We work with you to help you achieve your goals on the Internet. Its that simple. You can not have a successful Internet presence by building a "Home page" or hiring the "kid next door" working in his bedroom to make some nice graphics. Life should have taught you that you get what you pay for. Turning your online image over to the "lowest bidder" or someone who "knows computers" is never a good idea. You need to work with a company that can help you define your goals on the Internet, work with you to design a business strategy and implement that strategy. We will work with you to achieve that goal.

Successful online marketing depends on a partnership between you and your web design firm. We believe that, as web site designers, we have an obligation to monitor, guide and support you in using your web site. Below are some of our beliefs as well as rules that we use to create sites.

Be the Best in Your Industry
Striving to be the best in your industry means that you are trying to set the mark for your industry. With millions of web pages on the Internet and millions of businesses trying to get your customer's attention, it makes sense to differentiate yourself. The best way to do this on the Internet is to make a professional presentation with compelling content. Keep in mind that marketing on the Internet is about presentation and customer perceptions.

Putting your site on the Internet requires a logical flow, with well formed thoughts and a customer orientation. (See "Customer Service" Below) There is much more to designing a web site than simply "building some pages".Creating an effective online presence requires that you blend well written information, quality design and effective presentation. Achieving this goal requires a great deal of work and cooperation between you and the designer. On the Internet you have the ability to present yourself and your business in the best light. There are no restraints on color, space, content, words, presentation or any other creative outlet. You have the ability to present your case, explain the benefits, provide reasons to buy from you and, ultimately, stimulate the visitor to order from you or request more information. When someone comes to your website, they are already looking for the products, services or information that you are offering. Take the opportunity to close the sale with a professional and organized Internet presentation.

Don't Cut Corners
If your web visitor arrives at your site to find a lackluster amateur site, they will probably look elsewhere. An attractive site will assure the customer that you care enough about your business to ensure that each detail reflect favorably. Make sure to use professional photographs and avoid boilerplate text, cookie-cutter clip-art and overused animations. These are a sure sign that the company has cut corners on their web site. This could easily cause the customer to ask, "If they cut corners on their web site, where else did they cut corners?"

Don't waste your money on web design software. While many programs offer advanced features, they don't provide training or experience to help you produce a professional web presence. They often use stock clip-art, stale animations and cookie-cutter templates - all of which scream that the company has cut corners. These programs don't make someone a good web designer any more than owning a jet makes you a professional stunt pilot. There is no substitute for years of experience. If you invest in a quality, professional online presence and your competitor uses a cookie cutter option - your competition will be seen as an amateur who cuts corners while you will be seen as a professional, ethical, detail-oriented business person.

Content! More Content! Fresh Content!
Looking around at sites on the Internet will reveal an interesting trend - they are usually not updated. It is not uncommon for sites have the tag-line, "Last updated February 4, 1996". What does this say about the company that put the site on the Internet? Do they care about the details? Do they still offer the products on their site? Are they even still in business? If the site was last updated 6 years ago, would you really want to do business with that company? Even sites that are 6 months old start to look out of date and old.

Another point to make here is that your site should contain all of the information that you would want to find at your web site. The more information you have, the more likely that your customer is going to find what they want and buy from you. Put yourself in your customer's shoes. If you were a customer visiting your web site, what would you want to find there. Yes, the bigger a site is, the more it usually costs. That is not the point. If you are not committed to creating a successful site on the Internet, why waste any money on it at all. Having a site is not enough. Having a professional, well-reasoned, informative site that drives customers to buy from you is the answer.

Making sure that you provide the content (information) that your customer wants is important. But just what information do visitors to your web site really want. You can try to put yourself in their shoes and decide what they would want. This is a good start, but this is not the end, but the beginning. The best way to ensure that you are providing what your customers want is to ask them and watch what they do. Good web hosting companies will provide statistics as to which pages in your site are most frequently visited. Analyzing these can be invaluable in determining what you customers want to see on your web site. Another often used and very successful method of gathering information from customers is to ask them in an online survey. Most customers that are interested in your company will tell you what they liked or disliked about your site. All you have to do is just ask. Offering something free like a small gift will often increase the amount of responses that you receive as well. The most important part is to actually analyze and use the information that you collect. This should not be just a touchy- feely customer service exercise but a serious venture to improve your Internet presence. Another indicator that you need to add something to your website is the frequency that a question is asked. If you receive e-mail or contact forms asking the same question several times, that information should be added to the web site. This is where a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) Page is useful.

Changing the content continuously and analyzing what happens will help you to determine what works. Small changes in wording can pay off big. Also, changing the look of your site to keep it up to date can also be a big help.

Customer Service, Where Did It Go?
In our present day world, it seems that customer service has been left behind. So many businesses, both on and off the Internet, talk about how long they have been in business, what they do and how they are going to do it. These are easy to spot. The information they present is all about me, our and us. What you need to ask is why do people do business with you or, better yet, why do you buy the products that you buy. Do you buy their products because they company has been around for 10 years? Probably not. Do you buy their products because they have three different product lines? Probably not. You buy products because they fill a need or want that you have and offer you some benefit. A customer's focus is on themselves. Likewise, your website is a reflection your interest in filling the customer's needs. Does the customer feel that they are getting value. Have you explained why the customer benefits from your product or service? Most sites should include a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page that includes, addresses and explains completely the answers to questions that a customer has. Remember, you can never provide your customers with too much information, but you can leave them wanting...

Build It and They Might Come?
That's right! Just because you build a web site and register it with the Internet search engines doesn't mean that anyone will come to your web site. You need to be interested in aggressively marketing your site both on and off the Internet. Yes, marketing your web site outside of the Internet is every bit as important as using the Internet search engines. A large percentage of visitors to web sites actually type in the web address. That means that they are using something other than web page links and search engines to find sites. This could be due to word of mouth or your companies own advertising initiative. Working with a professional design firm that will help you plan and implement a marketing initiative will work to ensure that your site is successful.

After reading the above you can see that, on the Internet, the only thing that differentiates you from your competition is your logical, professional presentation, your fresh, updated customer oriented content and your partnership with a professional web design and marketing firm. Simply putting up a web site isn't enough. You must market your site and provide new information to keep people coming back again and again. a good web site will actually generate its own word of mouth advertising as visitors in your industry talk about the great resource that they have found..

        So, are you ready to get started?

Then complete our online "Project Survey" so that we can help you be successful on the Internet. If you would like to get immediate feedback as to how much you should budget for a web site, you can use our "Real-time Quote" system. Be aware that the results may not be accurate as your specific project requirements are being estimated by a computer, not reviewed by our professional designers.