Powell Creative is an award-winning advertising and graphic design firm in Nashville Tn. Specializing in branding and graphic, website, email marketing and advertising design.

Your website is your company’s most powerful sales tool. It never takes a break. It works every weekend, all holidays and travels globally. That’s right, 24/7 and 365, your website is the salesperson that never goes home or sleeps.

Below are 10 reasons your site may not be properly optimized for search engines, such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.

1. Is your site older than 4 years? Search engines are fast, constantly evolving. If your site isn’t built to keep up with the fast paced world of Google crawlers, the age of your website structure may be your biggest enemy.
2. Do you have a blog or news updates? Regularly updated content gives Google a reason to keep visiting your site. More visits = more opportunities to appear in search results.
3. Are you using social media to drive traffic to your site? Along with an ongoing conversation with your online community, you should be using social media to drive traffic and gain traction in search engines.
4. How does your site perform on mobile devices? If your site can’t be viewed easily on a smart phone or iPad, then search engines likely aren’t ‘seeing’ it either.
5. Do you know how much traffic your site receives? In order to have a solid plan for search engine optimization for the future, you have to know how your site is and has performed in the recent past. Google Analytics offers a wealth of information regarding site traffic that can help you address and alter your approach for SEO.
6. Is your website driving sales leads or bringing in potential customers? Not only are easily found contact forms important for reaching potential prospects, but they can also assist your rankings in Google. Getting large amounts of web traffic is great, but those visitors need a quick easy way to convert to prospects.
7. Has it been more than a year since your site was updated? Effective SEO requires regular site updates and maintenance. It is critical to constantly monitor your sites results in major Search engines and make regular adjustments.
8. Is your website content relevant to your primary search terms and/or services? Writing search engine friendly content that appeals to your audience is a bit of a balancing act. We’ve fine-tuned the skill of communicating with your customer with content that is rich in keyword relevance for search engines.
9. Does your site have Flash? Unfortunately, while Flash may ‘look cool’ it isn’t exactly SEO friendly. Images and Flash can create crawling issues for search engines that will lead to little or even no text being indexed for search results which ultimately means less search engine traffic to your site.
10. Is your site full of images? Search engines do not read content within graphics. While your site may be visually appealing with heavy imagery, the search engine crawlers are left with little content to read and therefor little content to place in search results.
    

If you have questions or concerns about your site’s performance, call us to enhance your hardest working sales tool.

Of course, we at Powell Creative are immersed in the world of web design, and we provide quotes for projects of varying scopes and sizes all the time for businesses like yours. From our firsthand experiences working with web quote newbies, we’ve compiled some pointers to help you before, during and after the quote comparison process.

BEFORE YOU REQUEST A QUOTE…

Know what your site needs to say and do.
Do your homework and some marketing introspection to determine the purpose, audience and potential content of your site, as well as the types of functionality you’re hoping for. Bookmark websites that you like as reference, and clearly list your specific requirements.

Pinpoint your website assets.
Assess if you already have the content and imagery needed to complete your site. If you don’t have good copy and/or photography, you will likely need to have those items included in the quotes.

Narrow your potential partner list.
Request quotes only from potential partners who have intrigued you through their word-of-mouth references, online portfolios and other representations of work done well.

Outline a budget.
While you may not have full understanding of what a website design might cost, you do know what your budget can sustain. Know your limits going into the process, and you’ll spare yourself and potential partners unnecessary planning, dreaming and quoting.

DURING THE QUOTE…

Level the playing field.
Give all prospects the same parameters and list of requirements so that you will be more likely to come out with apples-to-apples quotes for comparison.

Meet and greet.
If possible, have meetings with your potential partners. This will allow the chance to discern styles and personalities that you won’t necessarily find through online interactions.

Set a timeframe.
Allow potential partners reasonable time to prepare quotes but hold to a deadline for submission. That may be a good indicator of who’ll be most responsive long term.

AFTER THE QUOTE…

Make it all about you.
Make sure the quotes address all your requirements. Use the process of elimination if you find a potential vendor misses one or more of your clearly stated directives. If they didn’t hear you during the pitch, they surely won’t after they’ve landed your business.

Read everything—not just the total estimated cost on the last page.
Don’t make decisions based solely on price. Thoroughly read the quotes to understand the approaches, details and services enfolded into the final numbers.

Remember web design is about so much more than appearance.
Great web design is only one-part looks; you need a site designed for ease of navigation, that’s mobile friendly and readily found through web search. Narrow your list to only those potential partners who address these essential aspects of your website.

Keep an eye on the time.
Make a decision as promptly as possible, as that’s more efficient and thoughtful for all parties involved. Not to mention, web designers stay rather busy these days, and the sooner you can get on a work schedule the better.

Please contact us today to discuss your new website. Or, if you prefer, we can function as your consultant in establishing an RFP for your upcoming website project.

Blast-off has been a long time coming for our new website (client projects always come first), so we’re really excited now that launch has officially occurred. Not only do we hope you get to know us and our work a little better, we hope the site itself serves as an example of our web design and development capabilities in action.

While we hope you visit our site, we encourage you to revisit your own as well. Is your site welcoming, quick loading and true to your brand? If you’d like to freshen your web presence, we’d be glad to help.