KO Websites
Designing Websites that Inspire Action

With the growing importance of social media and mobile device usage, businesses are investing heavily in improving website designs, user experience and their online marketing on a whole, commonly referred to as ‘Digital Marketing’. Business development processes related to digital marketing are evolutionary and ever-changing. Because of the mix of technology and marketing, most companies are challenged as to which department needs to spearhead their digital marketing efforts. “Digital marketing encompasses everything from website design, search engine rankings and social media marketing,” asserts Ken O’Donnell, President, KO Websites. The whole purpose of digital marketing is for gaining sales conversions, keeping potential and recurring clients informed, and managing a positive brand reputation.

Specializing in original web design with a strong focus on Search Engine Optimization (SEO), the firm also offers social media marketing, web hosting, e-commerce, email marketing, light video production, and content writing services. In addition, KO Websites builds WordPress (WP) websites strictly within the WP guidelines, resulting in reduced risk of application update errors causing website crashes and improving security.

Over the years, website layouts and designs have become more standardized and straight-forward. However, getting site visitors and converting them into sales is still challenging—this is where KO Websites shines! “Building the website is just the beginning,” says O’Donnell. SEO is by far the most important part of digital marketing. “It doesn’t matter how pretty your website is, if no one can find it, it doesn’t exist,” states O’Donnell. Additionally, Google and other search engines listen and track the content on social media channels, eventually affecting SEO rankings. “When Google started caring about social media five years ago, we started caring about it,” says O’Donnell.

Training is constant at KO Websites; they are always in a state of retooling. “We have dedicated in-house teams of marketing professionals who are kept informed via testing and training along with support from Google and third party sources,” he adds.

It doesn’t matter how pretty your website is, if no one can find it, it doesn’t exist.

Since maintaining in-house programmers and recreating the wheel for each new website is expensive, KO Websites uses WordPress for their web development platform. “We were one of the first Bay Area web design firms to offer mobile responsive websites, using HTML5 and the WordPress CMS with custom design themes as a standard,” explains O’Donnell.

In addition to web design, KO Websites’ main focus is in full service digital marketing and their typical client is one without a full in-house marketing division. But, they are often called upon by larger enterprises who do not see social media as their main stream of revenue, but also don’t wish to be seen as out of date. “They understand that their next generation workforce is on social media, as well as their prospective buyers, so although they may not see an immediate increase in sales, they consider digital marketing as an investment in brand awareness and a way to stay relevant,” explains O’Donnell. That said, KO Websites’ social media services have been highly valuable for these types of clients too. “For instance, a client that had never heard of Google Plus before received three serious, major product inquiries in just six months from that social channel,” continues O’Donnell. Today, this client’s average product sale is in the $5 million range.

Having a perfect formula that can be scaled up effectively, KO Websites has doubled its revenue and increased its margins by 50 percent over the last year. “We also serve many late adopters who are still working on getting their websites and digital marketing out of the 1990s,” adds O’Donnell. With various clients across the U.S. and the rest of the world, KO Websites’ future looks bright and solid.