We’ve all been there. Our about and contact pages, our branding, our storefront, our navigability, our SEO priming, our blog posts, it’s all seemingly working. But something remains. What? We’re not entirely sure. By all intents and purposes, we have most of the things any successful website needs on paper.
But there’s just one thing that won’t quit - and that’s that niggling feeling. You likely know what we’re talking about. You’ve likely felt it. You’ve likely also either let it get at you or disregarded it as best as you could. But it can always be there. For perfectionists, it can be that dulling down that voice and understanding less is more is the best route forward. But for some, it can mean a call to actual perfection.
In fact, this can become a worthwhile website design tool should you know how to grasp it with both hands. We hope to help you do just that. Let us see how this odd feeling can help you, and how we can prevent it from growing in its neurotic strength:
The Layout Isn’t Quite Right
You might be quite happy with your branding, but how it feels on the page might not sit quite right with you. Perhaps the templates are a little missized, or the posts are a little small, or the eye navigation upon first impression is just a little confused. Perhaps it takes you just a little more time to reach the home button than it should, or perhaps you have trouble finding it at all. Perhaps the search function is returning zero results despite entering in keywords you know pertain to a certain article.
Maybe your contact page is just a form, when really it should have some text explaining why that form should ever be used. Perhaps the formatting of the website doesn’t quite align right when stretching the window around. Even one of these issues can be annoying, but more than one? That can be a travesty. Sometimes digging through your aesthetic and navigable layout diligently, with care and attention, can be the one thing keeping you away from a difficult layout application, and will help you avoid that niggling feeling.
Engagement Is Way Off
It can be that when we launch a website, we expect positive results. We’ve gone to all this effort in UX design, reachable and readable content, and just know that we have something to offer. So why, even after a month or so, is no one visiting our page? Well, it could be that your user research is way off. If you can contact a professional service to help you with this, it could potentially help you get better analytics and metadata, show you what you’re doing wrong, and help you chase conversion leads to make your website more of a success. Contacting a successful SEO outfit could also help you develop a more confident and custom solution to help your page become exposed naturally. It’s important you focus on the meta-analysis of your website, not only to wish for comments and hits. This is the reality of running an online presence in 2019.
Your Community Outreach
It’s important to consider how you might wish for your community outreach to propagate. What is your intention for the website? To become the hub of all your content? To host a few choice articles? Or to open a blog for potential affiliate marketing and earning money from sponsored posts?
Not quite knowing what you hope the community to do with your website will also confuse them after they have clicked on it. Your community outreach means something, and it often makes the most difference. Do you wish to allow comments through tools such as Disqus? How are you to propagate discussion, through forums or through open dialogues? Do you have the capacity to feature noted social media posts and turn them into content, as well as reflecting that on your social media timelines?
Community outreach can influence web design in a number of ways. If it’s half-baked, not present, or perhaps overly accepting, your decisions can change. This means it’s essential to move forward and choose something reliable ahead of time.
To Summarize
Overall, it is essential to ensure that your website design is both creative and flexible, but also has a reasoning behind everything you choose. Small mistakes, such as formatting errors, can be noticed and changed. But without a solid direction, you can find it harder to approach the intentions for your website you once had.
With these tips - we hope you’re better able to avoid that ‘niggling’ feeling when committing to an online design approach.
We already know – or at least we should – that unless businesses have a strong online presence, nowadays, it’s almost like they don’t even exist. That’s why every modern business owner has to do everything in their power to ensure that they build a strong presence online where they can reach greater exposure and a wider audience.
But no matter how strong your online presence is and no matter how active your business is on marketing channels, such as social media, all of it will be more or less in vain if your website is lacking in design. Not only can a poor web design deter potential customers, but it will also hinder your attempts to become more relevant in the online realm and create a better relationship with search engines in general.
That being said, let’s see some of the reasons why great web design is absolutely crucial for your online business success.
Because first impression matters
Just like you would get all dressed and dolled up if you’re going on an important business event because you want to ensure that you leave the best possible first impression you should aim at achieving the same effect with your website design. While it is true that plain and simple is the best way to go when presenting an idea to a wider audience, the fact of the matter is that people are very visual beings. What this means is that we enjoy seeing beautiful things and we generally strive towards attractiveness. Needless to say, the better the first impression your website leaves on your audience, the more of them will choose to do business with you over your competitors.
Because the SEO struggle is real
There are numerous web design elements that influence the way you publish things on your website which in turn determines how your website is being indexed by search engine spider crawlers. All of these determine how search engines see your website and process the information found on it, which affects the way they choose to rank it. Therefore, you need to make sure that the SEO fundamentals on your website are top-notch if you want to make sure that they are aiding your SEO efforts, not hindering them.
Because you want your audience to trust you
Furthermore, the trust your audience has in your business is something that can’t be bought. Rather, it is something that requires hard work and dedication. By ensuring that you do all in your power to present your audience with a safe online environment, you’ll guarantee the long-term success of your business. That’s why you should invest in making your website easy to navigate, visually engaging – but not overwhelming – and, most importantly safe. That is the key reason high-quality companies choose to secure their websites with an SSL certificate, offering their audience a safe browsing environment, while at the same time securing their website from unwanted and malicious attics and infiltrations.
Because customer service should be your main concern
Website design can also let your audience know what they can expect from you as a business. Simply put, if you don’t put enough effort into your website design that can let your audience know that you won’t put much effort into them either. Think of it this way – your website works as your online customer service representative. If the representative is well-kempt, pleasant and happy to help, consumers will feel more inclined to do business with your brand as they will know that they have someone to rely on in case anything happens to go wrong. However, if your representative looks tired and unwelcoming, chances are that people will simply turn to someone better, i.e. possibly your competition.
Because you want to do better than your competitors
If you’re still looking for reasons to up your web design game, here is the final one: Your competitors are already using it to their advantage. If none of the previous reasons were enough to sway you, chances are that you’ll at least care about this one. Simply put, the goal of every business out there is to be the best of the best and your business should be no different. Therefore, check out your competitors’ websites, see what elements of their design you like and find appealing and customize them to fit your own business’s narrative. This will be the thing that will set you apart from the rest of the crowd.
These were, of course, just some of the most important reasons why you should invest in stellar web design. However, if they were not enough to convince you, chances are that nothing else will.
If you run a local sports team in your area then you probably already know how difficult it can be to get new members to join. Although you may have a few people join here and there, knowing how to market your sports team successfully could be incredibly beneficial. Whether it’s buying ad space in a local magazine or hiring an agency to help you with ads, there are lots of things you can do to ensure you’re getting lots of new recruits. With that in mind, here are 5 ways to promote your local sports team:
Post Flyers In Local Neighborhoods
One of the best ways to drum up interest for your local team is to post flyers and leaflets through the doors of those that live in local neighbourhoods. Although they may have heard of you before, they may not know enough about you to make a decision as to whether or not they want to join. Make sure your flyer has lots of important information, sharing all of the benefits of joining the team. For a guide to making an effective flyer or leaflet, you can visit this site here.
Advertise At A Local School
If your sports team is a team for kids, advertising at local neighbourhood schools could be a great idea. Whether this means attending a sports day to speak to both the children and their parents or whether you hand out flyers to go into kids bookbags - you want children to be excited about joining your team.
Use Targeted Social Media Ads
If you want to reach a more targeted audience, social media advertisements can be incredibly beneficial. Whilst they can be expensive, you can set the exact parameters of who you want to see your advertisement, ensuring only those that would be interested see it. If you need help when it comes to setting them up, why not speak to a professional sports marketing agency?
Buy Space In The Local Paper
Another great way to advertise and promote your sports team is to buy space in your local paper. If you know your target audience is going to be reading the paper, paying for an advertisement may be worth it. Depending on your budget you can choose to go for a full-page spread, a single page or for half a page. If you’re on a limited budget, you may even want to consider using the classifieds. For guidance when it comes to buying advertising space in your local paper, you can visit this site here.
Advertise On Local Radio
When looking at your target audience, you may also want to consider whether or not they listen to the local radio. If you know what channels they’ll be listening to on a regular basis, it may be worth enquiring about prices for an advertising slot.
Are you looking for a new way to advertise your local sports team? What could you do to ensure maximum visibility? Let me know in the comments section below.
Believe it or not, but online shopping has changed the way we search for things and buy them. In fact, a recent study conducted by KPMG revealed that 58% user prefer online shopping than traditional way because they could shop anytime as per their convenience. The same source says that 54%of users prefer it because of the ability to compare the prices.
Source: KPMG
The global e-commerce sales are continuously inclining. As compared to $2.8 trillion in 2018 it is expected to rise up to $4.9 trillion (an eMarketer research).
Source: eMarketer
Considering the present growth and the future of possibilities, businesses are now going online through e-commerce websites and mobile apps. They wish to attract their prospective customers through their e-commerce website but sometimes they could not get what is desired.
Not every visitor to an e-commerce site is a buyer and this is a reason why cart abandonment percentage is 21% (a Localytics research). The most possible reason for this is that the e-commerce website failed to come into the expectation of the buyer.
Below, we are listing 7 such common mistakes that every e-commerce website should avoid, in order to retain the continuous business flow.
7 Blunders E-Commerce Websites Should Not Make
#1 Choosing the Wrong Platform: This is one of the most common mistakes which e-commerce merchants make. Depriving in the knowledge they sometimes select a platform that could not provide their business the exposure which it truly deserves.
Choosing the platform completely depends on your business size. For instance, you can go for Shopify if you have a small business. But, if you are looking for a platform that could support your big e-commerce enterprise then nothing could be more favorable to you than Magento. A highly scalable platform could be always beneficial for business.
Choosing a wrong platform means you are compromising with page loading time, which would not at all be accepted by your prospective customers.
Few of the most popular e-commerce platforms are:
Shopify
LemonStand
Magento
BigCommerce
WooCommerce
3DCart
#2 Running Without Strategy: Every business is focussed for a particular group. For instance, if you want to start an e-commerce website for selling books then your prime focus would be students. Like this, you need to set different strategies as per the business needs.
Depriving of the proper strategies, you can face failures in your business, especially during the website development time.
Here are a few of the things which you need to consider while setting a strategy for business:
Identification of market and buyers
Making every process transparent
Targeting mobile audience
Ensuring smooth supply management
Social connectivity
Privacy & term policies
#3 Ignoring Trust Factors: Alike you, there are many others available on the market which are providing the same services and most probably at the same price. The only thing which can differentiate between a reliable and fraud company is the trust factor.
This could be achieved by adding trust factors on your website. Adding important things like SSL Certificate, Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, Refund Exchange Policy, etc. would automatically build the trust of the website in the customer.
Along with this, if you would work on easy product navigation and simple but effective design then also it will lure more customers and build trust in your brand.
#4 Ignoring Mobile Friendliness: Do you know that mobile e-commerce is expected to surpass 72% of total digital sale by 2021? Doesn’t this clearly brief why you should not ignore mobile for your e-commerce business?
If you really wish to target your audience then never ever ignore mobile. Ask the web development services team to go for a mobile-friendly site, so that you may get uninterrupted business flow.
#5 Not Adding Sufficient Contact Info: A research by KPMG states that 51% of consumers are more likely to trust a business which makes it easy for them to contact people at the company. So, if you are ignoring the contact details at your website you are likely to lose the interest of those 51% consumers. Not adding proper contact details like customer care number, e-mail address, office address, and phone number could put your e-commerce website under suspicion.
#6 Overusing Popups: Without any doubt, it can be said that popups help businesses to enhance the database with the details of prospective clients. You can gather e-mail address of prospective clients through pop-up windows and can later embrace them with desired offers and details.
But remember, overusing pop-ups in a website can also irritate the customers and they can lose interest on your site. As per the research of Hubspot, 55% visitors leave the site within 15 seconds and an irrelevant pop-up could make them leave the page even earlier.
#7 Not Exhibiting Product Reviews: Shopping on an e-commerce website is truly dependent on trust. According to SalesForce, 85% of buyers conduct online research before they make a final decision to buy a product.
Reading product reviews and ratings is one of the important part of research apart from the product description. Not adding this feature on your website could make you lose the prospective clients.
There should be genuine reviews from verified buyers on every product which in turn would increase the authenticity of the website.
The Bottom Line
Of course, Amazon accounted for 44% of all US e-commerce sales but it does not mean that there is no future of possibilities for small businesses. In fact, small retailers have 30% higher mobile conversion rate as compared to the big ones.
So yes, it is all about how you present the business and your strategy. No matter whether you are a big e-commerce giant like Amazon or a small e-commerce site for cake and flower delivery, with the right tactics you can win laurels across the business.
From contacting the right web development services company (for choosing the best platform) to providing correct product info with genuine reviews; there are many responsibilities like this which merchants need to consider in order to succeed as an e-commerce platform.
If you are looking for a post that breaks down how to build a website from scratch in a detailed step by step guide, then you're in the wrong place. However, if you are someone needs a website for their business, and want to know exactly what to ask for when commissioning a site, all you need do is read through the five categories below.
UX
The first thing that you need to ask for and have an understanding of is UX, short for user experience. What this relates to is how the person accessing your website will use it and get the most out of that experience.
What that means is that this part of web design is related to creating the infrastructure of your site, including things like wireframes, user flows, and task flows as practical as possible. This being something that will require extensive research, critical thinking, and testing from your design professional.
In fact, it is a pretty complicated process, but what you need to remember when it comes to UX is that this stage of the design process is all about making sure the people that you want to most use your website are considered and factored into the way it's created. Something that is used to help improve customer engagement and interaction and so can positively affect your business.
UI
UI or user interface is another element of website design that those commissioning a project will need to know about. In fact, you will often hear of UX and UI being talked about in the same breath as they are closely related.
However, UI differs from UX in that it is primarily focused around the visuals of a website, something that means it has a lot in common with graphic design. In fact, the critical areas of UI that those commissioning a website need to be aware of include branding, layout, and even the icon and illustration styles that are used.
Apart from UX and UI, there are other things that those looking to have a website created for their company need to have a good grasp on. One of these things is SEO or search engine optimization.
SEO is the process by which websites are found and displayed by search engines such as Google. Of course, this is a prime concern to all business owners because they will absolutely want their company to be found easily by potential customers.
In fact, research has shown that those businesses that are able to use SEO to get their business displayed on the first page of a search engine will have the higher rate of clicks thoughts than any other page. Put simply, this means if your business shows up first, you are likely to get the lion's share of customers.
Of course, there are some things that aren't directly linked to web design that you can do to improve your search engine ranking, such as use an SEO agency for content marketing. Although, it is also vital that SEO be factored into the design of a website at its creation as well, as this can help to strengthen your rankings and ensure our business always ends up above your closest competition.
Images
Those commissioning a website will also need to consider what type of images they want to include, something that often sits just outside the realm of UI and in its own domain.
Image here
In fact, it is crucial to carefully consider the use and style of images displayed on your website because not only will they set the tone for what you are trying to convey, but they can also provide an added layer of engagement and interaction as well. Something that once again will have a massive effect on how successful your website is.
Mobile optimization
Finally, if you are looking to get a website created for your business, you must also understand that it will not only be viewed on people's desktop computers. In fact, the vast majority of users will access your business's site on a mobile device such as a tablet or smartphone. What this means is that it's imperative you check that the person that is designing your site will include mobile optimization in the package they are offering.
Image source
In fact, if they don't, then you will need to ensure that you specifically request it. Otherwise, you could have the best looking and performing site, that can easily be found, but that ends up looking awful for most of the people visiting it. Something that certainly won't do your business much good!
