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As a business owner or executive, there is probably a lot you want from your web design team. You need the best of their artistic instincts, responsiveness when you have questions, edits, or revisions, and technical expertise when it comes to things like search engine optimization and social media marketing (to name just a few items).

However, your web design partner needs some things from you, as well. And, the better you are at giving them what they need, the easier it’s going to be for them to not only meet your expectations, but blow you away with the perfect layout and online marketing plan.

A lot of business people don’t necessarily understand this, and end up sabotaging themselves as a result. To help you avoid that, today we want to give you seven ways you can help your web designer to do their best work… and to help yourself in the process.

#1 Be Patient During the Discovery Phase

Often, the start of a business web design project feels like a whole lot of talking. That’s because long conversations are exactly what should happen when planning a new website.

If they are any good, your design team is going to want to know what your company is all about, where it came from, who your customers and competitors are, etc. The better understanding they have of this information, the easier it’s going to be for them to design a website and online marketing plan that matches your needs perfectly.

Some clients like to rush through this process, usually because they are excited to start seeing new design ideas. That’s understandable, but the discovery phase is the foundation upon which your website will eventually be built. Be patient, share as much information you can, and realize that you’re helping your web designer to make you more profitable with every answer or insight.

#2 Put the Focus on Your Business Goals

Your creative team can help you to attract new leads or customers, improve your recruiting, or even boost online sales. What they can’t do, though, is rewrite your business plan for you.

Everything about designing and promoting a website gets easier when we work with someone who understands what it is we are trying to accomplish. There are a lot of possibilities, but you should come into the process with some ideas about the bottom line targets you would like to reach. How do you want your business to affect your website? What specific and measurable goals would you like to see reached?

There are a lot of things that can go into your website and online marketing campaigns, but not all of them are right for your business. To achieve a sense of clarity and make sure you get the ROI you want from your new online presence, it’s crucial to know what you’re trying to achieve.

#3 Provide Prompt Feedback When You Can

One thing every web designer dreads is a period of unbroken silence from a client. This happens when we submit a site map, outline, or potential design and hear nothing in response.

There are lots of reasons clients might not respond, of course. They could need a day or two to think about things, or might be busy with other projects. That’s all normal and understandable. But, when the silence goes on for weeks, bad things happen. For one thing, we might begin to wonder whether you actually like the work we’re doing. More importantly, we can lose focus and momentum on your project, meaning the entire job will take longer to finish.

You don’t have to get back to your web designer immediately, especially if they’re asking for a decision or opinion. However, by being prompt with your feedback, you help them to stay focused on your project and do their best creative work.

#4 Try to Be Specific With Requests

If failing to get any feedback is a huge challenge, then getting feedback you don’t understand is an even bigger one. That’s exactly what happens, though, when clients don’t express themselves in ways that are straightforward.

When possible, tell your web designer that you prefer something “lighter” rather than saying you want “more energy.” Show them the design you really like, instead of asking for a new layout. See if you can be specific when talking about elements like fonts, colors, and spacing.

Being clear when you communicate with your design team makes everything more efficient, even if it’s just to say that you don’t like what you are seeing. The more specifics you can point to, the less chance there is you’ll find the next design idea to be disappointing, too.

#5 Give Your Web Designer Time to Work

Let’s begin this point by admitting that it isn’t fair to suggest clients should respond promptly while web designers need time to pull out their creative best. Still, it’s a fact that artists in any field can get tired, sick, or overwhelmed. When that happens, you’re better off waiting a little bit longer than you are rushing the work.

Sometimes, a new client will begin “checking in” weeks before their initial design is due. When that happens, we have to love their enthusiasm, but also try to slow them down. We’ve been around long enough to know that the goal isn’t to produce a design as quickly as possible, but to come up with something that they’re going to love (and that will help their business).

When you rush your web designer too much, there is a chance you’ll get something that’s not quite as good as it could have been. As long as they’re keeping within agreed upon deadlines, give your creative team the space they need to give you their best.

#6 Give Your Web Designer Great Content to Work With

The design and layout of your business website are important, but even the most talented artistic minds can’t help you if your content (that is, the images and writing you provide) isn’t up to par.

It’s important for you to know that and act accordingly. If you plan on generating your own content, and supplying things like images yourself, then it’s best to get started early in the web design process, so you aren’t rushing to complete them later. Alternatively, if you want your web designer to have content generated for you, then make that decision from the outset and give them some direction to work with.

Ultimately, content on your website will attract search engine visits and persuade potential customers to buy from you. Give your web design team great ingredients to work with and they’ll turn them into something perfect for your business.

#7 Don’t Disappear After Your Website Goes Live

We often caution business owners about hiring a web designers who seem to disappear into thin air once a site goes live. You want a creative partner who will be around to offer continuing support, web analytics reviews, website audits, and content updates. In other words, ongoing service and online marketing are important to your success.

Sometimes, though, things happen the other way around. Clients get their websites launched and then disappear completely. This is difficult for us for couple of reasons. First, we miss out on the chance to see how their business is growing and expanding, which is the most rewarding part of the process. And second, we can’t help them stay up on the latest trends and best practices, which means they don’t get the full value from their website over time.

If you choose a quality web design team, consider them to be your marketing partners going forward. If you disappear, they can’t help you achieve the results you’re looking for.

Want a Web Designer Who Can Help You Grow Your Business?

If you put these seven pieces of advice together, they all amount to one simple philosophy: that web designers need to work together with their clients to not only build the perfect site, but to create a winning formula for new sales.

That mindset has helped us become a leader in Arizona web design and online marketing for more than a decade. If you want to work with a creative team that puts your results first, contact Kinetik IT in Phoenix today!

Will your next website be a valuable tool for your company and its customers, or “just another site” that makes you look like one business out of dozens?

The business owners and executives we talk to always want the best, of course, but they aren’t always sure what that might be. In other words, they can tell whether they like the look of a website or not, but figuring out what makes a new design outstanding (from the perspective of a marketer or a customer) can be a little more difficult.

It’s tough to get what you need when you aren’t sure of the specifics, so today we want to share with you 15 things that separate the very best websites from all the rest…

#1 A Narrow Focus

The best websites aren’t designed for just anyone. Instead, they are drawn and coded for a specific type of customer. That’s because strong marketers and creative teams know that no business can appeal to everyone, and few have the resources to even try. By zeroing in on a specific buyer type, you make it easier to manage the process of putting a website together and marketing it to customers.

#2 Unique Style

Have you ever noticed how many websites within a specific industry all look alike? That’s not doing much good for companies who want to stand out, but building generic layouts is easier for lazy web design teams and clients who don’t want to take any risks at all. If customers can’t tell you apart from everyone else, they don’t have any strong reasons to do business with you.

#3 Clear Navigation

Most of the potential customers who arrive at your website for the first time aren’t going to find the information they’re looking for in your home page (or whichever page they are referred to by Google, Facebook, etc.). With a good navigation structure in place, you can make it easy for them to find what they need. Otherwise, they could get frustrated and take their attention and money somewhere else.

#4 White Space

A new website is like a small apartment – it’s easy to try to cram too many things into a limited area. Experienced web designers know this and will separate various items like text blocks and images with white space. This gives your website a cleaner feel, and is easier on the eyes. It also encourages visitors to scan and find what they need without too much effort.

#5 Vivid Images

The human eye is drawn to images, particularly those with bright colors, animals, and human faces. The sharper and more interesting your visuals are, the easier it is to maintain a visitors focus and convey an idea or emotion. Conversely, if you have old, grainy, or low-resolution pictures on your website, it can give the feeling that your site is outdated, regardless of how good your layout is.

#6 Persuasive Content

We could (and have) devote entire articles to the importance of web content. Suffice it to say, the words on your pages attract search engine visits, help you put your most compelling sales points forward, and turn searchers into leads or buyers. Your creative team should help you come up with content that isn’t just search-friendly, but also persuasive and informative.

#7 Fast Page Loading

Internet connections are getting to be faster and more reliable than ever. As a consequence, visitors to your pages aren’t going to be patient. They want your content to display quickly or they’ll move on to the next Google result. By investing a few dollars a day into premium web hosting you can do a lot to speed up the performance of your site and keep buyers engaged.

#8 Reliability

If fast website loading is important, then you can imagine how critical it is that your content never go off-line. However, with the wrong hosting package, outdated plug-ins, or HTML errors within your site, specific tools and videos – for your entire website itself – could become unavailable without warning. That’s never going to help you make a good impression on customers or generate leads.

#9 Useful Plugins

Speaking of plug-ins, it’s important to choose the ones you want to include on your website in a careful way. They certainly can help you to add features and functions that improve your marketing or make your website more useful to customers. However, if you have too many apps (or the wrong ones) they can slow down your pages, cause errors, and even lead to ongoing security issues.

#10 Strong Security

It’s absolutely crucial that your website be safe and secure. You’ll want to ensure that anything prospects or customers send to you is encrypted, and that hackers can't steal sensitive information by breaking into your database or CMS. There are a lot of factors that go into website security, including strong hosting, regular backups, and routine checkups. A good web design team can handle these details for you, but you have to make it a priority.

#11 Search Visibility

Did you know that Google processes roughly 5 billion search requests per day? That’s why a top spot on the world’s most popular search engine can do so much for your online sales and lead generation campaigns. A great website is built with surge of visibility in mind, with every page set up and structured in a way that is friendly to automated spiders that catalog your content.

#12 Local Exposure

If you’ve been in business for more than a decade or so, you undoubtedly remember what it was like to place ads in the Yellow Pages or other print directories. These days, you can get a lot more exposure – and save yourself quite a bit of money – by simply promoting your business to local buyers through Google and neighborhood review sites. Of course, you can’t take advantage of those sales and savings unless your website is set up to attract the buyers.

#13 Positive Reviews

New customers rarely ever decide to stop in and visit a company without checking out their reviews online first. That’s because they want to know what other buyers have experienced before risking their own money. Whether you have lots of positive reviews already, or need to gather some, part of building a great website is making sure people can find all the wonderful feedback that’s being posted online.

#14 A Sales Funnel

There is undoubtedly something you would like your new website to do. The best web designers will set up pages so they can generate leads, attract walk-in visits, or even create revenue through internet sales. Those are all good goals to focus on, and none of them is going to happen by accident. A great website needs to have a plan – complete with a sales funnel – in place to guide visitors from their first contact to the point where they’re ready to either contact you, or finish a purchase.

#15 Accurate Contact Info

This is an easy detail to overlook, but every great website features accurate contact information that’s easy to find. In fact, you should have several different ways customers can reach out to you. Some might want quick answers through email, while others could prefer the personal touch of a phone call or a scheduled meeting. You may even discover that some customers and prospects want to follow up or ask questions through social media. Why not give them options that make it convenient regardless of their preference?

Want to Turn Your Website Into More Profits?

Whether you need a new website for your business, or just a new approach to online marketing, we can help. Contact the Kinetik IT creative team today to schedule a free consultation and see why we’re a favorite of companies throughout Arizona.

All Phoenix web designers do the same things, right?

We can understand why so many new potential clients come to us thinking that. From the outside, all kinds of creative firms and web design agencies seem to be producing similar work. Do a little bit of window shopping on Google and you can come away with the impression that it doesn’t really matter which company, team, or professional you hire.

That’s not the case, though, and it’s much better if you know that going into the web design process rather than figuring it out at the end. In fact, there are a handful of skills you definitely want your web designer to have if you’re going to be happy with your investment in the coming months and years.

In order to give you a sense of what these skills are, and why they are so important, let’s look at seven that make a huge difference…

#1 Your Web Designer Should be a Good Interviewer

It can be hard for business owners and executives to understand, but the most important part of the web design process occurs when we ask questions. Having built hundreds of websites, we can always come up with something that’s professional and eye-catching. But to come up with the perfect layout for a specific company, we have to know a lot about its culture, customers, and future plans.

For all of these reasons, it’s important for your web designer to have strong interviewing and listening skills. If they only get a general sense of what your company does, then your website is going to end up looking like all the others that are in the industry. That might not necessarily be a terrible thing, but it’s not going to give you the value or branding advantage you were looking at or hoping for, either.

#2 You Need a Web Designer Who Understands Clarity and White Space

As the world of web design has grown up and the list of things we can work with has increased, you may have noticed an interesting trend: most companies are using simpler sites than they were before. This isn’t an accident or coincidence. Most of your customers aren’t looking for bizarre artistic shapes. Instead, they want to find the information they’re looking for quickly.

We’ve seen again and again that buyers will spend lots of time on a website that’s clear and focused with a great deal of white space separating one topic or text block from the next. They’ll quickly click away from a page that seems too busy, no matter how interesting the artistic features are. When hiring a web designer, think in terms of marketing power and usability first and cutting-edge avante' garde inspirations later.

#3 You Should Only Hire a Web Designer Using a Responsive CMS

It’s amazing, but we still see companies putting new websites online that aren’t responsive, compatible with mobile devices, or using content management systems. That means those pages won’t display correctly for more than half of all online visitors, and can’t easily be updated or expanded.

Hopefully, you don’t need us to tell you that a website lacking what are considered standard features in today’s world isn’t going to improve your image or marketing results. If your web designer tries to suggest something that doesn’t incorporate the basics of what you would expect in 2018, then they aren’t saving you time or money, they are costing you sales and credibility.

#4 You Want a Web Designer With Great Coding Skills

It’s easy to forget when you’re looking at beautiful designs, but the way your website looks is only half of the equation. If you really want it to stand out, and to make you money, then it needs great functionality under the hood. In other words, it has to do things for you, your customers, and maybe even your employees or partners.

Within the industry, we talk about programs in terms of “web development.” And, if you’re serious about using your next web presence as a business tool, then you should work with a creative team that can do more than change the dimensions of your home page photo. Good artistic instincts help you get a customer’s attention for a few minutes, but strong coding is what saves time and makes money.

#5 Your Web Designer Should Have a Plan to Promote Your Business

No matter how wonderful your next website is, and what it can do, no one is going to find out about it unless it’s promoted with search engine optimization, social media marketing, pay-per-click advertising, and other promotional channels. There are just too many competitors out there, and many of them are already entrenched in Google’s listings and within social networks like Facebook.

Too many new clients come to us thinking that online marketing requires a huge outlay of cash, or that can bring measurable results. A good web designer is going to have a plan to help you promote your site. That plan is going to be tailored to your specific market, and will match your budget and real-world expectations. It might be the most important part of the design and development process, so don’t work with anyone who can’t help you attract visitors and customers after your site goes online.

#6 Choose a Web Designer Who Can Help With Content Creation

In today’s digital marketing world, content is everything. Content is what brings Google’s automated spiders to your pages and turns them into search engine visits. Content can help you attract a social following, build a strong online reputation, and sell more products and services. It can be turned into blog posts, tweets, online videos, and so much more.

Unfortunately, most business owners and managers struggle with content creation. They know it matters, but they hate the process of coming up with ideas, outlining their thoughts, and then writing them into articles or scripts. For that reason, you should work with a web designer who can assist with content creation (either in-house or through the use of contractors). They’ll help you realize all those benefits without putting a strain on your schedule or imagination.

#7 Your Web Designer Needs to Work With Analytics

The way a website goes from good to great is through continuous improvement. Search engine visibility gets better, conversions increase, and little things (like content and calls to action) get more and more effective as information comes in. That information isn’t found in your gut feelings, though. It has to come from web analytics.

By studying the statistics generated by your website, you can watch as visitors arrive on your site, interact with your pages, and then take action in response. Look at enough of those actions over the course of days and weeks and you can figure out what buyers want more or less of.

If you’re like most of the people we work with, you love the power of analytics but hate searching for the data you actually need. That’s where your web designer comes in. They should meet with you regularly to assess the information that’s on hand and make smart recommendations that improve your profitability going forward.

Want to Work with the Best in Phoenix Web Design?

At Kinetik IT, we have helped dozens of small businesses throughout the area with web design, online marketing, and even technical support. When you hire us you aren’t just getting a web presence that serves your company – you’re getting a committed team of experts who know how to translate ideas and campaigns into bottom line success.

If you need your next website to generate sales, reduce costs, and make your company run more smoothly, then you need an experienced team with the right design and development expertise. Get in touch with us today so we can set up a free consultation, and show you exactly what we’ve been able to do for other businesses just like yours!

Is branding a complicated and overwhelming topic?

It certainly can be, as evidenced by the hundreds upon hundreds of books and seminars out there on the topic. Not only are there endless approaches to branding, but an army of consultants and experts eager to let you know they have an innovative way to set your company apart.

Once you get into the details, though, the best practices associated with branding are pretty easy to understand. You don’t have to be the CEO of a Fortune 500 firm to grasp the principles of building and growing a strong brand – you just have to follow a handful of common sense tips that will lead you in the right direction.

To help you get started in that direction, today we want to share 10 quick Branding tips every business owner or executive can live by…

#1 Don’t Treat Branding as an Afterthought

Some businesspeople tend to think of branding as something they’ll get to once their business is bigger, or their revenue is more stable. The thinking tends to go that a growing company doesn’t necessarily need much branding, given that there isn’t a lot of awareness in the market.

That point of view is a little bit backwards. Businesses without established identities are the ones that need strong branding the most. And, they’re the ones that should invest the most time and money into becoming identifiable to customers. So, avoid the temptation to treat branding as an afterthought, regardless of where your company is right now.

#2 Strive to Create a Unique Identity

In a rush to “create a good brand,” some entrepreneurs will take cues from their competitors. They may feel as if they can save time or money on a brand by borrowing from someone else, or even make it seem as if their business is similar to another more well-known company.

Again, the desire to take shortcuts is understandable, but it’s also shortsighted. The point of your branding efforts should be to set your business apart, and to build a unique identity for your company. The last thing you want is to look to be indistinguishable from others in your market or industry.

#3 Know the Two Parts of a Successful Brand

A lot of business people, and even experienced creative professionals, will tell you that branding is about the image you project to the world. That’s mostly true, but there is also another element to it: understanding what your buyers want and communicating with them in a way that reflects that knowledge.

In other words, your branding isn’t just about who you are, but also what types of people make up your target market. Where those two come together is the point at which your brand is created. It should reflect your values and unique selling propositions, but also their unique desires and buying motivations.

#4 Avoid the “Everything” Problem

No business organization can be everything to everyone. And yet, when it’s time to start planning a marketing campaign or building a brand, some entrepreneurs and executives are afraid to leave any customers out.

All the biggest brands – the well-known providers of quality autos, clothing, or grocery items – have been successful because they have carved out niche audiences (even if those niches are large ones). Follow their example and figure out what you have to offer, and who it's right for. Don’t try to be everything to everyone.

#5 Think Big When Imagining Your Branding

Somewhere along the line, branding got tied up with logos and other visuals. These are important parts of a brand, of course, but they don’t make up the totality of your public image.

Your visual identity, along with your website, company mottos or taglines, photos, and even customer service policies all make up your brand. So, if you’re looking to establish or re-establish yourself in the market, don’t settle for simply creating a new logo and adding it to your materials. Your brand is so much bigger than that.

#6 Be Consistent in Your Visuals and Messaging

If knowing your company, customers, and place in the market is important to envisioning your brand, and being consistent in the way you communicate is the key to reinforcing it.

Once you’ve taken our advice and lay the groundwork for a brand that can set your business apart and help you grow, then be sure you make it easy for customers to see all of that effort reflected in your ads, emails, blog posts, and print marketing. Stick to the colors, themes, and ideas you want associated with your company. Over time, they’ll sink into buyers’ minds and establish your company’s personality.

#7 Keep a Branding Guide for Your Company

One way to ensure you’re being consistent with your branding is to keep a style guide for your company. This would outline specific visuals and fonts that are to be used in your marketing, as well as preferences for all business communications (when and how to use industry jargon and capitalization, etc.).

Your branding guide doesn’t have to be complicated, and it can to remind you of the tone you want to convey to the public. Additionally, it can be very helpful to new employees, outside vendors, and others who may need to create internal or external marketing pieces on your behalf. Most of all, it helps you to stay consistent and on-message with your communications.

#8 Protect Your Image and Identity

Earlier, we advised you to do the work and brainstorming needed to create a brand that’s unique. There just aren’t any shortcuts to success. Some of your competitors may try to take them, though, and use or alter your branding in ways that are less than honest.

There are legal steps you can take to protect your brand, like using copyrights and trademarks for proprietary items. In a day-to-day sense, though, it means you should occasionally check to see that none of your competitors are trying to get away with using your content or visuals. Modern tools make it easy to crawl the web for duplicate material, and the practice of stealing from other businesses is more common than you might think.

#9 Grow and Evolve Your Brand Over Time

Your brand needs to be consistent, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it has to stay locked into its current form forever. In fact, as your company grows and evolves, your branding should change right along with it.

You can manage this process by periodically reviewing your branding elements. Additionally, you can look over the style guide you put in place and ask yourself whether anything needs to be added or updated. Most of all, though, you should meet with a creative team once every few years and ensure that the branding you have in place to reflects your values, mission, and future plans.

#10 Remember Your Strongest Branding Ingredient

From the customer’s point of view, your brand is essentially comprised of how people feel about you. You can shape that with your visuals and communications, but in the end, a lot of impressions are going to be driven by the service and value you provide.

The strongest ingredient in your brand is the level of satisfaction customers, employees, and colleagues get from dealing with you. When your interactions with others are positive, it benefits your brand in numerous ways. If buyers are unimpressed or feel like they’ve been taken advantage of, no sleek logo or consistency in your website or emails can fix that.

Ready to Build a Valuable and Enduring Brand for Your Business?

In a perfect world, building a strong brand would be as easy as combining the right visuals and advertising pieces together until you could have something that jumped off a computer screen. In reality, creating your brand takes research, discovery, creativity, and usually some back-and-fourth effort.

All of this gets a lot easier – and yields better results – when you have an experienced team of creative professionals who can help guide you through the various steps along the way. Then, you can get to the answers you need quickly, while carving out a unique space in the market and avoiding common branding pitfalls.

If you’re ready to build a strong identity for your company, and want to work with Arizona’s best, call the creative team at Kinetik IT. We’ll be happy to set up a free consultation for you and show you just how we can help!

There are thousands upon thousands of articles all over the web telling you that, as a business owner, you need a spectacular website for your company or practice. What most of them don’t tell you, though, is what it takes to actually get a web presence that makes your business stand out online and attracting sales or revenue.

Maybe that’s because most web designers want you to contact them before they give up the goods, or might be because a lot of the firms vying for your web design business don’t have spectacular track records to show off. Whatever the reason might be, we find that a lot of new clients come to us with a clear idea of the results they are looking for, but few definite notions about how to achieve them.

To help you get your web design project started off on the right foot, we’re going to share our advanced guide to web design. In just eight questions, it will lead you to the answers you need to build the online marketing powerhouse you’ve been envisioning for your company…

Question #1: What Will Your Website Be For?

Surprising numbers of business owners want a website “because they need one.” That’s true, in the sense that even food trucks have to be online these days. However, it really only scratches at the surface when it comes to the reasons to build a new site in the first place.

The purpose of your website could be to generate online sales, to help you attract leads, or to simply promote your company to local buyers. You may just want to impress referrals, or to automate customer service tasks (like frequently asked questions). The purpose of your website might be to support email and social media campaigns. It could be all of these things.

Whatever you're setting out to do, make sure you and your creative team know what the goal is before you begin.

Question #2: What Do You Like or Dislike About Your Current Website?

If you have an existing website, ask yourself what you like about it. Also, figure out what definitely needs to be changed.

The answers could involve different creative elements, pieces of functionality, or even bottom-line results. Maybe you like the look of your website, but you feel like it isn't doing enough to further the sales potential of your business. Or, you may think you have good images, but your written content isn’t strong enough. Finding these preferences will help you zero in on what you need for your next website, and keep you from duplicating mistakes.

If you don’t already have a website, think in these terms about other sites you’ve seen in your industry. You can learn a lot from your own past mistakes, and the missteps of others.

Question #3: Who Will Design Your Next Website?

There are more web design companies, and online template-based services, than ever before. That’s great for convenience, but not necessarily for business owners who need to get a good deal on web design.

That’s because even though web design prices might be coming down, quality and customization standards are decreasing, too. Because you don’t want your website to simply exist, you can’t settle for pages that don’t do anything. In other words, if you want to generate leads and sales, you have to have streamlined coding, a unique look, and a marketing plan that brings customers to you online or to your physical location.

It’s unfortunate, but getting a great website sometimes means paying a little more in time and money. However, those investments will come back to you again and again if you make a good decision.

Question #4: Do You Have the Ingredients for a Great Website?

Having a strong web presence is about so much more than the right design. Aesthetics are important, but what goes beneath them matters a lot, too.

In particular, we are talking about the need for a domain name that’s easy to understand and remember. You could add to that fast and secure hosting that speeds your pages up and keeps customer data safe from hackers and thieves. Additionally, you can’t build a great website with sloppy content, old or blurry photos, and outdated logo images.

If you aren’t sure you have all the ingredients for a great website in place, either start gathering them or talk to your web design team about what you might need. Everything that comes later in the process is going to be easier when you begin with a solid foundation for your company’s web presence.

Question #5: How Do You Want Your Website to Look?

Most business owners have a certain look they want for their new website. You should think about the colors, fonts, and layouts you prefer.

These days, you can do almost anything online. That’s great from the standpoint of creativity, but it can also present an overwhelming number of choices. You’ll notice that most established and successful businesses have a somewhat standard look to their websites. Paragraphs are short, links are easy to find, and menus are presented in a certain way. This all helps make a site more usable for visitors. Even people who haven’t been on your pages before should understand how they work and be able to find the information they need quickly.

Think carefully about the aesthetics you want on your website, and consider ways you might be able to emphasize usability. That will make your web presence more valuable (both to you and your customers) in the long run.

Question #6: What Functionality do You Need on Your New Website?

We have noticed over the years that business owners tend to pay a lot of attention to the way their new websites should look, but not as much to what features and functions need to be integrated. That’s unfortunate, because websites can help you save a lot of time and money through automation, not to mention boost profits with e-commerce and targeted marketing.

When you know what you want your website to actually do for your business, it gets easier to create a profitable platform that can help with every aspect of your bottom line. Also, you can translate those wishes to your creative team, who can plan ahead and give you more accurate quotes and timelines.

In many ways, the biggest difference between websites that simply exist and those that actually help the companies they were built for has to do with programming and functionality. So, think carefully about what it is you want your site to actually add to your business so those features can be the focus instead of an afterthought.

Question #7: How Will You Promote Your Website?

No website, no matter how beautiful or functional, has much value if customers aren’t regularly finding it and visiting its pages. That’s why web design and internet marketing now go hand-in-hand; one doesn’t have much purpose without the other.

When it comes to actually promoting your new website and drawing in customers, there are a handful of tactics you will almost certainly want to pay attention to. These include search engine optimization, social media marketing, email promotion, and pay-per- click advertising. It’s crucial that you not only plan to make these a big part of your approach from the beginning, but also choose a creative partner who can help you to develop profitable and sustainable campaigns.

It’s difficult for most business owners to plan and follow through with online marketing on their own, so choose a team with a history of success in this area to help you.

Question #8: How Will Your Website Be Maintained?

Even the best website is going to need updates, additional plugins, and fresh content from time to time. Additionally, regular website audits are important for locating technical issues like out-of-date links or slow page performance.

Expect to maintain your website periodically in the same way you would a car or truck. It’s a lot easier to make small updates and additions here and there than it is to replace your website altogether sooner than you would otherwise have to – or worse yet, ignore your site and fail to win the leads and sales you were expecting.

Work with your creative team to develop a reasonable schedule that allows you to maintain your site over time, thereby preserving its useful life, accelerating your online marketing results, and giving you a much better return on your investment.

The Real Question: Do You Want a Website, or Sales and Marketing Results?

Getting a website is easy – there are literally thousands of companies out there who can offer to build you one. However, if you want a real web presence, complete with ongoing sales and marketing results, you need to work with an experienced team who will take the time to understand your business and the challenges you are facing.

Why set yourself up for frustration by selecting a partner that doesn’t have a track record of success? At Kinetik IT, we have earned our reputation as Arizona’s top web design and online marketing team. We’ve helped dozens of companies like yours to establish themselves online and turn their websites into bottom-line results that hold up year after year.

Contact us today to set up a free consultation and see what our team of experts can do for your business!

When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), and internet marketing as a whole, we often discover that new clients come to us with a handful of experiences, ideas, and impressions. Some of them are useful, while others might be outdated or outright incorrect.

That’s understandable – it’s hard enough for us to keep up with SEO and online marketing from within the industry. For someone trying to make the most of their campaigns while also having to keep their attention on a full-time job or dozens of responsibilities, it can be overwhelming.

Luckily, you don’t have to keep up with every technical detail or algorithm change to make the most of search engine optimization. To help you understand why, and focus on what’s actually important, we present to you our advanced guide to SEO and internet marketing. Let’s look at what you need to know, step-by-step, beginning with the basics…

Know Your Market and Your Strengths

The solid base of any strong SEO and online marketing campaign isn’t a set of technical tools or complicated ideas; it’s a thorough understanding of your strengths as a business and the needs of your most important customers.

Simple as it might seem, everything that comes later in the search engine optimization and online marketing process flows from these two pieces of information. So, it’s imperative that you begin with a little bit of research or brainstorming if that’s what it takes to arrive at the right conclusions. Otherwise, you could rush into an SEO campaign that isn’t ever going to produce the results are hoping for.

Build a Solid Website

Believe it or not, a website can be “flimsy” from a coding perspective. When that happens, your pages are virtually invisible to Google’s search engine spiders.

A sturdy website is fast, lives on a reliable hosting server, and doesn’t have any extraneous HTML code or outdated plugins. A flimsy website, on the other hand, is created from a bloated template and has images, links, and other elements that haven’t been optimized for search.

You can’t expect to stand out in search rankings if you’re working with a website that is never going to seem credible to customers or search platforms, so start with the right foundation.

Get an SEO Audit From an Experienced Web Design Team

Even on a well-built website, small errors can indicate to Google that pages aren’t being maintained carefully enough. Issues like broken links, duplicated content, or a lack of mobile compatibility can all harm your search visibility.

An experienced web design team can audit your site, looking for problems that aren’t visible to the naked eye. In addition to scouring your HTML for hidden technical issues, we can evaluate your pages and content the way a search engine would, finding lots of areas for immediate improvement and growth.

Begin SEO With Intensive Keyword Research

Ultimately, success in search engine optimization means achieving a high ranking on Google and drawing dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of good prospects to your pages every week. None of that is going to work, though, if you don’t know what your best customers are actually searching for when they go online.

That’s why every strong search engine optimization campaign has to begin with intensive keyword research. It helps to not only identify the perfect terms and phrases for you and your creative team to target, but also the level of competition and buying intent that come with each one. Beginning SEO work without good keyword research is like taking a road trip without a map or directions. It’s just not an efficient way to reach your bottom line destination.

Optimize Your Website for Search Visibility

Once you know what buyers are looking for on Google and the other search engines, you can begin to optimize your site for those terms and phrases. That means ensuring they show up in the right areas, particularly page titles, main headings, internal links, and meta descriptions.

With the help of a good web design team you can easily find the right spots for each keyword or search term, and be sure they feature prominently without being overused. This part of the search engine optimization process is both art and science, and it needs to be handled correctly if you want buyers to find you.

Create an Online Conversion Plan

You should always remember that success in search engine optimization isn’t just about achieving a high ranking on Google, but turning that visibility into new revenue in the form of leads, sales, phone calls, or walk-in visits. It doesn’t do your business any good to just have more people visit your site and leave.

That’s why, as part of your SEO campaign, you need to develop an online conversion plan. You have to have a sense of who will be coming to your website, what you want them to find, and why they will be compelled to take the next step. If any of those answers are missing, you’ll struggle to make an impact on your bottom line the matter how optimized your site is.

Generate Search Friendly Content Regularly

Making your website highly visible to search engine spiders is a good thing, but if you truly want to claim a top spot on Google, you’ll have to become a regular producer of fresh content. That’s partly because each new article or blog post you add to your site counts as another page to Google, and partly because searchers love content that has recently been posted.

Our most successful clients use editorial calendars to keep their content marketing plans on track. The more you can write and fill the web, the easier it’s going to be to bring in customers through Google.

Promote Your Website Away From Google

While this this guide is aimed at business owners who want to make the most of Google and search engine optimization, there are other places to promote your company on the internet. You can draw in as many customers (or more) using Facebook, Twitter, PPC ads, email, and other means.

Many business owners prefer to focus all of their fire on Google because the payoff is so large. However, the beauty of diversifying your campaigns is twofold. On the one hand, it keeps you from being completely dependent on search engines for traffic. And on the other, it gives you more ways to stay in touch with the prospects who initially find you through the search listings, making it more likely they’ll do business with you down the road.

Check Your Web Analytics and Refine Your Approach

Search trends change over time, new competitors come out of nowhere, and Google makes adjustments to its algorithms. For all of these reasons, you should be reviewing your web analytics on a regular basis to understand where your traffic is coming from, how users are interacting with your website, and what sort of improvements you can make going forward.

If you stay committed to producing content and refining your approach, you’ll get more and more visitors over time while turning a greater percentage of them into leads or buyers each month. In other words, your SEO campaigns will just keep getting more efficient and profitable. That should be the goal you’re working towards on a continual basis.

Are You Making the Most of SEO and Internet Marketing?

If you have been making halfhearted attempts at search engine optimization, or ignored it all together, now is the time to start being more visible on Google. Or, if you’ve invested time or money into SEO in the past but haven’t gotten results, this is your chance to make a fresh start.

The Kinetik IT team in Phoenix has the skills, tools, and experience to give you the website you need and help you stand out on Google. No matter where you’re starting from, we can create a workable and affordable plan that will help you bring in new customers month after month.

To get our creative team working for you, contact us today and schedule a complementary website review. We’ll take a look through your pages and, in just a few days, let you know exactly what it will take to take your company to the next level.

Why wait to start getting more leads and sales? Contact us now so we can put our experience to work for you!

“Numbers don’t lie.” 

We’ve all heard various versions of this saying at a different point in our lives. And it’s true – statistics can help us to recognize long-term trends, uncover hidden truths, and better understand the challenges and issues that are most relevant in our businesses.

This is particularly true in the web design and online marketing industry, where a few revealing stats can change the way business owners and executives think about their companies and campaigns. Of course, it can be difficult to keep up with all the different numbers and studies floating around out there. So today, we want to share a dozen figures that we consider to be particularly surprising and/or poignant. 

We aren’t just going to give you ratios and percentages, either; we’re going to give you some quick insights into what they mean for your company. Let’s dive into 12 surprising stats about web design, along with what they mean for your business…

#1 55% of Visitors Will Spend Less Than 15 Seconds on Your Website (HubSpot)

You already knew you only have a small window to impress someone who arrives at your website for the first time. What you might not have realized is just how small the margin for error is. 

In truth, what’s most surprising about this figure is that it’s as high as it is to begin with. Searchers and customers just don’t have the attention spans we used to, especially with your closest competitors just a click away online. Your site needs to quickly convey credibility and value while explaining exactly what you do. Otherwise, visitors will take their attention elsewhere.

#2 More Than One-Third of Website Visitors Will Leave an Ugly Page (Adobe)

It’s no secret that humans prefer attractive things to unattractive ones. However, what’s surprising is how quickly they’ll abandon a web page – even if it might have useful information – simply based on aesthetics.

Really, there are couple of factors at play here. The first is that web searchers may often feel as if they can find what they’re looking for elsewhere, without the trouble of digging through an ugly page. Additionally, an unattractive layout signals to them that the business isn’t credible or trustworthy.

#3 64% of Your Customers Want to Find Contact Information on Your Home Page (KO Marketing)

It’s easy to forget in the digital age, but some of your customers really aren’t looking for all of their answers to be given to them online. Instead, they might want to find a resource that will lead them in the right direction and then ask a specific question through email, or over the phone.

The interesting inverse to this statistic is that large numbers of would-be customers will actually leave your website if they don’t find the contact information they need. Make it easy for buyers to work with you by providing them with phone numbers, contact forms, or online chats.

#4 15% of Google’s Daily Searches are Unique (Google)

It’s no secret that business owners are constantly jostling with each other to gain the top search engine positions on Google for popular phrases. What a lot of marketers forget, though, is that the long tail of search is very long indeed. In fact, more than one out of every 10 Google searches, on average, is for a completely original string.

This just goes to show that buyers are getting very specific when it comes to finding what they want on the internet. They aren’t willing to dig through page after page of results, so the content on your site should make it easy for them to differentiate you from your competitors.

#5 Websites With 50-100 Pages of Content Get 48% More Traffic

This statistic is indirectly related to the last one we shared. As searches get more and more specific, Google and the other search engines have to rely increasingly on long-tail matching and contextual relationships between pages and content blocks. That means “bigger” websites with lots of relevant and unique ideas are going to attract more traffic.

Every blog post, product page, and other item you add to your website counts as a unique page in Google’s eyes. Put a lot of them together and you don’t just increase your search position, but also make your site more valuable to real-life visitors.

#6 78% of Users Say Social Media Affects Their Purchasing Decisions (Forbes)

Although some online marketing gurus claim that social media is replacing search engines, we think it’s closer to the truth to say they are supplementing them. That is, people tend to look for information on Google, but turn to sites like Facebook and LinkedIn for referrals and recommendations.

That means marketers can no longer afford to simply concentrate on optimizing their sites for keywords. A good long-term strategy has to include a strong social media presence, as well.

#7 72% of Buyers are Influenced by Personal Content (Marketing Charts)

Who you think buyers tend to trust more, companies that want to sell them something, or other customers (like themselves) who leave third-party reviews? It’s not hard to understand why verifiable testimonials and feedback are such an important part of building a durable online reputation.

You should do everything you can to encourage fans and customers to say good things about you on social media and throughout the web. Other customers who haven’t bought from you yet are highly influenced by personal feedback, particularly if they know it comes from someone outside your company.

#8 Content Marketing Boosts Lead Generation by Over 300% While Cutting Costs by Half (HubSpot)

Content marketing can take a lot of forms, from blogging and online videos to infographics, press releases, and more. What each of these channels does, though, is bring buyers in your direction through inbound lead generation. That’s both cheaper and more effective than traditional advertising has been for a long time.

If you don’t already have inbound sales funnels in place, now is the time to get busy creating them. It takes time, effort, and resources to get your content marketing plan up-and-running, but the long-term payoff is worth it.

#9 There are Currently 235+ Million Mobile Users in the US (Statista)

Some business owners are living in denial about mobile internet usage, but once again the numbers don’t lie. People accessing the web through phones and tablets became the majority a few years ago, and they now represent an overwhelming one.

Granted, some of your mobile customers also use traditional desktop and laptop computers, but they are increasingly preferring smaller screens. If your website isn’t built for them, it’s going to cost you money.

#10 8 Out of Every 10 Visitors Will Leave a Website if it Doesn’t Load Properly on Their Device (Adobe)

This builds on the last point, and it shouldn’t be surprising. If a customer arrives at your website and finds they can’t access your content because it hasn’t been optimized for mobile devices, they’re going to take their money elsewhere.

What’s slightly shocking is that roughly 20% of visitors will hang around on a non-mobile friendly website. We are willing to bet that if this survey is duplicated in another year or two, that percentage will have shrunk to almost nothing.

#11 One Second is Worth a 25% Improvement in Mobile Engagement (Soasta)

Website loading speed is becoming a bigger factor in all areas of engagement, but the numbers are particularly striking when it comes to mobile users. The difference between having your pages come up in three seconds, for instance, to four can mean losing a quarter of your visitors.

Having your website load quickly is a function of programming, optimized content, and premium web hosting. If all of these factors aren’t working in your favor, you’re missing out on opportunities because your pages are too slow.

#12 Having a Responsive Website Can Boost Email Newsletter Open Rates by 300% (Mailchimp)

Even email – an ancient technology by online marketing standards – is being affected by mobile compatibility. That’s because users eventually have to click through to your website if they want to view your products, make a purchase, or otherwise interact with your company.

Once again, it’s worth pointing out that most of your customers and prospects are going to be opening emails and visiting your pages through a phone or tablet. Being ready for that traffic is a key to boosting response rates on email, not to mention pay-per-click advertising, social media, etc.

What Does it All Mean? 

While we love the dozen statistics we pulled out for this article, the truth is we could have easily included a dozen more. And, you can bet that even more data on web design and internet marketing is being produced right now.

You don’t need more numbers to see the writing on the wall, though. As we move into 2018 and beyond, it’s clear that having a functional website with lots of content is crucial to the success of your company. You need a strong social media presence, and customers leaving good reviews for your products and services online. It’s critical that your site be mobile-friendly, and set up for fast loading and delivery.

If you aren’t ready for these trends, or your website isn’t set up to take advantage, now is the perfect time to schedule a consultation with a member of our team. Call or email us today to see how we can help!

Do you need a new website for your business? Does your existing web presence look dated, or is it no longer helping you to support your bigger business goals?

Often, the decision to have your website redesigned is an easy one. However, choosing a company to work with, and figuring out what your new site should look like, is not always so simple. The last thing you want to do is waste your time and money on a fresh website that won’t bring you any closer to the new sales you are looking for. Unfortunately, it’s easy to feel like you’re spinning your wheels on the Internet when you don’t have the right focus or plan to work from.

To help you get moving in the right direction, today we want to share for easy ways you can get bigger bottom-line value from a redesign of your business website…

#1 Analyze Your Existing Website Thoroughly

Often, business owners come to us because the websites they have just “aren’t working.” However, they can’t always put a finger on what’s wrong, or why it’s happening. That’s why we like to begin every business website redesign project afresh. That means we examine the existing site – in terms of its layout, coding, content and even analytics – to better understand the situation. We advise you not to skip this step. Until you know how your current website is performing, it’s difficult to make the right decisions to move ahead.

#2 Get the Right Website for Your Business

It’s easy to fall into the trap of wanting a website that’s just like a competitor’s, or is very similar to something you’ve seen in another business or industry. However, even though other websites can give you a good starting point for inspiration, it’s important that you have the right web presence for your business. That means putting your unique selling strengths front-and-center, and paying attention to the opportunities or restraints that factor into your long-term business planning. What’s “good” for one company might not be ideal for another. Different businesses need different buildings and retail spaces; web design works in the same way.

#3 Emphasize Appearance and Horsepower

For a website to have real value to a business, it needs to stand out in a couple of important ways. First, it has to be appealing from an artistic standpoint. If your website doesn’t look great, or at least well-organized, then you aren’t going to seem credible and professional to customers. The second aspect has to do with functionality. You can use plug-ins and programming to add all kinds of features to your website. You don’t want to overdo things, but neither should you overlook the importance of your websites horsepower. It doesn’t matter how great the layout is if your pages don’t allow your business to run more smoothly.

#4 Have a Strong Online Marketing Plan in Place

Unless you already have a very strong online following, buyers aren’t going to find your website if you don’t promote it. From the moment your pages go live, you should have a plan in place that incorporates things like search engine optimization, social media marketing, email newsletters,

pay- per-click ads, and more. Putting them all together in a profitable and cohesive way is the key to increasing online sales and walk-in traffic. That’s central to the success of your website and your company as a whole, so make online marketing a focus from the start.

Remember, getting a new website doesn’t always mean getting a better website. There are a lot of companies out there who will be happy to design fresh pages for you, but aren’t all that concerned about whether you see positive ROI from your investment.

Avoid the most common mistakes by keeping these four pieces of advice in mind. Or, for expert web design and online marketing assistance that’s tailored to your company and challenges, contact our creative team today to set up a free consultation and website review.

Most business owners rate blogging as a top priority within the context of their internet marketing plans. That’s because a healthy blog can lead to a strong search engine ranking, a more engaged social following, and increased credibility amongst buyers.

At the same time, most businesspeople don’t really enjoy writing and posting blog articles all that much. This is partly because it reminds them of the schoolwork they were assigned when they were younger, and partly because they aren’t really sure what they’re trying to accomplish. In other words, they don’t know what a blog post should look like, so it’s tough for them to get started on one.

In the first case, we can tell you that writing never really gets to be easy, but most business owners enjoy it more than they used to once they get into the habit. It gives them a chance to express themselves and show off their expertise. As to the second point, there isn’t really such a thing as a perfect blog post, given that it’s all about the business you have and the audience you want to attract. If you write something that is useful to readers, then it can be “perfect” its own way.

When it comes to structure and formatting, though, the best blog posts all share seven common traits…

#1 An Attention-Grabbing Title

Take a cue from magazine editors and give your blog post titles that are timely and exciting. Appeal to a reader’s sense of curiosity. No one is going to view your post unless you can convince them your ideas are worth their time. That all starts with a compelling title that’s perfect for your target audience.

#2 The Right Accompanying Image

There are literally millions of stock images available for use online at any given time, but only a handful of them will perfectly match your topic, mood, and intent. Taking a few extra minutes to find the right match is a good idea. We all tend to notice visuals before text, so use the right picture to “sell” your blog post to readers.

#3 A Meta Description That Invites Readers

If you are blogging regularly, many of your posts are going to be found by readers who are searching for answers on Google. For that reason, it’s imperative you have a strong meta description that convinces them to click through to your page and read more.

#4 A Short-But-Intriguing Intro

Even when you pull someone in with the title of your blog post in a great image and/or meta description, you haven’t necessarily convinced them to read your thoughts. Your opening paragraph is massively important in this regard. Make sure it introduces a topic your audience cares about and promises that some solutions are going to be shared.

#5 Well-Organized Text Blocks

Given all of the hard work it takes to win readers for your blog, you certainly don’t want to lose them unnecessarily. The easiest way to scare off new viewers is with long blocks of unbroken text. Use subheadings, charts, and other tools to make your ideas easy to scan and remember.

#6 A Final Call to Action

All of your blog posts should end with a quick call to action. Invite readers to learn more, download a guide by sharing their email address, or meet with your team. A blog post is only great if it helps your business, so you should look to turn every article into a source of new leads or business.

#7 Author Information and Follow Up Links

While the primary goal of your blog post might be to drive conversions, it should also help to position you as an expert in your field. To that end, you want to end every article with a resource box that includes your author bio, professional photo, and links to your social profiles.

As with everything else in life, practice makes perfect when it comes to your marketing blog. So, keep these seven qualities in mind as you put together your first few posts. In time, including these elements will become second nature and you’ll be able to get a lot more from your blog than your competitors.

Want to learn more about blogging, web design, search engine optimization? Contact a member of our team today to set up a free consultation and see what we can help.

As part of our web design and internet marketing process, we often evaluate the competitors our clients will have to face. We perform a competition-analysis to see who they’ll be up against, and whether they have any reason to worry.

The challenging part about this part of the job is coming across a company that is so firmly entrenched online that it can take months or years for our clients to catch up. The best scenario is when the situation has is reversed, and we know none of the other business owners out there are going to be able to duplicate our work without starting massive campaigns on their own.

In some cases, a competitive edge can be so big that a business won’t even try to compete on line. Today, we want to show you exactly what it takes to scare your online competitors away…

Streamline Your Responsive Website

In order to dominate online, you have to have a modern website. That means a responsive layout with mobile compatibility. It also means streamlining your menus and user interface so visitors can find the information they need very quickly. Do that and your website will be more helpful than anyone else’s.

Use Your Blog Regularly

Nearly every business website includes a blog, but most marketers don’t actually use them. But because Google treats every new post as a fresh page of search-friendly content, blogging once a week or more gives you a massive search visibility advantage over the competition.

Target Your Search Terms for Niche Markets 

A classic mistake in search engine optimization is to target big, generic search phrases. That makes it easy for your competitors to get around you by focusing on smaller groups. Decide who your buyers are, in which geographic areas you want to target. That’s a great way to shut out the competition.

Refine Your Google AdWords Campaigns

The best way to beat a competitor in online advertising is to simply be more efficient. You don’t have to spend more on Google AdWords, for instance, if you have high Quality Scores. But, if your campaigns already feature search terms with 9/10 or 10/10 scores, it’s hard for the competition to match you in visibility… much less search advertising profits.

Generate Buzz on Your Social Accounts

It’s not how many social followers you have, it’s how tuned in they are to your marketing messages. Nobody cares if you have 10,000 fake followers, but if every one of your posts gets many likes and shares, you’re going to get a lot of social exposure. Compose messages that get buyers talking and you’ll be doing something most other business owners can’t.

Build up a Strong Online Reputation

A good online reputation is an enormous advantage in today’s digital marketing world. That’s because buyers are likely to Google your company and products before they make a purchase decision. Rack up more great reviews than the competition and you’ll win customers they can’t.

Grow Your Email Subscriber List

When you have a healthy and growing email subscriber list, you have an instant and almost free way to reach thousands of targeted prospects at a time. Even better, you get a chance to contact them directly without having them hear from your competitors in the first place.

When you have most or all of the items on this list covered, you don’t leave the competition any room to step in and steal your customers or grab attention from your prospects. If that sounds like the kind of position you want to be in, we hope you’ll take a minute to call or email our team today so we can begin a customized plan for your website.