Generate Traffic, Leads and Sales With Video
Even though it may be tempting build your own website, in many cases hiring a professional web designer to do it for you makes more sense. Rather than wasting your time creating a mediocre site, spend a little bit of money upfront and get a high quality, custom website that accurately represents your business.
Here are the top 7 benefits of hiring a professional web designer:
No longer are people just accessing websites from desktop computers. With the explosion of smartphones and tablets people are now surfing the web from a multitude of different devices. They want to have access to information from anywhere at anytime. This means website owners must create a mobile version of their current desktop website if they wish to appeal to a wide audience. If not they’re missing out on sales and or subscribers.
What is Responsive Web design?
Often referred to as RWD, it’s where your website layout adapts to the viewing environment whether it is a desktop computer, tablet or mobile phone. For example the Boston Globe is a good example of a responsive website that can be displayed on multiple devices.
Here is an overview of Google’s recommendations
1. Google recommends webmasters follow the industry best practice of using responsive Web design, namely serving the same HTML for all devices and using only CSS media queries to decide the rendering on each device.
2. If responsive design is not the best option to serve your users, Google supports serving your content using different HTML. The different HTML can be on the same URL (a setup called dynamic serving) or on different URLs, and Googlebot can handle both setups appropriately if you follow our setup recommendations.
Top 7 benefits of responsive web design
Recently I spoke with a friend who runs a retail gift shop inside a mall. He told me his sales were down because many people search for the same gifts online. He would often spend time answering questions from new customers only to have them leave and purchase the item elsewhere. He’s wondering if he’ll be able to keep his store over the next few years.
I suggested to put his store online by designing a small business website. This way he can offer the same products online that he currently sells in his retail store.
Here are 12 things every small business website needs to include in its design:
Your website is the first impression a visitor gets of your business so if it doesn’t look professional, loads slowly or is hard to navigate your visitors will go elsewhere. The website you got designed several years ago may now be outdated and in need of an overhaul.
So how do you find a professional web designer?
So you decided to get a professional website designed for your business but don’t know what to look for and where to find a web designer that will meet your needs.
Here are the 10 steps for sorting through the process of choosing a web designer.
1. Know the purpose of your website
Is the goal of your site to display information (informational website), sell products (e-commerce website) or to generate new leads (landing page)? Knowing this information before you call a web designer will speed up the hiring process.
Why hire a web designer when there are free pre-made templates or website building software available on the Net? Wouldn’t one of these free options be sufficient for your needs? Won’t it save you time and money?
Let’s look into this topic more deeply.
Here are the top 7 reasons why you should hire a web designer?
1. Design a website that reflects your business
Designing a website that reflects your specific business helps differentiate it from your competitors. For example if you specialize in dog training your website may include a matching logo, background, images and copy that reflects everything about dog training.
2. Place your trust in an experienced professional
When you need your car repaired would you prefer to hire a professional who works on them everyday for a living or ask your do-it-yourself neighbor to repair it? When you hire a professional web designer you benefit from his or her years of experience. He knows what elements go into creating a profitable website and have the confidence to get any of your questions answered.
3. Save time
A professional website contains many parts so hiring a web designer enables you to quickly and easily pull them all together. Some of these parts include:
If you purchase a pre-made template you don’t know what you’re getting. For example it may not display correctly in all browsers because it contains bloated code or the pages load slowly because the graphics are not optimized for the web causing impatient visitors to click away to your competitors’ sites.
4. Save money
There are many technical details included in building a website. You may think you’ll save money by building it yourself, but if you’re not technically inclined (know HTML and CSS) you’ll waste a lot of time and money getting your page to function correctly. A professional web designer will save you a ton of time because he has the knowledge, skills and experience to design, build and test your website.
5. Receive ongoing maintenance
Maintaining your site on a regular basis is a necessity if you want it to function smoothly 100% of the time. For example you may want to change images, install a script, add an e-commerce section or maintain security updates to prevent it getting hacked.
If your website gets hacked it can be a nightmare to restore it back to it’s original state. When you hire a professional web designer he’ll be able to diagnose any problems and offer solutions.
6. Utilize the latest design technologies
The web is constantly changing. A website designed several years ago may no longer generate sales because visitors are turned off by it’s outdated design, slow loading pages or lack of interactivity. Current web designers need to constantly keep abreast of changing technologies so they can implement them in their clients’ designs.
For instance several years ago static HTML pages were sufficient to market your products on the Net however nowadays websites need to include interactive elements (ie social media elements) so the owners can interact with their visitors.
7. Stay ahead of your competitors
Designing a professional website will give your business the edge that no pre-made template can provide. It will be viewed by thousands of people around the world therefore you want it to reflect what you want the world to see. A pre-made template may seem cost efficient and easy, but in the long run, it’s more beneficial to your business to hire a professional web designer.
Want to Hire a Professional Web Designer?
Visit: Maryland Web Design
Watch Why Hire a Web Designer on YouTube
Related Articles
How to Choose a Good Web Designer
Website Design Options: Free Template, Do-It-Yourself or Professional Web Designer?
Professional Web Site Redesign
What Clients Should Expect from Web Designers
How to Plan a Website – 7 Frequently Asked Questions
Top 12 Web Design Mistakes and How to Correct Them
Is your website attracting lots of traffic?
Are you converting visitors into buyers?
Is it easy to navigate your website?
Does your web copy captivate attention?
Traffic is the lifeblood of your business. The probability of generating sales or new subscribers increases as more visitors view your website content. If your design lacks professionalism or if the content doesn’t captivate the attention of your visitors they will leave and go elsewhere. If the content is not optimized for your targeted keywords you won’t generate free traffic from the search engines.
3 Tips To Improve Conversion Rates and Increase Sales
Have you ever visited a web page where you’ve had to scroll past the large header banner or ads to read the content?
Google recently made a page layout algorithim improvement where it rewards sites that display content above the fold. When an internet user searches for information they want to see it right away rather than having to scroll horizontally or vertically to find it.
7 ways to create a web page layout that is visitor and search engine friendly
If you don’t keep up with the current web design trends your website may no longer attract visitors and/or the search engines. For example I haven’t redesigned one of my static html websites for at least a decade. Even though I still get new clients and some pages still rank well in the search engines I’ve experienced a drop in traffic.
Why?
Because the website still displays an old design, is not regularly updated and no new backlinks have been added. My suggestion is not to procrastinate redesigning your website if you’re not converting visitors into paying customers.
7 Web Design Trends To Watch For In 2012
Your website is usually the first impression your visitors receive of your business so if it is poorly designed and/or contains lots of mistakes it will drive them away. Due to the lack of website traffic you won’t generate many sales and may conclude starting an online business is a waste of time and money. 95% of businesses fail in the first 5 years so your chances of being successful are not high.
Since your website is the window of your business to the world you need to avoid the common mistakes website owners make when building their site.
30 Ways to Create a Bad Website
