Over the past few weeks, Intuit, the same company that makes Quickbooks, has been advertising the heck out of their ‘website builder’ software. And because I’ve had several past, current, and prospective clients ask and heckle about the prices associated with setting up a website, I’d like to offer a little insight to this Intuit product.

The “For as little as $5 / month” tag they advertise on the radio might as well be “As little for $5 a month.” That Starter Package will only provide you with 5 pages, and barely enough storage space to showcase a few high quality photos and PDF downloads. That also doesn’t include a domain name or any email addresses.

The Platinum Package for $50 per month won’t be enough. Yes, they do give you 10 gigabytes of storage and unlimited pages, but they don’t give any functionality outside of words on a page. Remember, the purpose of advertising is to impress people, not to just slap words on a page and hope they care or are interested enough to read it.

Intuit’s “professionally designed templates” are garbage. A website should be built around a brand’s image and appeal to it’s viewers. If the site looks like a cheap template, your business will look like a cheap template.

Their claims to ‘get you to show up in search engines’ are bogus. I’ve looked at several sites created with Intuit’s site builder, and not one of them utilizes the latest SEO strategies. If you think your new Intuit website will show up in Google, you’re in for a surprise.

And I almost forgot to mention – how trustworthy is a company that sells you a piece of software through Amazon.com that arrives with no software in it? (click here to see -> http://bit.ly/2DMWS5)  There is no disc, no program, just a website address printed on a sheet of paper directing you to Intuit’s website.

So, if you sell trinkets, don’t pretend to build websites. We’ve spent years devoting our attention to the web and everything surrounding it. You should spend years learning everything there is to know about trinkets, and hire a web expert when you need a website. You’ll be much happier with the end result.

My introductory blog to the Fused Creative site is not coming to you from my office like you would think, but coming from a hotel room in Columbia, SC.  While most of this was typed while on Interstate 40 East of Knoxville, Tennessee on my way to South Carolina, I finally was able to hook to the internet at the hotel.  I am truly a road warrior.

Now when you fire up your computer to check out your favorite internet site  (hopefully teamfused.com), I hope you are not clicking on an icon with a little blue “e”,  regardless of the site you are visiting.  Times have changed and Internet Explorer has been left behind.  There are many browsers that users can choose, whether you are running Mac OS X, Linux, or Windows and you should take advantage of your options.  The browser you choose should fit your social networking, security, and ease-of-use needs.  Your browser should not constantly crash, freeze your computer, slow start-up time, slow load time, or have issues loading images and flash.  And for the record I am not just talking about Internet Explorer.  All browsers have their own strengths and weaknesses, and you should test and choose which browser is right for you instead of using which ever browser is pre-loaded on your computer when it was purchased.  In my next blog post I will review six different browsers to help you in your search process, pointing out their strengths and weaknesses.  Now exactly where in the United States I will be at that time, I am not sure, but continue to check back for a helpful browser review.

Our new website is finally here!

After almost a year of giving every second of our time to our clients, we finally scavenged up some time to finish our own website. And we’re pleased with the result! The site may not be what you’re used to seeing of an agency, but that’s why we like it. Nothing flashy, nothing confusing, nothing overwhelming to look at. Just simple, honest, information sharing.

Read our thoughts on advertising goals and strategy, and feel free to connect with us if you have questions, or want to learn how we can help your business.

If you’re interested in seeing some of the work we’ve done, check out the featured project and project thumbnails on the homepage.

Also, be sure to check back to the blog often, or subscribe to our RSS feed by clicking the subscribe button above. The entire Fused team will be posting tips, reviews, news, project info, advertising and marketing thoughts, and much more.