Website Design & Online Marketing for Gun Shops, Firearms Instructors, Gunsmiths, Gun Ranges & other Firearms-related Businesses

FirearmsWebsites.com is a best-in-class web design and online marketing agency that provides results-driven web development and online marketing services to gun shops, firearms instructors, gun ranges, gun clubs, gunsmiths, firearms accessory manufactures and other firearms-related businesses.

Over the past 20+ years we have helped hundreds of businesses, entrepreneurs and organizations, from a variety of different industries, market their products and services online, grow their customer base, improve their lead generation and enhance the long term value of their brand.

At Firearms Websites, you’ll get everything you need under one roof. We offer a wide range of creative and technical solutions, including branding, graphics, website design, web development, Search Engine Optimization and Local Search Marketing services. And that’s not it. We also offer website support with a team that consists of in-house web design, web development and online marketing specialists as well as website maintenance experts.

We are firm supporters of the second amendment and launched this firearms industry specific venture to assist, educate and promote firearms related businesses.

If you have questions or comments related to marketing your firearms related business online, we urge you to contact us. We are here to help you understand how and why you should market your business online and show you ways to improve lead generation to make your firearms business more successful.

Choosing the right developer for your Firearms Website

So you’re ready to make the move and take your firearms business to the next level with a new or updated website. But you quickly find out that with little or no experience in creating websites, you will need to begin the process of finding a web development team you can trust and rely on.

After some online research you will soon notice the hundreds, if not thousands, of commodity-based themes, cheap gun website templates and mass-produced website services offered by mega online companies and offshore contractors. These companies will provide you with a bids ranging from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands of dollars for what appears to be the same work. The crazy thing is most business owners have no clue how these estimates are determined nor do they have any way of knowing which bids are unrealistically low, which are outrageously inflated and which are actually in the ballpark.

We are here to provide you with necessary information to properly begin your search for the right technology partner. We want you to understand what’s involved and to ask the right questions so that you have a working knowledge of what the development process will entail from the planning stages through launch. Your firearms website is an important marketing tool and an investment for your business, so make sure that you take the time needed to research your options.

Step 1 – Understanding & Documenting Your Needs

This may seem obvious, but you would be surprised at how many business owners contact us to design a new website for them and their first questions are; 1) how quickly can their website can be completed and 2) what’s the cheapest price we can do the work for. While both of these are important, neither of them should be the first questions you ask. Understanding and documenting your requirements is an important first step – put your thoughts down on paper. It doesn’t have to be fancy or organized with bullet points and navigation structure, but it should be a clear, concise outline of the “must have” features and functionalities for your project. You can include the main features you want on the website or even provide examples of other websites that you would like to emulate. Just make notes and write down what you have in mind so you can share it with your development team.

Step 2 – Finding the Right Development Team

There are multiple ways to begin your quest to find the right development team for your new firearms website project. You can search online for web development companies or ask a friend or business associate for recommendations. Whatever method you choose, it’s important to remember that you must do your due diligence and investigate the references of each development team individually. If the developer has testimonials on their site, read through them, but keep in mind that not all “testimonials” are from actual clients. It may be a better option is to ask them for a list of previous clients along with phone numbers and email addresses so you can contact them directly. If they are not willing to do this, turn around and run – this is not the development team for you.

Once you receive the list of past clients, make sure you ask the following questions:

• What services did the company provide to you?
• How long did the project take from start to finish?
• Was the project delivered on-time?
• Was the project delivered “on budget”?
• Are you completely satisfied with the work performed?
• Who was your day-to-day contact at the company?
• Would you do business with this company again?

Step 3 – Never Let Price Dictate Your Decision

It’s so tempting to go for the cheapest bid submitted. After all, how much different could the finished product really be? A website is a website, right?

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Unfortunately, the cheapest bid is rarely the one you should accept and in most cases these “low ball” bidders are submitting an unrealistically low price just to get you to hire them. It’s not until you are 3 months into the project when the developer comes back to you and says that they are going to have to change the price because they underestimated your requirements. This is a very common “strategy” used by outsourced service providers on freelancer websites – many freelancers entice people with cheap bids only to increase the price later.

The first sign that you are on track to finding the right development team will be if they review your requirements and provide you with well thought out responses and willingly provide you with a list of previous clients. Keep in mind, if you expect the developer to “fine tune” your requirements, offer specific feedback or suggestions or alter your specification document there will probably be a fee associated with this service, which is not unreasonable. However, in most cases a reputable web development company should be able to do a cursory review of the initial scope of your project, get a sense of what you are trying to accomplish and provide you with a ballpark estimate for the work.

All Firearms Web Development Companies are Not Created Equal

Planning, designing, developing, testing and publishing a professional website for any kind of business is a time consuming task, but when you factor in the complexities of the firearms industry with the need for legal compliance, quality custom graphics, lead management, multimedia integration, content management and the need to deliver interactive user engagement, you can quickly see that designing a website for a gun shop, firearms manufacturer or gun range is not a Do-It-Yourself project. It’s not something that you simply “throw” together in a couple days.

Make a short list of prospective web development companies within the different price ranges and interview them to see where the differences are in their service offerings. Ask questions and talk to past clients about their experience.

While finding the right development team may seem like a daunting task, it is a critical component to the online success of your firearms business. An experienced team of knowledgeable professionals will make the process enjoyable while maximizing your return on investment.

Online Marketing Services for your Firearms Business

Over 80% of your prospects go online to research a product or service before purchasing….

Will they find you or your competitor?

Your website’s primary purpose may be to sell products or services, generate qualified leads, develop brand awareness or to serve as a marketing or recruiting tool for your organization.

But let’s face it, regardless of your site’s primary goal; if people can’t find it easily on Google, Yahoo, Bing or any other major search engine, you are not maximizing its potential or effectiveness.

All too often, firearms business owners concentrate a majority of their marketing efforts on building a great looking website and then sit back and wait for the customers to find them. They don’t understand that Web Design is one small piece in the complex puzzle of “Online Marketing” and if you’re not committed to implementing a comprehensive plan of attack then your chance of success is greatly diminished.

Understanding Web Design vs. Website Marketing

Initially, many clients contact us to either design a new website or help market their firearms business online. Somehow, they feel that the two are mutually exclusive from one another. For example, they will consider building a new website for their gun shop, but, at the same time, they’re not at all thinking about how that new website will generate targeted traffic and leads. What seems to consistently be misunderstood is the fact that you really can’t separate Web Design from Website Marketing (SEO) and expect to be successful online. Each needs to be built with the other in mind and work in sync to achieve your marketing goals. It doesn’t do much good to generate a bunch of traffic to a firearms website if the messaging fails to convert the prospects into buyers, subscribers or leads.

By first creating an impressive online image and then generating traffic and leads through proven marketing strategies, we not only help you increase revenues, but we also build substantial long term brand loyalty.

Making your Firearms Business More Successful Online

If you’re looking for a better return on your Internet marketing investment, we can help. Firearms Websites, a division of FrontPage Interactive, is a full service website design, web development, SEO and online marketing company specializing in promoting firearms related businesses online.

I need to market my new firearms website – Where do I start?

The Golden Rule – Plan, Measure and Optimize

When you develop a new website for your firearms business, it’s similar to opening an office or building a store. You cannot simply hang a sign, open the doors and hope that people will find you. You have to take the initiative to market your business to your target audience and let them know that you’re open for business, what products and services you have to offer and what makes your business so special.

Marketing a website is a little different than marketing a brick and mortar business and you need to know how to promote and manage your online presence to generate the best results and maximize your chance of success.

But before you get too far ahead of yourself, consider the fact that most successful online businesses take a very structured approach to marketing online.

Here are a few things to consider

Plan

The first step in any web development project is planning. Whether you’re designing a new website, creating a downloadable brochure or developing a strategic online marketing plan for your firearms business, it all starts with a plan.

The planning phase of any project includes determining who your target audience is, the best way to interact with them and what content, products or services will appeal to them and drive them to take action.

Measure

Once your plan has taken shape, the next step is to put all of the necessary technology in place so that you can “measure” the success of your plan. This includes analytics code, lead generation forms, phone numbers and more.

After all, you can’t measure what you don’t track and you will never really know if your plan is successful unless you have a mechanism in place to measure the results.

Optimize

OK, your plan has been in place for a period of time and you are diligently measuring the success of your marketing efforts – So what’s next? Well, if everything is going perfectly and you are flooded with leads and sales, you could choose to do nothing. However, most business owners that we work with will come to the realization that not all products, services or web page content performs the same.

This is where “optimization” comes in. Do not confuse this with search engine optimization; for this topic we are talking about web page performance optimization. This strategy involves reviewing the content of the page and analyzing the performance of the individual web page to determine what can be done to “optimize” the performance.

Conclusion

All too often, firearms business owners concentrate a majority of their efforts on building a great looking website and then sitting back and waiting for the customers to find them. They don’t understand that Web Design is one small piece in the complex puzzle of “Online Marketing” and if you’re not committed to implementing a comprehensive plan of attack then your chance of success is greatly diminished.

By first creating an impressive online image and then generating traffic and leads through proven marketing strategies, we not only help you increase revenues, but we also build substantial long term brand loyalty.