Blogging: Why Your Small Business Needs It

Hand writing in cloudsOur last 4 prospective client requests for websites all had questions about blogs. I personally was pleased because there seems to be a growing conscientious to how effective blogging is to not only your site’s SEO but to your business’s brand. There’s a few things I want to talk about like transparency, effectiveness, analytics, and search engine optimization. Now I know there are many blog platforms out there, but for me a self hosted WordPress site offers so many options and features and the learning curve is fantastic to pick up and go.

The Reach: Taking some time out each week to write a post or two can really help drive some numbers to your website. Mainly because WordPress and search engines get along really well, but also because blogging creates fresh new content on your website where a traditional website may only see new content once a quarter. Even what could be seen as a low-interest website like stamp collecting could achieve visits by the thousands each week based on what they talk about and how. Never limit your business products or services to just what you think may be a small target audience. This is the internet we’re talking about here, millions of people are on throughout the day and night. There’s bound to be hundreds of thousands who share your views and can appreciate your opinions and opposition to a subject matter.

Engage, Engage, Engage: Consider other blogger’s and sites that talk about what you do and comment on their posts. Not so much to try to drive away readers, but to bring up valid points that may have been missed, or a little bit of controversy. We all like drama, and some of the hottest posts aren’t in the original article but in the comments where readers go back and forth trying to one up each other or drive home a point. You’d also be surprised at all the places you post, and who may want to view your blog entries to see if you know what you yourself are talking about.

Crowd-sourcing and Feedback: Without full-out asking for it, blogging can be a way to get great customer feedback. Consider a competitor of yours recently launched a new product. At first it seems like a great idea and may be a great product to those that need it. But what if it has a major flaw or is missing something vital that one of your products has and your clients appreciate much more than your competitors? Well after writing a post about it comparing the two products, you can see how your visitor weigh in with their comments. Of course your post won’t be written in a way to seem like your bashing. We’re not trying to be e-thugs, but a tasteful comparison could lead to better R&D for your brand, even when there isn’t competition.

Search Engines: I wonder when we’ll stop calling them search engines and just refer to Google instead. Google’s algorithms are still quite unknown, but what is known is how well an unknown website can pop-up as a number 1 or 3 organic result for a subject matter. Regardless of what the site looks like, and more so on how relevant the content is to the string of keywords used in a user’s search. With a static HTML site, you’d have to embed keywords, a page description, and some meta-tags to your page’s code. Not to mention the on-page keyword usage and image ALT tags you’d have to remember to include. With WordPress all of that is mostly taken into consideration. When adding an image to a post you easily have the options to put captions and alternate text messages for your images and graphics. You have a categories and tags box to check off and type in your keywords and associated post categories. It all really makes for an effortless optimization.

Overall Effectiveness: If you’re a small business who thinks that no one out there is interested in reading about what you have to say, let me tell you that you’re wrong. Even for the stamp collector, there is plenty to say that people are looking for. Imagine if you were the only blog out there talking about the history of some stamps, or hidden facts about some designs for stamps, or maybe even ways to save money on postage that most people wouldn’t know. I’m not a stamp collector but show me how to save money on postage and I’ll be all over it, and share it with my friends who may share it with their friends. One because its easy to read and share both on computers and mobile devices, and Two because it offers an audience I normally wouldn’t be able to reach on my own through traditional marketing. When I first started blogging late last year, I posted once a month (maybe) and I had traffic to my blog at about 25-50 people a month. Now I have a team of 2 other (3 soon) bloggers and we each post a different subject article once a week. In the past 30 days we’ve had almost 1500 visits (Google Analytics).

I hope that this clears some uncertainty on why you should get blogging NOW! For those of you that already do, add your pointers in the comments below. We can all learn something to be more effective!

Trouble landing clients?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now that the lovey-dovey mood, which Valentine’s Day brings has come and went, I start wondering what can I do to catch the wanted client who is still passing me by.  Do you ever wonder what makes a client choose one designer over another? There are some big lies out there on how to get a client, but there are some exciting facts that show what clients really want from a designer.

“Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth”.  FDR

Lies, myths and false statements

It’s important to understand a few myths we as designers have come to believe about being hired by a client.

Clients only want experience

Designers (especially recently graduated) think they don’t have a chance to be hired by a client because they have no real experience. Don’t let this lie stop you from finding great clients who are looking for a young, fresh approach to their design process.

A lot of clients would prefer to hire someone they feel has a lot to learn, rather than, someone who is set in their stubborn ways.

Clients hire designers who have a great portfolio

Similar to the first lie, a lot of naive designers think that unless they have a vast portfolio, no client is  going to hire them.

In fact, it’s the opposite.  Choose a few really strong projects, highlight them effectively in a portfolio, and show them off with pride. If you do this right, a smart client will hire you.

Clients only hire cheap designers

Most designers feel like they have to have the best bargain in order for clients to hire them.  The truth is, most clients are willing to pay a little more for quality designs.  Most clients are also willing to pay more money for a designer who is easy and enjoyable to work with.

Find ways to add quality to your client/designer relationship and you won’t have to lower your prices in order to get hired.

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them. Galileo Galilei

Facts, truths and real statements

 Clients hire responsible and easy to work with designers

Clients are usually more interested in the working relationship they will have with you than almost anything else.  If they can’t work with you, if you won’t listen to them, or if you’re rude, they won’t care how great your designs look; you’ll never get hired.

Make sure you present yourself as a responsible and agreeable person, that way you’ll be more likely to get hired.

Clients wants designers who are respectful

You can have your own opinion, but when you intentionally insult, degrade, or talk down to your clients, you’ll quickly have a one-way ticket to unemployment.

Clients look for designers who respect their opinions. Be respectful.

Clients look for designers with the skills needed to complete their project well

You may not be the best designer in the world,  but your potential clients may not be looking for that.  They are looking for someone who possesses the skills necessary to complete the job well and on time.

That doesn’t just include design skills or a fancy portfolio either. They are looking for someone with a good work ethic, a personable attitude, great project management skills, and superb people skills.

These are some lies and facts of what clients want from a designer.  What are some other pointers that will guide us to reach more clients, effectively?

What other tips and pointers would you add to this list? If you were a client, what would you look for in a designer?

Its Valentines, Show Your Website Some Love

“Hey remember me? We haven’t talked in months. Domain Tools says I haven’t been updated in 7 months. People are visiting me and apparently my content isn’t as relevant as it was when I was first built.” Well I could go on about what most websites scream when visiting them. From the ones with missing or incomplete addresses, web forms that error when you hit the submit button, to the prices that are out of date or don’t match what was quoted on the phone or in the store, misspellings and grammatical errors. If I’m hitting a soft spot, don’t feel too bad, it’s quite common.

One of the main things I stress to our clients at Design Theory, is that your website should never lay stagnant. We should be updating it regularly with fresh content. If you have a promotion going on, it should be on your website in a predominant way to attract your visitor’s attention. If you lowered or raised the prices for your products, that information needs to updated immediately or else you could cause some trouble.  You have a professional website, don’t make it look cheap with misspellings and small errors. You could be losing valuable business. Web forms are the silent killers too because unless you go in and check regularly, you may not know that it isn’t working properly.

So in the spirit of love, we compiled a list of resources for you to use with your website for FREE!

Vector Icons: Icons can dramatically improve some graphic elements on your website. Especially when you don’t have the budget for a graphic designer to create a bunch of small graphics for you.

Valentines Candy

Facebook and Twitter Plug-ins: If your website isn’t “social” it needs to be ASAP.

Facebook

Twitter

Analytics: If you don’t know how many people are visiting your website, which pages are most popular for their content, your bounce rate, and referral links, I’m here to tell you to put some love into your site tonight and check out Google Analytics.

Google Analytics

Call to Action: Normally you’d find a good call to action on a strategically typed and keyword-filled landing page, but you can also have these on your website’s home page. However you use them, use them. Encourage your visitors to give you their contact information in exchange for something of use to them.

Social Media book graphic

Have any other Website Valentine’s Date night items you can “talk” about with your website? Share them in the comments field below.

 

 

I love to KISS!

We are in February and my friends like to call it the “month of love”; I guess that’s why I feel like talking about KISS.  My husband tries to use it all the time and lately I found myself applying KISS to most of my designs.  You don’t know how to?  It’s basic, just Keep It Simple S(weetheart)…naaaa, Keep It Simple Stupid!

As graphic designers we should apply this rule for many reasons, but the most important, is for our own mental health.

 

Let me show you why I love to KISS:

 

Communication

Graphic design is a form of creative communication and KISS is the key ingredient of communication.  When you speak with fewer words, usually your point is more clearly addressed and when you design with fewer elements your message does not get lost by everything else going on.

The moment you have to explain your design to anyone, the whole purpose of creating it is lost.

Google

Google is a great example of KISS.  As one of the biggest companies, they simply have a logo above their search box on a blank white page; as simple as it gets.

Being Different

There is plenty of advertising clutter out there and if you’re trying to stand out amidst all the colors, flashy images and more, then you need to do something different, you need to KISS.

KISS Sells

When everyone’s trying to be a pioneer, they are overlooking the primary reason for their designs and creativity –  to sell.  If your product doesn’t sell, an award winning design will get you nowhere.  You can have the coolest business cards and the craziest letterheads, but if they don’t match your company’s image, it means nothing.

Since all of this is completely true and despite their apparent simplicity, effective graphic design is not created randomly or by chance.  When designs are simple they are well created – they last indefinitely.

“Any fool can make things complicated, but it takes a genius to make things simple”  E.F. Schumacher

In this month and for the rest of the year, how will you KISS?

How To: Mod the Twitter Widget with PHP

The Problem: If you are using the standard Twitter widget on your website (available here), you may want to use only one set of code because the styling is included inline. The issue here comes in when you need different widths or number of tweets, depending on the widget’s location (home page versus sidebar, for example).

The Tools:

The Solution:

1. Initial formatting:Go to the Twitter site and style your widget as close to what you’d like to end up with.  Copy and paste this code into your preferred text editor and save the file as twitter.php into your site/theme directory. If you are using a PHP-based Content Management Systems like WordPress, skip to step 2 now.  Otherwise, locate the files where you would like to add your Twitter widget. Open them in your text editor and save them as .php files. Make sure you update any links to the page to the new extension.

What does this do? PHP is a server-side script and the basis for many CMS. We will be using it to incorporate the Twitter widget, as well as to apply conditional formatting.

2. Include your widget.Open your theme or file location in your text editor and navigate to where you’d like to include your widget. Insert the following line:<?php include 'twitter.php';?>

What does this do? Include is a PHP function that does literally what it says, includes the called file within the other, so they blend together seamlessly before heading to the user’s browser so they end up as one page. This is different than include_once –which, as it states, only calls the code once–or require –which stops the script if there is an error, as opposed to just displaying a warning.

3.  Add the PHP script. This is where there’s some deviation, depending on what CMS you’re using or not. I will be addressing WordPress and static sites in this post. In both cases, we will be formatting the width and the number of  Tweets to display depending on whether it’s on the homepage or not.

Open twitter.php in your text editor.  Locate the lines defining rpp and width and modify them thus:

rpp: <?php echo $rpp; ?>
width: <?php echo $width; ?>

Echoing PHP prints it out as text browser. Because PHP runs server-side, these variables will be output as text before the javascript starts. If you try to test the page now, it will not work because the we have not set the variables yet. We will be setting it so the homepage displays 5 Tweets in a width of 313px and the other instances display 3 Tweets with a width of 330px.

WordPress: WordPress provides conditional formatting already, so we will be utilizing that. This is the code that works for WordPress. Place it at the top of your twitter.php file. (This has been tested in 3.3.1, but should be backward compatible for a ways as well.)

 

<?php

if (is_front_page()){ $width=”313″; $rpp=”5″; }

else{$width=”330″; $rpp=”3″;}

?>

 

Non-CMS based: Because we are outside a CMS, we will need to use a different method. What we will be doing here is seeing if the file name is index.php or not. (Obviously, if you have your home page set to another page, you will need to use that page instead.)


<?php

if (basename($_SERVER[‘REQUEST_URI’])==”index.php”){ $width=”313″; $rpp=”5″; }

else{$width=”330″; $rpp=”3″;}

?>

If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments.  If you are interested in learning more, I am offering tutoring services especially in PHP and WordPress.