For
sign makers…. the gallery is the number one best feature, above anything and everything. It makes me chuckle when I see
sign folks spend time or possibly money on a website and then leave off examples of their work. What’s the point? People don’t go on a
sign company’s site to just read about the company’s history, who cares? They want to see what you can do. In fact, if we didn’t have to worry about ranking well on search engines, I would have hardly any text if any at all. I would keep it as clean as possible and to the point. Unfortunately our company needs to rank well and we have implemented many strategies so that we do. And the reason our particular company needs to rank well has little to do with the
sign services we offer and more to do with the web design and logo design. In fact, very few of the sales leads we get from our site are from people shopping for
signs using search engines. Is this because our site isn’t set up well for SEO? Absolutely not, it’s actually the opposite. We are on the first page, if not number one, on the majority of the search terms that we are targeting. I think the reason why, is because not every industry is a hot searchable topic. I think for the
sign industry, people rather just go to the local
sign shop and talk to a person.
So even though our site ranks well, its main purpose for the
sign services we offer, is to act as virtual portfolio. When client calls inquiring about a job, or when we approach them, they often want to see examples of our work, so we send them to our site. That is how our site is mainly being used. That being said, it depends on the company. Not every business is the same, and so not every site needs to be searchable, not every site needs to be scaled back for dial up users, not every site needs to be static. Build your site based on your target audience.
The TGIF site is a perfect example. Some people like Trakers might look at their site and think it’s atrocious. To others it’s appealing. Most likely younger browsers, the audience I’m assuming TGIF is targeting with this site. This younger audience is accustomed to flash sites; in fact they actually respond surprisingly well to sites like this. I’m betting that in the near future with the increase in internet connection speeds, faster computers, and the possibility of searchable flash content, flash sites will be the norm.
Our site was designed and built a certain way to appeal to certain people. I know it won’t appeal to everyone. I know all of the features we added to our site aren’t one hundred percent necessary. In fact, a few things on our site have less to do with necessity and more to do with showcasing our abilities as web builders. These features are used as a whole to create a certain feel and image that we want to portray to the clients that we are targeting. So when building your site, do your research. Do what’s right for your business not what every one else is doing.
