"Specialized Industry" Web Design?

A busy few months it has been here at AJT.  We have been launching on average 6 to 8 new projects per month, many being extremely large projects with interactive backend management systems.  Sometimes we get calls or e-mails from prospective customers and they ask "Do you specialize in my industry?".  Our answer is almost always -- NO.  This is because our business model has been built to be a diverse web development and marketing firm to service a wide range of industries.  What we do specialize in is the actual production of a successful web presence.  Does a company that only does websites for, lets say Lawyers for example, produce a better website than a firm like us?  The answer is again -- NO.  Infact if you look carefully at some of the web development companies that only do Lawyer websites or Real Estate websites or Car Dealer websites, you will quickly find that all of their "designs" look almost identical, very cookie-cutter.  Some potential customers think that its best to work with a firm that only does websites in their "field", and though we do not talk them out of their personal feelings, we do bring to their attention that it is not necessary to know the in's and out's of a particular industry to create a successful website.  We do have extensive discussions to learn what we NEED TO KNOW about a certain industry when it comes to web development, but it is not required for a web design firm to know every real estate law (for example) to produce a high quality, effective website for a Real Estate Agent.

 

One of our Clients, Condo Hotel Center is a prime example.  They initially hired a firm that specialized in real estate web design.  The website was up for about 2 years and was next to useless.  Condo Hotel Center approached AJT for a total re-vamp in 2004.  The site has now been up for 2 years and receives over 200,000 new visitors per month and ranks #1 on all of the major search engines for almost every keyword related to their industry.  Infact their website is so busy, we had to sell them their very own web server just to handle the traffic. They now look back and laugh at how they made their first decision - thinking a "real estate web design company" would be the best fit - instead they ended up with a cookie cutter template seen on hundreds (or thousands) of other websites, no search engine rankings and no customer support.  That all changed the day they hired AJT.

 

We enjoy our diversified portfolio.  Next to existing customer referrals, our online portfolio (www.ajtdesign.com/portfolio.html) is our main selling tool.  Highly effective, custom web presences that exceeds our Clients expectations are what the AJT team strives to produce on each and every project.  We enjoy the "pat on the back" when the job is over.  A nice note thanking our team of designers and programmers is always a great moral booster and keeps our team on the up - always wanting better.