The basics of why small businesses will be more successful hiring a small web design company to design their website.
It’s a common misconception amongst start-ups, small business owners and entrepreneurs that simply putting up a website equals a successful online business. Nothing could be further from the truth.
There is SO MUCH that goes into building a successful online business. Things like knowing what potential customers really want, search engine optimization, social media marketing, paid advertisements, sales funnels, conversion optimization, email marketing and so much more. But most of all you need a product or a service that people want to use!
As a small business, your website is a vital piece of your marketing and branding efforts. If you get your website designed wrong, you can easily lose thousands of Rands, and ultimately lose even more money in potential income generated by a well-designed, properly functioning website.
Many small business owners who attempt to build their own website soon find out there is more to a business website than a template, a few pages and a form. You may even have tried the DIY route with a free or low cost out of the box online website builder.
What you need is a small business website that is created to fit your needs, those of your customers and the search engines that expose it to them has the ability to create exposure, generate sales leads and enquiries and even increase foot traffic to your store.
In short, hiring a professional website designer:
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Saves the time that you would spend trying out different online gimmicks.
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Protects the reputation of your business. A lot of good websites and quite often plain simple spam are hosted on / build with free or cheap website builders and hosting services.
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Allows you to create a website that suits the needs that are specific to your business and those of the customers that you are targeting.
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Will help you make a good first (and lasting) impression, a beautiful website makes your business look more legitimate.
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Increase the confidence of your website visitors in your business, through well-designed layouts for improved visitor experience.
Here is why you need to hire a professional website designer, and they will do for you:
1. Website Planning and Discovery
This stage of the web design project will have the most impact on the final outcome. A small business web design firm will work with you to understand:
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What you want the website to do,
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Who the customers / audience is that you want to attract,
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The products and services that you offer and
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How all of this influence the tone and content of your marketing message and the style of your design.
This information is used to determine what content needs to be created to achieve your goals and serve your customer. Next the information is organised into a sitemap that reflects the logical flow of the site and a blueprint is created to show how content elements are displayed on each page.
2. Design
At this stage the web designer will use the sitemap and blueprint (also called a wireframe) and other information gained during discovery to come up with a look and feel that is suitable for the needs of the business and its visitors.
3. Build
Next the website designer will start coding the site. If a CMS is used the build stage might include building a custom theme that fits the design requirements, coding custom features and adding functionality such as SEO, analytics, backups etc.
4. Test, Train and Launch
Finally, the website will be tested in various browsers and on different devices, the client will be trained on how to edit and create posts and articles and perform some basic maintenance and then your site will be made live for all to see.!
Why we’ve devoted this article to web design for small businesses.
Because Big Web Media is a small business, we understand how small and medium sized businesses run and operate. What’s more, most of our web design clients are small businesses, being run either by sole proprietors, husband-and-wife teams or friends. We understand that small business owners are striving to support themselves and their families through their companies because we are doing the same.
Like you, we are dependent on word of mouth and internet visitors finding our website, liking what they see, and doing business with us. Because we are a hands on, owner run and managed business, we take our clients’ goals and needs very seriously.
The fact that our oldest client has been with us for 8 years, been through 4 website design changes signifies that they entrusted us with something extremely important when they hired us to design their website.
Still not 100% why you should trust Big Web Media? Proof is in the pudding:
Contact Us Today To Discuss How We May Consult With You.
By Phone: 087 820 7175 or by Email: info@bigwebmedia.co.za
