We would also recommend looking through Google’s array of services that may benefit your company. Google Docs is a word document program similar to Microsoft Word. One of the huge benefits is that you can make it available for others to access that same document and edit it on the net. This eliminates sending the most up-to-date file between editors. You can also edit that document anywhere there is a computer with an internet connection. Google Maps also is a great feature to have on your website so viewers can find your place of business.

Another area to keep in mind is to make sure that your website is search engine friendly. We have helped many clients be found in the search engines and make sure the website content is crawlable for the search engine spiders. Many companies have a large ROI when their websites, services and search engine results are combined correctly.

Go though your current website and think about a redesign. Many times, a new year is coupled with new offers and your website should reflect those offers. A redesigned website can have a large impact on your conversion rates, which in turn boosts your ROI. Additional functionality, cleaning up navigation and additional pages can all have a positive effect on how a customer views your business and how the search engines crawl your website content.

As always, if you have any questions about how a website can benefit your business, please let us know! We would be happy to answer any questions you may have!

Have a great and safe New Year!

We are still surprised how many businesses do not have a website. Now, because we are a web design company, we may be a little biased : ). We have also seen the effects that a website can have on a business, especially certain types of businesses. Even the businesses that we do not conduct a full out search engine optimization campaign, still get business from the web. It is amazing how many people search the internet looking for solutions to all sorts of questions and problems.

Online Searches

New businesses can capitalize on the fact that people are searching for many different types of products and services on the internet. The other great part of this is that many of the searches done today are focused for a more geographic local search. This gives the business a great chance to be found on the top of the search engines, just by having a website online. This trend for a more local search can have a significant effect from sales generated from your website.

Decision Makers

We know many decision makers that attempt to look for a website on a given company before they call to do business with them. It is expected that businesses have a website that has the necessary information that is organized in a way users can easily find the information they are looking for. We have also talked with the decision makers about what they do if they find a business that does not have a website, or if the website is not easy to find, and they all say the same thing, “I don’t do business with them.”

This speaks volumes about how important it is to make it easy for your business to be found online. If your business does not have a website, decision makers knowingly overlook your company for a competitor that has invested in a website for themselves. This reason alone should tell you how critical it is to be easy to do business with online.

Conclusion

New business websites are a great place to start in the world of advertising, especially with how affordable internet advertising is compared to other forms of advertising. So if you have a new business and are looking for fast and affordable advertising, we would highly recommend looking into investing in a professionally designed website for your business.

Background Code

As much as people like to do the changes and build their own website, we have rarely viewed a website that is built properly, ranks high in the search engines and is built by themselves. There are many checks that search engines do on a website in order to help rank them. Broken link checks, validation, cross browser compatibility, analytics, to name a few, help your website present itself in a form that is easy for search engines to rank a website. Having solid background code is one key to having a successful website.

Contact and Content Information

Contact and content information also play a critical role in a successful website structure. Having contact information listed on every page and in a high priority location, such as at the top of every page, makes your website very user friendly. It is very frustrating to be at a website and have to look for the contact information. It should always be located in as many places, within reason, as possible. Having contact information readily available builds trust on a website and building trust is also a critical piece for turning visitors into customers.

Having great content can be a superb boost for your website in the search engines. Many times if your content is targeted towards a specific topic, it is usually found in the search engines for related keywords. Sometimes creating content can be a tedious process, but if ranking in the search engines is important for your business, structuring your content can play a large role in showing up the the search results.

Easy Navigation Elements

Navigation can make or break the success of your website as well. We have all had experiences where the navigation is not clear and it can be a nightmare to try to navigate to the page you are trying to look for. This is especially embarrassing for people who are giving a presentation and they go to the website to find some information and the link they are looking for is so buried in the site that it takes them 5 plus minutes to actually find the content. Your visitors will not spend the time trying to dig out the link. Instead, they will move on to your competition. It is also important to make sure that your navigation works properly in other internet browsers. We have come across many websites that work in Internet Explorer, but not in Mozilla Firefox. Depending what industry you are in, this could be upwards of 50% of people not being able to use the navigation in the way in which you had originally intended. We like to advise people to create a sitemap page so at least there is a “least case” scenario in which the user can find all of your content easily.

“H” Tags

Another important structure element in the “H” tags in the code of your website. Many search engines place some importance on these tags to see how the content is structured. These tags include the H1, H2, H3, bold and other tags. Structuring your content with these tags helps the search engines and visitors skim through information and determine what to read or skip.

Structuring all of these elements on your website is a piece that many “do it yourself” website places do not help their customers with. This can turn out to be the difference between ranking on the search engines and closing sales or being found no where and having the website not producing at all for your business.

So you have finally decided to get a website for your business. Congratulations! You found a reputable Minneapolis web design firm with a solid portfolio and great customer service. You want a clean, crisp design and also be found in the search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. Then it finally sets in, you are going to need text on your website. What should you say? Should you really include that? How long should it be? Need some help? Keep reading.

What should you say?

Even though you may think writing copy for your business may be easy, when it comes time to actually sit down and write, it may take a while to organize your thoughts.

I would recommend the following ideas for your “Home” or “About” page:

• How many years have you been in business?
• Write the story about how your business was started.
• What products and services do you offer and how do they differ from the competition?
• List the geographical areas you serve.
• Where your business is located.

For a “Products” or “Services” page, I would recommend:

• A picture of the product or service being completed
• A description of the product or service
• All of what is included with the product or service
• Any warranties
• What the user can expect when they have this product or service
• Any part numbers that are relevant to the product or other common names for the service
• A contact phone number

Finally, for a “Contact” page, I would recommend:

• Any and all contact information
• Phone number
• Email address
• Fax number
• Website address
• Business mailing address
• Google Map with driving directions
• Google Talk, AIM or other instant message programs

This information will help you get started on some of the types of text that visitors will find useful on your website. We have noticed when writing our own text that the above suggestions get the ball rolling and then it usually spirals into a bunch more content that you were unaware that you had wanted to put in.

How long should it be?

I would recommend breaking the information into some decent chunks, maybe 500 – 1200 words and spreading it around on different pages. If you do have a long page, I would recommend internal links that, when clicked, automatically scroll down the page to the desired content. If you choose to do this, place a “Back to the top” link at the bottom of the desired content section. It makes it easier for users to quickly get around your website.

Be resourceful, use the internet!

Go out to websites and look at what people use for great paragraphs. What ever you do, do not steal others’ text. This can get you in serious trouble. You can, however, see different writing styles for different industries and then come up with your own unique style of writing for your own website.

Be sure to include keywords!

Finally, keep in mind the keywords you would like to rank for in the search engines. Include a few keywords throughout your text so that the search engines can pick them up. Don’t stuff your paragraph with keywords. This could lead to penalties and possibly get your website banned. So keep it natural and let the search engine ranking begin!

Every now and then, you run across a website of a company that looks like the last time it was updated was 1997. How much trust does that build with you? I usually think, “Hmmm…if their website is outdated, maybe their business practices are as well.” And then I usually proceed on to their competitor. Having an updated and user friendly design can pay dividends to people searching for your products and services or to your sales team and having them guide prospective clients to the correct area on your website.

Redesign and update your website

It is important to keep your look and feel as fresh and clean as possible. We believe it is also important to maintain a constant look and feel throughout the website. Do yourself and your visitors a favor and don’t have the logo aligned left on one page and then aligned right on another page, with different navigation elements. Keep it consistent. Also make sure your website is in accordance with your other promotional materials. We have helped clients who send out flyers and it is important to have the same logos and colors in order to appear consistent. With customers, it’s critical to build up enough trust so they feel comfortable contacting you.

Make your website redesign more user friendly

• Make sure your website does not have any broken links. This is a sign to the search engines that some of the content on your website may be outdated.
• Validate your website. The World Wide Web Consortium has a website validator that you can use to make sure your website is up to code standards.
• Redo your title and description tags on your website. Make sure it relates to the information you have on the web page. This can help in the search engine results.
• Make sure your navigation is clear and consistent. This is a huge deal on the web. There is nothing more frustrating than a website that has inconsistent navigation throughout the website. Visitors WILL go to competitors’ websites.
• Update offers and contact information. Be sure to change and add any phone numbers that need to be replaced. Make sure email addresses go to the proper location. Make sure your address is up to date. Is all of the contact information on each and every page? Is everything spelled right? Is that sale from 1998 over yet on your website?
• Add new, worthwhile information to your website. Do you have an article about your company that would help other visitors to make a decision to use your products or services? Do you have any testimonials that you could share? Is there any new affiliation that you would like to show off to visitors? Collect as much information that you think would be helpful to a visitor and get it ready to place online.

Taking on a website design project can be a hefty task. If you could use our assistance, please feel free to get in touch with us. We have completed many website redesigns over the years. The owners are usually very excited when they see the effect it can have on the search engine positions and the conversion rates from visitor to customer.

Web VS. Print – Similar, but very different

Many people who venture out to create a website aren’t aware of the vast differences between the web world and the print world. The web world is very dynamic when it comes to the varying degrees of how a user can physically view the website. The print world is very exact and it can be controlled precisely so the user sees exactly what the publisher intended.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/florisla/ /
CC BY-SA 2.0

The web has always had many varying factors to take into account before the design process even takes place. Now more than ever, people are viewing the same web pages on their cell phones and on their 22” monitors at their dwelling. That proves to be one of the challenges when designing a website. Another challenge is the screen resolution of the monitor. As computer monitors get larger, the screen resolution sizes increase. Depending on how the website is built, two different users with 2 different screen resolutions can have a very different experience. Objects and text can be spaced out and harder to read and follow. Colors can also appear differently depending on the user’s monitor. Some monitors display the colors correctly, but if the user adjusts the brightness or the contrast, colors can appear skewed from what they web designer originally intended. It is very important to first start with the initial goal of the website and then build the website around that particular goal.

The print world is very exact. The user will always see exactly how the author wanted to portray the development piece. True, the user may have to view the billboard through distractions such as buildings, telephone poles, etc, but when they view the display, it will be very precise. From the colors, exact size, cut design, transparency, thickness, it will always be the same.

There are many differences between the web and print world. The web is highly dynamic with the many screen sizes and resolutions that the viewer can use to gather information while print is very exact. Each has its own challenges and focus on the specific targeted demographic.

When building an affordable website design, there are 5 key factors that can help guide the project to completion while keeping it affordable. These factors tame the project from going out of control and spending unnecessary money. Follow these factors and you will be well prepared and shouldn’t have a problem building an affordable website design:

1. Know the goal of the website before you get started with the project.

   This rule is listed first for a reason. It is very important to know where you would like to go or what you would like to do before you put out any money to get something done. It may seem like a no-brainer, but people sometimes jump into building an affordable website without any idea of what to do. When this step is skipped, there isn’t a focus and clients tend to get a little of everything and often not in the areas that they had expected. This step is crucial when trying to keep within the boundaries of an affordable website design.

2. Building an affordable website design can take time.

   There is an old saying in the design business: “quality, price or time, pick any two.” This explains the trade-offs when working on a design project. For example, the project can be made with “price” and “time” as factors, but the “quality” of the project will suffer. Another example, the project can be made with “price” and “quality”, but the “time” or the quickness of getting the project done will suffer. With an affordable website design, the “cheap” or price is the focus of the project right away, pick the other factor: “good” or “fast.”

   “…it is important to focus on providing easy ways for the customer to get the information they want.”

3. Put less focus on the overall design and make sure the usability of the website is clear.

   When building an affordable website design, it is important to focus on providing easy ways for the customer to get the information they want. The design of your website doesn’t have to be revolutionary. We have seen websites that offer “cutting edge” design, but when it is placed in front of users they get confused and leave to find the information they were looking for on a competitor’s website. Most of the time in business, your customers don’t care about how fancy your website is, they want to know what you can do for them. Information that is readily available and easy to read helps them with their decision making process.

   “It may seem like a no-brainer, but people sometimes jump into building an affordable website without any idea of what to do.”

4. Help your affordable website design grow by including it in your other advertising.

   This is one area where you can help, that not every business takes advantage of. It seems like a no-brainer, but some businesses do not put their website address on their other marketing items. We see this as a huge waste of such a valuable resource. It is similar to shutting the door in the face of a person who wants to do business with you and then sitting down and wondering why your business is struggling. It takes very little effort to include a website address on all your marketing materials for your business and it helps tremendously. An affordable website design can help convert traffic from your other marketing activities to your front door.

5. Talk with your professional website designer to see what options might be available for you.

   When you deal with a professional web site designer, they know what certain items and features cost and can make suggestions of what is possible within a certain budget. This can be a very useful tool when trying to build an affordable website design. It is best to know what options are available to you so you can make the best decision when utilizing your resources.

In conclusion, keep these 5 factors in mind when building an affordable website design. Know the goal of the project. Realizing that the project will take time to complete. Focus on usability for your customer. Include the website address in your other advertising and keep the lines of communication open with your website designer. These factors will help guide the project and make sure that it gets done effectively, efficiently, on time and on budget.

We see many web sites that need redesigns. We call them “cob webs.” There is nothing more annoying (well, within reason : -)) than a web site that scrolls horizontally, uses flashing text, has pictures from the 80’s, loads slowly and is hard to navigate. I’m sure you all are familiar with the web sites I’m talking about. Well, these sites not only reflect poorly on the designer, but also on the company image. When you, a business person, think about all the money that is tied up into your business, the last thing you want is customers to look at your image and gasp in horror at confusing messages and leave your web site and go to a competitor. Especially when building a professional looking web site is so easy to have done.

Deciding to get the web site redesign

When a web site redesign is started, there is a quick sigh of relief! A poorly designed web site is equivalent to showing up to your movie premier in Hollywood with an 80’s style afro wearing a light blue and brown striped polyester suit, with pink leg-warmers. You get the idea. What type of business image do you want to leave with a customer?

When a web site is designed properly, the results can be dramatic. One of the “good” things about your web site online is that your domain name has been maturing on the internet, and is probably indexed with some of the search engines. This is a HUGE plus. Newly purchased domain names usually have a delay for indexing on the internet, called a “Sand Box Effect.” This means that Google is trying to make sure that the organization (business, non-profit, personal site) behind the domain name is “reputable.” What happens is that the domain name will not show up in Google searches anywhere between 3-9 months. Yes, 3-9 months.

A word of warning about some “SEO Professionals” and their infamous promise of a #1 Google spot

Don’t be fooled by those “seo professionals” that promise you fast #1 spots on Google. They often make unrealistic promises, take your money and before you know it, your site will be banned from Google. And with Google getting approximately 90% of the search engine market share, being banned is definitely not where you want to be. So with a mature domain name, businesses can be found on the search engines faster than a newly designed web site. Also, when users get to your site they should know how to get around to find the products or services that you offer.

Navigation is extremely important for visitors

Another aspect the professional web design company will look at is the number of web pages your web site needs and the resulting type of navigation that should be used. This step is critical in order to see great results from a redesign campaign. It is very important for the user to know relatively where they are in a web site. It’s even more important to know how to get around (and where you would like to lead them!). The user should know where the navigation is and it should be consistent on each page. We also highly recommend that all of our clients have contact information (phone number, email address, instant message, etc) on each page, so in the event that a user would like to contact the company, they don’t have to leave the page they are on and navigate back to the page they are interested in. Navigation is a definite key in seeing impressive results from a web site redesign. Navigation is also part of the overall design of the web site and when critiqued correctly, your visitors will thank you in the form of referrals and repeat sales.

Last but not necessarily least, the overall design

Finally, the other important detail of having your web site redesigned is the “look and feel.” You may be asking “Well, why is this part last? Isn’t it the most important?” and the answer is most likely “no.” As any web design professional will tell you, one of the main goals of having a web site is being able to see some ROI. We have talked to countless CEO’s and business owners and they have all expressed the same concerns:

1. How can I use this to make money?
2. How can I justify spending the money?

Many web sites online make money. How? Most likely they were ranking in the search engines and they were easy to navigate, so the user could find the product or service and contact the business. The overall design has little to do with making the sale, but it still is am important piece. The design should be:

• Consistent
• Crisp
• Flowing
• Not confusing
• Clear

A word of wisdom from a professional web design company

As a web design and SEO professional, I encourage you to be aware of the needs of your viewer. It is they who you are building the site for in the first place. Make it easy for them to find your products and/or services, contact you and do business with and you will see the great results or your investment.

Conclusion

In conclusion, a web site redesign can be an extremely valuable investment when done correctly. Optimizing for the search engines will ensure viewers easily come across your web site. Making the web site easy to navigate will make sure the viewer can easily navigate where they want, when they want. The overall design of the site is important. It should be clean and crisp, but it shouldn’t be the main focus. Having your web site built by a professional web site company will make sure that all these areas are covered and you will be on your way to converting more users to customers from your web site redesign.

We hear it all the time…”My brother (son, grandma, uncle, etc.) knows how to build web sites and they do it for cheap! Why would I have a professional build my web site?” The sad truth is that eventually the majority of these companies wish they would have started with a professional web design company.

It’s too much work for a non-professional web design company

As time goes on, these companies who have a “cheap” web designer come to us because their designer has one of the following symptoms:

• No time
• Went out of business
• Not available
• Sick and tired of making updates

And all while the company is not getting the results they had hoped for.

It is easy for us to understand why a company would shudder when thinking about hiring a professional web design company: affordability.

In this article we point out some of the things to take into consideration when you have a web site professionally built.

Benefits of a professionally designed web site
Some benefits of having a web site built by a professional organization are:

• They have the technical expertise
• You can focus more on your business
• Being found on the search engines
• Clean crisp professional design
• Easy to use and easy to navigate
• Increasing traffic to the site
• Future growth and expandability

The time and money are better spent on dealing with a professional in the field that knows these areas. Those in business know that time is money. Do the math! You are here to find out how to build your business. Your neighbor down the block does this in his spare time…who would you want to do business with?

Web design professionals know all the in’s and out’s

There are many areas to be considered when thinking of getting an online presence:

• Goals of the site
• Usability
• Professional, clean, crisp design
• Future expandability
• Who is going to keep it updated
• The information you should we have on your web site
• How your web site will be found on the internet

These are just a few areas that are analyzed when you decide to work with a professional web design company. Some areas are obviously more important than others. The company’s goals for the web site have much to do with the priority of each of the areas.

This is what we as professionals are trained to do: enable business owners to focus more on their business, and let us focus on doing what we do (building your online presence)

For example, I wouldn’t even think about designing and building my own cabinets. Considering the time it would take me to build a cabinet myself, it would be a better business decision to hire a professional carpenter or cabinet supplier to build my cabinets, so I can focus on my core business. Likewise, you have a core business model which you should be focusing on so that your business grows.

Let the pros do their work, so you can focus yours.

You are reading this article to get an education about possibly making a business decision in the future. Your neighbor down the street does this in his spare time (and their work on your business web site will show it)…Who do you want to do business with? Who would you work with to showcase your professional image?

When you work with professionals, you get professional results and the peace of mind that it is doing what it is supposed to do.

Having an online presence is not enough. Your web site should be optimized for the search engines. Google, Yahoo and MSN, are just a few of the search engines the professionals work with. Professional web designers have industry knowledge that help your web site rank higher and be more useful to customers. Your web site should be easy to read and to navigate. The layout should be attractive and the text should be readable.

Future growth and expandability

One characteristic that professional web design companies focus on is the future expandability of the web site. This is very important when looking at the overall design. There are many packages available that will help you build a web site, but when the support for that package goes away or they go out of business, all the money that you invested into your web site is gone with the package. The professionals use industry standard coding practices so their code can be easily understood. This translates into a higher value web site that is faster to expand and grow, saving you and your business time and money.

When you invest in a professional web design company to build your online presence, what you are paying for is their experience in the field. However, the professionals aren’t for everyone, at least in the beginning. Eventually those businesses who wish to get a web site professionally made, but don’t want to spend the money, will fall into one of the following categories:

1. They will go out of business, or
2. They will end up paying a professional to build their web site

What we as professionals have seen

In our experience, the businesses that don’t invest in a professional web site eventually wish they had invested in a web design company. Considering all the important factors listed above, it is highly recommended to look closely at the benefit of working with a web design professional.

The task of building a web site and having it work for your business is too time intensive for non-professionals and the business simply won’t get the results they had hoped for without spending much time and effort learning the techniques that work well for businesses on the internet.

Conclusion

In conclusion, your job is to build your business which takes both time and energy. Save both and let professional web design companies use their time and energy to help build your business the right way.

There are many factors that you should think about when preparing to make your website design affordable. Making affordable website designs is something that every website designer strives toward if they wish to keep their clients happy. In this article we are going to discuss how both you as a customer and your website designer can work together to make your affordable website design.

1. Let your website designer know what your specified budget is.

   This is rule number 1 for a reason! Affordability is different for each business. For example, I was talking to one of my acquaintances about boats while we were going for a boat ride on his new yacht. He said that the boat was “affordable” so he bought it and he loves it. Another acquaintance told me he was looking for a boat. “Affordable” to him was a price around $1200. Affordability is the amount of a resource (money, time, etc) to spend on something and it is not the same for any two people. It is important to let your web designer know what “affordability” means to you as a customer.

2. Know what you can live without!
   “For example, I was talking to one of my acquaintances about boats while we were going for a boat ride on his new yacht. He said that the boat was “affordable” so he bought it and he loves it. Another acquaintance told me he was looking for a boat. “Affordable” to him was a price around $1200.”

   Let’s face it, everyone wants their website to have ecommerce, interactive features, rank high in the search engines, get unlimited updates and make them financially independent. I’ll let you in on a little secret.you won’t get any of those with a $10/month website. Having a website that does all of those things is possible. They have been done before, but affordability was never mentioned while they were working on the project. So maybe having a presence online where your customers can reach you via email and find out more about your company and your store hours is what you really need. More likely than not, your website designer can do all of the things mentioned above, but you can help make your affordable web design easier on yourself, your wallet and your designer.

3. Have all materials ready for your website designer.

   This help is extremely appreciated by all web designers that are on a project budget. A list of some of the things that you can have ready is as follows:

   • Text for the web pages that you would like
   • The pictures/images you would like on each page
   • The location of the pictures/images (either on the web, on your computer or in your house)
   • A company brochure
   • A thought about what you would like the design of your website to look like
   • Links to other websites you would like to have on your website

   This can be a tremendous help for making affordable website design. All of these items mentioned save your website designer time and makes things more efficient. Do them and it will lower the cost of your business website design project.

4. If you think of any changes you’d like or features you’d like to add, bring them up and talk to your designer about them.

   They might have an effect on the affordability or have some other extra steps that you don’t see that would need to be set up in order to have the new feature. Keep the lines of communication open! Having an affordable website design takes effort from both parties.

In conclusion, making an affordable website design is realistic and can be done. Having an affordable website design is done all the time, but it needs help from both the client and the website designer to make sure it is done properly. Help the web designer by gathering around items that are needed in the project. Also, it’s always a good idea to keep the lines of communication open, and affordable web design is no exception. Keep these ideas in mind when you are involved in a website project and you will have no problem keeping your goal of having an affordable website design.