A significant part of any business is getting customers. Word of mouth, marketing, both are an essential part of any smart strategy. However, once you have them, you also have to make a sale. A website made by a professional web designer can help with both attracting new clientele, and making sure you get the conversions you want.
Think of your website like a physical store. You want it looking nice, to impress your potential customers and to show them how seriously you take your job. However, it also needs to be properly organized, so that people can make a purchase quickly and easily.
Below you can see just some benefits you get by hiring a professional web designer to help out your online business.
A good strategy
One aspect people don’t really think about when it comes to website designers is their role as advisors. They don’t only help you create a website. Rather, these companies can assist you in laying out a clear strategy for maximum long-term success.
Besides their experience in understanding new trends and design options, web design agencies often have lesser or greater knowledge of coding, copywriting, and SEO (or at least some of their employees do).
Web designers can give you a specific plan. They can help you create a business model that will serve your company in the long run (when it comes to design, at least).
Finally, they can give you some tips and tricks to keep your website on a higher level as time goes by. They can provide you with some insight and some basic advice. Even if it’s at a beginner level, it’s still better than going in blind.
Higher quality design
There are many tools online that can help you build your website. Many of them are pretty easy to use, they have their own templates, and give you a great deal of customization. If you want to get your hands dirty, you can check some of them out here. However, some people simply neither have the time nor the patience for this kind of work. Even if you have a license for a good website builder, a professional designer can do much more.
Designers are trained for this type of work; they have specific experience in this field. No matter how hard you work at mastering website design and building your website, it’s a safe bet that you won’t be able to match the quality of a professional design company.
Note that , according to a talk, coming from the HCI Group Annual Conference on People and Computers, first impressions almost completely (94%) hinge on the design and appeal of the website.
Setting up a good website means having a solid understanding of coding, being familiar with various plugins, and actually having an eye for web design and art. Indeed, you need this website to work smoothly, but you also want it to look good.
Finally, think about the role you play in your company, about your expertise. Can other people, who are experts in their own fields, do as good of a job as you? Of course not. Then why expect the same when it comes to web design.
SEO benefits
Search engine optimization is a vital part of any and every online business marketing effort. To put it simply, SEO means getting your website rank as high as possible on the first page of google (for relevant keywords, of course). An expert web designer will know exactly how to prepare a website for great rankings.
If you’re thinking about whether paying for searches is a better idea, think again. Organic searches win over paid searches almost 95% of the time, people barely click on paid ads. Not to mention how expensive this can be.
It doesn’t matter how good your website looks, or how usable and practical it is. Poor SEO means low rankings. Web designers will take into consideration things that do, or that might, influence your rankings, and modify your businesses” website accordingly.
Reliability
You want something dependable and reliable. There are many risks that come when you run your own website. Bugs, glitches, updates that mess up your plugins, a host of issues come about. Fixing these problems can eat up your valuable time, and turn your attention away from other important segments of running your business.
Trying to figure out what’s causing an issue, and then fixing it, can take days. An online business does not have the luxury of having their website go down for an extended duration.
And trust us, your customers will not appreciate buggy websites. According to the Gomez Peak Time Internet Usage Study, roughly 88% of consumers are “less likely to return to a site” if they had a bad experience. First impressions matter.
Hiring web designers means you get stability. Issues that you need hours upon hours to solve can be handled in mere minutes. Not to mention it can be cheaper in the long run. Your website will have problems sooner or later, and you will need help. It’s only a question of whether you will pay for emergency help, or simply have somebody on call to assist you.
While website bugs are an inevitability, you will have fewer issues if you have a professional set everything up. Much better than just doing it yourself or giving the task to someone with little to no experience in this type of work.
Outmatch the competition
You need to get every competitive advantage you can get in the business world, no matter what field you’re in. And one of these advantages is, of course, a high-quality website.
Too many businesses try to cobble up a website on their own. Older companies might simply prefer not to update their decades-old site. Hiring a web designer means you can outlast and outmatch the competition in at least one aspect.
Furthermore, you will have some extra time to handle other aspects of your business, further getting extra room and space to stay ahead of your competitors.
Saving time (and money)
Time is money. A cliché, definitely, but a cliché for a reason. You only have so many hours in a day, you can accomplish only so much. So why invest your time and energy into an aspect of business that you simply don’t have much experience with? Delegation is the word we’re looking for here.
Delegation has been named one of the most underutilized management capabilities by experts. It is crucial if you want to run a proper online business. Hiring a web designer means you have one very important aspect of your business handled.
Working on something you are not an expert in will take much more time than simply hiring the professionals to do it for you. And yes, you might lose money at first, but do the math. How much money does the time you spent on working your website cost? What about the general boost in profits you will get from a website far superior to the one you could make yourself?
Conclusion
Running a business is expensive – every cost needs to be accounted for, and knowing what is and isn’t necessary is vital. So, if you were on the fence on whether you need a website designer, we hope our article convinced you otherwise.
A website designer can help your online business grow. Especially if you go with one of the top web design companies in New York, you will start with a website that is beautiful and functional. You will create better first impressions with your customers and get better response times. A professionally made website will have better SEO functionality, attracting more people to your online store. Finally, it will make the entire shopping and hiring experience much easier for your customers.