Inspiring Artwork & Arrangements

I'm a huge fan of dropping artwork or mirrors behind sofas or beds to completely change the look and feel of a room. These are the arrangements that I have recently found inspiring:

Cozy meets industrial. I love it!

The desaturated blue of the painting really ties this room together.

Gorgeous gold back splash.

Absolutely adore this mirror and what a great piece of furniture!

I love this. My good friend Kati's dinning room was featured on Design*Sponge

I'm a minimalist at heart...

I love these paintings because they are super quirky and jump out at you.

This is probably my most favorite arrangement: simply beautiful.

Don't have a window? Bring nature to you!

Getting Creative in the Home

by Interiors by Decorating Den

Speaking of design and getting creative, I know a fabulous interior decorating company that I highly recommend checking out if you need something done with a room, or even something as small as a window you aren't quite sure what to do with.

Interiors by Decorating Den
Some tidbits...

• Their ultimate goal is to design spaces that reflect your lifestyle
• They will do everything within your budget
• Will come to you and create a design plan
• Everything is completely custom with you in mind
• They offer an initial complimentary design consultation

Visit their site and give them a call! Ask for Barbara Pettinella.

Rain or Shine

If you live on the east coast, you probably have just survived the rainest three weeks of your life.

I have to admit, I was thoroughly enjoying the weather. I like the humidity, lack of sun in your eyes, and the mild temperature.

For those who didn't mind the rain either, I've included photos of the oh-so-lovely-and-hazy England...

We love it rain or shine.

Free Alternative to GoToMeeting: Fuze Meeting

I love online meeting software. Some of my clients are a few hours away, so these are a real time and money saver.

The leading provider currently is GoToMeeting.com; however, it's about $30 a month to have, and their free trial needs a credit card to activate. It's truly a powerful tool.

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon an alternative, free online meeting tool called Fuze Meeting.

• Share your desktop with your participants for demonstrations
• Provides a toll free number for audio
• Upload up to 1gig of content to share such as video, images, and documents
• Invite people to your future meetings via email or schedule on the go
• All you need is the latest version of flash

I don't currently see a way that you can transfer the host control to a participant, but if all you need is to show your desktop and give a little training session of some sort, I highly recommend checking this one out...

Less is More: Writing Effective Marketing Copy

Less is more. Everyone is familar with this expression — except when they are writing marketing copy.

This comes in handy when a client brings me a novel that needs to somehow fit onto a postcard.

I really dig this article from Lynda Partner at One Degree written last month about trimming off the excess fat in marketing copy. She talks about the difference between writing (which she hilariously calls blah, blah, blah) and writing copy that people will actually read!

Linda put together these 10 tips to help you when writing marketing copy for your company in an article called: Cut the Blah Blah Blah – When Less is the New More.

Here is the abbreviated version. For the full tips, visit Lynda's article above.

1. Start with what your company does and describe your company’s focus in no more than 3 words.
   


2. Before you start writing your next piece, write a summary using less than 100 words.
   


3. After you’ve done your summary, go back and highlight the one thing that you want your reader to remember after reading your piece.
   


4. If your document is going to be more than 500 words, write an outline before you start to keep your thoughts organized
   


5. Use simple words. If you make software, say you make software.
   


6. Once you’ve written your piece, cut at least 1/3 of the words out.
   


7. Count how many times you used your product or company name or the word “we”.
   


8. Find a way to add words that complete this sentence “what this means to you is.....” after every statement you make.
   


9. Let your words sit before you finalize them.
   


10. Go back and chop some more – yes you can do it!
    

[Read more here]

Still need help? Contact us and we will gladly put you in touch with our social media and copywriting partner.

Mad Teapots

For the tea enthusiast — check out these mad and highly creative teapots...

Global Telecommunication Website Launched

Awesome news! After months of preparation and implementation, the Jen-esis website has finally launched! It was a fabulous project to work on...

This is stage one. We will soon be adding a merchant cart and a secure login section.

http://www.jen-esis.com/

http://www.jen-esis.com/

Inexpensive Online Advertising — Banner Ads

I love banner ads because it's completely inexpensive online advertising. This is a great article on how banner ads work.

An animated banner ad created by
teakettica for a book producing firm:

Design & production by teakettica, creative direction by Pneuma Books

Free June Business Cards!

Know someone who needs web design, graphic design, or company branding? How about someone who could use some business cards?

Spread the Word!

For the month of June, teakettica is thanking clients and friends with 100 free business cards for warm referrals. This includes custom design, printing, and shipping!

Here's how it works:

• Have a friend or colleague desperate for web or graphic design? Send them our way.
  
• If they turn into a client, we will contact you to get started on your design.
  

Have a referral or need more information? Contact us here.

Hiring a Professional Web Designer vs Building Your Own Website

Ah, the endless debate. The question of whether it's better to hire a professional website designer, or build your website using free online templates, comes down to these considerations:

Cost
This is everyone’s #1 motive for using template websites, which are unusually much cheaper up front. The options are:

Do-it-yourself Templates

• Free websites with ads
• Free websites with a yearly charge to get rid of the ads, which I have seen as low as $15
• Template websites that have all the goodies: Google Adwords, contact forms, lead capturing, etc for about $30 a month
  

Hiring a Designer

• Website designers generally charge you for their services upfront or over the course of your project and depending on its complexity, the fees will vary from designer to designer.
• The only other out of pocket expensive is to pay for hosting and your domain every year.
• If you choose not to pay for hosting annually, you can get your website hosted for as little as $5 a month.
  

It is more expensive over a short period of time to hire a web designer, but you get what you pay for, which leads into my next consideration:


Your Company Image
For me, this goes far beyond having a unique image, which you won’t receive with template websites.

Do-it-yourself Templates

• Businesses have limited options as to what templates they can use and how they can modify these templates.
• It is not uncommon for several companies to have the same website, sans of course what’s written on the pages and the name of the company.
  

Hiring a Designer

• Some website designers do offer template-based websites because it allows their clients to see the end result, plus it cuts down their labor costs. And naturally, they are less expensive. The one thing these companies can provide you with that the do-it-yourself templates can’t is actual marketing. They will edit and format your content so it gets attention.
• And, of course, you have your fully customized website. Web designers will usually research your industry and come up with a unique approach that will not only best represent you, but will be memorable in the minds of consumers. The overall appearance and quality of these websites are undeniably superior.
  
  
  

Site Ownership
When you create a do-it-yourself website, you are basically bound by the terms of use of their hosting website.

Do-it-yourself Templates

• If you do decide to host your website elsewhere, you cannot take your website with you; you cannot use their graphics elsewhere.
  

Hiring a Designer

• A good web development company will provide you with all the files you need in order to edit or transfer your site as you see fit.
  

Whether you should choose a template-based website or a professional designed website is all about what you feel comfortable with. I urge you to review your options before making a decision and hope that no matter what choice you make, it’s one that allows you to maintain your company brand no matter what web service you are using. Goodluck and happy hunting!

Have questions? Contact teakettica here.

Google Wave: Revolutionary?

Kati Driscoll, a friend & colleague of mine who specializes in social media, posted this video about the new Google Wave. This is actually a rather impressive demonstration that I thought I would share with you all.

Basically, a "wave" is equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

For a full explanation on exactly what this product is, go here. For a lengthy video preview, go here.

For those who are still a little confused as to what this is and why you would use it, here are some issues that Google Wave addresses:

• Why do we have to live with divides between different types of communication — email versus chat, or conversations versus documents?
  
• Could a single communications model span all or most of the systems in use on the web today, in one smooth continuum? How simple could we make it?
  
• What if we tried designing a communications system that took advantage of computers' current abilities, rather than imitating non-electronic forms? (Aka, Snail Mail)

I have to say, very little impresses me these days when it comes to technology because new products are simply ideas recycled. Google Wave, however, appears more revolutionary... and it's open source to boot.

This is currently only open to web developers, but definitely worth following.

Study: 95 percent of all e-mail sent in 2007 was spam

Let's talk about spam.

Not that kind of spam — the email variety.

A found a very interesting article:

There was a time--2004 to be precise--when spam "only" consumed 70 percent of all e-mail. Those were the good old days. Today, as Barracuda Networks' annual spam report shows, upwards of 95 percent of all e-mail is spam. In 2001, the number was 5 percent.

[read more here]

This could explain that no matter how hard we try, no matter how many times we change our e-mail address, we are still getting spam.

If you have a website, one way to really cut down on spam is to not post your e-mail address.

Instead of posting your email address for spam bots to find, you could use a spam-proof web form like this:

teakettica can also install a security feature that will prevent spam bots from auto-filling your forms:



Please don't hesitate to contact us for more information on how you can control spam.

Where do you rank on the search engines?

As you know, we specialize in organic search engine optimization (SEO) — in other words, search engine optimization that is displayed naturally as opposed to paid advertising.

Want to know how it works? Take a look at two of our clients:

Go to Google and search for custom built garages Delaware The #1 website is Newark Door & Window.

Now go to Google and search for printer Wilmington Delaware

The #1 site is Small Associates.

If you are interested in higher search engine rankings and being found by prospects on the internet, please don't hesitate to contact us here.