Website Designers

Most people want to have their own professional webpage designed for their business. However, it is difficult to find a good web designer that will and is able to create the perfect site. And it’s for this reason I’ve written out some steps for finding and hiring the perfect website designer.

Steps:

1. Use search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN. Try to be as specific as possible about the services you are looking for. Also ask friends and family, who own a website, who did theirs, good designers are found through word of mouth.

You need to look hard at the designer’s website and how well they did on their own. While at the same time looking at the designer’s portfolio but keep in mind that just because a website is in his portfolio does not mean he designed the site. He very well could have updated the site and stuck it in his portfolio; I’ve had designers do it to me in the past when updating sites we’ve built here.

2. The designer’s work should be seen the second you land on their site. Keep in mind how long it takes for the site to load and how easy the site is to navigate. You can also visit some of their clients’ web pages and/or their testimonials.

3. Learn about their services and what their able to do. How much of the work is going to be outsourced? Keep in mind that if the designer is outsourcing work he/she is losing control of the site. You now have to wait for and deal with two companies instead of one.

4. Ask them if they charge by the whole website or a set fee for every page created. Be conscious of the fact that a fee per page stands a good chance of being more expensive.

If they are charging by the hour keep in mind that you have no idea how much you will end up paying because we have no idea how fast or slow they are.

5. Make sure that you own all rights to the site. Believe it or not some design companies feel that they own your site, even after you’ve bought and paid for it. They will sue you if anyone other than themselves does any work or changes to the site.

6. Make sure that you purchase and control your domain name. I’ve seen more than my share of design companies that have kept the name of a client when the client wanted to go somewhere else, for future design work. You’ll be out money, time and energy and your only option will be going to court. Make sure you own and control the name.

7. It’s best to get the web design company to use a CMS when designing the site. It’ll cost more upfront but you’ll make it back by being able to edit and make changes to the text on the site yourself.

8. Understand that just because the site is online does not mean that it is going to make you money. Once the site is online it’s time to start marketing it.

9. Read carefully the terms and conditions before you sign the contract. Don’t let a design company surprise you with hidden fees and charges.
Tips

Don’t let your budget keep you from finding the right designer for your project. It’s not going to be easy finding a good designer; I hire and fire them daily. If you find a good one, then work something out on payments, if you have to.

I’ve seen sites that make over $160,000.00 per month, month after month. If you want to make money online then don’t let the lack of money keep you from doing it.

Make sure all the sites in the designer’s portfolio are custom designed. You don’t want a template that everyone and their brother are already using. You want a custom designed one of a kind site.

Don’t pay by the hour. A designer can make up a site in 5 minutes and charge you five hours. His goal is not to build the perfect site right off, the more changes and problems the more money he makes.

Ignore the stupid awards and certifications that web designers show in hopes of impressing you. The real deal is their site design and portfolio. Anyone can make up an award or certificate.

Social Networking

When it comes to marketing online a lot of what I’m going to be talking about has to do with social networking. You might be thinking it has nothing to do with ranking on Google however; it has everything to do with ranking on Google.

I read the other day that in one day last month 75,000 people lost their jobs.

Now that’s a lot of people losing jobs and while the news media wants to scare the heck out of everyone, everything is not what it seems. Did you know that there are pockets of strength in the economy, areas that are still hiring and seeking people?

Checkout this graph Graph that shows the number of people looking for social networkers and you’ll see that these people are not getting laid off.

The reason these people are in high demand is because there is money to be made in social networking. I just wanted to make sure you knew this before I started posting and writing about social networks. Oh and before I forget, social networks are great for getting ranked in the search engines and driving traffic to our sites.

Keyword Research

One of the most important things we can do is to figure out what keywords a potential client might search for when trying to find the type of services we offer.

As we go along you’ll start to see more and more why this is important however for the time being I’m just going to show you how to go about doing it.

Just for fun let’s pretend that we are trying to rank a website in the web design industry. I’m going to make a short list of keywords I feel a potential client might type into Google if he/she were looking for a business in my industry.

Then I’m going to go to https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and I’m going to check the circle next to web content.

Now I’m going to go to Google and do a search for one of the keywords on my list of keywords like, website designers. I’m then going to start at the top and copy the first URL and paste it into the URL box and then click the “get keywords idea” box.

The idea is to get as long of a list as I can from my competition of keywords that are relevant to my site.

Website designers
Website Development
Web Site Design
Graphic Design
Web Design
Web Development
Web Page Design

The more the better, and keep in mind that once I’ve gotten all I can get from one search like for web designers, I can do a search for custom website designs and start over.

Once I’ve gotten a good list put together I can take a list of adjectives and start working with that list.

“detailed website designers”

“accurate website designers”

“acquire website designers”

“custom website designers”

“advanced website designers”

“affordable website designers”

“assortment website designers”

“attractive website designers”

“basics website designers”

“better website designers”

“compare website designers”

“complete website designers”

“consult website designers”

“website designers consultant”

“conventional website designers”

“custom website designers”

“economical website designers”

“Ecommerce website designers”

“efficient website designers”

“enhanced website designers”

“exact website designers”

“excellent website designers”

“experience website designers”

“expert website designers”

“explain website designers”

“fast website designers”

“flawless website designers”

“general website designers”

“good website designers”

“handy website designers”

“ideal website designers”

“immaculate website designers”

“impeccable website designers”

“important website designers”

“impressive website designers”

“interesting website designers”

“Internet website designers”

“website designers market leader”

“official website designers”

“On-time website designers”

“website designers optimization”

“perfect website designers”

“popular website designers”

“precise website designers”

“professional website designers”

“quality website designers”

“recognized website designers”

“recommend website designers”

“regular website designers”

“relaxing website designers”

“reliable website designers”

“website designers repair”

“replace website designer”

“review website designers”

“rewarding website designers”

“secret website designers”

“website designers service”

“simple website designers”

“simplify website designers”

“sophisticated website designers”

“special website designers”

“Special Offer website designers”

“website designers specialist”

“standard website designers”

“tested website designers”

“traditional website designers”

“uncomplicated website designers”

“unique website designers”

As you can tell the list can go on and on. And I’ll go back and replace the keyword website designers for my other keywords like Website Development, Web Site Design, Graphic Design, Web Design, Web Development, Web Page Design and once again this list will go on and on.

If after all this I’m not able to put together a big enough list I’ll go to a thesaurus like http://thesaurus.reference.com/ and find words that I can replace words with that mean the same thing.

After all this if you still can’t put the list together then you might should look to hire someone else to do it. Of course since this is being written for you John, if you have any problems then call me.

Website Conversion

There are two things I can think offhand that get me excited about what I do.

1. The opportunity to make more money.

2. The opportunity to help someone that I love and respect.

I want be making any money off these next couple post however I will get the opportunity to help someone I have a lot of respect for and that just might be better than making money.

I was asked by someone to help them out with a site that belongs to the company they work for.

I believe the question went something like this.

I wanted to get some advice on how to get better search results for our company’s web site?

Anyone that knows me knows that I believe in having a site that will convert the traffic that comes from those rankings, before getting the rankings.

Improving website conversion rates is both an art and a science.

We’ve got 3 seconds to get the attention and keep the attention of an online visitor when they land on our site. Last year we changed the color of one button and saw online sales increase on that site.

Increasing conversion is a constantly changing game that never ends. I’m not going to post the site address here however; I’m going to do a website review for the website that was used in his email address.

If it’s not the correct site please email me the correct site.

Here We Go

When the site loads it’s not even centered in my browser, it lands in the top left hand corner of the page.

I’ve been looking at the site for a couple minutes; I’ve read the text on the home page and still have no idea what it is you do.

A website has to create a desire; it has to make me want what it is you’re selling. This site only makes me want to leave. I don’t mean to be negative but the site lacks passion. I don’t care what you do, I don’t care how long you’ve been in business, I only care what it is you can do for me.

This site has boring written all over it.

Trying to figure out what it is you do I checked out your title tag and get nothing but the website address. That is the most important onsite tag and you’ve put your website address there.

You’ve managed to blend the phone number into the site as well. Guess that cuts back on answering the phone.

The website really isn’t up to par; I’m going to design another site for you tomorrow so I’ll end the website review here.

I’ll also be writing some other stuff for you to start doing in getting ready for the next steps.

Social Media Marketing

Stop with the High Level Social Media Speak

That was the name of a post written by Dave Snyder and twittered about by Brian Chappell and some others. I was going to ignore it at first but after seeing it twittered about twice and reading the ignorance and cockiness in the post I just had to comment.

In the article Dave Snyder starts off with, The “social media guru” has become a self propelled parasite of our online industry.

That might have been a better title but the truth of the matter is that if Dave and other marketing guys spent more time on their own projects instead of trying to build up their names, things like this wouldn’t bother them so much. I’ll point to a post by none other than Rae Hoffman who explains this much better than me.

Three quarters of the people you idolize and want to grow up to be like barely make a living on their own or couldn’t at all. Most of the people you read regularly are smoke and mirrors. Some speakers are given subsidies to speak at conferences, not because they refuse to come without it, but because they can’t afford to without it.

Okay, back to Dave Snyder’s laws to live by. In Dave’s next line he gives a list of the qualifications one needs to meet in order to call themselves or even talk about social media stuff.

1. Have you driven 100s of thousands of eyes to a piece of content in the span of a few hours?

I’ve done this, however I’ve found that being able to get thousands of visitors to my sites day after day works a lot better. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a social media guru like Dave, I’m just a girl from Colombia South America that has been able to make my living online for the last 8 years while living in a third world country.

2. Have you successfully shaped an opinion about a Fortune 500 company using social media?

I’m guessing we are talking about being hired by a social media company to shape an opinion about them. I’m also guessing that the numbers of people that can claim this are small. In 2007 only 26% of Fortune 500 companies felt that social media was important.

Previous research show that just 11.6% of the Fortune 500 companies have a public blog.

I’d also be willing to bet a lot of the social media work done by these companies is done in-house.

3. Have you ever put out a fire for a Fortune 500 company that started on social media, before it could make the main stream?

Once again back to the whole Fortune 500 thing. I’d venture to guess that Dave has done some work for a Fortune 500 company and would like the world to know.
Does this make me want to hire Dave, no, after reading his article I think Dave is an idiot that worries more about what people think of him then getting the work done for his client.

Have I worked for a Fortune 500 Company?

I can happily say no. I’ve found that the larger a company is the more time and people you have to deal with to get something done.

In most cases the truth is that the guy you’re waiting on for an answer, does not have a clue about what’s really going on. They have meetings about meetings and spend most their time chasing their tales unaware of what’s going on around them.

If you doubt me then let’s count the number of past Fortune 500 Companies asking for bailout money.

Am I a social media guru?

Once again I can happily say no. The social media world changes faster than I’m able to keep up with. In most cases about the time I’m learning something new the rest of the world has moved on to the next big thing. I seem to barley be able to stumble around in the shadows.

1. I’ve worked with clients in dying industries and have used the information brought to me by the very people Dave wants to attack, to breathe life back into their business and allow them to stay afloat.

2. No, I don’t work with Fortune 500 companies who have CEO’s that make 20 million a year and have not this first clue how to run a business. Who line up to steal tax payer’s money and require at least 20 meeting before making a decision.

3. I work with small business owners who have the pulse of their business in their hands. Who make choices daily that keep their businesses a float. Guys and gals that study and understand their competition because their goal is to become better.

I got off track a little let me get back to Dave’s article.

Next Dave says, It’s like me calling my self a movie critic because I watch movies and have an opinion.

Well it might just be me but a movie critic is someone that watches moves and gives their opinion. I’m sure you being a social media guru and all already know that there are websites online were one can go and give their opinion on a film. This would make them a movie critic. Today I’m a Dave Snyder critic.
Back to Dave.

The self proclaimed “social media guru” loves to speak at a high level about social media.

Here are some words they often use:

Social Web/Graph
Widget
Enterprise 2.0
Social Media Optimization
Meme
Mash-Up
Social Media Monitoring
User-Generated Content
Web 2.0
Social Networks
Blogosphere
Viral Marketing
Micro-Blogging
Transparency
Engagement

These are words used when one is talking about the subject. When someone is talking about a car they will use words like tires, clutch, breaks, seats and steering wheel. They are not claiming to be a mechanic, they are talking about a subject that requires the use of these words in order to indentify the part of the car they are talking about.

I’m guessing that Dave Snyder feels that only he and a select few are able to use these words.

From Wikipedia;

Social media optimization (SMO) is a set of methods for generating publicity through social media, online communities and community websites. Methods of SMO include adding RSS feeds, social news buttons, blogging, and incorporating third-party community functionalities like images and videos. Social media optimization is related to search engine marketing, but differs in several ways, primarily the focus on driving traffic from sources other than search engines, though improved search ranking is also a benefit of successful SMO.

Social media optimization is in many ways connected as a technique to viral marketing where word of mouth is created not through friends or family but through the use of networking in social bookmarking, video and photo sharing websites. In a similar way the engagement with blogs achieves the same by sharing content through the use of RSS in the blogsphere and special blog search engines.

Social Media optimization is considered an integral part of an online reputation management (ORM) or Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM) strategy for organizations or individuals who care about their online presence.

And again from Wikipedia:

Micro-blogging is a form of multimedia blogging that allows users to send brief text updates (say, 140 characters or fewer) or micromedia such as photos or audio clips and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, digital audio or the web.

The content of a micro-blog differs from a traditional blog in that it is typically more topical, smaller in aggregate file size (e.g. text, audio or video) but is the same in that people utilize it for both business and individual reasons. Many micro-blogs provide this short commentary on a person-to-person level, or share news about a company’s products and services.

My point is that each of the words listed has a meaning and is used when talking about a topic. No one has to market or do social media work for a Fortune 500 company in order to use those words.

I don’t disagree with everything in the article and I’m currently fighting of a cold and tend to get a little cranky when I’m feeling under the weather. Had I don’t been feeling bad I might not have even bothered with the post. Who knows.