So, you finally got in touch with us and are preparing for your first consultation with us at V3 Media. Awesome! We’re happy to help! Are you feeling anxious though? If so, there’s really no need to be! Our one-on-one consultations are pretty easygoing as far as that’s concerned; not only are we perfectly fine with meeting over coffee or tea (whatever’s your poison), we’re willing to travel to you rather than you coming to us if it proves to be more convenient!
Perhaps you’re struggling to come up with questions about your website, however. Or maybe you’re not sure what to expect on our part when it comes to getting feedback and help with your current website. Whether it’s time for an upgrade or you want to build one from scratch and don’t know where to start (or you’re forced to build from scratch because of cybercriminals—we hope that’s not the case!), we’d be happy to make you more comfortable before the big meeting. These are the types of questions we’d be happy to answer during our consultation.
Question #1 for Us: “Is my website going to be mobile-friendly?”
Mobile websites are on the up-and-up as far as staying relevant on search engines is concerned. Should you need more reasons as to why you need to be on mobile, we have a blog post written specifically for that purpose.
Our company only builds and maintains responsive websites, so they’re more than simply mobile-friendly—they are responsive and fast to load across all platforms you can think of, from mobile to tablet to desktop.
Question #2 for Us: “Can you get my website to #1 on search engines?”
To this, we must rebut: if anyone says to you “Yes, we can”, run! Anyone who is telling you they can guarantee you to be #1 on Google is scamming you. While we can’t guarantee the #1 spot, what we can and will do is all the optimization to ensure that you are strong against your competition in the search engines. We work together with our clients to help them achieve their site goals. This includes long-term and ongoing strategies such as content, proper structure, and blog posts.
Question #3 for Us: “Can you have a Facebook and Twitter feeds appear on my website?”
We strongly advise against it, and this is for a good reason. One of the purposes of having social media is to ultimately make your audience come to your website, not the other way round. Having your feeds featured will not give your visitors very much incentive to visit your website or call you. Instead, have the icons with links to your social media displayed prominently on your website, either in the site header or footer. We can help you with this part for sure!
Question #4 for Us: “Do I need to worry about updating my WordPress and plugins?”
Yes, but only if you don’t want to get hacked and are then forced to pay for the cost of cleanup or compromise your client’s data and computers. On the upside, every new website that we do for clients includes the HealthySite Plus Maintenance agreement. That, plus more, gets looked after on our part, leaving you with more time to focus on your business.
Question #5 for Us: Do you use WordPress templates?
Actually, no. Not at all. We use the Divi framework (and you can read more about that on our web design service page), but we typically build the website from the ground up. Ask us why we don’t necessarily think templates are good for anything more than design inspiration. There is nothing wrong with WordPress, but if you want a highly professional website and you don’t have time to learn about HTML, which is a requirement for using WordPress, it’s best to ask us.
Question #6 for Us: Do I get mock-ups and a custom website?
This is an expensive route to go as far as website development is concerned, but you can if you want. Part of our job at V3 Media is to work with you in order to determine the right course of action, one that will suit your particular situation and needs. In many cases, our client has just let us do what we feel is best for designing their website, and so far, we’ve been very successful at that!
And now, if you’re about to meet up with us, here are the questions you need to expect from us:
Question to Expect from Us #1: What are you trying to accomplish?
We want to know this right off the bat when you are consulting with us. What do you want your website to accomplish? Do you want more sales? Do you want people to read what you have to say? What are your goals, and how can these goals be measured realistically? Part of this is the tough question about budgets. We don’t ask this so that we can find out just how much we can charge. We ask this to find out if your goals are realistic to your budget and then we work with you to find the balance. We are pretty clear about what we are doing and charging for and there aren’t ever billing surprises with us. We’ve saved companies a lot of money in their budgets because we worked to achieve them reach goals, not spend their money.
Question to Expect from Us #2: How do you want to get traffic?
By that we mean, are you looking to drive traffic to the website yourself through direct links or other advertising means, or are you hoping to draw most of the traffic through search engines? There is a big difference between the two means; one relies on PPC advertising or search engine marketing and the other relies on organic SEO (if you don’t know the difference, check out our post on the subject). While both are important (you should have SEO on your website no matter what!), knowing the difference will help us understand how you want to approach marketing yourself online. Good optimization isn’t just good for search engines, it creates a strong site for your visitors.
Question to Expect from Us #3: What are your competitors’ website URLs?
This is important to answer for us, especially if you are looking to be better on search engines. We’re not asking because we’re claiming to get you to reach #1 on Google; that is impossible. We’re asking because it’s less about becoming number one and more about helping your website rank higher than your competition and to find out what kinds of keywords they are targeting.
If you’re not sure why we keep insisting on not getting you to number one on search engines, read up on the companies who say they are.
Question to Expect from Us #4: Name 3-5 URLs of websites you like.
This should be something you prepare for in advance. We want to know which websites you like the looks and features of. This is so we can get a clearer idea of the character and flavour of sites that inspire you. Having a solid idea of your brand and what you want to represent to your customer base will help, too!
So, there you have it! Ready to chat over a cup of coffee with us? If you have any other questions we didn’t cover in this post, by all means, get in touch with us at V3 Media. We look forward to meeting you!