Category: policies

Looking Back at 2023, Looking Forward to 2024

Posted on by Stephen

Illustration created for Johnny B Painting

Looking Back at 2023

2023 was personally, and for Schildbach Design, a great year. With the COVID pandemic behind us, and having spent my first full year living in a rural environment in decades, I’m able to focus more on my business and creative projects. Half way through the year, I developed a clearer picture of what my clients were needing. I’ll explain this with a percentage breakdown of what kind of work Schildbach Design did last year, including some personal work projects.

46% Web Design

WordPress sites continue to be what my clients need, or they are flexible and agree that because it is my specialty, I should build and design within a framework I know well. Almost half of my time at work is building websites, redesigning old sites, or adding additions to old sites.

19% Administration

Anyone who runs their own business knows how much administrative work is required. Almost 1/5th of my time is email, cleaning and organizing my computer and office, digital paperwork, record keeping, taxes, estimates, applications, and invoicing. All of this mundane work is essential for running my business.

17% Illustration

Partially separate from Schildbach Design, is my previous career of being an illustrator. Website illustration is an alternative to stock art if you have the budget. Unrelated to my client websites, I also create product illustration, children’s book illustrations, and editorial illustration part time.

8% Fine Art

Entirely separate from Schildbach Design is my fine art. Occasionally, I have art patrons who will commission me to create a painting for them. Or, I occasionally will create drawings for group gallery shows. In keeping with my attention to client work, the percentage of time I put toward these creative endeavors is small.

4% Graphic Design

I’ve been doing graphic design professionally for 30 years but there was very little request for it in 2023. The hardest part about this digital download economy we live in is fields like graphic design have been replaced by templates and downloading existing designs. Starting in 2023, AI has replaced creatives by typing a command line to create a logo. I am deeply saddened by this. I miss the times of David Carson and Milton Glaser, two graphic designers who taught me to think creatively and take risks.

4% Photography

It is quite laughable that I did as much architectural photography as I did graphic design considering I’m not a photographer. But, one of my web design clients needed architectural photography for his website portfolio, and I have a camera that can do wide angle shots for home interior photography.

1% Videography

Occasionally I will do videography for my clients. They are simple videos for social media and YouTube posts. I shoot the videos with my mirrorless camera, and do editing in Adobe Premiere.

1% Marketing Schildbach Design

Most of my clients are referrals and repeat clients, so I don’t need to market Schildbach Design very much. Marketing includes SEO, social media, newsletters, and print and online advertising I do to attract new clients. I’m grateful to my clients for all the referrals and repeat work!

Looking forward to 2024

Starting today, January 3rd, 2024, my rates for hourly work is going up from $75 an hour to $80 an hour. I will still offer the same web maintenance packages at 5% and 10% off my hourly rate.

About half way through 2023, I made a change to my business strategy that I will be continuing through 2024. Prior to July of 2023, I was putting a lot of energy into trying to get graphic design, illustration assignments, and new website builds because these are the most creative projects. I’ve become more of a realist in that I’m focusing more on what my clients need. The most important things I’ve found that my clients need is consulting, web maintenance, systems administration (hosting, domain, and email setup), production (posting site content), and increasing their visibility (SEO, newletters, social media). So, in 2024, I’m focusing on cleaning up existing websites and working on the peripheral tasks associated with a website (like search engine optimization), and utilizing the best tools to serve my clients.

Happy New Year!

I look forward to working with you in 2024.

Search Engine Optimization: Marketing and SEO with Holmes, Poirot and Marlowe

Posted on by Stephen

Search Engine Optimization is one of the most important aspects of a business’ online marketing. Search Engine Optimization could be a full time job, and is for some people, but what I prefer to do is offer it to a select few clients while I maintain my focus on being a web designer. Here are just some of the particular SEO tactics I use, to bring more business to you:

  • WORKING TOGETHER. A big part of improving SEO is we work together on specific tasks. I can’t get results without the client working with me. This means modifying page content, being willing to writing blog entries, and trying social media advertising.
  • ONLINE TOOLS. I use Google Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics and if you have a WordPress site—Yoast. My biggest advantage over using these free tools on your own is I use a paid service from SERPS.com that reveals the ways we can improve the SEO on your website and how to maximize the results of the most important keywords for your business.
  • WOMAN POWER. My assistant Leslie Timmons helps analyze the statistics with me, so that we can brain storm the most appropriate approaches for your particular business.
  • MORE THAN SEO. To strengthen the results of your SEO, I consult and work with you to create a multi-layered approach of email newsletters, social media, online advertising, and other tactics outside of, but linked to your website.
  • PERFORMANCE BASED COST. Except for a non-refundable deposit, most of the cost is based on reaching particular goals we agree upon. You only pay for the goals that are reached. This is very different from advertising in a magazine, where you pay the full amount weather you drive up business or not. For example, if there are 6 specified goals and only 4 are reached, after the deposit, you pay two thirds of the cost.

I’m a designer first and foremost, creating well-designed websites and business identities for my clients. If you want someone who specializes in SEO only, I can recommend an expert to you. But, for most small businesses, institutions, non-profits, and creative projects, one of these three packages will provide the results you seek. The three SEO packages I offer use similar tactics to bring more people to your site, but are each different in how thorough I am with the work, the duration the work lasts, and of course, the cost.

Before commencing my work, I provide a contract with the stated goals and keyword phrases I recommend. Your feedback is integral in modifying the contract until we both agree that these are realistic goals I can accomplish and my goals will bring you more business.

Go to my Search Engine Optimization Page.

 

Reach People With An Email Newsletter

Posted on by Stephen

Wondering how to get people to your website? There are many ways, and your tactics should depend on your business or project. If you have interesting information to share, something to teach, or worthwhile offers, an email newsletter is a great way to to reach out to potential clients and attract them to your website.

My recommendation using MailChimp for marketing with email newsletters. For emails lists under 2000 subscribers and 12,000 emails a month, THERE IS NO COST. I seriously don’t know how they do it. Their product is better than most other email newsletter services who charge for any size mailing list, and charge for any number of newsletters.

Don’t be pushy. People get enough junk mail. Have a sign up list on your website and build a mailing list from the people you meet, and the people you are connected to. It is actually illegal (to what degree, depends on the country you live in) to “cold call” or buy lists and send large quantities to random people. And, that is not Schildbach Design’s approach either. Keep your lists small and make each person matter. It is also required that you have an “unsubscribe” button and a business address. I really like the “unsubscribe” feature, because then you know only people who really want your newsletter are getting it. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had this feature for physical snail mail junk mail?

MailChimp and other email newsletter services are easy to set up and have design templates for your “campaigns” so you don’t need a designer or web developer. But, if you are particular about your visual branding, the templates are not going to look like your website or the rest of your business identity. If you need to make an email newsletter design that matches your business identity or are simply too busy to send your own e-newsletters, Schildbach Design can cover these services for you.

Schildbach Design Services

MailChimp, Constant Contact, Vertical Response (or other account) Set Up
$200 Non-Profit, Creative Project/$300 Business, Institution

Email Newsletter Custom Design
$300 Non-Profit, Creative Project/$450 Business, Institution

Monthly Campaign
$100 Non-Profit, Creative Project/$150 Business, Institution

Being A Bluehost Affiliate

Posted on by Stephen



Schildbach Design is a Bluehost affiliate. If you are not happy with your present web host, or are in need of web hosting, I recommend Bluehost. I have a dedicated IP with Bluehost and have been very happy with the quality and service Bluehost provides. Signing up is a win/win situation for the both of us, you get a great web host and I’m paid $100 by Bluehost every time someone signs up through my website by clicking on the large promotional link above. Regardless of the payment, I would still recommend Bluehost for any small business, creative project or non-profit. Bluehost even seems to handle medium to large businesses well, I just don’t work with medium to large businesses. CLICK ON THE BIG BLUE BUTTON ABOVE.

Website Maintenance Plan & Tech Support Packages

Posted on by Stephen

Every business needs to have a website maintenance plan for their website. The economical route is to do it yourself. But, having a professional maintain your website frees up your time to do what you are good at—your own profession. See the top 10 most common forms of website maintenance that Schildbach Design does for clients.

Schildbach Design offers Website Maintenance Plan & Tech Support Packages. My Production schedule is usually full, so I request clients prepay for a website maintenance package. I rarely have time for “on call” web maintenance and tech support without these pre-purchased, time based, fixed rate packages. Entrepreneur Magazine has a article about why you need to keep your website in good shape.

This has been a win/win situation for both myself and the client. Many clients have purchased, and are happy with this new policy. With this change, I have a more structured, manageable production schedule, and clients needing tech support have my agreement, that I will get to their maintenance requests, updates, and tech support within 48 hours (unless I am on vacation, and then I will refer you to either my colleague Leslie Timmons or Shaun D. Vine).

For clients needing maintenance and tech support, who choose not to purchase the packages, they will have a wait time of 2-4 weeks for me to get to your requests. I apologize for this wait, but I am booked that far ahead.

Here are the specific parameters of the maintenance plans:

Policies for Website Maintenance Plan Packages

  • Package options are 5 hour, 10 hour and 20 hour
  • Non-profits, individuals businesses and institutions pay $54 an hour
  • The 10 hour package has a 5% discount off the hourly rates
  • The 20 hour packages has a 10% discount off the hourly rates
  • Rates are $270 for 5 hrs, $513 for 10 hrs, and $972 for 20 hrs
  • I invoice at the beginning of work, payment must be received by the time I’ve completed 2 hours of work
  • Packages apply to maintenance, upgrades, troubleshooting, consulting and tech support
  • These packages can not be used for large pay by project jobs
  • The package expires in 2 years after submission of the invoice. If unused hours remain, Schildbach Design returns the value of the remaining hours
  • You receive a status email after any work is done (stating the hours used and remaining), and a final project report when the hours are used up
  • When hours are used up, you can either buy another package, or choose to go back to by the hour costs
  • If you are unhappy with the progress of the maintenance and can articulate why, I will return the prorated cost for the unused hours back to you

And, of course, please contact me with any questions.