In Nevada County website design can make all the difference when you’re trying to stand out from the pack.  Your website is your chance to make a good first impression on prospective customers, so having an effective design is crucial.  It can give you the ability to reach out well beyond Northern California to extend your reach nationwide and even globally.  It all begins with the right design.

Technological advancements are nothing new in Nevada County.  This area is known for being on the forefront of everything from long distance telephone service to television broadcasting.  And now there are a number of Grass Valley website design firms that can help you take advantage of everything the web has to offer when it comes to marketing your business.

And you don’t want to take the web for granted as a marketing tool.  With more than 1 billion users worldwide, the Internet is the single largest and most effective form of communication today.  You can reach many more customers through your website than you ever could through traditional means of advertising, so there is no doubt that the services of a Nevada County website design firm are a real asset.

Having an effective website means increasing your ability to drive customers to your business.  But that means making sure that you have a site that is attractive to the eye, easy to navigate and updated regularly.  You want to grab a potential customer’s attention and then keep them coming back for more.  That means hiring a Grass Valley website design company to put together exactly the right site for you.

Of course, there are programs such as WordPress that can allow you to design and maintain your own site, but the time and effort you spend on web design could be better spent on other aspects of your business.  With a professional Nevada County website design company on the job for you, you can rest easy knowing you’ve got trained professionals who can take on the responsibility of designing your site, freeing you up for other things.

Using cutting edge technology like WordPress, Grass Valley website design firms take all of your design elements like logos, contact information and product descriptions, and pull them together into a streamlined, professional looking site.  You’ll not only be attracting customers but you’ll also have the ability to keep track of them with online questionnaires and newsletters.

This is the kind of personal touch the Internet makes possible, taking customer service to the next level by providing your client base with up to the minute information and letting you stay ahead of the trends so you can give them exactly what they want.  A professional Nevada County website design firm can help you make that contact personal and help to increase your profits, which is the bottom line for any business.

It’s a competitive world out there, in Northern California and beyond, so you need to do everything you can to keep your business one step ahead of the competition.  Consider hiring a professional service to create and maintain your company’s website.  An effective website is the one marketing decision you’ll never have to regret.

Chances are you wouldn’t wear the same clothes you wore ten years ago; your hair style has probably changed as well. So why should your website remain the same, year after year? Even the best website design can get stale as time passes. Here are some ways to tell if your design requires a facelift.

1. The Technology Is Dated

We all know that technology changes practically overnight. Therefore, if you had your website created a number of years ago, you probably aren’t making full use of the technology available. For instance, if your site was designed before the advent of Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, you should update it to let visitors know how to stay in touch with you via social media. You can also have your site upgraded to include podcasts and videos, two features that have become readily available in the last couple of years.

2. Visitors Are Making Complaints

It’s important to listen to what your visitors have to say about your site. If they complain that it is difficult to navigate or that the colors or images detract from the content, it may be time to have a website redesign. Other common visitor complaints include outdated information, slow load times, and jarring or distracting features like loud music or pop-up advertisements.

3. Your Competitors’ Sites Look Better Than Yours Does

There’s an old saying that it’s wise to keep your friends close…and your enemies even closer. Even if you and your competitors aren’t exactly enemies, you should still drop by their websites regularly to familiarize yourself with their website design. If you feel that your website pales in comparison, it’s probably time for a complete overhaul. You may want to ask your designer to visit your competitors’ sites so that he or she can incorporate the aspects that you like into your website.

4. Your Purpose for the Site Has Changed

Perhaps you started your website simply to inform people about an issue. Now, however, you’ve written a book on the subject and want to use the website to sell your book. Or perhaps you started the website to sell a book but now want to use it to market your writing services. Whatever the case may be, if your purpose for the site has changed, your site needs to change as well. Work closely with your designer to clarify your new goals.

5. You Want to Introduce Branding

If anyone mentioned the word branding a few years ago, it was usually in reference to what happens to cows. Now, however, marketers encourage anyone in business to brand his or her company with a unique image or phrase. The goal is that you want people to immediately think of you and your company whenever they see that image or read or hear those words. Take some time to think about your company’s brand, and then plan a website redesign that incorporates that brand on every page.

If you launched your website more than a couple of years ago, it’s probably in need of an overhaul and upgrade. A new website design can be all that you need to attract more visitors and convert them into clients.

Premium hosting usually involves paying a monthly or annual fee to send advertisement free e-mail within your own domain name as oppose to the company’s domain name. (For instance, sara@sarasmith.com as oppose to sara@yahoo.com.) Being a Web Hosting Company we offer this type of e-mail hosting.

There are several advantages to selecting a premium service to manage your email. NCWS allows you to set up a large number of accounts based on one single domain name (e.g. customerservice@yourbusisness.com, and accountspayable@yourbusiness.com) this makes premium email hosting an excellent option for small and mid-size businesses-larger companies usually have their own servers. A premium service also gives you many more options for managing your e-mail.

What about Hosting My Site?

Nevada County Web Surfer provides space on our servers which enables you to make a website accessible to the public on the Internet. We can also help you with purchasing a domain name and creating the website.

It’s important to note that if you will be using a website to promote your business, it’s usually a better idea to hire an experienced designer than it is to try to design your own site. The stakes are too high and there are too many potential pitfalls to make website design a do-it-yourself endeavor.

NCWS is a reputable e-mail and web hosting company.

Contact Dan 530-477-6293

Have you ever run across this website design faux pas? You’re at work, taking a few minutes to relax and surf the internet. You click on a page that looks interesting….and all of a sudden, your monitor explodes into a cacophony of flashing lights and blaring music.

It’s clear that someone wanted their web design to get noticed. It got noticed all right–almost at the expense of you job. What are the odds that you’ll point your browser back to that site anytime soon?

Whether you’re planning a website design to post family information or to advertise your small business, a professional designer can help you steer clear of design taboos and put together a site that is both attractive and informative.

Web Design Advice from the Experts

There are some secrets experts know that can help you create a better website design:

1) Create pages that will load quickly. Visitors may get tired of waiting for a complicated landing page to load and will surf away without ever viewing your content.

2) Make sure your graphics are relevant to the content. If you have a professional site about food preparation, for instance, don’t use it to post pictures of your children and pets.

3) Use audio sparingly and always give the viewer a chance to opt out.

4) Select a standard page layout–make it clean and easy to navigate.

5) Limit the number of fonts you use and avoid unusual fonts that may be difficult to read.

6) Post useful content that educates and entertains the reader.

A professional website designer can save you time. quickly putting together pages that you might have had to struggle over for days or even weeks.

Call us and let us take this burden off your shoulders. We’ll make you look good!

Follow these simple tips to help prospective clients with the online buying process:

Review your Online Sales Process

As you put together the information to display on your website, sit down with your best sales people or hire a marketing expert. Walk through the steps from first interaction to making the sale. Make sure that your website highlights strong selling points for your product or service. Tell a story that answers questions about your approach and what your organization represents. Provide the answers to questions that affect the decision process without an emphasis on making the sale. In other words be the expert, help the potential client see why he should hire or buy from you.

View the Site from your Client’s Perspective

Ask a friend to approach your site as if they were shopping for your solution. Ask them to be completely objective and imagine that you are unfamiliar with your industry. Do a Google search for your site rather than going directly to the address – Can you find your company among the competition? If not, it might be time to consider looking into SEO (search engine optimization) methods to increase your online visibility.

Organize your Information

When reviewing your website, is it easy to understand what issues your company offers solutions for? Have you ever gone to a website and left it without a clue as to what they do? Make sure that your site is organized so visitors can easily navigate through each topic. If you provide solutions to different types of customers, speak clearly to each audience. Site visitors go through a website the same way they read a book; from left to right. Do you have a navigation bar across the top of your site that holds all the major topics a client would be looking for?

Show – Don’t Tell

Walk your visitors through your website to show them how you set yourself apart from the competition. Use photos so site visitors can visualize how your business can help solve their problem. Create short videos to provide a tour of the latest product or new service you offer. Keep your visitors informed on what you have been up to and how you stay ahead of the crowd with a frequently updated blog.

Build Trust

Are site visitors able to get a sense of how your business handles a project? You can establish credibility by providing testimonials to give clients an idea of how they can expect to be treated.  Add case studies to show how you worked through previous projects, how you handled any challenges that came up, and showcase the successful results.

While some companies might be concerned about overloading their clients with too much information, it’s important to answer the all of their vital questions. For example, if you don’t display pricing online, try offering a Request for Quote form, or clearly outlining how to contact your sales team for that information. You don’t want clients to leave your site frustrated from not being able to find the information they need. Having a clearly laid out plan to tell your story online will move the sales process forward and create more business for your organization.

Website maintenance may seem like drudgework, the housework of websites, but the importance of regular maintenance for your website cannot be emphasized enough.  As your business’s online presence, your website speaks for you, getting your message out to prospective customers.  Keeping your site running smoothly can mean more sales, which means increased profits for you.

The mistake that most people make when approaching a business website is believing that putting it together and getting it up and running is all that’s necessary.  In reality, this is only the first step.  Just as you need to continually turn over inventory and adjust prices in a storefront, the same is true of your website.  You need to keep the content fresh and your prices competitive in order to be successful.

That’s where regular website maintenance comes in.  Updating the content of the site, changing the products you offer and implementing special online pricing or other deals is all a part of maintaining a thriving business.  There are thousands of sites out there and in order to ensure that yours can compete, you need to keep ahead of the trends and on target with your image.

Search engine optimization is what drives customers to your site and part of regular maintenance is making sure that your site is set up to make the best use of current SEO strategies to give you a leg up in the marketplace.  You also need to maintain an open line of communication with your customers, which means having a place for customer feedback, reading that feedback and acting on it on a regular basis.

Of course, all of the extra effort involved in website maintenance can be time consuming.  That’s why so many companies tend to neglect it, choosing instead to focus their efforts on other areas.  But there is no reason for you to let your website suffer even if you don’t personally have the time or manpower to dedicate to maintaining it.

There are many companies out there whose sole focus is on providing quality, expert maintenance for business websites.  These are trained professionals who are up on the latest technological trends and can put them to work for you quickly and easily.  They can do everything from updating content to changing your website design to maximizing SEO positioning.

And with a website maintenance company working to keep your site looking its best, you can be free to spend your time growing your business in other ways.  It’s a convenient and cost effective solution that can reap tremendous financial rewards for you in the long run.  There’s really no down side to considering a maintenance company for your site.

Your website is a living entity and you need to make sure that you are doing everything you can to cultivate it properly so that it will grow and thrive.  Whether you handle maintenance in house or hire an outside firm, don’t skimp on the details; they can be your business’s key to success.

An internet marketing guru used to say that the formula for profitable website design is “eyeballs + heart = money.”

He meant that your website has to capture someone’s attention (eyeballs) and win their interest (heart) in order to get them to buy from you or take action (money).

Winning eyeballs means having a site that is visually appealing. It uses a nice color scheme, the elements on a page are easy to spot, and when someone is looking for a particular kind of information, that information is easy to find.

Winning hearts means having great content that exactly meets the visitor’s needs. How do you know what they need? You’ll do the research in your industry to know what kinds of challenges they have and solutions they’re looking for. Then you’ll do keyword research to find the search terms someone would use to find those solutions. Then you’ll salt your site with those keywords. You’ll also provide excellent content that relates to their challenges and positions you or your company as an expert.

Winning money can mean buying something from your site. It can also mean getting someone to take an action, like click a “like” button, input his or her email address, or call you.

How Do You Know What’s Working or Not?

Great website design isn’t just measured by how well it gets people to take action. After all, if a website doesn’t win money and that’s your only measure of success, how will you know what to fix? It might be one small detail that’s causing the failure, or it could be a whole mess of things. If you’re only measuring one variable (money), you’ll be changing things at random trying to correct the problem.

A Better Way to Figure Out What Works

Measuring your website design involves using site analytics and studies in website interaction.  Through something like Google Analytics, you can know how long someone spends on your page, where they came from and where they go to next, what pages most interest them, what keywords they used to get there, and so on.

Your website hosting account should give you easy access to the “back end” of your website. That will allow you to do “split tests” and change variables in color, placement of elements, and offers. If a blue banner doesn’t work, maybe a red one will.

Finally, great website design does you no good if your hosting company isn’t reliable. Website hosting companies can vary. You want to use one that has a high (99%+) up time, plus large or unlimited disk space and bandwidth. Many hosting companies also offer add-on features that can make your life easier, such as WordPress hosting, apps, and user-friendly site management features.

With a great design and a reliable host, you’re on your way to internet success!

NCWS 530-477-6293

WordPress web design has taken the idea of building a business website and almost literally given it wings.  Not only does it allow you to reach the glass ceiling, it can help you burst right through and get your message across to thousands of potential clients around the world.  It’s the technological boost that businesses need to succeed in the next generation.

So what exactly is WordPress?  It is a content management system, or CMS, which was originally developed in 2003 as a way of facilitating the growing blogging niche.  As more and more people became interested in creating and maintaining their own blogs, they began looking for a coding system that would make the process quick and easy.  WordPress provided the answer they were looking for. 

With a simple program that can be downloaded on any PC in a matter of minutes, WordPress allows you to take complete control of your blog, giving you the ability to post your content in a clean, easy to read and access format.  And now WordPress web design has extended that technology to provide the same kind of formatting ability for websites.

Of course, you may still be scratching your head when it comes to figuring out the ins and outs of web design or maybe you just can’t afford to take the time away from running your business.  Fortunately, there are options for that too with companies that help facilitate your WordPress web design.  For a minimal fee, you can leave the details up to them and reap the benefits of a fully functional site using WordPress technology.

Because WordPress takes all of your design needs into consideration, you can rest easy knowing your business is in good hands.  Not only will your site be searchable, it will be easy to navigate and allow your customers to interact with you seamlessly.  And having your WordPress based design handled by trained experts means one less hassle for you to deal with.

In order for your business to be successful, you need to have a website that draws customers in and keeps their attention. WordPress web design helps you achieve this goal with a minimal amount of effort.  Everything you need for the best in website design is right there at your fingertips with the most popular blogging and design software on the market today.

Successful business begins with using the right tools.  In today’s technological world, that means a program to help you put together the most professional website possible. Don’t leave your business up to chance; get your message out there loud and clear with WordPress and you’ll marvel at the results. 

Call us for a free no hassle quote 888-271-6355

A lot of people have become rich by unlocking the mysteries and secrets of internet marketing. Who are these people and what are they doing?

• They are people selling online information products, like ebooks, training courses, and online membership programs.
• They are local business owners who’ve unlocked the social media market to attract customers to their business.
• They are companies and individuals who’ve created online stores to sell products and services to people all over the world. 
• They are ordinary folks who join auction sites.
• They are even people who have no products or services themselves, but make use of affiliate programs to sell other people’s products and services.

If you want to be successful at selling through the internet, the good news is that there are now roadmaps to guide you. The roadmaps can be complex, to be sure, but with a serious focus on educating yourself, you can succeed.

The First Step to Marketing on the Internet

No matter what kind of business you have, your internet marketing efforts will probably involve your website, blog or a webpage.  For that reason, it’s important to understand SEO.

Search Engine Optimization used to be something your webmaster handled for you. Now every person who wants to put themselves out on the internet and isn’t using a webmaster needs to understand it. SEO consists of organic ways of improving the visibility of your website or web pages in search engine page results.

To search engine optimize your site, you have to understand keywords (what people are searching for), basic web page structure and how search engines use that structure (meta data), and how the search engines rank pages (frequency and kind of content updates, the quality of incoming links to your website from outside sources). 

Once you’ve optimized your site, the next step is getting people to visit your site and link to you. That’s internet marketing.

What Kinds of Things Can You Do to Marketing Your Website?

You can use these marketing techniques to promote your website online:

• Paid advertising like pay-per-click, context ads, and paid inclusion in high-profile directories.
• Social media marketing through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and hundreds of specialized social media sites. Hint: create a social media plan that updates your information across all your chosen social media platforms automatically, daily.
• Article marketing that demonstrates your expertise and links directly to a free resource.
• Joint ventures with other internet marketers who help you by promoting you to their email list.
• Affiliate marketing, where you get other people to promote your products for a split of the profit. If it’s an ebook or ecourse, you can include your product in an affiliate directory, such as Clickbank.

The key to your success will be finding a roadmap that makes sense for you. You may be tempted to do all of these at once. If you’re new to internet marketing, that could be overwhelming.

The right path is to get your website house in order first by doing Search Engine Optimization. Then pick one of the marketing approaches above and focus for a while. When you’ve had some success you can move on to the next approach

Keep it short

Although you can now register a name with up to 63 characters, you have to keep in mind that people need to be able to remember it, and easily type it into their browser. Try to register the shortest name that your customers and visitors will associate with your Website. The general rule of thumb is, keep it under ten characters if possible. (Not including the suffix.)

Dot com, net, org, etc.

There are many different extensions available right now. For businesses, we recommend a .com. It is the first extension that most people try when searching for a Website.

Register Your Domain ASAP!

Domain names are being snatched up fast. So don’t wait too long or you’ll be saying “oh, that’s the one that got away…”  You do not have to have a Webmaster or a Web design consultant, you don’t even need a Web page! Just register before you lose the opportunity to get the name you really want.

One May Not Be Enough

Sometimes, it isn’t a bad idea to register several similar domain names. If you have “yourname.com”, register “yourname.net” so no one else takes it. You can register your full company name and a shorter, easier to remember version. For instance nevadacountywebsurfer.com is too long so we shortened it to ncws.com and you don’t have to have a webpage for each name, several domains can point to the same Website.

Character Types

Good tip – Domain names can only use letters, numbers, and dashes. Spaces and symbols are not allowed. Also, domain names are not case sensitive, mydomain.com is the same as MyDomain.com

Get a second opinion

When you have settled on several available name choices, see what your friends and clients have to say. A name that may make perfect sense to you may be too hard for other people to remember. Is your domain easy to say? Is it hard to spell? Do you have to explain why you chose the name?