Happy birthday to us! Cucumber Marketing officially turns six years old tomorrow and we’re celebrating in the Greenhouse, as well as reflecting on the last six years. It’s been a while since 2008, and so much has changed in online marketing. When we opened our doors there was no widespread use of Facebook or Twitter (especially for businesses), and even YouTube was in its relative infancy. Many opportunities quickly became available for small and large businesses to reach customers in new ways online and we’ve loved seeing our clients grow, and enjoyed growing along side them as well.
Particularly when it comes to website design, the changes and constant evolution are more visible than ever. Remember when many websites were developed entirely in flash (as if search engines could read your mind)? Or when websites had a count of visitors? Oh how times have changed.
This month, we also launched our brand new and current website. Cucumber’s looking good!
Looking back through our files, we dug up our very first website, from way back when we opened our doors. We live with no regrets, but the advances in web design and development are reflected in our own page. With that, we present www.cucumbermarketing.com, circa 2008:
What do you think!? Of course the original site was functional and optimized, but we can’t help but smile at how dated a website can look after six years. We’ve had several website designs since then, the latest bring our new and current homepage, pictured below, and currently on your browser.
We’re constantly analyzing how visitors interact with our site, and recommend the same practice to all of our clients. Web design is a dynamic art, and one that changes not only from trends, but also from consumer behaviour and how people interact with the websites they visit. What was deemed engaging in 2008 is now considered annoying (think flash intros, music playing on a page or pop-up windows). What wasn’t completely possible in 2008 is now the cost of doing business (think having mobile optimized sites, that create an engaging user experience on a three inch iPhone screen).
As we explore our older files more and more (as well redesign websites for our clients) we find that the move towards cleaner, functional design is more prominent than ever, and we definitely don’t have a problem with that.
Need an audit of your website? Get in touch — we love getting nostalgic with you.