Most web designers know very little about online marketing

What do you think is more important: an attractively designed website or a search engine friendly website? Well I would say that the two shouldn’t be mutually exclusive but that if you really had to make a choice you would need to think about how your customers will find your website.

If you need your potential customers to find your website when searching online you need to ensure that your website is search engine friendly. If the main way that your website will be viewed is when you give your prospects your business card and direct them to your website then I don’t suppose it really matters whether the website is search engine friendly or not!

Design is important but shouldn’t be the only focus

The design of a website is obviously important, I’m not saying that it isn’t, but the design comes more to the fore when looking at grabbing a prospect’s attention once they’ve found it and encouraging them to take some action…and they can only do that if they have found your site in the first place.

Web designers are often just that – ‘graphic’ designers who know how to code a website, or there may be a team of graphic designers and coders working together. But there often isn’t an online marketing expert in that mix, and hence many websites don’t work for their owners.

Local small business owners often don’t know enough about local online marketing

I often hear local business owners saying that the internet doesn’t work for them. They have a website but they don’t get many leads from it. There are two issues here. Often the business owner isn’t actually tracking their enquiries and so doesn’t really know where their leads are coming from anyway; the feedback that they do have is anecdotal. A website analytics programme, like the free Google Analytics, would at least help with that from an internet perspective but in my experience is not often included as standard when a website is designed.

Secondly, as their website isn’t search engine friendly or optimized for their keyword phrases it rarely comes up in local searches, and hence they don’t get many leads from it. However local search is really common nowadays. When was the last time that you picked up the Yellow Pages to find a local supplier? Exactly! In the main nowadays we ‘Google’ to find local products and services, so the potential leads are there, they just aren’t finding the local websites for the above reasons; and that’s leaving loads of money on the table for the business, as well as undermining the business owner’s view of the internet as a marketing tool.

Local Businesses can get to the top of Google comparatively easily

It is comparatively easy to list high on Google for a local business. I have two local businesses in Kent: a local community magazine based in Hythe that is first on Google for ‘advertising hythe’ out of a possible 77,700 entries and a local business networking group that is first on Google for ‘business networking Folkestone’ out of a possible 226,000 entries and there are quite a few local business networking groups, some much bigger than us! If you think of the types of business it is probably harder to list top for the networking business but in the absence of much online competition, which is also the case for many local businesses, it is comparatively easy.

Questions to ask a potential web designer

So when choosing a web designer make sure you ask them about their online marketing knowledge too including how they ensure that their websites are search engine friendly.

They should be talking about:
• a content management system that you can use to regularly add fresh content to your site
• an analytics programme that you have access to so you know how people are finding you and how many of them there are, so you can make adjustments to your online marketing as appropriate
• what keywords and keyword phrases you want to be listing on Google for
• how your new site can be integrated with social media like a blog, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn

If they can’t offer, or even worse can’t even talk about, the above as a starting point – run a mile, or at the very least get an online marketing expert to work with the web designer to ensure that you end up with a website that really works for you and your business.

Photo Credit: Jim-AR

Local Online Marketing: is your website optimized for your keywords? I was called recently by someone saying, “your website,...
Webinar: 7 Simple Steps to Better Local Online Marketing [ September 16 2009; 8:00 pm to 9:00 pm. ]...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Tagged as: Business, Google, internet marketing, marketing, Web design, Web search engine, Website

Andy Harris

I suspect that in a few years we'll be able to look back at these times in which local businesses (generally) have little idea of SEO & Website strength ... and laugh. Many of us who work in this sector will have evolved into other types of work (or retired super rich of course!) and being good at online marketing will become about as normal as it is to be able to use Word or Excel. Of course, there will still be those few who don't evolve, as there are those who still won't use a computer for much nowadays.

I agree with Jo in that many small businesses are sending money down the drain (for now) purely because they don't know any better. You'd think that organisations such as banks, accountants etc., who are in regular contact with their business clients, would provide recommendations, ask for feedback on quality of services provided, and remove those who don't perform. You'd think that it would be in the interests for banks 'as a whole' to have some sort of 'quality scoring system' to allow any suppliers of services to get onto their lists (whether that be for website development, SEO, PR, or whatever) and then keep a close eye on what their business customers feed back about those suppliers. After all, if a bank lends a customer money to fund marketing expansion, and that all goes horribly wrong because of a poor supplier, then that's going to have a detrimental impact on the success of the bank's customer, which surely would be a good thing to avoid.

I think we will gradually (over many years) evolve to a system whereby 'quality standards' come into play (e.g. for web work) but until that day, all of us who actually care about how successfull businesses are, should be reaching out as much as possible to educate about the pitfalls that should be avoided when considering buying in web services.

Like you Jo, I detest those in this industry that provide a poor service and although word about "the bad ones" gets around, the more awareness out there, the better.
Jo Dodds

I'll go for the retiring super rich option, Andy, if that's alright!!

I think education is so important because for real quality standards to
come in I think business owners need some understanding of what makes
something good or bad quality. As I've already said, they're too quick
to blame the internet for their website not working rather realising
that it's perhaps the website SEO, lack of a call to action and poor off
page marketing that's causing the problem...and in lots of cases it's in
the interests of the web designer to allow them to carry on thinking
that!

It's interesting to predict the future and looking back on how much has
changed in the last twenty years I think you might be right Andy - life
in local online marketing will be very different!

Thanks for joining in the discussion.
aaronsavage

To be honest it isn't a fair comparison, because web design and digital marketing isn't the same thing at all, but I am surprised that you haven’t mentioned that there is a huge difference between SEO effectiveness on page and off page, with what happens off page enormously more important than what happens on page.

I completely take your point that local search listings are a lot easier to achieve high placement on (especially once you move out of city centre areas) but that is partly due to the reduced competition and partly due to the fact that most local business doesn't know how to approach SEO. If the need isn’t understood then the benefits and value are not appreciated.

Which brings me back to the original point. It is important to have an overall Digital Marketing Strategy of which user experience on the site should be a key element but when it comes to web design, the question isn't will it be SEO friendly, the question is whether it is built to usability and accessibility standards. Coincidentally these standards are SEO friendly. Similarly it shouldn't be a case of asking for a CMS (ten points to every local business client who actually understands what that means) but understanding that search engines like sites that grow and which are updated regularly.

Having started as a Web Designer some fifteen years ago now and began my digital marketing ten years ago, I do feel for clients who do not ask the right questions due to lack of knowledge but also feel for small scale web designers who are asked to supply the absolute earth for the equivalent of an evening shift working in a pub. I can imagine that the temptation is there to simply deliver what you have been asked for and are being under paid to deliver.
Jo Dodds

Hi Aaron

Thanks for contributing to this post; it is much appreciated especially when it adds something to the debate.

I agree it's not a fair comparison if that is made clear to small business owners looking to buy a website but as I said in the post, there are many owners who think that the internet doesn't work for their particular business when actually it is their website that isn't working and not all web designers make that distinction as it isn't always in their own best interests.

My comment about asking for a CMS - whilst being about making sure that the website can be updated regularly - was also about enabling small business owners to create that new content without being restricted by their budget. I know small business owners who want to add just one page to their website but don't because they have been quoted £200!

I completely agree with your last comment about business owners wanting the earth but not wanting to pay enough for it but if some of these web designers actually engaged the business owners and educated them in what is important, they may realise that they don't need the earth anyway - just a reasonably nice looking site that works for them and gets them business!
Lee Freeman

Really interesting read Jo!

I spent a long time looking for the right webdesigners for my new local online directory website www.KentBusinessDirectory.co.uk.

I was really surprised that i knew more about online marketing than half of the so called specialists that i approached!

Although the design of the site needs to be interesting and maybe even memorable...if the sites set up in such a way that even Google cant find it - then its money down the drain!

Lee
Jo Dodds

Exactly, Lee, but I fear that many small businesses are sending money
down the drain. It's my mission to stop it!!

I love the design of your website but as you say if you hadn't got the
'behind the scenes' set up right it wouldn't be working for you, as it
clearly is.

Design is important but shouldn’t be the only focus

Local small business owners often don’t know enough about local online marketing

Local Businesses can get to the top of Google comparatively easily

Questions to ask a potential web designer

Related posts:

Download our 2 Free Reports – Enter your First Name and Email

Recommended Tools

Categories

Click here to vote if you like our blog!

Login

Tags

RSS Email Feed