Unbound Web Design

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Project Highlight: New Mom School Online

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Industry: Online Courses / Teaching

Company: The New Mom School Online

Type of Work: Website Design

The New Mom School Online is a digital e-course that educates expectant and new moms on what to expect and how to handle each milestone before and after the birth of their child.

The Challenge

Alexandra with The New Mom School wanted to take her local education classes digital and offer her resources to new moms across the globe.

The Unbound Solution

To help The New Mom School launch their new digital venture smoothly and elegantly, Unbound Web Design built a detailed, but clean sales page on the Kajabi membership platform.

The Results

The resulting sales page is clean, elegant and informative without being overwhelming.

View The Live Project Now

6 Small Changes to Give Your Website A Big Facelift

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If you’re looking for a few quick ways to give your website a facelift without a complete overhaul – you’ve come to the right place.

As a web design and development agency, we work with many small businesses who don’t always have the resources or the desire to perform a complete makeover every single year. However, it’s important to keep your web presence current, and that’s where the minor functional adjustments below come in handy.

Here Are 6 Small Changes to Give Your Website A Big Facelift:

1. Make Sure Your Site Is Mobile Responsive

Having a mobile-friendly site is critical to business success in the digital age. If your site is not yet mobile responsive, it probably means that it has not been updated in quite some time It also means that you’re missing out on a massive potential market – all those people who use primarily their phones to research and buy products or services online.

Mobile responsive design will not only look good and function well across all platforms, but it will open your business up to more potential leads. Plus, Google tends to give ranking preference to sites that are mobile-friendly and function well at all screen sizes.

2. Update Your Widgets and Plugins

Developers regularly update their plugins or themes to meet the changing needs of the WordPress platform updates.

If you don’t update your widgets or plugins regularly, they will not always work as intended and may even compromise your site’s performance or security. This applies to social widgets, shopping carts, and all kinds of third-party plugins.

3. Align With Your Marketing Strategy

Just because you changed your marketing strategy does not necessarily mean you have to redesign your whole website. However, it’s a good idea to review your website objectively to ensure that it matches your new marketing strategy.

This means placing your latest promotion in a prominent spot on your website so that your visitors don’t have to struggle to find it.

4. Refresh Your Web Content

Great website content is the key to improving just about everything else on your site.

If you’re looking to make major content improvements to boost user-experience and conversion rates, it is a good idea to consider a website redesign or hiring a professional copywriter.

But, you can make small adjustments on your own to jazz up your current SEO rankings or website flow.

5. Review Your Analytics

Your website is beautiful and functional, but it’s not turning visitors into customers. Do you know where the disconnect is happening?

A quick look at your Google Analytics should give you a good idea of where you can improve. Here’s what you should consider, based on your website analytics, conversion statistics, and traffic:

  • How easy is it (for a visitor) no navigate your site?
  • Is your content of good quality, and compelling?
  • Do your landing pages incite enough curiosity in visitors?
  • Can you enhance your call-to-action to compel visitors to find out more?

When it comes to a website, there are a few crucial aspects to constantly tweak and improve:

  • site navigation
  • prominence of important content (promos, contact details)
  • up-to-date product and service pages

6. Refresh Your Branding

Finally, consider when last you updated your logo and color scheme. A small update can renew your branding image significantly.

The desire for a website facelift often goes hand-in-hand with the need to make it function better for your visitors. Take the time to implement these 6 small changes to give your website a big facelift or give us a call to discuss making bigger changes to your site.

Pros & Cons of Popular Website Design Platforms & How to Choose

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So, it’s time to invest in a website, but with so many different options available, which should you choose?

If you don’t have much time at your disposal and you don’t have technical or design knowledge, you may want to invest in professional web design. Unfortunately, some business owners have had bad experiences with developers.

Whether an unscrupulous designer deliberately set out to break a client’s trust, or whether there was a miscommunication over the terms of the agreement or simply undue expectations, these things happen.

That’s why it is important to consider your options carefully, ask all the questions you need answered, and deal with a professional with excellent references.

Here Are The Pros & Cons of Popular Website Design Platforms & How to Choose

It’s impossible to cover all the different design platforms and website builders available today, so we will just look at a few of the most popular options.

Wix

Arguably the most popular option at the moment, Wix is a free platform which hosts more than 109 million websites and almost 3 million paying subscribers. The platform offers 500+ professional looking templates and a drag and drop interface and helpful tutorials.

The free plan does show visible advertising to your visitors, but you can pay to upgrade.Upgraded plans range from $5-$25 a month. If you want to change your template, you will have to rebuild your content, which can become a hassle for a new business owner settling into their brand. Although the sites are indexable and crawlable by search engines, the page URL structure is not attractive.

Weebly

Weebly has more than forty million users, and the website builder is minimalistic and easy to use. They regularly add new mobile responsive templates and offer 40+ pre-designed web page layouts. Although their designs have not been as sophisticated as Wix, they are certainly improving. If you have coding experience, you can modify the code to enable more styling options.

Plans start from $8 a month to $49 a month.

WordPress.org

If you’re a confident coder/designer, you can host your own site using WordPress.org software. All you need is to buy a domain (approximately $10) and hosting (from $3 a month). You can use one of the dozens of free themes provided, or buy a premium theme. You will also have access to thousands of different free and premium plugins to customize your site to suit your exact requirements.

WordPress.com

WordPress.com offers a range of options that must not be confused with WordPress.org.

You can get a free website (yourdomain.wordpress.com) with free limited templates, or you can opt for one of the paid options ranging from $4-$24.92 a month, billed annually. The free package is fine for a personal blog, but if you run a business, you should definitely opt for a paid option instead.

The paid packages offer a range of benefits, such as custom domain names, essential Jetpack features, support, different levels of themes and customization options, storage, and the ability to remove ads. The two bigger packages allow you to monetize your site, which is crucial for any serious business owner.

The Business package is ideal for business sites, as it allows you to:

  • Install third-party themes and plugins.
  • Integrate Google Analytics.
  • Attend live courses.
  • Access SEO tools.

In addition, you can remove all WordPress.com branding.

Yes, you can get a decent-looking site for cheap or even free. But there’s more to a website than just a beautiful design.

  • Functionality
  • Quality content
  • Security
  • Storage
  • Backups
  • Premium features
  • Customization
  • Integration

All of these are crucial elements of a quality, functional website.

If you want a professional business website, we highly recommend that you opt for one of the premium WordPress.com options that allow for maximum customization and design flexibility. Working with a professional will ensure that you receive a site that meets current best practices, and it will give you peace of mind, knowing that you have a secure site.

Need help choosing a web design platform? Get in touch with us today.

A Beginner’s Guide to Navigating Landing Page Design & Development

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Landing pages have arguably the biggest trend in web design for the last year and a bit. If you’ve been a bit slow on the uptake, you’re not yet too late, because landing pages are not going anywhere. Now you may be wondering how to go about creating your landing pages. There are three options:

  • Designing your own pages from scratch (DIY).
  • Using a web-based landing page editor.
  • Hiring an outside agency to create it for you.

Navigating the Virtues of Landing Page Design & Development…

Each of these options offers its own unique features, along with advantages and disadvantages. It’s up to you to weigh up the options and choosing the one that fits your needs best. Let’s look at the differences.

DIY Landing Page Design

Foundation and Bootstrap are the two most common options for businesses who wish to design their own landing pages. Since these online landing page builders don’t have drag-and-drop or point-and-click interfaces, you will have to code it yourself.

The fact that DIY frameworks are usually free is a huge selling point and since you’ll be doing the coding yourself, your options are limitless.

The only disadvantage is that you need major skills. You need to know how to code or how to borrow snippets of other people’s code. Of course, you could learn how to do it, but there’s no instruction manual. It will take time to figure it all out, unless you have a team of designers who can code your landing page, do split-testing and make all the necessary changes.

Online Landing Page Builder

This option is a hybrid between the first and last option. It is half-DIY and half similar to hiring an agency to design your landing pages.

An online landing page builder is created by coders and designers to provide a ‘what-you-see-is-what-you-get’ editor. It features design templates and plenty of pre-made code, and it is editable and mobile ready.

These online landing page builders typically integrate with popular site builders, email marketing platforms, social media networks and payment gateways.

Templates mean that you give up some of your flexibility, so if you have very specific design requirements, an online landing page builder may not be for you. Most online builders also require a monthly subscription fee.

If that’s not an option for you, you may want to consider the last option…

Hiring an Agency to Design Your Landing Pages

We’re not biased when we say that hiring a skilled agency with professional designers and programmers will more than likely result in the best possible landing page. Professional design agencies have the skills and the tools to deliver the exact landing page you desire.

Your landing page will be feature-rich, easy to use and mobile responsive. Yes, it will cost you a bit more than buying your own online landing page builder, but the investment will be worth the customization options. It may well be cheaper than the time you will have to invest if you opt to build your own DIY landing page, though.

There really is no one-size-fits-all or one-option-beats-all landing page solution, but one may prove to be more valuable or sensible to you depending on your situation.

Which landing page design solution do you prefer and why? Let us know in the comments!

Project Highlight: Prolific Communications Consulting

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Industry: Consulting

Company: Prolific Communications Consulting

Type of Work: Website Design

Prolific Communications Consulting is a brand new boutique consulting firm focused on helping businesses communicate more effectively both internally and externally.

The Challenge

As a new consulting business, Prolific had a lot of catching up to do, starting with a stellar branded website to tell their story and showcase their capabilities to potential clients.

The Unbound Solution

We helped Brittney from Prolific Consulting develop the perfect WordPress website for her new company with a customized template.

The Results

The final website is a clean and bright representation of what enhanced communications can do for your company.

As a new small business owner, I felt exceedingly overwhelmed by the entire process. One of my greatest concerns was finding a high-quality web designer that would represent the product and the business well. Tara embodied all of my business needs and the spirit of what I needed for my business. Tara worked quickly through the creation, collaboration/editing, and final development process for my website. Tara has this keen and unique ability to take nothing and make it EVERYTHING you could have asked for and more. My clients and colleagues consistently are taken aback and mesmerized by the website and its professionalism. Tara DuBois is most certainly a shining star in her industry, and her work will brighten your star in your industry. – Brittney Foster, Owner

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Project Highlight: Azalfa (Arizona Assisted Living Federation of America)

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Industry: Non-Profit Organizations

Company: Azalfa (Arizona Assisted Living Federation of America)

Type of Work: Website Functionality Updates

Azalfa, or the Arizona Assisted Living Federation of America, is a non-profit, membership-based organization dedicated to enhancing the experience and quality of life of assisted living residents through support and education.

The Challenge

The wonderful people at Azalfa found themselves with an abundance of open career opportunities and needed a way to display them and make them easy to sift through.

The Unbound Solution

To help Azalfa bring great career opportunities to their readers, Unbound Web Design updated the overall look of the website and implemented a robust job search capability and the ability to upload user resumes into the Azalfa database.

The Results

The resulting website is a breath of fresh air for Azalfa and the people they serve. With the new functionality, finding qualified candidates is infinitely easier and will allow the assisted living community will thrive.

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Project Highlight: Ronnie Drake Social Media Management

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Industry: Social Media Management

Company: Ronnie Drake

Type of Work: Website Design

Our wonderful friend Veronica Drake has launched another fabulous business venture. She is now the proud social guru of Ronnie Drake, a social media management brand for spiritual coaches and holistic practitioners.

The Challenge

Social media management is a vast and competitive market, and the Ronnie Drake brand needed a unique look and feel to stand out from the crowd.

The Unbound Solution

To help Veronica find the right visual representation for her new venture, Unbound Web Design utilized a versatile WordPress theme that is highly customized to accommodate the spirit and personality of the brand and provide the unique functionality needed to appeal to her audience.

The Results

Let’s hear it from Veronica herself!

“I cannot tell you how much I love working with you. Building my new site has been such a joy because of your level of professionalism and heart. From the very beginning you saw my vision and your ability to bring it to life exactly add I pictured it is amazing!!! I truly love you.”

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Project Highlight: Veronica Drake

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Industry: Spiritual Coaching

Company: Veronica Drake

Type of Work: Website Home Page Redesign

Veronica Drake is a spiritual life coach that is passionate about helping women through tough times in their life and teaching them to grow through stress and tragedy to live healthier lives.

The Challenge

Unbound Web Design helped Veronica spruce up her home page in early 2016, but as her business continued to evolve, Veronica realized that she needed to update her website to reflect her outlook and spiritual badassery.

The Unbound Solution

To achieve Veronica’s ideas, Unbound Web Design updated the homepage with a slightly gritty, but simple new look complete with easy to navigate content blocks and calls-to-action.

The Results

Hear how it went from Veronica herself:

“I cannot tell you how much I love working with you. Building my new site has been such a joy because of your level of professionalism and heart. From the very beginning you saw my vision and your ability to bring it to life exactly add I pictured it is amazing!!! I truly love you.”

Check out the Live Project Here

We also helped Veronica with these pages:

Meditation for the Busy Mind

Who Are You?

Project Highlight: System Envy Website Redesign

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Industry: Training and Consulting

Company: System Envy

Type of Work: Website Design Updates

System Envy offers a wide range of unique plug-and-play marketing automation and business basic systems that help entrepreneurs manage their work-life balance and get ahead in the industry.

The Challenge
We last worked with Kerry at System Envy in early 2016 to create a brand new website to help promote her coaching and marketing automation business. Now, one year later, the growth and development of her business have put the website out of sync with her brand and it required a little bit of an update.

The Unbound Solution
We utilized the power of the WordPress Genesis theme to completely update the System Envy site to be more in line with the branding and potential growth.

The Results
The final website is light and bright and ready for a long history of growth with the System Envy brand!

View It Now

5 Signs You Should Invest In a Pro Web Designer

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We’re going to let you in on a little secret: All web designers are terrible when they start out, but practice makes perfect. We, too, had plenty of room for improvement when we started out. As best practices continue to evolve, the best web designers rise to the top, leaving the rest behind.

However, if you need a website for your business, you want something professional. You want to know that you are getting your money’s worth.

How do you know whether you should invest in a pro web designer?

Basic websites go for cheap. You can get a simple site for $150, but is a cheap and simple template-based site really what you want? Probably not!

Cheap designers also don’t offer a copywriting solution, which is the number one cause of delays, and one of the main reasons why a website does not deliver the results clients expect. A pro website designer values the importance of professionally written digital content to your success and will put you in touch with a content writer right from the start.

Some designers are so focused on creating attractive sites that they don’t pay attention to functionality. Have you ever visited a beautifully designed website that failed to convey important information? It happens to me almost daily.

Does your site look the same as it did three or five years ago? Perhaps it’s time for you to consider investing in a pro web designer. Search engines and web technology evolves at a rapid rate, and it’s important for the success of your site to stay on the cutting edge.

Here are some signs that it’s time to invest in a pro web designer:

1.  Your Site is Keyword Stuffed

When search engine optimization first became popular, people would replace every second word of their web content with a keyword to ensure that they reached the top of search results pages. Today, we know that practice as keyword spam – a black hat SEO technique that hurts your search rankings.

These days, SEO is as important as always, but the way in which it is done really matters. Speak to your pro website designer about the importance of professional digital copywriting.

2. Your Site is Light on Content

Just like best web practices, the modern consumer has evolved. People now value informative websites that answer their questions, and that’s what they look for on your website before they bother getting in touch.

Search engines also favor valuable content. According to American Express, posting one informative post of 700-1000 words per week is most likely to boost your rankings.

3. Your Site is Built on Custom Code

One of the main reasons why people loathe updating their sites is because it is built on custom code. Manual coding takes a tremendous amount of time, which makes it difficult to implement big changes.

You’re going to have to update at some point, so consider investing in a pro web designer and a WordPress site that runs on Genesis.

4. Your Site Still Uses Flash

Videos and animation slow down the page load time. Nobody has time to wait for a site to load, so make this a priority.

Likewise, flash-based websites are consistently being downgraded in the search rankings, because flash doesn’t work on most mobile devices.

Why should that matter? Because more than half of all internet searches are done via mobile device.

5. Your Site is Not Mobile-Friendly

In order to meet the latest design practices, your site must be responsive. If your site is still outdated and not mobile-friendly, you are missing out on a huge potential market.

In addition to the above design-related factors, your site graphics should integrate well with the design and content, and your website should flow logically. Calls to action should be used in all the important places to help navigate your visitors into becoming buyers. The best websites combine beautiful design with excellent functionality that speaks to its visitors through quality images and effective digital content