Website design

Website design

Redlake Media offers unique and innovative website design, development & e-commerce solutions by forging creativity with functionality.  We specialize in eye catching graphic designs, intuitive and logical navigation, reliable hosting and search engine optimization. We bring businesses and organizations to the forefront of the information highway so that they can take full advantage of and benefit from the technologies available in this evolving digital age.

We offer promotional services for your website that generate high visit rates and we continue to follow through with your online campaign by offering affordable website hosting, maintenance, ongoing website marketing and positioning. We focus our online marketing and web site design efforts, completely customizing our services to meet your needs, targeted to you desired market delivered on time and all within budget. 

The internet contains over 1 billion potential consumers…
Isn’t it about time you met them?

Is your website dis-functional?
Many websites lack functionality.  They are nothing more than an online brochure - a collection of outdated, static pages. They aren't search engine friendly, they don't generate leads and do nothing for current customers. It's no wonder that many business owners struggle to understand the effectiveness and potential of their company website.

The good news is that CMS can help. a Content Management System is a web productivity tool. By that, we mean a product that improves the effectiveness of a website.

CMS can provide you with the following benefits:

1. Simplify manual tasks in order to save you time and money
2. Enhance your sales and marketing efforts
3. Add, edit and remove text, media or other content instantly
4. Make fundamental changes without the need for an inhouse developer

Content Management System (CMS):
While CMS’s were initially designed for large companies, they have become very popular with SMB’s. A Content Management System is a software solution that gives non-technical people the ability to manage a website. With a CMS, you can make changes to your website without needing HTML programming knowledge or web design skills. The overall style (colors, fonts, layout, etc.) is fixed, so when you make updates, your work is displayed within the style of the website.

With a CMS, it’s easy to separate content (the words, pictures, links, tables, forms, etc.) from style (look and feel). A CMS differs from website builders like Front Page or Dreamweaver in that the function of a CMS is to give non-technical users the ability to make changes to an existing website with little or no training. A CMS is a website maintenance tool rather than a website creation tool.

CMS Benefits:

1. Cost Savings – There is no need to hire (either internally or externally) someone with technical knowledge to manage your website. You can delegate the responsibility for updating your website to any number of people on your staff. The person who initially creates the content (marketing material, etc.) has the ability to post it directly to the website.
2. Time-Savings – You can eliminate “webmaster backlog”. That is, submitting your updates to one person, then waiting for them to post it to the website. A CMS is designed to be simple and easy to use. As such, you can delegate any number of your employees the task of keeping the website up-to-date.
3. Up-to-date information - One of the most important features of an effective website is having the content updated in a timely fashion. Nothing sends a more powerful message to a potential customer than a website that hasn’t been updated for several months, or even years! You are telling people that your business is defunct or unpopular. Also, regularly updating your website can help improve your Search Engine ranking.

CMS’s are very popular because many other website software tools can usually be added-on when needed in the form of modules. Listed below are some of the website software tools that can be added to a CMS package.

Online Catalog and Shopping Cart:
Ecommerce is much simpler and easier to deploy than ever before. However, there are many different levels of ecommerce functionality. From the most basic – an order form on your website that the customer fills out and then the request is sent to you for fulfillment. On a more sophisticated level, your entire catalog is online and a shopping cart is provided for the customer. When the customer is ready to check out, the shipping costs are calculated and their credit card is debited. You receive the payment in your merchant account automatically.
You have to decide on the level of functionality you need and can afford.

Permission-based Email Marketing:
Email Marketing is one of the simplest and cost-effective means of keeping in contact with your prospective customers. Many of the visitors to your website may not contact you right away. They are:

1. Gathering information on your product to decide if they need
2. Actively searching for your product in order to put together a short list of vendors
3. Just collecting information for future reference
   

The Importance of Return Visitors:
It shouldn't be a secret that return visitors are the lifeblood of your website or blog. We aim for a 30% return visitor ratio for our client sites. In the first month of publishing this website, we was able to achieve a 31% return visitor ratio.

We follow a few basic guidelines to generate those kind of repeat visitor numbers. Here are 4 ways to increase your return visitor ratio:

1. Always post original content. If you have something useful and original people will always want to listen to you. Plain and simple.
2. Talk in a conversational tone. Most people don't like 'corporate-speak' or 'very formal settings'. It's important you keep the conversation light and fun. Any copywriter will tell you the same thing.
3. Encourage subscriptions to your feed and newsletter. If someone is a first-time visitor your primary goal should be getting them to come back. The "What Would Seth Godin Do" plugin handles this task for you.
4. Your design has to be clean. I know this is a no-brainer tip, but it's really important your website or blog is easy on the eyes. Most Wordpress themes are designed fairly well, but if you need a color scheme then try the color scheme picker.