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How to Use SEO to Work around Google’s Panda Update

If you keep track of your website’s visitor numbers you may have had a shock back in February or March. This is when Google implemented their Panda Update which has hit some businesses so hard that they’ve lost 50% or even more of their organic visits from Google. This has left many online retailers and website owners pulling out their hair and questioning why Google would do this to them. Well, the thought behind Panda is that it’s just another step in the war against spammers and a tool to help quality sites rise in the rankings while poor ones slip away. Remember that Google needs to have happy searchers […]

Posted in Search Engine Optimization

SEO – At the Very Least Do These 3 Things

Tapping into the power of the internet is one of the best things you can do to promote your company. Take a minute to reread that sentence because it’s one of the most important things to understand in our computer driven society. Creating an online presence (i.e. your own website) is a very important step for your business, but it’s just the first in a series of steps you can take to establish your company as a leader in your industry and dominate your competition. Whether you understand SEO (Search Engine Optimization) a little, a lot or have never heard of it before, it is one of the best things […]

Posted in Search Engine Optimization

Networking Tips

(Excerpts taken from presentation by Todd Kent from Action Coach) We’ve all heard how networking can help grow your business, but do you know how to make your networking effective? Here’s a review of the networking tips Todd Kent of Action Coach offered at this morning’s Fitchburg Chamber of Commerce breakfast event. 1) Make it about them – When starting a conversation with someone new, ask questions and make the discussion about them. Folks would rather talk about themselves than hear about your company’s product/service. “Leave the ego at the door,” Todd says. 2) Know you want to meet – Make a goal of meeting “the marketing person of ABC […]

Posted in Networking, Tips

What are QR Codes and How to Use Them

Whether you don’t yet know what QR codes are or you’re a frequent user of them, be prepared because they’re going to become more popular than Justin Bieber and you’re going to see them everywhere you turn. QR codes stand for quick response codes and they’re basically barcodes that can be read by smart phones. This literally can bring your print material to life and allow even a simple business card to interact with your potential client’s phone, which is quickly becoming everyone’s lifeline. A QR code can be customized to include a variety of information including phone numbers, vCards, text messages, HTML links or regular text. When a phone […]

Posted in Print & Package Design, Tradeshow Marketing, Website Design

Website Management: 3 Simple Organization Tips

By Gregg Murray, Website Blueprint When starting or revamping your small business website, there is one word that will save you the most time, money, and headaches. The word? Organization. Ready to take a simple, but giant leap toward making your business life a whole lot more efficient for yourself (and whoever you’re paying to help with your website)? Tip 1: Create a Special Folder in “My Documents” Your website information needs to have a single, designated folder on your computer. Go into your “My Documents” folder and create a new folder called “Website Stuff” or any other name you choose. Everything that has to do with your website, be […]

Posted in Marketing, Tips, Website Design

Busy customers will appreciate website built for mobile devices

Article from The Capital Region Business Journal – June 2011 By Jonny Buroker, Internet Marketing Consultant, WSI – We Simplify the Internet The use of mobile devices to access the Web is growing exponentially and by 2015, many predict that Internet usage on mobile devices will surpass traditional desktops. That has companies everywhere scrambling to build mobile versions of their websites. Have you looked at your website using a mobile device? I mean, really looked at it? How well does the navigation work? Can you see the entire width of the page or do you have to scroll over in order to see the right side? Are the links easy […]

Posted in Tips, Website Design

Professional Copywriting Services – NEW!

Tingalls Dzyn offers professional copywriting services for your website, emails, print, tradeshow and other materials. At Tingalls Graphic Design well-crafted written messages work hand in hand with eye-catching designs to engage the reader in the most effective, targeted and persuasive way. What you say is important! General Writing – Create content that gets your message across in the most effective way possible while shedding a positive light on your company and increasing credibility. Blog Writing – Blogs are a great tool to reach out to your customer base while establishing a company voice. Promote your business on a regular basis in a way that encourages lasting relationships. SEO Copywriting Services […]

Posted in About Tingalls, Advertising, Copywriting & Blogging, Email Marketing, Print & Package Design, Search Engine Optimization, Website Design

Pantone Color of the Year 2011: Not Your Grandmother’s Shade of Pink

This is not the shy pink of dawn, the sleepy pink of summer lemonade, or the tidy pink of gingham curtains. This is pink with attitude. A bold, intense, don’t-ignore-me color. Honeysuckle 18-2120, the PANTONE Color of the Year for 2011, is a confidant, assertive shade of lusciously saturated pink that fuels our desire for change and ignites our spirit, to help us meet the challenges of everyday life. It commands our attention and rewards us with a good dose of confidence and energy. Showing up just about everywhere from men’s and women’s apparel and accessories to footwear, cosmetics and furnishings for the home, Honeysuckle has become a global call […]

Posted in Color, Logo Design

Is your blog actually hurting your website's SEO?

When it comes to search engine optimization, I’m sure you’ve heard the adage “content is king.” And, what better way to add continual content than by using a blog. We agreed! So we set up our own free blog at WordPress and posted weekly tips and news. All was going fine until we found out that our blog was actually ranking higher than our website… On no! What we decided to do is move all the tools and administrative ease that WordPress offers into our website in a section called “tips”: www.tingalls.com/tips/ The results? All the blog articles that we write now enhance our search engine optimization instead of hurting […]

Posted in Search Engine Optimization, Tips, Website Design

Invest in Mail for 2011

By Dan Dettman, Wells Print & Digital Services Many businesses like the idea of direct mail because of its return on investment, ease of targeting an audience, and measurability. Direct mail is still one of the best ways to reach out to specific consumers. Mailing lists can include household income levels, ages, buying patterns, professions, and hobbies. Typically, the demographics chosen at this stage greatly influence the response rate of a mailing. When a direct mail campaign is completed, businesses usually like to recap and measure the return on investment. As long as the customer has a promotion to reference on a mailer, the sender can gather how many responses […]

Posted in Print & Package Design

Is Word-of-mouth really a Successful Form of Advertising?

How many of you say that word of mouth advertising is your main form of business growth? Yeah, we did too. Contrary to popular thought, word-of-mouth isn’t a magical phenomenon that happens without any effort, as Tara and I were reminded Friday at a seminar given by Matt Hackett of the San Francisco advertising agency Hackett and Tate. Let’s start here. What company comes to mind when I give you the following industries? – Local car dealer? – Furniture store? – Fast food restaurant? I bet you could name one company for each category instantly (mine just in case you were curious – Smart Motors, Don’s Home Furniture, McDonald’s). This […]

Posted in Advertising, Marketing, Tips

The Easy Way to Make SEO Affordable

If there are two things nearly every business owner looks for in the search engine optimization process, it’s a way to make it faster and more affordable. Faster we’ll cover another day; when it comes to more affordable, there’s a right way and a wrong way to look at things. The wrong way is trying to save money by going with a low-cost provider, or even one that’s doing business overseas. Why is this such a bad idea? Because more often than not, you aren’t going to get quality search engine work – you’re going to get a set of articles and pages that reflect a poor understanding of what […]

Posted in Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Tips

Tingalls Joins Dane Buy Local

For more than ten years, Tingalls has served Madison and surrounding communities with quality, affordable graphic design and marketing services. In addition to helping Madison-area businesses achieve their branding goals, we’ve also aligned ourselves with local companies to offer a full package of marketing, website design and branding services. Just last month we cemented our commitment to supporting local business by joining Dane Buy Local! What drew us to Dane Buy Local? At Tingalls, the idea of supporting local business is not just a passing trend; it’s a core philosophy we’ve practiced since 2001. Tara began as a small start-up business with a few local clients. Ten years later, we […]

Posted in About Tingalls, Networking

Tingalls Blog - Marketing Tips & Tricks