SERVICES
WEBSITE DESIGN SERVICES
We here at The WebSmith Group offer three different types of website design services to meet a variety of needs for different customers: Economy, Custom, and E-Commerce. We also provide Search Engine Optimization and Reputation Marketing Services.
Economy Class Websites
The first thing we offer is an Economy version of websites for local businesses. It really doesn’t matter what type of local business you have whether you provide acupuncture, automobile repair services, dentistry, HVAC, legal, or just about anything else, we have the ability to create a fully functional website for you with all of the copy and photographs you need to be up and running in 24-48 hours.
These work very well on any device whether it’s a laptop, desktop, tablet or mobile phone. You can use any color scheme you wish when designing your website, and they have everything needed to answer your customer’s questions and get them to contact you and buy your products or services.
We also have a wide selection of Professionally Created Videos available for some of our local markets that can be put on your website for a nominal fee and used to entice customers!
The reason these are in the Economy class is that they are not highly editable when it comes to the design functionality. These are basic websites even though they are very nice looking. You can add videos to them if you wish but to keep the cost down, we use a design template that is not very flexible. If you are looking for more flexibility, we recommend our customized option below.
Customized Websites
For those who want the latest whizbang features on your website to dazzle the eye and entertain the viewer, we can create many different types of customized websites. These have just about every kind of animation and scrolling in parallax you would want in your site.
There is more of an investment in a customized site than one of our economy versions above because these take a lot more time to create. They are also fully functional on every type of device and have a consistent look between desktop, tablet and mobile phone.
We recommend these type of websites for those customers who want to stand out and show off their work to the rest of the world.
E-Commerce Websites
Many brick-and-mortar stores are suffering from people buying things online at Amazon and other major outlets. Why don’t you offer your services or products online and not miss out on those sales?
The reason is that most people are scared to death of such an option or don’t have the knowledge of how to create an e-commerce website or portal for their business. We offer this service, and it can be for any kind or size of business. We can use your existing site or build an entirely new one. If you only have ten products we have a module for that. If you have less than 50 products that use a different module and we have that readily available. If you have thousands of products, we can set that up for you and even make it possible for your staff to make the necessary changes in those products, pricing, and descriptions.
Many people haven’t thought about doing their e-commerce store for the website because they thought it was out of reach, but we are here to tell you that it is now a wise decision to move in this direction. Even for your existing customers, you can direct them to your store page and not lose out on those sales they might buy from somebody else online.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Once you get a website built, you want it found online, and one of the most popular ways to do that is through a term called, “search engine optimization,” or SEO for short. All this fancy phrase means is that when somebody types in a request for information in a search engine, like Google, the page on your website that talks about what they were searching for will hopefully be close to the top of that first page.
If you’re not on the first page, you have a very low likelihood of making a sale or even contact.
SEO has gone through dramatic changes over the years because of abuses by scammers and others searching for the advantage of being close to the top of the first page of the results. Surprisingly, even huge companies like JCPenney have been caught using unscrupulous means to push their pages up in the rankings.
Because of these unscrupulous tactics we only use the tried-and-true recommended methods that the search engine tells us they will accept. These results have to form naturally which takes time, something many business owners fail to take into consideration. We want to set the expectations right from the start if you hire us for SEO services. These do not happen overnight. It may take months to get the results you want, and we want you to understand that in the long run, this is a potent method of marketing, but it must be done in the right way. We’ve seen businesses disappear entirely overnight because they failed to take into account this time requirement and decided to use unscrupulous means to push their website to the top.
If you are willing to wait for these optimal results and you have the financial means to pay for them, we will gladly accept you as an SEO client. Otherwise, we are not interested in going down that path. Our reputation is too important to fall victim to those who would demand faster results.
Reputation Marketing
The only other type of marketing we do is making sure that a decent reputation of your business is promoted online and therefore putting forward your best face. There is a particular way to do this that does not break the terms of service of Google and other search engines. We follow those rules.
We have a system whereby we contact your customers and ask for a review of recent purchases or services. It is initiated by someone on your staff asking them to sign in to a tablet in your business. Once they are signed in, within the hour, they will get a text and an email asking their opinion. If it is a favorable opinion, they will then have the option of leaving a review on your website and then directing that review to a variety of sites, like Google, where they can place it there.
Please understand, the customers are placing the reviews, not us.
Now suppose that the email that was sent out results in an unfavorable opinion of the product or service they just purchased. The office manager will then immediately get a text or email telling them about this person’s opinion. A wise firm will directly contact that person and try to do whatever they can to alleviate the situation and solve the problem before it becomes an international incident on Yelp.
This system does not prevent them from posting a negative review on Yelp, but it does give you the chance to know that they are unhappy and can deal with the issue before they decide to blast you with both barrels.
Reputation Marketing is a compelling system, and I’m going to share with you the one problem we have had over the years with this so that you can decide right now with you want this or not. The main issue we have is that the simple act of asking a client to sign into a tablet (or sign out for that matter) for some reason seems too tricky. It is an incredibly small change in procedure that any business should adopt when they realize the unbelievably great benefits that come from such a little thing, but some people can’t make the change, and they call us up a few months later and say it doesn’t work.
It works! I mean it really works, but, if you can’t seem to be able to make that minimal change in the culture of your company, I wouldn’t bother trying this. The fact is that other firms and competitors in your field who do decide that it’s worth the unbelievably small effort it takes to get these reviews will be the ones that survive and make the most money moving forward.
This rather inexpensive system is incredibly powerful, and a smart business owner or executive should do everything they can to implement this in their business.