Designer Rants » marketing

Septic System Graphics & Animation

Kris Bunda — Sun, 08 May 2011 00:20:43 +0000

Showing Off Some Industry-Specific Graphic Design

I recently designed a website for a local business that provides (among other services) Septic System services, and created original artwork for the site. This illustrates part of what separates my web design services from a more cookie-cutter approach. Cheap websites aren’t going to include original and compelling content, branded artwork, visual aides, good Search Engine Optimization coding & wording, etc…

Septic System Top View

Wastewater Diagram - Septic Systems

Septic System Section-View

Septic System Diagram

Movie Explaining the benefits of Regular Septic System Maintenance, including Pumping.

Why brand graphics?

You may have noticed that all the graphics/flash movie above have a logo or company information on it. Why? Because people copy and paste art that strikes their fancy. So if a piece that you paid money for is going to be stolen and shown on other websites, the piece might as well be branded in a way that’s not easy to re-brand, and that shows your company’s info on it (name, website, logo, etc.)

Web Presence – Get it, and get it right.

Kris Bunda — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 06:53:35 +0000

Do yourself a favor; Have your Small Biz put out a “Competence” Vibe. Big Biz already knows this.

Over the years since I’ve embraced technology and the internet, I become annoyed, amazed, and awestruck when businesses don’t accommodate my zeal (as a consumer). From the small business that still doesn’t accept debit/credit cards, to the small business that doesn’t have a website (or has a really crappy one), I wonder what they’re thinking? These are REQUISITES nowadays! Unless your sole target market segment is 96 year olds, I’m not the only one surprised you have paid so little attention to marketing your business.

I recently spoke with a potential client about her desire to blog about her business. before our conversation, we had been emailing. I checked out her website. It wasn’t good. It looked unprofessional and low-rent… Home-made; in a bad way. Like it was designed in MS FrontPage in 1998, and never updated since. Tables and borders were undersized so that borders overlapped text, and info about a sales promotion/contest showed an ending deadline that was months past.

When I talked with her on the phone, I mentioned that I could both revamp her website and set up a blog that she could either learn how to manage, or pay me to manage and market. She said that her website didn’t need any work, and sounded almost offended. I’m assuming she created the website.

Attract Customers with a Decent Web Presence

This is for business owners:

I know most of you are successful to some degree. You’ve ran a profitable business for some time now, perhaps long before the advent of broadband internet service. Perhaps you owe very little of your past success to a “web presence”. Perhaps you don’t care much for the internet, or you find every business in the Yellow Pages, or you assume that your type of business is excluded from any need of internet marketing… I have no idea why you may have no (or poor) web presence. But if this describes you, it needs to stop. For future success’ sake.

If you’ve been successful for a long time (decades), then you must be smart enough to realize that the world turns and things change. What worked in the past may not work in the future. Don’t stop innovating. The public and your customers expect to find you in cyberspace. More and more consumers take web presence for granted. If you don’t have a decent web presence, you look bad to a growing number of consumers (or worse: you’re invisible).

This doesn’t mean you have to hire an IT department, a marketing firm, and a design house. A thousand bucks will probably get you a wonderful 3 or 5 page website that tells the public “About” your business, where you’re located, your history, your mission, what you can and can’t do, and (importantly) provides a positive first impression.

Oh, and it’s nice if potential customers can actually FIND you. Your pretty website is just “there” if you’re not putting the address on your business card, programming it into your receipt tapes, printing it on the big magnet on the door of your work vehicle, etc… and having someone do all the right Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your site. The SEO stuff should be done by the same person or firm that designs and builds your site, in my opinion.

Supporting Links:

Is Your Site Accessible?

Kris Bunda — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 04:03:14 +0000

What does that mean? Accessible? Yes, anyone can load my website; it’s located on the World Wide Web!

What “Accessible” means in this case is that people with visual, auditory, or physical disabilities can still get information from your site.

According to a report by the Danish Center for Accessibility, as many as 25% of the world’s Internet users have some sort of visual, auditory or mobility disability.

Source: An Idiots Guide To Accessible Web Design

The article goes on to discuss “WAVE,” a service that will rate a web page on how accessible it is:

WAVE accessibility screenshot of krisbunda.com

So whether you want to want your site accessible because of legal reasons, business reasons, or just because you want it accessible, then make sure your designer is following accessibility guidelines.

In closing, another quote from the “Idiot’s Guide” article by Sandy Butler:

If you really want to see firsthand how much a difference you can make in the lives of disabled people by designing Web sites that are accessible, spend a few hours sitting next to a blind or physically challenged user.

Once you witness for yourself how difficult the Internet can be when designers ignore 25% of the Internet user population, you’ll keep accessibility top-of-mind whenever you sit down to design.