The web is constantly evolving. As new trends emerge, what was a great website design a few years ago may not be now. When it comes time to revamp your business’s website, you need to find a designer with the right skills for your business’s needs. All designers have their own strengths and weaknesses. Make a list of what your business’s website goals and needs are before you start the interview process.

Research/Interview Tips

• Any reputable web designer should be able to provide you with at least a half dozen links to websites they’ve created for clients. Visit the sites and see if they all look similar or if they are tailored to the client’s needs. Good designers have a diverse portfolio.
• Don’t just visit the designer’s personal website and decide to hire him or her because you love their website design. Take an overall look at their work. Sometimes designers design better sites for themselves than they do for their clients.
• If SEO is important to your business, then make sure they’re experienced with SEO. Ask them how they can help your SEO and ask them to show you examples of websites they’ve ranked. If your business depends on local customers, make sure they have local SEO knowledge.
• If you need something specific, like a “Request a Quote” form, verify that the designer has experience creating forms. The same things applies if you want or need an eCommerce site.
• Check for contact information on the designer’s portfolio sites. Contact the small business owner, or whoever worked directly with the designer, and ask them how the experience went. Satisfied clients will be more than happy to give a recommendation. If someone is hesitant to offer a reference, it may be a bad sign.
• Ask them if they have a LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn profiles are great because you can quickly see how many, or how few, recommendations they have.

Finding the right web designer for your business’s website requires time and patience. You may have to interview several designers before you find the right one. However, your business’s website is the linchpin of your online marketing strategy; it’s worth investing your time to insure that you’re putting it in good hands.

Chris Darling and Methodic Pages…I work with owners of service based businesses who struggle with getting search engine optimized websites to represent their business online and want to benefit from standing out from their local competition.   I bring you a rare talent that integrates overall site layout, presentation, and on-page SEO with every project.   In working with me, my clients receive an interactive, highly optimized website that lays the perfect foundation for any online marketing strategy you decide to put into action.   If any of this speaks to you or your online business goals contact Chris Darling to get a free project based quote.

WordPress is not just for bloggers. Most people think of WordPress as a tool for building blogs, which it is excellent for, but WordPress also offers features and options that make it an ideal way to build any type of website.

1. Picking WordPress themes is easy. You can literally change your website’s entire design with the click of a button.
2. Even novices can pick up WordPress’s visual editing system. You do not need a thorough understanding of HTML with WordPress. Some knowledge of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a plus, but many WordPress users do well without it.
3. All-In-One SEO Pack and Google XML Sitemaps plug-ins help boot your website’s SEO, but even without them, you can change WordPress’s built-in permalink naming option to a search engine friendly format.
4. There are plugs-in for creating a photo blog, a real estate site, and online invoicing system and many more. WordPress.org offers thousands of plug-ins to increase your website’s functionality, security and more.
5. You can integrate your WordPress site with Facebook, Twitter, and other social media profiles to automatically send site updates to all your accounts.
6. You can have a website and a blog and manage both the same way. WordPress offers both static pages and updatable blog pages. You can even do a dual-install of WordPress to have completely different designs for both.
7. People love visiting WordPress sites. The ability to leave comments naturally draws visitors looking to build links.
8. WordPress and its available plug-ins are constantly evolving. WordPress will keep pace with you as your website grows and even offer options you may not have thought of.
9. Plug-ins like WordPress Firewall alleviate any worry you may have about hackers attacking your website.
10. Website back ups are less complicated with WordPress. Most hosting companies allow you to go online and back up WordPress’s database file. If you want an even better back up, there are plug-ins for that too.

Over the years, WordPress has become a powerful website design and content management tool. A growing number of site owners choose to build their websites with WordPress because of its simplicity, flexibility and supreme online marketing value. Before you start banging your head against the wall trying to learn Adobe Dreamweaver, try WordPress.

Chris Darling and Methodic Pages…

I work with skilled and professional service based businesses who struggle with getting search engine optimized websites to represent their business online and want to benefit from standing out from their local competition.

I bring a rare talent that integrates overall site layout, presentation, and on-page SEO with every project.

In working with me, my clients receive an interactive, highly optimized website that lays the perfect foundation for any online marketing strategy you decide to put into action.

If any of this speaks to you or your online business goals contact Chris Darling to get a free project based quote.

Create the Best Landing Page for Your Business

Think of your landing page as your website’s “Call to Action.” A good landing page shows your visitors what you are offering and why it matters to them. It doesn’t matter if your goal is to gain a repeat customer, add a new follower, or make a sale. The landing page is your website’s chance to make a valuable first impression.  Landing pages are often the result of a successful ad campaign and it is important that you deliver on the promise of your ad.

Keep It Simple

A good landing page should have concise, direct copy that quickly gives visitors the information they are looking for. Keep the 30 second rule in mind. If your site visitors can’t scan your page in less than 30 seconds and find what they came to see, then your landing page it too dense and overworked.

Forms Are Your Friends

There is nothing wrong with collecting a little information in exchange for a give-away. However, do it discreetly. A name, email address and a brief summary of the user’s interest is all you need to follow up with a tactful email. Do not expect visitors to fill out a lengthy form that requires disclosing a lot of extraneous personal data such as cell phone number, address, etc. Keep it simple. The Army would say, “Name, rank and serial number.” On the Internet, “Name, goals and e-mail address” is equally sufficient.

Consistency is Key

Any ad-based landing page should have some similarity to the original ad. If you use a dark background tone with light colored text for your ad, then your page should have a similar look. Certain ad venues, such as Facebook, offer limited options for creating your ad. However, you can still create consistency by ensuring that the same image in your Facebook ad is displayed prominently on your landing page.

Feed the Search Engines

Your landing page should be keyword rich without being obnoxious. Give search engines such as Google, Bing, etc. something to hone in on without sacrificing the quality of your text. Good landing pages often contain discreetly placed keywords that are not obvious to the reader, but readily apparent to search engines.

These four tips will help make your landing page more successful and boost your chances of making a successful connection with your visitors. When in doubt, whittle your landing page to the bare bones and then look at what else can be stripped away. Less is still always more. Keep your landing page simple, direct and to the point.

Chris Darling and Methodic Pages…

I work with skilled and professional service based businesses who struggle with getting search engine optimized websites to represent their business online and want to benefit from standing out from their local competition.

I bring you a rare talent that integrates overall site layout, presentation, and on-page SEO with every project.

In working with me, my clients receive an interactive, highly optimized website that lays the perfect foundation for any online marketing strategy you decide to put into action.

If any of this speaks to  you or your online business goals contact Chris Darling to get a free project based quote.

If you find this information helpful share it with others! 

If you would like to contribute, leave a comment below.

So you are in need of a website or even a make-over of your current dull, static site.  Here are 3 things to consider when evaluating WordPress for your new website solution.

1. Do you want a blog, a website, or both?

WordPress use to be reserved for blogging.  But now, it is commonly used for complete websites.  Some site owners will use it strictly for their site with no intentions to ever blog.  Fortunately, you can blog or just use it as a static site or use it for both.  It is very common now to use WordPress on the same domain for both purposes.

2.  Do you want to always have to wait for your busy webmaster to make changes?

Making changes within your WordPress site is a lot easier than relying on a busy webmaster using a proprietary CMS or web design solution.  With a little training, you can learn to make changes yourself. But if that is not something you desire to ever do, you should be able to find other people well versed in using WordPress to help you out.

The content management system is the very thing making WordPress more popular for use as the main building blocks of many websites.  Content management systems keep the content separate from the main layout and design.  You can change the entire look of your WordPress site on the fly.  If you use certain supporting themes, your users can even change the look they wish to have when visiting your site.

3.   What if you want special functions or features?

Plugins are things that add extra functionality to your WordPress site.  They allow you to add calendars, social media widgets, spam filters, security features, or contact forms.  To date there are over 11,000 official plugins available.

Plugins are what really makes your WordPress site work exactly the way you want it to.  The best part is that most are free.  You just need to find someone that can install and configure them so you can keep moving along with publishing.

If you want a website with a blog that makes updates and edits easy than WordPress may be the way to go.  If you want special functions and features you are likely to find exactly what you need within the growing database of plugins written for WordPress.

Chris Darling and Methodic Pages…

I work with skilled and professional service based businesses who struggle with getting search engine optimized websites to represent their business online and want to benefit from standing out from their local competition.

I am different from other custom built website providers because I bring a rare talent that integrates overall site layout, presentation, and on-page SEO with every project.

In working with me, my clients receive an interactive, highly optimized website that lays the perfect foundation for any online marketing strategy you decide to put into action.

If any of this speaks to you or your online business goals contact Chris Darling to get a free project based quote.

If you find this information helpful share it with others! 

If you would like to contribute, leave a comment below.

Should You Hire a Professional Website Creator?

A lot of online business owners start on a shoe-string budget.  They try to be a “Jack of all Trades” and do everything themselves.  After awhile they find that it is best to focus on what they are good at.  As a bit of success starts to develop the new Internet business owner wants to expand.  Now, the home made website has some major problems.

Does this sound  familiar?   Chances are, you’re someone who started everything with no money too, so you’re pretty skeptical when it comes to giving away your money in exchange for something that you could have done yourself.   But, if you want to excel at the very thing you are good at which is the product or service you are offering, it might be best to outsource your web design project.

It is a bit similar to hiring an accountant to do your taxes or even a handy man to build an addition on your house.

Professional web designers, coders, and builders will take care of all the little details and make your online business run much more smoothly.  What you get from a professional website developer compared to what you would see from an online “site builder” or even a replicated website are extremely different.  Most site builders just don’t meet your need for flexibility.  Replicated sites are just that, a repeat of something that is already out there.  A site from a professional developer will give you something unique, flexible, and effective.

You have decided you need a website for either a personal web page or a small business.  But, where do you begin?  Would you prefer to “Do it Yourself” or hire a professional?  Do you want a complete content management system or a static, unchanging website?  My specialty is working with WordPress to design powerful websites using a content management system or even to create a basic static website.

If you were to come to me and ask for a 5 page static HTML website and were not interested in having me configure an advanced content management system complete with website promotion than I would most likely point you in the direction of another company that specializes in churning out template based websites fast and cheap. If you want something more, something that will grow with your business needs than keep reading.

I prefer using WordPress because it is flexible and expandable.  If you wanted to start with a basic static website for now and wait until you were ready to add other dynamic content such as customer relations management tools, ecommerce, or even membership functionality than WordPress is an excellent platform to build upon.

If you have the time, patience, and desire to create your own website than I encourage you to learn more about how to use WordPress for you Content Management System.  The blogging aspects can be used to boost website performance because active blogging content attracts traffic.  If you are not much for writing that is fine because you can still take advantage how WordPress helps to create a website highly optimized for search engines.

There are an endless amount of widgets and plug-ins available to give your website additional functions.  There are enough free options available for themes and extensions to help you get started with your website.  As your online business grows you can customize themes yourself or purchase one of many premium themes and plug-ins available for sale. But, if your business is keeping you extremely busy you might wish to outsource your website management to a professional such as myself.