Check out our work on this wordpress website Wallfrog designed for Hi-Tech Fabricating. It is both desktop and mobile responsive. It has great images, info and “calls-to-action”.
Their previous website was antiquated and did not properly highlight their experience, skill, machines and projects.
Hi-Tech Fabricating is located in Cheshire, CT and have been based in Connecticut since 1981.
What We as Web Designers and Marketers Learned in 2015
1. Be Social – Customers Like Businesses Who Are Active Online
Social Media is not going anywhere. Nobody can predict the future but as it sits Social Media is becoming more and more powerful for businesses. Like it or not it is here to stay and from what we have observed this year, those businesses who have embraced Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Linked In at the very least has experienced great success by expanding their reach. Take any business that is reluctant to jump into the Social Media arena, have them do it whole-heartedly for a year and then re-evaluate their situation and reach. First and foremost a customer ready to do business with that business notices that they are active and responsible for their daily posts of progress especially with Facebook. This in the eyes of the customer shows dedication and quality towards the business. It shows that they are busy and most importantly sought after. Everyone wants things done yesterday so when you are not willing to wait for the best you tend to fall short of your expectations by hiring someone else who is not worthy of your business. For a business to understand this crucial piece to their business model is directly related to the success of their company. For some reason it is not easy to stay active because of all the deadlines, backlog and wearing too many hats but it literally only takes a few seconds from your phone to snap a photo and write a sentence about it. Facebook posts are searchable! Another great way to gain exposure on the internet in the eyes of the SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages) is to continually post. Make sure you mix it up by not only posting what you are doing but things that relate to your business that is useful to others. Sprinkle in something funny or clever and you have just created the recipe for Social Media success.
2 – Be True to Yourself – Focus on Your Craft or Product
Those businesses who reach for other ways to make money within their business seem to fall in a trap that is hard to get out of. When that bad month comes around and you are scrambling to pay your bills and employees, owners who get desperate seem to try to fill in the void by introducing a new product or service instead of streamlining the ones they already have. Most of the issues here are preparation. Those months that are notoriously slow for whatever reason need to either be made up buy using the funds from the busy months or find a way to market to those people during the slow months. This does not mean dropping all of your prices because that is a straight path to the bottom. Once you start discounting your work, clients and potential customers will catch wind of it and start to expect those kinds of deals throughout the year. This has somewhat of a backfire effect that is tough to recover from.
3 – Don’t Be Afraid to Turn Away Bad Business
By now you probably know who your ideal customers are. With this information you can cherry pick your jobs and steer away from the ones that will take advantage of you one way or another, try to change your process to fit their needs or become such a wedge in the sprocket that can shut things down to a halt. Your business has procedures that are put in place on purpose to help keep your business on track. Yes, there will always be exceptions but for the most part if a customer does not fit exactly in your business model it may not be a good fit. You can always try but you may find out the hard way that your customer cost you more than you made. In this case more procedures get put in place to try and screen this from happening again and again but it only takes a few mistakes in a row for a small business to feel the effects of some poor business decisions. Being successful means that you are always sharpening your pencil to become better and better at what you do or provide your customers while at the same time documenting the important tidbits along the way that will help keep you business well oiled throughout its journey. Unless your a franchise, nobody drops all of the solutions out of the air for you to follow or hand down the crystal ball. It takes time and experience to fall on your face and get back up and learn from those hazardous obstacles that can put a business in a bad place.
4 – Always Be Helpful and Accommodating – Know When to Stop and Always Get Paid for Your Expertise
Now and then you will run into a situation where a customer needs all kind of help or does not know where to start. Without consulting fees you can be led down a dark path of giving up all of your information that took you time and money to learn and perfect. You do not want to give away your trade secrets but enough information to make them understand that doing it on their own would take too much time out of their schedule which wouldn’t save them a lot of money at all. It will surely end up costing them more. Those who don’t have the money in the first place to pay for this information that you are handing over probably does not have the money to do it right in the first place. Most of your consulting from a business point of view should be aligned with your services as far as figuring out if you are a match for the business. Customer alignment is key in setting up expectations early in the relationship and building the trust right out of the gate. Far too many times does a customer do research on their own and find out the nuts and bolts that need to be done to accomplish their goals and then it comes time to hire someone to do what they just learned but never applied themselves. This is usually one of those red flags that you can see a mile away that it may not be a perfect fit for your business. If you have a great track record for helping your customers you should trust your instincts and continue to provide those products and services that you believe in and not fall off the beaten path or you will get beaten. When you as a business are helpful to the point that the customer understands what they are up agains and trust you to lead them down the right path, the appreciation skyrockets and they will benefit from your knowledge and recommendations all while getting paid for your expertise. Every hour in the day counts so every hour you are not getting paid is an hour you have to make up. They do add up and add up fast if you are not careful and you can’t get them back. The point we are trying to make is that if you are not getting paid one way or another for what you opened your business up for in the first place you are doing a big disservice to yourself and your team. Alway help a business if you are 100% sure it will flourish into paid business. Although you can’t guarantee that will happen all the time you have to know when to cut the ties before you enter the point of no return.
5 – Have Goals, Shoot for the Starts & Hold Yourself Accountable for Those Goals
If you don’t shoot high enough you will never make it. Always have goals that are unreachable, this way if you are trying to reach them you will find out that you are doing way better than if you had no goals at all. Just because you didn’t reach your goal it doesn’t mean you didn’t succeed, it means that you went the right direction. Every day is a fight to make it to the top, without that drive and passion the fight can and most likely will get lost. In order to not lose the fight, you as a business owner needs to identify any issues that get in the way of winning and figure out how to streamline processes and identify any inefficiencies. If you are doing things over and over again with no reward it may be time to sit down at the drawing board and automate some steps or purchase software to keep track of what you do manually. Use the tools on the internet. Rather than reinventing the wheel in may suck to spend $9.95 a month on a service that will save you hundreds of dollars or possibly thousands not to mention any wasted time that went along with it. Development costs are always hard to swallow but if you are taking 8 – 10 hours to quote a project and it is the same way over and over again you may want to invest in writing a program to take in a set of input values and have it spit out the answer in milli-seconds. We have seen several business bite the bullet and spend some time and money to automate some of their complicated quoting for products or services. They have not only saved money in the long run but they also were able to avoid giving away their products or services due to wiggle room for discounts. If you are winging your pricing you are probably losing every time because the customer has some room to negotiate. If you are willing to turn away business you will gain those who respect your pricing for what you do.
Conclusion
Make 2016 the year to embrace change and accept any mistakes you as a business owner have made. Learn from them and move on. There is nothing like ringing in a new year with a new attitude to do whatever it takes to survive and do what you love. You have come this far, do not give up and press the reset button as many times as it takes to get to where you want to be. Make good choices this coming year, each one matters no matter how small or how large. Being an entrepreneur is a gift and an honor. Make every second count!
Through the years as Google evolved and continued to dial in its algorithm, it became even more important to provide the search engine with high quality content that was engaging and useful. Writing content that is from the heart and through the eyes of the consumer is the best method for capturing the attention of the reader and increasing the probability of them taking action. By this we mean picking up the phone, clicking a button to be taken to a landing page or filling out a form. This is what we call a calculated conversion. From the moment a person enters in a search term to the point of contact with your business is the reason why SEO coupled with a few website design elements is the key to gaining more customers effectively.
SEO and Website Design are like peanut butter and jelly, they just go together. One without the other just doesn’t seem to work as well. For instance you can have 1000’s of visitors to your website but if you have no path for them to help them complete their decision you lost. On the flip side if you have an awesome graphic of your products or services along with a clean appetizing form to fill out and no website traffic you lost again. By creating the synergy your customers are searching for, your business has a better chance of increasing its leads and ultimately its sales. It does take time and money to continually build your SEO and website design elements to be able to accomplish this but once you have the recipe for success you can crank up the heat and amplify your results very easily. The trick is to predetermine what your customers are thinking about your products or services. As a business owner you may have a false understanding on how your customers are perceiving you. By discussing problems and recommending solutions on your seo website design that your customers can relate to will launch your results up the ladder.
1. Search Engine Optimization
2. Social Media Marketing
3. Press Releases
4. Creative Content
5. Blog
1. Mobile Friendly
2. Responsive Website Design
3. Creative Graphics
4. Calls to Action
5. Engaging Content
6. Simple Forms
7. Social Media Integration
8. Website Tracking
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The method behind applying all of these tasks in conjunction is required to get the opportunity to close a lead into a customer. That is what we all want but there is a price just like anything else. If you are a business owner who is reluctant to do what it takes and spend what it costs to do it right you can’t expect quality results. Those business owners spending a portion of their marketing budget to advance their web pages up the Google search ladder are experiencing extraordinary results which generates more revenue for the company by utilizing seo website design. With this new revenue the business owners have more money to continue creating that online presence that solidifies their authority in their industry online.
After years of planning your perfect business you’re finally ready to start creating a new brand around it. You come up with a unique name, tagline and start thinking about what the logo might look like. It’s time to hop on the computer and see what information google can provide you. You’re delighted to see many companies are running specials on logo design. $50.00 for 4 concepts and 6 revisions! That’s an unbelievably good deal right? Maybe these logo contest websites can help too. Only $5.00 and multiple designers will send logos that you can choose from. This is going to be easier than you thought. Heck, maybe you can take a crack at designing the logo yourself. After all, it’s your business and you know what it represents better than anyone else.
A good logo is simple, versatile, timeless, befitting and memorable. What I’m about to say may shock some people, but it does not matter if a logo reflects a business’s services. Apple does not have anything related to technology in their logo. Nike does not have a shoe in their logo. Ford does not have an engine, Starbucks does’t have a coffee and McDonalds doesn’t have food in their logo… (I can keep going) In reality the only thing a logo should be is clear and impressionable. This is why simple is so far from simple. It takes a ton of research, thought, creativity, restraint and discipline to create a proper logo. But I’m not here to talk about good logos.
Google search will provide you with a lot of ads for logo design services that are “great deals”. 50% off is great on your budget and I’m sure you’ll get similar quality as the other guys that are expensive. Why pay more? It’s only the face of your new business. The mark that will represent you as a legitimate and trust-worthy brand. The clearance rack seems like the perfect place to look around. Sure, you’re only going to get 50% of thought, effort, talent and time into your work, but you’ll save a lot of money for more important things.
Another awesome way to save yourself some cash is using a logo contest. You will see these websites on google as well. You pay a small fee and upload your design brief to the website. A handful of “designers” will be selected and create “logos” for you to review and select a winner. This is great because you get more than one designer working for you and only have to pay one. Because of the low budget and overall nature of this concept, your designs will have hardly any thought behind them. Your logo will more than likely be bought from a stock-imagery website for $1.00 and then manipulated slightly before having your company’s name slapped on it. These designers are obviously desperate for some extra cash. Probably because they can’t find real jobs with their skills. But none of that matters to us.
The best way to save money on a logo is to just design it yourself. Your son-in-law is pretty good at Photoshop Elements and is more than willing to help polish up your sketches. Plus it’s your business and you know what it represents better than anyone else. While your at it, you can start giving yourself physical exams every year and treating your aches and pains. Nobody knows your body better than you right? Not to mention you googled general medical practices so obviously don’t need a doctor anymore. Think about it.
In conclusion, there are plenty of ways to save a lot of money on your new logo design. If you care about your business however, you might want to reconsider any of these methods and put some faith into the serious designers out there. The ones who spent hard earned money at college studying design. The ones who wake up every day thinking about typefaces and whitespace. These people care more about your business and brand than you might assume. They eat, breathe and dream design. These people are recognized and employed for their talent and drive. It’s true that in most cases, you get what you pay for.
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Sr. Designer at Wallfrog
1. Keep Your Eyes Open: Listen to what people are talking about or are having problems with.
2. Be Different: Make sure you are not being redundant or monotonous.
3. Be Creative: Forecast information that will be shareable and viral in nature and you are sure to make an impression on your audience.
The ultimate goal is to get people to participate. Once they are hooked on a subject you are implanting marketing impressions in their minds and they are helping share them on Social Media. Once this happens you have created a culture that people want to be involved on or associated with.
You definitely want to stay neutral and steer clear of anything political, debatable, spammy or unethical content. Steer into interesting, readable and memorable messages that speak to your audience, not at them. Once you discover the magic for your business it will help raise the median on which your company stands on. By this we mean using Social Media Content as a platform to stay in the sites of your customers will increase the potential of them doing business with you. It is that simple. Try using a megaphone outside your business door. You may grab attention to those around you but that is it. Social Media is a digital megaphone that permeates through the internet and it is directly related to the content you provide.
Lastly, keep your content or subjects fresh. Since your words are limited be sure to use keywords instead of words that imply what you are talking about. Be specific and persuasive with your content and your message will go a long way. We use the 80/20 rule in creating posts. 80% should be geared to relevant information that adds value and authority and the remaining 20% should be supportive and promotional. Using these methods and tips should help you think about what you are writing before you write it and make sure it has a purpose. Everything matters so be sure to put some science and strategy behind your Social Media Content posts and you will be sure to make a difference in your results.
Facebook pages have evolved into almost a secondary website, and there is a lot more going on in the background than you may realize. No longer is it about posting to the audience you have already established from “liking” your page, but now drawing in new leads to convert and like your page. But how do you do this you may ask?
By building a Facebook landing page you can welcome new visitors who don’t necessarily know what you are all about or who you are. There is one goal of a landing page on Facebook, and that is to get the new visitor to click the “like” button on your page. The likelihood of non-fans liking your page increases when you encourage them to be more interactive with your brand through a landing page. Be creative, this is your one shot to make your visitor remember your Facebook landing page and click the “like” button. You don’t have to be a programmer or even a designer for that matter to set up a basic landing page on Facebook; however, should you hire someone who specializes in design not only will you have a strong visual landing page but a powerful working one that converts leads for you.
Get Inspiration for your Facebook Landing page from other successful pages
Create your image you want to display to the Facebook world that represents you
Implement the code or hire someone who specializes in setting this up for you
Set as default landing tab so new visitors see your landing page
Sketching is the starting point and one of the most important steps in the logo design process. It allows you to step away from the computer and really dive into the creative process, with a hands on approach.
Sketching Relaxes Your Brain
Sketching Sparks Creativity
Sketching Gets Every Idea Down
Sketching Is More About Concept, Not Details
Sketching Can Be Done Anywhere
There’s something about grabbing a pencil that you just can’t get by running to the computer and grabbing a mouse. By getting any and every idea that comes to your mind down on the paper, it allows you to move past the first thing that normally comes to mind, or the cliché choice.
In order to maximize your ideas during the sketching stage, it is always beneficial to start with a simple word or mind map. Take the project that you’re working on and list every single word that comes to mind. This will help you see past the blank page and spark some ideas that will generate into effective sketches.
For example, if you’re starting a logo for a window company, you can start by listing all the words that come to mind: window, house, glass, frame, sunshine, rain, clear, shiny, etc. If you can do this for at least 15 minutes, you’ll have a great starting point when it comes time to start sketching.
Sketching as part of the logo design process is too important to skip. It may seem like an extra step before jumping on the computer, but it will ensure that you have explored all options and will end up saving you time in the long run.