Archive for the ‘small business websites’ Category

Good Design Doesn’t Always Sell

Wednesday, June 20th, 2007

We all know … or at least we should all know … that good site design is important when it comes to making sales on the Net.

But sometimes - zanny things draw people in just like this site does. A website on the top of a fridge and a stove is definitely way out there on the fringe but I bet most of you will follow the links right through to the end.

Think About Your Target Market

Sunday, June 3rd, 2007

Regardless of what sort of marketing you’re doing … whether it’s face-to-face, web-based, media advertising or whatever … who is your target market?

Have you even stopped to consider who will be looking at, watching or listening to your marketing? Does it really matter?

You bet it does and A Tale of Two Cultures is a ‘must read’. It might be talking about search engines and websites but there is a lot of food for thought there for everyone.

Protect Your Domain Name

Saturday, May 26th, 2007

‘Dave’ lost his small business domain name because he never had control of it. Don’t be like ‘Dave’, protect your domain name because losing it can do an incredible amount of damage to your business.

Learn how to protect your domain name by following the link

Small Business is Taking to the Net

Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007

But that doesn’t mean they understand it

A recent survey in America has shown that the number of small and medium sized businesses that are online has increased in the last six years. In 2000 53% of small and medium sized business were online and that has risen to around 60% today.

However, it’s obvious that there are a lot of small and medium sized businesses out there who don’t have a grasp of the fundamentals they need to know and understand about how to make their website work for them. One of the problems that we see time and again in the web design side of our business is that these business people don’t understand what it takes to get their websites to the top of Google for the terms that are important to them.

Way too many people seem to think that it all just happens simply because they have gone online. They fail to understand that it takes a lot of work - as far back as the website planning stage - to achieve those top results. Even after the website goes live there is a lot of ongoing work that needs to be done every week to achieve the results your looking for.

And just to make things even more difficult for the small and medium sized business people, the work that has to be done can change because the way the search engines rank the sites they list is continually changing.

Trying to get our clients to understand that is a frustrating part of the business I would rather not have to deal with but it’s something that every web designer is duty bound to talk about with their clients.

If you’re a small business person who wants to launch a website for your business be sure to listen to your web designer when he talks about the work that needs to be done to get your site listed in good and relevant spots. Some will be waffling on and talking nothing but nonsense while others of us will be laying out the facts for you in terms that you can understand.

Please try and listen because there’s nothing worse than telling a small business owner exactly what work is involved - and the time it will take - to get their site to appear in Google and then have him call you two days after the site goes live and complain that Google has no listing for his site.