Tag Archives: seo

Name: NSCA
Item: Norfolk Sister City Association
Rating: 5
Author: Jennifer Priest

A Brand New Design For The Norfolk Sister City Association

Tuesday, 22 March 2016 12:19

Written by United Networks

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Five years ago, before responsive website design was mainstream, we developed a lovely, vibrant, non-responsive website for the Norfolk Sister City Association (NSCA). As the organization has grown and technology has evolved, so have the needs of their users.

United Networks has worked with three executive directors during their tenure as web designer for Norfolk Sister City Association. Through two website updates, training of two directors, implementation of a new membership database and general graphics support, they have displayed the highest levels of professionalism, patience and good humor. I have referred United Networks to other businesses and non-profits and will continue to do so at every opportunity.
Jennifer Priest Executive Director Norfolk Sister City Association March 22, 2016

Today we’re excited to share with you the newly re-designed NSCA website! It’s fully responsive, has a powerful, full-width layout, and integrates their event system among others. The homepage shows views of each sister and friendship city with the word “Welcome” in their native language. It includes a powerful mobile menu that makes site navigation easy on phones. It’s performance and search engine optimized so it’s found easily and loads quickly.

In the time since the new website was launched, NSCA has seen a 57% increase in sessions. Not bad! We’re looking forward to seeing all the things the Norfolk Sister City Association will do with their new website.

The Norfolk Sister City Association is a nonprofit citizen diplomacy organization that creates and strengthens partnerships between the City of Norfolk, VA and its international partner communities. Check them out on Facebook and be sure to visit their new website at www.norfolksistercities.org!

Seven Sites for Hampton Roads Transportation

Wednesday, 30 September 2015 18:48

Written by United Networks

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When you dispatch cabs for six different companies in five cities your websites need to appeal to a lot of different kinds of customers. They’ll find you through search engines, websites, advertisements, and word of mouth. They will be using hundreds of different types of devices but most of them will have a single goal: to book a cab.

Once again the team at United Networks hit it out of the park! We are so happy with the complete redesign and launch of seven, yes seven websites! United Networks created modern, fresh sites that really impact our market. They certainly are experts in web design and web marketing.
Frank Azzalina Director of Business Development Hampton Roads Transportation, Inc. September 30, 2015

Hampton Roads Transportation, Inc. (HRTI) and the six cab companies needed an overhaul of their websites and they wanted each of them to make it easy for a customer to book a cab right away through a phone call or App-a-Cab, a smartphone app which we developed the website for back in February. We built the responsive websites using a WordPress multisite installation to simplify future updates and management. Each site includes dozens of little touches including customized dynamic headers, the fantastic ShiftNav Mobile Menu, custom fields to make multisite management easier, electronic forms that are stored in the database, and design variations that look great on tablets and phones.

The sites were also search engine and performance optimized, and it has already paid off with massive increases in website traffic since the sites were launched.

215%

Sessions

162%

Users

634%

Organic

On average, the sites have seen a 215.20% increase in sessions, a 162.77% increase in users, and a massive 634.28% increase in organic traffic from search engines comparing a three week time period before and after launch.

These results are due in part to optimization but also because we took the time to create sitemaps, setup 301 redirects for all of the existing links from the old sites, and configured 404 reporting tools to handle anything that was missed. This meant that users rarely saw a broken page and we captured all of the traffic that sites often lose during a transition as significant as this one. We created custom meta language to capture clicks from the organic listings and made sure that everything was seen as mobile friendly and error-free by Google. All of the work has paid off; HRTI and the cab companies are seeing great results. We look forward to working with them in the future and, hopefully, hearing from you when your project is ready!

Hampton Roads Transportation, Inc., has provided state-of-the-art dispatch service and administration for taxicab companies operating throughout Hampton Roads for over 30 years. Check out the new websites for Black & White Cabs of Norfolk, Black & White Cabs of Virginia Beach, Norfolk Checker Taxi, Yellow Cab of Norfolk, Yellow Cab of Hampton, Yellow Cab of Newport News, and HRTI. Be sure to follow them on Facebook and Twitter, too!

Is Your Site Ready For Google’s Mobile-friendly Labels?

Thursday, 20 November 2014 09:21

Written by Scott Carter

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Google's mobile-friendly tag Earlier this week Google announced the launch of mobile-friendly labels in their search results. The new label will give users a quick visual indication of whether or not a website has an optimized mobile experience.

Perhaps just as important as the label itself is what Google briefly mentioned in their official blog post:

We see these labels as a first step in helping mobile users to have a better mobile web experience. We are also experimenting with using the mobile-friendly criteria as a ranking signal.

This “first step” is an important one as mobile web usage continues to climb. Depending on how much weight Google gives to websites that are optimized for mobile we could soon see big changes in ranking for those websites that are. A responsive website design is a great way to make sure that you’re ready for the new label and gain an edge on your competition in the mobile search results. Back in June 2013 Google let us know that they were penalizing sites with bad mobile design, but the mobile-friendly labels are the first clear indicator that they are rewarding the good ones. Here are the criteria Google specified for the mobile-friendly designation:

Avoids software that is not common on mobile devices, like Flash
Uses text that is readable without zooming
Sizes content to the screen so users don’t have to scroll horizontally or zoom
Places links far enough apart so that the correct one can be easily tapped

Our website is already labeled mobile-friendly. Is yours? Let us help.

Freshly Launched – Loja Leblon!

Wednesday, 14 August 2013 07:55

Written by United Networks

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Matt Tompulis, owner of Loja Leblon, a Brazilian lingerie and swimwear company located in Downtown Norfolk, needed a new webstore and he needed one quickly. He was looking for a fresh design that was responsive in nature so his customers could purchase from any device, any time, anywhere in the world.

We worked with Matt to evaluate his needs and built out a brand new webstore using the Shopify platform. The new store has a responsive template that automatically adjusts to your device, whether it be a laptop, phone or tablet. We consolidated his social media accounts and created unified branding and image elements to tie together his brand across all of his online properties.

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Check out the before (left) and after (right) images by using the slider. We softened the images, de-emphasied the backgrounds and airbrushed out some small problem spots on each of the models.

Part of the project involved the cleanup of hundreds of photo shoot images which were used as product images on the webstore. Each image was manually adjusted to remove problem areas and were softened which put the focus on the products and models.

When I met Scott I knew we were in good hands. He answered all my questions in real time and he is always available. He improved our company in numerous areas such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO), social media, website administration and all facets of the site itself.- Matt Tompulis - President, Loja Leblon

We also assisted Matt in implementing a shipping solution with UPS, a mailing list with Mailchimp and integrated his Google Virtual Tour. He now manages his product inventory through the easy to use Shopify interface and the new site is search engine optimized and has several types of statistical tracking software installed so Matt can adjust to an evolving marketplace.

Loja Leblon is a premier boutique offering high quality Brazilian swimwear, lingerie and underwear for men and women. The new website is live at www.lojaleblon.com.

Introducing the New Nirvana Massage

Thursday, 21 March 2013 07:58

Written by United Networks

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The New Nirvana Massage

When Amy Nix of Nirvana Massage came to us four months ago she had an online business that was growing quickly and she was looking for a company to take her to the next level. She didn’t have a logo or branding elements for her company, and her BigCommerce store was still using a default template with very little customization. Amy needed a complete solution, and she wanted to get started right away.