So you want a website for your Carolina High Country small business. But what all goes into that?
Well, a lot, as it turns out.
A lot of DIY web design services these days try to make the web design process look straightforward: drag and drop, set it and forget it. And fair enough: You’re a small business owner already. You’ve got enough on your plate without trying to tackle a whole other industry when it comes to digital marketing.
But websites aren’t actually as simple as all that. And, as with any complicated system, when you gloss over the details, they will eventually come back to bite you in the butt.
You want the business website without the hassle. So rather than trying to perform an oversimplified do-it-yourself website—on a service you’re still having to pay for one way or the other—we recommend Elk Park’s own website design and web management experts. That is: us.
So what are you really looking at when you create a quality website for your business? Here, we’ll break it down into three major components—all of which, by the way, we provide here at Deckard & Company’s High Country headquarters.
Western Carolina Web Design
Website design is probably the first thing you’re thinking of. And frankly, this is the fun bit.
Web design lets us create the website of your dreams. You’ve probably already got an idea of what it looks like and what kind of information will be on it: Your company logo all big at the top, photos of you standing in front of your Boone storefront or by the inventory in your Banner Elk warehouse. Your website will also feature your contact info, and maybe a couple of other bells and whistles like videos, customer forums, or online scheduling or ordering.
We can do all of that!
Of course, it’s also a little more complicated than just the pretty stuff. Web design also involves organizing all this data so your visitors can find it on your site—and also so it’s easy to work with behind-the-scenes.
And when you’re a professional web designer, website design also involves resizing files, streamlining processes, triple-checking security systems, and finding the right arrangement of plug-ins and other doohickeys to do what needs to be done without breaking every five minutes.
When you design a website the right way, not only will it have all the bells and whistles you’ve dreamed of. But those bells and whistles will actually keep making music glitch-free for the foreseeable future.
That is, proper, professional web design means your site loads quickly, looks good across all devices, and can hold up to the frequent updates today’s websites need.
And that’s where the next element comes in.
Western Carolina Web Management
Yes, a well-designed website will run quite smoothly on its own…for a time. The problem is, the internet doesn’t sit still, so neither can your site.
Think of the internet like a raging 2,000-pound bull, and your website is the bullrider. You have to start in a good position, but you also have to move and adjust constantly in order to keep the ride going.
Web management handles those adjustments. Often that means anticipating what the bull is going to do, and moving accordingly. And sometimes it means being surprised by a development, and moving quickly to catch up.
In either case, it’s a job for a professional. Otherwise, your website will just be trampled in the dirt before you know it.
Western Carolina Web Hosting
Of course, when you take control of the hosting situation, you’re really securing your website’s strong position on the digital landscape.
To keep the bullrider analogy going: A hosting company is like the arena. Ideally it keeps you very safe while also being easily accessible to everyone who wants to see you. And it also gives you a lot of room to play. (In a previous Deckard & Company blog, we compared a hosting service to the engine room of a boat. It’s your power in an even more powerful sea.)
At High Country, we also provide hosting services, in part because taking over that responsibility is often easier than trying to navigate whatever website host gets thrown at us.
By managing the website as well as the host services themselves, we know that we’re doing our work within a secure foundation. We hope that demonstrates how concerned we are with doing the job right, and keeping the ride going.
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