Before you do any branding work, it’s important to get an idea of where you are now.

Basically, Branding is the feeling someone gets when they think of you. Easy to define, hard to articulate. The goal of branding your business is to get your current customers to become repeat customers, and to increase the number of new customers. To do this, you have to be uppermost in people’s minds at the moment they need your services.

Where is your business now? Through research of consumers and participants, you can discover how your organization is seen at the present moment. You can hold in-person or phone interviews, or try a free online survey like Survey Monkey or Google Docs.

Questions to ask when beginning a rebranding process:

• What do your “consumers” (clients, buyers) think of you? What problem are you solving for them?
• What do the “owners” (employees, contractors, volunteers, board, staff, anyone who has a stake in the organization) think the organization is/can be/should be?
•  Who are your competitors? What do they do better than you? What are you unique at?

Check in with your social media networks, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. How many likes, followers, contacts do you have?

If you have a blog, check how many comments you have on average. Look at your stats with Google Analytics and get an average traffic number per month or week.

I like to use Excel spreadsheets to track survey answers and social media counts. Remember to add the date you benchmarked so you can compare future progress.

Once you have a clear view of your current audience, you can start to plan goals for your business and watch it grow.

Stop by at 10am on the first Tuesday of the month and join an ongoing conversation on all things blog-related. We share what we’ve been doing, and participants ask Melissa questions about their blog. Topics have included blog structure, how to add photos to a post, branding yourself as a blogger, and how to add a blog to a traditional HTML website. Come and share your questions and get professional feedback. The meeting is free to attend when you sign up to the Santa Fe Complex newsletter. Please arrive at 10am with a laptop, or just bring yourself and watch the big screens.

Make sure you join the Blogshop Facebook page for updates.

During the Q&A, we go around the table and each blogger asks a question. I spend a few to several minutes showing best practices and tricks that I have learned in my professional blogging experience.

There is a feeling of being overwhelmed when you start blogging; there is so much to know about the WordPress software and the practice of blogging.The Q&A format inspires beginning and seasoned bloggers to get back on track. I love helping you feel like you have managed one more piece of the puzzle.

We usually meet in the back conference room of the Santa Fe Complex, but check in at the front desk in case we are moved to a different room. If you get lost, feel free to call me at 505-231-8775.

I look forward to seeing you and helping you move forward with your blogging goals!

~ Melissa J White, owner, Blogshop

You will purchase a hosting package (through Hostgator), install WordPress on your self-hosted site, and learn the WordPress interface. IT professionals are on hand to help you through the process.

Professional blogger and award-winning advertising and web designer, Melissa J White will lead you through the technical and marketing aspects of starting your blog.

Space is limited. Register today!
DATES: Saturday, November 19 & Sunday, November 20, 2011
TIMES: Sat from 10am to 1pm; Sun from 1pm to 4pm
FEE: $150 + tax for the weekend, 6 hours of training
REGISTER: http://www.blogshopsantafe.com/registration
MORE INFO: info@blogshopsantafe.com, 505-231-8775
WEBSITE: http://www.BlogshopSantaFe.com

Here is a list of blogs that have been created in Blogshop Weekend:

• Altered Landscapes
• Beauchamp Counseling Services
• Las Campanas Life
• Lizard Time Press
• New Mexico Tasty Traditions
• Publication Project
• Santa Fe Digital
• The Potter’s Notebook
• The Rights of Nature
• Trailwriters Guide
• Volcanic Landscapes
• Wax Artist Santa Fe

DAY 2:
Part 3: Fine Tuning. SEO (Search Engine Optimization), using the WordPress interface, plug-ins, categories and tags, backing up your database, site stats, spam filters, comments and creating a dialogue with your readers.

Part 4: Connecting. Social networking for your blog, products, squeeze pages, opt-in email services, affiliates, the money funnel, joint ventures, creating products.

Bring a writing journal, pen, your laptop and questions!

The first Blogshop will be the last weekend in September, 2010.
• Saturday the 25th from 1-4pm, and
• Sunday the 26th from 10am-1pm.
Location in Santa Fe, TBD. Cost is $100 for both days.
Class size is 10-12 students and includes a free French Toast breakfast before the workshop on Saturday.

Please email MelissaJWhite@gmail.com to register.
Forward this offer to anyone you think might be interested!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Melissa is a member of David Risley’s Blog Masters Club/Inner Circle and blogs professionally at the following sites:
http://www.santaferealtypartners.com/blog
http://www.melissajwhite.com/blog/
http://www.mini-branding.com/
http://www.examiner.com/x-21650-Santa-Fe-Small-Business-Marketing-Examiner

The header includes the artist’s main photo of herself and two more photos of the two categories she creates art in: gourds and leather.

I built out the three main pages for the meeting: the Home page, a Product-grid page, and an Item page which includes the description of the piece and a PayPal button to purchase.

One of the more difficult parts in building the 3 pages for the meeting was working in someone else’s css. This free template included a layered Photoshop file which made it easier to figure out what was going on with the pieces.

The final, critical element was working the SEO into the content. I had a list of keywords that WESST had developed for my client and I went back and forth between the old content and the keyword list, working in what I could.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Epilogue: The meeting with the client went well, and only one part of the design was changed: the client requested the thumbnails in the product-grid page not be cropped. I really liked the dramatic cropping of the photos, and explained that the they were “details” of the art. The client acquiesced, but in the end I used what she was more comfortable with. She’s going to have to live with the site for longer than I am, after all!

Content was tweaked, photos discussed, and I went home thinking I was going to fall into bed and catch up on a night of only 5 hours of sleep. But what’s funny is that I didn’t feel tired at all when I got home and instead caught up on some reading and social networking.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

I hope you liked this series on creating a website design in one night.

Have you had the experience of having to create a design in one night? What shortcuts do you use? Please leave a comment and let us know how you did it!

There’s still more to do before the fun part of the design comes in. I start by pulling and unformatting the copy from the client’s old site, from one main page, deleting all the hard returns and soft returns, the italics and the bolds. I use TextEdit on the mac.

Next I’ve got to do some math to think about creating a table for the grid template. I know that the CSS, the font styling part of CSS anyway, can be done inline on the page for a mockup; later I can export it as a style sheet.

The outer box is a container that will hold the header, the footer and the main content. main content is divided into 2 columns: left column (mostly text) is 200 pixels, right column is 560, each picture 160. I’ll but a table inside the right column to hold the products on the grid page and a large photo with thumbnails on the item page.

Now that I know what I want, I need to start building. I look at my recent projects and none of them are carrying exactly this configuration of CSS and tables. I start the CSS code and am too tired to make it work properly, my momentary lapsing into Zs makes me forget crucial keystrokes like ; and /.

I mess with a pre-made Dreamweaver template, but they are only using CSS for the font styling and a long column on the left with a 4-row, 3-column table never works right, the width of the columns changing with new text. (I’m using an old version of DW; certainly they have updated it by now?)

Finally, around 1:45 am, I begin searching the Web for CSS templates. I figure that if I don’t find anything, I can always do the design in Photoshop, save the pages as jpegs and use image map to overlay the navigation. In fact, this is what I usually give a client as an intermediary step. But I find a template that has a structure I can strip and rebuild rather quickly. It is all CSS and although the main content will expand its shape, it still feels more like a website than a blog.

Next step: tinkering, adding content.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Find some great free css templates at Free-css.com.

So–I am not going to even go into Photoshop — not yet, anyway. I’ll have to go right to code for the layout. As an intermediary, I think I’ll use Excel to set up a table-like structure. I’ll set up a grid and an item template, T2 and T3, respectively.

FYI, the way I get these images is to save the Excel worksheet as a PDF (> Print > Save as PDF) then open it in Photoshop which rasterizes it.

Grid Template

Item Template

You can see that these two templates will work nicely together if you create each on a separate worksheet in Excel and flip back and forth between them; the flow will look natural.

So how many template mockups do I need to show tomorrow? At least these two and the home template, which I should do next. Yawn! I need to start thinking where/if  can cannibalize this HTML/CSS structure from one of my existing sites or just start from scratch.

This post will be about breaking down the content into templates.

First is a Home Page template that will be inviting, have keyword-rich text and some big, beautiful main photos on it. I will save the design of this template last because it will depend on what I do with the other templates.

How many other templates do I need? For the Gourd Art page, these are the higher-end, one-of-a-kind pieces of art. Once they are sold, I won’t take down the photo unless Ami has a new piece there to showcase. In her original site, there were thumbnails and larger pop-up images, but I’m thinking to have as large a photo as possible on the first Gourd Art page.

The first piece is 450 x 562px. There are 10 pieces in this category. If I had endless hours I to bill, I would definitely give each piece its own page, but there’s a limit, so…

I also know that even though these pricey items are hard to sell online, I still want to include the Buy Now button with each item when it is first seen to improve the conversion chances. I check out the New Mexico Museum Shops site and indeed, they have a grid of items in a category and a separate page for each. I also check out Etsy.com. Such a clean, pretty site! And the same style: a grid of items with their names and a price, here with a larger per-item page with a Buy Now button. (The photos on Etsy are so beautiful!)

So I’ve decided to create a grid-landing page for Gourd Art and either 10 separate pages, one for each item, or a single page with anchor links.

Template 1: Home
Template 2: Grid
Template 3: Per Item

Now it’s time to look back at our sitemap and apply the templates to each page. I know the high-end leather art will work like the Gourd Art pages, so they will follow Template 1 and 2 (T1, T2).

I also think the Crafts pages will look great with this same setup. But if I make a new page for each of these products, it’s going to be a 50-page site!~!* Definitely not in the client’s budget. So, hmm. I’ll have to think about that. (Each page, after the template is built takes about an hour to resize 1-3 photos, write that keyword-rich text, create an individualized PayPal Buy Now button. But it would look so professional and sweet.)

I’m going to say the “About the Artist” page is a completely different template because Ami, who lived in Africa and Jamaica has great photos of her travels and stories to tell.

Template 4: Narrative

In the keyword research, Clare let us know that there are a lot of searches of people looking of “How To” information about gourds, decorating gourds, leather art, etc. Lots of things Ami knows a lot about. So I have created a “Resources” page where she can review books, give advice, suggest wholesale stores and discuss tools and techniques. This page will be chunky and informative. A different template, maybe magazine-like.

Template 5: Chunky Info

The contact page will probably follow the home page design. So no new template there.

I’m feeling good about this hour’s work. Some serious questions raised: always the pull between doing a good job or getting paid properly that seems to come up every time, but all in all, I’m clear about what to do next: Layout the templates.

The corned beef is done and there’s salad and baked potatoes. I’ll take a dinner break and be back at 11!

For instance, the keyword phrase “gourd art” was searched almost 500 times in 12 months and occurred on 63k sites. According to our keyword researcher, Clare at WESST, it has a very high ranking, so I’m using that exact phrase for the second navigation button because it matches exactly what Ami does.

I’m using Excel to create this sitemap because it is simple and boxy. The yellow background in the boxes indicate exact keyword matches.

Under each main nav button, I have listed the contents on that page. I went  to Ami’s current site and made sure I had included everything (except for the section she doesn’t want to carry over to the new design.)

Now that I have all the products accounted for and organized in their newly-keworded sections, the next step is to figure out how many different templates I will need to build. Which pages should have new sub-pages and which can I get away with just having same-page anchor tags? Stay tuned!

If you’re up and listening, chime in with a comment!

PREVIOUS POSTS

One-Night Website Part 1: The Plan
One-Night Website Part 2: Procrastinating