Masterlink Interactive Blog

After almost 15 years in the Internet industry, I have heard so many horror stories about problems when companies use a small or one-person design “firm” to create their web presence. One of those horror stories that I have heard over and over is when those “firms’ go out of business or simply “disappear”, customers then may find out they do not own their domain name. Instead, the web designer registered themselves as the owner of the domain name. This sometimes also happens even if the designer has not gone out of business so it’s always important to know who “owns” your domain.

Today a small company with this problem called me for help, and to make matters worse, his designer did not pay to renew the domain name, which then expired. He no longer has a website or an email address and unfortunately, the best he can do is wait 60-90 days and try to register the domain name again when it becomes available. He also has to rebuild his site from scratch. Obviously, when you have advertised your website and email address, you are not only inconvenienced by this issue, but also losing business!. I’ve also heard of designers holding the domain name “hostage.” We had one small company call us who eventually had to hire an attorney and pay several thousand dollars to get control of their name – hey, but at least they saved money on their web design!

So, what can you do to protect yourself? First of all, make sure you are working with a reputable design firm that has been in business for many years. Secondly, we recommend you register the domain name yourself to insure you have complete control of the name.

If you are unsure of how your domain was registered, click on the link below, put in your domain name and make sure you are listed as the Registrant. If not, immediately do whatever is necessary to get that changed! Your business could depend on it.

http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp

Ok, so my SEO gurus are not going to like my title, but it’s true! Now don’t get me wrong, my SEO Specialists are the BEST and they do an excellent job of getting that wonderfully sought after target audience to your website. However, what happens when the user gets to your site? Is it easy to use? Is it compelling for the visitor? Does the web design look professional? Does it look trustworthy? Is it outdated?

A billboard or newspaper advertisement can be used to drive foot traffic to your brick and mortar store, but if the store is dirty, the merchandise is not properly organized and the service is poor, you will not make the sale. The same is true for your website – probably even more so! Whether you are selling a product or a service, your prospective online customer is going to make a judgment about your company before ever talking to a real live person or stepping into that million dollar office you occupy.

That old saying, “You never get a second chance to make a good first impression” was never more relevant than today. If that visitor to your site hits the dreaded “back” button before visiting anything more than your homepage (referred to as the bounce rate), you are dead in the water. They will not be coming back.

Now is a great time to take a retrospective look at your current site and see what can be done to catch those visitors that are coming to the site. Some great ideas for drawing those visitors in might be:

• Incorporate some interesting Flash animation to your site that also provides a valuable message to the user that will entice them to want to learn more. Don’t use movement just to see something move – your visitors do not want to be entertained.
• Prominently place a call to action on your homepage.
• Offer some type of online-only value to the visitor, a special coupon, discount, free evaluation, etc. Make sure this information is front and center when they come to your site.
• This may sound simple, but put your phone number and a contact us button on your homepage – users do not want to hunt for that information.
• The homepage should be clean and clutter-free – don’t have too many messages fighting for attention.
• Make sure the content is fresh and new – add a press release, new blog posting.
• Remove any annoying music, sound or auto-launching video.
• Employ a tagline that tells the user exactly what you do – no “cutesy” or “creative” taglines.
• If your site looks like it was designed more than 2 years ago – START OVER.

We have seen conversion rates as high as 30% on sites that are well designed with great SEO that really targets the correct visitor. Even if you are getting conversions with your current site, study your online statistics – you could be missing out on a lot of potential new business.