An online presence is as essential as a business card nowadays. That card often seems naked if it doesn’t bare your URL. The overall majority of registered businesses that have an email address own a domain for their company. That doesn’t mean they have a website. It just means that at some point, probably a few years back, they told themselves they’d get around to it. If they ever had a spare weekend, or ran into that cousin that keeps talking about webs and dots and coms, they’d get around to it.
Many businesses that have been in the game since the early 90’s, were presented with all these new terms, and technophiles preached the coming of a new age, a digital age. So after a bit of hesitation, a few years or so, they decided to have a website made. And boy, did they ever think it looked great. It was shiny and buttony, and had text and colors everywhere.
That website sat. It held its ground, opened its doors, and screamed “come on in!� in a metallic type treatment with a drop shadow in every direction. The days, weeks, months, and years passed. It still sat. They still waited. “Where are the millions of hits? The streaming river of income? We have a website, know where’s the money?� That might sound like something you’ll be telling your children. But I can quote that text, not quite verbatim, but to previous clients of mine from the mid to late 90’s.
The sad thing is that many of these websites still exist. They occupy millions of domains for small businesses where someone hasn’t had the time to put a new site together, or doesn’t think their industry needs a “fresh� website.
The times have changed (at least for those that employ someone under 30). Most new businesses now have a better understanding of the significance of a website to represent them. For every second before nine in the morning, and after five in the evening, that website is you, including the seconds in between. It’s your sales person, your follow-up, your leave behind, your secretary, your portfolio, your personality.
If you converted that representative, that website, into a person what would he or she look like and how would they present themselves? They’re most likely quite ugly, somebody you wouldn’t want to be around too long because they keep SCREAMING SALES MESSAGES AT YOU, there’s no order to what they’re saying, and you’ve heard their schpeal before.
If you picture your website as a person, is it someone you’d enjoy talking to? If you said yes, ask that same question to a stranger. If they say yes, chances are you have a good site. If they say no, it might be time for some remodeling.
Whether you’re creating the first site for your company or are remodeling it to help it step as far away from its Y2K compliant wardrobe, there are two main options from which you should choose:
1) You can create a standard website, whether that be static or Flash.
2) You can create a blog, like the ones you read each day.
That’s a pretty tough choice. It’s almost like choosing between two friends. Whomever you pick, the other will be offended.
That’s why I suggest you don’t choose between the two. I recommend you have both, a website and a blog integrated into one interactive experience.
The major difference between a normal website and a blog is: the website’s created and sits, whereas a blog is usually updated on a frequent basis. By using both, with seamless visual consistency and the same tone, you’ll be able t
o provide standard information that a person might look for about your company, as well as a reason to return to your site.
Most websites are a “if you’ve seen it once, you’ve seen it all� type of show. You can only read the employee profiles and company mantra a couple times before you start to realize you have too much time on your hands.
A blog and website are much like business partners whose skills compliment one another. The website on its own ends the chain of communication with clients once they look at it. A blog can provide some interesting articles but doesn’t share much about your company. Hand in hand, they provide your clients with the information they need, as well as complimentary content via the blog, and many other ways to stay in touch with you (blog comments, rss feed, email subscription, etc…)
The cost to create such a site can vary from free if you do it yourself, to several thousands of dollars if an experienced professional does it. The latter’s well worth it, if you have some money to work with and are willing to appreciate the power of design and communication.
The time needed to maintain a site/blog combo is obviously more, but once a blog application such as WordPress is integrated into your site, posting a new entry every few days or once every other week will be very quick, painless, and worth it in due time.
I’ll share one site with you that I think understands the power of a site/blog combo and is a visual beauty. Third & Grand is a website development and marketing agency that I noticed a few weeks ago, after seeing them featured on a few design gallery sites. Their site and story telling abilities are equally impressive and carry across a very unique attitude.
Their website is complimented with a blog which you can see here. Its style is consistent with their main site and doesn’t stray away with a free blog domain (whatever.blogger.com). Not only do they write insightful content in their blog but they also offer another “free prize inside�; an e-book called “The Free Hello Website E-Book�. This free offer is a fantastic addition to their site and blog to seal the deal, and has no doubt, landed them much more business than they’d have had they stuck with the first site they had back in 1999, and hoped people would find it.
One of the major benefits they have, as you can too, is search engine optimization (SEO). By frequently posting in the blog section of your site, not only are you providing current and potential customers with a reason to return, you’re also indexing your site many times over in search engines, and create the potential to be linked to from other sites/blogs. This’ll positively affect your ranking if a person were to search for the product or service you offer, or your company name.
I recommend you check out Third & Grand’s website, as well as create an action plan for either getting your company online or remodeling your current site to fit in with the web hipsters.
If you’d like some feedback and direction for your website, I welcome you to post about it in our forum, or you can send an email with a link and description to my private address, travis@younggogetter.com. I’d be glad to help you set sail towards a new site and blog.
RSS
Discussion