Why Design Matters

A Seo of Promises

We’ll get you noticed on Search, First page of Google, You’ll be on your way to millions of visitors… dumptrucks will pull up to your business and unload money at your door… This is what so many companies by email and telemarketing try to sell to unsuspecting newly launched websites… unfortunately, it’s usually bullshit. Google themselves receive emails promising Google top rankings in Google! Look, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) IS necessary if you’re to be seen in the search engines, but unless you have a business that is not fiercely competitive, or unless you want to target a much smaller local market, first page search rankings are going to be somewhat difficult to achieve. The best offense is to concentrate your SEO efforts in making your Website content vast and more relative to what you offer and the area that you offer it in. Expand your directory submissions, sign up for every free listing and cultivate some kick-ass backlinks. Use Facebook and Linkedin…SEO is basically free, but takes a serious amount of time, research, and talent. Above all, be honest with yourself… if you’re not going to devote your time to improving your SEO, hire someone… it’s not cheap, but when you weigh out the improvement to your visibility, it’s actually very cheap.

When the Obvious isn’t Obvious Enough

I was looking at one of our Web Design competitors’ website a few minutes ago, by the way, the “check your competitors” practice that every business owner should do from time to time… Anyway, they had a questionnaire for their prospective customers to fill out… one of the questions they asked was… get this… “On a scale of importance from 1 to 10, how important is Graphic Design Quality?” That question shouldn’t even be in print… if you are trying to sell anything… yourself, a product or a service, you must know by now that as human beings, we DO judge a book by its cover, period! Image is everything and anyone that says differently is clearly mistaken. What’s on the “inside” of your business is important, service - product - core values, but unless you attract your customer by using the “Book Cover” you’re not going to have as much chance to flaunt your “inside”… I’m not necessarily proud of our species for being this shallow, but it is the truth nonetheless. Another question this site went on to ask their potential clients was “How important to is our response time for changes/questions?”  What?!? C’mon! Nobody wants to wait at all, and anyone made to wait ultimately becomes hostile...  think of being on hold with a larger company… “Your call is very important to us… your expected wait time is 14 minutes”… I just want to say, nothing makes me feel more important than being told by a recording to wait 14 minutes… and by the way, if I’m so important, how about you cut into those obscene profits a little and hire someone to answer my call!