You already know that a website is essential for the success of your business. We don't need to tell you that. You know that your customers go to your website for information. We don't need to tell you that, either. Your customers visit your website to learn about your services, check out your latest announcements, and find out how to contact you. Every business should have a web presence. If your business does not have any kind of web presence, then you are likely missing out on some serious development opportunities. But, even if your business does have a web presence, you could still be missing out if your website happens to be lacking in quality.

If you're thinking it's time to revamp your website, here are 5 ways to ensure that you'll achieve the pumped up web presence you deserve:

Blue Compass Interactive is a full service web team, and we'd love to help you put these 5 ideas into action. Please contact us so we can start "pumping-up" your website!

Looking for a way to boost your brand online? Your website would be more effective with a good online video. 

An online video is a great way to sell your brand to potential customers in an engaging way. We have seen some great results with animated videos - visitors are often more willing to hit "play" and watch a quick video than read an entire page full of text. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a moving picture is worth a million words - and a moving picture that can be easily shared, commented upon, and placed all over the web? Even better. 

An animated video can add energy to your website and help your brand feel "cool" and modern. Properly placed videos and animations can have a great effect on your search engine optimization as well. Uploading your video to websites like YouTube can result in highly effective online video marketing. 

Here's a recent online video we created for Ruan Transportation: 

The good news is that an online video like the one above can cost significantly less time and money than a shooting a video for TV.

Interested in a online video created by online experts?  We would be happy to discuss a video project with you today. 

Xenia Rural Water District, established in 1978, provides quality drinking water to rural residences, communities, and individual customers in central Iowa. The utility serves more than 9,000 customers in Adair, Boone, Calhoun, Dallas, Greene, Guthrie, Hamilton, Madison, Polk, Story and Webster counties.

The new site displays a fresh design, an intuitive navigation structure and our content management system that makes updating the website extremely easy. 

Take a look for yourself at Xenia Rural Water District!

Google+ received an upgrade. With a dramatic layout change, the new look helps the end user experience all that Google+ has to offer. 

Google+ has been adding a lot of new features. As each feature was added, it was simply taked on. Now there are enough features that Google has updated the layout to help the user experience. ie - help people who use Google+ take advantage of all the Google+ has to offer. (Facebook could take a hint..when performing updates to the look and layout of the site, it should actually help the end user. Sorry I had to get that off my chest.)

Want more technology based updates? Follow me on Google+!

Written by: Melissa Harden Melissa has been in the web industry for over seven years. Beginning as a project manager and finding her niche as an idea girl, Melissa has helped transform large scale websites into overachieving sites that bring in high conversions. With her research background, Melissa has become very useful in the online marketing industry with SEO and Analytics as her most useful skills as our Online Marketing Director.

Last week was filled with excitement for Des Moines' technology industry!

The Iowa TriTECHta took place on April 11th and 12th featuring three big events at Veteran's Memorial Auditorium downtown. Our client, Technology Association of Iowa, organized and hosted the three events which included "Pitch & Grow VIII" and the "2012 Prometheus Awards" on Wednesday, and the first ever annual i2iowa Investors and Innovators Forum on Thursday.

About 150 people attended i2iowa on Thursday including 30 potential investors and a number of well-known technology leaders like Scott Case, the CEO of Startup America. The purpose of i2iowa was to showcase Iowa high-growth companies and to build a rich networking opportunity for entrepreneurs, qualified investors, and business development people. Sixteen start-up companies were selected to present from a pool of 36 applicants, including Bawte and Go the Distance Baseball, LCC---the two winners of "Pitch & Grow VIII" from the night before.  

Blue Compass was the Official Technology Sponsor for the event. Blue Compass developed a website for i2iowa as well as a mobile app that was used by attendees prior to and during the event. The website, i2iowa.org, was designed and launched in February to help promote the event. Applicants and attendees used the site to apply or to register for the event. Once selected, the presenting companies were showcased on i2iowa.org, along with event sponsors. Blue Compass created the site with a tech-savvy audience in mind, by creating a cutting-edge, sleek, and modern design and user experience.

The i2iowa web app was developed with the same audience in mind and with a special emphasis on usability. Attendees used the app to view information about the presenting companies, ask questions, and select which presentations to attend. Presenters used the app to create a company profile of information for attendees, view questions, and see who planned to attend their presentations.

Our goal for this app was to create something that was not only useful for i2iowa, but also useful for any company's large event or conference. If you're interested in finding out how this app could be customized for your next event, please give us a call or send us a message.