I’m a web designer. My biz is now right here on VictoriaKeale.com. That’s what I do everyday….
Often when people ask me what I do, I go into a big schpeal about web design and graphic design… most of the time they look at me blankly, like I am speaking Russian or something – so I end it with “I make things pretty and get them found”. And I guess that really does sum it all up – I’m here to take the awesome product or service that you’ve created and I fancy it up to make people stop and take a look. Sort of.
I’ve had people say to me that their product sells itself, there is no need to make it “pretty” – and that may be true to some extent. But I think that once you have sold your product to that niche market who really, really needs it… your sales will slide. Maybe even just disappear.
So how to you sell your product to people who don’t even know they need it? (Ah… now here’s where the “pretty & found” comes in) You make it inviting, you make it look so stylish (no matter what type of product it is) that people take notice, and they HAVE to have it. You get it out there so people can find it. So they HAVE to click on it. It even rings true when you are selling yourself (not in the dirty way, folks… like coaches, consultants & speakers! Sheesh…)
For those selling themselves it’s even more important to give your online presence a style – to show off who you are – AND make it functional so people can find it. Once they find you, people need to trust who they are giving their money to, and without seeing who you are it’s hard to have trust in you. Most surveys say people spend mere seconds on a website before deciding if they will stay or not – and no matter what it is that you are selling you HAVE to make your website visually appealing to keep those visitors there to actually READ what you are saying. Visual appeal is part easy navigation, part “above the fold” content, part awesome content in general, part “call to action” and… part STYLE.
So therein lies my reason for becoming a designer – I want to help you find your style and get it out there. I want to help create an online representation of your best characteristics so when people find your website or sales page or twitter page or etc… they get a feel for who you are. People want to spend their money with or on someone they know, they like, and they trust.
Over the years I have tried many different ways to design online stuff- trying to build flashy sites like everyone else, be on top of the latest trends and do all the fancy coding… but when it comes down to it the greatest success I’ve seen with an online business are ones that simply represent the style of the owner, offer an easy-to-navigate-and-understand site and provide a great product. Simple.
Over the past year, I have dived in head-first to WordPress…. one of the biggest reasons being I had clients come to me to redesign a site because their previous designer hooked them up with a (sometimes great looking) site that they had NO IDEA how to update. Now, as you can imagine… that’s no good. So introduce WordPress as a CMS. Yes, your friendly open source blogging platform is now used as a wicked awesome CMS (content management system so you can manage your content). Themes and plugins and widgets… oh my!
As I work on actually filling my new blog up with cool stuff (yay! I’m so excited!) I’m going to add examples of recent (and maybe some not-so-recent) projects that I feel really summarize my feelings on web & graphic design these days. It’s difficult as a designer (with opinions) to just post my entire portfolio because sometimes I’d like to put little disclaimers like *not my idea!* on them (I’m sorry, I know it sounds mean). But here, on my blog, it’s my world, so I’m going to show you the stuff I did that I really think is right on track with today’s way of selling online.
More soon on this, as I am working on this site and don’t have all my thoughts together — but…
~Until then!
