Web design and SEO, the art, that is, of appearing for relevant searches. High Google ranking, and also Bing and Yahoo, are as important to a business as their logo and business cards.
Website development may or may not require you to seek the services of specialists. It would seem that a great many young people are hungry to create a web-site for your business. You may already have a web-site, but it will not add to your bottom line if you make certain mistakes that many businesses make.
Mistake number one – leave it to someone else.
Intuit, the Yellow Pages, and a hundred other firms will promise you a package of services that include a web-site. But by relying on their services, you ultimately are helping them more than yourself. Instead of branding and creating an awareness of your logo, look, style and pizazz, web-sites from the ‘big-guys’ all look the same. I see occasionally a website from Intuit, that makes it a primary mission to inform visitors that they too can get a web-site from Intuit. Do you own Intuit? Or do you want to promote your business?
You are better off with a WordPress.com website than a Yellow Pages or Intuit design. You have no branding interference. And the most important search ranking foundation are the words and slogans that define your business. You can start for free at WordPress.com, or use your carefully chosen and legally obtained domain name for $99 per year. You then can build your inventory of copy in a ubiquitous format.
Mistake number two – blow the whole budget on the web page.
SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING is the way you guide visitors to your site. Search engine results at Google are comprised of established and well promoted web pages for the inquiry. Web site designers can help you create an attractive image and means of telling your prospects about your business. But even with the simplest website, the next step is fairly easy, your web-site must be found when an internet search is issued for your company name and possibly the city and state. You should be number one on all three search engines in a matter of a few weeks. If you are not, you have probably made some design mistakes.
The search engines need some clue as to your business name and address. They invest little time and energy in figuring out what a logo or map means. The search engines concentrate on the text within the html code to rank web-sites on their results pages. I can rank a blank page with nothing but your business name and address, phone number and a little about what you do, in just 10 days and for three hundred dollars. You will likely pay your nephew more than that to create your fancier web-site. Development with the proper Meta Tag work for the search engines utilize Web design are one example of an area of specialty.
How good is a web-site when nobody comes across it? Ideally, you have to make a business decision and invest some in the design and some in the promotion. To create a desirable website, any web artist has to produce or inject graphical elements such as logos and maps. But that is just eye candy, it is words that rank a website. Once engaged, your prospects will look at artwork, models and photos.
The web is free advertising but the design of your logos, pictures, copy-writing and promotion cost money. When Google combines advertisements with the results that might include your web page, it is much like our favorite television show is interrupted by the sponsors. Television could not be free if it were not for commercials. Not in a free country, that is. But we certainly don’t disparage donating money to Public Broadcasting.
The search engine gives you an affordable way to put your business before prospective buyers. Let’s make sure the prospective buyer has the opportunity to call you! The web content writing is a quite crucial aspect, but too often you forget to insist that your phone number is on every page. Related articles strategically placed on the internet that mention your business name and even website URL, these are citations. Internet search engines pick up on these references and give your web-site a higher ‘C’ factor, or credibility.
Web design and web promotion can be two distinct elements of your marketing effort. Both are required, like the ground troops and the air force, or meat and potatoes. Business prospecting with the internet requires that users in a region can find your products and services. But know that every slick design not backed by solid business execution has come and gone, 90 plus percent of ‘wow’ websites are extinct.
Hassle-free, cost-effective web design also leaves energy in the tank for future refreshing articles, web site revisions and new ideas. Nice-looking web design should also be very simple, never busy, never more than three pages of scrolling. Your phone number and mission should be front and center. Get that done, but leaving the lion’s share of the effort for the next step, selling your website to the search providers, i.e. Google, Yahoo and Bing.