Ask FreelanceSwitch #22: Copyright Infringement, Web Analytics

In this issue of Ask FreelanceSwitch, Travis King and Thursday Bram look at analytic overload and clients who rip your work for print ads.

Ask FreelanceSwitch is a regular column here that allows us to help beginners get a grip on freelancing. If you have a question about freelancing that you want answered, send an email to askfreelanceswitch@gmail.com.

Action!

Question #1

I’ve recently completed my ‘business’ website and have used a trial sent to me from Google for some Adwords, so I had a few visitors, however, I could see from my stats they looked around my site but never contacted. Obviously I wasn’t what they were looking for.

What would be the best way to go about getting an opinion on the business website? Usability testing? Friends and family tests? I need to decipher what it is turning clients away.

-Robbie

Thursday: I wouldn’t necessarily get too worried about a few visitors from Adwords leaving your site without contacting you — even if your keywords were spot on, it’s tough to get converting traffic that way. That said, the ideal way to get a feel for how good your business website is requires getting a few people to take a look at it. Ideally, you can sit down with some visitors who are clients or potential clients, due to the fact that your mom may not be able to share that viewpoint. Watch them use the site: what do they click on? What do they struggle with? This is a sort of poor man’s usability testing, but it can give you plenty of information to work with, especially if you don’t have a big budget for testing?

There is one family member who I would observe using your site, if possible — an elderly relative who isn’t exactly tech savvy. If your grandmother can’t figure out the navigation of your website, especially if you’re catering to a less technically-inclined clientele, some potential clients are likely to have problems.

I would also recommend spending some time testing out every link on your website, along with any bells and whistles. Have you sent an email through your contact form? Little details like that can locate potential problems for clients. The same goes for testing out your site in different browsers and generally making your site as accessible as possible.

Travis: To some extent I think we all have the tendency to become a little obsessed with analytics. After all you can’t spell analytics without anal…

*ahem*

The problems start when we analytics check every day and then multiple times throughout the day. I’ve known freelancers that could spend most of the day just refreshing their analytics page over and over again. Don’t let analytics become the freelancer’s Pachinko parlor.

While you can certainly glean a lot of useful information from who visits your site and how long they stay, you’re better off starting by focusing on your call-to-action. Tailor your Adwords so that they funnel potential clients to a custom built landing page. Then make sure that landing page has a specific call-to-action for the client. Once you’ve done that, you’re in a much better position to gauge how your marketing is going.

Now I have to take a break. I can’t believe I went with that analytics joke…

Question #2

I am a freelance graphic designer, and have been specializing in web lately. I have designed an awesome website for a client. I was looking through a magazine the other day and noticed that the artwork I created for the website was used in the print ad. It didn’t look very good because of the dpi, but I am even more confused because I spent hours on the design and my competitor just lifts the artwork for their benefit. I always like my client to win, so at least let me provide the correct dpi of the artwork. I would like to say something, but really don’t want to involve my client.

Any thoughts?

-Amy

Thursday: Not involving your client is going to be tough: depending on how you wrote the contract with your client, he may have used that artwork without your permission. Most clients, however, assume that they can take such steps. I try to be pretty calm about such problems, so here’s my suggestion: bring the ad to your client’s attention and say something along the lines of ‘This could look a lot better — here’s my rate for creating a print-ready version of this artwork.’ Pointing out that there’s a reason they should go through you (the higher quality artwork) is more likely to get the client to go through you for future printings, than trying to highlight that they shouldn’t use artwork created specifically for a website for a magazine ad.

Legally, you likely have the right to demand money from a client who uses your artwork in a way not agreed upon in the contract — depending, of course, on the contract. But the fact of the matter is that most clients have no concept of anything relating to how they license your work. Taking an approach where you show that you are focusing on their needs tends to keep clients on board for the long turn. It’s not fun; especially when you think of the hours you spent on your work. But it can be more effective.

Travis: Put yourself in your client’s shoes for a minute, Amy. How do they feel? We also have them in size 8 or with an open toe if you prefer.

What I’m getting at is this – you’re client probably loved your “awesome” website and they couldn’t wait to show the world. Since you were not very clear about project assets being used for print, the client would have thought they were doing nothing wrong by using the artwork on their site for their print ads. So I would approach this as a compliment rather than a sneaky rip-off.

I would just mention to the client that you saw the ad and you were excited to see they used some of the website’s graphics. Let them know that you also can help with their print marketing and to come to you next time they want to do up an ad. Tell them there is no need to go to the competition when they can get it directly from you.

Now about those shoes, would you like to see them in a brown?

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