A personal Note from Mark Widawer, Founder of West Hills Web.
West Hills Web was founded out of the remnants of another online marketing company in July of 2001. A few months later, the world changed with 9/11, and shortly after that came the birth of our third child. Everything changed for my wife Marlene and I in those few months, and I’m happy to say that my family is healthy and thriving, as is West Hills Web, which turns 20 this month.
The Internet was young back then — almost like the Wild West — and so our goal at that time was to bring companies to the Web for the first time so they would have a global presence, but we still wanted to be sure to give them the feeling they were dealing with a local company. I wanted my clients to be able to trust the people they trusted their technology to.
Online Marketing
We studied new technologies as they were developed. Ranking high on search engines became extremely important, and was made more difficult by Google’s changing algorithms, and we got very good at getting pages to “Rank High and Sell More.”
Later when Google AdWords became the most trackable, accountable and effective method of advertising on the planet, we were right on it. I became one of the earliest Google AdWords Qualified Professionals in 2005, and soon after I developed a keyword generation product for keyword marketing that still is in use today.
From about 2005 to 2009, West Hills Web-focused not on website development, but on marketing. I taught thousands of people how to build, maintain, market and sell from their own websites. I went on to speak at Internet Marketing events up and down California, from San Diego and Los Angeles as far north as San Jose and San Francisco; from Connecticut and Florida on the East Coast all the way to Singapore and Malaysia on the other side of the world.
WordPress
In 2009 I returned to helping small and medium-sized businesses grow and use websites to their advantage. I applied my marketing knowledge with my technical expertise and understanding and turned my attention to WordPress, the up-and-coming Content Management System that today powers about one-third of all websites on the planet. Our site development efforts are now focused exclusively on WordPress website development.
Mobile Websites
It wasn’t until a couple of years later, with the proliferation of iPhones and Android Phones, that mobile websites became important. Back then, entirely separate websites needed to be developed for mobile screens. Today, we design all our websites with “Responsive” technology that allows the same website to automatically reconfigure itself on virtually any device, no matter the screen size or orientation. Since late 2016, more internet searches, and more internet use, happen on mobile devices rather than desktops and laptops.
The West Hills Web Team
Over the years, my team has grown from being a sole proprietor to over a dozen skilled professionals that provide development expertise, custom programming, database management, and design, graphic design, SEO, content writing, social media management, project management, and more.
Website Accessibility and Web Compliance Pro
In the spirit of predicting and shifting with the trends in the industry, we noticed that Website Accessibility had become increasingly important. With all the work we had put into building pretty websites, we realized that many of the sites we had built — and about 99% of all websites on the Internet in fact — were invisible or unusable for millions of people with disabilities.
That inaccessibility led to a growing number of lawsuits being filed against businesses all over the country because their websites were not Accessible, according to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
We studied and learned about Website Accessibility — in particular for the visually impaired — and became adept at analyzing websites for Accessibility issues, as well as the ability to build websites that were accessible.
In 2019, Web Compliance Pro was born as a division of West Hills Web. We now regularly help business owners make their sites more accessible to those with cognitive disabilities, motor disabilities, hearing impairments and visual disabilities including blindness. Making sites Accessible also deflects attention from lawsuits. We like to say that we “Let someone else be the target.”
West Hills Web Today And The Future
Today, our goal is to improve a company’s online presence so they look their best for prospective customers, clients, patients, colleagues, or business partners. We apply our extremely effective SEO methods and skills to all our client’s sites to help them rank well for keywords that turn into dollars, and we build sites that are Accessible to millions of people with disabilities.
We are very grateful that our clients keep referring their friends and colleagues to us, and our business keeps growing.
And today, at 20 years, I couldn’t be more proud of what we’ve built.
We are thankful to our clients, colleagues, staff, and friends for their help and support that have allowed us to grow and thrive these last 20 years, and are excited to see what the next 20 years hold in store for the Internet, the world, and West Hills Web.
There’s one thing we know: The more technology changes, the more we will change with it. But some things will always remain Our desire for our clients to be able to trust the people they trust their technology to.
As West Hills Web turns 20, we thank you for being a part of our success.
– Mark Widawer
President,
West Hills Web, Inc.
Web Compliance Pro
