Jeff and Bethany are missionaries through YWAM and lead the Community Transformations Discipleship Training School on the main base in Kona. I was fortunate enough to get to know these wonderful people and participate in their DTS program. They definitely needed to have a website for all their travels!

Check out the site live

Hansons at YWAM - Calvin and Camille

Thanks for viewing this website of my designs. I haven’t been actively designing anything for 6 months, because I’ve been participating in a Discipleship Training School through the missions organization Youth with a Mission (YWAM). The experience has been life-changing! God is real and actively after his lost sheep. I kept a blog about what happened on my journey here: Hansons at YWAM

I’ve been getting back into the swing of designs and will post some of my new projects here.

Long-term, I am transforming my business to be missions-oriented. Most of my profits will now go to missions. I believe God has a heart for justice and mercy as well as bringing people out of poverty and living life to the full. This will be the focus of the missions we will support. Also, I realize that many missionaries do not have the resources to create a blog to update people so I will be creating blogs for select missionaries to keep their partners up-to-date and inspire fellow christians and non-christians alike.

Blessings!
Calvin Hanson
Owner/Designer
Design Smart LLC
calvin@pgraphics.biz
www.pgraphics.biz

Concrete Greenville SC - Aspen Concrete Contractors LLC

Aspen Concrete Contractors are available for any concrete contracting project in and around Greenville SC. For more information, visit their website at www.concretegreenville.com

If you need a realtor in Pasco WA visit them online at www.tricityhometeam.com

Community Commerce Convention - Logo Design by Design Smart Graphics

Event Details:
When: June 25th, 2009, 8:00am – 4:30pm
Where: Marriott of Greenville, 1 Parkway East
Price of Admission:
Community Commerce Convention = FREE (includes all 5 break-out sessions & Exhibit Hall viewing)
Small Business Awards Luncheon Ticket = $30 for Chamber members, $35 for non-members*

*The Annual Small Business Awards Luncheon will be held in conjunction with the convention and will feature keynote speaker, David Wilkins, former US Ambassador to Canada, and the presentation of two awards: 2009 Small Business of the Year and Professional Woman of the Year award.

Convention Break-out Sessions & Speakers:
• How to Start your Own Business (Presented by Martin & Davis, LLC)
Speakers: Reno Deaton, Greer Development Corporation
Brian Martin, Martin & Davis, LLC
Mark King, King Consulting
• How to Advertise and Market your Business
Speakers: Geoff Wasserman, ShowCase Marketing, Inc.
Missy Johnson, All About Seniors
Bill Sweezy, All About Seniors
• HR for Dummies
Speakers: Jill Vales, HR Experts on Demand
Deborah Loftis, City of Greer
Cory Ezzell, Gallivan, White & Boyd, P.A.
Debbie Brown, Gallivan, White & Boyd, P.A.
• Documents You Can’t Live Without
Speakers:  Chris Davis, Martin & Davis, LLC
• E-Business: Connecting your Business to the Web
Speakers: Scott Stevens, YourMark.com, Inc.
Laura MacPherson, Northstar Creative
• Sales and Business Development
Speakers: Richard Hardaway, Integral Solutions Group
• Tax Advantages for Small Businesses
Speakers: John Allen, Edward Jones & Company
Steven M. Bateman, CPA
Bryan Jeter, Lister & Jeter, CPAS, LLC
• Business Financing– Surviving the Current Economy
Speakers: Rudy Painter, Countybanc Insurance Inc.
Vic Grout, Greer State Bank
Mark King, King Consulting
Bill Roughton, CapitalBank
• Having your Business Heard by Government
Speakers: John DeWorken, Upstate Chamber Lobbyist
Donna Smith, Prudential C. Dan Joyner
Roy Chamlee, Michelin North America
• Community Involvement
Speakers: Caroline Robertson, Greer Relief & Resources Agency
Amanda Somers, Sports Spine & Industrial
John Kimbrell, Greer Chamber of Commerce

The convention also features an exhibit area for local businesses to showcase their products or services. For more information please visit www.greerchamber.com or contact Mark Owens at 864-877-3131 or by email at mark@greerchamber.com.

The Greater Greer Chamber of Commerce is a voluntary, non-profit organization that represents approximately 590 businesses in the Greer area. The mission of the Greater Greer Chamber of Commerce is “To Champion Economic Prosperity for our members and the greater Greer community.”  For more information on the Greater Greer Chamber of Commerce, call 864-877-3131 or visit www.greerchamber.com.

We settled on using a lion because of it’s symbolism to what the company is founded on. The company name “Alpha” is a reference to Jesus’ words in Rev 22:13 “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.”  Lions are used to symbolize Kings, powerfulness, and God (think Narnia). The Jesus fish is also one of the most recognizable symbols of Christianity. The flame in the “fi” Ligature hints at the industry Alpha Fire is involved with and plays off the word “FIRE”. I customized a font from a italicized serif to a script for a different modern look that flows well with the other design elements.

The final logo is one of my favorites because of its simple visual elements that have a big impact.

Alpha Fire Logo Design

Alpha Fire and Safety Inc installs fire extinguishing and safety products in commercial and industrial businesses such as restaurants or computer labs. They are located in Mauldin SC. You can visit their website here: www.alphafiresafety.com

Targeted/Strategic keywords-The keywords you want your customer search to find your company. An example is “web design greenville sc” or “restaurants greer sc”

Content-What’s on your page-everything from images to text.

Sitemap-Includes all the pages you want indexed in search engines. Usually written in XML language.

Index-In this context it means all the pages that the search engine searches.

Tag-Html (or other coding language) element that surrounds specific content. Tags tell the browser, a header is a header and an image is an image. Ex. <h1>Logo Design Greenville SC</h1> Would tell the browser this is the most important header.

This is an image from my previous post on Search engine optimization. It gives you an idea of the Google Search layout:

The Google Layout Explained

1. Put Keywords in your domain name

Example: www.graphicdesigngreenville.com

2. Clip the .html off page names and use keywords in page names.

Example: www.pgraphics.biz/website-design

3. Put main site navigation as close to the top of the page as possible and don’t use images for your navigation!

It’s kind of common sense to make navigation one of the first things you see and most websites have this right because it makes design sense, but there are the exceptions-don’t be one.  Images shouldn’t be in navigation because google can’t read them.

4. Image ALT tags and URL TITLE tags

These are very important not only for adding keywords to but for user accessibility. If the viewer is visually impaired, these tags are read to them though a screen reader program.

5. Don’t create a completely FLASH-based site. Google can’t read it (yet).

An easy way to tell if the site is flash is by right clicking on the page. Flash is great for image slide shows and videos, interactive displays, but not for the complete site.

6. Get into the free local searches in Yahoo and Google

The local search usually is shown before the organic search.  See image below.
GOOGLE LOCAL – www.google.com/local/add
YAHOO! LOCAL  – listings.local.yahoo.com/csubmit/index.php

7. Write content relevant to the keywords you want people to search for.

Google is trying to give the searcher the most relevant content to their search query. By having pages of content about the most searched keywords you want people to find you with will bring you higher and higher in google.

8. Use stragetic keywords in the TITLE tag of your page.

The title shows up on the very top bar of your browser window and usually is the second item in the code making it the first chance to give Google Search some keywords.

9. Use h1 (header) tags and include keywords in them

Don’t be afraid of a little html—the h1 header tags go around the most important headers on the page. Usually it looks like this: <h1>Logo Design in Greenville SC</h1>

10. Create a blog and comment on other blogs

Blogs are easy for anyone to update once they are set up. You can set up a blog on a blog site like blogger.com, on a separate domain, or on your current domain in a sub-directory. When you comment on someone’s blog, they usually let you include your domain, making it a good way to do tip #11.

11. Find sites that will link to you

It could be a site that targets the same customers, but is not in direct competition with you. The larger the site the better and the more relevant to your targeted keywords the better. Include your site on the obvious sites like Facebook, Myspace, and LinkedIn. Switch it up and include pages other than your index page (like a product or service page).

12. Create and submit a Sitemap to Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft

Sitemaps guarantee (99.9% of the time) you will be in the index, so people can actually find you.
Here’s a site that creates the sitemap for you: www.xml-sitemaps.com
You just have to download the file they give you to your computer and then upload it to your site.
Here’s where you submit your sitemap URLs:
www.google.com/webmasters
siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com
webmaster.live.com

These tactics produce the best results in local searches
These tactics work great for local searches. Most people search on a local level when searching for many services and products. When I search, I usually search “restaurants greer sc” or something similar.

Want more on the subject of Search Engine Optimization? Here’s a blog entry I wrote on that subject: http://www.graphicdesigngreenville.com/small-business-marketing/search-engine-optimization-myths-revealed/

Disclaimer: These are meant to help designers and business owners alike in creating the most effective websites. The information came from personal trial and error and reading SEO articles.

If you need help with your website, feel free to contact Design Smart.

I recently decided to become an LLC and thought it was the perfect time to shed my old name for a new more focused name. Design Smart is more than a name but a personal motto to, well…design smart. It is extremely important motto to remember, because I’m dealing with small businesses that can’t afford to brand, market, advertise ineffectively.  My goal is to design smart-websites, logos, brochures, postcards, business cards and marketing for my customers.

Design Smart Brand

A Website is a-comin’, but for now I’ll keep my www.pgraphics.biz website up-to-date.

Bluestone Cottages Website Design

The Craftsman styling and colors of this community were the inspiration for the Bluestone Cottages Condo Community website design.

Bluestone Cottages Condo Community is a maintenence free community in Washougal, Washington. Visit the live website at www.washougalcondos.com

Cool Wicking PJs Logo Design

Cool Wicking PJs offers innovative products that wick away night sweats including moisture wicking sleepwear,  men’s moisture wicking t-shirts, sheet sets that stay cool, and cooling mist spray.  Visit them online for more information on all their moisture wicking product offerings and to buy products: www.coolwickingpjs.com.