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Call 620.704.9144
Request a Quote
We're glad you Tumbld over and StumbledUpon us.
PNL Design Group
6117 Ocean Jasper Drive
Bakersfield, CA 93313
P: 620.704.9144
E: pnldesigngroup@gmail.com
Copyright 2009-2011 PNL Design Group
Let us help you achieve your goals.
Choosing a Pro and Avoiding a Hack
With the recent advances in easy-to-use software and “do it yourself” websites online, it seems like everybody feels they can be a web designer. This has filled the market with amateurs who think they have the skills it takes to provide businesses with a professional website. That’s not to say there aren’t freelancers who are talented and experienced, but there’s a HUGE difference between a hack and a professional web designer. Here are a few questions you can ask to help distinguish between the two.
1. How long have you been a web designer? Experience is everything. Even if a freelance web designer is just starting out, they’ll have experience gained through school or developing a portfolio. If the web designer answers 1 year, 5 years, or 10 years, their portfolio should be representative of their experience. Hacks are often just starting out and won’t have any real experience.
2. Can I see your portfolio? Experienced web professionals will have a portfolio with many examples of past work, either online or in print form. Hacks often won’t have a well-established portfolio because they lack experience. While looking through a portfolio, take the time to check if they’ve worked with other companies in your industry and observe if their websites appear to be consistent with modern. Web 2.0 features and layouts. If a hack has a portfolio, the quality of work will be sub-par.
3. What other services besides web design do you offer? A hack will often stumble over this question because they only know how to design a website. Experienced web professionals will often offer services like web management, social network integration, brand management or even hosting and domain name options.
4. Who are some of your other clients? If you’re looking to have a local web professional do your website, ask about the local clients they’ve done business with and take note if any are in your industry. Hacks might avoid this question to cover up their lack of experience. Don’t be afraid to write down their other clients and contact them to ask about their experience with the web designer.
At PNL Design Group, we’d obviously like you to trust our experienced, dynamic team of designers and programmers for your business’ web needs. However, if you choose another designer or company, hopefully these tips will help you make the right decision.
What is SEO and Why You Need It
Search Engine Optimization is a vitally important component of any webmaster or internet marketer’s strategy for success. For the individual with a single website or larger business trying to expand into web promotions and gain business leads and sales online, SEO is a key fundamental asset that your web properties needs to get noticed. There are 5 important reasons why SEO is vital to your online success.
1. The Internet is a World Wide Marketplace In conventional forms of marketing your audience is generally restricted based on factors such as time, location and type of buyer. However when marketing in the online world these hindrances are not as powerful because the world wide web is theoretically available on a virtual 24 hour basis to anyone with internet access. As well, individuals worldwide are increasingly accessing the internet on a variety of mobile devices that makes the potential audience for business grow each day. Therefore the potential reach of your audience has no boundary or time limitations that can compare to something like buying ads in a particular newspaper within a particular city. Only subscribers to that publication in that city will ever have a chance to see your ad. If your website is properly optimized so search engines rank you highly, customers from all over the world who want what you have can find you much easier.
2. Web Marketplace Competition As every year passes more businesses are setting up an internet presence with a website that is professional optimized to draw traffic from search engines. Even if your company has a website, but fails to invest in the search engine optimization that is required to have an audience find your business you’ll be leaving a substantial market share of customers on the table for other intelligent web marketers in your business sector to capture.
3. The Potential for Capturing Long Term Leads A website optimized to bring in visitors on a consistent basis opens up a whole new world of lead generation possibilities. With the advent of social web marketing and traditional email marketing, leads can be captured on a continuing basis once the foundation of SEO and traffic generation has been established. This can translate into a targeted list of opt-in leads that is even more potent in terms of building trust, loyalty and increased sales.
4. Limited Costs of SEO and Getting Results When compared to other forms of traditional marketing, SEO offers possibly the lowest costs compared against the market reach possibilities. An initial investment of professional SEO services along with a continuous plan of SEO maintenance is all that is needed to establish a web presence that is effective and consistently gets products and services in front of targeted potential potential customers.
5. GEO Targeting and Local Search Individuals often search for local or region specific services and products. When you search for a particular business from your location the search engines can very closely pinpoint the location of your IP address and deliver results including maps and addresses that match your particular locality or city. Having your website search engine optimized is important so your listing appears near the top of results for local business searches that people make every day.
Each website that PNL Design Group builds is customized with search engine optimization in mind. We develop keywords and keyphrases that will increase your rankings. PNL Design Group monitors your rankings with SEO software and sends weekly analytic reports.
How Social Media is Changing Business
1. From “Selling” to Connecting with your Audience In order to change the context of customer relationships from trying to sell to seeking to engage and connect with customers, companies need to use various means, including sites like Facebook and Twitter to socially interact with people. The most popular brands in social media tend to post less about their products or services and more about things that help their customers get to know the people and personality of a company. Their goal is less about “selling” and more “engaging” — and, as a result, through such engagement people feel more comfortable doing business with those companies.
2. From "Large Campaigns" to "Small Acts" With sites like Facebook and Twitter, we all essentially have our own broadcasting network and businesses are beginning to see that. Rather than spending millions of dollars on traditional ad campaigns, small acts can be more valuable because people will inevitably share such experiences through the social web. In the past, if we had a very bad or very good experience with a company, it could take days or weeks to tell all of our friends and relatives about it. Today, in a matter of minutes, we can let all our friends on Facebook or followers on Twitter know about what happened. When every customer experience can be easily and widely broadcast, small issues become super important.
3. From “Controlling the Message” to Transparency Of course companies need to have employee policies, and there is such a thing as bad press, but look at the most popular companies in the era of social media, and you’ll generally find the ones that give their employees freedom to be themselves in online spaces. The goal should no longer be to create a very controlled and polished image that everyone in a company tries to reinforce, but rather to give employees the means necessary to be human beings that can put a friendly face on the corporation.
4. From “Hard To Reach” to “Available Everywhere” To engage with customers, it is no longer enough to have an email address and customer service number on one’s website. Today, people want to interact with and engage businesses via their chosen means of communication, whether that is Twitter, Facebook, or discussion forums.
If your business doesn't have a Facebook page or a Twitter account, make one and get started today. Five minutes out of your day could lead to better customer satisfaction, new ideas on what your customers think, and ultimately integrate your business into your customers' daily lives.
7 Reasons Businesses Need Websites
1. Credibility - To a small business, trust and credibility is key. Yes, it's easy to create a Facebook Page for your business, but this low barrier to entry means that many scammers can also book up fake business pages. A website is a step further in credibility. It involves purchasing a domain name and putting thought into content that accurately describes your business. This added depth can't be matched with just a social media presence.
2. Value - Sure, it's fun and rewarding to own a business, but what if you want to sell it someday? Part of what businesses look for when making acquisitions is a brand with assets. If your business doesn't have an established website with traffic, leads, a blog, and inbound links, your business will likely be less valuable.
3. Control - Have you ever changed the paint color of your house? When you own a house, it's easy to make improvements. On the other hand, if you are renting, it is either difficult or prohibited. The same principle applies to the web. When you have a presence on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, you are essentially "renting" space from them, and they have all the control. For example, if you wanted to have a contest on Facebook, you would need to follow their rules. A website allows you to be in total control of your online marketing.
4. Owning Transactions - Do you sell anything online? Do you want to follow up with potential sales leads? Having a website makes it easy to sell goods online or collect sales leads from interested visitors. Trying to perform these activities on top of a social media platform is not only challenging, but again requires that you follow that specific platform's rules. These rules could force you to allocate a portion of your sales to the platform or pay for the sales leads you receive.
5. Having a Hub - Think of your online marketing like a wheel. Your strategy should have several spokes that connect back to one hub in the center. A website is the hub of your online marketing. It serves as the one place to which you drive prospects and leads for information and business transactions. Using only social media removes the hub, and the wheel crumbles.
6. Analytics - Do you want to improve your inbound marketing? You should. The problem is that most social media platforms provide very limited or no data. In contrast, many website analytic tools like HubSpot and Google Analytics can provide a wealth of data and insight. Analytics allow you, as a business owner, to improve your marketing and, ultimately, grow your business.
7. Communication - Communication is at the heart of social media. The problem is, how you communicate is dictated by the social platform you are using. What if you wanted to send your Twitter followers an email? You can't. A website allows you to collect information from visitors and choose how you want to communicate with them, whether it's via email, Facebook, Twitter, or that old fashioned telephone.
Custom Websites vs. Template Websites
Many think having a custom web design is too expensive but let’s look at the advantages of hiring a web designer over using a free website template or purchasing one.
Benefits of custom web design:
•Unique design. With a custom web design it is created just for your business. Your website will be different from anyone else’s.
•By hiring the right web designer, it will be constructed so it is search engine friendly. How the background coding of your website is done will influence your success in the search engines.
•The website will be more adaptable to your company’s needs. If you have done your website planning, you will have a list of features you wish to have. By prioritizing this list of website features, you will give the web designer an idea of what to accommodate for in the future if your current budget doesn’t allow all the features to be implemented from the start.
Other points to take into consideration when deciding if custom web design is for you are:
•Are you permitted to use the graphics created for the website for other purposes? The website design should incorporate your company’s branding. If you have already established your company branding, then that branding should be incorporated into the website.
•For a business that hasn’t established a branding or is under going a revamping, then you are going to want to know if you can use the graphics on the website elsewhere, like your letterhead, brochures and signage to mention a few. This will increase the price of the custom web design, but then you will have everything match.
Template Websites
There is a misconception on how beneficial and economical using free website templates or purchased website templates is. Let’s look at some points about website templates:
Website templates are good for:
•Getting inspiration on colors, layouts and features. You cannot have your web designer copy these, but they do give the web designer an idea of the look you would like.
•Very low budgets where you need to get up and running as soon as possible. If budget is holding you back from getting your business up on the Internet, then maybe a website template might be the way to go.
However, template websites have plenty of downfalls:
•There is going to be a ton of other people using the same template. Unless you pay the “Exclusive” price for the template, the template website is going to keep selling that same template to anyone that comes along. Keep in mind, even if you pay the exclusive price, there are others who have bought the template prior to you and they still have the right to use it. If it’s a really appealing template, there may be lots of other people who have already bought that very template.
•You will be limited on the customization of the website template. Without web page coding skills, you are still going to have to either spend the time and money to learn how to code a web page or hire someone to help you. Some templates are laid out very specific. Meaning if you incorporate your own graphics or have extensive content, the template could break.
•Some website templates are not built to be search engine friendly. As explained above, it is important how the background coding of your website is done. If not done correctly, it could hurt your marketing efforts on the internet.
PNL Design Group only does custom websites because your business needs a website specific to your brand and your target market. A custom website will help your company stand out amongst the competition and be more valuable in the long run.
Choosing a Pro and Avoiding a Hack
It seems like everybody thinks they can be a web designer. Find out how to choose a pro and avoid a hack.
What is SEO and Why Your Business Needs It
Search Engine Optimization is how your business ranks in search engines like Google and Bing and can make a big difference.
How Social Media is Changing Business
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google + Find out how to leverage these tools to improve you business.
7 Reasons Businesses Need Websites
If you don't have a website, you're falling behind your competition, and having a bad website isn't much better.
Custom Websites vs. Template Websites
An in-depth look at the difference and benefit of a custom website versus a template website.