Web Design
Eugene, Oregon

So, you have a website. Does the world know you're in business or that your website even exists?

Declaring the launch of your new website to the world is important. Announcing it through Facebook or Twitter can be a good start, but what do you do after that fanfare settles? The all mighty word of mouth has limiting returns, and, as with all business endeavors, proper marketing is always essential. To achieve ultimate success you will need to ceaselessly promote your website through the typical marketing channels: print, tv, radio, etc...never failing to post or announce your web address in each instance. That leaves most of the work of promotion up to you, which, in addition to the monetary investment, can be time consuming. Those analog endeavors also fail to leverage the true beauty of the world wide web...Connectivity! Don't underestimate the power of your website by leaving it to languish as an inert tool passively waiting for your clients to arrive. Through Search Engine Optimization you can empower your website to proactively draw new clients to your business for you, while you're attending to other matters. See the 'bring you more clients' section on this page, or visit our Search Engine Optimization page to learn more about the advantages and process of SEO.

If your website looks unprofessional it doesn't matter how effective your SEO is, nor how much energy you've put into making sure your online store is fully functional and secure. If you've given little thought to your logo, your layout is jumbled and your colors clash, your web development efforts will yield little return on your investment.

3 things that ruin the quality of a website faster than you can say 'bounce': low quality images, trying to get your visitors attention with too many flashy animations or different colored text, and too many advertisements and promotions thoughtlessly crowding the page.

We're talking curb appeal here; you want your website to invite your customers beyond the threshold of your home page or landing page. Will they walk through that door if they don't find it inviting? At the end of the day, its simply about trust. Can your clients rely on your services if you can't take the time to present them professionally on your website?

Web Design: Tools, Tips & Suggestions

This is the most important question of all for any commercially oriented website. The only exception to this would be an intranet which is typically not a publicly promoted website, but rather a secure system to exchange private data within a business or organization; regardless of the audience, intranets tend to be highly functional websites that assist people in a variety of daily tasks (see the 'help you get organized' section on this page for more details). Having a website that truly helps your clients may not only bring you new business but may actually help maintain that all important customer retention. Such offerings can be something as straight forwards as educational articles or videos that can be accessed for free or for a commission (never forget everyone loves free stuff...always a great way to make friends), a mortgage calculator for home sales, automated email reminders for vehicle maintenance or bill payments, online forms that ask thoughtful questions and engage a visitor more deeply in their own objectives and needs. If you offer quality information or useful functionality that helps your site visitor achieve their personal goals they are more likely to come back for more. Development of these additional features is often forgotten soon after the website has been launched, relegating it to a passive brochure website rather than creating a high functioning business ambassador assuring quality assistance for your clients. These additional features come to light by comparing the long range objectives of your business to your current practices and methodology. With those details in mind, we can establish a scalable rate of development that meets your budgetary and time demands. Every website should be built with a plan for growth and the evolution of your business.

An important note: providing access will always remain the most helpful offering of all. Your website should revolve around a clear and efficient navigation system that directs your client toward a variety of useful resources. Navigation is the foundational aspect of any successful website. It's the primary functionality that shows you are committed to making life easier for your client, by assuring that they find what they are looking for. Its surprising how often this aspect can get lost within efforts to either make the website look unique, resulting in the underestimation of important conventions that a designer might find typical or boring, or when the navigation is lost within too much content or flashy graphic promotions that overwhelm the viewer. Navigation is a subtle integration of appealing graphic design that draws the viewers attention to high usage features, while being sensitive to the tendencies and potential limitations of your unique client base, and also effectively honoring time proven methods that satisfy the masses. If a client feels distracted or lost within your website you have a week navigation system that is sabotaging its helpfullness, and likely losing business.

Acquiring more clients is often a primary goal of most small businesses. Perhaps you are looking for your first clients so you can start to pay your operational expenses, or perhaps you're looking for greater market share to turn a profit, or even expand your business. Your website, no matter how professional it appears, wont necessarily bring more clients to your business. It’s pretty appearance and informative text may close the deal for you once someone goes to your website, but the question remains, how are they going to get there?

Anyone with an inkling of web experience, whether searching for directions on local maps or looking to make an online purchase, knows Google is the ultimate answer the the question above (sorry Yahoo and Bing, nice try). The great thing about optimizing your website for those primary search engines, is that site visitors that find you through those channels are very often qualified leads, where as, most other marketing channels require you to appeal to a general audience, which means you have to spend money on a number of uninterested people before finding that person that is truly invested. Through SEO, people come to your site because they are already interested in your services. Search Engine Optimization is the technical advantage that can truly set you apart from your online competition and is proven to be one of the best investments of your marketing dollars.

Your website can be a personal assistant that works tirelessly for you 24 hours a day. Initially, a website may simply validate your presence in the marketplace, and display your storefront around the clock, but that doesn't mean you're open for business every hour of the day, every day of the year? Can a client register for services, submit and update important documents, or buy a product from you at any time that is convenient for them, or must they wait until you unlock the front door? Your website can liberate you from certain responsibilities so that you can attend to more important duties, like opening that second location, or golfing, or spending quality time with the family.

Scattered? Overwhelmed? Falling behind? Can’t find that paperwork? Client’s feeling forgotten or neglected? Did you leave that important document back at the office? There is much that a website can do behind the scenes to simplify your life and business process. Going paperless isn’t just a green marketing gimmick, its a space saver and a time saver. Empowering your clients to submit their documents via online forms and file sharing portals isn’t just for their convenience, but for yours also. Through data driven submissions you can store tens of thousands, if not billions, of client documents that can be retrieved faster than you can walk to across the room to the file cabinet. In fact, with proper secure access you can retrieve that data from anywhere in the world, your car, your home office, your gazebo at the beach. With routine back ups, you’ll never lose that data either. No worries about flooding or fires, no worries about having your briefcase stolen from your car with your client’s private information. Data driven archives also allow compilation of demographic information at the push of a button. Imagine the the piles of paper you would have to retrieve and sift through to learn the average age of all your dental patients for the years between 2010 and 2015? Digital archiving diminishes the stacks of paper, while saving you time, increasing your professionalism, and ultimately saving and making you money.

Ok, you've got a website, what now? Whether a new website or an old website there is always more you can get out of your investment. Review 'the evolution of a website' below to learn more about scalability and the importance of developing your website over time. The truth is, most small businesses treat their website like a one time investment; they build it, perhaps out of some begrudging sense of obligation, and then tend to forget about it, sometimes neglecting to even update details like service or price changes, links to sites that no longer exist, employee profiles, etc. Perhaps, that is indeed why you're currently reading these words. Perhaps your website simply needs a facelift to better represent the business you've become: an improved logo, different colors or a more modern look and feel that assures your clients you're not falling behind the times. More importantly, many small businesses fail to help their website help them. They stagnate in the brochure website stage of development by failing to add any helpful functionality that can save you and/or your client time. Offering timely and easy service is often the degree of separation between success and failure. Do you have any online forms that allow your clients to register for services at any hour of the day? Do you offer any informative videos that promote your value while you're away on vacation? Can you sell products or services 24 hours a day?

There comes a time where taking two steps backwards is the best, or only, way to move three steps forward. Sometimes you have to cut the dead weight to move more nimbly and strategically. There are numerous reasons to admit the necessity of a website rebuild. The most common is simply changing technology. Not only have coding practices evolved through the years, creating faster and more flexible website platforms, but user interfaces for non coders have become more intuitive and user friendly. The days of Dreamweaver are long gone, many web building platforms have dropped by the wayside, and even many of the tried and true brands (Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, etc.) have historic versions of themselves that are walking dead. There's the old phrase about putting lipstick on a pig; no matter how pretty you make your old website look, it's still an old website. It can often be more expensive to work around the old platform than to start with a fresh new framework. Sometimes its the business itself that needs some freshening up, whether that is the need for a new cosmetic look and feel, or the necessity to change your business practices that no longer represent the values of who you've become. Sometimes you need to start with a totally blank slate that isn't cluttered by the past so that you can plant and cultivate strong new seeds for the future.