I WANT A WEBSITE

All sites now get closely monitored with Screpy

rob@bluetorch.net (Rob Frierson) — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 13:42:13 GMT

Now providing in-depth website analysis for all of our clients

Because having every little detail of your website right is critical these days, we're now using a new tool called Screpy to deeply analyze all of our client websites. That means that you're getting much more than just a website designer or a website host with I WANT A WEBSITE, you're getting a true partner who will help you work through all of the little details that can make or break the success of your new website. You'll now be able to immediately know the ranking of your website, all of the SEO information you've ever wanted to know, as well as where any trouble areas are , as well as exactly what to do to fix them.

This is just one more way for I WANT A WEBSITE to stand among other website designers and website hosting companies, who just build you a simple small business website, but leave you high and dry after that. We're here with you and for you every step of the way to make sure that your website design is perfect, that your website hosting is ultra-reliable, and that there are as few issues with your newly custom-designed small business website as possible.

When you;re ready to get MORE business for YOUR business, let I WANT A WEBSITE show you the best website designs and let us build your next and last small business website that really works for your business.

How to build a cheap website in 2019

rob@bluetorch.net (Rob Frierson) — Mon, 30 Dec 2019 20:56:53 GMT

How to build a cheap website in 2020

If your budget is limited, a beautifully polished and professional-looking website may seem like an unrealistic expectation.

Sure, it’s easy enough to build a low-cost website—but you don’t want a site that looks cheap.

If you have to hire writers to create content, graphic designers to build a template, and web developers to put it all together, your costs can quickly add up. And that doesn’t even take into account the expense of hosting your site or driving traffic to it.

But I’m here to tell you that creating a beautiful site doesn’t have to break the bank.

With free tools, low-priced help, and a secret trick or two, it’s totally possible to create a professional site for very little money. Or, depending on your needs, even for free.

As website building specialists, our team looked far and wide to find the best methods for creating a site for less. So, if high costs have prevented you from getting your message online, then kiss your worries goodbye! You can use the following methods to create the website you’ve been dreaming of, regardless of your budget.

We've got the best website builder so you can build the best website

Simple Content Planning - It Really Matters!

rob@bluetorch.net (Rob Frierson) — Sun, 22 Dec 2019 18:33:13 GMT

Plan your content BEFORE you start...

Getting started with content strategy planning doesn’t need to be complicated. A simple plan can produce spectacular results, as we’ll soon see. A simple plan done well is better than a sophisticated one executed poorly.

In this beginner’s guide to building content plans in MarketMuse, we’ll look at:

The value of a content plan
One-page plans
Intent mismatches
Leveraging dedicates forums and communities
Using research and your own creativity

Why Make Content Plans?

When we discuss content plans, we’re not talking about using an editorial calendar to determine when to publish content. Before you can determine when to post something, you need to decide what content you are going to create or optimize. It is this decision-making process to which the term content plan refers.

There are several reasons to make a content plan. Your organization may have a business challenge you’re trying to solve with content. Some common examples include:

Growing organic traffic and revenue from organic traffic
Building a brand through thought leadership
Fueling lead generation

Content plans can also help a content strategist map the content universe – to get a better understanding:

What does your organization want to be known for?
What are your customers and visitors looking for?
What is the competition targeting?

Lastly, a content plan can help organize your content marketing around topics, marketing initiatives, content calendars.

There are a lot of ways to surface both quick-win opportunities and more substantial topic clusters in MarketMuse Suite, with no outside tools. Content planning can be as elaborate or as simple as you need it to be.

These tactics do not require any use of outside tools other than occasional Google searches and simply looking at your organization’s site. While your strategy and planning efforts may benefit from other tools, for the sake of simplicity, this blog post focuses exclusively on what you can do in MarketMuse Suite. In most cases, that’s all you need.

How to Know if You’ve Found a Good Page for a One-Page Plan

If you open a page in MarketMuse Suite and it looks like this one, you’ve likely found a good starting point for a one-page plan.

Intent Mismatch Examples

There are a lot of ways to find intent mismatches in MarketMuse Suite. You can look at Pages or Topics, filter by a topic or section of the site, and run down the list to see if any mismatches exist. I find it easier to locate these in the Topics section of MarketMuse Suite.

Below are some examples where you’ll see some overlap between the content and the topic, but they aren’t exactly touching on the same thing.

We've got the best website builder so you can build the best website

How to create buzz for your website launch in 2020

rob@bluetorch.net (Rob Frierson) — Mon, 09 Dec 2019 20:54:38 GMT

How to Create Buzz for Your Website Launch in 2020

There are a ton of websites online. In fact, according to Mill for Business, as of January 2019 there were a whopping 1,518,207,412 websites in the world and there are approximately 380 new websites created every minute! As you can imagine, as a new website owner, it can be hard to stand out from the crowd.

But whether you’re launching a small business website, a blog, or an eCommerce site, you need to make a big splash online if you want to get noticed, drive traffic to your site, and generate sales. Simply put, you need to get people excited about your launch day.

Here’s how to create buzz for your website launch in 2020.

Create a coming soon page.

The first step to building a buzz for your website launch is to create a coming soon page. A coming soon page gives your website visitors a preview of what they can expect when your site goes live and gets people excited about what’s to come.

For example, check out this coming soon page from Phloem. It lets visitors know that they’re building an online marketplace for vegan apparel, footwear, and accessories. Plus, it offers users who provide their email address first access to the platform.

Collecting emails with a coming soon page will let your grow your email list before your site even launches. This is extremely beneficial because then you can use email marketing to stay in touch with the people that are most excited about your website launch and you can notify them the second your site goes live.

We've got the best website builder so you can build the best website

Best Website Builders of 2019

rob@bluetorch.net (Rob Frierson) — Mon, 09 Dec 2019 20:31:17 GMT

Best website builder for 2019

Building a website has come a long way since the neon-text-on-black-background days of Angelfire and MySpace. Now you can easily and professionally present your services or business without being a web developer, having coding skills, knowing HTML or looking like a middle schooler's online science project.

The website builder industry has grown substantially over the last 10 years, and it can be overwhelming for first-timers. But that complexity and growth also means that you have more choices than ever, and you can easily find the best website builder tailored to your wants and needs. It's true that a few website builder favorites have emerged -- and those sites are usually a good place to start -- but even the front-runners aren't ideally suited for every scenario. To make it easy for you, we've compiled all the information you need to make a good decision on the best website builder and get to the fun part of designing your site.

Best website builders compared

*Starting price doesn't include cheaper plans if they are ad-supported. Some vendors offer free domain hosting for the first year on some plans as well.

These services are independently chosen by our editors. CNET may get a share of the revenue if you buy anything featured on our site.

To compile this list of best website builders, we researched the prices, plans and features of over 12 different website builders and scoured website builder reviews from several sites, including PCMag, Wirecutter, WebsiteToolTester, SiteBuilderReport, WPBeginner and more, to see where there might be any consensus. We also surveyed the CNET staff, and ultimately spent time building some test sites using the tools below (if we weren't already users). We paid particular attention to the categories that not only differentiate one site from another, but that actually matter to business owners, artists and creators.

If, by the end of the list, you're still not sure which direction to go, we've included a guide at the bottom, including key questions you should be asking yourself as you start your online venture. Finally, if you already have a website and just need a host or you're interested in building a WordPress site, check out our list of best web hosting services.

WIx

Wix is often the clear front-runner in the race for website builder dominance. It's the biggest player, with over 110 million websites built, and boasts the greatest quantity of tools, capabilities, and freedom.

Wix covers the full ease-of-use spectrum by offering an AI-fueled automatic website creator on one end ("Wix ADI") that requires minimal effort from the user, all the way to Wix Corvid, an open development platform for advanced applications like Javascript, databases and data-driven dynamic pages. To maximize the experience, we do recommend choosing one lane (e.g., Wix ADI, specific templates or design-from-scratch), since it can be difficult to maintain consistency across your website design if, for example, you start with a template but then decide you want to totally customize it.

Like many competitors in this space, Wix offers a basic free plan that lets you create a free website starter site with ads. If you like what you see, you can spend up for a premium, ad-free site. Pricing falls within industry standards with a $13-per-month "Combo" plan that covers most needs for a personal website, up to a $49-per-month "Business VIP" e-commerce plan for your online store. Those prices do not include a domain, so you'll need to account for that separately. And if you're interested in stats and analytics, you'll either need to get a paid Google Analytics account or another third-party tool, as Wix doesn't have its own.

Despite being the clear favorite among most reviewers, Wix does have a few drawbacks. Wix was one of the few builders that has data limitations for each of its plan tiers , so if you want to upload endless photos and videos, or expect more than 5,000 visitors a month to your site, make sure you do the math before choosing a plan.

Also, the editor's freedom and range of options can be overwhelming for folks who don't have the time or inclination to make lots of little decisions, and the design flexibility means you'll need to be more hands-on with the format and layout, as opposed to more structured or limited editors where you can't draw too far outside the lines.

Squarespace strikes us as being the cool kid in high school -- flashy and hip on the surface but lacking substance underneath. We found it to be in between Wix and Weebly in terms of ease of use, though it did get consistently positive marks from reviewers for the quality of design. Where we think it really might shine is for small- to medium-size businesses who want a nicely designed page and room for e-commerce growth with lower transaction fees.

The Squarespace editor isn't as intuitive as Wix and Weebly, requiring a little bit of work until you get the hang of it. It has a fair amount of add-ons, website templates and tools, and the universal style editor and strong photo editing are helpful. The responsive website editor means that your site will always look good on mobile, but you won't be able to make mobile-specific edits like with Wix or Duda. We also found consistent high marks for helpful and responsive customer support, which should put business owners' minds at ease.

Squarespace starts off with a $12-a-month Personal plan, which includes unlimited storage, bandwidth and a domain, and offers an $18 Business website plan that includes unlimited contributors, a Gmail pro account, and e-commerce capabilities. If you go for an "Online Store" plan, you can choose between $26 and $40 a month, the latter of which includes a few final touches like abandoned shopping cart recovery and gift cards. It's important to note that the $26 online store plan, while maybe slightly above the market rate for an e-commerce site, comes with no transaction fees. So depending on your sales volume on a given month, those savings for our online store could really add up.

Overall, Squarespace's website is a good analog for what you get with its products: clean, professional and inviting design, but without the layers of design power or freedom you get from other builders.

Read more: Best laptop deals 2019: Windows and Chromebooks for under $500

Weebly

Weebly flies under the radar relative to Wix with 50 million websites created, but offers some excellent options depending on your needs. If you want a simple and easy-to-use do-it-yourself website editor, a large site (more than 25 to 30 pages), unlimited storage, site portability and affordable yet powerful online store capabilities, Weebly plays a good David to Wix's Goliath.

The editor is pretty easy to use, and the low learning curve still nets great-looking sites. That ease-of-use means the editor is more limited in terms of add-ons and design flexibility, and it doesn't have the range of options or mobile customization that a builder like Wix has. Still, in our testing, we never came to a point where we found those constraints to be limiting. For a high-octane web designer, though, it could definitely come up.

Weebly's prices are similar to competitors like Wix or Squarespace, but its free plan option is one of the most generous among free website builders, and for just $5 a month you can get up and running with your own domain name (albeit with Weebly ads). Its $12-per-month plan will give you an ad-free site with analytics and commerce capabilities, while the $25 plan gets you more store tools, like tax and shipping calculators, inventory management and discounts.

Weebly is a good option for those who may be more limited in terms of their time investment, and its commerce options outshine competitors like Wix and Squarespace. For those who are wary of committing to a website builder knowing that you won't be able to pick up and leave later on, Weebly also offers the ability to download site files so you can move to another host, a rarity in the site builder landscape.

Duda

Duda, my personal favorite actually, is a smaller player compared to the other builders above with around 15 million websites built, and it focuses on a specific market segment: designers and design agencies. It caters to individuals and groups that make a lot of sites, but with a powerful and easy-to-use builder and a number of differentiated offerings, it's emerged as a good option for anyone looking to develop an online presence.

Duda's builder boasts a number of features that set it apart, including mobile site customization, detailed data analytics (e.g. advanced metrics like form submissions, time on page and bounce rate), and user personalization so you can easily display specific messages or offers to users based on the time of day, their location or their browsing history. It's also known for its multilanguage support and a free e-commerce add-on that allows you to sell up to 10 products.

Duda's pricing is a little bit higher than its main competitors like Wix and Weebly, starting off at $14 per month for the Basic plan. At $22, you can add up to four editors for your site (instead of only one with Basic), access advanced analytics, and begin using Duda as a white-label/custom-branded builder, another one of Duda's selling points. Its "Agency" plan at $74 per month is geared toward web designers who are building pages for multiple clients, and includes eight websites and the ability to download site files for portability.

Duda is a little expensive, but fills some of the voids that the main players have, like analytics, multilingual capabilities and better personalization and mobile customization.

GoDaddy

GoDaddy is best known for its custom domain names and web hosting services, so it makes sense that it also offers website builder software. The problem is that it very much feels like an ancillary service -- it doesn't seem like it's put in the development time and effort that some of the mainstream website building players like Wix, Duda and Weebly have. Nevertheless, if you're looking for simplicity, and a user-friendly interface, GoDaddy could be a good option.

The GoDaddy "GoCentral" builder is one of the simplest tools available, but it's also the most restrictive. You can build a website and get it live in an hour or two, and the rigid structures and lack of customization options means it will look good, if not dramatically unique. It is challenging to make specific site edits to the pre-made templates, as with pre-made templates you're generally restricted to adding a content "block" that has preset text, image and formatting, instead of being able to add, drag or drop individual elements. The editor is more of a Madlibs-style fill-in-the-blank instead of a responsive, free-flowing experience.

It's slightly ironic that it doesn't include a domain name in its prices, given its core product offering, but other than that there aren't too many surprises. The $6 monthly plan is straight-up basic; $10 gets you a PayPal option and SEO help; $15 tacks on email marketing and social media integration, and its $20-per-month plan is for online store capabilities, which are actually pretty impressive. You get abandoned cart recovery, inventory management, discounts and promotions, and Amazon, Etsy and eBay integrations -- most of which are usually only available for an online store at higher prices.

GoDaddy is a well-known name, but not for its website builder. Still, we like that there's a super simple and not-too-expensive option out there for those who don't care about specific style placements and nuanced themes.

WordPress

When most people talk about WordPress, they're usually referring to the free open-source software available through WordPress.org. That's very powerful, but it takes some time to learn and still requires that you find a website host and domain name. If you're interested in going the advanced route of WordPress.org, we recommend you check out a tutorial or guide such as those you can find on WPBeginner or WebsiteToolTester to learn how it works.

The WordPress.com website builder is something else. It's similar to the other builders listed above and is primarily geared toward bloggers and writers. The editor is fairly limited compared to other services, but is easy to set up and has everything you need for blogging. We should also note that it's not an intuitive drag-and-drop website builder like Wix or Weebly.

Its pricing is fairly cheap, starting off at $5 per month to remove WordPress ads and giving you 6GB of storage. From there it goes to $8 for 13GB of storage and online selling capabilities, and finally a $25 option that allows you to use custom themes and add-ons. The $8 option seems like the best deal if you're setting up a blog and thinking about monetizing it at some point.

Overall, WordPress caters to bloggers who don't want or need to spend a lot of time on website design, but it feels very limited for most other use cases. That said, anyone who's looking for more robust off-the-shelf CMS (content management systems) options should consider Joomla and Drupal. Both are arguably less user-friendly than WordPress, but offer more customization options. At least one CNET editor also felt that Drupal and Joomla also offered faster page loading speeds.

Shopify

If Wix is one of the favorites for most basic website building needs, Shopify fills that role for an e-commerce store. The platform offers an easy and user-friendly way to get an e-commerce website store up and running online, and it supports business owners throughout the process with their e-commerce tools. Shopify is a safe place to start for most "e-tailers," though similar to Wix, that doesn't mean it's perfect for every scenario.

Like most other commerce-focused builders, Shopify's platform is geared toward your product and sales details. Fortunately for those without a ton of experience setting up a retail operation, Shopify's process ensures you won't miss an important step as it guides you through inventory, customer information, and tax and shipping rates. And if you still have a question, Shopify offers 24-7 phone and chat support and an active online community forum.

Given that its user base is fairly defined, Shopify doesn't offer a plethora of plan options, and its prices come in above the market average. The "Basic Shopify" plan is $29 a month and covers most of the basic needs for an online store, while the $79-a-month plan offers gift cards and more staff accounts. From our perspective, it was hard to rationalize the $50 jump from basic to standard, but if you factor in the reduced transaction fees and shipping discounts, it might make sense. If you're running a bigger operation, they also offer a $299-a-month plan.

The main drawback of Shopify is probably its pricing model. If you want the support, guidance and a builder that will take care of most of the technical details, the extra costs are worth it. And the many apps available are enticing, but can also add up if you're using those that cost extra. If after considering the different e-commerce features you're still on the fence, we recommend you calculate the total cost of additional add-ons and transaction fees based on your sales, and then compare with competitors like BigCommerce, which offers more product variants and combinations and lower fees.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce lives up to its name -- it's best for medium- to large-scale online stores that can cash in on the lack of added transaction fees and unlimited product variants. The store site builder might not be quite as easy to use as Shopify's, but the amount of time you spend getting used to it could save you a lot of money down the road.

The editor has a lot of features and flexibility when you're getting set up, but similar to Wix, that can be overwhelming for newcomers. If you have a little experience, however, those features and tools -- like product variants and tax rates -- will probably come in handy as you grow or if you're already at scale.

BigCommerce's price tiers are identical to Shopify's at $29 (Standard), $79 (Plus), and $249 (Pro), but what you get at each level differs. Even the lowest BigCommerce plan at $29 gives its clients unlimited users, unlimited bandwidth and storage, unlimited products, and no added transaction fees. You can even link your e-commerce site to eBay, Google Shopping and Amazon. Where the pricing gets a little tricky is with the sales thresholds: The Standard plan only supports annual sales of less than $50,000, while Plus supports up to $150,000 and Pro up to $400,000. So basically you save a lot of money on transaction fees the more sales you rack up, but if you have enough sales, you have to upgrade to the next plan tier.

As with all the online store builders, it'll be worth it to do a little math based on your product inventory and expected sales. No transaction fees -- they even have a discount deal worked out with PayPal where you can save an additional 0.5% to 1% -- strikes us as a major deal-maker depending on your size, so if you're a bigger operation, take advantage of the 15-day trial and give BigCommerce a shot.

How to choose the best website builder

Given the wealth of options and the fact that many website builders don't allow you to pick up and move later on, it's important to enter the fray with a clear idea of what you need. By first establishing your priorities and direction, it will be easier to find a match for the best website builder and avoid buyer's remorse down the road.

In terms of pricing, most builders offer two to four different price tiers, each with a different set of features. This can make comparing services difficult, since they don't make it easy to line up apples-to-apples, but that's a big reason why we've created this handy guide!

Generally speaking, you can get a good individual website built for around $8 to $10 a month with an annual subscription. Most e-commerce plans range between $20 to $25 per month, and if you need an enterprise-style plan with multiple editors and VIP-level support, prices can go up to $300 per month for premium plans.

Storage and bandwidth are usually unlimited, but there are exceptions like Wix, which scales its storage capacity according to the plan tier. And even its lowest tier plan has a decent amount (3GB of storage and enough bandwidth to support up to around 5,000 visitors per month).

After the big questions like price and storage, finding the best website builder all comes down to what you're looking for. Below are some guiding questions to help ensure you're ready to shop like an expert and find the best website builder for your needs.

What is the purpose of your site?

Your first step should be to determine the primary goal of your web presence. Do you want to sell a product? Attract potential customers for your services? Build a portfolio page?

By first establishing your raison d'etre, you'll be able to prioritize the tools, plugins and capabilities you want in your builder and not get pulled off track by a fancy add-on that isn't actually helping you achieve your goal. If you're primarily interested in racking up sales, start by looking at the e-commerce specialists, like Shopify and BigCommerce. If you're a photographer or designer who wants a beautiful portfolio site, Wix and Squarespace are good places to start. Wix might edge Squarespace if you want more control over the design, while Squarespace might be better if you just want a stylish frame for your work.

If you just want something easy to use, Weebly and GoDaddy both offer intuitive builders, with Weebly offering more features and design finesse, while GoDaddy is much simpler and more limited. If you're setting up a site or store and you want to present a customized experience to users or you have something specific in mind for the mobile version of your site, Duda offers the most customization capabilities. And if you're a wordsmith who can't be bothered by design decisions and fancy editors, WordPress can help you get your blog up and offers good ways to reach your readers.

How much time do you want to invest in building your website?

This obviously will vary depending on a number of factors, not the least of which is how clear of a design vision you have and whether you have experience building a website. That being said, each site builder has pros and cons when it comes to level of usability or ease-of-use based on the features, flexibility and intuitive design of the editing interface. On one end of the spectrum you have a builder like Wix, which is very easy to use but also comprehensive -- the sheer number of options and tools makes it hard to whip up a site quickly. On the other end, you have a builder like WordPress or GoDaddy, each of which doesn't provide you with a ton of options when building your pages.

Most people will want to devote enough time to their site that it serves its purpose of representing you online in a good light, so we generally recommend you take the time to learn your editor and take advantage of the many options available.

How much design control do you want?

Wix offers a pretty comprehensive suite of site editing tools.

Wix

This goes hand-in-hand with time investment, since the more control you have, the more choices you have to make. There are builders like Squarespace that have a fairly rigid design structure, but still let you customize fonts, colors and content, and on the other end of the spectrum you have a site like Wix, that lets you place objects anywhere on your site (at your own risk!), or Duda, which allows you to customize the mobile experience or create custom user experiences based on browsing history.

How big is your site?

Certain editors are more geared toward large site structures (40-plus pages) than others, so it's important to know whether you will have a ton of pages and sections, or whether it's more in the realm of a glamorized digital business card or fancy work portfolio.

The number of navigation levels, for example (which you can think of like file folders (or Inception): a page within a directory within another directory would represent three levels of navigation), can be an important consideration. Most pages probably use two levels -- sections and the pages within each section, but online stores and other types of sites might need more. Weebly and BigCommerce are probably the best examples of builders that support large site structures, while Squarespace and Wix limit you to two levels of navigation.

How important is e-commerce?

Every builder we researched has an e-commerce option available, but that doesn't mean that they're all up to the task. A site like WordPress isn't really what you want if your plan is to sell products online, while a site like Shopify or BigCommerce is expressly focused on online sales and has lots of e-commerce features. If you really just want to have a clean and easy-to-use online storefront, one of the dedicated e-commerce builders makes the most sense, but if it's more of an ancillary service or simply nice to have, you can go with the builder that feels the best and sign up for its e-commerce option. There are even builders like Duda, which allow you to sell up to 10 products for free using another plan.

How big is your sales operation?

Many website builders support Square's payment solutions.

Square

Transaction fees: While we're not small business owners, we do like math, and this variable struck us as particularly important. If you sell $10,000 of products in a month with a 3% vendor processing fee, you're spending an extra $300 every month. If you're paying your website host an extra 1% to 3%, that's another $100 to $300. Those numbers greatly eclipse the monthly rate you're paying, and add up even more if you're selling significantly more. So before you choose a builder, make sure you read the fine print about transaction fees.

Many builders don't charge on top of the Square or Paypal rate (usually 3%), but some do. Shopify charges extra if you don't use Shopify Payments, but if you do use its services, you can get a rate below 3%. Then there are sites like BigCommerce that doesn't charge extra and even has a PayPal discount, but has sales limits for each plan.

We know you're a smart and savvy business owner who pays close attention to the books, but we thought it would still help to remind you: do the math before signing up.

How flexible do you want to be with the host?

As we mentioned at the top, many builders lock you into their hosting service, but not all. If you're afraid of commitment or think you might want to switch as your business or services evolve, go with a service like Weebly or Duda that allows you to download your website files for easy use on another host.

The other big factor here is the free trial period. The industry standard is around 14 days, but some go up to a month, and others don't have a trial period but will give you your money back within 30 days if you're not happy.

We've got the best website builder so you can build the best website

We don't just sell websites, we provide solutions for your website with the best website builder on the market!

rob@bluetorch.net (Rob Frierson) — Tue, 03 Dec 2019 13:31:10 GMT

There's SO much more to websites than just the website!

Sorry, but we don't sell websites!

With more than 17 years of website expertise, we know that clients don't want to buy a website, they want to buy a solution to their problem. Our real value is in the solutions that we provide, and NOT just the incredible websites that we deliver!

Look, we’ve all been there. A client is haggling your price down because So-and-So over at that other design business says she can make a website for half the cost.

And you start to question yourself.

And you start to worry that the client will hire So-and-So instead.

And you are juuuuust about to lower your price…

STOP!

Websites aren’t a commodity. They’re not like gasoline, where you stop at whatever gas station has the lowest price, because the end product is the same. But a lot of clients don’t get that. And a lot of web designers don’t either.

In my career as a website developer, I can’t tell you how many designers I worked with where even THEY treated the website like a commodity. Something to simply slap a logo in and call it a day. That’s all the client asked for, right?

But here’s the thing:

Clients don’t want websites, and we don't sell websites.

They tell us they want a website, but that’s not true. In fact, it may be hard to get them to say anything besides, “We just know our business needs a website,” which is incredibly unhelpful.

But whether clients know it or not, they don’t want a website. What clients REALLY want are more customers, or at the very least more leads. On a rare occasion they may want a resource for visitors to reduce their workload by reducing the number of questions they’re asked. But no one ever wants just a website.

Yet most designers and other website companies continue to deliver, just websites, and wonder why they can’t charge premium prices. They wonder why they are constantly beat out by So-and-So’s lower rates. They compete to get low-paying clients. They never stop to think that maybe they’re selling their services all wrong.

We are different in that we ask WHY your client wants a website.

You have to ask clients why they want a website, and sometimes keep asking until you get to the root of the request.

Clients may not even know why they want a website until you ask them.

Clients may not even know why they want anything; a website, SEO, a new logo, whatever.

You have to keep asking why until you get to the real reason.

Even if WE know that the client needs a website in order to attract more customers, we still have to take the client on that journey so that they realize it themselves.

Once a client realizes we're going deeper than So-and-So, that we're offering an actual solution to their problem, they’ll understand why you charge more.

But we often have to ask them WHY first.

Why we offer strategy with our website design

I often imagine a lot of conversations between clients and designers go something like this:

Client: I want a website.

Designer: Great! I can make you a website. What do you do, and who is your target market?

Client: I’m a wedding photographer and my clients are brides.

Designer: Great, we’ll use watercolors and put a big image slider on the front page.

Client: Cool.

And that’s about as deep as it goes. The designer makes a beautiful website with lots of big images and a pretty color palette, and the client pays for it.

But what does the website DO?

Well it looks great, so the designer’s job is done, right?

Wrong.

As a web designer, we have to determine the client’s goal (in this example and most: get more clients), and create a design that accomplishes this.

And I hate to tell you, but there’s a lot more involved than creating a pretty brand and slapping it in a website. That may have worked in 2002, but today, that no longer flies.

Every element of design should serve a purpose, and that purpose is to lead visitors toward the goal.

Using the wedding photographer example above, we might map out the strategy something like this:

When a visitor first lands on the website, we want them to be blown away by your photography. We’ll showcase a few of your best photos, that demonstrate the type of weddings you like to photograph on the home page.

From there, we want visitors to learn a little about you, so we’ll funnel them to your About page where you can explain how you can help them get the best wedding photos possible.

At that point visitors should be pretty psyched, but we want to drive home who you want to work with and the types of weddings you shoot just a little more. So we’ll direct them to your portfolio where we’ll showcase a few of your favorite weddings.

Finally, we’ll direct visitors to contact you, and we’ll make that as simple as possible with a custom form that collects all the info you need upfront.

This website will draw in visitors and streamline the intake process. Making it easy for clients to hire you, and reducing back and forth emails for you!

Compare that strategic design breakdown to the original, “Great, we’ll use watercolors and put a big image slider on the front page.”

Which do you think clients would pay more for? Are you starting to see that the value is much more than just the pretty pictures and fluff?

We don't sell websites - We sell your value

The thing a lot of web designers get hung up on is tech. They list out a ton of features and expect the clients to immediately see the value in them.

But many clients have no clue what their web designer is even talking about. Tech means nothing to them, or at least very little. You might get the odd client who knows they want a certain plugin, or at least knows they want to be on one specific platform over another for s certain reason, but the majority of clients don’t know and don't care about tech.

What clients do care about is results. Results that help them and their business.

More customers. More leads. Less work on their end.

THAT is what we sell.

Selling a simple site with a custom theme and five page templates means zilch to your clients.

(Unless our clients are designers - then we can talk a little tech, but we don’t get too crazy with it.)

But when we're offering that, and So-and-So is offering the same but with SEVEN page templates, for the same price, you’re both just commodities. And So-and-So will beat us every time, but for all the wrong reasons.

We sell the benefits. Actual Results

Instead of focusing on the tech, we focus on how the website will benefit our clients. How they’ll see better results.

Suddenly, we put yourself in a whole new price bracket.

Suddenly, clients see the value that we bring them, and see us as more than a pixel pusher, but instead as a consultant. They start to value our opinion as more of a partner, and defer to our expertise.

We might be selling the exact same thing we were always selling, but changed our positioning from a commodity to an authority.

How to price your value-based services

How much would you pay for something that was going to get you an extra $100,000 a year? $5,000? $10,000? $50,000? More?

People will pay more money for something if they believe it will make them more money, and even more if we can prove it.

It’s simple math for the client-pay $10,000 for a website and get $100,000 in extra revenue a year. Worth it.

But not every designer is comfortable in talking money like that. After all, we can create the best website in the world, but if our client doesn’t do anything to get traffic to it, there will be no return on investment.

Sadly, we can't actually guarantee a result. The best we can do is share past clients’ success, and tell potential clients what’s involved in getting there, and help them every step of the way.

But you don’t have to base value purely on monetary gains. Value comes in many forms. If we can streamline a client’s site so that customers can book a photography session more easily, that’s value. If we can create an intake form that helps cut down on your client’s back-and-forth emails, that’s value. If we can add an FAQ section that reduces the amount of questions your client receives, that’s value. The list of these types of value-add functions is very long!

But we do need to put a price tag on the value we’re providing.

When we add value to the mix, we’re able to more easily support that package price, because there's now a clearly understood value in it.

Think of all the value we can add to a project. Write it down. Then add a price tag to each value point. You’ll be surprised at how quickly it adds up, and you'll quickly see that we're actually undercharging for all that we deliver.

Web design isn’t a commodity.

Clients say they want a website, but in reality, they want customers, and they want to make their processes easier. We just have to clarify why they want what they want until we get to the root of the request. When we get there, they’ll start to see that they need more than a website, they need a solution, which is exactly why they came to us.

Tossing a little strategy in goes a long way. And it’s not that hard once you know what your client’s goal is. Seriously, the strategy portion can take as little as 5 minutes, once we start asking the right questions. For most clients, the end goal will be the same, so you can use a template for strategy (not the website itself) and tweak as needed.

In the end, we sell benefits, not tech, not websites. Our clients don’t really care about what plugin we'll be using, they care about the results that it can provide. Putting a price tag on the value that we offer our clients helps them see what we’re really offering, and that we're worth much more than we're asking.

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How to create great content for your brand

rob@bluetorch.net (Rob Frierson) — Mon, 02 Dec 2019 17:04:24 GMT

How do your audience and search engines assess content?

When it comes to content creation, there’s okay content, and then there’s great content. Great content takes research. It takes real planning and thought to produce something both your audience and search engines will find valuable.

Where do you start? I’ve got some tips to help you boost your content from okay to great, and keep your target audience coming back for more.

As I mentioned above, there are two factors to consider when assessing quality content: how do humans determine quality content and how do search engines determine quality content?

Once upon a time, these two benchmarks were merely distant cousins. But as search engines get smarter, the determinants of quality content for both groups are quickly becoming one and the same.

What Makes Great Content Great?

According to the Havas group, 84 percent of people surveyed expect brands to provide content that entertains, tells stories, provides solutions or creates an experience. They’re looking for more out of their brands than a product or a service.

High-quality content that provides value for your target audience helps your brand gain trust. It makes for a simple yet effective content strategy. But how do you know the content you’re creating is hitting the mark?

To create quality content that speaks to your target audience, there are some questions you need to answer:

Does It Hit Your Target Audience?

Putting content out for the sake of creating content won’t win you any popularity contests. Content should immediately address the kinds of queries your target audience is typing into search engines.

The best way to understand what they’re looking for is to create buyer personas. Dive deep into the kinds of people your product or service draws (or the kinds you’re trying to attract).

Go beyond age, race, gender, and income, and come up with a “real” person. What hobbies do they tend to have? How do they typically vote? How do they consume information online and when?

Answering questions like these help you create content areas beyond your brand, draw in a larger audience and build authority. For instance, when I worked for an HR services brand, I discovered that a lot of the HR executives I was targeting had kids. A few articles about work/life balance and providing support services for employees with kids went over very well with my client.

Does It Satisfy a Need?

In one way or another, your unique content must satisfy a need. It should entertain, inform, support, provide an experience or solve a problem.

And it really depends on your brand.

Red Bull has done remarkably well in providing experiences by becoming one of the biggest supporters of extreme sports, while Pampers provides information and support for new parents on topics that go way beyond diapers.

They both looked at their brands and their audience and found a unique way to fill a void.

Are You Working With Experts or Influencers?

According to a Nielsen study, 85 percent of consumers regularly seek out credible, third-party articles and reviews before making a purchasing decision. And Google now actively seeks expertise in content.

If you’re the expert in your market, that’s great! You probably have studies of your own to point to. Use them to create blog posts, white papers, and infographics.

If there are other experts or influencers whom people trust, reach out to them to write for you, or source them in your content.

Is It Well-Written and Free of Errors?

When you come across a piece of content that’s full of grammatical errors and misspellings, what do you do? You click away, right?

Poorly written content signals to your audience that you didn’t put much effort into it. So how can they trust the message you’re trying to convey?

Take the time to think through the right tone and voice for your audience. Outline your content pieces before writing, and leave time for editing.

Does It Speak to Your Audience, Rather Than at Them?

One of the biggest mistakes I see is content that talks at an audience, rather than to them. Readers want content that sounds like a well-informed friend talking to another. They don’t want to be bombarded by statistics and industry jargon. They don’t want to be talked down to with poorly used slang and simple sentences, either.

Make sure you’re setting the right tone for your users.

Is It Something Shareable?

A really good indicator of quality content is the number of shares it gets. If you’ve satisfied someone’s need, they’re more likely to share out your content to spread the word. And the more shares something gets, the more trustworthy it becomes.

How Search Engines Determine Quality Content

When search engines assess the quality of your content, they have a few more objective benchmarks than your target audience does, but there are some areas where the two intertwine. Here are some of the best indicators of quality content for SEO.

EAT

In 2015, Google released its Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines (pdf) for the first time. In that huge document, they made one thing clear: they are looking for expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (EAT) when ranking sites.

If you can show these three factors in your content, you’re more likely to rank in search engines like Google.

Quality Links

Having quality outbound links goes back to the principle of EAT. If your information is backed up by trustworthy sources (or your own research you can link to), then you are deemed more credible.

Of course, if people link back to you as a trusted source, it only boosts your credibility in the eyes of search engines.

Time on Page, Scroll Depth and Bounce Rate

All of these metrics show how long people are sticking with your content, which is a good indicator of its quality. If your scroll depth and time on page are low, while your bounce rate is high, it could mean that your content isn’t satisfying a need, and people are leaving.

Meta Tags and Images

Search engines also look at quality meta tags and images. Meta tags for your images as well as your content should directly relate to your topic and include your long-tail keywords.

If you’re writing an article about the best hairstyles you can do in under five minutes, for example, and you include an image, your meta tag shouldn’t be “girl with braid.” It should be “a braid is a great 5-minute hairstyle.”

On-page SEO is all about optimizing those factors that you control on the page.

Social Sharing

Search engines also put a lot of emphasis on social shares. If people are sharing your content, it stands to reason that it satisfies a need, and users are spreading the word.

All of these benchmarks give you a picture of how likely your content is to rank. Determining how to make it meet these requirements will depend on how thoroughly you research your audience and meet their needs.

How to Write Comprehensive Long-Form Content

While smaller pieces of content are great for social media, long-form content that covers your chosen topics in depth creates a great experience for both visitors and search engines. Here’s how to create high-quality content at scale.

Research and Verify Topics

Don’t underestimate the effort required to create a mega post. Take time to research the topics in which your audience is interested. Use your audience persona, themes your competitors are covering and timely events to create a well-thought-out content calendar. Research good, long-tail keywords to include with each subject.

Outline Your Assignments for Writers

Think about every topic thoroughly. Write a brief that includes subtopics, questions to answer, and all keywords to include. Use the traditional 5Ws and H (Who, What, When, Where, Why and How) to make sure you’ve covered your topic thoroughly for your readers.

Leave Time for Editing

As I mentioned above, poorly written content that doesn’t cover all the bases, or content that’s full of grammatical and spelling errors will not win you an audience. Leave time in your content planning for editing and perhaps a few revisions by writers.

Assess Performance

Once your content is published, keep an eye on it. Assess it not only for page views but for bounce rate, time on page, scroll depth, social shares, and inbound links. If your piece is doing well, optimize it regularly to keep it timely and see if you can create content clusters around the same topic.

Good content is a great way to get a lot of eyeballs on your product without investing a lot of money. Follow these steps to take your blog content from good to great.

Featured image vector designed by Freepik

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Content Quality Check Step By Step

rob@bluetorch.net (Rob Frierson) — Mon, 02 Dec 2019 15:55:38 GMT

Content Quality Check Step by Step

You’ve read our posts on creating and optimizing great content. You’ve developed a content strategy, planned, assigned and edited, and now you’re ready to post.

Don’t hit that publish button just yet.

Every good content creator knows, before you release anything out into the world, you give it one last quality check.

What Does Quality Content Mean?

The pressure to produce content as quickly as possible — to jump onto that trending topic or be the first to publish those seasonally themed how-tos — forces us to make a tough decision. Do we write and publish just to get it out so people can read it? Or do we take the time to produce high-quality content for our audience?

The answer? Take the time. Whether it be Google, your loyal user base or a new viewer looking at your content, quality content will win out over quantity every time.

There’s a lot of information out there, which makes readers (and search engines) skeptical of anything they come across. To prove that you’re worthy of their time, your content must fulfill a need for your audience in a clear and trustworthy way.

To do so, it must be original, well-researched content that is grammatically and factually correct. It should rely on reliable sources and contain links that go to the right places.

There are key elements to every content quality check. We’ve listed them below. Print them out, if you like, or paste them somewhere on your desktop. Then run through them every time you audit, optimize or create new content for your content marketing efforts.

Step 1: Check Your Quality Content Score

The biggest challenge is taken a qualitative factor, like content quality, and turning it into something quantitative. But that step is critical if you want to take a data-driven approach to SEO content, as opposed to relying on your gut. Plus, it’s the only way to realistically scale the content creation process.

To be clear, content score has nothing to do with word count. Longer posts aren’t inherently better, they just have more words. Thin content can be of lower quality, but that too is no guarantee. Real subject matter experts can typically convey more information using fewer words.

Underpinning the concept of content quality is the idea that the in-depth content is that which thoroughly covers important related subtopics. For example, if I’m discussing content quality, then I should talk about the audience, content scoring, search engines, and other concepts.

You can conduct a content audit after the fact, but you may find it easier to work content scoring into the content creation process. In this case, you’ll have specific quality standards to aim for when putting together the article. In the example above we’re aiming for a content score of 33 based on how well other top-ranking pages have covered the subject.

All things being equal, if we achieve that score, we have a realistic chance at ranking well.

Step 2: Check Your Content for Originality

Before you even assign and create content, you should check to make sure your idea is original. If it’s a well-covered topic you want to rank on, make sure you’re taking a new spin on it.

You can do that by Googling keywords manually and seeing what pops up. If your topic has been done to death, or if some other site owns the ranking on that topic, you can find a different angle or move on.

But there are tools out there that will help you speed up the process.

SEMRush, for instance, can help you get a more comprehensive picture of topic coverage. Plug in a topic or keyword you’d like to cover, and they’ll give you a list of trending articles and related topics.

MarketMuse Suite can also help you plan quality, original content. By comparing your topic coverage with that of your competitors, you can see where your current content is overlapping and where you can differentiate. It can also help you choose new topics to target that have not yet been covered.

If you’ve already written your article — or if someone wrote it for you — a good plagiarism tool like Copyscape or Grammarly will keep you from duplicating content that appears somewhere else online.

The free version of Copyscape checks to make sure none of your content has been copied elsewhere, while the premium version lets you check new content for duplication before you publish it.

Grammarly detects duplicate content within your text as you write and edit.

Step 3: Check Your Content for Grammar and Spelling

There’s no two ways about it. Bad grammar and poor spelling hurt your credibility. And while Google doesn’t necessarily crawl for sloppy writing, you can bet your users will notice.

As we mentioned in our post on thin content, grammar and spelling mistakes tell your reader that you didn’t make much of an effort to create quality content. And if you didn’t bother to edit your piece, who’s to say you took the time to research the topic or vet your sources?

When you put your content calendar together, schedule enough time for one or two rounds of editing. Even after you feel like you have a good final draft, take it through one more editorial check.

You can also recommend writers use a tool like Grammarly, or the editing functions in Word or Google Docs, to check spelling and grammar as they write. Your editorial team can use them, too. In the haste to get content out the door, editors can introduce errors without realizing it.

Step 4: Check Your Content for Brand Consistency

Writing teams often face the challenge of ensuring each piece of content produced reflects the standards of your brand. In theory, a style guide should help. But that only works if writers and editors reference that material. They’ll read it once if you’re lucky.

Acrolinx is an AI-powered platform that helps enterprises ensure their content is consistently on-brand and on-strategy. The best part is that it’s integrated into the workflow, which is the only practical way of ensuring content meets corporate standards.

Acrolinx records your company’s requirements for style, terminology and tone. During the process of creating content, the software provides in-line feedback that includes an Acrolinx Score. That score is a key part of ensuring alignment and makes it simple to check. A higher score means better content.

Step 5: Check Your Content for Reliable Sources

When your writer turns in a new piece, they should include linked sources throughout. Connecting to sources right in an article serves three purposes:

It signals to Google that you’re providing high-quality content that is thoroughly researched.
It signals to your readers that the information has been verified and is therefore trustworthy.
It makes your fact-checking work a lot easier.

But there’s a catch: You can’t cite information from any old source out there and call it a day. Your data should come from trusted sources that, just like you, provide thorough, well-researched content.

University and government research are generally trustworthy, as are museums and national publications like The New York Times and National Geographic.

It’s important to get to know the trusted sources within your field, as well. If you’re in healthcare, for example, the Mayo Clinic and the National Institutes of Health are good sources.

But even these guys get things wrong sometimes. That’s why it’s important not only to check sources but to check facts, too.

Step 6: Fact-Check Your Content

Fact-checking content takes a little more elbow grease. While Google does have a beta version of a fact-checking search engine, there aren’t really any tools that can scan and verify factual information.

For that, you’ll need to dig in and research.

Click through all of the sources your writer gave you to make sure they got their facts straight.

Check all statistics and historical information using the trustworthy sources I mentioned above. Verify dates, names, titles, and places. Make sure any definitive statement or claim made by your article is correct.

If you don’t have a source and you’re not sure where to start, you can paste the segment you want to check into a Google search and see what comes up. Make sure your fact shows up in two or three trusted places before you call it a day.

Step 7: Check Your Content for Broken Links

The internet is in constant flux. Organizations renovate their sites all the time. They move, archive or retire content. And some sites shut down altogether.

When something moves or disappears, and a site hasn’t provided a redirect, you’re left with a broken link on your site.

Too many broken links tell Google that your content may not be as trustworthy as it once was. It also signals to your readers that your content is outdated and you haven’t bothered to update it.

Checking for broken source links in your content should be a regular habit. And there are all kinds of tools that can help you do that.

In the past, I’ve used a Chrome extension called Link Checker to crawl links on individual pages. Just run the checker, and it will highlight all links on your page in green, red or yellow — green for good links, red for broken ones and yellow for redirects or links that are slow to respond.

If you want to check links across entire sections of your site — or across the whole thing — Screaming Frog and SEMRush both crawl for broken links.

If you want to rank well with your content and show your users that you really care about their needs, take the time to produce the best content possible. Bad-quality content costs more in the end anyway. So before you hit that publish button, run through your quality content checklist to make sure you truly are putting your best foot forward.

Featured image vector designed by Freepik

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Welcome to the I Want A Website blog!

rob@bluetorch.net (Rob Frierson) — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 13:40:54 GMT

Welcome to our new blog...

Hello everyone, and welcome to the I WANT A WEBSITE blog, where we'll be discussing all things related to designing, building, managing, growing and supporting your new website. Even if you're using some other company to host and build your website, which would be a terrible idea, we hope you'll still get some valuable insight into the whole process from our upcoming blog entries.

We'll generally keep things light, fun, and non-technical, but we're also open to any ideas that you might have so that we can bring fresh, new information that is relevant to your needs. So let us know what you'd like us to write about it, and we'll make it happen.

Until then, happy websiting!

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Make the most of the season by following these simple guidelines

rob@bluetorch.net (Rob Frierson) — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 13:33:39 GMT

The new season is a great reason to make and keep resolutions. Whether it’s eating right or cleaning out the garage, here are some tips for making and keeping resolutions.

Make a list

Lists are great ways to stay on track. Write down some big things you want to accomplish and some smaller things, too.

Check the list regularly

Don’t forget to check in and see how you’re doing. Just because you don’t achieve the big goals right away doesn’t mean you’re not making progress.

Reward yourself

When you succeed in achieving a goal, be it a big one or a small one, make sure to pat yourself on the back.

Think positively

Positive thinking is a major factor in success. So instead of mulling over things that didn’t go quite right, remind yourself of things that did.

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Keep in touch with site visitors and boost loyalty

rob@bluetorch.net (Rob Frierson) — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 13:33:38 GMT

There are so many good reasons to communicate with site visitors. Tell them about sales and new products or update them with tips and information.

Here are some reasons to make blogging part of your regular routine.

Blogging is an easy way to engage with site visitors

Writing a blog post is easy once you get the hang of it. Posts don’t need to be long or complicated. Just write about what you know, and do your best to write well.

Show customers your personality

When you write a blog post, you can really let your personality shine through. This can be a great tool for showing your distinct personality.

Blogging is a terrific form of communication

Blogs are a great communication tool. They tend to be longer than social media posts, which gives you plenty of space for sharing insights, handy tips and more.

It’s a great way to support and boost SEO

Search engines like sites that regularly post fresh content, and a blog is a great way of doing this. With relevant metadata for every post so search engines can find your content.

Drive traffic to your site

Every time you add a new post, people who have subscribed to it will have a reason to come back to your site. If the post is a good read, they’ll share it with others, bringing even more traffic!

Blogging is free

Maintaining a blog on your site is absolutely free. You can hire bloggers if you like or assign regularly blogging tasks to everyone in your company.

A natural way to build your brand

A blog is a wonderful way to build your brand’s distinct voice. Write about issues that are related to your industry and your customers.

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Tips for writing great posts that increase your site traffic

rob@bluetorch.net (Rob Frierson) — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 13:33:38 GMT

Write about something you know. If you don’t know much about a specific topic that will interest your readers, invite an expert to write about it.

Speak to your audience

You know your audience better than anyone else, so keep them in mind as you write your blog posts. Write about things they care about. If you have a company Facebook page, look here to find topics to write about

Take a few moments to plan your post

Once you have a great idea for a post, write the first draft. Some people like to start with the title and then work on the paragraphs. Other people like to start with subtitles and go from there. Choose the method that works for you.

Don’t forget to add images

Be sure to include a few high-quality images in your blog. Images break up the text and make it more readable. They can also convey emotions or ideas that are hard to put into words.

Edit carefully before posting

Once you’re happy with the text, put it aside for a day or two, and then re-read it. You’ll probably find a few things you want to add, and a couple more that you want to remove. Have a friend or colleague look it over to make sure there are no mistakes. When your post is error-free, set it up in your blog and publish.

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