What is Pinterest.com?

For those of you who haven’t heard of Pinterest, (which is becoming increasingly rare these days!), here’s a quick overview. Pinterest is your own virtual bulletin board, much like the physical one in your kitchen. You can keep track of neat looking photos, products, etc. that you find on any website and store, or “pin” them to your own topical sections on Pinterest. A small "Pin It" button, which sits in your web browser makes pinning extremely easy. Your pinned images may be captioned, but the website is driven by it's fun, beautiful, and engaging photos, not really the text beneath them. The fun comes from seeing other Pinterest users re-pin your images to their own bulletin boards, and thus the cycle begins. You can actually follow both users who like the same things you do, (like friending on Facebook), as well as certain topics that you are interested in.

Why use it?

Believe it or not, there are more and more companies joining and utilizing Pinterest each day. Take a look at this list, or this one to see examples. So what benefit might a company derive from using Pinterest? While it's true that some businesses may drive traffic back to their website via Pinterest (images are linked to their original source), the website it not intended for self-promotion, selling or advertising. Rather, a company might have success by using Pinterest to raise awareness about their brand or company. They have an opportunity to engage and interest potential or existing customers without any direct/pushy sales tactics. For example, Whole Foods pins images of produce and products they carry, but they also have an entire board dedicated to gorgeous kitchens. Cabot Cheese, a cheese-maker in Vermont, pins recipes that utilize their cheese, and pictures of their farm. 

Who is it for?
Pinterest isn't for every company or website owner, but surely you've noticed the little Pinterest icon (a swirly P) creeping into place alongside the Twitter and Facebook icons wherever social media tags are found. If your company has a story to share, a product to showcase, or interesting and image driven information to link to, then Pinterest might be for you. A lawn and landscape company could utilize Pinterest to show off amazing landscapes (theirs and others), link to news stories (on their own blog, or via a news source) give tips for pests like fire-ants or that annoying kudzu I can't get rid of, and even recommend lawn-care products (all by posting images which link to sources of information). There are many possibilities. 

Some things to keep in mind when considering whether Pinterest is for you:

• Pinterest's main audience (so far!) is women, and among them are many young moms. The DIY category is very popular so if you have frugal advice to share, or creative and time saving tips, you will probably find an appreciative audience.
• Pin truly amazing photos (or ones closely pertaining to the topic) to get the most re-pins/interest. 

What's the point?
I once sat in a cafe flickering through breakfast recipes on Pinterest. A woman a few years older than me stopped by my laptop on her way out and gushed, "Don't you just love Pinterest? It's like looking at a magazine without having to read all the stories!" Pinterest is generally a "feel-good" experience for the user. Ben Silvermann, the company founder, tells Fortune Magazine: “When you open Pinterest, it should feel like someone has hand-made a book for you,” and “every item should feel like it’s handpicked for you by a person you care about.” It may not be entirely intellectually stimulating, but it is a good resource to find great ideas and inspiring images. Keep that in mind if you decide to use it for your company!

And as with all the other social media venues that clamor for your attention, our experts at Your Creative People can help you know if Pinterest is a good fit for your business. Contact us today.

P.S. You can find me and a few other YCP team members on Pinterest, but as the lone girl in the office - I am by far the most active Pinner!

To learn more: 

• Check out this New York Times article on the trend of marketers utilizing Pinterest. 
• Comprehensive information on how and why to use Pinterest + a fun infograph.
• Another fun Pinterest infograph
• Fortune Magazine: Is Pinterest the next Facebook? By Jessi Hempel, April 9, 2012, Volume 165, No. 5

So now you're probably wondering: what makes a website fresh? Here are 7 important elements to focus on as you manage your site.

1. Date of inception. The inception date is the first time Google indexes your page, or puts it into its database of pages. Unfortunately, the inception date degenerates over time. So, the older a website is, it lessens in freshness. It might go without saying that if your site was created over 5 years ago, you may be due for a website re-design.

2. Up-to-date content. Don't assume that by merely changing one sentence on a homepage, you can get a "fresh" score. A large amount of updated, or changed content (typically textual content), will score high on the "freshness meter." 

3. Regularly updating content. Rather than re-writing content on your site once a year, rewriting content once a month is looked upon as fresher, and updating content daily will help you even more (ever wonder how daily news from major newspaper websites like the NY Times and Washington Post end up to be at the top of Google?). Consider daily or weekly blogging or including pulling in Twitter/Facebook updates into your website

4. Adding pages. Adding new pages to your website will give you a good freshness score. When comparing its database of sites and trying to determine which site to rank above another, Google takes into account the number of pages each site has. The higher the number, the more relevance Google assumes that site has. While this isn’t certainly the only ranking factor, page count does weigh in. This is another way blogging can help with your SEO results as each new post (regardless of its length) counts as a page.

5. Updating IMPORTANT content. Updating key portions of content such as your main body of text (a welcome paragraph for a church website for example), rather than focusing on changing up your navigational items, advertisements, or footers will give you a greater return on freshness. While we have spent most of this post talking about search engines, here lies an important point: websites are mainly built to attract human visitors. If you show up at the top of Google, but your site appears outdated or lacks the graphic engagement that it needs to keep a visitor, you may get a lot of initial hits, but visitors will quickly bounce away (a.k.a. your bounce rate) and move on. Your site won’t really be effective in driving leads or business for your company.

6. Become the talk of the town. If your site becomes a topic of the internet buzz and respectable individuals (via social media) and websites (ex. on blogs) begin repeatedly linking to you within a short period of time, this will alert the search engines that you are relevant, up-to-date and important. Don't think you can abuse this with link-farms and the likes. Google is smarter than that and is known for cracking down on such abuses, banishing sites far down the list for these search engine taboos.

7. Visit Duration. The amount of time visitors spend on your website is important in Google's opinion of your freshness. Many times a visitor will hop right back off a page if they find it's full of outdated content (or even if it just LOOKS outdated like we talked about before; think about it - you've done it!). If this happens often enough, Google will interpret that pattern to mean your content is not as fresh as a competing site. 

Wrapping it up.

So, what does all this mean for you? Google is doing its part in trying to help you as a user sift through the billions of search results returns you receive for any given search topic. If you want to get an A+ in SEO, freshness is a major factor that you can’t afford to ignore.

Is your content relevant? Are you keeping it up to date? We provide tools that will help you keep your site fresh and your content engaging to your audience. Use Backstage, our content management and marketing solution, to address each of the seven areas above and you'll find it a breeze to keep the content on all of your pages up to date. If you need some attractive graphics created to spice up your home page or if you're ready to add a new blog, we are ready to help you present a fresh and attractive website that scores well with your audience and with Google. Get in touch with one of our marketing experts today.

For further reading, check out these related blog posts:
• Is your website optimized correctly for Google's new standards?
• Dramatically Improve Your SEO By These 4 Simple Steps
• Google's search initiatives and how they affect you
• SEO: Keywords and Functionality
• Optimizing Your Website for Search Engines
 

One of the first mobile sites we designed was for the GSP airport. With clean views and easy-to-click buttons, it has been an effective and good looking tool for flight tracking, parking info and many other travel-related needs. We submitted the site to the mobile gurus at mobileawesomeness.com to inspire other designers and developers. Check it out here. If you like how it looks and works, give us a few thumbs up (preferably 5). If you don't have a mobile site already, we would be happy to help with a design that could soon be featured on mobileawesomeness.com as well, and generate additional traffic for you. Read more about mobile sites on our website here.

What will the new search engine look like?

Google's plan is to provide increasingly relevant search results. For example, if you do a search for a set of home audio speakers, you want relevant places (both locally and online) that provide you with a place to purchase your speakers. Google will weed out those sites that lack relevant information or are simply links to other sites. They will begin doing this by implementing technology called "semantic search." Semantic search will draw results from a database that Google has been building, which is filled with "hundreds of millions" of entities, people, places, and things. The search will also draw associations between certain words that are typed into their search box. Google will also be providing more direct answers to search queries, which will appear at the top of the page, instead of simply providing those links as it has done historically.

Does this mean all of my previous optimization efforts are void?

Your work of strategically placing keywords on your website will not fall by the wayside - rather Google will look for both keywords AND entities when it looks for search results. However, there will probably be a shift in the way content is entered onto websites so as to provide relevant "semantic search" information. Although Google has yet to confirm this, there is knowledgeable speculation that "marking up" content will help pages rank higher in the new search engine.
 

What is marking up? Simply put. this means adding Html tags to website coding which "explains" to the search engine, what is being discussed in your content. Visit here (http://schema.org/docs/gs.html#microdata_how) to learn a bit more.
 

The good news is that the more relevant & up-to-date content you include on your site, the less you need to worry about Google's ranking changes. Google will always value solid content in its results. But for websites that are link-farms or overstuffed with keywords and nonsense content - Google aims to keep those sites from appearing anywhere near the top of search results. Google recognizes that most users do not find relevant informatin on these pages.
 

Need help with SEO?

Our team of experts stays up with the latest trends in search engine optimization, providing you with a wealth of knowledge anytime you need it. Need help improving your ranking? Our team provides consulting and optimization services to our clients on an hourly or on a month to month basis and we can tailor a plan to help you achieve your goals of conversions, more traffic, or simply new leads.

Read more about the search engine optimization tactics we use and then engage us to help your site get the results you want.

Further Resources (and Sources):

If you would rather watch, than read about the new changes, then visit this link for an informative video about Google's search changes.

• To watch "With Semantic Search, Google Eyes Competitors" (click on the video tab): http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303863404577281822057679682.html
• "Google plans to penalize 'overly optimized' sites" on Cnet.com: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57399425-93/google-plans-to-penalize-overly-optimized-sites/?part=pulse&subj=latest-news&tag=title&utm_source=pulsenews&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+cnet%2FWSAE+%28CNET+News+-+Pulse%29
• "Google Gives Search a Refresh" on http://online.wsj.com: http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052702304459804577281842851136290-lMyQjAxMTAyMDEwNDExNDQyWj.html
• "Google plans major revamp for search engine" on cnet.com: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57397782-93/google-plans-major-revamp-for-search-engine/?tag=mncol;txt

Most people think of trying to show that their company is the best at something. They are determined to show how their product is the best and how it can do so many things. However, the most important thing to remember is that people want help with whatever problem they are having. If a person is in the landscaping business, you must understand what their problems are and that will help you “market” to that company.

This book, by Patrick Renvoise and Christophe Morin, discussed learning the client’s pain. In the landscaping illustration, the client does not care about the mower, trimmer, and blower, ect. All they care about is having a manicured lawn. When trying to target that segment of the market, do not spend time and money showing the minute features of your product. Instead show how your product can give them that manicured lawn that they want. You might show how your mower uses a new technology in the blade to stay sharp longer for a cleaner cut. You could include a photo of a really well manicured lawn. This type of advertisement includes a subtle message that the reader might not even realize he is seeing. It is saying that if you purchase this product, your lawn will look like this one. By doing this, you are showing not how your product is better than other companies, but rather how your company is unique. Your company has the unique ability to help the client get that well manicured, lush lawn that other companies try and create.

Another thing that I learned is that one must listen to be a good marketer. It is vital to know your customer before you try and sell them your product. In our industry, it is very important to know your client before you try and sell them a website. If we, as a company, do not try and learn about our clients first, the site that we create for them will not fit what their company is trying to do.

Finally, I learned is that it is important to determine the intensity and urgency of the pain. If the intensity is really high and it is very urgent, a company will be very interested in getting help. If the urgency is low, or the pain is not intense, they will be less likely to doing something about it in the short term. It is a good idea to help them see the pain and show them how urgent it actually is. If you can increase the urgency in their mind, you increase their potential to do work with you. All of these ideas can and will help me become a better marketer in my future business work.

2. Create a keyword-driven description.
Your page's description is a teaser. The description is what people will see underneath a link when they browse through the search engine results and see a page on your site. As in the page title, be sure to utilize this valuable space by including descriptive keywords (which must be relevant to the content of your page) that you think your audience might use to search for this page. Your description should be a complete, readable sentence, not just a string of random keywords. Best practices suggest that 155 characters should be your limit as that is the number of characters that are visible in the search results listing before it cuts off with an elipses.

3. Custom/simple URLs are helpful for both human visitors and the search engines.
Every page of your site should be simplified with a short or "simple" url. This helps your visitors as they share your pages with friends and helps you have another place for valuable search engine-focused keywords. Here's what an un-customized URL may look like:  http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/29/a-review-of-the-lytro-camera/?ref=technology,
whereas a customized URL is simple and readable, like this: http://yourcreativepeople.com/where-good-ideas-come-from/.


Use dashes (-) to separate keywords instead of leaving empty spaces (which show up as "%20" in urls). Dashes help Google note that each of these words are specific keywords and not all drawn together as one word.

When you're finished optimizing your url's with keywords, be sure to hit the "Reset Website" button (found under SEO on the main toolbar in Backstage) to restart the application and refresh your new links.

4. SEO-optimized images are great for image searches.
It's important to optimize your image filenames and alt tags for SEO. An example of a non-optimized filename might be: DS00123.jpg. While this nomenclature may work well for storing and categorizing images on your personal computer, this filename becomes useless for any SEO value. Instead, use descriptive keywords to name your image files, using dashes to separate keywords. An example of an optimized filename would be: design-studio-coffee-bar.jpg Optimizing your images this way, search engine 'spiders' will understand the image and know how to match it for users who searching those terms.

In Backstage, you can upload an image to the Image Manager and click on the pencil icon to further optimize your image. Fill in the Name/Alt Text field with a short descriptive title. This text will display if a browser has trouble loading an image, or if a visitor is using assistive reading technology in their browser. Fill in the Caption/Tooltip field with descriptive information. This will display when a visitor hovers their mouse over the image (try it with our coffe image example above).

It's also important to include relevant information around the image. Again, this makes it easier for search engine 'spiders' to interpret and understand what the image is about (search engines can't "read" pictures or images like humans can; they read only text).

Here are a few small, but helpful tips.

• Filling in Meta keywords can be somewhat helpful for search engines besides Google (who doesn't pay attention to them). They are probably most helpful to a person who uses the search function on your site, searching for something within your site. Fill in the keyword option in Backstage with relevant keywords, separating each keyword with a comma.
• It's also very important for some businesses to have a social media presence as this assists SEO. YCP can provide you with a blog to increase your page count (a key ranking factor in SEO) or we can give you a SEO Marketing Strategy to jump-start these efforts. 
• Keep in mind that with a new or redesigned site, it will take Google a little while (up to 90 days) to really index your site. Having a sitemap XML file can help you get ranked faster by telling Google the specific pages on your site, how frequently to browse your site, and how much priority to give each page in your site. Site maps are important, and YCP creates this for your website as part of our SEO jumpstart package.
• Finally, it will help you to carefully analyze your Google Analytics to see where your traffic is coming from, which keywords they are using to find you, and which pages are most popular. You can glean quite a few insights from this helpful data so that you can continue to optimize your site and attract new visitors!

Need help optimizing your site for the search engines? Confused on which keywords to use? 

Our team of experts offers both introductory and more advanced SEO services to help you get the results you want. Contact us today!

Kleenex = Tissue
Heinz=Ketchup
Volvo=Safety
Crest = Fights Cavities

The object of branding is to create awareness by connecting your brand name to a single motivating idea or concept and make it stick in the mind of the consumer.

What is Positioning? A Simple Definition 

Positioning is simply concentrating or focusing on an idea – or even a word – that defines (and thus, differentiates) the organization (or product, or service, or concept, etc.) in the mind of its prospects.

Why positioning?

Today’s marketplace is no longer responsive to the kind of advertising that worked in the past. There are just too many products, too many companies, and too much marketing “noise.” In this over-communicated environment, advertising doesn’t work like it used to. The noise level in the communication jungle is too high.

Each day, thousands of messages (estimated between 3,500 and 5,000) compete for a share of the prospect’s mind. While no one doubts the advertisers ability to dish it out, there is some question about the consumer’s ability to take it all in.

Not positioning your company, product, or service around a new and different idea is a good way to make certain your brand goes unnoticed.

If blending in is not your goal, you need positioning.

To the extent that your brand’s “idea” is available (new and different and not taken by a competitor), desirable (wanted by the target customer), credible (true to you and true to your brand promise), it will have value. The more meaningful the point of difference, the higher the marketing value will be.

If you are interested in selling on the basis of value and not price, you have no choice but to be interested in positioning

Marketing is Warfare. Differentiation is the Secret Weapon.

In today’s competitive market:

• The battlefield is the marketplace.
• The objective is the prospect’s mind.
• The enemy is the competition.

For most marketers, the only way to grow is to take business away from the competition. Without a motivating difference, people tend to stick with what they know.

You have to differentiate and FOCUS on your position.

It’s about competition.
Unlike the product and image eras of yesteryear, today’s positioning campaigns, for the most part, don’t emphasize product features, customer benefits, or the company’s image. They’re about competition.

Think about rental car companies.

Essentially they all do the same thing and there is not much difference in the cars available. So instead of focusing on the product—size and type of vehicle offered —the focus has turned to positioning against the competition on the minute details-- ease of accessibility, checking out/ checking in, on the road assistance, etc.. 
For many years now, the undisputed leader has been Hertz. Avis has positioned themselves as the solid #2 agency by acknowledging Hertz but saying “We try harder.” National has staked their claim as the leading economical rental car company. These 3 have maintained these positions in the mind of consumers among a sea of competitors (Dollar, Alamo, Thrifty, etc.)

However, there was an upstart company that was making significant in-roads within car rentals named Enterprise Rent-A-Car. In 1995 Enterprise decided to position the competition differently by creating a new service within the industry when they introduced: “We’ll pick you up.” This new category of car rental services paid off and they saw a four-fold increase in revenue over the next 12 years. Flush with cash, in 2005 Enterprise acquired National and Alamo making them the world’s largest rental car agency.

Positioning is all about finding a strategic position that is based on your greatest competitive advantage.

Brian Baughman contributed most of the content for this article.

These main ideas include:

• Where do "good ideas" come from?
• The "Slow Hunch" - most great ideas take a long time to evolve.
• Good ideas come from collisions of smaller ideas - your "hunch" connecting with someone else's "hunch."
• The primary engine of creativity and innovation throughout recent history has been connectivity. We have so many new ways to connect now. Even though we're distracted and multi-tasking, we have much more opportunity to develop "good ideas."

Take a few minutes to watch this video - we think you'll notice that the presentation of this information is as creative as the idea(s) being presented. Enjoy!

After our last blog-post about Google, Apple had some big news of their own today. Apple released iBooks 2, an update to their e-book software for iOS devices (the iPod, iPad, and iPhone). In true Apple-fashion, a press event was held to present the new software and it's most exciting features. Phil Schiller, introducing iBooks 2, described Apple's desire to use the iPad for educational progress. Schiller pointed out that students like to learn on the iPad - in fact it was the # 1 item on teens' holiday wish lists this year. He then described that iPad textbooks can replace the cumbersome, short-lived, non-interactive paper textbooks that students are used to. Apple has already partnered with McGraw-Hill, Pearson, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to start the ball rolling. These companies are currently responsible for 90% of textbook sales in the United States, and they will be releasing a handful of textbooks today, with more to come at later dates. At this point, Apple is focused on high school textbooks for the iPad, which will be priced at $14.99 or less. There seems to be some obvious and exciting opportunities available with digital textbooks which include constantly updated materials, interactive features, and portability. 
 

However, iBooks 2 wasn't the only announcement made today. Apple also released iBooks Author - a free download from the Mac App Store that lets any Mac-user write an e-book and publish it to Apple's iBookstore.
 

How we can help:

E-books. If you are ready to launch into the world of e-books (textbooks, training manuals, etc.), the creative specialists and designers at Your Creative People are here to help you (whether to Apple or elsewhere). Our team can provide you with strategic counseling and even deliver you a turn-key e-book or e-book platform. Our designers can help layout and design your e-book, and our support team helps you manage the ongoing updates for your e-book.

Mobile Apps. Of course our team is also available to help you develop your own custom mobile app, that would best serve your product, company, or non-profit and grab the attention of your audience. Give us a call and we'll set up a time to meet to discuss your ideas.

Further reading:

• Macrumors.com: http://www.macrumors.com/2012/01/19/apple-launches-ibooks-2-with-interactive-textbooks/
• Macrumors.com: http://www.macrumors.com/2012/01/19/ibooks-author-ebook-authoring-app-for-mac-now-available/
• Engadget.com: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/19/apple-ibooks-textbook-hands-on-video/
• Bloomberg: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-18/apple-said-to-plan-textbook-push-to-bolster-ipad-use-in-schools.html

Graeme McMillan, at techland.time.com, gives a pretty good breakdown of the specific "changes" here, but I'll also list out some of the new features for your benefit, based on his info:

-Personalized search results based on your Google+ information
-Auto-complete prompt based on that same Google+ information
-Google+ promotion on the right-hand sidebar of your search results page (for example, linking you to Google+ conversations about your search query)
 

Don't fret: you can apparently turn off the option to have your search personalized based off of your Google+ information, and you can also configure your privacy settings to guard against your personal info being splattered across search results pages. In fact, you'll have to be signed into your Google+ account to get this special page of search results at all- otherwise it will be business as usual. However, Google itself gives the common sense warning that “When you upload all this information you have to realize that it can become public and it can become searchable.”
 

Are you wondering why we would even be interested in this new way of googling?
McMillan explains the motivation behind the update with the example that if you were to search for information about a particular restaurant you wanted to try out, you could get social-networking recommendations and personal content (from friends, or people you know, or maybe even people who know people you know) in ADDITION to regular web-based reviews and info.

Those who don't have Google+ will just continue to get the same old, cluttered, Google search results.

Unfortunately for Google, they've generated some negative reactions to the update. Complaints include unfair favoring of Google+ over other social networking sites (obviously), and a general dissatisfaction with the cluttered, advertisement-filled, non-rank based search results the search engine seems to be leaning towards.

Finally, in addition to the search engine update and surrounding controversial reaction, Google also decided to launch an "educational campaign" this month called "Good To Know." The campaign is meant to help people (especially those who are less computer-literate... though there don't seem to be many in that category these days!) stay safe online and manage their personal data. The campaign has rolled out with this fun website, but will also be featured in print pieces. Of course, this campaign launch (probably more like it's TIMING) has some people bothered as well. As Jeff Chester, executive director of the Centre for Digital Democracy, put it: "This campaign should be nominated for some kind of award for fiction. If grades were given out for privacy protection, Google would get a D plus."

Well, you didn't expect Google to continue on in it's clean and simple format forever did you? Technology brings about constant changes, advancements, upgrades, and innovation, so Google is really just keeping with the times! The main problem they'll have in the next couple of months is keeping disgruntled people loyal to their search engine since there DO happen to be other search options out there.

Why does any of this matter? Because it means your website is increasingly being viewed and utilized on a mobile device. Your Creative People can take your website and design and implement a mobile friendly version for your business - all operable from Backstage (see the design we implemented for Greenville Spartanburg Airport's website) . Nielsen's data also tells us that smart phone users are big on Applications, with the average person having about 33 apps on their phone (that's up 22% from 2010, which shows us that the direction of the app market is still upwards). YCP can also develop an app for your product or business.

We can help:

Apps and mobile-friendly websites will become increasingly important as tablets and smart phones edge out laptops (which have edged out desktops) in the coming years. That's one area we can help you with. You can read more about our mobile site and app development capabilities here or see some of the mobile sites we've developed for other clients here. Or give us a call and let us help you identify and implement design and development that will serve and highlight your company on today's popular smartphone and tablet devices.

She states: "Corporate blogs work best when they're a natural extension of the rest of your Web site. When the content found on the blog serves to give more information/street cred. to your services. And to do that, readers need to be able to see the connection that exists between the two entities.

Your corporate blog fails when you put it on a separate domain and make it hard for people to tie back or access your site. It fails when your blog doesn't link to any other pages on your site or reference your service offerings in any way. Sure, blogs shouldn't be overly-promotional, but never mentioning your products or services is actually more awkward than giving people useful information as it's relevant. If you treat your blog like a totally separate island, consider what value it's really bringing to your company."

We would wholeheartedly agree. Your company blog can be a positive tool to reinforce your brand and keep customers and prospects in the loop. Let us create a blog for you with a regular content strategy that works for your company and further drives customer awareness.

Keywords seem to be a well-known component of SEO. The idea with keywords is to identify what a potential customer might plausibly type into a search engine if he/she were looking for your service/product. Many website owners already know to use meta-tags on their homepage with relevant words relating to their product/service. However, there is certainly more depth to using keywords to generate traffic than just meta-tags.

 "The best keywords are words and phrases that are being searched, but that may have been overlooked by other websites," says Jill Whalen of the SEO consultancy, High Rankings.
 
While words are helpful, phrases shouldn't be overlooked either, and when you are seeking local business, you will do well to include geographic markers on top-level pages. INC.com offers a mathematical approach to coming up with the words and phrases that are right for you: they say to calculate the ratio of the number of pages a search (for keywords) returns, to the popularity of the search term. The ration should be 500 to 1, or less! Not only that, but each page of a website should have it's own keywords because each page will have a different focus, or objective. 

Once you have developed keywords that are appropriate for the different pages of your website, you will want to place them throughout your site. It is advisable to include keywords in your content, but caution should be taken here. If your content is so overloaded with keywords that it is not "readable," search engines will not favor it. There are legitimate and illegitimate means to developing SEO, and sites that use illegitimate means put themselves in danger of being blacklisted on search engines (meaning the engines will not list your site at all, thus defeating your SEO efforts). Another action to avoid is keyword repetition in your meta tags. Put simply, if it seems like you are cheating, you probably are and it will cost you in the end. More is not necessarily better when it comes to SEO. 

Another important component of SEO is website functionality. Website content should be organized and lined up in keeping with the way people search for your site or items on your site. Similar pages should be grouped together into separate directories of folders and subfolders, or sites should have virtual silos with links that direct readers from one page to the next. A sitemap, which can be generated and submitted to Google, helps search engines find all the different pages on your website. Adding a sitemap also helps speed up the time it takes between launching a new website and having the search engines fully crawl your site. That being said, properly organizing your internal linking structure should go a long way in helping search engines list your site (don't rely on the sitemap!). 

Regularly updating your content will keep your site "fresh" and a fresh website is much more search-engine-friendly than a stale one. This is where SEO is linked to some of the services YCP provides: updated design, functional development, and a CMS that allows users to easily update their sites. If you have something to sell (a product or service) or something to tell, then getting that information onto your website regularly will be one of your best SEO tools. In addition to web design and development, and content management, YCP also provides advanced SEO services. Let us know how we can help you!

4. How do I generate a QR code?
A client may ask you to include a code on their next print project because they have a special promotion on their website. Creating a code is as easy as visiting http://createqrcode.appspot.com/ and having Google embed your text. Type your text, pick your image size and - voila, there it is. The resulting png file can now be used in your materials. Be sure to test your code, but we will get to that in the next question. 

If you would rather use an application with a little bit more control, QREncoder for Mac is a good choice, and it's free!

5. What do I need to consider when using my code in a design?
Remember that the longer the message, the more complex the code will become, so try to keep your character count to a minimum and use short urls for web links. A complex code may be difficult to read when displayed small. A large code on the other hand may overpower your beautiful design. It's important to leave some white space around the code in order for your scanner to read the area better. You must have good contrast between the code and the background, preferably keeping it--you might have already guessed--black and white. It may not be the prettiest mark, but form follows function in this case. Keep your code away from any page folds and perforations. A damaged code doesn't work. Wondering why every code has the square in three corners? Those squares are guides for the reader. It is important that you test your code from different devices in varying locations and lighting conditions to confirm the code's usability. Some substrates do a better job in displaying a QR code than others. A tan-colored canvas tote bag may be a tricky marketing item for a code. Shiny, reflective surfaces (even coated paper) could minimize the usability as well. Remember as well that not everyone knows how to use a QR code and that not everyone has a smart phone or an app to read the code with. It is a good idea to spell out the code text next to the mark as an alternate means to connect with your message and offer some help for how to read the code and where to get a free reader. 

As the number of smartphone users keeps rapidly growing, consider using a QR code for a campaign. Remember though, to not just put your mobile site behind the code. That's uninspired and useless. Consider your target audience and what response you want to evoke. A user wants to do or see something specific and not just randomly browse your site. At the very least, link to your Facebook page where your audience can leave a comment. Now it's time for you to get a QR reader such as "Scan." Link here for the iPhone and begin looking for the next intriguing QR code.

 

We found this clip referenced on the blog of our friends at Brains on Fire: 

Need a quick checkup?

Our team is highly experienced in thinking this way. We are skilled at using cutting-edge web technologies to produce a site that meets your needs, surpasses your expectations, and engages your audience. Over time a site's audience can change; we're here to help. We're happy to give you a quick review of your site and recommendations for improvement in any of these 4 areas. Get in touch with us today!

While we don't use (or recommend) Wordpress or pre-designed/stock templates, we do think the 5 simple points made in this blog post are worth thinking about.

As a branding company, we believe each client is inherently unique and we strive to design them a website with layout, functionality, and attractiveness that is exactly right for them and reflects their brand, or identity. So, we don't deal with templates and this actually goes hand in hand with the article's point number 1: Engaging Home Page. Having an engaging home page is essential. We as a culture have become content to skim through content and jump from website to website looking for exactly what we want, when we use the web. It's important for a client - or in a church's case, a potential church member - to not only land on a website's home page, but to have a reason to stay on it as well. Websites that are confusing, overpopulated with too much content, or populated with outdated or irrelevant content are not engaging. Poor design is an instant turn-off. People won't want to "stay" there.

The writer also makes this important comment: "...for those churches who don’t have the tools found in a theme such as Crossroads and True North, our Premium Church WordPress themes, hiring an outside agency is your most effective option. The monetary ties associated with this vary significantly depending on the project at hand. What needs to be kept in mind is the saying ‘you get what you pay for. If you hire a freelancer for pennies on the dollar, the result of the work will reflect that." We believe that the resources an agency has to offer in the way of support and brand consistency are invaluable - especially for a church - compared to those of a freelancer. That's not to say there's not a place for freelance work... but it's probably not best for a church.

Continue on to the article here to read more.

"The fear, of course, is that raising prices will send customers fleeing. While that can happen, many small businesses have raised prices and lived to tell about it.

They echo a common sentiment: setting prices strategically is not just about the numbers. Buyers are not necessarily looking for the best price, said Mark Kronenberg, founder of Math 1-2-3, a New York-based tutoring and test preparation company." - Eilene Zimmerman, New York Times, April 2011  

Click here for the rest of the article! 

Hopefully this series has provided you some benefit. I have noticed that our current generation is very sensitive about customer service; many of us feel entitled to receive exactly what we want at the price we want it at, as consumers. Since we are a very informed generation (with all our access to information often literally at our fingertips as we surf our smart phone to check out consumer reviews and what not while browsing through a store), we are also a very demanding generation. We want the best - but we don't want to pay full price (see TLC's Extreme Couponing). I try personally to be a careful consumer and use coupons and buy when deals are on whenever I can, but I also want to remain reasonable about my shopping experience. I don't want to refuse to buy something if I don't have a coupon for it, or treat a salesperson poorly if they stick to their price despite my best negotiating.

As an agency, we sometimes struggle to balance our client's budget needs and wants with our need to fairly price our services. It's not impossible, but it is challenging. Hopefully these thoughts will serve your customers well while also helping you make wise decisions as a service-provider!

Don't: Sell a customer something they don't need
Do: Explain benefits of products and features and how it can grow their brand and help their business. The key is to educate.

Don't: Pretend you are an expert at something you know very little about.
Do: Know your strengths and humbly admit if asked about something outside your expertise. Refer to third-party resources for things you can't handle yourself.

Don't: Exclude the customer from the process after they've paid for a job.
Do: Include a customer in the steps and involve them in the process. They'll be more likely to embrace the solution.

Don't: Be coy about the fine print in your contracts and project agreements.
Do: Address potential points of conflict before diving too deep into the project.

Don't: Keep a client forever just because they will write a check at some point.
Do: Keep clients with whom you can have a long-term relationship that is mutually beneficial.
 

-Remember that people have different styles of communication. While some are frank and outspoken, others may not want to offend and instead hint subtly at what they like/dislike. Instead of taking every statement like an order in a restaurant, some things may even get mentioned to give and example or to start a conversation and not because a client wants just that. Interpreting what a client says and asking a lot of follow up questions can be a big step to get the right message and save from disappointments.

Don't: Insist on your point or strategy.
Do: Admit when you are wrong, or someone else's idea is better, and do whatever you can to reassure your customer, and correct the mistake.

-If you're wrong, don't put your defenses up. A humble apology combined with giving your word to correct the mistake will mean much more to a client than even the best excuse! Remember that your job is a collaborative effort with a client. It ultimately doesn't matter who had the best ideas, just that they are well thought out and appropriately implemented.

Don't: Take disagreement personally and get emotional about it.
Do: Stay objective and acknowledge that opinions and expectations may differ at times.

-When a customer is investing their hard earned money, and a company is investing their fleeting time, disagreements may arise as to how to spend the aforementioned time and money. Do realize that disagreements need to be worked through in a courteous manner when they arise. Heated, quick words are recipes for disasters, or at least burnt bridges. It's important to discern when an email will be helpful to soothe a sticky situation, and when it's best to pick up the phone or meet face to face for coffee to put out a fire. The main thing is to not let a disagreement put you in a poor mood, but to remain professional and to try to salvage the relationship with the customer, even if you think they are not being respectful or understanding. You have to remember, they are only human (like you) and might not always show their best side. Remain professional - you'll be glad you did in the long run!

Don't: Tell a customer they are wrong.
Do: Point out what the prior agreement was and find common ground that you can proceed on.

-Nobody likes being told they are "wrong." It hurts the ego and it tends to lead to he said/she said type discussions ("You said we agreed on this!", "But I thought we were planning on that"). Instead, kindly point a customer to their contract (in our case a detailed scope of work which is signed prior to the work being started) and proceed to correct any assumptions by pointing to good, solid evidence of what was planned upon. At times, cut your customer a break and find a way to work with them on easier terms where they have misunderstood an agreement. At other times, gently but firmly maintain what was agreed upon. Use your discernment to determine which reaction is necessary.

-While it is pertinent to remind a client of scheduling and keep a project moving, it is necessary to be sensitive to the clients own work demands and scheduling needs. It is best to agree upon a schedule before beginning the project with the client, but to also be flexible enough to adapt to changes in plans as they come up (on the clients end and on your own). Try to help your client understand how they fit into a schedule which also includes other clients, while still being available to them when they need you.

Don't: Assume you know everything about your client
Do: Realize that your client ultimately knows his business best.

-Your experience in all things branding, design and development are the reason why your client hired you and needs your advice. However, take the queues from clients seriously when he is adamant about his operations and the way he goes about things.

Don't: Be satisfied with what the customer tells you about a given project or problem, only.
Do: Ask open and closed ended questions to find out important details to gain a better and more specific understanding or problems/projects.

-A customer may not know what is important for you to know to get the project done to his expectations. It's better to ask too many questions than too few. Having a client elaborate on important topics will be helpful. Seek to develop a comfortable relationship with the client so they will feel at ease as you talk with them.

Don't: Use techie or artsy jargon that might confuse.
Do: Use simple and clear language and embrace the mind of a "beginner."

-Embrace the heart of a teacher with the client being your student. An educated client who understands the process and product is a happier customer and more likely to not get upset with unexpected results he didn't bargain for because of his lack of understanding.

Don't: Make up your mind before a project or meeting begins.
Do: Get rid of expectations and preconceived notions and keep an open, sensitive mind.

-While it is good to have ideas in mind, you may have to adjust, expand or even scrap them once the client fills you in on new developments and explains what he likes or doesn't like. Some projects grow while others become smaller. Try to keep the customer happy by meeting their needs and doing the best thing that the budget allows for.

He says, "In effect, we are living in an increasingly post-idea world — a world in which big, thought-provoking ideas that can’t instantly be monetized are of so little intrinsic value that fewer people are generating them and fewer outlets are disseminating them, the Internet notwithstanding. Bold ideas are almost passé."

And can you guess the cause Gabler points to for this downfall? Yes - the Internet. Gabler points out that Facebook and Twitter and the likes give us no reason to have any deep, meditative, inventive thoughts. They just overload us with useless information. Gabler says, sure, we KNOW a lot ... but we don't know much that is worth knowing (for example, my Facebook newsfeed is overrun with "I'm taking the kids to the park today," and "The funniest things happened in church today!"... nothing groundbreaking is shared as the norm). Check out the article here.

However, not everyone agrees with Gabler's assessment. Zeynep Tufecki, an assistant professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland, says, ""What isolates people is TV, suburbanization, long-commutes, increasing working hours, mandatory two-income families... Not social media." And Chris Gayomali responded to the NY Times article by blogging for Time Magazine that we are too quick to blame the internet for anything and everything.

What does this mean for YCP, and our clients? No doubt, social media has benefited many businesses. For example: if Snuggle or DiGornio is offering a coupon on their Facebook page, I will instantly "Like" their page and allow my newsfeed to follow them to get the savings they are offering. A theatre in Florida recently ran a promotional event via Facebook for their summer production of "Annie": everyone who posted a picture with a cast member to the theatre's Facebook page was entered into a contest to win tickets to another upcoming show. I would say these are successful uses of social media to enhance business.

At YCP, we try to stay connected to our clients by letting them check in on/be informed by us through social media and our blog (which, ahem, you are reading right now).

So what do you think? Is social media ruining our ability to say anything worth saying, or is the internet a scapegoat for a generation that wants things to be the way they've always been ....?

 We are very proud of and dependent on our espresso maker here at YCP. It helps Andy wake up in the morning and provides that needed kick to finish up the afternoon for Justin. Our team uses our “mini-Starbucks” to make Hazelnut lattes, cappuccinos, Chai Tea lattes, and Americano’s every day. We offer a pocket-sized menu to each client that comes in, and carefully craft their chosen drink for them. We use our tried-and-true Delonghi Magnifica which allows us to brew our coffee and espresso, and froth our milk expertly. We use genuine Starbucks flavors and Big Train Chai tea latte-mix (the best Chai around).

Matt has really perfected our signature drink, the latte macchiato. He says, “It's made many different ways by coffee shops the world over. We make the more crowd-pleasing version of it: heavy on the milk with very strong espresso. Its perfected form really relies on the milk. When steamed correctly the milk is what allows the structure of the drink to take shape--so if a client gets a 4-layer drink, it is an aesthetic demonstration that their drink has been prepared well and should taste excellent. The wide array of incorrect ways to steam milk will all render a drink that is poor in flavor, texture, and appearance.

We handcraft every drink with this process:
1. Pour the correct amount of milk (too much milk will mess the drink up as well)
2. Steam milk correctly
3. Add your flavoring into the empty coffee mug.
4. Pour the milk into the coffee mug at a medium-slow speed. You should be using the entire amount you steamed, and it should leave about an inch of space in the cup for the espresso. Take care to not make large bubbles.
5. Stir the milk slowly for a couple of seconds to mix the flavoring in. This also aids in the stratifying of the layers.
6. Draw the shot into the coffee mug (DO NOT STIR)
7. Lightly dust with cinnamon sugar

The drink may be consumed as it appears with 4 layers. The experience will provide a powerful espresso start progressing to a warm milky finish. It may also be stirred (Matt serves it with a spoon since most people prefer it this way). Stirring the drink does not defeat the purpose of its appearance. Again, the appearance also demonstrates that the drink was made correctly and should taste excellent. When stirred, the drink should drink exactly like a genuine cafe latte.”

Our espresso bar is part of our company culture around here - and one that we draw great enjoyment from (fun is also one of our core values). It keeps me (Caitlyn) hopping to making sure everything is stocked, and it keeps our team stimulated with caffeine as they create amazing new designs and engaging products. Have you tried any of our coffee creations lately? Stop by sometime and see what we're talking about! We hope that your coffee is always just right and that you get to see our core values of creativity and personalized service lived out before you. Got a favorite drink? Tell us about it and we’ll have one waiting for you.

To see a list of our core values click here

Search engine optimization is the ongoing process of crafting and updating your website’s content, structure, keywords, and links in order to raise your page ranking in user searches. When most people use search engines, they type in 2-5 keywords to define what they are looking for. If the search engine finds a match for those keywords within the content of your site, the search engine will list your site as a result. The closer the keyword match (the more optimized your site is with those keywords), the higher your page will rank in the search engine results. Studies show (and we all know this to be true) that users will often stop looking after the first few (1-3) pages of results. If your website is not optimized for search engines it will end up so far down the search results that very few people will ever see it. Embedding keyword within your page and adding relevant links within your text (and relevant outside sites referring back to your site) will go a long way to boost your SEO rankings. Simplistically speaking, your site’s content and the outside link-backs to it are the two biggest factors in ranking your site on popular search engines.

2. How does SEO work?

Designed for humans or search engine bots? While Your Creative People designs your website for both humans and search engine bots, your human visitors will always be more important. The simple reason for this is that search engines only go as far as getting a person to your site, while humans are the ones that make judgment calls to purchase, to contact, or to engage you based on how your site engages them and what it communicates to them. Typically, if your site is not designed more for human visitors than for search engine bots, visitors will leave within the first 3-4 seconds of hitting your page (this is called a bounce).

Let’s talk about keywords. In order to rank well in Google (where about 85% of all searches are done), you need to add strategic keywords within your site’s content and underlying code. A domain name that's filled with commonly used or popular keywords can help you, right off the bat (if the keywords are also found multiple times within your site). In order to determine which keywords to use, draft a list of terms that you think your audience would use to define your business, product or service. Then do your own domain searches for those keywords and see where your website falls in the results (your “position”). Note your position next to each keyword. In buying new domain names, see if you can purchase several new domains for keywords you don’t rank very well for. You can also add those keywords to your site within your Meta tags, site description (more for your human visitors), page titles, images, and the content of your pages. Sound like a lot of work? It can be substantial and that’s why we offer both SEO services to do those things for you while also providing you with the option of doing those updates on your own through Backstage, our content management system. We’ll talk more about the practical ways in the latter parts of this series on SEO.

Remember, It takes time. Once keywords have been added to your site, it will take some time (typically 45-60 days) for a new or even a redesigned website to start getting search engine traction. It can take up to 6 months for a new website to be regularly crawled and substantially ranked. As search engines determine where to rank you, they factor in the amount of time your domain (and corresponding site) has been on the web and how much traffic your site has been receiving. The more time, traffic, links, total pages, and relevant keywords you have, the higher you will rank in a person’s search.

Also remember the critical factor in rankings: the more competition your website has (specifically for the keywords you are trying to rank for) has on the web, the more time you (or an SEO firm like Your Creative People) will need to expend to outrank them. No new website can get instant traction in less than 30 days unless they are doing a combination of almost daily optimization, paid search (Google Adwords, etc), and constant competition analysis. We also offer advanced services like these, but the dedicated labor comes at a price.

Create relevant outside link relationships. Positively speaking, having links to your site from other high-ranking, relevant sites (respected associations, suppliers, etc.) will increase traffic to your website, both from a human level and from the search engines. The important point to remember is that the quality, not the quantity of links, are what matters most.

Watch out! Relying upon certain types of outside links can be hurtful for the long-term if it is being done unethically. Placing hidden links beneath the code of your website may seem like a good way to get instant traction. Yes, this can temporarily help a site rank well, but it is an unethical means of SEO, looked down upon by Google and the other search engines. When Google finds the hidden links (and it will eventually), it blacklists your site. This blacklisted status can take you a while (often years) to dig out of. Do a quick Google search on “hidden links” and you’ll read lots of stories of this happening. At Your Creative People, we will never recommend or use hidden links in optimizing your site.

Directory listings are another form of “links” and they can be quite helpful for SEO purposes and can help raise your rankings if they’re created strategically. Some are great buys, but some are not worth your time. Link farms and the like are never a good option and can also get your site blacklisted. Do your homework and find respected directories that you fit your industry. It takes some good research and an investment of time to find and list your site. Directory listing research and placement is a service that Your Creative People can provide you with as part of our advanced search engine optimization package (to be covered in the latter parts of this series on SEO).

The actual content within your website, rate at which it is updated, and page count is important to the search engines. When you regularly update your page’s content (through Backstage or another CMS), you alert Google to the fact that your site is more active and that it should be crawled more regularly. That's why a blog can be critical to gaining traction. A blog that is built within your existing site can really help boost traffic from both your human visitors and search engines by pushing out new, relevant content that contain new places for keywords to be found. Blogs also allow you to push out new pages to increase your site’s page count (something Google factors in to ranking you).

And one more thing... Although regular updates to your pages (that contain specific embedded keywords) and link-backs from other sites, are two of the chief ways to increase your rankings, we have one more recommendation for you. Another means of both enhancing your ranking and communicating to your human visitors is adding video to your website. Check out this link to read more about Google’s favoring of video.

3. So, what can YCP do for me?

Advanced service (recommended for faster results). Your Creative People provides an advanced Search Engine Optimization service that digs deep to survey your competition’s rankings, identify short and long-tail keywords, set up both short and long-term strategies, and provide dedicated monthly SEO support, reporting back to you regularly on your site’s progress.

Blitz! Basic service (recommended for new sites/clients just getting started) We also offer Blitz!, our basic SEO service that is for those “do-it-yourselfers” out there. This service is just the start to putting down the foundation for long-term traction. We recommend this as the minimum for every client, and recommend our advanced level of service for clients who want faster success.

Our Blitz Backstage add-on and service includes:

1. We help you determine an initial list of relevant keywords to optimize for.

2. The add-on provides the ability to create Custom URLS (for example: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking  vs. http://www.sprinklebakes.com/2011/01/panera-bread-and-salted-caramel-bread.html), which can increase SEO firepower and make it easier to create linkbacks and shares. The add-on allows you to create and update individualized custom page titles and descriptions, contains an automatic Google sitemap.xml generator.

3. We personally submit your site to Google Webmaster tools, get you listed on Google Places (link), and each month, optimize on-page keywords and links.

Get Some Expert Help

For more information on the SEO services we provide at Your Creative People, read through our SEO capabilities or get in touch with us.

Here is an overview of SEO, done by one of our SEO Experts. 

Be sure to check out the SEO capabilities page of our website to learn more about what we can offer.

1. Make LISTS
2. Carry a NOTEBOOK everywhere
3. Try free WRITING
4. GET AWAY from the computer
5. Quit beating yourself up
6. Take BREAKS
7. SING in the shower
8. Drink COFFEE
9. LISTEN to new music
10. 10. Be OPEN
11. Surround yourself with CREATIVE people
12. Get FEEDBACK
13. COLLABORATE
14. Don't give up
15. PRACTICE, practice, practice
16. Allow yourself to MAKE MISTAKES
17. Go somewhere NEW
18. Count your BLESSINGS
19. Get lots of REST
20. Take RISKS

21. BREAK THE RULES

22. DON'T FORCE it
23. Read a page of the DICTIONARY
24. Create a FRAMEWORK
25. Stop trying to be someone else's PERFECT
26. Got an IDEA? Write it down
27. CLEAN your workspace
28. Have FUN
29. FINSH something
30. Listen to some new TUNES
31. Browse a MAGAZINE unrelated to your field

"There is nothing wrong with using a church website to simply give directions to the church or state the church's beliefs," McConnell added. "However, we must realize that more and more people expect to be able to interact online without having to drive or make a phone call to the church."

The article goes on to state that amongst churches that have websites (and most do), “nearly half of churches with websites (42 percent) update them only once a month or less.”

This is where YCP can help. YCP makes the process of updating your website easy with our software Backstage. Backstage now is able to offer capabilities to church websites like sermon podcasts, online calendars and registration for events, online missions catalogues detailing for church members all the missionaries the church supports, blogs, members only areas and many other features. All of these capabilities can be updated and maintained by any average church staff member with our easy, intuitive software. Does your church's website need help? Check out some of these features here.

The original article can be found here.

One of the reasons the agency business has survived all of its downs is the simple fact that most agencies are better at coming up with ideas than their clients. Between managing budgets and deadlines, agencies can only succeed in the idea business if you invest time in people to think, to plan, to scheme and to dream. Besides books, blogs and conferences, exercises such as brainstorming between employees and internal award competitions foster the flow of good ideas. A cool creative workspace with some injected personality further encourages taking your creative thoughts to another level.

What's Good Enough?

You might argue that your budget and deadline don't allow for stellar ideas that are set apart from the average. Every client needs his project designed and produced yesterday. Most jobs don't allow for big time cushions to utilize the full creative gamut and pull in every team member. Do you feel trapped by just trying get a project out the door while staying away from the box labeled "generic?" While some projects just have to get done, no matter what, other projects may allow you to "steal" time or let ideas evolve over time. Keep a notebook with you wherever you go to jot down what you observe and discover. Find ways to present thumbnail sketches to clients as well, before fleshing out final renderings that eat up time. Meditate on your and other designs and contemplate a solution outside the hours you are actively working on a project. Push your designs by implementing feedback from others. Do you keep ideas handy to revisit? A growing idea morgue will become a treasure for the next creative challenge. What do you do with the countless concepts presented to a client that did not make the final cut? Instead of discarding them, (digitally) file them away and pull bits and pieces for new projects to bring them back to life. A morphed combination of these ideas can evolve into an unimagined treasure and the key to beat a tight deadline next time around. Every employee prides himself in getting a job done under time, no matter what the budget, but hours should not always get in the way of producing a project that your team can be proud of. The bottom line: Don't accept mediocrity!

1) Pick an organization/event that you endorse    

2) Choose the organizations wisely and make sure you can actually help and further the cause    

3) Know what needs to be designed, for whom and how the approval process works    

4) Allow enough time for the work. Nobody likes to stress over a project that doesn't pay the bills    

5) Do work that is edgy and recognizable, pushing the creative envelope    

6) Request a full license to be creative    

7) Invest your best talent and don't just hand off the project to an intern simply because it's an unpaid project    

8) Look at pro-bono work as a creative exercise that encourages teamwork    

9) Pro-Bono work is a quest to create the things you normally can't do    

10) It's an investment that can build the reputation of your agency and attract new clients.      

These are just guidelines in mind, your next pro-bono job will energize and reward your team and the benefitting organization.

The prerequisite for a brand to become charismatic is to master the five disciplines of branding:

1. Differentiate

2. Collaborate

3. Innovate

4. Validate

5. Cultivate

Differentiate

Differentiating is crucial to developing a successful brand because it separates a brand from its competitors. The human brain works to notice differences between things, so the differences the customer sees visually between different brands play a huge role in which one they ultimately choose. “Our brain acts as a filter to protect us from the vast amount of irrelevant information that surrounds us every day…it learns to tell things apart…” Neumeier states that “the sense we rely on most is sight.” The final factor in the customers’ decision to purchase revolves around which company differentiated their product from another in a way that grabbed the customer’s attention, that had meaning to the individual on a personal level, and that appeared aesthetically pleasing. Branding is a complex process, and a network of people working together is vital to success and growth.

 A brand is not a logo, nor is it a product. A brand is the gut feeling one gets about a certain product, service, or company. The perception people have defines a brand; each individual creates his or her own vision of a particular brand. “A brand is not what you say it is. It’s what they say it is” (Marty Neumeir in his book, The Brand Gap). Trust is a crucial element in developing a brand, and this trust is formed as the customers’ experiences with the brand constantly meet or exceed their prior expectations. Trust creation is the fundamental goal of brand design, and designs are used to establish that trust. In today’s “information-rich and time-poor” society, people determine which product they will buy based on how much trust they feel towards the product rather than by assessing its attributes and benefits.

Some people think strategically, while others think creatively.

Companies that are able to bridge the gap have an advantage over companies who cannot. Whether or not a company can bridge the gap and merge logic with creativity determines whether or not a brand is charismatic, or dull. “A charismatic brand can be defined as any product, service, or company for which people believe there’s no substitute” (Neumeier). When both sides work together, a “charismatic brand” is formed. 

Most sites do! Web usability expert Steve Krug gives us valuable insight into what makes a website successful in his book, “Don’t Make me Think." The first thing Krug elaborates on is “Krug’s First Law of Usability."

This law states: websites shouldn’t make their visitors think (hence the title, “Don’t Make Me Think”).

Krug explains the need for websites to be self-evident and self explanatory to visitors. Web designers should always create websites with the goal of eliminating as many of the visitor's questions as possible. By thinking through the target audience’s potential questions and building the site to answer those questions without having the visitor dig for those answers, we create a simplified, positive, and satisfying experience that very often creates a new customer. At Your Creative People, audience analysis is our guiding principle, one that most web agencies don’t give much attention to. It should be obvious to users where they should click to find what they’re looking for, how to use the site’s search engine, etc. You want your site to feel effortless to users, avoid confusion and frustration that would cause them to turn back from using your website – and your company.

Websites are like billboards. Design them for visitors going by at 60mph.

Krug compares how people use websites to how billboards work: “We’re thinking ‘great literature’, while the users’ reality is much closer to ‘billboard going by at 60 mph’…if your audience is going to act like you’re designing billboards, then design great billboards,” (Krug). Krug introduces five ways to design pages for users who scan, not read. These five things ensure that fast paced users are exposed to, and actually see, as much as possible on your website.
 

Simple navigation helps visitors get their bearings.

Navigation is integral to website functionality, without navigation we would not have websites but simply a web page. The most important thing to remember when it comes to designing navigation is to keep it “Clear, simple, and consistent,” (Krug). On websites, the navigation tells your visitors where they are, helps them find what they want, and gives people something to “hold onto” when they get lost; it’s a way for people to feel grounded when they need support. Navigation reveals the content (what the site has to offer) to the user by making the hierarchy visible. As an example, consider the big signs in department stores that help buyers navigate to find what they want. Making evident what people need to click on to move around the website, and constructing the site so that it is easy for search engines to index, are both essential in designing great navigation.

Designing the home page can be complex.

What makes a good website?

So, what do visitors really like?

 

Stop and think. Are you making your visitors “think” when they come to your web site? If so, you may need help in creating a more effective website. With the “Don’t Make Me Think” principle always in mind, we can help you design a compelling website that creates a positive, satisfying experience, that can turn your next visitor into a customer.

It's a strange thing, but sometimes being given a smaller space, more people nearby, and less convenience helps workers get things done at a coffee shop, restaurant, or other spots. The Atlantic offers four key theories on why that is. Click the link below to read the full article...

lifehacker.com/#!5793436/why-some-of-us-get-more-done-at-coffee-shops

That's My Motto

I grew up in the great state of North Carolina. I love it there, and one really great thing about North Carolina is its state motto—esse quam videri: "to be, rather than to seem." A simple, but profound statement. It's something we can all aspire to personally, but it's also a vital principle to our modern market place, and to how your company thinks about branding.

Beyond Polish

As we've discussed in previous posts, your brand is not your logo or even the combination of your marketing messages. It's the impression that people have when they think of your organization. It's how people perceive you, a sense of trust or distrust in who you are and what you do. Your brand is the community you bring to the table. But in seeking to be heard, too often brands seeking to remain relevant and fresh think of branding as something of a visual polish. Today's receiver—the customer—has increasing trouble deciding which brand community he really wants to buy into. So what's the answer? It's viewing your branding efforts like a new logo or a great website as necessary and important structures that support and reflect the core you.

Fuel the Culture of Being

Your brand, at its core, starts with you and your team. Your team must be taught and reminded often that each person plays a key role in shaping your brand, whether they're someone writing the company e-newsletter, a product designer, a sales associate, or a manager. Each person's efforts toward supporting the company's core mission and values, as well as direct interactions with customers or clients, should be praised when they're noticed. This fuels a culture of being. As you preach this message to your company or organization you fuel the motivational fires, strengthening a team mentality. As your team, the real you, gets behind the brand messages you want to tell, your brand will become truly effective and creative, and your brand will remain fresh and alive to your audience. We all love authenticity when we find it—it's what makes us love the brands we buy and follow. So when your team gives daily priority to seeking authenticity, to living out a vision, to creating great things and great experiences, then your brand will have a strong core supporting the marketing promises you want to make. Then when people see your logo they'll remember positive experiences fueled by this authenticity, and you'll create a cycle that inspires brand confidence.

"These are exciting times to be a web designer. CSS is finally starting to catch up to the visions of the beautiful websites we have in our heads. No longer do we have to rely on hacks and images to create wonderfully engaging interfaces! But we can’t just rely on browsers to usher in this new era. As creators we have to be flexible and adapt our workflow to encourage these new best practicees. It’s time to rethink how we make websites." To Read More: http://webdesign.tutsplus.com/articles/designing-in-browser-a-manifesto/
 

"Uploading a commercial won't fly on YouTube. You have to be subtle, but if you are creative and not too heavy handed and not so obviously shilling your product, you might be able to score lots of free marketing online."

To Read More: http://www.inc.com/internet/articles/200808/youtube.html

 

In my last post, we started by defining “branding” and we embarked on the journey of helping your ministry define its brand. We covered the first step already. Steps 2 and 3 are described in the remainder of this article.

To reiterate, the three steps to branding your ministry are:

1. Define who you are (a.k.a. your brand, described by 3-5 defining statements)
2. Identify your contact-points
3. Create pieces to use for each contact-point

In the first article, I asked you to begin brainstorming over this question: what are the various contact-points you have with people in your community? A contact-point is a venue where you intersect with people in your community (either physically or virtually). What did you come up with? You probably listed some of the following contact-points (this list is not exhaustive):
 

Personal Contact-Points:

For personal contact-points, you will want to specifically equip your people to personally speak your message—your defining statements should be emphasized from the pulpit regularly. Your people will also need pieces to share the message indirectly (tracts, door hangers, brochures, etc.):

• In stores
• In homes
• In workplaces
• At social events (parties, community gatherings, concerts, etc.)
• At restaurants
• At public places: parks, malls, etc.
   

Indirect Contact-Points:

• Direct mail
• Magazines
• Newspapers
• The Yellow Pages
• Brochure
• Door hanger
• Public advertising signage (subway displays, billboards, etc.)
• Your facility, signage, grounds, etc.
   

Virtual Contact-Points:

• Website
• Social media
• E-mail outreach/newsletters
• Video/DVD
• Radio
• TV
• Phone
• Text

You should make sure that you are utilizing as many contact-points as possible, since you may be able to reach some people with one venue that you won’t be able to reach with another. It is important that you be consistent, emphasizing your defining statements within each contact-point so that as the community continues to see those statements repeated, your brand begins to take shape in their minds. For example, you may have come up with three actual defining statements (your message). One strategy you can use to educate your community on who you are is to send out direct mail pieces to the community over the course of 3 weeks. In this example, our strategy will be to do a direct mail piece that will go out once a week to the surrounding 2 zip codes of the church. You’ll want to sit down and decide which defining statement would be important to highlight with each post card. Then decide what other type of content information you want to include on the front and back (e.g., logo, tagline, gospel message, etc.).

For a direct mail piece, we always advise our clients to use smaller, non-standard post-card sizes and to highlight one, single message on the front of the card. You only have a second or two to catch a person’s eye as they scan through their stack of mail. A non-standard-shaped post card, with a clear, simple message is the most effective way to stand out among a sea of junk mail. The back of the card can contain more information, but it’s important to put only the vital information on front of the card, making it uncluttered and easy to scan quickly. Once you’ve finished coming up with the content, hire a professional graphic designer to lay it out for you in a way that enhances and aids the communication of the message. Help your designer understand that it’s better to have a clear, simple design that helps a person “get” the message, than something that is just “trendy” or “uber creative.”

Decide which pieces you will need to reach out to people with a single message through each contact-point. In principle, this process is similar to setting up a lemonade stand as a child. You were a budding entrepreneur, trying to make a go at your first business and hoping to earn some extra spending money (i.e. this was your message). To reach the most amount of people, you positioned your lemonade wagon along a busy sidewalk at the front of your neighborhood. You hoped this would help you intersect with the most amount of people (i.e. your contact-point). Your impassioned pleas, large homemade sign, and the big red wagon were just the ways you communicated (i.e. the messengers) to get people to notice what you were selling. Today, we still follow the same process. You have your message, and the internet can create a viable contact-point and your website can act as the messenger to get that message in front of people.
 

Step 3: Create the pieces to use for each contact-point

Below are 12 ministry communication tools (messengers) that we typically create when a ministry rebrands. I have listed them here in chronological order.

1. Logo design, which often includes other collateral materials such as your business card and letterhead designs
2. Web site design, which often includes search optimization, social media, e-mail newsletters, etc.
3. Church signage
4. Brochure design
5. Video/DVDs for use on the web, for visitors, etc.
6. Worship Guide/Church Bulletin
7. Guest cards
8. Powerpoint templates
9. Direct mail pieces
10. Door hangers
11. Gospel tracts
12. Outreach signage for bus/subway stations, etc.

Decide at the beginning how much you can afford to spend

It is possible to get a professionally-designed brand on a lower budget. On the other hand, in my experience, I have found that you will always get what you pay for, hands down. If you think you are getting a deal, you might be signing yourself up for a lot of wasted time, money, and delays. For example, the individual in your church that wants to program your website may not be capable or talented in designing a branded, aesthetically-pleasing site. What I have always done in working with ministries is to start off by asking them how much they want to initially spend on branding (most ministries are already thinking of an amount they are comfortable with by that point). As a designer, the answer to that question allows me to decide if I am able to provide services to them (as well as to gauge the amount of work I am able to recommend to them right off the bat). For ministries, I often recommend doing the work in stages, thereby cutting down the amount of cash outlay at the beginning. Ministries should not expect to get all the professional-level design work for cheap. Professionally-trained, talented people are laborers worthy of their hire (1 Tim. 5:18).
 

Advice for working with a volunteer

“But I have this guy in my church that said he would do my [insert your specific project here] for free. What do I do?” While some ministries are blessed with skilled and trained designers who make their living by branding companies, there are several pitfalls that you may run into. In order to make the wisest decision consider these questions:

• Is this person skilled in all aspects of the project (eg. designing and programming)?
• Can this individual achieve the same level of professionalism I would expect if I hired a professional firm? Would the end product truly reflect well on our ministry?
• If I am not pleased with the work, can I be honest and forthright in telling this person? Will the individual be offended, especially if he is doing this for free/cheap?
• Can this person deliver my project within the timeframe I need? Note: Most often, I’ve seen volunteer-designed sites take six months to a year longer (and some are never finished) and look very haphazard.
• If this person leaves my ministry (on good or bad terms), would I need to start over again from scratch? Is he the only person who knows how it works?
• If the project did not turn out well, could I end the project with this individual and still maintain a good, ministry relationship with him?
   

When you are ready to begin, start by redesigning your logo

Because your logo (often called a “brand identity”) will set the foundational graphic style for the rest of your visual identity, it’s important to have it designed first. Your logo is the cornerstone of your brand identity. Since your logo will be showcased on each outreach piece you distribute for at least the next 15 years, it’s important that your logo is more than just a creative concept; it must be a powerful communicator. Be prepared to invest considerable monetary resources into the creation of a unique logo.
 

Build a branded website

Your website can be your most important communication tool if it’s designed well and is easy to use. Make sure it passes these four tests:

• Clarity - Clearly communicates who you are, your purpose, and defining statements in text and graphical style.
• Good Design - The design and feature set aids or enhances the communication instead of distracts from it.
• Ease of Use - The site is simple to navigate and allows visitors to easily find information.
• Substance - Gives the visitor enough content/information about your ministry to get the big picture as well as a reason to return or visit. You must keep your web site up to date.
   

10 Ideas for Branding on a Budget

1. Buy a domain name for your ministry ($10yr.) and link it to a free WordPress blog.
2. Advertise your site using Google Adwords.
3. Have other sites link to you to increase your search engine traffic.
4. Set your church up with a record on Google Places.
5. Start a Facebook page for your ministry.
6. Include your web site on everything (e-mail signature, signage, etc.).
7. Set up a free blog and post updates. (wordpress.com – free).
8. Put together a 4×6 card mailer (design/printing $200-300).
9. Use Gmail for your e-mail (free) & a Google Calendar (free).
10. Use e-mail newsletters to get the word out to your people ($10 per campaign 3cents per recipient).
     

Wrapping it all up.

It is critical that your ministry be clearly communicating the right message to your community. This message must be consistent with the character of our God as revealed in Scripture and one that clearly typifies what your church exists to do. Several years ago, I helped the church that I attend do a rebranding. When it came time to create an overview brochure, we narrowed the choices down to photographing two different families where God had worked to save and dramatically change lives. We wanted to send a specific message to people we meet in our community that God has the power to do the same life-changing work in their lives. At the end of the story, it is God who is to receive the glory forever, through lives who have heard the clear, simple message of His Son, embraced genuine redemptive change, and continue to live out that faith through lives conformed to Jesus Christ. That’s the ultimate message of the ages and getting that message across is what ministry branding is all about.

In the arena of church marketing, with all its perversions, distractions, and confusion, some biblically-based advice is needed. Get ready to listen.

“How did you hear about us?” I asked an older couple who came one Sunday night to the church I was visiting in Southern California. “We’ve been out of church for several years and were looking for a new church to attend. We received your post card in the mail about a month ago, and then visited your web site. It looked like the type of church we’ve been looking for.” I smiled. This is what effective branding is designed to do.

A pastor in New York City sent me this story: “We have had several visitors come the past few weeks [because of our] website. I pointed the Google ads to within a mile or two, and we are seeing about one new visitor a week from that. The other folks come through the sidewalk sign. In our last baptismal service two men were baptized—a father and son from the same family—and they came through the website. I believe the oldest of these men became a believer since attending the last few months.”

These stories are just two examples of what branding is all about. We measure success not by just increasing numbers (though we do want to reach more people with the truth of the Gospel), but in seeing lives truly changed into conformity to Jesus Christ. Effective branding is designed to increase your exposure with people in need within your community, and to clearly communicate a message that will ultimately meet those needs. Before you can successfully communicate your message to your community, you must first be able to articulate what that message is—in essence, who you are. Let’s tackle that from the beginning.
 

What is church branding?

When I interact with pastors on the topic of branding for church ministries, the first thing that typically comes to mind is a logo. While a logo (or any visual identifier) plays a role in branding, that role is only one player in a whole cast of characters that form a brand. Thinking of your brand as synonymous with your logo is like thinking that the five human senses are just the eyes. Your brand is like a diamond; it has many different facets that beautifully reflect the light. That reflection accurately reveals or communicates what the diamond is. Your brand is made up of the various facets that you communicate about yourself through the different contact-points someone has with your ministry. These contact-points can be visual (like a picture, which is often the strongest), audible (preaching, music, your receptionist’s greeting), palpable, etc. If a church visitor experiences friendly, caring people who interact with them throughout their visit, that church visitor will leave thinking of your brand as friendly or caring. Typically, your brand will only stand for one thing in someone’s mind. What message are you sending to people through each contact-point they have with your ministry? Those multiple facets of communication come together to form an impression, called your brand.
 

Is church branding really that important?

It’s often said in the web design industry that if you want to find a bad website, just Google church websites. It is a sad, but often true reality. Churches often neglect their branding, and more specifically, their websites. In a survey at a national church planting conference I spoke at, 9 out of every 10 visitors to a church noted that they had visited the church’s web site before ever showing up for a service. A vast majority of churches may spend large amounts of money on renovated facilities, yet completely neglect their own websites. Truthfully, how many people never visit the church facilities because they are turned off by a church’s lack of attention to a well-designed website?

Your church is always communicating something, whether you’re trying to or not. 
Often, ministries are actively sending certain messages without even realizing it. For example, a website that is disorganized, hard to navigate, or looks poorly-designed is communicating something about what a ministry values, or what the church brand stands for. A clearly organized, well-thought-out navigation coupled with solid content and good design communicates that you set a high priority on order, quality, and the seriousness of ministry. Your website is the first contact-point a visitor has with your ministry. Your home page acts as the initial greeter that stands at the front door of your ministry directing people to the right place. Ask yourself this question: ”What message am I sending about my ministry to the people who see my site every day? Do the printed materials I put out in the community communicate a clear message or a disunited one? Do those materials accurately reflect what we are truly all about? Even more importantly, am I accurately reflecting the true character of my God as revealed in Scripture?”

Here is the testimony of one Southern California pastor: 
“Branding has given [our church] a unified look, recognizable image, and concrete means to communicate key aspects of who we are and what we are doing in a simple, clear, graphic, and attractive way. It allows our website, print materials, signs, outreach, church materials, and gospel literature to have a cohesive look and clear connection. As we continue to keep an active web presence, pass out gospel literature and church invitations, and put up signs, our logo and thus our church becomes recognizable in our community. Only the Lord knows the real effectiveness of branding in getting the gospel to our community, but it helps us maximize our obedience to His commission.”
 

The good news about church branding

With good branding, you can give the right impression and directly influence what your community thinks about your ministry without compromising your message.

Before I go on to the “how to’s” of doing that, let me give you some even better news: you don’t have to have an unlimited budget to effectively brand your ministry. I know some readers of this post will have already understood and seen the importance of branding before ever reading this article (thanks for sticking with me to this point!). You may feel that your ministry is just too small or you cannot afford to do much. My advice is this: you can’t afford not to brand. Many churches focus on their limited resources and fail to look at the wealth of opportunity. For example, just adding your church’s location to Google Maps (a free service), can help you show up when people Google “churches” in your area. That and other free venues are available for your use, if you are willing to put in the time.

If you stick with me through this article series, I will give you some practical ideas on how to do church branding on a budget.

How can church branding help my ministry?

In my experience working, teaching, and consulting with over 100 pastors, I have found that branding helps in two specific ways—one internal and one external. Let’s start with the internal purpose, because that is what is often neglected when churches consider rebranding.

Branding will give people in your ministry an “elevator speech.” It is widely said in sales that if you can’t clearly communicate what your business is to someone in 1-3 sentences or less (i.e. the time it takes to ride the elevator from the ground floor to your 4th floor office), you don’t really understand what you do. The same principle applies to ministries. Most church members (and maybe even staff members) don’t really know how to clearly explain to someone what their church is all about. Imagine you were getting on the elevator on Monday morning with someone you know from another office. You are discussing your past weekend experiences and mention that your family attended church on Sunday. Your friend then asks what your church is all about. Hmm… you struggle to really know what to say or how to say it. You know what your church is like, but how do you articulate it—and before the elevator stops at the next floor? Effective branding can help give your people 3-4 short, succinct defining statements that they can use to clearly communicate what your ministry is all about. It’s important that those defining statements are clearly and carefully explained (and repeated) from the pulpit. You can remind your people by putting these defining statements on the church bulletin or worship guide, brochure, etc.

Repetition aids learning.

Branding clearly communicates what your ministry is all about to your local community. The is perhaps the most obvious purpose of branding, so we’ll not spend much time here. Taking those 3-4 defining statements we discussed in the previous point and making them the central messages of your outreach communication materials (including your website) will directly influence what will comes to a person’s mind when an individual hears the name of your ministry. If they know about you, your community will be thinking something about your ministry. It’s important to influence that positively.
 

So where do we start?


By this point, you may be ready to jump into the practical steps on how to brand your ministry (or how to afford it). Let’s get started. I’ll cover the first step here and we’ll follow up with practical ways to implement your brand messages through web and print media in the next post.
 

Step 1: Define who you are (for free)

Since branding is all about clearly communicating who you are, the foundational step is to define exactly who you are. Think about it like this: water is made up of Hydrogen and Oxygen. If water didn’t contain those two elements, it would cease to be what we know as water. What foundational roots of your ministry make the ministry what it is? You can think about it in terms of an individual’s unique personality—what about someone’s personality makes him or her unique? We’re not necessarily trying to differentiate you from other ministries. We’re trying to find out what makes you who you are. This is not about having a choir ministry, children’s church or three services a week. Take a moment right now and jot down 3-5 defining statements. You don’t want any less than 3, and you want no more than 5. Once you’ve got those defining statements, run them by another trusted leader or personal acquaintance that knows your ministry. Find out if those statements accurately define your ministry. Once you have your defining statements refined and complete, you now have a clear message to communicate.

Step 2:

identifying your contact-points. Start by brainstorming regarding this question: what are the various contact-points you have with people in your community?

step 3:

Create the actual pieces to use for each contact-point. This will be the step whereby you will identify the venues (logo, web, print, social media, etc.) to broadcast your brand.

A closer analysis of steps 2 and 3 will be the subjects of our next article.