Looking Good Online
What impression is your online storefront giving to your potential customer? Are they finding your website at the right time, with the right message, and able to find what they are looking for quickly? Looking good online is only part of the solution. You want your web visitors to convert – meaning call you, come in, or order from you.
Having a website for your business feels like a requirement these days. Your customers have come to expect it, even from local businesses. Not only is it a place for your customers to learn about what you offer, but also will help you build trust with them. For many of your customers, your website will be their first impression of your business. It makes sense for this first impression to be a good one. Our web design experts can help!
What Do You Need For A Great Website?
There are a lot of things to consider when it comes time to create a website for your business or make major upgrades to your existing website, and it can feel overwhelming. When we sit down to discuss a new website design, before laying out a plan, we will look to understand what the main goal of your business is. When customers are looking for you online, what do they want? What questions are they asking? Are they looking for your phone number or address? Do you offer the item/service they need? How can they contact you? Are they able to purchase online? Or maybe they are looking for something else? By identifying what your customers want from your website most we can set a clear goal and create a custom designed website with this goal in mind.
How Will Customers Find Your New Website?
Having a website is about people finding your business. A website with no views is like having a billboard and putting it up in your backyard. Looks good, but it won’t do you or your business any favors.
There are many ways to advertise online and bring customers to your website. When building a website, you will need to make sure you keep in mind how it will be found organically in the natural search results for Google, sometimes referred to as the free section of Google. That is where Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, comes in. SEO practices are what we use to help Google and other search engines find, read, and share your website at the appropriate time.
If you have tried to teach yourself SEO in the past, you probably know there’s a lot of information out there about Search Engine Optimization. As a business owner it is probably difficult to find the time to learn SEO, and even harder to keep up with it.
Is There Really That Much To Making An Effective Website?
The internet today is like the phone book back in the 80’s. This is where consumers go to find a product or service they are looking for. There are three types of consumers who may go to your website:
- Someone who already knows you and is looking for your number or another way to contact you
- Someone who was referred to you by a friend, family member, or colleague
- Someone who does not know you at all and is looking for a company to do business with
Your website needs to answer the question of all three of these type of customers. A good user experience, also known as UX, and user interface, known as UI, will help ensure this happens. Having relevant information available for consumers is very important.
In addition to a positive website experience, Search Engine Optimization is also vital. This is the best way to communicate to the Search Engines (such as Google or Bing) what your website is about. This involves quite a bit on the backend of the website and is constantly changing as Google and the other search engines are updating their algorithms on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. If you want your website to be found by others, other than searching your business by name, SEO is pretty important.
