Blog
Finding Your Niche
In business often times business owners are so caught up into different ways to make money that they are unable to accomplish any goals they have set. Don’t get me wrong, having multiple sources of revenue come in is a great thing, but if you cannot keep up with all of the different operations you are attempting to run then failure is headed your way. So what do you do? Take a step back for a minute, look at the big picture. What are you trying to accomplish? Find something, one thing that you can be successful at, and work at it. If you don’t know what it is, trial and error never hurts. Give something a shot and give it 100%, rather than giving 10 things 10 percent. The more you put in is the more you get out, and that is how you will find your niche market.
Once you have found that niche market, then you can work on how to build multiple sources of revenue from that specific market, rather than multiple markets. This topic is key to many online and primarily web based businesses including SavePro Designs. Just because a company is web based does not mean it should cater to everyone around the world. Find what you are good at, who you relate to, and who is interested in what you have to offer, those are the people whom you should be doing business with.
Maybe it’s not a particular client base that is your niche market, maybe it is a specific product you target instead of multiple products. There are many different variables; depending on the type of business you run, that it takes to find what your niche is. But whatever it may be, just know that finding your niche and giving 100% is always the best way to go. Make a game plan and stick to it
Optimize Your Site for Local Search
A large part of the misunderstanding of search engine optimization (SEO) with small and local business owners is their target market. Many business owners believe that they have to be ranked number 1 in order to be seen for their specific business, which may be true. What they do not realize is that they do not have to do it nationally (in most cases).
If you are a local business and primarily or only sell to the local community, you do not need to try and optimize your site to get ranked nationally for your targeted keywords. Not only is it very difficult to get ranked nationally, but it would be a waste of time when you can spend probably 20% of the time you would to get ranked nationally, to in fact get ranked locally.
Many business owners don’t even know that local optimization is even an option. For example, if you are in Sacramento, CA instead of trying to get ranked nationally for HVAC or Heating and Air Maintenance where you may be competing with some of the largest HVAC companies throughout the world, you can target your keywords to something like HVAC in Sacramento, or HVAC Maintenance in Sacramento. With these terms you are specifically targeting your area, therefore driving people to your area to your site, because who wants someone looking for HVAC maintenance in New York if your business is in Sacramento?
Just remember, when creating the content for your site, target your audience not only by your service or product, but by location of audience as well.
Growing Your Business
Recently, we have put a lot of thought into what it takes to grow a web design business, or any business for that matter. Not only do the numbers have to add up, the t’s need to be crossed and the i’s need to be dotted. In other words, many things must fall into place before jumping to the idea of expanding or growing your business.
Now don’t get me wrong, everyone wants to grow their business in one way or another, but in the terms I am speaking of, I specifically mean taking it to the next level. Whether taking it to the next level for you means adding an extra client or adding an extra office building, you have to be prepared and have your funds set in place to do so.
Don’t be afraid to lose money. Your business is an investment. If you are afraid to lose money then you do not have faith, or trust yourself in business. Crunch some numbers to see that yes, you may lose x amount of dollars in the first six months, but the next two years you will make over $100,000 or more. Or you may make less, but as long as the numbers are right for you then go for it. Set goals and accomplish them. Strive to beat your goals, the more often you beat your goals the quicker the investment turns into a profit.
Growing your business is great, just make sure you have done the research and have the resources to do so, and by resources I mean – you ALWAYS need to have a website. 😉
When the Internet Goes Down
As a web designer things can be very stressful when your internet goes down if you are working on a live website or testing server. Do not panic, there is always a solution. First and foremost you should check to make sure that your network cable did not get unplugged; please do not follow this step if you are on WiFi. (hehe) If your Ethernet cord is securely plugged into your Ethernet port then proceed with unplugging the power source to your router and modem; wait approximately 30 seconds and plug them back in. From there it is suggested to restart your computer as well, but it is not always needed for your internet to pop back up. If this does not fix your problem you still do not need to panic just yet.
Contact your ISP, there could be an outage in your area and they may have an approximate time on how long it will take. Sometimes this could take a matter of 15 minutes to countless hours.
In the event that your internet ends up being down for an extraneous amount of time it is best to always have a back up plan. For starters, does your phone have WiFi tethering? You may be able to start a hotspot right then and there to fix your issues for the time being. Is there a public library near by where you can take your laptop to? This may also be a solution.
Now days internet is everywhere so there is no need to panic, if you cannot find a solution at your home or office, there is internet somewhere near by where you should be able to go! If of course your files are stored on your desktop simply drag them down onto an external hard drive or thumb drive and take your laptop and hit the road.
Websites With No Monthly Fees
Now days you want to cut as many costs as possible. Unfortunately it is very hard to find a company…
What to do if your Website Breaks
In today’s online world things are constantly being updated and upgraded as with most technology out there. This can prove to be very good in many cases, but on rare occasions this can be a dreadful process as well. In the event of an update to a web programming language, browser, or text editor many things can go wrong. Functions for the language may be depreciated, your text editor may have changed, or worst of all, your website may no longer be functional on the internet. So what do you do if something like this happens?
Well, hopefully you still are able to contact your web designer. It is always good to build a strong relationship with your designer, and even prior to purchasing a website make sure that they will be around when you need them because you never know when something will go wrong. If you are unable to contact your web designer or programmer there are a few things you can do.
First and foremost, preferably, I would contact the hosting company for your website, and have it taken down temporarily until the corrections are made. Next find a company who can make the edits needed for your website. This may be a tough task in many cases, if the website was custom coded the new company will have to go through the code and understand the previous coders work to be able to fix certain things. Get a basic assessment from a new designer prior to agreeing to anything. Let them tell you how long it will take to make the modifications and if it is something that will be a smooth process. If they are hesitant about the work they are probably not the right company for you.
Lastly, if this is ever the case with your website you can feel free to contact us as well, as we will be more than willing to give you a free site assessment and let you know our best input.
What does your logo say about you?
Trying to decide on a logo or color scheme? This could be a daunting task indeed. The best way to start out is to pick some constant colors that you are going to stick with. Consistency in a logo or design means that your company will be around for a while. You have a brand and you are sticking to it. A few words of advice, don’t pick bright booming colors unless your product is bright and booming, stick with neutral, or easy on the eyes type colors. It will help draw customers, and you can save those bright colors for special advertisements.
Make sure you don’t put too many colors into your design either, not only could this distract potential customers or clients, it could also be a hassle and price booster when trying to get your logo designed for a particular project. Many screen printing companies charge by the amount of colors you are wanting to put on a t shirt. If your logo has 6 colors the price will skyrocket.
Questioning your logo design? Put it in grey scale for a moment. Does it still look good? This is a technique many designers use, though not always the case, most great designs still look fantastic in black and white. Try it!
The true key in developing a good logo is to understand your target audience. Demographics vary and respond differently to particular color schemes. It could be best to test the waters with friends, relatives, and a few strangers on the street before jumping into a logo design and it hurting you in the long run. Most importantly, let your designer help you! Listen to their ideas and be understanding of their concerns.
Top Web Hosting
There are hundreds of web hosting companies out there for you to search through and find what one fits your needs. Here at SavePro Designs we offer three primary hosting platforms, all of which fit any business needs as we have laid them out to do just that. Our silver plan is for small business just getting started and wanting to have a basic web presence. Our gold plan is for a business which is a bit more established and has work they would like to display on their website. And our platinum plan is for premiere business owners who are looking for the total package, content management, message boards, databases, you name it.
When searching for top web hosting make sure you consider all the factors of your website. What is it going to take to get your website up and running, and is the company going to be able to handle your needs? With SavePro we can handle anything, which is why we believe we are the top web hosting company for business owners out there today. Sure we are not a web hosting company to hold huge servers that companies such as Google and Facebook hold, but we do have the ability to hold a large number of data for any business looking to store client information, or whatever it may be on our servers.
Finally, make sure that the hosting company has a secure system in place. You do not want your data to be intercepted. Also make sure that they have a good up time. Take this into consideration for a moment. If a company tells you they have a 99% up time that is 361 days. That means your website could be down for 4 days out of the year! If a company tells you they have a 99.9% up time that is 364.6 days, so your website would be down for approximately 10 hours in a year. SavePro Designs offers a 99.99% up time which is 364.9 days! Make sure you do your research before choosing a top web hosting company!
