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Why a Website Designer should NOT make your website.

This statement may not make sense so let me start with a question –

Why do you want a website?

There are normally 3 possible answers:

  1. To get more customers, clients and/or leads.
  2. To promote my business or brand.
  3. To provide an online extension to my business (shop, application, knowledgebase etc.)

You chose Answer 1 –

If you chose answer 1 then excellent, you know the value a website can provide and the rest of this article should make sense. If your answer more closely matched numbers 2 or 3, you should jump to the end for a bit of background information –

If you chose answers 2 or 3, then click here for my response …

Now, first off, I don’t have anything against web designers. I am, in part, a web designer but I am also much more than that.

You see web designers design beautiful (if they are good at design) websites. They look great with perfect colours, font choices and layouts that are pleasing to the eye.

BUT …

Unless they apply the fundamentals of marketing, code optimisation and an understanding of Search Engine requirements to their designs, that pretty site will never be seen by the people that matter – Your current and future customers.

Be search engine friendly

In today’s market, a website needs to be open and accessible to search engines (Google) to enable them to index and read your website. Search Engine Optimisation helps with this however most designers do not know where to start with SEO.

Be responsive and look good on Mobile first, and then Desktop screens.

Google looks at how your website appears on a mobile screen first. If it does not perform well, your site will not be shown on google searches. More than half of the internets audience are now via mobile devices, do you really want to ignore 50% of your customers?

Be fast.

Your site has to load fast as people have short attention spans and will move on if your website takes more than a second or two to show. Because of this Google will not display your website if it is slow.

Be easy to use.

There is no point in creating a website that looks great but does not allow your visitors to find the information they need. Google measures how long visitors stay on your site and how many pages they view then use this information to decide if your website is usable. If not, it will not show your website.

Have clear “Call To Actions”.

These are sections of your pages that make it clear to the visitor what they need to do to move forward with their decision. A button labelled “Contact us” at the top of the page is not enough.

Have well-written text on every page.

The content should not only inform visitors and encourage action, but it should also be well researched, have the relevant keyword conetnet and be laid out to make sure the search engines know who to send to your website.

Be registered with all of Google’s additional services.

Your website should be conected to Google analytics (to see who visits what on your website), Google My Business, Google webmaster tools, Google Search Console etc. – and your social services such as Facebook and Twitter, even if you do not use them.

There are many more aspects to creating a successful site, but I think you get the point.

Unfortunately, your average web designer does not know this, let alone do it as part of their design service.

And as a final thought –

Most web designers consider their job complete when they hand over the website. WRONG.

From that point forward the site should to be monitored for performance and hacking, updated with patches and feature updates, kept secure and the content should be continuously optimised and ideally, updated and added to with new pages, news, reviews and images (of your work).

This, on its own, is the reason most small business websites never fulfil their promise or potential.

Don’t fall into the trap of getting the cheapest option or falling for flashy animation and huge images that are nothing more than eye candy and ego boosts.

The money you spend on your website should be considered an investment, not a cost so you should get it back, with interest.

Get a website created by a digital marketer who can create attractive websites that work for a living.

Contact me now for a free chat about your business, website and marketing needs and lets see if we can move your business to the next level.

What is your answer to my question matched options 2?

If your response resembled answer 2 then we should have a chat as although a website will spread the word and build trust, there is no reason why it shouldn’t also be proactive in getting you more customers.

That answer is exactly what most web designers want to hear as they can make a website with all the flashy bits and not have to think about how many visitors you will actually get OR if any of the visitors that do manage to find your website every get in contact with you.

All websites build brand awareness as they promote your business, but they should also get you more customers.

And what about answer 3?

If you need a specialist website (with the exception of a low to mid volume web shop) you absolutly need more than just a designer. Depending on your expected number of site visitors you might need a team of specialists.

Looking to sell products online with your own webshop? As long as you are not a massive brand then the same rules in this article apply, in fact, they are even more important as design is very low down on the list of requirements (behind usability, the shopping cart process, product information, site structure and then, maybe, the design).

Get in contact above and we can talk through the options.

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