Website design has evolved dramatically over the years. When we entered the market back in 2003 Microsoft was selling FRONTPAGE and everyone with a copy became their own defacto self web designer and companies were even launched using the product to develop websites for customers.
Competing in the market of "Web Design" for entry level companies was daunting simply because of the amount of competition. Everyone thought because they had a copy of Frontpage, or Dreamweaver and a number of other boxed website software solutions that they qualified as "web designer". And quite frankly some of them were excellent. The problem for the consumer who needed a website however was who to pick? Often it came down to knowing a friend or relative who dabbled... and that was "good enough". Certainly the price was right.
So, we were always competing against your "wife's cousin, Frank who knows how to build a website". How did 50Bubbles survive in this environment? Design was a commodity. That was obvious. If you have to compete on price, there is always someone out there that could beat yours. Yet when we spoke to the client, we were getting their attention.
Even back then, it was quickly becoming obvious that Google was deciding what businesses should rank better than other businesses. Web design was so far removed from what Google was doing that most people considered it random chance or purposeful repetition of keywords but very few took SEO beyond the obvious. Many were even using black-hat SEO techniques without really realizing they were "black-hat". Things like keyword stuffing on a web-page, or keyword repetition using text color that was the same as the background so it wasn't annoying to the visitor but did get read by the search engines.
"Google-able Web Design"
If you called in 10 people to design your website, and 9 of them discussed the nuances of web design and the process they used, and one of them discusses how your website shows up on Google, which of the 10 web design companies would your remember?
HI, we are 50Bubbles! We build websites that show up on Google!
We're not exactly "designers" in the graphic design sense. We're more like design brokers. We partner with some of the best local independent graphic designers and design companies in Dayton. We also use template designs (a lot from www.templatemonster.com) and other international graphic design companies. We edit and optimize the websites and deliver a website to the client that is optimized for keywords associated with the clients products and services. By combining the two concepts into a single stage "website design", our clients save thousands by avoiding the need for website optimization after the fact.
The whole point is you should design your website around what your your
prospective clients are searching for (their needs) rather than a
self-indulged website that ignores what and how the client is searching.
I do need to qualify all this with a disclaimer lest you run into the "me-too" competitors of 50Bubbles. Just doing website optimization probably won't get you to the top of the search engines. It is a necessary step in the process but it is not the only step! For the cost of a typical website, 50Bubbles can deliver a fully optimized website AND search engine optimization process that will have a far better chance of getting your website ranking in the top 10 for both Google Organic Results and Google Maps. Talk to us about what a "Google-able Web Design Package" looks like.