Fox Web Company. Smarter.

We have our niche. Do you?

'Tis the season for strategic planning - or at least its getting there for the Smarter Fox team. For me, I usually start ramping up to analyze the business, where we've been and where we want to go in the coming year on or about November 1. By December 1, I'm so obsessed with the planning and anticipation of the year to come that I can hardly stand it.

This year, the bug seems to have bitten earlier than usual. Here at FoxWebco we are planning a crazy dive that's deeper into a narrower niche than ever before. And we can hardly wait. In fact, the new toys are already coming out of the closet as we test market them with some existing customers and contacts and get all the "kinks" worked out of our work process.

Things are coming along handsomely. So I thought I'd give you a sneak peak...

It looks like our big buzz going into 2009 will likely to have something to do with empowering small businesses to use their technology better - to make using technology not only much more affordable - but much more efficient and simple.

We are wrapping up our first few projects with our new FoxyEdit System. And it is incredible. I'm just a project manager around here - I can't tell you anything about how to create a style sheet or code a shopping cart - but I can tell you that my business consulting web site is so freaking easy to update now that its hooked up to the "oh so very affordable and no time spent to learn" FoxyEdit System.

Basically, if you have a site that you need to update (text, photos, links to documents, etc.), we "hook up your site" and then give you a link, userid and password. When you login from any Internet connected computer, you'll see all of your pages and all of the editable regions. It's like editing a Word document.

Every web site should be updated frequently in order to gain any benefit at all. Search engines like to see those frequent updates. In turn, they reward you by making it easier for your customers to see those frequent updates when they search for your site. Finally, frequent updates correlate directly to increased sales. Who doesn't want that?

So, our niche: helping you, small business owner of the world, be able to update your own web site whenever and whereever you want. Just grab and Internet connection and you can update all you want. No special software. No special computer. No special training. You hold the steering wheel on your business - and a key business marketing tool. As it should be.

That's our niche. Equipping and empowering YOU to be successful using technology. What's yours?

P.S. Not a Fox customer? It doesn't matter. This service is equal opportunity. Just ask us about whether your site is a fit or not.

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Polishing a HALO...

Hi, everyone. Here's another update from Foxland!

We're very excited about the recent launch of the re-design of halobusiness.com, the business advising company of our very own Strategic Planning Assistant and Marketing Diva, Marianna Hayes.

HALO Business Advisors (aka Team HALO), famous for revamping small businesses and communities to help them thrive, recently underwent a drastic marketing and branding facelift of its very own. After community branding expert extraordinaire Ben Muldrow  presented an awesome new logo, I was honored to have the opportunity to revamp the website to match!

Old Logo:

New Logo:

Old Site:

New Site:

Click here to visit the new live site at halobusiness.com

We had a lot of fun re-working the site design and layout to match not only the new logo, but lots of other changes HALO has undergone as well. (I'm sure you Fox Web clients recognize one of those smiling faces on the new site.)

Design-wise, one of my challenges in this site was working with a logo that had a very warm color scheme - reds, golds, yellows, maroons. To add a little more interest to the color scheme, I brought in a dusty teal blue to the mix to cool off all those warm colors a bit. I also used that color to emphasize the "halo" shape in the circular abstract shapes moving across the warm golden background.

Also, since blogging and e-mail marketing are such a big part of how HALO presents itself, I made the links to the HALO blog and to sign up for its e-mail newsletter much more emphasized.

We think the re-design has been a huge success, and adds a little more "fun" to Team HALO's look than the old logo & website did, since they were mostly brown, and almost too corporate and official-looking.

In other words, it's OK for a very successful, serious business to at least look like they can have a good time, too. :)

---

So... has it been a while since your website had a face-lift? Is it looking a little dusty or dated, perhaps?

If so, send an e-mail to support@foxwebco.com and we'll be glad to give your site a makeover! Never underestimate what giving your business a fresh new look can do to attract more customers or clients. That's what our specialty is!

If you think you're ready for a website or branding overhaul, but you're not sure you can afford it, please e-mail us anyway - we also specialize in finding creative ways to work within even the most limited of budgets.

Can't wait to hear from you!

- Amanda
Fox Web Designer

A New Look for an Old Store

FoxWebCo is very proud to announce the launch of oldhardwarestore.com - the online home of Kaffie-Frederick General Mercantile. Kaffie-Frederick is the oldest store in the state of Louisiana, located in historic downtown Natchitoches, and we're very excited about the new branding & website we've come up with for them!

This site really shows not just our creativity, Photoshop prowess, and our top-notch XHTML/CSS compliance, but also how resilient we are and quick to respond to a challenge!

Only days before the launch of this site, our creative team and the client had a Category-5 brainstorm to make oldhardwarestore.com even better at meeting the needs of Kaffie-Frederick.

Here's the original first draft of the home page:

Looks good, but doesn't say much about this store other than, "Well, they must sell children's items, kitchen goods, hardware, tools, and home & garden accessories. And apparently, they have been around a while!"

So we decided to kick it up a notch, by...

• Bringing some News & Upcoming Event information to the home page
• Showing off their upcoming appearance on the Fine Living TV Network, and bragging about what's been said about them.
• Adding a button that'll quickly enable interested viewers to sign up to receive e-mail updates from the store.
• Using attention-grabbing badge shapes to direct the eye to important places on the page.
• On the subordinate pages, in the place of the News & Events on the left side, we put testimonials from adoring customers!
• We cleaned up the edges of the photos. We originally thought that the distressed-effect on the above photos would add interest in tie in the theme of the "oldest store in Louisiana", but in the end, we decided just having a plain white border around the photos provided much more visual impact.
• We added a keyword-rich paragraph of introductory text on the home page. This will help search engines bring it to the top of the listings, and get the site more visitors!

Here's the final home page layout:

To see oldhardwarestore.com in live action, click here!