What Makes a Good Web Design?
Last year, I wrote the post Designing and Developing a Website is Simple…Right? The post focused on the misleadings of DIY web design services search as Wix, Squarespace, and Weebly, who promise to help you build your own website in under an hour.
These DIY services neglect to mention key elements of a good web design to make a site usable and engaging, including optimization, maintenance, security, SEO compliance and more.
Compare this to purchasing a brand new home; but the real estate agent neglects to tell you that you can only live in the floor model. You cannot upgrade to granite countertops, you may not have central air conditioning, you cannot choose the paint color or decide to go with hardwood floors instead of carpet.
Meanwhile, not having a secure site is the same as not having locks on the doors of your new home. In short, you have no input into the design or maintenance of the site that will be the main marketing tool for what you are selling!
Although most business owners have never heard of website optimization, BE AWARE that a poorly optimized site can ultimately be the death of your online presence. In the blog post 32 Things You’re Doing Wrong With Your Website Design, Neil Patel suggests that If it takes more than four seconds for any web page to load completely, it’s too slow. He further notes:
Google found that 70 percent of the websites they surveyed in their study took seven seconds or longer to load. They also found that the slower the site, the more likely a user is to bounce. Google also noted that 3 seconds is the accepted best practice for website owners who want to keep their visitors on-site.
Website Speed & Optimization Scores in Action
At VujaDay Creative Digital Agency, we decided to test Patel’s contention that 70% of websites take seven seconds or longer to load. I started with local businesses that I have been to within the past six months, using highly reputable industry standards to test the sites. First, GTMetrics was used to test site optimization and speed.
Nearly all of the sites returned very poor grades! Below are images of results for the first two business pages I tested:
Next, for the same two Websites, I used Google Page Speed Tools for additional insights. See below for the staggering results:
What Happens if my Website is not Optimized?
Such poor performance and optimization results will result in high bounce rates, which means users leave the site as soon as they arrive—Google will penalize you for this! Ultimately, users are attracted to an engaging, beautifully designed websites; however, if the homepage takes too long to load, they are likely to leave, and NEVER RETURN.
Have you ever walked out of a Starbucks with a long line? Same thing applies to the 4 second rule for page loading.
End result: lost customer = lost sales.
I most certainly do not blame business owners with limited budgets for searching for ways to minimize costs by creating their own websites.
While some folks with technical knowledge will be able to produce a workable site, the harsh truth is that the majority of the sites will not only fail to engage customers, they will also result in lost business because of poorly designed, slow, unsecured sites that are not optimized.
These are the businesses who then complain that websites just don’t matter anymore because theirs is not getting them any business.
That’s like saying, I put in a new phone and it just doesn’t ring. Do you think there might be other reasons why? It’s exactly the same with a website. If yours is not ringing, we can find the reason why, and fix it.
VujaDay Creative Digital Agency Web Design Ratings
Fortunately, over the past year at VujaDay Creative Digital Agency, we have had the opportunity to work with amazing clients who understand that fully optimized websites involve high-speed page loading, elegant design, security, maintenance, and more, are crucial to a thriving business.
We recently published several new client websites that demonstrate blazing page speed and optimization results that are staggeringly different than competitor sites we analyzed earlier in this post.
Pennsylvania Oral Health
Colleen Venango – Realtor
Tangible Little Moments Photography
How Will VujaDay Creative Digital Agency Save Me $$$?
Minimizing money spent is one of the main goals of all businesses. However…as a business owner…you are the expert…the best person to sell your product.
On the other hand, you are most likely not the person who understands, or even wants to comprehend the technical aspects of your business.
Web design is best left to professionals who make a career out of their expertise.
Although you may be tempted to use a DIY service, remember they are highly limited in what they offer, and they neglect to tell you about the key technical components that can make or break your site.
Leveraging the expertise of an agency such as VujaDay Creative Digital Agency will offer unique, elegant, and creative options to build your digital presence that extends beyond just websites. We provide industry experience to develop websites as the gateway to your business, then we work with you to develop marketing and SEO strategies that will grow your business.
Ultimately, a beautiful web design is just the first step in cultivating a marketing strategy that will help you differentiate from your competitors. Perhaps most importantly, unlike competitors, we will work within your budget.
We have done significant market research to find out what competitors are charging for web design, digital marketing, and SEO. Results show that these services are far too expensive for most small business owners.
Sadly, you are taken advantage of because most agencies know that they can overcharge you because of the importance of a web presence in today’s digital economy.
If you are in the market to build your digital presence involving a creative web design, a digital marketing strategy, and SEO options, and you know that you will never do this yourself, contact VujaDay Creative Digital Agency to discuss our variable priced options to handle this for you.
What’s Next?
Once businesses launch a new website, they always ask how they are supposed to drive traffic to the site. We offer a simple, two fold answer involving:
- Digital Marketing
- SEO – Search Engine Optimization
Stay tuned for a post next week, which will focus on Digital Marketing.
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