We were privileged to redesign and develop a new website for Dunsinane Swim & Tennis Club, an institution in Centerville, Ohio.  Working with Brian and the Dunsinane Board, we used vibrant pictures of the Dunsinane property throughout the site, highlighting the spacious grounds where the club sits.  Compared to the former site, the new design is easy to navigate, and places important information in easily visible places.  We added Google Analytics website tracking, so the board may evaluate how many people are visiting their new site, and which pages they are viewing.  Check it Out

We redesigned and developed a new online store for Rock Rebel Shop .  Rock Rebel sells handbags, jewelry, and licensed merchandise from Star Wars, The Munsters and Universal Studios.  They sell some really cool stuff.  This biggest improvement from their old store was an easy to use main menu to make browsing the site simple for the customer.  We added individual product pages so their site and products get found by major search engines queries using Google, Yahoo!, and Bing.  The WordPress product management system makes it easy for Rock Rebel Shop to keep their store up to date on their own, without having to pay a high priced web administrator to do it for them.  This business is another example of an owner using the web to build his business portfolio, and generating an additional source of income with a minimal time investment.

Earlier this year we redesigned and developed additional landing pages for the Dayton, Ohio based credit card processor, Merchant Payment Services.  We added more calls to action and a more intuitive website design to increase the amount of clicks and leads the site generates.  With over 70 pages of content we had quite an undertaking on our hands.  We partnered with Randal at R Squared Communications to kick up the Search Engine Optimization.  Overall, this site has helped MPS generate more business, and gives them a solid online presence.

Recently I was meeting with an owner of a Auto Repair facility who had just signed an annual agreement with a yellow pages publisher. Her package included a nice quarter page ad in the print edition, an online listing, and a website. The website was the reason for our meeting. Their site was so bad, poor design, few call to action elements, little information that was actually helpful to the shop’s potential customers. This is a trend in phone book world, where the print edition is obviously a declining form of advertising (down about 10% a year if you believe the Local Search Association, the former Yellow Pages Association).  So, the publishers are scrambling to right their formerly lucrative business model from print to online.  And small businesses are the ones paying the price for their “Lessons Learned.”

What would have made me fall out of my chair, had I been sitting in one, was when the Auto shop owner hit me with this,

“They own the yellow pages and in 10 years we’ll still be paying them because they own the internet.”

Did she really have the impression that the phone book guys control the internet?  The snake oil salesman, now representing the phone book publisher, obviously did a fine job of convincing her they do own it.

Bad web sites and high prices. This all made sense now.  As I was browsing the internet, I had seen a huge increase in UGLY, POORLY designed sites, PROUDLY displaying the phone company, or phone book publisher logo.  The phone book is changing their strategy from print to online advertising, but their goal is still the same, charge excessively for little value in return.

The bottom line here is this.  Based on the conversations we’ve had, Small Business Owners have always hated paying the phone book guys for little ROI.  But they felt they had to because the phone book held the cards.

The game is changing – check that, has changed – and the phone book companies have not built goodwill with high prices and bad quality.

There are NEW players.  Google, Yahoo!, Bing and web marketing companies that help you market your business online.  In general, they offer more affordable web design and services and the quality is much better than the churn and burn phone book guys.

When we received the eMail from NanoSperse to do a Site Redesign, we were as always, excited, and honestly a bit intimidated by the subject matter.  Their tagline is: “Dispersion Technology for a Small World.”  Makes complete sense to me!  Ok, so it didn’t.  But what we HAD TO DO, is ask the same questions we always ask about their business to understand it from a high level.  This is important so we understood what their customer would be looking for in a great Nano Composites firm.  We like to take the approach Warren Buffett uses when evaluating investments.  If Mr. Buffett cannot draw a business concept on a piece of paper, so a child could understand it, he does not invest.  That is the same approach we use when building websites: cut out the extraneous chatter, boil a business down to it’s most important aspects, and communicate that through an easy to understand site.  Art and Karrie at NanoSperse made this process a lot easier – answering my (see: Synonyms for Stupid) questions.  Check out their site, and be sure to give them a call, the next time you need a truckload of Pre-Dispersed Nano Materials.

Lisa and Jason came to us asking for what we feel we do best, get a business on the web with a small business website.  Based in Centerville, Jungle Red Salon provides hair care services to customers in the Dayton, Ohio area.  They wanted a website to introduce their staff to Dayton, feature the products and services they offer, and express the caring, warm environment their salon embodies.  The Goal: Make visitors comfortable with Jungle Red so they pick up the phone, make an appointment, become a lifelong customer.  Easy – Sure.  Check out the site