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You’ve launched a new business — congrats! — and now need to build your first website (or optimize your first one). A quality website is important on several levels, including credibility and professional reputation for your business, as well as getting found by potential new customers you wouldn’t connect with individually.

That second part, how you get found online, is generally referred to as SEO.

SKIP AHEAD:
The Approach | Phase 1: Research | Phase 2: Site Build | Phase 3: Ongoing SEO Marketing

Understanding Three Stages of Building a Successful SEO-Optimized Website

Building a Discoverable Website: the Hidden Magic of SEO

There are a number of factors that go into successful SEO when building any website. Some of them are tied to how you structure your site (written content, page infrastructure and links, etc). Others can be added to optimize your site further (site speed, alt text on images, meta descriptions, and more).

When building you want to think about:

• keywords in written content and headlines
• UX (aka user experience) to help visitors find information they want
• site speed
• alt text on images
• meta descriptions
• optimized links (also called “hrefs”)

Ongoing Keyword Marketing: Content Marketing, SEO, and SEM

And then there’s your ongoing SEO/SEM to drive traffic to your site (quick tip: SEO is organic keyword marketing, and SEM is paid). This is where the real magic happens, but it doesn’t work if your web foundation isn’t sound.

Ongoing keyword marketing (we’ll use “SEO” for short in this article, though it also includes SEM) should consider:

• content such as blogs and articles (I recommend hub and spoke marketing)
• how your network online (build backlinks from credible sites)
• ads and campaigns that drive traffic and/or help rank for specific keywords

Start With a Solid Foundation

But before you even start to build the site or plan keyword campaigns, you need to start with a quality foundation.

There are two prongs you will need to consider during the initial build of your site and through iterations of both the site and marketing efforts.

1. customer data
2. keyword and search data

Today we’ll look at both facets across three stages of optimizing your website: foundations and research, site build, and ongoing marketing.

	Research	Site Build	Ongoing Marketing
Customer Data	– who is your target (person) – what do they want? (product) – why do they care about this need? (motivation) – why are you different (differentiators)	– how to tell your story – determine, write, and link key pages	– user surveys (including potential and paying customers)
Keyword Data	– competitors – search volume	– headers and content – links and hrefs – image alt text – metadata descriptions	– blogs (or videos with transcripts) – backlinks – paid campaigns

 

Phase 1: Building for Success with Research and Educated Insights

Customer Data Foundations

Goal: create a foundation for how you reach potential customers.

When you first launch a business, you’re likely starting with hypothetical or best-guess customer profiles. In marketing we sometimes refer to these as a customer avatar, buyer persona, or ideal customer. These help you understand who your customer is and what pain points they’re trying to solve, as well as their tangential concerns and where they show up in the world.

Over time you’ll take these best-guess customer profiles and hone them with real customer data. This research could be as simple as talking one-on-one with people who show interest at a market or trade show, or as complex as structured research in product tests or focus groups.

The key here is that you have to start somewhere and then work your way forward. Over time you will constantly iterate based on customer feedback, which will reflect in how you maintain your website and structure your marketing strategy.

Keyword and Search Data Foundations

Goal: understand how people are currently searching for solutions to the problem(s) you solve.

The keywords you want to optimize for depend on your ideal customer, competitors, and product(s). You can do a lot of research early on to create solid foundations, but you also need to iterate the strategy as you learn more about your ideal customer, and as search data landscapes shift.

There are a number of tools you can use to both research new and track efforts for ongoing keyword campaigns. A couple common ones include Google Keyword Planner, SEMRush, Ahrefs.com, and Screaming Frog.

Phase 2: How to Build Your Website for Effective SEO

Earlier we highlighted several elements you should consider when building a website for SEO, including written content, user experience, site speed, alt text, meta descriptions, and hrefs. Lets take a look at how elements from Phase 1 (research) influence how you build with these considerations in Phase 2.

Attract Ideal Customers with a Compelling Story

Goal: minimize bounce rates, extend session duration, and drive up page views by clicking between pages of interest

Written Content that Delivers a Relatable Narrative

There are two very important elements to crafting SEO-friendly content: how visitors experience the content, and how search engines and web crawlers assess it. Google and other search engines have developed to prioritize user experience, meaning you should always write for the user, not the bots. Keyword stuffing, a strategy from early SEO days, actively harms your site with current search engine standards.

So write for your audience. Consider how they speak, what’s important to them, and how you can connect emotionally to their needs, both immediate and secondary. And get to the point quickly — one major cause for quick bounce rates (visitors leaving your site in under 3-7 seconds) is not finding relevant or relatable content right away.

Your goal is to tell a story customers want to read, keeping them on your site longer and optimizing session duration.

User Experience to Extend the Customer Journey

In addition to literal time spent on your site, the number of clicks within your site (page views) tells search engines like Google how valuable your content overall is. The more users navigate around your site, especially if they spend time on each page, the more credible web crawlers consider your website and the higher it will appear in search results.

A seamless user journey has the added benefit of helping close sales, as well, ensuring buyers make it all the way from curiosity to purchase.

Integrating Keywords for Powerful SEO Results

Goal: let search engines know your site is relevant

So we want to write for the human customer, but how do we make sure the bots are attracted to the site, too? There are a few key places search engine crawlers prioritize looking for keywords:

• headers (page title and content headers like h2s and h3s)
• alt text on images
• hrefs and anchor text
• meta descriptions

Headers

It’s important to structure content logically for both users and crawlers. Having a clear header structure helps users scan and find content quickly (also important for accessibility and screen readers). It also helps crawlers understand what you consider important content on the page.

In code, you will literally apply h2 tags like you’d apply paragraph tags. If you’re using a text editor, there will be a drop-down to select various header and content formats. For users, this actually displays your content differently based on the format type — higher headers are usually larger, and color or contrast may change through the hierarchy, as well.

HOW TO USE IT

Think of headers like nested bullet points, with paragraph content contained underneath each. Keep headers short and digestible, but leverage them to contain your keywords. A good rule of thumb is 5-10 words, or consider how it visually appears on the page while reading so that it’s no more than 1-2 lines (though modern trends are more accepting of longer headlines).

Your h1 is Like a Book Title — Only Use Once Per Page

• H2s are Like a Book’s Chapters and Introduce Important Topics
  • H3s nest under h2s like sections in a chapter. This would be a paragraph of content under your h3 section. Paragraphs contain more information than headers and are structured as sentences. But keep in mind that paragraphs on a screen should be shorter than what you’d read in a book. Generally use 1-3 sentences per paragraph of web text. And keep sentences short.
  • H3s are relevant to the h2 topic, but break content down further.
• When Introducing a New Topic, Use a New H2
  • Then nest additional h3s underneath. You can use many levels of h-tags, but I recommend to stick with h2 and h3, maybe adding an h4. Don’t get too complex or it can be exhausting to follow.

Alt Text on Images

Alt text (text entered on the back end of building pages that describes the contents of an image) serves a couple purposes. The most important user-centered purpose is for screen readers and accessibility. Folks with vision impairments use screen readers to convey the content of a web page. Alt text should include a description of your image so these viewers don’t miss out on content or the overall experience of visiting your page.

Alt text is invisible to sighted users, unless image is unable to load. This is perhaps the least important use of alt text unless your image contains literal text (this is not best practice, but if you do it you MUST include the same information in your alt text).

Crawlers also scan for alt text for two reasons. First, it’s an easy place to find relevant content, before reading every paragraph on a page. If it was important enough to call out, it’s important enough to index. Second, search engines prioritize user-friendly content, including sites built for accessibility. See above regarding screen readers for the visually impaired.

HOW TO USE IT

When inserting an image on a page, there will be a section in your builder to add alt text. Be very descriptive about the exact content of that image, especially why it’s relevant to your page. Remember: alt text helps users who can’t see images and rely on screen readers to convey content. Include keywords to describe how and why it’s relevant, but be sure the alt text makes sense to users who hear about the image instead of seeing it.

Note: you do NOT need to include alt text on background or “flourish” images. This can clutter screen readers and actually degrade the purpose of alt text. Only use alt text to help communicate the content of images relevant to the story you’re telling.

Hrefs and Anchor Text

Crawlers also prioritize how you set up links on your page. Hrefs are the literal link you include (ie http://grapeseeddesigns.com). Anchor text is the text that a viewer sees as highlighted or called out to indicate a link. For example, telling someone they’ll learn more about hrefs is more valuable that just telling them to click this link to learn more.

Meta Descriptions

One often-overlooked part of building web pages is the meta descriptions. These are paragraphs are used to describe pages specifically for search engines — it is the content that displays in search result pages themselves. You can control both the headline and body of that introduction.

If you do not set meta descriptions for your page, engines it will automatically pull the page title and the first few lines of text from the page. This may or may not be optimized to draw users in, so you can improve this by placing keywords and a short and sweet description optimized to display in search results.

Yoast’s free WordPress plugin is a great tool to help control metadata on each page of your site.

Phase 3: How to Leverage SEO to Keep Your Site at the Top of Google (ongoing marketing)

A lot of folks launching their first site want to “build a site with great SEO,” move on to the next business task to tackle. Unfortunately, high-powered SEO is a long game with no quick fix. To become and remain competitive, startups need to develop an ongoing strategy that iterates as the industry and competitive landscape changes.

Continue to Know Your Customer

Goal: stay relevant by keeping communication open and staying curious about customers’ needs.

While you likely created detailed customer avatars when getting started, it’s essential to keep fine-tuning these profiles over time. Sometimes the industry changes, sometimes you just understand your customer better, and sometimes you find out a different customer is actually more ideal than your first instinct.

There are a number of ways to continually gather customer feedback, with varying levels of complexity and cost.

“In the Wild” Feedback

If you’re meeting potential customers IRL, whether at markets, in a store, or at conventions and events, be sure to talk to them! Data doesn’t have to be formally aggregated on a digital platform to be “real” (but be sure to record discoveries when you get the chance).

Ask customers what interested them about your product, what their problems are, what they think and feel while interacting with your product, and why they may or may not choose to buy your product. Remember that these are not paying customers, they’re potential customers. It’s also a great way to find out why interested parties may fall out of your funnel before buying, and helps fix product issues along the way.

Customer Reviews

Encourage paid customer reviews, not just for social proof to potential new customers, but to help tailor products and messaging moving forward. What do they like? What do they not like? What would they change? Why did they choose your product over a competitor? Why did they almost choose a competitor instead?

These reviews can be obtained through formal surveys or more casual interviews, depending on where you connect with past and present customers.

Focus Groups

While this can be the most complex and expensive to execute, focus group feedback gives more data faster than any one-on-one tactics. Remember, to make statistically significant decisions, you need a minimum of 100 data points (ie distinct answers to a single question). The more data you have, the more you can rely on the patterns you observe.

Applying What You Find

Most founders know to iterate products and features based on customer feedback, but be sure to leverage this information in your marketing and web presence, too! You may find an entirely new branch of keyword topics to optimize, or you may find you’re putting a lot of effort into one with very low returns.

The important part is that you can pivot easily when new trends emerge. Be sure your site (and strategies) are agile enough to iterate with new information. This should always be a key consideration when starting your site, so put real thought into what lives on your home page, as well as cornerstone pages that branch out into keyword campaigns.

Keyword Content Strategies that Work

Goal: create a network of keyword-rich content that drives back to your foundational pages

To remain relevant, you need to be continually creating new content, or at least driving regular traffic. Continually developing new content also helps expand on your keyword foundations, both becoming relevant for new keywords and strings and reinforcing relevance for existing or baseline keywords.

HOW TO USE IT

A Hub and Spoke marketing model can be a very powerful baseline for guiding new content efforts. The way it work is essentially three parts:

• decide what your core topics are (usually 3-5 — this is usually decided when building, but can change over time)
• create landing pages to optimize for those core keywords
• develop ongoing content (ie blogs) tailored for related keywords that link back to the cornerstone content

This allows you to expand your reach with longer or less competitive keyword strings, and then drive traffic back toward shorter, more challenging words or phrases.

Takeaway

At the end of the day, SEO is a complex system of strategies and efforts, and there’s no perfect formula to rank at the top of Google. But you can’t get anywhere with SEO if you aren’t building on solid web foundations to begin with.

So be sure to build considering two key angles: customer insights and strategic keywords. Do your research, build a quality site, and move forward with a targeted marketing strategy. And always remember, you will likely pivot early and often as you get started!

Happy new year! Did you make any resolutions?

While I don’t believe in a magical reset when that calendar flips over, I’m sure I’m not alone hoping that 2021 will be at least a bit less tumultuous than 2020…

I’ve spent the last two weeks in pretty quiet reflection. I personally don’t get into new year resolutions, but I am a fan of a word of the year. For 2021, that word is PURPOSE, along with the motto:

Live, work, grow — in all things, do them with purpose.

This intention focuses on being deliberate, intentional, even a bit more goal-oriented in both my business and personal life.

See, I’ve never been great with goals. It may be the recovering perfectionist in me rejecting a rigid pass/fail framework, but I prefer guideposts and habits.

And my new #1 habit for 2021 is quarterly planning.

Q4 of last year was a good start to this, and finally got my butt in gear producing consistent content — on the blog, here, and on Instagram. The quarter focused on DIY branding, with a few other nuggets slipped in between.

Now I’d like to know what you want more of.

I have quite a few ideas rattling around in my head, but I want to check in with my community — your priorities are important to me. So I’d love if you let me know what would help the most right now.

Leave a comment, send me a message, or join the newsletter list and reply to the welcome email to let me know!

MARKETING MINDSET — from targeting the right audience to getting in your customers’ heads and creating sustainable habits. Get consistent messaging out in the world!

WEBSITE FOUNDATIONS — nail down your web presence with everything from what to include on your site, what the hell SEO is anyway, and quick tips for where and how to set up and actually launch.

BUSINESS OPERATIONS — it’s not easy running a solopreneur business, and I’ve learned a lot along the way. Let me share insights into some of my habits and routines, business tools, and lessons learned over the years.

Other burning questions? Even if you’re not sure I have the answers, leave a comment or send a message! I love making connections for my community, and if I don’t have the answers, I’ll search my network to find them. 

I’ve talked before about why you might want to DIY your brand, especially for a first iteration as you get off the ground.

But doing it yourself requires resources. So to save a little time, here’s my roundup of great (mostly) free sources to get started. These cover the top 4 graphic elements of your brand, plus tools to actually create and publish your branded materials.

Jump ahead: Moodboards | Colors | Typography | Imagery | Design & Publishing Tools

Moodboards

To create a consistent brand that resonates with your audience, it’s helpful to create a moodboard. Here you’ll collect a range of images that represent your color scheme, style, and overall aesthetic. It’s a touchstone when adding new elements to your online presence or marketing materials.

Any time you ask “does this fit my brand..?” just refer back to your moodboard. It’s kind of like a swatch book when designing a room or coordinating a wardrobe.

Pinterest

My favorite tool to create moodboards is Pinterest. Not only does it have a massive network of images available directly within their platform (it’s searchability rivals the image search on Google), but you can easily add or upload images found elsewhere.

Stock Websites

Whether you purchase from the site or not, you can create a free account on sites like Bigstock, Shutterstock, Twenty20, Unsplash, then use collections like moodboards. Gather and save as many images as you want, then look for and filter trends based on color, mood, and aesthetic.

Any File Aggregator

If you’re already using an online file aggregator to clip notes and keep them accessible, this may be a great option for you.

Note-writing programs like Evernote let you clip images to save in a single note. File collectors with a kanban format (think sticky notes on a board), like Airtable or Trello, can also create great moodboards.

Old School Cut and Paste

If you still like flipping through magazines, feel free to throw it back grade-school style and pull out the scissors and glue!

The important part is to have one place where you can collect a wide variety of images, then distill them into a small collection for a quick, at-a-glance impression.

Colors

A consistent color palette is also important for a cohesive brand. You can be super minimal with one accent color and a shade of gray, or more diverse with a palette of 3-5 primary colors and variations that compliment them.

My favorite resource for setting a color palette is color.adobe.com — and it’s 100% free!

You can start with a cornerstone color and develop a palette based on 9 color harmony rules, then tweak from there.

Or you can extract a palette from an image that represents the right tone. Just upload that photo and Adobe will automatically pull colors based on 6 color harmony options. You can also tweak the palette with an easy, draggable color selector.

Typography

There are a lot of considerations to choosing fonts, but here are some of my favorite resources once you know the direction you’re going.

A warning, though: be careful where you download fonts from — this can be one of the easiest ways to hide and install malware on your computer. There are a ton of sketchy resources if you google “free fonts,” so be sure to get them from a reputable source.

Also bear in mind that some fonts are free to use both online and in print, while others are restricted to one use or the other. Try to find fonts you can use in both print and digital materials.

Font Squirrel & MyFonts

Both FontSquirrel and MyFonts are great resources to download free fonts. They can also recommend affordable font families — sometimes certain weight variations are free while others are paid. For example, a regular weight may be available, but to get a bold or extra thin variation may cost a little extra.

Google Fonts

Google Fonts makes it easier than ever to both download fonts for your computer (or to give your designer) AND embed the fonts in your website.

What the Font

This is a great tool if there’s a font you love but don’t know the name. Or maybe you love it but the license costs more than you can invest right now.

What the Font (a tool developed by MyFonts) lets you upload a photo with text and run a search. The tool then provides a list of fonts that either match or are similar to what’s in the photo.

Imagery

The images you use connect with viewers on a subconscious level and convey mood more effectively than anything else. So it’s important to have a consistent image library. Whether used on your website, print materials, or social media, make sure your images are on-brand.

And remember, imagery includes more than just photos! Think about textures, backgrounds, and even icons that create a tone — from serious to playful, structured to hand-made.

Free Stock Photos

Unsplash is a very popular site for fresh and free stock images. All their photos (you won’t find icons or other graphics) are free, but they do ask to credit the photographers when you can. This is great when sharing on social media, but isn’t required if the images are used in web or print.

Bear in mind, though, that you’ll likely see other businesses using the same images because they’re so readily accessible.

Death to Stock is a much lesser-known resource, but is also harder to search. This one takes a little patience to build a library for yourself — they email photo packs on a monthly basis to free users. Packs vary in theme and aesthetic, and are donated by community photographers.

Alternatively, you can pay a small fee and have access to their entire library at any given time. Images are still grouped in packs by theme, but you no longer need to store all the files yourself.

Paid Stock Imagery

BigStock and Shutterstock are two of the best-known sources for stock graphics. They offer a variety of options for purchasing images, from monthly subscriptions to individual licenses. The main criticism for these sites is that imagery can be over-used or less-than-creative — they can feel a bit stale or trite.

Ghetty Images provides higher-quality images, but prices can be prohibitive for early-stage companies. Consider taking a look anyway, especially for a cornerstone image you’ll use in a lot of materials.

Twenty20 is a relative newcomer to the game in response to the stale feeling of sites like BigStock and Shutterstock. You’ll often find more approachable and often more diverse images here, and they have purchasing plans similar to other paid sites.

Custom Photos

The absolute best option for quality, on-brand photos is a custom photo shoot. These can be more affordable than you’d think, often starting around $1k.

A custom shoot guarantees all images are authentic to YOUR brand — nobody else will be using the same ones. A shoot usually includes staff headshots, product photos, and/or day-in-the-life images such as workspaces and candid work-day photos.

Design & Publishing Tools

Once you have a foundation for your design elements, it’s time to bring them together in publishable content. If hiring a designer isn’t in the budget, there are plenty of free tools to get started.

This section includes resources for: design and image manipulation, print production, code-free web development, and social media scheduling.

Design & Image Manipulation

Canva is one of the most celebrated easy-to-use design tools available. Many business owners create all of their branded materials using this software, from print brochures and business cards to complete presentation decks and social media posts.

Canva has preset templates to help get dimensions right for various platforms, as well as having a leg-up to start your designs. They also have a feature to automatically reformat content from one template to another, making repurposing designs across social channels a total snap.

Gimp is a distilled, open-source (free) competitor to Photoshop. It has an array of options for photo editing that will help any beginner get started.

Print Production

Moo is my absolute favorite for business cards and small print collateral. They have fewer options than some competitors — committing to keeping things super simple — but the quality is truly top-notch. They also have some finishing options I haven’t seen elsewhere, like colored edges or recycled cotton paper.

Moo can be a little pricier for business cards, but they do smaller minimum orders. This gives you more flexibility to try new designs without feeling over-committed or locked in.

I also LOVE that you can mix up the backs of your cards for no extra charge! I have 5 variations for mine. It’s a fun talking point, especially when folks can choose the design they want to take home.

Vista Print is one of the most established online print production shops. They have a wide variety of collateral options (business cards, postcards, fliers, etc) at affordable bulk rates. They also have a wide variety of finishes and materials, including plastic or linen.

A wide range of signage and promotional items are available, too, along with more personal items like photo gifts and wall art.

Smart Press also has a wide variety of unique printing options, including holographic foil and custom business card shapes with digital laser cutting. They also offer smaller minimum orders (like Moo does) and their product range is extensive (similar to Vista Print). More unique offerings also include a broad variety of booklet finishes.

UPrinting has all your business basics like cards, flyers, and signage. But they really stand out with their packaging options — from mailer and product boxes to pouches, packaging sleeves, and even wrapping and tissue papers.

Code-Free Web Development

WordPress.org provides a downloadable framework with a “famous 5-minute install.” It is the most flexible and scalable option, but also the most complex of those in this roundup. It is generally considered the best option for SEO because of its foundation in blog formats (aka content marketing).

You must purchase separate hosting space from a provider like Blue Host, Host Gator, or Go Daddy (I also provide hosting for my retainer clients) and then install WordPress. Because WordPress is open-source, there are a wide variety of themes and plug-ins that make it possible to build with no coding knowledge.

Side note: WordPress.org is different than WordPress.com. The biggest difference is who hosts your site and domain — the .com option is easier to start with, but far less flexible in the long run.

Squarespace is a hosted web builder like WordPress.com. It’s super easy to start and build your first site with no coding knowledge, but is harder to scale in the long run. Squarespace is known as a great option for both blogging and ecommerce.

Wix, like Squarespace, is a hosted option that’s easy to start but harder to scale. It has a reputation for being the most approachable option for beginners, but is probably the least flexible. Sites are not responsive (don’t adapt for mobile devices), and changing themes requires starting over from scratch.

Eventbrite and Etsy are good options if you’re not quite ready to build your own website. These platforms allow you to showcase and sell events or products, respectively.

Bear in mind:
Any site you don’t host yourself (including Squarespace, Wix, Eventbrite, Etsy, etc) is subject to any changes on the platform itself. If they goes out of business, your site goes away.

Because WordPress is a CMS (content management system) on your own hosting space, you truly own this site. This is similar to prioritizing marketing channels — you don’t own social media channels, but you do own your newsletter list.

Social Media Scheduling

Before we dive in, it’s important to note that some social platforms (notably LinkedIn and Instagram) may suppress posts that aren’t manually posted. Keep this in mind when balancing the benefits of reach and engagement vs saving time.

UNUM is super simple, which makes it very approachable but less flexible. It is an Instagram-only app and focuses primarily on planning a beautiful grid. Upload your photos or use their Unsplash integration, apply simple editing tools, rearrange as you like, and add captions.

Saved hashtag groups also make it super easy to save and quickly access your go-tos — these can include any text (and emojis), not just hashtags.

UNUM includes scheduling reminders, but does not post directly to Instagram (see note above about platforms suppressing auto-scheduled posts).

Instead, UNUM will send you a reminder when a post is scheduled. Then just open the app and export the post — it will save the image on your camera roll, copy the caption to your clipboard, and launch the Instagram app, making for a pretty seamless manual process.

Hootsuite is the most comprehensive option, covering Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest. This makes it super easy to coordinate your entire social calendar. Plan, publish, monitor, and even interact on all these channels in one spot.

Meet Edgar‘s claim to fame is the ability to automatically recycle content, as well as pulling from other sources beyond your own creations. Build a library, add variations for each entry to help recycle the content, establish a schedule, and let Edgar to his thing.

If you don’t have new content, posts will cycle through the library, giving new life to prior blogs and articles. Edgar covers Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Planoly specializes in Instagram and Pinterest, including stories. Paid plans include cross-platform scheduling to Twitter and Facebook, post analytics, comment management, and a “link in bio” style lander to create direct links for specific IG posts.

Planoly even has the ability to sell products (physical or digital) directly through their platform.

Later features “social sets” in order to manage multiple brands from one account, with plan tiers based on number of posts per month. Some premium features include hashtag suggestions, text on images, calendar notes, and managing comments directly through their dashboard.

Like Planoly, Later also incorporates a “link in bio” feature to create a targeted, clickable landing page that coordinates with your social posts.

Tailwind is another scheduler that focuses on Instagram and Pinterest, with particular specialization in Pinterest.

Pinterest tools help create pins using on-brand templates, schedule posts a week at a time, and leverage analytics to plan across relevant boards and post at the best times. Instagram analytics help suggest hashtags and best times to post.

Creating a graphic library is important to maintain brand consistency. The images you use connect with viewers on a subconscious level and convey mood more effectively than 1000 words (too cheesy..?).

When building this library, it’s important to reference your mood board. Remember — as potential clients interact with your brand, this imagery places them inside the world you make possible. Make sure it inspires feelings you want them to experience. 

Let’s consider: what to look for when searching, how and where you’ll use these images, and 3 steps to building your library, as well as a few resources for stock to get started. 

What to Look For

Custom photography is a great way to set your brand apart and add some professional polish. But that doesn’t mean stock images are off-limits.

Stock, whether paid or free, can build on or supplement custom graphics. And for early-stage businesses, they help create traction before making a larger investment. Just be sure the images you choose accurately reflect your brand (and are properly licensed).

Consider these three elements to maintain consistency:

1. Color & Tone

Consistency in colors and general mood helps paint a cohesive picture. But you don’t have to be literal with color blocks and branded objects.

Consider textures, too, like rich wood, cool metal, light and dark stone, various papers, or even tapestry and fabric. Branching out here adds interest and makes your brand more dynamic.

2. Imagery & Motifs

Also consider the content of your images. Certain brands may be more object-oriented, while others are more people-centric. Some brands feature energized or social customers, while others may be more serious, zen, driven, or independent.

If your brand centers around a particular motif, keep that in mind, too. For example, GrapeSeed Designs uses a lot of images featuring vineyards, grapes, plant growth, and soil. Layered together with more explicit images of digital devices and equestrian environments, these paint a picture of the brand beyond a desktop or computer screen.

3. Composition

Keep general composition of images in mind, too. If your goal is a more light and airy tone, images with lots of white space may be ideal. Other brands may be more detail-focused and prefer images with a macro focus.

The important thing to remember is to inspire an emotion for your viewer. How do you want them to feel when interacting with your brand?

Where You’ll Use Them

Your library should be versatile for a range of media, so be sure to consider a variety compositions. A few applications to consider include your website, social media, print collateral, and blog content.

While social media will use the widest variety of graphic content, consider a few cornerstone images, too. These likely show up as banners on your website or in evergreen digital or print materials.

Cornerstone images are where you want to focus any financial resources; get some quality pieces to represent your brand over and over again. Think of them like wardrobe staples — you’ll use them over and over again, but dress them up with different accessories and show them off in various settings.

Creating a Library

There are three key steps I recommend to building a graphics library. Start by gathering images, then filter out the best ones, and sort them into appropriate collections.

This process is similar to developing your moodboard, but digs deeper and has a more extensive result. You also need to ensure images are licensed — moodboards are for inspiration, but your library is applied “in real life.”

Various permissions and licenses exist, sometimes depending on media (print or digital) or application (sometimes free for social media, but require a license for print).

Many require a fee, while others just ask for attribution (such as tagging the photographer on social media). Always be sure images you choose are covered for “commercial use.”

Note: if you’re working with a photographer to create custom imagery, I still recommend using this exercise. Then reference these collections to make sure the shoot covers your needs. Using an image to inspire something custom doesn’t require a license, but be sure to add your own spin to avoid creating a poor knock-off.

1. Gather Images

In this first stage, collect any and all images that appeal to you. Keep your brand in mind while searching, but don’t get too fixated on what fits and doesn’t — that comes in step 2. Think of this as a brainstorming step, and cover all the “what to look for” categories above.

You may also focus this process for a specific project, but the steps remain the same.

2. Filter Images

Once you’ve created a collection of images, start filtering. You should notice clear patterns that reflect your brand, but you’ve likely grabbed some images that don’t fit the right tone. Remove these images from your collection, then “filter up” the best of the best to keep.

3. Create Collections

Especially when creating a larger library for social media applications, I find it helpful to create a few collections. These may be categorized by tone (i.e. light vs dark), motif (plants, devices, environments), or application (a certain project or concept).

Custom photography

I mentioned above using these 3 steps to create an inspiration library before working directly with a photographer. Be sure to focus on a few specifics in your shoot:

Replicate ‘stock’ imagery (textures, motifs, tools) using your own unique items. For example, you may have saved graphics of pens, cameras, coffee mugs, or digital devices. Go ahead and create similar layouts, but using your own favorite mug, sketchbook, or other tools to create personalized character.

Capture your team, both individually and together. Your search should have included some concepts of people interacting, either with their work or each other. Replicate these types of images, making sure to capture the faces of your own staff.

Create day-in-the-life visuals, including a broader view of where work happens. These may be broader images of your office, shop, or work environment without people, as well as showing your team working in these spaces.

If your work is very customer-centric, consider bringing in models (or actual customers) to represent realistic exchanges that happen in your day to day work. Remember — you want to paint a picture for customers of what their life would be like with you in it.

Resources

There are quite a few places to find stock imagery to build your library. Some of my favorite free sources are Unsplash and Death to Stock.
*I am not paid to share these resources with you — they are just ones I currently use or have used in the past.

A few paid sources include:

• BigStock (tried and true, but watch out for cliche and over-used images)
• Shutterstock (tried and true, but watch out for cliche and over-used images)
• Getty images (higher price in exchange for higher quality and more exclusivity)
• Twenty20 (a newcomer with more diversity and a fresher take)
• Bouquet Stock Photography (founded on the principle of diversity and inclusion)

Now that you have easy-to-reference collections, you have one step already finished when publishing original content! Blogging, social media, and even print materials are one step ahead because you have a pre-qualified image library available for use (this is part of “batching” tasks, which we’ll talk about soon).

As we approach the end of the year, I’m starting my 2020 reflections and looking ahead at 2021.

And man, it has really been a year hasn’t it? Ups, downs, and all kinds of crazy pivots. Both for myself, my clients, and my extended circle.

But the one thing that has kept me going and pushing through is community. My close friends and business besties have kept me aligned when I couldn’t see the next step through the fog (and talked me off a couple ledges — you know who you are, and THANK YOU).

There’s another community I want to share that with you, too. One that has really refilled my tank over and over again this year.

It’s a community called Being Boss.

If you’ve known me very long, you’ve heard me talk about them. They started with a podcast (weekly for four years — 280+ episodes now!), and I have gone back and listened to every. single. one.

They grew to write a book, which I have bought and sent to business besties over the years. It’s probably the best sub-$100 investment I’ve made in business (it’s actually sub-$30, but it beats out more expensive investments, too).

They’ve developed digital resources that I have used time and time again to realign my business and make sure it’s going where I need it to go — as a boss, as a person, as a creative.

This year they even launched conferences. Which, I have to say, are the most successful pivot to fully-digital conferences I’ve seen yet. (Also: introverts unite! This was the most inspiring, absolutely not-draining event my little introvert heart has ever participated in.)

And now they have an officially official community.

It’s been humming along for a year now, and I cannot tell you how impactful it’s been, especially in a year like 2020. It has grown and developed based on member needs and feedback — not just some pre-conceived idea of what someone thinks members need.

There are a couple tiers of membership, and they are worth far beyond the money you’ll pay. I’m in the Clubhouse, personally, and consider the resources absolutely invaluable. But even the Community level provides incredible impact for bosses just starting their journey — or still getting traction.

And it’s not crazy expensive. I know you’re not supposed to list a price til you’ve got a solid sell, but I think the price is a significant factor, so I’ll just be up front. It’s $22/mo for the Community, and $77/mo for the Clubhouse.

$22 is maybe the least expensive business subscription I have (invoicing? email campaigns? marketing software? All more expensive than that…), and the rescues at Clubhouse level are well beyond the price for that tier, too.

I’m not paid to tell you about this (though in full disclosure, I do get a few perks if you use the link below), but it is something I wish more people knew about.

A few of the benefits we enjoy:

Weekly Monday Meetups on Zoom (all levels) — you’ll get the best peer support I think I’ve ever seen. We come together and workshop whatever we’re struggling with, big or small, as well as celebrate our wins (also big or small).

Guys, I stopped going to these for a while because I felt I had nothing to workshop, and it was a terrible decision. Even when I’m not personally looking to get feedback on anything, there is ALWAYS something to learn from the group. It now has a priority spot on my calendar.

Community Conversations & Classifieds (all levels) — everyone in the community can post topics they’re looking for resources, feedback, and inspiration on, and a classifieds section allows a space for self-promotion.

Monthly Bookclub (all levels) — talk about impact. I’m terrible at choosing books to read, but this group puts something on my calendar every month. And the books we’ve read so far have been life changing for my business. I can’t wait to see what’s next! So far my favorites have been Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller and Fix This Next by Mike Michalowicz.

New Moon Circles (and monthly intentions) (Clubhouse level) — something for those who are a little more woo (or not). I’m only a little woo-curious myself, but the conversations and topics discussed are fascinating to me. And even if you’re not all that woo, once a month intention-setting can’t be beat.

Monthly Clubhouse Convos (Clubhouse level) — Emily is the cofounder of Being Boss and full-time curator of the community. She is unreal. These monthly events bring together bosses who’ve been in business for a while to work through some next-level topics, usually revolving around the monthly theme (which aligns with the book club, btw).

Replays & Exclusive Content (Clubhouse level) — guys, this is the number 1 reason to join at the Clubhouse level. You get replays on E-VER-Y-THING. Including if you can’t make it to one of the conferences 🤯 Absolutely unreal.

Plus this is where you get exclusive access to the Making a Business podcast by Emily — which is a must for product-based businesses (I’m not product-based, but I’ll tell you I still love tuning in).

Over the next couple weeks, we’re having some sneak-peek events.

There are two happy hour showcase events to check out: Thurs Dec 3 at noon CST and Weds Dec 9 at 2:30pm CST. Hit reply and let me know if you want to join me at either event!

I can’t tell you what 2021 has in store, but I can tell you that I know the Being Boss community has my back. With their support (both business resources and community friendship), I know I can face whatever the year throws at me.

Cheap logos from crowdsourcing platforms (like 99Designs) are often wrought with issues. With ethical, legal, and creative pitfalls, I want to share an alternative solution — a DIY.

Once you have your brand colors and typography chosen, it’s pretty simple to create your own logo.

And with affordable tools like Canva, you don’t need designer experience to produce quality designs. Canva event lets you upload purchased fonts if you have a pro account.

Types of Logos — Word Marks, Icons, and Lockups

There are many types of logos, including text marks, icons, and combination marks.

A logotype, also known as a text mark, is the simplest to DIY, so that’s what we’ll explore here. There are two variations of text marks: a word mark and a letter mark.

Word marks use an entire word or name of your brand. Letter marks truncate longer words into acronyms, initials, monograms, or even just a single letter.

Combining Color and Typography

We’ve already laid the foundation for your logo with colors and typography. Now we can combine them to create a simple logotype or letter mark.

These are the color and type palettes we’ll use for this example: 

1. Start with Your Header Font

When choosing typography, we selected between one and three fonts. Here we’ll leverage your more playful font(s).

If you have a very long brand name, you might consider a letter mark from an acronym or other abbreviation.

Begin by typing out the name of your business in this primary font.

2. Add Some Color

Next, use your primary color for a single-color logo. If it feels a little flat, use a secondary color to add a pop on a small part of the graphic form. 

3. Add a Slogan or Tagline

Once you have a main logotype, you might add some interest with a tagline. This might simply explain what your business does, like this example. Or it may be a slogan or catchphrase used across your branding.

Variations

You’ve now created your primary logo. Congrats! To cover all your bases across various platforms, you’ll also want a few variations. 

Icon

A great way to DIY an identifiable icon is to choose one letter, or a monogram, of your brand name and create a letter mark.

You’ll use icons in very small (usually square) spaces, like social media or email profiles.

Stacked vs Horizontal

Depending on the materials you produce, you’ll likely need some variation in height to width ratio. One of these is probably covered already in your primary logo, but be sure to include the opposite, as well.

Website banners usually call for extended horizontal formats — there is generally plenty of horizontal space, but you’ll want to optimize vertical space for legibility.

In spaces with limited horizontal space, a stacked logo is important. These may or may not be square; if rectangular, it could be either vertical or horizontal. The main point is that the horizontal and vertical dimensions are fairly similar.

Building a Logo Suite

Another level deeper, a logo suite is good to have prepared. This is optional, but you will likely need these files at some time for different marketing formats.

File Types

There are many file types you’ll hear about for logos. I’ll add a resource on file types soon, but for now just touch on important points for logos.

Vector files (usually EPS) use mathematical formulas to display content, so they’re easy to scale. These are your foundation files and will be used over and over again. Adobe Illustrator is a standard application to export vector files.

Note: as of writing, Canva does not export EPS files, so you’ll want to export a large-scale file if exporting from there. See raster files below to understand the limitations.

PDF files may also be vectors, though it depends on how the original file is created.

Raster files (usually PNG or JPG) use pixels in a grid to display content. If you’re familiar with cross stitch artwork, this is a great representation of a raster or pixel format.

These files do not scale up (become bigger) well so must be exported in specific dimensions. They are, however, required for online applications. Note: if you cannot create vector files, create a raster at the larges size you expect to ever use. Just know that larger dimensions create larger file sizes.

PNGs have the option for a transparent background, but produce larger file sizes. JPGs have better compression, but must have a solid color background (white is the default).

Logo Variations

Variations are important to have on hand. You’ll want a variety of file types, both in full color, single-color (often black), and white. In general, you will want these 18–27 files in your brand kit:

EPS Files (transparent background)

Full Color	◻︎ Horizontal	◻︎ Stacked	◻︎ Icon
One Color	◻︎ Horizontal	◻︎ Stacked	◻︎ Icon
White	◻︎ Horizontal	◻︎ Stacked	◻︎ Icon

PNG Files (transparent background)

Full Color	◻︎ Horizontal	◻︎ Stacked	◻︎ Icon
One Color	◻︎ Horizontal	◻︎ Stacked	◻︎ Icon
White	◻︎ Horizontal	◻︎ Stacked	◻︎ Icon

JPG Files (optional — solid background)

Full Color	◻︎ Horizontal	◻︎ Stacked	◻︎ Icon
One Color	◻︎ Horizontal	◻︎ Stacked	◻︎ Icon
White	◻︎ Horizontal	◻︎ Stacked	◻︎ Icon

Think about the logos you see every day — from Pepsi to Shell gas to Google and CNN. You recognize these marks with no more than a quick glance.

But have you thought about the ways they’re different? There are a variety of “formulas” for creating a new logo.

It’s often believed the most successful logos are those recognizable by only an icon or small mark. And while these icons are an important shorthand, sometimes we forget how many brands use a full name or word mark.

As part of our DIY Your Brand series, we’re about to take the next big step — blending color and typography to create a simple logo.

But first, I want to walk through 7 different types of logos. I’ll break them into 3 categories: icon marks, text-based marks, and combination marks.

Icon Marks

Simplified icons are a great way to establish quick recognition. But they can be more complex to pull off well and often require a designer or illustrator to execute.

Icon marks are usually integrated with a letter mark in their full form, but can also stand alone.

Abstract Mark

These are icons that are neither text nor a clearly-identifiable image. These are brands like Airbnb, Pepsi, Windows, or Nike.

Pictorial Mark

Unlike an abstract mark, these icons represent clearly identifiable objects. Some examples include Apple, Twitter, or Shell.

Mascot

This is more than just having a mascot (like Mr. Clean) — it’s actually incorporating them into your everyday logo. Think of brands like Wendy’s, KFC, or Linux.

Text-Based Marks

Logos created entirely (or primarily) from typography (letters) are known as either wordmarks, logotypes, or lettermarks.

Wordmark or Logotype

When a brand uses their full name in the logo, it’s known as a wordmark or logotype. Some examples are Google, Subway, and CamelBak.

Note: Google and Subway also use an icon reduction of their logos, but both parent logos are full business names.

Lettermark

Lettermarks are also text-based, but only use a few letters rather than the full business name. These are brands like NASA, CNN, and FedEx.

Some brands, like McDonalds and WordPress, also employ an icon reduction of their logo using a single letter or monogram (also considered a lettermark). Others, like NASA, CNN, and FedEx, exclusively use their abbreviated lettermarks.

Combination Marks

Combination marks incorporate both imagery (or icons) and text. These two elements may be inseparable, such as with an emblem. Or they can be used both separately and together. Together they’re known as a lockup.

Emblem Logo

These are very common for universities, and are often combined with mascot styles for sports teams. The style is also used by Starbucks, Stella Artois, or Porsche.

Lockup

The final category blends icon marks with text-based marks. Icon and text marks can often stand alone, but together create what is called a “lockup.” Think about brands like Taco Bell or Sprout Social.

Sometimes, though, a combination mark cannot separate icon from text. For example Burger King’s text-in-a-hamburger is never separated into text only.

What’s next?

Next week we’re going to look at 3 easy steps to create your own logo by blending your brand colors and typography. If you haven’t gone through those two steps, hop back over and do that now, then join us to DIY your own logo!

I frequently get asked if I do Facebook ads. The short answer is not really.

The truth is that Facebook ads are a subset of marketing — advertising — which is its own specialized niche. While advertising falls under your overall marketing strategy, the actual execution is more unique.

So what makes them different? Boiled down, it’s about paying for space to place content. Let’s take a look at what goes into each.

What is Marketing?

Marketing is all about brand awareness — making sure people know you exist and that they trust you.

Generally marketing as a whole is about education. I particularly love the more organic side of marketing — providing information without the hard pitch. But of course everything trickles into sales eventually (which is where your sales funnel strategy comes in).

Organic marketing is what lives on your own channels, or somewhere with a strong referral (like guesting on a podcast, where the host validates your trustworthiness to their audience). It’s also the SEO (search engine optimization) that comes from generating quality content that educates visitors.

At the end of the day, marketing is a many-pronged approach to getting your brand out there. It includes a wide range of channels and platforms, including (but not limited to):

• content marketing and SEO (such as blogs)
• social media 
• newsletters
• networking (online and in person)
• paid advertising

What is Advertising?

Advertising helps reach an audience beyond those already engaged with or searching for your brand, and it’s achieved by paying for space on various platforms.

Think Facebook ads, Instagram ads, Google ads, radio or podcast ads, etc. See the trend? They’re all “ads.” (The exception here is the term SEM, which is Search Engine Marketing, but it’s still a paid search.)

Of course there are print versions, too — billboards, bus stop benches and posters, magazine ads, sidebar space on a news website. But the common thread is that you’re paying for that space.

Advertising is also generally hyper-targeted. You want all marketing messages focused to resonate with your ICAs, but advertising is more targeted in specifically who sees it.

And there’s a lot of strategy behind nailing down your ad plan.

For example, most folks are aware that Facebook ads allow you to select an audience based on their demographics, location, or other interests. Your ad spend lands you directly in their feed, and your messaging determines whether they make the leap to your owned channels.

You’ll also want to consider how long to run a campaign, and how much to spend.

So … you don’t do advertising?

Not personally, no. Where I excel is marketing strategy — making sure everything aligns with your brand and audience. But I hand off the actual execution to specialists (including ongoing content writing, social media posting, and advertising).

Many of my clients still DIY the execution of their marketing strategy. But if you’re ready to grow your support team, I’m happy to refer colleagues that I trust to get the most from your budget.