Naperville Web Design

Are you a mortgage broker, lawyer, financial advisor or a plumber? Did you know a service business can significantly increase leads and customer loyalty by an effective website? Does your service business website generate leads and bring customers? If not, I’ll explain what went wrong.

1. Your website does not look professional

Your homepage is the first impression of your business that you give to your potential customers online. One main reason people visit a service business website, is to see if the company is trustworthy. According to a 2006 web user survey, 60% of people don’t trust businesses with poorly designed websites. If you give wrong the impression to your potential customers, they will leave and visit your competitor’s website. A professional look and feel gives your potential customers assurance of your credibility. Once a visitor opens your site, your business is judged for better or worse. What impression does your website give?

2. Your website contents are out of date

When did you last modify your website content? Is your website still advertising last year’s events? How efficiently does your homepage flow into your detailed service pages? How effectively do you introduce your services on your web pages?

When your potential clients visit your website, they are expecting to find answers for their questions. If you give them outdated information or fail to express your service details effectively, you can’t expect leads from them. You may also give a poor impression of your business.

3. You didn’t market your website

Unlike your actual business building, your website may not be visible to your customers. You may have heard about search engine marketing and website optimization. If you are not a computer geek or don’t have time to learn about HTML, try to focus on off-line marketing. Try to put your website address on every possible marketing collateral, such as your business cards and direct mail.

4. Your website doesn’t encourage visitors to take action

Action could be a call for free consultation, signing up for a newsletter or sending an e-mail to request a quote. If you have a great looking website with useful content for website visitors, you should try to convert them into customers. Try to put action items on every page with some urgency. People usually don’t react when there is no urgency.

5. You never measure the effectiveness

Do you know how many leads are generated through your website? And how many leads turn into real customers? If you know how effective your website is, you can enhance your website to improve in the future.

Impress your visitors with a positive and professional business image. Even if they don t become your customers right away, impressed visitors can soon become your customers.

So you have a web site–Does it sell? Do you want to increase the conversation rate and sales on your web?

Then you definitely want to check this out: To add a real talking character on your web site and let him speaks for you!  It is the REAL PERSON that you are trying to attract so putting a real person on your web does make people feel refreshing and treated!

Check out our latest web site feature: Live web spokesperson that could let your web talk and sell product for you! Check us out if you would like your web site stands out and significantly increase your sales!

Having a real person walk onto your website is a new and powerful way to motivate your customers to take action. Using an Online Virtual Spokesperson on your website allows you to: introduce your home page, spice up your FAQ, guide traffic, drive call to action on lead forms, and create landing pages and tutorials. Tailor your message any way you want.

This type of online video advertising is also known as a Spokesperson Video, Virtual Spokesperson, Web Commercials, Video Salesperson, Internet Spokesperson and Web Spokesperson  just to name a few that will bring your website to life! Now you can have your own Spokesperson just like TV that represents your company’s website, products and services by capturing your visitor’s attention, delivering professional dialogue and turning them into paying customers. Imagine having a company website spokesperson 24/7 that Greets, Informs and Sell your products/services to visitors right from the website.

Get More Visitors!

Now that you have a great new web design for your company, you want to make sure people are actually visiting it. There are many ways to attract people to your website besides waiting on your search engine optimization efforts to bring you to the top of Google. Depending on your business, some methods of bringing more visitors to your website might be better than others. Here are a few ways we recommend driving more traffic to your website.

Social Media

The verdict is out: you need to be involved in the social media community! Remember, your goal with social media should be to get people to visit your actual website. By getting involved in the conversation on sites like Twitter and Facebook, you can discuss relevant information with people and start to develop groups that all share the same interest. Getting involved may take some time, but social media will only help your business as much as you let it. Facebook also has advertising functions that might allow your company the right exposure. It all depends on the market you are trying to attract and how many of them are using Facebook.

Blog

By having a blog for your company and updating it frequently, your website will have new, fresh content that the search engines like to see. Maybe more importantly though, you are sharing valuable information with people out there that you want to visit your website. You should also find other people’s blogs that have relevant information for your company. By following them, you will learn more useful tips and stay on top of the latest trends. It is a good idea to post comments on other blogs too, because that will get you involved in the conversation and help you grow valuable relationships. Some blogs even allow you to leave a link going back to your main website. Make sure your comments are of value though, because writing “Great post!” will not make people want to click on the link you provided for your website.

Google Adwords

Google is a powerful way to attract people to your website, even if your SEO doesn’t have you at the top of the keyword search results. By setting up Adwords for your company, you have the freedom to list your online advertisements how you want to. Your ad will appear at the top or the side of the search results page, in the area that says “Sponsored Links”. Adwords allows you to customize the ad, pay as much as you want to each month and make your advertisements appear for the keywords that you want. By using these targeted keywords, you can run very cost effective advertising online.

Other ways to get involved in online conversations and develop groups of people to communicate with include online article submitting sites like ezine.com, press releases and forums. There are a lot of people blogging and communicating on forums online. Start out by finding a few that are worth following and try adding a couple each week. By staying in contact with more and more people, you can watch the number of visitors to your site grow.

Lancome on Facebook

Unlike groups, Facebook fan pages are visible to unregistered people and are thus indexed (important for reputaion management, for example). They are great ways to promote yourself to the general public.

Facebook Pages are different than profiles. You have a profile for you, Jane Doe, but your business can’t have a profile — it can have a Page. A Page is a place to house all the pertinent information about your company. They’re so useful because you can include everything that relates to your business in one place with a built-in potential audience:

Here’s the #1 reason to have your own Facebook Page (as well as your own Profile):

More people can find out about your business because your Page gets indexed and is searchable inside and outside of Facebook.

Other reasons include:

* Because the number of Fans you can have is unlimited (whereas the Friend limit is 5,000).
* Activity on your Page helps increase what I call “viral visibility” on Facebook.
* You can establish your brand even further.

To create your Page scroll to the foot of any Facebook web page and click on Advertising, then click the button to Create Facebook Page.

Or, watch this video introduction then read the instructions below to get going with your Facebook Page!

The Latest Business Social Media

We know social media takes a lot of time to stay on top of, but if you’re running your business and are using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn already, you’ll probably want to check these two out for the next step in your social media campaign. Our professional web design company is benefiting from more than just the basic social networking sites.

4. Biznik

Biznik.com is a fast-growing online community of entrepreneurs and small businesses dedicated to connecting and helping each other.

Why Use it:

• NOT “another LinkedIn clone”.Biznik is for people who are building real businesses, not looking for their next job.
• It’s for sharing ideas, not posting your resume. It’s the place where real conversations about small business and entrepreneurship are taking place.
• Local, face-to-face meeting to build real, lasting business relationships.

5.Google Connect

Here we talk about tons of different social networks, aiming in one single goal the to rank our web sites better in Google or to get more effective traffic from Google. What if Google itself is developing a social network? Although started low-key and only connected very limited web sites, you won’t be regret that you have read this post today!

Check out how Google Connect works below:

Credit: Social Orgs, Nan Ke

“More time is now spent on social networking than on e-mail…..The rapidly evolving world of social networks and blogs has officially grown up.Yesterday(Sep 16th), Facebook just claimed that it has 300 million active monthly users globally, and is getting 3 million new users every WEEK.

One of the most valuable aspects of social media for business is the ability to learn more about our business partners, clients, and prospects from a “personal” perspective.  After all, social networking is all about building “relationships.”  Just as early CRM programs encouraged us to capture things like clients’ favorite sports, theatre interests, family info, etc., those personal elements are now freely available and readily broadcast.

There are thousands of social media out there. So what and where to start? Here our Naperville web design company has listed 5 social networks that would bring most boost to your businesses , within which the last 2 are especially for business users.

1.Twitter

Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read each other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.

Why is it important?

• Communicate information about the company via a profile along with capability of using logo in each individual message (Tweet)
• Send messages instantaneously about new product development, events, and any significant news within the company
• Establish two way communication with any clients or customers or the general public in a new way

2. Linked In

The purpose of Linkedin is to allow registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people they know and trust in business. The people in the list are called Connections. Users can invite anyone (whether a site user or not) to become a connection.

What can it do?

• Set up organizational profile to establish company presence
• Create personal profile to establish identity
• Industry issues can be discussed to gain recognition and involvement of individual company represented
• Can join related groups to establish and grow relationships and find new business contacts

3.Facebook

In Facebook users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves.  Company and organizational profiles can also be established.

Why use it?

• Increases awareness of companies and individuals
• Can create company profile to establish organizational presence
• Communicate with individuals and company at all levels
• Creates a place to become fans of the company and can get targeted messages

continued: 5 Most Useful Social Media for Small Business (2)

Bing to Power Yahoo Search

With the search engine and search advertising partnership in the works between Yahoo! and Microsoft, how much will your website have to adapt to a growing number of users trying to find you on something other than Google? Yahoo will soon incorporate Microsoft’s Bing technology as its default search engine, giving the pair almost 30% market share in US searches versus Google’s 65%.

So what does this mean for the effort you’ve put into making sure your creative web design stays on top of the search results? With Bing taking over Yahoo Search, it is going to be important for webmasters to be aware of the importance of Bing in the future. While optimizing for Bing is generally a good idea anyway, those who see a good deal of traffic from Yahoo! are going to have to make sure they pay attention to their Bing results now. Once the switch comes next year, your Yahoo Search results aren’t going to matter as much as your Bing ones.

The differences between ranking well in Google and in Bing are luckily not too far apart, but there are a few things that Bing holds more important. Domain age seems to play a stronger role in the search results for Bing, as well as the amount of text on your website. Unlike Google however, blogs linked to your website aren’t quite as important as on Google.

For all the concern over rankings out there and how to optimize for different search engines, it is important to remember that there are other aspects of bringing your company business through your website. Social media like Facebook and Twitter have been growing fast in the business world, and your company can draw in many visitors from these sites alone, without worrying about those people finding you on a search engine.

Social Bookmarking Builds Links

Here is the last installment of this three part series. Did you find this article from Greg Shuey interesting? There are so many ways to build links out there, and they can get overwhelming sometimes. Just keep in mind that link building is going to help you in the long run and make sure you manage the time you spend on link building effectively. Remember, design your website first with the user in mind and then for the search engines.

Submit Your Site To Local & Industry Specific Online Business Directories

Seek out local directories and directories that are specific to your business. Submit to these first and take your time filling out all of the information that they ask for. These will be some of your most valuable links since they are so relevant to your website and business. Make sure when someone searches for your Chicago area web design company they can find you.

Social Bookmarking

You can waste a lot of time social bookmarking if you are submitting to the wrong sites. I limit my social bookmarking to Mixx, Propeller and sometimes Kirtsy. The trick to social bookmarking is to not only bookmark your website, your blog posts, and other things related to your website, but bookmarking lots of different things that interest you, like experienced Chicago web designers.

Write An Article And Submit To Article Directories

Writing articles and submitting them to sites like Ezine Articles is a great way to get links back to your website. Take time to write a very detailed article about your industry and submit it to a few article directories like the ones I listed above. You will get links back to your website by properly using the author resource or bio box at the end of the article. You should tell a little about yourself and your company, while adding keyword rich anchor text links pointing back to your website.

Credit: Greg Shuey

Get Your Links on Friends and Family Blogs

Friends & Family Members

When beginning a link building campaign, one very natural way of obtaining links is from friends and family members. How hard is it to simply call up (recommended – it’s more personal) or email your family and friends who have blogs or other sites, and ask them for a link to your new website? You can do the same thing with social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.

Add a Blog to Your Domain

Internal links from other pages of your website are a guaranteed way to help you increase your rankings in the search engines. Adding a blog to your domain is a great way for you to easily add new content to your website on a regular basis. In most cases, adding a blog to your main domain is rather simple and can be done in as little as three clicks of your mouse. Web hosting companies like offer one click installations of blog platforms like Wordpress.

For a company that doesn’t have a very industry specific name, like Systemtek, an external blog might also be a good idea because it is hard to know that we are a Chicago web design company based on our name alone. Our blog title focuses on what we do, and it gives helpful links to other websites. If you have an external blog, make sure you have a link to it on your website, and make sure that link is easy to find.

Local Organizations

Just about every city in the country has a local chamber of commerce; for us it is the Naperville Area Chamber of Commerce. Joining a chamber of commerce will not only get you a very good link back to your website, but also provides networking opportunities with other local businesses.

Local News

Developing relationships with local newspaper writers and always making yourself available for comments on news stories that involve your industry is a great way to build awareness about your company and get links back to your website (if the newspaper is published online).

Help a Non Profit Organization

You would be surprised how many non-profit organizations are operating in your city and your state. Every one of us has been given talents and certain things that we are good at. If you offer yourself and your services freely, you can most likely ask for, and get a link to your website from theirs.

Credit: Greg Shuey

Credit: Greg Shuey

Believe it or not, all SEO’s were newbies at one time or another. Launching a website can be a very exciting event for an individual or new business owner. However, that excitement can quickly turn to disappointment when the site owner finds out that they are getting little or no traffic. If they are getting traffic, it is most likely coming from family members or friends who they notified through an email or Facebook.

I was on a call yesterday with one of my best friends from high school. Our conversation was focused on general search engine optimization principles and link building tactics that could provide a good foundation and hopefully, if he does them right, some strong rankings in the search engines. One thing I emphasized is the fact that what ever he does, he needs to build links naturally. A natural link building campaign is crucial for success in SEO.

A natural link building campaign is one that is just that, natural! It is crucial for success in SEO. Getting 50,000 links within the first twenty days of your website’s existence is definitely not natural. Getting a slow trickle of links coming into your website and then building up looks much more natural. Also, getting 50,000 links pointing to your home page with the same anchor text is not natural. Vary your anchor text and include long tail versions of your keywords. You should also build links to other pages of your site in addition to your home page. All of these things help with building a natural link campaign.

In terms of links, there are two types of links you can get for your websites, external and internal links. For example, a link directing you to our Twitter Page would be external, because it is directing you to a whole different website. An internal link like Web Design directs you to another section of this blog, but both are very important and can make a huge difference in your search engine rankings.