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Do I really need a Professional Website Design?

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Do I really need a Professional Website Design?

Do I Really Need a Professional Website Design?

OK. You’re convinced. You need a website. But do you really need a professional website?
Do you want a road construction worker to drill your teeth?

  • Do you hire a dentist to fix your car engine?
  • Do you want a mechanic to perform your open-heart surgery?
  • Do you hire a surgeon to design your new office building?
  • Do you want an architect to be your nurse?
  • Do you hire a nurse to represent you in court?
  • Do you want a lawyer to pilot your plane?
  • Do you hire a pilot to take care of your accounts?
  • Do you want an accountant to draw your blood?
  • Do you hire a phlebotomist to be your computer programmer!?!
website design

Then why would you want or hire a free website design site to create and design your BEST marketing tool in today’s global market?!?!

Do you need more persuasion?Here are ten of the most important reasons why you can benefit from a quality, professional website design.

1. Increase the expertise of your website design.Whether you’re an accountant, landscaper, builder, computer programmer, or a phlebotomist, you’re an expert at what you do. So are professional website designers. They are able to use their expertise and experience to transform your ideas into web pages that best convey your message.

2. Increase the quality of your website’s content.Your content also has to be clear and concise since most people want to know almost immediately what you’re trying to say, or they bounce off. An experienced web designer will work with your content and call to action to ensure that they are not hidden or obscure, but are direct and understandable.

3. Increase the readability and functionality of your site.Steve Jobs quoted that “success is in the details.” Your website’s success may depend on the ease of the navigation, spacing of text, contrast, and many other seemingly unimportant nuances that may affect how readable and functional your site is. A knowledgeable designer is well acquainted with the importance these fine details may make to the success of your website.

4. Increase your website’s uniqueness.The goal of your website is to make your business or message stand out from those of your competitors. Using a free website design site means that you will be using the same design template that hundreds and thousands of other companies are using. In a time when your website has to stand out not only nationally, but also globally, a “cookie-cutter” website just isn’t going to “cut it”! A professional designer will make your website exceptional no matter what your unique message may be.

5. Increase your ranking on the three top Search Engines.In the World Wide Web of today, the visibility of your website depends heavily on its ranking on the search engines: Google, Yahoo, and Bing. In order to rank, your website needs to not onlyhave rich and clean code created that is search engine friendly, but also all of the necessary meta-data required. A clean, efficient, fast loading website that also has clear, concise, well-written content will rank higher.

6. Increase the amount of visitors who stay on your site. The first impression of your site determines whether or not visitors will stay long enough to find out who you are. If what they see grabs their interest, they may proceed to your call of action. However, it takes something special to keep them on your site, and a professional website designer has the skills and knowledge to make it stand out from among the crowd.

7. Increase your customer base. The whole point of your website is your call to action. Whether it’s a sign-up, buy now, or learn more, where it is on your web page, how it looks, and what it says will determine whether or not your visitor converts and becomes a customer.

8. Increase brand visibility.Marketing your brand so that it is consistent across different contexts is essential. Professional designers will create a visual image and language that will make a memorable impression as part of a coherent whole. Whether your brand is represented bya website, logo, business cards, and/or your social media profiles, it will easily be recognized and remembered.

9. Increase the possibility of a reliable partnership.Creating your website needs to be a collaborate effort between you and your web designer. Compromise and communication are involved in this process. Once you have a satisfactory result, then you will still have someone to work who will be available for needed changes or additions.

10. Increase high quality website design services in the future.The partnership with your professional website designer does not end once you have created an outstanding website. As your company changes and grows, you will continue to need to work together on improvements, new additions, and developments as your business expands. There is no time for allowing moss to grow on your website.

In conclusion, don’t forget this VERY important adage: You get what you pay for!!!

Face it.  Do really want to spend your valuable time trying to wade your way through the directions on a free website design site when you could be out there doing what YOU do best? And, after all, would you want your 16-year old to drive in the Indy 500?

Go PRO!

Resources:
http://www.antemeridiemdesign.com/articles/10-benefits-of-quality-web-design.php

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National Auctioneers Association | Website Design

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National Auctioneers Association | Website Design

Now members of the National Auctioneers Association!

National Auctioneers Association We have been providing Online Auction Software to the Auction industry for over 14 years. Our company consists of 3 full time website developers ready and able to talk the auction talk with you. Need proxy bidding? We know what that is. Need an easy way to post time sensitive material? We understand the nature of the auction industry, which is always time sensitive, to help you as quickly as we can. Consignors? We understand the reporting they require.

We are also excited to annouce that we are launching our NEW LIVE Auction Software! We are providing the opportunity for bidders to Bid LIVE on the internet! This is not a new concept and has been available from other providers BUT you do not give your commission away with our version of SpectrumBIDLIVE simulcast software.

We will be displaying at the International Auctioneers Conference & Show in Louisville, KY. The show is held July 8 – July 12. Stop by and see us then!

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Kluck Nursery undergoes a website transformation!

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Kluck Nursery

Kluck Nursery undergoes a website transformation!

Local company gets a new look

Kluck Nursery has been with Spectrum Net Designs since 2002. Through these many years we have enjoyed working with Kluck Nursery and providing their website design, website hosting, and email needs.

We were recently contacted by Kluck Nursery to help them bring their website design to the 20th century. Included in this transformation was:

  • NEW website re-design
  • Links to Social Media
  • Rotating slideshow on all pages
  • Ability to update the hours themselves
  • Mobile friendly version of site so that it is easy to navigate no matter the device being used
Laura and Marty worked closely together throughout the entire website design process to make sure that it was seamless and achieved the goals Kluck Nursery had. If this is something that your company has been throwing around, contact us today! We would love to talk to you about the many features that can be included on your website. Wondering why you should consider updating?? Check out our recent blog post here.  Visit Kluck Nursery’s website here: www.klucknursery.com 
Kluck Nursery

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Website Design… Boring to WOW

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Website Design… Boring to WOW

Click! ….. And they’re gone.

The typical “Millennials” (those born in the early 1980s to the early 2000s) are madly clicking away. On their laptops, on their tablets, and most often, on their phones. When they’re not texting or playing online games, they’re surfing. Fast. Fast. Faster. What are they surfing? The millions and billions of websites. For what are they surfing? Anything and everything! So how do you get your site noticed and not merely clicked on and bounced off? 

First Impressions Matter

First and foremost is the need to create a great first impression! This is far from an original idea. But… It’s a tried and true fact. If, at first glance, your content has nothing to grab the “clicker’s” attention, they’ve already bounced off and on to the next site. Keeping in mind that they are most likely using mobile devices, your site has to be mobile-friendly. Since you have only a millisecond to convince them to stay, your best attention grabber is an exceptional, high-quality photo or an outstanding graphic. If you combine this with a bold, colorful, easy-to-read text, the clicker may stay long enough to peruse the rest of your site.

What About The Boomers!

But… will this leave out the “Baby Boomers”? No! Those who are more “mature” (the forerunners or the parents of those aforesaid “Millennials”) are rapidly catching up. More and more are switching from their desktops to mobile devices and are click, click, clicking away, along with their offspring. Although they may take more than a millisecond to decide whether or not your site is worth their time, it’s not too long before they determine to click or not to click. They, too, are heavily influenced by that first impression.

Keep Content Fresh

Once the user decides to stay on your website, you have to keep them there. Does your content read as “Blah, blah, blah” (like Charlie Brown’s teacher)? Is it just white noise? Or more annoying, static? If so, you need to revise or…throw it out. Start over. Your text needs to be short, to the point, spell checked, grammar checked and organized, as well as informative. If the user doesn’t think your content is relative to what they’re searching for, off they bounce! And if, hopefully, they return, they don’t want to reread the same thing over and over again. They want new, fresh material – relative to their needs.

So how do you make your website go from “BOR….Ring!” to “WOW!”? Make that first impression bold and loud enough to stop their clicking. Only then will they stay long enough to determine whether or not your site has what it takes to convert.

Fascinating Facts:

“While Millennials were not the highest in usage of mobile phones and smartphones, the study found them to have the highest usage of social media. Eighty-four percent of Millennials are social media users, with 66% of Gen X on social networks and 44% of Baby Boomers. According to the study, more than half of the U.S. users on Twitter are Millennials.” Carolyn Cohen, How Do Millennials Behave On Social, Mobile, And The Web?

89% of seniors 65+ have personal email and use it regularly (Nielsen).72% of baby boomers have broadband Internet in their homes (ThirdAge and JWT Boom). 36% of adults 50+ own a Smartphone (Pew). 44% of Smartphone owners age 50+ access the Internet or check email daily from their device (Pew). (2020 Updated: Fact was from Immersion Active, but web page is no longer active.)

Milans Miracle Fund

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pexels-photo-23971

Milans Miracle Fund

Meet Milan Capobianco

Milans Miracle FundRecently we have had the privilege to work with Sharyn Capobianco in the re-design of her website: www.milansmiraclefund.org.
Milan Maria Capobianco (Sharyn’s daughter) was born December 8, 2000 in Grand Rapids, MI and died peacefully on Thursday February 12, 2009 at Helen Devos Children’s Hospital. She endured a lifelong battle against the odds which she conquered time and again. She was told she would never walk, and she danced in flip flops! Then she was told she would be legally blind and instead she saw the world clearly. But in the end Milan lost her biggest fight with an inoperable brain tumor.

When the angels arrived we all hoped they would bring a new miracle but instead the took Milan to a place free from doctors, needles and pills. Milan was a fearless wonder that touched everyone she met and those whose path she just happened to cross.

Milans Miracle Fund was established by her parents at first to help her, but now to support families with kids coping with Brain Tumors. To date they have raised over $100,000 for pediatric cancer research.

Consider giving towards this great cause!  Click here to donate

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On the Move, Move…Mobile Website Design

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mobile responsive user experience

On the Move, Move…Mobile Website Design

Everywhere you go, people are on the move! Zipping here, zipping there. Over here .Over there. Here and there, everywhere. On the road. In the mall. In the air, on the ground. Walking, running, driving, boating, flying. Rush, rush, rushing. No time. All the time. Move, move… mobile!

Surf the net at home, on your desktop computer? Are you kidding? We’re all too busy running around like White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!” And as he ran, he took his watch out of his pocket and looked at it as he hurried on. More and more of us are looking at our pocket watches as we hurry on. Pocket watches?!?! No, our phones! Our tablets!

On September 25, 2012, Google Mobile Ads Blog reported research that showed that 67% of users are most like to buy from a mobile-friendly site than one that is not. (You can find that blog here) The trend for 2014 is that most websites will have almost 40% of their visitors accessing their sites from a mobile phone or tablet as compared to a desktop. That percent has more than doubled since 2011. The result? If you’re relying on your website to remain in business, you need to have your website move into responsive design for all mobile devices.

What is responsive design? Simply, it’s a website design that will “look good” no matter what device it’s being viewed on. No matter if it’s a SmartPhone, an iPad, or a tablet, the user will not have to use his/her fingers to adjust the screen size or zoom in on the information. It will provide everyone who visits your site with a user-friendly experience. Having one responsive website design / mobile website design is also better for your SEO management. Why? Again, the answer is simple. It’s much easier to manage one site and one SEO campaign than it is to manage two.

Still not convinced? Look around you! At your business. At the mall. At a restaurant. In a car. At your home. They’re all White Rabbits! They’re everywhere!!! Do you think they’ll really take the time to view your site if it takes more than just one click? No! They’ll bounce off and move on to the next site. The one that’s automatically adjusting to the proper size based on the device being used. That’s where they’ll land. That’s where they’re mostly likely to convert. Keep up with White Rabbit! Move, move, move…. mobile!

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CENTS Show 2014

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Grand Rapids downtown skyline with Grand River in the foreground.

CENTS Show 2014

Spectrum Net Designs, Inc will be attending
the CENTS show in Columbus OH!
WHEN: Monday, January 13 – Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Monday: 9am – 5pm

Tuesday:
9am – 5pm

Wednesday:
9am – 2pm

BOOTH # 1538

WHERE: Greater Columbus Convention Center (GCCC)

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Lions, and tigers, and penguins, oh….. Penguins!?! Pandas!?! And now…

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penguin-funny-blue-water-86405

Lions, and tigers, and penguins, oh….. Penguins!?! Pandas!?! And now…

Lions, and tigers, and penguins, oh….. Penguins!?! Pandas!?! And now, Hummingbirds!?! It’s a virtual zoo!!!

Who knew that when you launched your business into the virtual world of the Internet that you’d also be exposing your website to a virtual animal world as well! If you want your customers and potential customers to find you on the World Wide Web, you need to be aware of the role of Google’s virtual zoo of Panda, Penguin, and its latest search engine algorithm, Hummingbird.

What in the virtual world is a search engine algorithm? One dictionary definition of an algorithm is, “A step-by-step problem-solving procedure, especially an established, recursive computational procedure for solving a problem in a finite number of steps.” In other words, Google uses a type of recipe to rank the billions of web pages and other information according to which one gives the best answer to the particular question or query of the user. Users (and customers) are searching for the best answers to queries varying from scientific homework questions, to who offers the best service for removing spilled grape juice on a carpet, to which airline is offering the best deals in flying to Denmark during July, or to which zoo in Chicago has pandas, penguins, and humming birds. The ultimate goal is to get your website listed as providing the best answer to questions and queries of the user or customer, thus getting them to visit you instead of all others in the virtual world, in other words, giving your website a high PageRank on all the search engines.

Google Panda

Panda was originally introduced by Google in February 2011. It was a search engine algorithm designed to stop sites with poor quality content from ranking in the top search results for given queries or keywords. From its introduction through July 18, 2013, Panda was updated about twenty-six times. In each update, Panda was improved to eliminate those sites that didn’t have enough quality content to warrant obtaining a high PageRank.

On April 24, 2012, Penguin was launched. Once again, Google’s goal was to provide better, more relevant search results to its users, whose objective is to use Google to find information. Penguin’s job was to devalue websites that were manipulating links as well as having on-page spam to increase their PageRank. Such manipulation includes paid and low-quality backlinks, large numbers of links with optimized anchor text, excessive link exchanges, text advertisements that pass PageRank, and other types of link schemes. As the Internet continues to evolve, so do the techniques to manipulate the rankings. Google’s seemingly endless task continues to weed out such websites that rank better despite poor quality content.

First Panda, then Penguin, and on its 15th birthday, September 27, 2013, Google revealed Hummingbird. Why Hummingbird? This latest search engine algorithm was designed to be more precise and faster in providing query results, as well as focusing on the intent of the user rather than individual search terms or keywords. In addition, Hummingbird makes it possible for Google to provide results for long-tail queries as well as natural-language (spoken) queries. These types of queries are most likely to be used by those on-the-go people who are using their mobile devices to conduct their searches. With mobile usage predicted to surpass desktop by 2015, website content must also be mobile-friendly in addition to high quality, thus initiating Hummingbird.

So how do you avoid being caught by Pandas and Penguins, and Hummingbirds? Yes, the advent of the World Wide Web introduced a virtual world that has changed the way of conducting business forever. Yet, what was true before the WWW is still true today. Do what’s best for the sake of your users and customers by providing good, high-quality content that answers whatever queries they may be using on whatever devices they may be using. If you keep the needs of your customers in your mind, you can avoid the “lions and tigers and bears [and Pandas and Penguins and Hummingbirds], oh my!”

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Does My Business Need To Have a Website?

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does-my-business-need-a-website

Does My Business Need To Have a Website?

Website Design

To Have or Not To Have… A Website

Here are some reasons for not having a website: 

  • You want to stay unnoticed.
  • You don’t want to have to expand your office.
  • You enjoy staying small.
  • You don’t want your brand name known.
  • You’d rather spend your time golfing.
  • You don’t want to service your customers 24/7.
  • You prefer to pay higher costs for traditional advertising.
  • You don’t like change.
  • You prefer to stay with just your physical store.
  • You don’t want to attract more customers.
  • You like twiddling your thumbs.

While researching the top ten reasons to have a website, we discovered that these reasons consist of two types:  those that benefit your customers and those that benefit you as a business.

Benefits for your customers: 

  • They can search for products and services before making purchases.
  • They can educate themselves about your business by finding the answers to FAQ’s.
  • They can search 24/7.
  • They can contact you more easily.
  • They can find you in local directories.
  • They can read your blogs, tips, articles, how-to procedures, diagrams, etc.
  • They can get support from reading your site.
  • They can see product and service demonstrations.
  • They can receive customer service directly.
  • They can see what you’re offering without driving to your physical business site.

In other words, having a website provides customer convenience.  They can search your site at their leisure, find out what you’re offering, research your products and services before making purchases, and it’s easier for them to contact you.

Benefits for your business: 

  • Low-cost advertising.
  • Can accurately track the traffic on your website.
  • Increases the geographic range of your business.
  • A source of leads.
  • Easily up-date products and services.
  • Boost sales by attracting more customers.
  • Improve business efficiency.
  • Keep the edge on competitors.
  • Immediate feedback.
  • Makes your business easy to find. 

Overall, having a website is a great equalizer by making it easier for potential customers to find your business online.  A website is more cost-effective than traditional marketing, as well as providing cheap market research.  Finally, it improves your credibility to customers since they can tell a lot by your website’s appearance – it’s appealing, professional-looking, and user-friendly.

All in all, having a website benefits both your customers and your business.

It’s a win/win situation!

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Spectrum Net Designs Has Grown!

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Spectrum Net Designs Has Grown!

First, we would like to thank all of our clients for the business that they have given us during the 14 years we have been in business. Without the support of our clients, we would not be where we are today. Over the past years our customer base has increased tremendously and for that we are very thankful.

Due to the increase in our client base and with the increased demand for the services that we provide, Spectrum Net Designs, Inc has expanded so that we can:

  • Serve all our clients for their specific needs
  • Have support staff available to help you when you call in – no long waits on hold or automated responses. We pride ourselves with the fact that we personally answer each and every phone call
  • Complete our projects in a timely manner to meet deadlines
  • Create a team working environment – many hands make light work!

Our new office is located in Grandville, MI.

On Friday, October 25, we welcomed in the Michigan West Coast Chamber of Commerce, as well as clients, friends & family to help us celebrate our expansion as well as 14 years in business.

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