Wieting Design

How to Set Up your Facebook Business Page for Success

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optimizing-your-facebook-business-pageRule #1 in business is to get in front of your market. As the largest social media site for small businesses, Facebook is still king. If you’ve been fighting the trend, you are missing out on a great opportunity. Three reasons you should have a Facebook business page is to connect with customers,  it is a free way to market your business, and it brings traffic to your website and store. Now you know why you need it…

Here’s how to set up and optimize your Facebook business page for success.

  1. Create your Facebook Business Page connected to your personal Facebook account.
  2. Choose which category you fit into out of the following:
    1. Local Business or Place
    2. Company, Organization, or Institution
    3. Brand or Product
    4. Artist, Band or Public Figure
    5. Entertainment
    6. Cause or Community
  3. Complete your business profile description in 150 characters or less so visitors know exactly who you are and what you do . Add categories that your business applies too like what type of food your restaurant serves or what services you offer, then finalize the profile with your business website link.
  4. Upload your profile picture. Your goal with your images is to draw viewers in and show off your brand. Be sure it’s a high resolution shot.
  5. Claim any duplicate pages. Facebook may have a user generated page about your business and during set-up they will prompt you to claim this page(s).
  6. Choose your audience. For example, if you’re a hair stylist in Wilton, CT your audience could be women ages 13-65 that are located in Wilton. You can also target based on people’s interests, but be careful narrowing your audience or your views will be limited.
  7. Setup a Cover Photo. This picture is different from your profile picture but is equally important as it’s the first big image of your brand viewers will see. Your cover photo should be 851 pixels by 315 pixels and visually show your services.
  8. Create a Call to Action. Choose a button to include on your page that prompts viewers to engage with you. I.e. Book Now, Contact Us, Shop Now.
  9. Create a posting strategy with compelling content. Start off slow and steady with a daily post. If you have a blog, pull snippets from your website and add images to your posts. Visuals and video get the most views.
  10. Invite your Friends to like your page.  It’s important to wait until you have a stream of content before going for likes. Once you have a few posts and images, go for the low hanging fruit first. Like your own page and then ask friends and family to also like your page.
  11. Advertise on Facebook. You don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars a month, but consider starting with a small budget to grow your audience. When you are first starting out, it can be hard to gain an audience but once you’ve established 1-3K likes, you’ll start gaining more organically.
  12. Measure your Growth. Facebook has a built-in analytics tool to help you measure your growth and you can add a tracking code to your website to track how visitors are interacting with your website.

Creating a Facebook Business page is free and simple to do and with all of the benefits, it’s a no-brainer. Having a Facebook page also helps you with Google’s new local SEO ranking algorithm. One of the most important steps is to make sure your presence on Facebook is consistent and aligns with your brand. If you share a funny video that  gains new likes, but it doesn’t pertain to your brand, you’ve earned a like, but not a customer.

If you’re ready to start marketing on social media but not sure where to start, let the social media experts at Wieting Design create a social media strategy for your business.  Email us for a complimentary consultation or give us a call at 203.414.9692.

4 Ways to Improve Client Communication

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Communicating efficiently and effectively during a web design or website marketing strategy is key to a successful outcome. The relationship between a client and our agency is a true partnership in where both sides bring vital information to the table. Web design is only partially about the actual design and our designer. Communication plays a large role in how visually appealing your design will be how quickly the project can be completed.

4 Ways to Improve Client Communication

Build a connection. We are people first and foremost and it’s easy to forget this simple niceties when we’re focused on work goals. However, taking the time to start with something other than business talk, gives both sides a chance to strengthen the relationship.

Who Calls the Shots? We’ve all heard the expression “too many cooks in the kitchen” and nothing gets done or it takes twice as long. In business, when too many client reps  are in charge of a project they all tend to make their own changes/opinions. Similarly, sending a messenger to key meetings may halt a design change or important information being lost in translation. Key decision makers must be present at key meetings and presentations in order to maintain quality communication. We would never send a “fill-in” staff member to a meeting, as they’re not the expert on your project and we value the time you spend with us.

How and When to Communicate. As your partnered web design agency, it’s our responsibility to determine the best time and methods for communicating with you, our client. One of the most effective ways to ensure we are delivering constant communication is through monthly review meetings. This is not to say we’re not always available, but a monthly review keeps the project on track and moving towards the goal. Constant communication is extremely important in our development projects because we rely on your feedback. Delays in responding can halt a project from moving forward and extend the timeline for delivery.

Communicate on the same level. We don’t understand the complexities of your field of expertise, so we would never assume you understand ours, like how HTML5 and CSS3 are providing the best UX for your project. As the expert in Web design and client communication, we’ll let you know we’re using the latest web development technology to bring your customers an easy to use and navigate website that’s mobile friendly. In the end, we are still talking about responsive design and CSS3 media queries, but we are focusing on the business results instead of the technical execution required to achieve the results. Send us visual examples of what you like, images of your store, brand, products, etc so we can follow your references and give you the best visual design.

Quality communication is not one-sided. It has to flow in both directions: from us to you and from you back to us. The best projects we’ve developed have all been a direct result of consistent, clear communication.

The website and graphic designs we present are about you and your business which is why we take the time, upfront, to get to know you. It’s really about our clients that make Wieting Design the kind of company it is. Call us at 203.414.9692 for free consultation for your next project and get to know us.

Is Custom Website Design Worth It?

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There is something to be said about “packaging”. Once you have made the decision to invest, there are still many questions. Who should I hire?  Should I use a template?  Can I do it myself? Should it be a custom designed site?  Who can I trust?  How much will I have to pay?

In the years of running my company I’ve been involved in many custom website redesign projects ranging from small startups to larger brands. It’s my responsibility to guide the client in the right direction for their business, even if the right solution doesn’t directly benefit us.  I once read somewhere  “Business development is all about building trust. Forcing the wrong solution is shortsighted”.  I believe if your looking for just a few pages to get started then a pre-designed template might be perfect for you. But if your a well established company and looking to grow your business a custom site is the way to go.  Here are some simple facts about custom website design and pre-designed templates.

Facts About Custom Website Design and Development

  • Your website will have a completely unique design that will incorporate your brand.
  • With a custom site YOU GET WHAT YOU WANT.
  • A CMS system (content management system) is built into the site to make it easy for the owner to manage.
  • The process to create a custom site does take longer than a template site, because it is custom.
  • The cost for a custom website design is more, because we start from scratch.
  • The site will be built so its search engine friendly, meaning “prepared for SEO”.
  • Your website will be built so its adaptable to your company’s needs.
  • It is beta tested across all browsers to ensure your website works.
  • Your site will be designed to grow with your business by installing technologies for the future.
  • The implementation process is a collaborative one.
  • The code will be clean so your site runs fast which is better for SEO and the user.
  • Most website designers will train you and make sure you understand how your website works.
  • If your intention is to do SEO our custom websites are built to rank fast, due to the clean code we use.
  • Guidance on your copy content to ensure it makes sense, and is SEO compatible.

Facts About Do-It-Yourself Pre Designed Templates

  • Templates have a shorter development time.
  • Cheaper cost upfront.
  • Lots of other businesses/competitors could be using the same template which means your site will look the same.
  • You are limited on how much you can customize the site; what you see is what you get.
  • Some templates are not built to be search engine friendly.
  • Templates may not work on all browsers.
  • Templates are great for low budget, but remember what you see is what you get.
  • Pre-designed sites that you buy will not have a good support system.
  • Any images/copy added to the site must be adapted to fit in the areas predetermined on the template.
  • In the end if you do want to make changes outside of the template, it will cost you more to break away from the template.

Wieting Design knows the ins and outs of website functionality and can help you choose the best options. When creating a new website, you get what you pay for and templates may seem like a convenient and easy way to create a site but in the long-run a custom site is more cost effective because of what you get from the service to the finished product.  If your budget only allows for a pre-designed template hire a professional designer/developer to guide you in the right direction, it is worth the extra dollars and will save you some headaches later.

We have provided custom website designs for a variety of clients such as: Black-Eyed Sally’s, Reynold & Rowella, and more. View our portfolio

GIVE US A CALL OR EMAIL US WE WOULD BE HAPPY TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS

Providing Website Design for all of Fairfield County CT including Westport CT, Fairfield CT, Greenwich CT and Stamford CT

Custom Website Design – Darien Rowayton Bank

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We thought it might be nice to showcase some projects (every now and again) that we completed this past year.  Our next blog will be about custom website design, and what we believe is good design verses bad design.  After all we have been designing custom websites for over 10 years so “we think we might know a little bit about the subject!

We were fortunate to have picked up some great clients last year and the hard work we put in proved to be a success. We pride ourselves in our design work, we honor budgets and we believe, it’s really about our clients that make Wieting Design the kind of company it is. We have built our business on the conviction that integrity and the quality of work we deliver is our first priority.

Custom-Website-Design

About Darien Rowayton Bank

We never designed a website for a bank before, so this was a first for us. We partnered with Peter Blau, owner of Customer Growth to design and build their student lending business site and then they hired us to design and build their retail bank site. DRB wanted a user friendly website, one that would talk to the college students applying for loans, to function across all platforms, mobile responsive, and most important they needed to track visitors and monitor loan applications through the site.   They also wanted to rank along side some of the biggest banks in the US to help gain more traffic and to acquire more business, which with certain key words we accomplished that.  Here is a snap shot of the work we did for DR Bank.

  • Custom Website Design
  • Mobile Responsive
  • Search Engine Marketing
  • Migration to Custom Server
  • Custom Plugins
  • Developed Custom Referral Forms
  • Organic Search Engine Optimization
  • Inbound Marketing Lead Generation Apps.
  • Programming Custom PHP Payment Calculator
  • Account Management

We love good simple design.  Effective web design is judged by the users of the website not the owners. There are many factors that affect the usability of a website, and it is not just about how good it looks, but how it functions.

Websites that are not well designed tend to perform poorly and have sub-optimal Google Analytics metrics (e.g. high bounce rates, low pages per visit and low conversions). Our next blog will talk about what makes a good website design, we will explore the top 10 web design principles that will make your site aesthetically pleasing, easy to use, and what really engages the user.

VISIT OUR PORTFOLIO OF WEBSITE DESIGN, GIVE US CALL WE WOULD BE HAPPY TO TALK WITH YOU ABOUT YOUR NEXT PROJECT.

CONTACT US

Wieting Design, LLC
………………………………
o: 203.414.9692
e: cindy@wietingdesign.com

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Serving: CT, Fairfield County CT
Hartford  CT, New Haven County CT