Successful Web Design, Internet and Social Media Marketing Strategies from Desiree Scales, CEO--Bella Web Design, Inc.

Be Consistent When Marketing Your Brand

We're going to try something different this week. I'd like to welcome our guest blogger Russell Fair--our new Sales Manager. Russell has quite a bit of web development and sales experience and he will be contributing once in a while to the Bella Blog as a guest blogger. I hope you enjoy his first blog post!

Although it seems obvious, I am still surprised when I see inconsistent branding between a company's web site and their non-web marketing efforts such as printed materials and TV commercials. This happens for different reasons I am sure, but primarily, I have observed, it is just because people do not think that it was important to match the online and offline marketing "look and feel." When these inconsistencies are minor, they can slide, but when they are obviously different, the company loses a lot of validity and might even lose potential customers. Companies don't always realize how much it can hurt their business when their customers have an inconsistent experience with the company's branding.

One of my long time friends and business associates had this problem. The majority of his website had a light blue and white theme, the sign outside his company was navy with silver letters, and his printed materials were black ink on ivory parchment. I knew that his customers were getting an inconsistent experience and thus he was most certainly losing business or at least not impressing some folks because of it. His branding message was weak. Once he decided to ensure all materials matched, his business started to pick up. He also gained more confidence in his company's brand which spilled over to his presentations.

I myself have picked up a business card (often without a web address) and go in search of that company. I enter the company name into my favorite search engine and hit the first link. When I get to the website, it is the right company name, but it just does not look like the right place; the colors are different, the logo is different, the fonts, phone number, even the slogan is different. It can be a little disconcerting. So I try a couple other sites. I can't find the one that looks right so I buy my widget from the third or fourth site I visit. Oh, not to mention I threw away the business card, because the information on it was not relevant to me anymore.

When people see different styles and themes they get confused and often are deterred from sending their business your way. When getting a new website, I strongly advise my customers to phase out their old marketing materials and replace them with newer, fresher content which match the new look and feel of the website so their customers get a clear and consistent experience. If these efforts are arranged correctly, they add a lot of validity to your company. That almost always translates to more customers. If you would like more information about how to align your marketing materials to give a consistent experience to your customers please feel free to contact us at 770 509 8797. We can review your current materials, make suggestions and help implement the changes. We look forward to hearing from you!

 

Getting your Blog in Google

On a whim last weekend, I put the words "Successful Web Designers" into Google and found my blog on page one! That made me pretty happy and warm inside. Its almost as if I had the Google stamp of approval. Then I thought, "Does this really mean I'm successful or was did I know what I was doing subconsciously when I titled my blog 'Successful Web Design and Internet Marketing Strategies from Desiree Scales, CEO--Bella Web Design, Inc'?" (Whew!) I think it might be a little of both.

When naming your blog and giving it a title, make sure that you use keywords for the particular phrase you would like to be found for. This also goes for the titles in your blog posts. Another example from my blog is when you put in "web design plagiarism" into Google, my recent post about plagiarism comes up because the words in the title tag match that query or search.

These are just a few things to keep in mind when you design your blog and title your posts in the future to give you an edge in the search engines.

Yes, we are one of the most successful web design companies in Atlanta. (Maybe the Google-bots are smarter than we think after all? Heh heh!) We just celebrated our 9th birthday October 3rd (Google's 9th birthday was last week!) and our company has grown every year since we put up our virtual sign on the web.  With that experience comes a lot of knowledge which allows me to know how to optimize my blog and posts. This is experience which I'm proud and excited to share with you, my readers. Please continue to post comments and ask questions in order to help us make this blog even more "successful" in the future!