We are all aware of the benefits of social media and how a successful Twitter account or Facebook page can drive sales, connections and traffic. However, if these carefully crafted tweets and statuses lead customers to a confusing and poorly designed website, all efforts put into promotion will be in vain.
Without sounding too obvious, a great website is for a successful company essential. A working website that reflects your business ethos is your best selling tool and a poor website can damage reputation and sales.
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“With around 36 million Britons online every day and 48% of People who do any sort of search for a product or service online, it’s almost to the point where they can’t afford not to be online,” said Lynsey Sweales, CEO of SocialB, an online marketing company and social media companies.
Where to start?
Before you start building your website, you should have a clear idea of what you want exactly and how you want to create it. Vanessa Austin Locke, partner at Austin & Locke, has just created a website. The company specializes in developing brand association strategies and creating ideas that build reputation, influence decision makers and generate content.
Selecting a designer, Austin Locke said she was looking for “a combination of technical Ability and creative vision”. “A strong sense of aesthetics was most important to us,” she added. When designing her website, she aimed for simplicity with impact. “Simple and user-friendly, yet engaging in a graceful way that isn’t overbearing. We all get asked about it all the time, and it’s irritating. We designed it with the customer’s convenience in mind.”
Website designer or hosting platform?
Creating a website doesn’t have to break your savings use up; There are countless hosting platforms like WordPress that you can use to develop functional and aesthetic websites.” If you already know how to use WordPress, then don’t make things harder and more expensive for yourself by using a new designer or build a CMS,” says Austin Locke.
She continues, “If not, invest in a web designer, but be careful, there are a lot of cowboys out there. We’ve been quoted some absurd prices and we had a terrible first experience with a “designer” with a lot of technical ability to create a website but no sense of aesthetics or design.”
When deciding how to create your website, Sweales believes that it doesn’t have to cost a fortune. “WordPress has some great templates you can use, but if you want something more bespoke, look to a website designer. However, stress that you want to update the site once it’s up and running, you need to maintain that flexibility.”
The design
The creative aspect Designing your website can be the most enjoyable part, but it is of paramount importance that you get it right and your online presence reflects the essence of your business.
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Digital designer Maria Withers, who created the website from Austin & Locke believes that design trends are temporary, but it’s important to keep up to date with them when creating a website.
“Your design should be based on the needs of your Focus users because if a website isn’t aesthetically pleasing or intuitive, your website can become obsolete and users will bounce off your webpage.
“Content is the key to your website. The heaviness of the images on a website depends entirely on which B message your website should convey. Images should be relevant to your product or business so as not to confuse a user.”
When sourcing images, SMBs can try image libraries like signelements.com or ingimage.com – or students like Austin Locke did it for Austin & Locke’s website.
“We made our own recordings and my advice is almost always get creative, it’s fun and you’ll learn some new skills along the way You stay in creative control. Find some aspiring photo or videography students or young professionals and they might be able to offer you some original images as well as some priceless ideas at a good price.”
A few strong keyframes that succinctly express the character of your company are more effective than many images with poor sources. “Attention spans are short online and a picture is worth a thousand words,” says Austin Locke.
How to Increase Sales
How to Properly Manage Your Website can increase sales, and SEO and social media play a key role in attracting potential customers to your website.
“You can make money from a website in a number of ways. You could set up Google Adsense, which Google -Shows ads on your site,” says Sweales. “Or you could accept banner ads on your site; This is more time-consuming and both can distract from your core objective. If you have a website that markets your business, I wouldn’t be swayed to accept ads if they harm your business branding.It’s worth getting your business listed on Google Places for free, as well as major directory sites like Yelp and Yell, as they can help in the meantime,” says Sweales.
“If you’re building a website, this is a Must set up your Google Analytics. This tells you how many website visits you’re getting, where they’re coming from, and where your inquiries or sales are coming from. Building a website without it is like throwing money away because you can’t measure your marketing.”
Avoid building a bad website
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Building an attractive website is not enough to attract visitors; it must be user-friendly, easy to navigate and ensure customers come back.
“A bad website consists of irrelevant content that does not represent the product or business you are promoting. A website that isn’t intuitive or doesn’t answer a user’s questions when they’re on your site indicates that your site isn’t useful and a user won’t stay there. SEO should also be ensured to drive traffic to your site and achieve high search engine rankings,” says Withers.
Austin Locke believes that static content is one of the worst website offenses and businesses ” keep it fresh and fluid, a website is like a room…it needs to be aired”.
This article was originally published in August 2014.
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