Archive for November, 2008
What Makes A Good or Succesful Website?
Posted on 28. Nov, 2008 by Dave.
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There is a lot that goes into our template customization that isn’t just on the surface. Just like everyone else we will also insert your texts, substitute graphics, edit color scheme, change sound track, add pages links etc.
However with over 10 years experience in template customization, programming, search engine optimization our service goes above and beyond all that. Instead, our template customization specialists work closely with you and your business on a one on one basis to provide you with the right tools and advice to help you have and maintain a successful site. In this articles Jeff Moyer discusses 9 tips to having a successful site.
Should you wish to discuss a template or if you need a quote, or anything else, just drop us a line. Try to be as specific as possible that will help us understand your needs better so we would be able to give you our accurate price.
Most people today are regular online users and believe they can tell the difference between a good or bad website within seconds of looking at it. Although in certain cases this can be true there are many factors to consider when evaluating the components of a successful site. A good website will possess many, if not all, of the following traits…
Search Engine Friendly: The main purpose of a website is to bring visitors to your site, preferably those with an interest in your product or service. Without visibility in search engines your website may look great but do little else to help promote your business. It is critical customers are able to find you in sites like Google or Yahoo using keywords or phrases relating to your business. If you are unfamiliar with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) find a company who can help, the investment can be well worth it.
Quick Load Times & Minimal Distractions: There is nothing more frustrating than going to a website and waiting long periods of time to access its content. Whether it’s due to slow loading images or annoying popup ads these kind of annoyances can drive customers away in a hurry. Making sure visitors can use your website quickly and easily should always be a top priority. Avoid things such as excessive flash animations, large video clips, or music tracks without an off switch.
Clear Message or Purpose: What does your website do? Why is it actually there? If you sell vacuum cleaners how you present your site should make this fact clear instantly. This is done not only by your choice of text or wording but also your logo, images, slogan, and even colour scheme. It is possible for a website to look great visually but not properly convey the message you are trying to send to consumers. People’s attention span’s are short and not getting to the point quickly is an incentive for your users to look elsewhere.
Strong Call To Action: Once people have found your website and want to do business with you tell them what their next step should be with a strong “call to action”. Should they give you a call to schedule a meeting or appointment? Can they purchase your products or services online….how so? Don’t ever assume your customer knows what to do next, tell them how you want them to react to your website to prompt a quicker more impulsive response.
Easy To Use & Navigate: Making your website easy to use is crucial in visitors staying at your website once they find it. Key or important information should be easy to access within a couple of clicks and arranged in a way that is simple and logical to your user. Your customer shouldn’t have to “figure out” how to use your website, it is your job to make navigation easy. Also be sure to develop your website in a manner that keeps all demographics in mind, whether it be seniors, children or even those with disabilities.
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I Am a Small Business Owner, So I Don’t Need a Web site
Posted on 13. Nov, 2008 by Dave.
On the previous post, How Will You Personally Optimize My Template for the Search Engines?, I showed you how foamers is committed to helping small business owners achieve the highest return on their investment. And that means adjusting your webpage in order to improve its position in search results. I also told you how with template customization you also receive what we consider to be the most appropriate search engine optimization practices. In this article Wendy Suto, president and CEO of Search Circus, answers the age-old question: Does your small business need a website? This kinda falls back to what I been saying all along about the importance of having a website. Nevertheless, and I cant possibly stress this enough If you don’t know anything about HTML or if you simply just aren’t sure that you will be able to make your site fully functional and capable of being index by all the major search engines, then let a template customization specialist do it for you! Don’t let inexperience tarnish your companies’ image. Hire us to customize your template!
[NOTE: This article was written in response to actual conversations between small business owners and our Web design and development firm.]
Hello. My name is Mr. Smallbiz Owner, and I own A Small Company in a smallville town USA. My shop has been in business for a number of years, at least since the 1990s. I have recently been approached by many representatives of Web design and development firms, trying to sell me on all the reasons as to why I, the small business owner of one shop in my local region, really needs a Web site in this day and age of the 21st century and how my small business cannot possibly survive any longer without a business Web site.
I would appreciate the opportunity to discuss the top 10 reasons why I as a small business owner do not need a Web site for my small business. Here are my simple explanations for why I feel the way that I do.
1. First, I have a solid client/customer base with good business relationships.
I don’t really need any more work; heck, I can’t even handle any more customers and I don’t want my business to grow in revenue anymore. My current customers provide me with all the work I will ever need. They aren’t going anywhere.
Besides, my current customers will never look at my Web site anyways; they know all there is know about me and my small business. All of them know we are here in smallville town USA. I don’t need anybody calling me because they saw my Web site online. I have more than enough residual income for my family to last one good year.
2. A Small Company will never be challenged by other competitors in my smallville town.
My small business is unique and nobody else does the same thing in this industry just like I do. Because A Small Company has been in this local area for so many years, we are known as the experts in our field and will always be known as the experts in the industry. We don’t need to learn anything new in our industry, because our industry hardly ever changes at all. Our customers will never go elsewhere to find other small businesses like us; they will always continue to go to us for their needs in this smallville town.
3. Word of mouth and referrals has always worked the best for me.
Our customers constantly refer their friends, relatives and colleagues over to us, and the potential customers that call me don’t even bother to ask me if I have a Web site. They usually ask me to mail them a brochure and a business card instead.
4. I am still in business today even though I do not own a Web site.
I am very confident I will continue to be in business for many years to come. No other competitors will move in or near me, and my nearest competitors are too far away for my customers to drive, so they would rather come shop with me, Mr. SmallBiz Owner, at A Small Company. My current customer base will always continue to shop at my small business only; they will never move away, never grow old and will never be without the need of my products or services.
5. I belong to several local professional business and networking organizations.
I am a member of my local chamber of commerce and the local Better Business Bureau and other business networking groups. All of the organizations I belong to provide me with enough leads on a daily or weekly basis, even though I have to pay an annual fee to remain a member of these groups. As a result of these memberships and affiliations, I will never have a need for a business Web site design. These organizations even help me with finding additional potential partnerships and professional alignments on a continual basis.
6. Most intelligent older people never look at Web sites anyways.
They are just too busy and could care less of the contents and images available on my Web site. They simply aren’t curious and the majority of people in the United States don’t own computers in their homes or offices to look A Small Company up online. They would rather spend the time out of their hectic lives to jump into a car, weave in and out of heavy traffic trying to find my small business in smallville town, look through the hundreds of similar products in my store, stand in our long lines to cash out when purchasing these products with their screaming kids by their sides and get back in their cars to head back home in equally heavy traffic. What if I don’t have what they need? Oh well. Let them just get back in their cars and spend more time driving around looking for that product elsewhere in smallville town. I don’t care about their business.
7. I already have a brochure I developed 5 years ago.
I still have plenty of other brochures left on my shelf at A Small Company, and it is still fairly up to date. In order to save myself money on advertising and marketing costs, I will first use these brochures up on my existing customers whenever they come into my store. When I eventually run out of brochures, I can always just use my printer to print our weekly specials in black and white ink; my customers don’t care about the presentation of my marketing materials anyways. Why would they care about my Web site presentation either?
8. Web design and development is just another way companies try to grab your hard-earned dollars.
Web design and development firms don’t care about me, Mr. SmallBiz Owner or my small business in smallville town. They are just trying to sell me a Web site by pushing false information about my local competitors and my industry, and using scare tactics to get me to buy into the whole Web site design concept. They keep trying to tell me what my prospects and customers need and expect out of me and A Small Company. I just chuckle and laugh it all off. To think that they know more about my customers than I do is absolutely absurd!
9. I am very visible in my local target market.
Everybody with whom I want to do business knows about me and A Small Company located in smallville town USA. They can easily find me through any of the millions of local yellow pages I pay a monthly fee for, because everybody who is anybody solely looks for any products and services in their local yellow pages. It is the latest and greatest piece of marketing and advertising ever created. It has a very high level return on investment, it is very affordable and I can easily track who finds me through the yellow pages.
10. Lastly, Web sites are strictly for large corporations that provide services and products throughout the United States or worldwide.
I only own one small business store in smallville town America; therefore, a Web site has too broad of a reach. Besides, why would I care about reaching potential customers across the United States? The local customers I have now will definitely provide me with more than enough income to support my family for many years to come. Should I ever decide to market to potential customers across America, I can always pay for classified ads in newspapers in all 50 states. Because I never surf the Internet, I am very confident my customers don’t either. The Internet is only comprised of kids and teenagers, and they are not my target market for my small business.
About the Author
Wendy Suto is president and CEO of Search Circus, Inc., offering the latest and trendiest Website marketing programs. She likes educating small business owners using dripping sarcasm. To hear more dripping sarcasm from Wendy, check out the company’s organic SEO strategies. She is also a certified search engine optimization consultant and gives seminars throughout Cleveland, Ohio.
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An Easy Guide to Template Customization and How You Can Avoid Getting Stuck With a Crappy Little Website
Posted on 06. Nov, 2008 by Dave.
The general consensus is yes. Yes you can customize your own template, it all depends on the complexity of the site and what you want it to do. Aahh I see, so just as long as I don’t try to sell anything and I don’t have people sign up for anything and don’t care whether people find me or NOT! I should be good, right? Does that sound right to you guys? Uh No!!!
This is what the problem is, on the Internet there are lots of guys who claim to know everything and love to give advice about everything but in reality they know a little bit about everything and a lot about nothing. Those same guys will waist countless hours and cost you hundreds of dollars in lost revenue potential. If you don’t know anything about HTML or you don’t have professional web design tools such as Adobe Dreamweaver, Photoshop and the like or if you simply just aren’t sure that you will be able to make your site fully functional and capable of being index by all the major search engines, then let a template customization specialist do it for you! Don’t let inexperience tarnish your companies’ image. Hire a professional!
For example here is an actual email from a guy named Vincent, not a professional, who was hired to do a website that required expertise in Flash development – reads as follows “I have been trying to get this form to work for 7 hours and I cannot get it to work. I will gladly pay you to get it to work for me – I need this done very soon.” You don’t have to be a template customizations specialist to see Vincents in over his head.
Regrettably we get emails like that every year. Yet there always is and will continue to be tons of small business owners who will rent expensive gear, buy their supplies economically, spend hundreds of dollars on advertising, and then hire a cheep freelancer with questionable skill and ability to do their template customization – freelancers who graphic design sucks and knowledge of rudimentary web design is totally lacking and all but hurt more than help.
If you seriously considering taking your business online hire a template customization specialist! Today there are a myriad of platforms, applications and programs used in making your template dynamic and interesting in addition to HTML. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and XML are just two of the popular web formats used nowadays. Flash programs and various graphics also accentuate the aesthetic characteristics of many new templates to increase their interactivity. In addition, the use of scripts is important in making programs and forms work smoothly and seamlessly. Your chosen template customization specialist should be able to use all of these with flair and ease.
Should you wish to acquire more information about our template customization services simply get in touch and tell us what you think. You’ll be amazed when we show you how you can have professional template customization on anyone of our website templates custom-made to the specific needs and goals of your business for only $380.
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