Community Commerce Convention - Logo Design by Design Smart Graphics

Event Details:
When: June 25th, 2009, 8:00am – 4:30pm
Where: Marriott of Greenville, 1 Parkway East
Price of Admission:
Community Commerce Convention = FREE (includes all 5 break-out sessions & Exhibit Hall viewing)
Small Business Awards Luncheon Ticket = $30 for Chamber members, $35 for non-members*

*The Annual Small Business Awards Luncheon will be held in conjunction with the convention and will feature keynote speaker, David Wilkins, former US Ambassador to Canada, and the presentation of two awards: 2009 Small Business of the Year and Professional Woman of the Year award.

Convention Break-out Sessions & Speakers:
• How to Start your Own Business (Presented by Martin & Davis, LLC)
Speakers: Reno Deaton, Greer Development Corporation
Brian Martin, Martin & Davis, LLC
Mark King, King Consulting
• How to Advertise and Market your Business
Speakers: Geoff Wasserman, ShowCase Marketing, Inc.
Missy Johnson, All About Seniors
Bill Sweezy, All About Seniors
• HR for Dummies
Speakers: Jill Vales, HR Experts on Demand
Deborah Loftis, City of Greer
Cory Ezzell, Gallivan, White & Boyd, P.A.
Debbie Brown, Gallivan, White & Boyd, P.A.
• Documents You Can’t Live Without
Speakers:  Chris Davis, Martin & Davis, LLC
• E-Business: Connecting your Business to the Web
Speakers: Scott Stevens, YourMark.com, Inc.
Laura MacPherson, Northstar Creative
• Sales and Business Development
Speakers: Richard Hardaway, Integral Solutions Group
• Tax Advantages for Small Businesses
Speakers: John Allen, Edward Jones & Company
Steven M. Bateman, CPA
Bryan Jeter, Lister & Jeter, CPAS, LLC
• Business Financing– Surviving the Current Economy
Speakers: Rudy Painter, Countybanc Insurance Inc.
Vic Grout, Greer State Bank
Mark King, King Consulting
Bill Roughton, CapitalBank
• Having your Business Heard by Government
Speakers: John DeWorken, Upstate Chamber Lobbyist
Donna Smith, Prudential C. Dan Joyner
Roy Chamlee, Michelin North America
• Community Involvement
Speakers: Caroline Robertson, Greer Relief & Resources Agency
Amanda Somers, Sports Spine & Industrial
John Kimbrell, Greer Chamber of Commerce

The convention also features an exhibit area for local businesses to showcase their products or services. For more information please visit www.greerchamber.com or contact Mark Owens at 864-877-3131 or by email at mark@greerchamber.com.

The Greater Greer Chamber of Commerce is a voluntary, non-profit organization that represents approximately 590 businesses in the Greer area. The mission of the Greater Greer Chamber of Commerce is “To Champion Economic Prosperity for our members and the greater Greer community.”  For more information on the Greater Greer Chamber of Commerce, call 864-877-3131 or visit www.greerchamber.com.

Targeted/Strategic keywords-The keywords you want your customer search to find your company. An example is “web design greenville sc” or “restaurants greer sc”

Content-What’s on your page-everything from images to text.

Sitemap-Includes all the pages you want indexed in search engines. Usually written in XML language.

Index-In this context it means all the pages that the search engine searches.

Tag-Html (or other coding language) element that surrounds specific content. Tags tell the browser, a header is a header and an image is an image. Ex. <h1>Logo Design Greenville SC</h1> Would tell the browser this is the most important header.

This is an image from my previous post on Search engine optimization. It gives you an idea of the Google Search layout:

The Google Layout Explained

1. Put Keywords in your domain name

Example: www.graphicdesigngreenville.com

2. Clip the .html off page names and use keywords in page names.

Example: www.pgraphics.biz/website-design

3. Put main site navigation as close to the top of the page as possible and don’t use images for your navigation!

It’s kind of common sense to make navigation one of the first things you see and most websites have this right because it makes design sense, but there are the exceptions-don’t be one.  Images shouldn’t be in navigation because google can’t read them.

4. Image ALT tags and URL TITLE tags

These are very important not only for adding keywords to but for user accessibility. If the viewer is visually impaired, these tags are read to them though a screen reader program.

5. Don’t create a completely FLASH-based site. Google can’t read it (yet).

An easy way to tell if the site is flash is by right clicking on the page. Flash is great for image slide shows and videos, interactive displays, but not for the complete site.

6. Get into the free local searches in Yahoo and Google

The local search usually is shown before the organic search.  See image below.
GOOGLE LOCAL – www.google.com/local/add
YAHOO! LOCAL  – listings.local.yahoo.com/csubmit/index.php

7. Write content relevant to the keywords you want people to search for.

Google is trying to give the searcher the most relevant content to their search query. By having pages of content about the most searched keywords you want people to find you with will bring you higher and higher in google.

8. Use stragetic keywords in the TITLE tag of your page.

The title shows up on the very top bar of your browser window and usually is the second item in the code making it the first chance to give Google Search some keywords.

9. Use h1 (header) tags and include keywords in them

Don’t be afraid of a little html—the h1 header tags go around the most important headers on the page. Usually it looks like this: <h1>Logo Design in Greenville SC</h1>

10. Create a blog and comment on other blogs

Blogs are easy for anyone to update once they are set up. You can set up a blog on a blog site like blogger.com, on a separate domain, or on your current domain in a sub-directory. When you comment on someone’s blog, they usually let you include your domain, making it a good way to do tip #11.

11. Find sites that will link to you

It could be a site that targets the same customers, but is not in direct competition with you. The larger the site the better and the more relevant to your targeted keywords the better. Include your site on the obvious sites like Facebook, Myspace, and LinkedIn. Switch it up and include pages other than your index page (like a product or service page).

12. Create and submit a Sitemap to Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft

Sitemaps guarantee (99.9% of the time) you will be in the index, so people can actually find you.
Here’s a site that creates the sitemap for you: www.xml-sitemaps.com
You just have to download the file they give you to your computer and then upload it to your site.
Here’s where you submit your sitemap URLs:
www.google.com/webmasters
siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com
webmaster.live.com

These tactics produce the best results in local searches
These tactics work great for local searches. Most people search on a local level when searching for many services and products. When I search, I usually search “restaurants greer sc” or something similar.

Want more on the subject of Search Engine Optimization? Here’s a blog entry I wrote on that subject: http://www.graphicdesigngreenville.com/small-business-marketing/search-engine-optimization-myths-revealed/

Disclaimer: These are meant to help designers and business owners alike in creating the most effective websites. The information came from personal trial and error and reading SEO articles.

If you need help with your website, feel free to contact Design Smart.

GAP Baseball Advertisement Design

GAP Baseball League is a 28 and older for-fun baseball league in Greenville SC. Visit their website for more information on his upcoming spring season www.gapbaseball.com.

Why not use the publication’s design staff?

Jack from GAP Baseball decided to use an outside designer (me) for his small ad he is placing in the Greenville News. Most magazines and newspapers will design your ad for free or cheap, which may sound great. The only problem is many of these publications are under a great deal of pressure from deadlines and can not give your design the time needed to think up an effective ad. This is a generalization, but nevertheless usually a true one. Some publications have great designers on staff that create great ads. Jay Conrad Levinson, author of Guerrilla Marketing, advises small business owners to hire a graphic designer or go to the publication with your specific layout idea already on your mind in order to get an effective ad design.

The billboard will be strategically placed on Wade Hampton Blvd in March 2009 to allow people to see the ad and know how to get to Bluestone Communities.

Rosewood Communities Bluestone Billboard Design

Bluestone Cottages is a maintenance-free, new home community in Greer, SC. For more information, visit Rosewood Communities website.

Note: There are quite a few blog software creators. My favorite is WordPress.org because of it’s ease of use, clean code and vast amount of FREE templates. Any reference to the blog interface is talking about wordpress.

Advantages of Business Blogs

• Naturally search engine friendly – Blogs help you create great site structure with tools like tags, categories, and links. The tools give you an excuse to add keywords all over your site as well as structure the site in a search engine friendly manner. For example, this page’s url, is graphicdesigngreenville.com/website-design/whats-all-the-fuss-about-blogs. You can see quite a few relevant keywords like “website design” and “blogs” as well as my domain which has “graphic design” and “greenville” in it. In my URL, “website-design” is the category. If you want to see all posts under this category just simply go to graphicdesigngreenville.com/website-design/. Google and other search engines like this structure.
• Gives your business a personal side – Blogs aren’t corporate and they shouldn’t be. It’s a chance to let some personality out! Your business website is professional, gives people facts, and sells to them. Your blog allows you to let customers know about your latest news in your business, give customers advice, and wish them a happy new year (or other holiday)! You have a chance to help  them out for FREE with your information and because of that they will have a positive memory in their mind about your company.
• Drives traffic to your business website - Your blog can drive traffic to your website, so when people are ready to buy, they can visit your site with more confidence in your products and your knowledge about them.
• You might become a blog star - If your blog catches fire, people can subscribe to your feed-that’s blog talk for you get lots more traffic to your blog and business website!
• You control the content – You can write freely, post images or videos and not have to pay someone to add it to the site. Once you complete your entry you just simply hit PUBLISH and it is live on the internet!
• Easy and Quick setup – If you need to get content up fast, you can purchase a domain name and hosting, install the blog, and have your first post up in 1 day!

Disadvantages of Business Blogs

• You control the content – Don’t get drunk on all that freedom! Keep your blog focused on a topic you decided on from the start. Keep the look consistent, your content relevant to your chosen topic and your posts spelling and grammar free.
• It needs your time and commitment – Are you ready to commit 1-3 hours a week to a blog. blogs that don’t get updated often are looked over quickly and forgotten (no rhyming intended)! If you start one, set an alarm in your calendar to write a quality post at least once a week.
• Popularity isn’t necessarily a good thing – Because blogs are great tools, many people have them and create them every day! (no one has an accurate number but technorani is tracking 133 million Blogs). The difference between you and them is you know how to use them to benefit your business!

My tips for a success blog

Create your blog on a separate domain from your business website that includes keywords you want people to find you with.  The main tip to keep in mind is to create content that viewers will read and make the content relevant to what you are selling. Also, strategically place your keywords into your blog by including them in your posts through tags and categories.

The cheapest way to start a blog is using blogger.com or wordpress.com (FREE). The only disadvantage is you will have their name in your domain name. For example, mine would be “graphicdesigngreenville.wordpress.com”.  An advantage of using these services is you can network with the other bloggers on those sites and drive traffic to your business website that way.

The thumbnail below is an example of a blog I set up for a real estate and business owner, Steven Sarkela who wanted to give people information on his Condo and Beach home rentals in Charleston, SC and the Folly Beach area. With a 10 minute conversation over the phone, he had his first blog entry up.  He picked out a theme, I modified it a little and had his site up in a day. Visit Steven Sarkela’s website at www.stevensarkela.com.

Steven Sarkela's Blog set up by Photo Graphics

Setting up a blog for you or your business can be more affordable than an actual website. Blogs are also a great addition to your marketing materials and existing website. Please contact me through my website www.pgraphics.biz, if you are interested in setting up a blog or need any of my design services.

HAPPY BLOGGING, Calvin

Bad Photo of Home

ALL of us have seen this photo that is low resolution, highly compressed under exposed with the house on the hill looking like it is a pyramid because the photo was taken with the wrong settings and at a bad angle! I am here to give you some tips on creating photos that will help sell your properties…well at least make them look better and stand out more to your potential buyers!

Here are common problems and the solutions:

Low Resolution photo – a blurry or pixelated photo where you can see the actual square pixels or the photo is blurry from trying to enlarge a smaller photo using Interpolation. You don’t have to know what interpolation is you just have to know how to fix it!

SOLUTION – My teachers always preached “Start with the best original!” Meaning take photos on the highest setting you need for your output (web, print, billboard, flyer, etc), because this saves space and allows you to work with lower file sizes which in turn allows for quicker downloads and uploads. If you don’t know if you are going to make a large photo, but you might, just shoot on your highest setting. Most cameras now days are higher than 6 Megapixels.

The house looks like a pyramid! - This has to do with a combination of lens distortion and angle.

SOLUTION – Try to be level with the house when you take a photo. Many times I have to stand on my truck to get the angle needed. Basically you want the camera level (imagine it sitting on your counter). If the house looks like it is pinched or bulging out, it is most likely a lens distortion issue. Lens distortion usually happens when you zoom your lens all the way out. This can be fixed by using an image program like Adobe Photoshop with it’s “lens correction” filter. If you don’t have access to Photoshop, a practical solution is to back up and zoom in which will minimize the distortion effects.

Underexposed Photo (Really Dark) - Caused by not enough light.

SOLUTION – Take photos with the enough light in the day or mount the camera to a tripod and take the shot a couple hours before dusk. A flash might not be strong enough to give the photo enough light because usually you are more than 15 feet away. You can also fix this in image editing software but it is easier and better to fix it in the original shot.

Overexposed Photo (really light/bright) – caused by taking photo in direct sunlight at noon-2 PM.

SOLUTION -  Wait for the sun to go down in the sky so the shadows aren’t as harsh and the sun isn’t as strong. You can also fix this in image editing software but it is easier and better to fix it in the original shot.

Highly Compression photo – The image, usually a jpeg, looks dirty and pixelated.

SOLUTION – All you have to do to fix this is take your original photo that should be clean and crisp and save it as a jpeg, but pay attention to the Compression/Quality setting in the dialog boxes.

Other helpful info:

WHAT IS THE SIZE OF A PIXEL? Well to give you perspective, screens are usually 72 pixels per inch (ppi) but for output on business cards or professionally-printed flyers, you need images to be 300 pixels per inch. Another way to look at it…my camera creates 8 Megapixel images, and when I bring it onto my computer it says the dimensions are 3456×2304 pixels, You can easily see your output options by dividing those by 72 or 300 pixels per inch. The image would be a 48×32 inch image on screen (72 ppi), which is huge since most screens are 9×12 inches. If we were printing the image and needed it to be 300 ppi, the image would be 11.52×7.68 inches. These are the maximum sizes the image could be without losing quality and detail. You can shrink them to fit your output. If you have Adobe Photoshop or Elements you just go to “Image/image size…” in the menu to shrink the photo.

The best time to take exterior shots depends on the type of photo you want:

Dramatic photo – You want to take the photo in morning or evening (bring the tripod). This gives more harsh shadows but neat colors for the background sky. Turn on some lights on the inside for a warm, homey look.

Evenly lighted photo – Cloudy days are a natural “lightbox” as they spread the sun’s light out evenly.

Sharpen, balance color, add contrast, saturation, adjust shadows/highlights – These all can be done in photo editing software like Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Elements.

THE FIXED PHOTO:

Fixed photo of home

Get these problems under control and you will have awesome looking photos that will draw the eye of your potential buyers! If you have any problems you need me to troubleshoot, drop me a line!

HAPPY SELLING!

CALVIN HANSON
GRAPHIC DESIGNER
WEB – WWW.PGRAPHICS.BIZ
BLOG – WWW.GRAPHICDESIGNGREENVILLE.COM

A checklist of things to include on your business’ gift certificate design:

• Make it simple and professional, if you are printing it out and designing it.
• Make sure the design has the essentials. TO, FROM, AMOUNT, and AUTHORIZED BY. Always include all of your business information and website as with any marketing piece! The recipient might not know where your store is!
• Print it on heavy weight matte or paper so your customer can easily write on it. The weight of paper is for durability and professionalism. The recipient might not redeem the certificate for months so you want it to last.
• You can easily fit 3 certificates per page. A good idea is to make it the size of a dollar bill so it can easily fit in a wallet.
• Security might not be an issue, if you plan on selling 10 to 20 certificates. If you plan on selling hundreds, you might want to put a type of watermark so it is difficult to photocopy (see example below).

Love of Fitness Gift Certificate Design

Love of Fitness has had good success with their personal training gift certificates seen above. If you are interested in a personal training certificate, visit her website and contact her for more information. If you are interested in gift certificate design or need help designing your certificates, contact Calvin at pgraphics.biz.

Happy Holidays!

South Carolina Policy Council Christmas Card

Recently I was commissioned to create the Christmas card design for the South Carolina Policy Council. They needed a Christmas card that was festive and classy. I created a somewhat nostalgic look with the textures and borders and kept the colors and font festive. The design needed a .125 inch white space border because the printer called for no bleed.

The South Carolina Policy Council best describes what they do on their website:

Since 1986 the South Carolina Policy Council Education Foundation has brought together civic, community and business leaders from all over our state to discuss innovative policy ideas that advance the principles of limited government and free enterprise.

South Carolina Policy Council Christmas Card Back

Cabinets and Tops Advertisement Design and photography

One of my great clients, Cabinets and Tops needed an advertisement for the Greenville News. They designed a kitchen for an upscale builder in Tuscany Falls in Greenville, SC. I had the pleasure of photographing this beautiful kitchen. For the ad layout, I wanted to create an eye catching design to match the dramatic photography. I played off of a fairytale story theme to add interest.

Cabinets and tops ad Design by Photo Graphics - Ran in the Greenville News

This ad design was ran earlier this month (November) in the Greenville News. I wanted to deliver a simple message that Cabinets and Tops satisfies all of their customers. What better way than to add a testimonial to the ad! The headline combined with the white space draws viewers in to read more.

Cabinets and Tops of the Upstate is a cabinet and countertop designer and installer in Greenville, SC. Visit them at their website www.cabinets-tops-upstate.com

What is the fee for joining the chamber of commerce?
Usually a range of $150-over $1000 for different benefits.

What are the benefits of joining a chamber?

• Advertising opportunities-if you are a business to business company, you have a list of potential customers at your fingertips in the members directory. Some chambers have banner advertising on their website and send out monthly newsletters with ad spots.
• Targeted Networking-There are weekly or monthly events for members only to get out and network with other business owners. Where else are you going to find potential customers gathering in one area?
• Member to member discounts-Because you are part of the chamber, you will have access to some very attractive discounts in many different industries.
• Discounts on major expenses-As a member, your chamber might have discounts on phone/internet service, office supplies, and insurance to name a few.
• Website traffic increase and search engine boost-Because the chamber will link to your website, you will receive traffic! The Chamber websites have all sorts of relevant content relating to business, so you should receive a modest boost in search results.
• Get active in the community-You can help your community grow which will trickle down to help your business grow. Customers like businesses who are involved in their community. Plus, if you are a home business, community activities get you out of the house and allows you to talk to people which is one of the best ways to gain business.

If you haven’t saved enough from those benefits, here’s the estimated ROI breakdown:

Average profit per customer: $150
Average cost of Chamber Membership: $350
Amount of customers to payoff membership: 3

For best results from your membership, become involved in the chamber and attend as many events as you can.

Greater Greer Chamber of Commerce

I recently joined my local chamber, Greater Greer Chamber of Commerce. My membership will be paid off just by the membership coupon book! I also get a free banner ad for the year. Visit Greater Greer Chamber of Commerce Website to check out the benefits. Here’s a sample listing.