The need for an impressive online presence is no less important for a small business than a large - indeed, with limited profit margins and competitive markets, everything that can help the company progress needs to be exploited. Building an effective website need not seem daunting, though, as Expression Web provides a wide range of tools and techniques to help you get the most for your organisation.
Lucas knows that his business needs a new website - the existing one was put together some years ago, and rival companies have been benefiting from a much more impressive online appearance. This would be a good time to put out to tender a web design project, to hire professional expertise to produce the perfect website to restore his company to a position of success. No prominent organisation can expect to remain in such a strong position without retaining an engaging and effective internet presence; with a team of specialists creating the most up-to-date and attractive site, Lucas could be certain of a brighter future for the business.
Unfortunately, Lucas' landscape gardening business isn't quite as prominent as all that. He couldn't possibly afford that specialist web design, much as he'd like to. But the one thing he does still have is a need for a new website - and a need to resolve the problem of how to have a highly professional website for his business without a highly-paid professional.
This is where Microsoft Expression Web can come in particularly useful, allowing Lucas to produce just the website his business needs without requiring any coding knowledge or experience. With Expression Web's visual WYSIWYG interface, Lucas can create and position each element of the site just how he needs it, seeing each page as visitors will see it and never having to dip into any coding language.
For instance, if he has an attractive picture of his work he'd like at the top of the page, it's simply a matter of opening the image file and placing it where he needs it - and the text he'd like to support it can be entered and formatted in the straightforward manner that would be familiar from any word processor.
However, Expression Web can offer a good deal more than simply the tools to construct a functional website. Lucas wants his site to be as appealing as can be, so as to show in the best possible light how much he can bring to a garden; after all, his business depends upon potential customers who want their patch of land to look better, so their first impression of his company needs to be one of elegance and quality.
Silverlight content - bringing multimedia, animation and graphics together for enhanced and visually appealing interactivity - can be easily added into your page, as can Flash or Windows Media content, and these can make the visitor experience much more engaging and positive.
Of course, those potential customers have to visit the site in the first place for these improvements to have any impact.
Lucas works in a well populated region, and his rivals are many in number; all the enhancements he makes could be left worthless if home-owners search for local landscape gardeners, and find someone else's name first.
Fortunately, help is at hand in this department, too. After designing his site, Expression Web can provide an instant Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) report: each element of the website is analysed against the best practice for getting the highest search engine rankings, and the software reports back with suggestions for improving the site's SEO. Each suggestion can be worked through individually, and the advice given for each is clear in exactly what is required - again, there's no need for any technical expertise, as Expression Web takes you to the element of the site and gives straightforward instructions on how to enhance SEO in that area.
Investing in Expression Web - and Lucas may like to consider a short training course in using the software, to ensure that he can get the most out of the tools and techniques it offers - can repay a small business many times over. By providing the means to build the most effective, professional and modern websites without requiring any previous coding experience, Expression Web puts all the advantages of a strong online presence within everyone's reach - and with its SEO reporting, that strong internet presence can be coupled with a greatly enhanced commercial impact.
All companies, large and small, need to maximise their online potential - and Expression Web can help you to make it happen for your business.
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