A well designed and developed website supports an online business, reinforcing the brand and encouraging conversions. It functions perfectly and is aesthetically pleasing, giving visitors a good impression of the brand. Your online business needs a one-of-a-kind website that stands out from the competition and draws visitors in.

High-Quality Content

Online businesses need informative written content, high resolution photos and engaging videos. The content on the home page is what visitors initially see, before they navigate the website, so it has to be top-notch. Some website design firms use stock images and outsource articles, but firms like Invicta Agency use their own in-house teams to create unique, high-quality content that resonates with visitors.

SEO

Besides content with relevant keywords, website development and design plays a significant role in search engine optimization. Develops have to build websites which load quickly and respond to visitor’s devices and screen sizes. Google and other search engines consider the user experience when ranking websites. Visitors will hit the back button quickly if a site takes longer than three seconds to load or it does not display well on their smartphone. This creates a high bounce rate, another factor which can negatively affect a site’s ranking. SEO in web design and development also includes meta descriptions and alt tags for images.

Up-To-Date Websites

A well designed, up-to-date website is an excellent inbound marketing tool. It should help generate leads and sales, since visitors will view the brand as trustworthy. An outdated website with information from last year on the homepage makes it appear the business isn’t active or they are about to go out of business. This often happens when businesses need to hire developers to update their website. Web design firms that use platforms, like WordPress or Shopify for e-commerce businesses, ensure clients can easily update their website themselves. This makes it easy to add coupon codes, new products and fresh content.

Trends

Web designers may want to include trendy elements in your design, but ask if they are really beneficial to your visitors. Chatbots, which serve visitors 24/7, are especially helpful if potential customers often have questions before making a purchase. Accessibility is another trend that isn’t usually required, but who wants to alienate visitors with visual or hearing impairments. Accessibility features include transcripts for videos, which also helps with SEO, and taking care to use colors that people with the most common forms of color blindness can see.

Conversion Optimization

Your online business needs a website optimized for conversions. Conversions are acts which you encourage visitors to perform, such as signing up for newsletters, calling for an appointment, asking for a quote or purchasing a product. When a website’s design, including everything from the color of But it Now buttons to the checkout process is optimized, online businesses see more visitors take the desired action. Web design firms serious about conversion optimization get to know the business’s target customer and the products they offer, so they know what calls-to-action to use.

Developing and designing a website is more than making a pretty website. Anyone can do this with the DIY website builders available today. Hundreds of other sites may use their template designs, including your competitors. It takes a web design firm to create a unique, SEO-friendly website with content that encourages visitors to convert.