Are you ready to take your business to the next level? If you are, you’ll need a website–and not just any website. You need one that will help you foster client confidence and turn leads into clients. To do this you need to look into hiring a web designer that creates a website that looks professional, who understands your goals and highlights your services in the best possible light.
But who do you hire? What are the basics you need to know to make the right choice?
Here are the six things you must know before hiring a web designer.
1. Design Is Important—Really Important.
Of course, you want to have a great website that looks professional, but did you know:
You only have milliseconds to make an impression. Research has shown that it only takes 50 milliseconds for people to form an opinion about the visual appeal of a website. If they don’t immediately like the look of your website—they’re gone.
[bctt tweet=”According to online marketing expert Gina Williams, ‘Your website design can make or break your credibility in the eyes of potential clients. 94% of the time, it’s design that is cited as the reason a website is distrusted.'” username=”herahub”]
The underlying structure of your website affects it’s speed and visibility. The way in which your website is designed and built can also affect its speed and therefore it’s search engine ranking—more on this later.
So, now you can see how vitally important it is to get a good solid design that captures people’s attention right away, instills a sense of credibility and is built to rank.
2. A Responsive Design Is A Must.
If you aren’t familiar with the term responsive design, don’t worry. It’s short for mobile-responsive design and simply means that your website will automatically configure to fit smaller screens.
Have you ever visited a website from your phone or tablet and it just didn’t look right? Or maybe it didn’t even function properly. That’s what you don’t want. Here’s why:
Over 60% of website searches are now performed on mobile devices. That means, most of your website traffic will be from mobile devices.
With this many people searching on mobile devices, responsive design is an absolute must.
When done properly, your website will have designated layouts for specific devices—desktop, tablet, and smartphone.
Which means your website will look it’s best on any device.
3. Speed Is Vital.
Remember the milliseconds you have to make an impression on potential clients? If your website is slow to load, you might lose them before you get to make an impression at all.
Here’s what affects your website’s speed:
Structure: How your website is built can affect how fast it loads. You want a clean framework that’s proven to produce fast, easy to read websites.
Images: Images can really slow down your load times. They need to be converted to lossless compressed images to load faster and retain their quality.
Hosting: Where and how your website is hosted can also affect its speed. You want dedicated servers that won’t get bogged down or overloaded—more on this later.
4. Location, Location, Location.
You may not think of your website as having a physical location, but it does. The servers on which your website is hosted determine its location.
This location can affect the security, speed and ranking of your website. Here’s how:
Questionable Neighbors: Hosting on a server with websites of questionable integrity, such as online gambling or spammer sites, can make your site less secure and even lower your search ranking!
Overloaded Servers: Hosting without a dedicated server, your website can become slow to load or even unresponsive at any time. You could lose clients for no good reason.
You want hosting with clean dedicated servers and no questionable neighbors.
5. Visibility Is The Final Key.
You want a website that brings you more business. Unfortunately, that means just having a high-quality website isn’t enough. You need a high-quality, fast-loading website that ranks well in online searches. To achieve this, you need good search engine optimization (SEO) tactics.
All web designers should implement some form of SEO, but you want to know they are setting you up for success in the way they design your website and the keywords they help you rank for—this list should be well thought out.
Now, web design and content alone won’t have you ranking #1 on Google, but it’s an integral part of your search rankings and ultimately your business success.
It’s kind of a big deal.
6. It Shouldn’t Cost An Arm And A Leg.
Most businesses with relatively simple website needs can get a high-quality, fast, professional website—that has the potential to rank well—for less than you might think.
For many businesses, the website only needs to bring in one client to more than pay for itself!
I share all of this because I’ve been there. I’ve been the one who was more than willing to pay for a product or service to elevate my business, only to have people over promise and under deliver.
Hiring a web designer is exciting! And now you are armed with a basic understanding of what makes a great website that will help you grow your business—You can do this!
Hi, I’m Gina Williams and I take the guesswork out of online marketing.
A San Diego native and an entrepreneur, myself, I’m passionate about helping other small business owners reach their goals.
I help businesses get more clients through proven website design and SEO services with measurable results.
Questions? You can reach me at: http://www.sandiegoseosolutions.com/
