At Peppermill Projects, we know the value of a good looking and functioning website. In the last 10 years, how websites should look has changed. We have come a long way from the horrifying GeoCities, thankfully! Your company's website is usually your first impression and selling piece. If you don't have a brick & mortar store, your website is most certainly your storefront. Except you can't put up a closed sign at 6pm. It's accessible 24/7 and available for the world to see whenever and wherever. That's the beauty of a company's website. It's making sales even when the employees have clocked out.
Perhaps the time has come for your website to get a bit of an update or a complete overhaul. How do you know when it's necessary? We offer 3 reasons why you should bite the bullet and invest in a quality website.
1) Your Website Doesn't Match Your Brand
Let's say you sell expensive, high-end products or services, but your website looks old, outdated and uses cheesy stock photos. (You know what I'm talking about no one believes that lady wearing the phone headset is really one of your customer service team members.) A poorly designed website is a brand buzzkill. Presentation most certainly makes a difference when it comes to a customer choosing your product or services or a competitor's. As your website is often the first impression of your business, it's important that it reflects your brand, who you are and what you stand for. Your website is speaking for you, make sure you approve the message!
2) Your Website Is Not Responsive & Mobile Friendly
Customers and consumers are increasingly relying on their mobile devices to search, engage in social media, look up restaurant reviews and make purchases. Without a mobile friendly website, those customers are likely to turn elsewhere, like a competitor's site. According to Google Think Insights, if a potential customer has a positive experience with accessing your site on their mobile device, that person is 67% more likely to buy your product or use your service. As we are constantly integrating our lives with technology, its important your website should be accommodating to mobile users.
Mobile-friendly is important, but we also don't want to discount desktop users‚ especially those with giant screens. In order to be totally inclusive, responsive design is recommended. Simply put, a responsive design will adjust itself to fit nicely at any size screen.
3) Your Website Lacks Proper SEO
The days of tricks and sketchy SEO practices are over. Google is pretty hardcore on analyzing your SEO for web rankings. Making sure your website is search engine optimized should be your top priority. What does that even mean? SEO is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine's unpaid results. So, say you want to be known as Maryland's top graphic design and branding firm (cough, cough), it's important to have the words Maryland branding firm or Maryland graphic design used throughout your site. Though, don't overdo it, Google doesn't like that either. Your website's content should be focused on the keywords you hope your customers will use to search for you. Basically, give the people what they want! The better your keywords align with your content, the higher you'll appear on search sites, such as Google, Bing or Yahoo. There are many, many more aspects that go into good SEO, but we'll save that for another blog!
How much should you spend on your website?
While it's difficult to speculate on what you should pay as there are many factors involved in estimating (size of your site, functionality, custom-coding vs. template framework, etc). But, understand that your website is an investment in the success of your company. Think about what you'd pay your top salesperson. And, your website doesn't need health insurance or a retirement plan!
Realistically, you should budget for major changes every 3-5 years. By maintaining your site and keeping up with software and security updates, your website will have a longer shelf life. In the meantime, with a modern design, an easy-to-navigate design and impeccable SEO, your business should be well on its way to looking like and feeling like the brand you want to be.
