Do You Already Have a Website?

Do you already have a web site? Is it effective? Are you happy with it? How much have you spent on it already? Since some sites can cost several thousand dollars, you have to wonder: "Is your site worth the money you've already spent on it?" Here are a few questions:

• Do you receive complaints about your site? Things like:
  • "It's hard to use."
  • "I can't find anything on it"
  • "It takes too long to load"
  • "It's not readable."
  • Does your website get lots of hits on the main page, but no contacts or sales?
• If you look at your competitors, do you want your site to look more like theirs? More professional? Cleaner? Better organized? Perhaps to have a historical "feel?"

If your website is in peril, Sturmkatze Produktions AG can come to its rescue. Instead of building a whole new site, we can revamp your old one into something that will really work for your unit -- and we can do it for a reasonable price! Part of a website is projecting an "aura" for your visitors to see, not only to make to make them feel that you are solid and not some fly-by-night outfit, but also, to give the visitor the "feeling" of the period you portray. We can help with all of this! At Sturmkatze, we also know how to improve the speed at which your site loads, how it's organized and even the "ergonomics" of the site -- things which will make your unit look better and more professional.

Competition

In reenacting, just like in the business world, you always have competition. If a potential recruit is out shopping for a unit to join, then he probably already has your competitor's website address too. What keeps them from leaving your site and moving on to some other unit's website? The thing is, you have just fifteen seconds to grab your visitor's attention and then, you have to keep it. In studies of the Internet, it has been shown that after only fifteen seconds most visitors will hit the "back" or "stop" button and move on -- "web surfers" just do not want to wait for pages and large pieces of art to load. If you don't have most of your opening page loaded in those fifteen seconds, it doesn't matter at all what your site looks like: they aren't going to wait. At Sturmkatze, we know how to make the graphics load faster, and we can do it without changing the look of your site.

Your site needs to look good!

"Of course my site needs to look good" you're thinking, but there's more to it than just designing a nice looking site. Your website has to look good on your visitor's system! The Internet is different than any other media and has its own rules; how a site looks depends on the visitor's system, not as much on what you have specified. Colors, spacing and even the fonts used can dramatically change system by system. We know the fonts to use and how to use color properly. Something else you should know is that many graphic artists work on computers equipped with large, high-fidelity monitors (27"+ vs. the normal user's 17"-21" monitor). The problem with designing a website on a large screen though is that then the site usually only looks good on that size of monitor. At Sturmkatze, we design websites to look good on normal monitors, just like most people use. Our design won't require any extras nor the latest version of a web browser, or any special software or "plug-ins." Making it harder for your visitors to see your site is not going to make them want to stay or come back.

Your Website, just like your Unit, needs to look Professional

A professional website is one designed for ease of use, readability, quick loading and to enhance your unit's image. You don't do this with blinking text or a bunch of animated graphics -- these kinds of things not only slow down the page loading, they also turn off potential recruits or customers. Also, if a visitor can't read your text because it is done in some garish color or if the page has a complicated background, he's not going to hang around and is going to be clicking away.

A site needs to be "user-friendly"

If your visitors can't find what they need on your site easily, they're going to take off and go to a site where they can find what they need. We help you to organize your site so that visitors can quickly find what they're looking for and this is one of those little things that helps your unit look professional.

If you do think that your website could use improvement or a make-over, please contact us and we'll give you some ideas on how to improve your site and how we can help you fix it.