Many small businesses look at internet marketing as though looking through a keyhole. They know that it’s important to have a website, but focus only on maintaining a well designed website. In reality, internet marketing is about the way that a variety of tactics work together. SEO, social media, and quality websites all interact to create a useful web presence.
The Importance of a Solid Web Presence
According to Pew Internet, 58% of people have used the internet to research services or products. As such, it is critical for sites to be highly visible enough to appear in searches in order to be considered in customer research. Inclusion isn’t enough, however, today’s consumer has a number of standards for evaluating whether a business is worthy of their patronage.
What Matters to Consumers
Statistically speaking, consumers decide whether or not to consider giving their business to a company after less than one second of viewing its website. The impression they form is based on design, though further exploration also factors in ease of access to information, navigability, and readability. Another major factor is advertising. One study showed that 84% of users between 25 and 34 have left favorite websites because of intrusive or irrelevant advertising.
How to Meet Consumer Expectations
The best website design ideas and tips take search engine marketing tactics into consideration. While design itself is important, there are a number of onsite adjustments that can be made to increase the likelihood that the site will appear highly ranked on search engine result pages. The best SEO tricks leading to higher rankings include linking within a site, frequent use of relevant keywords, and maintenance of a content rich company blog. Professional SEO companies can also be useful in the creation of successful offsite SEO.
Also among the most important website design ideas and tips recommended by professional website design companies is mobile optimization. This shift to responsive web design is fundamental for the next decade of web development and is one of the smartest moves for local SEO effectiveness. Mobile optimization is actually much simpler to achieve than many businesses recognize. Even the newly released WordPress themes come fully optimized. Custom sites can also be optimized for mobile, increasing the likelihood that mobile users will use them for ecommerce or for in store product research.
The best website design ideas and tips actually have very little to do with subjective design and much more to do with the way sites are structured. The content has more of an effect on Google rankings, which is, after all, the major goal of many web design decisions. Read this for more.
Design itself is so subjective. What really matters is the bones. You definitely nailed it.
Design itself is so subjective. What really matters is the bones. You definitely nailed it.