2010 Is Here and We're Still Going!

Well you've probably noticed we haven't been posting much the past few months, and we do apologize for that. 2009 as you probably know was a rough year for most, and we certainly were no stranger to that effect. However, it's a new year and we're still kicking and ready to make it one of the best years yet.

We already have some nice projects in the pipeline and are making plans to start getting more leads coming through the door. With that in mind we'd like to take a few minutes to remind everyone what Ignite Media is all about.

Ignite is a small freelance website design and development company focusing on building search engine friendly websites for small and medium businesses. We've been in the field for over 20 years combined, and have worked with companies in every industry from retail to industrial. We take the time to listen to your needs and really get to know what it is you are looking for in an online presence.

We're not a full time shop, and we're honest about that. We put in the hours needed to make sure each and every project is built beyond your expectations. However, to keep costs down and overhead low we are based on a freelance model. What does this mean for you? Well you may have to leave us a voice-mail or send us an email but we'll get back to you. You may find that we like to talk a little after regular business hours, but we will communicate. We've worked on sites for large and small customers and there have been no complaints up to now about our schedule being an issue.

We're living in a new world. One that operates outside of the old style 9-5 but yet still works effectively and efficiently. Don't be afraid to try us out, we promise you won't be disappointed and better yet, we can almost guarantee you'll be please with our customer service and high quality design.

Here's to a new year, and a new start for everyone. May we all be healthy and prosperous for the year to come.

Planning and budgeting for a website...

As a web development company we are asked the same questions many times over about websites. However, there is one thing that always comes up and that is "how much does it cost?". It's probably one of the easiest to answer, and hardest for clients to comprehend! Everyone wants an exact answer, even before they've put much thought into what kind of website they want. So this post is intended to help people get a more accurate answer based on their website project.

Planning out your website
You may not think that there is very much to plan, but you'd be wrong. Building your website is probably one of the most important things you'll do for your business, outside of closing a sale. A website today is no longer a luxury it's a must have. Without a website, you are like a car salesman with no cars to sell. So planning your website is more important then it has ever been.

The first step is to decide what it is that you want your website to accomplish. Are you looking for a website that is purely informational, or one that sells products, or rather one that is more of a sell sheet of your company that gets visitors to contact you? Once you have this figured out, things start to lay themselves out a little more.

If you are creating a website that sells products online, you now know that you have to think about what type of shopping experience you want your customers to have. What extras you think would add to their shopping experience like email a friend, or save to favorites, etc. Each type of website will get you thinking about things that you should have in yours. A good thing to do is look at what other websites are doing and "borrow" ideas from them. Hey, if it's working for another site why not have it on yours? Don't go crazy with extras, but be sure you really think and plan out what your site will have and do.

This plan doesn't need to be an exact step by step process of how the website will function. Rather, this should be more of a bulleted list of things you would like to have on the site. You can break it out into Must Have Pages, Must Have Features and Would be Nice Pages and Would be Nice Features.

Budgeting for your website
The next thing to do after you've really thought about and planned out your ideas about the website, is to setup a budget. Figure out what it is that you can realistically afford to pay for your new website. Obviously the more you have the more robust your website will be able to be. That doesn't mean that a less expensive site won't be effective, it just means that it may not do as much as another site.

When you are budgeting, remember that a website is meant to be your 24 hour a day, 7 day a week sales person. It is always out there for people to view and contact you from. So with that in mind, would you pay a sales person $500 for the year? It's not that you have to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a website, but $2,000-$8,000 for a good website should not sound unreasonable. The more features and pages you want, the more money you should expect to budget.

The final step in planning and budgeting
Once you've made your plan, and figured out your budget it's time to get some quotes. This is important because now that you have a good idea of your plan, and how much you can afford you can feel more confident in receiving practical quotes from vendors. Don't be afraid to let them know up front that you have X amount in your budget for the website, and you'd like them to give you options based on leaving out certain things from your plan to play with the pricing. So for example they might come back to you and say for your plan as noted it would be $X, but if you left A and B out until a later phase, it would be $X. Then it's time to pick your vendor and build your website!

Remember: The more prepared you are, the more realistic the quotes will be and the more likely the end product will match your desires.

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Ignite MediaLLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization
Website Packages Now Available!

Building Your Website - It's Like Building a House!

OK, so you are never going to go out and purchase a truck load of lumber for your website, but you'd be surprised how many similarities there really are. This post is a way of showing how involved, what seems like a simple website, can really be. Too often we hear "oh I could do that", and "if I had the time I'd just build it myself". Although we love to hear this (insert sarcasm here), we want to be sure you fully understand what is involved in building a good website.

The research and planning, that's right we call it that too!

Before you go to your architect to start your blueprints, you usually sit down and think about what you want to build, where and what your budget is. With a website, you also need to start with this stage. This includes, but is not limited to, market research, competitor research, keyword analysis and research, and budgeting.

The blueprint, or as we call it the site map:

That's right a good website has a plan, just like a house. You wouldn't build a house without a plan would you? So why would you consider building a website without a plan? The site map ensures that your website has all the pages, functions, and structure that it needs to be effective. It takes into account the keyword research and budgeting that you worked out in the first phase. There will be revisions, adjustments and compromises made and the final site map will be the guideline for the development of the website.

Building the foundation - setting up the template/CSS files:

To ensure your house is sound and stable you have to be sure to build a foundation that can support the current and possible expansion of your house. A website needs to be built on a foundation the same way. Ensuring that the template and/or CSS file is well structured and allows for easy expansion is important. Chances are your website will grow and you don't want to have to completely rebuild when that time comes.

The framework - the design and pages:

Now that a stable foundation is setup, the rest of the site can now be built. The design and the pages can be constructed atop that foundation. Just like with a house, you can take the cheap, fast and easy way and slap the walls and doors up quickly and without much thought. However, the better choice is to ensure the design and pages are constructed as effectively as possible. Ensuring each page is search engine friendly and user friendly from the beginning will save a lot of hassle down the road.

Finishing Touches:

Making sure you put all the finishing touches on your house will ensure it looks and feels like a complete product. A website may not have hardware to hang, or molding to finish, but reviewing the site to ensure calls to action are in the right place, the copy is optimized and everything works as designed is integral to having an effective website.

Ongoing Maintenance:

Just because you've built it doesn't mean it's done. That's right just like with your house, your website will require ongoing updates, maintenance and enhancements. Keeping your site fresh will ensure that the site is working as hard for you as you did in putting it together.

Remember: You probably can do it yourself, but would you trust the plumber to fix your car?

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Ignite MediaLLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization
Website Packages Now Available!

Website Packages Now Available!

Are you on a budget and can't seem to find a development firm that will give you a great website and keep it within a certain budget? Well Ignite Media realizes the tough times we are all living in and has put together some budget conscious website packages. We have everything from a starter package up to a fully integrated ecommerce package.

What do I get with my website package?
Depending on package you choose you can get a basic 5 page website with a custom design or a 20 page ecommerce website with a custom design. The key here is CUSTOM DESIGN. That's right, we're not making you choose from a set of templates that we through your logo into. No, we're designing and building a website that carries your company colors, look, and feel throughout.

How many website packages do you have?
There are three different standard website packages to choose from and three different ecommerce packages to choose from. We've done our best to put together packages that are both budget friendly and accommodating to the various sizes and needs of all our potential clients.

Do I have to choose a package with Ignite now?
Absolutely not. Our website packages are meant for those people who know exactly what they want and what they are willing to spend for it. If you are looking for a custom solution that doesn't fit within any of our solutions, we'd be more then happy to discuss your project more in depth to give you a custom proposal based on your needs. We don't believe in a one solution fits all approach, which is the reason for the variety of packages as well as our custom solutions.

How do I get started?
Simply go to our website packages page on the Ignite Media site and choose which direction is best for you - Standard Websites or eCommerce Websites. Once you decide you'll be provided with a variety of packages each of which has more information available by clicking on learn more within each box.

Remember: Just because the economy is rough it doesn't mean there is not a solution out there for you.

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Ignite MediaLLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

What is your website worth?

Almost daily the question is asked of us "how much do you charge for a website?". To which our answer is always "it depends on what you want". After a few minutes of us explaining how it all depends, the potential client usually understands that just throwing a number out there won't be of much use to them and we need to be more specific on the scope of the project before we can say "your website will be...". However, lately I've been wondering if the question that they should be asking is "what would a website be worth to me?".

What would a website be worth to you?
Rather then thinking about the cost that you have to pay for your website, perhaps you should be thinking about what your website will do for you once it is built. For instance if you build a website and within the first year that website brings in $20,000 of new business, then isn't your website worth $20,000 at least? So the price quote you got for $5000 is only a quarter of what your website is worth. If you had an employee that brought in 4 times what you paid them would they be worth the cost? I certainly would think so, and I'd probably even give that person a raise.

How do I know my website will be worth anything?
You don't know for sure what your website will or will not bring in, but chances are if you skimp on the development costs the return will be less. Think of your website like a house, if you do an addition and you use the cheapest material and cheapest labor chances are you won't be very happy with the end result and people who come see the house probably won't be very impressed. You also won't get as much when you go to sell the house because the inspector will notice the imperfections. A website is no different. You have visitors coming to your "house" (website) everyday and if your developer didn't understand usability then you'll have some very disappointed visitors, which could result in lost/unseen business.

So do I go with the most expensive developer every time?
Absolutely not. What you do need to do is make sure you are comparing apples to apples. The page counts, what platforms they are programming on, what you are and are not getting with your contract, etc. You also want to be sure you see samples of previous work and call a few of the portfolio clients they have. Don't ask for a referral you can call because they will always give you the best client they have. Call any one of the samples in their portfolio and get the raw reaction from the client.

So what is a good price?
It all depends on what you are getting and what you expect to get. $5000 might be cheap if you are getting a lot for it and feel confident your site will be built to convert visitors into leads/clients. $5000 might be expensive if you don't have the confidence in your developer. Knowing what you are getting is key and working with a company you feel comfortable with and can freely express how you feel about certain things, and answers all your questions is very important.

Remember: A websites value is based on what it does for the business, not on how much it cost to build.

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Ignite MediaLLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

A picture is worth 1000 words; Or is it?

The saying goes that "a picture is worth a 1000 words", but is that really the case? Do pictures really give everyone and everything the understanding that you are trying to convey? Or are we betting on the fact that we understand the image, than everyone else must? Lets take a minute to discuss how images can sometimes be less effective then some properly used words.

What the search engines see, isn't what you do...
When you look at a website you see text and images arranged in some fashion so as to look appealing. There is a header, a logo, some navigation links a paragraph and maybe a photo along with contact information at the bottom.

What the search engines see on the other hand is code and text. That picture that is taking up your entire site, they don't even know what is just that it looks something like this to them '< src = "images/image.jpg">' - not exactly the pretty picture you were seeing right? The search engines see numbers, symbols and letters which makes up the display that you as the user sees on the front end. So although images are good when used in the right places, they can be harming your ability to be seen by the search engines.

It's not always as apparent as you might think...
Another common mistake that people make is using representative images in place of something more direct. Take for example the bulls eye that is often used in marketing when you are trying to convey that "we hit the mark". Sure most people might get that one, but what if they don't? Is it really worth the cute image to sacrifice a few people understanding the message?

Everything has a time and a place - images included...
Images are great for logos, product shots, demonstrations, etc. I'm not so sure that images are great for relaying an important marketing message, unless used in conjunction with words/phrases. Don't just put the picture of a black sheep among white ones, put a message on it that says "Ever want to stand out from the crowd?". Now they are associating the meaning with the message.

Remember: You can never be too straight forward when it comes to marketing.

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Ignite MediaLLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

A Question A Day - Will Bring Visitors?

How many times have you gone to a search engine and typed in a question? I know I do it all the time. The search engines have almost become like a "customer service representative" for the internet. You type your question and they come back with a list of places that might work for you. So why not use this to your advantage on your own website?

Become the answer they are looking for:
Why not create pages based around different questions. For example if you own a website that sells clothes for children and in your brick-and-mortar store you hear the question "What does 2T and 3T really mean in terms of size", why not create a page explaining the T system of sizing? You've now answered not only your existing customers questions but you have the chance of being found by people who may never have heard of you before.

What if I can't think of the questions:
Without a doubt there are questions in your industry, it's just a matter of finding the most valuable ones to be answered. There are new tools being offered by some companies such as WordTracker that allow you to see some of the questions people have typed into the search engines. This is extremely helpful because these questions were actually asked on a search engine, not something made-up, or guessed at. Take a few of these and there you go, some new content to add to the site.

Do I just add the pages, where do they go?
The best place to put these pages would be in a support area of your site. Even if you have to create one and it looks small at first, over time it will grow. One section could be commonly asked questions, another could be white paper downloads on your products, etc. Creating a section like this on your site is giving your visitors a resource to keep coming back to and to tell other people about. They don't have to buy anything to browse it and feel like they are getting the world.

Remember: Sometimes it's about answering the question before providing the need.

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Ignite MediaLLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

Website Usability - Is Your Site Making the Grade?

A website is about more than just displaying your product or service information. A website is an experience that directly relates to your business and reputation. Last post we spoke about your home page and how important it is to make a great first impression. This post we expand on that and explain how that impression needs to extend beyond home page.

Navigation is key
Navigation is the most important part of a website. It is how your visitors get from one place to another. Think of your navigation as your street map or directions from old aunt sally! How annoyed are you when those directions or that map aren't easy to read or to follow? I know I get steaming mad when I'm told to make a right, only to realize they meant to say left.

So why put your visitors through that same type of turmoil? Your navigation needs to be visible and easy to follow. You shouldn't mix in company links with product and service links, and you shouldn't have more than 2 sets of navigation if possible (ie: Top Bar Nav, and Side Bar Nav). Many times people think if they give people 20 different navigation options they will be able to more easily find the page, but what you wind up doing is confusing the visitor into wondering if all of the links go to the same or different places.

Page Content and Page Structure
After you have successfully navigated your visitors to the correct page, the structure and content on those pages is just as important as how they got there. How you order the content in a page can directly relate to the number of conversions you make. For example if you have site where you sell roller blades and you get to a product page for a particular pair of blades, a visitor should be shown an image, short description, price, colors, etc and a buy now button. If instead they are shown paragraphs and paragraphs of information, and the very last thing on the page is the buy-now, you can bet that your conversion ratio is going to be pretty low.

Content as mentioned above is also very important. With that roller blade website example from above, the overview should be brief but highlight the key reasons that pair of blades is the right choice. For those visitors that might be more interested in the in-depth information you provide that but either further down on the page, or on a "more-details" page/tab. With this approach you are giving all your visitors what they want.

Clear conversion method
You've now effectively navigated your visitors to the correct spot and have the content and the structure of each page just right. What's next? Well what are you hoping your visitor will do? Do you want them to email you, send you a request for quote form, purchase an item, or pick up the phone and call you? Before you can decide on which conversion method to use, you have to answer that question; visitors aren't mind readers and without a clear way to finalize their process they may just hit the back button and be gone forever.

Once you've made the decision of how you want to have your visitors contact you, its time to implement it. You want to remember while you are configuring your site for the final conversion, you need to make it clear and easy for your visitors. Put the 800# large on the page if you want them to call you; make a nice "email us now" button that stands out if email is what you prefer; ensure your "buy-now" button is prominent on the page if purchasing is your method. Just keep in mind, if it is confusing for you, how do you expect your visitors to figure it out?

Remember: Usability is about your visitors, if you make it easy they will come!

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Ignite MediaLLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

It's Your Home Page, Not Your Company Profile Page!

That's right, your home page is not a place to be presenting your company history or your company philosophy. Your home page needs to be as direct and to the point as possible, but not about who you are, rather about what you offer and why you are better.

The home page is like the cover of a book
Would you pick up a book if the cover was a diatribe about the author? Would you even look twice if the cover looked more overwhelming then you had time for? The answer is probably no, or at least I hope so, otherwise you have a lot of time on your hands!

The cover of a book usually has a very catchy title, the authors name, and most times a picture to give you some insight as to what it is all about. You may also see a brief intro like "the best thriller novel you'll ever read". Within a few seconds you are able to get a sense for what that book is about and whether it will suite your reading needs. It's not until the inside or back cover that you get a bio of the author.

What should my home page be then?
It should be that intro that serves to quickly and effectively inform your visitors of whether they are at the right place or not. Take for example the website image below, the first thing you notice is the company logo is in the top left corner (A). This allows you to see if this is the right company and/or what company website you are at. The second thing you notice is a brief intro of what the company does and what products/services they offer (B). After that you see a group of content buckets (C) that represent important areas of the website. Content buckets are meant to guide visitors to the most important areas of the website, cutting down on search time. Along the left side you have the product/service navigation (D) which allows visitors to dig more deeply into the area of the site that interests them. And last but certainly not least there is a clearly visible call to action (E).

Within seconds a visitor has been able to identify, understand and assess the site and the company. They know right away whether the site will offer what they want.

KISS - Keep it Simple Stupid.
As with most things, the best approach is to keep things simple and straight forward. Don't add more then you have to, just get your message across and let the rest of the site handle the "fluff". Keeping it simple is something that is truly under-rated especially when it comes to websites, but you'll learn in time that some of the most simple sites are the most effective.

Remember: You're selling your products/services not your company history.

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Ignite MediaLLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

3 Types of Contact Forms and When to Use Them

Contact forms are on almost every website that you go to. Sometimes they are long and drawn out, other times they are short sweet and to the point. Although many of us may not love the long drawn out ones, there are times when each is appropriate. When you break it all down there are three basic varieties of contact forms 1) In Depth 2) General Information 3) Quick Contact. The trick is knowing when to use which form.

In Depth Contact Forms:
These forms are the ones where you are asked for everything but what the first word you said as a child! Seriously, they are very specific about what information they are asking for and are usually at least 15-20 questions long. At first thought this may seem like a complete waste, and that no-one would ever fill out a form this long.

In depth contact forms are good for a variety of applications such as on a real-estate site, an insurance site, or even a medical site. On each of these sites the company needs to know as much information as they can in order to assist you as quickly and efficiently as possible. The one thing that you want to make sure of when using a form that involves gathering some highly personal information (such as social security numbers), is to have the information collected in a secure database that can only be accessed through an administrative area requiring you to login.

A poor use of an in depth contact form would be on an ecommerce website. You don't need a persons social security number, age, or date of birth (typically) in order to sell someone a product. Using this type of form on a "simple" site can have some pretty devastating effects on you conversion rate.

General Information Contact Forms:
These types of forms are probably the most common type of form seen around the internet. They typically ask for the basic information such as name, tel, fax, email, comments, etc. They are usually only 3-8 questions long and take very little time to fill out and submit.

A great place for these types of forms is on any website where you are looking to have people get in touch with you for general inquires. For example on a website that sells bikes you may want a general contact form for people who have questions about parts, style bikes, etc. This allows a website visitor an easy to use option to contact you and give you some information on what they are looking for without having to pick-up the phone. These types of forms can generally be sent via email, and don't usually require a secure area to be stored in as nothing personal is really being sent.

A poor use of a general contact form would be on a car insurance website where you want to provide customers a way of requesting an insurance quote. These types of forms usually do not request enough information to give any type of valuable quote to a customer.

Quick Contact, Contact Forms:
These are the short, sweet and to the point forms. They generally only require an email address, name and description, sometimes a phone number also. These are great for visitors who know your company, know your site and just want to quickly reach out to you for a question or for you to get back in touch with them.

These forms are great to use in conjunction with a full contact us form page. You can use these quick forms throughout the site as they take up very little room and provide a great call to action area. For visitors that need more in-depth information they can easily click the contact us button where a more general or in depth form will await them.

Remember: Providing the right means of contact can mean the difference between a visitor and a client.

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Ignite MediaLLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

Don't underestimate your visitors

All websites are built for a reason, and that's to have visitors be able to see it and hopefully contact you. Why then do we underestimate how smart these visitors are? Time and time again I've heard web designers, SEOs and other marketers say "but our visitors won't get that". I think that what we are forgetting who those visitors are.

Website visitors aren't just computer-illiterate users!
I know it may be hard to believe, but people who visit your website may have actually used another website before! They may have even been on other computers too! OK, enough with the sarcasm, but I honestly think that we sometimes think our website visitors are coming to our website on their first day of using a computer. But lets stop for a minute and think about who those visitors might be.

Lets say that you own an electronics store, and you sell everything from laptops to flat panel TVs on your website. Now lets consider who typically is buying these things. They are usually pretty tech savvy people, and if they aren't their friend or relative is who is helping them purchase the item. Those tech savvy users like to know the details of what makes that particular digital camera work, they want to know about the mega-pixals, zoom ratio, etc. So it would be smart of you as the store owner to provide that information.

Now what about a more simple product like clothing. Well that visitor could be anyone, but lets narrow this down a bit to baby clothing. Your typical shopper is going to be the mother/father or relative. You can bet that the expecting mother wants to know what the article of clothing was made out of, how it washes, and if it has been fire tested. So again, why not give them this information?

Too quickly, we dumb things down:
It seems that we are often times overly concerned with saving time, and dumbing things down. These things certainly have their place, for instance in an emergency you don't want an exit sign that gives every turn; rather a sign with an arrow that leads to the next sign with an arrow is much quicker and more efficient. But the last time I checked, we aren't looking for our visitors to find the quickest way out.

Providing a valuable product along with relevant information, even if it seems like "the visitor won't read it", is important. Sure, not everyone who comes to your website is going to read it, but some people will. For those people that want the information your site has just stood out from the crowd. You've provided that visitor not only with the information they were looking for but the trust that they can count on you to educate and inform them on what they are purchasing.

Quality is more important than brevity:
I would much rather have quality information that happens to be a little on the lengthy side in terms of information then have a site that is so brief on information it doesn't answer all of the visitors questions. You have to remember, these people are purchasing something from you that they could purchase somewhere else if they don't feel like you've satisfied their need, so make sure you are providing as much information as possible, not just the shortest amount of information.

Remember: You are a visitor at other sites, do you like being treated like a toddler? Probably not, so why treat your visitors that way?

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Ignite MediaLLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

Content Editing vs Content Management

Many people think that content editing is the same thing as content management. In the very simplest of terms I guess they can be considered correct, but when you really look at the two there are real differences. At Ignite we feel it is important that you know what the differences are, so you know what you are getting as an end product.

Content Editing
This is when you are able to edit the text and possibly pictures within the body of a page. You usually have little or no control over the navigation, page design, or any other major functions of the website.

The best example of this would be Macromedia's (Adobe's) product Contribute. Contribute allows web designers the ability to give their client accessibility to update content within the page or pages that they grant permissions for.

This is a great tool for the casual client who really only wants to change or add some text every now and then and has little else to update or modify on the site. It's not good however for someone who needs to add pages, content, modules, etc to the site at any given time.

Content Management:
This is a much more robust system that allows control of pretty much every aspect of the website, or as much control as the administrator will allow for each user. Some popular content management solutions are DotNetNuke, Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress, TypePad, and others. These systems are extremely robust and feature rich applications that give website owners the ability to create new pages, add modules, update content, allow users to register, and much more.

You are actually able to 'manage' your website from an administrative backend. Unlike with the content editing tools, there is an administrator that can set permissions for viewing certain pages, delete or modify registered users, and a variety of other things.

Which is better Content Editing or Content Management:
It really all depends on what you are looking to do. As mentioned earlier if you are just looking to make some small text updates to existing pages then content editing is probably more than enough for you. However, if you really want to have full control and be able to expand as needed content management is the direction you should be looking.

Remember: Don't always assume you are getting something, make sure you know you are getting it.

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Ignite MediaLLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development

If I had the time I'd create my own website...

This is probably one of the most common phrases that I hear in this industry. We get a call from a small or medium size business owner and they "know" they can build their own website, but just don't have the time. They go on and on about how they "know" what it's all about and how they have done websites in the past, etc, etc. Now even if you do know how to build your own website, is it really the best use of your time and are you sure you are building it correctly?

Let the experts do it, that's why they are called experts:
Just imagine if I walked into your office and wanted you to design a building for me (assuming you are an architect in this case) and I blurted out the phrase "Well, I'd draw up the plans myself but I just don't have the time". What would your reaction be? I would assume you would most likely be offended and then think to yourself, where does this guy get off? You've spent years getting your degree to become an architect and then I walk in and make it sound like anyone who has half a brain could do the job.

Experts are experts because they have spent a lot of time and effort learning their craft. They've studied the various techniques, aligned themselves with other people who know the industry just as well if not better. They could give you a history lesson on what their industry is all about. This same thing holds true for "real" web designers and programmers. It's not something they do because it's easy, it's something they do because they have a passion for it and have honed their craft to be as good as they can be.

Would it really be cost effective for you to build your own site?
Another aspect to think about is what are you giving up to take the time out of your day and build your own website? Chances are the opportunity cost of building it yourself are far too great. While you are busy building the website your day to day tasks are going unanswered. That means that potential contract for thousands of dollars will go unanswered and pass you by.

You also have to think about what impact not having someone who knows the ins and outs of website design build your site could have on the final product. Have you kept up to date on what the search engines are looking for? Have you studied the latest CSS methods that are being employed? Do you know how to code that contact form so it gets delivered without much spam being delivered as well? I would assume the answer to the majority of these questions would be No.

You wouldn't have your maintenance man come in and do your book keeping so why would you use anyone but a design company to build your website?

Remember: It's not always better if you do it yourself.

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Ignite MediaLLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

Expectations and Communication - It's Key

Everyone has had that experience. The one where you have an image in your head of how you want your website to look, but for some reason just can't explain it. Then when you see what the designer presents, it's not on the mark and you get extremely frustrated. You blame the designer for not being artistic enough, or not helping you with your idea. But wait, is it really their fault?

Lets step back for a minute and think about this in a different view. Take a brand new house for instance, one that's not even built yet. You know what you want and you know where you want it, but you just don't know how to tell the architect your vision. So do you think you are going to get the house you want? Probably not.

I know it can be hard, but you need to figure out a way to express your image to the designer (or architect in the above example). This is the reason most designers will ask if you have certain sites you like, colors you prefer, styles that excite you, or something to that effect. It's not because they want to copy another site, but rather they want to know if blue will make you happy or really pisses you off. They want to know if Flash is what you really want, but didn't know it was called that.

Communication is key. Ask as many questions as you can think of before having the designer start designing your website. Also, make sure you answer as many questions as the designer needs to ask you. It takes work, and not just on the designers end to create a final product that everyone can be happy with.

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Ignite MediaLLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

What web based business should I start that will make money?

This post is for people who are currently looking to "break into" a web based business. Over the years I've come across many people who have asked the question "what's the most profitable web based business to be in?". The first answer that comes to mind is "if I knew that do you think I'd be doing this?". However, I usually catch myself before that comes out and I explain to them that there is no silver bullet.

Don't you just build the site and make the money?
Many people are under the impression that it is as easy as just putting up a website. As soon as you go online your orders will start rolling in. Unfortunately, this is where many people get into trouble. The website takes longer then they expected, the costs are higher than they originally anticipated and the site goes up and no one is going to it.

Just like with a brick and mortar store it doesn't just happen over night. No matter how many stories you've heard about the guy who is rich from the internet, it just simply is not that easy. I don't want to stop anyone from trying, I simply want to make sure you are completely aware of what goes into a web based business.

The website
For some reason people think that building a website is easy. That if they had a little time on their hands they could just as easily put one together. To some extent this is true, but will that site be any good? What if you decided that building a house was easy and you put yours together, do you think it will last very long? Are you an electrician, plumber, contractor, and architect? If not, you probably wouldn't attempt this. So why then would you attempt to put a website together when you more then likely do not know the first thing about the mechanics of a website?

It may seem like a cliche, or overused advice, but let the professionals do what the professionals do. You know the business you are doing and you wouldn't think twice about having someone from another profession come in and run your business, so why would you want to take over building a website?

Marketing for your website
So now you have the website, it's all built, and by a professional web developer who took the time to ensure it is SEO and user friendly. What do you do now? Now it's time to market the site. You have to let people know that your website exists. There are hundreds if not thousands of ways to do this. You can advertise in the yellow pages (online and offline), submit your site to various directories, get into Pay-Per-Click marketing, request inbound links to your site, send out a press release, and so much more.

Staying up to date with your website
Even after you have built the site, marketed it, and have customers coming in you need to make sure you are staying on top of the site. If you sell a tangible product you want to make sure you are updating your inventory and/or product information. You want to post specials and send out newsletters letting your customers know what is going on. Just like with that brick and mortar store, you have to make sure you are keeping and attracting the attention of your customers.

Remember: A website is more then just a page online, it's a business just like any other store.

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Ignite MediaLLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

Build, Review, Adjust, Review again...

A website is not a static thing. A website is something that should be changing on a regular basis, but not just because you feel like changing it. Those changes should be made on visitor behavior and/or new product/service announcements.

Changing based on visitor behavior
Website analytics are an extremely useful tool when it comes to figuring out what your website visitors are doing. However, the process shouldn't just stop at seeing what they are doing. You need to make sure you are adjusting your site accordingly. Lets say that your visitors are all coming to your home page and from there only 25% are moving further into the site. It's time to review and revise the home page so you can increase your conversion rate to interior pages.

What good is a site if the only page people go to is the home page? Chances are the home page is just the tip of the iceberg of what you offer, and those visitors are missing a great deal of information. It's time to make a change, and be sure when you do make the change you consult some clients and people who may not know your site well to see if the change is effective.

Other changes
A change isn't always because of visitor behavior but also because of new product or service information. If you have a new product coming out or that just came out, you want to be sure you promote that as much as possible. Put a nice area on the home page, or in the news section. Just be sure that it's visible and draws people's attention.

Remember: Change is a good thing, when done correctly.

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Ignite MediaLLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

Website Testing, Testing, and more Testing...

A website is something that is constantly being updated and modified, so why shouldn't you constantly be testing it? There is nothing worse then hearing from a visitor or client that something on your site not working correctly. You want to be sure you find those "faults" first, not last.

What's so bad about a little error?
How little is the error? That's usually a question that doesn't have such a definitive answer. The error may seem little to you, but you may not know about the handful of visitors that left your site because of it. Perhaps those visitors were ready to order, or make a call but got frustrated, that's not a good thing for your bottom line. So that little error is now a very big error.

How do I catch everything?
You may not be able to catch everything, but you can certainly do things to help catch a majority of things. One very important practice would be to surf your website once or twice a day (at the beginning and end of the work day). Try different paths and make sure you can always get around and back to where you came from. Another approach would be to randomly have your employees surf the site. Just shoot John an email on Tuesday that says, "before the end of the day I would appreciate it if you could surf through our website as if you were a customer to make sure you don't run across any errors. Please inform me as soon as you have completed your surfing and whether you found anything or not." This approach gives you a fresh set of eyes that may catch something you wouldn't have.

Testing may lead to something new
During the course of your testing you may think of things, or your employees may think of things that will help to improve the site. It doesn't always have to be that something is wrong, but it could be that something could be a little bit better.

Remember: What may seem insignificant to one person, may be extremely significant to someone else.

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Ignite MediaLLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

Should I build multiple websites to attract more customers?

Many people are under the impression that building out several websites for the same product/service will give them a better chance on the search engines. They think that even if the sites have the same content, there are more of them for the search engines to find and in turn they can get more listings. Unfortunately this is rarely the case.

The search engines are looking for sites with unique and authoritative content. When they find several sites that are the same they will most likely either list only one of the sites and/or none of the sites, or list all of them but deep within the search results. So you have effectively devalued your sites, which is exactly what you were trying not to do.

Build "IT" and they will come
The saying is not "Build them and they will come", or "Build many and they will come", it's Build IT and they will come. That's right, build one very well written, well constructed website that concentrates on gaining as many authoritative inbound links as possible. It may take some time to gain the traffic you are looking for, but this approach will always win out in the long run.

Link building is better for one
Another drawback to building many websites for the same service/product is that when you start acquiring inbound links, what site do you point them to? You'll be hard pressed to find authoritative sites that will link to all of your websites if they are all the same thing. They know the value of the link they are giving you and they want to be sure they won't see any backlash from sending people your way.

How do I keep up with it all
One last thing that you should consider is that having multiple websites means you have to keep up with multiple websites. That price change for all your products now has to be done in more than one place. That new product that is coming out next month has to be added to all your sites. After a while this could prove to be a pretty daunting and annoying task. One site, means one update, one addition and better quality control.

Remember: More isn't always better.

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Ignite MediaLLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

Lively - Is Google on to Something?

Google just announced this week the launch of it's new 3D chat software called Lively. Still in beta mode, but ready for the public to try out, Lively seems to bring chatting to another level. Is this the way of the future or just a cool new toy from Google?

Many are saying that Lively is merely a half step to Second Life, but without all the controls and number of people. Lively allows you to create your own "rooms" and avatars and then chat with up to 20 people at a time. The chat windows actually show up as speech bubbles like you would see in a comic book sketch, so it is as if your avatar is really talking (to a degree!). You can also put your "room" on your website or blog so people can join your chat as they wish.

Is there any business use for this?
For right now it seems a little too animated to have very much business use. Certain fields may find this to be a unique way of communicating with the visitors on their website/blog. For example someone who has a website selling children's toys could put this on their site and it might fit in nicely with their theme.

For the everyday business person, I think this is a long way off from going main stream. It is also one of the few, if any, Google products that you actually have to download and install software on your computer in order to use. This could leave some people leery, and keep them away at least until it comes out of the beta stage.

So for now we suggest you take a look, maybe even try it out, and if you feel it fits into your website theme you might even want to test it on a page or two of your site.

Remember: New tools are great, but they aren't for everyone.

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Ignite MediaLLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

Flash and the Search Engines - Update!

For as long as Flash has been around, trying to have a website built using this technology be seen in the search engines has been a tremendously difficult if not impossible task. The search engines have had no way of reading any of the text or links within a Flash movie and therefore have found little content when going to these sites. That is until now!

Adobe announced last week it that it is working very closely with both Google and Yahoo! to figure out a way to make their product more search engine friendly. It will probably be a while before we see any major changes in the way of listings, but it certainly does create some excitement. Flash websites being indexed is a major step and one that will help industries known for using Flash such as the music and entertainment industry.

There is a lot of speculation as to what they will be able to make open to the search engines, how they will link to specific areas of a movie, how much will they rely on certain tags or coding, etc. Until Google, Yahoo! and Adobe hash out all the details, all of this will remain speculation for now.

So should I start building my all Flash website?
Even with this new development, we hold strong it saying that Flash is a very useful and powerful application when used for the application. A website that is trying to sell hardware with very spec heavy information should probably stick with HTML/ASP/PHP, etc. Using Flash for banners to promote a certain product or service is always great.

When we decide if Flash is right for a website we usually look at two factors: 1) What industry is the website being built for? 2) What is the goal of the website? The answers to these two questions will typically tell us if Flash would be appropriate or not.

Remember: Always keep the end user in mind; after all they could be your client one day!

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Ignite MediaLLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization