First of all, there are a few things that should be done even before you get to this point that I will touch on briefly.

1. Have a professional looking web site. Make sure your graphics look nice, your colors all flow, your coding is clean and you have good navigation and content. This first step is the most important step to keep visitors on your site. Web Design Rules According to Web Savvy Mama.

2. Know your market. You should already have browsed the web and found out who your direct competition is. What is working for them? What can you do to set yourself apart from them? Don’t rely on cheaper prices to get you a sale, this only works for physical products with professional looking websites. If you sell digital materials or a service, you are going to have to solely rely on word of mouth, portfolio and the impression your website gives. Why? You get what you pay for. While your cheaper item/service might be just as great as a competitors, potential customers may not look at it that way. Be competitive in pricing, don’t low ball your worth. Also know what your customers are wanting, not just what you want to give them. How can you convince them you have what they need?

Now on to the nitty gritty. You have a web site, you’ve done your research, now what?

1. Work on your SEO! Search Engine Optimization is super important. I’d say that the majority of my clients have found me through Google. This means you have to know what your keywords and phrases are and how to promote yourself in the search engines. It is such a big topic that I can’t get into it here, but I did write an article in 2007 that still has a lot of good information in it to get you started. Web Site Optimization, SEO.

2. Advertising, how and where. This falls back on knowing your target market. For me, mine is small business and specifically work at home parents. I first researched where those people tend to hang out on the web and focused my advertising there. For some this may be a large web forum or web site. Find out what it takes to do various advertising on those sites. Signature links on forums have worked well for me in the past. Again, keep in mind the keywords you want to benefit from the SEO! You can also try Google adsense but unless you have a larger budget or very specialized keywords, chances are its not going to be much bang for your buck. Participate in popular blog giveaways, get featured on other web sites and get friends to talk about you. Word of mouth advertising is the best advertising! Do Facebook and Twitter help? Most likely not, unless you already have a big following on your personal accounts and can piggy back from there. You can use these social network sites to help with SEO though!

3. Get a blog! This goes back, again, to SEO. It also generates something that visitors may want to come back to read and gets them onto your site again. I’ve written about this as well so read more at Add a blog? Yes Please!

You have the traffic, lets turn those visitors into sales!

1. Have a product that will sell!
2. Professional site with a cart.
3. Competitive prices.
4. No dead links!
5. Clear navigation.
6. Your visitors need to be very clear on what you are selling.
7. Clear form of contact method. They need to know they can reach you.
8. Offer something that no one else has. (Product, service, atmosphere, this could be anything!)

Why is a blog so important for my website?
Blogs are an excellent way to bring readers and potential customers to your website! Its an easy way to keep your content fresh and up to date. Blogs are also a great way to highlight a product that may not normally get noticed or to announce an awesome sale you plan on having! Want an easy way for visitors to stay up to date on on your site’s activities? Add a blog. Want to share a find you found on the internet your customers may enjoy? Blog about it! Maybe you want to do a link swap with another person in your niche business area. A blog post is the perfect way to announce your affiliation or show your love of the other shop.

Above all, blogging on your website increases your textual content and gives a medium for you to post your desired keywords and link to your products. Search engines love blogs and when your blog is indexed, so is your website along with all those valuable keywords and content!

What blog platform should I choose?
Web Savvy Mama has a soft spot for WordPress. I love the flexibility, the integration and the enormous amount of plugins available. WordPress is also FREE and can be hosted right on your website with your domain.

How can Web Savvy Mama help?
I specialize in custom matching WordPress themes. If you have a website, chances are I can create a theme to match it. If you have a Web Savvy Mama designed theme even better, just tell me you want a blog theme added to your design package. Matching blogs from an existing design start at just $80! Feel free to contact WSM to get a quote for your blog project.

People don’t really look at email as taking up much time. Email was supposed to make things easier, right? Today, while looking through sent messages looking for a specific email I realized just how much time I spend emailing! I thought this was interesting and would like to share my find with my readers and clients. I think we can firmly stick this one into the hidden value of my web design services. Unlike a lot of businesses, I have always offered free support and try my best to answer emails and help clients with learning their site or simply making sure the design process and site vision are are on track. All of this adds up and I just thought I’d share a few numbers.

4-8. The average number of emails sent back and forth during the quote process.
30-60. The average emails that are sent from me to clients as part of back and forth during the design process on small projects.
100-130+. The number of emails I’ve sent out to clients on average on larger projects.

And when I say that I mean that range would be one person! So during the design time frame when I take on 4 projects at a time I could easily sent out 400 or more emails to the 4 clients. The design time frame is 6-8 weeks. Some emails are quick, 4 minutes to write. Others take more research, 30-40 minutes. Lets say the average is 10 minutes per email. That’s roughly 67 hours of email time, or 10 hours per week and this is a LOW estimate not including the quote process.

Email! I never thought it would be so time consuming! So there you have it. This is the reason my husband finds me up in the middle of the night working, wondering what I could possibly be doing.

So when considering the value of my web design services, here is a hidden value that you are getting when you work with Web Savvy Mama. The one on one attention from me when I am making sure there is good communication and that you fully understand how your site functions.

By the way, check out Thunderbird email client. Tabbed email, filtering, sorting and all your email accounts readable right in one inbox. I love all the features and it does help me save some time!