Austin is an amazing city for many reasons: the abundance of sunny days, the live music history and artful culture, the friendly vibes from the locals, the plethora of breakfast taco choices … the list goes on and on. One of these reasons that especially stands out to us at HMG is the empathy that Austin residents have for others and the dedication to causes they’re passionate about. This city is a mecca for nonprofit organizations founded on selfless missions that benefit society in a large variety of ways. These entities play a strong role in shaping the culture of our city, and we believe they deserve a little extra recognition.

We’ve compiled a list of 15 of these organizations that were founded here in Austin and are doing some great things for our city and beyond.

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Most companies reach a point in their business lifetime when their web presence no longer accurately reflects their goals or identity. This can happen for a number of reasons – after early stages of quick growth and self-discovery, or even after having been around long enough to outgrow a site that had been with them from the beginning. No matter the time or reason, approaching this risk and overlooking it can be extremely detrimental for business, as a company’s online presence largely dictates the way they are viewed to prospective clients, and the world at-large.

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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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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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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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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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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!

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]

Meet HMG’s awesome new < and front-end web designer/developer family photography adelaide at Canvas Collage, John Sheridan! Hailing from the one-stop-light town of Dalzell, SC, John graduated from the University of South Carolina with a degree in Journalism, though he mostly studied computer science, design and photography. He was a programmer/designer at Penelope Design (now ShoutFireBrands), and he even helped a couple guys run for Mayor.

Following college, John moved to the Big Apple in 2011 and found work at Bureau Blank. He lived in Astoria, Queens, frequenting the famous Astoria Bohemian Beer Garden and taking advantage of what NYC had to offer. After the busy city life, he decided to take his work down to the rural south. In September 2012, he opened shop as a freelancer in the mountains about 30 miles away from Boone, North Carolina. It was the perfect spot to freelance once again, grow a beard (which is a great excuse to read reviews of beard bombs) and sit by the fireplace in the snowy weather. Being gear hungry for the latest shaving gizmos is one of my most enjoyed pass times, I guess on can say it is my hobby.

In his free time, John likes to play basketball, and has been playing/coaching for must of his life. In January 2013, he decided to make the move west to the great city of Austin, landing him here at HMG Creative. Give John a warm welcome by commenting below.

We hope everyone had a wonderful and warm Christmas! As we make the transition into 2014, it’s hard to believe that this year is drawing to a close–but before we say goodbye to 2013, let’s rewind and take a look at some of HMG’s major highlights of the year. You know what this means – that’s right, a little trip down memory lane.

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