In this article we illustrate the top ten reasons to hire a professional web designer.
10. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Having a fantastic looking website with multiple attractive functionalities does not simply guarantee that people will view your website. In order for your website to get traffic it needs to found by an audience. The most common method of getting traffic to your site is through search engines like Google, Yahoo or Bing. Simply having a website online does not guarantee that these search engines will rank you. A good web designer or developer will carry out specific work that will allow search engines to crawl your website and index it. In order to be successful and rank highly in your given field your website must pass a multiple requirements. Speed, size, content originality, keywords, design and maintenance are just a few requirements that need to be carried out professionally in order to rank highly. All of this work takes a significant amount of time and expertise to undertake. If you think that an idle website will receive much traffic then you are sadly mistaken.
9. Saves You Time
Some companies think that the design and development of a website is a task that can be performed in a matter of hours. Usually this will be the sales pitch of a dubious web designer trying to turn a quick buck. The simple reality is that a website will often take between three to six weeks to complete depending on the size and functionality. We are often approached by clients who will decide to hire a web designer, expect miracles in a short turn around time and almost always end up being disappointed. This leads to many companies having to scrap the below par website and have to start again from scratch. By hiring a reputable web designer you are guaranteed to get a website that performs well for your requirements on budget and on time.
8. Web Designers Know How To Best Advise You
A good web designer will be able to advise you on the best practices for your company’s website. They will tell you what will work best to attract an audience within your given timeframe and most importantly within your budget. It is vital that every company knows that their web designer will be able to advise them on what will work, be able to carry out the work successfully and be able to manage the clients expectations. Too often businesses are promised the world by an inexperienced web designer. They are given unrealistic expectations on a service and are almost always let down by the results. Finding a web designer with an honest approach to their clients and with a decent portfolio to back up their talk is an absolute necessity.
7. You Get What You Pay For
There is a lot of truth to the above cliche. Saving money is very important to every business and is the key ingredient to most successful businesses. However there is a fine line between saving a few Euros and losing businesses because of a lack of investment. Your website is your online representative and often the first thing that a potential client will look at before considering to choose you. The more you spend on your website, more often than not will get you a better web designer. A cheap website may not cost you much, but it could cost you a new client. If a potential client perceives your brand to be cheap despite trying to sell yourself as high end through a poor website it send mixed message and creates doubt. A good web designer will give you an accurate quote of what you need and try to be flexible with a realistic budget.
6. Communicates Your Message Effectively
In hiring a good web designer you will gain two major advantages. Firstly, they will be able to advise you how best to communicate your businesses message and secondly they will be able to custom build a website based on the messages requirements. A lot of cheap web designers will often build a clients website from a template. Templates are often a generic design, not very flexible and sometimes provide a poor foundation for SEO. Such bad practices lead to the limitations of the template dictating the company message instead of the other way around. This can lead to a high bounce rate and an audience that is not being sold what the company is about.
5. Makes Your Company Unique
Having a unique website says a lot about your company. It tells your clients that you are special, that you are different from your competitors and this makes your company more memorable. Your business is unique, it has a unique story and that story deserves to be told on a platform that best represents your journey. Having a custom website allows you to stand out from your competition and greatly improves your brand to attract new business.
4. Custom Functionalities
The ability to introduce custom functionalities into your website is a rapidly growing sector in the web development world. Increasingly businesses rely on custom functionality to improve their businesses efficiency and provide clients with a better customer service. Custom functions such as online payments, bookings, merchant eco-systems and custom social media platforms are just s fraction of functionalities that can be set up on uniquely designed websites. Companies needs are constantly evolving to move with future technologies and the ability to introduce custom functionality into a website without needing to majorly overhaul the site is an advantage. Hiring a reputable web designer ensures that your website will be versatile enough to add new features to your site that will improve your business.
3. Gives You Credibility
For some businesses it is impossible to compete with big companies prime locations, spacious facilities and marketing budgets across all mediums. The internet has levelled the playing ground for a lot of small businesses. A credible online presence and clever use of ones website allows small businesses to compete with bigger businesses for audience attention. A good web designer can make company with a fraction of the turnover of a rival business look more credible through user friendly design and a focused company message.
2. Makes Your Website User-Friendly
User friendly design is an increasingly used term across the online community. A web designer or UX (user experience) designer basically studies your website. Based on analytical research and design theory a designer will then map out the best possible way to present your website so the audience will stay engaged and convert the engagement to sales. Hiring a web designer ensures that your website will be designed in the most user-friendly manner with the provision to improve upon the design based on data from the sites analytics.
1. Professionalism
Your website is your online identification. It tells an increasingly growing online audience who you are, what you do and why you are better than your competition. Failure to engage this audience through poor hosting, user experience, mixed messages or failure to update your website tells your potential clients that you lack professionalism. This might not be the case, but first impressions are hard to shake when you fail to create a positive one. A good web designer will make their clients aware of the importance of communicating an online sense of professionalism that every website should convey.
For any more information regarding the Top Ten Reasons To Hire A Professional Web Designer or any other information on our services feel free to call Opus Creative on +353 (21) 242 8689 or email us on hello@opuscreative.ie
