Recently had a “potential” customer meet with me about doing what he referred to as a website. So I met with him went out things about his business and then he asked “So you do websites right?”…My answer was “no what I do is create a web presence”…
Now some of you might think what in the heck is that, so i’m going to explain it to you. Anyone and I do mean just about anyone can create a website. My child created on in I think 8th grade. So yes when I say anyone I mean exactly that.
Now a “web presence” is someone who can not only create a website but can make it so people can actually find the site. An example is if your domain name is “my business website” and someone goes to google and types in “my business website” and that comes up on the 1st page of the search. That is all fine and good but it does nothing for that business. Having that happen typcially will not bring in new business to the person and that is the goal.
If done correctly someone should be able to type in the company name and find the company. If the company specialized in say “pool” they should be able to type in “pools City Name”, “city name pools”, “pool maintenenace City Name”, “City name pool maintenance” etc. There should be quite a few variartions in order to find that company in particular.
I am a firm believer that every company needs a web presence not a website. You need to be able to differentiate between them. If you are going to provide this service make sure you know what you are doing or have a JV with someone that can make sure you are able to deliver these items. Nothing is worse than creating a “website” for a person and they do not make any monies off of it.
23 Responses to “Do I do Websites?”
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April 8th, 2010 at 7:10 am
As you discuss in this blog that the company said that the web presence is must not the website…it is true because i think that website promotion is must then only the viewers would come to know about the company…so the information you provide this is good.
Computer Support UK |Computer Help UK
April 30th, 2010 at 6:25 pm
Agreed many people don’t differentiate between the two. Thanks for the great article.
May 3rd, 2010 at 7:12 am
Company right if says that “Web presence is most important compare to the website” but my view is that if you want your company will visible & popular in web world so if you need a source who is spread all informations & daily updates about your company in all over of the world. This source is like a site or blog.
When your source is popular then your business is automatically grow up day by day.So i think all company need a source & best option is website.
May 4th, 2010 at 5:46 pm
Hmmm, where did that come from? I been working on websites for quite awhile using xhtml and css. I have a shelf of books on SEO and yet I find so many of my customer’s previous websites written without any concept of marketing. No attachment or association with a search engine and they never validated their code. Nor do they go to the search engine’s webmaster tools and review them and follow their design. The only website that I have that does not offer me any service is my own. Isn’t that funny, I just cannot seem to spend time on my own website. I only put it together, with my hosts web developer so I could be a member of Acrbo because I didn’t have a website.
Sooner or later I have to work on my own site. But I do have so many other sites that show what I can do that I ignore my own.
But you are right, anyone can put together a website, yet like you said there is no “web presence”. I like that term very much.
May 10th, 2010 at 11:18 pm
yep, web design is soooo over rated and the seo work behind it is soooo under rated.
I have done this with people to. They have no problem paying for the site work but they seem to hit a brick wall when it comes to the seo work. You ask them “how will people find your site?” and they say things like “I will give them the address”…. lol
May 18th, 2010 at 5:17 am
You raise a good point about web presence vs web site, however, I think a web site is simply a subset of a web presence. A web presence is basically a web site + SEO. I’ve heard SEO explained by a Google engineer to be “putting your best foot forward.” SEO is posting high quality, original content, using the right words, and of course backlinks. People outside of the tech community don’t have a clue what you’re talking about here. For most of them, a web site is just a web site.
May 21st, 2010 at 2:13 pm
We constantly explain to clients how important SEO is compared to a pretty design. It takes some compelling research and a few good website examples to prove this to some clients. In the end its almost like they want their website to look pretty more than they do SEO friendlyness.
In time everyone will just have a plain website with perfect optimization.
June 18th, 2010 at 10:56 am
I enjoyed reading your post on: Do I do Websites? I agree too many people create a website without any knowledge on optimization. If a Website is not optimized for the search engines the site will not be found unless there is no competition in that market.
TCG Computer Repair
Computer Repair
Saskatoon Computers
Each one of the above Website are optimized for different words to rank in Google. The middle website is optimized the highest.
July 5th, 2010 at 8:51 am
Thanks for the article.
I still wonder whether all the effort to SEO optimize a website is worth it vs marketing a business in the more traditional methods. I think our website is fairly well optimized for keywords like computer support [locality], but I still think traditional methods far outstrip even the best SEO efforts.
Computer Repairs and Support Sunshine Coast QLD
July 18th, 2010 at 6:48 pm
I agree, great article. People often think that you have to learn computer programming to be able to build a website! There are alot of software programs out there that will do 90% of the work for you.
Web presence is everything! I must admit, that when it came to making my own website known to the masses, I stepped forward blindly, but it’s just a matter of plugging away and knowing where to look for information.
Turner Hometech Solutions
The above site is my first attempt at a website, but it struggled to get noticed for the first few weeks.
August 3rd, 2010 at 5:49 am
It’s really a great article.I agree with you as you differentiate between Web presence vs website.
August 28th, 2010 at 5:43 am
Very good post. I totally agree with you here. There are so many “web design” businesses that offer bog standard website building and lack the SEO knowledge that they require.
I’ll be sure to start using “web presence” as a term to my clients in future.
June 15th, 2011 at 3:56 pm
Very good point. When most clients say ‘do you do websites’, what they really mean is ‘web presence’.
July 31st, 2011 at 4:39 pm
Agreed. Scary thing is that so many small business owners are getting ripped off by ‘computer guys’ that can build them a ‘website’. When all they are doing is using Joomla or WordPress and slapping a horrible template on it with the company’s awful resolution logo that the idiot scanned from their business card. YAY you are on the web and you just wasted a thousand bucks.
Truth be told, of your website isn’t generating a huge amount of new sales for your company, you are probably not doing it right. Preach on my friend.
August 1st, 2011 at 2:51 am
I agree with your ideas. A good point is raised here about web presence. The blog is very interesting. I enjoyed reading the blog.
August 1st, 2011 at 11:50 am
I love this article.
Anyone can create a website these days with the help of CMS. Now which one would you use? Joomla or WordPress? thats the question.
September 16th, 2011 at 2:59 am
Anyone will do that requires time and effort (much more so than money). But a great article nevertheless.
October 11th, 2011 at 3:20 am
We constantly explain to clients how important SEO is compared to a pretty design.
November 10th, 2011 at 5:48 pm
I like this website very much so much good information.
January 5th, 2012 at 2:18 am
It’s really a great article.I agree with you as you differentiate between Web presence vs website.
January 5th, 2012 at 2:20 am
it seems to be good for virus removal software as well.
January 18th, 2012 at 4:10 am
I couldn’t agree more. There are so many people in the world right now that are being mislead by Web Designers that have no first hand knowledge of on-page or off-page seo/sem/internet marketing that they pay to get a good quality website, but once they have it they don’t know what to do and they automatically think, Hey! I just spent all this money and my website isn’t doing anything…they ask themselves why and then one day somebody finally comes in and explains what seo is and they are like great lets do it. So when you mention a WEB PRESENCE yes that is exactly right.
January 18th, 2012 at 4:12 am
Keep up the good work and article writing we need more articles like this period so that way people can understand the different between a traditional web design and an SEO web designer and or WEB presence manager.
Thanks a lot.