There’s more to a website than just being on the web. You want to bring in more customers; your website visitors want information and value when they arrive at your page. A professional website will do more for you than just get your company on the internet - it will help your customers and grow your business.

First, consider when you hear about a company that can solve a problem you may have. Imagine that you go to their web address and see a website that looks like it was created in the 1990s - Maybe a list of links down the side, a wide column in the middle with the details of the business, and images across the top with the site navigation. This doesn’t do much to instill confidence in the company or the product, no matter how good the ad was that directed you to the site.

With a professional website, your potential customers will see a direct link between your advertising and your up-to-date web experience. This builds client trust that your products or services also use current technologies, leading potential customers to infer quality and attention to detail.

A significant driver of traffic to your website is making sure your business shows in local search rankings. Search Engine Land reported that as of 2016, local searches in Google were up 50% year-over-year. An experienced web design agency will make sure your business is listed with search engines such that customers searching for what you do will see results based on their location.

Your website can also be a powerful sales tool, especially where mobile devices are concerned. Most everyone has a smartphone that they use to look up information when they need it. A website that’s available and mobile-ready (known as “responsive” in the industry) will bring in more customers than the old 90s-style website we described above. If people have to pinch & zoom their way around your website on a mobile device, they’re five times more likely to leave, according to Google. Responsive websites are so named because they “respond” to smaller browsers and scale their content accordingly - text size, video and photo placement, menu locations - so that you have a comparable experience on a smartphone or tablet that you would on a desktop machine. Some free website themes are responsive, but some are not. An agency-designed website should be built to accommodate mobile devices - which account for over half of web traffic.

You want your customers to think of your website as the ultimate resource for your product or service so that they return on a regular basis, keeping your business top-of-mind. Of course people will visit to get information on your products, to look for a FAQ page, or search a support database, but there are other resources your site can provide. Regular blogging on topics that your customers want to learn about (20+ posts per month) helps increase your inbound traffic and leads.

Taking ownership of your website from a professional developer can also be somewhat intimidating for non-programmers who aren’t familiar with making changes or updates to the site. Reputable developers will include a training session for their clients to show them how to add blog content and change web copy if/when needed. In many cases, the area for text entry will look very similar to a word processor like Google Docs or Microsoft Word. Adding or changing content is as easy as writing the words and clicking the “Update” button!

Keep the above benefits in mind when weighing the overall cost of working with a developer to build your website or doing all the labor yourself. In many cases you’ll find it well worth your time and money to work with an experienced agency that can set your business up for success by creating a website built to accelerate growth. Contact us here.