I make my living designing web sites, and there is not a word or section that is here simply because it's pretty, visually attractive is important but, the core function of this website is to grow my business.  If anyone tries to convince you a small business website has any other purpose, or worse does not make it the guiding principal in thier design.... you might want to take your business elsewhere.

Have you been asked you what keywords and phrases are specific to your business?  If not, you will get pretty and ineffective.  There is a great deal more to creating an effective website than the look, web design is a mix of art and engineering.....pretty truly is the easy part.

When it comes to website design you really do get the depth of knowledge you pay for, let me give you an example. FLASH IS BAD WEB DESIGN! Yes I know that's a little dramatic, but it needs to be.  Amateurs with web software generally love flash, they will load your website up with it, make your content out of it and your entire site out of it given the chance.  Flash is a perfect example of style over substance.

Flash sites can look amazing, and be very entertaining but they truly stink at being effective.  Search engines do not see flash content, you can have an amazing looking page of information about your business that no-one will ever read, because as far as search engines are concerned, there is nothing there!  It would be the same as if I created a web page using white text on a white background, it is there but you cant see the text... let alone actually read it.  Using flash as your website is bad design.  One last thing about flash, it does have its place, it is a great format for streaming video or a contact form, banner or little things that do not convey your content.

Let me give you one more parallel.  Say you want to build a house, you would use construction standards that will lead to a well made home.  If the specs call for bricks would you use bricks made for home construction?  Or would you buy bricks made out of Styrofoam instead, after all they are both "bricks" and I'm sure they both could make it  "look like" a really nice house when its done.  At least until you fell through the floor or the wind blows it down. 

Just as in home construction, there are "Industry Standards" (W3C) in web design, and not adhering to them are like using Styrofoam bricks.  Websites will have cross-browser issues, meaning it will not look the same or not display consistently between Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari browsers.  You want folks to be able to find your website and if your pages are full of non-compliant code, google isn't going to bother indexing them, once the googlebot sees a lot of coding errors on a page full of non-compliant code... it ignores the page and moves on.

Thinking of using a do-it-yourself online website builder tool?

You may be trying to save money, but in the long run, working with a website that was created by an online builder is extremely time-consuming. And believe me, your needs will change as your business grows and you will want changes done to your website!  A website builder, will not be the most cost-effective long-term solution or your website, especially if you want to add on useful features later such as a blog or a shopping cart. 

What you think you're saving up front, will be an illusion, since the web pages generated by these website builders are often extremely poorly constructed and hard to maintain since they are normally not even close to W3C compliant.   If you ask any decent  web design company to work with a site created that way, chances are they will tell you to start again with a real website.

Before you throw your money away using a website builder, or putting your business in the hands of a 17 year old, please just give me a call , ask for Bob.  These are just a couple of examples of why, there are dozens more.  Don't be one of those people that has had a website up for months and is baffled that Google does not know it exists!

Your business website is a TOOL to generate and grow your business, that is my first priority in designing your site.

          Next: What You Need