Ask any web developer if they update their own site often and you’ll be met with sighs of frustration. Of course I’m going to say ‘I was too busy’ or that ‘Taking care of clients is more important!’ which is true but let’s face it, I neglected my own site and it surely doesn’t reflect well on me. So finally I got busy. It took me a week and here it is:
It’s not going to win design awards but that’s not what I’m going for. What I wanted was to organize every product and service I offer in a easy to read layout that potential clients can understand with ease. It is my belief the only reason clients want to visit my site is that they already have a project in mind. It’s either they are starting from scratch, are somewhere in between or are in the process of changing what they already have.
So to help with finding what they want the ‘How Can We Help You’ area should do very nicely.
If you can’t find what you want there I probably cannot help you and it’s best you move on. As curt as that sounds I wish more sites would adopt that sort of thinking. Show what you can do right front and center to let the customer know immediately if they’ve found what they’re looking for. Otherwise you risk wasting everyone’s time and that becomes a negative against you.
The other things that make this site different is that I used images available and meaningful to me. The ‘hero image’ at the top for example is just a picture of my desk taken at an angle and with some photoshop gradient.
I had been looking at free graphic websites and I was thinking of using this:
Sure it was professionally taken with a great camera and perfect lighting but it still looks like a stock image using anonymous models. So for internal page images I used pics from my meetings with clients as a background like with the Contact Us page:
The ‘About Us’ page also features a pic I took from my most recent client when they were launching websites whose payment systems I consulted for:
I know it sounds corny but those images as imperfect as they are are so much more meaningful. In no way are they perfect but they are still better than impersonal stock images that feel sterile and detached.
Final details are I used the all powerful super easy to use Astra theme, and Elementor on very few pages. As things go this site will be in constant development but as a selling and marketing tool I’m quite happy with it.
