website – Iceberg Web Design https://www.icebergwebdesign.com Wed, 08 Sep 2021 17:31:09 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.8.3 https://www.icebergwebdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/cropped-iceberg-favicon-32x32.jpg website – Iceberg Web Design https://www.icebergwebdesign.com 32 32 Creating Your Ideal Customer Profile https://www.icebergwebdesign.com/2021/09/creating-your-ideal-customer-profile/ Tue, 14 Sep 2021 13:00:28 +0000 https://www.icebergwebdesign.com/?p=16456 Part of establishing your brand identity is identifying your ideal customer and creating a customer profile for them. This is essential because if you don’t market to the right people, you will waste a lot of precious time, money, and energy on people who aren’t right for your brand. Your Ideal Customer Profile Could Change—Proceed […]

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Part of establishing your brand identity is identifying your ideal customer and creating a customer profile for them. This is essential because if you don’t market to the right people, you will waste a lot of precious time, money, and energy on people who aren’t right for your brand.

Profile View Of Handsome Businessman At The Coffee Qu2kmt9

Your Ideal Customer Profile Could Change—Proceed with Caution!

Imagine you are a nutritional supplement company that has historically marketed to men in their 50s, and you decide to release a new line of supplements for women over 45. Not only is your customer profile going to change, but you will also need to carefully rebrand so that you don’t alienate your base while you bring on new customers. This means considering how you will keep past promises you have made as a brand while taking on a new role in the market.

How Do You Discover Your Ideal Customer’s Profile?

Base your ideal customer profile on solid, current research. For example, if you are an established company, you can look at your existing sales data.

If you are a new company or are marketing to a new type of customer, such as in our supplement company example, you will want to use market research studies and surveys. It can often be most effective to hire an outside consultant to do this research.

What Information Do You Need for Their Profile?

While you want a thorough profile of your ideal customer, don’t get bogged down in the weeds of details that don’t matter to your marketing campaign. It doesn’t matter what their kid’s names are, for example. What matters is what their needs are and how you can meet them. If you are doing the research yourself, here are some things you will want to find out.

  •       Name- Give them a name to make them more human
  •       Gender
  •       Age
  •       Job Title and Industry
  •       Income Level
  •       Ways they connect with businesses like yours. What social medial platforms do they use? Do they prefer mobile or computer?
  •       Pain points. What matters the most to them right now? What keeps them awake at night worrying?
  •       How will your product/service help solve their problems?
  •       Any questions specific to your business; For example, if you are a flavored water company, you will want to ask what flavors they currently drink and what flavors they would like to try. Then give them some unconventional options that you are thinking of about trying to market. Finally, ask why they choose flavored water over other beverages. Your sales and marketing department will be able to determine any other specific question that would be helpful in their campaign.

Do the Research!

There are so many ways that you can get the information you need. Use online surveys, direct or mass email with or without an incentive to participate in the research. You can also do post-purchase surveys of your current customers.

Compile the Research

As a team, compile the data. Once you input all the responses onto a spreadsheet, you will start to see some patterns. List more open-ended questions, such as those dealing with pain points, separately to gain new ideas and insights that you may not have had before.

Now, look at the data and create 3-5 ideal customer profiles. For each profile, you will answer the questions you asked during your research as if you are the person whose profile you are creating.

Here is a super simplified, non-scientific example. Imagine you are marketing a long-term memory-care facility for people with dementia. Even though your clients will be the facility’s residents, your customer profile needs to be the primary decision-maker. Naturally, that will be the adult children or spouse of the client.

Name

You can choose to name your ideal customer anything you want, which will help them feel more like real people to you. Of course, it helps to know the genders before you choose names.

Gender

For example, if 2/3 of respondents were women. You might create one male profile and two female profiles. So, let’s call our profiles David, Andrea, and Jessica. You can give them last names, too, but it’s not necessary.

Age

The respondents’ ages were between 28 and 79. Men tended to be older than women. So

  •       David is 76. His wife has severe dementia. As a result, he is no longer able to care for her himself at home.
  •       Andrea is 48. Her dad has developed dementia and lives alone in another state.
  •       Jessica is 31. Her mom has early-onset dementia. Jessica’s dad cared for her until he contracted Covid 19 and unexpectedly died from its complications. Now Jessica is caring for her mother.

Job title and Income Level

Of the respondents, 1/3 were business owners or professionals in high-income fields. 1/3 were professionals making $60-75,000/year. And 1/3 were retired.

  •       David has an annual income of $142,000 from his retirement accounts. He was a petroleum engineer.
  •       Andrea makes $65,000 a year as a public relations specialist.
  •       Jessica makes $20,000 a year providing part-time daycare services out of her home. She will have access to her mother’s social security and her father’s insurance funds to care for her mother.

Pain points

The obvious pain point for all of these people is the pain of losing their loved one, if not physically, emotionally, and mentally, as their memories fade. But there are other issues, too, including:

  •       Safety
  •       The ability to ensure access to medical care and medications on the proper schedule
  •       Ensuring no one takes advantage of their loved one
  •       The guilt associated with placing a loved one in long-term care

Think about what it is that your customers worry about most.

How will your product/service help solve your customers’ problems?

Your brand needs to speak to these pain points and reassure them that you can help them with these issues.

Ways customers connect with businesses like yours

Do they use social media, email, direct mail, or do they prefer to call? Do you need to plan in-person events that you should promote on your website?

Are there other service providers that you could connect with to market cooperatively? For example, as a long-term-care provider, would a local medical equipment supply store be willing to display your brochure in exchange for a link on your website. Think creatively!

Now, Use It!

Use the information you’ve gathered and compiled, or it will have been a waste of time and resources for you and your company. Once you have your ideal customer profiles created, you know who you are speaking to every time you write a piece of marketing copy, a web page, or anything else that you hope will reach them.

Do you need a website makeover?

Partner with the best! At Iceberg Web Design, we’re experts at helping businesses connect with their ideal customers. We have a website-based business solution for you! First, read Our 5 Star Reviews!  Then, Contact us today.

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Creating the Perfect Contact Page For Your Website https://www.icebergwebdesign.com/2021/05/creating-the-perfect-contact-page-for-your-website/ Thu, 20 May 2021 14:00:41 +0000 https://www.icebergwebdesign.com/?p=16002 Today we will look at the page on your website that all too often gets treated as an afterthought. That’s right—the contact page. What makes a good one? Read on! Keep it Simple The most important job your contact page has is to put your readers in touch with you. That’s the whole point of […]

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Today we will look at the page on your website that all too often gets treated as an afterthought. That’s right—the contact page. What makes a good one? Read on!

Keep it Simple

The most important job your contact page has is to put your readers in touch with you. That’s the whole point of your website, so in a way, the contact page is the king of pages (Okay, we know that it isn’t, but it’s still essential). By keeping your contact page simple, you will let your audience quickly and easily contact you in a way they feel most comfortable.

Contact Us Concept With Colorful Block Symbol Telephone, Mail, Address And Mobile Phone.

Options, Options, Options

There are plenty of options you can offer to website users for reaching you. People often have strong feelings about these options. One person may hate forms while another loves them. Text is becoming a more popular contact method than ever, and it can be set up with an autoresponder outside of business hours. Some business owners are concerned with having an email on their website, thinking they may get a lot of spam. Thankfully, there are ways to ensuring you are being emailed by a person and not a robot.

Special Considerations to Keep in Mind

While offering options to suit most web users is ideal, you also want to consider what fits your business model and lifestyle. If you are a contractor who never checks your email more than once a day, you may want everything to go to your phone number.

Some industries are subject to specific regulations such as HIPPA laws, which affect how and when you can contact someone. Unless you are using a particular server that is secured consistent with HIPPA, providers cannot send outgoing emails. In those cases, collecting a name and phone number via a form may be the best solution, and having your phone number available for people to call your business.

Have Your Contact Information Available

You should include the addresses, phone numbers, and contact emails of your primary location and each satellite location, franchise, or alternative office. Please discuss with your web development company whether each of these locations merits its own page or not.  

Having a location map is also a good idea. If there are multiple locations, you may want to add a locator feature that allows visitors to find the location nearest to them.  

This contact page from Select Eyecare is a good example that includes multiple locations.

Keep it Consistent with the Rest of Your Site

The thoughtfulness you put into your content and design shouldn’t come to a stop when you hit the contact page. The contact page should be a natural extension of your site, naturally flowing from it, giving your readers confidence to reach out to you. It should reflect the personality and beauty they have seen up to that point. This contact page from the Animal Behavioral Clinic of New Jersey is an excellent example of that.

The Best Contact You Can Make

The best contact you can make is with Iceberg Web Design. We’re experts at helping businesses connect with customers. We have a website-based business solution for you! Contact us today. Read Our 5 Star Reviews! 

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Black Hat SEO: Keyword Stuffing & Paid Backlinks https://www.icebergwebdesign.com/2021/05/black-hat-seo-keyword-stuffing-paid-backlinks/ Tue, 18 May 2021 14:00:41 +0000 https://www.icebergwebdesign.com/?p=15993 In the early days of the internet, it was like the wild west, with no one making any rules for how websites should move up on the search engine results page. The main thing was to use the keyword you were trying to rank for more than the competition did. That’s how we got pages […]

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In the early days of the internet, it was like the wild west, with no one making any rules for how websites should move up on the search engine results page. The main thing was to use the keyword you were trying to rank for more than the competition did. That’s how we got pages stuffed with keywords rather than useful information that the user wanted to read.

Then Yahoo Changed the World

In 2000, Yahoo introduced Google to the world, and Google unveiled its algorithm for deciding how to rank websites. It boiled down to “if they are talking about you, you are important.” Links were one component of their algorithm, so people suddenly added all the backlinks they could point to their site—even if it meant paying for them.

You can learn more about the fascinating history of SEO in The Search Engine Journal. The important thing to take from this is that even though the black hat tactics of keyword stuffing and paid backlinks are rooted in the internet of the early 2000s, you will still see people attempting to use them.

black hat

Keyword Stuffing

Have you ever read an article on the internet that kept repeating the same keywords throughout the content to the point that it felt like overkill? They may use different variations of the keywords, but something about it does not seem natural. That is because it isn’t. It’s keyword stuffing in an attempt to rank higher on the search page for that particular word or phrase.

Google has gotten wise to this black hat tactic and will kick those pages down in the ranks when detected. As a website owner or a content writer, it is essential to keep your content useful and relevant for the readers you are trying to reach. By doing this, you will naturally grow your audience and move up in the ranks.

Paid Backlinks

Receiving a backlink from another site on the web is a high compliment. It means they trust the content you are putting out enough for them to share it with their audience. Because of that, Google counts that as a factor in how you should rank on the search engine results page. It’s like carrying extra clout.

Unfortunately, some people would instead take the quick and easy route rather than the honest way. They pay for links that others work hard to get. Google and other search engines have taken a tough stance on this, banning the buying and selling of links as a way of manipulating page ranking. If they do detect this, they will penalize both the seller and buyer of the links.

What if I Have Paid for Links in the Past?

If you have paid for backlinks in the past, not realizing it was wrong, and you want to straighten things out, there is a way to do that. Google has a Link Disavowal Tool.

How Can I Rank Well?

The best way to rank well with search engines like Google is with high-quality content that follows search engine optimization rules. At Iceberg Web Design, we specialize in website-based business solutions, including premium content and SEO services. Contact us today to see how we can help take your business to the next level.

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Color Psychology and Your Website https://www.icebergwebdesign.com/2021/04/color-psychology-and-your-website/ Tue, 27 Apr 2021 13:54:45 +0000 https://www.icebergwebdesign.com/?p=15973 We don’t all respond the same way to the same colors. Color significance can vary from one culture to the next, and we each have our individual preferences. But there is general color psychology that can guide us in the decisions we make when designing websites and other marketing materials. Red Red is an energizing […]

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We don’t all respond the same way to the same colors. Color significance can vary from one culture to the next, and we each have our individual preferences. But there is general color psychology that can guide us in the decisions we make when designing websites and other marketing materials.

Watercolor Paints And Paintbrushes

Red

Red is an energizing color used to convey love, power, and even aggression. With red, context is essential, as well as the amount of red that you use. Used sparingly and in the right way, red can make quite an impact.

Pink

Pink is a softened version of red, romantic and hopeful, soothing and compassionate. It doesn’t stimulate the way red does so that it can be a good alternative in the right circumstance. But it can come across as immature, lacking power, so think carefully about what message you want to get across.

Yellow

Yellow connotes joy. It is the color children use to make a smiling sun. Why is the sun smiling? It just seems happy. Like red, yellow must be used sparingly. Too much yellow can cause feelings of anxiety.

Orange

Orange is a soothing color, representing the warmth of home, food, and family. Orange is motivating. The color of dark saffron and marigolds is also the most dominant color in India. You can see how significant orange is within eastern spirituality since Buddhist monks, Sikhs, and Hindu saints all wear the color.

Blue

Blue makes us think of purity, dependability, and peace. It is universally well-liked. This is one of the reasons you see it used on prominent social media platforms. It brings a sense of trust and relationship building. The one caveat is that blue can also come across as distant and cold if you don’t balance with other elements.

Purple

Purple balances the physical energy of red with the spiritual reliability of blue. Portraying royalty, magic, and courage, it is a color that promotes creativity. If it is overused, it can cause people to become distracted by introspective thoughts.

Green

Green portrays many things, nearly all of them positive. Because nature is filled with an abundance of green shades, we think of green as life-giving, peaceful, natural, healthy, and harmonious. And of course, we associate it with money in the United States since our paper money is green. That is where the only negative can come in. If you wish to portray greed, you can use green for that, as well.

Brown

Brown is boring. There. I’ve said it. It’s a beautiful color, but it will never lift anyone up or prompt them to act. That said, it is also safe. It will never upset anyone, either. It’s just…. brown. Avoid it if you can. It won’t add to your marketing campaign at all.

Gold

Gold is a luxury color as much as gold is a luxury item. Don’t overuse it or you risk looking tacky and egotistical. It is a great accent color, though, especially when paired with another color that can convey the message you want to get across.

Learn More about Color Psychology for your Website

  •         Hubspot did a button color test and found a red call to action button outperformed a green one by 21%.  That’s amazing! The only thing they changed was the color of the button.
  •         Iconic Fox has created a fantastic infographic on color psychology.

How to Get Clicks

This brief overview barely skimmed the surface of how color affects our buying decisions. The good news is that you don’t have to become an expert on color psychology. Our web designers and digital marketers understand what makes consumers click. To increase your conversions, contact us today

 

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How Do You Know It’s Time for a New Website? https://www.icebergwebdesign.com/2021/03/how-do-you-know-its-time-for-a-new-website/ Thu, 25 Mar 2021 14:00:06 +0000 https://www.icebergwebdesign.com/?p=15944 In our business, we often see websites that haven’t been changed in 8-10 years. It’s usually because business owners don’t look at their websites the same way that clients and potential business partners do. In general, we recommend a total website makeover every two to three years to keep up with current design and development […]

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In our business, we often see websites that haven’t been changed in 8-10 years. It’s usually because business owners don’t look at their websites the same way that clients and potential business partners do.

woman looking at website

In general, we recommend a total website makeover every two to three years to keep up with current design and development trends. Security is another reason for revamping your website every few years. But there are other indicators that it’s time for a new online look.

You’ve made changes to your core values or processes

Has your business received an internal makeover in the last year, but your branding hasn’t received an external one? Maybe you’ve hired new employees or had significant employee turnover. Perhaps you’ve increased your product offering or niched down to serve a more specific audience. Your website should reflect your business – values, services, staff, and processes. Businesses are ever-changing entities, and as yours grows and changes, so should your website.

You’ve Decided to Add Integrations to Your Site

Websites are no longer just for bringing in clients. They are business tools that you can use to hire people, portals for members, renters, or employees, payment centers, and more! If you can imagine it, it most likely can be done.

You’ve started investing in SEO or online ads

If you’re focusing on bringing traffic to your website, you want to make the best possible first impression on your new website visitors. Your website should be up to date and have a straightforward design that lets your website traffic know what they should do. Powerful calls to action on every page will help convert traffic into customers.

Your Site Doesn’t Have a Mobile-Friendly Design

Half of all website traffic comes from mobile users, yet not all websites are mobile-friendly.[1] When encountering a website that is difficult to view on smartphones or tablets, mobile users often become frustrated and leave for another site.

<side by side images of mobile-friendly vs. non-mobile design>

Your Page Loads Slower Than 3 Seconds

Google ranks websites primarily for customer experience. Page speed is an essential factor in a website user’s experience. People are impatient and will click back on a slow site.

  •         The ideal website load time for mobile sites is 1-2 seconds.
  •         53% of mobile site visits are abandoned if pages take longer than 3 seconds to load.
  •         A 2-second delay in load time resulted in abandonment rates of up to 87%.

How fast is your website? You can find out by using Google’s Page Speed Insights. Just put the page URL into the search bar at the top of the page, and within a minute, you will know whether it is fast (green), slow (red), or somewhere in the middle (yellow).

You Wrote Your Website Content

Most business owners write too technically because they know their business’s ins and outs and want to share it all. Professional content writers write from a sales standpoint. We know how to attract site viewers and convert them into customers. We also know how to increase your ranking on a Google search engine results page. This will make your site easier to find when someone searches for a business like yours online.

Nobody is Filling Out Your Website Contact Forms

If people visit your page, but they aren’t filling out your contact form, it is a good indication that you need a layout upgrade, content with the right calls to action, and maybe even a giveaway or lead magnet.

Your top competitor just redesigned their website

If you are going to compete, you have to play on the same field. We always look at what the competition is doing when we redesign a website.

Are you ready for your new website? Contact us today!

 

[1] Clement, J. “Mobile Percentage of Website Traffic 2020.” Statista, 19 Nov. 2020, www.statista.com/statistics/277125/share-of-website-traffic-coming-from-mobile-devices/.

 

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WordPress Features Including Blog Transfers, Custom Post Types, & Photo Galleries https://www.icebergwebdesign.com/2021/03/wordpress-features-including-blog-transfers-custom-post-types-photo-galleries/ Wed, 10 Mar 2021 15:00:17 +0000 https://www.icebergwebdesign.com/?p=15936 The website development industry uses a lot of specialized terminologies. So, unless you have a background in the web development industry, when you sit down to talk with a website developer about your future website, there will be some words used that you may not understand. There will be others you know but may want […]

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The website development industry uses a lot of specialized terminologies. So, unless you have a background in the web development industry, when you sit down to talk with a website developer about your future website, there will be some words used that you may not understand. There will be others you know but may want more context as to how it affects your site. This is especially the case with features.

Website

Features are notable additions to a website that make it unique and useful to your visitors and your company. These features are also more challenging to design, so often, they add an extra charge to your bill. The good news is, they are usually well worth it!

In this article, we will look at 3 of the most basic features or add-ons to your site:

  •         Transfer of a WordPress Blog
  •         Custom Post Type
  •         Photo Galleries

Transfer of a WordPress Blog.

Often when clients come to us, they have an old site with many blog posts. All of these URLs are valuable for SEO. If we pull them off the web, any backlinks or bookmarks people may have saved will end up leading to a 404-error page, telling the user that the page can’t be found. This is an easy way to lose a potential customer, and your site’s SEO will take a significant hit.

To prevent this, we always recommend transferring your WordPress blog to your new site. Anything you don’t want to move over, we will redirect you to your new home page during the site’s development.

Custom Post Type

WordPress is an extensive content management system (CMS). WordPress content is arranged by post types and by default by:

  •         Post
  •         Page

Anytime you have content that isn’t a post or a page, you can create a custom post type. Perhaps you are selling something. The most popular custom post type is Woo Commerce products. A product page would be a custom post type.

Other examples would be:

  •         Book Reviews
  •         Movies (for a movie theater)
  •         Services

Anything. The main thing about a custom post type is that it will have customized fields to input data. Let’s look at the example of movies. You might have fields for:

  •         Movie Title
  •         Synopsis
  •         Starring
  •         Rating
  •         Showtimes
  •         A ticket buy button

This will create consistency in the appearance of the movie pages. Also, the movies will all be organized together on the backend of the site, making them easy to find.

Photo Galleries

Photo galleries are a great way to show off your services. If you own a construction or remodeling company, you can display pictures of the homes or businesses you have built or remodeled. If you are a Salon owner, you can show examples of your work, such as adding hairstyles, highlights, haircuts, etc.

We can use plugins to display your photos beautifully. Some plugins will integrate your photos with social media, such as Pinterest or Instagram.

Creating a website can be a complicated process. Our team of WordPress Experts does it every day, so you don’t have to. If you want a new website for your business, contact us today!

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Ways to Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly https://www.icebergwebdesign.com/2021/01/ways-to-make-your-site-mobile-friendly/ Tue, 26 Jan 2021 14:20:23 +0000 https://www.icebergwebdesign.com/?p=15843 More people access the web with mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets than desktop and laptop computers. Thus, Google requires websites to be mobile-friendly to show up in mobile search results. So, it is essential to have your site optimized for mobile. To find out whether Google sees your site as mobile-friendly, you can […]

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More people access the web with mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets than desktop and laptop computers. Thus, Google requires websites to be mobile-friendly to show up in mobile search results. So, it is essential to have your site optimized for mobile.

Elderly Couple On Mobile Devices

To find out whether Google sees your site as mobile-friendly, you can check your site with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool. How did your site fare? If it did well, you are good to go! If it could use some improvements, read on!

Responsive and Adaptive Design

A mobile-friendly website starts with a responsive or adaptive WordPress theme. Responsive design means that as the screen narrows, so do the elements within the screen. This is ideal for smaller screen sizes such as smartphones.

Adaptive design is similar except that when the screen narrows to a specific predefined breakpoint, the elements will adapt. This works well for larger screen sizes. You can even see this at work on your desktop computer. Go to Iceberg Web Design’s home page and then slowly make the browser window smaller. As you do, you will see some changes take place. The menu changes, text, and images get smaller.

If your site is not responsive or adaptive, it was likely built before the responsive code frameworks came out. In that case, it will be easier to rebuild your site with the current code.  

Create a Mobile-Friendly Site from the Beginning.

It starts with the design of your site. It helps to keep in mind that your site will have to look good on a small screen. It isn’t just a shrunken version of the way your site looks on PC. Using a grid helps a lot with this. They make your design more balanced and appealing. They offer the ideal adaptable structure that works well for both a full-sized desktop and mobile design.

Make your content Mobile Friendly

Remove distractions on the page. This is clutter on the page that slows load time and makes it harder for users to get to the information they want to find. You can help users find what they need most by showing your most important information at the top of the page. Then, offer additional information when people ask for it.

Use large, standard fonts to make copy easy to read and buttons that are large and ideally at the bottom of the screen and opposite of the thumb.

Don’t just shrink the screen. Stack it.

When adapting a page for mobile, you may come across columns that become too narrow to be of any practical use. You should stack one on top of the other to create a more visually appealing, mobile-friendly page.

Adapt your images for Mobile

As your screen-size gets smaller, you will want to reduce the size of icons, images, and other visual elements. Play around with it a bit because you don’t want these design elements to become so small that they are useless.

Pay Attention to Your Navigation Menu

A full menu isn’t going to span your smartphone’s screen the way it does your desktop screen. It would be much too small to read. At Iceberg, we use something known as a “hamburger menu.” It’s different from the one at your favorite drive-thru. The hamburger menu compresses your menu into a vertical, tappable, drop-down menu.

Keep the Mobile User in Mind.

Desktop users are sitting at home or in their office. Mobile users are usually on the go. It’s essential to keep this in mind when designing your site. On desktop computers, it’s common to see a call to action asking the user to download something free such as an article (usually in exchange for their email address). On a mobile phone, that’s not practical. Sometimes changes must be made right down to the content. In this case, when the screen is a mobile configuration, the call-to-action can change to request “Get the Free Article.” You still request their email address, and the article gets sent to them so they can download or print it later at their convenience.

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What’s the Difference Between a Web Designer and a Developer? https://www.icebergwebdesign.com/2021/01/whats-the-difference-between-a-web-designer-and-a-developer/ Mon, 18 Jan 2021 15:04:23 +0000 https://www.icebergwebdesign.com/?p=15830 We often hear the terms web design and web development used interchangeably. Likewise, it can be difficult for someone outside of the industry, and even those within it, to know the difference between a web designer and a web developer. Is there even a difference? There IS! I recently asked one of the developers at […]

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We often hear the terms web design and web development used interchangeably. Likewise, it can be difficult for someone outside of the industry, and even those within it, to know the difference between a web designer and a web developer. Is there even a difference?

Web Developer Coding

There IS!

I recently asked one of the developers at Iceberg (who is also a designer) to share what distinguishes one role from the other.

What a Web Designer Does

When you are moving around the web, everything you see was designed by someone. Some sites have been poorly designed, while others are elegant and beautiful. All of these visuals appear on what we call the front end of your website.

A web designer considers the color palette, fonts, the use of space, and more. Where will content go? What does the content say, and how should that affect where and how it appears on the page? How about images? They will use CSS and HTML to make the magic happen.

But a good web designer will also consider what is happening on the back end of the site. That’s where the web developer does their job.

What a Web Developer Does

A web developer works on the back end of the site. While you don’t necessarily see what they have done, you do experience it. Their work ensures your site is fast and stable. They write the code that builds the site. As they do their job, they keep in mind the way the site was designed. They use JavaScript and PHP to make the magic happen.

The Best of Both Worlds

Someone who is both a developer and a designer can put on whichever hat is needed to get the job done. You can think about the front end and the back end at the same time. They’re the right person for the job.

Do you need a Developer and a Designer?

Iceberg Web Design is known for the beautiful websites we build with your business and marketing solutions in mind. If you need a new website, digital marketing, and more, contact us today. Our developers and team actually answer the phone.

 

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How Long Will It Take to Build My Website? https://www.icebergwebdesign.com/2020/12/how-long-will-it-take-to-build-my-website/ Mon, 14 Dec 2020 18:36:50 +0000 http://dev2020.icebergwebdesign.com/?p=15505 One of the questions we always get from potential customers is, “How long will it take to build my site?” It can be a tough one to answer until we do some deeper digging. A website is never one-size-fits-all. Some take as little as six weeks, while others take up to 24 months. Today we […]

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One of the questions we always get from potential customers is, “How long will it take to build my site?” It can be a tough one to answer until we do some deeper digging. A website is never one-size-fits-all. Some take as little as six weeks, while others take up to 24 months. Today we will look at some of the factors that affect the length of time it takes to get from Kickoff to the day the site goes live.

Business Coworkers Consulting by a Computer

Subscription vs. Custom Sites

When we build a subscription site, we put content unique to your business on a framework that we have used many times before. It’s similar to how every adult has about 206 bones in their body, laid out the same way, yet we all look different on the outside.

When we build a custom site, many details have to come together in new ways. Often the process can be complicated. Because of this, subscription sites take far less time than custom sites.

The Time it Takes to Write Content

Before we can send your project to the developer, we need to assemble the content. It takes much less time for us to write your content than it does for you to do it. That’s because we do this every day. We’re experts at writing content that converts!

The first thing we do is schedule a content interview. That’s when we ask you about your business and decide how to communicate your passion to your customers. About five days later, we send you the first draft of your website content. You make any changes you would like, and after we edit the content, we go through the process again. After those two revisions, the content goes to design and development.

Some people choose to have us consult rather than write the content. This often means several rounds of revisions, so it takes longer.

The Time it Takes to Gather Assets

Assets are things that will give your site visual appeal, like photographs, logos, and custom graphics. Do you have professional quality photos ready, or do you need to hire a photographer? We have a photographer that can usually get the photos taken and edited within two to three weeks. If you employ -your own, the time it takes will depend on their schedule and speed.

Logos usually take about two weeks since there is a questionnaire, revision, and design consultation. Custom graphics will take more than a week. Of course, these things are done concurrently rather than consecutively.

The Time it Takes to Design and Develop Your Site

The basic design of your site will take about a week. During this time, we create a home page and an interior page. The time it takes beyond that will depend on how complex the design is and how many revisions are needed.

After approval of the mockup, the site will go into development. The development of a basic site without features takes about five to twenty business days.

Other Factors that Affect the Time it Takes to Build Your Website

The overall size of a custom site makes a big difference. If you need twenty pages, it will be more time consuming than a ten-page site.

Features will also add time—especially if we create unique custom features for your site.

E-commerce sites are time-consuming. Just how much time they take will depend on the number of products you want to be listed. Sixty products will take less time than 6,000. A small e-commerce site will typically take at least 6-months.

You have much control over how long it takes to get your site live. Revisions, changes, options, and delivering assets late will cause your project to take longer.

We are Experts at This

Our tried-and-true process will keep your project moving forward while focusing on its unique needs. We’ve built hundreds of websites, and we do it well. If you are looking for a professional web developer, contact us today.

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How to Use Images on your Website https://www.icebergwebdesign.com/2020/11/images-on-your-website/ Mon, 16 Nov 2020 18:35:29 +0000 http://dev2020.icebergwebdesign.com/?p=15436 Early websites were text-heavy, with a few images sprinkled throughout the pages. Today’s websites have large, high-quality photos that dominate every page of your site. Finding the right ones are essential. Unfortunately, many people take shortcuts that are not in line with best practices. Here are some things to keep in mind when gathering and […]

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Early websites were text-heavy, with a few images sprinkled throughout the pages. Today’s websites have large, high-quality photos that dominate every page of your site. Finding the right ones are essential. Unfortunately, many people take shortcuts that are not in line with best practices. Here are some things to keep in mind when gathering and using images for your site.

Designer Working On Images and Computer

Avoid Google Images

It is easy to do a Google search and find pictures that would look great on your site. Unfortunately, most of the images you see will be under copyright. If you use one of them, it can lead to a lawsuit with a hefty fine. There are much better ways to find images for your site, including:

  •         Taking your own pictures
  •         Purchasing images from one of the many sites that sells them
  •         Using open-source images

How to use open source images

There are several great ways to find open-source images on the web. One great source is Unsplash.  While these images are free and don’t require any attribution, giving the photographer and Unsplash credit is the right thing to do. To learn more about attribution, check out Grow’s article, “7 Best Sources for Finding Open Source Images For Your Blog.” This article includes ideas of where to look and some crucial things to keep in mind when using open source images.

Investing in an image warehouse

There are many websites where you can pay a small fee for the right to use their image on your site. You can choose to pay a monthly fee for multiple (and even unlimited) photos or pay per image.

Check out this article by Bluleadz.com for, “The 25 Very Best Stock Image Websites You Need in 2020 to Add Visual Flair.” By buying the right to use images, you can be assured that you are legally safe and ethically sound.

Using Alt Tags, Descriptions, and Image Title Tags

Often people focus on SEO for the words on their website without taking advantage of the benefits that come from optimizing their images. You can bring traffic to your website using proper alt tags, descriptions, and titles on your photos.

Alt Tags

Alternate text is an accessibility tool that tells visually impaired users to know the image by enabling screen readers to read them the alt text for the picture. Have you ever had a broken image on your site? When this happens, you see a little box with a few words next to it. Those words are the alt text. In this situation, they even benefit non-visually impaired users by sharing what they should be seeing. You can find out more about Alternative Text and how to use it in WPBeginner’s “Beginner’s Guide to Image SEO – Optimize Images for Search Engines.”

Image Descriptions and Title Tags

An image description also assists the visually impaired, but it is more detailed than alternative text. When optimizing images, don’t choose one or the other, but include both. An unlikely source for how to do this well comes from the American Anthropological Association. Check out their fascinating guide. And WP Promote shares why optimizing the image title is vital. It would be best if you always changed the image file name. Find out why and how in their guide.

Need Help?

Hopefully, this will expand your understanding of how to use images effectively. If you would like us to make things even easier for you, contact Iceberg Web Design to see how we can optimize your images and more. If you prefer, give us a call at 763-350-8762. We are web developers who answer the phone!

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