The Internet is the new phone book, especially when it comes to consumers searching for local products and services.

• Over 2 billion searches related to geographic location are performed each month on Google. (source: ComScore)
• 82% of people performing a local search online follow-up via an online inquiry, phone call or visit to a local business that they were able to find on the Internet. (source: TMP, ComScore)
• 95% of smartphone users have looked for local information on their phones. 88% of these users take action within a day. 77% have either called or visited a local business as a result of their smartphone search. (sources: Google, BIA/Kelsey).
• Although the data is overwhelming, many local businesses still have no website at all or one that looks like it hasn’t been updated in over 10 years.

• Like it or not, people are checking you out online.
• You meet someone at a party or business function, and you give them your business card. What do they do when they get home? They Google your name or your company to find out more about you.
• The first thing they’re looking for is your website.
• Do you show up on page 1 of Google for the name of your business? If not, your credibility takes an immediate hit.
• If they do find your website, they then start forming their opinion of you based on the overall look of your site. Does your site have a modern design? Is it easy to navigate? Do you have valuable, well-written content? Does your site have pictures and videos? Etc, etc.

• Your website is the face of your business on the Internet.
• So if you plan on doing business in 2012 and beyond, you need to have a good website. It’s just that simple.

• In the olden days of the Internet (say, 8-10 years ago) you could get away with a basic, even amateurish website. But not any more.
• The web has evolved and people now expect you to have a good website.
• Your site doesn’t have to be all glitzy with tons of bells and whistles. But it does have to be solid, up-to-date and quickly provide people with the information they’re looking for.
• People nowadays intuitively know what a good website, or at least a decent site, should look like.

Good question.

Myles Anderson of BrightLocal.com just published some fascinating results of a survey he conducted with nearly 1,200 people identified as “local consumers”, and their opinions regarding local business websites.

What are consumers’ attitudes toward local business websites?

• 66% of the survey respondents felt that one or more of the following was true:
• A good website gives a business more credibility.
• They are more likely to contact a local business if they have a website.
• They trust a local business more if they have their own website.
• 25% said they didn’t really care if the business had a website or not.
• 9% said a bad/ugly website can be a turn-off from using that business.

Ranked from most important to least important:

• List of prices. (most important)
  List of services
  Easy to find contact information.
  Physical address of business.
  Driving directions.
  Customer testimonials.
  Clear photographs of business.
  Personal message from manager.
  Links to social media profiles. (least important)

43% of consumers are more likely to contact a business if their website shows clear prices and demonstrates a good value or a special offer.
The top 3 things that would influence a consumer to *not* contact a local biz:

1. No physical address on the site.
2. A site that is slow to load.
3. An ugly or badly designed website.

You can drive all the traffic you want to your website, but if your site is poorly designed or needs a lot of work those visitors are not going to become customers.

“It’s common for local business owners to obsess too much about outward promotion and search rankings.

The visible significance of page 1 rankings is very appealing to local business owners – “hey look we’re on page 1 of google – great!”

But it’s the ability to turn this flurry of website visits into actual customers which generates additional revenue which is ultimately what counts.”

You may have noticed many big companies showing Facebook page addresses at the end of their TV ads, where once there would have been their own website displayed. On the surface, this appears as though the Facebook page has effectively replaced the website.

What’s actually happening is that these companies are running a specific campaign which aims to harness the viral power of social media to increase the reach of their ads. They will more than likely be using an advanced landing page on their Facebook page to obtain email addresses as well as other mechanisms to incentivise people to share and talk about their product.

What’s happening is that social media is being used as a multiplier of the effectiveness of a specific marketing campaign. Once upon a time, an ad would have a goal of getting a new customer to buy a product or at least visit a website, now the idea is to generate social hype about the product, which will in turn result in more sales.

What’s more, all traffic that goes through the social media channels will have an easy path to return to the company’s actual website where they can invest further in the brand and product as well as actually buying the product, or finding out where they can buy the product.

It is important to remember the big difference between these large national companies and a small business in terms of how their products are sold. If a product is available to buy off-the-shelf in high street shops and supermarkets, then the aim of the marketing is to ensure a customer chooses that product over their competitors as they are walking down the isle. This is why brand reinforcement is so important. Social media is particularly effective at this because a large part of this sort of marketing is reassuring people that many other people are also making the same choice.

If you’re a small business, however, things are quite different. If you’re selling a product you’re most likely going to be selling that product on your website. For you then, the role of your own website is quite clear. You can use social media to attract more interest in your product and use it as a marketing channel, but you’ll still need those people to end up on your website to make a purchase.

But what about if you’re selling a service? In your case, your online goal isn’t the sale of a product, it is lead generation. A ‘lead’ is someone who makes contact with you and will potentially use your service. If your business works like this, you might be starting to think that an active social media presence might be sufficient at achieving this. After all, social media makes it very easy for people to get in touch with you.

However, if we explore why people actually use social media we’ll see why this wouldn’t be nearly as effective as if you combined it with a real-world website.

Absolutely, yes. Facebook and Google+ ‘Pages’ are still a great way for small businesses to represent themselves on social media. In their basic format though, they are still very similar to a normal personal page. That is, they include a list of shared links or messages.

Although they do have a handy way of listing key information about your business using the profile fields, this is of course no substitute for actually publishing quality content on your own website.

One of the main differences between a ‘Page’ and a normal personal account on social media sites is that the ‘Pages’ are inherently more public. Information is public by default and there is no need to become ‘friends’ before you can view content from a ‘Page’.

Other than that and a few other technical differences, the format is essentially the same.

Social media is effectively a micro-blogging platform designed for sharing content and short messages. We can broadly classify the vast majority of social media content as either a brief message (or ‘status’), or a link to larger content elsewhere.

The people who use social media use it because they enjoy being shown content from those who they respect enough to ‘follow/like/add’. There is so much content out there these days that people are waiting for content to be recommended to them as a way of filtering the pages, articles, images and video they want to view.

In many ways this process is a refreshing and natural return to the old fashioned way of recommending people and things to others. Instead of relying on a search engine to discover who is trustworthy (and lets face it, there’s a limit to how effective a search engine can be), people are using other people’s experience and recommendations as a starting point for their online exploration.

So, in summary, it’s important to remember that the main role of social media is to share content, notpublish it. For that, you still need a great website. In fact, a good quality website has never been more important if you want others to share your content.

I find many business owners ask themselves this same question. The sad truth is that many prolong the decision unnecessarily, leaving themselves in danger of loosing out when it comes to online marketing opportunities. It is time for all business owners to accept that the Internet has changed the way people conduct business. In the past a phone call was the first point of contact, now it is your website. Bearing this in mind I have created a list of questions that business owners can ask themselves to help determine whether the time is right for a redesign.

Three years might not sound like much time between website upgrades (or redesigns), but for a pivotal online marketing tool, it is actually too long. Just like advances in technology drive the web development industry, new trends and techniques mean the graphic design industry is constantly evolving. I am not saying that all sites need to be comprehensively redesigned but a subtle adjustment to your layout; a new graphic; or even the adding/formatting of content may be sufficient to give your site a new and fresh image.

The best time to think about a website upgrade or redesign is during a quite business period. I understand in most instances this doesn’t come around all that often but it only takes around an hour of preparation to create a detailed brief. In my mind this is by far the most critical part of the design process. A good brief should clearly outline project requirements and confirm client expectations.

With the growing number of Content Management Systems(CMS) now available accessibility and functionality should no longer be a problem. Gone are the days when a business owner would have to contact their web developer every time they wanted to update their website. A CMS such as Philboss Editor, WordPress andJoomla(to name a few) allow clients to perform functions such as add/remove/format page content, create news/events/announcement items, insert images, create page links, upload and link to files, manage image galleries and much more.

This is the most important question you should be asking yourself right now, particularly with the emergence and popularity of mobile devices such as the Apple’s iPhone and iPad. These devices are changing the way people access the Internet. In fact many are now predicting that mobile Internet will soon overtake fixed Internet. So what implications will this have? First and foremost, if you have Flash technology on your website, you will need to replace it with Javascript or redirect the browser (as it is no longer supported). If you don’t take either of these steps, your animation will be replaced with a large empty blank space. You should note that – if your site is more than three years old it is possible that it includes Flash animation.

Another possibility or option is to have two websites, one, that will act as your main site for desktop computers with resolutions above 1024 x 768 pixels (according to W3 Schools represents in excess of 96% of the population) and the other for small hand held devices with resolutions approx. 480 x 320 pixels. Websites that are designed for mobile devices are typically more content focused than image based.

When we start to realize that more is not necessarily better, and that we can get by with less stuff, we try to simplify by removing unnecessary elements so we can focus on what’s truly important.

What is Minimalism?

Minimalism, in its purest form, is the reduction of something to its bare essentials.

Think of a car. It only needs a few critical components — engine, wheels, gas, and so on — for it to run. As long as it has these parts, you can take out many non-essential elements such as its audio system, heated leather seats and cup holders, and the car will still get you to where you’re going.

In web design, minimalism translates to producing a site from the basics. Instead of including everything but the kitchen sink and then paring it down to only the necessary features, a better approach would be to start with a blank slate and only include the essentials.

Minimalism is an exercise in restraint, with the eventual goal being a design that helps the user focus and accomplish their tasks as quickly as possible.

When designing minimalist websites, you should keep three things in mind:

• Subject: What’s the most important thing on the web page? Is it effectively keeping the user engaged and focused?
• Usability: What things burden the user experience? What missing elements can enhance user-friendliness?
• Balance: Does the web page have the appropriate visual hierarchy and do components have appropriate visual weights?

These three elements are actually the most important elements in all styles of web design, but whereas other visual styles may beg for additional aesthetic layers, minimalism does not.

Why Use Minimalism?

This minimalist thinking is the basis of modern web design — we begin with content, perhaps a brand, but nothing else. By adding in only what’s necessary, we create a website that caters specifically and solely to its mission.

There are many benefits to designing a minimalist website.

First is the obvious: Minimalist web designs usually end up with fewer code and site assets. A minimalist site will often have fewer CSS rules, HTML elements, images, JavaScript, and so on. This ultimately means increased front-end web performance and, in turn, enhanced usability and a better user experience.

This doesn’t mean the design stage is any easier — minimalism takes just as much thought, planning and production as any other type of website. And perhaps even more, if my theory about our innate desire for “more stuff” is correct.

It’s also harder to mess up minimalism, in my opinion. By proactively leaving out superfluous elements, your design becomes more open and free. When there’s less to see, there will be fewer distractions. As long as you give ample consideration to balance, typography and white space, your design will look pretty good. This is much easier than wrangling with a PSD template with dozens of layers.

And for those who have little artistic skill or proficiency in Photoshop, minimalism is a perfect way to create a site using only a strong understanding of typography, white space, and balance.

While not the most minimalist of examples in this article, Julien Lavallée’s site (featured below) demonstrates how interesting and visually appealing simple websites can be.

However, the most important reason to design minimally is that, without extraneous design elements, the site’s content is emphasized. By adding more white space, the various sections of a website are given breathing room.

On Daniel Gray’s site, notice how enough white space is given around each content section so that readers can quickly focus on the content without being distracted by much else.

The one problem with the site is that the reader’s eye focuses on the content in an odd order. My eyes go from the navigation bar, to the image of the unicorn, then to “Daniel Gray”, and then finally to the “Hello, I’m a designer and writer based in York.” tagline. But because there aren’t a whole lot of visual elements to distract the reader, this order doesn’t matter so much. In a visually busier site, some of this content would get lost, but here, although I see things in a different order than what’s probably optimal, I still consider each content element in turn.

Don’t Sacrifice Usability for Minimalism

As we’ve all heard by now, “content is king”, and although there are some that might disagree with that, there are very few who would say content is not important at all. Every line of code you write is to serve the page’s content in some way.

Just as important as content is how accessible that content is — without adequate consideration of usability, content can be difficult to find and read.

Now that we have new web standards and technologies like CSS3 and HTML5 at our disposal, we must deeply consider what is necessary so that we avoid the overuse of these things. (I wrote something about this before.)

My suspicion is that as web technology grows tantalizingly better and more complex, minimalists are going to have a harder time paring down their designs to the essentials, especially as certain superfluous design patterns have become almost expected, like using CSS transitions to make links hover a little softer.

But always in the back of your mind should be considerations of usability. Chances are — unless you’re a big, established and well-recognized company like Apple, Starbucks or Nike — you should probably include the name of your company with your logo. And don’t think you can reduce your navigation menu to a set of enigmatic icons; even if it doesn’t confuse most readers, it will confuse some.

Don’t Worry, You Can Still Be Pretty

Designing minimally doesn’t always have to mean a reduction to the barest essentials. To the contrary, many minimalist sites include subtle design elements that manifest themselves beautifully and more remarkably because of fewer competing, distractive elements.

Are You Designing Minimally for a Good Reason?

Minimalism on the Web could be thought of not as an aesthetic, but as the lack of one. If you “go minimal” just for its looks without understanding the purpose of minimalism, you will be lost, and your designs will turn out less than stellar.

Just as any other art genre or design style, minimalism must be well understood in order to be well executed — don’t let simple-looking web designs fool you; there is more going on with them than what can be seen on the surface.

In addition, minimalism shouldn’t be arbitrarily confusing or enigmatic. Many people see minimalist websites as a way to make their brand seem more mysterious, but this isn’t the goal, and there are much more effective ways to build a mythos around your brand than designing it inappropriately.

When any design is confusing, or enigmatic in its structure, or uncomfortable in its balance, it throws the viewer off. The last thing you want is a confused user, unable to find what they’re looking for.

In general, you should avoid ambiguity and confusion when designing in any style. Minimalism is no exception. In fact, minimalism is the design style where ambiguity must be avoided like the plague, and usability embraced, analyzed and perfected to the point where no user could possibly be confused in any instance when visiting your site.

Most importantly, make sure you clearly understand the goal of minimalist design before you plunge right in. Without proper direction, your creations could end up something like the piece below, which is great for many things except for conveying information in a clear and effective way.

The goal that you should strive for, when employing minimalism in your designs, is to enhance readability, improve navigation and usability, and, as always, create the most pleasant user experience possible.

Is Your Design Too Minimal?

Your design might be too minimal if:

• You’re using minimalism for the wrong reason
• If you’re sacrificing usability in any way

These problems are easy to fix as long as you understand the goal of visual design in general: To clearly and effectively convey information. Constantly consider how your design decisions affect your users.

At the core of every design is minimalist thinking: the idea that few things are actually necessary and critical.

Content management systems are a wonderful tool for empowering website owners. Most of us have witnessed the power and ease of use of CMSs like Drupal and WordPress. They have changed the web development industry in a significant way.

Now, even average Internet users who have very little technical knowledge can have the ability to run and manage websites without any help from trained web developers.

Because of this CMS revolution, a major segment of the web development industry — dedicated to developing simple to complex CMSs for a broad set of users and premium themes for popular publishing platforms — has blossomed.

There are quite a few benefits to developing a site powered by a CMS. Chief among them is that the website owner is able to add and manage their website’s content, thus keeping visitors interested and search engines tuned in. And for the web professional, he has much less responsibility in maintaining the website.

To explore the question of whether or not we should always deploy content management systems for our clients, let us first go through some types of clients who would not fully benefit from them.

Owners of Static Websites

Not all websites have content that constantly changes. Websites for small- to medium-sized businesses and brochure websites that provide relatively static information usually require only a few changes throughout the year, such as when featuring a new product or making an event announcement.

The brochure website of Pic Fresh (a catering company) has information that changes infrequently.

These websites just include an overview of the business, a presentation of its products and the company’s contact information. We see this with restaurants, small shops and local organizations (such as a non-profit animal shelter’s website).

Such business owners usually have a small budget, so the extra cost of a CMS might be unnecessary if they don’t use it to its full potential. Asking a professional to make a couple of changes per year could be easier and cheaper.

Owners Who Don’t Want to Be Empowered

When I entered the Web industry, I assumed that every business owner would absolutely want a CMS to manage their content. But then I had a string of clients who made it clear that they wanted absolutely no involvement in technical matters or that they would just rather a professional maintain their website after launch. This is when I decided to cater my services to this category of clients.

Some clients simply don’t want to be empowered for various reasons; whether it’s because they’re not the best of friends with technology or they just don’t want to add to their existing workload and responsibilities.

By hiring a professional, clients that fall in this category feel more confident in the changes being made to their website and they have one less thing to worry about.

Many of my clients have told me that it’s like hiring an accountant to manage their finances or a secretary to manage the office; the work is done more efficiently, and the owner has more time to focus on their field of expertise.

Owners of Websites with a Shelf Life

Some websites have an expiration date. These usually support an event, such as a conference, a cultural event or a promotion of a special deal on a product. The website promotes the event ahead of time, stays up during the event and a little while afterwards.

The single-page promotional site for a 2009 event, HDLive 9 (hdlive09.co.uk) would not fully benefit from a CMS.

Projects like these require heavy maintenance for a short period of time (several months to a year), and doing it efficiently is critical. The event’s organizers will be preoccupied with planning the event and reaching out to participants through newsletters, media, the website, email, etc.

Hiring a web professional, then, is much easier, if not essential. Empowering such a client with a CMS would do them little good.

Owners Who Rely on a Web Professional’s Expertise

We have all come across websites maintained by people who don’t follow any design or usability principles. And preventing a hapless owner from ruining their own website is difficult, which is why we so often see links in multiple colors, excessive use of bold and underlined text, mixed font families, body text the size of headings, images squeezed in here and there, navigation menus that pop out of their containers — the list goes on.

The truth is, when we let non-technical website owners maintain their own Web property, we can’t expect them to adhere to the rules of aesthetics and usability, simply because it’s not their job to know these rules.

The moment the owner takes over their CMS, we should expect that the beautiful and functional website we so painstakingly created will start to look a tiny bit (or a whole lot) less perfect. This isn’t a big problem for every website, but some websites rely a lot on detail and uniformity of content.

Poorly styled text, for example, might not look so bad on a teacher’s blog where visitors mostly seek specific information, but it can be a disaster on the website for a new fashion line where users want to get a feel for the company before browsing the collection.

Empowering owners of websites that fall into the latter category is questionable.

By the way, some Web professionals worry that a deterioration of their work will reflect poorly on them when potential clients visit their portfolio. The potential client might be impressed with a screenshot in the designer’s portfolio, but then be surprised when they click through to the actual website. For this reason, mention whether you or the owner is currently maintaining a particular website, so that potential clients are not caught off guard.

Website Maintenance as a Service

Now that we’ve gone over some examples of business owners that wouldn’t benefit from a CMS-driven website, let’s now talk about what we can do to fulfill their needs.

For site owners that don’t need a CMS but would still like to have a site that’s taken cared of, we can offer them website maintenance as a service.

The following are some benefits that come with offering website maintenance as a service.

Extra Income

Maintenance is a paid task, and you can increase your income a little or a lot, depending on:

• The difficulty of tasks that are requested
• The frequency of updates
• The number of websites you’re maintaining

Keeps Existing Clients Close

Providing website maintenance as a service strengthens your relationships with clients. Not only will you be at the top of their mind by providing long-term quality service, but you’ll also get to follow their business as it evolves. This will make you a prime candidate when they have a new project.

Promoting your services also becomes easier, e.g., when creating a mobile version of the website, or redesigning for a small discount.

Easier Upgrades

As with every technology, websites get rusty over time. A client might want to add features down the line. Adding code and updating site features will be easier if the code and product are your own. If the client has meddled with it, upgrading could entail a lot more work.

Before You Offer Website Maintenance as a Service…

The main disadvantage of maintaining websites is that it can really fill up your schedule. In case you decide to add this to your roster of services, be clear about the following.

What You’re Charging

I suggest that you offer maintenance only to customers who have been pleasant to collaborate with and who don’t give you trouble with payments. You can charge by the hour or by the amount of work done.

Overcharging can scare clients out of requesting changes, so be careful with your pricing. A website maintenance plan is a sensible approach. For example, a customer could prepay for a three-hour maintenance plan, which could be spread out over several updates during the year, equaling three hours of work for you. Or it could be a casual maintenance plan; for example, one new page of text and five new photos per month.

Here’s an idea: You can bundle these website maintenance plans as part of a new project.

What the Deliverables and Terms of Services Are

Draw a line between maintenance and redesign. Be clear on the definition of website maintenance. You could allow for minor new features, such as new icons or a fancier photo-gallery script or a new color for links. But draw the line when a request looks like a big change. You wouldn’t want to end up doing a redesign by making hundreds of gradual little changes.

Expected Delivery Time

Website maintenance work should be scheduled so that you don’t fall behind on other commitments. Ask clients to inform you of requests ahead of time (for example, an email one week in advance).

Also, give yourself enough time to fill the request so that it doesn’t interfere with other projects. My current arrangement with clients is to fill casual requests within five working days and to perform urgent updates within 24 hours. This can vary according to your own capabilities and priorities.

To Empower or Not to Empower?

The answer to that question depends on the type of client and website you’re dealing with. Empowering the owner to maintain their website is great as long as it’s worth the cost of implementing the CMS, and as long as they feel comfortable doing it.

Present the client with both options, and explain the reasons for opting for one choice over the other. Some websites absolutely need to be maintained by the owner, while others are best left to professionals. Some websites can go either way, in which case the client’s preference could be the deciding factor.

Last but not least, if you’re not willing to maintain websites yourself or are not willing to let clients do it, let potential clients know this in advance. And don’t recommend one approach over the other merely because you don’t want to offer both solutions. You shouldn’t feel inadequate for preferring one method to the other. Rather, try to excel in the services you offer, focus on your target market, and keep your clients and the Web happy!