Today, owning a business means understanding the world of online marketing. Whether you are running a business or preparing a start-up, it’s highly recommended that you invest in the digital market. Creating a user-friendly website for your company and/or brand makes it possible to compete in the larger market. Many businesses don’t realize the whole process involves more than just building and designing a web page. They must consider SEO (search engine optimization) writing and content marketing which will help increase traffic to the website.

In order to build a strong online presence, you must consider the full range of services a professional web design company has to offer. A top-notch web design company will take care of the hassle and complications involved in building a user-friendly, high-traffic web page.

There are website builders that offer a platform for people to build their own site, however, it doesn’t offer the full range of services like a professional web design company. You would have to seek a separate platform just to get access to professionals in graphic design, SEO writing, content marketing, and networking.  Don’t make the mistake of cutting corners to save money when it could end up costing you more in the long run.

A Website Ties Together Your Digital Campaign

You can market on the internet using many channels like social media, e-commerce platforms, and Apps. All these platforms allow you to reach digital consumers from all corners of the globe. Social media networks such as Facebook and Instagram boast millions of users whom you can easily market to. E-commerce sites such as Shopify and Big Commerce give you a ready-made platform on which you can launch your business. Mobile and desktop Apps have been proven to streamline the customers shopping experiences as well.

However, none of these options will strengthen your online presence without an eye-catching website to tie it all together. The reasoning is simple, a website is like the starting point of any digital marketing strategy. It’s the converging point of all online marketing efforts. Without a website, your overall strategy would have no point of reference. Having a physical web address that customers find informative and user-friendly should be a priority before branching out to other channels.

Website Builders Will Have Limited Options

Although site builders are a good place to explore and learn a thing or two about websites, they are not the best place to fully develop your company’s website. With site builders, you are limited to what the platform can support. This means images, documents, or media files you want to upload may not be feasible.

Secondly, you can’t move your site to a different platform. If you want to recreate the website using a different web builder you would have to start at the beginning. Additionally, website builders are known to have SEO and content marketing limitations. Lastly, website builders may have security shortcomings that could expose your site to hacking or viruses. All these limitations mean you could significantly increase your overall expenses.

Gain access to professionals in online graphic design, SEO and content marketing strategy by utilizing a web design company. With their expertise, you could easily avoid the issues and limitations that were previously mentioned.

Professionals Ensure A Stress-free, Accessible Site

Developing a website is one thing, making it work the way you want it to is another. It isn’t uncommon, for instance, to find images that don’t load properly when using certain browsers. Avoid these frustrations by hiring a staff that knows what to do.

They will know what to do when it comes to uploading images whether the pictures are in .jpeg, .docx, .doc, .img, .pdf, or other file formats. They understand the contrast in resolutions and pixels when changing the size of an image. Such details are not commonly known and without the right experts to assist you, the website could be a bit disappointing. It’s important to note, improper image and documents uploads could results in bugs in the website. This means people that visit the page may not have access to the images, media files, or other documents. In fact, it may not even load properly when they attempt to browse the website.

Reaching as many potential clients and loyal customers as possible is a top priority for many websites. In order to reach a large audience, always ensure that your site loads smoothly on all browsers. This means working out all the bugs. Websites can, from time to time, get infected with viruses or malware. It may not have started out that way, but there are many reasons why technical issues could arise. A professional web design company would make sure that there are zero technical glitches with the site. They will also perform the necessary tests to ensure that your site is working perfectly on all browsers.

Get High-Quality Work 

Another benefit of using a professional web design company is the higher quality work. These companies retain talented staff members who have developed the necessary skills to create a successful website. For example, an e-commerce website is meant to create loyal customers. The site has to be bug-free, user-friendly, and easily accessible via their smartphones, computers, or other mobile media device. This will ensure people keep coming back to the site in order to browse, shop or share your website. This is precisely what you get when you choose to work with a professional web design company.

Owing to their experience, the designers will know everything you need to make an impression on your target audience. They will be able to help you set up on-site content and show you how to navigate through the online world of marketing for your website. Even the images on your site and their placement on the site will be carefully thought out to ensure that you’re not leaving money on the table. Getting optimal performance from a website is what a web design company aims to do. You will not get that kind of high-quality work from a non-professional web designer or limited website builder.

Benefit From Greater Creativity

In addition to delivering high-quality work, professional web design companies also have the edge over non-professionals. They can customize your websites thanks to their creativity and the skills they’ve developed throughout their academic and professional experience. For instance, beginners and amateurs may not be aware of the many features that websites can now have. Convenient payment buttons, engaging emoticons, and well-placed hyperlinks are just a few of these features.

A professional web design company knows where to place features like a shopping cart, payment buttons, social media icons and more, without compromising the website’s overall design. They also understand what it takes to increase traffic while keeping your website unique. There is a lot of creativity involved in designing a web page that will stand out and gain attention. Investing in the technical and creative expertise of a web design company will help increase online traffic to the site.

Make A Lasting First Impression

Recent studies show just how important first impressions are when it comes to business websites. According to a report by one of the country’s leading SEO companies;

It takes a mere 50 milliseconds for a web visitor to form an opinion about your site,

38% of visitors will leave if the layout of your site is unattractive,

85% of consumers get the feel of a website before making a purchase decision, and

94% of consumer’s first impressions are web design related.

If the website is poorly designed most visitors will leave with a bad impression of the page. With these stats in mind, it’s important to consider making an excellent first impression. This means hiring the right web design company to create a website your business can be proud of.

Professionals Stay Up-To-Date On The Latest Trends

Web design trends are always changing to meet customer demand. For instance, one of the current trends most designers are going with is the flat design. This design refers to a clean and simple format absent of multiple images. A website that is too heavy on images will slow down site speed. This has been found to frustrate mobile users and could drive away potentially loyal clients.

Another trend that has become quite popular is expressive typography to create a unique website. This type of design adds customized font size and color to everything. Each one is selected to create a distinctive theme. Additional trends include animated logos for scrolling icons. These are scroll-triggered animations that disappear and reappear whenever you adjust the position of the cursor.

Customized Websites Are Unique

Customization is a term used to differentiate professional websites from sites built using pre-designed templates. With templates, you choose a pre-designed skeleton of a website from a list, fill in the content, add a couple of features, and you’re ready to go. This is what free website builders offer to set up a quick and easy page. This may be more convenient, but it leaves a lot to be desired. For instance, ask yourself how many other people have a similar site? The pre-designed templates could make it difficult to create a truly unique website that can stand out from the rest. A quality web design company can help customize your web page.

Get A User-Friendly Website

A professional web design company can help you create a website that users can easily peruse through and visit on any media platform. Skilled web page designers already have a good grasp on the average web user’s journey. They know at what point users start their browsing, where they want the menu to be, and how they want to navigate. By tapping into this knowledge, they can provide users with short, simple, and rewarding browsing experiences.

Faster Load Times

You’ve probably heard this a million times and for a good reason. Website load time is critical to the success of your online business presence. According to HubSpot, load times play a major factor in driving online traffic to your website. Here are some statistics that show just how crucial it is to have a site that loads within microseconds.

47% of internet users expect a website to load within two seconds,

64% of mobile users expect a site to load in four seconds,

A one second delay in load times leads to an 11% loss in page views,

A one second delay in load speeds leads to a 7% reduction in conversions, and

If your site makes $100,000 daily, improving your load times by just 1% can improve your sales by $7,000 daily.

These are only some of the figures that HubSpot has been studying when it comes to successful and popular websites. Poorly designed websites are usually the primary cause of slow load times.

Professional Design Guarantees Superior SEO Performance

For the website to do well and get more attention, you need excellent SEO performance. If you’re not familiar with SEO (search engine optimization), it means priming your site for crawling and ranking high on multiple search engines. In other words, your website will slowly gain rank until it pops up on the first page when searched on Google, Yahoo, Bing or other search engines. When a website is friendly to search engines, indexing your pages becomes easy. In return, search engines will reward you by ranking your site favorably in search results. On the other hand, if your site is ranking poorly, it could mean poor SEO performance. Ranking high in search engines will increase traffic to your website.

SEO begins with good design. Excessive use of CSS and JavaScript, for instance, can kill SEO. Flash elements, HTML frames, and improper error pages can negatively impact your website’s SEO. All these mistakes are often associated with website design issues that could have been avoided by hiring the right web design company.

Benefit From Responsive Design

Many consumers are moving towards using their mobile devices when placing orders or searching online. The convenience of a computer in ones’ cellphone means more mobile users. Consider working with a professional web design company so that you can benefit from responsive design. Put simply, responsive design makes your website accessible across all types of media devices.

For instance, a T-shirt company can feature all their graphics online. However, the images are fully accessible and upload properly when using a computer. The problem is that some PC elements don’t render well on mobile. For instance, your cool shirts may not even be displayed on the mobile screen. Or, the images may get hidden because your web pages are too large for the mobile screen. To avoid these issues and improve the customer experience, you need to invest in responsive design.

Save Time

Using a professional web design company will save you time in several ways. First, professional designers can complete the job more efficiently. They understand the intricacies of creating a strong online presence. In most cases, you’ll have your website completed in a timely manner with everything ready to go. Most amateur developers need weeks just to come up with a framework for the site.

Secondly, a web design company will save you time by keeping maintenance needs to a minimum. Since the site is thoroughly tested before being published, you can rest assured that it won’t crash, have technical issues or major down times. Website failure can cause you to lose online sales and traffic, create bad first impressions, and potentially drop good customers. This is especially important for e-commerce websites that rely on great shopping experiences to improve their sales.

It’s Worth The Value

The problem with most small business owners is that when budgeting for a site, they tend to focus solely on the initial investment without looking at the big picture. Novice web designers and web builders don’t have access to SEO, content marketing, and professional graphic designers.

Every website needs regular maintenance to ensure optimal performance. With a poorly designed website, simple technical issues could happen more often. For instance, a slight increase in online traffic could cause some websites to freeze. Additionally, with site builders, you need to purchase themes and plug-ins to make the site more unique and usable. These costs can add up quickly in the end which why it’s important to consider all your web design options from the beginning.

Get User Support

When you have unrestricted access to technical support, which is what you get with professional web design, you can rest easy knowing that even if something went wrong, you’d have a professional on the other end waiting to help. Whether it’s a few technical bugs that need fixing or you need to add some new features, they are equipped to get the job done.

Increase Your Credibility

The online space can be difficult to navigate. Most consumers of today like to be informed on who they are doing business with. It won’t be difficult for them to note the difference between a poorly designed website and professionally prepared one.

Get More Positive Reviews

Consumers discuss their browsing experiences all the time. After visiting a website for the first time, you’ll find people talking about how great the site is, how easy it is to get around, and how they enjoyed the entire experience. This is the kind of positive vibe you want to generate for your business because it can help strengthen the loyalty of your current customers while gaining more. A web design company can help elicit those positive reviews for your website because they focus on efficiency, creativity, and reliability.

Increase Your Online Traffic

Professional web design can also help you get more traffic. It increases positive customer experiences and credibility which helps drive traffic.

Another way a web design company can drive traffic to your site is through its SEO impact. We’ve seen that professionally designed sites rank better in search engines. This higher ranking can significantly boost your traffic. According to a study by HubSpot, more than 60% of Google users click on the first three links in search engine results. Only about 10% actually go past the first page of results. An excellent web design company can help you get to the top positions in search results using SEO to improve online traffic.

Convert More Leads

Professional web design also plays a key role in lead conversion. A great site naturally increases the length of time people stay on a website. Time spent on a website, in turn, is directly related to lead conversion.

When a website is user-friendly, with accessible buttons, and well-placed menus, customers will browse longer. There will be less of what marketers call “bounce rate.” Bounce rate refers to the proportion of visitors who leave a website without taking action. One of the main causes of high bounce rates is poor design and clutter. A web design company understands the logistics involved in creating a strong online presence.

A Great Site Keeps Clients Coming Back

In business, there is nothing more important than repeat customers. They are the cornerstone of even the biggest corporations. To keep costs down, you need to satisfy your current customers and keep them coming back. A professionally designed website is one way to delight your loyal customers and meet their expectations. When you have a website they love, those customers will keep coming back.

Stay Ahead Of The Competition

In business, anything that can help you stay ahead is desirable. There are two main factors that play a role. First, consumers prefer to associate with technologically advanced companies. If people are made aware that flash content is bad for their security, they will try to avoid sites with flash content. This means if your website uses flash content and pop-ups, it could drive down traffic. People will recognize your web address and avoid going there.

Secondly, staying ahead of the pack can help you win over some of your competitors’ customers. Responsive design plays a huge role in this because mobile accessibility has become a popular trend. Non-mobile friendly websites are losing traffic consistently because Google suppresses those sites when returning search results to the mobile devices. Your website can easily stay ahead of the competition if it’s created to be mobile friendly and work seamlessly with any Wi-Fi platform.

Get More Projects Completed

Businesses, especially SMBs, have a lot to deal with and designing their own website could increase that workload tenfold. If you’re just getting started, for example, you’ll need to wear multiple professional hats because you will be working with a graphic designer, SEO writer, content marketer, and tech-savvy consultant. While it may be a way to cut costs, in the beginning, these expenses could eventually add up. Ensure that you’re doing everything to make the business a success because too much work can bog you down, compromise your productivity, and negatively affect the profitability of your business.

Hiring a web design company will take some of the weight off your shoulders. You’ll have more time to concentrate on running your business.

Creating A Strong Perception Will Strengthen Your Brand

Professional web development is also important for the overall perception of your business. This is a little different from credibility or trust. With credibility, consumers are trying to find out if they can rely on you.

Perception, meanwhile, is more about building your brand image and earning respect. It’s about getting people to see you as a force in the industry. Consumers may even choose to dissociate themselves from your brand if they perceive your website as sub-par or less. Professional web design can help you improve your status in the industry and invite more consumers as well as competitors to take you seriously.

Professionally Designed Websites Increase User Satisfaction

Marketing and business mean taking into account customer satisfaction. Understanding the wants, needs, and trends of users will help create a lasting impression. Additionally, you could win over visitors who “accidentally” stumble upon your site. Those customers could potentially buy from you or seek your business services in the future. As the visitor leaves, they need to feel that the time spent on your site was worthwhile. A web design company accounts for user satisfaction when creating a unique online strategy for your business.

Add An Air Of Professionalism

Starting a business and/or running one means upholding a certain standard of professionalism in all corners of the market. In today’s Wi-Fi world, online access adds to your business’s credibility and sophistication. Many customers of today like to be informed on where they are getting their products and services from. Before even stepping into a business building, many people will “google it” first. If your website is poorly designed or you don’t have one, you could be losing more potential business than you think. Add another layer of professionalism to your business’s repertoire by investing in a web design company to create your website.

We Can Help

Clear Mind Graphics is a premier web design company, located in Hailey, Idaho. We have a long history of helping local businesses get noticed on the global stage through our web page design services. We have the skill, experience, and professional experts to create unique, functional, and responsive websites that will fit your budget.

If you have any questions or would like more information on the process of professional web development, don’t hesitate please contact us.