Recently, we found out we were an award-winning web design firm when we were honored with a Gold award in the International MarCom Awards for a Top B2B website for our new website. (The very website you’re looking at now.)
Lots of entries were submitted, from lots of countries, though most were probably from the United States. No matter where the entries were submitted from, being selected as having an award-winning website worthy of a Gold is amazing.
What it takes to be an award-winning web design firm.
We’ve won other awards for both our website design and SEO expertise, but this one was among entries from other countries which made it extra special. Of course, we’re doing what we can to promote it through press releases, SEO, social media, and right on our new website’s homepage, as well as with this blog.
What makes an award-winning website?
From its inception, we knew we wanted to do something we’ve not seen on a website design company’s site before. What we came up with was the equivalent of a demo reel of some of our client’s websites. Video companies do demo reels of their work all the time, but we’d not seen it on a web design company’s website.
The process started with determining which the client websites to show. We actually had too many in the video when we launched our new website. Turned out Google didn’t like how large the video file was and was penalizing us because it didn’t load quickly enough on mobile devices. So we had to delete 20% of the video.
About the rest of the homepage.
We knew the video moved fairly quickly, so directly below it, we added a carousel which linked to some of the client work we showcased in the video. That way, if someone saw something that toasted their strudel in the video, they could get to see it by clicking one of the images in the carousel.
An important part of a website might not be what you think.
What follows after the carousel is information, but not so much about us. What’s more important for your content is writing how what you do benefits your clients. No one really cares about you (or us) until they see what you can do for them, because everyone really wants to know “What’s in it for me?!”
Avoid the temptation about saying how awesome you are, and talk about how what you do makes your client’s work or personal lives better, happier, saves them time, or makes them look better to their friends or bosses.
It’s about Price and Ego. (Not only are Pride and Ego two of the “deadly sins,” they’re also powerful marketing tools.)
Awards are great but what about getting prospects to your website?
Sure, awards are wonderful, but where it really matters is getting people to your website, and crafting the message that makes them act. That’s achieved by:
- Conducting keyword research
- Crafting good on-page SEO (See what’s involved with that here).
- Creating a marketing message that should convince them what you’re offering will help them solve a problem, and that you’re an expert in your industry.
There’s an old saying that goes “It’s not creative if it doesn’t sell.” which is attributed to the late David Ogilvy, founder of one of the great advertising agencies in the world. They call themselves “creative” AND their work sells.
We’ve done websites many different companies in many different industries, so we’d love to help you with yours.
To work with an award-winning web design company, so you might have an award-winning website – that also helps sell your product or service – contact us. We’d love the chance to for you benefit from our experience.