UK small business website design, website maintenance by Dave Wilkinson

I don’t normally handle logo design projects, but when my sister asked for help designing a logo for her new curtain cleaning business, I couldn’t say no.

The brief was pretty simple: I like pink and I want it to look both whimsical & professional all at the same time.

Not much to go on, but we’re both really happy with the end product. Here’s the final design she went for:

I’m busy working on a mini-website for the same product. I don’t think my copy of Photoshop has even seen this much pink before, but it’s a fun project. I’ll reveal the website in the next couple of days.

Websites are supposed to be dynamic. This means they need to be updated. Which means someone needs to manage them. The question is, is that person you?

Let’s take a look at a fictional website for a fictional client of mine called Acme Engineering. Acme is a small company and they’re tired of paying me to manage their website. So they’ve decided to manage it themselves. Here’s what they need to do:

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There’s a vast difference between companies who want to build a website and companies who want to build an online business. The idea of an online business is that it’s more than just a website. It’s a portal to help your business generate more leads, make more online sales or achieve the goal your website is designed to achieve.

I suppose the best explanation of an online business is ‘what you need your web presence to do for you’.

There are a couple of suppliers in the market selling an integrated package that does everything you need to manage your online business, and while they are of exceptional quality, they’re also a tad pricey. So I decided to take a look at what you get with an online business package and find a way to do the same thing on the cheap.

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Does you company have a blog? Do you know what social media is? Do you have any idea why it’s crucial for you to get to grips with Web 2.0?

If the last paragraph scared you, you’re not alone. The vast majority of small -and large- business owners don’t understand the new online business. So, here’s a short primer (starting from the back of the list) to help you understand what you’re missing out on.

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I didn’t study to be an engineer (thanks to a guidance counselor who thought I should be an estate agent), but I’ve been working hand-in-hand with engineers and technical buyers for the past 15 years. The result is that I’ve become one of them. We engineering-types look at marketing from a totally different perspective to consumer marketing.

For instance, you can’t really sell to an engineer. We don’t really care about your perceived benefits and shiny brochures. We care about cold hard facts. And we love details. Give us charts, calculations and case studies over shiny ads and you stand a better chance of getting us to buy from you.

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Yes. There’s no argument. If you have customers, prospects or competitors, a good CRM solution can help you manage them and make more money. Without it, you’re just guessing.

Know what you want to achieve

It’s all well and fine deciding you need to keep track of people, but you’re destined for failure if you don’t write down exactly what you need your CRM software to do.

As an example, I use my CRM software to help me to track the following:

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