The modern-day online landscape looks very different from
its humble beginnings. The advent of the internet was born
on a rocky foundation of simple, static web pages with an
antiquated yet charming aesthetic. There’s something
nostalgic about these relics of our online past, but the
decades that have preceded them have brought on an evolution
that early adopters of the internet had no ability to
predict. Websites have evolved to become sophisticated and
elegant, custom website design and website development have
created endless possibilities. We’ve moved from websites
being read-only based content, to a fully interactive
experience.
The latest waves of web applications,
known as web 2.0 and 3.0 offered the tools for social media
to be built on. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Tick Tok
have become essential means for businesses to reach out and
connect with their audiences. Social integrations create an
easy to manage an environment that businesses can quickly
show off new products, communicate and engage with their
audience and even build extensive advertising and marketing
campaigns.
There’s no doubt that web 3.0
applications have played a major role in how businesses find
new customers and sell products or services. The barrier to
entry is tiny to create an online presence for your business
due to these platforms being so easily accessible. However,
to think that this is all you need to maximise your
businesses turnover and revenue is misguided. Don’t fall
into the trap of thinking this is enough, your business
needs a custom
website designed specifically for it, and here are some
reasons why.
Creating the Perfect, Curated
Environment For Your Customers
While having an online
presence on a 3rd party’s platform is an important
ingredient in the online business pie, it still isn’t
truly yours. While things like your social media are
incredible tools for outreach, they limit you in their
ability to tailor them exactly to your business needs. You
have to adapt your business aesthetic and communication
style to fit the platform’s parameters. Perhaps your
products aren’t done justice in the manner in which you
are forced to display them? Or the display pic and banner
layout don’t work for your branding? Or perhaps something
as simple as Facebook’s garish blue clashes with your
brand’s colour pallet.
And then there’s the
unpredictable algorithm for organic reach. All bow towards
the algorithm gods.
A custom-built
website grants you full control over how your
products or services are presented. Web design allows you to
tailor your website to take advantage of your branding,
rather than compromising it for a third party platform’s
layout and user interface. This allows you to guide the
customer journey, presenting your products and services in a
perfectly curated order to ensure that they gain perspective
into the full spectrum of what you offer, ultimately
increasing your conversion rate. A custom-built website
allows you to have full consistency between branding,
imagery and copywriting to deliver your brand’s message in
the most optimal way.
Getting your Customers Full
Attention
Most people have grown used to swiping
through content at an extraordinarily fast rate. With all
the noise online, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to
hold the attention of online users. This is particularly
true with social media marketing, where your brand is just
another post in a quickly refreshed news feed. As stated
earlier, these third-party platforms are important tools for
initially grabbing your customers attention, but your next
step should be to get them out of the current digital
ecosystem they are in and into yours. Pulling them away from
social media and into your world.
Social media
platforms and other online aggregates are designed for rapid
navigation. Their business model is to keep their users
churning through their content to keep them on their site as
long as possible. Your business is not a priority, it is
just another piece of content. By drawing these users off
these platforms and onto your website, you have their full
attention. Your business is now able to dictate the pace of
communication, and with a well designed UI in place and a
strategic funnel set up, you can lead your clients all the
way to a conversion. This conversion may be selling a
product, booking a service, or signing up to your mailing
list.
Search Engine Optimisation is the Unsung Hero
of Successful Online Businesses.
Up until now,
we’ve spoken about web 3.0 apps such as social media, but
haven’t even mentioned the giant elephant in the room –
Google. A large portion of the success of the internet as a
utility for business has been carved out by the development
of search engines. Prior to their inception, users needed to
already know the URLs they were heading to, and casual
browsing was almost impossible. Search engines changed this,
providing a quick and intuitive way for people to navigate
the world wide web. While there are multiple search engines
available, there is no doubt that Google rules them all.
While the nature of social media platforms tends to cater to
specific demographics, Google caters to them all. It is the
go-to tool for customers looking for services and products,
and as online shopping increases exponentially every year,
not being able to be found on Google can be a death sentence
for a business.
Through strategic web design and web
development, businesses can craft a website that is
optimised to be found on Google easily. It allows you to
create multiple pages that focus on specific search terms,
allowing your online presence to be spread across a wider
set of enquiries. This allows multiple inlets into your
website, saving potential customers time and increasing your
conversion rates.
While paid advertising has a place
in ensuring success, at the end of the day your website
design and development are going to be a major factor in how
successful it is. Creating beautiful engaging websites with
rich content and imagery that pops is the backbone of doing
business online. This requires expert website design, while
an inexperienced website development team ensures that all
technical aspects such as page load speed, image size, and
site architecture ready your website for Google’s search
engine.
Final Thoughts
Don’t be misled into
thinking that having a social presence is enough for running
a successful business in 2022. A well-designed website,
tailored to your business’s needs is the final destination
for all conversion online. Your marketing, advertising, and
social presence all need to lead somewhere, and that place
should be your website. Lime Digital’s proven track record
for designing and developing awe-inspiring websites has led
our diverse portfolio of clients to higher levels of organic
traffic, conversion rates, and revenue generation. Don’t
leave money on the table when it comes to your online
presence, see what Lime
Digital’s website design and development can do for
your business
today.
© Scoop Media
