How to Storyboard a Website

It can not be stressed enough how important structure is to a website. Not only does it make visual appeal look better but it also makes a website easier to use, and it helps search engines find said website.  When storyboarding a website it is important to always have structure in mind.

Where to Begin When Storyboarding a Website?

The first thing you need to do when storyboarding a website is to collect all of your possessed data, and break it down into appropriate topics. This is the first essential step to organizing your data in a manner that will make it easier to understand.

What to do When Data is Sorted?

After the Data has been organized into topics, these topics must be given their titles, heading, and any appropriately needed subtitles and subheadings. Once the content has been given these essential attributes they must be taken, arranged, and presented in an orderly fashion that users and search engines will be able to easily understand.

What to Do When Finished?

Simply put, upon completion of the previous steps the only thing left to do is to test the creation so far, and go back and fix any errors that have occurred in the process of the design. Get a variety of opinions to see where people may be confused on where to click next, or other experiential observations.

Values Attitudes and Lifestyles – VALs

To anyone who does not know, VALs stands for values and lifestyles. VALs is a psychological study that looks into the archetypal mindset of a business and their consumer based on the current state of a business. These archetypes and their structure change depending on what country someone lives in. The Archetypes in America are as shown in the picture below.

Among this List  there are differences in every archetype based on where they stand, for example survivors are less wealthy and more frugal while innovators are more wealthy and less frugal. These personalities are important to understand because they help us figure out who is more likely to purchase something. These archetypes of people can be described as follows…

Survivors

Survivors are the least well off, and because of that fact they tend to be frugal with their money and prefer to purchase cheaper items. They are also scared of change and tend to stick to the things that they have come to know as safe. Overall they struggle from a lack of drive.

Believers

Believers are not the most well off but their confidence is a very clear aspect of their personality. Believers are oftenly religious and focus on the idealism of their dreams. They do not look to change the world but try to advocate the good in it as well as try to socially fit in. Overall they focus more on their ideal dream than their current situation.

Stivers

Strivers are not well off but they tend to keep themselves as motivated as possible, but often can not understand what they want. They often face unemployment but are still fun and loving individuals that dress in ways that try to portray wealth. Overall they struggle but try to act like they are okay.

Makers

Makers are people who are not well off but take joy in the idea of personal freedom. They are often somewhat anarchist by nature and want to live life among nature away from the government, and often believe in basic gender roles. Overall they are simple people.

Thinkers

Thinkers are well off individuals that do not like to take risks. They often reflect a lot before making a decision, and will look to the mistakes of the past to know which ideas are not good ones based on trial and error. Overall they prefer whatever is practical and proven.

Achievers

Achievers are well off individuals who choose to stay motivated and work hard. Achievers tend to be professional in attitude and appearance but they tend to put themselves and their family members before everyone else. Overall they are practical, successful, hard working, and goal oriented individuals.

Experiencers

Experiencers are well off self-expressive thrill seekers. Experiencers are always caught up on trends, and tend to be very social and spontaneous individuals. Overall they tend to live in the moment and often buy things even if they don’t need it.

Innovators

Innovators are the people at the top who possess all of the positive traits of the Thinkers, Achievers, and Experiencers. They are always paying attention, Trying new ideas, working hard, have a goal and idea in mind, trust scientific credibility, hold skepticism over advertising, and have international based knowledge. Overall they are successful and competent individuals.

The Silo Technique

This consists of categories under the main topic of your website. Each category is called a Silo. Under those categories, you can then break them down into other subcategories on either blog posts, products, videos, etc. This technique is useful to your site because you can put parts of your business into categories, this then lets search engines like Google or Bing read this in your site and raise the rankings. Also, your customers now have an easy way to find what they want on your site quickly, leading to more customers and possible leads.

The basic model of this method is like this:

Website: Angie’s Handmade Jewelry

● Earrings

● Bracelets

● Necklaces

● Formal wear

Then the categories can be broken down further: Earrings-Seed bead, beaded hoops, artisan-style, etc.

Formal wear-Wedding, prom, gala, etc.

Then if there’s a blog post about seed bead or formal wear earrings, a link to the seed bead earrings category can be placed in the article. Now you have read about the type of earrings you were searching for, and are able to access the area on the website where you can purchase them, or see more information about them.

Search engines favor sites that have relevant content linking together, the Silo method does this and is what makes it a successful implementation on a website. It organizes your site and shows the web crawler that the content you have is important because you took the time to put it into these categories, and link all the information and content relevant to what the user originally searched. Blog posts that have a link inside them telling you more about the topic you searched, or other associated things like products that you are looking for, or go with the topic. This all keeps your website clear and concise, and this registers high with the search engines increasing your rankings, and then traffic.

You can write a certain number of articles, or put new products under your silos, and keep adding to them. This all keeps adding keywords that appear on search engines, and the more unique content, the more it will appear to those searchers looking for this unique content, all linked from your organized silos. This will help you gain the rankings you need to be seen by your potential customers, and help them to be able to find what they are looking for as soon as they land on your website. New sales and customers can now be in your reach.

The basic model of The Silo Technique was used on myautoshop.co.nz by placing all his auto repair categories into silos, then breaking them down into smaller categories, like car make, year, etc. This was all organized, relevant, and appeared in search engines well, easily found by the potential customer looking for car repairs. The customer could then find the type of car repair they were looking for fast and easily because all of the silos were there in front of them, allowing them to keep clicking the links till they got to the page they needed to be on to find the correct repair shop to fix their car. No tools were used, only the implementation of The Silo Technique, and how it corresponded to his business.

Consumers of 02563 based on PRIZM Data

The consumers of the zip code 02563 consist of the following types of people…

• 05 Country Squires
• 09 Big Fish, Small Pond
• 32 Traditional Times
• 24 Pickup Patriarchs
• 62 Crossroad Villagers

Country Squires

Country Squires tend to be wealthy middle aged individuals living among their family members, and have earned a higher degree and make six figures a year. They are known to own a Subaru, shop for men’s business attire, attend minor league baseball games, buy sporting events tickets online, listen to mainstream rock, eat at Panera, and fly with Delta Airlines.

Big Fish, Small Pond

Big Fish, Small Pond people are usually older individuals that do not have kids living with them, usually just their significant other. They have succeeded in life and have a higher degree, have been making six figures throughout their lives, and have likely retired. They tend to own a Lexus, shop at pier one imports, like men’s tennis, go on the website Angie’s list, Eat at carrabbas, listen to CBS Conservative, and travel to Alaska.

Traditional Times

People who fall into the category of Traditional Times are usually standard older individuals who have just retired, made five figures, and no longer have children living with them, usually just their significant other. These people tend to own a Cadillac, shop at Chico’s, follow PGA/LPGA, watch golf, eat at Bonefish Grill, listen to ABC Conservative, and travel to Alaska.

Pickup Patriarchs

Pickup Patriarchs are individuals in their mid forties to mid sixties who live in small towns that may or may not be with their kids, and usually make five figures a year. They usually own a GMC, shop at Hobby Lobby, go to minor league baseball games, view consumer reviews on internet/apps, eat at Cracker Barrel, listen to Sports Radio, and Travel to Chicago.

Crossroad Villagers

Crossroad Villagers are less wealthy senior citizens who don’t have any form of higher degree and only make a low amount of five figures every year. They tend to own a Buick, shop at Stein Mart, follow figure skating, Use Study.com, eat at Cracker Barrel, Listen to Adult Standards, and cruise on Royal Caribbean.

The Skyscraper Technique

This technique consists of finding extremely interesting and unique content that will gain many back links and shares. The main thing you must do for this technique is create good content, so that the content actually does get the links and influencers you want to share it, and is successful. When this occurs, you will be able to gain high ranking on Google and other search engines. The way to start is to find content that is doing well on other sites, but write it concerning your content, and in an exceptional way. Then you will have unique links that will go with that above average, well written content. People will then want to share those links more, and it will gain viewers and SEO. The content should be very detailed, and if there aren’t things in it, like photos, videos, etc., you can add them when you write your own article. Then it will get extra attention on top of what the similar article you modeled from is getting. You can also boost your shares by writing case studies, thoroughly researched content, etc. You can also search for people that write similar content, and reach out to them to see if they are interested in linking to your content, or promoting it to get rewards. You should spend 80% of the time promoting your content, and 20% creating content. You want to spend most of your time putting what you wrote through these promotional channels more than writing, because you need that valuable time to get it out there, and while you are writing, that isn’t happening. Writing a few great, and thoroughly researched articles, with a major amount of promotion is the main thing to making this technique work. You will then get the good back links, shares, and influencing that you want for your content. The other important component to this technique to make it successful, is to write well written emails to other sites, blogs, etc. You can pitch to them the content you have, that is relevant to something they have on their site, that their visitors would also enjoy reading. Write a short email to the point, with a subject that will get their attention, and get it read, and a reply. If all of these steps are followed, then you’ll get the results you are looking for in SEO and promotion for your content, that will make it just as, or more popular than the other similar viral content.

Description of Information Domain Name

The internet term .info is…

• Short for the term information
• A generic top-level domain

A top level domain is the last few letters in a domain name such as com, gov, org, net, etc. The top-level domain name, info is meant to be used for general websites that provide information rather than sell a product.

While the top-level domain name, info is useful in the sense of being cheaper than the top-level domain name, com, it is also more commonly used by scammers. It also has four characters, and some programs can’t handle top level domain names with more than three characters. Because of these problems, some people choose to use the top-level domain name, com instead, even if the website is on information rather than a product.

File Naming Best Practices

How to find and export contact lists in Constant Contact

The following guide will explain how to locate and then export contacts lists into .CSV files from Constant Contact

Please follow the numbered steps below, then see the following screen-shot pages that contain a visual representation of everything our text lesson has gone over.

1. Log into the Constant Contact BP Portal.
2. Log in and locate the client whose contact list(s) you wish to view and/or export.
3. Click the “Contacts“ option on the dark gray header bar on the top pg. 
4. Once you’ve accessed this you will be able to choose from “Lists” or ”All Contacts”

   

    

5. If you click on “Lists” you’ll see that the clients’ individualized contact lists are broken down into sections. For example; you’ll see many separate contact lists such as Hubspot, General Interest, Facebook, etc.
6. If you wish to export some or all of the client’s contact lists but wish to do so by keeping them organized inside their separate lists… ie; Hubspot, General Interest, Facebook, etc. then you’ll want to click on the “Lists” section and check off each and every contact list you wish to obtain, save, and export.
7. After you’ve checked off every contact list you wish to export click the blue Export All Contents button on the top right-hand side. Then click the small white square. After doing this a list will appear that allows you to choose the option: “Export All Contacts”.
8. After choosing “Export all Contacts, a pop-up menu will appear where you can check off certain characteristics (like only exporting contacts that have email or mailing addresses, or other specific criteria, Check off the option you want (I like to go with the default checked settings hee in most situations). 
9. If you wish to export ALL of the client’s contact lists (that is: every single individual contact list under that client, you can do so by exporting the full “Master” client contact list. You can still choose the criteria mentioned above by checking the boxes.
10. You’re ready to export your contact files into .CSV files now. Just hit Export, and choose where to save your client contact list folders. 
11. When saving several contact lists, or all of a client’s contact lists but still keeping them individually organized by type (like Hubspot, Facebook, etc) it’s best to make a separate folder for each one of these and then save them all together. Corresponding Contact List goes under Corresponding Folder name…. save the sub-folders within one larger folder.
12. Finally… since some client’s contact lists can be large, it’s usually easiest to save them as a .zip folder so that you and the client can store it easily without it taking up space/being able to email the folder to the client easily since it’s not too large.

Best Practices for Making Requests

Please consider the best practices for requests for the most efficient use of both your time (waiting for finished work) and your money (less labor needed to complete your project).

• Try to prepare all of your copy and images and instructions so that it is as explicit as possible, for example if you need a quick poster design, give us a word document, or email with exactly what you want it to say on it.
• Be diligent when it comes to giving us feedback so that we can implement changes and revisions as quickly as possible. when making revisions try to make an organized list of as many things as you can think of all at once.

We understand this is not always possible but making your requests as clear and complete as possible allows us to plan on doing your work with plenty of time to give it the attention it needs, and let’s us do it in fewer more  productive sessions which means less billed hours and faster turn-around.

It is our policy that all requests/work sessions are billed at a minimum of 15 minutes. This considers the fact that we are stopping for a dedicated period of time to work on what you have asked for, even if the job itself may only take 5 minutes.

Here is an example of two scenarios:

Scenario #1 Best practices used:

1. Customer sends an email that says to create a poster and sends the text over which includes a main body of text plus a bullet point list with 7 items described and 3 images to use and a sentence or two about how they want it to look.
2. M Designs expects the work to take about an hour and a half and plans to complete the work in 1 session within 3-5 days. M Designs creates a poster and uses all of the text that was sent and adds the images as described the the email within 3 days.
3. On the 3rd day The client sends their feedback, they ask for the images to be made larger and to eliminate one of them. They also decided that 6 of the bullet points need to be edited and they send the list of what they want it edited to say in an attached document.
4. On the fourth day M Designs punches in and within 15 minutes has changed the size of the pictures and copied the new bullet point list, pasted it in in place of the old list and formatted the new text to match and fit into the layout.
5. On the 5th day the customer asks for just one more change, they want to remove a sentence from the main body of the paragraph, M Designs punches in for another 15 minutes and completes the last change, sends it to the customer ready to go to print and the customer approves within 24 hours.

# of revisions: 2 Total design time spent: 2 hours; Total Turn around on poster: 6 days

Scenario #2 Best practices NOT used:

1. Customer sends an email that says to create a poster and sends the text over which includes an idea of what the poster is about but no exact text plus a loose bullet point list with 7 items listed in incomplete thoughts and 3 images to use with no description about how they want it to look.
2. M Designs expects the work to take about an hour and a half and plans to complete the work in 1 session within 3-5 days. M designs creates a poster and uses all of the text that was sent and does their best to correct spelling, punctuation and make the sentences complete and to the best of our understanding represent the client’s thoughts and adds the images within 3 days.
3. On the 3rd day The client sends their feedback, they ask for the images to be made larger and to eliminate one of them. They also decided that the bullet points need to be edited and they say to take out 3 of them and ask to change the wording on one of them.
4. On the fourth day M Designs punches in and within 15 minutes has changed the size of the pictures and made the changes to the bullet point list, and formatted the new text to match and fit into the layout.
5. On the 5th day the customer asks at 9AM for just one more change, they want to add  a sentence from the main body of the paragraph, M Designs punches in for another 15 minutes and completes the change, sends it to the customer ready to go to print and the customer responds at 12PM with another edit. The customer asks to remove the body paragraph that we put together for them and sends us a new paragraph they wrote to replace it.
6. M Designs punches in for another 15 minute session and makes the changes and they email it to the customer, but meanwhile they find another email sent at 12:30 asking for M Designs to also swap out another one of the bullet points.
7. M Designs at this point spends another 15 minute session, makes the swap and sends it to the client.
8. At 5PM the customer responds that they found another picture they like better and to please add the picture.
9. M Designs starts this next request promptly the next morning of the 6th day and spends only 15 minutes on this and sends the client back the final changes, ready to print. Within 24 hours the client approves and the work is complete.

# of revisions: 5 Total design time spent: 2.75 hours; Total Turn around on poster: 7 days

If most work is billed at $40-$75 dollars an hour, having the extra .75 hours spent due to disorganized requests can add up to $30-57 in avoidable extra design costs!

Even if you are not paying hourly, the second scenario has 3 additional revision charges even though in the end all of the edits are the same as in the best practice scenario.

Here is a list of our hourly rates: https://mdesignsmarketing.com/operations_manual/2019/08/05/variable-hourly-rates-for-clients/

Turnaround Expectations

Please plan ahead for utilizing M Designs services. We will do rush work in emergencies and/or when possible for a rush fee of $50 per request. You can expect that most work can be done within 3 business days, but for larger projects, we require more time.

Here is a general list of what you can estimate for turnaround based on approximately how much work is required to complete the task. Also see guidelines on revisions.

Packages and Hourly Work Billing Schedule

Packages

Packages are quarterly commitments. (Q1 Jan-Mar, Q2 April-June, Q3 Jul-Sept, Q4 Oct-Dec)

Quarterly Plans are billed at the beginning of the month before service starts, or sometime during that month depending upon when services were requested. We take sign-ups until the 15th of the first month of the quarter. The payment is due one day prior to the quarter beginning. For Example, Q2 Starts on April 1st, so the payment would be due on the last day of March unless otherwise noted.

Pay by the quarter, or ask us about paying monthly or another arrangement. Most monthly payments are 10% higher in price than when you pay by the quarter.

See Packages

Hourly Work

Hourly work is done on an as-needed basis and as availability allows. Detailed time and activity logs are kept throughout the month as tasks are completed.

Hours worked throughout the month are logged, itemized, on the invoice sent out on the first day of the new month, and due on the last day of that same month. For Example: 15 Hours were worked in September on Graphic Design. On October 1st an invoice goes out with the 15 Graphic Design hours billed on it and it’s due date is October 31st.

Hourly Rates for 2021 and forward can be found Here.

Upon request and for $35 a month you may receive bi-weekly updates and invoices. 

Hourly Rates

Hourly rate for all hourly work can be expected to be $146.30 an hour unless otherwise noted in your contract.
Lower hourly rates will be applied as often as possible and will be used when time (deadline) and skill level required allow.

Much of the work we do at M Designs can be purchased by the package and provides a greater value for the dollar than hourly work due to the expected, planned and consistent nature of the packages. See Packages Hourly work will be allowed on a case by case basis.

Prices for Hourly Work listed below:

*Hourly work will be accepted only as availability allows and can be expected to have a 1 week turn around time unless otherwise noted or agreed. M Designs may charge a $50 fee for rush jobs, meaning hourly requests which are needed within less than 1 week. For more details see Turnaround Expectations.

Weekly Check In Meetings

Marketing Assistants are required to book at least one weekly check in meeting per week with their Marketing Manager for communication on their managed accounts.

Quarterly Email Template

Email templates can be purchased separately with a constant contact account and a Constant Contact account can be purchased here: https://mdesignsmarketing.com/operations_manual/product/constant-contact/

With the Quarterly Marketing pacages clients get 1 or more email templates designed (and sent) each quarter. The quantity they will receive is documented in their contract or notes.

The marketing assistant will design a new layout each time it is due and input the content requested by the client. They will also add new contacts monthly as long as they are submitted typed.

Quarterly SEO Evaluation

SEO evaluation can be performed without a package. It is more cost effective when it is part of a marketing package and performed quarterly. The stand alone product can be purchased here: https://mdesignsmarketing.com/operations_manual/product/seo-evaluation-and-suggestions/

For clients enrolled in one of M Designs quarterly marketing packages, once every 3 months they get an SEO evaluation. This evaluates the website itself, not it’s page rank.

The website is submitted to a third party tool which evaluates it in key areas and the marketing assistant composes an email summarizing the results. Next it is sumbitted to the marketing manager where the results are interpreted and suggestions are written up and added to the email which is sent to the client.

Social Media Posting

Social Media Posting comes with the basic and extended marketing packages, and the frequency and content of the posts are defined in the clients contract or notes.

In the the focused packages, (See 3 focused packages) unless defined differently, posting occurs 3 times a week on Facebook and on other channels as defined in each clients individual agreement.

Below are examples of the types of things M Designs posts for customers, and where they get posted. Not all posts go to all platforms being managed.

Image Posts and 3rd party Link Posts

Sometimes a platform is not the appropriate place for the content to be posted, for example Instagram is a visual platform, and links shared here are not clickable. If the content being shared is a third party article, this would be appropriate for LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter or Facebook but would not look right on Pinterest or Instagram. On the other hand, if a photo or Custom Graphic is the content being shared it can be posted on all of these platforms listed.

Here are examples of Social Media posts and the platforms they are on:

In this case the same graphic was used on both Twitter and Facebook and it was a Custom Graphic. This would be an appropriate candidate to also be posted to Pinterest or Instagram:

In contrast, this post is a Social Share (Explained Below) and this is an article written by the local newspaper, shared on this page but it is not the property of this page. In this case it is appropriate to share the link, which Facebook displays the article image for automatically, but since it is not their “visual” it would not be appropriate for posting to Instagram or Pinterest. This would be fine for Twitter, LinkedIn, Google + and other platforms where sharing of linked content is encouraged.

Clients can also send in content to be posted, and they are required to give us 3 business days notice and we are required to post it on the date and time they ask as long as enough notice is given. If they cannot provide 3 days notice we will still try to honor their request, but if schedule does not allow it is understood that we will post it within three buiness days.

Social Sharing is an important part of the mix of content that is shared on social media for our clients. It is important because it takes 3rd party content that resonates (topically) with the client and their audience, but is not being shared as a direct sell, or self promotion. Not to mention the fact that promoting others (as long as it is not direct competition) is always a good way to be a good member of a social community.

It is the point of social media to connect like minds and discuss things, not primarily to sell stuff. People go on social media to catch up on news they care about, be entertained or for a conversation. This is not to say that a well placed ad or a direct link to a sale are inappropriate, they are not, but they should not be the main focus of most of your social media posts. If a company only talks about themselves, people lose interest so these social shares are an important way we can engage with an audience without annoying them with constant call to action to buy, or hear about how great the company posting is.

Portfolio Posts are another great thing to share, this means when a client has finished a job they are proud of we share photos of the work with a description.

Email Blast Posts are posts that link to a web page identical to an email that has just gone out such as a newsletter, or announcement. These posts also contain a link where the viewer can choose to sign up so that the next time a similar mailing goes out they can receive it in their own inbox.

Event Posts Sometimes clients have a special event they are holding, attending or promoting and we can create or join a pre-existing event and share it in the news feed.

If not otherwise specified, most clients get 3rd party sharing posts most of the time. On the basic marketing plan they get 1 post on up to three platforms per week, and we use our professional discretion if the post is not appropriate for a certain platform. Sometimes we have a separate plan for one of the platforms such as instagram, for example, they client may have the same shared post for LinkenIn and Facebook, and then we arrange for them to send us photos of their work “as it happens” which we can post up to once a week on the third platform.

For customers only on Facebook we manage the page with Page Manager only, or for those with multiple accounts we sometimes use Hootsuite.

For any specific questions about posts please ask your Marketing Manager.

How to create a child theme.

1. Create a new folder for the child theme in the themes folder. Name it the same as its parentexcept add: -child at the end.
2. Add a .css file called style.css
3. Paste this code into the .css (except updated to correct template name):
   /*Theme Name: Twenty Seventeen ChildTheme
URI: http://example.com/twenty-seventeen-child/
Description: Your first child theme!
Author: John DoeAuthor
URI: http://example.com
Template: twentyseventeenVersion: 1.0.0
License: GNU General Public License v2 or later
License URI: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html
Tags: child themeText
Domain: twenty-seventeen-child*/
4. Next add a functions.php file to the same directory as the .css.
5. Paste this code into the .php: <?php
add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'theme_enqueue_styles' );
function theme_enqueue_styles() {
wp_enqueue_style( 'parent-style', get_template_directory_uri() . '/style.css' );
}


Google Alerts for Managed Social Account Content

Documenting list

Put a text file in the customers folder for info.

It should be a numbered or bullet point list of the alerts we are seeking to get from Google Alerts, and any websites that they will receive a newsletter/etc from.

Example for a massage client:

ABMP online newsletter subscription

Meditation daily magazene digital subscription.

1. Stretching
2. Relaxing
3. Self Care
4. Places to visit on vacation

Implementing Subscription

In google alerts the alerts from the client’s list should be set up so that weekly ech topic is delivered to the SM manager’s email inbox as a convenient reminder and place to draw possible content from. Also appropriate subscriptions should be directed to that same inbox for more content ideas.

Cleaning Text, remove formatting

Sometimes text has markup on it that we can’t see in programs like MS Word, but it affects the letters by adding other styling like bullet points, bold face, size, stroke etc…

The way to avoid having formatting that you can’t directly see or edit is to paste the text into a program that is a very simple text editor, like MS notepad. Then after you copy it back out of notepad, it has it’s formatting removed. This is because notepad doesn’t support such formatting and the result is just the text which you can now format without worrying that is is being otherwise influenced.

Advertising Policy

Credit to UNKNOWN for this quote!!