Social media is here to stay. Since initial offerings like MySpace, it has captured the minds and attention of the world. Businesses are still only touching the tip of the iceberg in terms of the potential this platform has to offer. There are a variety of social networks available now, but it’s important to focus on the ones that matter to your business. For many businesses that boils down to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. In this blog post we are going to focus on how to leverage LinkedIn and turn it into a reliable lead generator for your web design business. Here’s a quick rundown:

Make sure your personal and company profiles are fully developed.

Nothing says credibility on social media like a fully developed personal and company profile. It’s all about the little things like a professional profile photo, detailed work history, recommendations etc. Be sure to post links to your website on both profiles, as well as examples of portfolio work. Make it easy for people to trust you! You will be surprised how far dotting all your I’s will go.

Join groups relevant to your profession AND your target segment’s business.

Getting your brand in front of the right eyes requires a two-fold strategy on LinkedIn. You need to improve your standing among your peers, and get active where your target customers are. To start, join web design and development groups. If you are a freelancer, join freelance designer groups etc. Next, figure out where your target customer segment is active. Are they small businesses or enterprise? Tech or retail? Create a customer profile to truly understand your target, and then join groups where key decision makers are active. For instance, if you realize that you need to go after a CIO in a company, check out his/her profile and groups and start contributing in those!

Stay top of mind in yours newsfeed and groups.

The most important part of turning LinkedIn into a lead generator is staying top of mind. People forget about each other fairly quickly online, so the only way to combat that is by remaining active. Be proactive in connecting with people and networking. Scan your newsfeed every day and congratulate people for new jobs, anniversaries, great articles etc. Making others feel valued goes a long way on social media! The same goes for groups that you are involved in. Post questions, share articles, and comment on discussions. People seeing you continually add value to conversations will begin to think of you as a thought leader. Becoming a thought leader is the ultimate goal of social media because it makes everything else come easier. The people you interact with online may not need a web designer at that exact moment, but they will come back to you when they do if you cement yourself as a thought leader!

One of the fastest growing web trends this side of responsive design are pageless websites. This term is already being thrown around a lot in web design circles, but many end-users have yet to hear about it. We here at Fast Track want every business owner to be in the loop when it comes to new and exciting trends. Read on to know everything you need to know about pageless design and what it could mean for your business!

Pageless design is about creating a compelling story for consumers

Web design has followed the status quo of imitating print design for many years. While this is a great approach for large enterprises, pageless design is better suited for small to medium sized companies that need to create a compelling story for customers. Rather than having the site sub-divided into multiple pages, the entire website is on one page that follows a story line. For example:

As the user scrolls down they learn more and more about the important components of the business. Chapter 1 can be the main landing page, with a large image depicting the product, and subsequent chapters are important features, the business process, reviews, etc. It’s great for quickly introducing the main selling points of a brand and its products. Some great examples can be found here.

After looking at those example, you may be asking yourself “Those look cool, but why should I invest in pageless design?” Well, pageless design has a lot of benefits thanks to its simple and visual approach:

It’s seamless and easy to digest.

Users don’t have to dive through multiple page to find important information. It’s all there on one page, and presented in a way that’s very easy to understand.

It presents content in a stimulating way for all types of learners.

By using a combination of visceral images and concise text, pageless design gets all of the important aspects of your brand communicated to different types of learners.

It has higher conversion rates.

There would be little to no reason to switch to pageless design if it didn’t present business advantages. At the end of the day, business is about securing more leads and sales. With this approach there are decreased bounce rates because it is so intuitive that users don’t get confused. Lower bounce rates mean more time spent on the website for users to immerse themselves in your business. Ultimately, pageless design helps to improve conversion rates over traditional print design, meaning more money in your pocket.

Pageless design is mobile and social media friendly

Another great benefit of pageless design is that it looks great on any type of device. In today’s Internet that is important because of the variety of ways users are accessing website. It is also very social media friendly, because of the way that it allows users to share the site. With traditional websites, users would have to pick which particular page to share, but this approach simplifies the entire decision making process.

Pageless design can be more affordable

A custom website can be extremely expensive. Pageless websites can be made at a much more affordable price point than many other options. Many can be purchased for less than $5000 dollars. O at the end of the day the pageless design equation looks like this:

Pageless design: More conversions + More affordable website = More profit      

As a designer, you want and need the best tools available. There are a ton of options out there for both beginners and experienced designers. We combed through the Internet to bring you this mix of free tools to add to your toolkit. Enjoy!

Brackets

This open source program was developed by Adobe to help designers edit code in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It’s great because it has a very clean look by not cluttering your workspace with a variety of buttons. Instead, it focuses on using shortcuts and live previews to help you throughout. There are a bunch of extensions as well, so it has become pretty useful for beginning and experienced designers alike.

OpenBEXI

The most unique feature of this WYSIWYG HTML editor is that it lets you drag and drop different elements. It’s really useful if you want to have a quick visual of what you are creating. This editor lets you edit CSS and add scripts as well. Not stopping there, it has an FTP client that will upload everything for you when you have finished your design.

GIMP

GIMP is a great free image editor. It has a variety of powerful tools you would find in paid solutions. For example, it provides great color editing tools, tons of special effects, photo retouching, and much more! Honestly, you will be surprised by how many features this free program has.

Firebug

This FireFox extension is one of the most useful tools I have come across for designers, developers, and anyone managing a company website. It lets you view the CSS and HTML of any page, while displaying tweaks in real time. You need to use an actual editor to change the code, but this is useful for playing around with layouts without accidentally making a mistake.

New projects are awesome. They mean more sales revenue, connections, and a bigger portfolio. That doesn’t mean you should take every project though! It’s important to focus on the ones that are a great fit for your business, and ignore the ones that may be more trouble than they’re worth. You should always ask the following three questions before undertaking a new project:

Does this project fall into the same scope of work I’ve done before for previous clients?

This is a really important question to think about. Do you already have the skills/experience needed to provide an excellent finished product? Will you have to learn anything new to complete the project objectives? You should make a rubric or checklist so that you can easily ascertain how good of a fit a project will be for your business. The point is, you always want to be able to guarantee high quality work, with little to no delays. If there is an aspect of this project that you can tell could create problems, you should either consult with the client, or move on to another project. You don’t want to have any party frustrated/dissatisfied during the design process.

Can this client pay for your work in a timely fashion?

The only way to maintain a profitable business is by guaranteeing steady cash flow. The best way to do that is to minimize your accounts receivable, and taking clients that you know can pay for your time. If you are having any doubts, go over this with the client before starting work, or move on. Your design business isn’t non-profit after all.

Is this a one-time project, or can this client be retained for ongoing work and future business?

Any client that can be retained for long-term design work is extremely valuable. Besides minimizing cash flow volatility, ongoing work can create a relationship. You can leverage this to get more projects with your client’s connections. Word of mouth is a powerful thing! That being said, don’t forgo a one-time project for an ongoing one if it’s a huge contract, or with a great corporation to add to your portfolio. Always do a cost-benefit analysis so you can make an informed decision!

The storefront matters. It mattered when the only option was going to a brick and mortar shop, and it still matters today with online storefronts. The shop itself has an effect on the purchasing behavior of a consumer. If you were going to go buy a car, would you go to some back alley garage, or the trusted, local dealership?

Custom branding builds credibility and trust.

People trust people or things that look nicer. That’s why people get stressed out at 3 am when a homeless person is near them, but not when it’s a businessman in a nice suit. A custom e-commerce store allows you to implement things like custom branding. Being able to use your branding instead of a pre-packaged template can have a profound effect on consumers. They will see that you put time and money into the appearance of your store, and that builds credibility. The more credibility you have, the easier it is for the consumer to trust you, and then purchase your product.

A custom storefront means more functionality.

One of the biggest benefits of custom development is creating functionality where it didn’t exist before. Have a custom e-commerce store can be a huge asset if you need additional functionality now, or down the road. Some e-commerce solutions will have missing tools like mobile/social media stores or social check outs. With a custom solution you can circumvent all these issues. You get exactly what you need, with the ability to add whatever you want later on. Having the ability to add great functionality like social media checkouts can make the buying process easier and more efficient for consumers. Streamlining processes with a consumer-centric focus means fewer hoops to jump through for a user, and a lower rate of cart abandonment. And that means more sales.