Web Design and Custom App Development Blog

The One Thing That Will Make Your Website Work

There are many important elements to creating and maintaining a successful web presence, but there is one arguably more important than any other — customer focus. You can focus on the customer in a variety of ways, including thoughtful strategy, well-crafted content and use of best practices for design and development. The common business mentality is to communicate first what you offer to customers.

Drupal 8 Quick Tip: Entity View Hooks

By default, Drupal 8 comes optimized for performance.  If you've use the standard install profile, you might find that it's difficult to develop or debug changes to the way an entity is displayed.  I spent an hour or so last night trying to figure out why my code in hook_node_view as behaving strangely.  Code would run once, and then not again, and if I made changes they wouldn't show up.  Very strange!

Writing Effective Copy for Webpages

Readers have a lot of demands competing for their time. It’s a challenge to grab and keep their attention, which is why a professional copywriter — particularly one trained in writing for the web — is worth her weight in gold. But for many organizations, a tight budget means that copywriting must be done in-house by a generalist. Writing copy for webpages is different than writing for print, and there is some variation depending on the type of content you are writing.

Writing a Compelling Press Release: Tips for Nonprofits and Small Businesses

For small nonprofits and businesses, it may seem impossible to interact with media without a marketing person on staff. But often there isn’t available funding for a communications position. Small business owners and staff of nonprofits often wear multiple hats though, and something like writing press releases doesn’t have to be out of reach. Review the following steps for a compelling press release.

Do you need non-profit or small business digital marketing support?  Request a free consultation with Alloy.

Drafting Talking Points for your Nonprofit or Small Business

For a nonprofit or small business, speaking to press can be uncomfortable territory. You don’t always know exactly what questions you will be asked, and you want to be represented accurately. But with a little bit of planning and a clear understanding of your basic messaging, you can be equipped to address a variety of PR points. This will be beneficial not only when it comes to speaking to media, but also when speaking to a more general audience of interested community members.