by Jonathon Hyjek | Nov 14, 2022 | Website Design
If you’ve ever watched the popular television show, “Kitchen Nightmares” chances are you’re familiar with Gordon Ramsay and his colourful kitchen commentary. A world-class chef, Ramsay spends a great deal of his time trying to help failing restaurants bounce back from the brink of disaster. And while Ramsay’s potty mouth may be out of line at times, his advice is normally spot on.
In fact, after watching a few episodes, Chris Dugas, ZOO’s Partner & Managing Director couldn’t help but draw a few parallels between running a successful restaurant and designing a top-notch website. “Think whatever you want of Mr. Ramsay,” says Dugas with a smile, “but a lot of what he says in his abrasive and caustic manner can be used to improve your online presence.”
So, what are you waiting for? Let’s get cooking!
Tip #1 – Clean Up Your Menu
Extended restaurant menus are confusing. When owners try to put up as much food as possible, chances are none of it tastes very good. Too much variety can be a bad decision, both in the kitchen and on the web.
Too many websites these days are overflowing with information. So much information that it makes finding what you’re looking for next to impossible! Too much varied or abstract content won’t help your site, so take a tip from the restaurant business and streamline your navigation menu and website content. Focus on the really important areas of your business, the things that your customers are likely to be looking for when they hit your website. Your conversion rates will increase, as will your search engine rankings.
Tip #2 – Redecorate
Bad restaurant decor is the kiss of death. A clean, well thought-out dining room can make a world of difference in a failing restaurant because it elevates the eatery’s status with customers and helps them feast with their eyes first!
The same goes for a badly designed website. Some website designs can look clunky. Cleaning up your design will make your site more appealing to visitors and help you change the perception of your brand.
Tips #3 – Prepare Food Your Guests Want to Eat
Most restaurant owners are stubborn. They believe that they know exactly what their customers want, even when their customers tell them they’re wrong! Restaurants that are struggling to fill tables are often suffering because their owners refuse to accept feedback and make a change.
This stubbornness is even more apparent with some website designers. Some website designers will put whatever they want on a website, even if it has the potential to send visitors away. Just because a feature is “revolutionary” or “exciting” doesn’t mean that it will benefit your visitors. Remember, it’s not your website, it’s the visitor’s site. Park your ego at the door. Add features that will help improve their experience.
Tip #4 – Don’t Cut Corners
Diners can always tell if a restaurant uses quality ingredients. The food just looks, smells, and tastes better. Restaurants that aim high and strive to maintain the highest standards succeed – plain and simple.
Cutting corners on your website can have fatal results. So don’t cheap out! Investing in a quality website design now will benefit your business for many years to come. What you put into your website will come out of it. Make sure you’re putting in the best ingredients.
If you can’t take the heat, then get out of the kitchen! Or better yet, give the London Ontario website design experts at Blake Strategies Group or ZOO Media Group a call. ZOO’s mouth watering website designs are sure to be a big hit with your online customers and will keep them coming back for more!
by Jonathon Hyjek | May 21, 2015 | Mobile Development, Website Design
Society changes, habits change, the way that we do business changes and of course within the area of technology, changes happen at warp speed. For over 2 years now there have been consistent warnings about the increased use of mobile devices to surf the internet . If you’ve been keeping an eye on your Google Analytics account, you likely noticed that year over year traffic coming to your website from smartphones or tablets has increased dramatically.
The warnings from Google and other notable SEO’s to get your website ready for the day search engines will use mobile friendly design as a search engine ranking factor finally came true on April 21st, 2015. This was the day that Google announced that would see mobile-friendly design become a ranking factor.
After April 21st, 2015 visitors searching from a Smartphone will be far less likely to find your website.
What Now?
If you’re having a new website developed, make sure that it’s mobile-friendly. This can be achieved in 2 ways:
#1. Build a website that is “responsive.” The term responsive basically means that no matter what size of screen the website is displayed on, it will shrink and morph into a fully usable website.
#2. Build a mobile-friendly version. In a sense, this is like building a second version of your website. When a visitor from a mobile device goes to your website, the server is notified and displays the mobile-friendly version instead of the full desktop site.
Our preference is to build a responsive website that allows for a consistent browsing experience.
If you already have a website, you also have 2 options:
#1. Convert your current website into a responsive design. Depending on the structure of your website, this could be fairly time consuming.
#2. Build a mobile friendly version of your site and leave your “old” site alone. If budget is the main objective here, this could be your least expensive option.
If Mobilegeddon has come and gone and your website is old enough that mobile design was an afterthought at the time, it’s likely time for a new website anyway. By 2012, most website designers and developers were already building websites to be mobile-friendly. If the life cycle of website is 2-4 years, it might be time to think about redesigning anyway.
A website is an investment, not an expense – Like a silent salesman
Long before you meet your prospective clients or customers in person, more than likely they have visited your website and made some assumptions based on what they see. Your website is like a storefront that’s open 24/7. When your prospects are looking at your website on their mobile phones while waiting for a doctor’s appointment or waiting to pick their children up at school, they are making decisions about whether they want to reach out and ask you a question, ask for a quote or dial your number. It’s during these times that clients are making decisions based on their experience surfing your website.
Is it easy to navigate from a mobile device?
Does it load fast on their iPhone?
Can they find the information they need?
If you weren’t able to answer yes to all 3 of these questions, it’s time to think seriously about a responsive website re-development.
by Jonathon Hyjek | Jul 23, 2012 | Website Design
There seems to be an ever-increasing trend toward everyone thinking that they are an expert and wanting to build their own website to save a few dollars. While I do agree that some website designers charge far too much for their services, many times in an effort to cover their high overheard, I don’t believe that most business owners have the time, skill, patience or artistic eye to build a website that will represent their business professionally.
About 10 years ago I bought a cheap, new car that didn’t have a good reputation for their quality. After only a few years of driving it, the paint started to peel off of the bumper. I hated the look for the peeling paint, but didn’t have the money to take it to a body shop and have it repaired professionally. It was going to cost likely $200-$300 to fix and times were tough.
I decided to Google how to fix these blemishes and I found lots of information. The next step was to visit my local Canadian Tire store and look at the auto body section. I picked up some supplies and spray paint that matched the paint on my car and went home to give it a try. It was a nice sunny day, so I just worked in my driveway because I didn’t have a garage to pull the car into. I figured that it wasn’t very windy outside, so it wouldn’t matter. After a few hours of spraying and sanding and spraying some more I was done. Guess what? It looked TERRIBLE. I’m not sure if the new paint job or the previous peeling problem was worse.
I was disheartened by my little adventure into the auto body business, but it didn’t end there. A year or two later I needed to trade that car in for something else. As they were going over the car, determining the trade-in value, they noted my awful work and said that it would have to be repainted professionally. They knocked a few hundred dollars off the value to cover the repairs.
The moral of the story…
Don’t pretend you know how to do everything. If you need to call in a professional, do it!
When it comes to websites, it could be one of your most important assets. Long before a person calls you to inquire about your services or walks into your retail store, they’re going to visit your website. If your website is poor quality, it reflects on your business. Don’t just think that “it’s good enough.” That kind of attitude isn’t helpful, especially in our very web-savvy world. Customers and prospective customers will judge your company by the quality of the website and if it doesn’t look professional, those customers may never call or visit.
Is it worth losing out on potential customers, just to save a little money?
Free website builders have a number of flaws.
1. Free website builders usually have about 10 templates that you can use, so chances are good that there are an awful lot of websites out there that look exactly like yours.
2. With a completely free website builder, you don’t get your own domain name. Nothing says “cheap” like having to go to a website address that has a URL like mybusiness.yolasite.com or mybusiness.webs.com. Every customer that visits is going to know you didn’t invest anything into your website.
3. Don’t pretend that you can do everything. I know I can’t! I can’t fix my car and I won’t even attempt it. I take it to a local mechanic who charges $80 per hour. It’s a lot of money, but I know it gets done right. If you don’t have an eye for details or you aren’t a great website content writer, don’t try to be. Let someone else do that.
4. Free website builders have a lot of limitations. You basically take what they give you. If you’ve got an idea, a unique way to use your website or whatever, it’s not going to happen using a free website builder.
As an individual that builds websites for very small businesses, I am quite aware that money can be a big problem for most small businesses. That’s why for my clients, I prefer to be flexible with payment plans and try to give them a good deal, before I recommend going to a free website builder. I just hate seeing people try to struggle through building their own website when we could just work something out.
by Jonathon Hyjek | Jun 1, 2012 | Website Design
In the retail business it’s widely known that customers will make a first impression in a very short amount of time; as little as 7 seconds is what has been suggested. That’s why stores spend a fortune on fixtures, lighting and they train staff to greet customers immediately, to make sure that your first impression is a good one.
Take that same concept and move the business online and this now becomes even more critical. What do most people do before they ever enter a retail store or when they want to learn more about a business? They Google it and visit the website of the service provider or retail store. Now the website has the tough task of making a good first impression. Unfortunately you don’t have the opportunity to bring the “people element” into the equation with a personal friendly greeting (although video could do this?) so the website design, look, feel, ease of use is all that you have to work with when trying to make that very important first impression.
If the website has too much going on, it will look cluttered and chaotic. If there’s not enough images, people may get bored with nothing to grab their attention. If they can’t figure out how to move around your website or some elements don’t work, they may leave the website. If the colors are wrong and psychologically aren’t conveying what you want, a customer may be lost. That’s a lot too keep in mind before the customer ever walks into the store or contacts you about the products or services that your provide.
All that to say this; Don’t underestimate the look and feel of your website. Don’t just hire the cheapest website designer that you can find, who knows the technical side of the business but doesn’t understand the marketing. Work with someone that will build a website to resonate with the people that you want to work with or that you want to purchase your products and services.
