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Summer is almost over, and all the stores on 5th Avenue are already stocked with their respective Fall/Winter catalogues. New decorations, changed mannequins, and sale racks are just a bit of the change that store locations all over the world are going through. Every few months, shoppers walk into their favorite store not only to pick out clothes off the rack, but to gaze at the new wallpaper, new decoration, and the new outfits that the employees are forced to wear. Redecorating the store becomes essential, not only as a way to showcase the new collection, but to create a fresh experience for its customers. It’s eye catching, it’s vibrant, and it’s attractive. It works.

Now, let’s take what is going on in the “real physical world” and translate it to “cyber world”.  Most websites on the web are static, plain, and unchanging throughout the year, if not for its whole lifespan. Changes that are made are made because they have to be made; a change in the size of the banner here, fixing the RSS Feed here, and moving to a new host there.  Of course if you are a web-designer/developer yourself, it can be done whenever, but it is time consuming. For others, it is expensive to constantly make changes and re-design for the website.

However, there are ways to make effective changes without having to spend hours in front of the computer or having to pay a design firm a small fortune.To make these effective changes, one must understand that simply having a nice product, and a clean website design is not enough. There are so many competitors on the web, way more than the number of stores that can fit in a block. These competitors are numerous and anonymous. To the person browsing the web looking for the service you offer, your company is just another website; one in millions.

In order to make sure you:

1. Keep the clients you have
2. Convert web-traffic into actual clients
3. Engage the viewers of your site
4. Stay relevant

We believe that making well planned and client-targeted changes to the website is very necessary and important.

Just as J. Crew puts up winter decorations, and holiday related symbols around their store, a website should follow the same concept. Find out who your customers are and what they relate to, then express that into your website. It can be as simple as a message to the clients on the holidays, or as extensive as how Google changes their homepage logo.

Similarly, Firefox has spiced up their default homepage with an animated image of the Olympic flame:

Whatever the changes, it has to be carefully planned and mapped. Make sure not to alienate any new possible market groups, unless you are prepared to only target a niche audience. Make sure to be politically correct; one of the fastest way to lose a client base is by trying to relate to them and failing to do so because of a typo, cultural misunderstandings (remember: World Wide Web), etc…

Once viewers notice these changes, whether it’s small or large, they will not only relate to you, but recognize and be impressed by the effort to relate to them. It will show the human qualities behind the website, and allow them to know they are working with people as well.

There are of course, more technical changes and updates that a website should go under every so often. These technical changes include:

1. Cross browser compatible – You want to be sure your website looks the same in all browsers IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc. You’ll often see sites that render completely differently in another browser. Remember, these browsers come up with new versions every so often. Many times, the new versions may mess up compatibility, remember to keep this in mind.
2. Consistent branding – If you have multiple stores like Starbucks, you want to be sure to maintain the same interior design, colors, and service across all your stores to keep the customer happy and identify with your brand. Same with online – Facebook, Twitter, your website, your ads, etc should all keep the same typography, colors, and message consistent.
3. Staying relevant – imagine going to Macy’s website the week before Mother’s Day and not seeing a Mother’s Day sale.  How weird would that be?  Staying relevant and keeping up with the latest holiday / event / topic is important for people to be reassured that your business is up to date and knows what’s up.

In summary, don’t let your website become static. Make those effective changes to keep your website fresh and relevant for your clients. Make sure that it works on all browsers. With time, your efforts will be paid off, and visitors will reward you.

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In a previous post done in November, we blogged about the advantages of a Facebook landing page. (If you want to check it out.) However, since Facebook implemented the Timeline in March, Facebook landing pages are no longer viable. The Timeline was executed by Facebook to make the platform more useful and friendly for profiles of Businesses, but sadly it led to the extinction of Facebook landing pages. While there are still ways to create landing pages on Facebook, it now has to be done via Facebook Applications; here is an article that goes more in to this claim. We no longer offer the service of designing/developing Facebook landing pages here at GWD, but we do design and develop landing pages aka sales landing pages for your website.

A landing page is a web page that viewers of an advertisement are directed to, and it offers a visually striking and informational extension of the advertisement. As our Creative Director says, “landing pages are an effective tool to provide very focused information on a product and funnel viewers to a call to action (in most cases, a “buy” button or e-mail address submission).” The part that makes landing pages unique and worth investing in is the fact that it has the potential to convert viewers into clients with the click of a button.

There are many sites and blogs that offer claims like  ”BEST LANDING PAGE TEMPLATE”, “ULTIMATE LANDING PAGE TEMPLATE”, or even “LANDING PAGES FOR ALL YOUR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES”. However, these sites/blogs are missing the major point of creating an effective landing page. A successful landing page must be unique to the product its selling. For example, a clothing store would not use a bookshelf to showcase its clothes, just as a bookstore would not use clothing racks to show case its books. Just the same, you should not use the same design for a landing page that sells product X for product A-Z.

When designing a landing page, we at Geekwhat Design take into consideration multiple factors. Some of these factors include:

• Researching the market group of the product
• Maintaining brand consistency via Color Scheme, typography selection, logo placement etc…
• Maintaining company philosophy/culture through the sense of design
• Abridging the endless text of descriptions and information on the company and the product into a thought-out summary that efficiently explains the product and the company
• LIST GOES ON AND ON BUT WE’D BE SHARING TOO MANY SECRETS

To summarize, there are various number of things that a landing page must take into account for it to be effective, and these factors cannot be considered by a simple landing page template. No company is alike from the next, why should the cyberspace you showcase your product be the same?

Here are a couple of examples of very unique and effective landing pages you’ve probably seen but didn’t realize:

1. Vimeo.com

2. apple.com (MacBook Pro landing page abridged)

About the client

New York based AppAddictive specializes in a variety of Facebook page applications. Steve Welch is running for US Senate for the state of Pennsylvania.

Project scope

AppAddictive reached out to us to design a custom Facebook landing page for the Steve Welch US Senate campaign. The spec for this Facebook page consisted of five core functions:

• E-mail newsletter opt-in form
• YouTube video gallery
• Daily poll
• Facebook sharing function
• Profile banner design

Our work process

This project was relatively similar in functionality to the Bruce Lee Success Principles Facebook page we also designed for AppAddictive. We began by producing wireframes to plan out the layout of the page. We then used photos of Steve Welch and designed each of the five pieces separately. The final step was to merge the pieces together over a consistent background.

Applications used:

    

The final landing page design is below, see the live version at: http://www.facebook.com/welchforpa:

About the client

Florida-based Bay View Boot Camp is the product of Laura Forte (pictured above) and is St. Pete’s #1 fitness boot camp.

Project scope

Before Laura approached us to design this flyer, we had already designed her logo as well as her Facebook landing page. Laura was interested in expanding her business by distributing a high quality flyer that represents her business in a positive light.

Our mission was to create two solid designs (front and back) that would attract the eye and entice a person to pick up and read the flyer.

Our work process

We began by choosing stock photos that would represent the vibrant nature of Laura’s business. Then we merged all the photos together along with text (using carefully selected font faces) to create a rich visual display.

Applications used:

    

Below are the final designs of the front and back of the flyer.

Front:

Back:

For reference, as of January 13th (several months after the this flyer as well as the Facebook landing page we created for Laura), see the numbers on Bay View Boot Camp’s Facebook page:

The website we designed and developed for Pura BJJ is a 100% customized WordPress theme equipped with the following features:

• Aweber e-mail newsletter opt-in form
• Social media share buttons in each blog post
• Facebook widget in sidebar
• Large rotating banner

See the website live at: http://purabjj.tv

A list of features on the site:

1. Fully customized WordPress theme – We began by designing each and every page of the website.  Upon approval of the fully designed website, we proceeded with development on the website server.
2. Sign-up system – As this is a service-based website, we created a system for users to sign up for the service.  Each time a user signs up, the admin will be sent an email with all the information submitted by the user.
3. Payment system – New users have the ability to pay for the service through PayPal or credit card.  We set up the site to allow users to pay and upon payment, they are bounced back to the website for a success message.
4. Blog with Social sharing function – The client has the ability to write blog posts in the blog section and allow users to share via the bar of social media share buttons.  This allows for even more exposure of the site through social media.
5. Homepage rotating banner – A great use of real estate, we installed a large rotating banner on the homepage to allow several messages to run all in one position without using up too much space.

View the website in action at: http://textmyproperty.me.

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We’ve been getting this question quite a bit recently:

What’s the point of having a Facebook landing page?

I respond by asking you what the point is of being prepared and getting cleaned up before meeting a new potential customer or business partner. The very same reason:

Makes sense to look your very best when greeting new customers, right?
(not to mention on a platform of 800,000,000+ users!)

What’s the first thing you do when you get on a computer? I’ll bet if it’s not your e-mail, it’s probably Facebook. Facebook is like a 24/7 mall that is always open, and your business page is one of the stores inside that mall.

Without a landing page with a proper greeting and introduction, it’s like your store is closed or no salesperson is standing in the front greeting people who pass by the front door.  Lame!

Just look at these two stores, one with a visible campaign and one without:

Which shop would you gravitate towards?

Similarly:

Which Facebook page do your eyes gravitate towards?

Basically the Facebook landing page is necessary to leave a strong impression and increase the amount of time a new visitor engages with your business. This is not to mention the importance of getting a high number of ‘Likes’ to increase the visibility and reputation of your business.

Some features that you can install directly on your landing page:

Examples of successful Facebook landing pages:

Additionally, check out the Facebook landing pages we’ve designed for our rockstar clients.

If you are interested, feel free to contact us today with any questions and/or to get started.

This photo was taken on the way to the office.  It’s like the street is smiling!  So my little note of inspiration to you this morning is:

Try something new today!

I’ve been waking up later most of the last month or so and I decided to try something new today — waking up to meet the morning sun.  It’s a wonderful feeling and I feel like I have such a big and productive day ahead of me

Sometimes we dread or are anxious of trying something new like:

• That feeling right before going on a rollercoaster
• Sleeping earlier / waking up earlier n the morning
• Going for a morning jog

But it’s almost always the case that once you’ve actually taken the first step of doing it, you’ll feel totally revived and awesome (think about all three instances above).  So let’s do it! 

What new activity are you going to try?

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On my way to the office today, I saw a lot of people dressed in Halloween costumes. Given this is New York, there are tons of people wearing massively elaborate costumes to their 9-5 job. I love it.

One particular scene that really stood out to me was this:

Do you see what I see? No x-mas pun intended Notice the sitting woman in the Halloween costume. Do you see it now?

Zero confidence!

The costume she’s wearing is actually relatively elaborate and definitely stands out. It’s a good costume! But no confidence. It’s as if she is sitting in shame What a pity!

Bottom line: Confidence is half the battle in successful design. You can’t go out there with amazing design and be passive about it. No one’s going to be excited about your business if you don’t show excitement. If you’re going to dress up your business with design, go out and strut it in pride!  Of course there’s a fine line between being confident and being cocky.

Are you showing confidence in your business?