9 Website Design Tips for Financial Advisors You Can’t Ignore

9 Website Design Tips for Financial Advisors You Can’t Ignore

Website Design Tips for Financial Advisors

As a professional, you know it pays to make a strong first impression. With more people searching online for the financial advice they need, sometimes, your website makes that impression for you.

An out-of-date website could tell potential clients your expertise is out-of-date, too.

38% of people will stop engaging with a site if the design isn’t appealing. With that in mind, here are nine website design tips to help you upgrade your website.

With these tips for financial advisors, you can make a strong first impression that helps you build your business.

1. Know Your Audience

Before you start making changes to your website, it helps to know who you’re making these changes for.

Determine your target audience. Are you looking for clients in specific industries? Once you know your niche, start researching.

What are their likes and dislikes? What financial problems are they facing that they require help with?

By answering these questions, you can update your design and content to reflect your clients’ needs.

As you continue reading these website design tips, keep your audience in mind. You can even research your competitors to determine what finance industry web design trends are working (and which flop).

For an extra website tip, make sure you’re offering your clients valuable content, too. This can include blog posts or white papers that reflect your clients’ distinct needs. By providing them this content, you can show your clients that you’re the helpful, informative resource they need.

2. Keep It Simple

As you start implementing these website design tips, make sure to keep it simple.

Don’t clutter your pages with large images or dizzying animations. Too much on a single page can overwhelm your site visitors. It can also slow down the page.

People don’t want to wait around for a page to load. A one-second delay can cause a 7% decrease in conversions.

Check for elements that are dragging your page speed.

Improving your website load time can also improve your search engine optimization. The faster your page loads, the likely you can get a higher ranking. The higher you rank on search engines, the more site traffic you can get.

If you need help using these website design tips, consider using a minimalist approach. The minimalist design will keep your site visitors focused on your content. Instead of distracting them with images, you can drive them towards a form.

That way, you can keep people on your website and direct them toward becoming a lead.

3. Add White Space

Once you have the essentials on the page, it’s essential to consider how to arrange them.

Even if you’re only using a few design elements, you can still end up cluttering the page. To make sure you give your design elements room to breathe, add white space.

White space makes it easier for people to read your website content.

Instead of overwhelming them with imagery, you can direct them toward a conversion opportunity. A cleaner design can also keep you from distracting site visitors.

That way, they stay focused on the reason they visited your website in the first place (to seek financial advice).

4. Make Sure It’s Mobile

The majority of people are checking sites from their mobile phones. If your website isn’t optimized for smaller screens, you’re missing out on potential customers.

Make sure your website is mobile-friendly.

Otherwise, people have to pinch and squint to read your content.

Mobile-friendly websites should also load quickly, too. If they’re forced to wait, your site visitors might leave and seek financial advisors elsewhere.

Google uses the mobile version of your website to determine your search ranking. By improving your mobile site, you can rank higher on search pages and in time, attract new customers to your business.

5. Get Engaging with Videos

Video content can give a face, name, and voice to your company. Video content on your landing pages can increase conversions by over 80%. More people are choosing to watch videos instead of skim-reading page copy.

The finance industry web design can benefit from videos, too.

Add a video above the fold of your website design. Make sure you engage people. Then, finish your video off with a strong CTA (more on this below).

6. Eye-Catching CTAs

Your CTA, or call-to-action, inspires site visitors to take action.

What do you want people to do once they’re on your website? Maybe you’d like them to fill out a form, call, or subscribe to your newsletter. Either way, make sure this action is clear.

Use your CTA in a headline, body text, or a CTA button.

Your button should stand out on the page. For example, if the page background is white, use a pop of color on your button to draw the eye.

7. Demonstrate Credibility

Why should people trust you for financial advice?

Show people, you’re a credible resource in your field by posting reviews from happy customers.

You can also feature case studies and statistics on your website to show interested clients you’re there to help.

8. Use High-Quality Imagery

Imagery can help set the mood on your website. For example, cartoons or blurry photos won’t make you look like a professional, credible company. Instead, use high-quality images to show your professionalism.

If you can’t find the right stock photography, higher a professional photographer. They can take images at your business to add professionalism and authenticity to your website design.

9. Know Your Value

As you’re using these website design tips, consider your firm’s value. What do you offer that no other financial advisor can?

Then, focus on this value within the design. In your page copy, make sure it’s clear that you have something to offer your clients. By focusing on this value, you can make sure you stand out from the crowd.

Otherwise, why should potential clients choose you?

A Fine Idea: 9 Website Design Tips for Financial Advisors

Your clients are looking for someone they can trust—so show them they can trust you. With these website design tips, you can upgrade your website and make a stronger first impression with your clients.

Ready to give your website an upgrade? Tell us your story today.

How to Generate Inbound Traffic to Your Dental Website

How to Generate Inbound Traffic to Your Dental Website

About 65% of businesses say generating website traffic is among their top marketing challenges. Without quality traffic, you’ll never generate leads or sales. Your entire digital marketing strategy could suffer as a result.

Before that happens, use these tips to start generating traffic to your dental website. With these digital marketing tips, you can help your dental practice grow.

As more people find your website, they can discover the benefits of choosing your dental services. Then, you can book more appointments, help more patients, and grow your practice!

Read on to generate traffic to your website today.

Understand Your Audience

Before using the rest of these digital marketing tips, take a moment to gather research. Researching your audience will help you determine the best way to attract them to your website. If your content doesn’t appeal to their needs, they won’t visit.

Consider who your customers are by gathering demographic and psychographic research. For example, you can create buyer personas based on:

  • Pain points
  • Buying behaviors
  • Online behaviors
  • Age
  • Gender
  • Location
  • Salary
  • Education
  • Career
  • Hobbies
  • Interests
  • Language

Focus on the pain points your customers are experiencing. Understanding their pain points can help you create content that aligns with their needs. You’ll have an easier time becoming a go-to resource for your customers if you offer them helpful solutions.

To strengthen your business marketing strategy, gather keyword research for each group. Keyword research can help you determine what questions your customers ask while online.

You can use these tools to develop a list of target keywords:

  • Ahrefs
  • SEMRush
  • Answer the Public
  • Google Trends
  • Keyword Planner

Focus on long-tail keywords that include four or more words. These are more precise, allowing you to understand the consumer’s needs.

For example, it’s easier to understand “how to tell you have a cavity” over the short-tail keyword “cavity.” The latter could mean the consumer wants to know what causes a cavity or how to treat a cavity. A broad keyword will make it more difficult for you to write content your patients want to read.

Create Informative Content

Consider three topics you want to cover on your dental website’s blog. For example, you might cover oral hygiene, cosmetic dentistry, and orthodontic treatment.

Then, select three subtopics for each main topic. Under cosmetic dentistry, you might choose teeth whitening, veneers, and implant dentistry. Make sure to gather a list of target keywords for each subtopic you select.

Use your keyword research to inform your content marketing strategy. Select a target keyword from your list before writing your content. Otherwise, trying to add the keyword into the post after the fact can make it sound awkward.

When creating content for your dental website, make sure it’s engaging and informative. Helpful content can help you generate traffic. If your content doesn’t provide patients with value, they’ll leave.

As people leave your site, your bounce rate will increase, impacting your search engine rankings. As your rankings drop, potential patients might struggle to find you online.

Use SEO

Nearly 70% of all online activity begins on a search engine like Google. With search engine optimization (SEO), you can appear as patients search for a dental practice. Improving your rankings will help you generate traffic.

Make sure to optimize each page on your website with a target keyword. Your target keyword should appear in the:

  • Page title
  • URL
  • Opening paragraph
  • Body text
  • Closing paragraph
  • An H1 header
  • SEO title and meta description
  • Image file name and alt text

The SEO title and meta description will appear on search engine result pages (SERPs). Make sure they’re engaging and attractive to boost your clickthrough rate. Improving your clickthrough rate will help your rankings improve.

Go Local

As part of your SEO strategy, it’s important to consider local SEO. Start by optimizing your Google Business listing. Your listing can help patients find your location, phone number, and website.

They can click on the link to your site to explore your dental services.

Ask your patients to post their reviews on your listing as well. Positive reviews can boost your credibility, encouraging more people to explore your practice.

Generate Backlinks

Backlinks will send visitors on other websites to your dental website. You can generate backlinks by guest blogging. Otherwise, consider hiring a dental marketing agency that offers link-building services.

Generating backlinks will further improve your organic rankings.

Design Eye-Catching Ads

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising will help you reach patients on social media, Google SERPs, and other websites. When someone clicks on your ads, they’ll reach a landing page on your site.

You can use your demographic and keyword research to ensure your ads appear in front of prospective patients.

Create both text and display ads. You can use display ads to generate brand awareness.

Start Using Social Media

You can reformat your blog posts for the social media platforms your patients frequent. Social media marketing can also help you boost engagement.

For example, you can host a live Q&A video session to answer questions and concerns your patients have about their dental hygiene. You can also use Story stickers to create polls, quizzes, and other forms of interactive content.

Add a link to your site to generate traffic to the full blog post.

Work With Influencers

Expand your reach on social media by working with an influencer. Influencers can promote your dental website to their existing audience.

Otherwise, consider posting user-generated content. Ask your patients to tag them in their photos when they talk about your dental services. Then, share their content to boost your brand visibility and credibility.

Analyze and Optimize

Analyze the results from your digital marketing campaigns to determine which strategies helped you generate the most traffic. Check Google Analytics to determine where consumers arrive from, too. For example, you can determine which visitors found you on SERPs or through social media.

Use your analytics to adjust and optimize your campaigns to generate more traffic in the future.

Brush Up: Start Generating Traffic to Your Dental Website Today

Developing a strong digital marketing strategy can help you generate traffic to your dental website. As you generate more traffic, you’ll have the chance to help new patients. Get started with these easy tips.

Otherwise, consider partnering with an experienced digital marketing agency. An agency can manage your campaigns while you help patients.

Eager to get started? We’re happy to help.

Harris & Ward has been selected among the Top AdWords Agencies by DesignRush. Contact us today!

Top 6 Elements of Great Web Design

Top 6 Elements of Great Web Design

Did you know that 94% of the first impressions of your website are design-related? 

A poorly designed website can lead to a negative user experience in which the user clicks off your page. Not only might they go to your competitors, but these potential customers now have a negative impression of your company.

So no matter how good your content is, you need to focus just as much on the elements of web design so your site is easy to use and is pleasing to the eye.

To help you, we’ve compiled the top 6 elements that every well-designed website should include. Keep reading to learn everything you need to know to create a website your customers will love.

1. Bold colors and images

Your color palette is a vital component of making sure your business materials are cohesive and on-brand.

Think about what primary and secondary colors you’d like to use on your website. Then, think about whether they represent your brand. You can use the principles of color psychology to help you. 

You can also use what’s called a hero image on your main page. A hero image is located at the top of your main page and acts as an oversized banner. 

The hero image should be high resolution, add value, and reflect your company’s unique selling point (USP). The hero image can also be a short video. 

Since all of the images of your website should reflect your brand, it’s a good idea to take your own photos instead of relying on stock images.

2. Clean and Eye-catching Typography

While you may love that new elegant, handwritten font you found, this type of font isn’t the best option for use on your entire website.

Think about the title/logo fonts of social media sites like Instagram and Twitter. Not only is their font easy to read, but you’d recognize it as their brand even without the logo.

Good web design uses fonts that are easy to read, catch your viewer’s eye, and also help establish your brand identity.

Some best practices when choosing your font are:

  • Black or gray typography
  • Text larger than 16 pixels
  • Enough space between the lines
  • Fonts that are standard for the web

If you want to add a handwritten font to add a more personalized and friendly touch to your site, use it sparingly. Make sure it fits with your brand story and use it in places like captions or when emphasizing certain words.

3. Search Bar

You might think that a search bar isn’t necessary if your menus are well-organized, but it’s a vital part of good web design.

While a potential customer may not need the search bar if they have no problems finding your contact information, they might need it when looking for a specific product, blog post, or any older information. 

You also want to reduce the number of clicks that users need to make to get the information they’re looking for. This reduces the chances that they’ll click off your website and go to a competitor’s website instead.

The best design for a search bar is that it’s easy to use and find on the page without interfering with your content. You can add a magnifying glass icon to make the search bar even easier to find.

4. Mobile-Friendly

Over 2 billion people use their smartphones to access the Internet, and this number is only expected to grow.

So if your website looks bad on mobile, is difficult to navigate, or doesn’t load at all, you can expect that your viewers will click off the page and go to your competitors instead.

Since creating a mobile-friendly website is very difficult if you’re not a web developer, you’ll want to get a web design SEO agency to help you.

Don’t forget to test site speed both on mobile and desktop, as a slow website will only make users click off the page and be unlikely to return.

5. Powerful Calls to Action

If you don’t have a call to action, you’re missing out on sales and making it difficult for website visitors to contact you.

A call to action (CTA) is text that prompts your website viewer, customer or lead to take action. A few examples of common CTAs include:

  • Buy now!
  • Subscribe to our newsletter for 15% off
  • Learn more
  • Contact us 

To create the right CTA for your website, first determine the purpose of your site. Then, create an easy-to-see action button that would make sense for your website.

For example, if you’re an e-commerce store, include a button for customers to sign up to your email list. If you’re a local mechanic, an essential CTA is a “contact me now” button.

6. Simple and Intuitive Navigation

Your website visitors shouldn’t have to click all around to find what they’re looking for, nor should they be confused when using your website.

One way to make your website navigation simple is to use minimal navigation menus. You also want to use a drop-down menu at the top of your website to reduce visual clutter.

The must-haves for navigation include:

  • Showing users where they are on your site
  • A “home” button
  • Directions or prompts, if needed

The best good website design examples are ones that let the user find what they are looking for without help.

If you’re not sure how usable your website is, think about conducting a usability test to see how users are navigating your website in real-time.

Include These Vital Elements of Web Design

Effective and clear web design not only makes it easy for users to navigate your site but builds trust by creating a positive impression of your brand.

Whether you have a website already or are looking to build one, include these important elements of web design to create a beautiful site that users will love.

Still have questions? Harris & Ward can help. Our skilled team of digital creatives specializes in seamless web design that facilitates growth for your brand and business.

Ready to create an eye-catching and easy-to-navigate website? Contact us today to get started.

 

Reel SEO: How Custom Videography Services Help Your Site Rank

Reel SEO: How Custom Videography Services Help Your Site Rank

Do you want to rank #1 on Google? It takes a carefully curated approach to SEO, content, products, marketing, and videos. 

More than that, though, it takes a fierce sense of competition. You’ll need to understand what your competitors do, and then do it better. One way to do that is by leveraging videography services to create top-notch SEO content. 

The world of content is changing these days. Once, blogs were king. Now, everyone wants entertaining, informative video content. After all, TikTok’s success didn’t occur in a bubble.

To get the scoop on how videography services will help boost your SEO rankings, keep reading! We’ve assembled a guide to the benefits of video SEO, and how you can leverage it to outrank your competitors. 

Leverage Keywords 

People search for content using keywords. These keywords are unique to their needs, wants, desires, and communication styles. 

It’s important that you can map out the user journey, from keyword search to purchasing from your eCommerce site. This starts with keyword research. 

This research may be time-consuming, but it’s necessary for effective video SEO optimization. These keywords will dictate your video script, the closed captioning, hashtags, video descriptions, and the social media copy you use to promote the completed video.

It will also control your video file name, video tags, titles, and so much more. When you know your keywords, you can use them at each point of your video’s journey from start to finish. 

These keywords will help shove your video to the top of Google rankings. You know what your potential customers are searching for, and the keywords you use match their search terms. 

This indicates to Google that you provide value to potential customers, and is able to match the search to results accurately. Sometimes, it may feel like Google is working against you. It’s not—instead, it’s working on behalf of the customer, which is what you should be doing, too.

Include A Transcript 

What is your experience as a consumer, with closed captioning? No one speaks the English language perfectly. Everyone has nuanced speech, accents, mannerisms, and unique quirks of speech. 

This is worsened by the fact that microphones don’t always pick up speech perfectly. All of this can translate to a ridiculous closed captioning experience. 

When someone is matching the captions with the words actually said, the content could be quite different! That’s why it’s crucial for you to invest in video transcription. 

This allows HOH people and members of the Deaf community to participate in consuming your content without accessibility barriers. In fact, Google has stepped up to the plate and started prioritizing accessibility. 

Here’s how it works. When companies put in the extra effort to invest in high-quality videography services that prioritize accessibility, Google notices. Accessibility means more people can access and gain value from your content. 

More people means more traffic and more value. Google prioritizes search results that deliver more value, and this will spike your numbers. 

Accessibility is the right thing to do, in order to reduce barriers of entry for your potential customers. But when you’re looking to outrank your competitors on Google, focusing on accessibility and transcription can make all the difference.

What’s the Load Time?

For efficient video SEO, your content needs to load quickly. Here’s the thing—experts have told us that we are living in the goldfish generation. This means that people have the average attention span of a goldfish. 

The most popular content on the Internet caters to this. It’s why viral videos are short clips, why there’s a time limit on TikTok reels, and why everything moves at such a rapid, overwhelming pace. 

Attention spans are short, which means that companies need to either get to the point or get out. Research shows that if your video takes more than 3 seconds to load, a significant percentage of people will exit out and look for something else. 

You’re not the only one delivering your product or service. Plenty of other people are doing it, too. While your angle is unique enough to deserve a customer’s attention, they don’t know that yet. 

As a business, you need to leverage your video SEO to earn their trust. The best way to do that starts by respecting their time and their attention span. 

Social Media Promotion 

When engaging with top-notch video SEO services, you’ll receive a great end product. You should be proud of this representation of your brand—which means you should promote it on social media!

All of your videos should be published on your social media channels. There are two crucial reasons for this. To start with, there’s no reason to turn down publicity. 

No one is refreshing your site every five minutes to see if your brand has published a new video. But when you promote it on the company’s Twitter channel, for instance, people will get notified. 

With any luck, they’ll click on it, take a look, and engage with it. That’s the type of publicity that no brand will turn down. 

It’s also important for backlinking purposes. As Google crawls through content and indexes it, it’s looking for backlinks. 

When you publish a new video on your brand website, that’s where the video lives. That’s where the link is located. But when Google notices that Facebook and Twitter backlinked to it, the algorithm perks up and takes a closer look. 

After all, backlinking indicates greater value. Greater value means content deserves a higher Google ranking, which can help you sail to the #1 spot.

Engaging with Videography Services 

Whether you’re trying to boost your YouTube video SEO or looking for top-notch website brand videos, our videography services have you covered. Our knowledge and expertise can help your brand rise through Google’s rankings and attract attention. 

If you need top-notch creative digital marketing services, we’ve got you covered. Contact us today to see how we can help!

 

How to Create the Perfect Dentistry Website

How to Create the Perfect Dentistry Website

Over 38% of people judge a business based on how their website looks at first glance. Another 38% stop interacting with poorly designed websites. If your dentistry website doesn’t wow potential patients, they might leave.

As people continue leaving your website, your search engine rankings will drop. You might struggle to reach patients in the future as a result.

Don’t let it come to that! Instead, read on to discover the nine essentials you need to consider for your new dental website. After reading this guide, you can create the perfect dental site with your target audience in mind.

Then, you can generate more dental leads, book more appointments, and boost business.

Set your dental practice up for success. Improve your website with these nine tips today.

1. Establish Your Goals

Before you start designing and developing your dental website, take a moment to consider your short- and long-term goals. Otherwise, your dental site won’t align with your business and marketing objectives.

For example, maybe you want to:

  • Establish your credibility in the industry
  • Post more articles and unique content
  • Share before and after photos
  • Educate people about your services
  • Share patient reviews
  • Generate brand awareness
  • Improve search engine rankings
  • Book more appointments online

Establishing your goals will determine what elements you need to include on your website.

For example, let’s say you want to book more appointments through your dental site. Consider adding more than one conversion opportunity. You can add an online booking system, too.

If you want to establish your credibility, use blog posts and patient reviews.

Once you establish your goals, you can start creating your dental website.

2. Maintain Brand Consistency

As you start working on your dentistry website, make sure to consider your brand.

A distinct brand will help you stand out from other dentists in the area. Patients will start to recognize your brand on sight. You can generate brand awareness and recognition on different marketing channels.

Without brand consistency, however, you could confuse patients. They might confuse you with another dentist. Meanwhile, they won’t connect your marketing materials on different channels.

You could struggle to create an omnichannel marketing strategy if that’s the case.

You can maintain brand consistency by creating and following brand guidelines. These guidelines should include your:

  • Logo
  • Imagery styles
  • Vision statement
  • Mission statement
  • Brand voice and tone
  • Brand personality
  • Color palette
  • Font styles

Once you establish your brand guidelines, make sure your branding is consistent across every page of your site. Otherwise, someone might click from one page to the next and think they’re on a different dental site. 

3. Improve the User Experience

As you begin working on your dentist site, make sure to keep the user experience (UX) in mind.

A positive user experience will encourage visitors to explore your content. They’ll click around, increasing your dwell times and clickthrough rate. Your search engine rankings could rise as a result.

Higher search engine rankings will help you generate more brand awareness. Your dental site will appear before others in a search, too. You could boost your brand credibility as a result.

You can improve the UX on your site by:

  • Using short sentences and paragraphs
  • Organizing content in headings and subheadings
  • Improving page load times
  • Getting mobile optimized
  • Adding an SSL certificate for security

Run your website through Google’s PageSpeed Insights and Mobile-Friendly Test. Make sure your site is fast and easy to use on smaller screens.

4. Start Blogging

Remember, adding a blog to your website can boost your credibility. You can demonstrate your experience and expertise to boost brand trust. Blogging could improve your search engine rankings, too.

Add a blog to your dental website and start creating fresh content on a schedule.

5. Get Mobile-Optimized

Mobile optimization will ensure you don’t neglect part of your target audience.

In fact, mobile devices account for nearly 70% of all internet traffic. About 90% of people use multiple screens sequentially, too. Nearly 70% of companies that develop a mobile-first website see a rise in sales.

If your website isn’t optimized for smaller devices, people might leave.

6. Use SEO

Once you start blogging, optimize your website for search engine optimization (SEO). SEO can boost your search engine rankings. You can appear in front of more people who are looking for a local dentist.

Your search engine rankings can improve as you start blogging.

Consider working with an experienced digital marketing agency that offers SEO services. They can help you boost your rankings and generate more traffic. 

7. Add Conversion Opportunities

Make sure to add more than one conversion opportunity on your website. For example, you can use a form, allowing visitors to ask questions.

You can also use a chatbot and appointment scheduler.

Adding more than one conversion opportunity could improve the UX. Visitors will have an easier time contacting you online. Otherwise, you might miss a chance to generate leads from your dental website. 

8. Post Reviews

Consider adding reviews to your dentistry website as well. Happy patient reviews can boost your credibility. On-the-fence patients will see your current patients already love and trust your practice.

You can feed your Google My Business reviews to your website using a plugin. Don’t forget to encourage people to post reviews throughout the year!

9. Work With a Pro

If you’re feeling stuck while working on your dental website, don’t feel stressed out. Instead, consider hiring a professional team.

A professional web design and development agency can improve your dental site with your goals in mind. You can improve the front and backend of your site. Your dental website will look and function as intended.

Then, you can generate more dental leads and set your practice up for long-term success.

Toothy Leads: 9 Tips for Creating the Perfect Dentistry Website

Improving your dentistry website will help you generate fresh leads throughout the year. You can book more appointments and help more patients. As your search engine rankings improve, you can boost brand awareness, too. 

Set your practice up for growth and success with these dental site tips today.

Need help developing your digital marketing strategy? We’re here for you.

Contact us today to get started.

How Long Does It Take to Design a Website for Your Business?

How Long Does It Take to Design a Website for Your Business?

Is there anything more frustrating than waiting for a project to be completed? It’s especially annoying when you don’t have a clear timeline, or you’re waiting for the project to get completed before you start working on other projects.

Whether you’re building a website for your start-up business or you’re redesigning an existing website, it’s important to get some facts on the table before you start. The first question you need to answer is, “how long does it take to design a website?” Getting a website project time estimate from your website designer will help you plan other aspects of your business’ marketing campaigns. 

For example, you can’t start a pay-per-click campaign until you have a website to direct customers to. Many businesses use their website as the main point of contact for customers, which is another reason why it’s so important to get a timeline on your website project.

In the article below, you’ll find some information on how long it usually takes to design a website and some content you’ll need to gather to finish the site. Read on to learn everything you need to know about website timelines. 

 

You Need Certain Content Before You Can Expect a Website

If you want a well-designed website, you’re going to need to provide the website design team with some content. This content includes words, images, video, and any animations you might need on the site. 

You should have your most powerful images on the homepage. If you’re going to use video on your site, it may be a good idea to have a pop-up video that appears when people land on the website.

Some small business website design firms will be able to help you with videography and photography. This is a great way to get custom images and videos and avoid relying on stock images. Once you’ve gathered your videos and images, you’re going to want to provide the website design firm with some copy for your website. 

You’ll need headlines, subheadlines, body paragraphs, and a list of features, products, or services. Whether you do this yourself or hire an outside copywriter, it’s important to make sure the website design firm understands the messaging you want to have on your website. 

 

Your Website Won’t Be Done Until You’ve Taken Care of SEO

Creating a website without thinking about search engine optimization (SEO) is like opening a store without putting up any signage. Your website won’t be an effective business tool unless prospective customers can find it in search results. When you’re considering how to design a website, make sure the website design firms also specialize in search engine optimization.

One of the best ways to make your website SEO-friendly is to add a blog page. Websites that have fresh, original content tend to do better in search results than websites that stay stagnant. The blog page provides you with a place to add lengthy articles that are targeted towards specific keywords. 

Different types of websites require different levels of search engine optimization. A one-page website should use keywords in the headlines and subheads while also having optimized metatags. 

A website with many pages should have strong internal linking. That means each page has links to other pages on the site. No matter what type of website you’re building, it’s important to pay attention to the speed of the website

 

So How Long Does It Take to Design a Website?

Designing a website well takes months, and you should be prepared to wait if you want a high-quality website. The design process timeline also depends on what you need in a website.

If you just need a place to showcase your services or products and provide a way for customers to get in touch, you shouldn’t have to wait more than three months. If you need a detailed website with several different pages and unique features like animation or other functionality, you may have to wait four to five months. 

The best website design firms should be able to complete most websites in 90 to 120 days, but this timeline also depends on how much input you want to have. The sooner you can provide the web design firm with all the relevant content, the sooner your website will be completed. 

It’s also important to make sure the website design firm knows all your needs upfront. Website designs tend to take longer when the client asks for new features halfway through the project or they’re unclear about what they want the website to look like. 

If you’re trying to speed up the website design process, the best thing you can do is develop a clear outline for your website needs and provide the website design team with all the content you’d like featured on your site. 

 

Now You’re Ready to Start Your Web Design Process

One of the most important parts of the web design process is the initial meeting with the design team. To prepare for this meeting, you should identify the pages you’d like to have on your site and the message you’d like the website to project.

Hiring a website design firm will provide you with experts who can answer questions about your site. If you’re ready to build a new website, you can get in touch with the expert web design team at Harris & Ward.