One of the first things that you might find if you were to do a web search titled “website design Dallas” is some of the heavy hitters in the SEO industry of the Dallas, Texas area. Keep in mind that just because a website reaches the top of the search engines does not mean that it was designed well.
The difference between a highly placed search result and an actual sale can be nothing more than the design of the pages that people land on when they find the search results. Yes, search engine visibility does matter, but out of the top websites listed on the search result, the ones that get customers are the ones that count the most.
Results-Driven Design
Whenever you are seeking a designer of any type, when it comes to business, the ones that design for effect are the ones that get the best results. After all, why would anybody build a website if not for the desire for it to make an impact in one way or another?
Websites that look great are nice to look at, but websites that actually convert visitors to customers are the ones that count the most. Unless you are merely creating a website to deliver information, you have to make sure that the designers do the job for the purpose of getting action.
Experience Does Matter
When looking for the perfect web designer to do your website it makes a difference to find ones that have been in the business for a while and understand exactly what they need to do in order to initiate a project that will result in success.
It is important to have a close look at your web designer’s portfolio and see how recent the last work was. If they have a long track record with several years of consistent creations, it is probably an indication that they know how to build sites.
However, if you see that there are only a few, outdated projects that they have worked on over various stretches in time…you might want to look elsewhere…
The reason being is that anybody that knows a little bit about or any other visual building platform can build a site and make it look good on the outside. However, a website has to look good under the hood as well.
The code that makes up the website behind the scenes has to be structured in a way that allows the site to flow at optimum speeds and deliver the best visual results. An experienced web designer will understand how to build a site to look good on the outside, and keep the content from slowing down the functionality of the entire site.
Conversions vs. Visitors
The reason why the site must look good and function smoothly is that when visitors stumble onto a website they are usually in a hurry and do not want to waste time waiting for pictures to load onto their screen.
The average person decides whether to stay or go from a site within the first 10 seconds of landing on it. Some as soon as a couple of seconds. It is within that quick timeframe that the site has an opportunity to engage the visitors or repel them. If the visitor is not engaged or stimulated in some way, they will simply bounce away to another site.
If you think about it, when a person does a search on the internet they are faced with literally thousands of options that they could choose from. Yes, it is usually within the first 10 results that the people choose from, however, they have literally millions of other sites that show up in results way on down the line.
Sometimes the person will skip through 4 or 5 pages to see how many interesting results they get, but in most cases, they will not search that far back.
In any event, with all of the other possibilities to choose from out there, they don’t need much of an excuse to bounce away from your site and go in search of a site that suits their needs and their level of patience.
When visitors browse a site they are always potential customers. The difference between a visitor and a paying customer is how much of their attention you can get from them at the time of “browsing.”
Of course, you don’t want to overdo it and post multiple flashing images with “Click Here!” all over the place…however…you want to get your visitor’s attention and keep it long enough for them to see that you are offering a valuable and legitimate product or service.
The design of the site makes a huge difference when it comes to getting people’s attention. Getting the attention and then engaging the visitor is key to success and high conversion rates.
Conversion Rates
Since conversion rates are king, it is good to know what they are, and understand how they work. When you are searching for the right web design agency to do your site, pay attention to how they talk about conversion rates and what they do to increase them.
The conversion rate of a website is the percentage of the number of visitors that go through with a transaction on the site. In terms of analytics, a goal of a site can be defined the agency as whatever it is that the website is offering as a goal.
A newsletter signup, a digital download, a request for more information…and so on. The end result of that goal can end up as a conversion if the person converts from being a mere shopper to a paying customer.
Conversions can be labeled as goals, but goals don’t have to be conversions.
In any event, you can calculate your conversion rate on a daily, weekly, monthly…or even hourly level. The number of people that visit the site compared to the number of those people that convert to customers is your overall conversion rate for that period of time.
For example, if you have 100 visitors in a day and 10 of those visitors convert to customers you would have a 10% conversion rate for that day.
Many websites have millions of visits per day. Websites like Amazon and eBay are constantly being visited people looking for things to buy. When it comes to sites like this, the rate of conversion can be broken down for each seller that people visit or even found for the total gross amount of visitors to the website.
The bottom line is that conversions are what make the money. If a website does not convert, it is merely taking up space on the internet.
The Quality User Experience
There are a lot of web design companies out there that build pages based solely on the basis of SEO. Although it is important to design with SEO in mind, if the content is stuffed with keywords, and the sentences don’t make sense when you read them, what’s the point? Who is going to want to buy from a website that doesn’t make sense?
A talented web design agency will understand the balance between what people see and what search engines see. Creative web developers know that they can use keywords and key phrases in areas of the website that aren’t right in the face of the visitor.
When a person visits a site they should immediately be attracted to what they see and pleasantly led from the entry of the site towards a conversion.
When you look at the portfolio of the agency that you are interviewing take note of the sites that they have built. When you land on the pages for the first time are you intrigued? Do the pages feel welcoming?
It is within the first glance of a website that most people choose whether or not it is a waste of time to stay there. The images, the headings, the font of the text, the colors, the load time…all of it…add up to the initial experience that the visitor has as they land on the pages.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, you want a website that is going to be successful. It can be a source of great information, it can be a place where people can visit brilliant photographs and see amazing content. Whatever it is that your site provides to its users a great web designer can bring out the essence of it and make it look amazing for web visitors. The design itself can inspire visitors to stay on the site and make a purchase. If your web design agency focuses more on results than looks…you may have found yourself a winner.