Seras is super excited to be offering complete website design and development services! While you may know about us for being the best computer and IT support company in Columbia, SC, we recently began offering website design and development services. Our preferred platform is Squarespace, which provides an awesome platform to allow our customers to take over most of the management functions once the site is completed. While fancy features and complicated technical jargon seem to be the norm, Seras provides simplified solutions to meet your basic business goals.
Five Steps to Success with Seras
Step One: Research
Why would we waste your time with a meeting without knowing as much about your industry and potential design as possible? Before we meet with a customer for the first time, many hours are spent researching the customer's industry, competitors, and related web sites to get a feel for what might work best for the new website. Following the research period, we generate a tentative map for the customer that outlines all of the potential pages, links, and a general map for the site.
Step Two: The Interview
We begin with a basic interview to get a feel for your brand: colors, size, scope, general services or products, and your vision for the future and how you hope your site will perform. This discussion also includes a review of the map that we created during the research period along with any adjustments that you would like to make related to the pages, the menu, or any other items that you might like to add.
We also use this step to narrow down your goals for the site - for example, if you are a doctor's office then you don't need a site geared towards selling products, OR if you are a business service provider then you need to focus on credibility or search engine optimization. Websites are typically created to perform one or more of the following:
- Provide information (blog, Wikipedia, events, etc.)
- Sell Products (Amazon, Target, e-bay, etc.)
- Create Leads (Search Engine Optimization (SEO), showing up in search results)
- Build Credibility (Realtors, Home Builders, Service Industry)
- Share Information (Facebook, Community Forums, etc.)
Once we help you determine the true goals for your site, we can use this main focus to drive decisions made by all parties during the development phase. Finally, during this initial interview, we determine the pricing for the project.
Step Three: Questionnaire and Customization
While Seras can generate a generic web site that is modern, informative, and pretty; we need your personal content in order to convey your business' true strengths and competitive advantages. This is the hard part - creating engaging, well-written content that is specific to your business.
The great news is that we make it easy for you! Seras provides a questionnaire that is customized to your business, which allows you to provide raw data in response to individual questions related to all of the unique features that you offer. We then turn those features and raw data into customer benefits that sell your business!
Step Four: Branding and Social Media
While we do not typically take over the complete management of your social media marketing and network, we always provide the option to create a solid foundation for marketing and branding. Consumers and decision-makers in all markets are influenced by a variety of marketing outlets: from your logo and letterhead to your web site and social media presence. Seras has created Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and many other profiles for our customers along with custom letterhead and other basic graphic design work. Once we have completed your complete web package, you have all of the tools necessary to start generating leads, selling products, building credibility, disseminating information, and/or exceeding any other expectations that you may have established during our initial interview.
Step Five: Revisions
Our experience with other design and development companies always seemed to end when they said, "Your site is done." At Seras, we know that you will need some time to click and read through your content and that there are ALWAYS some minor revisions to make. We don't leave you hanging - our goal is to ensure that you will tell everyone you know about the awesome experience you had with Seras!
Check out some of our recent work at www.cyclerow.com or www.blythewoodfamilymedicine.com!
For more information about upgrading or creating a new website for your business, click here or give us a call at 803.233.9216!
