Good web design is like a nice smile or a pretty outfit nowadays. It’s a simple gesture that promises a big payoff.
Likewise, web design that comes off as drab, uninteresting or sloppy can turn people away and leave you wondering how you’re going to catch up. Everyone seems to have a website these days, from the fresh-faced entrepreneur to the seasoned medium-sized local business, but not everyone actually uses all their resources to their advantage. Your digital first impression deserves more than a fresh coat of paint. It needs to provide a constant stream of useful information, catchy visuals and clever digital marketing techniques to give you the biggest possible return on your investment.
Here are five useful resources no modern website should be overlooking.
Local SEO
You’ve already heard plenty about SEO and its effective method of bringing small businesses and customers together. What about local SEO, though? When you’re a locally owned brand trying to generate more repeat visitors and coming up short, your Dallas SEO service can create a specialized marketing campaign designed to reach out to people in your area. Recent studies have found at least half of all mobile searches being local, meaning you could be seriously missing out on some already invested people by casting too broad of a net. Speaking of mobile searches…
Mobile Optimization
Is your web design optimized for mobile devices? If it’s not you’re alienating people before they’ve even seen what you have to offer. Today’s average customer is on-the-go, browsing at the train station or taking a few minutes on their break to look up a friend’s recommendation on their tablet. Good web design means being legible no matter where a customer finds themselves, loading quickly and looking visually appealing on all devices. A Dallas web design company will go a long way in buffing out any issues in your website’s presentation.
Backlinks
Links are used to send people from one location to another. Not all links are created equal, however, and knowing the difference between them will keep you a few steps ahead of your competition. You’ll want to use backlinks in SEO to provide potential customers with references to the services, products or information they’re interested in. Don’t confuse this with interlinking, a method of using links to send customers to other pages on the same website. This is much easier to do when your web design is accompanied by an active blog.
Blog Presence
Blogs are everything. They keep customers invested in your brand by giving them a steady dripfeed of information to come back to. They’re fun and engaging. They’re informative and useful. A lack of a blog can make your web design come off as cold at best and incomplete at worst, so consider looking up a weekly or monthly blog presence to supplement your backlink profile and mobile optimization efforts. You can keep them to simple product reviews or go the extra mile and bring in a podcast.
Impressive Visual Design
Now to wrap up this list with an aspect you should already have some perspective on…web design that just looks appealing. A first impression can be left in less than four seconds, with second and third impressions notoriously difficult to capitalize on. When your website looks cheap, dated or isn’t optimized for mobile devices you are losing out on customers who want to give you their undivided attention. A new website should have a minimal color scheme and easy-to-navigate layout. There shouldn’t be any confusion on where your blog is, what your services are or how to contact you.
Feeling a little more confident on what separates a mediocre website from a strong one? Make sure with your local Dallas SEO expert and transform 2018 into your year.