Website Design and Development

A few years ago marketing a business online was almost as easy throwing up a cheap website and then waiting for your Inbox to fill with emails and the phones to start ringing with new business.  While those days are over, the rewards for competing successfully online are greater now than ever before!

There is less room for error with good website design.

Today, website design and development strategies have grown up while the number of competitors who are leveraging those strategies to attract new business has increased exponentially.  With so many online competitors there is far less room for error when it comes to designing and developing a profitable website for your business.

Even very small businesses have realized that their websites must now be designed and maintained using a much higher level of technical and marketing skill than ever before. 

Websites shouldn't stand alone in the online marketing mix.

Understanding how to integrate social networking, offline advertising (print, broadcast, direct mail, and outdoor), pay-per-click advertising, and search engine marketing into website design and development requires a skill level most small business owners simply don't have the time or resources to acquire.  But without those skills many businesses will see a growing portion of their business going to their competitors who can market better online.

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A website must be more than a pretty face.

All too often businesses invest in beautiful websites, but overlook the fact that the site must make a positive contribution to the company's bottom line.  If an eye-catching website fails to bring in enough revenue to justify its cost then changes must be made.  Otherwise, what's the purpose of having a website at all?

We believe that website designs should focus on serving the needs of the client's customers and not simply offer a pretty face at which to stare and admire.  If the customer's needs are satisfied at the website then then the client's goals are usually achieved and their revenue is enhanced.

Users want usability and order.  Not a web designer's "vision".

We build websites that our client's customers want to use.  And when customers use our websites the clients's usually earn more revenue in the process.  What our clients and their customers don't want is some web designer's abstract sense of "what's best for the customer".  Click for more on website design usability.

Usability is the #1 focus of the websites we build for our clients.  In fact, aesthetic design comes in a distant second to whether or not visitors to the website can easily find and use the information contained on the site.

Search engines want useable websites, too.

If search engines cannot find and index a site because it lacks order and logical flow, chances are customers won't find it either.  And when customers can't find a site because it hasn't been indexed they will naturally go elsewhere (usually to a competitor's site) until they find the information they're looking for.

Obviously, the most valuable information in the world to a customer is useless unless he or she can actually find it.  How customers find information online is made possible by sophisticated search engines that rely on relevant, well-structured information that can be served up to the customer exactly when it's needed.  See Search Engine Marketing for information about these services.

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