Cost is obviously an important factor to consider when getting a new website designed by a web design company. For starters though, you need to know what your website is supposed to do for your business. What is the website meant to do add to your business? What end results are you expecting? You should have some idea of what kind of content you need on your site and how many pages it will be, what images will be included, what will the basic structure of your site look like. To get some ideas you can visit other websites that perform similar roles to that which you want yours to perform and get an idea from there. After your objectives are figured out, and you know how to structure your website efficiently, it is possible to talk to suppliers and companies in order to get the job done. This will be helpful because you now know what you need from the website, so you can properly articulate this to your web designer. Since there are so many web design companies out there, you can definitely have the advantage when determining price, since everyone is going to want to do your website. Just like everything else the web design realm is full of good companies, OK companies and just plain bad companies. It can be difficult to determine which is which so a good rule of thumb is if somebody promises to provide you with everything you want for an extremely low price, they are likely not going to be up to the standard you want. In the event that you have all the money in the world, and can afford to just pick the most expensive company there is, you can trust that you will receive top-notch service and impeccable quality when it comes to your website. You can just Google ‘web design company’ and pick the first one that you see. However, you have to do some research and find the best one if you have a budget to consider. You can find numerous web design companies that just consist of a handful of people, but who will be dedicated and skilled enough to get you the results you need. The best part is that, due to their lower overhead, they will charge you far less than the big guys do. As a result, you should look into these kinds of companies, as you can save money and still get great results.

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If it is your first time having a website designed for your company then it can seem like a daunting task. You want to make your company look as professional as possible and to get across to prospective customers relevant information that is likely to turn them into paying customers. Your website’s appearance and feel is not something that should be overlooked or taken lightly, as this is the first point of contact between you and your potential clients, and you want to impart a feeling of competent professionalism. These are some tips that you should keep in mind when discussing what you want with a web design agency:

Avoid information overload – Avoid the temptation to cram as much on to every page of your website as you can. Keep your homepage simple, giving customers the purpose of your business, the products or services that you sell, and the qualities that make you good to deal with. You can always provide links within the essential text to other more specific information that you feel your potential customers may wish to know about.

Text – Most websites are predominantly made up of text, and so getting the text aspect of your website correct can really make or break it. Visitors tend to prefer black text against a white background, but provided that you set the text apart from the background enough to make it easily readable, you can use whatever color scheme you see fit. Arial, Times New Roman, or Verdana are the ideal fonts to use for your text, since they are most familiar to web users and the are easiest to skim read.

Pictures – A few well chosen and well placed pictures will improve the look of most websites. As a rule of thumb, you do not want to have pictures on a particular webpage taking up more space than the amount the text on that webpage. You can definitely save some money if you take your own pictures, but if you want to guarantee quality, you should hire a professional to take the pictures for you, or buy them from a stock photo website for as little as a few dollars a piece.

Auto-play videos and music – While you may think that everyone loves music and videos, it is often not the case. If you feel that music and / or videos are essential then give your visitors the choice of whether to play them or not. Forcing visitors to do something, which is what you are doing if your auto-play music or videos, has been shown to be the a big factor in web users quickly deciding to leave a website.

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Those making websites, especially those making themselves instead of using a professional web design agency, often make the same mistakes, with these being the main ones to avoid:

Do not center everything on your website pages because doing so creates an unprofessional look. The books and magazines that you read always use a full page left to right layout for text, so why should web pages be any different? People are simply not used to reading large amounts of centered text and so if they come across it on your website then they will see it, instantly think that it does not look ‘right’, and click the back button on their web browser.

Do not have music that plays on your website because then the site takes longer to load and not everyone will like the music that you select to play. Your visitors might even leave if the music playing while they are waiting for your site to load is displeasing and they feel they are being forced to listen to it. A better option if you must have music on your site is to have a noticeable play button at the top of the pages that the visitors can use to start and stop the music

Do not use JavaScript for any critical elements of your web pages since about a fifth of all Web users are not able to or do not want to run JavaScript. That means that part of your site will not work for them, and they will either think that your site was designed incorrectly or that you neglected to fix the problems that developed. So, by using JavaScript, you will potentially be losing 20% of visitors to your website within seconds of them arriving at your site.

Do not design a full flash website if you want high rankings in search engines because search engines, not being able to read the content on flash websites, tend not to rank these types of sites as highly as mainly text and image based sites. You do not have to forget about using flash altogether, you just need to make sure that there is a good amount of text included too. If you ignore this advice then you will hardly get any visitors from Google, Yahoo and Bing, which are the best sources of getting visitors to your website.

There are other common mistakes too, but those are the main ones that you should be aware of. When designing your website do not forget that the most important factor to bear in mind is user experience, outweighing even your desire to make the website look attractive. If you are not totally convinced in your ability to create a website that both looks good and provides a good user experience, then it highly advisable that you hire a web design company to do the work for you.

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Einstein’s Definition

Albert Einstein once said “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. Think about this quote for a second and ask yourself, does this quote apply to the way you run your company?

Have you been doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results? If so, then you might want to keep on reading. In a world where technology is becoming a key productivity tool to the success of any business, it simply comes down to, are you accepting and harnessing technology or rejecting it. Are you willing to change or will you do the same thing over and over again?

Here are two main reasons why I pose this question. First, many business owners today have trouble understanding how new technology, specifically the internet, websites, and social media, can become a major benefit to their business, and second, owners have trouble measuring the profits they are losing by rejecting this technological change. Have you ever rejected technology?

“If It Ain’t Broke Then Don’t Fix It!” Mentality

Are you expecting to increase profits by continuing the same business strategy year after year? If so, how long do you think the method will work?

Many small business owners simply do not see the need to update or change their current method. They believe that there is no need to invest in a new method when the old one still seems to work fine. This is the common, “If it ain’t broke then don’t fix it!” mentality. Well, I hate to be the one to say it, but just because something isn’t “broke” doesn’t mean you can’t make it work better. When new technology such as a website or social media, could save you large amounts of time & money, how can you not accept it?

In an industry where there is an increasing level of competitiveness, small business owners must take advantage of every method available to help them cut costs. Would a commercial printer looking to grow their business, limit their shop to just a one color press? Sure they can continue to operate with a one color press, but wouldn’t a two or four color press help expand their business into other areas more effectively. In this example the current method works, but a technological change would help increase the company’s ability to grow.

Exploring these other areas help companies to sustain and increase profits. Without accepting new technology, small business owners greatly limit their profit potential. By using the power of technology to make their business practices more efficient owners can continue to achieve their goals.

Are You Sacrificing?

A lot of small business owners that we talk with have a hard time visualizing the amount of money they are losing, or in actuality, the amount of money they are giving to their competition, due to outdated advertising and lack of constant communication with their customers. These small businesses feel they are doing well with the system they currently have in place and do not see the need to change to a new method. This lack of vision can cause owners to limit their future profits.

On the opposite side, the owners that do see a need for change begin to focus more attention on how much money it will cost to make the investment into these new technologies rather than how much they are losing. These owners become unsure and wonder if the investment today will pay off tomorrow. To those owners, how much will it cost you not to have a great looking company website with email marketing, or social media? Do you even know? Is it one, three, possibly five customers or jobs a day? Do the math. How much money is lost due to potential customers not finding you on search engines or never hearing about new specials and opportunities your business is offering?

Ask yourself, how long can a company continue to compete if they are not being as efficient as their competition? If companies choose to stay with the same system they have been using for years and reject change are they, in essence, choosing to sacrifice future profits?

It’s not Just Advertising

Companies are not just losing profits due to poor advertising; they’re also losing profits due to a lack of follow up, or customer relationship. When offering new services, special pricing or new products to potential clients, how often do companies remember to follow up with their existing customer base? With the constant chaos that small business owners experience on a daily basis, this follow up process can become an aspect that is quickly forgotten, especially if requires the owner or an employee to directly try to contact each individual existing customer.

A great website, along with Email Marketing and social media  makes it easy, effective, and highly affordable to connect with your audience and build strong, successful, lasting relationships with them.

Adapting to Change

By adapting to change, and accepting and harnessing technology, small business owners who use internet tools, such as company websites, email marketing, and social media, have become more efficient and profitable.