As predicted, video integration will be huge for 2009, as it is expected to grow by 45% this year. Online video will have one of the strongest ad growth numbers in comparison to other ad formats, such as; search, social networks, etc. 

As on line businesses are constantly innovating their tactics to communicate with their customers, video has made it easier than ever by adding a fresh alternative to basic text on a static website. Rise is constantly adding technology and new marketing practices to their services that we offer to you. This year we started integrating video for 2009 to our website and also added it as a service to our clients. Please check out Rise video, launched on January 5th in a blog post, titled “It’s 2009. Rise above.” Take about 7 minutes and watch the Rise team members share stories of their favorite projects in 2008 and predict what’s next for the web in 2009. 

Keep in mind as video popularity increases so does the ways you can incorporate video into your marketing campaign. 

• Video Ads
• Testimonials
• Live Demos
• Promotions
• Video Intro
• Direct Response
• Email Marketing 
• Lead Capture
• PPC Ads
• Blog

Wanting to add video integration to your website to increase your companies value or send it out as a press release, testimonials or create demonstrations, Rise can help. Please contact us.

Standard with every Rise-built website

New for 2009 Rise now offers a free “Premium” package to begin a sustainable marketing plan for your newly designed website. The plan includes:

Email newsletter integration using Campaign Monitor
Build a database of valuable contacts by integrating an email signup form into your website.

Google Analytics visitor stats delivered to your inbox every month
Track where your visitors are coming from, how long they are staying on your site and what pages they access. We even monitor goals on the site so you can see how many conversions it achieves.

Monthly site review for the first 3 months your new site is live
How is your site performing? Where are the weak points? What do we need to focus on more? These are ongoing questions that warrant a professional review on a monthly basis. Rise will call you to review your site every month for the first three months to ensure you’re moving toward your website and business goals.

Website search engine optimization
From a list of your company’s popular key phrases we optimize your site to be more relevant to search engines, helping it gain traction in search results and attract more visitors.

Web video interview to advertise your company and your new website
When your new site launches, make sure you send it off with an impact! Rise wants to catch as much attention and buzz for your new site as possible, so we’ll bring you in to interview you about what your company offers, your new website and what your goals are to help your customers in an entirely new way. Then, we post your video on our Rise website blog, send an announcement out in our regular email campaign and even allow you to use the video for your own advertising. There’s no better way to talk about your new website than a video broadcast to hundreds of new potential customers.

Call Rise Creative Group for all your website design and marketing needs at 407-965-0689 or request a capabilities presentation from our website.

Getting the right equilibrium in your search engine optimization (SEO) and a profitable user experience can be a challenge. It seems that most companies error on favoring one strategy over the other. 

For example your company may be stuffing the same keywords into every “alt” tag navigation graphic. This detracts from the user experience by making the page slower to load or visually impaired for page viewers.

Or your company maybe maximizing usability without concern for SEO by streamlining the homepage and other relevant pages, making it as simple and non-relvent as possible. Allowing search engines nothing to sink their teeth into to identify appropriate keywords for your business. 

When SEO is used properly it can enhance the usability of the site for the user and visa versa, usability, when used properly enhances the search engines findability of the site.

Think of your internal hierarchical linking structure for both your users and search engines, you want users to link to you because the more relevant links you have the more Google see them as votes and the more votes you have search engines see you as a authority in your business, and this ultimately helps your site climb to the top of search engines which increases your ROI. 

Want to see what type of synergy you are creating on your site. Fill out our “Get A Free Quote” form and put in the comment section “free google analytics report” to start tracking your sites performance today!

Justin Delabar, Rise’s Senior Art Director found a great article from O’Reily’s InsideRIA blog on the traits of a User Experience Expert. (http://www.insideria.com/2008/12/what-makes-a-user-experience-e.html). I wanted to share some core tenants of a user experience expert according to the post that we at Rise believe in:

===Excerpts from article===

Can you predict your company’s marketing ROI (return on investment) for 2009 or the years to come from a simple ad campaign, television spot, or billboard?  It seems as though smart businesses are focusing on the highest ROI for their marketing dollars—the web. Top internet gurus think in 2009, business owners will be focusing on conversion rates supported by actual reports/statistics, something the web gives you easily.

Here’s a great video that was forwarded to me over the weekend, “You Down With ROI?… Yeah You Know Me” from renowned businessman and internet celebrity, Gary Vaynerchuk.

http://garyvaynerchuk.com/2008/10/08/you-down-with-roiyeah-you-know-me/

How do you plan to measure the ROI on your marketing this year?

Watch as Rise team members share stories of their favorite projects in 2008 and predict what’s next for the web in 2009.

It’s 2009. Rise Above. from Rise Creative Group on Vimeo.