Website Design

Keeping things simple with your website usually mean the best results. I have found that after being in the website design and marketing business for close to 10 years and trying virtually every tactic on the planet. I’m here to tell you nothing beats keeping things simple!

Simplicity can be a very complicated sometimes though, creating a website using friendly complimenting colors and tightening up your content so it’s working to the full potential without information overkill can be tough.

As a rule of thumb avoiding as many things on your website like scrolling text, flash, music, etc is a no-brainer but moving beyond that there can be a fine line to simple and boring or just plain cluttered.

So how do you do this?

First you want to keep your content focused on your target market just don’t overdo it. If it’s not making any sense leave it out!

Second, as I mentioned above, be careful with flash and images, you don’t want to bug your visitors.

The next thing relating to your content, keep it like a nice well kept salad bar, pleasant to the eye, easy to choose from and easy to digest. It needs to be appealing and compelling.

Don’t talk above people, you may be a geek but you don’t have to speak like a geek! Relate to your visitors, don’t belittle them!

Be original, be creative, be yourself! I know this is the internet and it’s easy to pretend to be something you’re not but don’t do it! People appreciate honesty and can relate to you if you shoot straight with them.

The last thing I would say is to make sure your website navigation is like a walk in the park, not a hunt for buried treasure. Make it super easy for your visitors to get where they want to go and they will appreciate it. Nothing is worse than needing a GPS to navigate a website!

Is your website too complicated? We can help you work it out, call us today at 276-791-6488 or use our contact form and we’ll call you!

Owning a website design company for almost 9 years has taught me a lot of things about people, business and life in general but one common thing I see day after day are people with grave misconceptions about getting a website and that website being successful.

Creating a website and putting it online then stopping there is like buying a shiny new corvette and not ever putting gas in it. It’s great if you just want a pretty car in your garage or driveway so you can look at it but like a sports car a website is a vehicle that is meant to be used to its full potential.

I will go out on a limb and say that over 80% of would be website owners think that they will put up a site and people are going to flock to it overnight and they will become wealthy. Let me stress, THIS IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

Picking the right design company, the right colors, the great logo, the right layout are all very important for your website but the most important thing is your website marketing. You can have the best website in the world and if nobody ever visits your site you have wasted your money. On the flip side you can take a mediocre website, market the whiz out of it and be pretty successful.

Marketing a website takes time and money; don’t let anyone lie to you. I wish I had a magic bullet but if I did I would not be writing this article, I would be on the patio of my 10,000 sq ft beach house right now eating breakfast that my executive chef prepared for me. (By the way I’m not doing that)

You need to think long and hard about how you will market your website once it’s live, will you learn to market it or will you have someone do it for you? Do you have the time to do it your self? Do you have money in your budget to have someone take care of your marketing?

I don’t want to discourage anyone to not put up a website, I just want you to have a clear picture that your website is only the vehicle; the marketing is the fuel to run that vehicle.

I spent many years in the automotive business, ok, I was a car salesman and yes I know you just rolled your eyes. The video below brought back memories of my car selling days. It also sums up a lot of what designers deal with today. One of my designers sent me this video this morning when we were discussing scope creep. Scope creep is… well, just watch the video below.

A successful website is only as good as its marketing. Most would be website business owners seem to slight marketing thinking that just half way efforts in marketing will be ok or falling for the field of dreams myth “if you build it they will come”. They will spend several thousand dollars on a nice website and no money on marketing. If we look at traditional brick and mortar business I think we can compare.

Most successful brick and mortar businesses do everything they can to market their business from ads to television; they usually have nice store fronts and signage. Retail stores look for good location so they will gain a steady flow of customers that frequent their establishment. Have you ever seen a Wal-Mart or a Taco Bell that was built in a pasture field forty miles from nowhere? Me either.

How do we know businesses like this exist? Even if you have never been inside a Wal-Mart or Taco Bell you know what it is because of ads, television and radio plus you have probably driven by them. They have exposure and it’s very hard to not notice them. Even small successful business owners will market their business.

Shifting back to the online world and your website we often see the website as the business built in the pasture field forty miles from nowhere. It has no signage and a lot of times the lights are off and it appears abandoned. There has been no form of advertising and marketing is pathetic.

There are basic forms of marketing that anyone can do for an online business that will get you started but unless you are a marketing guru or you plan on taking time to learn how to market your business it’s probably best to be left in the hands of a professional. Marketing does not have to be ridiculously expensive it needs to be done right and done to the right audience.

Who is your target market? How can you appeal to them? How will you get their attention? You need the right product to satisfy the needs of your customers. Your product needs to be offered at the right price. You need to have the right product at the right price in the right place to be purchased by your customers. You need to inform potential customers of the availability of this product, its price and its place.

In its most basic form you can start marketing your business through social media, article writing and blogging. Don’t become a spam freak but instead write articles to inform and educate. Start groups on social networks that will allow you to educate and network. Try to keep in mind that you want to help your potential customers and in turn they will help you. If you are an authority to them that will build trust which in turn will lead to more customers and sales for you.

One other very important thing is to be yourself, you are your business so don’t be afraid to open up and let people get to know you. You will build closer more personal relationships with your customers.

I thought I was done ranting about the people offering cheap design services but I guess I’m not. I think out of all the things online this is probably the worst thing, I will go as far as saying these people and companies are scammers.

I did another Google search and I came up with some great stuff, here are just a few:

Web Design at $10/hr
Web Design/Programming NO Freelance
Satisfaction Guaranteed, Staff 80+

This is great! 80+ staff all working for $10 an hour, wait, has to be less than $10 an hour because I’m sure for a staff that large they have some overhead, right? Maybe it’s just me but don’t McDonald’s pay almost as much per hour?

Web Designers - $199
xxxxxxxxxxxx.com 100% Full “Custom” Web Design. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed!

Really? $199 and it’s fully custom and 100% satisfaction? Oops, what about the 228 rip off and scam reports?

The bottom line is that cheap website designs that will do something for your business other than destroy it just don’t exist!

As a consumer please educate yourself and ask the following questions before you choose a designer:

• What research will you do?
• Will you research my competitors?
• Will you research my target market?
• Will it really be custom or are you using a pre-made template?
• Will you be able to assist me with updates and additions after the project is done?
• How will you help me market my website?

This list could go on for a while but the questions above will get you started.

I have done professional website design and owned Proimpulse for more than eight years but it seems we never stop getting calls and emails from unhappy people that went the cheap route to get started then had to get a professional to clean up the mess.

I will go on record saying that it takes a little money to get a professional website and it also takes money to market that website unless you are an internet marketing expert then you will still have your time involved.

Falling for the myth that you can go into business on the internet for a couple hundred dollars will get you nowhere fast. On the flip side if you work with a professional spend money for quality work and service I can promise you that your efforts will pay off seven fold.