This is typically where a company starts telling about how innovative they are in building you the most perfect site made just for you. Frankly, most of what we see from many of these companies is a nice looking site with incomplete functionality and complex maintenance. How do we know? We maintain several sites built by “rockstar developers.” There are usually few innovations and many unmet expectations at a high price. What we have learned is that most of the time building websites is more like work and less like being Steve Jobs.
We want to tell you about websites that are built to meet real needs and real budgets.
Connecting a website to your business goals requires time in the trenches after site gets built. Seeing what works and dealing with the problems that develop after the launch opens your eyes to the “real lives of websites.” From search engine optimization to user experience This is where our focus on small to medium businesses becomes very important. We are not distracted by large scale technologies that have nothing to do with your communications needs. We are an active and trusted partner helping you to amplify the impact of your website on your business.
If your web designer does not actively manage any websites, you have a problem.
Certainly building a website involves technical and creative skills. We could launch into a litany of our experience or list the technologies we use creating websites, but do you really care?
The larger picture is getting the site right for you — which really means being right for your customers. Starting with the right scope, creating a visual design that works for your audience and communicating the right story about you in a way that resonates with your customers, and finally building out the right site. Then sticking with the site after it is launched and analyzing visitor activity to insure you are getting the results you want. This is what we think a “web developer” should do. It is what we do.
We will spend a lot time upfront to fully understand your immediate goals and needs and how your website can contribute. We are likely to push back on some of the things you think you need when our experience tells us otherwise. It is very common to over think a website when confronted with limitless choices. The goal is not to impress your audience with confusing “innovation” but to help your audience to find answers and learn about you and engage.
If your site is not guiding your customer to engage you to solve their problem, why bother?
A website thrives on iterations of improvement.
We stay involved with the site after it is launched. We want to make sure that what we do is valuable to you. By tracking visitor usage of the website we can offer insights that will improve its return on investment. The worst thing you can do is ignore your website once it is launched. A decade of experience with client websites has repeatedly shown us websites that communicate with customers and generate leads are sites that are actively managed.
Our advice is spend less on the launch and allocate more for regular content audits from an SEO and audience engagement perspective. Adjust current content and develop new content based on these evaluations. An effective website adjusts over time.
Finally, it is about fit.
The worst thing any of us can do is to buy something in a marketplace where we do not understand the product or the suppliers. This is extremely common when it comes to websites. Finding the right fit between you and your website developer is really important. You need to be sure that your are dealing with someone who fits your needs in capability and cost.
We are not cheap but we are certainly not unreasonable. Unfortunately many very small businesses are looking for a $500 website and that is something we are not setup to provide. On the other hand, engaging a shop that is used to working on very large or highly specialized sites, you can easily find yourself paying $40,000 for a site we might build for $20,000 - or less.
We are dedicated to making your website a beneficial experience for both of us.