Archive for February, 2007

This before and after full color graphic illustrates a completed logo next to the separated components. The effect was created in vector graphics using Xara Xtreme. Study the sample to see how bevels, transparency, and cloned elements may be combined for a professional look.

Bonus Tip for Your Website: Artwork for print always prints darker than what you view on your pc monitor. To have matching graphics on your website when creating artwork in Xara Xtreme, change your view in the menu under “window” to “show printer colors/simulate print colors”. Graphics will appear darker now. Next, export your graphic in jpg or gif and your website color scheme will match your printed materials.

You may download a 30 day free trial of Xara Xtreme here (affiliate link). Unlike other more expensive vector graphics programs, Xara is easy for beginners to use and costs less than $100.

Please email suggestions for any Xara design tutorial you would like featured here.

You can have a real estate website with valid code to worldwide standards from W3C, the WorldWideWeb Consortium. The technique requires coding in XHTML (eXtensible HyperText Markup Language) with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), and the example website recently launched for Latin Connection Realty, Inc. meets those standards with zero errors.

In addition to XHTML and CSS, the design meets accessiblity standards, also, as evidenced in the following links.

XHTML: W3C XHTML Validation Results
CSS: W3C CSS Validation Results
Accessibility: HiSoftware Accessibility Results

In addition the pages stretch to fill the screen no matter what the visitor’s pc monitor size. The technical combination assures pages will display well today and into the future. This forward looking concept was part of the reasoning behind the worldwide standards recommendation for using XHTML with CSS. This explains why I refer to my advanced techniques as websites “designed for the future”.

Finally, the email links are all cloaked so the info@ email and all the other real estate agent email addresses cannot be harvested by spam bots. The combined technique provides benefits to visitors and search engines.

Visit my main site and the page for website design for more details, features, and advice. Still wonder why this is important for any website, not just real estate? Email me for details.

You may be like many small business owners, and learning to type was not a priority in high school. I’m glad I did, and often see others struggle with email because typing wasn’t an important part of their education. Invest in a typing course. It will be worth your time.

Here’s a free typing test online that you may want to try. I clocked in just under 70 words per minute.

There are great software programs available now, and taking daily lessons for 15-30 minutes could enhance your skills in a surprisingly short time. Experienced typists could benefit as well.

Learn at a steady pace in your spare time. Email, reports, and just taking notes will be so much easier. Comments or questions are welcome.

At times my small business clients for custom website design have reported receiving very official looking documents in the mail concerning their www domain, and I get them, too. Some are designed like an invoice, or others warn about pending domain expiration.

Be careful of scams. Small business owners are especially susceptible to these offers because many lose track of who originally helped them register their www domain.

Often these are not from your original registrar because your domain expiration date is public information which others try to use to their advantage. Usually the notices are an attempt to convert you to a competitor’s service at a higher fee. My previous blog post about WhoIs, and the article about Why You Need to Visit WhoIs on my main site will provide more details about what to do.

Email me for advice if you ever have doubts about offers involving the www domain for your website, or you think it’s a scam.

The lastest addition to the Small Business Resource Center includes pricing for custom website design and prices for custom artwork for printed marketing materials.

In addition, when providing text content there’s an important tip for helping your designer and making your job easier:

“Often text content is one of the most difficult aspects of helping your designer. Many small business owners know their business inside and out, but have trouble documenting this information. Writing skills and perfect content or spelling are NOT necessary.”

For each section of your project it will often be enough to write a list of bullets or phrases that describe what you do and the benefit to your customers. I’ll do the rest. You may view website and custom artwork prices here.

Here’s a summary list of 7 sales tips for small business owners from a recently published advice article. You know the value of what you offer, so how do you convince a prospective customer? Understanding the psychology of what happens during the sales process requires empathy. Read the full article with sales tips here. Details are given on each of the following:

Tip #1: People buy based on emotion more often than reason.

Tip #2: People will buy from someone they trust.

Tip #3: People are not looking just at you.

Tip #4: People will open up if given a chance.

Tip #5: People are usually sold before you ask for the order.

Tip #6: People will forgive mistakes if you remain honest.

Tip #7: People will not forgive a dishonest salesperson.

In conclusion, the value of placing what your customer wants, or needs, ahead of your sales quota or personal interests will help you succeed. Repeat sales depend on a business relationship where you care about your customers. Adapt your thinking to solving problems instead of selling something. The best salespersons are still those who are good listeners.

Consider the value of adding a free business card calendar to your printed marketing materials. Part of my business model includes ways to lower operating costs for small business clients. As a result, I’m offering 300 dpi original artwork for a 2007 business card calendar at no charge.

This $25 value is my way of contributing to the small business community. Here’s a jpg graphic in low resolution. The top and bottom text lines (in red) are not in the final art and the business card background will be white, not grey.

What’s the catch? There is none. Simply right click the following link and “save target as” to get your high resolution free 2007 calendar artwork.

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Real estate agents frequently order custom door hangers, and the most popular are 3″ x 8″ with full color on both sides and a precut door knob hole. Here are some tips and advice to consider before ordering.

The best way to comparison shop is look at total cost for artwork and printing because most printers have minimums including setup costs. Quality is important, also. Some clients have reported problems from other sources because the ink smudged just rubbing the door hanger or streaked from moisture.

Be sure to ask up front about quality, and always ask for the artwork. I create custom designs, and unlike some sources, you keep the artwork, so you are free to shop around for printing. Each month new clients ask about recreating an advertising piece because their designer moved or went out of business. Having your artwork protects you in the future when you need to reorder.

My recommended source for printing has a 5000 piece minimum, so shop around to get your best price. Here’s a price guide for custom door hangers, so you may compare sources.

Artwork paid to me is $75 and then printing and die cut paid to the printer is $300 plus tax and freight. You may want pricing from other sources for smaller quantities. Be careful because most printers quote the price of printing PLUS the die cut. My recommended source does that, too; however, the $300 (plus approx. $30 for tax and freight) includes the die cut. Perhaps your total cost makes buying a higher quantity a better choice if you only want 500 or 1000.

I look forward to helping you. View examples of custom door hangers here. Let me know if you have any questions.

This tutorial shows how I created a limousine service business card using layers of photos and graphics. This Florida limo owner specified he wanted a card with 2 palm trees, a towncar, and the sun. The following sequence illustrates how the effect was created with 3 photographs and custom graphics. I substituted a Florida sunset photo instead of the sun to improve the overall layout.

Step 1: The photo of two palm trees cropped 3-1/2″ x 2.0″:

Step 2: The limousine company logo graphic was added next:

Step 3: A green graphic to simulate grass was used across the bottom:

Step 4: The pink sunset photo overlay blends in to the palm tree photo:

Step 5: Next, the towncar photo hides the floating palm tree effect:

Step 6: The name, phone, and other details completes the look:

If the palm tree photo looks familiar, it was used in a previous post comparing a photo in screen view and printed. When creating custom business cards it is important to give each client a unique look. If doing a card design for your company, consider combining photos to appear as a single scene. Visit the business card gallery on my main site to view more custom card examples.

Photographs used for business cards or other printed marketing materials will display differently on your computer screen compared to the actual printed piece. This photograph shows the original screen view (left) of palm trees and the sky, and then a simulation of the same photo when printed (right) in a 4-color professional process.

Colors will be vivid, but the 4 color process will make them appear duller and usually darker than the original.

Graphic artists have tricks to improve the finished work. Begin with a quality photograph. Enhancing brightness to offset the difference from the screen view to your printed business card is another. Questions or comments are welcome.