Kitchen & Bath Magazine

Whether you are looking to reach a local client or show potential buyers halfway around the world your product, according to Internet insiders if you want to support your business you better hitch a ride on the information highway.


Kyle Hosick, president of Addrenaline Media in Toronto agrees. "Without one it makes your business seem unprofessional. It is more a question of why don’t you have a website than why do you have one."
For a large demographic of customers if you’re not online, you may as well not even exist, says Hosick. "People in the 20- to 35- or even 40-year-old range demographic have stopped using the Yellow Pages all together," he says. "With having your listing online they think ëI can take my time researching, looking where they rank on a search engine. All before I even talk to a body at the company’."


1. Know your audience
One of the main elements of having a successful website is knowing who your audience is, says Vio. That means keeping the user in mind."You have to design so it is easy to navigate, easy to use, catchy, and makes it easy to find information," he says. "If you don’t keep the user in mind it makes them leave the site," says Vio. "The user on average has an attention span of about three to four seconds, people will leave your site if it is confusing."
Hosick agrees with Vio’s short-term assessment of today’s audience. "A good website is not text heavy, because people nowadays won’t sit down and read two to three paragraphs."

2. Know when to call a professional
Small businesses getting onto the web can quickly get in too deep when treading into the Internets waters, says Vio. "Sometimes small businesses can be too ambitious, they spend too much money to start up their own websites," he says. "From our side, creating a technological and creative solution for a business becomes easier if they know what they want."

As for whether businesses should be creating and maintaining their own websites, Vio and Hosick both say you should proceed with caution. "Start-ups create their own websites just to have something out there," he says. "It’s a good way to get your name out there but it’s not beneficial when your client list is growing."
Hosick says creating a website yourself can actually do more harm than good if you don’t know what you’re doing, and that going to a professional company can actually benefit you in the long- and short term. "If you have a website that shows up well on a search engine you can make up to 20 times or more than the cost of getting the website created back in the first year."

Whether you’re going DIY or hiring a company, it’s a good idea to do as much research as you can upfront. After all, like a business card, your website offers a critical impression of your business. The key again is doing as much research as you can before starting a website, or going to a company to create one for you.

3. Keep them looking
One of the main elements of a great website is whether it is visually stimulating, and gets them the information they want as fast as possible, says Hosick. "If a business has three main points they want to get across we create tile ads for their information on their own website," he says. "Incorporate photos, and a teaser — they have to click through to read more. It helps to narrow down the information very quickly off the bat, they get what they came for after one click."

Keep the people in your company in view on the site. "Attach faces to your company," Hosick says. "People like to see other peoples faces on your website, even when they don’t know what the page is about they identify with it more when they see people then with a picture of say, a plant.

If showcasing your work is a key part of your business, make sure the photos you place on your website are strong. Otherwise, your website won’t be worth it’s salt say the experts. According to Hosick, good photos can really put the zing into your website and take it to the next level. "If you don’t say ëwow’ when you see the photos you shouldn’t put them online," says Hosick. "It is worth it to get a professional photographer because then every user will see it’s a great job." n

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