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Explore How a Web Designer Can Improve Your Site's Visual Experience in Boston, MA
A website is a must-have for every Boston business, but simply having a site up and running isn't enough. Your website needs to be designed in a way that entices visitors to stay on the site, engage with your content, and take steps toward becoming your client or customer. A skilled Boston web design specialist can do more than make your site look great — they can transform your website into a powerful digital marketing hub for your company, organization, or personal brand.
What Is a Web Designer?
Web designers are responsible for the look and feel of a website. They focus on developing websites that deliver a great user experience through the use of colors, images, videos, and written content.
Professional web designers have a unique combination of technical skills, a strong knowledge of design principles, and an uncanny eye for details. They stay up-to-date on the latest search engine algorithms and have a solid understanding of digital marketing, communications, and search engine optimization (SEO).
How Can a Web Design Expert Help Your Boston Business?
A custom website can do more than boost your online image — web design services can do everything from improving your site's ranking on search engine results pages to increasing your conversion rates.
Boost search engine rankings
Search engines such as Google and Bing drive what's known as organic traffic to websites — traffic that's generated by search engine algorithms rather than through paid advertisements.
Search engines aim to deliver the best possible results for each query, and there are multiple factors that impact how websites are ranked on search engine results pages, or SERPs. Many of these ranking factors are directly related to web design issues, such as site navigation, content, layout, and compatibility with mobile and desktop devices.
Why search engine ranking matters
Ranking on the first page of the major SERPs isn't just about bragging rights — it can make a tremendous difference in the amount of traffic that's directed to your website.
Approximately 75% of internet users click through to websites listed on page one of the SERPS, and that means the click-through rates of websites on page two and beyond are a fraction of what websites on page one achieve.
The good news is that you don't need to have a huge digital marketing budget or be a massive multinational company to rank well on the SERPs. In fact, enlisting the help of a Boston small business web design specialist means you can compete with companies that are significantly larger than yours.
While large companies often have big advertising budgets, the results generated in the SERPs are based on factors that are largely controlled through good web design. No amount of ad spending can drive up a websites' SERP ranking, and that's why investing in web design and development services can help put your small business on a level field with the big players in your industry.
Reduce bounce rates
Achieving a solid ranking on the SERPs is important, but this alone won't guarantee that visitors actually click on your website. Even if they do, you want those visitors to spend time browsing through your content, reading your blog posts, or making purchases through your online store — that's where investing in quality web page design can really pay off.
When a visitor clicks on a website link, briefly looks at the landing page then navigates away, that's known as a "bounce." According to online marketing guru Neil Patel, "By default, Google Analytics considers a visitor to have interacted with your site if they visited at least one additional page (beyond your landing page)."
The bounce rate is calculated by dividing the total number of web page visits by the number of bounces, and as you'd expect, the lower the bounce rate the better.
The right web page design specialist can assess your current bounce rate, identify what's causing your site visitors to navigate away quickly, and take steps to adapt your site layout to keep visitors engaged. Some of these steps may include:
- Improving the user experience by reducing, or even eliminating, the use of popups
- Formatting text content is a way that makes it easy for visitors to quickly hone in on the information they're looking for
- Adding eye-catching images that connect with the rest of the content on your website
- Ensuring the color, fonts, and overall design is consistent with your corporate branding
- Decreasing page load time using responsive web design principles
- Developing a clear, compelling call to action
Build brand awareness
Working with a Beacon Hill or Back Bay web design and development specialist can help build brand awareness among your clients, consumers, and prospects. Custom web design helps differentiate your brand from the competition. Despite the fact that there are thousands of template-based website designs available, using a template means your website isn't really unique, and duplication is never good for building brand awareness.
Enable online sales
E-commerce has quickly become a mainstay for many businesses that have either added online shopping to their brick-and-mortar outlets or moved their business entirely online.
Whether you're looking to expand your sales model by integrating e-commerce options, shift your sales to online only, or start a new online storefront or service-based business, you can benefit from the services of an e-commerce web design specialist.
Four Common Website Types
Small business websites
A well-executed website can give your Boston small business the online exposure that's needed to grow your client base, increase sales, and stay competitive in even the most challenging of economic climates.
At a bare minimum, your small business website should include basic information about your company, products, and services. This means using a combination of text blocks, still images, and videos to let your visitors know who you are and what your business has to offer.
E-commerce websites
Consumers have embraced online shopping in a big way, and it now accounts for an estimated 14.1% of global retail sales. That market share is projected to skyrocket to 22% by the year 2023, although some industry watchers predict that the COVID-19 pandemic will push that number even higher.
To make online shoppers feel comfortable completing a transaction through your e-commerce site, your website needs to look and feel safe and trustworthy. E-commerce web design services use proven principles to create online stores that inspire consumer confidence, are easy to navigate, and encourage browsers to buy.
Blogs
Blogs have evolved into an important digital marketing tool. Not only does having an active blog help fulfill search engine requirements to maintain current content on your website, but a blog can be used to build relationships with your customers and prospects.
Blogging about your products, services, and industry expertise gives you the chance to position yourself as a subject matter expert, and that credibility can help drive sales for your business. Better yet, blogs can be linked to your social media feeds to provide free advertising for your company.
Personal websites
When it comes to controlling your online image and personal brand, nothing beats having a personal website.
Personal websites are ideal for anyone who's actively looking for a new job or contracts, since a personal website can be used to showcase a resume and multimedia portfolio in a way that traditional print resumes simply can't.
While there's no hard and fast rule about what you can and can't post on your personal website, if you're planning on using your site for professional networking, here's some things to consider including:
- Your biography
- Your resume
- A portfolio of your work
- A brief summary of your career goals
- Your contact information
Personal websites can also be used to keep in touch with family and friends, post personal stories and photos, and host your personal blog, making these sites a good alternative to using social media to stay connected online. If you're planning on using your website to share info with loved ones or post details that you don't want to be available to the general public, consider adding a password to control who can access the content.
Boston Responsive Web Design Services
If you've ever clicked on a website that doesn't work correctly on your device, you can understand the value of investing in responsive web design services.
According to the Pew Research Center, 81% of Americans own a smartphone and about 50% own one or more tablet devices. Smartphone ownership is highest among 18-29 year-olds at 96%, although smartphones are exceptionally popular across all age groups. Even seniors aged 65 and older have embraced mobile technology — over half own a data-enabled smartphone.
Responsive web design ensures that a site automatically adjusts to whichever device and browser an online visitor uses. This means the site loads quickly, and all the functions are operational whether the site is viewed on a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or desktop computer.
The advantages of responsive web design include:
- There's no need to pay for separate mobile and desktop websites
- Web traffic is directed to a single URL, which is ideal for increasing SERP rankings
- It eliminates costly upgrades as devices evolve over time
Keep in mind that designing a responsive site is time-consuming because there's a great deal of testing involved, but for many Boston businesses, the extra upfront cost is a worthwhile investment.
Why Hire a Local Boston Web Designer?
Web design services are largely digital, and that means it's possible to find a web designer virtually anywhere. In fact, there are a number of cut-rate web design and development services that appear to be based in the United States but are actually located offshore in countries such as India, Malaysia, Russia, and Thailand.
There's no doubt that outsourcing your web page design project to an offshore company can cut down on the initial cost, but in the long run, working with a local web designer is almost always well worth the extra expense.
Local expertise matters
When you hire a Boston-based designer to design or update your website, you'll be working with someone who understands the city the way only a local can. This means your designer knows that for Bostonians, supper is the evening meal rather than dinner, and "wicked" doesn't mean evil or possessed — it's simply a local's way of emphasizing an adjective.
A Boston web design expert speaks the same language and lives in the same time zone as you do, and those two factors can make all the difference when it comes to getting the results you want from your designer. Working with a local means you can have face-to-face meetings at your North End office or meet up for coffee in Brookline instead of struggling to communicate over VoIP or by email.
And dealing with a local comes with the knowledge that your website was designed by a professional who uses ethical SEO techniques to help boost your SERP rankings. This is critical to the long-term success of your site, since the search engines heavily penalize websites that try to game the search algorithms to quickly move up the SERPs. The last thing you want is to invest in custom web design services that utilize black hat techniques, because doing so can seriously damage your brand and compromise your online assets.