Category: Online Advertising

Your B2B web design Santee is the same as building a lobby. This is the first thing that visitors will see and it will impact first impressions. Your website is what sets the tone for first interactions with your business. This is why getting everything right is very important. In this article, we will be looking at the questions you need to ask as you work on your website.

Does the website look professional and polished?
Once you relay your vision to your web designer Santee, he will get to work to bring the vision to life. More often than not, the web designer will not capture your vision perfectly. You will have to make revisions every now and then. The most important question you need to answer is that on whether the website looks professional and polished. The layout and images of the website should represent your brand in the best light. If the images used are pixelated, they will radiate the wrong image. Creating a website that is professional and polished is the key to sending the message that you are a legit firm.

Does it look modern?
The last thing you want is to end up with a website that looks dusty and old. Such a website will send the message that it has not been updated recently and visitors might choose to ignore you all together. Your B2B website needs to look current and up-to-date. It is very easy for your visitors to identify a website that is 5 years old and one that is new. The layout you choose, the colors and the images will have an impact on how your website is perceived. Your website must also reflect the products and services that you offer. Information from products you stocked a year ago is considered stale or outdated.

Is it a perfect reflection of your brand?
If a company like Microsoft or Apple had a lobby that looked like it was built in the 1980s; that will not reflect well if they claim to offer cutting-edge and modern solution. The same goes for your website. If your brand is all about ease of use, the website should be easy for the customers to use. If you offer modern solutions, then the layout of your website needs to be modern. The colors of your website must also reflect your brand and it should be easy to navigate and not look cluttered.

The three are the most important questions you need to ask before you launch your B2B website. The rule of thumb, however, is to ensure that the website is clear reflection of your brand and that it has a clear user flow.

Web design Santee

In web design Santee, a website launch is very important. This is the time for you to introduce your new website to your target audience. The last thing you want is to create the wrong first impression. You want your audiences to be happy with the product. In this article, we shall be looking at the main things you need to do before you finally launch your website.

Check the navigation menus and links
One of the worst things that can happen during a launch is for the links and navigation menus to fail. Even with the best web designer Santee, you need to bring together a team that manually clicks on all the links on your website. This should be done to ensure that everything is working as it should. The links should open to the proper pages and the navigation menus should not have any issues. This has to be done before you launch.

Test website form submissions
If your website has forms that visitors will need to fill and submit, you need to make sure that these forms are working properly. Your team should manually open the forms, fill them and submit them. Is everything working perfectly? All the errors should be fixed before the launch. You also need to log into the backend of your site and make sure that the forms are recorded and emailed to the right individuals. This test is very critical prior to the launch of a website.

Define who handles online queries
Once your website is live, you can expect to get loads of questions from your visitors. You need to respond to all the questions in a timely manner else your website will get a bad reputation. If your site has live chat, make sure you define who will be handling the live chats. You also need someone to moderate the comments left by visitors. The person handling the online enquiries should be familiar with your business and the live chat feature.

Update your social media profiles
In online marketing today, you cannot afford to do away with the social media. Days to the launch of your website, you need to setup social media pages on the popular platforms and update them. The content and look of your social media profiles must look and feel like your new website. You don’t want your visitors to feel like they landed on a fake social media profile, do you?

These are the crucial things you will need to do before you launch your website. Never be in a hurry to go live. Make sure that everything is working perfectly before you launch. Your web designer Santee should also be on site to handle any issue days before and after the launch.

Web design Santee

Every web designer Santee wants to build a website that delivers results. Nobody wants to create a website that ends up getting abandoned because it doesn’t deliver. So, what do you need to do to make sure that you create a great website? The objective of this article is to help you learn of the qualities that distinguish the best websites from the ones that end up being abandoned.

Great layout
The first quality is the layout. For a website to be great, it needs a great web design. The web design of a website is what creates the first impression. If the look of a website is dull, it will end up boring the audiences. As you work on a web design Santee, interesting visuals have to be a top priority. You will also need to create a layout that is axiomatic. Visitors should not have to guess where to find the search bar or the contact page. In addition to being unique, the design of your website needs to be so self-explanatory that new visitors will be able to use it with ease.

Great content
Another important thing that your website will need is great content. This is the soul of a website. The only reason people are visiting your website is to see what you have to offer. What you have to offer is described by your web content. Poor content will lead to a high bounce rate. Visitors will not take the action you need them to take. How you create your content also matters. You may have the best ideas to share but if your content is hard to follow or filled with grammatical errors, visitors will find it repulsive. Don’t be afraid to hire an expert content writer to help with content creation.

Calls-to-action
People still want to be told what is expected of them. This is where the calls-to-action comes in. This is a simple yet very fundamental web element. The calls-to-action should let the visitors know what you need from them may it be to subscribe to your newsletter or to place an order. Ensure your web designer Santee highlights the calls-to-action so that it is easy to see.

Responsive and loads fast
Last but not least, your visitors need a website that is both responsive and loads fast. When viewing your website on their mobile devices, they should not have to scroll from left to right to read your content. Your visitors must also not have to wait long for the pages to load up. You need to keep your website as light as possible.

Web designer Santee

Working on a new web design Santee is always exciting. You get to create something new that matches your needs. However, you need to understand that not every website that is created meets its objective. There are so many websites that end up being lost on the Internet. This is not something you want to happen to you. In this post, we will be looking at the crucial questions you should ask before you get started on website development.

What is the goal of the website?
The first thing you need to do is to identify the objectives of your new website. Why do you need a new website? What should it be able to do? Identifying the real goal of the new website is what will help pick the best web design as well as hire the best web designer Santee for the job. If you don’t know what the website needs to do, you will end up wasting time redesigning it. Make a list of all the things your website should be able to do before you get started on the layout.

How much are you prepared to spend on it?
This is the second most important question you will need to ask. The amount you are prepared to spend is what will determine the Content Management System you end up using, the hosting package you will select, and the web design team you will hire and so on. Be clear on your budget. The last thing you want is to have to start from scratch again simply because the whole project got too expensive.

Who will handle regular maintenance?
Creating a web design Santee is not the final step. For a website to remain afloat, it needs fresh content every now and then. You will also need to keep improving your website. This is why you need to identify who on your team will be handling regular maintenance. Who will create the content? Who will moderate the comments from visitors? Who will respond to queries? And so on. You need a team of at least two people for this.

How soon do you need it up and running?
Last but not least, you need to have a clear launch date. If you don’t have a launch date, you will end up postponing the project over and over. You need a clear date in order to take the actions needed to launch on time.

Asking these questions will help with any web design project. Don’t forget to hire the best web designer Santee to help with the project.

Web design Santee

The purpose of investing in a web design Santee is to facilitate branding. For some people, branding is all about creating a logo and a tagline. That is not enough. Having a logo and a tagline is just the start. A lot more needs to be done. In this article, we will be looking at the top things you need to do when it comes to online branding. Most of these points can also be used in offline branding.

Know your audience
The first step in branding is to consider and analyze your ideal client. Who are you targeting? You need to understand the needs and challenges of your audiences. It is only by defining your audiences clearly that you will be able to tailor your strategy to them. Even before you contact a web designer Santee, you must know who you are marketing to. That way you will be able to appeal to them.

Focus on your strengths
This is an obvious point but you will be amazed by the sheer number of companies that are unable to articulate their strengths. Know what the strengths of your firm are and how you can add value to your target clients. You must come up with a list of strengths that your business has. You can involve your customer service, sales and management team to compile the list of strengths. With the list in hand, you need to cut it down to the top five strengths. The strengths you select must be relevant to your clients.

Have a strong mission statement
With the strengths of your business in hand, you will be able to refine your mission statement easily. The mission statement has to be concise, specific and well written down. The mission statement needs to be the mantra of your business.

Be consistent
Don’t make your audiences feel like they are dealing with a different company each time to find you in a different medium. For starters, your web design Santee needs to be consistent. All the pages should have the same layout. Your branding message, on the other hand, needs to be consistent too. If your focus is on efficiency, you need to carry that message throughout the brand-related pieces.

Differentiate yourself
You don’t want to be mistake for your competitor or for your clients to feel like you are a copy-cat. You need to be unique. Clients should be able to differentiate you from your competitors. Make it clear that your services are valuable and unique.

Web design Santee

Web design Santee often includes the creation of a blog. Your website needs a blog on which you can share valuable information that you would not otherwise place it on the pages of your website. A good blog will be quite instrumental in driving traffic to your business. However, it is good to note that the success of your blog will rest on the quality and type of content that you share. Here are some of the best ideas you can use for your next blog.

How-to tips
It is very easy to run out of topic to cover on your blog. However, when it comes to the ‘how-to tips’, the ideas are limitless. People are more interested in blogs that teach them how to do something. Sharing how-to tips will hence enable you to capture the audiences that are searching for the how-tos. You can give away a lot of information using this strategy. Don’t hesitate to ask your web designer Santee to create illustrations. The how-to tips can be related to your products or services or virtually anything that you might think.

Share highlights
If any of your products or services is often misunderstood, you should consider creating blog posts that strive to demystify them. The posts should simplify and offer the highlights of your products or services. For example, if you offer inbound marketing services, you can create posts that covers the highlights of inbound marketing. The blog does not need to promote your services. It can just cover inbound marketing to offer a scoop that helps the B2B firms.

FAQ
It is obvious that you get a lot of inquiries from your customers. You can use these questions to create a blog that discusses the Frequently Asked Questions. You can choose to give answers to frequently asked questions or create posts for each major question that your customers ask.

Discuss industry advancements
You need to portray yourself as an expert in your field. One good way of doing this is by discussing the industry advancements. What is changing in your industry? What is the future of the industry? Cover any topic you are knowledgeable in.

Discuss current news items
If there is a news item that relates to your industry, you can use it to create new blogs. The mainstream news will offer numerous news items that pertain to your industry. Pick the most popular pieces and create blogs.

Other options you can use to create blogs include compiling statistics, being seasonal and making a top 10 list. There is no limit. All you have to do is be observant and keep an eye on what is happening around you. The rule of thumb, however, is to only cover the topics you are knowledgeable in.

Web design Santee

Virtually every web design Santee calls for the use of images. The use of images makes it easy for the target audiences to understand a concept and also improves aesthetic appeal. The big question, however, is on when to use stock photos and when to take your own photos. In this article, we shall look at the best times to use stock photos.

When to use the stock photos
Stock photos are images that you can download from stock photography websites and use them on your website. You can go with the free ones that use shared licenses or pick premium stock photos that give you full ownership of the license. Even so, as a web designer Santee, you will not be able to use these photos just anywhere. Here are the main areas where you can use these images.

• You don’t have any images available

This is the main reason why most companies use these images. If your company doesn’t have any professional in-action images that have been taken while your employees were providing services, then you can go with the stock photos. This is not uncommon more so when it comes to the service-based organizations like finance, recruiting, accounting and consulting companies.

• Action images

There are times when certain actions are very hard to convey. For example, conveying the duties of a finance partner or consultant can be hard. Iconography or other graphic elements can be used to tell the story of a brand more accurately.

• Convey emotion

You can use stock photos to convey an emotion you would like your visitors to get from your website. This is achieved best with artistic or abstract imagery. You will find stock photos for conveying just any emotion that you want.

• Tell a story

One of the reasons why photos are added to a web design Santee is so as to make it easy to tell a story. There are so many stock photos out there you can use to tell the story that you want. Considering your employees are not professional models, telling the story that you want might not be possible when using them as models.

• Supplements

Taking your own professional photographs will be a great idea. You will, however, not have the time and resources you need to take the professional photos that you need every time a need arises. Stock photos can hence be used to supplement your professional photos.

Stock photos are a great resource. They should, however, be used carefully. The overuse of these images may cause your website to look generic. Online shoppers are very cautious with generic websites.

Web design Santee

At the start of a website project, a schedule is determined for web design Santee, copywriting, development and QA. However, even when working with the most reliable web designer in the business, you never get to launch on the predetermined date. There are so many reasons that cause delays in web development. In this post, we shall be looking at the top reasons.

Not giving timely feedback
The issue with project delays is often on the side of the client and not the web designer Santee. The role of a web designer is to bring your vision to life. He will not be able to do that without your feedback. That is why the main reason for delays in web development is failure to provide timely feedback. When both the client and the web designer provide timely feedback and communicate regularly, the project will proceed smoothly. If feedback from either party is delayed for several days, it will end up pushing the delivery date further back.

Missing deadlines for providing reference materials
Many pieces of a web design project relies on smaller pieces most of which have to come from the client. Devoid the necessary content and images, the web designer will not be able to complete the project. To speed up the project, a client should make sure that he provides all the necessary materials on time. During your initial discussion with the web designer, you will be provided with a list of all the things you will have to provide. You need to make all these pieces available on time.

Too many decision makers
Too many cooks spoil the broth. When there are so many people that are involved in decision making, disagreements will arise and with disagreements comes delays. Having to run every decision by the many decision makers will also lead to delays in the web development process. It is good to only have one or two people as the main decision makers.

Changing the goals or direction midway through the project
If the goals of the website are changed midway through the project, the web designer Santee will have to start over. This will definitely lead to delays. Change in direction or goals arises when there are new team members added to the project.

The above are the main causes of delays in web design Santee. There are many more causes. To ensure the project runs smoothly and is delivered on time, you need to ensure that you plan your website carefully before any development starts. Make sure your web designer understands your objectives clearly before you get started.

Web design Santee

As a web designer Santee, one of the biggest decisions you have to make is that on the hosting service to use. There are so many options to go with. You can choose to go with shared, dedicated, cloud hosting and there is now the option of hosting your website internally. In this article, we shall be taking a quick look at the pros and cons of both internal and external web hosting.

Internal web hosting
Internal hosting refers to the practice of an organization setting up its own web servers to host their website. Most of the companies that use this option for their web design Santee already have an internal IT staff that helps with web management. The main drawback with internal web hosting is that there are no economies of scale. It can be a tad expensive when compared to external web hosting.

The best thing about internal web hosting is that it is faster than external web hosting. What is more is that the organization gets full control of the hosted environment.

For internal web hosting to work, you need to hire a team that will monitor your web servers 24/7. The team must also keep an eye out for hackers and other cyber vulnerabilities. An organization will also need to invest in assets, hardware, servers and the applications needed for internal hosting. As aforementioned, this can be very expensive.

External web hosting
This is the method in which a company outsources the web hosting needs to a third-party web hosting service provider. This is the most widely used option because of the economies of scale and the fact that it is less demanding when it comes to maintenance.

Many people find it practical to outsource their web hosting to a hosting company. This is because the option allows a company to focus on its business content and software without having to waste time on networking and security infrastructures of their websites. There are also web development and design companies that offer hosting services. This means you can get web design Santee done by the same company that will be hosting your website.

Every hosting company offers its own unique services. The more comprehensive the services are the better. Make sure you pay attention to the services you will get before choosing a hosting company.

The decision on whether to host your website internally or externally will depend mostly on your budget and IT resources. For the small businesses, it makes more sense to get external web hosting services.

Web designer Santee

Long before you start working on a web design Santee, you have to think about hosting. Website hosting is what gives your website a home. You will not be able to go live if you don’t have a web hosting service and a domain name. A common question that people ask is on whether they can host their websites internally. The option is viable but it is not the best way to go.

Although any experienced web designer Santee will advise against hosting your website internally, there are many reasons why companies choose to host their websites internally. The decision has its fair share of pros and cons. Let us look at them.

Pros

• No hosting/management fees

The beauty of hosting a website internally is that you never have to worry about the hosting or management fees. You use your internal resources to host your website. This is a great option if your company has the IT resources needed to smoothly host a website.

• Management control

With internal hosting, you will enjoy better management control. You will no longer have to worry about restrictions imposed by hosting service providers. You can play by your own rules. You will be able to decide everything in the hosted environment thus retaining full control.

• Change control

No new change will be made without your say so. This is the grand beauty of hosting a website internally. You will have control over changes to the storage space, bandwidth, criteria and timetables for any change.

• Performance

When compared with cloud hosted websites, the internally hosted websites enjoy better performance. This is because the resources are not shared or limited. Provided you have the IT infrastructure, you can allocate as much bandwidth as you want to your website.

Cons

• Management responsibility

One of the major disadvantages of hosting your website internally is the management responsibility. You will need a team to monitor and manage your website round the clock. This can be hard to do if your IT team is small.

• Maintenance costs

Unlike using external hosting services where the cost of hardware, software and maintenance is spread across the many clients a hosting company has, you will meet all the costs alone when hosting the website internally. There are no economies of scale.

• Hosting costs

All the supporting power, space and cooling costs will be charged to your company. There are no economies of scale which means the costs can get real high.

• Resource utilization

You staff and payroll dollars have to be focused partially on managing and maintaining the hosting infrastructure.

Choosing a hosting company is a good option. It will save you money and give you access to better tools. It is easier to keep up with the latest technologies when using external hosting services.

Web design Santee