Why We Love Web Design Competition!
Some people think cornering the market for a particular product is a good thing – I disagree. Having a better product than the competition is the real key – that’s why we love competition – it makes us better at what we do.
In the web development industry, competition is everywhere. Reality says that we can’t design every website local businesses need. In fact, we really wouldn’t want to design all of them because we wouldn’t have the opportunity to compare our work to anything if we owned the market.
There are many excellent web development firms in southwest Florida – however, for every good one, there are ten bad ones that deliver terrible designs, bad copywriting, and equally bad results for their paying customers. In fact, these web developers make it easy to pick them apart because their own websites are train wrecks of epic proportions. Bad graphics, poor writing, frequent misspellings, and much more litter the local web developer marketplace.
In today’s economic climate, it’s important to get value for your money and the internet offers that value. Unfortunately, most web developers fail to provide their potential clients the education they need to get that value they so desperately need. It’s easy to pick out their work because it lacks professionalism and is so antiquated, it can’t help but create a sense of disappointment on the part of the client – and an attitude that “the internet doesn’t work for my business.”
So your probably asking, “what’s the point?” The point is short and sweet. When choosing a web development firm, use the following guidelines:
- Look at the developers own website first. How does it look? Is the text readable? Is it all hype – as in “we’re the best,” etc.? Are their frequently misspelled words?
- Look at samples of the web developers work. Ask for the samples and the keywords affiliated with each site. Google the keywords to see the results.
- Meet with the web developer one-on-one and get a feel for their knowledge of the market, their product, and the industry as a whole. Most web developers are sadly stuck in the last century and cannot offer the skills needed to succeed in today’s marketplace.
- Get the developer to outline the entire project for you, including a completion date and what steps they will take to make your website succeed. If they promise “guaranteed top placement” in Google or any other search engine, and their own website doesn’t get that type of placement, that should speak volumes about their abilities and their integrity.
This discussion could go on for pages and pages – but I think you get the big picture.
Choosing a web developer can be confusing. Everyone and their brother-in-law can design websites, right? So why do I need to pay someone?
We come across this all of the time. With all of the software out there and free website builders, who even needs a web design firm? The answer is simple: unless you are a professional web designer, YOU do!
Of course, this mostly applies to business websites. If you have a personal or informational website, a website builder or a friend is just fine. However, if you are starting a business or are creating an online presence for your existing business, professionalism is key.
That’s why we love the competition.
John Delaney
Integrity Technology Group
North Port Florida Web Development
www.integritytechgroup.com
North Port Florida Web Design
If you live in the North Port, Florida area, you know that the economic downturn has had a very powerful impact on our community. As a community that thrived on new home construction and a strong real estate market in the first half of this decade, residents and business owners alike have seen a significant downturn over the last three years. It is very possible that this is the worst stretch of economic struggle this community has seen in its 50 years of existence.
As a longtime resident of North Port and a local business owner, I understand the struggles in the marketplace. Every day I meet with business owners in the North Port, Venice, Port Charlotte areas. As the owner of a website development service, my job is to help small business owners increase market share with an effective web presence.
In the 25+ years I’ve spent in the marketing field, I’ve learned that maintaining or increasing advertising budget levels during economic downturns is necessary in terms of protecting market position.
- Companies that fail to maintain market share during an economic downturn will see current and future sales jeopardized. Maintaining that market share costs much less than rebuilding it later on.
- During an economic downturn you must maintain a strong advertising presence. If your competitors cut their budget, you will automatically increase your market share.
- Advertising through both boom and down times sustains your brand recognition.
When times are good, you should advertise; when times are bad, you MUST advertise. Advertising in an economic downturn should be regarded not as a drain on profits, but as a contributor to profits and insurance for the future.
In this day and age, an effective website is more important than ever. I’m not talking about the static, never changing web technology of the past. I’m talking about a dynamic website that you can control and update without having to own any special software or without any tech savvy knowledge. If you can type a letter, you can update your website.
The internet is changing every day. More people are looking for local businesses via the internet than the yellow pages. A website is no longer a value-added marketing tool, it should be the centerpiece of your entire marketing campaign – because it works 24 hours-a-day, 7 days-a-week, unlike all of your other marketing tools.
In 15 years of developing websites for companies worldwide, we have continued to stay current with industry trends. This is a major advantage to our customers, because they get the latest technology available.
It’s time to bring your marketing systems and your website into the 21st century, or suffer the consequences of being surpassed by your competition.
Integrity Technology Group develops websites for clients worldwide from its base in North Port, Florida. We can be reached in the local area at 941-876-0198 or nationwide via toll-free 1-800-621-4299. Visit us on the web at www.integritytechgroup.com.
John Delaney
President/CEO
Integrity Technology Group LLC
The Death of the Clueless Web Designer
As I sit and write this story, I can’t help but be reminded of the words of one of my local competitors. I won’t dare paraphrase her statement… I’ll just post it in its entirety. The company name has been removed to protect the innocent guilty. Here it is:
“If you have a business, you need a custom website! Your web site needs to reflect your own company identity. Beware of templated sites produced by so-called designers using these templates. All websites at *** are custom designed, hard coded and convey your business style. Having your website designed by *** will help you meet your goals of success and service. Stand out amongst the competition with a crisply designed site that portrays your company in its best light.”
Let me start by saying that I completely disagree with this assessment. Designers like this, stuck in the 20th century, do their customers a huge disservice by not keeping up with technological advances in web development. They make their clients slaves to them when it comes to site modifications and additions. It doesn’t surprise me that a review of this designers work shows many web sites that haven’t been updated in as little as 8-months and as much as 2+ years. Is it possible that these clients are benefiting from their web presence? While it is possible, it’s highly unlikely.
In the early days of the web, most sites consisted of a few HTML pages. As the web has grown, HTML hand coding has become antiquated technology. While knowledge of HTML is valuable, using it as primary web development technology is too complex, tedious, and gives web site owners little or no control of their website content. Even worse, the process of search engine optimization using HTML is a painstaking task.
What I could only define as “the blind leading the blind,” too many business owners are spending hard earned money on sub-par websites designed by clueless web designers. In the case of the aforementioned competing designer, let me address the statements.
- “If you have a business, you need a custom website! Your web site needs to reflect your own company identity.” – As opposed to reflecting another company’s identity? But, what about using WordPress? A small, local business owner could have a website up and running in about 2-3 days – optimized for search, tagged for the cloud and fully operational – all without a single stitch of hand coding.
- “Beware of template sites produced by so-called designers using these templates.” – Ouch! How about beware of the web site that you can’t update yourself? Content management systems like Joomla, TYPO3 and Drupal; as well as blogging programs like WordPress deliver clients a web site structure that allows them to concentrate on the most important part of the site – its content.
- “Stand out amongst the competition with a crisply designed site that portrays your company in its best light.” – Nothing makes your web site stand out like not changing it for eight months, or two years. It doesn’t have to be that way. Content management systems give web site owners complete control of their sites and the ease-of-use removes the wait time and complexities that typically bog down the site update process.
As 2009 begins, I am laying down a challenge to the many clueless web designers stuck in the 20th century. Get a clue people! You are doing your customers a huge disservice by developing bad web sites. I suggest reading the following book:
If you don’t get a clue and learn the inner workings of new web development techniques, you won’t know what hit you when your customers start going elsewhere.
