This is a pretty bold statement considering I don’t know what your business does. If you are in business today, having a website is essential. Websites are the business cards of this era. It is often the first place people go when making decisions on whom they should do business with. Thousands of companies have websites and you can be certain that your competition already has one.

Other benefits of a website include:

*Â Allows your business to complete in a global market

*Â Allows you to provide more company and product information

*Â Is less costly than any other type of media

*Â Allows you to change your product and service info for less money than reprinting catalogs and brochures

*Â Allows you to reach potential customers 24/7/365

According to this comscore press release, a massive 772 million people were online in May of 2007. Don’t let these users pass you by. Web Impakt can help you design a functional website that will get these customers contacting you!

*DEAFENING MUSIC*

*AMAZING DISPLAYS*

*MIND-BLOWING TECHNOLOGY*

You might think I am describing the last rock concert I went to, I’m not. I am describing the last Flash site I went to. I left the site shortly after getting there because I was annoyed at the loud music and having to wait for the menu to show up. Firework” title=”FLASH – Firework” />

There are times when interviewing customers for a new site, they are sold on the idea that their site needs to be created in Flash. Macromedia Flash (now Adobe) is animation software that web developers use to develop interactive and lively interfaces for web sites. Flash sites are very showy and web customers love them. Visitors and potential customers to their sites usually don’t.

Flash sites pay a high price for their dynamic nature. They usually come with longer loading times, higher costs and less accessibility. Back in the day of dial-up-modems, we were used to waiting for a page to load. Today, with our speedy DSL connection speeds’, waiting for a page to load is out of the question. Most users will hop back out to Google and find a play they can get their information quicker. Another disadvantage of a flash solution is cost. Web Impakt charges 3 – 4 times as much for a full flash site then we do for a html based site. Finally, a huge drawback of flash is that it isn’t tremendously accessible to users or search engines. In order for a user to see your super expensive flash site, they have to download a flash player. Search engines will by pass your site unless you have made huge concessions to help them index your site.

The answer to having a cool website with all the Flash benefits is simple. Web Impakt, has found that a hybrid site is the answer. A nice mix of html and flash gives our customers the cool look they want while allowing users and search engines to quickly find what they are looking for.Â

Le Ritz Hotel, in Idaho Falls, is an example of a Web Impakt hybrid site.

Remember, next time you are thinking you want to have your site done 100% in Flash, refer to this flow chart by theGoogleCache.com.

SEO is a daunting task for even the most experienced web designers. Many businesses pay huge fees every month to ensure they stay in the top rankings for specified key words. For those of us who don’t have the money to spend on reaching the top of the search engines, this article is for you.

Below is a list of specific items that we at Web Impakt build into each site we create for clients:

Title Tags – The title of each page should be a short description of the page content. This is one of the most important and basic fundamentals of SEO.  The title tag is displayed at the top left corner of the browser.

Meta Tags – These are hidden tags that the SEO spiders use to help index your site.

Heading Tags – Your web designer will use these in all of your pages. Important keywords like your business name should be enclosed in <H1> tags with secondary words followed up with <H2> tags.

Search Engine Submission – Each time Web Impakt completes a site we submit it to the top engines.

If you don’t go through Web Impakt for your web site creation, make sure your web development company has completed the above tasks.  These are very rudimentary tasks that every web design firm implement.

The SEO work is not complete after the web site is created and posted.  The following is a list of SEO tasks that non-technical people can accomplish to boost search engine rankings:

Inbound Links – SEO spiders measure the popularity of your site by calculating the number of incoming links to your site. Be aware that there are good and bad backlinks. Keep all of your inbound links coming from reputable sites.

Quality Content – Quality content will skyrocket you to the top of the search engines. Web Impakt provides content writing packages but most of the time our customers opt to provide content. After all, the customer knows about their product and what they want to say. As noted in our business blog posting, a blog can assist with the content portion of SEO.   When writting content, make sure to include your keywords. Go here or here for keyword suggestions.

Search Engine Optimization is a delicate operation. You can’t use any of the above methods to much or they will lose their effectiveness. Good luck and may high search engine rankings be with you.

In a previous post we compared software design to building a house. You need house plans to build a sturdy valuable home. We will use the same analogy to answer the question that haunts web designers at the beginning of every meeting with a potential client.

The answer to how much does it cost is as variable as how much does a house cost. Similar to a home, it depends on what kind of cabinets, flooring and hardware you decide you want. The price fluctuates with the number of rooms, floors and bathrooms. Let’s not forget the land that the house is built on, hosting comes in variable shapes and sizes as well.  You could build a site equivalent to Bill Gates mansion like the Wall Street Journal or spend minimal resources and ascetically present your company’s contact information.

Web Impakt has a good solution to answering this question from our clients. We offer our clients a solutions menu. This menu lists many of the extras our customers want with the associated price. Therefore, they know how much modifiable content is per page before they even order it. This list also inspires our customers to think about the options a web site can offer. It has been extremely effective and gives the power to our clients.

Blogging can have many advantages for your business. This BusinessWeek article suggests that blogging will give you an edge over your competitors.  Below is a list of reasons why your business can benefit from a blog:

1. Presents your business as committed, enthusiastic and dynamic. Web Impakt is sometimes so busy I don’t have time to update our portfolio. A blog allows my clients to hop on the website and see that Web Impakt is still going as strong as ever.
2. Positions your company as an expert. If you are a company in a field that requires skill and experience, a blog is the perfect way to show case what you know. Especially in a technical field, a blog lets your customers know you are on the cutting edge.
3. Blogs increase corporate credibility. A blog allows you to put a face and voice to your company.
4. Search Engine Optimization, a blogging fringe benefit. Search engines love new content and blogs are an excellent source. Blogs are an easy way of updating content without having to contact your web development company and being charged for the changes.

If you are interested in starting a blog for your business, Web Impakt can help. You don’t have to be technical or spend a lot of money to start your business blog. Contact us today for details.

Customer Service

The relationship I have with Web Impakt customers is very important to me. I find that I do not trust many people to act as the liaison between Web Impakt and my clients. I feel that even if I have a lot of sites to update or code to write, dropping everything to attend to my customers myself is worth it.

Communication is Key

Missed deadlines, increased costs, expectations missed – These are all the stressful things that can go wrong in the world of software development. It has been my practice to tell customers what is wrong WHEN it’s wrong. This practice helps foster client trust more than making excuses or avoiding the customer.

Don’t Talk Above Your Customers

Working in the IT field is sometimes like working in another country speaking a different language. Customers utilizing a service from an IT company are counting on these individuals to translate “computerese” into something they can understand. When speaking with clients remember that most customers don’t spend 12 hours a day in front of a computer. Usually they have a thin understanding of what a database or ipaddress is. More often than not they don’t even understand why the version of windows or IE matters.

Attitude of Excellence

Web Impakt has an attitude of excellence in everything we do. I try to foster this attitude with employees and subcontractors. At times, I have to remind a sub contractor that even if the customer doesn’t know technical details of a project they must always be done correctly.

Your Number One Customer

When the phone is ringing off the hook with requests to update software and modify websites, it is tempting to look at your bottom line when the decision is made about who you will help first. Web Impakt has implemented many procedures that allow us to help all customers effectively. Try to remember that even that small customer that pays you $50.00 a month for web updates knows a lot of people. Word of mouth is where we get the majority of our clients and I never know who Mr. $50.00 a month knows.

Software creation is an engineering discipline. It has been romanticized in movies where computer hackers sit in front a computer, let their hands fly across the keyboards and everything works fine. This is not the case in the real world. Similar to building a house, each software project needs a good design.

I have been on many projects where design was ignored. This leads to many problems. Often times, rewriting key pieces of software that is similar to asking a sub contractor to move a weight bearing wall on a nearly finished home a few inches to the right. The costs and timelines skyrocket.

So believe me, when your software engineering firm comes to you with loads of design paper work asking for your sign off before they get started, read it carefully. View it as house plans. Remember, it will be a lot easier to move that wall a few feet to the right before they start building.

Radio advertising allows you to talk to your customers. Unlike print media, where your potential customer will probably flip by your advertisement once, radio allows you to be in your potential customer’s ear daily.

Radio Advertising Problems Radio works on a sub conscious level. People recognize the company but they don’t remember where they heard about the company. When I spoke with Web Impakt’s account executive at Pacific Empire radio in Idaho Falls, he stated that most people can’t remember the last radio ad they heard but they can easily remember a vivid print ad they had seen. When he questioned these same people about where they would go and purchase furniture, they quickly stated a local furniture store that continually runs ad’s on the radio. He noticed, that they usually didn’t remember where they had seen the advertisement for the furniture store. In order for your radio ad to work, you must work business into the minds of your potential customers and allow\ it to run over 3 months.

Radio Advertising Benefits

Unlike other advertising mediums, radio allows you to narrow your consumer base. Different stations play different music which allows you to select which type of consumer you want to market to.

Measuring Success

You need a baseline to know whether or not the advertising is working. The most important thing you can do to test if your advertising is working is to ask new clients where they heard about you. This will tell you if your advertising dollars are worth their money.

Improve Effectiveness

Mixing advertising mediums will give you the most bang for your advertising buck. Therefore, when you are running radio spots, mix that advertising with one or more of the following mediums:

• Web advertising
• Flyers
• Bill board
• Yellow page ad
• Newspaper ad
• Direct mail promotions
• Television advertising

 

 

Remember, the more that people hear your company name, the greater the chance they will remember you when they need your service.