How To Make Your Website Work For You

Small business owners typically ponder the question of whether or not to keep and maintain a website, and whether or not it will actually give a good return on their investment.  It's an honest question, and one that many web designers will avoid. The correct answer is "it depends". Be wary of any designer that just wants to make a sale.  A website for an attorney is a special challenge, because attorneys are selling a service as opposed to a tangible product.  Many web designers want to make a flashy and "cool" site, because that makes the web designer look good. The flashy site is something the designers can show off to their colleagues, but often the real needs of the client are ignored. This often leads to a situation where the client has a site that does not meet their needs, and therefore is difficult to maintain. This does not provide any benefit to the client.

A properly designed and maintained site can be extremely beneficial to even the smallest of businesses.  Consider this:

• A website gives you a place to list all your methods of contact.  It will allow people to contact you and your staff via email forms, which in turn gives you their necessary contact information. It also cuts down on the workload of your receptionist and frees up your phone lines.

• A website can give answers to quick questions:

  • "Where are you located?"

  • "What are your hours?"

  • "What is your fax number?"

This can dramatically cut down on those work-interrupting calls by giving your clients the answers they need.  You can also put up a Frequently Asked Questions page (FAQ) that clients can look at to get answers to questions they hadn't thought of yet!

• A website gives you a place to show off the articles that you've written, as well as a place to put all of your client testimonials.  Your potential clients can do a little research on you without you having to lift a finger.

• By listing your website in your other methods of advertising, you will gain the advantage of having all of your information available to potential clients in a few clicks, ensuring that potential clients know what you are capable of doing.

Most web designers like to get a website finished and move on to their next job.  A really good web designer, however, is in it for the long term. They want to make sure that you are happy with your website, and that your website is doing the job that you want it to do.  If you can find such a designer, grab him and keep him. It'll be one of the best investments you ever made.