A new favicon for the unique, understated website of Perry Reece Casting of Los Angeles, one of the premier casting agencies in the city.

On the website, the company name is rendered in a playful, friendly manner, as is the entire site.  To continue with this tone, the new favicon uses the initials of the company, set slightly askew, over a background that helps the letters pop while matching the site coloration.

Favicons are a frequently overlooked area of web design, even here in Los Angeles, but are one inexpensive way to dial up the look of the site one more notch.

Gabriel Entertainment Group of Los Angeles is charging ahead with several new projects, drawing on their deep experience and close association with leading Los Angeles casting agency Perry/Reece Casting.

This new favicon uses an iconic G letter, rendered with a slight bevel and overhead light, to represent this company that has delivered so many iconic films.

Too many web designers fail to take advantage of this little extra artistic area in the browser.  Favicons are easy to create, increase branding visibility across the screen, and take the site up one level in professionalism.

The design for Willy T Bryant’s new customized MySpace Music page is inspired from the artworks and photos we recently created for his upcoming rock n’ roll record “The Remission Sessions.”

An overhead shot of the Los Angeles downtown grid, centered on the LA river trench, forms the background.  A weathered border sets off the main page area which has a background of weathered old paper.  A generous header at top shows a great side shot of Willy looking over the train tracks in the downtown rail yard, plus a small thumbnail of the record (which will later have links to purchase locations when available), and links to email Willy or become a friend of the band.

A customized name title and contact table, a centered comment area, and a few other tweaks complete the page.

Amplitude Creative is proud to announce that the company has now risen as high as the #2 slot on the first page of organic Google search results for “Los Angeles marketing communications” and “Los Angeles marketing communications agency.”  This is in relation to the more than 4 million results found in total.

High organic search result placement is essential to online visibility — very few web surfers look beyond the first four or five results on the first page.  We dedicate significant time fine tuning the search engine optimization for all our web properties and delivering content that shows our genuine expertise in topics like marketing communications, which pays off in resilient search engine placement over time.

This highly visible, purely organic placement is driving strong credibility and increased customer inquiries for the company.  Thanks to our clients and partners for helping make it possible.

The web is a place where smart content strategy coupled with real credibility can turn industries on their ear… there’s no better example than our client Grant Langston.  We built Grant a powerful Wordpress-powered, search optimized website last year and helped design a content strategy that makes it easy for him to stay current on the web and still have plenty of time to make great music.

Do a search for “modern country music” and you’ll only find one artist website listed in the first page of Google search results: Grant Langston.  A glance at his site stats shows that this search phrase is bringing dozens of new potential fans to his site every month… and the numbers are growing rapidly.  The secret to his success?  Great blogging content, which he adds to regularly whether at home on the road… everything from reflections on his life as an artist, updates from the studio, album reviews, reminiscences, shout outs to favorite bands, and much much more.  What fan wouldn’t love that level of connection with a great artist?

Of course, all this would be meaningless if Grant didn’t have the goods to back it up, but he is in fact leading the charge in Los Angeles and beyond with constant touring (here and overseas), tireless creative recording, co-writing, and more.

If Grant keeps this up, “modern country music” will soon be a badge of pride rather than fodder for eye rolling.  Langston’s honest, hard hitting, highly musical sound is miles away from your typical big country music — keeping the true attitude of real country alive in an industry that often seems to have abandoned its roots.

The role of a great artist today is more than just making amazing music and living the life — it is also helping to lasso in new fans through clever use of today’s leading technology.

Beautiful, unique web design + clever content is a winning strategy whether you are a country singer or a traditional business.

Let us know how we can help you claim your rightful place online.

Amplitude Creative is proud to announce that it will be building a website for Australian actor Andy McPhee, who has appeared widely in television and film and also launched his own coaching studio in Los Angeles.  His latest appearance is on the series Sons of Anarchy playing a tough guy character.  Look for the new site in mid-summer 2010 at andymcphee.com.

The website for the caretaker of the Hollywood Sign — the storied Hollywood Sign Trust — is one of the most popular sites for Los Angeles visitors and historians, but until recently the site has not had a “favicon.”  This is the little icon that appears next to the site web address URL in various places depending on which browser you use.

The size is very limited, so the execution has to be creative.  We used the iconic “H” from the sign and added a sloping green hill with blue sky beyond — communicating at the glance the stature of the sign and its famous huge lettering.

Following on our post last week, which noted that Amplitude Creative is now consistently found on the first page of Google’s organic search results for “los angeles creative agency,” we are proud to announce our success with another important keyword phrase: “marketing communications los angeles” (or the reverse “los angeles marketing communications”).

As before, there is no black magic or “black hat” techniques at play here, just a solid, consistent content strategy that has built the site gradually into a content and keyword-rich search engine magnet.

Talk to us about how we can achieve similar results for your organization.

A simple one page promotional website for a Los Angeles children’s clothing model.

The four photos all blow up into larger pictures for closer inspection; stats and contact info are all readily handy.

Basic setup that allows an agent to quickly pull up a complete profile of the model and find her on the web.

Portrait photographs were all taken in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles.

We’re proud to announce that Amplitude Creative is now coming up consistently on the first page of organic search results for “Los Angeles creative agencies” on Google — no mean feat in a town full of highly competitive creative agencies.  In fact, if you search under “full service creative agency los angeles ca,” Amplitude usually comes up as the number one result.

We’ve been pleased to see an upswing in incoming client queries and information requests, though this company has never run a single print or online advertisement.  As you probably know (and have experienced in your own searching), if you don’t appear on the first page of results, you’re basically not visible at all.

No “black hat” tactics here, just a solid, diverse search engine optimization strategy that includes:

• Highly relevant, useful descriptive content packed with keywords
• Continuous updating of content through search-friendly, informative blogging
• Careful distribution of meta tags throughout the site
• Ethical link sharing with sites of partners, clients, and industry listings

We will continue to tailor our strategy further as we go forward to claim first page position in Los Angeles for all our service categories, and keep you updated as we do so.

Need help adjusting your web design and content strategies to help your company “come up first” in its region and industry?  Give us a call; we’ll be glad to answer your questions.