Gray's Web Design Blog

What Should I Do On My Vacation?

lisa — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 23:36:34 +0000

When you’re asking yourself that question, what’s the first thing you do? Check out the tourism websites of course!

Building websites for tourism-related businesses is one of our main focuses here at Gray’s Web Design.

Check out this enticing website for Lochaerie Resort on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State www.lochaerie.com:

Lochaerie Resort, Cabins on the Olympic Peninsula

Their website sports an availability calendar customized just for them. Plus they can update every single page of their website. Isn’t it great to be in control?

And besides figuring out where to stay, you want to decide what to do. Here’s a fun site that we just did for Sand Dunes Frontier in Florence, Oregon. This business owner had the idea to embed a variety of videos right into the design. Why be boring, right? www.sanddunesfrontier.com

Sand Dunes Frontier in Florence, Oregon

Holy Cross Catholic School in Portland, Oregon

lisa — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:58:12 +0000

Why have a boring school website when you use a website to colorfully show off the joy, community, and mission of your school — and still communicate all the little details that a school website needs to communicate?

That’s what Holy Cross Catholic School in Portland, Oregon decided to do. Check it out at www.holycrosspdx.org.

Holy Cross Catholic School in Portland, Oregon

With their fully updatable website, Holy Cross Catholic School can communicate about admissions, events, news and more. But they didn’t stop there. They have photo galleries, a photo-rich page about each classroom, and info about alumni, activities, music, sports and more.

Plus they are using facebook to keep in touch with their families. You can see their facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/holycrosscatholicschool.

Enjoy!

Ocean Bleu at Gino’s — On the Web!

lisa — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:57:37 +0000

We redid the Ocean Bleu at Gino’s website recently — check it out! www.oceanbleuseafoods.com.

Ready for your mouth to water?

Ocean Bleu at Gino's, Newport, Oregon Bayfront

These guys are using both their website and facebook to engage with their customers.

Their emphasis is on wild caught, natural seafood. And they Buy Local! True confessions here….this is one of my favorite places to eat.

If you haven’t liked them on facebook yet, what are you waiting for? www.facebook.com/oceanbleuatginos.

Mo’s Restaurants and their Facebook Success Story

lisa — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:59:43 +0000

A few months ago we lanched a new site for Mo’s Restaurants (I know you’ve eaten at at least one of their restaurants — I sure have). Check out the new site here: www.moschowder.com.

Mo's Restaurants, Home of Mo's World Famous Clam Chowder

They use their website to promote upcoming events, news, things they are doing to give back to the community, and you can even buy Mo’s products including their famous chowder base online. Plus the site is just fun!

Oh, and they can update everything themselves, including menus, news, products, text….everything.

But what I wanted to point out today is their use of facebook to engage with their customers. First notice that in the footer of their site is a facebook like box, so site visitors can see their facebook feed right on the site, and can click to like them without even leaving the website.

Second, notice that they have almost 6000 fans on facebook! http://www.facebook.com/mosrestaurants.

When we first started working together about six months ago, they had 1000 fans on facebook. We started an ad campaign that asked facebook users to post their favorite Mo’s Restaurants story. They jumped to 5000 fans in six weeks.

From there, its just been gravy.

We’re keeping the facebook page fun and useful. You can get their menus, watch fun Mo’s videos, and keep up on what’s happening at Mo’s.

Websites for Musicians and Artists

lisa — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:37:37 +0000

Do musicians and artists need websites too? Heck yes! Websites and facebook are excellent marketing tools to get the word out about the quality of focus of your artistry.

Newport fused glass artist Karel Murphy of Windy Sea Designs launched this brand new site recently:

Windy Sea Designs by Karel Murphy

Karel uses her site to both showcase her work and to sell online. She has a custom shopping cart that she updates herself. And she is using facebook to keep in touch with her fans. Visit her site at www.windyseadesigns.com.

Portland mandolinist Brian Oberlin has launched his ultra-cool eye-catching website at www.mandoberlin.com.

Portland Mandolinist Brian Oberlin of Mandoberlin

He uses his site to feature upcoming performances, and upcoming classes and workshops that he is teaching. He also uses his site to provide musical clips of his work to whet the appetite. And once you’ve heard some clips, you can find out where to buy his music.

He manages his own website, adding his events, clips and teaching tools himself using a custom-designed admin that we made for him.

Plus he’s using facebook to keep in touch with his fans.

And speaking of mandolin music, check out the new and improved Oregon Mandolin Orchestra website at www.oregonmandolinorchestra.org.

Oregon Mandolin Orchestra

These folks also update their own website, including upcoming events, musical clips, photo gallery, news, and more!

And they are using facebook to connect with their fans.

Newport, Oregon Marketing Workshop

lisa — Thu, 19 May 2011 23:58:31 +0000

For those of you in the area, come one come all to the Marketing Your Business Online workshop in Newport, Oregon on May 27. Gray’s Web Design will be one of the presenters, along with Webfoot Design and Marketing, and Newport Internet. I’ll be covering marketing your business on Facebook.

You can come for either the 10am to noon session, or the 1pm to 3pm session (whichever works best for your schedule). Its sponsored by the Newport Chamber, and is open to the public even if you’re not a Chamber member. Here are the details:

“Marketing Your Business Online” Workshop

The Greater Newport Chamber of Commerce is sponsoring a free “Marketing Your Business Online” workshop presentation on Friday, May 27. For the convenience of chamber members, there will be two identical workshops, one before and one after the regular Friday luncheon. The Embarcadero will be hosting the workshop at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Frank Geltner, Newport Internet, will facilitate a panel of presenters including Lisa Gray, owner of Gray’s Web Design; Misty Lambrecht, owner of Webfoot Marketing & Design; and Timothy Brogan, manager of Newport Internet. Topics will include web design, search engine optimization, how to have an effective social media campaign, managing your on-line reviews and local listings, spam, viruses, lists, business apps, and related topics. Please RSVP to Chamber Office 541-265-8801.

Who is coming???

Sacred Pathways is having great success!

lisa — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 21:37:01 +0000

Value added! Anyone who has ever taken a business class knows the term “value added” — always do something special to keep your customers interested and happy. We’ve been working on a “value added” facebook page for Sacred Pathways. In addition to a YouTube tab and a robust Events tab, we recently added a dynamically driven Services tab. Every time they add a new service to their website, it shows up on their facebook page as well:

This way their facebook visitors can get a host of information about their services and events while *staying* on facebook. Once they are really interested, they also go over to their website (snap!) and join the e-news list.

Having this “value added” facebook page has been highly successful. They’ve gone from 500 visitors to over 1100 in the past three weeks.

We’ve brought people to the page using targeted advertising on facebook, and kept them there by having a fun and useful page.

Employment Law Attorney….and nature lover

lisa — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 21:28:52 +0000

We’re proud of this new website, just launched today:

Elizabeth Oberlin is an employment law attorney and a nature lover, and her new site reflects both. The site is promoting her employment law practice in Portland, Oregon, but as you can see a business site can also capture what’s unique about you.

This site features employment law articles written by Liz Oberlin. She has an easy-to-use admin where she can add, edit and delete her own articles without knowing any html. Have fun Liz!

Facebook Business Pages Now More Like Profiles

lisa — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 23:49:02 +0000

Facebook launched its new set up upgrades for business pages. Its officially my favorite upgrade since I started using facebook.

Now your business page can work more like your personal profile. You can post on other pages as your page. So for example now Gray’s Web Design can comment on something happening on Seahorse Motel Oceanfront Lodging, rather than me having to post as Lisa Gray on my business’ behalf.

You can get notified by email of activity happening on your page (formerly only a profile feature).

You can “like” other pages as your page.

You can read your feed from within your page — only the material posted by the pages your business has liked. So if you don’t like reading through personal posts in order to get to your business posts — or like to only read business posts while you’re working — you can do that now.

Here’s a story about it! http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/02/11/6033588-facebook-pages-now-look-like-profiles

Become more SEO Literate

lisa — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 19:31:55 +0000

Here’s a great little tool for learning various SEO terms, the SEO Glossary wiki. http://www.seoglossary.com/

Whenever you come across an SEO term you’re not sure about, check it out in this site. And while you’re there, learn a few more terms!

This site is a wiki (which means anyone, including you, can edit each definition). For more about wiki’s, click here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki