Simple Square Blog

The Importance of Brand Constancy Online

John Furness — Thu, 03 May 2012 18:49:10 +0000

With so many different online venues available these days, it’s hard enough to keep track of them all let alone establish a clear and constant brand across them all. This article details the importance of a consistent brand across all of your online channels.

What Is An Online Channel?

An online channel is any domain that you keep for your business. When I mention an online channel, I’m referencing your website, blog, and any social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pintrest, etc. There are a lot of options out there for you to choose from.
For more information on Social Media For Creative Professionals visit this article here.

Why Be Consistent?

The importance of maintaining a consistent brand online is just as important as establishing your brand in the first place. It’s what people think of you, it’s how they remember and relate to your unique offering. Maintaining a constancy on the web will ensure that your brand has a firm impression on your audience making you more recognizable through familiarity. This familiarity builds trust and assurance with your audience.

If a user’s first impression of you online is your Twitter account, how confident are you that your message is as strong there as it is on your website? If they visit your website from your Twitter account will they feel like their still dealing with the same organization? Do your Tweets match the messaging on your website? Are they relevant to the service that you provide?

How To Establish This Consistency

There are two key elements to consider in regards to your brand online: message and image. What to say and how to look.

The Message: Keeping the literature on all of your channels is important. Ensure that your messaging across all of these is consistent. Any Posts or Tweets should be inline with your service offering. If your a photographer, keep the content about photography.

The Image: Almost all channels online allow some extent of customization visually. Utilize this capability by making your Twitter and Facebook pages look as much like your website as possible. Have your web designer focus on each of these, a designer’s touch always makes for a professional appearance.

With clear and consistent messaging and imagery your letting users know that all of these outlets are one and the same.

Infographic – A Website Designed

John Furness — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 03:01:59 +0000

A Website Designed is an infographic of the average website’s creation.
Feel free to download and share this, or link directly to it here on our blog.

Thank you to Allan Moon at Copypaste for translating this infographic to Hebrew, Daniela Dell’Aquila for the Italian translation, Vitalii Daniuk for the Russian translation, to Andres Salgado for the Spanish translation, and to Jean-Philippe Wozniak for his French translation services.

View A Website Designed in English here.
View A Website Designed in French here.
View A Website Designed in Russian here.
View A Website Designed in Spanish here.
View A Website Designed in Italian here.
View A Website Designed in Hebrew here.

Embed This Infographic
Select below to copy and embed this infographic on your site.

English Version
<a href="http://www.simplesquare.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/A-Web-Site-Designed.jpg" title="A Website Designed Infographic"></a> Created by Simple Square. <a href="http://www.simplesquare.com" title="Simple Square - Portfolio Website Design">Portfolio website design</a> specialists.

French Version
<a href="http://www.simplesquare.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/A-Web-Site-Designed-FR.jpg" title="A Website Designed Infographic"></a> Created by Simple Square. <a href="http://www.simplesquare.com" title="Simple Square - Portfolio Website Design">Portfolio website design</a> specialists.

Russian Version
<a href="http://www.simplesquare.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/A-Web-Site-Designed-RU.jpg" title="A Website Designed Infographic"></a> Created by Simple Square. <a href="http://www.simplesquare.com" title="Simple Square - Portfolio Website Design">Portfolio website design</a> specialists.

Spanish Version
<a href="http://www.simplesquare.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/A-Web-Site-Designed-SP.jpg" title="A Website Designed Infographic"></a> Created by Simple Square. <a href="http://www.simplesquare.com" title="Simple Square - Portfolio Website Design">Portfolio website design</a> specialists.

Italian Version
<a href="http://www.simplesquare.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/A-Web-Site-Designed-IT.jpg" title="A Website Designed Infographic"></a> Created by Simple Square. <a href="http://www.simplesquare.com" title="Simple Square - Portfolio Website Design">Portfolio website design</a> specialists.

Hebrew Version
<a href="http://www.simplesquare.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/A-Web-Site-Designed-HE.jpg" title="A Website Designed Infographic"></a> Created by Simple Square. <a href="http://www.simplesquare.com" title="Simple Square - Portfolio Website Design">Portfolio website design</a> specialists.

Top Alternatives

John Furness — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:19:09 +0000

Earlier this month we launched the Top Alternatives website. With categories for Building a Website, Customer Feedback, Optimization, Selling Digital Products, SEO, Video Marketing, WordPress, and more – Top Alternatives is a fantastic collection of tools for website owners and webmasters. Top Alternatives currently boasts an impressive 104 tools to select from.

I wanted to share this resource with you. Even as web designers, we found tools on here that we found very interesting.

Visit the Top Alternatives website here.
Visit the Top Alternatives project in our portfolio here.

Responsive Portfolio Design

John Furness — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:09:05 +0000

With so many internet-ready mobile devices available to consumers today, how can creative professionals ensure that their online portfolio is optimized for all screen sizes? This article outlines the change that we’re seeing in today’s online world and provides a solution for this change that’s becoming very popular.

A New Era

Enter any cafeteria, mall, school, or public transit system and you’ll see the next step in the evolution of personal computing – mobile. In 2010, smartphones outsold the personal computer, meaning more access to the internet via mobile devices than laptop and desktop computers combined. Also in 2010 traffic to mobile site’s grew by over 600% – tripling from the previous year*.

What does this mean for your website and online portfolio? It means that an ever growing number of mobile users are visiting your website each day. Have a look at your site’s analytics to get a clear number of these visits. It’s a good bet that it’s up from the previous year.

Responsive Design

With desktop, laptop, tablet, and smartphone visitors to consider, what can be done to ensure that your site is performing well at all screen sizes? The best way to accommodate all of these different devices is through a technique called responsive design. A responsively designed website has the ability to adapt to a variety of widths. It ensures that your content is being delivered in an easy to view format for your site’s visitors, regardless of their screen’s size.

For creative professionals this means that potential and existing clients will be able to view your online portfolio from any device. A responsively designed portfolio adjusts page layout elements to maximize the use of available screen real estate by:

scaling images to fit the screen
scaling text for better legibility
making navigation easier to use with fingers vs. a mouse
hiding non-essential content to prevent clutter on smaller screens

To Respond Or Not?

Responsive design is a great idea for the modern website. However it’s not an essential component for all online portfolios. It’s a good idea to review your site’s analytics and decide if the investment is essential – do you have a significant number of visitors that are on mobile devices? How will a responsive website benefit your clients? It’s important to discuss whether or not to make your new site responsive with a professional web designer. Their experience and insight will help you make the right decision about taking that next big step online.

Responsive Design Examples

For examples of Responsive Design visit: www.mediaqueri.es. Here you can see a variety of site’s displaying the adaptations that a responsively designed site makes from wide to narrow screens.

* Stats taken from Mobile First by Luke Wroblewski

Six Tips for Successful Website Content

John Furness — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 17:42:20 +0000

When redesigning, updating, or creating your website it’s important to remember that content is king. When writing content for your website there are six tips that will help ensure the success of what your posting online.

This article explores these six tips with the intent of helping you clarify communication with your audience online.

1. Make It Unique

With so many options online, it’s the unique that gets noticed. Take the time to assemble content that’s not already online. If your service or product offering is similar to another agency or individual, focus on your unique offering.

2. What You Know

Write what you know. If your a photographer, focus on topics that are related to your expertise. Make note of your service offering and what makes it unique. Writing within your area of expertise will help to build the trust that you want with your audience. It will also position you as an expert within your field.

3. To The Point

Keep your site’s content short and to the point. Use small paragraphs with titles to allow users the ability to skim your content and find what they want. Making your content quick and easy to skim ensures that visitors find what they want and stick around.

4. Portfolios & Galleries

If your website consists of a portfolio of your work it’s important to keep this content as current as possible. It’s also important to select work that best portrays your service or product offering.

For more information on this topic see:
Should You Have an Online Portfolio?
The Benefits of an Online Portfolio
Key Elements of a Great Online Portfolio

5. Keywords & SEO

The content that’s on your site is indexed by search engines. It’s how people will find you when searching for you on the web. When writing your site’s content it’s important to write in terms that they will be searching for. Developing a keyword strategy is important to ensure that your content is helpful to your site’s SEO.

6. Read & Re-Read

Now that your site’s content is finished, read it through a few times. Have another set of eyes read thought it. Remember to spell and grammar check it. Nothing will hurt you more than spelling errors and grammatical mistakes within your website’s content.

Web Hosting for Portfolio Websites

John Furness — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 13:45:01 +0000

Selecting a web host is an important step in getting your portfolio online. In this article we discuss the basics of what is web hosting, why you need it, and how to select the right web host for your website. While this article focuses on web hosting for portfolio websites, the content is relevant to all site owners.

What Is Web Hosting and Why You Need It?

A Web Host is an internet hosting service that allows you to make your website available on the web. Web Hosts are companies that rent space on a server (shared or dedicated) for you to house your website on. Different hosting companies offer a variety of hosting services that vary in technology, speed, and space.

For a portfolio website, the average shared hosting environment will be more than sufficient. The only exception would be video based portfolios where a higher level of bandwidth and storage is required. It’s important to discuss your new site’s content with a Web Host – this will ensure that your new site has all that’s required to function optimally.

How To Select The Right Web Host

A Google search for the term ‘Web Host’ will bring up a seemingly unlimited number of Web Hosts. Unless you have experience working with this sort of technology it’s best to request the advice of your web designer when selecting a Web Host for your new site. Your web designer may be building your new site using specific technologies that will be required on the server. Also your web designer may also offer hosting solutions that you can take advantage of.

Having your web designer host your website can be advantageous. For those that are not technically minded, it eases the burden of having to learn about the technology and also deal with the selection of and support for your own Web Host.

Should you decide to select your own Web Host, here’s a list of things that are important to check for:

Is there a phone number you can call if you need assistance 24/7?
Is the hosting environment shared or dedicated?
Can the Web Host guarantee 100% up time?
Where is the company located?
Are backups a part of the plan you’re purchasing?

How Much You Should Expect to Spend

The cost for hosting your website can vary. It largely depends on how much space and bandwidth you need for your site. On average, a shared hosting solution will start around $20 a month. This will include all of the technologies needed to host your site, email services, and some sort of a backup plan for your website’s data and files.

Portfolio Websites & Google Analytics

John Furness — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 18:32:31 +0000

Google Analytics (GA) is a powerful, free, web-based tracking tool used to log all of the activity on your website. GA can be used to measure your site’s visitors, where they are from, what they’re looking at, where they came from, key words that were used to find you and a whole lot more. This article isn’t to introduce you to GA so much as to help you to better understand it’s use on a portfolio or gallery based website.

Why Use Google Analytics?

In a nutshell – so you can better understand how your site is being accessed, what content is being viewed the most and what key words are being used to find your site within search engines. GA can help you buy the right keywords, target your best markets, and engage and convert more customers.

Engagement and Conversion are after all why you have a website right?

The Benefits of Using GA Within a Portfolio

By using GA within your portfolio you can better understand what pieces are getting the most traffic. We here at Simple Square review our analytics on a weekly basis. We use the information that we gather to help us decide which pieces to place higher within our portfolio and what types of work we should be showcasing. The work that gets the most hits and the longest visits is likely more interesting to visitors than work that gets less. This is very powerful information to have at your finger tips. Tailoring your portfolio’s contents to your target audience’s interests is a key element in increasing engagement and conversions.

An Interesting Case

Recently I performed some extensive updates to a client’s site. While preparing for these updates we were considering the removal of a web app that helped clients select additional information on their products. After reviewing the site’s analytics that we had collected over the past year it was decided that it would be wise not to remove this app. The data showed that over two thirds of the site’s traffic was using it! If not for the collected data we could have easily taken down the app and lost a huge portion of their audience.

More Information on Google Analytics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Analytics
http://www.google.com/analytics/

Related Reading
Portfolio Updates: Content & Frequency

Should You Have An Online Portfolio?

John Furness — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 15:08:21 +0000

For some creative professionals the question of whether or not to have an online portfolio is obvious, for others no so much. This post explores what type of business benefits from an online portfolio and why.

What Is An Online Portfolio?

Let’s start by defining what an online portfolio is. For the purpose of this post an online portfolio is a showcasing of work performed by an agency or individual for a client. We’ll lump product catalogues into this definition as well – not all creative professionals provide services to clients, some produce products for retail.

Learn about the benefits of an online portfolio here.

Who Benefits From An Online Portfolio?

There’s really only a small number of individuals and agencies that don’t benefit from having some sort of an online showcase of work. The only reason that a creative agency wouldn’t keep an online portfolio would be at their client’s request or if they were performing private labeled services.

Any business that produces a visual product should have an online portfolio/gallery/catalogue of the services and or products that they provide. It’s imperative that consumers (potential clients) have the ability to familiarize themselves with your work. An online portfolio allows for a comfortable environment where this can happen, pressure free.

Below is a list of businesses that should have an online portfolio. Please note that this isn’t a complete list, if you feel an important business type has been left out – drop me an email and I’ll make the addition.

Graphic Designers
Photographers
Architects
Interior Designers
Industrial Designers
Furniture Designers
Visual Artists
Art Galleries
Musicians
Videographers
Illustrators
Logo Designers
Typographers
Software Designers & Developers
Mobile App Designers & Developers
Web Designers & Developers
Textile Designers

Logos for Creative Professionals

John Furness — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 12:54:34 +0000

As a creative professional it’s important that your brand closely represents who you are to your target market. At the top of your brand sits your logo. This post explores the three main logo types, some excellent examples of each and what works best within the creative industries.

1. Iconic Logos

Iconic logos are simple, memorable illustrations that are emblematic of a company or product. Imagery is used in either a literal or abstract way to represent your organization. Using an iconic logo type is a less direct approach than using text. This leaves a bit of ambiguity as to the nature of your service or product offering. In order for this logo type to be effective it needs to be; a) Unique, b) Memorable and c) Scalable (clearly visible at smaller sizes). Typically this type of logo is reserved for very well established brands.

Examples of Iconic Logos

2. Wordmark Logos

A wordmark is a typographic treatment of a company or a product’s name. The company’s name is incorporated as a simple graphical treatment to convey a clear and visually memorable identity. The visualization of the represented type becomes a visual symbol. This is a much more literal approach than above and leaves very little room for misinterpretation of the brand. In order for this logo type to be effective it needs to be; a) Legible, b) Unique, c) Memorable and d) Scalable.

Examples of Well Executed Wordmarks

3. Combination Logos

Combination marks are a merging of the above two logo types. They use a combination of both an icon and a typographical treatment. Some combination marks use the type within the icon and others keep them separate. The type and the icon should not compete with one another, a harmonious balance needs to be achieved between the two elements. In order for this logo type to be effective it needs to be; a) Legible, b) Unique, c) Memorable and d) Scalable.

Examples of Well Executed Combination Marks

What Works Best for You

It important when considering your organization’s logo to keep it’s intended use in mind. A strong and well executed logo should work in all of it’s intended applications. Each of the three mentioned logo types have specific requirements that need to be met in order for them to be effective. These elements are universal and ignoring them could be detrimental to your brand.

As a creative professional, your logo is often one of the first elements of your brand that an individual sees. Your target audience is going to make instant assumptions about your business based on your logo. If a template, or something unoriginal is used – what does this say about who you are and they type of service or product that you provide? The same goes for poorly designed or ‘homemade’ logos. It’s best to seek out professional help from a designer when creating your logo. Your success as a creative professional depends on it.

Social Media For Creative Professionals

John Furness — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 19:43:19 +0000

Utilizing social media to further your online presence is a reality for creative professionals. Social media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn can be extremely beneficial for those working in creative fields. This post is an overview on how you can build your fan base and reach a larger audience through social media.

Social Media is a important tool in an agency’s success online. It can be used to help build a following or a fan base that you can communicate with directly. While each outlet has a slightly different way of connecting you with your audience, the premiss is the same throughout – to build relationships. Social media is about people connecting with one another.

Some experts coin social media marketing as ‘pull marketing’ as opposed to traditional ‘push marketing’ (TV, Print Ads, Radio, etc.). It’s about building personal relationships with individuals and sharing honest, helpful, relevant information. By sharing this information you position yourself as an expert within your field that can build trusting relationships with potential clients.

It’s not wise blatantly attempting to drive traffic to your website through Twitter. This type of ‘push marketing’ will only leave you frustrated with little results. It’s more about finding content that your clients/potential clients would find helpful and sharing it with them. As a web design agency that services creative professionals, we are always looking for little bits of information that our audience could use to enhance their online experience. I like to share helpful portfolio tips, case studies, resources and infographics that are relevant to our audience. Quite often I use my Twitter account to share some design inspiration or other resources on the web that I think are helpful to others.

Remember, it’s all about building relationships with your audience. Social media allows us to do this in a very transparent and personal way.

For more information on each of the four social media outlets discussed in this post visit Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn.