Getting a website professionally designed and built is an effective way for a business to showcase their work and sell their products, while meeting their key business drivers and measuring their chosen performance indicators. Even if it is not an e-commerce website, customers and clients can still be won over by a well-designed site as they make judgements about whether they perceive the company to be successful, responsive and professional based on what they see. This can affect their future buying decisions.
The return on investment of a professionally designed website is high, and it will give a company an immediate advantage over its competitors. The more user-friendly, accessible and slick the website, the higher the business behind it will be rated, and the more leads it will generate.
If the site is an e-commerce site then getting it built by a professional who can customise it to their exact needs is a must. While there are free and lower cost solutions available, having a designer on board can ensure that inventory management, measuring metrics, the user experience and the ordering processes all run in a way which make it easy for the business and the customer alike.
When an organisation has identified their key business drivers, the best designed websites will offer them a way to track and meet those aims.
Some examples of key business drivers which can be measured and monitored through a well-designed web platform are:
- sales (turnover, volume, tracking, pricing);
- testing (split testing, or A/B testing, to see which prices, site design and copy convert most effectively);
- lead generation (how many leads, where on the site they signed up, which leads go on to convert to sales);
- stock control (measuring the mix and value of products);
- connecting employees and contractors (in satellite offices or working remotely);
- metrics (site analytics, statistics, sales trends, lead generation and conversions, cart abandonment, length of time on site, referrals etc.).
When performance is measured and charted in this way, the statistics and information can be used to fine tune business and sales performance. Custom-built websites can be incredibly complex behind the scenes to ensure they meet the organisation’s needs, while maintaining a user-friendly interface for staff and visitors alike.
Cheaper sites, or free shopping carts, have much more limited functionality and do not always allow access to the “back end”. This means that customising the site can be either very difficult or entirely impossible. Added software would be required to track progress and this would add another step to an already complicated sales or lead generation pathway.
Not being able to edit the code behind the website also means that things like search engine optimisation (SEO) are a lot more difficult. SEO is vital for the success of any business, so free or cheap website tools which limit access to the areas necessary for on-site optimising could have a significantly negative effect on a business’s ability to rise up the search engine results for their target keywords.
Some buyers are tempted by template websites which just incur low, monthly fees. The problem with creating a business website with one of these services is that, over time, the fees will add up to a price which is much higher than a customised, professionally-designed website would have cost. In most cases the buyer does not even own their site so if, at any stage, they stop paying, they lose the entire website. To keep these deals user-friendly, key features may be missing, and the infrastructure of the site is inaccessible, just like with many other cheap or free website options.
Over time, the cost of hiring somebody to produce a website personalised to your needs is usually more than recuperated by the increase in business, the improved streamlining of processes behind the scenes, and the more positive impression created in customers’ minds when they view and use an intuitive, well-designed, easy-to-navigate bespoke website. There really is no comparison, quality- and usability-wise, and getting exactly what you need in the first instance can save plenty of money in the future, compared to lower quality options which need to be adapted again and again.
