If you’re a company looking for it’s first website, looking for a website redesign, or simply looking for strategies to increase your online presence. You’re probably weighing your options to accomplish this.
Most likely the first step is a professional vs. amateur argument (save money), or perhaps you are even thinking of taking the task on yourself. There are certainly plenty of template alternatives that will save your budget.
Unfortunately, building a website is more than pretty pictures.
Lets look at some of the generally universal demands of a web project.
You want a streamlined site that is current in look and feel.
This is most likely the easiest part of the web project. It is probably why so many times people make the mistake of not choosing a professional firm to build their site. There a many templates out there that if you know what you’re doing, or have the time to learn it, you could put something together that looks pretty good.
Ideally you will also have supplemental software (such as photoshop), and the skill set they require, to supplement this phase of the project. Of course, unless you’re really good, your competition just may grab the same template and you can both enjoy the same modern design.
Things to ask yourself (or non-professional) to carryout this phase:
- What resolution should your images be for web use?
- What are p tags, alt tags or .png?
- If you can’t answer 1 and 2, do you have time to learn 1, 2 and many other things that will take you away from your business, in order to build your site?
You want design strategies that drive the user towards a call to action, be it a purchase or qualified lead.
Just how good are your design skills? Do you have the necessary software and design skills to maximize your visitors and turn them into sales or leads? Maybe it should be a unique colors, perhaps strategic placement, or a type of promotion. No template services can help you here.
Things to ask yourself (or non-professional) to carryout this phase:
- What is A/B testing?
- What is ‘bounce rate’?
- If you can’t answer 1 and 2, do you have time to learn 1, 2 and many other things that will take you away from your business, in order to build your site?
You want to be seen on all types of devices.
In today’s internet, more and more of visitors are coming to sites via mobile device or tablet. Sure, you may get away with a site that does not work on these in the short run. However, that means you will be reinvesting money, time or both down the road to fix this issue.
Otherwise, it will cost you money in the form of potential leads or sales down the road. These are demographics that will only grow, your site should be able to accomodate them. You may get lucky with a universal template here.
Things to ask yourself (or non-professional) to carryout this phase:
- Should your site use responsive design, or have a separate mobile site?
- What are the different screen resolutions you should be concerned with?
- If you can’t answer 1 and 2, do you have time to learn 1, 2 and many other things that will take you away from your business, in order to build your site?
You want your site to be easily crawled by Google and other search engines.
Google and other search engines do not view your website the way that you or I do. They only consider the text of the site, how much is on the site, how it presented, and more.
When putting together a site, certain items need to be included, and should be specifically placed, for Google and other search engines to pick them up to maximize the indexing of your pages. No template services can help you here.
Things to ask yourself (or non-professional) to carryout this phase:
- What are meta tags, alt tags and h tags?
- What file format should your site map be in?
- If you can’t answer 1 and 2, do you have time to learn 1, 2 and many other things that will take you away from your business, in order to build your site?
You want to rank for terms that will provide visitors that are potential customers.
At the end of the day, it does not matter how amazing your website looks and functions if your potential customers cannot find you. Not everyone has the budget for a longterm, monthly SEO campaign. However, that does not mean on-page SEO should be ignored.
Your site should be built around keywords or phrases that will maximizes the efficiency of your site. Once you have the correct terms, you need to know how to properly execute them to maximize their effectiveness in search engine rankings. No template services can help you here.
Things to ask yourself (or non-professional) to carryout this phase:
- What is PageRank?
- How will you perform your keyword research? (Ideal terms may not be exactly what you think.)
- If you can’t answer 1 and 2, do you have time to learn 1, 2 and many other things that will take you away from your business, in order to build your site?
As you can see, true ‘Web Design’ is much more than the placement of images and use of colors. It is a project that involves many variables and facets of expertise to come out with something that will truly help to grow your business.
The list above doesn’t cover many issues that may be unique to your business type or site goals.
You can schedule a free consultation with Creating Matter to help uncover some of those for you.
Feel free to ask questions below!
Recent Comments