In my last post, I wrote about how having up an out-of-date or unprofessional web site can mean many lost opportunities. And I’ve been thinking about the many ways people read data and come to the wrong conclusion about their web site.

1. Your google analytics show that you have little web traffic; therefore you shouldn’t invest in your web site.

Face it, there are some businesses that reap very direct rewards from their web site and for others the connection is less clear.

Right now at Visible Logic we have several web site projects that are near completion. Each one is very close to going live, yet has not gone live because the client is waiting to finalize some piece of content.

Some of these are web sites for new companies who have nothing more than a landing page at their URL right now. Others are for established businesses that have out-of-date and out-of-style web sites live on their domain name.

Your old web site means lost opportunities

I keep wondering how many opportunities have these organizations lost by not updating to their new web site. The new sites are much more professionally designed, optimized for search engines and nearly ready to go.

I’m sure you’re hearing it everywhere: This is the year for mobile. Smartphone usage is steadily climbing and more and more people are surfing the web using their phone or tablet.

But as you can imagine, the statistics for how many people are using smartphone and tablets to access the internet vary depending on the industry, the specific web site and even geographic considerations (for example, markets such as New York have more people using smartphones while in transit).

Before you look to to create a mobile-optimized version of your site, or maybe redesign your web site with a full responsive design, you should take the time to think about what people tend to look at on their mobile phones, and whether they are actually looking at your site with a mobile phone.

Some people have a hard time understanding the connection between design and branding.

No, design is not all that goes into branding. But design is a major part of what we call brand identity and an integral part of a what we call a brand.

Good or effective design can make you like a brand a lot more. It can also make you frustrated.

PayPal: Effective design, poor branding

I’ve written about PayPal before in this post about how PayPal’s brand can effect your own brand. Unfortunately, it’s not a brand that has a lot of love behind it. It is easy to implement on a web site and it allows you to take payments without ongoing credit card processing fees. People seem to grudgingly use it, but you rarely hear your friends singing the praises of PayPal.

We’re excited to announce the launch of a new web site for the Muddy Rudder restaurant in Yarmouth, Maine.

Logo design

Our work with the restaurant began with the redesign of their logo.

Our rebranding efforts focused on making the restaurant appear more contemporary, with a greater appeal to younger people and families. Unfortunately, the clientele was getting older and the restaurant needed some fresh energy.

New web site design

When new owners took over the restaurant, it included the web site as well.