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New Business Websites | Businesses need a website to take advantage of searching customers

New Business Websites

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.



Design Your Website for Your Target Audience

Targeted web design

Keeping your target audience in mind when you are planning a website redesign is a critical component of whether or not that website is going to be effective and viewed as a trust worthy source of information in your industry. It is important to review past analytic data from your website to see the different screen resolutions that are used as well as traffic patterns to different topics and the most popular content. It is also a good idea to ask users who fit into your target audience what they like to see in a website and maybe some examples of the way content is presented to them. Keeping your target audience in mind can have a huge effect on whether visitors find your website easy to maneuver through or move on to another website.

Analyze past website visitor data and behavior

Analyzing past data and seeing patterns in user behavior is a great way to dive into how visitors to your website think and act. No matter the website, there are different patterns on how visitors click through the website and different areas they spend more time at. Using this data and analyzing patters can show you how to cater that specific audience for more relevant information. If you see that there is a high rate of traffic that goes to view your contact page and your contact information is solely there, it may be a good idea to place that contact information on every page, so it is directly in front of customers at all times. Another example is if you see patters of users moving from article to article. This can be a sign that you may want to place links to related articles maybe on the side of your website or at the bottom of the article so they can move on to the next article without backing out to an articles page.

Screen resolutions

Another very interesting piece of information you can get from analytics data is the screen resolution that visitors are using to view your website. This can come in handy when redesigning your website so you can keep it in a particular screen resolution. This helps with the amount the user has to horizontally scroll to see all of the content on your website. You may decide that the screen resolution may be large or small and you would like to have a more “fluid” design that stretches to fit the screen of your visitor no matter the screen resolution. Either way, being able to analyze data and see what your visitor is using for hardware can help them have a great user experience on your website.

Ask people in your target audience what they like

What better way to gather information about your new website design than to ask people who are in your target audience? I am always surprised how much detailed information people will give you about what they like about a website and what they find easy and difficult. All of it is good information to gather and sift through for your new website. When we asked people for their input, they are usually very likely to help you out and they like to see some of their ideas incorporated into a design. I have heard different target audiences that like larger text, larger pictures, YouTube videos, blogs, articles, forms, wider designs, contact information are just a few of the features that we have heard people say they like to see on a website. Another great way to have users find your site more useful is to have programs that help them out. For example, if you have a mortgage website, maybe you should place some calculators on your website and some instructions on what they are calculating and how it can affect their mortgage payments. These little programs are a great way for people to bookmark your website and see you as an authority in your field.

Make it easy for your target audience

It is always a pleasure to go though a website that has exactly what you want, relevant information everywhere and fits within your viewing screen. These are the types of websites that we will often bookmark. We have also seen when a website has the features that the target audience is looking for, those website almost always have higher sales because of it. Make it easy for your visitors and hopefully they will make it easier for you to keep your business making money.



Small Business Websites | Great idea to help grow your business

Small Business Web Design

Create some affordable business buzz

Small Business Website
A website for small and medium sized businesses is a great, affordable way to enter the market and generate some buzz. There are many high profile companies that are taking another look at the web and shifting advertising dollars from other more traditional forms of advertising to the internet. The main reason is because internet marketing is easier to track and see if the web is producing results for their business.

Affordable small business website design

It is possible to have a professional web design company provide your business an affordable web design. There is no need for you to learn how to design a website and make sure all the pages are validated and the code is correct. It is better for you to focus on your business and leave the website to the professionals. There are many pricing options that are available from a professional web designer. You will find that some web design companies are relatively inexpensive when compared to other forms of advertising. Small businesses have a great chance to free up some time and have a professional web design company create and manage their company website.

Grow your website

Create articles that showcase your product or service so visitors can get educated about what you have to offer. It is a thing of the past to setup a website and let it run. Consumers today are looking for more in depth information in order to make a decision. Consumers search through articles, blogs, reviews and competitor websites before coming to a conclusion. Write some articles that build trust between you and the potential client. Why should they choose you? Do they know about the award you received last month? What do your customers say about working with you? All of these questions can be answered on your website and are part of growing your website overtime.

Don’t overlook the power of having a professionally designed website. Many potential customers are out on the internet looking for services or products that you are selling. Unleash your small business website on the web and have it find customers to help grow your business.



Affordable Website Designs: How You Can Help Make Your Website Design Affordable! Yes, You!

Affordable Website Designs

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.