Up from the Depths...
the blog of SeaMonster Studios
Shopify 2.0 or Bust
It’s worth it to engage in continual customer retention activities so you’ll have happier customers while maximizing your profits.
May 12, 2023
Reading to Sharks: Basic Screen Reader Testing
Your site attracts blind visitors in addition to sharks and their blind plaintiffs, so you should perform screen reader testing on your site.
March 30, 2023
On the AI Takeover: Will AI Eliminate Copywriters?
ChatGPT and other AI tools can help with some of business' written content, but their implementation can be tricky, and it is likely ChatGPT will transform rather than replace copywriters.
February 21, 2023
Guest Post: Three Key Indicators That You Need E-Commerce Integration
Learn why and how you should enhance Your e-commerce business through Jitterbit’s integration and automation solutions.
January 20, 2023
Training in on the Retention Track
It’s worth it to engage in continual customer retention activities so you’ll have happier customers while maximizing your profits.
January 4, 2023
Competition Report: Accessibility Internet Rally
My journey in the Accessible Internet Rally was illuminating on a number of fronts, but it would have been worth it even if I hadn't learned anything. The world needs more accessible sites!
December 2, 2022
Bulls Can’t See Red, Can Sharks?
If the contrast ratios throughout your site are high enough, it’ll make it easy for all your visitors to have a great experience and want to come back.
November 14, 2022
Big Picture 6: Putting the Custom into Customer Portals
To give your customers what they want, you need to offer them a customer portal. To get what you want (a deepened relationship with them) you need to make your portal custom, with your brand and your voice, and make sure that it’s accessible to all.
November 2, 2022
Big Picture 5: Fly SMS Marketing into Your Business
Since SMS marketing is far more effective than the other options, you should make the effort to learn how to do it well, and make sure that you are using it in a compliant and well planned way.
October 12, 2022
Big Picture 4: Shining the light on Accessible Commerce and Why You Need to Care About Your Entire Audience
Among all the other things you need to do to get your ecommerce store up and running, it’s most right, profitable, and safe that you also make your site accessible to people with disabilities.
September 30, 2022
Guest Post: How FlutterHabit Grew 1,500% With Partners Like ShipBob & SeaMonster Studios [Case Study]
Learn how cosmetics brand FlutterHabit optimized fulfillment and scaled up its growth using ShipBob with the help of SeaMonster Studios.
September 16, 2022
Keep Your Eyes on the Prize: Accessibility Monitoring and Why You Need It
The government incentivizes businesses to become accessible by offering the Disabled Access Credit to make their sites fully accessible. Find out how you can tap into it!
September 1, 2022
Summer Plans: Get Ready for Black Friday
The Black Friday weekend will only mean all it can to your ecommerce store if you take the steps now, months before, to lay the groundwork for that to happen: build your contact list, build your contacts’ trust, and optimize your website for conversion, sales, and accessibility.
August 17, 2022
Become Accessible to Get the Disabled Access Tax Credit
The government incentivizes businesses to become accessible by offering the Disabled Access Credit to make their sites fully accessible. Find out how you can tap into it!
July 13, 2022
Big Picture 3: Using Reviews to Prevent Freefall Fright
Buying a new product for the first time won't feel to your customers like jumping out of a plane if you include reviews on your site.
June 27, 2022
Guest Post: 5 Reasons to Invest in Eco-Friendly Packaging
Eco-friendly packaging is a great way for individuals and businesses to help preserve the planet. The future looks better with eco-friendly packaging.
June 9, 2022
Big Picture 2: Dropping In Your Products
Before you can sell anything on your ecommerce store, you obviously have to set it up with your products. What might not be so obvious are some of the steps to do that most effectively. Let's get into that!
May 23, 2022
Guest Post: How Video Marketing Can Add Value to Your Business
Video marketing has come a long way from the era of TV ads to the present day of Youtube, TikTok, and Instagram. Use it to add value to your business.
May 23, 2022
The Big Picture: From platform choice for your online business to post-purchase communication and everything in between
If you think it’s time to take your business online, we agree with you, and hopefully this series on the Big Picture can help you as you do.
April 19, 2022
Get in the Game: Your Subscriptions Playbook
Want to get into the subscriptions game? We at SeaMonster Studios applaud you. We think it’s a great idea. Yes, there are some things to take into consideration, as we pointed out in our last post, but overall subscriptions offer a great chance to compound your sales in a relatively easy way. Here’s how you get started.
March 29, 2022
Spin up Subscriptions to Increase Your Bottom Line
You’ve set your ecommerce store up completely and it’s humming along. Great work! With all the logistics of manufacturing, sourcing, distributing, copywriting, advertising, managing client relationships and everything else, your mind is reeling, and you wonder how you can possibly keep all the plates spinning at once, much less add any more to the mix.
March 15, 2022
Case Study: Cougar Mountain Zoo
In early 2020, the zoo went from never taking online admission sales to having to rely on them to stay open. Thanks to their new site, they were able to comply with Governor’s orders. In fact, on the day the site launched, they were able to make advance tickets for their biggest fundraiser of the year, the Issaquah Reindeer Festival, available online.
February 16, 2022
How to Use Reviews as an Upsell Opportunity
Upsells increase customer lifetime value and AOV. Here’s how you can leverage reviews to create powerful upsell campaigns every single time.
December 15, 2021
Walk the Plank: Accessible Menus
Our accessibility series to this point has explored some generalities of website accessibility, but now let’s get into some of the nuts and bolts of one of the most common things I see that make sites less accommodating to users of assistive technologies: an inaccessible menu.
November 18, 2021
Swimming with the Fish: Accessibility Statements
You’ve worked to ensure your site is as accessible as possible; the next step is to add an accessibility statement to tell what you've done. Learn how and why to write one.
October 15, 2021
Sharks in the Water 3: Now See Here!
You’re looking a shark (lawyer) in the eye, trying to stare it down, but you’re struck by the irony that seeing is the whole problem in the first place. The lawsuit brought against you says that your website discriminates against blind folks. What do you do?
September 15, 2021
Client Interview: Bumpin Blends
Paul and Lisa talk about how Bumpin Blends started, overcame challenges, and scaled their business up to get to where they are today. Check out the interview, and then check out their website at bumpinblends.com.
August 23, 2021
Keeping the Sharks at Bay Part 2: Don’t move!
The sharks are circling you, but the letter they sent you didn’t mention anything about auditory challenges, so our last installment of the series left you gasping in the water, and grasping at straws rather than a life preserver. Actually, though, it probably left you standing stock-still, hoping the sharks won’t see you to attack.
August 19, 2021
Keeping Sharks at Bay Part 1: Your Site’s for Everyone, You Hear?
By the end of this three-step process, you’ll have addressed the various issues you face. It’s impossible to instantaneously fix everything about your website that doesn’t meet WCAG standards, but you should move forward on it, and as Wes says, document all the steps you take. In this blog post, I’ll cover what I consider the easiest prong of your compliance efforts, which is to make your site fully accessible to someone who is deaf or hard of hearing.
May 28, 2021
Seeing is Believing Part 3: But what if they can’t see?
If you followed our advice in the first two articles in this series, you’ve got some splendid images for your page or post now, and they’re properly sized to make the biggest impact without slowing your page load time too much. Great job! But you’re not quite done yet, unless you want to expose yourself to potential legal problems.
December 18, 2020
Seeing is Believing Part 2: Not So Fast!
Welcome to the second installment of our Seeing is Believing series. Now you’ve got a few stunning images you want to include on your website to draw people in and get them interested enough in what you have to say to actually read what you’ve written.
November 8, 2020
Seeing is Believing Part 1: Snap Judgments
So how do you get your images right? Where do you get them, how do you recognize them when you find them, and what are some of the considerations for including them in your site?
September 21, 2020
Quick and Dirty Content Creation Part 4: On Cutting Back
If you’ve followed our quick and dirty method for producing your website content, you’ve committed yourself to writing the content before you begin with your web developer. You’ve come up with the questions you want your viewers to know the answers to, and produced a lot of words to answer them. Now you'll want to cut it back to the essentials. Learn how!
September 4, 2020
Running from Javascript Episode 6: Shopify App Boilerplate with ReasonML, Hasura, Serverless.
Setting up a refined starting point for rapid Shopify app construction from concept to MVP.
June 17, 2020
Quick and Dirty Content Creation Part 3: On the Way to Striking it Rich
You’re almost ready to grab your visitors by the hand and draw them through the ether of the internet to stroll with you along the delightful riverbank of your business. Before they know it, they’ll be as entranced with the business as you are.
June 15, 2020
Running from Javascript Episode 5: Reason Bindings: Variants within Abstract Types
Setting up a refined starting point for rapid Shopify app construction from concept to MVP.
June 11, 2020
Running from Javascript Episode 4: Writing Reason Bindings to JS Module with Dot Notation
Setting up a refined starting point for rapid Shopify app construction from concept to MVP.
June 5, 2020
Running from Javascript Episode 3: Using React.js and ReasonReact Components Together
Your React.js (or .tsx) app doesn't have to be 100% reasonable yet but that shouldn't stop you from creating new components and features in Reason. Using React.js and ReasonReact components together is simple. You could say they were made for each other... or that one will eventually cannibalize the other.
May 26, 2020
Running from Javascript Episode 2: Adding Reason to an existing TypeScript/React Project
Getting your web project off the ground can feel like the haphazard toss of a twelve-sided die—you’re probably surrounded by nerds, are up way past your bedtime...
May 15, 2020
What has your website done for you lately?
You know your website’s main purpose is: to sell your services and products, build your credentials, and engage and convert potential clients but how do you go about best ensuring that your site is accomplishing all of this for your business?
May 11, 2020
Running From Javascript Episode 1: Why ReasonML?
Why does SeaMonster Studios develop with ReasonML? Because we prioritize simplicity, pragmatism, performance, scalability, happy and healthy developers, and satisfied clients.
May 7, 2020
Quick and Dirty Content Creation Part 2: Breaking and Entering
Leaving behind the ghosts from your past, you now understand why it’s vitally important to the success of your website, and more especially your budget, to hammer out your content as a first step...
April 21, 2020
It’s Okay to Lose Your Head: Why Your Online Store Needs to be Headless
The right technology provides the foundation for a fast, brand-focused, cohesive user experience – the polish that some sites have, yet you can’t put a finger on exactly why.
April 13, 2020
Quick and Dirty Content Creation Part 1: On Ghosts from Your Past
A really good agency, however, will strongly caution you that starting on the design of any website without content will extend the amount of time it takes to finish...
April 6, 2020
So you got a letter from a lawyer saying you hate disabled people
Look, we know you’re not a hater, but your non-WCAG compliant website may be making people feel otherwise.
March 31, 2020
A letter from SeaMonster Studios about COVID-19
During this pandemic, we'll continue to offer round the clock security and support for your websites, build great products, and create helpful solutions for you and your team as we all get through this together.
March 24, 2020
Email marketing isn’t dead, you’re just doing it wrong.
There are lots of hot takes out there that email is all but dead... chances are you’re reading this because I sent you an email and enticed you over here...
August 11, 2017
Room to Grow — A Better Web Build
You don’t run your business without evaluating and evolving. You’re where you’re at because you’ve shown a knack for being flexible and responsive...
July 28, 2017
Cheap hosting is like a van on fire in your kitchen
Keep professional-grade WordPress sites fast, secure, and scalable. We've got good reason to recommend that your web environment doesn't suck...
July 26, 2017
Use online shipping to build customer loyalty
Annual online sales topped $1 trillion (with a T) in 2016. The way you ship your product could affect how much of that spend you get...
July 10, 2017
Online dating, or how to hunt for the perfect web agency.
Getting your web project off the ground can feel like the haphazard toss of a twelve-sided die—you’re probably surrounded by nerds, are up way past your bedtime...
June 17, 2017