I recently came across Pexels and since then it has become the FIRST place I check out when looking for stock.

If you are looking for stock, be sure to check it out. Below are the amazing results I got when doing a search for "kids".

In my webinar on The 5 Pages Your Website Must Have, I talk about how head shots are mandatory!  

The Birth Workers featured in this blog, offered up their head shots for the world to see. As you may notice, they are setting the industry standard and YOU need to keep up. 

I also want you to take note that MANY of them paid NOTHING for their photo.  Some had friends take their picture and others traded their services.

Do YOU want a free head shot too?  In my Launch with Laura class I go over how to get a head shot and what to do during the shoot.  I also talk about my rookie mistake (knowing it will save you time and money.

A huge thanks to everyone who participated!

Starting on 4.21.15 Google began ranking Mobile Friendly websites HIGHER in the search results.

What this means?
If someone searches for "San Diego Doula" the websites that are mobile friendly will show up higher on the search page. A non-mobile website may not show up at all.

Is your website mobile friendly?
There is a quick way to find out. Just go here and enter your URL.

Did your website fail the test?
Then you need to upgrade right away! If you are using Wix, Weebly, SquareSpace then contact their customer service to see what your options are.

If your website needs a full upgrade, then check out my Launch with Laura Class where I will teach a group of birth workers how to build a Weebly website.

In 2004 I started a business by accident.  The short story is I had moved for a new job and I wanted to make local friends.  I started a social group online and 100 joined it the first week.  Within 2 years, I was able to quit my job (I worked with troubled youth) and run the group full time. Revenue came in from membership dues, event fees, and sponsors.  The group was HUGE.

In the early months I had no logo. I also had no budget for a graphic designer because the company was not bringing in any money at that time.  So I did what anyone would do, I started with a DIY logo (I think it was made using MS Word but I'm not sure).

2 years later, when there finally was decent revenue, I was able to get a professional logo, created by a professional graphic designer.

The point of this story is you have to start somewhere.  Having a DIY/starter logo may have kept my business from growing quickly or maybe it didn't, who knows.  I just know that I did the best I could with the resources I had.

My starter logo was good enough and once I was able to make money, I was able to upgrade.

Recently, in peer to peer Facebook groups, I noticed that some were saving up for a logo.  So they had NO logo at all and were expecting it to take a long time to save.  Often professional logos are anywhere from $300 to $1000.

I wanted to show people that the lack of a logo does not have to hold them up!  So I did something I've never done before. I went to Fiverr to get a logo for one of the members of Birth Worker Mastermind. 

I posted every step of my $5 logo experiment below so you can repeat it for your business. The worst that can happen is you lose a small amount of money. But the BEST thing that can happen is you walk away with a logo you can use until you grow your business.

Step 1
I went to Fiverr then to Logo Design.

Step 2
I flipped through the artists. 
I looked for those who had portfolios that I liked.  
I looked for those who had good ratings.
I read up on what you get for $5 (some would provide the original files, others wouldn't, some would do 3 logos, some just one, some offered unlimited revisions, some offered no revisions).
I narrowed the artists down to THREE.

Step 3
I sent Artist B and C the message below.
Artist A was going to create her own original drawing, so I told her I wanted a shell and a pearl.

Note, there is NO need to send an image to the artists. I just wanted to see what they would do with it and without it.  

You SHOULD however, send them a color palette.

Name of the Business:
Jersey Shore Doula

Color Palette:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/7e/2a/d6/7e2ad68eae22dcb869397ae7696b6f2a.jpg

Image:
See attached. Pick the pearl and shell image (you can delete the box that is around it).
I am looking for you to use this image AND to do an alternative logo where you pick a pearl and shell image that you like. 

I am picturing the image of the shell on the left and the words to the right.

Step 4
I received all of the logos within a few days.
Total spent was $16.50 ($5.50 per artist).
Everyone allowed for edits but I didn't opt for any since this was just an experiment.

Artist A

Artist B

Artist C

In my personal opinion, there are SEVERAL good logos here! Artist A and C really shined.  Artist B was horrible! My 4 year old could have made better logos.

All three artists allowed for edits. So I could have easily asked them to tweak the fonts or the layout.

I think the most important takeaway is that many of those who start a business start it with a very low budget.  It is ok if your logo or website is not perfect your first day in business.  Keep doing what excites, the money will follow, and then you can get a fancy logo that better represents your brand.

This past week Dollar Photo Club closed it's doors to accepting new members.  If you have been following my blogs or webinars you know that Dollar Photo Club was my go to for Stock Photos.  Each image was $1 and their collection was amazing!

Here's what it means to you:
If you currently have a membership it seems you can continue to get the $1 images. Just make sure you do not let your credit card expire and do not cancel your membership. If you feel like you have too many stock photo credits in your account you can always see if any of your peers or friends need stock photos! No where else can they get $1 images.

If you missed the boat and need stock photos I suggest you check out Fotolia (affiliate link). You can follow the steps in the image below and get $2 images that are medium in size (they'll fit across your websites and blogs. Clearly this is double the price but it's the best deal I could find right now.

Below are the steps to get the $20 a month for 10 images deal.

On many occasions, clients have come to me letting me know their logos were being held "hostage" by a designer.  

Here's how the story goes: 

A relative/friend/stranger created a business logo.  The owner of the company was given a small file so she could use it on her website, which she did.  Then there was a falling out OR the designer just went MIA (not responding to texts, emails, or phone calls). Now what!? A business owner needs to be able to adjust the logo or have large file sizes for printing (a small image will just pixalate if you enlarge it). A business owner may also want to see how the logo looks with different fonts or colors.  Now what?

At this point many business owners may feel trapped but really there are options!

My favorite option is to take back control of your logo! Go to Fiverr and pay someone $5-$10 to recreate your logo.  But you are not going to just ask for them to recreate a bigger file, you are going to ask for things that will protect you in the future.  Here's where you need to do, step by step:

1. Go to Fiverr then GRAPHICS AND DESIGN then LOGO.
2. Find 3-5 designers who have many good, positive reviews.  
3. Send them this message, "Hi - I already have a logo but I want it recreated so I can use it for print and make edits to it in the future.  Please let me know what the cost is for the following:

• Logo must be 300ppi and 14 inches wide (go wider if you plan to ever print giant banners).
• I want to know the names of the fonts you used.
• Send me the file in .png, .gif, .jpg and also send a vector file.

The designers will then let you know what the cost is.  I would expect to pay around $10 for a project like this.  The reason you are messaging 3-5 designers is some will come back with a bid of $25.

If you don't have a program like Photoshop on your computer you will not be able to open the vector file but that is ok.  You'll have the other files that you can use right away. Save the vector file for when you need to make some major changes to the file.

As you probably noticed by now, I am giving away a list of My Favorite Tools.  Well, after nearly a year of having the same list I JUST added a new tool to the document!  The tool is PEEK and really you need to see it in action!

Basically you submit your website and email to Peek.  Peek will then (within a few days) have one of their users do a 5-minute review of your website. The best part is the user is NOT typing up their review.  Instead you can to watch as they interact with your website via screen sharing.  

STEPS (for those who like bullet points):

1. You send Peek your website.
   
2. A user from Peek will click around on your website while recording the screen and their voice.
   
3. Peek will then send you the video so you can see what the user did and said.

The best pro, is that this service is totally free.  The biggest con is that the user is probably not your ideal client so they may not even understand what they are looking at (the entire time they may be trying to understand what a lactation consultant is!).  BUT, and this is a big BUT, you WILL get something out of their review. 

I've used Peek a few times for a few websites and I always learned something.  Once I saw that the user was totally missing a tab of mine because of how I had my menu set up.  This was HUGE and I immediatly went in and updated my website.

So give it a try, it will take second to submit your information to Peek and 5 minutes to watch the video.

I just put together a FREE Mini-Lesson on how Birth Workers can get [legally] get images for their website.

In this VIDEO lesson you will learn:

• Why you shouldn’t steal photos off the internet. And how you can get [easily] caught.
  
• Where you can buy stock images for just $2 each.
  
• My FAVORITE place for FREE stock images.
  
• What to do if you want homebirth or water birth images that YOU are in (you won’t find those on stock photo sites).
  
• How to [somewhat] take control of a photoshoot to make sure you aren’t wasting your money.
  
• Special treat for those who watch the video all the way to the end.
  

Here are my top 3 reasons why you should not have music auto-playing on your webpage. And by auto-play I mean someone comes to your website and music is playing even though they did not hit a play button.

1. Some of your potential clients may be nursing moms.  Nursing moms are often surfing the web while their baby takes a little nap at the breast. Music unexpectedly blasting from a phone will never be well received.
2. Some of your clients may be at work and surfing the web (when they should actually be working).  If your website auto-plays music you just threw them under the bus.
3. It is just annoying, and sometimes even shocking, when music comes out of your computer and you were not expecting it.

It is ok to have music and videos on your website, I actually really encourage video!  But just make sure visitors have to click play.  This will decrease your bounce rate (I promise) as users are less likely to quickly close out of your website as fast as they can.

Too often I see business owners forget to complete the footers of their website.  The footer is an important section as it shows up on every page of your website and people often refer to it when they need some quick information.

What you MUST have in your footer:
Your full physical address (and/or the radius you cover)
Your email and phone number (or just your email if you do not have a business line)
Links to your social media (like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc)

If you want to make sure all of your ducks are in a row, also include copyright information and a link to your privacy policy.

Here is a sample footer (without the privacy policy and copyright info.):

Adding copyright information can be as easy as just typing "Copyright {year}, {business name}.

There are a lot of privacy policy generators out there and you will need a PP if you plan to use Google Adsense/Adwords/Analytics or Facebook Pixels.

Here's just one sample of an easy to use Privacy Policy creator, http://www.freeprivacypolicy.com and if you click below (in my footer) you will get to see the Privacy Policy that was generated by this website.

Whatever you do, make sure your footer is CLEAN and SIMPLE.  People often go there when they are desperate to figure out how to email or call you or when they need to plug you into their GPS.

If you are just starting out as a holistic professional or  birth worker then you may not have any testimonials gathered yet.  Here's what you need to do to get some:

1. Make sure your business is listed on both Yelp and Google Maps.  This way those who use you can easily add testimonials.  If Yelp ever tries to get money from you do not pay it.  They have reputation for always trying to upsell but all you need is their free listing.
2. ASK your previous clients for some testimonials.  You can send them to your business listings on Yelp or Google and ask them to post there OR have them send you a testimonial.
3. If you have not had a client yet and you feel your lack of testimonials is keeping you from getting clients then provide your services for free to a few people in exchange for HONEST testimonials. Make it clear to them you are not asking them to lie, you are just in need of some honest feedback.

Once you have some testimonials gathered, you can put them on your website. Some people like to dedicate an entire page to testimonials but personally I like to scatter quotes (see above) throughout the website.  To me this helps give a potential customer a feel for who you are and how you work.

Your company needs a logo and you may have noticed by now that hiring a professional graphic designer is not cheap. From my experience (in the suburbs of NYC), a logo will cost around $1000.   Of course anyone who is starting a company clearly has no revenue so spending that kind of money is probably not an option.   But do not fear! You (yes, you) can design your own logo (yes, really). Sure, it may not be the BEST logo in the world but it will be a start.  Once your organization is bringing in good revenue, you can upgrade your logo and hire a graphic designer but for now, let’s go with DIY.

Get Ready to Copy and Steal
The first step to a DIY logo is to find logos you like.  Create a file on your computer where you save the logos or bookmark them under a file called, “Logos I Like.”  I want you to spend a good amount of time browsing the web, doing Google image searches and so on.  Pretty soon, even when not actively searching for logos, you will start to notice logos everywhere you look!  Take pictures if you are out, jot down the company name, etc. The ONLY qualifier for these logos is that you like them, it does not matter what the business is.

Some logos I like (remember, this is all for inspiration):

Use a Stock Image
You may want to incorporate a stock illustration into your logo. In the logos above, the hand image and the mustache image may have been stock illustrations that the creator bought from a stock website.  Different stock websites are also going to have different licensing rules, so make sure you look into the rules before buying an image to be used with your logo. The cheapest place I have used to find stock images is www.DollarPhotoClub.com (update on DPC).

Color Palates
You are going to want your logo to have 2-5 colors in it and the colors need to go well together. I am not good at matching colors, but I’ve learned that I can still create some great logos by using a few tricks.

Trick 1. If you are using a stock illustration, use the colors that are already within the stock images.

Trick 2. Use a website like http://www.colorcombos.com/ to create color pallets.  You can even enter a URL of another website (one you admire) and Color Combos will tell you what colors were used.

Fonts
There is no reason to ever buy a font when there are amazing free sites like http://www.dafont.com/ around.  Once you download a font, unzip it and open the file and it will automatically install for you. But if that does not work, google search for how to install a font.  There are soooooo many fonts out there that there is no reason to use the standard ones that came with your computer.

Putting it All Together
So you now have your inspiration, your illustration, your color palate, and your fonts. The next step in the process is to actually design!  If you have Photoshop on your computer, use that.  But if not, use both www.PicMonkey.com and www.Canva.com. These free websites are easy to use (basically they are like cheat versions of Photoshop) but both have different features you will need.  For instance, PicMonkey will let you use your own fonts but Canva will let you go back in and make edits.

Designing your logo will be a learning curve so give yourself time to get used to the software.  Play with it and make different versions of your logo.

Trade for It (When All Else Fails)
If you did all of the above except for the actual design (Putting it All Together) because it is just not your thing there are STILL ways to get a free logo. My favorite way is by trade. When I was ready to take New Jersey Young Professionals to the next level, I wanted my DIY logo to now be created by a professional. I did not yet have the resources to pay for it so I traded.  There so many things you can trade. For instance, you can offer up free YOUR free products or servies.  Once you work out a deal, send the graphic designer your favorite logos, your stock illustration, your color palate, and your preferred fonts.  This will save you a lot of back and forth with the designer as he/she will then understand the direction you want to go in.

Bottom Line:
Everyone has to start somewhere and any logo is better than no logo at all!