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Specializing in web design and development, Summit Design Studio can help you attract new clients and leave them with a lasting impression.

8 Web Site Decisions Your Business Needs To Make

by Mike Matukaitis, Owner, Summit Design Studio

Whether you are creating a new Web site for your business or looking to redesign your existing site, here are 8 critical places in building a Web site where you must make the right decision.

1. Determine Your Web site’s Main Purpose – Some common purposes are to build your brand, to provide product information to increase sales or to sell products or services online. Be clear and focused about what you want your site to achieve.
2. Decide Whether To Outsource Or Do It On Your Own – My recommendation usually is to hire a web design firm to do the initial design. Be sure the site is created in such a way that you can update the site yourself easily using online forms.
3. Create A Site That Looks Good – Your Web site reflects upon you and your business. You owe it to yourself to make your Web site look top-notch, not crude and homemade.
4. Create A Site That Shows Up In Google – Be sure to find a Web site designer who knows how to create pages that search engines love to visit and index. This is vital if you expect your site to get traffic. There are literally hundreds of steps your designer should be taking in order to get your site to appear in the Google search results.
5. Create A Site That Is Standards-Compliant – I’d estimate that 95% of web designers are still using tables to layout page structure. Ask. Make sure your site is coded to web standards using valid XHTML and CSS instead of tables. A lot of very talented web designers do not create sites that are web standards compliant. Poor page coding can result in your business losing money as well as make your site inaccessible to a large audience. By separating style from content, standards based sites allow people using screen readers, mobile phones and other devices to be able to navigate your site.
6. Write Focused Content Pages – One of the keys to generating search engine traffic is to get your site into the top positions on Google for the keywords that matter to your business. It’s often difficult to score high in the search results for general phrases so the best strategy is to write a series of focused “landing pages.” These pages aren’t general but very specific and can get visitors to your site even if it’s not through your site’s “main entrance.”
7. Add Customer Communication Systems – Web sites should be two-way communication systems. My first recommendation is to add a contact us response form to your site. This type of form could ask for your visitor’s contact information and his/her question or comment. When the form is submitted, you receive the form results immediately via email. Another popular tool you could add is an instant text chat system. These types of tools can be easily added to your site yet they can help boost your sales by providing excellent customer service.
8. Market Your Site – Submitting your site to search engines is just scratching the surface of what you should be doing to let people know you’re there. Look for a designer who knows how to implement SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques. Another option you should be sure to try is to create a Google Adwords campaign. AdWords allows you to create text ads that appear on Google and can be as inexpensive a five or 10 cents a click.
   

A great Web site is just 8 steps away. The better you grasp these essential points, the better your Web site will work for you and the happier you’ll be!

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