Graphic Design Fairfield County CT | Wieting Design

The Use Of Stock Photography or Original Photography

July 2, 2018 by Cindy Wieting

Many companies decide to go with stock photos because they feel hiring a photographer is to expensive. When your building a business and putting dollars into a website, logos, and marketing promotions you have to cut somewhere, right?

But if you use stock photos in some cases you may not connect with the user in that personal way as most people can spot stock photography in an instant. Using professional photography adds a personal touch to make that connection with the user. Using stock photography has its place for sure but where can you use it and where should you not use it? Here’s some pros and cons when it comes to using stock photography and professional photographs.

Stock Photo Are Flawless

With stock photos you can select the perfect shot, they are beautiful, clear and crisp and these days you can buy great stock photography very inexpensively. With the right selection they will convey your message perfectly in some cases. Stock photos can work well if you use a mix of “professionally shot photography” in and around your website and marketing materials. But, remember stock photos are identifiable because most likely they have been used before in other marketing promotions and can be a turn off to some potential clients. When you use your own photos you don’t have to worry about having the same photo somewhere else, and you own it.

Building Trust

If your developing a team page for your website, or if your building a website for a restaurant which will require galleries of various food shots, or if your an architect or a interior designer, you should invest in professional photography. These kinds of business’s demand original photography to showcase your personal work. Believe it or not we have seen many websites for builders and architects showcasing projects through stock shots and its very obvious sending a clear message that something is amiss.

So, in some cases one of the ways to build trust is to use your own personal shots to show your work, and get it done professionally.

As a full-service marketing company in Connecticut, we can guide you about the use of stock photography and professional photography throughout your website and other marketing promotions. Give us call at 203.414.9692 or send us an email.

Wieting Design | Graphic Design

Wieting Design is a full-service, graphic and website design agency based in Fairfield County, CT and serving all of Connecticut (CT). We are committed to sharing our experience and expertise in website design, graphic design, social media marketing, search engine marketing (SEO), and video production to help build powerful tools and campaigns that work for your Connecticut business. Whether your objective is to grow your reputation, create client loyalty, drive traffic to your website or set up a marketing strategy, we will adapt our approach to get you the results you need with the services we provide.

How to Create an SEO-Friendly Blog Post

May 22, 2018 by Cindy Wieting

We have been discussing the importance of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) many times in our blogs. Being the backbone of any form of digital marketing initiative, your inbound marketing strategy will remain ineffective unless it gets fine tuned with SEO.

Blog posts play crucial part in inbound marketing and inbound marketing is an unavoidable part of digital marketing. An engaging and useful blog post can become a turning point in making your website achieve higher page rank as well as can help increase the number of repeated visitors.

Google keeps changing its algorithm, so that its website index technique remains a secret. Emphasizing healthy competition is Google’s target. It ensures that only relevant, useful and authentic information tops in the list of organic search results.

After doing some analysis we have figured out some qualities that SEO-friendly blogs should have. Lets’ find out-

Understanding recent SEO trends – Google, being the most popular search engine, every moment a huge number of people click here to get their queries answered. As per the recent trend of Google algorithm, concentrating on having exact keyword matches is a passé. It emphasizes more on analyzing relevancy and usefulness of the blog’s idea and content. Readability and cohesiveness of the blog play a crucial role in getting higher page rank in organic SERPs.

Maintaining High Quality Standards- It is important to maintain high quality standards throughout your blog posts. A quality blog is always organic and free of plagiarism in any form. Make sure the information you are providing to your audience is authentic and if possible add its source that testifies its authenticity. Making grammatical errors will affect blog post’s readability; so, be careful about that.

Including relevant Links- Adding links of useful pages that stand directly relevant to the subject matter and content of your blog post influences escalating your blog post’s quality. It helps Google in analyzing and recognizing the idea and content of your blog post. But before doing that, make sure the links you are providing also bear the marks of quality and authenticity.

Making blog post easy to skim- Not all your visitors will have patience to read each and every word of your blog post. A considerable section of the visitors will simply skim through the article to know whether it will fulfill his need or not. In order to win such visitors’ attention, make your blog easy to skim. An easy to skim blog post usually carries attractive headings and sub-heading that clearly tries to make readers have a quick grasp of what it tries to talk about.

Using Paragraphs- Sensible use of paragraphs attributes to make a good blog. Using separate and sensible paragraphs will not just improve coherency and readability of the blog but also will make it look nice. Each paragraph should have a main idea. You can easily figure it out by questioning yourself.

Attractive Headings and Meta description- Headings should be coherent and created by keeping the potential client’s need in the center. With an appealing headline, you also need well written Meta description. Meta description plays crucial part in making Google understand the subject matter of the respective page. It also increases your chances of getting clicked by searchers. Make sure you do a competitor study and make your heading stand-out in the crowd.

Wieting Design | Social Media Fairfield County CT

SEO or ADWORDS: Which One Should You Choose and Why?

March 30, 2018 by Cindy Wieting

The first step toward building digital presence of your company is creating a responsive website that caters the needs of your prospective clients. But what if your website name is not displayed in search engine results while a prospective client searches something relevant to what your company does!! A vital question pops-up here; is your website visible to the search engine? The answer and the solution of this problem is SEO or Search Engine Optimization.

What SEO Does

SEO is a holistic effort that helps your website to organically appear in top ranks of the SERPs or Search Engine Result Pages. Its prime targets are-

Making website more relevant to the possible customer search queries
Building popularity and authority of the website
Keeping the content relevant and up-to-date
Enhancing the website architecture so that it loads faster

The above mentioned practices of SEO yield result by-

Growing conversion rate
Increasing relevant traffic
Bypassing competitors
Building brand awareness and reputation
Streamlining other online marketing efforts like social media marketing, PPC etc.

What AdWords Does

AdWords is an extended global marketing platform, where you can promote your business products to get more clients and build brand awareness. AdWords is Google’s PPC or Pay-Per-Click service.

AdWords is the most popular PPC program that controls 90% of the search engine market. As Google holds lion’s share of the search engine market, advertising here is profitable as well as competitive too.

Here you can post your ads for free. Google charges you when someone clicks on your ads or you achieve conversion as per your preference. The term ‘conversion’ can be interpreted as sales, news-letter sign ups, app downloads, phone calls etc.

When a potential customer types a query that carries specific keywords relevant to your website or ad campaign, your ad appears at top of the organic SERPs. Ads will appear even when you are searching for similar products or services in the search engine.

Where SEO and AdWords Differ

AdWords takes your marketing initiatives a step further from SEO. SEO relentlessly works on maintaining your web presence and increasing traffic volume. On the other hand, AdWords brings that audience toward your advertisement and increases its efficacy. Let’s elucidate how they differ-

SEO is nothing but a maintenance work which you must carry on in order to keep your website visible and understandable to the search engine. You can stop AdWords when you do not wish to continue it.
SEO takes time to produce visible results as multiple page-ranking factors work at different levels. It also takes considerable amount of time and money to synchronize those factors in right direction.
AdWords takes lesser time to produce result as it targets specific keywords and specific people. You can also use negative keywords to eliminate appearing your ads in wrong places.
AdWords allows your ads appearing on pre-set time slots that make it even more effective. It also good for seasonal businesses.
If done properly, AdWords works much faster than SEO in generating quality leads and conversion.
You can add Call to Action (CTO), call button and offers through AdWords, to lure potential customers.
AdWords allows you to launch multiple ad campaigns to attract customers from various directions.
SEO does not guarantee appearance of your website at the first page of the SERPs.
Like AdWords, organic search result is not paid but SEO needs long term investment to produce visible results.
As Google keeps changing its algorithm, if you stop doing SEO your website will start losing its visibility.
SEO takes time in pulling effective traffic to the website. Conversely, AdWords can start pulling traffic from the start of a campaign.

Why You Need Both SEO and AdWords

SEO is the prerequisite if you are looking forward to build a strong web presence and brand awareness. Alternatively, AdWords penetrates deeper and tries to build your brand reputation to the customers even to those, who are not aware of your company.

SEO continuously works towards building your website more accessible and user-friendly. It means, SEO to some extent, works constructing a good quality website that would satisfy the needs of a visitor redirected by the AdWords.

SEO builds reputation of a website by growing in-ward and out-ward links. It also finds competitive keywords to step aside your competitors. AdWords is ineffective if you fail to recognize the keywords that can work for your brand. Keyword research is integral part of both the practices. It is also effective if you are planning for social media marketing to narrow down your marketing efforts.

Conclusion

If SEO and AdWords work together, they can do wonders for your business. If you are a small business owner, you should start with SEO. You may advance toward AdWords when you have secured a strong customer base and have enough capital to invest in advertising. AdWords will help you if your target is spreading your brand awareness to a large number of people and increase customer base. Where, SEO will keep you floating in search engine.

If you would like more info about our SEO services, feel free to contact us directly at 203.414.9692

Wieting Design | Search Engine Marketing Fairfield County CT

Do Website Pop-Up Ads Work?

January 17, 2018 by Cindy Wieting

Pop-ups can be very annoying to readers, but they’re a favorite with some marketing companies. According to a Sumo study of nearly two billion pop-ups, they found the average rate of conversion for those types of pop-ups was 3.09%. There is no mistaking the value of a well executed pop-up. The real challenge lies in displaying pop-ups in a way that’s most effective for conversions, and at the same time not intrusive to readers.

For the most part, if you’re using a pop-up, you want visitors to take action. How do you get a visitor to take action without disrupting their experience or driving them off of your site?

Here’s what NOT to do with your pop-ups:

Triggering a pop-up immediate upon entry
Making a full screen pop-up with no clear way to dismiss it
Triggering a pop-up in the middle of a conversion
Offering the wrong content in your pop up
Asking for too much information in your pop-up form

Here’s what you SHOULD do:

Change your pop-ups to acquire leads intending to exit your site
Delay your pop-ups until your visitors have had a chance to engage with your content.
Tailor your pop-ups based on the page the user is on
Design your pop-up to match your brand and your message
Make your call to action very clear, i.e. “Join our email list for 10% off”
Offer Value in exchange for the visitors information
Eliminate barriers with 3 form fields or less
Have a plan to continue to nurture the visitor after they’ve left your site

Pop ups executed correctly can be a valuable lead generation tool on your website. You also need to consider the effect of pop ups on your mobile site. To get visitors to stick around longer on your webpages, and to get Google to list you in a search result, you need to ensure that the pop-ups are not intrusive to the user. Effective January 10th, 2017, Google has started to penalize pop-ups on mobile web pages that are intrusive to the reader. Google wants to be sure that content being served to users is easy to access no matter what device they use to browse the web.

Wieting Design | Website Design Fairfield County CT

How To Make The Most Out Of Facebook To Promote Your Business

November 2, 2017 by Cindy Wieting

With over 2 billion active daily users, Facebook is notably one of the best platforms to grow your business. While it is free to use, Facebook does encourage a pay to play mentality, but once you’ve built up a fan base you can keep them engaged for free or better yet, convert them to your email list. You can promote your products and services, and you can sell your products to them without marketing costs. You can update your fans to let them know about any special events or deals that your business is running. Facebook is also one of the best platforms to interact and stay in touch with your customers by listening to what they have to say, and responding to their comments. By consistently engaging with your Facebook followers you can let people know what your business is up to. This allows you to stay fresh and relevant, so hopefully when your customer base makes their next purchasing decision, they will think of you and not your competitor.

Whether your business is new to Facebook marketing, or just in need of a refresh, here’s our best tips to help you make the most out of Facebook and make sure you are maximizing your engagement.

Set Up Your Facebook Business Page The Right Way

Claim a vanity URL by visiting http://www.facebook.com/username
Choose the correct category for your business
Get reviews – ask your family and friends first then start asking your customers to give you a review.
Pick the best picture for your profile photo and create a custom cover that shows what you do, creates an emotional response, and has a clear call to action for your business.
Complete the about section and use keywords that align with your SEO plan.

Encourage Traffic To Your Facebook Business Page:

Add the Facebook icon wherever you can – Promote your Facebook page on all marketing, including business cards, signs, email signatures, website,
Add a Follow Button on your website – Make it easy for your website visitors to Like your page by adding a Follow Button to your website or blog. A Facebook Follow Button is a widget you can add to your website that links people from your website to your Facebook Page.
Ask people in person – Ask people that come into your store to like your page. You know they already are interested in your business, so why not ask them to like your social media pages? You can even offer them something on the spot (e.g. discount, free item) if they like your page while in the store.
Ask people online – Have a pop-up box on your website that asks people to like your Facebook page. You can also ask people to like your Facebook page after they have purchased something on your site. The message can be along the lines of “Thanks for your purchase! Like us on Facebook to hear about new products and promotions.”
Get involved on Facebook – You can post on pages and groups that are related to your industry from your business page. If you offer helpful answers and advice, you may get people to click back to your page and like it.

Promote Your Business On Facebook:

To really boost your page, you need to be human first and promote second. This may sound counterintuitive, but with content marketing at a record high, users are tired of the hard sell. Here’s how you can maximize your Facebook reach in a way that builds a long term following.

Set up a regular posting schedule – Try to post original content at least once a week, but prioritize quality over quantity. Ideally, 3-5 times a week is a good sweet spot.

Monitor when your fans are online and tweak your schedule – once your page has attracted some attention, the Audience Insight tools gather quantitative information about the people who like and visit your page. In fact, Facebook’s highest traffic usually occurs mid-week between 1 to 3 pm which tells us two things — 1) Almost everyone hits that after lunch productivity slump than we think and 2) people are always looking for new content on their newsfeeds.

Provide value – the worst thing you could do for your page is to post any old random quotes or images. Why would your ideal customer care about your post? Is your goal to inform them of your company values, the team behind the brand, how your business can help them, how your business helps the community, and lastly, what can you do for them? The best rule of thumb in marketing is the 80/20 rule. Give away something 80% of the time and then sell 20% of the time. Your “give” message can be knowledge, motivation, a smile, or a laugh, but it shouldn’t be focused on the sale. When you do post your “sales” message they should fun and light.

Share relevant images – This is a great way to show up in user’s news feed organically. By tagging your fans in pictures, you are not only alerting them of the post, but your post is also likely to appear in the news feed of the fan’s friends. People are more likely to “like” and comment on a post of someone they know. So how do you do this? An example would be, If you’re a real estate agent, take a picture of your client in front of their new home and congratulate them on your Facebook page.

Give your fans a laugh – Don’t overthink it; just do something to give your fans a chuckle. Keep their interests in mind and make sure the humor is relevant to your audience, and appropriate for all audiences. Quotes get a lot of shares. People who get a laugh or feel inspired from a post want to share the feeling with others. You can use Canva to create this type of image for free. Include your logo, so if it’s shared by a third party, you are still advertising your business.

Respond to EVERYONE – If your business replies quickly to messages on Facebook, then others will be able to see that your page is active and responsive. Pay attention to the posts that get reactions and comments. Comments generally indicate a higher level of engagement because it takes more time to type a response than to simply hit “Like”. If you receive negative comments, carefully respond that you hear their concerns and invite them to email or call you directly. Don’t delete negative comments or ignore them, address them head on and you’ll build your brand’s trust.

Post native video – Videos on a Facebook user’s newsfeed auto-play, and therefore are very attention grabbing in nature. Have you noticed all those videos of people making delicious looking dishes in fast motion? That type of video could work well if you own a restaurant. You should consider posting a featured video to your page as well. People will connect more with your business if you show them the people behind it all.

Post and share events – Create Facebook events for your next big sale. When events are happening in the community, you can draw attention to those as well. Many businesses fail to leverage events as opportunities to promote their social media page. Creating an event page can increase the turnout for your real-world event because Facebook events make it easy for users to invite friends and see how many people plan to attend.

Ask a question or poll – This is an easy way to get people to comment on your post. Pair the question with a cute picture, and you’ll get people to pause at your post long enough to read the question.

Partner with other local business pages to cross promote – By tagging another business your are reaching their fan base as well as your own. You can encourage fans to tag a friend and you are exponentially increasing the reach of the post too. People will be notified if they are tagged and encouraged to check out your page and products. Moreover, you are spreading brand awareness. By sharing the best content from any source you become the one-stop-shop for the information your buyer personas care about. Once your fans rely on you as their go-to source for information, your Facebook engagement will organically increase because they’ll visit your page when they don’t see your posts in their newsfeed. Sharing others’ content also shows that your brand is helpful, not just going out for the sale.

Use tracking URLs and Facebook insights – You want to establish a routine to see how your posts are doing, how your fan base is growing, and to measure your social media marketing effectiveness. If you have a particular post doing well, consider boosting that post to extend it’s reach.

Tailor your messages to your fan base – Learn more about their demographics, and use that information to reach out to new groups. If your page is attracting more middle-aged women than expected, for example, then you may want to include posts that are particularly relevant for those potential customers.

Success with Facebook marketing doesn’t happen overnight; it takes time. Increasing your Facebook engagement requires the persistence to be active on the platform day after day. Ultimately your goal should be to give value, build a relationship with your fans which in turn then leads them to see you as a valuable resource and eventually buy your product or services. Marketing is all about making consumers want and need what you have, your Facebook Business page is one powerful tool if you use it correctly.

Wieting Design | Social Media Fairfield County CT

Business Card Design. How Important Is It?

October 14, 2017 by Cindy Wieting

Why use business cards in this digital age when it seems that everyone has a digital device in their hands? Is the traditional business card old-fashioned? NO!

Despite its small size, a business card is critical. It’s the first impression most people see of your business. A business card is one of the most important marketing pieces that you’ll develop for your company, since it is typically the first piece of your marketing materials that a new client will see. You hand them out at meetings, networking functions, and social gatherings. How many times do you meet someone at an airport and hand out business card, right?

An attractive, well thought out business card with all the relevant contact information can capture the attention of your potential customer and help your business remain in his/her mind well after your initial meeting. Business cards enhance credibility, professionalism and legitimacy for your business. DON’T SKIMP ON YOUR BUSINESS CARD DESIGN OR THE PRODUCTION OF IT.

Here are our recommendations about business card design and production:

Go with a 2 sided card – one side can be dedicated to your logo/business name while the other side will have all of your contact information. It’s a cleaner look.
Include your website URL, business e-mail address, your name, title and all contact information.
Make sure the color scheme is consistent with your website design, and all of your other marketing materials. Consistency is key.
Make sure the fonts are large enough for a quick read. You don’t want your potential client squinting to read your information.
Avoid plastic business cards, avoid glossy backgrounds. People sometimes like to take notes on a business card.
Use a nice thick stock, we advise no less then a 120# stock. A nice thick stock says “that you care about your card, and you didn’t cheap out”.
Get a color proof before you print. It will show you exactly how the colors will look in actual (final) printing. Color proofs are submitted before the press proof, and provide the chance to make alterations or to correct mistakes. The last thing you want is to print tons of cards only to find a mistake.
Printing is the last stop, so make sure the printer you hire is a quality printer and can answer your questions, and solve problems.

Business Cards Are Still Necessary

Even in this digital age, they’re still one of the best ways to remind people about your business.