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How Did She Do It? A Former Lead Economist to a Full-Time Web Designer

How Did She Do It? A Former Lead Economist to a Full-Time Web Designer

How does a lead economist from a banking company become a flourishing full-time web designer? Meet EZtransition’s web designer: Sasha Kuzmenko. She has been designing beautiful websites for our clients and has been a part of our team since 2017. Read more about Sasha and her journey:

Before Sasha was designing web layouts and building websites for EZtransition, she was training people into teams as a Lead Economist for a bank in 2012 for three years. “I got a lot of experience here, I trained our staff on how to be a team player and how to work together effectively.” 

Sasha is not “a permanent person”

In 2015, she made a totally different shift in her career and decided to change her profession. She immersed herself in the web design space and began teaching herself WordPress CMS. From there, she started working as a freelance web developer on Upwork where she was creating websites for clients on WordPress. After a year as a freelancer, she taught herself graphic and web design. And eventually, she started working as a web designer for an IT company later on.

From one career to another, Sasha described herself as “not a permanent person”. She has tried a lot of interesting career choices in her life such as restaurant business, retail, banking, yoga instructor, and IT. “Something would capture my attention and I’d be totally into it. But after some time, I would lose interest and find another direction for me to try.” 

How did she do it?

However, there has got to be something about web design and development that made her stay up to this present day. While working as a web designer for this IT company, she missed the art and process of working with WordPress and building a website from scratch. 

“Web design is very close to me because I handle everything in the process of creating a website.” She goes on, “Every happy customer is my little victory. I put my clients’ needs on top of everything whenever I create my designs. Because if your design doesn’t yield benefits and no one likes it, then what’s the point?”

In 2017, Sasha started using the Divi Builder. Divi Builder is a tool that allows you to build any type of website you want by combining and arranging content elements. “With tools like Divi, I can combine my knowledge and passion for WordPress and design,” she explained.

So, what’s next?

When asked what’s next for her career, she said that she’s still very much into design. However, there are two other things she still wants to pursue. “I want to take on the role of becoming a leading designer someday.” She said, “I also have a goal, but it’s more like a dream. Only my close friends know about it but I can tell you that it’s definitely in the sphere of art.”

From working as a lead economist in a bank to designing and building beautiful websites as a graphic designer, making courageous changes in one’s career like what Sasha did is a difficult and enlightening process. People, especially artists, have gone through interesting twists and turns before finding a job that they really care about and enjoy doing. 

Here’s her advice…

As for Sasha’s advice for aspiring web designers, “I think you should choose one direction in design and master it.” she goes on, “If you’re artsy and enjoy drawing, develop the needed skills in graphic design. If you’re techier, UI (user interface) is perfect for you.”  Design has many different branches that artists can choose from. This will provide artists the opportunity to find their passion and focus on practicing and perfecting their own skills. Sasha said, “My advice is don’t try to cover all skills at once. Choose one skill and perfect it, and you’ll know the rest of the design directions eventually.”

Do you need help in designing a layout for your website? Contact us today!

How to Create a Killer Homepage for Your Website

How to Create a Killer Homepage for Your Website

Setting up a homepage for your website is like buying new pieces of furniture for your living room. When buying furniture for this area of your home, most likely you’ll just need some essentials that make up a living room. Such as a couch, a TV, a coffee table, some chairs, and a lamp.

Voila, your living room! 

But eventually,  you’ll find yourself buying that flower vase, a rug, a remote control holder, and a bowl of seashells (because uh, why not?). While these make your living room look prettier, they’re not really necessary.

The same goes when building a homepage. Since this page is the first thing that your visitors will see, you might tend to put out everything that will make your business look interesting and impressive. However, this eventually leads to clutter and overwhelm. A homepage should be just long enough to inform your web visitors informed about your business and short enough to keep them yearning for more. In order to have a killer homepage for your website, you’ll only need these five sections:

1. A clear and concise header

Your homepage header is the most important section of your website. Your header is a single sentence that explains what your business offers in the clearest and most concise form. This section is the first thing that your visitors will see and it only takes less than ten seconds to decide whether to keep scrolling or leave your site. 

To keep your visitors on the site, make sure your header is simple but catchy. Don’t make headers vague, confusing or even clever. Keep it simple and direct.

2. Proof of brand authority

Now that your visitors are aware of what your business is about, it’s time to showcase your legitimacy and authenticity. Under your header, use testimonials from your previous clients or positive feedback from your satisfied customers. You may include some facts or statistics that will demonstrate your thought leadership and industry expertise.

3. Customer benefits

Under the brand authority, include a benefits section. Visitors need to know what they’re going to gain once they’ve purchased your products/services. For example, these benefits could be: a healthier and clearer skin, never having to procrastinate again, saving time from cooking, etc.

4. Product features

This is the section where you need to really impress your customers. After displaying brand authority and customer benefits, it’s time to let them know why your product/services stand out from the competition. Talk about what you’re trying to sell, what it does, and how it works. Remember, people have a short attention span so be straightforward and make it easy to understand. Make this section short with less than 500 words. If you think there’s more to learn about your business, add a short video or a “learn more” button.

5. A Call-to-Action button

At this point, potential customers have reached the bottom of your homepage and they might be interested in buying your product/services. The question is, what’s the next action you want them to do? This is where a CTA (call-to-action) button is encouraged. Calls to action are important because it motivates people to take the necessary steps to be your next purchasing customer. People expect a CTA button on top (where the header section is) and at the very bottom of your homepage. Here are a few samples of CTA’s:

  • Sign up today!
  • Contact us
  • Try it for free
  • Learn more
  • Join us

A call to action button can be the last section of your homepage but it’s really up to you. Some websites include Pricing, Contact, About, FAQ, etc. These are mostly easy to find on a website but if you feel like it’s necessary to put it up on your homepage, then go ahead. Just be careful and avoid cluttering your homepage with a lot of information for this can overwhelm your site visitors and urge them to leave. Essentially, you’ll just need these five sections for an effective homepage.

Trouble setting up your website?

EZtransition offers quality web services and products dedicated to small business owners who want to focus on running their businesses. We could help you develop your website and take your marketing to the next level. Drop us a message today!

How To Set Up An Awesome Website For Your Business

How To Set Up An Awesome Website For Your Business

Setting up a website is crucial when operating a business. Your customers expect to find your website up and running on the internet for certain reasons: they want to find your location and contact details, they need to know some information about your business, or they want to know what products/services your selling. Ultimately, if your business doesn’t have an existing website, then consider your business non-existent at all. In this article, we’ll show you five basic steps on how to set up a website for your business.

Register your domain name

Your domain name is the address that your customers should type in the search bar to find your website (i.e. www.yourbusinessname.com). To get your domain name registered, you will need a domain search tool such as EZtransition or BlueHost to check if your business’ name is available. If your domain isn’t available, you may adjust the name a little bit by using a .net or .org (instead of .com). Usually, customers expect your domain name similar to your business name. But if your domain is already taken, you may use a catchphrase, slogan or keyword.  

Get a web hosting provider

Once your domain name is registered, you need to get it visible on the internet. In order to do that, you need to find a web hosting company. There are many web hosting companies with different web hosting plans that require you to pay a fee. You need to find the one that suits your business depending on how large your website is and how many visitors you get. EZtransition has webhosting plans that fit any business size

Plan your website’s content

Before you start building your website, you need to plan out what your customers will see on your website. Think about what sections or pages you want to add. Essentially, your website must have a homepage, products/services page, about us, a blog page, and contact us page. Consider the information your customers will expect to find on your website. 

Build your website

Generally, there are three options for building your website.

The most expensive option is to hire a full-service brick and mortar local agency. You are typically guaranteed to get a good result from such an agency and communication works by walking into their swanky downtown office. Of course, the major downside here is the expense. Be prepared to pay upwards of $10, 000 for such a solution.

The second option is to hire a freelance designer. There are some very talented individuals both local and abroad that you can outsource this work to. Costs typically run between $500 to $5000 and results are typically mixed. Communication can be spotty and some cases the freelancer may disappear without warning.

Another option is to just do it all yourself. This is by far the cheapest option of the three and you never have to worry about communication issues. The downside, of course, is that you are taking valuable time away from running your business, and web development may not be your strong point. 

EZtransition offers a unique alternative that encompasses all three solutions and starts at a price of $49 a month. Schedule a free 30-minute consultation to learn more.

Design It

Designing a website begins by choosing a font, color palette, and a theme. Go for something that will represent your business. Decide what images, graphics, and other elements to include. Envision how you want your website to be laid out for your customers. Here’s a tip: your site visitors will form their first impression on your website as quickly as 0.05 seconds so you need to make a great first impression by coming up with great content that’s compelling and easy to read in seconds.

There’s a growing number of people who would rather access the internet through their mobile devices. Your design must be responsive. That means it is flexible so that it changes to fit any device screen, from a smartphone to a laptop to a 60-inch tv!

Conclusion

Not everyone knows how to set up a website, it’s a long process and it usually takes more time and planning than you’d expect. It’s not just something you’re supposed to do once and forget. Just like running a business, it requires regular maintenance and certain upgrades from time to time. Unprofessional and outdated business websites turn off potential customers. If you need help in building and designing a website, our team at EZtransition provides a unique solution. Contact us today and we’ll build a beautiful and fully-functioning website that is well-designed and suited for your business.