Importance of websites

Every business must have a website to compete in today’s digital marketplace. Your website is the most important digital asset that you have because it is the only thing you own online and where you can do anything you want. Building your business on a third party website like Facebook take a big risk as they are subject to the platforms decisions and changes. Read on to see how we help businesses to develop websites that compliment their brand, build trust with visitors, enables them to sell products and services, and much more!

Since the launch of the worldwide web in 1991, the Internet has grown massively. Now there are more than 1 billion website pages out there with millions of users per day. These numbers create a major challenge for businesses who want to be found and want to stand out from competitors in the ever-more crowded online space.

Potential customers and partners make a judgement about whether your website looks professional and appealing at first glance. To the majority of potential customers out there, your website is the first impression they get of your business.  It is your window to the world regardless of what type of business you are.

Failing to give your website visitors a good first impression risks losing them as they decide to click out and take their business somewhere else. A website that works for a business does not just have to look good, however. It also has to work by providing the information that potential customers want so that they choose to buy from you. Then the website has to be easy to navigate so that visitors can make a purchase easily without too many distractions. Technical considerations such as the speed at which the website pages load can also influence whether visitors do business on your website or not.

Benefits of good websites

Your website is much more than just a page that visitors see. These are some of the advantages businesses get from having a good website:

• Platform to sell products and services.
• Facility to engage potential and existing clients around the clock, even while you sleep.
• Low-cost alternative to a physical store or premises, which will cut down your companies costs.
• Facility to provide a rich mix of interactive and engaging content that can build relationships with potential and existing customers as well as partners.
• Ability to interact with potential and existing customers in real time.
• Platform to provide customer service.

Understanding website development

Everything about your website – including the content, the way it looks, and the way it works- is determined by the website design. Professional Web design helps to make your business appear credible online. The right content and functions give potential customers the information they require and the smooth process to buy from you.

“It used to be that every website had a black (or really dark) background with white or brightly coloured text over it.  Browsing the web felt like you were constantly hanging out in someone’s basement (which was fitting because most of those sites were probably built by some guy in his parents’ basement.”

Web design has come a long way from the trend of dark sites with garish-coloured text in the 1990s. Back then, with only a handful of web-safe fonts, rudimentary CSS, and tables for layouts, designers were limited with what they could develop. Fast-forward to today, and the web design is so different. “Now multi-megabyte pages with large cover photos are the norm, and we have plenty of frameworks, icons and fonts to choose from.”

The transformation of Apple’s website from the 1997 incarnation to the current website shown below, illustrates the capabilities that web developers now have.

Apple’s website in 1997

Apple’s website in 2017

It is easy to spot the vast improvements in today’s website that looks more professional, has high-quality images, has an easy to understand layout and is visually appealing.

Elements of website development

Many companies make extravagant promises about their website development capabilities and then fail to deliver. A good website developer is professional, with a background in creating business websites using different platforms. An expert website developer does not attempt to force clients into having their preferred site format. They work to understand your business and your customers so that they offer you the most appropriate web development options that will give you the appearance, functions and user experience that you require to building trust and convert your website visitors into customers.

The best web developers are proactive. They keep up with trends in the sector and enable your business to compete with other companies that provide similar products and services. Above all, good web developers are responsive when something goes wrong which will happen from time to time given that things do happen occasionally.

Challenges in web development

Getting the right website development for a business is not as easy as it may first appear. These are some of the difficult decisions that can be the difference between engaging in an expensive waste of time and money or having a website that enables your company to achieve your business objectives:

• How to choose the right website developer?
• How much should you pay?
• Which website template to choose? Or would you be better off with a custom-built internet site?
• Which functions and information do you require to comply with legal requirements and best practice?
• How to ensure your website has fast loading speeds?
• How much content should you have and what is the best structure and layout?
• Do you require secure payment facility?
• Which functions do you need to build trust and engage potential and existing customers?
• What is the plan if something goes wrong with the website?
• Can you update the website yourself or is the web developer required to make changes at additional cost?

Our website development service guarantees you support to address all of these issues and additional expertise that only good digital marketers like us can give to business.

Doing Website development for business

We work with clients through the stages of the web design process from conceptualising, planning the layout, colours, text styles, structure, graphics, images, and use of interactive features that your site visitors will love. These are some of the key aspects of our service that mean you can have peace of mind knowing that you have chosen the right website development partners:

• Our web developers create bespoke websites in a variety of computer languages, such as HTML or JavaScript. We are also experts at using website templates like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, etc. to give business the website that matches their objectives and budget.
• Our webmasters maintain websites and keep them updated.
• You never have to worry about your website having any problems because whenever there is an issue with the site such as it being down or pages not working, we commit to resolve them as a matter of urgency.
• We create websites that comply with the current World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards for accessibility.
• Our websites are mobile-friendly, so they work well on mobile devices.
• As we are digital marketers, we cooperate with you to ensure you have the policies and functions like reviews and the facility to provide resources like blog posts that not only show your expertise to potential customers but also raise your search rankings.
• We use our search engine optimisation expertise to ensure your website is visible on the major search engines (Google and Bing).
• We will advise you on the content and functions that will help you to engage and convert potential customers.
• We will ensure your marketing campaigns integrate with your website.
• We offer a choice of hosting options to suit your needs.

With millions of potential customers searching for your business online every day, can you afford not to have an awesome website?

Contact us