Not Just Pretty | Building An Effective Small Business Brand

Letterhead Fonts

QUESTION:

I am trying to create a quick letterhead template for my company. Is there

a certain type of font I should use for the address block?

ANSWER:

Here are the qualities you want to watch out for in your letterhead address block font:

1. Make sure your letterhead font is legible and prints well. If you're going to send faxes on your letterhead, test the fonts you'll use to make sure they're still legible after going through the fax process.

2. Think about how you'll use your letterhead. If it's a digital letterhead that will be used on several different computers, it will be easiest to choose a font that comes preinstalled on most computers so that you'll be able to open and use the letterhead with no technical difficulties. If you're going to be the sole user, then you might want to invest in a font for your letterhead that will make it more unique.

3. Think about the personality of your company, and match the font to the personality. Sans serif fonts are good for technology-oriented companies, and give your company a more approachable and friendly feel. Serif fonts are more traditional and can make your business look more established. In any case, you probably don't want to go with anything that looks like handwriting or is too decorative. Script fonts are also harder to read.

4. If you have a logo, you should make sure that the qualities of your logo font coordinate with the font that is used in your logo. This does not mean that it has to be the same font, but it's a good rule of thumb to match some of the characteristics - whether the "o" in both fonts is round or oval, for example.

Q&A: .com vs. .net In Domain Names

QUESTION: 

Does anyone have strong opinions about using .com vs. .net? The cost difference is huge -- $299 vs. $12.99 (this is quoted from godaddy.com).  

ANSWER: 

If it's available (even at $300), then I'd recommend going with a .com for ease of use for the customer. .com is the option that most users will automatically type - people are just used to typing .com at the end of email addresses, websites, etc. - so you'll wind up with fewer lost people looking for your site.

Q&A: Metatags

QUESTION:

Hope you are doing well these days.  I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about Metatags, their place in the market today and what may or may not be what is today.  I just want to know my options for web optimization.

ANSWER:

Almost all search engines don't look at the Keyword metatag - your competition would look there to see what you're optimizing for, so I often recommend to leave that out.

Some search engines still reference the Description metatag, so I recommend placing some information there.

Three are other metatags that are more advanced that you can use, but those are the basic two! Hope it helps!

Q&A: Digital printing and color inconsistency

QUESTION:

I just got the new batch of business cards that we ordered: they don't match the batches we ordered before. Did something get changed in the artwork? How do we fix this?

ANSWER:

No, the color values on the card artwork are all the same as in prior (successful) batches of printing. I haven't changed a thing having to do with the color.

That's one of the drawbacks of digital printing. While you can get relatively low quantities of cards at lower prices than traditional printing, you don't get the consistency of color that you would with traditional printing - especially when the batches are printed at different times. The calibration of the printer can change, or the way that they process the files can change, and you can wind up with different colors even though the artwork hasn't changed.

So, every time we send them something to print, we're hoping that their results will be consistent - but that's not always the case.

If getting the right color is really that important, then it might make sense to look into traditional printing - that guarantees that the colors will always be consistent. Traditional printers use Pantone inks, which have greater color accuracy than the CMYK process used by digital printers.

Q&A: Home page photo

QUESTION:

I want to find a stock photo for my home page, but I just can't find one that says what I want it to say. I keep coming up with photos of objects or landscapes.

ANSWER:

You'll have a better chance at forming a connection through the home page if there's a person somehow in the picture - people connect with photos of other people. We could also look for a photo that you absolutely love - if you love the photo, then there's a good chance that the people who are going to be your best clients will like the photo as well.

I also recommend matching the photo's color palette somewhat to your brand's color palette. That will make the page look more polished.

Q&A: Website hosting

QUESTION:

Which web hosting companies would you recommend?  Fees?

ANSWER:

I've worked with many web hosting companies - my favorite is Dreamhost.com, but I've also had good success with Go Daddy. They each have reasonable rates, good uptime, good email support, and provide everything a small business should need to host their site in their basic packages. I recommend that you purchase your hosting on a yearly basis becase many companies offer discounts for services purchased "in bulk". 

Q&A: Rebranding launch at a trade show

QUESTION: 

Dear Erin,

I am writing to you because I have a branding related query and look forward to your assistance. My company is a service company offering 360 degree logistics solutions. We also have other companies in the group, all of which are services oriented. We are planning to re-brand our ‘group of companies’ and are in the process of changing everything from the name, logo, website, etc.

We are participating in a large scale logistics exhibition early next year and consider it is an excellent base to re-launch ourselves. However, the re-launch will not be the only thing promoted. We will also be promoting our products, capabilities, etc.

The exhibition will be attended by our competitors, suppliers, customers and important dignitaries from the logistics fraternity.

I would like to know if it will be good idea to re-launch ourselves at this exhibition or will it dilute the re-branding activity.

Look forward to your response.

Warm Regards,

Reshma Dixit

ANSWER:

You can promote the re-branding at the exhibition along with other things - re-branding is more of a sub promotion at a trade show - a "by the way, we've rebranded - and look at all the great stuff we offer".

I would recommend keeping the number of things you promote overall focused so that the people coming to the booth aren't overwhelmed, and so that your staff can handle the different requests with ease. 

How big of a booth will you be having, and how many people will it be staffed by? I'd suggest promoting no more programs than you have people to staff the booth - otherwise, the staff can get overwhelmed trying to answer questions about many different products and services all day long.

Design your booth with the different promotions in mind, and separate them physically as well if that's possible with your booth space. This will help your visitors see instantly that you have different things to offer - and how they can use your different services.

I hope this helps!

- Erin

 

 

Attending trade shows and giving out promotional items can help develop your brand, and if you do it right you will help to keep the right people talking about your company.

Q&A: META tags

QUESTION:

I'm writing the website text, and I wanted to know if it would be helpful for me to include META tags for you at the top of each page.

ANSWER:

Thanks for thinking of it! Some of the META tags will be really helpful, but don't worry about creating others.

META keyword tags aren't actually used by the search engines anymore. Too many companies used that space to cheat and fill up their site with keywords that actually weren't related to the content of the page. So now, the engines disregard that tag and look only at  the text that you've written on the page. That tag's only use now is for your competition to take a look and see what keyword phrases you're optimizing for.

So, choose the most important 2-3 keywords per page and note those - because I can place those in the code elsewhere - and place those at the top of the page when you're writing your copy. More than about 2-3 keywords will look pretty strange when I place them in the code.

Also, writing a different Description tag for each page (or, at least for the different sections) can be helpful for your ranking.

One other way that you can help your ranking is to write a different Title tag for each page, and then to also include your keywords in your headlines and sub-heads.

Q&A: Making a Word document look like an eBook

QUESTION:

I've written an eBook, and now I want to make it look professional. But, I want to use Word as my "layout program". Help?

ANSWER:

Word is really not designed to act as a layout program, but there are a few things that you can do to dress up your text and to make your product look more professional:

• Start by designing a graphical cover in Illustrator, Photoshop, or some other graphics program.
  For design ideas, take some books off your bookshelves to see what the cover might look like. Choose simpler, blockier covers to model - these will be easier to use as a guide than a more complicated, layered cover would be.
  
  To easily add graphics, try stock photos. Search on istockphoto.com for an affordable stock photo. Be sure to buy a high-resolution version (even though an eBook is a digital product, you'll want to make the cover high resolution so that it will look as good as possible. You may also find that you need a high resolution version of the photo for later promotions, so having the high resolution version around (and spending a couple of extra dollars in the beginning) won't hurt matters.
  
  If you don't have Illustrator or Photoshop, then you can design a simple cover in Word. Use the "Drawing Tools" menu (look in the Help file for the location of yours - it differs in different versions of Word). Get a custom look by selecting custom colors, and not using Word's built-in color palette. 

• Then, design a matching page header and/or footer for the subsequent pages. These can be as simple as a stripe across the top and bottom (match the color of the stripe to the colors on the cover), the title of the book, your business's URL, and of course, a page number. Insert these as text and images in the header and footer of the page.

• If you purchase a non-system-standard font (in other words, something that your computer doesn't come with) and use that for your text, then you can get some pretty professional-looking results pretty easily. Fonts are inexpensive and can really dress up your product. You can browse for fonts at myfonts.com. Keep your choices simple, and consider legibility. Stick to standard text fonts - not decorative fonts. When in doubt, use really common fonts like Myriad Pro, Gill Sans, Warnock, Garamond, or Helvetica. And, by all means, please don't use Comic Sans.

• Combine a serif font (the fonts with little "feet" on the ends of the letters) for your headlines with a sans-serif font (the fonts without little "feet") for the body text. Or, vice-versa. Combine fonts where the letter "O" has similar characteristics - if the "O" is round, combine that font with another font where the "O" is round. Or, if the "O" is tall and narrow, try matching to a tall and narrow font.

• Use the "Format Paragraph" options and add 6 points of space before or after your paragraphs instead of hitting "enter" twice. It will produce a shorter space between the paragraphs, which looks more sophisticated.

Q&A: Can I have two websites?

QUESTION:

I have a new business name, and a shiny new website to go along with that. But, my old website is performing just fine on the search engines, and even brought in a new client the other day. My old website is also particularily well-suited for bringing in local business. 

Do I have to take the old site down? Should I apply the new design to it? What do I do?

ANSWER:

There's no reason that a small business can't have two websites - aside from the work involved in creating two separate sites. If you're promoting two different products or services, it may even make more sense to have two separate sites.

In this example, you're promoting your services nationally in your new site, but locally in your old site. I think if the old site was cleaned up a bit to make it clear that it's really targeting local prospects, add some information about the local "scene" to it, and make sure that the distinction between the two sites is really clear. 

You should add some links back and forth between the two sites to reinforce that they "go together". If you just add a few, it shouldn't hurt your ranking in any way. 

And, updating the old site with the new business name and design would make sense, just for clarity. You don't want to answer the phone with the new business name, while someone's looking at the old site, and confuse them. I'd also recommend that the site be redesigned to match the new logo/look, but not to match the new site exactly. The local site might look a bit simpler than the national site, for example. That way, it will be clear that they are two separate sites, and if a browser comes across them both they won't get that slimy feel of visiting two sites for the same thing.