10 Things To Consider While Developing A Successful Custom Website
Want to increase your online presence and reach more customers with a custom website? Start by understanding your target audience, do competitor research and follow what industry experts do. Follow these tips to succeed in the online marketplace.
Whether you are a freelance shutterbug, own a pocket cafe or are a service-based startup with a shoestring budget, you got to have a website; your business website serves as the face of your brand.
After all,
Great websites keep the visitors first, offer an unparalleled user experience, and become powerful marketing engines.
But, with cut-throat competition in today’s online business landscape, it’s not sufficient to just have a website. You need to deliver the experience people are expecting when they arrive.
💡 Key Takeaways:
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Best Tips For Custom Website Development
Here we offer ten tips that will help your website to compete effectively in the marketplace and help potential customers find and use your website.
1. Keep Your Website Mobile-Friendly
There's no doubt mobile responsiveness is crucial for a website to be effective. American adults spend more than five hours on their mobiles every day, whereas more than one-third do all their shopping online through mobiles.
So, it's needless to say; your website should be mobile responsive to offer an experience that is second to none.
The web development cycle plays a crucial role in making a website mobile-friendly. It involves analyzing mobile usage, designing a responsive layout, optimizing coding for mobile devices, conducting thorough testing, and continuous optimization.
Imagine potential customers coming to your website but are not able to navigate or use it on a mobile device; they'll simply abandon you in favour of a competitor. Besides, a negative mobile experience has repercussions on your website search engine rankings, making it more daunting for users to find through a Google search - which drives us to the next point.
2. Make It Easy To Find
“Differentiation is the key”
Sooner or later, your online address is the entry point of your website. So, to stand different and be easy to find, all you need is a domain name that matches your company name and clearly portrays your business in some way.
Moreover, it crafts a good impression for usability and an SEO perspective. Here are some handy tips to come up with an optimal domain name:
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Keep it Easy To Spell
Try not to use slang, difficult esoteric or made-up words.
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Keep it Short and Concise
The shorter it is, the easier it is to remember and search correctly.
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Use Proper Domain Extensions
Adhere to the practice of choosing a .com domain rather than .net, .co, etc., unless it’s more important to go for .gov, .org, or .edu.
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Skip Numbers and Hyphens
The domain name with numbers is difficult to remember, compared to the one with word-only domain names, and may be misunderstood while vocalizing the domain name.
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Keep the Address Broader
This can be easily understood with an example. Let’s take amazon.com as an example. It’s a much broader website address than bookonline.com and lets Amazon sell almost everything under one umbrella rather than just limiting it to books.
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Keep it Easy To Remember
In the era of untold websites, it is vital that your website name is catchy so that people can easily remember and easily access it in the future.
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Look for the Domain Name
This is inescapable.
You should Google to see if a similar website address exists online or for the USA region; you can search on USPTO.gov to ensure it does not include any registered trademarks.
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Choose an SEO friendly URL
Lastly, choose an SEO-friendly website address that consists of keywords and geo-location, and consider SaaS link building for improved visibility. For instance, “www.LasVegasCleaners.com”
3. Optimize the Page Speed of the Website
The user gets a frustrating experience if the load time of the website is high. As the speed of mobile devices is faster, the users expect the same speed on the web browser.
When the user doesn’t experience the same on the website, they usually bounce. It is because slow speed is an interrupting experience for the user which must be avoided by the website developer.
To ensure optimal page speed, developers can utilize Google's free tool called Page Speed Insights.
4. Content Management System
A content management system (CMS) is a valuable tool for creating and managing your website's digital content. With a CMS, you can effortlessly upload, edit, and delete content without the need for coding knowledge like HTML or CSS.
Here are some notable examples of popular CMS platforms:
- HubSpot CMS: It is a robust content management system that offers a user-friendly interface. HubSpot CMS offers incredible features, and a wide array of marketing tools and integrations, making it a popular choice for businesses seeking a comprehensive solution for content management and inbound marketing.
- WordPress: Powering nearly 40% of websites worldwide, including renowned sites like The New Yorker, and BBC America, WordPress offers unmatched ease of use and exceptional web page creation capabilities. It is a cost-effective solution, and its reliability and flexibility ensure outstanding performance for both you and your website visitors.
- Joomla: As the second most widely used CMS after WordPress, Joomla is also an open-source platform that empowers you to build powerful web pages without requiring coding skills.
- Drupal: Offering all the advantages of a typical CMS, Drupal is often considered more advanced than WordPress or Joomla. It was specifically designed by developers for developers, providing a comprehensive set of features.
By implementing a reliable CMS, you can streamline your website management process and create engaging web pages effortlessly.
5. Use Bespoke Calls to Action
Websites are a part of human life. So, for a website developer, it is vital to note down that the customers are not looking for surfing instructions. A simple call to action (CTAs, clearly marked with an action word will help you to enable website users to navigate your website.
By tracking the locations, local products can be marketed well. When the outreach of a website increases, the website starts giving you improved returns.
6. Make Sure Your Website Copy is Customer-Oriented
Potential customers visit your website seeking information that benefits them. In some scenarios, they come for educational content on your blog section, but they are primarily focused on researching your products and services.
Simply put, whatever way it is, you should present relevant information that will interact with prospects, provide them with something of value and nurture trust in your expertise.
When outlining your website's content, try to think from a customer's point of view. If you are a potential customer, what information would you be seeking? What level of knowledge or expertise do you have, and what needs to be explained in more detail?
So, when you focus on the content from a customer's perspective, you can keep them on your website longer and are more likely to craft a long-term relationship that eventually results in a sale.
Don't have a writer? No worries, just outsource it to an experienced and professional writer.
Related Post: Custom Web Design or Website Templates - What Should You Prefer?
7. Determining Content, Design, and Structure
The key ingredient of any website is content, design, and structure. Content needs to be valuable, informative and appealing to search engines. At the same time, it must engage customers who are actually the most essential entity for your business. The design thus, should attract a website visitor’s eyes but, not distract from essential calls to action and conversion goals.
According to experts of custom web development services, “The right font and colours can dress up your site and make your pages pop.” Pages should be structured so they flow effortlessly from one to the next.
8. Add a Personal Touch
Similar to brick-and-mortar stores investing heavily in their storefronts to represent their brand images, e-commerce retailers should ensure they deliver high-quality online experiences in keeping with the brand perception.
In essence of that, you're About Us page should not be a dry block of text about your company. Rather, design aficionados recommend including a good photo of yourself or your team to personalize the experience for your customers.
10. Simplify Website Navigation
If you don’t want your visitors to run away from your website because they can’t navigate it, then do your best to make it as simple as possible.
A custom development web service always pays attention to developing a descriptive design as rich user experience can make the visitor’s stay for a long time on the website. The broken links and empty pages on the websites, therefore, must be avoided and each page must carry the relevant text and images.
Grand Takeaways
It's not about one single company, you can ask almost any custom web development agency, and they will give you story after story. Someone who decided to go with something unknown that ruined their business by creating a bad website.
The objective of providing tips here is to help website developers. In the race of getting the best web developers hired by the top giants of industry, the developers must keep working on enhancing their skills. They can take your business to go beyond the expectations while remaining on the practical surface.
This is a pretty thorough post to give you enough points to monitor before you hire a custom web development company or website developers.
