Inside Small Business | Small Business & Home Business Marketing

How’s Your Web?

Dave Dresen, Director of Design, Logoworks

I’ve covered the first steps in establishing your brand. You have a strong, clean, professional logo, and your stationery has become an extension of your image as well as a valuable customer retention tool. You’re starting to bring in business, and you feel like everything is really clicking. Then, possibly 6 months or even a year down the road, business is kind of flat and you’re not bringing in the volume of customers you thought you would. You think to yourself, “It just doesn’t make sense, I followed the advice of that designer from Logoworks, and he said this would really help my business get off on the right foot. I knew he wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box.”

Well, to nip that in the bud, let me say this - your branding is just getting started and is an ongoing process that can take months and even years. The next vital step in the process is your web presence, or may I say, lack thereof. A professional web presence is invaluable if you are to reach those customers that are beyond your immediate reach. I say presence, because this is more than just a “site”. It is another extension of who and what you are, and is visible to the world! The type of image you show will have far reaching effects on your business. Here are 6 little morsels as to why you should hire a professional web designer instead of your cousin Vinny. Oh, for those of you that are named Vinny, there is definitely no harm intended, and for the record, I love your work.

1.Impress Potential Employees – Put yourself in their shoes. You’re looking for that big break, that job that will establish you in the world of employment. You want to be somebody, and you want to work for a company that will get you there the quickest and provide you with the best work experience and environment. You start to compare companies on the web. One site you visit has clean design, easy navigation, and visually stimulating material. The other site has the same information, but is cumbersome to navigate, and visually looks like a high school art project. Don’t freak out and get mad at me if your son or daughter is in a high school art class. I was there too; I saw Vinny’s work. It’s this simple, if you want to attract the top talent, a professional web design will be your ticket.

2.Distinguish Yourself – I admit that if Vinny designed you a website, you would definitely distinguish yourself. I just don’t think that distinction would be the kind want. You are competing for that valuable minute of time a web surfer takes to decide whether he is going to stay and linger on your site, or leave. You can’t afford to have a site that blends in with the rest of your competitors. You need to set yourself apart as the best option for providing that service, and the best way to do that in the shortest amount of time is through imagery and easy navigation. If your site is visually stimulating, interesting and easy to sort through, the customer will spend more time on your site, which will lead to a higher conversion rate. The skinny…more money in your pocket!

3.Build Credibility – It’s not easy for a startup business to compete with Mr. New York across the country. You don’t have the money or the leverage. You do however have the same audience, and that is the most important factor. If your site looks like you have been in business as long as the other guy, and you have a strong professional offering, who’s to say that the customer won’t buy from you. You will at least have the opportunity to prove yourself. The final hook will probably be service and price - and that’s up to you, but your credibility won’t be in question.

4.Silent Salesman – Your website will often play a role in the final sale to some customers. You won’t always have the time, or may not want to, make that final sale in person. A website is a perfect place for you to refer them to for more valuable information without the pressure of Vinny and Guido standing there. A lot of customers prefer to do the research on their own anyway. This takes the pressure off of you to explain everything you do by giving you a valuable tool that is reachable by the entire world. Your professional website will do the talking for you, and the result will be increased profits without much work.

5.Building a Consistent Brand – This is very important, because this is the easiest way for you to reach the most amounts of people. Unless you have endless advertising dollars, your website is the only way for you to extend your brand worldwide. This is the one place that will have the most global impact on your company. If you don’t keep your brand consistent, you will be limiting your marketability, and confusing the consumer. An established brand will be marketable and recognizable.

6.Increased Visibility – I briefly touched on this above, but it’s as simple as this…worldwide, is worldwide. The Internet works by linking one site to another. If you have a professionally designed site that is being visited and talked about, the links will grow and your web traffic will increase. The increase in traffic results in an increase in product awareness, which in turn leads to website conversion. If you have conversion, you have business success.

Because a professional website design can have such a large impact on your business, and a poorly designed site can have a detrimental one, I strongly encourage you to look at your web presence, and apply the above six points. If your site doesn’t do all of the above, or you don’t have a site, I have one question for you…do you want Vinny’s number, or mine?

           

Posted on Wednesday, June 6th, 2007 at 3:16 pm and is filed under Small Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.