Over the prior 15 years or so marketing has experienced more changes than it has done in the previous 100. We’ve now emerged from printed and TV ads into an era of websites, social media, online video content, and Google.
Today, consumers are web-connected on a 24/7 basis. In the U.K., the average internet user spends almost six hours per day online. Further, no less than 95% of the U.K. population is now internet-connected.
But what about turning the typical online consumer into a paying customer?
It certainly helps – and helps a whole lot – to have a good web design service on your side. After all, arguably, your website is the most important marketing asset that you have. Your website will serve as your online sales representative 24/7.
For all companies, large and small, having a website to be proud of – a website that is accurate in reflecting your brand – is now among the most important considerations.
Recent research has demonstrated that having a website can increase turnover for a traditionally bricks-and-mortar-type business by more than 50%. And a good web design Manchester plays an important role in this,
And yet, in spite of this, approximately two million businesses in the U.K. still do not have a website.
If you don’t find a good web design agency – an agency like Rouge Media, that pays attention to what you want, too – then there’s a potentially heavy price to pay.
Here we consider the services that a good web design agency will offer to all of its clients. And it’s not only about web design, either.
Web Design Services – What to Expect From a Web Design Agency
A good web design agency will discuss with you your needs and ask questions about the aims of the website and the target audience
All good web design agencies will have your interests at heart. And how better to demonstrate that than to listen to you and to learn about what it is that you specifically want, to find out about your industry, and to understand who your target audience actually is.
Work with you to uncover the demographics of that audience
Web design agencies should work closely with you to discover your target audience’s demographics.
What is an audience demographic? And why should you care, anyway?
The demographics of an audience may include gender, age, ethnic background, religion, sexual orientation, education, occupation, and many other categories.
Why do you need this information?
The more you have an understanding of your target audience, the better opportunity you have to build your website in such a way that whatever it is you offer is tailored to the needs of your audience.
A good web design company will work together with you for market research purposes
Without market research, you will never truly understand your customers – who they are (see demographics above) and what they need/ want.
Market research can be undertaken in a variety of ways depending on your business and depending on how you wish to proceed.
You may want help with pay-per-click campaigns. Maybe you prefer to advertise on Facebook to attract customers to your business.
Perhaps you’d prefer to go with search engine optimisation. In which case you’d need help with keyword research, with on-page optimisation, and with off-page optimisation.
Can your chosen web design company help you with any of these types of campaigns, or do they know a good online marketing agency that is able to help you?
A good web design agency will help you with the branding of your website
What is website branding and why is it important?
Simply put, website branding is basically the marketing practice of creating a design, a name, or a symbol that differentiates your business from others. In other words, branding is about creating an identity.
Website branding is important because it helps your customers to identify who (and what) you are. An example of business branding? The bitten apple that you see on the back of iPhones and Mac computers. Everyone knows what, or who, that bitten apple represents.
A good web design agency will create a design that is easy on the eye and yet still striking and easy to navigate and use
For obvious reasons, this is key to your website’s success.
The design of your website should be striking in an appealing kind of way. But, what’s arguably even more important is that your website has to be easy to navigate and use. Plus, it has to be mobile optimised. It has to be fast loading or your potential customers are not going to hang around waiting. And, it must be, as previously mentioned, optimised for SEO purposes.
A good web design company should help you with web copy
Many web design companies take on the task of personally assisting their clients with web copy. After all, without good copy, chances are your website would die a quick death because your potential customers are not going to hang around for long.
Customers visit websites to satisfy some kind of need. For the most part, besides on websites like YouTube, that need will be satisfied through quality web copy.
A good web design company will help you with video and image content
In tandem with quality web copy, a decent web design company will help you out with video content and with images.
For sure, not all web design companies will have in-house video creation experts. But they will have staff that understand where to get quality video content from and how to post it to your website so that it’s effective at achieving its goal.
Setting up a blog
Many companies do not have a blog on their website. Instead, they rely on service pages or e-commerce pages to ‘do the work’.
Really, it depends on what market your focus is upon. But, for the most part, having a company blog can be a real asset given that it’s an effective way to drive new customers to your business.
A good web design company can help you to achieve this. The least they can do is to set up the architecture of your website so that a blog is easily established.
A web design company can ensure that the site is well optimised for SEO
We’ve touched on the pursuit of SEO a number of times throughout this article.
SEO takes two essential forms – on-page and off-page.
A good web design company can help with both aspects. And, once again, if the web design company does not do SEO on an in-house basis, they will have at least one excellent source available to them to handle client SEO work.