Tag: web design

Lessons from the newly fallen snowFebruary 18th, 2013

As I sit looking out my window on a snowy Sunday afternoon, I thought how pretty the landscape looked.  It has been roughly 9 days since the blizzard of 2013 hit. When the blizzard first dumped a few feet of snow, it truly was a magnificent sight. It was beautiful, Mother Nature at her finest.

Fast forward a few days, the look was downright gross. The snow had turned a grimy dirty color, and the scene no longer held any signs of the beauty.  Then, along came this mini snowfall today and again the scenery was cheery and great to look at.

So what the heck does this have to do with web design or development you ask?

Good question.  Many times clients come to me with a site that is dated looking.   But, the funny thing is, sometimes they are doing quite well in Google searches. So what should they do?

Think snow I say!! Remember how that new layer made the scene look wonderful again? The same can happen with your website.

You never want to mess with great search results. But this is a perfect opportunity to put a fresh coat of paint so to speak.  Redesign the site but keep the content the same. You will still have great search results, but hopefully your conversion rate will improve as it no longer looks outdated.

Note: If you have a WordPress site, this is a great time to update your theme, with either a custom designed theme or purchasing a new one. As most of the new themes being produced are responsively designed, that alone makes it worth upgrading.

 

Time, Precious TimeSeptember 9th, 2011

“Oh, time is on my side, yes it is
Time is on my side, yes it is”

~The Rolling Stones

If only this was true. Time is the one thing none of us seem to have enough of these days.  This is especially true when we speak of managing our websites. I recommend to my clients they make a change to their websites at the very least once a month.  And that is not really enough. But it is a start, and helps their websites to succeed and flourish. Your search engine rankings won’t improve if your website is stale and static. And why would anyone return if it is always the same content?

People want to save money, which is admirable. So what do we do? We build Content Management Systems so non-technical folks can make changes, add content, etc. But what happens? People get so busy they forget about their website.

So what is the answer? Here are three things you can do.

1. Hire a solid company to manage your website – Contract for “X” amount of hours.  This will help. We (RooSites) for instance don’t charge for hosting, only for hours. We figure out how many hours are needed and charge half our normally rate.  This works as our clients keep their sites better to date.
2. Automation – If done correctly you can automate some of your social networking tasks and grow your following. Again we throw that in with every management plan.
3. Remember why your are successful – You are successful because you are an expert in your field and dedicate most of your work day to your main pursuit. So don’t regret the realization that you don’t have enough time to do “everything”. Rather, do something about it so that your web marketing is successful. Take the first step and  contact us today.