Writings from Force 5 Basecamp

02/12/16

Jerod Bast, the General Sales Manager at WSBT AM/FM and WHFB in South Bend, stopped by the Force 5 office for a meeting yesterday.  After talking business, we hit the vintage Coke machine in the lobby and played a game of pinball.  Afterward, Jerod wrote a post on Linkedin about the lessons one can learn from a pinball machine, I thought

02/11/16

Latest Polling Numbers: REPUBLICAN PRIMARY Overall Average Candidate 404 Page 160-Character Stump Speech Favicon 18.7% Cruz 19.0% 17.4% 19.8% 18.3% Bush 22.2% 12.8% 19.8% 16.1% Rubio 17.5% 18.6% 12.3% 16.0% Kasich 14.3% 14.0% 19.8% 12.8% Trump 9.5% 14.0% 14.8% 12.0% Carson 9.5% 12.8% 13.6% 6.1% Gilmore 7.9% 10.5% 0.0% DEMOCRAT PRIMARY Overall Average Candidate 404 Page 160-Character Stump Speech Favicon

02/11/16

On a search engine results page (SERP), the listing of results returned by a search engine in response to a keyword query generally show two bits of information from your webpage, the title tag and the meta description. TITLE TAG – Title tags / Page Titles are critical to giving users a quick insight into the content of a result

02/10/16

According to Google, a 404 page is what a user sees when they try to reach a non-existent page on your site (because they’ve clicked on a broken link, the page has been deleted, or they’ve mistyped a URL). A 404 page is called that because in response to a request for a missing page, webservers send back a HTTP status

02/05/16

Today I had to run out to Elkhart to run an errand.  That gave me the opportunity to meet up for lunch with my friend Chris who works out there, and try a new restaurant that opened last fall.  I had read about Hotdogeddy’s on the Flavor 574 website, and although I am not generally a huge fan of hot

01/26/16

An effective customer-centric website design requires the designer to put himself in the customer’s place to build a site that is user-friendly, while providing all the information that the visitor needs.  If you find it hard to put yourself in your customer’s shoes, there are services out there that will critique the usability of your website for you.  Some, like

01/14/16

A recent poll by the Domain Name Association shows that when people are looking to go to a specific company’s website, 43% of them will type the company’s name or relevant term into a search engine while only 31% of people will type the domain name (www.domainname.com) into the browser address bar. In fact, looking at search analytics data for

01/04/16

One sign that you might need a new website is that it doesn’t look good on mobile devices.  According to a recent study, mobile device usage is significantly higher than desktop usage, with people viewing 51% of the content on mobile versus only 42% on desktop/laptop.   (Five years ago, it was 12.5% mobile vs. 75% desktop/laptop).  Mobile Friendly Not Mobile

12/31/15

1) Do I Need a New Website? The team at Force 5 shares their thoughts on signs that your business might need a new website. 2) Happy Halloween A Halloween post with downloadable pumpkin stencils of the Force 5 team. 3) Is Your Website Mobile-friendly? A blog about the importance of having a mobile-friendly website. 4) SQL Case Study –

12/29/15

According to a recent study by HubShout, 94% of people use a mobile phone to search for local businesses. So what information are they looking for when they get to your website? 88% are looking for your business hours (46% are annoyed when they can’t find business hours on a website) 85% are looking for your phone number (42% need

11/02/15

In a recent Facebook post, colleague Marty Heirty took us back in time to remember or learn about the famous confrontation between Muhammad (formerly known at Cassius Clay) Ali and George (before the grill) Foreman. When a young, strong, well-trained, highly-conditioned Cassius Clay took “the ring,” his strategy was encapsulated in his signature phrase, “float like a butterfly; sting like a bee.”

10/30/15

Happy Halloween from the team at Force 5! Here are a few fun facts about Halloween… In the United States, the first citywide celebration of Halloween was in Anoka, Minnesota in 1921. Jack o’ Lanterns originated in Ireland where people placed candles in hollowed-out turnips to keep away spirits and ghosts on the Samhain holiday. According to Irish legend, Jack