You may have many ways to deliver your valuable content to customers and prospects. Social media, blogging sites, ecommerce platforms, and YouTube may all play a big part in your promotional strategy. But no matter how many “spokes” you have on your online marketing “wheel,” the “hub” is usually your website. So, it should be optimized for the highest possible visitor engagement.
Whether it’s a visitor’s first interaction with your brand or only their latest, a website can either help or hinder the process of moving them through your sales funnel. If it’s difficult to navigate or hard to understand what to do next, a potential buyer may leave immediately and seek out a competitor. But, if your site is well organized and consistent with your overall online presence, they are more likely to stay, follow through with their purchase, and enjoy the experience.
Here at BairesDev, we understand very well just how important a company’s website can be — for explaining your products or services, enabling purchases, and housing promotional content. In today’s competitive marketplace, excellent customer experience (CX) is a huge factor in business success, and we help companies make sure their website visitors get it. In the following sections, we explain how to build a fast, stable, attractive, highly functional site.
What Is the Difference Between Web Development and Web Design?
There’s a lot of confusion about the difference between web design and development services, but it’s important to understand the distinction when you’re looking to build a quality website. While it’s true that the roles are sometimes combined into a single position, more frequently, they operate and collaborate together but are each in charge of their own spheres.
A web developer focuses on the core of the website, including its structure, functions, and concept. The role demands strong coding skills for building the backbone of the website. Within the field, there are different positions, including frontend, backend, and full-stack developers.
Meanwhile, a web designer is responsible for the visual elements and user experience (UX). This is not limited to the website’s appearance, although the visual design is certainly a large part of the concept—it also requires creating the look and feel of the site. This role demands less technical knowledge than that of a web developer, although they will usually need some basic technical skills, particularly as they pertain to UX and the user interface (UI).
Both the web developer and the web designer are crucial for creating an appealing, functional, high-performing website. The professionals must work together to deliver the product.
What Does a Web Development Company Do? BairesDev’s Process for Great Web Design
The BairesDev Web Development and Design Process is fully customized to the client’s needs. We offer a wide variety of website solutions, tailored to your business. Specifically, we provide:
- Web development—backend and frontend
- UX/UI design
- QA testing
- Maintenance
- Prototyping
- Consulting services
We will start by gathering the requirements for your project. Then our talented designers and developers will construct or improve your website, based on the specification you have laid out. We will work quickly to create a site that enhances the CX and UX.
We will also address any problems you’re experiencing with your current website, such as:
- Weak security
- Outdated interface or design
- Inconsistent site traffic patterns and high bounce rates
- Confusing navigation
Search Engine Optimization
People can’t use your website if they can’t find it. That’s why one of the most important elements of your site should be effective search engine optimization (SEO).
So what is SEO?
SEO is the process of adjusting certain aspects of your website that search engines use to determine which URLs to display in their results. For example, Google checks for:
- The speed at which your pages load
- Whether or not your design is mobile-friendly
- The age of your domain
- The use of consistent keywords
- The use of hyperlinks
- The frequency with which people share your content on social networks
These are just a few of Google’s ranking factors. There are many more and savvy website developers make sure the websites they build include as many of them as possible. When they do, these sites show up higher in Google’s rankings when people search for relevant keywords.
Valuable Content
In the marketing world, content is king, so engaging websites are those that provide valuable content to visitors. What do we mean by content? It’s any item that offers information your website visitors want. Content types include blog posts, articles, videos, infographics, white papers, newsletters, and FAQs.
The strategy with content is to educate, not sell. For example, a technology provider might develop a series of videos showing customers how to use certain features of their products.
Another important thing to remember about content is that it’s shareable. If you hide your content on your website, you’re missing out on huge opportunities that result from sharing on social media sites, other companies’ blogs, and other online destinations. This process broadens your reach and drives prospects to your website where you can encourage them to make a purchase.
Refined Features
Visitors to your website expect a certain level of usability. That’s why you should include features like chatbots, interactive forms, and hyper-personalized content.
A chatbot is an automated system that can answer many visitor questions by stating policies, providing links, or referring the user to a human customer care specialist. Interactive forms enable customers to communicate with you in other ways and share information that can help them. Hyper-personalized content includes suggestions for products a shopper might like based on what they’ve been browsing.
These features are just a few that can transform a website from ordinary to extraordinary.
Simple Design
The features mentioned above, as well as other items like buy buttons, must stand out on your website. Therefore, an uncluttered design is another good thing to have. Web pages with too many components are likely to confuse readers and detract them from taking actions you want them to take, like signing up for your newsletter, requesting a demo, or making a purchase.
Additionally, given the widespread use of mobile devices, a design that adjusts to the viewer’s screen size is a must. This function is known as responsive design.
Obvious Calls to Action
If you’re new to website development, you may think it’s just a matter of creating content and design for each separate page. But website development should include an overall strategy to draw visitors through the sales funnel. For example, when they land on your home page, you can give them options for purchasing, if they’re ready, or for learning more about your products or services. The instructions (such as “learn more” or “buy now”) for leading them through these choices are known as calls to action (CTAs).
Your CTAs will be unique, depending on your business model. For instance, if you know your customers respond well to email offers, you’ll want to do everything you can to get website visitors to sign up for your newsletter. If you know prospects are more likely to become buyers if they speak to a sales rep, you’ll want to make it clear how to schedule a no-obligation conversation.
The keys here are to make your CTAs very obvious with things like big, bright buttons, and to always give visitors a next step to take.
Intuitive Navigation
One of the most frustrating online experiences is going to a website and having to hunt for the feature or function you need. No one wants to navigate through layers of sections and links only to end up far from where they expected to be. This scenario is yet another that is likely to drive visitors away. Navigation must be easy and intuitive, meaning visitors should find sections in logical locations and they should be able to jump directly to often-used features from any page.
Speed
If there’s one thing that could interfere with all the great work you’ve done on the aspects of your website mentioned above, it’s slow speed. If your site is slow to load, visitors will quickly lose patience and leave. The same is true for every component of the site, especially the checkout feature. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that if a customer has a full cart and is in the middle of the checkout process, they won’t abandon it. If your site is too slow, they just might.
If you enjoyed this, be sure to check out our other web development articles.
