I can’t tell you how other website design firms do it, but let me tell you how we do it.

Collect information and provide a free, itemized estimate
Before we provide an estimate for your web project, we want to know all about your business. We believe that we will be much better marketers if we understand and believe in your product completely — that way we don’t have to pretend. We also want to make sure that you fully understand your problem. We have done this before, and we will ask difficult questions to make sure that the whole process is fully understood by both parties. In our experience we have come across dozens of products and solutions that will make building your website easier. There is no need to re-invent the wheel.

We will then take all of our recommendations and provide an itemized quote for you. The choice is yours which items you will do initially, which ones you will leave for later, and which ones you want to scratch all together. The final quote price will then be easily estimated.

Start with a template
The majority of our websites come from templates or pre-made designs. We find that it’s easier for most people to pick and choose what they want from a template site and then pay us only to customize it (even if it’s changed extensively) to create the kind of design they want. In cases where no customization is needed, you can save a bundle of money by using a pre-built solution by a professional graphic artist.

If you’ve already got a design in mind, we can work with that too. Our graphic artist can listen to your requests and provide mock-up designs based on what you want.

Add functionality
Once the design is solidified, the next step in website development is to add functionality. We will discuss the regions of your page that you would like to have special functionality — web forms, message boards, interaction, flash, etc. — and we will take care of the programming to make it happen.

Focus on internet marketing from the beginning
Internet marketing cannot be an afterthought. After all, your website is useless to you unless it makes you money. Before agreeing to an internet marketing job, we perform extensive keyword research to find out exactly what the competition is like. That way, we can sculpt your content in such a way to achieve maximum search engine rankings.

Final walkthrough
Your quote will also give you a timeframe for the project. You will receive periodic updates throughout the process (along with necessary communication), and will be given the opportunity to do a final walkthrough before your site goes live. All of our sites are built in a secret development area which you will have access to, and during the final walkthrough you will be able to inspect every facet of the project and insure that it is what you had in mind. Once the page is approved, we will help get the code transfered to your live server for all to see.

Continued relationship
We’ve been in business long enough to learn that even project based work doesn’t end when the project ends. We aim to develop an on-going relationship with our clients so that they can feel comfortable asking us questions and using our services in the future. If you stand still, your competition will pass you by and that’s why having a powerful internet marketing partner is so important.

If you’d like a free quote, give us a call or fill out our online contact form.

We look forward to working with you!

Dallin

These advancements, coupled with everything the internet has to offer on top of that, provide a powerful opportunity for business owners and individuals looking to get themselves or their product/service noticed by a massive and diverse audience. Internet marketing is the key to a successful business in our day. By overlooking the tremendous opportunity to market a business to millions of viewers everyday, one is basically saying to himself/herself that they are not concerned with establishing a successful business.

However, simply having a website is one thing. Having a GOOD website is a completely different story and can mean all the difference in the success of a business. As a search engine optimizer I often get asked a number of different questions from clients. Most of these questions revolve somewhere along the lines of, “How can I get my site to come up number one on Google?,” “What keywords should I use to optimize my website?,” or “How can I drive more traffic to my site?” All of these are good questions. However, I think sometimes business owners don’t understand that the answer to each of these questions is more simple than complex. We hear often about different strategies to “trick” google or yahoo into ranking our site higher or giving us a better score. There is a popular belief that google has some sort of underlying code that optimizers can crack and therefore automatically boost any website to the top of a the ranks for any keyword. This is simply not the case. Though there are a number of different techniques that can be utilized to help optimize a sight and make it more user friendly, relevant, and thus more “google” friendly, the ultimate deciding factor in how a website is ranked by google is relevancy. in other words, if you want google to think you have a good site, you have to HAVE a good site. No matter what you do for optimization, if it’s a bad site, chances are it will still be bad even after a heavy and steady dosage of SEO and SEM.

SEO and SEM stand for “Search Engine Optimization” and “Search Engine Marketing” not “Search Engine Overpowering” and “Search Engine Manipulation.” Basically what I’m saying is you’re probably tricking yourself if you think you can trick Google. The technology provided by this one company is revolutionizing the world as we speak. They are developing new and innovative internet tools faster than most can even keep up with. There’s just no sense in trying to find a loop hole. That said, given the length of this post already, I want to quickly list my top three pieces of advice for businesses thinking of building a new website or simply optimizing an existing website.

1. Content Content Content! Content is the Key! If you wish to rank high for “door bells,” there had better be information on your site about doors bells. If you want to see what you’re up against, type “door bells” in the google search bar and visit the top three or four sites and see how much information they provide about “door bells.” If you want to outrank them you’ll need to have more, and, if not more, better content than these top competitors.

2. Relevancy! This goes along the same lines as content but is a bit more in depth and technical. For example, if you’re trying to market “sunglasses,” your content should have words like, “sunny, summer, UV rays, sun protection, lenses, frames…etc. These words, “theme” words, should be interspersed throughout the entire site and especially on the homepage.

3. Blogging! Having a blog for you site is huge because search engines love to provide people with the latest breaking news in all topics. Search engines know that blogs provide the fastest means to market an idea or a story. Thus, when new content is posted on a blog the search engine detects new and exciting content and will quickly give the article a high ranking for keywords that show up often in that particular article. People want the latest news and this is what search engines are giving the people by giving fast high rankings to blog posts. Most blogs, especially wordpress based blogs, have built in pinging devices that notify top search engines and blog engines the moment an article is published which brings a web crawler from that search engine to the blog immediately to crawl if for content. The power of blogging is not limited to simply having your own blog, it is also helpful to actively participate on other blogs and forums that are relevent to your site. This can not only provide opportunities to create quality links to your site, but also gets you noticed by the members of those blogs and forums who then tell others they know about your services. AWeee the beauty of networking.

So there you have it. My top three SEO and SEM tips I utilize on a daily basis. While these are very important there are still a number of other techniques that are essential in optimizing a website and driving increased amounts of traffic to it. There will be more talk of these other techniques in later posts, but for now I hope this helps spark the attention of anyone thinking of optimizing an existing site or building a new website.

-Joe