Got an interesting email from a subscriber named Ger…
He asks…
”Keith, love your emails man!! But Ive a question (not a compliant though) ..why is it that for a web designer , you never talk about web design? Like I said, it’s not a complaint ..I’m merely curious..Anyways keep up the good work..Ger”
First up Ger, cheers for the email. It’s actually quite a good question, and while I’ve touched upon the subject a few times, I’ve never really addressed it outright.
I view web design simply thus: as just another tool a business has at its disposal to market itself, and ergo, make its money. But it’s what goes into that tool, the message, the positioning and the background marketing are what’s really important.
Not the design. Not the mechanics of building a website. Nor how it looks. Hence, I rarely talk about stuff like that.
For the vast majority of web designers out there, they will fanny about with superfluous fluff like user experience, interface design, branding and so forth, all of which in the final analysis matter little in terms of whether a website does what it needs to do, to sell.
Indeed, for many years I used to “fanny” about like that, much to my embarrassment.
And while my clients sites got lots of admiring glances from the work I produced for them, it mattered little to their bottom line.
I could have stuck something up half as ornate and it wouldn’t have made the slightest bit of difference to their sales.
Because of this, I went a-digging..
I delved head first into the enthralling world of direct response marketing, and in the process I found out what was really important to my clients.
Making money. Getting customers. Generating Leads. Producing profit. Getting paid.
On the surface, everyone wants a pretty website. They want a fancy online presence with all the bells and whistles. But ultimately, what they really want is their businesses to be profitable, and a tool to make that happen.
It’s like the old Mark Twain adage, “A man has two reasons for what he does, the real reason, and the one he tells his wife..”
And this is what I cater for. What my clients really want. Their “real reason”. Useful tools and solid information they can use to grow their businesses, and improve their lives.
The meat and potatoes of marketing. Lead generation. Copywriting. Persuasion. The real juicy stuff.
Not the latest trends in UX design. Nor the latest jQuery ninja hack.
None of that bullshit.
Just profit, baby.
“Direct response” web design that has prospects rabid at the thought of buying your product, foaming at the mouth just baying to know more..
Do you want to know more? Well, you know what you gotta do…that phone isn’t going to ring itself, is it? 087-7426631, Keith Commins..
Stay Hungry,
Keith “Meat and Potatoes” Commins
PS: When I say that the design and looks don’t matter, I mean they are secondary to a websites main function, that of sales and persuasion.
Don’t get me wrong. Design and aesthetics are something everyone needs to be cognizant of. You should get them right, no doubt, but they rank low down the totem pole of determining factors when it comes to selling your wares.