With so many web design alternatives being promoted today, it may seem like that’s the best and easiest option to go with, but at what cost to your business’s reputation in the long run? While a free website sounds like the most simple and affordable option, are you willing to bet the success of your business on the least expensive available option? As with most things in life, you will get what you pay for…so why not invest wisely now for a better return on your investment later?
Most times, your website is the first and only thing your prospective customers may see when searching online for products or services that you offer. What first impression are they getting about your business when they go to your website? Does your website make them immediately want to associate with your brand and purchase from you? Or does it make them say “Ehh, no way..” and go to your competitors who have it all together?
So many business owners feel like they can do it all themselves, including design, build, and manage their website. But many don’t realize that it honestly is easier said than done. It’s not just about making a blank page look pretty… Web design is a complex and strategic process and a full-time job that’s best if left to the professionals who live and breathe web design almost 24/7. Instead of spending weeks and even months putting together a website for your business, wouldn’t you rather spend time doing the thing you actually love- running and growing your business?
Below are 8 essential reasons why you need a web designer:
1. Expertise
A web designer is someone who specializes in making websites. Websites are a powerful marketing tool that can help you sell your products and services, gain new customers, and even increase brand awareness. When you hire a professional web designer to build your site for you, they will know how to optimize it for search engines like Google so that people can easily find it when they are searching for something on the internet.
A good web designer will listen closely to what goals you want to achieve with your website before creating any designs or layouts for your pages or blog posts. The best web designers always put themselves in their client’s shoes first before thinking about how technology might solve problems (or create them).
2. Usability
As a business owner, you should understand the importance of your website. It’s vital to your brand and mission, and it’s essentially an opportunity to market your products or services to a larger audience. However, having a good-looking site isn’t enough; the information on it needs to make sense and be effective. It also has to be easy for users to navigate as well.
Here are some of the things that make up web design:
- Content- whether this is simply imagery, videos, or text- it should get out your brand’s message and what you offer clearly. Remember, there is no website without content.
- Layout – this includes how many pages are on the site and how they’re organized
- Navigation – this refers to how visitors can get around your site and find what they need
- Design – how does it look? Are all of the elements working together in harmony?
3. Saving Time
Time is money, and when you have a website that needs to be designed, time is the most valuable asset of all.
Web design is an intricate process and it can take days or even weeks for a designer to put together the perfect look for your site. With such a long process, hiring someone who specializes in web design will save you time so you don’t have to spend your own precious hours figuring out how best to create your site.
You won’t have to worry about sending them lengthy emails with feedback on every single detail because they’ve already done that work for you! And once everything is finished—and quality tested—you’ll be ready to launch with confidence knowing that everything looks amazing and is optimized to generate right-fit leads for your business.
4. Speed and Performance
Site speed is a ranking factor, so you need to make sure that your website loads quickly. There are several reasons for this:
- content is king, and people don’t want to wait for it;
- users don’t like sites that take too long to load, so they might leave;
- the conversion rate can be affected by slow loading times;
- users will have a bad experience when they visit your site and won’t return in the future
5. Branding and Design
Creating a brand is the foundation of your company, but what does that mean for your website? A strong brand is built on an idea, message, or feeling that resonates with your audience. When people visit your website they are looking to connect with that idea in some way—and when they do so successfully it’s called “brand recognition.” It’s something you want to achieve on every level: from naming conventions to logo design, from content creation to color palette choices. The more cohesive these elements are with one another and the greater their impact on customers (i.e., how well they communicate that “idea”), the better chance you have at creating a memorable experience for them while they’re browsing around in cyberspace – which translates into increased sales conversions for your business!
6. Security and Updates
As web designers, we know that security is an important part of a website. We also know how to keep your site secure and make sure that it has the latest updates. If you have a blog and you want things like social media icons on your blog pages, or if you want to add new features or turn on a function like “contact us”, all of those things are easy for us to do.
7. Marketing
A web designer can help you with your marketing. Your website is an extension of your brand and will be interwoven into every aspect of your marketing plan. Marketing assets like your sales funnels, ads, social posts, and blog posts, all get linked back to and tied into your website.
If you don’t have a good web designer managing your site, it will not be search engine optimized (SEO) or mobile-friendly. A good web designer knows how to make sure that they are using the right keywords in their metadata so that when people search for those terms, they find your website before your competitors.
They’ll also ensure that once someone lands on your page, it’s easy for them to find what they’re looking for by creating relevant call-to-actions (CTAs) throughout the experience—and making sure those CTAs lead people back toward conversion points like buying something from you or signing up for a free trial or newsletter signup.
8. Technical Support
If you’re a non-technical person and you’ve found a web designer to help you, then it’s very important that this person be able to handle technical issues. What if your site goes down? These kinds of things can happen and can cause serious harm to your business if not dealt with right away. Your web designer should be able to help you with these types of situations if you hire the right one…
Web design is a craft that involves many different skill sets, and depending on what your company’s goals are, you need to ensure that your designer has the right background and experience to fit those needs.
Once again, web design is a craft. It’s not just about slapping some colors and images on a page, but rather it’s about knowing how to use those elements to achieve your business goals. Web designers need to understand human behavior and the limitations of the technology they are using in order to create something that appeals to users’ needs.
Conclusion
If you are a small business owner with limited time, consider hiring an experienced web designer to handle the design, logistics, growth, optimization, and maintenance of your website.
To learn more about why you need a professional By Timeless Web Designer, please contact us here or email us directly at info@bytimeless.co.