Secrets Website Designers Won’t Tell You!
Are you thinking about starting a new website from scratch or want to redo your current website? If this is the case, you must understand how crucial it is to maximise the design so you can make your website work for you.
It is really not all about making your website look absolutely pixel-perfect! In order to generate traffic, your website must be user-friendly, completely functional, and have great load times. Whatever your goal is for your website, your website must guide users intuitively to where you want them to go. Now on to secrets web designers do not want to tell you.
Websites do not need to break the bank
One of the biggest secrets when building a website is that you do not need to break the bank to have an online presence. You may think “The more you pay, the better the product” however, this may not be the case. Like us at Chris & Code, there are plenty of designers who charge a reasonable price for their work.
Pro Tip – The price can vary depending on many factors such as:
- Size: the number of pages that you will need will affect the cost. If you need templates for blog posts, standard content pages, product pages, shop pages etc. these will all need to be designed and created.
- Functionality: this is the different features you may need for your website (e-commerce functionality, online ordering food systems, membership portal etc.)
- SEO integrations: every good web developer should have SEO at the back of their mind, optimising web pages allows the website to rank well in Google, Bing or Yahoo. Ensuring all pages have correct metadata is key. Keep in mind this service has a cost.
Loading affects how your site ranks
While website ranking is still fresh in your mind, you need to understand how important load times are and how long load times can be a detriment to your website ranking and can also discourage visitors from visiting your website.
It is evident that load times affect a customer’s journey. Think about the last time you were looking at an ad online, clicked the link and the webpage took forever to load. Like me, I know you most likely would’ve closed the website!
Let’s understand a bit more why Google doesn’t like slow load times. Google has an algorithm that factors this, so even though the content on the page may be enhanced for SEO purposes, having big files on the page will impact and hinder your ranking. Keep in mind your hosting provider as well, cheaper plans are not always better and your website’s load speed could be at risk!
Website testing
Think about releasing a car that was promoted to be bulletproof and at the exhibition a metal ball breaks the window. I’m sure you heard about that crazy incident. I am sure it was, but in saying this… you should ensure your web designer allows you testing time before your website goes live!
Testing allows you to find problems and see things you may not necessarily like. Once you have identified these little niggles you can fix them, so you don’t end up in the same situation as the bulletproof car.
Some things your web designer/developer should consider before going live:
- Image sizes: ensuring images are optimised for web
- Site speed: ensuring tests have been done to combat slow speeds
- Forms: ensure all forms for example contact or request a quote are working correctly
- Responsiveness: ensure your webpage is mobile-friendly, otherwise you may lose a lot of website traffic
- Functionality: ensuring all pages on your website have no broken links sending you to an error screen
Find out how we can help you
Now you know some of the most important secrets that web designers won’t tell you, let us know how we can help you. Chris & Code are more than happy to have a look at your website and recommend what you could do to improve it.
What are you waiting for, contact us today!