Milledgeville Cares is part of our campaign to provide free web design for Milledgeville non-profit organizations this year. As a fairly new organization, they wanted to get their name out there and the web is a great place to start! Milledgeville Cares is an initiative to help those in need in our community. They work closely with other organizations in Milledgeville like churches, soup kitchens, and homeless shelters to provide the best help for all of those who need it.

Check them out at www.milledgevillecares.com!

This post was inspired by a panel I was a part of earlier this year at Digital Bridges to evaluate the effectiveness of local business owners’ websites in Milledgeville, GA.

Here are some of the things we looked for that can help you evaluate the effectiveness of your own website:

• Usability
  Your site needs to be easy for your customers and potential customers to use. They should be able to find the information they are looking for quickly and navigate throughout your website will ease. Links need to be labeled well and generally, users shouldn’t have more than 2 clicks before reaching the content they need. Every page of your site needs to have a “Call to Action” so the user knows what to do next. Your site should also be cross-browser friendly and load quickly, which are things your web designer should ensure.
• Design
  As most of you know, your website should be aesthetically pleasing; you need a consistent color scheme that suits the “personality” of your business and the field you are in. For example, it wouldn’t be effective to have a black and gray color scheme for a daycare’s website. However, that same color scheme may work for a fashion website. Your font(s) need to be easily read and an appropriate size as well.
• Effective content
  Your website’s content should consist of concise but informative text. It should be broken up into small paragraphs and headings and subheadings should be used and clearly labeled. Most web users don’t want to come to your business’s website and read a lot of information. They want to get the information they are looking for quickly. Your content should also include keywords about your business and field to help search engines and users know what the site is about. Include relevant contextual links to help search engines and users understand how different pages relate to each other. Last but not least, make sure to regularly update the content on your site!
• Easily found
  As we always say– What good is your website if no one can find it? You could have a great looking site with excellent usability and good content, but it needs to be easily found by your target audience in search engines. Although some of the things I have mentioned thus far should help with this, here are some other tips. Make sure to make your title tags, description tags, and H1 tags relevant to search terms your target audience will use to find you. If this sounds like foreign language to you, this is something a web developer can help you with. Make sure to include a site map with links to all of your pages listed in a logical way. It is definitely important to make sure your website is indexing in Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Visit these search engines and type in your URL to see what pages are and are not indexing on your site.

For a one-on-one consultation on your website’s effectiveness, contact us via our contact form or give me a call at 478-390-6770!

I was part of a panel at Digital Bridges Milledgeville called “Is your website working for you?” to evaluate the websites of various business owners in the community. Leia Eubanks was having trouble getting her website to index in search engines because she was using a free service to build it. We developed her website based on her previous design as a self-hosted WordPress blog to allow her to gain a better reach within search engines.

Leia Eubanks Consulting: Central Georgia’s Development & Event Consultant
Leia is a development consultant and assists nonprofits and public agencies with anything and everything fundraising related. From prospect research and grant writing to designing annual fundraising campaigns, membership drives, and events, she can help your organization achieve its fundraising goals. 

She is also an event consultant for weddings, grand openings, open houses, birthday and anniversary parties, and other events.

The new Christopher Macken Concepts website is officially launched! It now serves as a portal website for his other endeavours, including Christopher Macken Cosmetics and M Famous Couture Clothing Line. The development of the site included a restructuring of CMC’s web properties to put the cosmetic site its own domain, add a one-page site for M Famous, and included a new custom WordPress blog, which can be found at blog.christophermacken.com!

We are proud to have added Light Force Family Chiropractic to our portfolio! Our family has been getting adjusted here for years, and it is a truly amazing place with an even more amazing staff.

This website features a dynamic flash piece, an “Ask Dr. Sherry” corner where the public can get their questions answered, and a wealth of wellness articles in a custom designed WordPress blog that flows seamlessly with the rest of the website. Check it out today at www.lightforcechiro.com.

About Light Force Family Chiropractic
Light Force Family Chiropractic is a bridge to wellness for the countless families we attract. While initially people might be drawn to us for a pain-based problem in the neck or back or perhaps even headaches, what they find when they begin care is much more than pain relief. What they find is that oasis called wellness which is so elusive in today’s healthcare environment. We assist on the journey from sickness which is often manifested in physical pain or general malaise to true health and wellness which are displayed by a renewed sense of hope and increased energy. How long has it been since you felt really well? Is your idea of wellness merely the absence of symptoms or do you have a true sense of what your physical goals are? Do you plan to spend your golden years managing a list of prescriptions a mile long or do you want to spend them managing your life’s purpose? At Light Force Chiropractic we explore with you the answers to these questions and more.

Choosing a web designer that suits the needs of your business is a crucial part of creating a successful website.

One of the most important things to look for is a designer that takes the time to get to know your business. A big part of our website design process is learning. You need to provide your designer with all of your marketing materials– brochures, flyers, logos, etc.

You also want a web designer that is receptive to criticism and willing to take your input into consideration. Your site needs to be uniquely YOU; it is an important extension of your business. We always tell our clients that we are building THEIR website. So if they don’t like something about the designs we come up with, they should say so. We aren’t here to get our egos fed; we are here to design a website that is going to help your business succeed.

As far as experience levels, you want a designer that has experience with…
- Web design. You want to go with an experienced firm because they know the whole process, and they understand important things like website usability standards and cross-browser compatibility.
-Programming. If you want any kind of interactive quality to your site like forms or administrative back-ends, you you’ll need a web designer with experience in a web programming language such as PHP or ASP.
-Graphic design. Typically, you have web designers that are good at programming and web designers that are good at graphic design. It is rare to find one person that is superior at both so make sure you go with a company that has a programmer and graphic designer. Because building your website is an important part of building your brand, you also need someone who understands formats that are not just web-based so that they can convert the look for your current materials to your website or vice versa.
-Search engine optimization. A lot of web designers don’t design with the search engines in mind. But it will save you lot of aggravation when you are trying to market your site if you have a designer that understands SEO best practices. Sites that are too graphically intense or all flash tend to not rank well in search engines. So unless you are a high profile business that has already built their brand like Chanel, you will need someone who understands how to get you to rank for keywords in your target area. You may have a really cool-looking design but what good is your website if no one can find it?

If you are interested in hiring a web designer to build your company’s website or just to improve it, mention this blog entry and get a free web consultation when you contact us!