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Over the years, we’ve done a lot of websites for non-profits. It has basically become an unintentional niche for us. We had fun analyzing the election websites in the previous blog, so we decided to do a similar exercise with a subject we have even more experience with. We decided to choose the websites of just three Cedar Rapids non-profits at random for the sake of keeping it short, though there are of course many other amazing Cedar Rapids non-profits that aren’t listed here.

Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation

What the site does well:

• The calls-to-action here are great. The “Donate” and “Login” buttons are prominent and are differentiated from the surroundings by their colors, leading people’s eyes directly to them. This is great placement and usage of these calls-to-action, and my guess is that this donate button has generated a good amount of revenue for them simply because they make it easy for site visitors to give money! Cedar Rapids non-profits, and non-profits everywhere, need to make it as easy as possible for folks to give money online.
• Right below the header image, they list three major metrics that show how successful and effective they are, which immediately injects confidence into the site visitor who is planning on donating. These particular figures they have displayed tell the donor “Hey, we do this a lot, give us your money and it will be put to good use.”
• There’s a lot on this website, but the navigation is done very well, making it easy to get to each section you might be looking for. The drop-downs on the main menu are clean and function well (there’s nothing worse than a drop-down that disappears on you).

Where it can improve:

• This is a great website, so it’s hard to find things to improve on it. One thing that stands out, however, is that the images in the header on the front page aren’t the highest quality. They’re a bit grainy, and with a website this professional, it’s expected that the images are crisp and professionally done.
• There are two navigation bars on the homepage, one along the very top that has “news, events, etc.” and then the main navigation with “about us, donors, etc.” There really should only be one, for simplicity’s sake and for the sake of the aesthetic. Perhaps there’s a good reason why they have these two navigation menus, but ultimately one is preferred.

Families Helping Families of Iowa

What the site does well:

• Two big things stand out as positives right off the bat – first, the images used are high quality and look great all all screen sizes. Second, the call-to-action to “Donate Now” is nice and prominent right there at the top. They’ve clearly thought through what their primary goal is for their site visitors, and they created their site to be as conducive as possible to achieving that goal.
• “Families Helping Families” is a bit of a vague name, so it’s crucial for them to clearly state what exactly they do in a clear and concise way. They communicate this very well on the homepage with the short sentences in the header slideshow, as well as in the three icons below the header that state their mission, specific programs, and their volunteer opportunities. You feel “bought in” very quickly after coming to the site because they do a great job of showing what they do and how you can be a part of it.
• Rounding out the homepage, they continue to make great use of space with both a touching video and some quick statistics further showing why the work they do is so important and impactful. We’ve discussed before how videos can be an effective marketing tool, and having some hard hitting statistics always gets your value across in a clear and digestible way. They do a great job of showing other Cedar Rapids non-profits how to win over your site visitors by pulling on heart strings.

Where it can improve:

• They say nobody’s perfect… But this site is pretty close. Aside from nit-picky tweaks, there really isn’t anything to change about this site.

Gems of Hope

What the site does well:

• You can tell immediately upon arriving on the site what actions they want you to take, and that’s what makes an effective call-to-action. The actions of course are to donate and download their app.
• As you scroll down the home page, you see some key statistics, more calls-to-action (like to shop for their products or to become a volunteer), and even an informational video about volunteering – which are all positive points we made about the last website, so it’s great that they’re putting these things to good use on their site.
• Their workshops seem to be a major part of what they do, so it’s great that they have the schedule of all their upcoming workshops right there on the front page and easy to find. 

Where it can improve:

• The design on the home page is a bit crowded, with a little too much going on in the way of text and images. It would be most effective to have it be simplified and cleaned up so as to not distract site visitors from the calls-to-action that they ideally want them to click on.
• While their “Upcoming Workshops” schedule is updated and full of events, their “Upcoming Events” schedule is not. This could be because it simply hasn’t been updated (which is a problem), or it could be that they just don’t have very many events, in which case an events schedule front and center on the home page is unnecessary and they should utilize a different method of displaying their sparse events.

Big Imprint is a web design agency that serves the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City area. We’ve worked with over 40 Iowa City and Cedar Rapids non-profits.

It’s midterm election season again, and that means that a bunch of candidate websites have popped up all over the place. In the Cedar Rapids election world alone, there are a ton of candidates running for various offices both on the state and local levels. Without any regard for political party or candidate preferences, we’ve decided to analyze the Cedar Rapids election websites to see what each does well, and where each could improve.

Let’s start at the higher offices and work our way down to the local Cedar Rapids election sites.

Rick Stewart – Running for Secretary of Agriculture

What the site does well:

• The site contains a lot of information that clearly encompass his views on a variety of topics.
• He has a great call-to-action in the “99 Reasons to Vote for Rick” button, which takes you to a literal list of 99 reasons he thinks you should vote for him – clever and useful!
• He has an active social media presence, and it is embedded right there on his site.

Where it can improve:

• The overall design is pretty dated, could afford an updated, modern look.
• While there is a lot of information, it’s a little over the top with no clear path for site visitors to take. The “99 Reasons” call-to-action is good, but other than that, you really have to rifle through a lot of content to find what you’re looking for. Rick could afford to cut down on the information and just hone in on a few main points.

Bernie Hayes – Running for State Senate

What the site does well:

• The three main points are really nice below the header image. It shows Bernie’s main values and gives a good synopsis of what he’s all about.
• The site is clean and doesn’t overwhelm you with information.
• Clear call-to-action to donate is good.

Where it can improve:

• While the call-to-action to donate is good, it may be nice to have another call-to-action in case some people aren’t ready to contribute financially, such as a newsletter they can sign up for. It’s always good to have a way for folks to show they’re interested without necessarily just asking for their money.
• Again the site design is a bit dated. A little more color and pizzazz wouldn’t hurt to show more personality.

Rob Hogg – State Senate Incumbent

What the site does well:

• Again, the clean look doesn’t overwhelm people. The page is easily-scannable, and people can navigate to the relevant page they’re looking for.
• The calls-to-action are great, giving people the option to give money, or to contact them with questions. 
• The pictures are good, as they show a commitment to family, and position him as a doting father and husband.

Where it can improve:

• It’s always good to have another call-to-action besides just “contact us” and “donate.” Both of these actions require a little too much commitment, especially for folks who are just dipping their toes in the water. Make an easy, low friction option available to them, like “sign up for the newsletter” or “get my list of stances” where they can enter their email and get information, rather than giving money or entering into a conversation.
• Again the design of the website could use a little updating. Sites that don’t fit the full screen on a desktop show that they aren’t fully responsive, which is a given in modern web design.

Liz Bennett – State Representative District 65 Incumbent

What the site does well:

• The call-to-action here is great. She’s getting the word out by having folks host yard signs, which then gets more and more peoples’ attention and brings them to her website as well. That’s great usage of a call-to-action.
• The site is responsive and takes up the whole screen, and the navigation is clean and easy to understand.
• The social links are well-placed and are a great addition to get people to her social sites to like and share. Again, more great ways to spread the word.

Where it can improve:

• The site is a templated, simple site, and we of course like to see custom-designed websites. Regardless, Liz made the most of this and it still looks nice, modern enough, and most importantly for her, it was probably affordable.
• A little more color wouldn’t hurt to better engage Cedar Rapids election voters, but it’s a clean look that works well.

George Olmstead – Running for State Representative District 65

What the site does well:

• Great placement of calls-to-action.
• Nice little introductory paragraph that lets you get a feel for who George is (and his sense of humor).
• Clear navigation allows you to quickly get to the pages with the information you want to see, such as where he stands on issues and information about him and his life.

Where it can improve:

• Again, this was probably put together on a tight budget, with little to no time allocated toward design. With that said, this is an incredibly simple and seemingly outdated site, design-wise.
• More pictures of George would help. The one image of him on the homepage is small and a little stale. He seems to have a good personality, judging by the text on his site, so it would be great to show that personality in action with images of him shaking hands and interacting with his constituents.

Teresa Daubitz – Running for State Representative District 66

What the site does well:

• Nicely lays out who Teresa is front and center, with her biography being the main thing that you see on the page. 
• The call-to-action to register to vote is nice and helpful for folks who may not be registered. There’s also the option to sign up for her newsletter, which is a strong call-to-action for a candidate’s website.
• The usage of pictures of her interacting with constituents as well as other politicians is very strong. Shows her personality, experience, and that she cares.

Where it can improve:

• This appears to be a GOP-provided web system that is meant for GOP candidates to use on their campaign. That said, it must not be tended to properly by Teresa’s camp because the formatting is entirely out of whack. It’s a weird layout to begin with, then on top of that, things are shifted off-center and it looks a bit messy.
• The navigation is not along the top like most websites, which confuses site visitors when they first come to the site. When it comes to web design, it’s best to just follow the crowd and have a relatively standard format, because when you deviate from that it will commonly confuse and frustrate site visitors.

Art Staed – State Representative District 66 Incumbent

What the site does well:

• Clear formatting and navigation – which is always key.
• Calls-to-action across the home page are great. Clearly he emphasizes volunteering, so it’s good to have that call-to-action there in red to draw people’s attention to it.
• Lots of pictures, which are really great to show Art and his personality and involvement in the Cedar Rapids area.

Where it can improve:

• Not a modern design. It’s not responsive and doesn’t take up the whole screen, which is a dated look.
• Other than this, the site serves it’s overall purpose very well.

Eric Gjerde – running for State Representative District 67

What the site does well:

• This is probably the best Cedar Rapids election site of the bunch. The header image you see there of Eric shaking hands is actually a video that automatically plays, which looks great.
• The colors and pictures are engaging. 
• The call-to-action is front and center and really nicely designed.
• Quick facts about Eric scroll across the top where you currently see “Endorsed: Plumbers…” which is really cool and tells a lot about Eric’s history and where he stands on issues at a glance.

Where it can improve:

• Aside from nit-picking, there is really nothing to complain about here. This is a really great Cedar Rapids election website.

Ashley Hinson – State Representative District 67 Incumbent 

What the site does well:

• Again, like Eric’s before this, this is a really nicely designed website with great color and imagery.
• The site is responsive and fits to the whole screen. 
• Pictures are great and show Ashley interacting with politicians at the state house, showing her experience and credibility.

Where it can improve:

• The main thing that seems to be missing is a call-to-action front and center. The “About Ashley” call-to-action should be joined by or replaced by a stronger request, like “sign up or newsletter” or the yard sign idea we’ve seen before.
• Other than that, this is a really nicely done Cedar Rapids election website!

Molly Donahue – Running for State Representative District 68

What the site does well:

• The site is clean and easy to navigate (stop me if you’ve heard this before).
• The color scheme of green is a unique choice and a variation from the more common red, white, and blue color scheme that most use political websites use. Whether or not that’s a positive is unclear – sometimes the subconscious correlation people make about color in their minds can be used to your advantage. When folks see Molly, she wants them to picture her in office and as a political front-runner for this Cedar Rapids election. Green doesn’t enforce that political office mindset quite as much as the classic red, white, and blue.

Where it can improve:

• Aside from the question of whether green was a good choice, the only other critique is that the images are all relatively low quality. They look grainy on a desktop, which isn’t ideal. The site is designed nicely overall, but low image quality is a knock on the design.

Randy Ray – Running for State Representative District 68

What the site does well:

• This is a nicely done logo Randy has. The prominence of it is good, as it certainly goes along with much of his other marketing material, like pins and yard signs that he has probably utilized for this Cedar Rapids election.

Where it can improve:

• The navigation is all messed up. For some reason there are two Home buttons, which is some sort of glitch that can be easily addressed on the back end.
• As you scroll down the home page, you see that things are off center. It looks like the formatting of the page is off, which is another easy fix. Looks like someone just needs to go in the back end and tighten up a few screws and this site would look pretty good overall!

Big Imprint is a web design agency that serves the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City area. 

When people think of entrepreneurship, thriving business communities, and booming corporations, the usual suspects come to mind. New York, Chicago, San Francisco top the list, with a wide array of others falling in line behind them spanning the country. Cities in Iowa, or any of these “fly over states,” don’t typically cross peoples’ minds. That’s fair, however if you’re considering where you want to start and grow a business, you should consider growing your business in Cedar Rapids.

But what makes it a great place to grow your business, and more importantly – to live? Well, we’ll name a few:

1.The Business Resources

The great thing about growing your business in Cedar Rapids is that you’re not alone. There is a thriving entrepreneurial and corporate business community in Cedar Rapids, and being able to interact and meet with other great business minds and kindred spirits is such an incredible resource for any business owner. With things like NewBoCo, the Entrepreneurial Development Center, and the Cedar Rapids Economic Alliance, there are enough events and gatherings to keep you shaking hands and rubbing elbows with some of the areas top business leaders all year long! I encourage you to visit each of their websites to see the different opportunities they have to get involved in the community.

2. The Work Force

Cedar Rapids is the second-highest populated city in Iowa, and with 142,700 people in the workforce, you’re bound to find employees for whatever industry you might be in. With the University of Iowa right down the road to the south, University of Northern Iowa to the north, and 6 colleges right here in the city of Cedar Rapids alone, you’re presented with a large pool of educated young workers who are anxious to get their career started. If you’re in a more manual labor-intensive industry, see how the likes of Quaker Oats, General Mills, and Whirlpool have kept a steady flow of factory workers employed for decades. Cedar Rapids clearly boasts a large blue collar workforce as well as the more educated, white collar workers.

3. The Successful Pioneers

Here’s the thing – if you’re looking to grow your business in Cedar Rapids, you’re far from the first one to do so. There’s an impressive pedigree of successful corporations that got there start, or made major strides here in Cedar Rapids. If you want to see some examples of these businesses that really struck grew (or continued to grow) in Cedar Rapids, check out this list of employers from the Cedar Rapids Economic Alliance. It covers both Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, but it still shows the amazing growth and stability that the area has provided to other major businesses and corporations. As any good business person knows, there are a variety of other factors that determine a business’s success, but having an economy and workforce that supports viable growth is certainly an important piece of the puzzle.

Growing your business in Cedar Rapids is a great idea – if you need further convincing, reach out to someone, anyone, who has grown their business there. They’ll rave about the thriving business community and the quality of life and work you can enjoy in Cedar Rapids. It really is a great place to be!

Big Imprint is a web design agency that serves the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City area. 

There is such a wide range of ways to go about advertising your business, and the best advertising channel for you depends entirely on your goals, your product, your market, and many other factors. If you’re looking for some fresh and unique ideas, we’ve compiled a list of advertising opportunities in Cedar Rapids. We decided for this article to analyze the landscape of opportunities in Cedar Rapids specifically, however in the future we may analyze other cities/regions as well.

Again, the right advertising channel isn’t the same for everyone. Some people go with new media, some stick with traditional, some have wide audiences, some focus on a niche. Below is a quick list of some of the most prominent advertising opportunities in Cedar Rapids, at least one or two of which should fit your business wel

1.Billboards

Talk about traditional advertising, right? Well, the oldest trick in the book is still an effective form of advertising that company’s still use today. Granted, in Cedar Rapids and in Iowa in general billboards aren’t nearly as prominent as big cities, but you’d be surprised at how many billboards you’re exposed to in the Cedar Rapids area without necessarily realizing it.

The go-to group for billboard advertising in the area is Lamar Advertising. They have a large inventory of billboards along the most heavily-trafficked roads in the Cedar Rapids/Corridor area, and they’ll help you craft and execute your billboard campaign so you don’t just take a shot in the dark.

Ideal Uses: Companies with broad target market, major corporate announcements/celebrations (we designed a billboard for Kent Corp. for this purpose), new companies looking to gain mass exposure quickly.

2. Transit Ads

Advertising on buses, bus shelters, and bus benches is a great way to get in front of a lot of people in an urban setting. Whether folks are riding the bus, or are simply in downtown Cedar Rapids where they’ll more than likely see the bus driving by, you get a lot of eyeballs on your ad as it makes it’s way through the streets. 

The people you want to talk to about setting up a transit ads campaign would be Houck Transit Advertising. They’re a Minnesota-based company, but they control transit advertising for practically the entire Midwest market.

Ideal Uses: Targeting the working professional market, the local Cedar Rapids residents (who may use bus for commute).

3. Video Ads

Notice I didn’t say “Commercials.” That’s because Video Ads is an incredibly broad category, and commercials are just one of the many video formats you can use. 

In today’s day and age, videos are the most effective when you tell a compelling story and make it entertaining. While some businesses do make good use of television commercials, the vast majority of businesses find channels like social media and YouTube a much more targeted, cost-effective way to go about sharing video ads.

Another thing that makes a great video ad is when you can’t necessarily tell it’s an ad. Instead of having the video consist of the phone number flashing on the screen and a cheesy clip of a friendly salesperson shaking a customer’s hand, make it compelling and keep people’s attention until the end. Then at that point when you’ve gained their trust and gotten some credibility, reveal your company name and how they can contact you.

A great company that we recommend working with on your video project is Cedar Rapids-based Flow Media. We’ve actually worked with them ourselves as they created the video that is displayed on our home page. 

Ideal Uses: Nearly any company in any industry with any target market can make use of video ads. Given the targeting ability of social media, you can boost the video to your exact audience on Facebook and YouTube, as well as use the video for display on your website (like we’ve done).

4. Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Maybe you’ve never heard it referred to as this before, but pay-per-click is when you advertise using Google, for example. This is certainly something you can try to attack on your own, but fair warning, it gets overwhelming pretty quickly.

It’s best to leave PPC advertising to professionals who will make sure you get the most bang for your buck. There are plenty of agencies in the area that can help you pursue digital advertising opportunities in Cedar Rapids. Including us at Big Imprint, Maudience, DeNovo, and many others.

Ideal Uses: Competitive market that makes it hard to rank high in Google organically, businesses that want to target specific locations/demographics with a lot of accuracy.

5. High Quality Website

Essentially, advertising is a representation of your business. All of these advertising channels listed above lead to the one main representation of your business – your website. Whether it’s a billboard, a video, or a google ad, your website will be plastered on it and it will be where you turn people into customers.

Your website is your front door to the world, your first impression to most customers, and ultimately your bedrock to any effective marketing and advertising campaign.

Every business needs a website, and fortunately for you, you’re in the right place if you need help either getting a website up and running, or need help improving yours to be the best possible representation of your business.

Feel free to contact us at hello@bigimprint.com if you’d like to chat about your website, or if you’d like to learn more about advertising opportunities in Cedar Rapids in general. We’d love to help!

Big Imprint is a web design agency that serves the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City area. 

Recently, Google Chrome has started placing warnings on websites that do not have a particular security credential called an “SSL certificate.” What is SSL, though?

Great question – you’ve come to the right place!

What is SSL?

Speaking practically, it is an extra security measure put in place to ensure that the information passed between your website and your website visitors is encrypted. You can tell if a website has it in place because it shows up in the letters before a website address.

• Without, you see: http://example.com
• With it you see: https://example.com (notice the “S” before the slashes)

Typically an SSL certificate is accompanied by a green padlock icon to indicate security.

The below images display what you see when a website has it vs. when it does not. (This is on Google Chrome – it looks a little different depending on the web browser you’re using).

 

 

 

 

 

So what does it do?

SSL provides three primary benefits to websites:

• It encrypts the communication between website and website visitor, making it more difficult for nefarious actors to get ahold of sensitive data and misuse it.
• It increases your website’s credibility to website visitors, as seeing that “green padlock” and the “https” before the web address gives an added sense of security.
• Google values sites with certification higher than those without, so having SSL will provide a boost in search engine optimization.

To this point, websites without SSL have just shown the “http” with no additional warning. Now however, Chrome is showing a warning that says “Not Secure” before the address. This admittedly over-cautious warning they’re putting on websites has an effect on the perceived credibility and safety of the site for visitors, and in some cases may cause site visitors to leave the site out of concern for the site’s security.

We at Big Imprint highly recommend SSL as a standard feature for all new websites, and have encouraged all clients without it to have us add it for them. If you need SSL to be added to your site, contact whoever manages your website, or feel free to reach out to us and we’ll be happy to help you with that process.