Is Your WebSite Hurting Your Business? 3 Business Site Downfalls

A website can be a wonderful addition to a business, to help fill in gaps, engage and inform potential customers, and provide a great representation of who you are and what your business stands for. So how could your website be hurting your business?

• 1.Your Website Has Little to No Useful Information

• A major downfall to a company website can be lack of information. If a potential customer were to research your company and decide if they want to do business, they may not be able to tell much about your company, and will decide to pursue elsewhere. Make sure to focus on having great content that shows the 5 W’s – What, Who, When, Where, and Why?

• 2. Your Website Does Not Represent Your Business

• Not even closely. If you’re a baker, your website is probably not the best place to show your deep interest in hunting – unless you provide both services. The customer would like to know more about your business – what kind of work do you do, how do you handle clients, and can you bother with the details (spell check!). Now is not the time to show a profile of yourself, including personal pictures. Show what your company can do, and have a closely related design theme that gives the same impression.

• 3.Your Website Is Only Loosely Related to Your Business

• If your website is not contributing to your business by providing information, or does not engage the customer to do something with your business, it will not pull customers to you. Try to have something that connects the site to the actual business – a phone number is a must, and it’s great to have a contact form. Coupons and offers are more great ways of engaging customers to your business. As always, Designer Websites is able to optimize your website for the customer, pulling customers and your business together for the best.

Mobile Sites – The What and Why of It All

   In 2001, when smart phones began to take rise with the Palm Pilot, how we view mobile devices changed forever. In 2007, mobile access to the internet accelerated, and most smart phones came with the capability to browse the internet. As mobile sites were being created, developers and businesses had to take into account the size of the screen and readability – two major factors of mobile viewing. All of this is fine and dandy, but why would a small business need a mobile site?

   In July of 2011, 35% of adults had a smart phone [1], and 87% of smart phone users use the internet on their phone on a regular basis. Being almost a year later, that percentage is surely higher. This means the audience most businesses are trying to reach are available through another medium – to contact, to browse, to inform.

Property of CNET

   A website that does not have a separate mobile site can cause longer loading times, harder to read text, and unclickable buttons. Unless your site is optimized for mobile devices, consumers may become frustrated with the lack of user friendliness. If they’re on the go and searching for your business, that may lead them elsewhere.

  80% of all searches performed on a smart phone are for local businesses and services [2]. When users are on the go, they want to get straight to the point – do you have what they’re looking for? It could be a number for your business, a certain product or service, and if they’re trying to go to your location, it could be directions or a map.

  If you have a smart phone, look at your current website on your phone – do you have to zoom to read the text? Can you click the number to call your business? Are there missing images, or are things appearing completely out of place? You may want to consider having a mobile site developed – to appeal to potential customers, and customers on the go. This may result in a boost of calls, a boost of visits, or just a boost of business. At Designer Websites, we have the ability to optimize your site for the mobile world. Give us a call today at (858) 467-9139, or leave us a message at our website - http://bit.ly/Kv9NJT

[1] http://cnet.co/oSitcT

[2] http://bit.ly/JBJMS8

Small Business Websites

Why Small Businesses Should Have Websites

As a small business, an advertising budget may not be possible for many. One thing that should not be ignored, however, is having a website. Websites can provide viable information for potential consumers – customers who don’t have any printed materials, need information after hours, or just cautious customers. Websites are the best way to get your name out, after social media.

So What?

When websites are built for your business, potential customers can…

Get an overview of the business

                Customers want to know before they take their business places – what will I find, who will I find there, and what can I expect? Having a website built allows customers to see more about you, your location, services, etc. This is a great resource tool for customers looking to take their business to new places.

Get the “feel” of the company

                Often times the rule “Don’t judge a book by its cover” is ignored, and businesses are often judged by the materials they present. If you have a poorly designed website, customers have low expectations, and may decide to look elsewhere.

Information

                How much will this cost? What is this? Customers need answers to their questions. Chances are, if you’ve gone to another business’s website looking for more information, you had some similar questions on your mind.

Building a website can be a big step, and often costly in large packages. Let Designer Websites make a website that fits for you and your budget.

What is Web Design?

Web Design is the creation of the web pages, and sites. Some of the programs that are used to create web pages are HTML, CSS, JavaScript and other web programs. When they say Web Design just think about it like how it said, because it’s pretty much the combination lo lines, shapes, texture, and color to go with what your purpose of the page is. Web design is what you do to make a web page look fantastic!

http://webdesign.about.com/od/webdesign/Web_Design.htm

Successful Tips about how to Create Engaging Social Media Content

There is many ways to be involved in social media, but not all of them may be easy.

You see many people just want too be in the social media to be around the crowd, but not all of them are willing to commit to what they promised. You see when you promote your brand you want to make sure that what you are promising will be true. Make sure you are loyal to your fans/followers.

1. Know the voice of your brand – You want to make sure that you give your costumer a funny, recognizable, bro- ish posts that will make your brand successful

2. Know your target market – You want to know who will be interested in your advertisement. People want weird cool things, on specific cities and nationwide.

3. Solve Problems – Their people out their that they may need the help or the guide so you should help them so they wont have a hard time. That’s they key that leads to customer service success in social media.

4. Time is of the essence – You should be able to write back to your client when they ask you a question. The reason is because you want to be aware of the chatter going around you. There’s app’s that you can use which are completely free such as tweet deck, hoot suite or even Facebook and twitter.

5. Use your head – Excel can be very helpful for the social media this way you will not bored your fans with posts updated at the same time.

Think outside the box. Find your voice and run with it. Success will follow soon

http://www.jacobtyler.com/creative-blog/2011/01/11/find-your-voice-tips-for-creating-engaging-social-media-content/

Strength in Emails

Where do you mostly spend your time in on the web? If you think it might be some social site it isn’t. Chances are that you mostly spend more time on your email more than anything.
It has come to Google and Yahoo! attention that they should spend time on social networks. Google and Yahoo! already have a lot of the stuff that Facebook and other social networks have. So why not just make it a social network?

Yahoo! plans to create an inbox 2.0. This version of the inbox automatically determines how often the relationship is between the person who is emailing and instant messaging. It will sense how often you interact with the other person and will put it as a more important message than the others waiting for you.

Source: http://www.smartbiz.com/article/view/2323/1/58

Traditional Design Methods that lead to New and Innovative Ideas

Some methods of revitalizing your creative side include some traditional methods of design and the process of building new ideas. In this day and age, everything is done behind a computer screen. Why not try and take out a pad of paper and a pen and jot down ideas and sketches to stimulate new idea growth.

Are you getting in the routine of webinars and online tutorials? How about trying in-person seminars or conferences where you can network and share ideas. Building up a social network outside of the internet allows for a more personal and interactive relationship with others in your field.

After meeting with clients or interviews are you sending a thank you back? I don’t mean by simple text through a smartphone but by e-mails or even a letter through snail-mail. E-mails are great in that it’s quick “stationary” and widely used. Writing a traditional letter isn’t as fast as an e-mail but it’s unique and will tell you apart from the rest.

http://www.howdesign.com/article/oldschool/  

The Design Process and Idea Generation



Design by Craig Frazier



The methodological approach to design is finding what works to convey a message without being too obvious or unclear. Our goal is to have the viewer engage the message briefly so the message is clear but memorable.

Things to avoid are clichés; these are the obvious contexts in society like symbols or images that we already commonly refer to when we go about our daily lives. The idea of design is to go beyond cliché’s and design out of the norm, we want to form visual pieces of work that tie to our conveying message without boring the audience with already played out phrases or blunt meanings.

The effectiveness of a design can be measured by the ability for the designer to pass their message into the subject to create a meaningful impression to the intended audience.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/02/21/clich-s-and-idea-generation-how-to-turn-clich-in-a-successful-visual-solution/

Even Forbes gets a Penalty from Google

The Forbes website has recently been notified by Google as having “possibly artificial or unnatural links…pointing to other sites.”

The act of Selling Links is a black hat SEO practice looked down upon by Google. The purchaser of those links gets to buy “Link Juice,” – the increased probability of getting more clicks from users, generating increased ranking in Google search results by having a presence on an established site.

Forbes admits to selling links through a partner for some time in the past, though they have begun making significant changes and removing those links in late 2010. Some of those changes include a revamped site architecture, and no purchased or “artificial or unnatural” links on their pages.

Source: SE Round Table

Your website must have backlinks to get high rankings on Google

Backlinks are very important to get high rankings on Google. That's why Google works so hard on filtering the wrong kind of links.

The links that point to your website should be from related websites and they should contain the keywords for which you want to get high rankings. Do not manipulate the links to your website by buying links and do not join automated link systems to increase the number of links to your website.

If you want lasting results, focus on ethical search engine optimization methods. There are many ways to get good links (related websites, blogs, social bookmark sites, directories, etc.)

Please visit our Web Design website for more information
www.designerwebsites.us