The key to keeping a competitive edge, as well as to the overall branding and success of a company, is an attractive business website.  Redesigning your company website can be a daunting task, even with the best designers and developers to assist you.  When initiating a redesign of your company website, consider these factors and review all with a professional website designer:

• Know Your Target Audience
  The goal of a business website is to communicate the assets of your company to an audience who may not know it exists, but recognizes their need for your products and services.  Your logo, the website content, the navigation structure, and images should all articulate the core strengths of your organization in a clear manner, and help the viewer understand why your company is superior to competitors.  Understanding your target audience and communicating effectively with them is a high priority in a successful website redesign.
• Use Only Quality Graphic Assets
  It may be tempting to use outdated logos or amateur photography on your updated business website; however the results are typically disappointing to both the business owner and viewers. Redesign of your company website creates a great opportunity to refresh a dated company logo or have a professional photographer shoot your offices, take quality head shots of principals, or capture recent projects that represent your best work.
• Do Your Research
  Before meeting with a designer to discuss your business website redesign project, it is helpful to have a short list of websites you like to review with them.  These sites can be in any area from news to competitors in your field.  When you review these sites with a website designer, be prepared to discuss what you like about them, such as use of colors, fonts, interactive elements, and presentation of the content.  These cues are very helpful as the creative process of designing a new web identity for your company begins.
• Content Rules
  Business websites often rely on content to help new customers locate them through search engines.  Content is considered “relevant” by a search engine when it contains valid information and incorporates the terms people commonly use when searching for the products or services on the Internet.  If you do not plan to initiate a pay-per-click advertising campaign in tandem with the new website launch, ask your website designer to recommend a writer who has an understanding of creating optimized content as well as crafting appropriate meta tags to help organic search rankings of your redesigned website.
• Maintain Your Appearance
  Keeping content on your business website fresh is important to search engine rankings as well as to keeping existing and potential customers up to speed on happenings in your company or industry.  You can update content through a CMS (content management system), through a company blog, or through email newsletters that are archived on your website.  Discuss content maintenance strategies with the designers of your updated business website and be sure you can support their suggestions to best use the tools available.

Redesigning your company website can help build new business and introduce your company to new customers day in and day out.  By preparing well for a website redesign, you maximize the value your company reaps from a fresh web presence.  Contact Southern Web Group at 404-848-9440 for more information on how to get started on a business website design today.

Welcome to the first SWG Weekly Wrap-up blog. I’m your host, Kelly, and I’m happy to be taking you through the week here at Piedmont & Pharr.

What’s New?

• With fall in full swing and winter coming, it’s the right time to make sure your heating system is fully functional and ready for the weather.  The people at  TomBunch.com (Triple T Heating and Air Conditioning)  have 37 years of experience serving metro Atlanta and are ready to help you. Check out their site and ask for a free, no obligation quote. Don’t get stuck in the cold!

• Atlanta’s Heartwork Counseling Center provides psychotherapy and counseling services in multiple areas including trauma resolution and attachment therapy. With five trained therapists on staff, they’re available using a variety of methods. Each therapist has an individual webpage devoted to his or her background and therapeutic method.  You’ll also find information about Heartwork’s upcoming workshops, as well as information about residency options with the group.

• Not enough time to get to the gym? Looking for a workout that can be done anywhere with limited equipment? Delaine Ross’ AllAboutKettlebells.com is a hot new site that answers all your questions about the history of the Kettlebell workout. Filled with how-to videos and equipment information, Delaine can help you get in shape in your living room with her downloadable videos delivered right to your email inbox. She’ll start you off with her free “How to Swing” video available on the website.

Facebook Status Updates

This week on the SWG Facebook, we polled about your favorite web browser, your favorite Internet search engine and your holiday shopping plans. Most importantly, we asked Phillies or Yankees? Did you vote? Add your opinion!

Are you following us on Twitter? Become a fan on Facebook!

See you next week!

On September 20th and 21st, Atlanta was hard-hit by record rains and flooding.

Our office did not escape the storm’s wrath. These pictures were taken the morning of Monday, September 20th. The rains continued that day and the water levels in the office rose above a foot of water.

Fortunately, no one was hurt by the flooding and our data was saved. Unfortunately, we lost several computers and it will be several weeks before we’re able to return to our office.

This week we’ve worked to get all our staff situated so they can work remotely while the repairs are underway.

Here are some photos of the flooding: