Business Strategy

In business, nothing happens until a sale is made. Leads equals sales. Without leads, your business will not survive long.

We consult our clients often about the importance of conversion rates. A conversion can be many things... a product purchase, information gathered from interactive forms, a contract signed, and so on. Your conversion rate is the percentage of people who actually do what you want them to do. For example, if 10 people visit your online store and three people buy something, your conversion rate is 30 percent.

Tracking conversion rates on your website is a very important key business indicator.

Your ultimate goal is to convert clients, make a sale and keep your business growing. After the initial conversion, you need to make sure you keep getting repeat sales from your customers. The way to do this is to create marketing and sales systems that work.

With our website design clients, we first determine what their business goals are, then create conversion funnels to support these business goals.

Too many business owners focus on getting their "look" right before they start to generate leads. At the end of the day, leads are far more important than your brand. Again, leads equals sales, and without leads, your business will not survive long.

If you're in the market for a website redesign, or brand-new custom website design, make sure your website design company focuses on your business goals first, website look and feel later.

I live and work in Reno Nevada. I think it's the best place in the world to live. There are so many options and fun things to do in and around the Reno area. This fits me perfect because I really enjoy spending time outside doing the things I love. One of my passions is skiing.

I am 45 minutes away from the best ski resort in North America: Squaw Valley USA. For the past 5 years I have been a dedicated pass holder and lover of Squaw. I consider myself an expert skier... although, nowhere near as good as some of the guys ripping it up at Squaw.

Recently, I found a website that offers everything I want to see and read about Squaw Valley, and other things skiing. This website is: Unofficial Squaw.

The team behind Unofficial Squaw are doing an incredible job of online marketing and delivering a website people love and visit quite often (myself included).

So what's their secret? Well, first, the layout and design of the site is really nice. They spent some time putting everything together, and either have in-house designers, or they hired a great web design company. The website is visually pleasing and has a nice grid-based layout making navigating the site very easy.

They've also incorporated some really great technologies in their website, including: weather widgets, Twitter, Vimeo video technologies, Slideshow Pro, Flickr and others.

But what really makes Unofficial Squaw so popular among ski fanatics is the content! They are delivering exactly what their visitors want: great content!

I am sure you've heard, "content is king." Make no mistake, this is absolutely true! If you want to have a website with tons of traffic and visitors... deliver great content with an easy to use website. Give your audience what they want!!

At Bullsprig, we consult business owners and individuals every week about how they can get more traffic to their website. Besides having a custom designed website, you must give users what they want. What are you selling? Do you have products, services, ideas? What about those products or services makes them "sellable"? Talk about it. Help your audience see the benefits of your offerings.

You started your business because you were passionate about it. Tell the world why and success will follow!

I received an excellent email this morning from the Google Apps team:

Dear Google Apps admin,​

In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology. This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5. As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 ​as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.

We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010. After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.

Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.

Starting this week, users on these older browsers will see a message in Google Docs and the Google Sites editor explaining this change and asking them to upgrade their browser. We will also alert you again closer to March 1 to remind you of this change.

In 2009, the Google Apps team delivered more than 100 improvements to enhance your product experience. We are aiming to beat that in 2010 and continue to deliver the best and most innovative collaboration products for businesses.

Thank you for your continued support!

Sincerely,
The Google Apps team

This is fantastic news for web developers and clients alike! IE 6 is the thorn in every web designer / web developers side. It simply doesn't play by the rules. Internet Explorer 6.0 is filled with bugs. What makes it so frustrating is that, as web developers, we have to work-around these bugs with hacks and crazy code.

This news is great because once a big company like Google decides to quit supporting IE 6.0, everybody else can follow suit! Thanks Google!

The video below outlines why Steve Jobs is such a captivating speaker. The video is about 7 minutes, by Carmine Gallo.

In watching the video, I kept thinking back to our recent client presentations. I think Bullsprig is an awesome web design company! I think we do great work... our clients tell us we do great work! But sometimes, we get lost talking about "techie" subjects that--as a company--we care deeply about, but often times, our clients don't.

Carmine Gallo illustrates some great points, including: If you're enthusiastic and excited about your product or services, your client will be enthusiastic and excited about your product or services as well. Have a theme to your presentation and stick with it. (Don't let lost in "techie" stuff).

The tips and techniques in the video below will help anyone trying to sell products and/or services. Enjoy!

I am a huge fan of Napoleon Hill. Hill's works examined the power of personal beliefs, and the role they play in personal and business success.

Recently I read the following by Napoleon Hill:

Where will you be ten years from now if you keep on going the way you are going?

Many people fail to realize that big success is the result of little successes achieved, often over a very long period of time. Truly successful people are long-term thinkers. They know that they must build upon each achievement and constantly learn new and better ways of doing things. A regular review of your progress is an essential part of goal-setting. A goal is little more than a wish unless it has a timetable for completion. Make sure your plan for your life includes short, medium, and long-term goals. Revise your goals as circumstances dictate, check them off when they are completed, and set new and bigger goals for yourself as you grow. And take time to reflect often to make sure you are on the right course-for you.

Pretty powerful stuff. Let me break down this information.

Truly successful people are long-term thinkers.
Thinking long-term is easier said than done. Especially in the current business climate. You might wonder where you next sale is going to come from. Or, will my business survive this period. Every business owner has these thoughts. What's important is that you do something about it.

You need to look hard at your current marketing initiatives. What are you doing now? Is it working? Is your website working hard for you and your business? What is your conversion rate in your pay-per-click campaigns? Did that email blast generate any leads or sales? And so on.

If your online marketing initiatives are not working, you must do something different.

Successful people constantly learn new and better ways of doing things.
How much time do you spend on your website? Are you updating content, photos, FAQ's? How often do you talk with your web design firm / marketing agency? What type of funnels do you have on your website? Are they generating leads or selling your products?

There are so many better ways of doing business online. At Bullsprig, we have modules that allow you to update your website from any computer with an internet connection. How much time do you spend on social media? Ever wonder how to reduce the time you spend? If you have a Google AdWords account, do you have any keywords with a low quality score? What are you, or your web design agency doing about it?

With Bullsprig as your online business partner, we can help you find new and better ways of doing business online.

Make sure your plan for your life includes short, medium, and long-term goals.
At Bullsprig, we have an internal roadmap of goals. We are constantly working and moving forward to create new, better ways of marketing online. Better ways of designing websites, building ecommerce stores.

What are your online goals? Do you have any?

It's okay if you don't have goals... you might not know where to start. Listen, we know the web is complex. We're in business to help people and companies understand the web. We’re about streamlining the complex stuff so that anyone can understand it. Our products are designed so business owners and individuals can start small and grow with it as their business does.

We are actively involved with each of our clients. We work with business owners to define online business goals and make a roadmap to complete those goals.

Reflect often to make sure you are on the right course-for you.
Success online is the result of constant communication. We talk with our clients once a week: What's working? What's not working? How can we fix it?

We believe in providing you great technology, built to help you succeed, at an affordable price.

If your website design agency is not helping your business succeed online, it's time to look elsewhere. Contact Bullsprig today. Let's start the conversation.

We recently said goodbye to one of our longtime clients. They said they could not afford our services any longer, but really appreciated all the work we had done in the past, and would look forward to working with Bullsprig in the future, once the economy picked-up.

Looking back at our relationship, one thing kept eating away at me. You see, they decided to go with another marketing service provider (yes, one that was cheaper). That’s fine and good--we get, it every penny counts--except this other company isn’t providing a better service (in my opinion). So why would they bail on us?

The answer is plain and simple: lack of communication. On our part. Period. Our mistake, we will learn from it.

Our goal as a web design agency is to have all of our clients trust us and keep the communication lines open. It’s important that we deliver the very best service at a reasonable price. We want our clients to rave about our services and the results we deliver... recommend us to colleagues and friends.

I think it gets back to trust. Inspiring trust is a critical component to business, especially a service business like website design and development. I am a believer now that trust comes from communication. People will not recognize Bullsprig as a leader unless they trust us. People need to be convinced that we know what we’re doing and that we can deliver.

Recently, we have started having weekly conversations with our clients. These conversations are generally not long and take place over the phone. But, what we’ve noticed with these conversations, is that our clients are coming to us for more and more services. They are asking us more questions, keeping the conversation going.

These conversations have also given us an opportunity to talk about all the other services we provide, in addition to web design and development.

With the ever-changing economy and strains on your business, we need to know where you stand today. What your current business goals are (they change frequently), and how we can deliver ROI. What are your key business indicators? How can we leverage your website and online marketing initiatives to achieve these goals?

Our services should ALWAYS help you move your business forward and be worth the investment; otherwise, it is time to talk and revisit goals and deliverables.

We recently went live with a redesigned website for Lake Crest Homes. Founded by Jim Smrt in 1990, Lake Crest Homes, Inc., has an extraordinary reputation for excellence in the Reno-Tahoe area.

Lake Crest Homes is recognized locally for the quality of their craftsmanship and their client support. They have built some of the most spectacular homes in the Reno-Lake Tahoe area, and needed a strong web presence to showcase their talents.

The overall business goals for the Lake Crest Homes website:

• Give Lake Crest Homes a newer, updated look and feel.
• Port their old site to Bullsprig's Content Management System (CMS), allowing the owners and employees of Lake Crest Homes to control content and images on their website.
• Create call-to-action items on every page of the website.
• Utilize Bullsprig's enhanced SEO technologies to achieve better rankings via organic search.
• Using interactive forms and funnels on the website, Lake Crest will be able to generate higher-quality business leads.
• Install custom analytic software to gauge the effectiveness of design elements and page structure.

We integrated a blog and designed various announcement modules to help the team at Lake Crest Homes keep the site fresh with updated content relevant to the construction industry.

Click here to view the new Lake Crest Homes website. The team at Bullsprig is excited about this new website... let us know what you think!

A few more days until 2010! Yes, we know it's not technically the end of the decade, but no one called 1970 the "last year of the 60's." Some have called this the lost decade, excited to start something new. We think only good things to come!

At Bullsprig, we are finishing up a couple great websites and beginning something REALLY COOL.

We're developing a new product that will give business owners and individuals the vital tools needed to be successful on the web: manage your website and run marketing campaigns; care for your customers and sell your products online.

We're integrating SEO and search marketing so business owners can drive qualified targeted traffic to their websites, expand their online business presence, attract new customers and generate leads, give the power of account maintenance to the business owner, and much more!

This new product is designed so business owners and individuals can start small and grow with it as their business does, at an affordable price.

We have a clear vision for this product. Stay tuned!

We recently went live with a redesigned website for CFS Engineering. CFS Engineering was founded by Clark Stoner as a specialty service civil and environmental engineering firm dedicated to helping their clients achieve their most challenging objectives.

The overall business goals for the redesign were:

• Give CFS Engineering a newer, updated look and feel.
• Port their old site to Bullsprig's Content Management System (CMS), giving the owners of CFS Engineering better control over their website.
• Utilize Bullsprig's enhanced SEO technologies to achieve better rankings via organic search.
• Generate higher-quality business leads through interactive forms and funnels on the website.

In addition to these business goals, we added: custom website analytics; lead management systems built around workflows; automatically generated xml feeds for search; and other important key business indicators (KBIs).

Clark Stoner, the owner/founder of CFS Engineering, is an avid outdoorsman as well as being one of the top engineers in the field. He wanted the website to "not" look like every other engineering firm out there. We utilized outdoor photography and various elements to achieve the desired look and feel requested.

We integrated a blog and designed various announcement modules to help the team at CFS Engineering keep the site fresh with updated content relevant to the engineering industry.

At Bullsprig, we are very excited about this site! Click here to view the new CFS Engineering website.

Let's talk a little about copywriting for your website.

What is copywriting? When talking web design, it's your site's content... what people read. This includes Headlines, Subheads and body copy. Writing is always difficult (for most people anyway). We tell each of our clients to estimate the amount of time you think it will take to write copy for your site, then DOUBLE IT! Internal content creation always takes longer than you expect!

Right now, we have 5 websites that are completely finished, beta tested, layout approved, all ready to go... but WAITING for finalized copy. It's always copy that holds up a website launch!

My minor in college was Journalism. I didn't know how to write very good at all. One of the first classes I took was on writing. My professor actually asked me if wanted to change my minor and do something else! At any rate, I learned how to write. I wasn't the star student, but I powered my way through it and learned a lot. So can you!

Here's some help for those of you who may need some help, here is a great article: The Art of the Paragraph.

The www.copyblogger.com is a great website to learn how to write and to bring out your inner writer. Read the articles. Learn.

Keep your fingers crossed that we get the copy soon. We have some awesome sites to unveil, stay tuned!