Channel Islands Design wins Pacific Business Times Family Business Award

Royal Riding gains more market share...

Royal Riding makes sheepskin and neoprene gel pad seat pads for motorcycles. We've been working with Kris Hart since the inception of her company, and now more distributors are carrying her products!

New Website under way for Progressive Sports Management featuring Misty May

Progressive Sports Management featuring Misty May has been a client at CID for decades. Finally, they have been given the opportunity to upgrade and renew PSM's online image. 

New Multimedia Presentation for Triton

CID just completed a new multimedia presentation for Triton Construction in Newbury Park, CA. The diverse construction company wanted to illustrate to their customer base their superior capabilities in custom paint and finishes. This presentation is the result, created at Channel Islands Design | Click here to view

CID Opens New Studio

Channel Islands Design is proud to announce their relocation to a new, bigger, better studio space. We're now located at 3401 West Fifth Street, Oxnard, CA 93030. Give us a call, or stop by. We'd love to see you!

9 Reasons Why Channel Islands Design Loves Wordpress

We at Channel Islands Design are huge fans of WordPress.  For the last several years, we’ve programmed 90% of our sites on the WordPress.org platform. WordPress enhances websites at every step of the process: our users to save money, take control over their own sites (add/edit/remove content), incorporate advanced functionality (e-commerce, mapping, user submitted content, etc.) and get better search results.  WordPress.org is simply a stroke of genius, and we take great pride in using it to make beautiful and powerful websites for our clients.  Below are nine reasons we believe in using WordPress.org for your website.  If you are interested in getting professional help setting up or optimizing a WordPress.org website, contact us any time.

1. WordPress is Truly Free and Open Source

Unlike other “free” and “open source” solutions that have hidden agendas, WordPress.org is completely free (learn more) for you, forever.  WordPress doesn’t start charging when you hit a certain size, nor does it close off any of its code to you.  This is one of the less tangible but probably most important elements of WordPress.org’s success.  No fees, no gotchas, no nonsense.

2. Plugins Give You More Functionality

Plenty of platforms out there offer plugin functionality, but I’ve never seen a more smooth and thorough implementation than the plugin effort on WordPress.org.  Plugins allow you to add great photo galleries, sliders, shopping carts, forums, maps, and more great functionality.  There’s a searchable, one-click install directory of plugins (think App Store for WordPress).  Their code is riddled with “hooks” that allow developers to add their code to virtually any aspect of WordPress without editing the core.  Look for a few new and important WordPress.org plugins to come from the Computer Courage labs soon!

3. The Visual Editor and CMS are Outstanding

The intuitive, user-friendly backend of WordPress is probably what made it so famous in the first place.  I’ll never remember the relief I felt when I first installed WordPress after a few Drupal experiences.  I always tell my clients, “if you can do it in Word, you can do it in WordPress.”  In fact, with the Paste From Word tool, that statement is more true than you would imagine (this article was written in Word).  WordPress is continually improving its CMS, adding features such as threaded comments, galleries, revision histories, trash, custom post types, and more.  If you haven’t maintained a WordPress site yet, give it a look.

4. Easily Add a Blog To Your Site

How is this number 4 on the list you ask?  WordPress really came to fame for blogging and is still considered by many to be a blog platform.  Even WordPress itself seems to identify with blogging first, as the default configuration is for the home page to be a blog.  Aside from the amazing advances in CMS (see #3 above), the blog functionality is still the best in the business.  With categories, tags, threaded commenting, gravatars, easy theming, widgets, fantastic moderation controls, anti spam solutions, and plugin infrastructure, you can’t find a better blog solution.  Adding a blog to a WordPress site is a great way to attract and involve visitors, and to keep Google paying attention.  If you don’t need a full site, and just want a quick blog, check out WordPress.com.

5. Themes Let You Style Your Site

I tell my business clients every day that their site doesn’t need to “reinvent the wheel” when it comes to design.  We love doing custom web design for our clients, but many of them don’t need it.  We’ve been able to make very beautiful and successful sites by starting from pre-existing themes and doing customizations from there.  Because themes are open source, you can buy or download them and then modify them to your heart’s content.  Remember, themes are independent from your content, so you can edit or swap out themes at any time and keep your content and functionality in place.

6. It’s Easy to Keep WordPress Secure

WordPress has always bragged about its “Famous 5 Minute Installation”.  Not only is WordPress pretty easy to install (it actually takes 5 minutes if you are handy with your web servers, newbies will have a learning curve), but WordPress is also surprisingly easy to update for security and new functionality.  When a new version is available, WordPress will give you an easy link for a one-click upgrade.  Warning: Channel Islands Design always recommends backing up your blog before doing an install in case something goes wrong.  Look for backup plugins or techniques first.

7. Google Loves WordPress

At Channel Islands Design, we focus on getting new customers for our clients via Search Engine Optimization.  Ever since we started doing WordPress.org installs, we noticed a spike in search results.  Over the last couple years we’ve used many valuable SEO plugins such as the All-In-One SEO Pack and Google XML Sitemaps.  But even without these plugins, I always felt like the simple layouts of WordPress, the permalinks, and the easy linking in WordPress would be naturally attractive to Google.  I even heard it straight from the horse’s mouth.  Matt Cutts, head of Google’s “web spam team” spoke at WordCamp SF 2009 and said it directly – “WordPress is a great choice” (video and slides here). He goes on to gush about how much WordPress helps you get better results.  We always recommend a conversion to WordPress when doing SEO.

8. WordPress Sites are Accessible

WordPress sites are usually built on relatively simple and accessible technologies.  It’s easy to install on Windows or Linux servers.  It uses all free license server software.  The web pages render in HTML and CSS allowing them to show up on iPhones, BlackBerrys, Android, iPad, etc.  It’s also easy for alternative browsers such as text only browsers (see Lynx) which are excellent for those with disabilities.

9. Your Site Can Grow With You

When you add up a lot of these features, you find that your WordPress site can grow with you over the years.  You can easily upgrade it for new features and security.  You can add a new theme without redoing your whole site.  You can add new plugins for enhanced functionality (add e-commerce if your business grows, focus more on search results, add a store finder, etc.)  WordPress.org is used by millions of sites, from the simplest little blogs to huge brand names like the New York Times blog, People, Flickr, and more.  See the WordPress.org showcase.

Have further thoughts on why WordPress.org is or isn’t a great platform for building websites?  We’ve love to hear from you in the comments below.  Thanks for your participation and interest in the web and in WordPress.org.  Finally, if you’re looking for a professional team to put a WordPress.org website together for you, contact us today! (805) 382-4243

Website & Facebook for "Our House of Abraham"

Channel Islands Design has created both a website and Facebook representation for new clients, "Our House of Abraham" - a group dedicated to the tolerance of world religions. Click here for the Facebook Business Page or here for the website!

Call us at (805) 382-4243 if you're interested in a new website or help with social networking!

Ten Reasons to Share your Blog Post on Social Media

Blogging helps you turn social networking into business networking. It allows you to promote your business in a subtle way, by sharing valuable information that your ideal clients are looking for.

The first step is to make sure you send out a notice to your social networks when you post something new to your blog.

But what do you do after that?  

Here are ten suggestions for when and why to link to your latest blog post from your social media accounts.

1. You posted something new – Integrate your blog with your social media accounts so this happens automatically. Typepad makes an app that streams any RSS feed to your LinkedIn account and WordPress has many social networking plugins - ask around for recommendations and find one that works for you.
   
   
2. You sent a link to the blog post to your mailing list – Similarly, you can set up most email broadcast systems to automatically post an announcement/link to your social networks when you’ve sent an email broadcast.
   
   
3. You mentioned a friend, colleague or industry bigwig in your blog post - Alert the person you wrote about. It’s a great way to start or deepen a relationship. And if the other person continues the conversation, then you both get an introduction to each other’s network.
   
   
4. It’s been a couple of days (or hours) – since you posted - The people in your network are not watching your stream 24/7. So link to your new blog post on Twitter and LinkedIn several times and on different days, to give them the chance to see it. (Note: Unless you have a high volume on your Facebook Fan Page, I suggest limiting your blog post links to once per day).
   
   
5. You have (or want) readers from all over the world - On a similar note, remember that if you post something at 3:00 p.m. Eastern time for example, people across the pond in the U.K. have already ended their business day. And making a big announcement about your latest post at 8:30 a.m. Eastern won’t have much impact on your friends on the west coast who are still sleeping.
   
   
6. Someone left an interesting comment – You can link directly to a particular comment or to the post itself so people can read it for themselves and then peruse the comments at the bottom.
   
   
7. No one left any comments – Ask people in your social networks for their feedback or opinion about what you’ve written. Just don’t be discouraged if comments are quiet.
   
   
8. Someone has posted a question you can answer – You can set up a Google Alert or Twitter search, or just watch your streams for people talking about your area of expertise. When you see a question you’ve already answered in a blog post, send that link.
   
   
9. There is a call to action in your blog post – Whether your call to action is to attend an upcoming program or try out a new service, you’ll want to remind people about this opportunity. Try using a variety of “teaser” phrases to entice people to click through to your post.
   
   
10. You’re feeling shy, busy or you just haven’t posted in awhile – Sharing helpful information is always a welcome addition to a conversation. Once you’ve jumped in with that, be sure to follow up by responding directly to what someone else has shared.
    

By blogging about topics that your ideal clients care about, you are creating a mountain of content that will build your credibility and visibility online. Use these 10 reasons to keep sharing that content long after you’ve posted it on your blog.

24 Facebook Do's and Don'ts for your Business

A Facebook business page allows you to connect and engage with prospects and customers. With more than 750 million active users, it’s a social media outpost you don’t want to ignore. With the right tools, used strategically, Facebook can be an effective part of your online marketing, lead acquisition and customer-service strategies.

Here are a few do’s and don’ts to keep in mind for your Facebook business page:

Do:

• Create a Facebook business page for your company or organization.
• Spend time creating an outstanding, SEO-optimized profile for your business page.
• Obtain a custom URL after you receive 25 “Likes.”
• Create a Welcome page for first-time visitors so they don’t land directly on your wall. Introduce yourself first!
• Create an editorial calendar (or content matrix) that includes a plan for posting a mix of content (industry articles, blog posts, photos, videos, etc).
• Use Facebook for customer service and support for clients.
• Post questions, polls and conversation starters.
• Tag your business and your customers in videos and photos whenever possible.
• Search out influencers and “Like” –and engage with – their page.
• Make sure a link to your website and newsletter is well-placed.
• Track and measure your results with Facebook Insights
• Stay engaged, consistent, and always respond to comments.

Don’t: 

• Don’t be overly promotional or pushy.
• Don’t turn off your user comments function.
• Don’t use Facebook Events tabs for RSVPS. Always have users sign up on your own site.
• Don’t send out mass messages to your entire network.
• Don’t post an update more than twice a day (max).
• Don’t delete negative comments. If you’re being transparent (and you should), use this as an opportunity to reply with intent on correcting the problem helping the customer.
• Don’t have your Twitter updates auto-post to Facebook.
• Don’t be shy about inviting people to “like” your page.
• Don’t create a personal page for business.
• Don’t post your website link on someone else’s wall
• Don’t forget to drive your customers outward—to your website.
• Don’t take yourself TOO seriously!

Understanding how Facebook works before you start using Facebook as part of your social media marketing strategy is crucial. Setting clear goals and objectives–that are aligned with your overall business goals–will help you to be effective, and measure the results over time.

Need help creating a Facebook page? We can do that. Want to build your social media strategy?

We’ve got you covered there, too.

Drop us a note or give us a call today (805) 382-4243 and let us know how we can help you with your Facebook marketing.

New Website for Heavenly Honey

Channel Islands Design has recently launched a new website for Heavenly Honey - which includes vivid imagery and a robust shopping cart. Heavenly Honey is based in Ojai, CA and pride themselves on their all-natural, pure, raw delicious honey!

We also designed and continue to maintain their facebook presence at facebook.com/heavenlyhoney.co

If you are in need of a new website or a re-design, photography, a logo, or social networking for your business - give us a call at (805) 382-4243 for more information!

Local SEO: Not Just for the Mom and Pop Shops

National Company, Local Focus

[src] Google has made some serious updates to how they display local results.  They are now displaying localized searches for queries that do not contain a location modifier.  While they have been doing this for some time now, it has been seen in even more types of searches, including Google Suggest Search, a search for “weather”, on your mobile smart phone with Google using your location, and generic terms like “pizza, doctor, and movie times”.

Since Google has been increasing their ability to pick up on local signals, they thought it best to update how they display those results on their search engine results page.  If you are unaware of this change, it was quite significant.  Some of those changes include moving the map to the right and displaying the local results more like the tradition search results.

Because of these two changes it has become imperative that even national companies have to have a local focus online.

Improving Your Chances with the Locals

Local SEO is very similar to traditional SEO, but there are certain signals that you should be aware of in order to improve your chances with the Locals.  For the sake of brevity, we will only focus on three of those signals; Google Places, consistency, and reviews.

Have You Seen My Google Place?

The first thing you can do to dramatically improve your chances for showing up in localized searches is to create a Google Places listing.  The best part about Google Places is that it is free.  Both Yahoo and Bing have local listings too, but we've found them to be either very hard to work with or consistently broken.

Creating a Google Place listing is very easy to do and can be completed within 30 minutes or so.  The first time you create a listing it may take a little while before it is approved, since you have to verify you are the true owner/guardian of the business. This can be done by phone or via snail mail.

Once you have verified your listing you can then go back in and finish adding to the listing.  There are some other great things you can now do with this listing, but we will save that for another post.

I Should’ve Made a Left at Main St.

Google needs constant and consistent reinforcement of your business.  This is done through keeping your business name, location, hours of operation, and etc all the same across all of the various places on the internet that have and can have your business listed.  Some of those places include YellowPages, Local directories, Linkedin, and Facebook.

When I mean consistent, I mean to the letter.  If your address is 101 Main St., then make sure it is 101 Main St. and not 101 Main Street.  While we are able to clearly tell that it is the same, and Google probably can too, that consistency needs to be there.  It only reinforces to Google that it is in fact at 101 Main St.   There are thousands of places on the internet that your listing can be, so it takes time to get these updated.

The Best Pizza in Town

Google’s ability to pick the most relevant sites over and over again for billions of searches has been built upon the notion of votes of confidence.  This is most notably referred to as PageRank, but in all reality those links are just votes in a popularity contest.  Using the same system of voting, Google has put a lot of weight into the reviews each Google Place listing receives.

Getting good reviews can be hard, but anything you can do to get your customers to write a positive review will help in increasing your position in the localized search results.  There are even some 3^rd party sources that Google incorporates into its algorithm; Yelp, Yellow Pages, Insider Pages, Dine, and more.  While these 3^rd party reviews are not as powerful as a review written directly within the Google Places account, they do provide ‘supporting evidence’ to Google that in fact your listing is the best and most relevant.

Local SEO is a Must for Everyone

As noted above, Google is placing more and more focus on localized search results.  Your company may be national and may have overlooked optimizing for localized searches in the past, but now more than ever is the time not to overlook the importance of local searches.  With the change in how Google displays localized searches and providing local searches without the need for a location in the keyword, you too need to take control of how your company is represented in these search results.  As stated above this can be accomplished, for the most part, by applying what was written about above to your business location(s).  If you need help with anything stated above please don’t hesitate to contact us by adding a comment, calling us at 1-805-382-4243, or filling out our contact form.

New Website for Perches Academy

Channel Islands Design has created a new website for PerchesAcademy.org. It includes a robust tiered navigation menu, interactive calendars, and an enrollment application form. How can CID help grow your business? Call us today at 805-382-4243 for a quote or more information1