 Graphic Design

Images, animations, and video need to consistently and harmoniously support your brand, as well as the page topic or goal. This may mean having a style that is applied to all your graphic elements – we recommend creating a brand style guide to control colors, logo placement, and the general look and feel.

A style guide can also help to keep all the players on the same visual page. The concept of consistent branding is often overlooked, and we have had many clients that are tempted to mix fonts, fonts sizes, have loud contradictory images and colors, which are radically different between pages or on printed brochures. Please don’t do that! Be professional and be successful. We can help you establish your brand’s style.

 Layout

The page layout is meant to guide the user gracefully through your content and to the action or emotion you wish them to feel. Page layout can vary according to the goal and purpose of the page

 Logo

Your logo and colors represent your brand and unify elements on all pages. This needs to be consistent across the brand, including in print and video. It needs to have what marketers call a “common scent” through all your collateral.

 Landing|Squeeze Pages & Microsites

Specific landing pages or squeeze pages can be an opportunity to go against convention and the brand guide. A microsite plays the same role only in that it is a whole site dedicated to a purpose You often see these when a particular product will have its own site apart from the master site. In these cases, you may completely lose the navigation, and have a different graphic style and writing voice.

The purpose is to eliminate choice for the viewer and guide them to one specific goal, be that a purchase or a sign-up form. We have made a number of these and can fully support you here. Squeeze pages are also an excellent place to do A|B testing or steer towards a completely different demographic than your regular customers. New eyes on your site equals = new success.

 Content

The voice and mind of your company is clearly heard in the actual copy content on the page. The voice needs to be consistent and the content needs to address the product or purpose and, in many ways, anticipates both the attitude of the audience and their needs. It is best when content addresses the main questions of a user and then goes into deeper details with tabs for the very interested and education- seeking consumer. You also want to have quick calls to action content early on for those that just want to take action right away.

No need to distract them – it is a balance to give the full info for those whom need it and at the same time to have the impact and persuasion to attract the attention of the first time customer and motivate all of the above to take action. Remember to write for the customer, and then to modify for the search engines – this is where much of your SEO efforts will take place. Our team can help your create compelling content, as well as test the results of our efforts and refine it until it is irresistible. There is a saying: “content is not king, it is the kingdom.” A successful website take this to heart.

 Animations|Sliders|Carousals

These are all methods to present information to the client in an easily digestible and often graphic way. We can do anything that you see on the internet. Success is about execution. These tools are best used when you want to present a number of different options, such as showing your new products to the viewer. We will look at your goals and recommend the best way to present your information and touch the customer. Successful (web solutions) uses these when they have the potential to bring your market to you.

 Multimedia

Our service is optimized to host, stream, and present any variety of multimedia available. Want to make a video page, put a song up, or even sell your images from the gallery directly? You’ve come to the right place! We can also hook into your YouTube, Vimeo, or popular social network sites and port your wall right on to your site, with you in full control of what shows up there. Multimedia, as well as video, is crucial now more than ever. Successful is set up to guide you and present your content in the most effective and lucrative way possible. Your image is triumphant.

 Privacy Policy

Many agencies won’t mention this somewhat boring aspect, but your website must have a privacy policy. Customers are very concerned about the information that they are relaying to you. We have to clearly explain to them what you plan to do with the various information that you collect from your customers.

Since our sites use cookies, make sure that you cover this aspect in your privacy policy too. This is especially true for our UK/EU customers, which require that a site using cookies announce this right off. Other countries may also soon require the same. We have a number of template privacy policy texts that we can convert to your business. Successful will set these up, but keep in mind it is always best to have your lawyer review your policy.

 Other Key Elements

Here are some other key elements that we recommend that you have on your site that we may have not covered. We can help you build them for the best results and let you know when you don’t need an element.

Some elements to consider include: use of space graphically, an “about” page, contact information, informational footer or big footer, styled buttons, web fonts, flat design, hover effects, scroll to page sections, floating navigation, responsive images, and the newest one- parallax images (we just had to add it to this site, we are hip and with it!). If you see an element on the internet that you like, makes sense and works towards your Success, let us know and we can make it happen.

 Content Management System (CMS)

The Content Management System (CMS) is the administration or back end where it all happens. In almost all cases, we will set you up with a CMS that allows you to edit, approve, track, and promote your pages and post. This is where you have control. One of our goals, we would even call it a mantra, is to create an amazing, lucrative site for you and give you control over it. We want you to have the choice on how involved we are in your online marketing in general, which means setting the site up so that when you want to make a change you don’t have to call us or another design firm. You can do it yourself. You are in charge. This is where a quality, easy to used and understand CMS system come in. Through this you control your fortune.

 Site Search

The ability to search your site with an intelligent algorithm that gives the best and most relevant results to the user is key. People are so used to using the search function today that it can be the first thing they go to. We will set you up with a powerful search engine that you can then customize to get the results you want them to find. Talk to us about it and we can explain more about how this works.

We have licensed one of the best site-specific search engines. We can mine the data from user’s searches to find out things they may be searching for on the site. This means we can find out what they want and then advise you on how to reach them. Larger corporations have used this technology to for their r and d ends, as well as for product development. Our search feature is powerful. Our search can help you prosper.

 Blogging

Blogging, as we all know, is huge. Careers have been made by blogging, however, most of our clients do not want to make a career of it, so our solution is to use the easiest blogging platform out there so if you want to take the opportunity to communicate with your audience in a more intimate way you can do this easily (and don’t forget the content marketing advantages of having a blog).

We encourage our clients to blog, although often times we won’t call it that, we may have an article page instead of a blog page, but it is all one in the same. Successful can work with you to set up blog topics and a schedule to make it easier for you to maintain your blog in an intelligent and productive way. Our content team can even write them for you and release them when you approve. You’ll want to tie them to your newsletter, and some will make the blog the newsletter itself.

The importance of a good blog cannot be understated. Good marketers know that most of the social media efforts all lead to a blog post – the goal being to get the user off the social network and to your site to consume and convert. A well- planned and executed blog is essential to your Success.

 Forms

We use one of the most powerful and easy to use form systems for our site. At this point, the concept of a form has evolved. You will want to have a contact form and you may even want to have a specific contact form for your different departments- be it HR or customer support. You’ll also need to have referral forms or capture forms to sign up users to your ever growing and important email list. Many do this by offering some sort of free item to encourage the user to give over their active email address; there are many ways to do this.

The main goal of all these forms is to communicate to the customer with the ability to go in both directions. Successful knows this and we live it. We also can connect your form submissions to your email client of choice- be it our favorite Aweber, or Constant Contact, MailChimp or another service. We even connect directly into SalesForce. Don’t forget about polls, quizzes, surveys, and other types of interactive forms we can use to connect you to your customer. We’ve got that covered.

 Backup

Successful offers a cloud- based package that has backup occurring whenever you want them to. We talk to you and find out how often you intend to make updates and changes, and then set the backups to that. This is not just backing up the database, but backing up the entire site. We then email or mail you a copy of that backup so you are always ready, no matter what.

Keeping your site up and running as well as the ability to recover from any unforeseen incident is a definite marker of a triumphant business. One thing some people don’t consider is that we have used backup for our framework partners when they have made a mistake on their end and needed to go back. We have them. As the saying goes, “prepare for sunshine, but build dikes.” When we are on it, you are on it.

 Cloud

All of our offerings outside of the actual tangible print products are hosted in the cloud. What this means is that your data and information is on multiple servers out there in the world. It is not cloud computing, but cloud storage, although in the past, just working on your site on the internet would be considered cloud computing, but that wonderful marketing phrase had not been invented. We have you on the cloud so if you want to walk on air – step forward confidently.

 Downloadable Content

Successful sets you up with the ability to host files on your server. You can allow your user to download anything that is out there without nasty viruses, which don’t get through since your server runs checks to keep them out. This is an easy way to distribute your content and vision all over the world, plus it adds the extra benefit that search engines love many of these file types such as Adobe PDFs and Word Documents.

In the case that you need to host massive files, we can either upgrade your server account, which has an associated cost, but likely we would direct you to and set you up on one of the larger servers like Amazon S3 which can host or stream your content at a much better price then we can. We will do the work -you just create those beautiful files. Your customer wants to download something; a successful business gives them the ability to do that.

 Security

Security is critical for everyone, and even moreso for our clients who host private documents. Successful offers a package that covers internet security and is updated with the newest hotfix on a daily basis. We use multiple programs to do this, with a couple running on your site itself and another couple running on the server itself. Is it infallible? No. Take a look at Target, Home Depot, and our own government. They have more resources than us, yet they still got hacked.

What we have is the best most cutting edge solutions that our community can provide, and as of yet we have not had a single hacking incident. We have even had clients move to us because they had been hacked and knew that security was a large concern and benefit of our solution. We set our recommended security measures and then will discuss them with you to customize. For example, we can ban entire countries from viewing your site or even a specific page (some companies will use this for a marketing tool).

We can also let you know who, based on IP, has been suspected of invading your site, and then ban them. You can get alerts telling you who has logged in the minute it happens. We are serious about security so that you don’t have to worry about it. It’s part of our job.

 Customer Service (CS)

We have the ability to help you with your customer service. Many of our clients opt to take this package, since it has been useful, especially if you offer downloadable content. When a user has a tough time downloading a file or getting the file to play on their device, we see the email and advise them from a technical aspect on how to proceed.

We reply to any website based question or concern and make sure that customers get to a happy solution. We’ve even made corrections to a site when a user complains something is misspelled. You’d be surprised how useful our customer service offering can be to you, and if it is something we think you don’t need, we will let you know. A Successful company helps their customers Succeed.

 Why WordPress (WP)?

Simply put, WordPress is the most eloquent solution for the vast majority of our clients to use. From our experience, the other content management systems (CMS) out there have had a very frustrating and difficult learning curve. People simply get frustrated, which resulted in the client not using them. Furthermore, we would have to do all the updates manually, which would get expensive for both parties. A big part of our service is to give You the power to manage and control your site. We love to provide guidance and analytical direction, but we want you to be empowered.

Another important reason is that WordPress has a large, diverse community with innovation, support, and excellence. Through the community and our experience we can do anything you see on the web and more. The WordPress framework is constantly evolving, influencing, adapting, and developing the web. We feel very strongly that it has a solid, reliable presence for now and in the future.

What is the negative? Critics of WordPress might say that it has many positive aspects, but it is not secure. We disagree with this and have taken actions to make sure that your successful site is absolutely secure. We use a number of plugins and custom code to ensure this. We can even send you emails letting you know exactly who is logging on your site and when.

WordPress is our technology of choice. However, we do at times work within Drupal / Joomla, or directly with html when it is the best solution for the project. There is strategy to what we do- from using the most impactful color palette to the design of the layout and form fields. We are full- service and do it all from inception, graphics, development, and code, all the way to the launch and marketing support throughout the life of the project. Aim, impact, and action guide us in our work.

Bottomline: Currently WordPress is the most successful and easy-to-use platform available, powering 25% of the web. We enjoy Success, don’t you?

 Ongoing Website Management

Whether or not we developed your website, we can take care of it for you. Whatever level of involvement is needed, we can do it– from regular data entry to the full management of your site, including strategy, content creation and marketing, copywriting, search engine optimization, creative, and technical support.

We can also perform a structural and content- based full site audit, and then will advise you if anything is needed outside of just standard maintenance. This is like taking your car to a trusted, professional mechanic and making sure that the car is actually safe to drive on the information highway. We like to do this step simply to make sure that the site you have is strong enough to be the mouthpiece of your success.

 Mobile | Responsive Design

We can build a responsive website from the ground up. This means that we build a site to suit different audiences viewing on different types of devices – from cell phones to Macs, tablets to PCs, from the large screen to the smallest. We take into consideration the vast variety of browsers and operating systems. We can also modify an older site to become responsive. Your site is constantly viewed by desktop computers with huge monitors, laptops, phones and even code bots in all types of sizes and shapes.

A responsive site makes you look great, on all these different devices to these different audiences. As the browser screen size shrinks, your website adapts to optimally display on those varying dimensions. With more and more customers doing their viewing on the phone or tablet, this is becoming common. Responsive web design is important and a must. If you own an older site, we highly recommend taking action to make it responsive as soon as possible. When it comes down to success, we want to make you look good and give your customer the ability to find what they are looking for and love it.

 Web Hosting | SSL | Domain Name

When we develop or pick up your current site, it is important that you consider hosting with us. The reason we ask this is not only because we know our hosting solution is one of the best, but also the because we are able to manage and control our servers much better. There are no hidden variables to surprise anyone when we add a functionality or improvement to your site. Some web hosts will turn off functions that your developer needs to make the site optimal so that they can save money (I’m looking at you GoDaddy and 1 and 1). You’d be surprised at the tricks hosting companies will do to increase profits, so we encourage you to host on our servers to avoid this. Also, we never have to say, “Sorry your host doesn’t support this.” We care about you and want you to succeed with us – trust me on this one.

Successful hosting is backed by a personal and responsive support service on an enterprise, cloud- based VPN system. We are there when you need us. We offer free migration and cPanel control panel (the best around). We customize your plan to the amount of space you need and adjust to meet your growing needs, both in terms of bandwidth and storage. We also work with Amazon S3 and a couple of other cloud- based services for sites needing heavy streaming and storage of over 20GB. We are serious about the need to host and promise to offer some of the best out there. We also charge a low price for the industry because we feel it is better for us to be at cost or even lose a bit of money on hosting to make sure you are not getting set up with an unreliable host.

We do not set up your domain names for you. Hosting and domain names are separate. The domain name is the actually name of your site and controlled by the W3C. Hosting is where your files are kept and served. Domain names are the most basic and important parts of a site and your brand, so we want you to be in full control. We will, however, help set it up under your name if need be. We recommend “Namecheap” far above any other domain registry. Be careful to avoid any domain registry that spends a lot of time upselling you services. There are a lot of these. Most of the time they will charge a premium for a service you should get for free.

SSL (Secure Socket Layer or advanced security) has recently become very important. SSL with site speed are pieces of your site we insist on getting right, but are often overlooked by others. Google recently announced that over the coming years they will be giving sites with SSL more and more advantages. We implore you to consider getting SSL certification as soon as possible. It costs roughly $80 a year at present, and we can set it up for you so it is hands- off on your end. We can’t promise to get you the best in SEO if you don’t get SSL. It’s important to your success.