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Last night my friends and I attended the vigil at the Dr. Phillips performing arts center in Downtown Orlando. While this mass shooting is a shocking and saddening event, seeing so many people gathering together with the hope that one day things like this won’t happen was encouraging. Below are some photos I captured from the event last night.
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Creating and designing a new website is an exciting project. Initially you’re thinking of all the possibilities and great ideas of what it will be. Content though, textual, isn’t always a fun thing to conceptualize. Is it a better practice to curate your content prior to designing your new website? Here are some points to argue both sides.
Explaining Your Product or Service is Verbally Easy
When we talk to new clients about their businesses, or why they decided to start a business, I notice them lean forward and eyes widen. This is because they’re enthusiastic about what they do and what they want to do in the world. Even if it’s a community based venture, the excitement of making products that make lives better, or a service that saves time and money is easy to talk about.
Now you’ll need to take those key talking points and make them sound good in sentences and slogans. Stringing together a story that flows correctly from left to right and not jumbled or out of order. In our discovery phase of our projects we like to take time to understand the vision of our client’s business ideas are. We need to understand it and grasp it for ourselves in order to create a website, photography, and business strategies that will not only compliment but also magnify these aspects. This can be daunting for most. Imagine stage fright, but for content on your website.
Solutions:
Hire a content or copywriter. They can take notes on your thoughts as you speak and translate the important key elements and combine engaging words that when it’s all put together makes a resonating impact on your readers and visitors.
Record your own conversations when you’re describing your trade. Then pick out the things you repeat often, or the things that you notice happen to resonate more with the people you’re talking to.
Create videos where you’re talking or describing your products and services. It’s no secret that videos are popular everywhere from SnapChat to YouTube and Facebook Live.
Web Site Pages to Navigation
Typically when creating a website you’re going to have a few common pages like; Home, About Us, Contact, and Services. (Side note, think about renaming those to something more creative. It will entice your visitors to click around more.) Now for the rest of your pages you’ll need to think about what makes sense and what order you’ll need to place them. For example, will it beneficial to have a small photo gallery on your home page? Maybe a three column display of products you have recent on sale under the main banner of your home page? Are you active in social media? And if so will it be best to showcase that in a predominant way?
You’ll also need to think about landing pages. Specific pages that talk about just one topic/product with an effective call to action and opt-in form. While these elements could be found on your home page, there are also many other things found on your home page that aren’t in total singularity. Hence why landing pages can be more effective at mainly selling a product or lead generation.
Page layouts are important to consider. You can go with the same set up for each page, but that’s not always something that works for every website. Some pages are worth being segmented into columns as a whole or various columns throughout the page.
Are sub-menus worth your visitors time and effort? For this you may need to do some split testing to understand what truly works, but it is valuable to consider when designing your pages.
Be creative and captivating with what is above the fold on each page of your website. This is the part of the page you see before scrolling down to see more content on the page you’re on. A lot of times what sits above the fold is crucial to the attention and staying power of your visitors. Pay attention to your bounce rate and see if what you’ve setup is working for you. Content also plays a big role in this too!
Solutions:
Consider creating a sitemap. You’re going to want to create one maybe on paper using a pencil to plan out how your pages and subpage structure will be. This flows right into navigation because depending on where your visitors come into your website, you’ll want to make sure they’re not lost as they get around but also easily identify how to get to the information they need and find what page it is on.
Check out your competitor websites and see what works for them as a user. Take notes on what you don’t like as well because that’s exactly where you’ll be able to improve on elements and layouts you felt are lacking.
A/B testing your layouts for various pages. Your visitors may stay on some pages more than others. See if there are similarities in the page layouts on the pages with more staying power over your other pages.
When Does It All Come Together?
For some of our clients it helps to see examples of page layouts before considering the content that will go on each page. And for others they have a general idea on structure but aren’t sure what pieces of content should go where and what is more important than others to be strategically displayed. We’re more of a proponent to knowing the base pages and names, then the content for each of those pages. Not all of the content usually fits or is necessarily going to work on the initial page(s). After the first round of designing, it becomes evident on what content is lacking and also what layouts are conducive for reading and navigation. We usually make those adjustments and sometimes add filler text or graphics to then bring back to our editors/copywriters to then create more elements to better balance each page.
This is our process and view on how we do things in short. What do you do differently? Let us know in the comments below!
Have you ever created a featured blog post, or a really important post that you want your visitors to see and read first before viewing the other posts you’ve written recently? Well there’s actually a built in way from within your post options to make a post “sticky.” No need for any additional plugins.
If you open up your blog post that you’ve already published, and look to the top right PUBLISH box, and click the “Edit” button where it says “Visibility: Public” and from there you’ll see a selection box for “Stick this post to the front page” Check out the quick video below to see it in action.
When it comes to SEO, there is always questions about how to use it, how much it should cost, is it worth understanding, and more. I asked a friend and colleague of mine who is the owner of an online marketing firm called PalmettoSoft to come in and talk about these common questions and concerns that people have. Meet Rhett while watching this talk and if you have further questions about SEO or his company’s services be sure to reach out to him or place your questions in the comments below.
This post is part of our Reluctant Social Media Manager series, support for those of us who want measurable social media results with the least amount of effort.
We all know engagement on Facebook is almost a requirement for any online businesses. There are millions of daily active users on Facebook, and the ability to engage and connect with your audience on Facebook is so simple it’s scary. Have you ever seen a Facebook Business page or group that posts constantly but the engagement is non existent? Posts that get less than 10 likes, or no shares, or no comments? That business is putting in the work but they aren’t getting the results. Today we’re going to outline the 4 main types of blog posts that provide engagement that matters. Here at Design Theory, we thrive on results, and we can get those results by working smarter instead of harder – that’s even better. Let’s go….
Share Articles – Let’s started with the easiest form of Facebook posts, sharing content from other sources. Even though this sounds simple, the key here is sharing content that appeals to your audience. Choose a few content leaders and articles within your industry that will resonate with your audience. Did you know, and articles with shock value work well in this space. Here’s an example, we have a client that sells natural hair and skin care. We recommended that they share articles like “10 reasons why your Lotion isn’t safe”. An easy way to do this is to utilize tools like Buffer or DrumUp. Buffer allows you to schedule almost any article or image to be posted to your Facebook page, and it’s free! DrumUp is another free tool that automatically gather content for you based on the keyword you specify. The free version allows you to read and schedule your posts.
Engagement Posts – These posts take a little more time, and rely on meme’s and images to capture attention. Here are some examples of engagement posts:
Tag a friend who….
Polls or Surveys
This or That using images
What’s your favorite brand/thing about this/thing to do when…
Note: Captivating images work best here, try and find attention grabbing images. They don’t have to directly relate to your post, it can be a tangential relation (i.e. an image of a melted ice cream cone, with a post reading “What do you do when…”). There are plenty of free image websites that can give you the content for your posts. Try sites like PicJumbo, and Pixabay to get some awesome images for your posts.
Sales Posts – These posts highlight a specific product and sales price with a clear call to action. Utilize a link directly to your MailChimp or Infusionsoft account, or directly to your shopping cart. Pictures or videos should ALWAYS accompany these types of posts. These are also great candidates for Facebook boosted posts or ads. We’ll talk in a future post about frequency, but for now sale posts should be the LEAST used type of post on your Facebook page or group.
Original Content – And finally we get to the most time intensive type of post, but arguably the most effective. Original content allows your audience to know you, know your brand, and make a lifetime connection. Behind the scenes images and videos (using Facebook Live) are awesome ways to create original content without having to spend a lot of time or money on ads. Provide your fans with value by giving them information, statistics on things important to them, insight on how you have positively impacted your community or client base with your product or services. Lastly, provide lots selfies or images that represent your business, product, or service.
Remember that balance between these 4 strategies is key to success. Don’t forget to respond, reply, and engage – and most importantly BE CONSISTENT. After reading this blueprint – what actions are you going to take now to promote your Facebook Page Business? Let us know on our Facebook page, we’ll like your business page AND follow up with you as an accountability partner.
I recently attended a fashion event at the Artegon Mall at Studio One where there was a number of local fashion designers with their collections on display. There were canvas and paint artists, jewelry, music, clothing, and more. I did enjoy the atmosphere and the vibe of the night, but don’t just take my word for it, check out the photos below and see for yourself.
