With an increasing amount of business being conducted online, having a stellar, eye-catching website is more important than ever. There are other factors to consider now too: does my website work will on mobile devices? Am I utilizing online advertising or pay-per-click marketing as well as I should be? How can I improve keyword rankings? These factors can all help drive more traffic to your site and more money into your wallet. While there are some “ready-made” sites that can help you build your own website, finding and hiring a web design professional can already help put you a few notches above the competition. A web design professional will know what attracts consumers and searchers to certain websites, what will make your website easy to use and navigate, and what elements are crucial to include in today’s web-driven world.
Why Might I Need a Website Redesign?
If you created your website back when the Internet was first taking off, chances are your site probably looks juvenile and somewhat outdated. And most likely, that’s not really the aesthetic you’re going for. Even if you’ve made updates in recent years, consumers can probably still identify your website as behind the times and not as clean or informative as they want.
You want your website to reflect your business. Think of it as your online business card. When consumers enter your website, they’re expecting to find the information they need easily and quickly. They want to get a feel for your business right off the bat and see what you have to offer. Elements like professional photographs of your goods or services, a page introducing yourself and your team, and contact information can help make a consumer feel more welcome or interested in what you have to offer.
And if you haven’t updated your website to be mobile compatible, that’s another thing you should probably contact a web design professional about. It’s becoming essential for websites to have both a desktop and mobile device capability for easier user browsing. Many users will become easily frustrated if they can’t browse a website on their mobile or tablet devices.
What Do Consumers Prefer in a Website?
Internet consumers have a quick attention span. This is in part because of the Internet, but it certainly impacts how they do their business. Research suggests that you have approximately 10 seconds to make an impression on your visitors and let consumers know what they can get out of your website or company. After 10 seconds (and sometimes before) they’ll move on. So what can you do to capture that attention and make it stick?
Consumers are increasingly visual. If they see a giant block of text right off the bat, it’s unlikely they’re going to stay and read through all of it to find the information they need. Indeed, users read less than 30% of any content that’s provided on a web page. You want to synthesize your information down to only the most necessary parts. Additionally, breaking up text is a useful tool. Around 70% of people were more likely to look at bullet point lists; only a little over 50% read lists that weren’t bulleted. And the more visual the better — online content video views soared over 50 billion views every month.
Why Is Having a Mobile Compatible Website So Important?
With four out of five consumers doing their shopping using their smartphones, it’s clear that a large percentage of Internet traffic is being driven by mobile devices. Almost half of consumers say that if a business site isn’t mobile compatible, they automatically assume that the business simply doesn’t care and will leave and go to a competitor’s website that does have a mobile compatible website. You want to be as attractive and user-friendly to all types of consumers and it seems that mobile sites are the way of the future these days!
A web design professional will get you and your website up to speed quickly and give you a professional, easy to use, and beautiful website that will hopefully help you attract more customers and business!