What is LDP?  - Lowe's Digital Publishing

My website is www.theideagirl.net  and www.lowesdigitalpublishing.com because not only do I like the name "The Idea Girl" but I also am called that from time-to-time due to the suggestions I give my clients.

Lowe's Digital Publishing is my official business name. Lowe's - My last name and "Digital Publishing" which is what I do. It's just another term to describe website design, illustration, animation, installation, etc.  Comparing a website to a book I "publish" it to the Internet.

Where I am located:

I have several buildings on my property. One is a residence and one I use as my office. I do not normally have clients come to my office since most of the correspondence necessary to obtain and maintain a website can and should be via email, fax or phone. There are always exceptions if a client is more comfortable with meeting face to face. Most often I arrange a lunch meeting.

Where Do I Come From?

I was born in Brookville and have lived in Jefferson county, PA all my life. My extended family lives primarily in the Sigel / Forest area.  

I bought my home and office building which is located in Reynoldsville 4 years ago and do not plan to go anywhere. Website design is my full time job and I love it.

My two daughters (18 & 20 years old) also live in the area.

Experience:

I worked for a Real Estate Website Design company based in California from 2000 - 2008 which meant I was on a salary and worked from 12 - 18 hours per day at my computer desk. It didn’t give me much time to socialize. The owner restructured and I had to go back to finding my own clients. This is something I started to do prior to working with NSM. At the time my services were not favorably accepted locally. It's taken 8 years for local businesses to realize the potential of owning a website and yet rural Pennsylvania business owners are still decades behind everyone else in the US whom I have done business with.

Therefore, not only am I doing this to make a living but also to try and help my community thrive and prosper by utilizing the Internet as a marketing and sales tool and try to catch everyone up.

So many times I have stopped into a local mom and pop store and saw something Walmart or Kmart would never have and thought to myself "Wow. I didn’t know they had that" or "I didn’t know they did that"  There are local people who do not realize what unique businesses we have available. A lot of businesses are disappearing without half of the local population realizing they exist in the first place. There is a great stigma about locally owned businesses. People think their goods are more expensive than their larger competition. In most cases this is not true but to go out to every store and compare products and prices is way too costly and time consuming. Local businesses having a website can help customers see what they have to offer from the convenience of their homes. Customers are already searching for what they want via search engines and websites. If a business is not listed among its competitors it may as well not exist.

Pennsylvania is my home and I consider “local” to be anywhere from Pennfield (east) to oil city (North) to Clarion (West) to new Bethlehem (South)  

Local clients:

St. Mary's Auto Body, Advantage Home Oxygen (DuBois) , Brockway Flowers & More, Gateway Humane Society (I do this one for free), The Reynoldsville Theater Group (This one is free too. I commit to building and maintaining a few local NFP's to do my part for local arts & Humanities.) , Jewelld Memories - Dustin Jewell - Photographer, The Bellamauro in Reynoldsville, New Era Janitorial (Dubois), Morgan's Building & Home Improvement Services (Reynoldsville)

I have several clients who are non-local businesses as well from California to Florida and beyond.

My services include:

#1 Preparing a customized website for individual businesses. I do not use pre-designed templates. All my designs are original.

Sites may include:

Flash animation (Moving parts)

HTML, PHP, JavaScript, other scripts, xml, etc.. If I don’t know it or don’t have a script already I will find a solution for whatever the client needs.

 

#2 Custom logos & other graphics such as ads. Print quality for letterhead & business cards as well as online use.

 

#3 Custom animations. Frame by frame animated gif's or flash

 

#4 Database driven backends for use with products, customer data collecting, username and password access to site areas, client may edit their own site using the administration console on these sites, etc.

The sites may include: Blogs, polls, comments or guestbooks, custom site calendars, galleries, rotating newslfash, forums, blogs, the list goes on....

How I work:

Basically I let the client tell me about their business and I take my knowledge of building websites to suggest what would be best for them to use for what their goals are. Some clients want a completely hands-on site so they can update it often. Some clients want to hand their updates over to me and pay me to do it. I am happy either way.

I remind clients to update their sites and give them some suggestions on marketing. Sometimes I email them individually or in a mass email.

Community:

I know the importance of being active in my community. I have and will in the future  try to be as active as possible with groups, nfp’s. businesses, etc.. However, my time is really better spent behind my desk building up the community and allowing Andre, my marketing assistant, develop community relationships.

Being “behind the scenes” is where I work best but if I must put myself in the lime light to be effective as a catalyst for businesses and the Internet then I must.

Many people have asked me about website design. Some have the opinion that it is easy to build a website. It is time consuming to create a unique and functional website for clients. There are several things a web designer must think about when it comes to installation, coding, optimization, layout, etc, etc, etc.

Why use my services?:  

As many of you know there are several places around the Internet where you can get hosting and build your website using their templates at a low cost or even for free. Compare this to using the same logo as your competition or using a generic one. Submitting an ad to the newspaper which is the same ad your competition uses or even using the same video for a tv commercial.  Your business gets lost in the crowd and you may be confused with your competition.

Your website should be as customized as your business is. You worked hard to build it and make it the best. If you do not show the same care with your website all your work is for nothing. When someone sees an unprofessional looking website or one that looks like a standard "cookie cutter" website they will unfortunately assume your business is unprofessional. Believe it or not 80% of us spend as much time online a we do watching tv. What are we doing? Paying games? Checking Email? Researching your competition for the best products to build their pool deck? Will they find you or your competition? When they do find you what will they think of your business? Is there enough quality information on your services and products to make them consider buying from you or will they see an unprofessional and outdated website with limited information and move on?

Complete my questionnaire and I will show you what your website could look like. This is a free service I provide to potential clients to prove to them I am not only capable but dedicated to helping them. If the client chooses not to purchase my services the mockup simply gets put into my portfolio under a generic name and no money is due.