It's Spring Cleaning Time....Does your website need a cleaning?

Most websites need a good cleaning from time-to-time. Many people have websites designed for their business and they never update them after the inital design. This is not a good practice. If you go to the expense of building a website please keep it up to date. If you don't keep your site up-to-date, we can bet you money that people aren't coming back to visit it.

Here's some quick tips/ideas on how to keep your website more interesting to your customer or prospective customers:

1. Build a blog. Blogger is a free service, all you need is a gmail account and you can start communicating to your customers on a regular basis and better yet, you don't need to be a web programmer to create a blog for your business. We have several customers that use their blogs to post articles that relate to their business, post online promotions/coupons for products and services and some use it to post employment opportunities.
2. Sign-up for a website maintenance program - This will give you an opportunity to update your site on an ongoing basis and you can set your own budget.
3. Depending upon your business you can create an online forum - This will allow users to create a community right on your own website and of course makes them come back to visit again and again. We recommend this tool for our non-profit organizations.

$599 Web Special Continues

Due to our great success and the positive feedback we're receiving on our $599 web special, we've decided to extended our promotion through February. We are proud that we can offer such a great price and one-of-a-kind website designs. This promotion started as a test. We were testing our advertising strategies and wanted to see how much new business we could get by advertising using a pay-per-click strategy as well as offering low prices for web design and redesign.

If you are interested in discussing a project but have concerns about how to develop a website for your business, send us an email or call us. We would be more than happy to help you get started.

Google's AdWords Does Work!

We've been testing our advertising strategies over the last couple of months and I have to say that we're impressed with the amount of traffic Google's Adwords is sending our way. Some of our newest customer's found us via Adwords and the best part about Adwords is you can control your advertising budget.

A few AdWords tips for someone using this program for the first time:

1. Make sure you pick keywords that make sense to target people to your business.
2. Don't add too many keywords especially if you aren't spending a lot of money monthly. Less keywords is more.
3. You don't have to spend a lot to get traffic to your website.
4. Many hosting companies offer $30.00 - $50.00 worth of Adwords as a promotion when you sign up for new service. USE IT!

We are still testing Yahoo's version of Adwords and other pay-per-click advertising and will let you know the outcome.

New Referral Program - Giving Back to Our Customers

Many of our customers come to us through "word of mouth" business. We've decided that it is important to give back to our customers that bring us new client's so we created a new referral program.

It's simple. Refer a customer to us. If they sign a contract and we complete their website you get 3 months FREE maintenance*. This of course gives our existing customers the potential to have FREE website maintenance year round.

Have questions? email us at mailto:jill@jillduffydesigns.com

*Up to 2 hours of Monthly Web Maintenance. Additional time spent will be billed at the rate of $40.00 per hour. Time not used during billing period is non-transferable. Updates are defined as edits to existing text on current pages, and graphics substitutions on current pages. Creation of additional pages, new graphics, or changes to existing graphics are billed at $75 per hour. Jill Duffy Designs NEVER bills customers for anything without discussing ALL charges.

Don't be Intimidated to Build a Website for Your Business...We Make it EASY!

So many people are intimidated at the thought of building a website. We understand that it does sound intimidating...but it's not if you work with the right company to build your site.

Say you are a photographer and you need a website to showcase your work. This is what we would need from you to get started on your site.

Step 1 - We learn about you.
We will request the following to help us create a vision for your site.

1. Logo if you have one. If you don't, that's fine, we can design one for you.
2. Sample of a business card and/or postcard promotion and brochures. This sometimes helps us get a "feel" for your style.
3. We would ask you to send us a few photos of your work that you would consider favorites. This really helps us get to know you.
4. We ask if you have a domain name (www.yourbusinessname.com). If not, we'll search out the names you are interested in and we'll present you with your options.
5. Do you have a contract with a web hosting company. If you already have a site, you do have a contract. If you've never had a site, most likely the answer is no, you don't have a contract with a web hosting company.

Step 2 - Gathering content for your website

1. Bio information - A brief description about you. A photo of yourself gives a website a personalized touch.
2. Photos of your work supplied in a JPG format. This could be sent to us on CD or emailed to us depending on the size of the photos.
3. Pricing
4. Contact Information - Phone, fax, studio address and email address

Step 3 - Prototype Design

Once we have the information above, we get started. We build out a prototype to present to you. During this process you have the opportunity to edit content, change colors, etc. During the prototype design is the time that we ask our clients to make any of the major changes if needed.

Step 4 - Building Begins

Once you approve the prototype, we go on to build our your site. We will add navigation, graphics, flash and coding. We will upload the finished site to our website so you can view your NEW website on your own computer. Again, you have the opportunity to review and make modifications if necessary.

Step 5 - Going LIVE

Once everything is approved, we're ready to upload your website to make it LIVE for the world to see. Once we upload, we test to make sure everything is working properly.

Step 6 - We submit your website to all of the free Major Search engines. It could take a few weeks to see results in this area.

That's the process in a nutshell. What do you think? Are you still intimidated?

New Advertising Test Under Way..

We've decided to put Google's Adwords and Yahoo to the test. We developed a new promotion offering a major cost savings on website design for 5 page websites. We are cutting our prices by almost $350.00 to test how well pay-per-click advertising works for us. We are changing our pay-per-click ad so the end-user will know about our promotion. We'll keep you posted on what we think of pay-per-click advertising.

Q&A - Typical Questions Prospective Customers Ask Us...Here's the Answers....

Q- I have a small budget but I really need a website redesign can you give me a price quote?

A - Of course we can give you a price quote, however, we list most of our prices right on our website to give you a good idea of what it's going to cost. We understand that many people might not want to tell us what their "small budget" is, however, we've found that if we get an idea of what their budget is, we can very easily provide a recommendation on how they could best use their budget to redesign their current website. We are very competitive, we know, we've done the research.

Q - Have you ever designed for "so and so" type of business?

A - We are hired to design for so many small businesses and we also consult for Fortune 100 companies, however, that doesn't mean we've designed for EVERY type of business out there --but there's always a first time. Jill Duffy Designs offers one-of-a-kind designs for every client we service. We don't use what we call in the industry "cookie cutter" websites. Each site we build is unique and is customized for our clients needs and we also make sure we interview our client's so that we know their likes and dislikes which is important in building a site that captures the spirit of the client. Click here to see our recent work... You'll see that no 2 sites look alike.

Q - What is involved in designing a website?

A - It takes many steps to design a website. First we have to develop a prototype design to come up with a look and feel for your business. We then have to research graphic to add to your site. If we are adding Flash animation which is included in our Premium website packages, this is a very time consuming aspect of the design. We then present our prototype to our customer giving them the opportunity to react and make suggestions/changes they see fit. Once we get sign off on the initial design we then move into the full development stage to design the site. We add specific coding for search engine optimization we upload the final website and spend up to an hour or more testing links, etc. As you can see, creativity and time you are paying for.

Q - Have you ever built a website that you weren't happy with?

A - Yes, of course and do you know why? Because some customers don't let us do our job. We are hired not only because we can do technical work to build a website, we are hired because we are creative and have expertise in graphic design, web strategies and marketing techniques. We have an eye for what looks good and what looks bad. In addition, we can also tell what content works and what doesn't and position the website content in a better format then provided by many customers.

From time-to-time we get a customer who has their own vision (which is fine) but a vision with no room to move. When this happens it causes the customer to lose out on having the professional touch that we can add to any website. We do our best to talk to our customer about this issue when it arises, however, like with most businesses our goal is to make our customer's happy. As a seasoned professional in the industry I do find it personally upsetting to design things that I consider "less than perfect". Our motto is "IF YOU DON'T LOOK GOOD, WE DON'T LOOK GOOD. "

What Are The Steps In Redesigning a Website?

I get this question often so I've decided to let you know our process.

1. First we look at your current site to see how many pages you have on your site, review the look and feel, colors, content, etc.
2. After our initial review when then talk to our customer to find out what their business objectives are for the website.
3. Discuss what the client wants to keep and delete content wise on their site. We also discuss how we can consolidate pages and provide suggestions on how to position content.
4. We talk to the client about colors and graphics/photographs.

Since most clients already have their website on a web server already. We ask the client when their contract is up, if they were happy with the service provided. If they are happy with their current provider we recommend they stay where they are and we can continue to work with their current provider.

Once a new client signs up with us to have us redesign a site -- we get to work right away. We start the design process and develop a prototype for our client to react to and give our client the opportunity to make changes, recommendations, etc.

When the client signs off on the initial design we finalize all of the coding, etc. We then upload the final site on the server and that's it! You're site is now live.

If you are confused about any of the terminology used in this article, click here to visit our glossary of web design terms.

If you're ready to begin a site redesign or if you have any questions, click here to send us an email

Website Pricing

Many people ask me why we post our prices right on our site for the world to see. We've been asked if we are concerned that our competitors will beat our prices. This is the question I ask in return which is...why keep it a secret? I hate when I see website companies say "call for a quote" for standard type websites. Our pricing structure is what you see on our site and we don't play games. Yes, maybe someone could try to beat our prices but the question is "will they provide quality design and customer service that we provide to our clients?

We market ourselves to small businesses, restaurants and non-profit organizations because we enjoy designing a website stratgey and producing a final product to help a smaller company get their name out on the web. We believe that the one-on-one attention we provide our customers is second to none and we're proud of that. Once we build your site we don't just disappear like many website companies do, we continue our relationship to make sure that your website is working is meeting your needs.

Be weary of website companies that are hiding behind "call for a quote"

Does my website need a face lift?

I always tell my customers to think of their website as their store front. When you look at your site does it look professional? If the answer is no, that alone is a reason to invest in rebuilding your website.

Here are some questions to ask yourself honestly when looking at your website and deciding on investing in a site redesign:

• Does your site have a professional image?
• Do you have appropriate content on your site to make someone interested in your products or services?
• Is your website fresh and up-to-date?
• Is it user friendly? Easy to navigate?
• Is your site creating leads or sales?

If you answered "no" to any of these, then a site redesign is recommended. It can make a big difference in your business.

I know as an online consumer if I visit a website that is offering a product or service that is of interest to me and the site looks unprofessional, I honestly won't purchase from them. An unprofessional site is a turn off and it makes you question the quality of the products being sold.

Many companies had website created years ago and their attitude that they have a website and that's good enough...well it's really not. Not only is your coding out-of-date so is your look and I am sure your site isn't up to today's standards in search engine optimization.

Read our article on website redesign.