Client Information Archives - Ramirez Creative Solutions

What Does Your Contract Protection Look Like?

When I first went into business for myself, I was a year into my Associate’s degree, and we began to talk about contract protection in my project management class. We were given a stack of contracts, and were told to create a contract using these as a template. My final contract was about half a page long. I thought this contract was the best contract in the world, and I was now protected from all the unnecessary evils of the business world. Boy was I wrong. I had a lawyer read over it for me. Now granted he wasn’t a contract lawyer, he was an immigration lawyer, but even he said, “You might want to beef it up.” Throughout the years, I have beefed up that contract, but only because I’ve had bad experiences. If it wasn’t for those bad experiences, I would have never knew that there were cracks in my armor.

Your Contract Protection is like a Knight’s Armor

Imagine a knight riding into battle without his armor, if you see this, your first thought is probably, “This guy is toast.” A business without the proper contract protection will lose more than money. All contracts have specific attributes. Each attribute in a contract has certain protections. For example, your terms and conditions section is designed to develop a basis or standard between you and the client, so that nobody is left in the dark about what is happening in the life of the project that you are working on. Maybe if you’re like me, you’ll make it a point to have a services and prices section in your contract, so there is no confusion about these things, when you send your customer your invoice. Whatever the terminology you use to bring attention to a certain aspect of the operation of your business, it all serves its purpose.

Building Contract Protection Through Experience

Like I said before, if it weren’t for some of the bad experiences I had while running my business, I would never knew to protect for these problems. It is a hard pill to swallow, but most us have to learn the hard lessons, by actually going through them. I don’t welcome them, but I’m thankful for them. If nothing in the life of your business ever went wrong, there would never be a need to re-evaluate so you can do things better. Adversity in life causes us to grow. Same thing in business and the good thing in business is that if you grow mentally, then your pockets are likely to grow as well. This is a great benefit of choosing to not be defeated. You will take your lumps and bruises in business, but those lumps and bruises will cause you to guard yourself in the future.

Without Proper Contract Protection Businesses Fail

Businesses have been around for thousands of years. Even when written contracts weren’t always the standard practice, oral agreements were made. One day though, someone got smart and decided to write the agreement down, and have both parties sign it. This signing is a declaration of proper work values and expectations between the contractor and the person receiving the services. This contract also keeps both parties honest without tipping the scale. Granted there are some contracts made to manipulate or exploit the ignorance of the buyer, but most contracts are made to keep both parties protected. Good contract protection will not allow the contractor to jerk the customer, and will not allow the customer to jerk the contractor.

Conclusion

Without proper Contract Protection most businesses will fail. Unfortunately, it usually takes a business to hit a couple of rough experiences to learn how to protect themselves. Fortunately though with the proper contract protection, most businesses will be covered under many circumstances, and will proceed to see ongoing success. Proper Contract Protection is a small part of the big picture, but it is a necessary tool for the progression of your business. Along with submission of your contract, we must follow up with customers about our expectations, and have good business practices, so that we give no opportunity for anybody to try and come against our businesses.

Feel free to discuss, and as always God Bless!

Customer Communication: The Key To Success

Did you know that most businesses though they promise, fail to have valid customer communication? I’m pretty sure you’ve experienced this as a buyer. You’ve purchased something from a company only to deal with an automated teller or operator, and find yourself to be frustrated with the experience because you can’t talk to someone that’s human. How many times are you going to go back to this company if you never have any human interaction with them, especially if you have some technical issues with the product or service? It’s absolutely ludicrous to try to run a business with customers not having human interaction with the company.

How Shall We Communicate?

As business owners we should communicate with our general public, they are the ones that pay our bills and paychecks. Customers want to feel like they have a genuine and personal relationship with the company that they are doing business with. Granted, they deserve the right to have a personal relationship with you as a business. Right Relationships are key to developing a successful conversion rate in your business. I’d rather have 10 loyal clients to me, not only because the service is great, but they know they are dealing with an upright gentleman, and they are ecstatic to do business with me. Did you know that if you have a loyal clientele, they will refer you to people that are as like-minded as themselves, then you will build on your loyal customers. Some customers will not refer you though no matter how good you are, simply for the fact that they don’t want to share you with anybody, and that’s quite alright if that’s their stance, you should feel honored. You see making money in the business, though it’s necessary, shouldn’t be the number one goal. Creating a client should be your number one goal, because if you create a client, then you will hit the gold vein which is called, “Residual Income!”

No Customer Communication Creates a Rocky Presence

Let me tell you a little story. I was doing some graphic design work for a customer about 6 months ago, and he wanted to order some 3-layer carbon copy forms. No problem! The only problem was that I’ve never ordered this particular item before, so what I had to do was to find a supplier that would give me commercial rates. So immediately, I went to the ever famous Google, you can find everything on Google, right? Well I did. I found a supplier of the carbon copy forms, the prices were great, and they did exactly what I needed. What made this even better is that I didn’t have to search for them, they were the number one ranked page in Google for NCR Forms, I was ecstatic. So I created an account, placed my order, and paid for it directly. I received an initial email stating what I had paid for. One week goes by – no confirmation email stating the product has been received for printing or that the product has been shipped. By this time my customer is getting extremely antsy, because he needed the product way before he chose to use me to order these forms. So I told him to cover myself that it might be 10 to 14 days to receive the product, so that calmed his anxiety quite a bit, still a little frustrated, just as I was, but I didn’t let him know I was frustrated. Ten days go by, still no confirmation, still no product. I begin calling this company repeatedly, leaving messages, sending emails, and they never responded back. They didn’t even have a customer service line, it just went to voicemail. So finally, I came to the conclusion that this was a fraudulent company, contacted my bank to dispute the transaction, and received my money back. The major problem now was that I had a customer that still needed his NCR Forms like yesterday, and now we still don’t have any order in progress. So what I did is I remembered a company that I did business with before, I contacted them, they had what I needed, but their prices were higher than I had originally told the customer, so I had to contact the customer and explain the situation to him. So he had to pay more money for something that I told him would be half of the price, I couldn’t charge any more for the product, I had to eat the price, and basically did this job for free, and because of this I haven’t heard from the customer again.

The Moral of The Story Is…

The moral of the story is, don’t trust every company with a nice website and great prices. Call this company, and make sure you talk to somebody about your needs, and your concerns, so that you build a business relationship with the company that you want to work with. When you visit a company’s website, make sure you look for tell-tale signs of validity. If a company’s prices are too good to be true, they have misspellings in their content, and you can’t get in contact with them, then I wouldn’t risk doing business with them. I hope that you guys can learn from my bad experience, and this is why I share this with you. Even if you don’t desire to have a relationship with the business, at least contact them to know who you’re dealing with personally. I hope this helps.

God Bless!

Bad Websites Create An Invisible Audience

It’s inevitable to know that bad websites will create an invisible audience. Most people believe that if they can just get a website online, then their business will start to bloom. Well chances are, that if your website is not giving the potential customer a call to action, then you won’t earn customers. If your website is horrendous, it’s going to serve as a direct representative of your actual work. Don’t be a victim of bad websites, you want to have a website that not only looks good, but has a healthy conversion rate. Let me explain.

What’s The Point of Having a Website?

Granted if you’ve paid for something as a business, then you want to see a return. It’s an investment right? Understand what you are getting a website for. What is the actual need? Why is it important? What should my website do for me to create revenue for this business? These are questions that I ask myself every day, and these are questions that you should ask yourself, when you are in the market for a website. Even if you already took the website adventure, and you’re in the market for a redesign, do your homework. Having a website means that you have an online representation. Once you have a website online, you have just given your business an identity, a heartbeat. It’s alive. Be careful though, because as easy as it was to make it alive, it could lose its life without the proper maintenance and continued vision for the website. You have to nurture and care for your website like it’s your baby. Technically it is your baby. It’s your job to make it grow, or work with your web developer so that he can make it grow. Your web developer will serve as your professional gardener. The smart thing to do for your website, after you’ve developed the vision for your website, and have put that vision into code, is to now re-evaluate your website on a regular basis. Capitalize on the good that you see coming from the website, and make changes to tackle your efforts for damage control.

Nobody Hits the Ball Out of the Park the First Time!

By reevaluating your website regularly, you’ll be able to see and to know what has worked and what hasn’t. Do yourself a favor, and scan your competitor’s websites. See how they are advertising. How do they draw attention to their prices? How do they introduce their products or services? If you study the people that have done things before you, then you are most likely not going to make the same mistakes as they have. You want a winning formula, so study those that have a winning formula. Work with other entrepreneurs to see how they manage their business through their website, and take notes. No matter what field it is in, business is business. As your website grows, continually add to it, build it up like it’s a strong tower, because again this is the identity of your business. Before a potential customer calls you, they are most likely going to scout your business through the internet. A bad website is like not having one at all. Matter of fact, it’s probably better not to have a website, then to have a bad website. At least, if you don’t have a website, then you can gain customers through good word of mouth, but bad websites will deter customers from using your services because of the quality. The quality of your website should measure the quality of your actual work.

How Do You Track Your Website Efforts?

There are plenty of tools to track your website efforts. I prefer Google Analytics because with Google Analytics it will show you where your traffic is coming from, what links they clicked on, what operating system their using, what countries their coming from. Google Analytics is the best free tool out there to track your website efforts. It talks about bounce rate? Your bounce rate is how long a visitor stays on your website. It tracks new visitors to returning visitors. How many pages are visited per visit. It tells you how many actual page views you have, and it will break down the actual source links for you so that you can know where your traffic is being driven from. If you don’t have google analytics attached to your website right now, you are missing out on a vital part of your business. In order to evaluate your business, you have to be able to have a measuring point to compare it to. Google Analytics gives you this measuring point so that you can track your success or lack thereof.

Conclusion

Bad websites will murder a company’s internet marketing campaign. Make your website work for you. Partner with your web developer so that they can help you strategize to attack your target market. This is a war, and you are at war against the search engines. In order to win, you have to put in the work to manipulate the search engines to bite on your Search Engine Optimization efforts. If your SEO is in place, it will make your website a lot more successful. Allow your web developer to help you with this, so that you don’t get stuck trying to manage your website, but you become the brains behind the strategy.

God Bless!

Bridging The Gap Between Being a Consumer vs. a Business Owner

How do you bridge the gap between being a consumer vs. a business owner? Well ask yourself, which one are you? If you are out in public shopping for your household, technically you are a consumer, but no matter where you are, you are still a business owner as well. As a business owner, you can’t write off your household groceries to feed your family, but you do pay your salary. So how do you separate the two? Prayerfully, I can help give you an understanding what the difference looks like being and acting like a consumer and operating as a business owner.

A Consumer State of Mind

When you have a consumer state of mind, you will think like a consumer, measure facts and figures like a consumer, you will buy and purchase as a consumer. As a consumer, all these things work to your benefit, because like most families we all operate on some kind of budget. Budgeting is good, but it’s this same consumer mentality that will cripple you when you are handling your business expenses. Business Owners don’t compare fact and figures like consumers, a smart business owner will go with the service that’s going to benefit the business in the best possible way, regardless of the price. Business owners worry about the overall picture when developing a business, rather than looking at the price tag of a particular item. Now I’m not saying that business owners are so frugal, that they just throw money away. I’m saying that spending money as a business is a concentrated and calculated move, just like playing chess. When militaries go to war, they don’t go to war without counting the cost first. No military will go to war, if they think that they are going to lose. As a smart business person, you should be a smart investor, and don’t jump on every band wagon that moves, but calculate your investment, so that you can pursue increase.

The Small Business Reality

As a small business, the economy is counting on you being successful. Success comes by submitting yourself to God, and trusting that the plan that has been set before you is designed for your benefit. As a small business owner, it is beneficial for you to work with other small businesses to increase your revenue. Big business works with big business to increase their revenue to hi-jack the pockets of the consumer, but small businesses should work with other small businesses to help the consumer balance their budgets. We all are in business for a reason, and that reason is to make money. Business is business. We should be well aware of the companies we partner with, and what they stand for, and what their motives are as businesses. If you have partners that are like minded, then you will build an alliance that can’t and won’t be broken by the economy, or anything else that this world tries to throw at you. Being a small business is one of the scariest liberations that there is. Not only are you in control of what your profit is, but you also are responsible for every aspect of what the IRS considers an entity. This means that you’re business has a physical existence. So you are in charge of a mini-empire. Scary, right? Well it should be encouraging to change the way you think and feel about the way you do business.

Conclusion

The truth is that most small businesses fail in the first 5 years. That is a stereotype. Weak-minded people cannot run businesses. You have to be strong-minded, long-winded, motivated. As a business owner, you are the CEO, the accountant, the marketer, the recruiter, the receptionist, the administrator, and the janitor. One thing you are not is a consumer. You are a Small Business Owner, and you are on a track to success. I want to encourage you to separate yourself from the Consumer State of Mind, and focus on being business minded. I’ve said this before, but study other businesses, pick up on their business model. If it works for them, it can work for you. Big Business has incredible business models that Small Business Owners can adopt into our own work practices, it might just make us successful!

GOD BLESS!

Print Advertisement is Good Advertisement

Print Advertisement is Good Advertisement, You know why? It puts something physical into the customers’ hands that tell them about your product or services. I’m sure you know this, but do you know that most of the time your print advertising goes into the trash without being looked at. Matter of fact, to see any results from your printing efforts you want to circulate your printed material 3 times to the same audience. These are things I want to make sure you know as business owners that your money is valuable, and to know that it’s almost valuable enough to spend it, just to throw it away. Let me explain!

Advertising By Throwing Money Away

You are probably saying this guy is out of his @%#!@ mind! The truth is, how many times did you apply for a job, not to hear anything from that respective employer. Resumes are your personal printed advertisement, and if it doesn’t appease the needs of whoever is running the HR Department, then you get the trash can. Same Concept! You put a lot of time and energy into your resume and you want to be consistent and almost unbearable, that you cause a response. The thing is that you are not speaking; it is your marketing materials that are speaking for you. So don’t stress if you don’t get a response, because you’ve already made the first step, by making yourself visible. Send out a second wave of marketing materials. Chances are these are going to get thrown away as well. That’s okay! You have just modeled persistency. This time send out a third wave, and it is most likely, there still will be some materials thrown in the trash, but most likely, someone will see your consistency, and persistency, that they will at least inquire about your services. By this time, you might have sent out about 1000 pieces of material, and you might get 8-10 responses with the probability of 2 to 3 customers. 1 Customer should be able to cover your investment, and the other 2 are just cherries on the cake.

Knowing When To Advertise

As a business owner, you should always have business cards on hand, readily accessible and available. You might be in situations where you have 30 seconds to sell yourself, and hand out your literature. *Side Note* Make sure you exchange information; don’t just put the ball in their court to call you. Be Proactive. If you have their information, then you can follow up with them. Secondly, when advertising yourself through print materials, you have to know what print materials would be suitable for your potential customers. You can have your business name printed on anything for any reason whatsoever, but that doesn’t mean you should. You have to know your avenues. If you have a work truck, then invest the money into getting some vinyl done to advertise your name and your services, this will pay for itself, and it’s great advertisement, because people like to read while they drive. If you have coupons and specials, then it would probably be a good idea to saturate the local area with your coupons, either by mail marketing or hire a team of individuals, like some neighborhood kids to go through the area with you and to give door to door flyers. Any way that you choose, be creative. The thing is know that if you have a concept for your business, then you need to advertise it in order to make it work. Don’t just advertise on Social media or your website, but advertise through print marketing. Take responsibility for your success.

Conclusion

Get with your graphic designer, hopefully you have one on hand, and explain to them what you want, and they will create some incredible print advertising for you. If you don’t have a graphic designer that you can call on to do your work for you, then I suggest you get one. A good graphic designer will make your business look professional, experienced, and trustworthy. If you are serious about your business, don’t just throw something together and do it yourself, because I promise you, it won’t drive the customer base that you want. Invest in your business, and be willing to get the right graphics for your marketing material that will stimulate a potential customer’s interest.

God Bless!

Free Websites Are Headaches for the Consumer

Warning: To anyone searching for free websites, you will find what you are looking for, and you will get what you pay for. In my years of developing websites, I’ve had the unfortunate opportunity of scrapping many free templates for a more effective website. Though I’ve made money on these ventures, which is always a plus, but it burdens me, that companies will sell a hosting service to a customer, and then give them a free website builder. It’s criminal because most customers don’t know what they are doing, so when they’re done, the website will be horrendous. Secondly, they are stuck to that layout, which stifles their creativity. Thirdly, the company will then charge the consumer for layout changes and separate themes. So my point is, that if you are serious about your business, then you should be serious about avenues that you take to advertise it as well. If you have a template builder that you just plug your information into, chances are, there is probably 100 other people with that same free website template within your demographic.

Be Willing to Invest in Your Website

When you think about advertisement, you think of business cards, flyers, posters, anything that you get printed to display to the public. Well, this is true, print advertisement is good advertisement. Your website is part of your advertisement as well. The same way you invest money into your print advertising is the same way you should be willing to invest in your website. Count it as an investment, because with investments you should see some kind of return, Correct? If your website is designed properly, it should be able to expose you to the public enough that you at least have people signing up for an email list, which will be potential customers.

Determine What You Are Willing to Invest

Set yourself a budget aside for your website. The same way you budget your bills, roll your website into your bills as part of your business expenses. Don’t be afraid of the price, most of the time you are not paying the whole bill up front. Most companies will take half up front and half when the job is finished. Your best bet is to go with companies that have design packages, so not only are you getting your website designed, you are also getting some other benefits with the package, such as logo design or some initial Search Engine Optimization done, and etc. Once you are willing to invest, then you’ve already bridged the gap from consumer to business owner.

Do What You Do Best

Whether you know what you want, or you are not sure, do what you do best, and that is run your business. The reason you chose to hire a web developer to develop your website is because 1.) You probably felt overwhelmed with the whole web design thing. 2.) You don’t have time to work on a website or to manage it. 3.) It was just easier to go with a professional. Trust me, there’s nothing worse than being disgruntled with any aspect of your business, because it makes you disgruntled in other aspects of your business. If you are disgruntled, it’s probably because you are trying to tackle a project that isn’t in your skill set. Someone along the way said that doing “this certain thing” would be a great idea, and they were probably right. What they failed to mention was that they didn’t do it all by themselves, they had help. Be willing to outsource the things that you don’t know how to do, so that you can concentrate on the daily operations of your business.

Conclusion

As you can see, trying to upkeep a free website could be your worst nightmare. You will lose sleep, with how much time and effort it is taking you to build and construct this website, and it’s not as beautiful as you want it to be. After you finished it really is just a website, and it’s not doing anything for you. Hire a professional. Sit down with them, and tell them what websites you have seen that you like. What things you would like to see in your website, and what you hope that your website can do for you. Sky is the limit. I hope this helps retrain your thought process on why free websites are probably not the best idea. I pray I help save you from a future headache, and I encourage you to hire somebody to take care of your website for you.

God Bless!

Traffic Jams & Social Media Gridlock

In order to have Social Media Gridlock that means there has to be some kind of workflow stoppage. Is social media working for you? Are you seeing an increase in page hits on your website because of Social Media? If the answer is “No”, let’s identify the problem. There are probably going to be 5 Main Reasons that Social Media Gridlock occurs, let’s discuss them!

1. Simply Not Taking Advantage of Social Media

Just by opening an account on Social Media alone can increase the opportunity for more website traffic. Once you open up an account, then you are immediately qualified to submit information to millions of users. Take advantage of it, you will never know how much it will help you, if you never try it out.

2. Posting Irrelevant Information to Your Followers

Think about yourself, are you going to read something that has nothing to do with you? Neither are your followers. When you are posting information, no matter what social media platform it is, make sure that your information is relevant to your followers. Nothing is worse, then being spammed with a whole bunch of information that has nothing to do with you. Find your outlets, if you are posting information that might not be relevant to all your followers, so up some kind of follower list or group, so that it can only be seen by those who would be interested in your post.

3. Engaging with Your Followers

When you have a group of followers the most courteous thing to do is follow them back. At least they feel valued enough by you, that you followed them back, if not, your follow list will continue to be low and shallow. Be interesting. Don’t just post your agenda. As a business, you might have a post schedule, Good! You should. Don’t just post your blogs or your marketing post and expect to see some kind of response. To tell you the truth, the public can care less about your product or service. If a person doesn’t feel comfortable with you as a person, then chances are they’re not going to do business with you anyway. Relate with your followers; engage with them in conversation, talking about issues that interest them. As you do this, take a mental or physical survey, how people feel about certain topics so that you can measure what interest your followers and what doesn’t, so you can continue to post topics that draw the attention of your readers.

4. Posting Without Links Back to Your Website

If you’re posting posts that don’t have direct links back to your website, then you are wasting your time on Social Media. As a business, your time is valuable; you don’t have the time to just randomly post remarks that do nothing for your business. As a business the best way to bring traffic back to your website is by writing blogs, and posting these blogs on a regular basis. You guys have heard me say this before, but it is vital. If your posts don’t contain a back link to your website, then your time spent is pointless. The whole point of Social Media as a business is to drive traffic back to your website. If you are not accomplishing this with your posts, then you should be re-evaluating. You might ask, well how can I know where my traffic is coming from. There are plenty of free services out there that can help you with this. Google Analytics is an excellent and specialized tool that will not only tell you where your traffic is coming from, it’ll tell you what pages they clicked on, what browser their using, what country it’s coming from, it’s an incredible resource, I recommend it to all businesses that are trying to track their traffic.

5. Being an Absentee

As a poster, you have to be consistent. Don’t post an extreme amount of post one day and then disappear for a week. It doesn’t do anything for your social status. If you know that you are going to have a busy day or busy couple days, then schedule some relevant post with free programs like www.timely.is, at least to make it look like your available. Not posting is a good way to lose followers, and to lose the interest of those who choose to still follow you.

Conclusion

If you can follow these 5 simple steps, I guarantee that the traffic on your website will start to increase. Don’t be satisfied with the traffic you already have, there can always be more. Be aggressive in your attempts to bring traffic to your website, and however you choose to do it, be consistent. If you don’t have the time, hire a content manager to take on these tasks for you. You will be amazed at the results, and you’ll start to see that traffic is starting to turn into income.

God Bless!

Do My Graphics Compliment or Compromise My Content?

One question you should ask yourself when putting your website together is, “Do my graphics compliment or compromise my content?” Compliment vs. Compromise in the world of web design will effect what Google Analytics describes as “Bounce Rate.” Your Bounce Rate is how long a visitor visits your website. If your graphics compliment your content and your content compliments your graphics, then most likely visitors are going to visit your website longer. Granted, if your graphics have nothing to do with your content, or they’re just not innovative or cutting edge, then most likely that potential customer that you worked to get to come to your website will, “Bounce!” I’m going to talk about these two very important roles that should co-exist in the life of your website.

1. Professional and Relevant Content Writing

The content on your website should be standardized by the leading specialist in your certain field. So suppose you owned a carpet cleaning company, your research for your content writing would be on companies such as Stanley Steemer and Chem-Dry. You want to study what your top competitor is doing in order to write your content. You don’t want to be totally out in left field while your top competitor is steadily gaining new clients. The reason why your top competitor is your top competitor is because they have a formula that works. So as you begin to write your content, you want to use the same buzz words that the competitor is using, and ultimately these buzz words should double as your keywords to help with your search engine optimization. There’s nothing new under the sun, and there’s no business that hasn’t already been done or thought of. Your services are probably going to be very similar to what your competitor is offering, so study their work.

2. Graphics That Adhere Your Content

When you’re communicating the look and feel of your website to your web developer, they should have enough common sense and knowledge in graphic design to find or create pictures that are relevant to your topics or services. Not only do you want relevant graphics, but you want your graphics to act as an adhesive, tying the two together to create a marriage between content and graphics. Without graphics on website, your content would look like one long run-on sentence. This would work, if people were information first. Unfortunately, people have short attention spans, and like dogs, we need to see the shiny object in order for us to run towards it. Instead of this being a problem, this is part of the solution, because it gives you and your web developer the opportunity to be creative. We were created to create, we have divine revelation, and creative integrity written into our DNA, so use it. Be as creative as possible, without being overwhelming. The same way that you study the competitors website for content, see how they are using their graphics to marry their content, so not only does the content tell the story, but the graphic speaks as well. There should be no reason why your website should look and feel like it stepped out of the 1990’s. With evolving software like Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator, your web developer should be able to create some graphics that separate you from the competition. You and your competition should be running a leg to leg race. Don’t allow the competition to have the upper hand, study their work once again, and then be innovative and unique in your approach. As long as you have dreams and ambitions for the success of your business, then your ideas should come by the handful. Don’t think because you are not an artist or a graphic designer that you don’t know what you want. Sketch out some ideas, verbalize it, and a good graphic designer will be able to capture your vision, and supply you with a physical copy of your idea.

God Bless!

5 Valuable Tips to Increase Your SEO Ranking

When developing a website, one of the first things you should have in mind is, “What is my game plan for the SEO Ranking of this Website?” Most likely, the first question that a customer usually asks before having a website designed is, “Am I going to be able to be found?” The answer to this question is conditional. It could be “yes” based on the amount of work you as the customer are willing to do, or it could be “probably not” if you’re not willing to update your information on a regular basis.

1. Keeping Your Information Fresh

The best way to keep your information fresh, is for you to make up your mind, and say that I’m willing to do what it takes. So if you’re willing to do what it takes, then the same blog that you are reading now, is what you will do to keep massive amounts of information coming to your website. What if you’re not a strong writer? There are individuals called Content Managers and this is what they specialize in, is Content Management, writing and editing information. The best person for this job is probably the same person that developed your website.

2. Why Is It Important To Blog?

Not only does blogging keep massive amounts of information coming to your website on a regular basis, but blogging keeps relevant information coming to your website on a regular basis. Blogging relevant information to your website is significant, because it increases the amount of keywords that are in your website. When your web developer develops your website, he should develop a keyword or key phrase list that will be imbedded in the source code of your website. The more times these keywords or key phrases appear in the content of your website, the higher the possibility of your website ranking within the search engines.

3. Driving Traffic To Your Website

Once you’ve established a writing schedule for your blogs, once a week, twice a week, once a month, then you are going to start posting links to your blogs via social media. I truly believe as a business, that social media makes blogging all worthwhile. Every time you blog and you post these blogs through Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, you are creating what is called back links. Back links are exactly what they’re called, links that lead back to your website. This starts to create traffic. With back links available, this increases the validity of your website. The more back links that you can get back to your website, the more your traffic will increase. Thus, increasing the possibility of your website ranking within the search engines.

4. Video and Picture Tags

You may ask, “Is there any way that I can label my pictures and videos, that would help my SEO Ranking?” Absolutely! With pictures and videos you can add titles and alt tags to them to make them SEO friendly. Your title tag is going to be the label of the picture when someone rolls over it, and your alt tag is what will show, if the picture doesn’t show when being viewed on the browser.

5. Basic SEO Rules

When the search engine spiders or robots are scanning through your website, there are some basic things that they are looking for. Side Note* If there is a whole bunch of useless code in the header of your website, then it will take the search robots too long to get to the content of your website resulting in a low SEO Ranking. That’s why it’s important to use external style sheets and external files for your javascript and jquery files.* The first thing that the search engine robots should see is your list of keywords or key phrases and your meta-description. Secondly, your keywords and key phrases should be used in your heading tags. Naturally, the order of importance matters based on the chronological order of the heading tags, with H1 being the most important, and H6 being the least important. Then after you enter your heading tags, you want to make sure that your content is saturated with your keywords and/or key phrases.

Conclusion

So as you can see, developing SEO for your website isn’t just one thing, but a group of things working together to help create a ranking for your website. Working together with your web developer to help you manage these task, will help your website begin to appear in the search engine rankings. If you do these things continuously, then you are setting your website up for a very successful campaign, and more importantly increasing your public visibility. Warning: Do not get complacent or satisfied with where you are currently ranked, because chances are, you won’t be there next week!

God Bless!

Great Logos Drive Clientele & Income

Logos are a dime a dozen. Logos come and logos go, but Great Logos will last a lifetime. Some logos have become timeless, for instance, the McDonald’s logo, when you see this logo, or even your kids see this logo, they know it is McDonald’s. McDonald’s Logo is so popular now, that they have removed the company name from the bottom of the logo. That is logo staying power, and this is just one example of how logos stand the test of time. This blog is not only for logo designers, but business owners who need a logo, or have a logo and are not happy with it. Hopefully business owners will say, “I really need a professional to design a timeless logo for me.” Hopefully this blog will also challenge logo designers, including myself to say, “When I create this logo, will it represent this business 50 years from now?”

1. Brainstorming With The Client

Creating logos for customers sometimes can be hair-pulling, but be patient with them, and coach them into understanding what they need and what they want. Pick a time to sit down with them, and create some open ended questions, that cause them to respond with descriptive answers. Don’t worry though, not all customers need coaching. Proactive customers will already have 2 or 3 designs pieced together with some clipart they found on google. If a customer is proactive enough to take the time to figure out what they want, then blow their mind with what you produce, based on their mock-ups.

2. The Decision Process

When creating your logo, you must first make the decision, whether it’s going to be a text logo, a picture logo, or a combination of both. It doesn’t really matter which one you choose, just know that the logo’s presentation is dependent upon how unique it is, and this should set it apart from others. Rule of Thumb: All logos must work in black and white first, before adding color. If it doesn’t work in black and white, then it’s not a good logo. The reason why is because logos should be able to look good on all platforms, including news print. For this reason, it is also good to have more than one version of the finished logo.

3. Beginning To Illustrate

Personally, when I begin to create a logo, if I’ve decided on an image that is going to represent this company, then I’m going to draw it. Freehand is not my specialty, but the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator is incredible. So what I tend to do is find an image on google, and trace it, then create the logo around it. Once you’ve illustrated your logo, then you’re going to transfer the logo into photoshop to stylize it. In order to accomplish this affectively, all the elements of the logo must be created in layers, so that you can transfer them into photoshop individually.

4. Stylizing the Logo

Stylizing your logo is going to be the last step in the logo making process. You want to be careful though, stylizing a logo for the web is different than stylizing a logo for print. When you stylize a logo for the web, basically anything goes, for example, drop shadows, strokes, bevels, glows, etc. When you stylize a logo for print, you can use your bevels, and strokes, but be very gradual with your glows, and very subtle with your drop shadows. Drop shadows don’t print well, so you only want to add enough drop shadow to make the logo pop to give it that 3-D effect. As we talked about in the illustration phase of the logo, putting your effects and drop shadows on your individual pieces of the logo, really give it that professional edge.

5. Conclusion

Creating logos is a process that’s been around for ages, no matter what name it has gone by. Whether it was called Hieroglyphics or the King’s Coat of Arms or branding animals through blacksmith, these were all forms of logos in the past. Logo Design is not going anywhere, just getting more innovative. Ultimately, you want a logo that has staying power, and to be a logo that people on a broad scale recognize your business by. Be creative and coach the customer. If you’re a customer, be willing to receive coaching, so that you and your logo designer can come up with a logo that both of your are proud of.

God Bless!