Website Design
As the owner of a small business, you're probably too busy doing your job to spend a ton of time on marketing and sales. At the same time, hiring staff members to market for you or to help you sign on new customers is an expensive and time-consuming notion—you not only have to find someone and find the budget to pay them with, but you also have to spend time training and managing them.
That's where a website can step in to help you out. A well-planned, well-designed website can act like an employee in your business. It can help you with many of your normal business tasks, like getting the word out about your business, helping you to grow your prospect or marketing list, helping to answer potential clients' questions about your business, and even getting pricing information out to potential clients. And, it can do all of this for much less than an employee's salary.
I focus on creating websites that act like employees for your small business, helping you manage those inquiries and day-to-day activities that would otherwise suck up all of your time and energy. They help free you up to do your work, manage your business, and to have more fun.
Here are some of the most often-asked questions about my website design packages. Please let me know if you have another question that's not answered here!
Also, check out the rest of this section for information on web design packages and pricing, process, samples of my work and even my Do-It-Yourself Website eBooks that I've created to help you through the process.
Do you write website copy?
No, I don't. I'm a graphic designer — I design websites, code them in HTML and do the Search Engine Optimization. I think that a small business owner should actually write their own copy for several reasons:
1. It helps you to organize your thinking about your business and your marketing.
2. Writing your copy yourself ensures that the copy will be in your voice, and will be consistent with how you talk to your clients and prospects.
I do offer my clients recommendations on the types of information that their sites should include, and I go over the copy to make sure that it's clear and has all of the important elements like calls to action.
Do you design and code the site?
Yes — in fact, I do more than just that. I can help you plan your site, design it, code it, and even optimize it to get you ranked well on the search engines. Or, if you've got a coder that you're comfortable with, I can help you plan and design the site and then turn it over to them for the "techy stuff".
How about blogs? Shopping carts? Newsletters?
Yes, yes, and yes. I've designed and set up several blogs, dozens of newsletters, and quite a few shopping carts as well. I know what makes them work well.
How much work does it take? Do I have to do a lot with the site after it's launched?
After the initial coding and design process, your website can also be as hands-on—or as hands-off— as you'd like it to be. Many entrepreneurs like to have a website that they can get into and edit the text. That way, they can add articles, services, testimonials, and whatever information comes to mind as it occurs to them.
I can set your website up to allow you to easily edit the text, or if you'd prefer, I can handle the maintenance as you need it. I'm often available on short notice for text edits, and can usually fit in more involved overhauls pretty quickly.
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