Small Business Websites
A website is a powerful and flexible tool for promoting your business. It is the headquarters for your business identity. All the other elements you use to promote your business should flow from or into it.
However, building a website yourself can be inefficient or frustrating. Even worse, it can consume your valuable time. If you hire someone to do it for you, you still need to manage the process, which can be confusing or frustrating if you don’t find the right provider.
We Manage The Website Process For You
There are several ways to build a website, whether you do it yourself or have it done for you. What if you don’t have the time to build it or manage the process? What if you aren’t sure what to put on your website? We’re here to help sort through the choices and find one that works for your timing, budget, and goals.
Problem
You want a website for your business website. You don’t want to build it or manage the process yourself.
Solution
The Research Department builds websites for small businesses and non-profits. We understand the realities for small business owners. We know what questions to ask, when to nudge, and when to lay back. We manage the project so you can focus on your business. Our guarantee backs up the whole process:
The Research Department
Website Guarantee
- No lingo. If something’s not clear, we’ll talk it through so you understand what we’re doing and why.
- No worries about getting it 100% at launch. We provide content fixes or updates for 6 months after launch at no charge.
- Clear Roadmap. We offer an easy-to-follow onboarding process using our customer portal.
- Technical Assistance. Having trouble getting access to a vital account? We will communicate with 3rd party vendors or help you sort it out.
- Content Help. Stuck trying to gather written content, photos, or videos? We have a list of trusted partners ready to help.
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What If I Have Technical Problems Keeping My Website Project From Getting Started?
We can also fill in the gaps and help solve many common problems like:
- I don’t know where my domain is registered or where my website is hosted (or maybe are sure what the difference is)
- I can’t find (or don’t have) the electronic versions of my logo
- I don’t know how to log into my website
- The person who set up my website left the company and, well, you can guess the rest
- I don’t like to write / I don’t have time to write the copy for my website
- I need photos for my website
- I’m not good with technology.
These are statements I have heard regularly from past clients. Some aspects of people’s businesses can be, ahem, messy. Your digital assets are not exempt from this reality. We are used to helping people get their online accounts sorted out so that everything is nicely organized when we finish a project. Most importantly, you’ll end up being in full control of every account associated with your business.
Why Should I Work With You And Not A Web Developer?
Because we are using to working with businesses on their broader marketing goals, we can help make sure that your website is not only attractive but communicates the key elements of what you do and why people should work with you.
Our interview process enables us to make a recommendation on a basic design approach. We then manage the development process (with as much input as you desire), populate the initial website with the necessary content AND help train you or your staff on how to update your website (if you desire).
What If I Don’t Want To Update My Website?
Then don’t. Many of our clients don’t have the interest or staffing to update their website when someone joins/leaves the company, or they finish a project or have a new blog to publish. We offer a website support package that combines many of the time-consuming, but necessary parts of operating a website. This support plan provides:
- Managed Hosting – we handle all the technical updates to your site on a weekly basis
- Security – Protection against the various elements on the Internet that are out there looking for vulnerable websites
- SSL Certificate – A level of data security for websites regarded as a best practice
- Free Site Transfer – Is your website on another hosting service? We’ll bring it over at no cost (this only applies to websites built using WordPress)
- Faster Site Performance
- Nightly Backups – Bad things can happen to good sites…so we back up our websites every night
- Doomsday Recovery – If you site does get hacked (yes, it happens), we’ll help to recover it using one of our nightly backups
- Content Updates – Every month you’ll receive 30-minutes of our time to update existing pages, adding/removing photos, publishing a new blog and making other content-related edits. These minutes don’t roll over (we’re not T-Mobile).
The advantage of our approach is that you know that your updates can be easily requested and processed quickly. The 30-minutes of content updates each month has generally been more than sufficient for our clients to handle the bulk of their update requests. Knowing that it’s easy to submit a change encourages our clients to update their site. This keeps your clients well-informed and lets Google know that you are actively maintaining your site.
If you want a website, but not the headaches, contact us to discuss your project.
For some examples of our work, click on one of the images below to view the fully designed site.
Examples Of Our Work
