Visit CEDC's Facebook page Follow CEDC
CEDC frontpage
About UsDesignHospitalityPartnersBlog

Site analytics, SEO and privacy

Posted by laryn on Feb 22, 2010

Keeping track of your site statistics is an important part of assessing the success of your online presence. You can see where your visitors are coming from and what they are looking at, which can help as you try to make your site as valuable as possible and measure the success of your SEO goals. Google Analytics is a common solution, but since some non-profits have privacy issues with integrating their sites with the Google Empire I'm also listing some other resources which allow you to retain your own stats on your own server.

MORE

The basics of non-profit SEO, part 9: Use an SEO browser to see what Google sees

Posted by cedc on Jan 25, 2010

Continuing our series of non-profit SEO tips, I encourage you to take a look at your site as it renders in text form, as it is "seen" by Google and other search engines.There are a number of different "SEO browsers" you can experiment with to see which of them is useful for you.

MORE

Use a heat map to see how your visitors are using your homepage (ClickHeat)

Posted by cedc on Jan 20, 2010

Looking at your stats can give you a pretty good idea of how your visitors are using your site and which content they are finding, but sometimes it would be helpful to know a little more information. Setting up a heat map can help you determine which parts of the page are most prominent and are  the best at attracting clicks.

MORE

Our senior designer is January's featured "Alumni in Design" at DC AIGA

Posted by cedc on Jan 7, 2010

Our senior designer, Laryn Kragt Bakker, is the featured "Alumni in Design" at the Dordt College AIGA student group site. He discusses his background, CEDC, and his recently published novel, and he shows some sample designs. See the excerpt below, or read the entire thing and view the design samples at DC AIGA.

MORE

Should small non-profits bother with the "social media revolution"?

Posted by cedc on Jan 4, 2010

Many small non-profits are asking questions about whether or how deeply to get involved in social networks and social media. It's important to think it through before jumping in, because it will take a certain amount of resources to do it right and you will want to make sure you can devote them to it before you begin. If you are in this situation, you may find the video embedded below to be helpful in terms of quantifying the extent of social media adoption in broad terms.

MORE

How to find images for your non-profit blog or project (free or low cost)

Posted by laryn on Dec 22, 2009

If your non-profit has a blog, you may need imagery periodically to illustrate a post. Here are a few resources to help you locate free (or low cost) imagery. (They can potentially also help with other projects, but make sure that you don't use an image just because it is free when you can find another image that would make a campaign or advertisement much more effective).

MORE

Free E-book for Non-profits and Social Media: Social by Social

Posted by cedc on Dec 7, 2009

I wanted to take a moment to highlight a free e-book that will be of interest to some of our non-profit partners, "a practical guide to using new technologies to create social impact. It makes accessible the tools you need to engage a community, offer services, scale up activities and sustain projects...We want to help people in the public and third sectors do more good, by showing them the power of these technologies and how to access them. In the process, we hope we can also educate funders and policy workers about the huge shift of mindset and expectations needed to commission these projects successfully, to give the innovators more space to work."

MORE

Questions to think about when preparing to redesign your non-profit website

Posted by cedc on Dec 1, 2009

When a non-profit partner is beginning the process of having their website redesigned, we like to get some specifics about the type of site they are envisioning. Our RFP form is a good first step in the web redesign process and has some introductory questions that get at the same issues, but it is sometimes helpful to answer some slightly more in-depth questions specifically about the look and feel as a separate, secondary exercise.

MORE

Congratulations, Drupal: "Best open source PHP CMS" and "Hall of Fame" award

Posted by cedc on Nov 10, 2009

Drupal wins again: "Drupal has won best open source PHP Content Management System for the second year in a row in the Packt Publishing 2009 Open Source CMS Awards. Drupal won by popular vote and a critical selection by a panel of judges. This award reflects the strong support of the Drupal community and our focus on quality which leads to critical acclaim and rapid adoption for large, high quality projects. Drupal won best overall open source CMS in 2007 and 2008." (From drupal.org)

MORE

Audi mocks those who care about the environment, then tries to sell them a car

Posted by laryn on Nov 3, 2009

I have to wonder who Audi is targeting with this ad. Are they really mocking their target demographic and then trying to sell them a car? I suspect they are trying to target the people who haven't yet worked up the energy to ride their bike more often, who realize the environment is important and that they should be doing something about it, but all that they know in terms of alternatives are stereotypes (which Audi plays firmly into as they try to sell more cars, making people who choose other options look uncomfortable, inconvenienced, or dorky). Either way, I agree with @chrisbaskind that the ad is "ill-considered."

MORE
Home