Small Business Web Design
Posted 23rd June 2014 at 11:04 AM by imarkedy
Small business web design, when done correctly, can launch an unknown brand into the realm of elite service providers in an industry. In this article, we’ll review website builder’s as well best practices for launching a website. First, it isn’t necessary to be a web design expert to launch and manage an online property. Unfortunately, many believe great web design means tons of onsite ‘pop and flash’ but nothing is further from true.
Here are a few areas to consider as you begin the process of building your dream (and profitable) website;
1. Keyword friendly domain name selection; OK, you have a catchy business name but if just beginning the process or hoping to expand online presence, a catchy name is hardly an effective way to do so. Instead of explaining, blow by blow, what I mean, take a look around our website and especially the domain name. Our website URL (another name for domain) is specifically targeted towards those seeking small business services. More importantly, the domain name is a keyword phrase tens of thousands search each month on the Internet. You may love your business name but that hardly means others will and if not strategic with how it is presented online, you’ve added years onto the process of becoming competitive.
2. Website Theme; what market are you trying to reach and is your website set up in a way which allows maximum search market impact? A theme is the topic which you plan on blogging about as well as monetizing. I mentioned blogging is because there is no better tool to reach an audience hungry for your information and expertise. Each article written, properly keyword titled, opens up a new website traffic funnel. Think about each post as opening a new retail store location. More than anything, written, video, shared documents etc. is about extending brand message reach.
3. User friendly navigation; far be it from me to suggest a beautiful layout equates to a user friendly website. Take a step back and separate your desires from those of future site visitors. Your vision must be translated into receiving buy in from website visitors and this requires understanding needs and tweaking navigation to accommodate.
Locating both hosting and an easy website builder is important for quick launch of brand messaging. There was a time when my company offered website design services but these days we provide a ‘do-it-yourself’ web design training course as well as 2,000 other business training video tutorials.
Here are website builders which offer easy set-up and are geared toward those with little to no design experience;
1. Weebly: Weebly continues to improve ease of use for their website builder and is worth checking out.
2. Wix: Very few haven’t seen Wix ads (especially on Facebook). It is a stable service and having monitored their growth over the years, I give my personal recommendation for its use!
3. Godaddy: although an option, please understand we are in no way encouraging our readers and students to use their services. Godaddy is one of the few hosting providers we offer no video tutorial training on because their interface is confusing and difficult to use especially for newbies. Why offer something so confusing? To upsell their in-house design services as well as other custom options. If not careful when signing up for Godaddy hosting, $15 per month can easily turn into $400-$500 or more!
4. Wordpress.org: although, in general, a content management system (CMS), for those needing a more robust website builder, Wordpress may be just what you’ve been looking for.
5. Drupal: a competitor of Wordpress, Drupal offers one of the easiest design interfaces of any content management system. Should you hire professional website design services? That depends on your ‘speed to market’ goals but in general, no! Although we no longer offer website development services, every once in a while a project so excites us that we just can’t help offering assistance.
Often, this is a result of cleaning up the mess left behind by another designer and according to those who’ve been disappointed by others, here are challenges you may face as well;
1. The web developer hosts client sites and therefore, has complete control over every aspect of not only initial design but forces unnecessary and ongoing management. Never, unless very well capitalized with money to waste, allow web developers to host your website. This is nothing more than a way to extract ongoing fees for over-priced services. You can purchase hosting for less than $90 per year and top hosts such as Blue Host and Host Gator offer (free) website builders mentioned earlier. If you allow website developers to secure hosting and purchase the domain, even though you paid for both, they own it and will make life very difficult.
2. Clients must put in ‘work tickets’ for changes and website updates. When changes need to be made, it must happen ASAP and every moment wasted with these requests and their fulfillment puts you further behind competitors. Website developers may take 4-5 business days to make even the smallest changes and may require some form of payment beyond initial fees.
3. High charges for ongoing maintenance and hosting. Here’s how the game works – if you purchase the hosting and a custom domain name, it will cost about $105 per year. Developers charge 2-3 times this amount as well as ‘maintenance fees’ which ultimately mean nothing more than clicking on your website link a few times per month to make sure it is still operating correctly. Time spent doing do? Perhaps 1 minute!
My advice is to buy hosting, purchase your domain name and find a developer who is OK with this arrangement. If you allow a third party to control hosting, website files and maintenance; who is really managing your business? Any third party contractor, for all intents and purposes, is employed by your brand. Just like in-house staff, they may be paid for performing a task but you still own the assets used in performance of the task!
I am not, in any way, attempting to present website developers and their business model as unethical. My desire is to put the facts in front of readership so an informed choice can be made. What is most important is to have a rough idea of how your website will appear and more importantly, how visitors will respond.
Brian D. Dale
Wordpress Plugins Course
Here are a few areas to consider as you begin the process of building your dream (and profitable) website;
1. Keyword friendly domain name selection; OK, you have a catchy business name but if just beginning the process or hoping to expand online presence, a catchy name is hardly an effective way to do so. Instead of explaining, blow by blow, what I mean, take a look around our website and especially the domain name. Our website URL (another name for domain) is specifically targeted towards those seeking small business services. More importantly, the domain name is a keyword phrase tens of thousands search each month on the Internet. You may love your business name but that hardly means others will and if not strategic with how it is presented online, you’ve added years onto the process of becoming competitive.
2. Website Theme; what market are you trying to reach and is your website set up in a way which allows maximum search market impact? A theme is the topic which you plan on blogging about as well as monetizing. I mentioned blogging is because there is no better tool to reach an audience hungry for your information and expertise. Each article written, properly keyword titled, opens up a new website traffic funnel. Think about each post as opening a new retail store location. More than anything, written, video, shared documents etc. is about extending brand message reach.
3. User friendly navigation; far be it from me to suggest a beautiful layout equates to a user friendly website. Take a step back and separate your desires from those of future site visitors. Your vision must be translated into receiving buy in from website visitors and this requires understanding needs and tweaking navigation to accommodate.
Locating both hosting and an easy website builder is important for quick launch of brand messaging. There was a time when my company offered website design services but these days we provide a ‘do-it-yourself’ web design training course as well as 2,000 other business training video tutorials.
Here are website builders which offer easy set-up and are geared toward those with little to no design experience;
1. Weebly: Weebly continues to improve ease of use for their website builder and is worth checking out.
2. Wix: Very few haven’t seen Wix ads (especially on Facebook). It is a stable service and having monitored their growth over the years, I give my personal recommendation for its use!
3. Godaddy: although an option, please understand we are in no way encouraging our readers and students to use their services. Godaddy is one of the few hosting providers we offer no video tutorial training on because their interface is confusing and difficult to use especially for newbies. Why offer something so confusing? To upsell their in-house design services as well as other custom options. If not careful when signing up for Godaddy hosting, $15 per month can easily turn into $400-$500 or more!
4. Wordpress.org: although, in general, a content management system (CMS), for those needing a more robust website builder, Wordpress may be just what you’ve been looking for.
5. Drupal: a competitor of Wordpress, Drupal offers one of the easiest design interfaces of any content management system. Should you hire professional website design services? That depends on your ‘speed to market’ goals but in general, no! Although we no longer offer website development services, every once in a while a project so excites us that we just can’t help offering assistance.
Often, this is a result of cleaning up the mess left behind by another designer and according to those who’ve been disappointed by others, here are challenges you may face as well;
1. The web developer hosts client sites and therefore, has complete control over every aspect of not only initial design but forces unnecessary and ongoing management. Never, unless very well capitalized with money to waste, allow web developers to host your website. This is nothing more than a way to extract ongoing fees for over-priced services. You can purchase hosting for less than $90 per year and top hosts such as Blue Host and Host Gator offer (free) website builders mentioned earlier. If you allow website developers to secure hosting and purchase the domain, even though you paid for both, they own it and will make life very difficult.
2. Clients must put in ‘work tickets’ for changes and website updates. When changes need to be made, it must happen ASAP and every moment wasted with these requests and their fulfillment puts you further behind competitors. Website developers may take 4-5 business days to make even the smallest changes and may require some form of payment beyond initial fees.
3. High charges for ongoing maintenance and hosting. Here’s how the game works – if you purchase the hosting and a custom domain name, it will cost about $105 per year. Developers charge 2-3 times this amount as well as ‘maintenance fees’ which ultimately mean nothing more than clicking on your website link a few times per month to make sure it is still operating correctly. Time spent doing do? Perhaps 1 minute!
My advice is to buy hosting, purchase your domain name and find a developer who is OK with this arrangement. If you allow a third party to control hosting, website files and maintenance; who is really managing your business? Any third party contractor, for all intents and purposes, is employed by your brand. Just like in-house staff, they may be paid for performing a task but you still own the assets used in performance of the task!
I am not, in any way, attempting to present website developers and their business model as unethical. My desire is to put the facts in front of readership so an informed choice can be made. What is most important is to have a rough idea of how your website will appear and more importantly, how visitors will respond.
Brian D. Dale
Wordpress Plugins Course
