YOU ARE AWESOME!
To make it easier for you, we’ve collected helpful information and forms all in one place just for you!
We’ve also created a Partner Space for every Partner that wants a backend way to track projexts, tasks & communicate with your Project Manager!
WEBSITE
Below is a PDF of our website process, maintaining options for after the site is completed, as well as options for growing your site’s visibility. Click below to open – and feel free to share as you need!
BRANDING
BRANDING
From the start, our team works with you and your team to craft your new incredible look!
DEFINE
We start simple with a form we've created to help you think about the ins and outs of your new brand or brand update!
ONE
DESIGN
We start running right away creating multiple concepts with your brand, mission and demographic in mind.
TWOREFINE
Then we work with you to find out what you like & don't like. From colors & shapes to fonts and typography placement.
THREEBOOM
We're done! We hand the logo files over to you in .eps, .jpg, & .png for all your branding needs!
SIXOur next steps are up to you! Typically this includes a full round of web development, print materials, sermon design art, roll-in videos… the works!
we create a visual impact that strengthens your message and shares your story
FAQ
In general, the sooner the better!
A lot of it depends on the number of revisions, the complexity or size of the project. But, here are our best estimates at general timeframes for projects start to finish.
General project length considerations:
- Keep in mind, each round of revisions lengthens the timeframe.
- These turnaround times are estimated with 1-2 rounds of revisions.
- These are estimated in Working days (Monday – Friday).
- The larger the project, the more lead time is needed.
- The larger the project, the more
- These timeframes begin at the point we receive All content, assets & instructions.
- Small Project: 2-4 days
- Postcard
- Business Card
- Social Graphic
- Announcement slide
- Small Website Page Revision
- Medium Project: 2-5 days
- Poster
- Banner
- Large Project: 4-10 days
- Pamphlet
- 10-page booklet
- Small event branding with multiple assets
- New functionality to your website
- XL Project: 7-20 days
- Large Event Branding
- Assets
- Website additions
- Any Strategy Document
- Voice Document
- Style Guide
- Brand Guide
- Campaign Strategy
- SEO Strategy
- Marketing Strategy
- Etc.
- Large Event Branding
- New Website: est. 2 months start to finish click here for more info on website strategy
- Booklets or Books:
- In general, it requires about an hour per page so for booklets and books we provide you with a custom timeframe estimate.
- To be safe, if you’re needing a booklet, please submit your request As Soon As Possible.
Each project is as individual as the partner!
We’ve found that each project, even if we’ve done that ‘type project’ a million times, can require different lengths of time for many reasons, below are a few:
- The number of rounds of revisions
- Not receiving all of the content or assets needed to start from the partner
- Working it into our work-flow
- The number of final assets that go into the project
- The number of people that have to approve the project or give feedback
- The personality type of the partner can also effect the timeframe.
- We celebrate ALL personality types and their differences – we’ve discovered that Type B personalities seem to complete projects more quickly and are able to span a larger number of projects in the same amount of hours.
All this being said, we provide a range for a lot of reasons but, we do know that the longer we partner with any partner our timeframes become shortner and shorter through the partnership!
As we work hourly, each estimate is given as a range. We’ve landed on these estimates after over a decade of serving missional businesses, but know that every business is unique! We celebrate that, but acknowledge it can affect estimates by either making projects less or more in hours.
- STANDARD LOGO: 7-20 hours
- BRANDING ASSETS: 4-15 hours
- (depending on # of assets)
- Solid Starter Website: 60-75 hours
- Solid FULL site: 70-90 hours
- Event Design: 15-35 hours
- (depending on # of assets)
- SEO: 1-10 hours a week
- Social media: 1-5 hours a week
- (depending on # of posts)
- Eblasts: 1-2 hours per blast
- Print materials:
- multi-page booklet averages 1 hour per page
- 4-panel brochure 2-6 hours
- large poster 2-6 hours
- postcard 2-4 hours
- flier 2-5 hours
- Fill out Website Questionnaire
- Send your project manager all content and assets you want to be used on the site.
- photos/imagery/text/logo
- Purchase Domain
- We can help with this if you need help!
- Purchase Hosting
- WE LOVE FLYWHEEL! If you don’t have hosting we can hook you up!
- Give us all login info for domain & hosting
- Also any 3rd party login you may already have: Google Analytics / Google Search Console / Bing Webmaster Tools /Online Giving / Etc…
- Site map for the new site if you have one, or we can help with that!
3 options for Maintaining your site!
Epic Website Management:
Once we finish designing your website, it is signed off on and we launch, we maintain your stream of content. Updating pages, calendars, graphics and directories as needed. Someone on your staff to serve as our point person to share new events, requests, and updates with us and we would take care of the rest!
Shared Website Management:
Once we finish your website, it is signed off on and we launch, you let us know what parts of the site you want us to manage, and that you want to manage. We’re always available for changes to your site and new pages.
Epic Designs for Hand-Off:
Once we finish the website, it is signed off on and we launch, we fully hand the reigns over to you to maintain and edit.
Most people choose some sort of Shared Website Management – For example, they choose to update the flowing content like events or the blog – and we manage running the updates, checking for functionality, editing the major pages of the site and building out new pages.
Sometimes it’s 50/50, sometimes its 80/20! Whatever is helpful to you!
Awesome question!
Once we build a site, we love to incorporate maintenance hours to help you keep your site running perfectly! It’s crazy to think that something digital could break down over time, but it does. The internet is constantly changing around your site! We help you by taking over the dirty work and help to protect you from:
1. Getting hacked
There are almost always places were hackers can get into your site – by keeping everything updated and running smoothly, you greatly decrease your risk of being hacked! We’re like digital bouncers 🤣
2. Potential damage to your site
The longer you wait, the more risk you have that you will encounter a problem when you finally update your site. The more often you update, the less likely problems will arise.
3. Wasted moola & time
When you fail to make updates when they become available, but then need to go back and make them later, it turns into a much larger development. The developer will need to spend much more time making the updates because the impact to the site is greater due to the increased number of updates and module changes over time. More time is also needed because of the increased functionality on the site affected. Implementing the update when it becomes available provides you with the latest and greatest functionality right away, overall improving your site.
4. Broken features & bad user experience
Site updates provide new features and functionality to your website. Why wouldn’t you want new features for your WordPress or Drupal site? The sooner you implement the update, the sooner you get that new functionality. Think of why you always are updating your phone. That is, if you’re using an older version of WordPress, your overall experience is a lot different and often slower than someone using the latest version.
5. Decreased speeeeeed
There’s a reason for new releases. Each release comes with various performance improvements that make your website more efficient. When you visit a site, and it takes too long to load – do you get impatient and navigate off? Website performance goes hand-in-hand with conversions and site results. Speed also has an impact on SEO.
While there’s more than just five reasons to update your site, we’re listing the ones that we believe are the most valuable. Making these regular updates will help you avoid potential downfalls, save you time and money, and make your site secure as possible. If it seems like an overwhelming and intimidating process to handle on your own, don’t worry, that’s why we’re here.
* Information from an excellent article on www.traktekpartners.com
In short, YES, very.
Do you know where your website is? Not physically, of course. If someone who had never heard of you were searching online, how would they find your organization? Would someone new to your area have to go through 2 or 3 Google search pages before you showed up in the results? Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is a strategy that works to improve your site’s location in search results. The goal is to make your website easier to find by the people who are looking for what you have to offer.
Ranking at the top of the search results for the relevant keywords can make a huge difference for your site. Showing up in the 5th spot or lower means you have less than a 5% chance of being clicked on. If you aren’t on the first page your chances of being clicked on are less than 1%. That means that without SEO, people who haven’t already heard about you, are going to have a hard time finding you. Fortunately with good SEO, it is like getting a great location for your business, you’ll be easier to find, and stay present in people’s minds. On top of that, excellent SEO can mean spending less in other outreach areas!
For the same reason that it is important for any other organization, because someone in your area is searching Google for a church just like yours right now. For example, in the city of Nashville, the word “church” is searched for up to ten thousand times per month! The keyword phrase “Sunday school” is searched for another thousand times per month.
37% of all Americans searching for a new church, and 59% of adults 30 or younger used an online search to find their new church. Only 20% found their church by being invited by family or friends.
SEO is an essential part of church growth. Many people are reluctant to discuss religion with friends or coworkers but are quick to go to Google. SEO is how you can make sure that you are there waiting for them!
I can’t wait to dive into this with you! There are 3 general aspects of SEO:
Technical SEO
Technical SEO has to do with how your site is built. There are a couple of things that are extra important. Speed is a big one. If your site takes a looooong time to load, people are going to leave. And if Google knows that people are going to leave, then they aren’t going to bother showing your site to people in the first place. Also Google is
REALLY in love with how your site performs on mobile devices.
Content
Content is the most important part of your SEO strategy. Not just content, but regular quality content, and lots of it. Google determines what your site is about by reading the content on your site. That means that you need more than just pictures (since Google can’t see what is in your beautiful pictures), you need great shareable text that clearly tells what you do and what you have to offer. And you need to answer questions that people are actually asking, not just what you think they are asking.
Links
Links (where you insert the address of someone else’s site on your site or vice versa) are like the currency of the internet because they are so valuable. Generally speaking, if content is how Google knows what your site is about, links are how Google knows if you know what you’re talking about. In social media there is sharing, for the rest of the internet there are links.
Let’s say that you have a real estate website. You’ve been working real hard on your content, have created landing pages for different areas that you cover and have a blog where you write about home buying tips and current trends. Your content is quality and regular. If there are no links to your site, Google might think that even though you have lots of quality, you might not really know what you’re talking about.