The steady increase of website design companies in Sydney available to consumers means that standards and quality vary widely, on both ends of the spectrum. The abundance of options can be overwhelming in 2018 when trying to choose the best website design for your target audience, as well as the company that will help you to achieve the best ROI. Here are some key pieces of advice that can set you on a path to finding the right company and website design to help you to succeed.
Content Management System
Choosing an open source content management system, such as WordPress, allows your website to grow as your business grows. Choose one that allows you to reskin your website with a new design in the event that you rebrand or want to change the look and feel. Ensure the CMS allows for the easy addition or removal of plugins, to allow for continued user friendliness. WordPress, for example, is the most popular online publishing platform that currently powers over 20 percent of the web. Managing your site should also be simple and straightforward, empowering you to take control of your own content and image edits without depending on a designer to make the changes for you.
Sydney Web Design and Development Agency
75 percent of users judge a company’s credibility by its website design, clearly indicating that looks do matter. Just like car brands, some websites are cheap and are in need of constant repair, whereas some are a little more costly but last longer, give you more options, and provide a safer journey. Choose a reputable agency that understands your brand, knows your functional requirements and targets the market that you are entering into. You want to look for an agency that can walk the walk and talk the talk – these are the people who can maximise your ROI. Give your business to an agency that provides you with both recommendations and solutions to the current weaknesses of your existing or new site.
Find out where your agency is based
Whilst using offshore developers may be practical for some Sydney businesses and budgets, it may not be suitable for others. Using offshore developers may lead to unwanted project delays, delays in communication, or possibly language barriers. There can also be a vast difference between local and offshore talent from both a cost, skills and infrastructure perspective. Be sure to assess your own requirements and scope before a decision is made.
Support
A website is a wonderful marketing tool of this era, however, security may always be an issue. Due to the nature of the internet and those who don’t always have good intentions, you need to make sure that you have adequate website support should you find yourself with a technical issue. There’s also a chance that you may want to change things as a result of trends or business changes – will your agency provide you with capped hours of support each month, or are you charged on a case by case basis?
Design
These days, a website design should be responsive—no excuses. 25 percent of website users are accessing the internet on a portable device at any given moment, so don’t limit yourself by not offering a mobile-friendly experience. You have only 2-3 seconds to nail your users’ attention and give off a great first impression. If they cannot read your content because it’s not optimised to fit their screen—or if they can’t find what they’re looking for quickly—you will lose the customer. Your site’s functionality should be operational on all devices.
Is your design selling too much of the sizzle and not enough of the sausage? In other words, are you focussing too closely on the aesthetics and not enough on the user experience?
Will your design provide you with longevity? Are the design concepts likely to be seen as ‘old school’ in a short period of time, or are you thinking long-term to anticipate the next wave of website design?
Map out your customer’s journey and make sure to communicate your needs with your agency so that they can design and build it out for you. It’s better to get it right the first time to avoid additional fees, rework and project delays.
Ensure the design takes into account page load speed. Sites that are weighed down with heavy imagery that has not been optimised properly can slow down page loading speeds across all devices.
You can check your page load mobile speed by visiting and entering your URL here.
Quality Content
We’ve heard it all before – content is king. Produce and deliver quality content that can attract your audience, engage them, and even offer them the answers to their questions. Keep it simple. Long and unbroken areas of content are rarely read, and there is no need for war and peace style content pieces. As long as it is useful, informative and keeps the user in mind, you are on the right track.
Forms
Make sure you are capturing user information and asking the right questions, but keep the contact forms concise and inviting. Having the right form may give you the data you need to convert a potential customer to a loyal customer.
Search Engine Friendly?
Is the website search engine friendly? There is no point in having a fresh new design if it doesn’t get indexed by Google. Be sure to follow best practises so that when it comes to being found, you’ve stacked all the odds in your favour. You may even want to undertake an SEO campaign to assist with the visibility of your new site initially. An SEO campaign can target specific keywords that you would like to be ranking highly for, thus guiding your customers on a user journey that inspires them to turn into customers.
Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is
Spend your money wisely on what is going to be your most important marketing tool. Working with a reputable agency with experts in the field will increase the ROI for your business. It’s imperative that your site is designed and deployed by a company that understands that you have just 2-3 seconds to take users from browsers to buyers.
