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Here are some of the killer (haha… killer…) photos we captured that are favorites of the cast & marketing crew.

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No one wants to hear they have an ugly baby.

Just because no one has told you doesn’t mean your baby (aka website) isn’t ugly.

So, how do you know if your website is an ugly baby?

Let’s begin with your customer. Is your site customer-focused? Does it answer the questions that 80% of your clients (or 80% of the clients for your industry if you don’t have any real clients yet) ask when they call? Does it answer them within the first 5 seconds of viewing the page? Does your site offer a clear and direct call to action for your specific target client? (Do you even know who your target client is?) If you answered no to any of these questions, guess what… You’ve got an ugly baby on your hands.

What about your brand? We’ve talked in the past about how your customers perceive your use of stock photos and about the importance of brand consistency. Does your site effectively communicate the brand image you want your customers to absorb? Does it feel unique, professional, comfortable upon first glace? Or are you working to fit the square pegs that represent your brand image into the round holes that are the template limitations? If it’s the latter, yep, you’re dealing with an ugly baby.

Lastly, let’s talk functionality. Does your web design company’s template solution allow you access to the metrics for your site? Are you able to see who is visiting, where they’re going, when they’re doing it and how long they’re staying? Do you know where they came from? Or what keywords they used to find you? Can you easily make changes or add things like +1 buttons for Google or Like buttons for Facebook (let alone whatever the social media frenzy of tomorrow may be)? And what about SEO? Are you able to create valid tags? Meta tags? Are you able to leave the virtual breadcrumbs that the online crawlers look for when they come to index your site? Does the template limit you from uploading over-sized images which slow your load time and ultimately penalize your ranking with lead search engines like Google?

If your template can’t do these things – all of these things – how do you expect to know what to change or tweak as you try to drive more traffic to your page (and ultimately to your business)? I mean yes, you could spend outrageous sums in online advertising to get potential clients to the proverbial door, but how will you ever get them to knock, let alone walk through and spend their hard-earned dollars with you? And how will you ever know why they didn’t?

Ok, so you’ve got an ugly baby. Now what?

Go back to your web design company and ask them for solutions to these problems. If they can’t meet your needs for functionality or training to get these basics on your site cleaned up, it may be time to move on and start over with a firm that can. Chalk it up to a learning-experience and pay for a more professional, customizable solution. Continuing down your current path is just throwing good money after bad. If you need to change horses mid-stream, we hope you read our article on the importance of owning your own domain before signing up for your template solution.

Hire an in-house expert (or a design firm whose services include doing some of the work for you). You’re good at what you do. That’s part of why you went in business for yourself. But that doesn’t mean you’re good at everything. Keeping your website, newsletters, email campaigns and social media efforts relevant is time-consuming. Your time may be better invested in doing the thing that you do to earn revenue, and paying someone else who’s better suited to it to help bring customers to the door.

Last but not least, if you’re a die-hard do-it-yourselfer (or if your budget just won’t allow for any other solution), spend the time you’re currently not spending serving clients to really dig in and train yourself on website and marketing best practices. There are tons of bloggers and subsequent articles dedicated to helping you build your brand, many of whom will send relevant suggestions straight to your email for nothing more than the cost of a free subscription and the time it will take you to understand and incorporate all their good ideas.

Do you have an ugly baby? Have you ever had one? What advice would you give our readers about how to turn their ugly duckling into a swan?

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So if we attended the event as GroovyDoodle, then why are we talking about it here? Well, for those of you not familiar with it, Cbusr is a free site dedicated to helping Columbus residents meet people who live nearby with similar interests, and their meetups are filled with fantastic networking opportunities for up-and-coming professionals and artists. We met some really great people, and wanted to share them with our business audience in case you’d like to meet them too…

Keith Speers

Keith is a master connector and facilitator. His company Consulting Without Limits partners with educators and business leaders to develop innovative, cost effective and practical solutions. They’re committed to adding value through honesty, respect, and the development of professional intellect and human capital. Keith is a people person, and truly the hub of the wheel when it comes to bringing the right people together.

Keith tweets @KeithSpeers

Michael Kent

Michael is a comedian and magician who we first met a few years ago at Magic, Comedy & A Cure. Truly a fun guy to hang out with, he received our one and only portrait with “lazerz” (pew, pew!) from the cbusr event. Michael became interested in magic at the age of three when he learned he could make himself disappear by covering his eyes – just the first of his many amazing accomplishments, we can assure you. In a style reminiscent of a late-night talk show, Michael invites the audience to laugh with him at the absurdity of a modern-day magician. He combines his sarcastic and irreverent sense of humor with great magic in a way that seems to let the audience “in on the joke”.

Michael blogs at MichaelKentLive.com and tweets @MichaelKent

“Holy Juan”

“Juan” here, who never gives out his real name (no really, we asked!) runs an awesomely fun site: Fake Dispatch. It offers “Mostly facts. Some hazy recollections. A few downright fabrications.” And as he says, he’s not even a journalist! My favorite bit from his site intro reads, “If you are tired of the real news posting fake news, then come to the Fake Dispatch to get your fill of the fake news posting fake news. I’m not going to lie to you: I’m going to lie to you.” Really, you can’t make this stuff up!

“Juan” tweets @fake_dispatch

Erika Pryor

Erika eats, sleeps, lives and breathes communication, social and traditional media. She’s an independent Digital Communication Consultant who helps business professionals and small businesses enhance their digital footprint. She also offers great content on the digital world in general through interviews with industry experts on her internet radio show, Digital 411.

Erika blogs at ErikaPryor.com and tweets @ErikaPryor and @Digital411.

Courtney Banks

Inspired by her love for Columbus, Courtney co-founded a video review website called ThisIsColumbus.com. Copy, design, business plans, financial planning – this girl does it all! She considers herself an entrepreneur-in-training, but then aren’t we all?

Courtney tweets @CourtneyBanks

Kristen Radu

Kristen spends her days as a sales regeneration specialist and recruiting assistant for Safelite Autoglass and her evenings as a Twitter enthusiast (junkie). She is constantly discovering Columbus, embarking on new adventures and sharing her story, thoughts and passions with anyone listening. She uses social media as an excuse to bring valuable strangers into her life and make connections between friends and acquaintances.

Kristin tweets @kris1010

Obviously, some of these people were tweeps we already follow on twitter. Some of them we’re fortunate enough to actually know in real life. Others were brand new to us as of the Cbusr event, but we’ve since gotten to know them and thought they were interesting enough that you might want to know them too. Regardless, these are just a small handfull of the awesome people we connected with at that event, and we’re really looking forward to getting to know others at the next one.

Have you met some of these folks or had similar experiences through Cbusr or some other local networking event? Drop us a comment, we’d love to hear about your experiences.

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