Why get a website? It’s very very important in business to make your customer feel comfortable with you; that’s how you get them to trust and then purchase from you. A website is an important part of the current trust relationship.

Why?

Build credibility

Having a website to send potential customers to, even if you don’t sell retail items on your site, but instead sell your services, builds credibility and makes your business seem professional and worthy of trust. Likewise, having domain-specific email builds trust, as well. Also, it makes it clear that your business intends to stick around.

Online brand

Think of your domain name and your website as your online storefront. It’s your virtual location and should be considered an extension of your brand – to mesh nicely with your other marketing materials.

Traffic

With a large percentage of potential customers searching online for products and/or services BEFORE making a purchase, an effectively built, relevant website is extremely important. Traffic from type in traffic, search engine results pages, referring websites or even from Pay Per Click marketing is an excellent way to help increase your reach.

Is this important? YES! Think of your domain name as your online calling card, your go-to location, your i-Home. It’s the place where potential customers will gather to check out what you have to offer. Some things to think about:

Pick something people can remember.

I can’t stress this enough. If someone remembers your domain name, they’re more likely to come back.

If you can, pick your domain name based on your business name. That way, they’re tied together in the visitor’s mind.

If you can’t pick your domain name based on your business name, stick with something memorable. For example, if your business name is Big Tech Web Hosting and your first choice, www.BigTechWebHosting.com is taken, think about something that will both represent your business as well as stick in someone’s mind.

Maybe something like www.HostAtBigTech.com or www.GetBigTech.com. The point is to find something catchy that is both easy to remember and still represents your company.

Short and sweet.

In other words, make it short and easy to spell because people are going to misspell it if they can.

Try for keywords, but ONLY if they directly relate to your business and it makes sense to have those keywords. For the most part, a domain that contains keywords is going to rank higher for THAT keyword than another domain name will.

Example: www.WEBSITE.com is going to rank higher for the keyword WEBSITE than www.DesignersDream.com simply because the keyword is in the domain name. USUALLY.

There are exceptions. And given the fact that getting a domain name with keywords is fast becoming almost impossible, it’s not a HAVE TO DO type of thing. If you can, do it; if not, don’t sweat it.

Remember: your website is often a potential customer’s first look at your company. With nearly all, if not all, of your competition sporting websites of their own, you have to be able to stand out from the crowd and present an online ’storefront’ that makes you visually appealing and worthy of a second look.

That said, having just a small amount of the needed skills isn’t enough for a couple of reasons:

• Time – the time it will take you to create a professional looking website is going to be exponentially higher than simply hiring a company to do it for you
• Presentation – it is very likely that you will not possess all of the skills to produce the type of website you are after
• Website builders DO NOT work – they are time consuming & cumbersome to use and typically turn out sites that look, well, like they were built with a website builder.

The skills you will need to design and build a professional website include:

• Design ability – this includes access to and proficiency in one of the many graphic design software programs available, such as Photoshop (the #1 choice).
• Artistic ability – this means you have to be able to take your skills in the design software and turn it into something creative and attractive, as well as functional.
• HTML/coding ability – you will need to take the artistic design you’ve created and know how to get it onto a web page.
• Programming ability – this means that you can make your website do the things you want it to do, such as submitting forms, allowing customers to access a login area, add interactive functions or integrate it with a database.
• SEO/Marketing ability – there’s more to it an just posting a website; people have to find the website for it to be effective.

In short, building a website is a complicated process. Simply OWNING programs like Photoshop or Dreamweaver does not make you a web designer!

There is often the illusion that anyone can make a website; that may be true, however, not everyone can make a professional, attractive website that converts visitors into customers. It may be that you have some of these skills but not all of them. It’s possible to hire a company to do as little or as much of your project as you want them to do but remember, it shouldn’t be about the money.

The money saved by you often comes out as a huge amount of your time spent out of your depth. Meaning that your main concern should be getting more sales/customers to your business and that is where you time is probably best spent. You may save money in the short run, but in the long run, it’s unlikely. If you already have a company brand, hiring a professional website designer is a must to maintain and further your branding and your business’ image.

Ready to hire the best designer for your website design project? Contact me today!