While I think it’s important update my blog (endless benefits), I tend to put my clients’ sites on my list of things to do before my own and in the past year, my work load web designing for small Maine businesses has increased dramatically, giving me the opportunity to meet and work with some awesome people. I’ve been lucky enough to work with such new clients as the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association, Maeghan Maloney, and Lakeside Motel and Cabins while happily retaining clients like Judy’s Colors and Cold Spring Ranch.

Logo design, which I love, has been on the uptick as well. I’ve realized how effective logo design for small businesses is essential for financial success. A good logo keeps marketing costs low and product/service association easy.

This past year has also enabled me to expand the services I offer here at pollymac design by working with some wicked smart and motivated Mainers. Fuller Ink., a PR company in central Maine, is another one-woman business started by Sarah Fuller. Sarah works efficiently to connect your business to your target audience with a range of services from news releases to trade show strategy. Eric Olson of Eric Olson Consulting, is a specialist in system design and development. In geek speak that means he works with php, asp, vb c++, MSSQL, MySQL, SSIS, SSRS, and Crystal Reports. If that all looks like another language to you, I can translate…customer information from accounting systems, problem tracking systems, service status messages from other systems, and so on and so forth. If you need help with public relations or if you need to develop a system to help your business run more efficiently, please contact pollymac design. Together we can make it happen.

Sarah and Eric do amazing work, as do all the small businesses I’ve met since the start of pollymac design. I’ve seen innovation and craftiness, I’ve tasted gourmet and goodness, and I’ve been inspired and educated thanks to my clients. I feel grateful to have these strong business relationships all over Maine and a few beyond.

Man, a lot of good can happen in a year.

Meredith Mustard, Parenting Coach

Color. When the purple (plum to be more accurate) happened, the site came together. We needed an affirming color, and one that worked with the richness of the paintings and the stark white behind the calligraphy. The plum served to bring the purposes of the site together.

Visit Meredith’s site, get to know her, and schedule a coaching session or enroll in a class. If Villanova, Pennsylvania isn’t right around the corner for you, call or email Meredith without hesitation.  I’m sure she can help.  If you are not in need of Meredith’s parenting assistance, visit her site just to admire her beautiful artwork.

If you are looking to get more engagement on Facebook, here are 5 questions for you to consider…

1. What is your purpose for having a business page on Facebook? (to inform, to sell, to drive traffic to your site?)

2. Who is your audience? (age, gender, location, interests…)

3. What does your audience want/need? (think about value here, what do they get or what are they looking for by joining your group?)

4. How can you give your audience what they need/want?  How can you give them even more than that? (you have to see your business/Facebook page through the eyes of your audience here…)

5. How much time do you have to spend every day on FB promotion?

Now it’s time to develop your plan.  Starting with today, create a calendar for Facebook updates.  Fill in what you will do every day.

TIPS:
Be personal by finding your voice.
Show your fans some love!
Start a conversation or be a part of one.
Use humor.  Laughing is contagious!
Research the most engaging people on your newsfeed and follow their lead.
Write down ideas for things to try on Facebook as they come to you.

ALWAYS, always, always reflect on your plan.  Ask yourself what worked and what didn’t and why, adjust, try something new, and go on from there.

Facebook Ads

https://www.facebook.com/ad_guidelines.php
https://www.facebook.com/business/ads/
http://ads.ak.facebook.com/ads/FacebookAds/Getting_Started_Guide.pdf

If you want to start creating ads for Facebook, here are 5 questions to ask before buying anything…

1. What is your goal? (get more likes, get more impressions, get people to a website…)

2. Based on what you want to accomplish, choose to create a sponsored story or a facebook ad.

3. Who is your target audience?

4. What is your budget? (do you want to pay per click, pay per impression, by the day, or by the campaign?)

5. What do you want your add to look like? (image 110px wide x 80px tall, 135 characters, and a title…You must have a call to action!)

Again, always monitor your progress.  Reflect, revise, and try again.  Success takes a lot of time and energy!

If you have your profile as your business, migrate your profile to a business page here:https://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php?migrate

Resources for Facebook success:
http://www.amyporterfield.com
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/
http://mashable.com/

Challenge:  Facebook is cool and all, but have you seen Pinterest? Sometimes it’s easier to show instead of tell and this is exactly what Pinterest is about. Not only that, Pinterest is search engine optimized to the max which might just bring more traffic to your site. http://mashable.com/2012/03/26/optimize-images-pinterest/

Is Pinterest for you and/or your business?  If you have an account, you are invited to .  If you’re into it, here’s a cool infographic about using Pinterest from Mashable.  It’s definitely one of my new favorite websites for business and for pleasure.

So here it goes…I’m posting the link to this really sweet article in my local paper, The Irregular, about me and my business.  A big THANK YOU (Thank you!:) to Karen Pease for writing it.

Polly MacMichael, Following Her Dreams in The Original Irregular

ps. I wish the title was: Polly MacMichael, Following Her Dreams L-I-V-I-N!

New logo

Gabe and Molly of Cold Spring Ranch took the opportunity of the new web design to redesign their business image. It all started with the logo.  They wanted an update and they asked Hilde, Gabe’s mom, to draw it.  After about 20 drafts, Gabe and Molly were able to choose a logo that would require only minor changes–a slimmer shoulder on the cow, the addition of “Cold Spring Ranch”, and the addition of the two lines around the drawing.  I also made the drawing transparent so that it would work on any kind or color of paper and any color shirt, hat, or other business merch.

While the logo was getting under way, I was working on the site copy, installing necessary plugins, researching keywords, and developing the header. Gabe and Molly sent a slew of awesome ranch photos–so many it was hard to decide which ones to use in the design.  (Have I mentioned what a beautiful place the ranch is?  When you buy a box of grass fed beef, offer to pick it up at the ranch so you can check it out.) The design idea was to use the transparent logo on a background of grass and mountains and just playing around one day, I added a watercolor filter to an image I thought might work.  I checked in with Gabe and Molly and they loved it. The image was just right with the logo on the left, and the watercolor filter gave the header the “polished but not too polished” look the Clarks requested. We were onto something.

Cold Spring Ranch header

The colors for the rest of the site came from the header. I had originally planned on a green theme (thinking grass), but the blue popped and offered a eye catching contrast to the green in the other images used in the design.

I ended up 95% finished right before Christmas, so over the holiday, Gabe and Molly were able to show the site to their families and get feedback.  There were a few changes to wording here and there, and a couple of captions on the photos were revised, but overall the response was really positive.  I was pretty satisfied with the site at this point, but I still felt that it needed something.  A background image?  Yes.  A patterned image maybe. Something simple that wouldn’t detract from the current design.  Barn boards.

I took a ride over to the ranch the day after Christmas, hot on this new idea.  There were plenty of barn boards vertically and horizontally and they were photogenic in the bright sun and the new snow.  After a little work in photoshop, an easy color balance with a touch of blue, I added the image to the background and sent the new draft off for inspection.  An overwhelmingly positive response!  98% finished.

The last touch was the tagline, “Grass Fed Beef from New Portland, Maine”.  The font decision on this came from my beloved Kenneth Roberts books–historical Maine fiction. This font gave the modern site a historical appearance reflecting the current state of the ranch–modern according to philosophies and functions, yet rich with history that the Clarks are devoted to preserving.

Just as a reminder, here is a picture of the old Cold Spring Ranch site.  (Read the full post about starting a new website design project for a small Maine business.)

Cold Spring Ranch site before the redesign

And here is the new site:

Cold Spring Ranch site after the redesign

Simple, practical, functional, accurate, up-to-date, and polished but not too polished–just like any working ranch (and working ranch web site) should be.  Check it out at coldspringranch.com.

Business aside, though, New Portland is my town.  I was born and raised here. Considering how I felt about it when I was younger, it’s kind of odd that I would choose to live here as an adult. It has its share of problems.  It’s in kind of a shabby state, physically, and it has been for 30 years or more. Vacant buildings downtown (9 at last count), a closed school, a closed post office, a closed mill, and 3 villages spread across some 40 square miles makes development a challenge.  The town has been in a downward spiral, but it was once a vibrant and colorful community.

The positives about New Portland have always been the same:  the charming landscape, the wealth of natural resources, the proximity to mountains and fresh flowing water, and the people. The people are genuine.  Some of them I’ve known my whole life and they just keep getting better with age. There are new New Portlanders, people who have moved here from “away” and there are also people here I have yet to meet, which is surprising, New Portland being such a small town and all.Generally speaking, New Portlanders are active, intelligent, fun, and good at making things work.

So why don’t we have a better town?  Well, personally, I feel like our town lacks a common goal, lacks a vision. Until recently the town has been leaning on surrounding services for survival/entertainment/education.  But we now have a library that opens for local artists, holds events for children, and welcomes happy hookers and knitwits.  We now have ONE store. People have taken a chance on our town as a place to run a business–Enviro-Mats, Inc. took over the Brochu Mill and Seven Falls Cabins on Rt. 146 is under new ownership. Then there are the people here that make a hell of a drive or sacrifice a better pay rate just so they can live in such a beautiful place. I’m hopeful, and I think others are too, that New Portland is tasting a bit of the good life with these additions and is asking for more.

Getting back to business, I was hired to design and build a website with the future in mind. Sometimes to look forward, looking back is helpful.  On the New Portland history page, you can view photos of the town villages around the turn of the last century. I see a town with character in those pictures–people out and about, houses looking fresh and new, bridges being replaced.  Even though these pictures are in black and white, there is some color to them. Local color. As the site grows and becomes more useful, with posts from department heads, comments from New Portlanders, and a full events calendar, I am hopeful that what a visitor to the site will see is not necessarily the design, but what I was inspired by when I started the project–the town itself.  New Portland is full of potential and it’s getting better all the time.

subscribe to posts

LESSON: subscribing isn’t what it used to be and perhaps your mother isn’t the only one confused by this…

So yes, you can still pay for a magazine or newspaper “subscription” and it will arrive, wrapped in plastic in your mailbox, but with the advent of online publication, the traditional use of the word has morphed into…a button–a button that looks like this on my website: .  It’s over on the right hand side of your screen.  If you click on that button, this screen will open up:

click on the reader of your choice or click the "get pollymac design delivered by email" link

Just click on the reader of your choice or click the “get pollymac design delivered by email” link and the rest is EZ. Subscribing to a blog is usually TOTALLY FREE and if you subscribe to someone’s blog, they think you are awesome, supportive, and interested in what they have to say which inspires them to write more. Blogging is hard work and subscribers make it all worth while.

Even though it’s free, you might be asking: why subscribe? For the same reason you paid for a subscription in the past–because you like what you see, you find it useful or entertaining, and you’d like to get more.  I subscribe to at least 25 blogs through a Google Reader and the most important subscriptions I have sent directly to my email inbox. It saves time and money and keeps me actively learning.

So Mom, if you stumble across a blog that you like (he hem), look for the subscribe button (they all look basically the same).  If you have any questions, just give me a ring.  And, if anyone reading needs a blogger, needs to set up a blog, or needs advice on how to get more traffic to a website using a blog, you are welcome to call or email me.  I’d be happy to help.

I’m just starting a redesign for Cold Spring Ranch, an amazingly beautiful grass fed beef farm right here in New Portland, Maine.  Gabe and Molly’s meat is well-known in Maine, gracing the plates of Fore Street, Primo, 555, and others, and the meat counters of Whole Foods and Rosemont Market and Bakery.  Their current site, built with Front Page by Gabe years ago, needs some attention.

Cold Spring Ranch site before the redesign

Gabe and Molly want to keep the feel of the current site the same.  They want it to stay simple and personable–maintaining the message that they are a family run cattle company that believes caring for the animals and the land will make the best product.

While we are designing the new site, the old site will stay active which means you can still get information about ordering beef, read about the farm’s rich history, and view some pictures of this special place.  Look for the “after” blog about the site that will follow, along with pictures and descriptions of the redesign process.  And look for their beef!  It’s local, grass fed, and the best I’ve ever had.

Habits: Get into the habit of thinking like those you want to attract. Get into the habit of taking pictures and shooting video, and get into the habit of sharing.

Social Media: I recommend finding what you like and using at least two.  These are some of my favorites…

Facebook

Twitter

Linked In

YouTube

Google Plus

Stumble Upon

Remember that being social works both ways. It is just as important to follow, watch, comment, and share things from other people as it is to be followed, commented on, and shared.  Everyone wants attention so if you give it, you’ll generally get it in return.

Website:

own your domain

use a host

use a CMS like WordPress

use keywords, links, images, titles, and comments

blog your butt off and use tags, keywords, images, links, titles, etc.

Tools to help you be successful and track your progress…

set up a Google account

set up an iGoogle homepage for your browser

add trends and reader and sign up for alerts

google’s keyword tool–low competition, high number of searches

Google analytics–track your progress

Last words of advice…use the help button, be active, remember your goals, and have a good time doing it all!

Need a printable version?  Get the Virtual ViSalus pdf.