Web Development
Web Development
We are approaching 150 million websites on the Internet. There is a new blog born every second. Here in San Diego we have a fine local cheese shop with a splendid website and its own blog with lots of readers and commenters. There are thousands of web designers in San Diego. We have one of the most robust developer communities in the world. Teenage webmasters are commonplace.
Website development is widely viewed as a commodity these days. If you ask us if we can build you a website the answer is yes. However, we would tell you that is the wrong question. Can you build us an online ecosystem that is the pure embodiment of our strategy and connect us to our customers, new prospects, and new opportunities, while bringing visibility and credibility to our company?
Yes we can.
We believe a well-defined strategy, clearly articulated and visually compelling, built on a rock-solid technological foundation is the best path to long-term sustainable competitive advantage.
There are millions of beautiful websites that don’t rank in the top ten million. They are invisible. There are countless numbers of hastily and tastelessly put together websites that are frequented by millions of people every day. There are large companies with very similar web sites sporting many of the best practices. One is on page one of Google search and the other is on page five.
Senior executives, generally on the sales side of the organization tend to be the decision makers on what the website should be. This is as it should be. They will hire an outside firm to “design” the site. This is why they fail. Oh they will get a website built. It just won’t produce the result they are looking for.
There are three essential skills that must be brought to bear to produce an effective website. There is the production of the content. The company’s message and how it’s story is told. There is the design of the site. How it looks to the viewer. Finally, there is the construction of the site. How it is built.
There are sales and marketing people inside most companies who understand the company’s value proposition. It is quite rare for these people to be able to write the company story for the web. There are lots of fine designers who know how to make a site look attractive. It is also quite rare to find a designer who can advise you about what you should build into your landing page much less how to construct a website that connects to the outside world and become a two-way dialog with the your customers, prospects, and marketplace.
If a company understands that all three of these things are equally important and makes sure all three resources are working in concert then you have the possibility of producing a properly built website.
Congratulations! You are now ready to begin the real work of building your own path to substantially and sustainably higher performance.
Your Website Is A Living Breathing Organism
Question. When will the website be finished? Answer. Never. In our view the most important thing a website is supposed to do is make the phone ring. There are lots of things a company can do to make their site valuable to their customers and future prospects. There are webinars, white papers, industry reports, newsletters, podcasts, videos, training manuals, etc.
We have worked with clients who had many of these things and yet their Google rank was 0 on Google’s 10-point scale. Zero does not mean 0. It just means less than one. Each numerical rise in ranking means you are five times more likely to appear in search results. Two is fives times better than one. Three is five times better than two and so on.
In this client’s case the construction of the website, among other things was the culprit. The site looked OK but it was virtually invisible to the search engines. Search Engine optimization (SEO) is simple. That’s right. Simple. It is also real work.
Simply stated there are only four things that matter to search engines. All four must be done very well and in concert from the very beginning.
Relevant and rapidly changing content
Site traffic
Inbound links from credible places
Time
If all this is done the website will become the engine of growth for the company and the gift that keeps on giving.
