In today’s technology-driven world, it’s no secret that in order to succeed, a business must have a well-designed website. Web properties are no longer used just as an adjunct to brick-and-mortar stores. Nowadays, business owners actively depend on their websites to turn a profit, knowing that between 70% and 80% of their customers scour their web pages before deciding to purchase (Blue Corona, 2018).
Indeed, if a good website is an asset to a big corporation, what more to a small New Zealand business like yours? If you have fewer resources, a smaller networking capability, and less visibility than a multinational, the World Wide Web may be your only chance to compete fairly. Your website can be your ticket to drumming up your revenues, finding yourself as a thought leader in a niche market, and establishing goodwill among both your old and your new customers.
Luckily, you have the option of turning to local talents for the web-related aspects of your business. If you hire a Christchurch web design and graphic design agency to take charge of your web property, you’ll not only help NZ’s local economy, you’ll also learn quite a few things about effective web design along the way. To those who want web design work done professionally, here are eight elements that you should look to implement.
- Wide, dynamic, and organised space. Some website owners think that their pages should be chock-full of content and that customers should see text or moving images in every spot that their eyes land on. The wise web designer, however, will know how to balance content with ample space, creating an overall web experience that is relaxing and pleasing to the eyes.
- Appealing colours, shapes, and typography. At times, these three components will be able to articulate your brand identity and purpose better than actual words will. The best web designer will help you choose fonts, foregrounding and accent colours, and other Sitemap builder visual cues that are the perfect match to what your company stands for.
- Simple and purposeful navigational features. It will count for a lot if the website’s user has an easy time navigating your pages and finding the product or service information that they need. A good web design partner will be able to mix features like menus, links, and search bars in order to make navigating the website an easy and exciting endeavour.
- Multimedia content. Still images are not the only kind of visual tool a small business website would benefit from. The savvy web designer will know to incorporate videos or animation on the site in order to demonstrate a product or to highlight a business’s good reputation.
- Clarity in your company’s branding. Whether they’re on your About Us page, your Contact Us page, or your company blog, your customers should have a good sense of who you are, what New Zealand customers or market you serve, and what institutional values you subscribe to. Your web partner will know how to leave your invisible brand signature on each of these pages.
- Localised search engine optimisation. A sweeping majority of online experiences happen because of search engines like Google. According to Google’s own 2018 statistics, 46% of these searches have local intent—meaning that would-be customers are searching for businesses that can serve them in their local area. Part of your investment in your web property should be toward its localised search engine optimisation, or SEO. Your Web Design partner should have a working idea of how to lead potential customers to your virtual storefront via search engines.
- Mobile-friendliness. A rising number of customers surf the internet not from their personal computers or laptops, but from their smartphones and tablets. To keep up with this trend, you’ll want a web designer who can enhance your website’s look, feel, and functionality from a mobile device. You may also want to consider developing a mobile app in the future.
- A call to action. If you could sum up the end behaviour that you desire from your NZ customers in one phrase, what would it be? Would it be for them to purchase a particular product from your business? Would it be for them to choose you over a rival business, because you are the best that they’ll find in their home area? Once you decide on this call to action, your web designer will execute all the technical work to make that action possible on the part of the customer.
As an enterprising Kiwi, you are lucky in this regard: you have access to a multitude of powerful web tools—and to local specialists who know how to work with them! These individuals will know exactly how to leverage their creativity, experience, and technical prowess to ensure the success of your website.
