by Belle Murray | Jan 3, 2019 | Branding, Content Creation, Website Design
2018 was a busy year for us – and an exciting one at that. We’ve introduced new Spyders to our team, renovated and expanded our work-space (our “web”, if you will), added more businesses to our already awesome list of clients, and spent many hours doing what Spyders do best: writing, designing, and marketing.
To celebrate this incredible year, we have compiled a list of some of our favorite 2018 projects for your viewing pleasure. But first, a word from our fearless leader and CEO:
Our ten year anniversary as a company is this year — April 2019 — and it’s pretty remarkable to take a look at how far we’ve come and how much has transpired in those ten years. We started out of a home office with two clients.
When I look back, I see the huge mistakes we’ve made and tried our best to learn from and I see a landscape of beautiful and impactful work — but most of all, I see the relationships we’ve built over the years and continue to build. That’s why we do this work. Because we love to serve others and help other businesses grow and have successes of their own.
I want to take this moment to say thank you to all of you who have trusted UplinkSpyder — and the Spyders that work here — with your website, design, marketing and content needs. We have big plans for the next year. I’m really excited. I never thought of myself as a business owner, much less a successful one, but God has graced Emmanuel and myself with many extra chances to learn and grow. Employing others is one of the hardest and most rewarding experiences of our lives and I’m so very grateful I continue to have that opportunity.
Please take a look at a very small sample and a few cool statistics from the last year of our first decade. And stay tuned for more awesome to come…
Happy New Year!
Deanna Rivera, CEO
13,506+
Hours Creating Awesome
In 2018, our Spyders spent over 13,500 combined hours working on your website, blogs, social media, newsletters, and more – and guess what? We loved every minute of it. We find joy in creating a website with a beautiful, mobile-responsive design that wows both your customers and search engines. When we see your keyword rankings improving, or a Facebook ad generating tons of clicks to your website, we literally high-five each other for a job well done. Your success is our success.
183,000+
Words Written *Since June
Just over the last 7 months, we’ve written over 183,000 words to help increase website traffic and pull customers in based on careful SEO research. This is done through your website’s “normal” content outlining your services, but also through our new content marketing packages for blogging, which…not to toot our own horn or anything…are pretty freaking great. We can’t stress how important it is to regularly post blogs to your website. Don’t think your business needs a blog? We’d love to tell you why that’s not the case.
439+
Newsletters Sent
Over this past year, we have sent over 430 newsletters for our clients, and that doesn’t count the additional efforts we make to ensure each of those newsletters get opened and clicked on. This includes automated emails (triggered by contact forms, pop-ups, etc.) and newsletter re-sends, with new subject lines, to people that didn’t open them originally. With email marketing, and all of your marketing efforts, consistency is key! We help our clients stay in their customers’ inboxes through well-crafted newsletters, helping grow their audience along the way.
+53%
Average Website Growth as Compared to 2017
Our existing websites, that we maintain and update regularly, experienced an average of 50% growth, compared to 2017. That’s because we don’t just launch a website and then wave good-bye. We become business partners with our clients, constantly helping them discover new ways to grow their business. When you work with UplinkSpyder, you work with a team of individuals that become your friends, and treat your business like our own.
23 Websites Launched
2018 was the year of experimenting with new design methods, further content analysis, and improved user experience. Through all of the 23 websites we built and launched in 2018, we were able to create something unique, which we are very proud of. Your website is the heart of all your marketing, so if it doesn’t truly reflect your business, has false information, or doesn’t show up properly on a mobile device, it’s not benefiting you at all. In fact, it may be hurting you. Luckily, we happen to know a group of talented Spyders (not the creepy, crawly kind) that can fix these issues for you.
25 Brands Created
When a new business owner comes to us and says “I don’t have a logo yet,” or “I don’t have a brand yet,” – it’s music to our ears. Our favorite projects are the ones that we help you shape from the beginning. In 2018, we helped 25 businesses find their identity. Check out some of the highlights below.
Thanks for reading all of that,
but the proof is in the pudding.
Check out a few highlights from our web design and branding of 2018:
by Deanna Rivera | Oct 31, 2017 | Search Engine Optimization, Website Design
Does the thought of your website give you a FRIGHT? Are you nowhere to be found on the world wide WEB? Before you get started on website improvements, dusting away the COBWEBS of a bad design, here’s a little advice.
(What do you expect from SpyderGirl when it’s Halloween?) (more…)
by Deanna Rivera | Oct 17, 2016 | Website Design
I’ve personally been involved in website development since 2001. It’s remarkable how different making a website is today from even 3 years ago. The tools available to us that really help your website shine, what search engines care about, and of course the proliferation of mobile devices has dramatically changed the landscape. (more…)
by Deanna Rivera | Sep 26, 2016 | Technology, Website Design
¡Buenos Dias!
I’ve been learning spanish on my phone. Every day, I spend 10 minutes on this app and so far, it tells me, I’m 11% fluent. It is a cool little app, I’ll tell you what. Did you know that tortuga is spanish for turtle? I love saying that word.
Why do I tell you about this? Because every day, people spend more and more time on their phones and tablets. If you aren’t paying attention to how your business is represented on mobile devices, you’re not only behind the times, you are potentially losing 77% of your potential customers.
That number comes from having just looked at the analytics (statistics) for 10 of my client websites and 5 of their most recent email campaigns. Here’s what I found out:
- 7 of the 10 had more users view their website on mobile than desktop.
- In 6 of those cases, at least 10% more users were on mobile/tablets.
- In the most extreme case, 77% were on mobile/tablet.
- For email, 3 of the 5 had more users view the email on mobile than desktop.
If you have more clients that are business professionals, you’ll have fewer mobile visitors. But even the lowest statistic showed 30% on mobile. That’s a big chunk!
And don’t think it is just the young! Baby Boomers, that HUGE generation everyone is always talking about, are online MORE than millennials and the numbers keep climbing. They also spend more money online than any other generation, and they consume way more content. Facebook is their favorite, by the way, as a side note.
The moral of this story is – pay attention to how you are represented on a phone and tablet. Think about things like responsive websites and social media and ads that show up on apps. Or let me think about it for you. *wink*
Blessings,
Deanna
by Deanna Rivera | Oct 23, 2015 | Website Design
Keep it simple. What you should be striving for is a clean, crisp, uncluttered environment free of excessive text, animations, and competing colors. Use clean lines and images only if (more…)
by Deanna Rivera | Jan 7, 2013 | Website Design
We meet too many business owners that have attempted to build their own website. They usually come to us after months or even years of frustration, struggling with something that doesn’t look quite right or with complaints that no one can find them or they can’t add more content without spending hours inside of a janky system that never works quite like you expect.
We suggest you save yourself hours of aggravation and more money than it will ever be worth and do it right from the start by hiring a professional. In case you need a few more reasons why that’s the best path…here are our top four reasons you should not make your own website.
#4. Placeholder vs. Website
If you build your own site, you will more than likely be creating something that should not be called a website. It should be called a placeholder because that is about all it will do for you: hold your place on the world wide web. We often refer to this as an “online business card.”
Your new “site” might tell people a little about you if they happen to search for exactly your business name. If you want your website to do more than that, as any good website should, then you should not make it yourself. We have not yet reviewed a “do it yourself” system that is worth any money, regardless of how little.
If you are dead set on going it alone, you will be better off getting a free account on Blogger and listing your business in a few online directories.
#3. You Might Actually Want To Be Found
If you build your site on your own, the chances of being found when someone searches for your services are close to the same as finding your way through a maze blindfolded. Not just any maze…one of those big corn mazes they have at Halloween. Make that one of those big HAUNTED corn mazes.
The internet is huge and search engines get frustrated pretty easily and the mess of code they run up against in “do it yourself” scenarios are very irritating to the poor little search bots.
On the other hand, a good web developer understands search engines and builds your site so it will be found. Not just found. Found often. Imagine waking up and where there once was a corn maze, there is now a crop circle (can you tell I just watched the movie Signs?)
Our own search engine optimization (SEO) expert, Emmanuel, spends way too much time studying search engines. His wife (that’s me) will tell you she sometimes thinks she is married to a search engine for how often he talks about indexing and algorithms. It may get so bad that she’ll have to start pasting keywords and meta tags to her “Honey-Do” list.
#2. You Wouldn’t (Or Shouldn’t) Wear An Ugly Cat Sweater to a Formal Ball and Neither Should Your Website
If you live on Earth, you’ve probably heard that our society is obsessed with how things look. Billions of dollars every year are spent on the process of making every possible thing more esthetically pleasing from cars to refrigerators. You may have noticed that especially successful companies have invested a lot of time and money in how they present themselves to the world, whether through their logo, materials, locations, or websites.
If you make your website yourself, it will more than likely wind up a hot mess. In other words, it will be ugly and you don’t want the first reaction people have to your business to be “oh, that’s unfortunate.” You also don’t have to have a $10,000 website in order to look like a million bucks. A good developer knows the necessary balance to get the most out of your investment.
#1. If You Want A Hobby, We Recommend Quilting
Ask yourself: if you aren’t a pilot/lawyer/doctor should you fly a plane/defend a plaintiff/surgically remove a spleen?
No?
Imagine that.
Web development is not a hobby. You have better things to do. Quilting really is a lovely hobby. Or maybe juggling? Jugglers seem like happy folk.
If you happen to be a pilot, lawyer, or doctor then you probably agree that you wouldn’t want us to fly your plane, defend your plaintiff, or remove your spleen. It would be a disaster.
You get the idea. 🙂
