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Do they have a portfolio you can see of past work they have done?

Before hiring a website design firm be sure to ask for samples of recent work completed. Ask for samples of work that are as close as possible to what you are looking for, like flash or a certain type of layout. It is nice to know before you start that the style of work from the designer you are looking at hiring, is likely to meet your expectations.

Who will own the finished product?

This is an important point. At the end of the day, you should own the finished product and the rights to your website. Ask to see a copy of the contract and make sure that there are not any rights and limitations to the ownership of your website.

How many pages are included in the cost?

If you know that you are going to want 10 pages you need to make sure that the contract is going to provide for at least that, if not a few more. The extra page costs can add up very quickly so getting details, such as number of pages, out the way at the beginning is a good idea.

What is the cost?

Of course, knowing what the full cost is up front is vital. Specify from the start what your budget is. You may have found the best web site designer in the world but if they do not fit your budget it is not going to work. Ask for an itemization of all costs, any extra or hidden costs, anything that could add to the final price tag. Is updating or page additions included? If not how much do they cost? If you are going to want to add to or have changes made to your website, is this included in the initial cost or is there a fee associated with this? If not, will the web designer provide training on how you can update your site yourself? If you have the type of business that is going to need a lot of updating, fees for page changes can add up quickly.

And most importantly What makes your services different from another firms, in short why should I hire you?

This is a question that any website design firm should be proud to answer. They should want to let you know what makes them different or what sets them apart!

Make sure you are satisfied with the answers to your questions before you make the big decision to hire a website design firm to work on your businesses website. You only get one chance to make a good first impression!

As more people turn to the web to research a product or service, communicating through several different modes like web video is becoming even more important. It is crucial for companies to offer many different options so they can reach their intended target markets. It is no secret that people have different modes of learning; some people are very visual, some prefer auditory messages; others enjoy a combination of both. Having the full tool kit of advertising modes like images, text and video are vital in reaching your target market. Let’s look at how web video is emerging as the top method of information gathering by web users.

I’m sure that everyone is familiar with and has used, at least once, You Tube to watch a web video. As you can tell, it is not just all about movies and funny viral clips. Over the last few years it has become a powerful advertising tool. If you think of the recent Old Spice ad, not only was that a great advertising campaign, essentially it was a substitution for an expensive commercial television campaign. The bonus was it went viral. Not every ad you put on You Tube is going to go viral but the important part is that it is a tool that engages and speaks to your customer and, if done right, is very entertaining.

The other highlighting feature of web video is that it removes many of the barriers that arise with a global market. Potential customers, even if their first language is not English, can follow a web video in their own language more easily than translated text. Having a visually engaging video that is image and demonstration laden, will allow you to communicate and educate your target market about your product or service no matter what their mother tongue is.

Web Video, properly planned and placed on your website, can be your most powerful tool. In comparison to the expense of a television campaign, whose effectiveness over the years has dwindled, web video can dramatically convert your website hits into sales. The secret is having video that is effective, properly produced, shot, formatted and distributed. Luckily there are companies out there that will handle the entire process. The last thing a prospective customer wants to see is a grainy, slow to load website that streams poorly. That would definitely be worse than having no video at all.

In October 2010, Forbes Insights surveyed business people about their use of web video when learning about products and services. Of those surveyed a staggering 60% said they would watch a web video over reading text on the same website page. So if you are looking for a cost effective, instant way to help increase the web exposure for your product or service, the first step would be to contact an experienced digital marketing company to see what they can do to help your website stand out in the video world.

When you think of Search Engine Marketing two main types usually come to mind. One is call “Pay Per Click” (PPC) also known as “Cost Per Click” (CPC) and “Cost Per Mile” (CPM). The big questions is, what are they, how do they work and how can they work for my business?

Pay Per Click or “PPC” and Cost Per Click or “CPC” are advertising methods that are based on a user pay for each time someone clicks on an ad. How much you pay is based on how much you bid and how much competition there is for that keyword set. So if you are selling a common product or service, where there are a lot of people bidding for advertising, it can become quite expensive and your impressions (the amount of times your ad is seen) can be lower than you may expect. This form of advertising can be really good for a new product launch or anytime you are wanting to test the waters to see how much interest there is for a given product or service. If you are a business that services a niche market, this can be a really good way to target your customers.

Cost Per Mile or CPM works quite differently. You set a maximum price for how much you are willing to pay for your ad to be seen per thousand times. So if you have an ad that you would like to put up for CPM advertising, you would bid a fixed amount for impressions per 1000 times. Whether it gets clicked on or not, would have no impact on the cost. CPM works well to compare the effectiveness of two different ads or when you really want to test the appeal of two different things. CPM can be a great way to do this for a very cost effective amount. If you sell plumbing services and have had a graphic designer work on some ads for you and you do not know which one you like best, CPM can be a great way to test run which ad would be the best choice. What you would do is bid the same amount on each of the cost per mile ads in order to have both ads be seen by, say, 2000 people. If you come to the end of the campaigns and one ad was clicked 105 times and the other ad received 5 or 10 times, you can be pretty confident that you know which ad has the greater appeal.

Working with an experienced qualified search engine marketing firm is the best way to decide which type of advertizing will meet your businesses need of reaching your target market most effectively. Most search engine marketing firms offer full packages to help you design, keyword optimize and maintain your advertising campaign.

What sets two businesses that have equally good products and customer service apart? Their marketing and exposure, or, in this digital age, a functional, effective website that showcases their business and all it has to offer. Website design companies across the globe offer packages from self design to multi million dollar world wide web launch packages for budgets of all sizes. But what components do you really need to have in a good effective business website so that it meets your customers needs?

There are 5 main features that customers want to see in your website design,

Character; who are you, what do you have to offer and how are you unique? When a prospective customer lands on your website they should be able to tell who you are, what you are selling, how you are different and have a good idea of your companies best features within a very few minutes. The average potential customer spend only a few minutes on a website before deciding if a site is worth staying or leaving. As they say, you don’t get a second chance to make a good first impression so you want your site to be engaging, interesting and clear from the start.

Easy navigation; We have all landed on those websites that seem like a labyrinth with no clear direction of how to get anywhere. Or the ones that trap you and make you feel like you are in some sort of bizarre internet hostage situation. Potential customers do not like that; they have to want to be on your website. Otherwise they are going to spend all their time simply trying to get away from your site as quickly as possible and nothing you have on your page will be read.

Security; If you receive personal information or accept credit cards through your website, security is a big factor. You want to make sure your potential customers know that you offer “SSL” or Secure Sockets Layer. This feature offers encrypted security and verification that your website is safe and secure to transmit personal and financial information, a feature that is gaining more and more awareness with customers as the issue of web safety gains more publicity. As a business owner it shows that you care and respect the safety of your potential customers information and immediately builds your businesses credibility.

Contact information; I am always amazed at how this simple yet vital piece of information can be missing from a website, such as when you visit a website for a restaurant and the city or town it is located in is not even on the website. Or, alternatively, there is no phone number or obvious way to email the business. For obvious reasons, this is an essential piece of information that should be clearly found on each page, even if just a click though to the contact us page.

There are several other factors in website design, like mobile pages for easy loading in our ever growing mobile phone web surfing, when and where to use flash and simple layout mapping. This is why when you are looking at investing in an asset, and your website is a major asset for your business, the services of professional, experienced Website design companies are really immeasurable.

When you think of the largest and most successful companies in the world there is one commonality, they all have a strong logo design! No matter where you are in the world, no matter who you show it to, the McDonalds logo, ‘the golden arches’ are universally recognized. When you think about your favorite companies, their logos are what come to mind. These companies all have something in common; they hired good, professional logo designers to help them create their brand identity. They understand the connection between a good logo and a successful business.

Business identity or branding is what separates your product or service from those of other companies; it is your company’s image. When people think of your business your logo triggers a picture in their mind of who you are. When thinking about how you would like your logo to look, a designer can help reflect your businesses culture, personality and values.

Your logo is only one part of your companies branding, but it is the most visual part that prospective customers will see. As a result you want to have a logo that sends a professional and clear message. You don’t want to have a logo that sends the wrong type of message to your prospective customers.

For example a cleaning company having a logo of a boat sailing on the sea would not convey a message that you offer cleaning services, unless perhaps, you clean boat. This is not to say that your logo needs to be literal, but it should not send a confusing or contradictory message. Identifying what industry you are in and who your prospective customer is are important steps in helping design a logo. The services of a professional logo designer are especially helpful at this part of the marketing strategy process.

When working with your logo designer, you should talk about budget and overall cost of logo design. Logo design costs can range from a few hundred dollars to the multi millions. Often times good digital design and online marketing firms will offer packages to meet their clients needs, some in the low hundreds. The cost to create a good business identity should not be so high that it is out of reach.

In conclusion, remember logo design is an extension of who you are as a business. Your logo should reflect your businesses personality, culture and values. This part of the branding process will be the continuous advertisement that over the years will stay with your company and speak to your prospective client first. Of course it is not just the logo but what promise or message is attached to the logo. Of course what is delivered also plays a part. Ultimately if you do not have a good product or good customer service your logo is not going to matter. But at the beginning, when your prospective customer has never used your product or service, the logo is the first thing that speaks to them.

Citations are a key component of the ranking algorithms of the major search engines. Other factors being equal, businesses with a greater number of citations will probably rank higher than businesses with fewer citations.

Citations from well-established and well-indexed portals (like Superpages.com for example) help increase the degree of certainty the search engines have about your business’s contact information and categorization. To paraphrase former Arizona Cardinals’ coach Dennis Green, citations help search engines confirm that businesses “are who we thought they were!”

Citations are particularly important in less-competitive niches (like plumbing or electrical) where many service providers don’t have websites themselves. Without much other information, the search engines rely heavily on whatever information they can find!

Citations also validate that a business is part of a community. It’s hard for someone to fake membership in a chamber of commerce or a city or county business index, or to be written about in a local online newspaper or popular blog. Citations (and links) from these kinds of websites can dramatically improve your Local search engine rankings.

Currently, the ‘More About This Business’ section of your Google Place Page is the most complete list of your citations, though Google probably doesn’t show every single one it knows about.

Even busy executives want to do more than just read on the web

Executives with no time for fun and games do have time for the sound and motion of video, according to findings from Forbes Insights. In some cases, they may actually prefer it to text for learning about products and services.

A majority of businesspeople surveyed by Forbes in October 2010 said they watched more online video than a year earlier. Nearly 60% of all respondents said they would watch video before reading text on the same webpage, and 22% said they generally liked watching video more than reading text for reviewing business information. Three-quarters of all executives said they watched work-related videos on business websites at least once a week, and more than half did the same on YouTube.

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(Wikipedia.com)

“Media (content that is published) with a social (anyone can add to it) component.”

(hubspot.com)

In this age people are all over social media. This is forcing business owners to rethink how they approach marketing.  Outbound marketing, such as, telemarketing, trade shows, direct mail, email blasts, print ads and TV/Radio are all forms of advertising that have been around for many years, and by the numbers and percentages can be considered less effective. Search Engine Optimization (SEO), blogging, RSS, viral videos and social media are all effective and new forms of inbound marketing that are empowering consumers by giving them the power to decide when they can reach out to you, and we all know that one thing the consumers love to have is the power of choice.

It is a more effective form of advertising and as Mike Volpe of Hubspot quotes, “Inbound marketing is more “permission” based…people will be out finding you when they are ready and it is more of a magnetic force pulling business in.” It mostly gains businesses major brownie points, or major donut points.

Take Dunkin Donuts for example that has gained 1,237,895 fans on their Facebook. They have created a place where people can rant and rave about their product, and also get free stuff by running promotions and contests to engage their consumers in a place where they can be comfortable and confident. Another great and useful social media website is Twitter. If you haven’t jumped on the “tweet wagon”, as they call it, then you are definitely out of the loop! A recent study by hubspot.com showed that Twitter is now handling 600 tweets per second or if you like big numbers nearly 50 million tweets per day. What a great way to get the word out quickly and effectively to thousands and millions of people by just an update of your Twitter account.

Also, your social media accounts are a great way to promote your blogs and as a result will help your SEO campaign. It is a great place to meet people, answer questions, test ideas with immediate feedback, and become a valid member of the community.

There are no issues of perishable investment with Social Media, unlike PPC and direct marketing as the longer and more established your interaction and promotion lasts in Social Media, it creates a history of dedication and credibility with your “friends and followers”. Perception is everything in marketing and the savvy marketer who understands the long range benefits of Social Media will certainly need a team of experienced professionals to keep the creative ideas flowing. That’s where Snubbles.com and our partners come in. Success requires a unique voice and the ability to strike a balance between promotion and personality and our team has an excellent track record in optimizing and creating successful Social Media Campaigns. Give us a shout and let us open your eyes to the possibilities.

• Blog design & installation
• Viral campaign development
• Blog copywriting
• Friend/follower building
• RSS content distribution
• Social Media Advertising
• Campaign planning
• Reputation monitoring
• Profile development & design
• Widget & Game development

SEO, which stands for search engine optimization, is a critical part of your web site designing program. When you design your website you are doing so to get relevant customers to visit your website so that you can convince them into buying your product. As much as it is important that your website design is attractive, it is equally important that your website attracts more customers. This is possible when you are able to get search engines to index you high on their list for searches relevant to your product. Keep in mind a few things like keyword research, on- page and off-page optimization techniques, also a few long-term plans for SEO, and you can drive many customers to your website.

Keyword Research

Keyword research holds relevance, as it is necessary that your targeted customers find your website and reach you. You should undertake a systematic research of keywords related to your product and determine what attracts maximum traffic and generates the maximum response. Alongside, also research the keyword density of your website, making sure not to stuff in too many keywords nor put in less, so as to affect your ratings badly.

On-page Optimization

A very important thing to try to do is to keep your domain name with the keyword. Similarly, you can also put the keyword in the Title tag as the search engine spiders would find the relevant keywords for your products and would find your site suitable right in the beginning of the page itself. Rather than making your entire site using Flash, design only some parts of it like banners or buttons with Flash, which can be enough to make it attractive. Similarly, make internal navigation simple, which helps not just the visitors but even the search engines. It is important that you do not use frames that pose difficulties for search engines. Do not use hidden texts or links, spamming, mirror domains etc

Off-page Optimization

Back links are very useful and help you get higher rankings. Try to get links from high page rank pages. Rather than using reciprocal linking, anchor linking proves to be beneficial. Sometimes excessive reciprocal linking can even get you penalized. Submitting articles to article directories, blogs, and forums is a better way of getting back links. You may also try blog carnivals sometimes, which can attract great traffic for you.

Long Term Plans

Remember that content is important for SEO but unique content is rewarding. It can make a huge difference if what you write is not simply re-written content from other websites. Updating your website with fresh content is an important part of your SEO plans. Always keep a check and analyze on what is getting you more visitors and ensure that you fine-tune your strategy to that area. When you gather your information, try to create a niche area for it. It is necessary that you communicate a service that can be seen as a solution to some problem by the visitors. You should be able to provide great stuff for the customer. Always get feedback and try to improve on those areas.

When you design your website keep in mind that though your ultimate aim is to make money, your website should be such that it is helpful to your target customers.