Website Design & Search

Engine

Optimization

(SEO)

For some small and medium businesses, website design is the creation of a new and complete branded presence on the Internet that will bring and retain more customers. It’s more than creating a website. Businesses should gain visibility, increase brand recognition, and improve search ranking on the Internet. It’s not just about making the website easy to find, it’s about making that website relevant and easy to use by your customers so that once they arrive, they stay to consider your services or products. Businesses with and existing or partial presence on the Internet can also benefit from rethinking their existing branding and online Internet presence to make sure it meets their goals. This can also and money for an updated website and other marketing efforts.

How I approach

website design - A

relationship

between you and

Technivise

I’d rather be your trusted partner, making you successful and in control of your technology, rather than selling something you don’t need! • My focus and goal is your trust and success. • You should own and be in control all of your website and other services. o Don’t be held hostage – it is common out there to trap you into ongoing services you may not need. Don’t pay monthly for something that is already complete. • Participate as much or as little as makes sense for your own situation and interest. • Set your objectives, budget, or other goals and I’ll work to achieve them. • You should have no hidden costs. You should pick what recurring costs you need.

There are many factors to consider

for website design

From simple to complex, responsive designs, options for website are numerous. • What layout and design is best from your customers? How does it make you stand out from your competitors? • How much do you need to pay now and for ongoing support? • What elements of website design can you participate in to reduce cost? Can you provide images, textual content? Are there other team members we should use in a website project? • How does the website link into your other services like email, file transfer, eCommerce, scheduling, etc? • Do you want a control panel to easily review status of your website? Technivise can help you sort through all these and other options in considering a new or revised website. In addition, Technivise can provide temporary or long term site hosting and help by recommending and coordinating other providers for your website design. Technivise is able to handle simple to moderate website design for low-cost options you own, yet your best option may be to go with other website developers for some types of businesses. Some website providers and hosts are making website design easy for do-it-yourselfers. Large e-commerce sites or those with complex back-end databases may be best served by large system website developers. Establishing a website presence often times means that you are establishing your brand and branding approach. How are customers or visitors to your various Internet presences (website, social media, advertising, etc.) going to know it’s you? This often means you need a logo, identifiable name, a domain name that is easy to remember and relevant, a look and feel that attracts your intended customer. Technivise is experienced in various branding and marketing approaches and can help you establish your branding or work with other providers that develop branding. Establishing a website is not enough. You should consider taking control of website directories, listings, and establishing social media sites that match your branding. Certain sites will be more critical for some businesses than others. Those businesses that have a store front or office need to be found by customers on the road with cell phone apps. Listings catering to these users should be priority. Other businesses that have a virtual presence on the Internet may not need these sites. There are some services that look to do manage such things for you for high monthly fees that never stop and may yank your listings if you stop paying. Technivise can do this once so you control the listings and social media site. That way you can choose to let them sit idle at no cost, maintain them yourself, or hire out the maintenance to your choice of provider. Be in control! Whoever develops your website, you should understand who owns and controls the content. What if you wish to change content or the design? How much will that cost? What if you wish to take your design to another developer? Can you have all the content and files? Even if you get them, would they be useful? Are there recurring fees if you just let your site sit idle? Website maintenance of some type is often useful to maintain your site ranking, but make sure you’re getting your money’s worth. You should always consider that you should control your branding and Internet presence. That means owning and controlling your own domain names. It may also mean controlling your web hosting, and email hosting.

How much does a website cost

initially?

There is not an easy answer to website cost, but there are rules of thumb. Furthermore, a website should cost just enough to meet the objectives of your business, no more. Technivise can help you understand and weigh the options. Website cost should include everything you need to make it successful, such as: • content (text) about your service or product • Domain name • Your identity, business name, address, phone number, information about your company, • graphics, logo, pictures, branding identity, • Amount of customized design versus a template, • various forms of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), directories, social media, etc. • Responsive design, Contact forms, maps, eCommerce, and other tools, • email accounts, web hosting, • etc. Differences in cost also include: • How much of the above you already have or will provide, • How involved you want to be or can be in the design, • How many itterations of your site you have with your designer. • Size of your site (number of pages), • etc. With all these factors, Technivise has seen websites that cost $400 to $10,000 with the typical cost being around $3000- $5000. The low end includes a very simple one-page website placeholder (more like a fact sheet) to get started including an email address. Typical websites have about 20 pages and include a mixture of content, pictures, and graphics you develop and that is developed by Technivise. Be careful considering off shore and lost-cost providers. They might do well in the growing global marketplace; however, they can also represent additional risk due to inexperience or distance. Prefer providers you can talk to, video conference with, and even better, meet in person.

How much does

a website cost

to maintain?

Again, maintenance cost depends on the options you choose to meet your business needs. Technivise can help you understand and weigh the options that have the best return on investment for your business. Identify these costs up front and understand which are critical and which can be deferred when not important. Understand what kind of return on investment you want for your business from website maintenance. Website maintenance may depend on options such as: • Fixed costs (typically low) such as website and email hosting, domain name maintenance. • How aggressive you wish to be or must be on SEO and directories to maintain search engine placement and traffic to your website. • How often you collect analytics on your website to see how it is doing. • How often you update or add new content to your website. • How often you want to update or interact with your social media. • How much you choose to advertise on the Internet. • How much you choose to perform reputation management for online reviews. • How much dynamic content you have (Content Management Systems - CMS) from user postings, blogs, etc. • Etc. Technivise suggest that you budget maintenance costs for your website because there will be small fixed costs (about $200 to $300-plus per year). You probably want someone else performing at least some of the above or other related tasks so you don’t have to do so yourself. You may want to be hands- on and perform some of the above tasks yourself, or you may wish to have a provider do it all for you. What should you avoid? A new fad on the Internet are Directory placement services that charge about $100 per month or $1000 a year to maintain your directories. A problem is that they only maintain a fraction of all the directories that exist. A big shame is that once directories are populated, there is no more work or little work to maintain them. Why be hostage and pay ransom to such services when most of the work can be done once and not adjusted in the future? Some of these companies offer other SEO services, but do you want to be constantly engaged with them to get your money’s worth? At a minimum, Technivise suggests: • you revisit your website analytics every 3-6 months to measure how you are doing, then make SEO adjustments to your website based upon what you learn, and • you add content at least once a month in the form of advice, blog posting, or news items. Depending on your business type and competition on the Internet, you may need to do this more frequently (some markets may require monthly or weekly review). Cost for these website maintenance activities should be considered an investment, like advertising, in brining customers to your door and their level determined by your perceived return on investment. It is something keeping your primary Internet presence current and found by customers. Such costs also depend on how much time you invest in updating your own social media, directories, advertising, and website. We suggest a typical small business using a provider like budget $50-100 per month for monthly updates and then $250-1000 more a year for analytic assessments every 3-6 months and resulting SEO adjustments. Focus this work where it brings the best return. Consider this a budget, not a mandatory expense. If everything is working well and customers are finding you, then you may defer some or all of this investment. If things are not going well, then consider additional investment to remedy the problem. Such a choice is dependent upon how critical revenue from the Internet is to your business. Costs for Internet advertising is another beast that is complex and perilous. You can easily waste away money advertising on the Internet. Technivise can help explain the options.

Internet Presence,

SEO, Marketing,

Social Media,

Directories

Having a website is not enough! It should work to meet your objectives. It must be found and easy to use through Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Placement (SEP). Your business should be found in directories across the Internet, especially those that matter and themselves place high in Google search results for your services or product. You should manage your “Internet Presence” and reputation. Many providers will overcharge for this field of services. Sometimes you can do it yourself! Technivise can also help you know how much you need and perform these services for you. If you have a website and care who can find it, then you need some type of SEO. How much is enough? The Internet is awash with SEO piranha out for your money. Most won’t deliver. Many will oversell what you need. Some may be useful. Others want to charge you large per-month fees that are unnecessary, and some of these will yank your resources if you stop paying them. Technivise can develop a plan that fits your needs, one that is measurable so you can change and adapt, and one that you own and control. Your type of website focus and business type are critical to the type of SEO you consider. Some services fields, such as lawyers and legal services, are highly competitive, while others are open and easier to obtain high rankings. Establishing a website is not enough. You should consider taking control of website directories, listings, and establishing social media sites that match your branding. There are some services that look to do this for you for high monthly fees that never stop and may yank your listings if you stop paying. Technivise can do this once so you control the listings and social media site. That way you can choose to let them sit idle at no cost, maintain them yourself, or hire out the maintenance to your choice of provider. Be in control! Internet advertising can consume your budget faster than gambling... and it can be a gamble with no return unless you have a plan and identify which options are best for you. Advertising can be useless if you don’t answer your phone, email, or have a good website to capture leads. Advertising should only supplement your “organic” search presence on the Internet and adapt to changes in your own “organic” search ranking. Be in control of your advertising. Measure its effectiveness. Make sure it provides a return on your investment. New factors in SEO and advertising include local search on cell phones and presence and activity on social media that drive business your way on the Internet and by word of mouth. If you’re customers frequent social media, then you’ll need to pay attention there. Constantly changing rules for placement of your website in search results mens you should diversify your results across different parts of the Internet and periodically measure your website’s performance. Work on new websites and SEO can take many months to result in resulting traffic to your website and customers knocking at your door, so don’t delay and periodically (at least every 3-6 months - more frequently in competitive environments) revisit your website analytics to understand how you might adjust your website SEO.