Every day I get a question about website design, new media consulting firms, and social media integration into your website or new media outreach.  Some of the most basic questions like “what should I do” or “how much should I pay” all comes down to what you want to get and what your goals and aims are.

Thus I’ve put together a handy list of mistakes and suggestions as well as the typical questions and how to answer them.

1.  Highly customizable websites don’t mean they’re good websites.

Many firms want to charge you very little to do proprietary websites under the guise of it being 100% about YOU and stand out have that design firm create it from scratch for you.

Here’s why this is bad:

• You ultimately have no control over your own website after it’s designed
• Customized websites are BAD for SEO
• You can’t update your own content without your consultant
• You can’t create additional pages, posts, information, or content that brings people back to your page without your designer or consultant

Let me also expand on this idea of something standing out and being 100% you.  Having a website that is all about you is what websites were for in the 1990’s.  Web 2.0 deign and outreach is more about simple, easy, uncomplicated design that has information that is engaging.

Read more below the click……

Compare these two websites.  Both are Government Relations firms (I use these because this is the world I’ve been talking about).  Please note I have not done either of these websites, nor do I know anyone at either of these firms.  I’m being objective based on a google search of the top two websites I found when I googled “government relations consulting”

1.  Edington, Peel & Associates Government Relations Consulting since 1983

http://www.edingtonpeel.com/

And their website looks like 1983….

Proprietary website customized for them that showcases all of their information, but nothing more.  Nothing fancy.  Nothing detailed.  Nothing more.  Indeed… nothing special.

 

2.  Capitol Solutions an LLC that has existed since 1998

http://www.capitolsolutions.com

 

This is a Web 2.0 site.  It’s is bright.  It’s clean.  It gives you small amounts of information but then provides you extensive information and graphics if you so choose to explore.  And best of all it has a blog.  I know everyone is all about the microblogging right now, but for businesses that want to make their projects and successes public the blog or “news” is the way to do it.

Think of it this way:  Your website showcases information about you.  If someone comes to it for the first time, and it never changes, nothing is ever added, why should they come back to your site ever again?

“News” or blogs or added content gives people a reason to come back.  Secondly, it is GREAT for SEO.  The more content you have, the more Google will come back to your site too to discover new content.  The more google news alerts will “alert” on the items you’re writing about, the more people searching for information about the things you’re talking about or addressing will be found and drive additional traffic to your website.

In the 1990’s a website was an online billboard – Web 2.0 means that your website is a living breathing representation of who you are, what you’re working on, and why someone should not only use your company or services but should continue to use you as a resource for information on your expertise.

 

2.  Expensive websites must be good because they’re expensive.

This makes me want to kill people.  I have a dear friend who has paid $30,000 TWICE for a website that he still doesn’t like.

Unless you’re creating an app’d out merchant site that will have several different sub pages that will change frequently and is tied to a number of advertising programs… you never need to pay this much.  By that same token – if you’re paying a couple of hundred bucks for a website… you’re getting what you paid for.

Design firms that have graphic artists, social media experts, as well as coders and site developers are pricey – but they should be in a position to offer a sliding scale for people who want simple small business websites as well as large scale operations.

When my firm built websites we began with a small easy nothing fancy wordpress design based on an existing template.

• For $1,000 we’d do their logo, set up the design, train the staff how to update it and use it, and set up all of their social media.

• For $3,000 we’d begin with a wordpress design template but customize the hell out of it.  The genius of things like WordPress, Drupl, Jumla, etc..  is it’s a foundation that enables you to make it look the way you like.  Think of a house with the wood frame up.  Every house is built with a concrete foundation and a frame – they all look the same.  Where the customization comes in is with brick or siding, carpet or wood floors, and other fixtures.  But you pay extra for that customization because it takes more time, effort, design, etc.

• For $8,000 we’d not only build a highly customizable website but we’d also write an extensive amount of content, shoot and edit videos for a customized youtube channel, shoot tons of photos that went to a flickr page that fed to the site, and make sure all social media was fully developed and had extensive content preloaded.

 

Man hours differed in that option 1. was a weekend worth of work, option 2 is about a week of work, and option 3 is about a month of work.  All going back and forth with the client tweaking and changing things.

Here are a few examples NOT of my work – but of the type of site you get for these amounts.

Option 1 is the super cheap option: http://www.claudiagriffith.com/

This probably took someone less than an afternoon to create and is nothing special.

Option 2 mid level:   http://www.kirkpatrickforarizona.com/

Option 3 most expensive $8,000+:

Check out these Presidential campaign sites all using WordPress and Drupl.

http://wpjourno.com/presidential-candidates-wordpress-cms/

National Departments using Drupl:

http://govfresh.com/2010/02/5-government-sites-using-drupal-effectively-for-open-government-initiatives/

Think of it this way – these sites are all built in a frame of an open source design template and then customized.  If they’re good enough for national campaigns and national agencies … then they’re probably good enough for your small business.

3.  Everything you ever needed to know about social media integration but were afraid to ask

Rule number 1 of social media is that all of your social media MUST talk to each other and you must cross promote.

I worked with a great social media moderation platform called Thrive which is a project under SmallAct for non-profits and political organizations.  I knew little to nothing about them before I started but I knew I wanted to take a step up from the HootSuite paid service and I wanted better reporting for all of our social media tools.  Thrive not only allowed me to easily schedule our updates and tweets but also allowed us to use photo uploads through our existing Flickr page and integrated all of our analytics through their system.  So – instead of just getting a number of viewers of a TwitPic I was getting tons of info and able to follow the tweets or “shares” beyond what Facebook and Twitter insights and analytics allow.

I’ve since started to also use a tool called Simply Measured that I like.  It’s more expensive than SmallAct’s Thrive is – but the data they get is impressive and extends beyond just Facebook and Twitter but includes Google+ and you can use on a few accounts rather than just one.

To make it easy here’s a guide for what social media platforms should be cross promoted (these are only for businesses not necessarily for individuals who might have too much content for these pages):

1. Every update on your website should go on every single social media site
2. Tumblr should feed to Facebook and Twitter
3. Pinterest should feed to Facebook and Twitter
4. Facebook photos and events should be tweeted and you should find a way to share them via graphics on Pinterest and Tumblr
5. YouTube should be on Facebook, Tumblr, and Pinterest (one share only) and tweeted several times pulling various quotes from the video as well as the title itself.
6. Flickr photos should be tweeted and shared on Tumblr and Pinterest – and you can share the photo set on Facebook

Spreading your content out in as many forms as possible on as many additional social media platforms as possible all linking back to your other social media pages or your website is a sure way of your content being seen.  If it only lives on your website then you have to just hope people are coming back to your website to look – and the likelihood of that is probably pretty slim unless you’re well known for providing multiple up to date information and resources multiple times a day.

As an example – I can tell you that even though I LOVE Elizabeth Warren – I only go to her website when I hear or see that she’s posted something new.  And the only way I see she’s posted something new is from either Facebook or Twitter.

So there ya go.  Three good instructions for the average person trying to navigate the new media world for small businesses.  GOOD LUCK!  And please feel free to submit comments or questions in the comment section if you have them.