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Do's and Dont's of Building a Website!

Even if you already have a website, this article will help you fine-tune your current site. Your web presence requires sustained attention and should evolve with your company’s vision, your customer’s needs and technological advancements. Website DO's 1. Choose a good domain name There are over 66 million registered domain names worldwide. This limits the availability of good generic domain names such as “serviceofprocess.com” or “processserver.com”. Despite this, there are numerous domain names that can be selected that are applicable to your company and will support your brand. When purchasing a domain, be sure to consider those that preserve your brand. What does this mean? If your company’s name is Jim’s Process Service, you should consider buying jimsprocessservice.com, jimsprocessserving.com, etc. as well as the additional top level domain extensions of this domain -- .net, .org, .us etc. This will prevent your competitors from benefiting from your marketing efforts. Also, consider purchasing domains that contain keywords relevant to your business. If you are a process server in Brooklyn, New York, a good investment would be to purchase “brooklynprocessserver.com”, “brooklynpi.com” or any other domains relevant to your services. It is possible, and a very common practice, to point multiple domains names to one website. 2. Make your company logo visible Create a solid logo that represents your company’s service and make it visible throughout your site and within other marketing materials. A stand-alone logo is the first step in developing a recognizable brand for your company. 3. Be sure that your phone number is visible on every page Your goal as a service provider is to encourage potential clients to call on your services while viewing your website. Therefore, you should have your phone number (preferably a toll free number) on every page of your website. Listing your phone number on your home or contact page will not be as effective as the repeated exposure garnered by displaying it on every page. Search engines are able to index each page of your site so a user’s entry page into your website may not be the page you are expecting them to initially visit. 4. Promote your expertise and credibility Your website affords you the opportunity to tell your customers why they should choose you over your competition. Use your website to sell yourself. Tell your customers about your experience and achievements. Include case studies, customer testimonials and list all legal support services that your company offers. Provide biographies on investigation or process service experts within your firm. Visitors to your site are looking for reasons to end their search and seek out your services, so be sure to provide them with as many as possible. 5. Keep your site is simple and clean A common outcome of “do-it-yourself” web design is a site that is messy, confusing and difficult to navigate. If you don’t plan ahead before you begin the design process, you run the risk of creating a website that does not engage potential clientele. Your first step should be to blueprint your site’s hierarchy, navigation (menu) and content to assure you begin building your website from an organized structure. Each page of your site should present your information clearly and concisely and provide navigation options (home, contact, services etc.). Do not overload pages with too much information. Your visitors will initially respond to the visual presentation of each page and will then focus on content. The visual appeal of your site should go hand in hand with the information presented and each should maintain equal prioritization during your site’s construction and development. Remember that less is more. Aim to present your content in a simple and appealing fashion without sacrificing the information you wish to impart to your potential clients. Website DON’Ts 1. DO NOT have Flash intros or animations Flash intros and animation may seem to be visually appealing, but they are usually tolerable only for a brief period of time. In most cases, movement is distracting or frustrating. A customer visits your website to gather information. Flashing or moving objects can inhibit their ability to comprehend the message you are trying to convey. The best bet when it comes to animation or flash is to use them only when absolutely necessary. There are more effective methods to catch your customer’s attention: use vibrant colors, larger fonts or bold lettering or diagrams. 2. DO NOT use too many images It is very important to keep the number and size of images on your website to a minimum. Having too many images or large images can slow down the load time of your site. Even though more and more end users have high-speed connections, there are still a significant number of end users who will visit your site using a dial-up connection. It’s best to develop your site for the lowest common denominator. Another reason to not overdo the use of images on your site is relevant to search engine marketing (also known as search engine optimization). One of the common mistakes made when using images on a website is hiding important text or content within images. Search engines put a high importance on content when it comes to ranking websites for keyword terms such as “process server” or “private investigator” versus recognizing image based content. Search engines cannot read this content if it is part of an image. 3. DO NOT have music on your site Having music or sound in the form of a .wav file or some other audio format is not desirable. Similar to employing images on your site, music may seem like a good idea in theory, but does not translate well into practice. Your customers are most likely from professional settings or are contacting you for a private matter, such as spousal surveillance or to have divorce papers served. In both instances, the end users will not want to attract attention to themselves. 4. DO NOT use free hosting providers There are a plethora of free websites and hosting providers. Although you cannot beat the price offered by these providers, there are number of reasons why using a Geocities or similar service is not recommended. First and foremost, these sites are not professional and may turn away customers. The domains tend to be very long and the templates that are provided to create your pages are very limited from a design standpoint. Quite often the trade off for this service is streaming of ads, which are a revenue stream for these service providers. The problem is that many of these ads are your competition, as the ads that are streamed in are based upon the content that is on your web page. 5. DO NOT present irrelevant content It is very important to keep the content on your website relevant to your customers needs. Do not clutter or confuse your customer with irrelevant content, such as personal information or ads from affiliate programs. You are a service provider and you only want to publish information that is going to entice your customer to seek out your services. Too much content may overload your customers. Present relevant content in a simple and concise manner, recognizing your customers’ need to locate and secure the services they need in a timely fashion. Do not bog down your potential clients by forcing them to search through unnecessary information Summary Building a good website can be a very time consuming, yet necessary, task that requires much forethought and planning. The above items are just a sampling of the practices that you should employ when developing your website. If you have plans to develop a website in the future or you would like feedback on your current website, please contact me or go to my website, www.kylereddoch.com, for feedback or a free consultation. ~ Kyle Reddoch