Websites aren’t meant to last forever. Web design trends are continuously changing, just as your business continuously evolves. After several years, it’s highly likely that your existing website will no longer meet the needs of your business. This may be because your current website is underperforming in search or as a marketing tool, or over time you have made changes to your current website that have increased the amount of information being processed and now your site is too slow, or perhaps your business has evolved and grown and now your website is a bottleneck for updated systems. Regardless of the why, an outdated website can negatively impact the success of your business and prevent you from achieving your desired growth.
For this reason, industry best practices recommend that you redesign your website about every three years. This ensures it not only reflects current web design best practices, but it will also serve the needs of your business – and your target audience – now and as you grow over the next few years.
Due to the rapid evolution of the digital marketing landscape, it’s always best to work with an experienced web design agency who can create a website that sets your business up for success. The following process contains the essential steps associated with effective website design.
- Establish your goals
- Determine your company branding
- Design the right layout
- Design your website with your audience in mind
- Work with your content strategist to create your content
- Publishing your website
- Use analytics to track your website’s performance
Establish Your Goals
Before you start building your new website, it’s important to establish the goals you’re looking to achieve from this project. Some potential goals may include:
- Grow your customer/client base
- Increase sales with eCommerce functionality
- Establish your business as an industry thought leader
- Boost brand awareness
- Grow your subscriber list
The goals you set will dictate the specifics of your website project, including:
- How the website looks and feels
- The important functionality requirements you’ll need
- The navigation architecture
- The most effective types of calls to action (CTAs) to drive results
Determine Your Company Branding
It’s crucial that your website convey your brand messaging. There are a variety of elements which help you communicate your brand to your audience:
- Color scheme
- Font style
- Imagery, including your logo and photo images
- Videos
- Your company’s unique story
Make sure decide on these elements in advance to ensure your website is built in a way that accentuates your brand.
Design the Right Layout
You’ll want to work with your website design company to develop the right website structure. Structure is incredibly important, and the right structure will give you tremendous control over important aspects of your website, such as:
- The ability to have a mobile-friendly, responsive design
- The ability to dictate where on the page you want content displayed
- The specific layout of each page
- The typography, color palettes, headers/footers and other design elements
- The way images and videos are displayed
- Load speed
An experienced web design company will have extensive experience on what makes the perfect layout for your website and will help you determine a layout that will best meet the goals of your website. In addition, one of the biggest advantages of working with a digital marketing agency when designing your new website is that you can leverage the customization they can provide to deliver a custom website design that is tailored to the unique needs of your business.
Design Your Website with Your Audience in Mind
It’s crucial to remember that your website must address the needs of your target audience. In order to ensure your website converts visitors into new customers/clients, you’ll need to design the site with their needs in mind. Everything about your website – navigation architecture, content strategy, visual images and calls to action – should be designed to create an exceptional user experience that moves visitors towards your desired outcome.
Work with Your Content Strategist to Create Your Content
Content is one of the most critical components of your website. It provides the important information your audience is seeking, helps you build trust and establish your business as an industry thought leader, conveys your brand messaging, and helps your website rank well on search engines.
It’s vital to have dedicated pages for all of the information your audience needs. This may include pages discussing:
- The products and services you offer
- Your company background, history and philosophy
- Team member bios
- Service areas (if your business targets a local clientele)
- Your unique approach, as well as any other messaging that distinguishes you from your competitors
- Case studies or portfolio pieces showcasing your work and the results you achieve
You may also want to include some blog posts which go into greater detail on specific subjects that are critical to the work you do.
Publishing Your Website
Before publishing, a good web design company will thoroughly review your your website to make sure:
- All links work properly
- All content as easy to find in your navigation
- Your website looks good on all devices – desktop, mobile and tablet
- Load times for each page are under 3 seconds
Use Analytics to Track Your Website’s Performance
It’s crucial to constantly monitor the performance of your website. This will provide valuable data that can be used to ensure your website is achieving your established goals. This data can also help you identify improvements to make over time that will help elevate your results.
Google Analytics is the industry standard. This platform provides one of the most robust data sources available, giving you the detailed information regarding your website’s performance necessary to maximize the impact of your website.
If you’re redesigning your website, your web design company can connect the new site to your existing analytics account. If you’re building a new site, they can set up analytics for you and ensure the tracking code is properly in place and communicating correctly.
Webolutions Can Help
As you can see by the guide above, designing a website takes a tremendous amount of planning and knowledge. For many businesses, it’s helpful to work with a web design agency who can ensure this process addresses your specific needs and goals. If you’re looking for a web design specialist, Webolutions can help.
We’ve been building award winning websites for over 27 years and during this time, we’ve developed a reputation as an industry leader. Our proprietary Websites Right Methodology™ has been developed using the knowledge, experience and lessons we’ve learned from building thousands of websites over nearly three decades. This process creates a far better client experience, increased website marketing performance and vastly superior results for your business.
In addition, our Enhanced WordPress Platform™ leverages a wide range of custom enhancements and configurations we’ve made to maximize the functionality and effectiveness of the WordPress CMS. This allows us to deliver a website that is truly tailor made to address your specific needs and goals.
You’ll also benefit from our Real-Time Performance Intelligence Dashboards™ which deliver highly organized graphical performance models that allow you to see critical information and trends associated with your website performance as they occur. This enables us to make timely recommendations for the adjustments and improvements necessary to maximize your website’s ROI.
Contact us today to schedule a free consultation. Webolutions serves clients nationwide from our offices in Denver, Colorado.
