DivergingSoul Media Production

The first month of the 2012 is quickly coming to an end, and so may be your new years resolution. You may find yourself picking up that piece of cake and making false promises to “go to the gym tomorrow”. Or, maybe you’ve stuck to your resolution and feel like you can take on the world. Either way, now could be the right time to switch gears and try a different resolution, or continue with your newfound sense of empowerment and tack on another! What’s a smart and rewarding resolution to make? How about whipping your business’ website into shape?

A new and modern makeover for your website will attract clients and keep them interacting with your page longer. Your website is the virtual representation of your entire business and often serves as the first impression for prospective clients and customers. Therefore, it is important that it looks professional and projects the image you want your business to embody.

Follow Lauren Hockenson’s “4 Tips to Keep Your Website Ahead of the Curve in 2012” to shape up your website for the rest of the year.

1. Don’t be Afraid to be Bold

“Whether it’s an exaggerated footer, a turn to minimalism or a bold and new typeface, incorporating a key graphical element to a website speaks volumes about the overall composition of the layout — and a keen level of attention to detail. Opting for a bold design element is a great way to modernize a website and keep it on trend in the coming years.”

2. Use HTML5…With Care

“For the last couple years, people have been buzzing about HTML5, and it’s not just chatter; HTML5 offers a lot of exciting flexibility that can make a website truly interactive. Seamlessly embedded videos, drag-and-drop interfaces and dynamic message posts are all achievable via HTML5, and with relatively little code work.

But it’s not enough to just call up your freelance web designer and throw up some HTML5 features. As with any programming language, there’s always an issue of browser compatibility. While your new and shiny UI outfitted with dynamic HTML5 might look stunning to a user running on the latest version of Chrome, your high-tech page may look like a series of broken features — or nothing at all — to a less tech-savvy user running Internet Explorer 7 (and there’s a lot of them).”

3. Cut the Fat

“The traditional layouts for websites often call for separate pages that encapsulate the ‘About,’ ‘Contact’ and other informational areas of the website. 2011 saw minimalist designs from multiple websites, and that often translated to cutting these pages in favor of a sleeker overall design (think Tumblr). Some companies chose to forgo nearly everything to produce a strongly graphical one-page website — blogs like One Page Love and successful networking tools like Flavors.me show that people are drifting towards a bold singular statement that makes a big impact on fellow users.

As we move forward in 2012, further exploration into one-page websites is a given. But a single-page website has both its pros and cons. HTML5 can help create a one-page website that cleverly contains all necessary information via pop-up boxes or other media, but the amount of information that can be on a one-page website is still relatively limited. Do you want your website to make a bold statement about your company and focus less on a blog-style format? If so, a one-page website could be right in your wheelhouse. Are you more interested in showing off testimonials, case studies and blogs from your employees? If yes, then this trend would be worth passing on.

However, that doesn’t mean to forgo trimming entirely. Culling the best parts of your website and truncating the rest will result in a sleeker, more intuitive design — and sleek never goes out of style.”

4. Tie in Social Media Intelligently

“This tip could also be titled ‘Quit it With the Widgets.’ Announcing your social media presence on your own website is an absolute necessity, but it needs to be done with care. Automatically updating widgets that stream in social media presence seems intrusive and outdated, not to mention that they can be a hassle for a DIY designer to install and maintain.”

If your website needs a makeover, but you don’t have the resources to implement these 4 tips, contact the pros at DSoul. We will be happy to be your website’s personal trainer and get it in shape for 2012 and the years to come.

It is now 2012. By this time I’m sure you are already aware of the advantages a website can bring to your small business, and odds are you have taken the initiative and set one up. However, you may have come to find that you do not have the time or resources to give your website the tender loving care it needs to thrive.

Just as plants need air, water and sunlight to grow, Aaron Sperling suggests small business websites need fresh content, social media integration, easy ecommerce and maximized SEO. Read his article “4 Ways Small Business Websites Can Drive More Sales” for tips on how to drive more traffic and sales to your small business’ website using these four steps.

For further information on creating and implementing a plan for your small business website, please contact us at DivergingSoul. We have all the tools and knowledge you need to make your website a success!

Adobe announced recently that they will no longer be developing flash for mobile devices.  Listing a number of reasons, foremost being the lack of support from Apple on their iOS, the company has stated that they will be focusing on “a larger strategic shift at Adobe” one that includes a “greater focus toward HTML5, as well as the Adobe Creative Cloud and the services that it provides.”  You can read more about the withdrawal here.

DivergingSoul Media has been paying close attention to the Flash vs HTML 5 argument since it became newsworthy in January 2010 with the release of Apple’s iPad.  Because many of the websites we built used Flash video players, we had to adapt quickly to these challenges.  We made it our mission to ensure that our client’s content was able to play across browsers and across devices.  In order to achieve this mission, we created a hybrid method for delivering video content on our websites.   This method consists of implementing an HTML 5 video player with a Flash “fall back” player.  By using the strategy, we provide “early adopters” who are on modern web browsers and devices the ability to watch video regardless of their situation while we maintain the older Flash platform for those who have not updated their browsers or who are on older devices.  Of course, which video player to use and how it is coded is just one part of the puzzle to delivering high quality video on websites.  Today, viewers expect web video to have very little buffer time and that the playback is smooth and consistent.  To learn more on how to optimize your website’s video content, contact us today at info@divergingsoul.com and we’ll be glad to help you.

In a new study conducted by Beyond Consultancy we get to see the workings of the modern day consumer and how their buying habits are tied to social media.

The results show that interactions such as sharing or “liking” a product are much more common and influential with products they call “low involvement”.  Low involvement products in the study are low cost, easily bought items like music or baby products.  With “high involvement” products (expensive purchases with high consumer research, like cars or high end electronics), more traditional social interactions such as reading reviews or visiting the product’s website have greater influence.

In the study, 20% of consumers are classified as “high sharers”.  This important demographic is more likely to be influenced by social media when looking at low involvement products and in turn will have a high spread of influence when they share their buying habits.

Perhaps most importantly in the research was the fact that although social media is continuing to move forward in the area of marketing and advertising, search results remain king in the land of e-commerce, consistently topping the list of “influential channels”.

For more ideas on how to know your customer and shift your social media accordingly, view the infographic below or read the full article here.

It has been our privilege to help set up an online presence for Buck’s Battle – a local cause focused on Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and specifically Eric “Buck” Buckley’s battle with the disease.  The site has more information on Eric and his family, ways to contribute, and information on upcoming events.  Check it out at www.bucksbattle.org and Join the Battle!

We recently launched a new website for Pioneer Sales Co. in Wilmington, MA.  Pioneer Sales is a second generation family owned business of quality food service equipment. They distribute to and service all of New England and the New York region.  This year marks Pioneer’s 40th year in business.  GraVoc & DivergingSoul Media Production helped build the new Pioneer website using WordPress.  This site is a great example of a simple content management system implementation for a small business. Check out the final product by visiting http://www.pioneersalesco.com

As a company who bases most of their business on the internet, its hard to imagine what life would be like without it.  However, just twenty years ago, that’s how life was. The first web browser, World Wide Web, didn’t debut until 1991. Since then, the internet has moved so quickly, and improved so drastically, to the point where it plays a big role in almost everyone’s lives. One of the most popular internet coding languages is HTML. This infographic from the Rackspace Cloud Blog documents the evolution of HTML, and celebrates two successful decades in the life of the internet. Check it out!

With 52,272,219 sites in the world, the open-source blog tool WordPress prides itself on being one of the largest publishing platforms on the web. Here at DivergingSoul Media (a division of GraVoc Associates), we pride ourselves on being WordPress experts. By combining our knowledge and experience of web development and leveraging the extensive functionality of WordPress 3.0, we are able to build our clients full CMS (content management systems) websites.  These WordPress 3.0 based websites look and function like a regular website but encompass a user-friendly backend to allow our clients to take part in updating and managing their own site content.  DivergingSoul Media has also created unique hybrid solutions built on the .PHP platform.  These hybrid solutions allow for the flexibility and creativity of traditional web development while utilizing the blogging capabilities of WordPress for increased site traffic and SEO (search engine optimization).  The end result of these hybrid solutions is a seamless website and blog intertwined into one.  Check out some of our favorite WordPress sites we have created over the years!

Some of the things DSoul and WordPress can bring to you:

• Customization of WordPress themes to match your company’s branding
• Hybrid website and blogging solutions
• Simplified CMS backend for control over your own website and blog
• Easy to manage meta data for search engine optimization
• Social network integration
• Customization of WordPress categories and post types to fit your process

…. practically anything!

Start leveraging the power of WordPress with the help of DivergingSoul Media.  Read more about WordPress at wordpress.org or at mashable.com.

DivergingSoul has finished developing a new website for the Peabody Football Blue & White Club, an organization who’s mission is to provide financial and volunteer support for the advancement of the Peabody High School football players. Check out the website for this local club at www.phsfootballbluewhiteclub.org.

DivergingSoul announces the launch of a new website for Gorham Productions. Gorham Productions is a professional entertainment company that specializes in individual attention. Check out the website (produced by DivergingSoul) at www.gorhamproductions.com.