Author: Tim K

The purpose of investing in a web design Santee is to facilitate branding. For some people, branding is all about creating a logo and a tagline. That is not enough. Having a logo and a tagline is just the start. A lot more needs to be done. In this article, we will be looking at the top things you need to do when it comes to online branding. Most of these points can also be used in offline branding.

Know your audience
The first step in branding is to consider and analyze your ideal client. Who are you targeting? You need to understand the needs and challenges of your audiences. It is only by defining your audiences clearly that you will be able to tailor your strategy to them. Even before you contact a web designer Santee, you must know who you are marketing to. That way you will be able to appeal to them.

Focus on your strengths
This is an obvious point but you will be amazed by the sheer number of companies that are unable to articulate their strengths. Know what the strengths of your firm are and how you can add value to your target clients. You must come up with a list of strengths that your business has. You can involve your customer service, sales and management team to compile the list of strengths. With the list in hand, you need to cut it down to the top five strengths. The strengths you select must be relevant to your clients.

Have a strong mission statement
With the strengths of your business in hand, you will be able to refine your mission statement easily. The mission statement has to be concise, specific and well written down. The mission statement needs to be the mantra of your business.

Be consistent
Don’t make your audiences feel like they are dealing with a different company each time to find you in a different medium. For starters, your web design Santee needs to be consistent. All the pages should have the same layout. Your branding message, on the other hand, needs to be consistent too. If your focus is on efficiency, you need to carry that message throughout the brand-related pieces.

Differentiate yourself
You don’t want to be mistake for your competitor or for your clients to feel like you are a copy-cat. You need to be unique. Clients should be able to differentiate you from your competitors. Make it clear that your services are valuable and unique.

Web design Santee

Web design Santee often includes the creation of a blog. Your website needs a blog on which you can share valuable information that you would not otherwise place it on the pages of your website. A good blog will be quite instrumental in driving traffic to your business. However, it is good to note that the success of your blog will rest on the quality and type of content that you share. Here are some of the best ideas you can use for your next blog.

How-to tips
It is very easy to run out of topic to cover on your blog. However, when it comes to the ‘how-to tips’, the ideas are limitless. People are more interested in blogs that teach them how to do something. Sharing how-to tips will hence enable you to capture the audiences that are searching for the how-tos. You can give away a lot of information using this strategy. Don’t hesitate to ask your web designer Santee to create illustrations. The how-to tips can be related to your products or services or virtually anything that you might think.

Share highlights
If any of your products or services is often misunderstood, you should consider creating blog posts that strive to demystify them. The posts should simplify and offer the highlights of your products or services. For example, if you offer inbound marketing services, you can create posts that covers the highlights of inbound marketing. The blog does not need to promote your services. It can just cover inbound marketing to offer a scoop that helps the B2B firms.

FAQ
It is obvious that you get a lot of inquiries from your customers. You can use these questions to create a blog that discusses the Frequently Asked Questions. You can choose to give answers to frequently asked questions or create posts for each major question that your customers ask.

Discuss industry advancements
You need to portray yourself as an expert in your field. One good way of doing this is by discussing the industry advancements. What is changing in your industry? What is the future of the industry? Cover any topic you are knowledgeable in.

Discuss current news items
If there is a news item that relates to your industry, you can use it to create new blogs. The mainstream news will offer numerous news items that pertain to your industry. Pick the most popular pieces and create blogs.

Other options you can use to create blogs include compiling statistics, being seasonal and making a top 10 list. There is no limit. All you have to do is be observant and keep an eye on what is happening around you. The rule of thumb, however, is to only cover the topics you are knowledgeable in.

Web design Santee

Virtually every web design Santee calls for the use of images. The use of images makes it easy for the target audiences to understand a concept and also improves aesthetic appeal. The big question, however, is on when to use stock photos and when to take your own photos. In this article, we shall look at the best times to use stock photos.

When to use the stock photos
Stock photos are images that you can download from stock photography websites and use them on your website. You can go with the free ones that use shared licenses or pick premium stock photos that give you full ownership of the license. Even so, as a web designer Santee, you will not be able to use these photos just anywhere. Here are the main areas where you can use these images.

• You don’t have any images available

This is the main reason why most companies use these images. If your company doesn’t have any professional in-action images that have been taken while your employees were providing services, then you can go with the stock photos. This is not uncommon more so when it comes to the service-based organizations like finance, recruiting, accounting and consulting companies.

• Action images

There are times when certain actions are very hard to convey. For example, conveying the duties of a finance partner or consultant can be hard. Iconography or other graphic elements can be used to tell the story of a brand more accurately.

• Convey emotion

You can use stock photos to convey an emotion you would like your visitors to get from your website. This is achieved best with artistic or abstract imagery. You will find stock photos for conveying just any emotion that you want.

• Tell a story

One of the reasons why photos are added to a web design Santee is so as to make it easy to tell a story. There are so many stock photos out there you can use to tell the story that you want. Considering your employees are not professional models, telling the story that you want might not be possible when using them as models.

• Supplements

Taking your own professional photographs will be a great idea. You will, however, not have the time and resources you need to take the professional photos that you need every time a need arises. Stock photos can hence be used to supplement your professional photos.

Stock photos are a great resource. They should, however, be used carefully. The overuse of these images may cause your website to look generic. Online shoppers are very cautious with generic websites.

Web design Santee

At the start of a website project, a schedule is determined for web design Santee, copywriting, development and QA. However, even when working with the most reliable web designer in the business, you never get to launch on the predetermined date. There are so many reasons that cause delays in web development. In this post, we shall be looking at the top reasons.

Not giving timely feedback
The issue with project delays is often on the side of the client and not the web designer Santee. The role of a web designer is to bring your vision to life. He will not be able to do that without your feedback. That is why the main reason for delays in web development is failure to provide timely feedback. When both the client and the web designer provide timely feedback and communicate regularly, the project will proceed smoothly. If feedback from either party is delayed for several days, it will end up pushing the delivery date further back.

Missing deadlines for providing reference materials
Many pieces of a web design project relies on smaller pieces most of which have to come from the client. Devoid the necessary content and images, the web designer will not be able to complete the project. To speed up the project, a client should make sure that he provides all the necessary materials on time. During your initial discussion with the web designer, you will be provided with a list of all the things you will have to provide. You need to make all these pieces available on time.

Too many decision makers
Too many cooks spoil the broth. When there are so many people that are involved in decision making, disagreements will arise and with disagreements comes delays. Having to run every decision by the many decision makers will also lead to delays in the web development process. It is good to only have one or two people as the main decision makers.

Changing the goals or direction midway through the project
If the goals of the website are changed midway through the project, the web designer Santee will have to start over. This will definitely lead to delays. Change in direction or goals arises when there are new team members added to the project.

The above are the main causes of delays in web design Santee. There are many more causes. To ensure the project runs smoothly and is delivered on time, you need to ensure that you plan your website carefully before any development starts. Make sure your web designer understands your objectives clearly before you get started.

Web design Santee

As a web designer Santee, one of the biggest decisions you have to make is that on the hosting service to use. There are so many options to go with. You can choose to go with shared, dedicated, cloud hosting and there is now the option of hosting your website internally. In this article, we shall be taking a quick look at the pros and cons of both internal and external web hosting.

Internal web hosting
Internal hosting refers to the practice of an organization setting up its own web servers to host their website. Most of the companies that use this option for their web design Santee already have an internal IT staff that helps with web management. The main drawback with internal web hosting is that there are no economies of scale. It can be a tad expensive when compared to external web hosting.

The best thing about internal web hosting is that it is faster than external web hosting. What is more is that the organization gets full control of the hosted environment.

For internal web hosting to work, you need to hire a team that will monitor your web servers 24/7. The team must also keep an eye out for hackers and other cyber vulnerabilities. An organization will also need to invest in assets, hardware, servers and the applications needed for internal hosting. As aforementioned, this can be very expensive.

External web hosting
This is the method in which a company outsources the web hosting needs to a third-party web hosting service provider. This is the most widely used option because of the economies of scale and the fact that it is less demanding when it comes to maintenance.

Many people find it practical to outsource their web hosting to a hosting company. This is because the option allows a company to focus on its business content and software without having to waste time on networking and security infrastructures of their websites. There are also web development and design companies that offer hosting services. This means you can get web design Santee done by the same company that will be hosting your website.

Every hosting company offers its own unique services. The more comprehensive the services are the better. Make sure you pay attention to the services you will get before choosing a hosting company.

The decision on whether to host your website internally or externally will depend mostly on your budget and IT resources. For the small businesses, it makes more sense to get external web hosting services.

Web designer Santee

Long before you start working on a web design Santee, you have to think about hosting. Website hosting is what gives your website a home. You will not be able to go live if you don’t have a web hosting service and a domain name. A common question that people ask is on whether they can host their websites internally. The option is viable but it is not the best way to go.

Although any experienced web designer Santee will advise against hosting your website internally, there are many reasons why companies choose to host their websites internally. The decision has its fair share of pros and cons. Let us look at them.

Pros

• No hosting/management fees

The beauty of hosting a website internally is that you never have to worry about the hosting or management fees. You use your internal resources to host your website. This is a great option if your company has the IT resources needed to smoothly host a website.

• Management control

With internal hosting, you will enjoy better management control. You will no longer have to worry about restrictions imposed by hosting service providers. You can play by your own rules. You will be able to decide everything in the hosted environment thus retaining full control.

• Change control

No new change will be made without your say so. This is the grand beauty of hosting a website internally. You will have control over changes to the storage space, bandwidth, criteria and timetables for any change.

• Performance

When compared with cloud hosted websites, the internally hosted websites enjoy better performance. This is because the resources are not shared or limited. Provided you have the IT infrastructure, you can allocate as much bandwidth as you want to your website.

Cons

• Management responsibility

One of the major disadvantages of hosting your website internally is the management responsibility. You will need a team to monitor and manage your website round the clock. This can be hard to do if your IT team is small.

• Maintenance costs

Unlike using external hosting services where the cost of hardware, software and maintenance is spread across the many clients a hosting company has, you will meet all the costs alone when hosting the website internally. There are no economies of scale.

• Hosting costs

All the supporting power, space and cooling costs will be charged to your company. There are no economies of scale which means the costs can get real high.

• Resource utilization

You staff and payroll dollars have to be focused partially on managing and maintaining the hosting infrastructure.

Choosing a hosting company is a good option. It will save you money and give you access to better tools. It is easier to keep up with the latest technologies when using external hosting services.

Web design Santee

After creating a great web design Santee, the next thing you will need to worry about is getting your website known by the target audience. There are so many techniques you can use to achieve this. Some of them require a financial investment whereas others are free of charge. In this post, we shall be looking at the best free techniques you can use to promote your website.

SEO
The first thing you will need to do is to focus on search engine optimization. Even before you start creating your web content, you need to identify the SEO tools that you will be using. The Google keyword tool planner will help find the best keywords for your target market. Use both short keywords and long-tailed keywords. The keywords you should use are those with low competition and high search frequency. Ask your web designer Santee to add the selected keywords to the title, headings, content and Meta description. If you will be adding images, make sure you include the keywords in the title tag of the pictures and in the alt tag. Focusing on SEO will boost your search engine ranking and with this you will get more traffic to your website.

Social media marketing
Most of your target clients are on social media. That is why social media marketing must never be ignored. You should create social media accounts and interact with your customers as often as you can. Don’t forget to add a link to your website so that visitors can easily get to your website from your social media page. Your website must also have social media widgets to make it easy for visitors to share your website on their social media pages. The use of social media marketing helps create a branded imagery. You can encourage more interaction on your social media page by offering giveaways and running contests. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn still dominate the forces of social media. Make sure you have accounts on all three.

Reciprocal linking
This is yet another great option you should consider using once you are done working on your web design Santee. The best way to show search engines that your website is trusted is by having websites link to your website. You can get this links through forum posting, guest blogging, news articles and link exchange. All in all, you must never link to just any website. Linking to a low-ranking or low quality website will affect your website negatively.

Focus on quality content
Last but not least, you need to only add high quality content on your website. High quality content is easily shared and will boost your search engine ranking. With high quality content, you will also notice higher repeat visits to your website.

Web design Santee

If you want to create a web design Santee, you will first need to get three very important things; CMS, domain name and hosting service. Focus in this article will be on hosting services. You have several options when it comes to this. You will, however, need to be very careful before picking an option. Here are the most important things you will have to do.

Know how much hand-holding you will need
The first thing you need to do is to consider the level of customer support that you will get from the service provider. While most companies will answer your questions on configuration very effectively, they might not be the ones that will be managing your system. Prior to selecting a service, you need to consider the level of customer service that they offer. Will you be able to access them through email, tickets or phone? The best service provider should allow all three options. The easier it is for you to reach the service provider the fewer the headaches you will get to deal with in case of a technical issue.

Estimate the traffic you will get
How much traffic do you expect? You have to be honest. For a personal blog, the amount of traffic will be limited. However, for a professional website that will be marketed extensively, the traffic you get might be overwhelming. You need to be honest on the traffic you will expect. The reason for this is because hosting service providers might limit your bandwidth. If you go beyond the allocated bandwidth, you might end up being charged more or your website might even go down. Discuss your website needs with a web designer Santee and be honest on the amount of traffic you expect. This will then help you find the best hosting package for your website.

Understand the server types
There are different servers types that you will need to pick from. The cheapest hosting uses the shared servers. With this option you will get shared hosting which is not as reliable. The reason for this is because a single server might be handling hundreds of websites. This means all the websites are sharing the same resources. The overall performance of your website will depend on the resources other websites are using. You access to the server will also be limited. You might only be allowed to upload files using FTP or SFTP. This prevents shell access and restricts the programs that you can run.

The best server types you can go with are the VPS (virtual private server), dedicated servers, and cloud servers. Your choice will depend on the set budget.

Choosing a hosting service is not something you need to rush. You have to spend time learning more about the service more so when it comes to technical support, allocated bandwidth and supported content management systems. Choose a hosting package based on your website needs. You also need a service that is scalable so that you can increase the required resources as your website grows.

Web design Santee

When getting ready for a new web design Santee, one of the most important things you will need to think about is the domain name. The domain name is the digital address of your website. This is what you type into the web browser address bar to get to a website. The domain name for Google, for example, is https://google.com. Just like a fingerprint, a domain name is unique and cannot be shared by different websites.

Is there a difference between domain name and a website?
The domain name is the same as your phone number whereas the website is your phone. You can change your phone but still retain your phone number. This means although they are connected, the domain name is separate from a website. Simply put, the domain name is not stuck permanently to a specific website. A web designer Santee can disconnect it and reconnect it with another website. The important point to remember is that a domain name can only be connected to just one website.

What is the difference between free and paid domain names?
It is possible to get a free domain name for your website. These are mainly offered by the website builders like WordPress.com, Weebly, SquareSpace and Wix. The free domain is usually a sub-domain. This means if your website name is XY, your free domain name from WordPress will be XY.wordpress.com.

If you need a long term online business, a free domain name will not be the best option. You will not own the sub-domain and the sub-domain will be an extension of the service provider’s own domain name. As your business grows, you will need to switch to a unique domain name. When you make the switch, you will lose all the traffic that went to the sub-domain.  Spending a little money on a good domain name is worth it. It will help with branding too.

Where to buy domain names
There are many domain name registrars you can go with. The leading ones are GoDaddy and NameCheap. Please note that for a unique domain name, you will have to pay an annual fee to the registrar of the domain name. If you fail to make the payments, your domain name will be auctioned. The cost of a domain name is between $10 and $20 per year. You can also buy a domain name from a website builder or from individuals auctioning their domain names.

Finding a good domain name is very important. It is something you should do long before you get started on web design Santee. It is only after securing a domain name that you will be able to come up with a good name for your website.

Web design Santee

Web design Santee always calls for a lot of preparation. In addition to having your vision in mind, you will need to compile a checklist that will ensure that your web development process runs smoothly. In this article, we shall be taking a quick look at the 6 crucial things that you must have in order to create a website.

Domain name
Selecting a domain name is the first thing you will have to do as a web designer Santee. This is the digital address of your website. It is what people type into their browsers to find your website. Two of the leading domain name providers are GoDaddy and Hostgator. You can check if your desired domain name is available and how much it will cost. The annual fee for a domain name is between $10 and $20.

Business email address
Not having a business email address is the fastest way to kill your business. People will either assume you are serious or you are a scammer. This is more so if you use emails from Gmail or Yahoo. You need an email address with your domain name as the provider. If your website is XY.com, then your email should be something like info@XY.com.

Website building software
The next step is to find the best website building software. This is the software you will use to build your website. it can be Wix, WordPress, Weebly, Squarespace or any other software that you want. WordPress is the most popular website building software. This is because of the many plugins and themes it offers. There is also a remarkable amount of community support and not to forget about the intuitive nature of the platform.

Get website hosting
Your website will have to be hosted somewhere. You cannot expect to run it smoothly from your personal computer. You need reliable hosting services. Before you start work on a web design Santee, you will need to find a good hosting service. This can be shared hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated hosting or free hosting. Your choice will depend on the type of website that you are building and the resources it will need. Your budget will also play a part.

Select a website template
If you are using WordPress, you don’t have to code everything. You can make use of website templates. Make sure you customize the template to your liking.

Logo design
Your website will need a logo. The logo helps create a brand for your website and business. You can hire a graphic designer to help with the logo design or simply use the logo generators.

These are the six most important things you will have to do when creating a website. As a web designer Santee, you may also want to include Google Analytics, image editors and high quality images and videos in your list.

Web design Santee