Well, here are just 10 reasons why every business NEEDS a website…

1. Your competitors probably have their own sites.
This means when people are looking for a site, they see your competitors business and not yours, which means you’re missing out on potential customers!

2. Its the first impression of your business. A quality and professionally designed website will add credibility to your business. A poorly designed website can have the opposite effect. A lot of times, the visuals of a website alone will make the sale for you. Ff someone sees that you have a great design, that is well-laid out, clear, concise, and visually appealing, they will take you more serious than someone who’s site is the opposite.

3. Customers EXPECT businesses to have a website.
Most people use their cell phones for everything. Most of us put a number into out phone and never know the number. If its not in our phone it won’t be remembered or called. (I don’t remember my house number from memory at this point) A domain name is easier to remember than a phone number for most people.

4. Your website is always open!
Your website is your constant salesperson. he never takes, breaks, holidays, calls in sick, needs to go to the Doctor, and once its set up and designed, he only wants $10 a month to brag about your business. You can’t beat those labor rates. A website is accessible to current and, importantly, future customers, 24hrs a day 365 days a year.

5. Its a convenient way to contact you.
Once a customer has found your website they can choose the best way of contacting you. Phone, Fax or Email.

6. You can cut down or repetitive phone calls.
You can answer commonly asked questions on your website thereby providing a more satisfying customer experience.

7.  Your website is your brag board.
You can use your website to display customer testimonials, reinforcing customers confidence in your products/services.

8. You can connect with current and potential customers to grab their attention.
You can use your website to tell existing and potential customers about special offers, events, locations, and more

9. No More yellow Pages.
No one uses the yellow pages anymore. A lot of markets have even stopped producing them all together as advertisement in them has gotten so low. Your missing a lot of potential business if your not in front of customers looking for you on search engines.

10. Inexpensive and Almost Risk Free
All the above benefits to having a website for your small business are great. When people first began to adopt the internet these benefits would have been very costly and out of reach of the average small business owner. However, while every other advertising medium has increased in price over the past decade, website development and hosting has decreased significantly. So for a few hundred a year or more, your buck.

There is virtually no risk involved, there is always a 99.9% chance that you get a return on the investment of having the site built. You save on the costly yellow pages ads, and Internet marketing is way cheaper per month than print ads.

There are many, many more reasons why your business needs a website. Get your business online today!

Nobody wants to see your intro! Sure you think it’s cool, and you got to the ooohhh’s and aaahhh’s from all your friends, or relatives, that will sit there and watch because they love you and care about the details of everything on your site, but hey I’m a customer and I don’t care. What I care about is finding the information or service that I want without being slowed down by waiting for something to load, or that is loud, or that is obnoxious, or that plays music and I’m at work so now its blasting as I scramble to turn down the music or click off your site and find a quieter business that I can sneak and call from my desk before my manager catches me.

Look at it this way, what if you were on your way to the local Wal-Mart. You want socks. You need the socks; you’re out and are meeting your bowling league. You forgot socks and don’t want the risk of germs in rented shoes. So you pull into Wal-Mart, but there’s a guy there outside the door. And he says, I sell plenty of socks, but you have to stand here and listen to me sing and dance before you can go inside and buy the socks that you know that I sell inside. You know what I’d do… go to Target.

This is how your potential customers feel. The average attention span of a human being is about 8 seconds. Do u want them to waste those precious seconds after they click on your site, waiting for it to load, or watching something they might not be interested in seeing. This is another example of knowing that your website does not belong to you. It is there to please your customers and to gain their business.

Another reason to not have flash is contrary to what you’ve heard: Flash and SEO DO NOT play well together. It’s just one of those things where the engines can’t read what is going on that well. It reads the actual text on the pages. So, all of the time, money and hard work you put into making your intro look spectacular will be a waste is no one can find your site on “The Google”.  Do you really only want to be seen by people that you gave your card to?  Yes, there are some cool intro’s but in this day and age, the majority of people have seen it all and furthermore, don’t care.

Here are 5 of the top reasons not to use a flash intro:

• Nobody Cares- Flash Made for Flash’s Sake – It seems like the only people really interested in a Flash intro is the one who made it and the one who bought it. Everyone else just wants to press the “skip intro” button. With Google analytics, you can see how long a person is actually on the page and trust me, I’ve broken plenty of hearts explaining to clients that people aren’t on the page long enough to watch that fabulous intro they insisted on.
• Search Engines Hate It – Can you read a movie? Well other than some French subtitle thingy. Which gets limited viewing, which in itself proves point 1. The search engine robots read your website. They want to see words, text, locations, and real data. Not a movie it can’t see.
• It’s Slow! – It’s not slow on your computer because you have high-speed Internet and your browser is caching a site that you’ve probably looked at a million times. But for someone who has slower speed, or if your webhost is slower, its murder and they won’t wait for you.
• Link Juice Still Suffers – Links help your website with search engines. Things like www.mysite.com/atlanta-air-conditioning get a lot of weight with search engines. If you don’t have links because you have the intro and the skip button embedded in the page, you’re wasting precious SEO points. Go ahead, and do a search for “Skip Intro”. You’ll see 1000′s of sites with just skip intro that search engines never knew what their site was about because the only thing they saw was “Skip Intro”
• Flash by Third Parties - It is usually made by third parties who created it so the intro can’t be easily changed. You will have to rehire and rehire and rehire the same company every time you want to change your Flash. Meaning, your content management system won’t work. You have to call, and pay your web designer every time you need a change. We love the business, but it’s great to help you save.

Don’t get me wrong, flash will always have a certain purpose for sites and can be very valuable for the WOW factor. Just remember how your money might be able to go towards better purposes first.

There are so many valid reasons why owning and operating a website is important. Reaching your target market in your own area is one thing, but having a website allows you to reach your target market world wide. Many more individuals and companies are becoming computer and internet savvy, this means to stay atop of the competition, you need to have a website that is not only informative but functional and professional. If marketed properly you should have sales or contacts via your website that are valid and valuable.

Every business needs to have an advertising campaign, and including your current website in that is vital to success on the internet. It’s not good enough to just have a website; you need to invest time and money into your online business. Between pay per click advertising and the search engine marketing, it is more important than ever to keep the online public aware of the services and goods you provide. Whether you decide to hire out these tasks to a web design or marketing company or do the job yourself, it is the most important factor to getting your website awareness out there to the public.

If you own a business and it is not online, this is really a huge factor that needs to be considered. Not only will owning a website help your current clients, with items such as your office hours, prices or services available, it will allow your online audience to see what great products and services you offer, and possibly inspire them into action!

Put some heart into it

Most entrepreneurs have that essential vivacious approach to starting up a business and the truly successful ones will maintain that level of excitement to help cultivate a healthy and steady growth. A web site can help establish your business as a serious contender or just another hole in the wall. Which one are you? Some businesses place more emphasis on what they’re going to have for lunch rather than the image they portray to their clients. Your excitement about your business shows in everything you do.

When getting a web site for your company be certain you place your trust and hard earned dollars with a design firm that is passionate about their work and has a proven record of accomplishment, understand why one charges $99 and another $3000. You will have a much better project if the designer has foresight and desire to see their work succeed and not just become another bank deposit.

If you surf online and scope out the millions of companies, it is amazing to see how many tired looking sites you’ll come across. I can’t imagine a company that sells from a brick and mortar store, allowing the front of their building to become decrepit with their sign barely hanging on by a couple of bolts. Not a good way of attracting customers off the street and into your establishment.

The heart of your business

Do what you do best. Sell the products and services that define you and earn the capital. Promote your business in the best way possible, keeping honesty and integrity at the forefront. Do not sell yourself short. Invest into your growth and future developments.

There are countless articles on Search Engine Optimization and how to make money quickly. Have we forgotten the core of doing business and how the market is stimulated? There are plenty of ways to promote your business online and expand your demographic just be sure to focus on the important facets that make a company great. Provide and honest service and quality product. More than just attracting customers to your web site you want to retain long lasting relationships which will only draw more clients as time goes on.

Search Engine Friendly

No doubt search engine optimization is an extremely important aspect for the success of your business but can’t stress enough that the importance of having a solid image must tie in. What many articles fail to point out is that SEO isn’t the only thing to achieving online success. The focus tends to be on one aspect and never the whole picture. Business like everything involving human interaction revolves around the senses.

Okay so your site gets to the top of the search results and gets a click thru. Upon arriving to your site, which lacks any sense of presentation is quickly scanned, forgotten and on to the next site they go. The attention span of surfer’s is on the decline. Yes you must have relevant content but it better be presented in the best possible way so when your competitors are visited by the same potential customer you stand out. It’s all about standing out and making your presence known. When you first write your business plan (you do have a goal right?), one of the main things is to define your sole purpose and what the business hopes to achieve and how you stand out from everyone else.

Building that niche

It is ideal to focus your efforts and find that little pocket where you can shine and grow. This is very helpful when creating your online image. Custom designed graphics, tailored to your business will help secure your position within your chosen niche market. A beautiful looking web site will not help your ranking but it will help secure client interest and entice sales. Many SEO specialists overlook the importance of branding, which is number one in order for a company to separate themselves from the pack. Don’t allow customers the chance to forget your name. Be remembered and maintain your presence.

The questions I’m talking about come from site owners who want to know how to make themselves look good online. These site owners want to write copy that is all about *their* company. They want to have a flash home page because *they* like it. They want to use *their* favorite colors in the design. (Some of you might be thinking, “So?”)

The problem is, it isn’t *their* site! Let me explain…

Think about it a minute. Why do you believe most department stores now willingly offer refunds? Years ago they didn’t. In fact, it was a well-known fact that, if you bought it, you owned it for life. Yet, in just the last 15 years or so, that way of thinking has been completely reversed. The reason? Customer demand.

Retailers recognized a customer need, and they filled it. They understood that customers were the ones who made the purchases and, therefore, the ones who kept their retail stores in business. The smart thing to do? Reverse the refund policy and keep customers happy.

Was it the store’s idea to offer refunds? No. If it were up to the stores, no money would ever be returned. After all, it’s *their* store, isn’t it? They can do what they want. Yeah, right! Not if they want to stay in business.

The same principle applies to your website. Sure, *you* may want to use certain colors on your site, but what would your customer prefer? Your favorite thing in the online world may be flash intros, but your customers might despise them. You may not like the idea of offering a guarantee, but what about your customers? Whose site is it, anyway? Yours? No, not really.

Before you get too entangled in making your site everything you want it to be, consider your customers’ wants and needs.

ACTION STEP 1
Make Your Copy Customer Focused – Go back to your site and read your copy. Does it say anything similar to this? “Welcome to my website. My company does this, that, and the other thing. I am the best company of my type on the Internet. My site has been online since 1999. Buy from me.” If so, you have some work to do.

Focus on your customers. What are their needs/wants? Rather than copy that says, “Me, me, we, us, I, I, I,” you want copy that acknowledges visitors, makes a connection with them, defines their needs, and offers solutions to their problems.

ACTION STEP 2
Turn Your Site Into An Invitation, Not An Eviction – Do you have a flash home page? If you check your stats, I’ll bet you’ll find more people who skip the flash intro of your site than people who actually view it.

Flash is extremely popular with Web designers, but it is extremely unnerving to site visitors. Don’t force flash on your customers.

ACTION STEP 3
Check Your Navigation – Can your visitors find their way around your site easily? How would you know? The best way to find out for sure is to ask a few people who have never seen your site before to surf on over and take a look around. Ask them to spend 10 or 15 minutes browsing. Then ask them to tell you about their experiences.

Paying due attention to your customers and their needs is one of the best things you can do to improve your online business. Put yourself in your customers’ place. When you turn your site into a welcoming environment specifically designed for your visitors, they can’t help but want to return again and again.

Please don’t think this is a request. This is a demand from the Ritalin-popping-immediate gratification-generation surfing the net (aka 95% of your potential customers).

I want to give you my money…
I want your products…
I want to trust you…
but, I’m afraid that is impossible now that I have seen your website.

Flashing sunshine and rainbows are pretty. As a matter of fact some of my most pleasant childhood memories involve sunshine and rainbows. Also, multi-colored colored text exclaiming “Welcome to my HoMe PaGe on the world-wide internetz!” makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.

Will you be my friend?
No, scratch that, I just threw up in my mouth a little bit, but somehow I’ll get through this. “GULP”

I have put the sunshine and rainbows behind me and just as I am about to send my payment to you at “LetsGetItOn6969@example.com”, I think… Can I trust someone who uses an email address like that for their business transactions? Sure, my email address may be “EatinBaconNaked@whatever” but I am the customer, I can do that. Please for the love of all that is holy, just get an email address appropriate for business that is separate from your personal email.

And those animated icons that you send in your email, you know, the ones that make Outlook crash like it’s coming down off a Pop-tart induced sugar high? Yeah those, keep em’ coming.

Oh, and since I am your customer now, you have my permission to include me on your CC list of “friends” because I want to be in your life. OMG PONIES!!! ARE SOOOOOOOOO CUTE!!! ROFL.

While I’m on the subject, please learn the English language. I can’t seem to find a “Childish – to – English” translator on the web. So, for the remainder of our business transaction I am going to have to ask you to speak and write a language with actual words. Sure, I “LOL” all the time but really, when is the last time you seen anyone “ROFL” or “ROFLMAO”. Certainly, I would never “LMAO” when talking to one of my customers, but maybe I am just getting old…
BRB, I have to TMGARTF (Take my Geritol and read the funnies).

By the way, I enjoyed listening to the midi background music while I was browsing your website. Nothing gives me more confidence in you as a respectable business than an endlessly looping midi version of Metallica’s Enter Sandman.

FYI: Midis were cool for about three days in early 1994, and you missed the boat.

You should also know, some of the pages on your website won’t load in my browser. Is it possible that those pages don’t exist? Wait, what does that little sign say… “Please Excuse The Mess, This Website is Under Construction”. Don’t worry, I won’t mind the mess while your website is eternally under construction, I live in Michigan, I’m used to construction. I am also used to reading “Comic Sans” font in 48 pt type on an endlessly repeating 220 KB JPG background of clouds. That’s just what we do for fun here in Michigan in the two weeks every year when there are no beer tents to be found. We throw a little “Dom Casual” on some animated shooting stars when we want to mix it up a bit.

I remember how proud I was in explaining to girls how Netscape 3 was the first to support frames and how it was clearly superior to Internet Explorer. I died a little bit on the inside today when I somehow managed to find your website …and yes I was a lonely nerd, shut up.
Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeez…

FYI: Frames are generally considered a bad idea for more than a few reasons.
Accessibility – Frames are a nightmare for screen readers used by the visually impaired; however I suspect in the case of your website, they are the fortunate ones.
Search Engine Indexing – Search engines will want to index your pages that actually have text content, however, because of the frameset, your content pages probably don’t have any navigation links, thereby leading unlucky visitors in to sub-pages with no navigation.

Ah, but I forgot… you’re the “professional”. Let’s just make a flash intro page with a huge animation with little or no relevancy to your industry and a big link that says “CLICK HERE TO ENTER”. I guess that just fixes everything now doesn’t it? Better yet, why don’t you skip the enter link so we have to sit through your entire flash intro, that’s how to really impress your customers. Now, tell me, why doesn’t your website show up in the search engines? Must be some kind of conspiracy, yeah…

Is something following my cursor or is it my inner ninja just anticipating it’s every move? Scary.
I know there is a ninja/pirate joke in there somewhere but I’m too distracted by all the pretty colors.

Yes! I would like to set your website as my home page, thanks for reminding me! And, I would “Send this page to a Friend”, but all my friends are IRL (in real life).

Now, what was it you were selling?
Oh, I see, you’re a web developer. Well, isn’t everyone?

No, it’s all right, I’m not crying. I’m just allergic to Geocities.

Psychology behind the colors that can make or break your website’s success.

I always get this question when designing or redesigning a website: “What colors should I use?”.  Did you know that the values associated with colors can have a significant impact on your website’s success? And did you know that you can change your visitor’s feeling, mood and reaction by using different colors on your website?

Some professional web designers do not realize the impact that a single color can have on their project when designing a website for their clients. In reality, the meaning of colors will send the first message of your website to your visitors. You don’t have to be a genius to find out why since it is obvious that the first thing they (visitors) see is the color of your site!

I have studied one hundred visitors to evaluate their patience for uploading a web page. First, I tried a plain black background page and the average waiting time was up to 2.47 seconds. Then I tried a plain white background page and the average wait time for uploading the web page increased to 4.89 Seconds.

The reason is just fear. People are afraid from black and darkness and they feel vulnerable when they see a plain black page. I won’t go in detail about this subject in this article but if you would like to know more you can always  contact us and get more information about color psychology.

What color should you use when designing your website?

Before answering this question you should do some research about your target audiences and find out about their character, behavior, mood, emotion … etc. I’m not asking you to go and find each individual and interview them to find out their feelings and emotions. All you need to do is find the answer of these two questions:

1. What is the market segmentation that you are targeting?
a. Age

b. Gender

c. Culture

d. Geographic location

2. Why are they coming to your website?

Let’s take a closer look at these two questions.

A. Market Segmentation:

a. Age: What is the most appropriate color for the age group that your website is targeting.

b. Gender: Men and Women have different taste and they react differently to colors. For example, the color pink is more appealing to women.
c. Culture: Colors mean different things to different cultures around the world. People associate colors to special events in their culture. For example, white is the symbol of purity and virtue in some cultures while in others white is associated with mourning and grief.

d. Geographic Location: Sometimes geographic location can change people’s interpretation of certain colors. For example, people that are living in a desert area tend to be more passionate toward bright colors from yellow to orange vs. people that are living in the mountains.

B. Why are they coming to your website?

a. That is a very important question which determines the mood and feeling of your visitors. For example, people go to a lawyer’s or a doctor’s website because they have a problem and they want to be FIXED. This means they are not really excited or happy about that issue. Although, this may not be the case all the time there are some exceptions such as plastic surgeons, patent attorneys… etc.

As a designer, once you know your target markets then you can decide what color to choose to get the best possible outcome for your site. Sometimes you may end up changing some colors that you thought would be interesting to your visitors.

Remember, no matter how much you know and how hard you try, there is no guarantee that you can make it the first time. That is why it is important to monitor the results of your website and know how visitors are interacting with your site so you can change your mistakes and learn from it.

If you are looking for Atlanta Web Design, logo design, or any web design or redesign services, Call Kinedo today!

Kinedo Creative Studio is committed, year after year, to be innovative, better, and smarter as it continues to help clients enhance their online presence and appeal. Kinedo’s staff of developers, designers, and project managers helps clients through the process of putting together a quality brand, website, program, and marketing campaign. Nikki Brown, President and CEO, says “our philosophy is to build a website from the point of the user and to craft their experience to be as easy and pleasant as possible. The purpose of our client’s website is to gain new business and interact with new and existing clients. We want to build their online presence and help present their business as a brand. ” Kinedo’s well trained staff is willing to take the time to listen to what customers have to say and make meaningful recommendations on how to attain organizational goals. The vision of Kinedo is to give their clients more options than anyone out there, and to help make clients make the best website possible for themselves. “

Kinedo Creative Studio is capable of working with clients in a variety of ways. From the flexibility of  communicating with clients in different time zones, to finding ways to work within our clients budgets in having an outstanding presence.  Managers and developers can work via phone, email, mobile meeting, screen share, video conference, and in person meetings. “We introduce customers to all of our services, show them all of their options, take a tour of their competitors, and ask many web related questions we know need to be answered before any project start. We then, upon completion of this brief Q and A, deliver a detailed plan with options, future adds on possibilities, and a comprehensive maintenance and review plan” says Nikki. Kinedo makes the process of project collaboration quick and easy through a tested system and good communication.

Atlanta Web Design firm, Kinedo Creative Studio is ready to bring your business to the next level in e-commerce, web design, logo design, and graphic design. If you are interested in becoming a client or have questions about e-commerce, web design, logo design, and graphic design, marketing, or search engine optimization (SEO), please call Kinedo Creative Studio at (404) 492-8268 or send an email to info@kinedoinc.com. The Kinedo Creative Studio team is ready to show you how your web site will beat the competition.