Thanks for Making Underhill's Website a Success!

We undertook the design of Underhill's New Website in April, and started by asking our clients and friends what they felt were important characteristics of a professional services website.  With my initial post on this subject, I shared the following anecdote:  

Not that many years ago, a company conducted a survey to see who normally visits professional service websites.  The results were quite interesting.  It was found that the No. 1 visitor to a firm's site was their competitor.  The second most common visitor type were people looking for employment opportunities.  The third most common visitor was...wait for it....yes, that's right, visitors who landed on the website by accident - someone who meant to go to a different site entirely.  It was not until the fourth place ranking did we find the professional service provider's client.  I don't know if this is still the case, but it would be nice if the client ranking has risen to at least above the people who came there by accident.

After sharing my initial post, I received good information from quite a few of you.  Here is what you shared.

A Responsive Design.  Responsive means that the website not only shows up correctly formatted on the desktop, but also is formatted to be easily read on mobile device such as smartphones and tablets. Google felt this was an important enough feature that, effective this past April, they included how responsive a website is as part of their search algorithm. With this action, Google has established responsive web design as an industry best practice for websites. This is important to us in the professional service industry because responsive sites will end up being ranked higher than non-responsive sites in Google’s search output, when clients are looking for firms who provide a particular type of service.

Clear Navigation and Contact Information Clearly Presented.  As much as we enjoy reading blogs or learning about a firm's projects, probably the most valuable information on a website is to present the Contact information so the clients knows how to contact us and where to find us.  Also, a straight forward Menu with the key pages clearly marked is an important factor for navigating the site.  For Underhill's site, we focused on the following five key pages: About, Approach (our Services and how they benefit clients), Projects, Blog, and Contact.

Social Media Integration.  Being the social animals that we are, we felt it important to provide strong integration with active social media.  For Underhill this meant LinkedIn (of course!) and Twitter.  To that effect, we have clickable LinkedIn and Twitter buttons on the site and opportunities for sharing of website Blog posts to these social media.

A Lead Generating Website.  More than a portfolio site, the lead generating website is meant to be active and engaging with the reader, with an emphasis on blogging where ideas can be shared.  My first blog on the website is from a previous one I shared here on LinkedIn, but be on the lookout for more to come.  

Underhill Engineering's new website would not be a success without mentioning the following who helped bring this new site to reality.  First, I would like to give a big shoutout to Brightworks Studio, who tirelessly worked with me on drafts, edits and overall development of the site.  Nathalie you are great!  Thanks to Mel Lester at BizEdge for your insights from the professional services side.  Thanks to Christa Albano of Albano Design for your assistance in development of Underhill's logo.  And thanks to Samantha Webster Photography for the photographic work for the new site.

If you have not had the chance to do so yet, I invite you to visit the site at underhillengineering.com  and post your comments either on the site or here on LinkedIn.  

Chris

EDIT: article updated September 15, 2015