Intellisites, the smart choice for web design

We recommend social media to many of our clients. It’s a great way to discover what your customers want, to interact with them in a place where they are comfortable, to generate search engine rankings, and so much more. But it’s not right for everyone. If you’re not prepared to do it right, it might not be the right strategy for you. Ask yourself these four questions to see if you’re ready for it:

1. Could my business benefit from hearing what people are saying about us? If you already know exactly how people talk about your business, you might not need social media. On the other hand, if you’re not tracking your word of mouth reputation, you may not be able to afford not to participate in social media.
2. Could we benefit from learning more about our target customers? If you think you know exactly what it is that makes your customer tick, maybe you don’t need social media. Maybe your sales are great, and finding more effective or efficient ways to serve your customer just isn’t a priority. ‘Nuff said. Social media might not be in the cards for you.
3. Would it be useful to meet and talk to industry influencers? If you’re the kind of business who leads the pack (y’know, like google), then maybe you don’t need to worry about social media. You influence the influencers, and your business leadership is regarded as the gold standard. That’s great! The connections you can make on social media probably won’t turn into any valuable insight or influence.
4. Are we willing to commit to using social media?  Having a half-hearted social media presence is like having a lousy TV commercial – it can annoy people and do more harm than good. If you set up Facebook and Twitter accounts but don’t have the time to follow up when people ask you questions, you’re going to have some disappointed customers. Should you decide to enter the social media scene, make sure you are prepared to update your pages regularly and interact with customers punctually so your followers and fans feel the love.

Some people actually spend a lot of time scoping the internet for free stuff.  And there’s plenty of it out there. With its coupons and free samples and freeware, the internet can provide hours of entertainment for people looking for complimentary goodies.

Everybody Else is Doing It…

One way to increase traffic to your site and make your email list grow is to join the crowd and offer something for free. If it’s something super cool, the freebie alone might be enough to lure people to your site. A really cool screensaver or some wallpaper, for instance, can attract a party if it’s unique enough.

If you can’t come up with something earth-shattering, there’s nothing wrong with something tried and true. Good content packaged in a list or an e-book might not cause a mad rush to your website, but it may help you to collect the email addresses of people who do visit. If you have information and visitors to your site need it, volunteering their email addresses is usually no big deal. (Just make sure not to collect that email address as part of a complicated 28-question form…you want them to get what they want without feeling hassled.)

Look at it this way…people go to the trouble of taking cars and cabs and buses to go places that offer free stuff or even discounts…and they can visit websites that do the same without even leaving the comfort of their homes.  If you were doing some online browsing, wouldn’t you appreciate getting something for free?

I’m hungry. Let’s talk about restaurants.

Everyone likes going out to eat. And when we go to restaurants, we tend to have certain expectations about how the experience will play out. We assume, for instance, that there will be a menu. And that there will be an opportunity to place an order. And that after we’ve ordered, someone will cook the food for us and serve us. It’s not lack of creativity that makes most restaurants follow these norms; they are rules that work, and restaurant patrons are most comfortable when this pattern is followed.

If you entered an unfamiliar restaurant and discovered that it did not have a menu, for instance, chances are good that you’d feel a little uneasy. All legitimate restaurants you’ve been to before have had menus, so you’d be likely to question what type of establishment you had entered. And even if you got to order whatever you wanted and the food was delicious and you enjoyed your experience, you’d probably leave there thinking, Well, that was kind of weird.

Following the Unwritten Rules

This idea applies just as well to web design.  When we enter a new website, there are certain patterns we expect it to follow. For example, we expect that the elements that will help us navigate from page to page will be located on the top or side of the screen. There’s no reason why a web designer couldn’t make a diagonal row of navigation buttons that extends from one corner of the page to the other. But instead, web designers stick to the unwritten rules of web design because they want to follow their audience’s expectations and help them stay comfortable as they browse.

So while IntelliSites is on the cutting edge of creativity when it comes to web design, don’t worry, we do believe in keeping some things conventional. We realize that meeting your audience’s expectations helps you to earn their trust, and we want people to leave your website thinking happy thoughts about your company rather than thinking, Huh?

All right. It’s really time to eat.  I’m off to a regular, restaurantly restaurant with a menu, a cook, plenty of food, and no surprises.

I overheard some people talking about “Hick’s Law” at a party the other day. (I really must stop attending such WILD social functions.) Anyway, sounds like the gist of Hick’s Law is the idea that it takes people more time to make a decision when there are many options to pick from. In other words, it takes much longer to decide between three options than it does to decide between two, and it takes significantly longer to decide between four options than it does to decide between three. And so on and so forth, until apparently it levels off. (At that point in the conversation, people started talking about logarithms, so I made a beeline for the buffet.)

Using This Idea for Web Design

Although they may not know that this idea is called Hick’s Law, good web designers take this concept into consideration every time they design a website. As a business owner, you don’t want people to come to your page and stare at it blankly while they try to decide where to click.  You want those visitors to explore, interact with your page, and stay interested. In order to make this happen, good web designers don’t crowd your page with a boat load of options; they keep it simple and easy to navigate.

Even complex websites that do involve lots of options tend to make the decision process easier by organizing the choices. It’s rare to visit a website and see fifty links right on the front page.  Instead, a website that has fifty pages to offer tends to organize these choices into categories and present them in drop-down menus. This breaks the decision making into smaller chunks and avoids wasting the website visitors’ time.

So Keep It Simple, Got It?

So there you go. I’ve been a fan of dynamic yet straightforward websites for years, and now I’ve got a law backing me up.  Get rid of clutter and unnecessary choices, and your customers will find your website easy to use and fun to visit. (Much more fun than, say, that party.)

It has been said that “the proper limit of trust is prudence, not fear.”  And we agree.  You see, we’re experts in web design, and we rely on our clients’ trust to deliver great products.  But sometimes, clients get a little bit nervous because they feel that their end product will be out of their control.

We know where they’re coming from.  It’s their business after all, and websites are important.

If you are one of those people who gets anxious about letting your web design team work its magic, take a deep breath.  We know what you’re going through, and we know how to help you get through.

It’s Just Like Getting a Haircut

Whether you are having your website designed or getting your hair done, an element of trust is absolutely necessary.

When you first sit down in the chair at the hairdresser or the barbershop, you get to talk to your hair stylist about your vision for the haircut.  But once the stylist gets started, you just sit back and trust that it will all come out right in the end.

And, if you’ve picked the right hairdresser, it will.

Now, during the process, there may be a few times when you get a little antsy in that hairdresser’s chair.  The haircut might start looking a little different than you initially anticipated, and you might be tempted to grab those scissors and try to finish up the hairdo yourself.  But, truthfully, as long as a competent hair stylist is in charge, you are probably better off to let him or her complete the job.  And chances are, you’ll be satisfied with the results — and much more so than you would have been if you had grabbed the razor yourself in the middle of the haircutting session.

In the same way, once we have a feel for what a client wants and needs from his or her website, sometimes it’s best to let us take it from there.  We don’t mind a little feedback here and there, just like your barber probably doesn’t mind a request like, “How about a little more off the top?”  But just like you wouldn’t grab your hairdresser’s hands and guide them to each strand of hair that needs to be cut, sometimes it’s a good idea to just let us do our thing.

After all, we have built over 600 websites for clients from all industries, and we haven’t built a dud yet!

Trusting a web design team, or a hairdresser, can be a little tough, but in both cases, it’s in your best interest to do so.  You want your website and your hair to be gorgeous, and both web designers and hairdressers have been trained to make their respective projects look great in the end.

You could hire anyone to help your business with Social Media Marketing. And yeah, you could pay someone to get you eleventy-billion Twitter followers in three days. But that kind of sugary, substance free stuff is garbage. If you don’t know how to talk to those followers, what good are they?

What you need to know first are the unwritten rules of social media…rules that separate businesses who have a bunch of Facebook fans from businesses who actually reach a bunch of fans.

1.  Be Transparent. Social Media is built on trust, and there’s no quicker way to lose someone’s trust than to keep secrets. Be open about your business (within limits, of course), and watch as the power of transparency works its magic.  Your fans and followers will feel more connected to your company if they feel like you’re giving them the inside info.
2. Be Passionate.  What do the most world leaders all have in common? They were all passionate about their causes. So if you’re only going to work because it pays the bills, you’re not the person who should be heading your company’s social media initiatives.  If you don’t love your business, how are you going to get your Twitter followers pumped up about it?
3.  Be Enthusiastic. Would you believe me if I told you that the world is full of negative people? They’re so common, most people who are trying to be happy learn to tune them out. But the enthusiastic people are like magnets.  And that’s who you want running your social media.
4.  BE SOCIAL. This is the ultimate “No Duh” piece of advice. It ain’t called ’social’ media for nothing. You gotta get in there and mix it up, talk to some people, answer some questions, ask some of your own, and get to know the world.

We’ve talked before about how e-marketing campaigns can help drive traffic to your site.  But the reverse is true, too.  Your website can also include a short form that collects email addresses, which can build up your email list.  And when you have a strong list of email contacts, you have the potential for a lot of repeat visitors to your site – not to mention repeat business.

Of course, having a form on your website isn’t going to do much unless you can get people to enter info into the form.  And, truthfully, there just aren’t a lot of people out there who spend time browsing the web and generously inserting their contact information into forms out of the goodness of their hearts.  So if you want the form on your website to collect a lot of information, you have to give it a little incentive power.

People Will Do Anything for a Reward

Since people aren’t likely to volunteer their e-mail address for no reason, it helps if you give them a little reward for providing their contact information. 

There’s a huge difference between asking for someone’s email address and asking for someone’s email address so that you can send him a coupon.  Restaurants and department stores already use this technique to entice their patrons to fork over their email addresses, so go ahead and jump on the bandwagon.  And if your form-filler-outer uses the coupon, you not only have his email address, but you’ve also actually made a sale.

Besides a discount or coupon, another “reward” is good content, packaged in the form of an e-book or secret members-only article archives.  If someone has come to your site in search of information, the person might be willing to give out his or her email address as long as it opens the vault of information.  Of course, there are benefits to providing free information, too, so you might not want to hide away all of your factoids under lock and key.  But for businesses in some industries, reserving some information for members will get you new entries in your contact list.

Keep the Circle Spinning

Both your email list and your website are awesome tools that help the internet bring business to you.  So use your website to collect email addresses.  And use your email contacts to bring visitors to your site.  And as this cycle continues, you’ll find your business spinning its way to more clients – and higher profits.

Now that Facebook has swept the nation (and the world, for that matter), many folks have Facebook profiles.  They use these personal profiles to share everything from their political views to photos of bad decisions they made over the weekend.  And tons of people are having a grand old time reuniting with buddies from years past.

You may have heard that in addition to being a social media site where friends can connect, Facebook is also a website that’s great for businesses.  And that’s totally true.  So let’s talk a little bit about how business owners like you can best get started with Facebook.

Friends or Fans?

Facebook newbies who want to use the site for both business and pleasure sometimes confuse “profiles” with “pages.”  The truth is – you need both.  In order to become a member of the Facebook community, you have to register yourself as an individual – which will establish a “profile” for you.  That “profile” is going to allow you to post personal photos and messages as well as to connect with your acquaintances and relatives, who will be known in the Facebook world as your “friends.”

But once you have a Facebook profile, you’ll need to set up a “page” for your business.  “Pages” look a lot like profiles, but they are made especially for businesses, nonprofits, and the like.  By setting up a Facebook page, you are setting your business up as an entity separate from yourself.  Once your business has its own page, you can encourage your customers and employees to become “fans” of this page.  “Fans” of pages are the ones who will have access to all the content you post to your company’s page.

Secrets Facebook Can Tell You

As your business starts to develop a loyal group of Facebook page fans (likely existing or potential customers), Facebook will actually collect a lot of valuable information for you.  It can tell you, for instance, the male/female split in your group of fans, the distribution of fans in different age groups, and whether your fans have actively interacted with your page recently.  Data about your customer base is always awesome, so take advantage of Facebook’s detective work and use it to your advantage.

We hope to see your company’s face around the Facebook scene soon!

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – search engines love links.  If you want your website to have a good ranking on the major search engines, then you want other websites out there to link back to your site.

But one thing we haven’t talked about too much is the quality of the links.  The search engines take into consideration not only the number of links to your page that exist out there, but they also care which sites are doing the linking and how popular those sites are.

So the goal is not only to get a lot of other sites to link to yours, but to get popular sites to link to yours.

And thanks to sites like LinkedIn, this is easier than you might think.

Linking from LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a social networking site for professionals.  When you join, you get to set up a little profile page about yourself.  The difference between LinkedIn and some of the other social networking sites is that LinkedIn profiles are usually very business-oriented, listing people’s educational background and work history rather than their favorite movies and photos of their pet chimpanzees.  Once you have your profile page set up, you can get in touch with other users (e.g. your colleagues and business associates), which results in a list of “connections.”

LinkedIn is a cool site for you as an individual, but you can also use your membership in LinkedIn to boost your rankings for your business website.  If you have a LinkedIn profile, you can include a link to your company’s website on that profile and encourage your “connections” to do the same.  Because LinkedIn is such a popular website, the links on profiles there are going to impress Google and Yahoo a lot more than many other links would, therefore helping out those search engine rankings.

Meet Alexa

Alexa.com is a website that makes a list of all the websites in the whole wide world in order of popularity.  A website’s Alexa ranking tells you a lot about how popular it is and, therefore, how strong a link from that site would be.

If you check out the Alexa ranking for LinkedIn, you’ll see that it’s a really high quality site in terms of popularity.  As I’m writing this, it’s ranked #29 in the world, and although the exact number changes often, LinkedIn is always on the short list of very popular sites.

Why Not Do Your Website a Favor?

So by signing up for LinkedIn and adding a link from your profile to your website, you are going to make your website look more favorable in the eyes of the search engines — in a quick, painless, and FREE way.

If I had a nickel for every time a potential client said to me, “Thanks for the proposal, but I’ve decided to let my 17-year-old grandson build my website”, I’d be able to throw a pretty sweet pizza party for all of my employees.  Sure, the guy’s grandson could buy Front Page and put together a site, but the kid could also buy a set of wrenches and a copy of Fixing Cars for Dummies and have at Grandpa’s transmission.

Your company deserves a strong website.  And how the website looks and functions reflects on your company big time.  So when someone offers to build you a site, you need to be able to ask the right questions to make sure he or she has what it takes to not only build a website, but build the right website for your business.

For starters, you are always going to want to ask the following questions.

1. Will you be using tables to build my site?  Remember tables?  They have those pesky invisible boxes that we’ve talked about before.  A web designer who uses tables to build a website is kind of like a wedding photographer who uses a 1986 edition Polaroid camera to take wedding portraits.  Using tables or an outdated camera will sort of get the job done, but in both cases, there is new technology out there that can create a much better product.  You want to choose a web designer who can use DIVs to put your site together.

 2. How many websites have you built before?  No one really wants to be the first patient a surgeon operates on or the first defendant a lawyer represents.  And in those situations, the newbie professional has had years of training and practicing.  If your web designer hasn’t built many websites, chances are there is a lot he or she has to learn.  Are you sure you want that person to do that learning while building the website for your business?

3. Can you build me a functional website?  I’m sure most people who offer to build websites have enough knowledge to put together a site that looks halfway decent.  But it takes a lot of skill to set up a website that can actually do stuff.  If you are just looking for a site that showcases a few pictures and tells visitors your phone number, some amateur web designers might be able to come up with something that sort of meets your needs.  But websites constructed by professionals have the potential to be much more functional.  At IntelliSites, we set up websites with forms to collect visitor data, sites that allow for online shopping, and so much more.

4. Are you available when I need updates or have problems?  Websites aren’t meant to be built and remain the same forever.  So you need to make sure your web designer is planning on being in this with you for the long haul.  I’m sure family functions can get a little tense when Grandpa has been nagging for a few months and his grandson still hasn’t found time between band rehearsal and track practice to update Grandpa’s website.

5. Can you make sure my site looks good on every major web browser? Something amateur web designers might not know is that you can’t just code a website once these days.  Web surfers use many different internet browsers and versions of internet browsers, and your website could potentially look different to people using each one.  Professional web designers like those at Intellisites take the time to look at our finished product on all major browsers and make any necessary corrections to make it look great on all of them.

Best of luck as you search for a web designer!  (Did I mention that the crew at IntelliSites can give the right answers to all of those questions?)