What does your website do? Seems like a pretty simple question, right? But when I meet with business owners for the first time, they can rarely give me a good answer. More often than not, they say, “nothing,” which is probably why they are meeting with me. So, I’ve learned to ask this instead: “What do your want your website to do that it isn’t currently doing?” and it’s at that point the answers start flowing like a river. Of course, you can probably guess that the most common answer is “make me more money” and that’s a perfect answer because that’s what a website should do, right? The question then becomes “How can your website make you money?” and that’s when things get interesting.
Local Web Design in Kansas City
I am lucky enough to get paid to play on the web pretty much all day, every day with very few exceptions and I see a TON of websites. Over the years I feel like I’ve become a mean critic of most of the websites I see because it seems like they are more of a design dog and pony show without a quick call to action which is typically how websites generate income. For the most part, the local businesses that I work with want 3 things from their websites:
- Phone Calls
- Customers getting directions to their location(s)
- Email inquiries/quotes on services
Seems pretty cut and dried right? It’s actually not so easy. You see, just because you build a website, doesn’t necessarily mean your customers will come (Field of Dreams was somewhat misleading). In order for a website to generate traffic, it must be easily found and not just for the name of your business but rather for what you do (lawn care, copyright attorney, handyman, bar and grill, pizza delivery, smoke shop, gas station, brewery, dry cleaner, car wash, tattoo shop, etc.). That’s where Web Force KC comes in. We’ll never claim to build the most gorgeous websites you’ve ever seen but you can be damn sure that they will be found by potential customers when they need your product(s) and/or service(s) locally.
The way that we approach web design is by asking simple questions like “How do you want your customers to find you? Do you want more calls, emails, or both? Do you have a physical location that you want customers to come to?” The answers to these questions are how we design your website meaning a business that wants more phone calls would have their phone number listed prominently and repeatedly through the website along with perhaps a ‘Click To Call‘ button for mobile searchers. The same applies to a website designed to capture more emails. Obviously a simple and easy to fill out contact form would likely be placed and more importantly visible all over the site. (We discourage displaying actual email addresses as it will tends to generate a TON of spam.) Brick and mortar locations that want foot traffic coming through the door will rely heavily on Google maps integration and calls to action that suggest visitors to the site “Click To Get Directions.” So I guess the real question becomes ‘What do you want people to do when they are on your website?‘
You would think that this is all common sense and the average web designer would have a firm understanding of how this all works but the fact is that most don’t. We’ve rebuilt countless websites that literally had no coherent direction, no call to action and worst of all no traffic going to them. We refer to these types websites as “billboards in the middle of a very vast desert.” No one ever sees them and they do nothing for the business.
Think of your website as the frame and interior of a vehicle. It may look ultra cool and have fancy functionality but without an engine, it just sits there, going nowhere, doing nothing. Web Force KC builds websites that cater to the search engines and ultimately make money for our clients. With every web design project we’ve taken on, the results and stats have been overwhelmingly positive for our clients as their websites begin to show up on the search engines for what they do and convert the searcher into an opportunity for them to add new customers. If you’re website is doing nothing for your business, call Web Force KC at (816) 462-9128 for a free consultation.
Call Web Force KC at (816) 462-9128 for web design and online marketing in Kansas City.
