Hiring A Web Designer And SEO Company
Hiring a Web Designer can be a painful task. I started designing my first website back in 2000. At that time I recently moved back to my hometown of Akron, Ohio from Los Angeles and re-opened my Kung Fu Studio. Websites were still a relatively new form of advertising. I was pretty terrified of computers, but being a fighter and athlete all my life, I was determined to overcome the fear. So I bought a computer and purchased a website from a friend of mine. After about a week of looking at it, I felt that it was not up to the standard of my Martial Arts skill and did not portray what my business represented or my teaching of an art. With the aggressive and competitive attitude that was cultivated over the years through my training, teaching and DNA, my Web Design project was created. I always had an artistic ability and visuals were very important to me.
The Path To A Successful Web Design Business Based On Quality and Affordability
So the path began purchasing my first Web Design Software “Microsoft Front Page” which is obsolete now. Anyways I taught myself how to use the program and built a far better site. Then I became obsessed with improving it. I had a few other businesses and built sites for those, then a few friends wanted websites and again building and designing more websites. I picked up on SEO back then and it was very simple to obtain top page rankings. Later I moved on to Dreamweaver which was a Macromedia software with much more capabilities and far more difficult.
In 2004 after a flood destroyed my Studio, I moved to Las Vegas to run a business for someone I worked for in Los Angeles and he was interested in the fact that I could design websites. I designed several sites for him and later he sold the company. I went back into personal training in 2005 which was my long-term plan here in Las Vegas and at that time not many trainers had websites. So my website was ranked on page one of Google for “Personal Trainer Las Vegas”. The personal training business was flourishing within 3 months and 80% of it came from my website.
A kickboxing gym that I was training clients at asked if I would design a website for them. They initially hired me as an instructor on the spot after looking at my website and credentials. My Websites have been invaluable in business and without them my success would never have happened. A web presence is a mobile brochure, without bragging about yourself or you’re company. Due to a dramatic slump in the economy I started working part-time as a VIP Host in the service industry, while still operating the training business. Finally after 4 years of two jobs I burnt out and stopped personal training for a few years. When I started my training business up again my sites had not been looked at or maintained and the rankings went from page one to page seven. I also noticed several trainer sites blossomed. So back to the drawing board and researched new software. I ended up purchasing Mac based software that has a wide range of capabilities and features. I was able to boost my rankings on pages 1 through 3 floating back and forth. But not consistently on page one.
Whenever people would inquire about designing a website for them, a question would always come up about “Can I edit the site when you are done?” My answer: “Well not really,” My Answer: it is a Mac software, and I have a lot of premium themes and plugins which you do not have. The reality is that most people were barely able to open an attachment from email let alone edit a website. It was a good question and obviously a concern of many.
That moved on to a bigger issue and a friend called me from California that had a major web development project which involved digital downloads, membership etc. It would have been a worthwhile project and I built a few mock-up pages for them to see. Everyone involved loved them. Here we go again with a new question and another good one. The investor had previously invested in a project and one of the main persons in the project had control over the website and other important areas. For whatever reason there was a parting of the ways and his work and skill went with him. The investor said he did not want a website that they could work on or have another Web Designer take over if necessary.
I started researching WordPress, as I knew it was considered the number one content management system and was branded well enough that most people were aware of it. So I started working with WordPress and liked its blogging capabilities and versatility. It is also web-based and most web designers use it, but not all, although WordPress is easily transferable if I happened to get hit by a stray bullet. After thousands of hours of learning and creating, I became obsessed with WordPress and the ability to create stunning websites that are user-friendly and engaged the user to communicate through email or telephone.
Keep something in mind though, all the plugins and coding in the world will not give you top organic search rankings. It is a skill set that needs to be worked and constantly upgraded, tweaked and requires much patience. Being obsessed to get my trainer site on page one and competing with trainers paying for SEO and the other 500 trainer sites out there is not easy. I decided to rebrand my business with a new Logo and concept. I also do very affordable Logo Design and in most cases based on the project is free.
Another interesting situation came up while trying to find my landlords phone number as I had lost it. I knew he had a company and searched his business. I had a difficult time finding it. Finally after locating his site and phone number, I mentioned to him that his site was not searchable and he said that the site was SEO ready. I thought here we go again, another web design company telling an uneducated consumer that WordPress magically makes your site searchable even among the other 300 websites your competitors have. He stated that his rankings were number one but dropped after he stopped paying 2,000.00 per month for SEO. After recovering from fainting, I asked him how much he paid for his site. This time I almost had heart failure when the magic price of 10,000.00 blurted out. Don’t get me wrong that price is realistic based on the size and requirements of a site, but this was a simple site with around 15 pages, no shopping cart and weak design. At that point I knew it was time to start building the web design business into a full time career. Obviously the larger firms have heavy overhead that is built into the price. But that’ ok because I do not and control is in my hands not a low paying employee that the client is paying for, but not the skill set to justify it. During my researching ‘Las Vegas Web Design,” I came across one of the Major firms that made the comment “We do not work out of our basement like many web companies do,” well the statement was something like that, but my thought was, there are no basements in Las Vegas. As I read on, this company preached that they do not do any funny SEO and it is all organic “search engine optimization.” The company site is ranked high on all search terms. One simple testing tool showed several thousand not so Google friendly back links, the kind that lead to fake websites, porn or a page with a little and meaningless content. You can read into that pretty easy and no, I do not pull my punches, the truth keeps consumers safer and educated, that is what Google and the internet is about.
Healthy Web Design does not want to be a giant Web Design and SEO Company offering high price Search Engine Optimization that in most cases is outsourced to a few major companies that the Web Designer just doubled the cost on without lifting a finger. Web Design to me is like Kung Fu, it is artistic and Powerful. That type of work takes self-pride and knowing every word of content, every image, video and all the components to creating a thing of beauty that sells and is ranked well enough to find.
No matter how great your website is, if no one but your friends can find it by searching your name, no one will ever see it and your business will have no exposure.
Recently I designed a website for a legal firm that had a less than nice looking website and was paying a rather high amount for maintenance and monthly SEO with rankings around page 13. After the Attorney took a tour of my new trainer website and complimenting me on the design, color combinations and photo effects, he asked me to give him a quote. We easily came to an agreement and at the 75 day mark of the new site being published his site is ranking on page one for around 5 areas of practice and between pages one and three on most others. It is still climbing and will continue, but not without effort. Within 3 months the site has grossed in sales five times what it cost. The legal field is competitive and the people in the field have plenty of money to spend on SEO. I discovered from a friend that works with one of the main firms in town that a competitor pays over 150,000.00 a year just in content writing with a full-time lawyer on the payroll just for writing content. That does not include the web design and maintenance of keeping it strong and regular blogging. I give them much credit and respect for taking the best route to successful marketing.
Most average businesses cannot recover or justify anywhere near those type of costs and the average business is the mainstream of the market.
So there you have some straight facts about what to think about when hiring a web designer and SEO Company, how the process works, along with the wide range of prices.
Healthy Web Design is just a small company that has talent and skill along with a passion for perfection. So no claims here about being the biggest and just look what we have done.
This was a long read and hopefully an educating and entertaining one, but if you are thinking about hiring a web designer, it should be educational. The companies that presently have a website and are paying pretty high maintenance fees with not much results for SEO may want to look around in a time when money is not easy to come by.
Hosting A WordPress Website
Hosting a WordPress site is not like hosting html sites. I found this out shortly after working with WordPress. I used Hostgator for a long time, but presently host with Inmotionhosting. WordPress.org rates Bluehost number one. Speed is so essential for SEO and this is a factor.
The hosting provider must be compatible for WordPress, not just be able to install a WordPress site or sell themes through a third-party.
If you need more information, please do not hesitate to email or phone Don direct at 702-610-3896.