10 Small Business Web Design Disasters to Avoid
10 Small Business Web Design Disasters to Avoid
Many web designers are talented, skilled and reasonably priced and have the best interests of their clients at heart. But unfortunately there are too many who don’t.
Week after week small business owners call or e-mail me wondering why their expensive website is generating no traffic or leads and not showing up in the search engines.
When I look at their website I often see a site that looks pretty, but is useless. So how do you avoid falling into the same trap?
Here is what you need to know:
1) Ask the web designer to create your website in a Content Management System like Joomla or Wordpress. This will allow you to easily make frequent changes to your site yourself without having to pay $60 or more per hour for every added link or paragraph. Those days are long gone. If the designer balks at this suggestion, run.
2) Ask if they do keyword research to determine what keyword phrases people who want your type of service are searching for. If they don’t you can certainly do it yourself or out source it cheaply. Check Elance.com for a great selection of freelancers.
3) Ask if they do Search Engine Optimization. If so, what is the cost? If they don’t, run. If they are too expensive, shop around. You can do it yourself with a little effort. (Come to my tele-class—see below)
4) Do the copywriting yourself or provide an outline and have a professional copywriter do it. The headlines and content need to be focused on customer benefits and they need to contain your keyword phrases. Your headline and content will determine whether visitors leave or stay. Avoid phrases like “welcome” and “we do this” and “we do that”.
5) Ask your designer to go easy on using Java script or Flash as Google can’t recognize or read either.
6) Do not create an “enter” or “intro” page. It will increase your rate of abandonment and the search engines won’t like it. Every extra click discourages visitors.
7) It’s crucial that you have an e-mail marketing program and put an opt-in box on every key page of your site. Ask visitors to sign up for your mailing list and give them something of value to encourage them to comply. This is how you convert visitors to leads. Ask your designer if they will put the opt-in boxes on your site for you.
8) Check references and find out how long they’ve been in business and how reliable they are. Do they have a group of designers or are they solo? You want someone who will respond when you need their help in an emergency, not someone who ignores you for days. You will need excellent customer service since your business is at stake.
9) Do not let your web designer register your domain name or host your website unless you have direct access to your domain and hosting accounts and they are in your name. You don’t want to be “held hostage” should you need to change designers. You’ll need direct access anyway for a number of reasons. You shouldn’t pay more than $10 per year for a domain, and for a simple site, your hosting costs should be no more than $10 to $12 a month.
10) Shop around. Don’t just hire the first person you’re referred to since the referrer may not be aware of some of these pitfalls.
Following these 10 tips will save you hundreds of wasted dollars and will help you create a website that sells.
10 Small Business Web Design Disasters to Avoid - To learn more about this author, visit Janis Pettit's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
I don’t get angry easily but I’ll tell you what makes my blood boil--irresponsible, under qualified, even clueless web designers.
Many web designers are talented, skilled and reasonably priced and have the best interests of their clients at heart. But unfortunately there are too many who don’t.
Week after week small business owners call or e-mail me wondering why their expensive website is generating no traffic or leads and not showing up in the search engines.
When I look at their website I often see a site that looks pretty, but is useless. So how do you avoid falling into the same trap?
Here is what you need to know:
1) Ask the web designer to create your website in a Content Management System like Joomla or Wordpress. This will allow you to easily make frequent changes to your site yourself without having to pay $60 or more per hour for every added link or paragraph. Those days are long gone. If the designer balks at this suggestion, run.
2) Ask if they do keyword research to determine what keyword phrases people who want your type of service are searching for. If they don’t you can certainly do it yourself or out source it cheaply. Check Elance.com for a great selection of freelancers.
3) Ask if they do Search Engine Optimization. If so, what is the cost? If they don’t, run. If they are too expensive, shop around. You can do it yourself with a little effort. (Come to my tele-class—see below)
4) Do the copywriting yourself or provide an outline and have a professional copywriter do it. The headlines and content need to be focused on customer benefits and they need to contain your keyword phrases. Your headline and content will determine whether visitors leave or stay. Avoid phrases like “welcome” and “we do this” and “we do that”.
5) Ask your designer to go easy on using Java script or Flash as Google can’t recognize or read either.
6) Do not create an “enter” or “intro” page. It will increase your rate of abandonment and the search engines won’t like it. Every extra click discourages visitors.
7) It’s crucial that you have an e-mail marketing program and put an opt-in box on every key page of your site. Ask visitors to sign up for your mailing list and give them something of value to encourage them to comply. This is how you convert visitors to leads. Ask your designer if they will put the opt-in boxes on your site for you.
8) Check references and find out how long they’ve been in business and how reliable they are. Do they have a group of designers or are they solo? You want someone who will respond when you need their help in an emergency, not someone who ignores you for days. You will need excellent customer service since your business is at stake.
9) Do not let your web designer register your domain name or host your website unless you have direct access to your domain and hosting accounts and they are in your name. You don’t want to be “held hostage” should you need to change designers. You’ll need direct access anyway for a number of reasons. You shouldn’t pay more than $10 per year for a domain, and for a simple site, your hosting costs should be no more than $10 to $12 a month.
10) Shop around. Don’t just hire the first person you’re referred to since the referrer may not be aware of some of these pitfalls.
Following these 10 tips will save you hundreds of wasted dollars and will help you create a website that sells.
10 Small Business Web Design Disasters to Avoid - To learn more about this author, visit Janis Pettit's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
 | |
 |
No article feedback found. |
| |
Leave Your Feedback |
 | |
| |||
Jeff FosterWebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. We specialize in internet consulting & internet marketing. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
|||
Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
|||
Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
|||
Staging DivaDebra Gould, aka The Staging Diva®, is President of Six Elements Inc., an internationally recognized home staging company. Inspired by many requests from aspiring home stagers wanting to start similar businesses, Gould created the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. Gould has trained over 1000 Staging Diva Graduates worldwide to start staging businesses. Buying decorating and selling six of her own homes in four years lead to an interest in real estate staging which she turned into a career with the launch of sixelements.com in 2002. Since then she has staged hundreds of homes in addition to teaching home staging training. Gould is the author of several home staging resources including a series of popular ebooks made up of a Design Guide, Color Guide and Portfolio Guide. For more information about Debra Gould visit stagingdiva.com. - Visit Staging Diva's Website |
|||
Cheryl MatthynssensCheryl is a life skills coach, licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor and a 20 year entrepreneur. Cheryl's dedication to achieving a life of balance led to her expanding her teaching from the simple managing of life's daily challenges to adding financial well being as well. A direct marketer with DrinkACT, she is gaining ground in the online community with her concepts of making sure business owners, entreprenuers and employees have well rounded life styles. She opened up a small affiliate site - The Balance Guide- to help others find resources for mental and emotional well being. Visit Cheryl's blog to see more of the diversity beyond business she has began offering online at www.thebalanceguide.blogspot.com - Visit Cheryl Matthynssens's Website |
|||
John AlexanderJohn has taught keyword research and SEO skills to small groups of business owners and Webmasters from over 80 different countries world wide since 2002. John is also the Director of Search Engine Academy ; Co-director of Training at Search Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his partner SEO educator Robin Nobles, author of the very first comprehensive online search engine marketing courses at SEO Training Online and the SEO Workshop Resource Center. I look forward to hearing from you! - Visit John Alexander's Website |
|||
John BrennanJohn Brennan Ed.D. Dr. Brennan is President of Interpersonal Development, LLC, a training and development firm. Interpersonal Development has provided sales training and coaching to more than 3,000 sales reps from over 100 companies. A native of Australia, Dr. Brennan received his doctorate from the University of Rochester. His dissertation researched the effectiveness of Behavioral Modeling Technology in training people in interpersonal skills. While he has spent most of his career designing or delivering training, he was also a Vice-President of Sales of a training and development franchise with operations in 25 markets. Dr. Brennan has designed and delivered sales training in North America, Asia, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. He has been a guest speaker at numerous national and regional professional conferences. When Microsoft wanted Best Practices articles on sales for their web site, they called Dr. Brennan. The results are at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX011387391033.aspx His firm’s clients have included Volvo, The Prudential, Merrill Lynch, Eastman Kodak, Gannett, Equifax Europe, the Economist Group and countless small businesses. - Visit John Brennan's Website |
|||
David BarrDavid Barr is the President of Venture Opportunities, Inc. David has been a professional business broker/intermediary since 1980 focusing on General Business Brokerage and Mergers and Acquisitions representing client transaction value from $400,000 to $20,000,000. Mr. Barr has handled the sale of over four hundred and fifty companies. David earned a university degree from the State University of New York majoring in economics and business. David holds the Mergers and Acquisition Master Intermediary and the Certified Business Intermediary designations from the International Business Brokers Association. He is also a Senior Business Analyst and a Texas licensed Real Estate Agent. For more information about David and Venture Opportunities, visit www.bizdealmaker.com. - Visit David Barr's Website |
|||
|
To learn more about the Evan Elite Author Program please contact us. | |||
 | |
|  |
Subscribe to Janis's articles
 | |
|
|  |
 | |
|
| |
 | |||||||
|
 | ||
 |
||
|
||
 |
||
|
| ||
 |
| Have you written articles that would be of value to entrepreneurs? Become an expert on our site by publishing them! Expose yourself to a wide audience, drive more traffic to your website and get more sales! Click Here for details. |
|
|
 |
| Modeling the Masters: Learn the true secrets behind Walt Disney's business success factors & grow your company! Video produced by Phanta Media |
|
|
 |
"Learn straight from Evan how you can Make a Full Time Income (And More) from a Website"
Click Here To Learn More |
|
|
|
|
Get advice & tips from famous business owners, new articles by entrepreneur experts, my latest website updates, & special sneak peaks at what's to come!
|
|
|
 How To Select Keywords Powerful Living Business Wisdom Measure Customer Loyalty Easy Product Ideas |
|
 | ||
 |
Top 50 Niche Blogs 2009
Top 50 Niche Blogs 2009 | |
 |
More PR Resources
Press Release Builder | |
| ||
 | ||||
| ||||
|
| ||||
| ||||
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||
|
Email us your ideas on how to make our website more valuable! Thank you Sharon from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for your suggestions to make the newsletter look like the website and profile younger entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez and Sean Combs!
|
|
|
