It’s pretty exciting when you take that first step toward improving your online presence by hiring a professional web design agency. To make the most of your time and money, however, you’ll want to prepare for your first meeting by familiarizing yourself with the materials you’ll need to get started.
To help you out, we’ve put together a checklist with pointers so you can hit the ground running and get your website live in a timely manner. Through our years of web development experience, we’ve learned that good prep is everything.
Getting Your Content Ready
Regardless of whom you’ve hired to design your website, you will need to compile content. Let’s start with images.
1. Photos of your business.
A good exterior shot that helps web visitors visualize your location is very helpful. While you’re at it, get a few interior shots as well. If you can’t afford a professional photographer for these (we highly recommend it if you can) be sure to use a camera that will take high quality pictures. The HDR setting on your iPhone might be ok depending on the lighting.
Speaking of lighting, for exterior shots, dusk is best. Known in the industry as magic hour, dusk gives you natural romantic lighting that is bright enough to show detail without being so bright as to overwhelm your picture. For interior shots, make sure you have nice, bright light that illuminates your place of business. The light should come from above or the side of the object, never from behind. You don’t want the actual light in your picture.
2. Employee Headshots
Again, professional shots are always best, but if that is not in the financial cards, then be sure to find a nice plain wall for everyone to stand against. A wall that is white, light gray or beige works well. Have everyone dress in a professional manner that’s appropriate for your industry. Tell them to look directly into the camera and give a little smile. Tip: don’t take super close up shots. You can always zoom in and crop later. If the picture is too tight, you have no room to work with.
3. Team Photo
In addition to individual headshots, a team photo is a nice asset to have. Follow the same rules as above, with good lighting and a plain, light background.
4. Product Images
Whether it’s purses, hardware or your chef’s signature dish, you will want some pictures of what you’re selling. These should also be taken against a clean, plain background with plenty of lighting. Take all of your pictures in the same manner so there is consistency. This technique allows your web designer to showcase your products against different Photoshop backgrounds as needed.
Working out the Copy
While you’re getting your images together, you’ll also want to work on the information your website needs to convey. Each web page will require headlines, secondary lines and general paragraphs. We recommend hiring a professional copywriter to put the final content together. Copywriters understand how to craft engaging content for the web, and they can be very valuable in helping your website sound as professional as it looks.
Your web design agency may have writers on staff or can usually recommend a freelancer. It’s worth looking into it. The cost of hiring a writer is often worth much less than the time you’ll spend trying to write content for your website. It’s harder than it looks.
Either way, you’ll want to outline the information that goes on each page. This will be very helpful to all parties involved—including the designer tasked with developing your site map. (More on site maps later.) Here’s how to do it.
1. Basic Contact Information
List out your address, emails, phone numbers, hours, social media URLs, etc. on one reference sheet. This will help ensure that all the contact information on your website is accurate and easily accessible to the designers.
2. Logo
Your web design company will need your company logo, preferably saved as a vector file. That means it has a .eps, .pdf, or ai extension. If you only have jpegs and pngs, these versions might be all right, but it would be better to reach out to the person who created your logo and obtain the original vector file.
3. Potential Pages
List out the pages you think you will need for your website. Start with the standard ones:
- Homepage
- About Page
- Team Page
- Services
- Contact
Then add pages pertinent to your business. For example, you might need a pricing page or a product page. For ideas, check out your competitors’ websites and see what kind of information they provide on their pages. If you offer different kinds of services, you may want to give each service its own page. This will help with search engine optimization.
4. Outline Content
Now that you have a list of pages, begin outlining the content that goes on each page. The simplest way to do this is to create a Word doc for each page, then add the information. For example, the about section could include your company history, mission and values. Nothing needs to be worded perfectly at this point—especially if you’ve hired a writer. You simply want to organize the facts.
For services, provide bullet points describing what each service includes. Highlight the advantages your services have over your competitors’ offerings. Keep in mind that your web design agency is not an expert in your industry, but you are. Tell them what information is important to showcase.
Outlining content at the outset is critical because it helps designers begin creating layouts for your website. If you have minimal content to share, that will lead to one design type. If you have a lot of necessary content, that will call for another type of layout. Content influences design—which is why we start here.
5. Slogans
If your company has a slogan or tagline, you will want to note this as well. If you don’t have one, you might consider developing a slogan. These short marketing phrases quickly communicate what your company is about to consumers—and they make for great headlines on the homepage. Your web design company can help develop this catchy phrase.
Time for Inspiration
Now that you have your images and content outlined, move onto the fun part: searching for inspiration. Browse the internet and find 5 sites you really admire. Write these URLs down along with notes detailing what you like about them. Maybe it’s the homepage. Maybe you prefer some navigation bars over others. Whatever feature attracted you, jot it down.
Similarly, find 5 websites you don’t like. List those URLs as well along with what you don’t want on your own site. Your web design company will be much better equipped to design a site you like if you are specific about your preferences up front. This will save oodles of time, too.
The Process
Take your images, content and sample sites to your initial meeting. Your web design company will love you for it. While procedures will vary across different agencies, here’s what you can generally expect once you begin the website development process.
1. The Sitemap
Before any design work begins on your site, everyone needs to agree on the number of pages, the general content for each page and how the navigation will be structured. Good thing you brought along your handy content outline. From your initial list of pages, the designers will offer suggestions for combining or separating pages and creating the various tabs. They will go off and put together a site map, which is exactly what it sounds like. This simple map will show where each piece of information will live on your site.
2. The Mock-Ups
Once you officially approve the sitemap, the designers will take the sites you offered as inspiration and begin developing mock-ups of what your site will look like. The mock-ups are typically flat images of the homepage and an interior page of your new website. You’ll get 2 to 3 mock-ups to review for layout, style, fonts, colors, etc. At your next meeting, you will be able to go over these mock-ups and either approve one, or request changes. The web design process is fairly collaborative. Don’t be afraid to provide your input. After all, it’s your site.
3. Development
After you approve the mock-ups, the development works begins. Your web design company will now create a staging link to host your site. This link will allow you to view your site on the web as if it were live. You can click on the navigation buttons and scroll through pages. Development work continues until all the pages are built out.
4. Testing
After the website is built and approved, the developers will test it out on different browsers (like Chrome, Safari and FireFox) as well as across various desktop and mobile devices. They’ll make sure that images properly adjust to window sizes and that your website functions as it should regardless of how someone views it.
If issues are found, they will adjust the code accordingly. During this phase, it behooves you, too, to test out your site and make sure you like how it looks.
5. SEO
If you’ve signed up for SEO, your agency’s SEO specialists will also be working with the developers to get your website optimized for search engines. This includes conducting keyword research and setting up on-page optimization. There are strategies to help increase your search engine rankings and internet visibility. It’s a good idea to ask about SEO services. After all, there’s no point in having a website if no one can find it.
6. We’re live!
Once all the nitty-gritty details are taken care of, your site will go live, meaning it will be on the internet and ready for curious potential consumers to find. Congratulations on getting here!
7. Training
The final part of the website development process is training. Whether your site is built in WordPress or another platform, you’ll need to understand how to make changes. Your web design agency will teach you how to log into the backend of your website to alter images and information. On most modern WordPress sites, making these sorts of changes is fairly easy.
Make Your 404 More
As the Web continues to grow and evolve exponentially, getting “lost” has become increasingly common. You may be wondering how it’s possible to lose your way in the digital space while so comfortably anchored to your office chair in the physical realm. If you’ve ever been confronted with a website’s 404 Page (the internet’s dead end), you know the helpless feeling that follows. Clearly, you’ve wandered off the beaten path and now, with “Page Not Found” glaring at you in extra large typeface, you have little hope of ever finding your intended destination. It’s safe to say that website just lost a visitor…
What is a 404 Page?
Without getting too technical, a 404 Page is an automated error message that appears when a user attempts to access a page which doesn’t exist on a particular website. Essentially, the server could not find the file requested. This can occur when the visitor types an incorrect filename after the URL, clicks an outdated hyperlink, or tries to access a deleted page. Some content management platforms and themes provide a mildly-branded 404 Page and others just display an unformatted white screen with black text. Either way, more often than not, a “Page Not Found” almost always results in a customer not happy.
Embrace the Opportunity
Because so few sites spend the time to customize their 404 page, people’s expectations are quite low. Any effort above and beyond a white background with intimidating black text will be a welcome surprise for your visitors. Not only should this revelation be a big relief but also spark some creative inspiration as well. Remember, your 404 page isn’t really public-facing, nor is it indexed in search engines, so have some fun with it!
As website owners, we have to ask ourselves, “how do I turn a lost visitor into a happy one?” To accomplish this, you must first shake the antiquated, functional viewpoint of 404 pages. They can (and should) be so much more than an error message. Give users a reason to stay, explore and learn more about your offerings. More importantly, give them a way to find what they were originally looking for! This is most easily achieved by promoting the other pages and content on your site, whether it be blog post thumbnails, links, multimedia, or various calls to action. If you had 5 seconds to sell somebody on your company, how would you do it? What would you show them?
When you step outside the default, server-assigned 404 page, another wonderful opportunity presents itself – traffic data. Now that you have a real page in place, you can track activity via Analytics along with the other content on your site. From there, you can observe how people land on missing URL’s and work to minimize future misfires.
How to Customize Your 404 Page
Customizing your 404 page depends on how the site was built and each CMS platform handles it differently. For instance, if your website runs on WordPress, check your theme’s settings for options. Alternatively, you could download one of the several plug-ins which allow you to edit your 404 page such as Forty Four or 404page. These WP tools are ideal because they offer the ability to treat the error page as a blank slate within your site’s template. You can easily add text, images, video, or dynamic content such as trending blog posts, personalized messaging and more – just as you would in a normal page.
If your website is custom or uses a CMS that doesn’t support plug-ins, you can easily define a 404 page on the server side via your .htaccess file. This may require administrative privileges to your hosting environment but offers complete freedom over look and feel of the error page.
No matter how you go about it, keep file size in mind. Some major browsers, including Internet Explorer and Chrome, require custom 404 Pages to be larger than 512 bytes. If this minimum size is not met, they may display their own version which could include recommendations for other websites!
Tips & Ideas
Custom 404 Pages are a great way for otherwise serious companies to show their fun side. Some have even become internet famous!
Provide links to your most interesting content and resources to help lost wanderers find their way to something new.
Although your 404 visitors have arrived on an inactive page, you can still put a positive spin on the situation. Focus less on error messaging and more on why they should stay.
Fact is, people viewing your 404 page did not ask to. They might be willing to browse your site further but try not to overwhelm them. Keep your 404 content short and sweet.
Don’t Go Crazy
When customizing your missing page experience, keep in mind how few people will actually see this. It’s a nice touch to any site but try not to spend too much time on it.
An effective 404 Page is your chance to invite lost visitors to explore instead of sending them away in shame. Turn your website’s dead end into an open door and watch the conversions come through!
Engineering Company Launches Magnificent Mega Website
Sometimes, you’re comfortable and settled. Sometimes, you’re restless and ready for a big shake-up.
Our long-time client Communications Engineering Inc. (CEI) was definitely ready for a change. Like a cluttered house, their website needed serious remodeling. It had too much content and too little organization. If customers can’t navigate your site, they’re not likely to stick around long enough to give you their business. That’s why ACS Creative stepped in to reorganize, redesign and revitalize CEI’s web presence.
CEI develops and implements broadcast, AV and IT infrastructures. For over 30 years, the company has served some of the world’s most-recognized brands. A leading system integration company, there’s little CEI can’t do. Their team designs board rooms, auditoriums, news studios, classrooms, kiosks and so much more.
So how do you encapsulate all these services into one website, without overwhelming potential customers? ACS Creative tackled this challenge, working closely with CEI to develop an in-depth yet breezy website.
Perfecting the project gallery
Over the years, CEI has developed communications spaces for many clients. They capture gorgeous photos of these meeting halls, sanctuaries, studios and other group spaces. That meant their project gallery, like the rest of their website, would be huge.
ACS created a user-friendly project gallery, without compromising the client’s content. Potential customers sort the projects by type or by market. For instance, if you’re looking for control rooms, a grid of case studies populates seamlessly. If you want the museum market, a new grid of captivating images appears.
So many solutions, so little attention span
CEI needed pages for their core services, audiovisual solutions and broadcast systems. Each solutions page shows how CEI serves their clients and solves their problems. Our graphic designer peppered these pages with carefully chosen images. That way, customers can quickly scan each page without feeling bogged down by paragraphs of text.
Let’s face it – web users have short attention spans. We need to hold their interest and appeal to their laziest instincts. ACS designers make webpages easy to scroll through, so customers never feel like they’re working too hard to get where they need to go.
Mega menu madness
When you have a website this massive, sometimes you need a mega features. Our creative director determined that a mega menu was the best way to organize CEI’s robust site content. A mega menu expands, showcasing a larger drop-down menu than a typical navigation bar could.
The menu is not only mega, but it is also sticky. As users scroll down, the menu sticks to the top of the page. This encourages potential customers to click through more of the website.
Of course, a slick mega menu is not enough. You need to guide customers to where you want them to go on your website. That’s why we incorporated multiple call-to-action buttons on every page of the CEI website. That way, customers can keep clicking to their hearts’ content. This keeps them on the website (and away from CEI’s competitors)!
We’re thrilled to have worked with CEI on their engaging, mega website. We can’t wait to see how their company grows with this gorgeous new site!
Addy’s Wins
We humbly accept more Addys.
For the last three years running, ACS Creative has earned the accolades of its industry peers. We are grateful for the judges who think so highly of our work, and we are doubly grateful for the clients who trust us with their brands and allow us to do great things. Addy’s are not the result of one creative mind. It takes a team effort, agency and client working together, to develop ideas that lead to designs that garner awards. You might say the real winner here is our customer service. You also might say that three years of wins means we can proudly state: ACS Creative: award-winning branding agency. We hope you don’t mind if we do.
But wait, what is an Addy?
For those of you unfamiliar with the nickname, Addy is the affectionate moniker given to the awards presented by the American Advertising Federation. They hold annual competitions with over 40,000 entries in a three-tier, national contest that begins with local competitions followed by regional and national. The only point is to recognize the smart and artistic work being produced by creative companies nationwide. It’s an honor to be included in the distinguished group of agencies that were singled out for their work in 2016.
Our award-winning entries.
ACS Creative has been developing successful brands for clients for many years. It was no surprise then that the judges chose to give us two awards in the areas of branding & identity. The third win was for web design—another one of our core competencies. It is particularly satisfying to be acknowledged for the things you do well. The ACS team spends much time honing their design skills and staying abreast of industry trends and best practices. Not to win awards, but to help our clients meet their business goals. The trophies are just icing on the cake.
About that award-winning logo.
The logo that garnered the most acclaim was designed by us for an organization named Britepaths—which was a new name as well. The organization, originally called Our Daily Bread, has been around for more than 30 years and is dedicated to developing sustainable solutions that meet the challenges of low-income working families through emergency assistance, financial literacy and one-on-one mentoring. A great cause worthy of a great logo. We went to work gathering brand insight, developing a name and finally crafting a logo. The process (more detail on this in next week’s blog so stay tuned) was textbook collaboration between agency and client. It couldn’t have gone smoother. Probably why the end product turned out so good.
Here’s the winning logo. We like it and, more importantly, Britepaths likes it.
(INSERT IMAGE)
So what makes a great logo?
First, the research that goes into it. You need to understand the industry, the brand’s history and the competitor logos already out there. Then you start designing. You draw out several options. You revise them. You throw some out and you finalize some others. Then you get the client involved for feedback. Repeat until logo is finished. That finished logo hopefully dovetails with what great logos have in common:
• They use a simple, iconic mark consumers can recognize
• They use colors that are appealing and attract the eye
• They look great across all types of media
Trust us, it’s not as easy as it looks—which is why we are so pleased with our Addys. Hard work does pay off.
We’re Here to Help!
Need a brand identity? Why not hire an award-winning branding agency. Not because we win awards, but because those awards indicate that we will take good care of your business.
Logo Design Can Make or Break Your Business
At first glance, logos and logo design seems easy enough. You find a mark or font treatment, and you’re ready to go. Because they often appear so simple to design, a lot of business owners think they can create one themselves. They’ll download an image from the internet and pick out a font. “I can do that,” they say. “Why waste money on a designer?”
The problem is, logos only appear simple. In truth, they are strategically conjured representations of your brand. They are one of the first things a consumer sees when they encounter your business. And they go on everything. So if your logo looks amateur, so will your company. That’s bad for business. But if your logo entices people to check you out, it can lead to potential profits.
You are not a logo designer.
The chances of designing a quality logo yourself when you are not a professional graphic designer are about the same as successfully performing your own appendectomy. Graphic designers understand how hard it is to create something simple and iconic. They know what colors and fonts appeal to your target audience, and they are skilled at developing logos that are scalable, meaning they work both small and big.
Plus, graphic designers are creative. While you might be creative too, chances are you are not creative for a living. Graphic designers are professional creatives. They’ve spent years in schools and at agencies honing their craft. There’s a lot more that goes into designing a logo than meets the eye.
Multiple ideas for one price.
When you hire a professional logo design agency, you will get options. They will show you different potential designs and color palettes. They will walk you through the benefits of each option and provide their recommendation. You will get to confer with knowledgeable experts, who can help you drive more revenue by creating a professional logo to represent your brand. So you are getting way more than a design. You will be able to harness the expertise of an agency that does this day in and day out.
Speaking of an agency….
Alternatively, you could hire a freelancer to create you logo. The drawbacks: that freelancer may or may not have the strategic expertise to design an effective logo—though it will look nice. The advantage of going with a bona fide agency is that you get to collaborate with several folks who excel at various disciplines and are all working together to help your business grow. An agency is also less likely to disappear overnight when you need another version of your logo or want to make a change. Freelancers are more difficult to count on.
Get all the logo versions you need.
When you hire a professional logo design agency, you’ll also get that logo in a variety of versions like eps, ai, jpeg and png. Each of these file types serves a unique purpose. Some are better for large print, while others offer transparent backgrounds.
For example, if you only create a jpeg for yourself, you will be hard pressed to put it on a billboard. Jpegs don’t scale well. But a jpeg will work great for Facebook and other social media applications. Your design agency will be able to show you which file to use where.
Got software?
Per industry best practices, logos are designed in Adobe, specifically Adobe Illustrator. Most people don’t own Adobe products—and the ones that do only have Photoshop. These programs are intricate. They are mostly intended for professional creatives.
If you don’t own Illustrator or don’t know how to use it, your logo won’t be professional. It may also not meet industry print standards. So even if you design something yourself that ain’t too bad, it’s not likely going to print well. And a blurry logo is just as bad as an amateur one. Both convey the idea that your company is not of high quality.
It’s a whole branding package.
An agency will also provide more than just a logo. You will get brand standards that list out your font choices and color palette, as well as instruction for how to use and not use your logo. Brand standards are important because they serve as a blueprint for you company’s appearance. You can send them to all your vendors to create consistency among your different consumer touch points.
Hiring a professional designer should be a no brainer.
Basically, we believe every company big or small should hire a professional design agency to create their logo. The benefits are too good to pass up, and the risks of not doing so are too great. After all, your bottom line depends on the first impression you make with consumers. Ensure it’s a good one.
5 Reasons Why Your Business Must Have a Logo
Think of all your favorite brands. Now picture their logos. Pretty easy to do. That’s because logos date back to the beginning of marketing time. Consider Nike without the swoosh or Apple without it’s apple. The logo is arguably the most important tool in your advertising toolbox. It’s not some random mark. It gives your company an identity that represents your mission and your core values. If it’s well executed, that identity can instantly convey your brand to potential consumers. Poor logo design can and will repel customers. Not having one at all is an even bigger marketing no no.
Your logo is not your brand.
Before we begin with our 5 reasons for getting a mark, let’s clarify: your logo is not your brand. It represents your brand. Through font, color and mark design, it conveys your company’s personality—much like the clothes you choose to put on in the morning represent who you are. They are not you, but they give others an idea of your personality and character. Developing your logo, then, should take some time and thought. This is a strategic endeavor that will be the anchor to all your future advertising. It should not be taken lightly.
Who are you?
But let’s get back to our 5 reasons. Even if you’re a micro business, you need a company identity. Your target audience should understand who your company is. A good logo is the most expedient way to accomplish that. It can appeal to the consumers you are after and set you apart from competitors. Let’s dive deeper into why.
1. Get recognized: Fame leads to profits.
If you have a business, you have competitors. And if you have competitors, one fundamental task will be getting consumers to think of your company first. A great logo is memorable. It can help to keep your company top of mind.
Think of a service truck that rolls by with the company name simply etched on the side. Will you recall that name? Or will you remember the company with the great logo that made you take a second glance? Coupled with a marketing strategy that puts it in front of consumers across varied media, your logo can help you steal more market share.
2. Build trust: If they like you, they will buy from you.
When it comes to brand identity, logos do a lot of the heavy lifting. You can build trust in the marketplace with a logo that speaks to your target audience in a positive manner. For example, if your ideal customer is a skateboarding millennial, your logo should look quite different than if you’re selling to seniors. Seniors might prefer a more traditional, serif font. Young people tend to gravitate towards more modern sans serif fonts. Sans serif fonts are also friendlier, while serif fonts are great if you want to communicate strength and longevity.
The same goes for the colors you choose. Blues evoke trust. Too much yellow and you might make people anxious. There’s a whole science behind the emotions of color, and you can leverage this information to design a logo that makes consumers feel really good about your company even before they’ve interacted with you.
3. Emotional connection: This is how you build brand fans.
Again, picture all your favorite logos. Think about how they make you feel. The emotional engagement you have with your favorite companies often begins with their logos. Consider these statistics from Marketing and Entrepreneurship:
This is why you need a logo that is purposely designed to elicit a favorable reaction from consumers. If consumers engage with your logo, they will be more likely to remember your business. And if they remember your business in a good way, they will be more likely to buy from you. In contrast, a poorly designed logo can be detrimental to your bottom line. Your logo is your first impression—and as they say, you don’t get a chance to make another one.
4. Industry marker: Explain what you do.
Through it’s design, your logo can also quickly communicate your industry to consumers. For example, if you are in the pet business, you can easily represent that with visuals. Of course, some business types lend themselves to symbolism more than others, but you can still develop a mark that intimates whether you are a hair salon or a cyber company. This is especially important if your company name does not relate to or convey what your business does.
5. Look professional: Your logo influences perceptions.
If your logo appears to be low quality, consumers might associate that with your products and feel less confident about your ability to deliver professional products or services. This is no different from having a shabby storefront or typos in your advertising. If you show high standards in the way you represent your company, people will assume you apply the same high standards to your offerings and will be more likely to give your business a try.
You’ve Hired a Web Design Agency. Now what?
It’s pretty exciting when you take that first step toward improving your online presence by hiring a professional web design agency. To make the most of your time and money, however, you’ll want to prepare for your first meeting by familiarizing yourself with the materials you’ll need to get started.
To help you out, we’ve put together a checklist with pointers so you can hit the ground running and get your website live in a timely manner. Through our years of web development experience, we’ve learned that good prep is everything.
Getting Your Content Ready
Regardless of whom you’ve hired to design your website, you will need to compile content. Let’s start with images.
1. Photos of your business.
A good exterior shot that helps web visitors visualize your location is very helpful. While you’re at it, get a few interior shots as well. If you can’t afford a professional photographer for these (we highly recommend it if you can) be sure to use a camera that will take high quality pictures. The HDR setting on your iPhone might be ok depending on the lighting.
Speaking of lighting, for exterior shots, dusk is best. Known in the industry as magic hour, dusk gives you natural romantic lighting that is bright enough to show detail without being so bright as to overwhelm your picture. For interior shots, make sure you have nice, bright light that illuminates your place of business. The light should come from above or the side of the object, never from behind. You don’t want the actual light in your picture.
2. Employee Headshots
Again, professional shots are always best, but if that is not in the financial cards, then be sure to find a nice plain wall for everyone to stand against. A wall that is white, light gray or beige works well. Have everyone dress in a professional manner that’s appropriate for your industry. Tell them to look directly into the camera and give a little smile. Tip: don’t take super close up shots. You can always zoom in and crop later. If the picture is too tight, you have no room to work with.
3. Team Photo
In addition to individual headshots, a team photo is a nice asset to have. Follow the same rules as above, with good lighting and a plain, light background.
4. Product Images
Whether it’s purses, hardware or your chef’s signature dish, you will want some pictures of what you’re selling. These should also be taken against a clean, plain background with plenty of lighting. Take all of your pictures in the same manner so there is consistency. This technique allows your web designer to showcase your products against different Photoshop backgrounds as needed.
Working out the Copy
While you’re getting your images together, you’ll also want to work on the information your website needs to convey. Each web page will require headlines, secondary lines and general paragraphs. We recommend hiring a professional copywriter to put the final content together. Copywriters understand how to craft engaging content for the web, and they can be very valuable in helping your website sound as professional as it looks.
Your web design agency may have writers on staff or can usually recommend a freelancer. It’s worth looking into it. The cost of hiring a writer is often worth much less than the time you’ll spend trying to write content for your website. It’s harder than it looks.
Either way, you’ll want to outline the information that goes on each page. This will be very helpful to all parties involved—including the designer tasked with developing your site map. (More on site maps later.) Here’s how to do it.
1. Basic Contact Information
List out your address, emails, phone numbers, hours, social media URLs, etc. on one reference sheet. This will help ensure that all the contact information on your website is accurate and easily accessible to the designers.
2. Logo
Your web design company will need your company logo, preferably saved as a vector file. That means it has a .eps, .pdf, or ai extension. If you only have jpegs and pngs, these versions might be all right, but it would be better to reach out to the person who created your logo and obtain the original vector file.
3. Potential Pages
List out the pages you think you will need for your website. Start with the standard ones:
Then add pages pertinent to your business. For example, you might need a pricing page or a product page. For ideas, check out your competitors’ websites and see what kind of information they provide on their pages. If you offer different kinds of services, you may want to give each service its own page. This will help with search engine optimization.
4. Outline Content
Now that you have a list of pages, begin outlining the content that goes on each page. The simplest way to do this is to create a Word doc for each page, then add the information. For example, the about section could include your company history, mission and values. Nothing needs to be worded perfectly at this point—especially if you’ve hired a writer. You simply want to organize the facts.
For services, provide bullet points describing what each service includes. Highlight the advantages your services have over your competitors’ offerings. Keep in mind that your web design agency is not an expert in your industry, but you are. Tell them what information is important to showcase.
Outlining content at the outset is critical because it helps designers begin creating layouts for your website. If you have minimal content to share, that will lead to one design type. If you have a lot of necessary content, that will call for another type of layout. Content influences design—which is why we start here.
5. Slogans
If your company has a slogan or tagline, you will want to note this as well. If you don’t have one, you might consider developing a slogan. These short marketing phrases quickly communicate what your company is about to consumers—and they make for great headlines on the homepage. Your web design company can help develop this catchy phrase.
Time for Inspiration
Now that you have your images and content outlined, move onto the fun part: searching for inspiration. Browse the internet and find 5 sites you really admire. Write these URLs down along with notes detailing what you like about them. Maybe it’s the homepage. Maybe you prefer some navigation bars over others. Whatever feature attracted you, jot it down.
Similarly, find 5 websites you don’t like. List those URLs as well along with what you don’t want on your own site. Your web design company will be much better equipped to design a site you like if you are specific about your preferences up front. This will save oodles of time, too.
The Process
Take your images, content and sample sites to your initial meeting. Your web design company will love you for it. While procedures will vary across different agencies, here’s what you can generally expect once you begin the website development process.
1. The Sitemap
Before any design work begins on your site, everyone needs to agree on the number of pages, the general content for each page and how the navigation will be structured. Good thing you brought along your handy content outline. From your initial list of pages, the designers will offer suggestions for combining or separating pages and creating the various tabs. They will go off and put together a site map, which is exactly what it sounds like. This simple map will show where each piece of information will live on your site.
2. The Mock-Ups
Once you officially approve the sitemap, the designers will take the sites you offered as inspiration and begin developing mock-ups of what your site will look like. The mock-ups are typically flat images of the homepage and an interior page of your new website. You’ll get 2 to 3 mock-ups to review for layout, style, fonts, colors, etc. At your next meeting, you will be able to go over these mock-ups and either approve one, or request changes. The web design process is fairly collaborative. Don’t be afraid to provide your input. After all, it’s your site.
3. Development
After you approve the mock-ups, the development works begins. Your web design company will now create a staging link to host your site. This link will allow you to view your site on the web as if it were live. You can click on the navigation buttons and scroll through pages. Development work continues until all the pages are built out.
4. Testing
After the website is built and approved, the developers will test it out on different browsers (like Chrome, Safari and FireFox) as well as across various desktop and mobile devices. They’ll make sure that images properly adjust to window sizes and that your website functions as it should regardless of how someone views it.
If issues are found, they will adjust the code accordingly. During this phase, it behooves you, too, to test out your site and make sure you like how it looks.
5. SEO
If you’ve signed up for SEO, your agency’s SEO specialists will also be working with the developers to get your website optimized for search engines. This includes conducting keyword research and setting up on-page optimization. There are strategies to help increase your search engine rankings and internet visibility. It’s a good idea to ask about SEO services. After all, there’s no point in having a website if no one can find it.
6. We’re live!
Once all the nitty-gritty details are taken care of, your site will go live, meaning it will be on the internet and ready for curious potential consumers to find. Congratulations on getting here!
7. Training
The final part of the website development process is training. Whether your site is built in WordPress or another platform, you’ll need to understand how to make changes. Your web design agency will teach you how to log into the backend of your website to alter images and information. On most modern WordPress sites, making these sorts of changes is fairly easy.
If You don’t Hire a Web Designer Now, You’ll Hate Yourself Later
Taking the time to search for and vet a professional web designer can seem like a daunting task—even greater than perhaps finding yourself an easy website platform and putting the thing together yourself. Small and medium businesses often have a host of reasons for not wanting to seek out a web design agency. In our decades of designing and developing websites, we’ve pretty much heard them all. We also know that these objections will likely only lead to one thing: a website presence that doesn’t fully leverage the power of the internet.
Here are some of the common objections to hiring a digital marketing agency, and why you should totally ignore them.
Objection 1. I don’t need a whole agency.
The typical perception of a web designer is that of a lone wolf sitting in front of a multitude of screens and writing code. Many businesses don’t understand why they shouldn’t just hire that guy. After all, he will be cheaper than contracting an entire company. And that guy has a sweet portfolio and a list of clients you can call for references. Freelancers appear to be a pretty good deal, and sometimes they are.
Truth 1. Hiring a lone web designer will get you a website. And ONLY a website.
The typical freelancer will design you a nice website—and nothing more. With a website design agency, you will have design, development and SEO specialists working together to make sure you have a beautiful and functional website that is also properly built to reach your target audience on the web.
Having a nice website won’t mean a thing if customers can’t find it or use it easily. Keyword research, on-page optimization, social media leveraging: all of this is now part of a strategic package when you hire an experienced web design and marketing agency.
Objection 2. I don’t have time to research companies.
Yes, it does take some time to find the right agency for you. You have to Google companies, and you have to read reviews. Then you have to interview and ask for proposals, which you’ll have to read.
Truth 2. Investing that time will yield great returns.
Your website is critical to the success of your company. You should take the time to find an agency that can help you achieve your business goals. The amount of time you spend now is minimal compared to the years your website will be live on the internet.
Objection 3. I don’t know enough about websites to hire someone.
If you don’t know your landing page from your backend, you might feel timid engaging in a conversation with professional web designers. We get that.
Truth 3. You don’t need to know anything.
That’s the whole point of finding a quality web design agency. They bring the knowledge you don’t have to your digital marketing efforts. The questions you ask don’t need to be technical. Your goal is to ensure the company you’re hiring is reputable and that you can develop a positive working relationship with their point people.
Now it’s time to hire. But how?
Check out our “Hire A Web Design Agency” Checklist
Now that you’re considering working with a professional web design company, here are some tips for finding and contracting the right agency. We’ve even created a list to help you in your search.
1. Research local companies.
Do a Google search. Ask other companies whose websites you admire for their agency, and network on LinkedIn. The first step is to put a list together of about a dozen companies you would like to research further. This is your starting point.
2. Go to their websites.
Take the companies on your list and really browse their websites. Learn about the principals and their processes. Eliminate companies with websites that don’t function properly or are led by folks who don’t seem reputable or experienced. Things to consider:
3. Study their portfolio.
A good web design company will have a vast portfolio of projects with descriptions of the work they did. Look at all the different websites the company has created, and then ask yourself these questions:
Here’s where you cross out companies whose portfolio does not match your company’s needs or looks too cookie cutter.
4. Check their clients’ websites.
Google their clients and see how their websites function across various platforms.
5. Contact the top three for a proposal.
Now that you’ve narrowed down your list, contact the top three agencies and set up a time for an initial meeting. During this meeting, you’ll describe your needs and expectations to them. They’ll in turn ask you questions about the services you would like them to deliver and make suggestions. Then they will put together a proposal. Set a timeline for the proposal and when you expect to award the job. This will help keep your website development moving along.
Things you want to determine:
6. Review the proposals.
Don’t just look at the cost. Be sure to compare deliverables.
If you have questions about the proposal, set up a meeting to review it.
7. Award that job.
Lastly, hire the company that prepared the best proposal for achieving your business goals. Make sure you both agree to what will be delivered and by when.
Why Your Competitors are Hiring Experts to Design their Websites
You’ve put together a business plan, set up operations and pressed the green light on your new start-up business. Now you need customers. And pronto. So you think: “I’ll just throw up a website.” Then you Google a number of platforms like Wix and Squarespace that insist you can design an effective, lead generating website all by yourself with no coding knowledge or even a cursory understanding of SEO.
Wrong.
That may seem a little harsh, but there’s no way to sugarcoat the fact that successful web design and online marketing takes years of learning and experience. You wouldn’t perform your own appendectomy. You shouldn’t dabble in your company’s digital marketing either. You can bet there will be financial consequences.
10,000 hours.
That’s how long it takes to acquire proficiency at a new skill. Like web design. A recent Ted Talk by Josh Kaufman (based on numerous studies) exposed this number as the time necessary to master something—give or take a few minutes. If you paid yourself $50/hour, you would be spending the equivalent of $500,000 to master something a good web design company already has oodles of expertise in.
Now let’s say you only wanted to learn the basics, gather enough skill to get your digital presence up and running. According to Josh and the studies he culled, gathering basic knowledge takes about 20 hours. That’s roughly $1,000. Much cheaper. But you’re also getting a much cheaper digital presence, one that is not likely to attract much online traffic. Throw in some hard costs for hosting, themes, images, etc. and now you’re looking at a higher cost. The small amount you’ll save by doing it yourself may not be worth it when your site never gets on the first page of Google searches, converts poorly, or just looks downright ugly.
Don’t forget you have a life.
You might also consider how you’re going to find those hours needed to learn and then build your own website while you are also trying to run your business, maintain obligations to family and friends, and get some sleep. The web design might fall by the wayside, or take longer than it should. Keep in mind that the more time you spend without the ability to market your start-up online, the fewer customers you will acquire. Profits will likely suffer.
Expert web designers bring knowledge to the table.
Web design is both an art and a science, and it’s the combination of these that delivers a powerful online presence. At ACS Creative, we don’t have a single expert. We have a pool of savvy designers and SEO specialists who work in concert to create successful digital marketing platforms for our clients. You could try to become an expert in web design and SEO, but as we already showed, this is not really worth your time. Better to focus your efforts on your business operations and hire a digital marketing agency to leverage their skills on your behalf.
Digital marketing is affordable. Really.
If you breakdown the cost of hiring an agency per number of experts you’ll have at your disposal, the value of your expense really comes to light. It will cost more than finding a young freelancer willing to throw up a website on your behalf on the cheap, but you are going to miss out on the strategic planning. (The science part mentioned above.) You’ll end up with a nice-looking site that may or may not perform well. You could also hire staff to manage your digital marketing in-house, but once your website is up and running smoothly, you may not have a need to keep those costly, full-time employees around. You’ll be adding unnecessary overhead to a fledgling business.
Digital experts get the job done.
Like little elves in the night, a good digital marketing agency will develop a strategy for your online presence that includes web development, SEO, digital campaigns and social media outreach. Then they will create a timeline for delivery that includes actionable milestones. Once you sign off on the plan, they get to work. You don’t have to worry about learning how to create online contact forms. You won’t spend hours writing content. You’ll get to sit back, relax, and review the work, getting to say things like: “I really like this direction” or “Can we move this image to the landing page?”
Back to your competitors.
When it comes to digital marketing, you do need to keep up with the Joneses. Your online presence should look as slick and function as well as the other companies in your market space. If they are hiring experts to conduct strategic digital marketing, then it’s only a matter of time before your start-up or small business suffers in comparison. Be proactive. Get your website done right from the get-go. We believe hiring web design experts will save you time, money and headaches. It may even save your business.
Every Business Needs a Website. Period.
Websites are not a business luxury. They are a necessity, as critical to your success as developing a business plan, or even putting a sign outside your store or headquarters. Websites give your business legitimacy. There are whole generations of people who rely solely on the internet for networking, shopping and even communicating with friends.
More importantly, websites are valuable business tools that attract leads and build your brand. In today’s digital age, websites are the new yellow pages. If your company doesn’t have one, it may as well not exist. Customers will have trouble finding you and, when they do, they’ll wonder why you don’t have a website – and that’s not the kind of first impression you want to make.
Here are 8 ways the lack of a well-designed website hurts your business.
1. Your company is virtually invisible.
Think about the last time you needed to hire someone or look into a company. Chances are you went online. Everybody goes online. So much so that “Googling” has become a part of our everyday lexicon. If you want consumers to know you have a business, you need a presence on the internet. Otherwise your company won’t exist for a large portion of your future customers. And not just any web presence, mind you.
2. If your current website doesn’t show up in search results, you’re just as invisible.
Maybe you do have a website. Thing is, your company needs a prominent place on the first page of search results – otherwise it’s just as bad as not having a website. To accomplish this, you need a modern, responsive website that functions across desktops and mobile devices. It needs to be well designed, feature an intuitive navigation and present information in a clear and concise manner.
This is true regardless of whether you are an independent artist or a supplier only engaged in B-to-B transactions. Over 80% of people go online before they make a purchase or engage a company. This includes people making purchasing decisions at small businesses. If your company doesn’t exist on the web, it might as well not exist at all.
3. Your competitors’ websites are monopolizing market share.
By creating a presence online, your competitors will win more business. They are accomplishing this simply by being on the web while you’re not. A consumer study by BrightLocal.com found that 66% of survey respondents felt a good website gives a business more credibility. They are more likely to contact a local business if they have a website. They trust a local business more if they have their own website. Twenty-five percent didn’t really care if the business had a website or not. Nine percent said a bad/ugly website can be a turn-off from using that business.
By these numbers, if your business doesn’t have a website, or your small business has an outdated website, your profits will suffer – increasingly so as that 25% of respondents who don’t care starts to dwindle. Keep in mind that if your target audience is under 50, the percentage of consumers who don’t care about a web presence will be even lower. Staying off the web gives your competitors the green light to crush you.
4. You’ll be closed while your competitors are open.
Consider how many consumers research purchasing decisions online before buying. (I quoted over 80% earlier.) Now imagine how many of those consumers are conducting that research after your office or shop is closed for the evening. Probably a good portion of them. For those consumers, your company will not be in the mix. They won’t be able to get their questions answered. They won’t even know your business exists. (We’re back to that whole invisibility issue again.)
5. No free, 24/7 salespeople.
Websites are 24/7 sales people that cost a bit up front but, over time, provide significant value. Value you can measure through Google Analytics, which tracks page visits by region and provides a number of other helpful statistics.
Let’s say you started up a pool design company. A couple sits down late one evening and begins researching local companies. They find your competitors and fill out the contact forms. The next day, they get calls and set up appointments. But you never get a call. Your lack of a website and its 24/7 presence left you off their radar. Not having a website, or having an outdated website, can kill your business regardless of your industry. Those dollars you spend on a site will pale in comparison to the amount you’ll be leaving on the table.
6. You’ll miss out on building leads.
Customer relationship management is crucial to a business. Your first goal as a new business is to build a list of potential customers you can market to. The internet can be a powerful lead generation tool, but only if you have a website.
Those contact forms serve a dual purpose. First, they make it easier to contact your company at all hours. Second, and more importantly, they gather information about the kinds of people interested in your business. They collect names, emails, phone numbers, whatever questions you ask. Then you can use this information to create targeted email campaigns and hone your overall marketing strategies.
7. Your business is doing well now.
But what about future revenue? Successful businesses think ahead. They don’t take their current profits for granted. Instead, they use the good times to continue building brand evangelists who will promote the company to their friends and families. This is what helps businesses weather economic downturns and other unforeseen challenges. Plus, reliance on the internet is increasing. The world will evolve past your company if you don’t take steps to evolve with it.
8. You’ll be behind the times.
This is perhaps the biggest reason to get your business a website pronto. Otherwise you will be behind the eight ball even before you get your company off the ground. Not having a website today is like refusing to install a phone back in 1900 or refusing a fax in 1970. We can all agree the internet is not going away. It’s time to embrace it and let your business harness its power. If your new business is in desperate need of a website, give us a call. We’ll help you take advantage of every business tool the internet has to offer.
Get Your Web Design On: Best Practices for 2017 Part Two
Last week we touched on website design trends for 2017. We talked about color. We chatted about duotones and minimalist design. This week we’re continuing the discussion with best practices for functionality and structure that our DC web designers believe will be all the rage in the new year. So strap on your seatbelt and let’s hit the road to creating a more impactful online presence.
Part 2: Functionality Trends
1. Lose the hamburger.
In an effort to streamline website menus, many designers have gone the hamburger route to hide all the options. (In case you’re not familiar with the lingo, hamburgers are those vertical lines you see tucked into the top corner of a website. When you click on the lines, the menu opens up. See Siena Construction for an example.)
The issue with hamburger menus is that oftentimes, browsers can’t find them, or if they see the lines, don’t realize that those represent the menu options. In the Siena Construction example above, the company wrote “Menu/Home” next to the hamburger icon for those unfamiliar with the symbol. However, most websites using this style don’t do that, leaving many site visitors scratching their heads.
More critically, the Neilson Norman Group, which conducts user experience research, has found that hidden navigations hurt UX metrics, cutting discoverability almost in half. Alienating your site visitors immediately after landing on your URL is not good. Hence, many designers prefer to leave those hamburgers off the menu design. Our Maryland web designers agree with this assessment. While hidden navs many look more artistic, design should never trump functionality.
2. Speaking of menus…
Just like images and content, less is more when it comes to menus, too. Previous best practices called for a maximum of 7 menu items. For 2017, 3-5 menu items is considered optimal. The idea is to better organize your content into broader categories and eliminate those that you don’t truly need. In order to do this properly, you need to have a good website design strategy in place that delineates a clear mission and goals for the site. Then, include only content that serves your mission. Otherwise you run the risk of cluttering your site and overwhelming consumers. Concise, clear content is the way to go.
3. Parallax is on the outs.
Parallax design, which involves background images moving slower than foreground images when you scroll, was big a few years ago. It certainly looked cool. Unfortunately, according to our Virginia web designers, parallax and its neat effects will be following in the footsteps of the Dodo bird in 2017. This technique slows down website load speeds and doesn’t allow for the quick conveyance of information—items that are critical to good web design and low bounce rates.
However, long scrolling sites will continue to gain favor. With the increasing popularity touchscreens on laptops, long-scrolling sites make a whole lot of sense. There’s much less clicking involved. Plus, you can configure long content into sections that can be browsed with a simple finger swipe. Long scrolling goes right along with the use of minimal menus. Your website’s functionality should always strive to improve the user experience.
4. Videos are worth a thousand pictures.
Video is killing the image carousal, and this is a good thing. Carousals are bad for SEO. Videos, on the other hand, are beloved by Google. Sure, a high quality video can slow down your site, and lower resolution versions may not look so hot, but there are a number of techniques like overlays that can improve the appearance of your video without slowing down site load times.
Related to incorporating videos is the new love for animation. You can expect to see more animated gifs. Not the freebie clip art ones. Gifs have come a long way in terms of sophistication. You can now animate images and intricate illustrations to add some movement to your website. Gifs are a great tool for attracting attention and explaining processes. Just be sure to use them wisely and sparingly. Too much of a good thing is not a good thing.
5. The need for speed.
Slow websites turn off visitors. So while images and videos and other design trends are definitely important, you need to make sure your homepage isn’t so heavy that it takes forever to load. And, as our web design Charleston team says, forever on the Internet is mere seconds.
Speed is important because it leads to increased user engagement. According to the Financial Times, you can increase engagement by 5% if you can make your site load 1 second faster. So while your website may have great reach according to your metrics, be sure to check the engagement numbers. These will tell the true story of how your website is performing. Our web design Baltimore team is constantly striving to increase engagement and decrease bounce rates for our clients. There’s no point in doing all the work required to get visitors to your site if it takes so long to load that they leave without learning about your company.