Web Design
"70% of households now use the internet as an information source when shopping locally for products and services” (Kelsey Group).
A website acts as the storefront of your business in many cases, as this is the first introduction a potential client may have to your business. If someone finds your website through a search engine or another referring source you have very little time to capture that potential client’s attention and convince them to stay. You need to let the person know what products & services you offer, why they should trust you, and give them a reason why they should look further into your web site.
Search Transparency offers custom designed websites for small to medium sized businesses. A web site should be carefully thought out, considering that it requires a significant investment of your time as well as an investment of capital. Rather than looking at a website as an expense, it should be looked upon as an engine that helps drive your business.
By investing a significant portion of time listening to our clients, and understanding their individual business goals, we are able to implement a strategic marketing plan for your business. This leads to an all encompassing website design that meets the goals of your business.
We invite you to browse our services and please contact us for a free web site consultation.
Things to Consider When Designing a Website
What do you want the website to accomplish? When designing a web site you should consider what the goals of the website are before the initial design of the web site.
What information does a potential client need from you to be able to purchase your product or service? Depending how large the website is, you aren’t always able to display all of the services that you would like prefer to on the home page. A hierarchy of products and services needs to be established before the initial draft of the website. You should consider which products & services you offer that are most common, the most profitable, and the ones you would like to promote the most.
Who are your clients and who do you think is going to be using your site? Depending on the type of business you may or may not have a specific kind of customer.
What are you distinct advantages? Do you have any specialty products or services that other businesses don’t offer? Maybe you have a unique service that a potential client wouldn’t realize you offered.
How to design a website that gives you a return on your investment
Keyword research: Keyword research is the equivalent of knowing the right ingredients for a specific recipe. If you guess what the ingredients are, then the recipe isn’t going to turn out as well as it would of if you measured each ingredient out carefully. Keyword research lays the foundation for a website being designed. The research tells you what phrases and words are most popular and gives you information to base the pages of the website around.
Title Tags & Meta Descriptions: Title Tags & Meta Descriptions tell the search engines what is inside a particular page of the web site. They are also the descriptions that someone sees when your website is returned in a search query. These are important factors for you website showing up in search results as well as improving your click through rate. Click through rate is based on the number of times your web site is shown in a search engine compared to the number of times your website is clicked on.
Simplicity: Your website should be easy to navigate for a potential client. The website should instantly tell someone what you do and be easy for a potential client to find what they are looking for. When arriving at a website you expect certain features to be in their expected locations. Sometimes a feature of the website that seems innovative at the time may be overlooked by the average user, causing the overall usability experience of the website to be less than desirable.
Hierarchy of navigation: The home page is where most people arrive at your website. This makes the home page the most important page of the website. There needs to be a hierarchy of pages to decide what pages should be displayed most prominently. You have very little time before someone decided whether or not to stay in your website and navigate further or click the back button and leave your website.
Call to action: The website needs to have a call to action on every page. A potential client should be able to contact you, regardless of what page of the website they are on.
Website Analytics: Website analytics are the report card of the website. They tell you what someone is typing in when arriving at your website, what referring website sent them, how many pages they view, and many other valuable pieces of information.
The reason that analytics are so important is that they tell you what sections of your website are performing and what areas need additional time invested. Just as a Doctor wouldn’t prescribe medicine without a conclusive diagnosis, you shouldn't decide on how to fix a problem with your website without the proper data to make an educated decision.
Please contact us today, to learn more.
