you have both an Android version...

Your website is your best employee. It works 24/7 and is always available to answer your customers’ questions, even when you’re not. And if your website isn’t on the first page of Google for important search terms, you have a lot of low hanging fruit you can harvest. The world of SEO (search engine optimization) is always changing, but there are plenty of things that you can do to ensure your website gets to the first page of Google. Here are just some examples of things you can do to reach that low-hanging fruit.   Have a good website This sounds pretty obvious, but you can’t underestimate the importance of a well-built website. While a basic DIY webpage might be enough to get your name out there, it likely won’t get you where you want to be. Investing in a professional website created by a reputable web design firm is...

Humans have always tended to gravitate toward things that provide instant gratification. The fact that mobile usage has now surpassed desktop traffic is further proof that we know what we want, and we want it now. The number of people searching from mobile devices for the goods and services they wish to buy continues to increase every year. Consumers can access the Internet virtually everywhere across Alberta, which means there are no limits to when and where people can shop online from their mobile devices. For business owners of any shape and size, this is a huge opportunity - don't miss out! Responsive Websites are Key to Attracting New Business In the not-so-distant past, mobile web development was a lot less common or, at least, very different from what it is today. Whereas, before, mobile website design typically involved a separate, mobile version of the website or mobile apps, today's...

The world of technology is incredibly fast paced and constantly changing. Believe it or not, what mattered for your website five years ago has probably changed. Failing to keep up with what Google and your customers want and need now will only encourage more and more of your customers to head to your competitors. For website designs to be effective, meaning appealing and informative for your customers and in line with how Google wants your site to be built and maintained, they need to be updated on a regular basis. There's no set-it-and-forget-it solution in the world of websites, but our web design company can make it as hassle-free as possible to get your site back up to where it needs to be to perform well. Updating Your Business Information As your business grows and your focus shifts, you need to update your site to better reflect your offering. Saying...

Search Engine Marketing, or SEM, falls under the Search Marketing umbrella along with SEO. To put it simply, SEM is a way to buy traffic. You pay for ads that appear in the search engine's results, which puts your business in front of people who are searching for information, products and/or services that are in line with your ads' targeted terms. Sounds pretty great, doesn't it? Well, SEM can be awesome, if you know what you're doing. If you don't, it can be a pretty costly way to drive a whole lot of tire kickers - not paying customers - to your website. When it comes to digital marketing, whether you're doing SEM, SEO, email newsletters or any other type, the key to achieving the results you want and need is to either be an expert in the online marketing field, or to hire someone who is. But, first, here's...

Choosing who it is that will design and build your website is a pretty big decision. Pick the wrong website designers and you could wind up with a costly and largely ineffective web presence, but select the right team and your business will be armed with the most important marketing tool, today. In 2016, these are the questions you should be asking any company that you're thinking about hiring for web design services. Will my website be built in Canada, by your team, or will it be outsourced overseas? Believe it or not, many 'Canadian' web design companies outsource their work, making it much more difficult to follow up if you have issues or need to make changes to your site in the future. Do you have an actual web developer on staff? Sometimes, companies that sell web design services really only employ graphic designers or a couple of basement...

If you own a business, your goals for 2016 probably look a lot like the goals you've set every year before; increase the number of people who contact your business looking for more information on the products and services you sell, convert more of those leads into sales, and overall, make more money. Sound familiar? It's pretty obvious that growing a business requires a clear vision, a plan of action for achieving your goals and a whole lot of hard work, but in today's world, one of the fundamental tools for attracting the attention of new customers and convincing them that yours is a brand they can trust is a great website. Whether a business sells baked goods or tires, rents equipment for oilfield companies or provides beauty services, a beautiful and highly functional website that presents the brand in the best way possible is the ticket to growing that...

The saying, 'a picture is worth a thousand words,' couldn't be more relevant for websites. When used properly, images are always more effective than text at expressing a concept or communicating with today's picture and video-hungry website surfers. The Bigger, the Better For 2015, photos are as important as ever to web design. In particular, some of the best website designs this year will use those huge background images that are being used increasingly for everything from e-commerce stores to not-for-profit organization sites and beyond. Using a single, high quality image as the background for a web page is a great way to make a statement. Huge background images are not only visually-attractive and offer a very clean looking website design, but they can also set the tone for a company's branding much more effectively than text ever could. Remember, our brains process images much faster than words. Blocky Card...

Over the last few weeks, we have been talking at length about branding - and for good reason. It's one thing to have a great product or service, but ensuring your business continues to grow, year after year, takes a lot of hard work, dedication, and last but not least, rock-solid branding. Think of your brand as your corporate image; it's what your company does, what you produce or provide, and it reflects your business' overall values and goals. When just a glimpse of your logo can bring to mind not only what your business sells but also what you represent or strive to achieve, you've built the type of brand that's capable of keeping your company at the forefront of the industry, well into the future. Just think of all the business logos that you've known and seen for as long as you can remember. You only need a...

When you open a business, any business, creating a branding strategy should be among the very first items on your to-do list. Contacting website designers, a graphic design company, or better yet one company that can do it all, is a good place to start. But to really give branding the attention it deserves, you've got to understand the power that a brand can have over a business - good branding sets the stage for long-term business success and bad branding sinks ships faster than  Burger King when that creepy plastic-faced king started appearing in their advertisements.      Now, lots of people will try to claim that they are in no way affected by branding. Ah, right, as you stand there holding your Starbucks coffee in one hand and iPhone in the other, wearing your Nike sneakers! Despite our best efforts to resist, everything from our preferences in clothing, cars...

Any way you cut it, businesses with websites that appear at the top of the Google search results get more traffic and leads than those that rank further down the page. Really, few people venture beyond the top three results when they're searching online, and this is bad news for businesses with websites that are buried in the abyss - why own a website if nobody will be able to find it? For several years now, Saltmedia has been providing businesses in northern Alberta and BC with highly professional web and graphic design services. But as web designers who always have their finger on the industry's pulse, we know that owning the coolest looking and functioning website means nothing if it doesn't rank at the top of the search results, and because page two just won't cut it for our clients, we added the most innovative search engine optimization (SEO)...

Nearly every business owner with an online presence has heard of search engine optimization, or SEO. Perhaps you, too, have been vying for Google's attention in an effort to edge your business' website further up the search rankings. But, where so many business owners go wrong, whether they own a small local business in Grande Prairie or a chain with multiple stores across the country, is that they're still under the impression that they can 'do' SEO in their spare time, build a few links here, share a couple of blog posts there, and sit back and watch as their site skyrockets to the search rankings' coveted top spots for dozens of keyword terms. The long and short of it is that some common search engine optimization misconceptions are holding businesses back from succeeding both on and off the internet. Check out the following, the first in a two-part series...

Up until now organizations that wanted to deliver a smooth and pleasant mobile website experience have had to develop separate mobile-specific websites, develop apps or a combonation of the two.  The result can be expensive and carries signifigant management overhead above and beyond that of a single website.   One website for all devices!  This type of web design technology is called  responsive web design .   The responsive design approach was created to give website visitors an optimal browsing experience across a wide rage of devices.