Released on: March 10, 2008, 1:43 am

Press Release Author: Scott C. Margenau

Industry: Small Business

Press Release Summary: ImageWorks President Scott C. Margenau is featured in SSA
Globe, along with feature clients BoxCart Moving & Storage. The article deals with
the subject: When is the right time to re-design your web site, and what should it
accomplish.

Press Release Body: Chances are you already have a Website - and probably have for a
number of years, If you don\'t, shame on you. It is a well-known fact that more and
more self storage customers are using the Internet and Web sites to determine how
and where they shop. If you do have a Web site (kudos), what have you done with it
lately? Do you update it regularly? Or does it sit in cyberspace gathering virtual
dust?

Whether you\'ve had your Web site for two years or ten, it might be time for a change.

\"If your Web site looks dated, that\'s going to position you negatively\", says
William Rice, president of the Web Marketing Association, an organization
established to set high standards for Internet marketing and Web development. \"If
you look at the tools that Web designers use today, they\'ve made great leaps and
bounds. If you don\'t have those tools, visitors to your site are going to think,
\"These people aren\'t keeping up with the times\".

But how often should you update your site? What tools should you be adding? And how
much should you expect to spend? The answer to all of these questions is-it depends.

The Question of When

How Often-and to what degree-you update your Web site depends on your goals,
according to Scott Margenau, CEO of Imageworks Studio, a marketing and branding firm
based in northern Virginia.

\"We tell our clients that they should identify five marketing goals-one is not
enough.\" Says Margenau. \"For example, goals for a self storage company\'s Web site
might be for visitors to request unit availability, download a PDF or take a
three-dimensional tour of the facility. Once those goals have been identified,
companies can measure the effectiveness of their Web site. If these goals aren\'t
being met, it\'s time to update your site.\"

Next you must decide whether you need a total redesign or just a few tweaks.

\"?The first thing a company should do is look at their design and ask themselves if
it looks dated,\" says Rice. If it does, then a total redesign might be what the
doctor ordered. To gauge how contemporary yoursite is, Rice recommends you take a
look at your competition and other Web sites in your community. \"How does yours
compare? Everyone may say, \'Don\'t judge a book by its cover\', but we all do.
Companies need to make sure their site looks professional and up-to-date\".

The Web site\'s message should also be crystal clear. \"A home page should get across
in a nanosecond what the company does and what benefits it provides to the
consumer,\" says Margenau. \"There should be a clear and direct headline and a call to
action,\" such as requesting a price quote or scheduling a tour of the facility.

Even if your site accomplishes its goals, looks modern and conveys a clear message,
it\'s important to do small-scale, regular updates to keep the content fresh. Not
only will it look more interesting to visitors - particularly repeat visitors - but
search engines give more weight to Websites that are changed regularly than to those
that are created and then never touched.

United Stor-All, a national self storage company head-quartered in suburban
Philadelphia, recently completed a major of its Web site, but still updates the site
monthly.

\"It\'s important to create a Web site that allows you to change things constantly,\"
said Joel Keaton, vice president of Operations for United Stor-All. \"Whether it\'s a
changing banner at the top, or a promotion for a special offer, you need to be able
to alter it and make it appear new.\"

Bells and Whistles

Once you\'ve decided that it\'s time to update your site, the next question is: what
do you add? The features available are seemingly innumerable. But more features
typically mean more money. So what do you include?

Keaton asserts that all storage facilities should, at a minimum, have online
reservations and real-time pricing. \"You get very little activity if you don\'t have
real-time pricing,\" he notes.

The ability to accept online payments from existing customers is another important
feature. \"You have to keep up with what your major competitors are doing,\" says
Keaton. \"We look at what new technologies are being added to Web sites and make
sure that we have them, too.\"

In addition, video tours are an inexpensive option that can differentiate a site
from its competition, says Rice. Using a hand-held video camera, owners/operators
can record parts of the facility (such as security features or the size of units),
upload the video to YouTube and then link the video to their site.

Another budget-friendly trick that Rice recommends is to create multiple URLs. This
goes beyond creating other versions of your name that people might search (such as
\"YouStoreIt\" sfor a company called \"UstoreIt\"), for a company called \"UStoreIt\"),
but creating URLs that contain key words you want identified with your site. For
Example, a storage facility based in Oakland, California, might purchase domain
names that contain some combination of the words \"self storage,\" \"Oakland,\" \"San
Francisco Bay Area\" and temporary storage.\" This would increase the likelihood that
a Google or Yahoo! Search of those words would lead to your site.

But perhaps the most cost-effective addition to your Web site, according to both
Rice and Margenau, is a blog. \"A blog is basically free advertising,\" says
Margenau. \"It can be picked up and tagged, and it\'s a place where you can really
pump up your company.\"

The benefit of blogs is that search engines find them very topical, and are more
likely to link to them.

If the thought of writing a monthly or weekly blog intimidates you, it shouldn\'t .
You don\'t have to be a professional writer to have a successful blog. For example,
because storage facilities are closely tied to the communities they serve, Rice
recommends creating a blog that posts community news, events and services. Because
posts are indexed by search engines, your site will be listed higher when results
are returned on a search for self storage companies in your area.

The Bottom Line

According to a recently released marketing survey by the research firm
MarektingSherpa, online and Web marketing have the highest return on investment,
with email marketing, search engine optimization and paid search marketing topping
the list-beating out public relations, direct mail and print advertising.

But how much do you spend? Both SCORE and the U.S. Small Business Alliance say that
companies should expect to spend anywhere from 2 to 10 percent of their revenue on
marketing. How much of this percentage goes to updating a Web site can vary widely
depending on the extent of the redesign. Simply updating your site and adding a few
features is relatively inexpensive. \"You can get a very credible site by spending
$5,000 to $20,000,\" says Rice, adding that e-commerce capabilities will drive up the
cost. While brand development, which typically includes Web site design, a logo,
collateral materials and brochure, can cost about $30,000 to $50,000, and higher.

Regardless of your budget, everyone agrees that investing in a Web site is money
well spent. \"The use of the Yellow Pages is shrinking,\" said Keaton. \"The use of the
internet is going up. The mistake a lot of people are making is not taking at least
a portion of the money that they spend on Yellow Pages ads and putting it into
Internet marketing.\"

Rice concurs. \"The way people get information today is through the Internet,\" he
says. \"Even people who aren\'t very technically savvy tend to use it before anything
else.\"

Without a well-designed, easy-to-use site, potential customers might think you\'re
stuck in the Dark Ages-or at least in 1993.


Web Site: http://imageworksstudio.com

Contact Details: 3859 Centerview Drive, Suite 400,308-8573,janalinks@gmail.com