If you’re diving into the business world for the first time, the amount decisions you need to make can feel overwhelming. Where do you start?!

As a web and graphic designer passionate about helping my clients bring their visions to life, I’ve curated a list of 10 essential considerations to ensure your venture starts off the right way. From defining your brand identity to establishing a solid online presence, each step is crucial to laying the groundwork for your success.

When starting your business journey, here are a few things you need to do:

1. Define Your Identity: Whether it’s choosing a business name or refining your brand identity, clarity is key. Reach out to Miranda at [email protected] for expert marketing guidance if you’re having trouble!
   
   
2. Check the Companies Office Register: Ensure your chosen business name is available, distinct, and not too similar to your competitors. Click here to check now. If it’s available, register it!
   
   
3. Is your domain name available? Check availability on Discount Domains and secure your online presence. Make sure it’s not too long so it’s easy to fit on your marketing collateral. If it’s available, buy it!
   
   
4. Set up your email address: Now that you’ve purchased your domain name, it’s time to set up your business email address. If this sounds too technical, get in touch and our team can help!
   
   
5. Decide on your budget: We have a range of customisable packages available, check them out here or contact us for a free consultation to discuss your individual requirements.
   
   
6. Gather inspiration: Have a look around at brands and logos you like. What do your competitors look like? While we may be great graphic designers, we are terrible mind readers! It’s our job to find out your likes and dislikes, so we’re heading down the right track from the start. Compile and share a Pinterest board with us or gather images from Google so we can see your preferences and brand vision. Find out more about briefing a graphic designer here.
   
   
7. Do you have a memorable brand and logo? Complete our branding brief form here so we have all the information about your business we need to start. Once that’s designed and finalised, we’ll supply your logo guideline you need for signage and documentation.
   
   
8. Get your website up and running: Starting with your key words in mind, we’ll create a site plan and website that becomes your #1 salesperson. Fill in our website brief form so we’ve got all the info we need!
   
   
9. Write great content: You have the option of either writing web copy yourself, or if you don’t have time (the the know-how), our expert copywriter can help with Google-friendly content.
   
   
10. Set up a Google My Business listing: This allows you to feature on Google Maps and gather client reviews. This is important for search engine optimisation purposes.

We’ve done it all before and helped many business owners get set up and on their way to business success!

If you need further guidance, get in touch with Renee for a free consultation.

Quality design sub-contractors are worth their weight in gold…

Here at Merge Media we are proud to say that we work closely with a wide range of professional and quality sub-contractors for many, if not most, of our web and graphic design clients.

We can either work directly with them or can refer them onto our clients, whatever is preferred. Interested in learning more? We’ve put together below, 4 important reasons why we use and refer to quality sub-contractors as part of our business:

1. Skilled sub-contractors provide the best expertise

Skilled sub-contractors will offer a superior service and provide expert advice and services, such as our SEO expert, David Partis from Website Optimisers. Furthermore, they have been working in a specific field for a number of years and have had ample opportunity to hone their skills. With there being so many aspects to website optimisation for example, such as SEO/Adwords etc, having an expert in this field to refer to, is paramount. We want to make sure that your website can not only look its best, but rank well in Google too.

Over the years, we have come to know our sub-contractors personally and we are proud of the amazing work they do, which in turn, has helped our business grow and achieve excellent results for our clients.

2. Increased productivity

Increasing productivity is one of the biggest positives of working with quality and trusted sub-contractors. Our time is therefore increased – being able to focus on what Merge Media does best – creating stunning websites, branding and graphic design. We can get your job done faster for you, without compromising on quality.

3. It is cost efficient & risk adverse

Hiring the best sub-contractors is often much more cost effective than bringing on new, full-time employees – so these cost savings also get passed onto our clients. Even more importantly, it also helps avoid risk by hiring a reliable and safe sub-contractor, with substantial, specialised, experience.

4. We love to support local, skilled sub-contractors

Being actively involved in our local BNI group, we love to support our local, professional sub-contractors where we can – it helps them out, as well as us. Being able to get to know some of our highly skilled local sub-contractors has been valuable to our business, as we can be confident going forward using their services, knowing that our clients will be receiving only the best and in turn, achieving excellent results for their own businesses.

What sub-contractors do we use?

Here are Merge Media, our main sub-contractors we work with are photographers, signwriters, SEO consultants, marketing consultants, copywriters and web developers to name a few. These are all highly important people that we refer to for our projects, ensuring they are also adding value to your brand.

Click below, to find out more about our latest project for Pohutukawa Coast Vets – where we have utilised our amazing sub-contractors to achieve stunning signage, photography and a well optimised website.