A lot of small business owners and start ups don’t grasp the fact that the key to success – online or out there in the real world – today is the customer. Or the would be customer.

Its a great deal like fishing. If you don’t use the proper lure, the right bait, a pole that will give you the necessary play and an appropriate weight of line… you aren’t going to eat tonight. Not fresh fish anyway, but McDonalds might still be open after you come in off the water.

The thing is that a real website design include a lot more than some pretty pictures, some text and those ever present Buy Now buttons. That is what is wrong with the majority of websites out there. Not just small businesses or start ups trying to create something in the spare room at home. The same can be said about the flashy websites of huge corporations.

Today’s Consumer and The Internet Is Different

You’re not operating in the same world anymore. Sure, everything outside the window looks normal, but there’s a massive shift that has taken place. If you don’t pay attention to it and go with the flow, no amount of money you throw and internet marketing or website design will do you one bit of good.

Your website isn’t about your business. It’s about your customer. The internet isn’t used for buying things. That’s an after effect, the last step in a cycle. The keys to small business internet marketing is knowledge and sharing. The fuel is accessibility, ease of use and communication or interaction.

You can’t interact with a flyer or a brochure. You can’t interact with television, its not even customizable! The people who are out there looking for what you have to offer may find you, but will flea in 3 seconds or less if you haven’t got the right look, the right approach and the right structure or content in place on your website. Design is more about them and engineering the experience than it is anything else.

Are You Running A Business?

If so, then you most likely have no time for building a website, doing the research needed to connect it with your prospects, and maintaining the weekly to daily aspects of keeping the foundation of your internet presence going and growing. There are two careers in that sentence. One is your chosen path, that business of yours. The other is not a walk in a park, but a safari through uncharted territory without a good map.

There is this misconception with many people that all one needs to do is create a website and the world will find them. Build it and they will come. Yes, but only if you build it right! A decade ago, you could build it and they would come. In the online world, ten years is more like a century. If you think your computer and monitor have gone through incredible leaps and bounds of evolution in the past decade or so, the infrastructure that moves the users and entities of the cyber world have grown and changed even more.

Plain Facts About Online Business Success

You can’t just slap up any old website and expect to impress your prospective customer audience. If you’re in business, you have something to sell. If your business is utilizing the internet to attract new local clients or sell products online, you need to understand that:

1.  The public face of your website design is for customers, like a store or your office reception area.

2.  The first part of your website your prospective buyer sees is invisible to you. If you don’t know where to find this space, you are invisible to them!

3.  If you don’t create this invisible calling card properly, one of the following will happen:

• A good month brings your website all of 10 visitors.
• There is no traffic at all.
• Your website isn’t found in search listings until somewhere below page 40.

The reality is that unless you build any type of online business presence on solid research, its highly unlikely it will do anything for you besides be there… lost in space. While it is simple for anyone to put together a website in a few hours with a free builder application, this doesn’t give you a website design that tells makes the right statement to prospective customers. It can’t be confusing. It can’t be like everyone else’s website in your niche market. And it certainly won’t perform if it looks like something that would never be allowed on Main Street.

Framing Your Business and Brand Properly

We work with the WordPress platform because it offers an easy to use and customize content management system for just about anything your business needs to provide for your target audience. WordPress website designs are excellent for SEO and RSS feeds too, when they are properly created and the right approach to search engine optimization is used.

Anyone, even you, can learn how to maintain a WordPress website once the design and initial experience is in place. Its a whole new world, this doing business online thing. Be smart. Put all of your effort and attention into doing what you do best, and leave the website design, your SEO and site maintenance to those that know it well. It’s really the best option for your business and your future customers.