If you ever run into a website designer who says you have to redesign your website often to rank in Google, run. Fast. Because that's a bald-faced lie. If your website consistently turns visitors into happy customers, then a redesign is probably not in your best interests. It's also a risk.
In fact, there are only a few good reasons to redesign your website:
Ultimately, the decision to redesign your website is tied to one major question:
"Will this make visitors more likely to do business with my business?"
You see, you can have all the fancy graphics and flashy elements that you want. However, if all your website does is look pretty then, what's the point?
A website has to be user-friendly. It has to motivate visitors and lead them to a specific action. Whether that action is a phone call, an email requesting services, or walk-in traffic, it has to inspire action.
Is that difficult to do? Yes. Many fly-by-night or cheap website designers in Tampa deliver a low-cost, low-quality site that does nothing. At 13 Guys Named Ed, we have actually had to undo a lot of damage that businesses in Tampa have endured due to poor-looking and poor-performing websites. Oh, and let's not lump in all the affordable web designers in Tampa together. The worst horror stories come from hard-working business owners who spend literally thousands upon thousands of dollars on the most elaborate, the most flashy looking websites. What's missing? Good copy; a comprehensive SEO strategy; and a user-friendly site that clearly speaks to the business' target customer.
It shouldn't happen, but it does. And, it happens way too much.
If you're considering a website redesign for your business, contact 13 Guys Named Ed. We hope to show you how our "Big Design for Small Businesses" motto can elevate your brand to new heights.
What does this have to do with websites and web design?
Everything.
You see, I was fortunate enough to play Pitfall again recently. I thought to myself, "Games these days are even more complex and difficult. This will be a piece of cake." I was wrong...dead wrong. I kept falling into the same traps. My timing was still off. I fooled myself into thinking that just because the game looked simple, it would be simple.
It's just like those commercials you see now for "Cheap Tampa Websites." Or, "$199 websites for Tampa business." The billboards and commercials...their message is so simple. Simply choose a template. Enter your text and your logo and BEHOLD! Instant traffic and instant money pouring into your coffers.
What's that phrase that comes to mind in situations just like this?
Too good to be...what?
True?
We've had businesses throughout Tampa Bay call us trying to fix their "cheap website." They found that they didn't get the support they needed and were charged heavily for a simple fix. The worst stories come from business owners who were embarrassed by visitors who actually called their site to inform them of mistakes, or worse, to say the site was hacked. These local Tampa business owners end up telling us, "Turns out I should have trusted my gut and just have chosen a local website designer here in Tampa instead of falling for that... (insert your descriptive noun here)."
There's a reason why the top ranking businesses on the web are there. They know that to stay on top of Google's search rankings, they have to find a reputable web design and website development company who is just as vested in their success as they are.
That's where 13 Guys Named Ed comes in. We play this game, everyday. We've passed through the levels of coding, design, and copy. We stay on top of SEO changes. We've faced the boss (Google). We captured the treasure.
Like any good guide, our Tampa web branding and design services can show you the way while also helping you avoid the pitfalls. Let us show you how to capture your treasure.
Game on.
We recently had an experience with our bank that either taught us some new lessons in customer service or, at least, emphasized ones we already knew. It wasn't a good experience but we're probably better off in the long-run.
Jason and I have had a business for a few years. It never went anywhere, but we did all the stuff that you have to do when you start a legitimate company: file paperwork with the state, apply for a federal tax ID with the IRS, write an operating agreement, and get a bank account.
I didn't do a ton of research into our options, thinking instead that one bank is probably as good as another. Rather than looking at marketing materials or fee schedules, I used the incredibly scientific method of choosing the bank with a branch geographically the closest to where we intended someday to have an office. Not the closest to where I happened to live, but the closest to some arbitrary, hypothetical place that only existed in our dreams. Whatever. I picked one.
Most small bank branches have one person dedicated (or semi-dedicated) to its business customers. Anything more complicated than depositing a check or getting some petty cash is done through this person rather than going to a teller. As a very-small-corporate customer, I always got a kick out of being treated like the bank might actually care about my business.
Walk in. Handshake. Offer of an in-cubicle chair. Down to business.
Unfortunately, the turnover of vice-presidents (everyone at a bank is vice-president) in this position is incredibly high, so the chance of getting someone who's a real A-hole increases with every promotion or layoff.
That day finally came when we changed the name of our business to 13 Guys Named Ed, LLC and we needed to make the necessary account changes at the bank. Unfortunately, our new, personal vice-president was an in-genuine, lazy, sniveling liar. No, I don't think I'm being too harsh. We'll call him "V" (not his real name.)
A common interaction:
Me: "I need X done, please."
V: "Yes, sir. No problem, sir. I'll take care of that."
Me: "By when? End of day tomorrow?"
V: "Yup."
Me: "So, you'll call me when it's done, right?"
V: "Yup."
Four Days Later Me:
"You didn't call me, did you do X?"
V: "..."
Me: "You said you'd do X and call me."
V: "..."
It was annoying, but I didn't feel like telling the guy to go to hell and switch banks over someone who may have just been exceptionally lazy. I understand lazy. But, the straw that broke the Ed's back was when Jason did not receive his new bank card. It was supposed to be mailed to his Chicagoland address well before he made the big trek down to Florida, but it had not arrived with only a few days to go. Wondering where the card was, Jason called V and asked him.
Turns out, V never ordered the card.
Typical. Jason told him he really needed the card as he was going to be on the road for the better part of a week before he got somewhere with a real address. In an uncharacteristic move, V ordered a "replacement" card to be overnighted to Jason's Chicagoland address. Sure enough, the card showed up shortly thereafter.
Everybody's happy... until I check our bank statement and see a $25 charge for an expedited bank card replacement.
No big deal, I think. I'll just go and talk to V and have him credit the charge. After all, the bank's just fixing a problem they caused in the first place.
"I don't know," he says. "I'll have to speak with the manager. It's out of my hands."
"Really," I respond. "I don't care what you have to do, but you have to make that charge go away."
I wasn't trying to be a jerk about it, but I've always believed that customer service has very little to do with the problems that happen. Problems always happen. Customer service is about how you FIX those problems. Companies that are incapable of fixing their problems suck at customer service.
Needless to say, it's been nearly two months and despite several "hey dude, WTF?"s, we have't heard a thing. The charge is still on our account. It seems kind of harsh to go through the headache of creating new accounts, closing old ones, and condemning a whole bank with over 27,000 employees because of one idiot. I even had a little bit of corporate loyalty, but in the end we've given up on it and decided to switch banks altogether.
Just as we were bellyaching about the situation we happened to run into Eric Hollar of BB&T, a regional bank with several branches around here. They're not as big or as fancy as V's bank, but they seemed to WANT to do business with us. In fact, they seemed downright eager.
We'll see how it goes. The bank might get bought out, get taken over by the FDIC, or Eric could get promoted out of our branch. At least now I know we can just take our business somewhere else.
I happened to tell this rambling story to my old boss who's been in the financial services business for a long time. He told me, matter-of-factly, "Man, never marry your bank."
Blog, blog, blog, everywhere a blog. You can't surf to any corporate website without immediately seeing a big, ol' link to the company blog, filled to brimming with article after article, fresh content generated every single day for years on end. Did companies have this much to say before the development of the blogosphere? Did they sit, silently yearning for an appropriate venue in which to display their stifled creative acumen? I have a hard time believing that to be the case.
Having worked for several companies, some very large, I know how difficult it has been for the marketing department to fill two sides of an 8-1/2" x 11" sheet of paper once a month for the company newsletter. So where did this glut of creative energy come from now that a blog is a thing?
I blame Google. And Bing. And every other search engine out there, because they have made it known that "content is king." Generate content, content, content and search engines will eat it up. The content doesn't have to be good--Google wouldn't know it to see it--it just has to be consistent and voluminous, with the proper proporation of desired keywords, and it will help propel your site up the list, which is the end goal. Be at the top of the list. Be the first thing people see and write whatever you have to to get there.
Now, I'm sure Google is doing their darnedest to create the best possible experience for all parties involved, but try as they might, it's still a flawed paradigm. While constant content isn't the only consideration taken into account when ranking sites, it's big enough of a factor that it has become a must-have element if you want to compete in the Googlescape. So, whether or not a company has anything to say, they must say something, resulting in a yammering, bloated Internet stuffed with meaningless drivel, generating an endless wall of words that add up to little more than the random hoots and howls of an untended insane asylum.
Imagine if, in the 1980s, in order to have your company listed in the Yellow Pages, you had to actively engage in espionage and warfare against every possible competitor, known and unknown, just to keep your phone number from vanishing. That is the Internet and we call it blogging.
All that rant, yet here we are. Is 13 Guys Named Ed guilty of the same mandatory blogging? Well... admittedly, yeah. Kinda. And here comes the mandatory wordsmithing where I talk myself out of a pickle.
See, we gotta do this thing. It is an absolutely essential portion of a business website. There's simply no way around it. However... just because it's an obligation, it doesn't mean we have to take the robotic smile-and-nod approach while cranking the keyword conveyor belt and writing love letters to Googlebot. We don't have to. It is very difficult to avoid, though.
I grew up in, and continue to grow up in a culture of corporate spin and big, bright, gleaming smile billboards serving as company image enhancement, where everything is awesome and harmless all the time. It's the only company-style communication I've ever known, so now that I have a company, and I have to communicate through it, I automatically turn to the same conventions I've always held in contempt; hollow, disingenuous, inoffensive, fake-smiley, glassy-eyed crap. I've been wringing my hands for days, worrying about how I was going to generate harmless, meaningless fodder. It is a very difficult zeitgeist to bust. But I'm gonna try.
So, here's the best I can offer: we gotta do this thing, but we promise not to talk to our readership like fragile idiot children. We promise that when we pump our white noise into the Internet, we will do it with tender, loving care. And we promise that our mandatory chatter will be mandatory chatter of the highest calibur.
This we do hereby swear.
Because we love you.
