Happy Monday from HMG!

We were greeted this morning with some exciting news from the American Business Awards and we couldn’t wait to share! Last Friday in San Francisco, the ABA awarded many prestigious companies with Stevie Awards in a variety of categories. HMG Creative had the pleasure of competing and are thrilled to announce we won a Gold Stevie Award in the nonprofit category for our work with Texas Young Lawyers Association! The TYLA “What Do Lawyers Do?” Project was an especially fun one for us as we always enjoy the opportunity to work with local nonprofit organizations.

A big thank you to the American Business Awards, and congratulations to all of our fellow winning businesses – we’re in great company!

You can take a look at our winning site at http://wdld.tyla.org, and learn a little more about how we tackled the project here:

[button size=”large” type=”square” color=”standard” icon=”circle-arrow-right” url=”http://hmgcreative.com/project/tyla/”]View Project Details[/button]

Cheers!

First things first: What’s a landing page? A landing page is a page a visitor is directed to after clicking on an ad. It shouldn’t be your company’s home page. Instead, it should exist as a separate webpage with one clear message and purpose, leading visitors seamlessly from the initial ad to a clear call to action, and ideally – to conversions.

Whether creating a new landing page from scratch or trying to rework an existing one for better results, here are a few tactics you can use that have been proven to ramp up landing page conversions:

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This article was originally posted on Austinot.com

Austin is known for being one of the best cities for singles, making it a city full of first dates and hopefully many others afterward. Beyond the singles dating scene, anyone in a relationship has probably experienced how easy it is to get caught in a routine of go-to date night spots.

Whether you’re craving something new with your current SO (significant other) or looking for an impressive first date idea, here are a few local suggestions that break the typical dinner-and-drinks mold.

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We’ve talked before on here about how much we love WordPress, and it’s definitely no secret. One of the reasons we’ve mentioned is that it’s an open-source platform, meaning that at any given time there are numerous developers fixing it and making improvements to it across the world. With so much constant attention and many new features being added, updates are released periodically making these enhancements available to the entire WordPress community.

Take advantage of these! We know it can seem overwhelming to alter the site that you’ve built, installed plug-ins and themes for, and is running smoothly, but there’s a danger to skipping these updates and benefits you’ll miss out on if you don’t.

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Back in April we met Dr. Lisa Gorn, the developer of Glucology and part owner of garcinia cambogia, an all-natural blood sugar dietary supplement. She came to HMG Creative adjustable dumbbells with the need for a complete online web presence with e-commerce capabilities that could handle the various purchase options Glucology offers. Dr. Gorn also needed a platform to communicate with her audience and keep them up-to-date with product news and related information. Reliability, responsiveness, and ease-of-use were additional critical factors we took into consideration when planning her new website design.
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Being a team of creatives, it’s probably not surprising that we seek to find inspiration in any medium we can. The Internet and social media make that all too easy, especially with platforms like Instagram that bundle amazing content from all over the world into one place. Here’s the rundown on 10 of our favorite Instagram accounts to follow:

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It’s that time of year again friends, the Austin Young Chamber’s FAVE Awards are back! Each fall the FAVE awards recognize local Austin businesses in a variety of categories and this year the winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on November 14^th.  As you can imagine, we’re so excited to have been nominated again and would love the honor of a back-to-back win – but we need YOUR help!

The ballot is now open for voting and it only takes a few seconds to complete. We’re nominated under the FAVE Professional Services Company, but feel free to cast your vote in as many or few categories as you like – we’ve been nominated alongside some awesome local organizations.

If you do vote, let us know! Give us a shout-out that you voted using the hashtag #HMG4FAVE on our Twitter or Facebook page and we’ll draw a winner to receive a fun Austin prize package. We sincerely appreciate your vote!

[button size=”large” type=”square” color=”standard” icon=”circle-arrow-right” url=”http://www.aycawards.org/vote/”]Cast Your Vote Now![/button]

We all know the seven deadly sins, but did you know there are sins of the social sphere, too? Keep in mind that while there are many tips for what to do on social media, there are also just as many things you shouldn’t be doing. Don’t let yourself become a victim of these seven sins. If you do fall victim, don’t worry—you can always change your behavior and improve.

Let’s take a look at seven social media sins that could wind up damaging your online presence if left uncorrected.

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When you think about WordPress, your mind may automatically drift to blogging. Indeed, WordPress started out as a blogging platform—but since its inception it has emerged into much more than that. With the addition of more and more features, WordPress has become a fully functional CMS (Content Management System). A CMS enables the end user to make changes to their site on an as-needed basis; regardless of how tech-savvy they are or how much HTML they know.

So, wondering what makes WordPress so great?

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Website development has come a long way since the days of the text-heavy, flash-infused websites of the ‘90s. The rise of mobile devices, tablets and social interaction online has created a whole new world for web developers—a world that has created the necessity for innovation and a new way to synchronize the user experience across a variety of platforms and devices. It’s called responsive web design.

What is Responsive Web Design?

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