Business Services

Z-Com Creative has been designing and developing websites for small to midsize businesses since 1996. We work with all sorts of professions, from veterinarians to lawyers, contractors and engineers, home improvement companies, investment firms, PR agencies, you name it. Take a look at our client list and you’ll get the idea.

Like most designers who have been around since the beginning, we started with simple “internet presence” sites – online brochures, “about us” pages, contact forms. How things have changed! Almost any business needs not only a website presence today, but a way to work with clients and prospects, to communicate with the public, and to stay engaged with their audience wherever they may be online.

Conversions-Focused Website Design and Development

When Z-Com Creative creates a website for small to mid-size businesses, we focus on conversions. That is, compelling site visitors to interact with the site, to take action: Send in a contact form, view a page, place an order, subscribe to your newsletter. The way we work toward conversions is by focusing on the narrative of your business. What’s your story?

We believe that customers, prospects and clients buy people, not services. Unless you’re in a commodified business, one in which price is the only meaningful consideration, the human connection between you and your customer is what matters the most. Just our opinion, but it proves itself time and again. To make that connection with your audience, we work to figure out why they care about you. That means working out your narrative: who are the main characters? What are your flaws? How do we show your audience why they should sympathize with, and care about, you and your business?

Once we’ve worked out your story, we develop a comprehensive online marketing strategy. Beyond creating your website, this means considering search engine optimization, social media integration, online client services, site interactivity, mobile versions of your site, and so on. Not all our clients need such an extensive treatment, but we help you think through everything and pick the right strategy and tools.

Every business needs to be online, because that’s where your customers are. But the site will only earn conversions if your visitors care.

SEO/SEM/Pay-Per-Click

Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing. Two overused terms to explain a pretty simple concept: your site is competing to be found on every major search engine. The process can be lengthy but it is not secret: Good content gets you better rankings, sneaky tricks and trying to game the search engine companies gets you banned. We prefer the sustainable route.

SEO is not a secret priesthood. It means going through your site and making sure it says what your clients want to know. It also means structuring the site so the robot overlords at Google, Bing, Yahoo and so on can easily read it.

We also manage pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns with Google, Bing, Facebook and others. Again, not a priesthood and there are no deep dark secrets: Rigorous study of your site’s analytics and smart management gets you the most bang for your buck. Our difference is, we’re already intimately involved with the creation and management of your website, so we know how to modify your ads and your site content for maximum impact.

Real-World Marketing Strategy

Z-Com Creative started as a traditional marketing and design company, and we still offer all those services: Identity development (logo & collateral), graphic design, print brokering, and so on. We also understand that some of the best online strategies begin offline, in the real world.

Intranets and Extranets

With the exception of very simple presence-only websites, having a website is a terrific opportunity to provide communication tools to your employees via an intranet, and to clients via an extranet. Don’t let the terminology scare you! It’s all the same stuff – they’re just websites. But they’re typically hidden behind a password and user accounts. Those accounts then inform the content management system (CMS) behind your website who is accessing the site, and what rights and tools to grant them.

We have built intranet sites for companies to provide commonly accessed files to employees, provide internal calendars, send mass emails to employees, provide employee forums, and so on. Really it’s limited only by your imagination and strategy.

When we build extranet sites, we look at tools like secure file exchange with clients, service request forms, file storage, newsletter subscriptions, mass email announcements. The idea is to provide premium service to clients who are willing to register on the website.

Most commonly, we provide a mix of front-end website, intranet and extranet – all in the same site, all depending on user roles we create. You’re going to have a great presence on the web, so why not give your employees, clients and the public the opportunity to interact with it?