So, your website is up and running, people come to your site and get value from it... but are you really maximizing the opportunities you have? A wise person once said, “Excellence is not a destination; it is a continuous journey that never ends.” And while this quote was in relation to someone's personal life why can’t it also pertain to your company’s web presence? Taking this philosophy and applying it to your company is what will put it in the top tier.  Just because you have a functioning website does not mean that it’s the best possible website you could be giving to your visitors. Re-design will allow you to improve the way you present your information and change how visitors use and engage with your site. Below we have detailed  a few of the reasons it might be time for you to redesign your website. You aren’t getting the results you want. If you’re not getting the results you want it may be time to improve your website. A new design can allow you to create new calls to action that will allow you to better optimize your site for lead generation. Because at the end of the day that’s the end goal, right? So it's definitely beneficial to do what you can to improve your conversion rates. A few important things to take into consideration is the copy of your website:  is it too text heavy or does it not give enough details? Does it match your company's voice? What about the look- does it go with a general theme or just seem sporadic? While these all might seem like minescule factors about your website it's important to remember that all combined together they are your company's voice and online impression. Make it count. Your website doesn’t work across all platforms. If you’re anything like me you like to do majority of things from your phone and then later will check it again from your computer. We expect things to be easy across all channels and to be able to seamlessly  transition between any platform. Providing a smooth experience for your visitors is a key factor. By having a responsive design it allows your website to be easily adaptable from any screen on any device. Another key thing to take notice of is the functionality of your website. How easy is your site to use? Are your call to actions visible and easy to access? These are highly important factors that can make or break your website! The purpose of your site has changed. It's important to stay on top of your website's purpose; if it has changed then your website should reflect this change. Perhaps your marketing strategy has changed or you have decided to feature different aspects of the company altogether. Perhaps you want people to read your blog more or use your request a quote box more often. Whichever it is- keeping up to date with your site’s purpose is highly important. Another instance to be mindful of is if your company has added new services or features. If so, then your website should reflect this change otherwise your visitors will take their business elsewhere! Your third-party tools are outdated. A very important factor to pay attention is to how your third party tools are functioning. Ask yourself the questions: are these tools up to date ? Are they functioning at the highest level they could? If you answered no to either of these questions then perhaps it's time for an upgrade. Making the moves to more modern third party tools will not only appeal to your visitors but also turn them into leads. By ensuring that you are up to date with current technology you will not have to worry about your website lacking in loading times or meeting your guests with error pages! Your Sites Loading Time is …. Slow! As we’ve entered 2018 its important to note that loading speed is now a MAJOR factor. Even if we don't like to admit it, we’re impatient people who have grown accustomed to pages loading instantaneously. “People will visit a Web site less often if it is slower than a close competitor by more than 250 milliseconds (a millisecond is a thousandth of a second)” (Ny Times, 2018). Website speed and mobile speed should be  a top priority. If your website is loading slowly then it's definitely time for an upgrade.  Some of the Features or Content Don’t Display Properly Ensuring that your content displays properly is another major factor to be mindful of. As I said previously it's important to have seamless transitions between your web and mobile and the same goes for the way the content displays. You should also be mindful of the many different mobile devices your visitors may be using- there are lots of options out there! Whether they are looking from an iPhone or an Android Tablet the navigation and display should be easy to use and look the same across all channels. Compare to Competitors Another important reason to consider redesigning your website is seeing how it stacks up against the competition. By keeping up with the competition you are able to set your prices competitively, create marketing strategies, and accurately respond to rival marketing campaigns. If your top competitor is having far more success generating traffic to their site  then perhaps it's time to take a look at their site and see what they are doing differently. Now you don’t need to redesign your website every time you see your competitors making changes but staying relevant and up to date will be beneficial in the long run. I hope that you’ve found the above reasons as useful insight on whether or not to redesign your website. It’s easy to remain content with a website that’s working but as we said above: are you maximizing on the opportunities you have? If you’re not, or you felt like any of the above reasons directly related to your website, it's time to redesign! This will be an exciting time because you will be able to take a close look at your website, analyze the strategies that have worked, and improve! Remember “excellence is a continuous journey, not a destination.” Now, we are aware that redesigning your website can seem like a daunting or overwhelming task, but that's where we come in! Barefoot Solutions is more than happy to work with you to help redesign your website. Use the contact button located below and let's get redesigning!  

How can something be new AND improved. It doesn't make any sense. Either way, check out our new and improved Barefoot Solutions site! You're on it right now. This thing is pretty badass. It is a wordpress theme that uses HTML5. That means you can open it up on your computer, tablet, phone, whatever and it will resize itself to fit the screen. Go ahead try it out, I'll wait. Building this new site has allowed us to go back and look at our past clients and really make them the heroes of the site. Our portfolio does just this and we can't do what we do without the great companies and ideas that we've had the privilege to work with.

I was asked by a friend who recently started a band named Legitimate by Friday what were some ways they could leverage technology to help promote their band, get their name out, and get some fans to show up to their gigs. I gave this some thought and figured I would post it here to see if someone else could get some use out of it. Once you have decided to go legitimate, there are several free and very low cost tools that you can use to start building your communication platform with your current and potential fans. MySpace - Step one is to set up a MySpace page. MySpace has become very music-friendly and is probably the most commonly used tools for new bands. They will let you actually sign up as a band and give you a solid suite of tools to promote yourself and your music. For an example of how to use these tools, see Sharif's MySpace. Avoid adding a background image that makes the content unreadable though, like he has done. Less is often more. One of the biggest complaints of MySpace users is that owners have so much control over design and some of them look terrible. Focus on posting videos, audio, gig listings, and interacting with fans through your comment board. Facebook - While Facebook is not as a musician-friendly as MySpace, its power with viral marketing is far superior. You will want to create a Public Profile, otherwise known as a 'Fan' page. You can get started on the Facebook's Pages tool. If you're brand new to Facebook, How to Create a Facebook Page will take you through the basics. The goal with this account is to acquire as many fans as you can, as well as posting photos, audio, and video. Keep this content updated regularly. Everytime you update, your fans will know about it and Google will also re-index and potentially improve your search rankings Email Marketing - It is very important to grown and maintain a database of email addresses. Any major gig or event should be blasted to your list. Email is largely one-way, so its more about disseminating information and less about trying to interact with your fans. It is important that people don't see this as spam, so some sort of newsletter management tool with an opt-out feature is critical. A popular low cost option is Constant Contact. On the cheap, you will have all the features you need to grow your email database and craft great looking emails to send out to your fans. Another option for email marketing is a startup based in San Diego - Champion Sound. This is a tool meant for musicians/bands, as well as venue managers and promoters. It offers email marketing, social networking tools, a guest list feature for and mobile access as well. This is a new site and I have not tested it, but Chuck Longanecker from Digital Telepathy has a reputation for building great and usable web applications and so I trust that it will be a very useful tool for up and coming bands. This tool is free for basic users and would be a great jumping off point. Be sure to always be collecting email addresses. At every gig you can have a simple signup list for interested parties to signup. Link a signup form from your Facebook and MySpace pages. Website - If you are brand new, I would advise holding off on building your website. To do right, this will cost a decent chunk of change to put together good graphic design, functionality, and seamless delivery of your music and video.  A first step would be to purchase a domain name through a registrar like GoDaddy, and put up a single page with basic band information, newsletter signup form, and links to your Facebook and MySpace pages. GoDaddy's Website Tonight application is a do-it-yourself tool that should be more than enough for a non-technical user to set up a basic page like I described. Once you're ready for a better looking website, you 're best bet is to hire a freelance web designer to put it together. You can find a good designer through eLance. This is a tool that connects customers with service providers and tries to keep you protected from getting burned by shady contractors. For a top of the line website with graphic design, integrated functionality, streaming audio and all the rest, you should avoid a freelancer and instead contact a full blown web development firm. Fill out the Barefoot Solutions Contact Form and we would be happy to put together a proposal for you With these simple and free/cheap steps, you will have built a very solid platform to get the word out and interact with your fans when you're not out playing. Feel free to post any questions or problems you might have as a comment to this entry and I'll do my best to point you in the right direction. -- Hunter