Website Design and Development Services: A Guide

Website design is the process of using different skills and disciplines in planning, conceptualizing and arranging content that is intended for the Internet.

However, web design and development isn’t just limited to websites but also includes other platforms such as web apps, mobile apps, and user interface designs.

Web Design Elements

When creating and designing a website. One must consider the look and functionality of the site. Only by integrating the elements mentioned below into the design can one maximize its performance.

Here’s an overview of the elements you’ll need to have in your design to ensure that everything looks good. 

Visual Elements

• Written Copy

The look of your website fundamentally goes hand in hand with its words. The two should never be considered as separate. You must have your designers and content writers work together rather than in sequence to ensure a powerful design.

• Fonts

It’s also crucial to choose an easy-to-read font pairing that’ll complement your web design. You don’t want anything to look out of place as for example using cursive fonts for a business website. Or serious looking Arial font for a flower shop website. 

• Colors

Next, the colors are also very important when designing a website. You need to keep in mind that the colors used must be aligned with the brand and message that you are trying to get across.

• Layout

Have you already decided how to arrange the content of your website in order to get that dramatic impact on its appearance and functionality? While there aren’t specific rules when it comes to choosing your layouts, there are principles that you’ll need to follow.

• Shapes

Using graphical elements in web design has really skyrocketed over the years and learning how to combine eye-catching colors and shapes can be used to accomplish a lot of things such as using it to attract and inspire your site visitors to take action.

• Spacing

Don’t forget that space exists at each element of your website design. You need to have just enough whitespace in order to avoid cramming everything together and overwhelming your visitors and audiences.

• Images and Videos

Don’t forget to use powerful images and icons in your web design as well to help you communicate a lot of information in just a few seconds. You can try Google searching for stock images as there are thousands of options to choose from.

And if you have an eye-catching video which can be used to help convert your visitors, then add them. But it must never compete with your existing content.

Functional Elements

• Navigation

One of the main components that also determines how effective your website is, is navigation. Depending on who your audiences are, navigation can serve multiple purposes which can help first time visitors to discover what you can offer in specific sections of your site.

• Animations

There are numerous web animation techniques that one can apply on a web design. It can be used to accomplish different tasks such as grabbing a user’s attention or or to giving feedback on certain contents like buttons or forms.

• Site Structure

A Website plays an important role in both the user experience and also SEO. The last thing that you want to have is your visitors getting lost in navigating through your site right? And sometimes the best approach is simply to lay out your pages on a whiteboard and create a design that looks and fits on all devices and browsers.

READ ALSO: 10 Free Digital Marketing Tools for Your Local Business

Website Design Tools

There are two main ways on how to design a website: you can either use a desktop app or use a website builder. The tool you decide to use will vary greatly depending on your budget and type of site and requirements.

• Desktop Apps

The most popular ones for designing a website are Photoshop and Sketch. This particular method will require designers to build a design before sending it to the development team who will convert the design into code.

This is the standard method for large and complex websites as it allows the designers to focus on the look and feel of it all while transferring the technical aspects to the dev team.

However, this process can be expensive and time consuming and will require specific skills. 

• Website Builders

There are several options out on the market today. For example, WordPress. It is typically used by developers who implement designs. And you can build just about anything with it without having to write a single code.

If you are looking for something really easy especially if you don’t have a lot of design experience. You can also choose Wix or PageCloud. Most of these website builders also offer free trials, so if you decide to create a website on your own. You might want to try them before deciding. 

BENEFITS OF HIRING WEBSITE DESIGN COMPANY

Your business definitely needs a good website to be successful. But is creating one really something that you should try on your own?

No matter how much you think you know about designing your online storefront, there are simply insights that a professional web design company can provide. 

So before you try to do it yourself. Take a look at these 10 reasons why you should rely on professionals to handle your website design.

1. It Will Help Save You Time

Designing a website takes a considerable amount of time, even for professionals. So don’t spend your extra time trying to figure out how to build yourself a solid and optimized website.

Instead, use every minute of your time to develop the rest of your business. Don’t let the other important tasks be pushed to the side as you work on your website. 

In addition, if you are also unsure of how to make a website. You may not make a very good one. But a web design company can create a competitive website that’ll help you make more money, attract more leads and traffic in the long run.

2. A Website Design Company Will Give You A High-Quality Site

One of the biggest reasons to hire a website designer is that they can create a unique website for you in order to help you stand out.

Although there are plenty of free website design templates out there but they’re practically basic and will fail to project your message, identity, and credibility.

How come?

Well, a website requires several features, this will include images, headers, plugins, and codes. While these may be jargon to some of you with little to no information on programming. But these are all second nature to professional web designers.

A reputable web designer will create a site for you that is both functional as well as attractive. And will provide a simple yet amazing user experience.

3. Online Strategy

Another reason that you’d want to hire someone else to build your online storefront, is that a professional can create a solid and strategic plan for your site.

This means that your designer will apply your business model and future organizational goals when curating your site. A professional developer will establish a solid strategy for your site to thrive in the long term.

4. Responsive Design

Plenty of web users are using their smartphones and iPads to do their research. They aren’t just relying on their computers to go online. Therefore, you must also provide a responsive business website that is compatible with mobile technologies.

If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, or it takes too long to load. Your audience will lose interest in seeing its contents. That means they won’t spend a lot of time on your website and in turn will have little conversions or sales in this situation.

Fortunately, a capable designer will create your site using responsive design technologies that can help you make money in the long run.

5. SEO

Search engine optimization, or SEO, isn’t just a buzzword. It’s an incredibly important and vital aspect for any business owner who is trying to stand out and compete in the digital platform from 2020 and beyond.

Your website will need to be constantly optimized and updated so that it continues to appear higher in the search engine results page (SERP). Because, what use is it to have the best-looking and functional website in the world when your potential customers fail to find it.

But an expert in both web design and SEO can increase your website’s chances to rank in SERP and the closer you are the number one spot, the more opportunities that you’ll have to draw in customers and close in sales.

6. Competitive Advantage

Hiring a professional guarantees that you get competitive advantage to your competitors. While many business owners try to put together their own site to save money but their lack of experience in this area will always show.

And businesswise, this is the last thing that you want your customers to think or perceive of your brand.

Hiring a professional will takes some investment but it will always far exceed what your competitors will have on the World Wide Web. You remain ahead of the online race. And you gain access to different handy website features that you will need.

While it may take you days to figure out how to add some features to your site, your designer can do it quickly and efficiently. Thus, increasing your chances of earning revenue without having to lift a finger to make it happen.

7. Dependable Design

The truth is, a professionally created website is simply more reliable. It has a lesser risk of errors, and crashes. And if these problems do appear, a web designer can quickly address them.

Fixing issues on a website will take time and can be costly. But these can be avoided with a one time fee with your professional designer. They can also manage them while you can focus on running your company.

8. Faster Site

A slow website is frustrating. We believe that you have also experienced this disappointment as a web user yourself.

So it’s not an exaggeration when we say that a website that loads slowly will undoubtedly lose a lot of its visitors and its ranking. This will end up costing you a lot of prospects and business opportunities.

Don’t be one of those sites that aren’t built to function optimally. Let a professional designer integrate features and plugins to improve your website’s security and speed. In this way, your website can be easily shared, accessed and become the talk of the town.

9. Professionals Will Avoid Problems From The Get-Go

To design your own website means that you’ll be experiencing a lot of trial and error. Especially since web design isn’t your niche, you’ll be faced with varying problems with different solutions.

While you can find your own answers to these problems like the ones we’ve mentioned above, it will take a lot of your time. And time is money for business owners.

You can either find the problems later down the road. Or ensure that your website can be safe from certain errors and crashes and have a peace of mind with a professional.

10. Hiring Professional Web Designers Is An Investment For Your Future

A website is an investment and not a cost. And when you think and see it that way. It is really worth spending a little extra to get that personalized touch. Whether you hire ESTRAT Digital Marketing to design your website or not, just remember, your website carries your brand and it is an integral part of your business. 

Choose to invest and get reassured that you have a reliable, speedy, trustworthy and clean online storefront. 

TYPES OF WEBSITE DESIGN AND SERVICES YOU CAN OUTSOURCE

Modern web design is actually more involved than simply creating an attractive online storefront. Professional web designers will always consider their user’s experience, as well as research in keywords for search engine optimization, ease of use and technical details.

But what can an outsourced website design company provide for your business and visitors?

1. SEO Optimization

Search Engine Optimization refers to an umbrella of techniques that’ll assist in enhancing your website’s ranking for relevant search results.

Simply put, a higher ranking in search results means that you’ll have a higher visibility for users in your target audience criteria. With better visibility for relevant search results, your online storefront can earn more clicks and traffic from high-valued users. Or from people who are more likely to take action and make an online purchase and more!

2. Website Pages

A website must also have its pages. And you can rely on your chosen designers to create every page of it. 

Whether you are an ecommerce store, or brick-and-mortar business. Designers can create and design the web pages that your company needs. You might want one page to be about reaching out and informing your visitors. While others are more of converting your target audience.

As a website design and services company, they must offer content marketing services that’ll enhance your strategy. Inside the content marketing services are:

• Content Strategy

You’ll have a customer made content strategy that is built for your business, its audiences and your goals.

• Content Development

Create a content calendar for your company to plan their must-share information. Information that’ll increase conversions rates or push your visitors to make an action or purchase.

• Content Creation 

An experienced marketing team will also begin creating your custom content from blog posts, online guide and even videos.

• Content Optimization

It is also important to optimize your content for SEO and users and for search engines.

• Content Promotion

Your website also needs to create noise in order to promote the contents you’ve created and shared.

• Content Reporting

Each month, there will be an easy-to-read content report that’ll show how well you’re performing for your website and ROIS.

3. Customized Style

Don’t choose agencies who only provide a predefined package. What you should be looking for is a website that presents and outlines who you are.

But you also need to know if you want a brochure website? An e-commerce website? A WordPress website or even just a website with a single landing page. Will discuss more on that shortly.

For now, think about how a professional website design company can help you capture your rand and include other style options and features to help emphasize your quality, price range, and credibility to your target audiences.

Always speak your mind and share your style preferences when working with your website design and services company that you have chosen. They must have a dedicated project manager and will also invest the time in understanding your business goals and vision.

Choose The Right Type Of Website For Your Audience

Before you focus too much on your design, you also need to take a look at the needs of your audiences who are viewing the site. Pay attention to what other companies or competitors have done with their web designs and efficiently identify which of these formats will work best for each project. This will help give you a strong feel for the type of website that’ll work best for you.

4. Website Copywriting

A website is only as good as it’s contents. So for maximum impact, you can rely on a website design company to create a compelling copy and even posts that’ll engage and convert your website’s visitors.

This will already include an optimized website copy for SEO. This means that the digital marketing specialists behind your contents have already done their research on finding high-value, relevant keywords for your business, industry and webpages which the copywriters will use to optimize your webpages.

5. Website Analytics

Web analytics is about collecting information about the actions taken by your visitors to your website. This can be about registering what they click on, scrolling, form submissions and more. All of these actions are gathered by an analytics system and are marked with a timestamp and other parameters which can be used to process hit data.

And the project manager will use those data to form a report. The reports will be used to build future metrics and dimensions in order to create a well-defined strategy for your website’s optimization, effectiveness, and updates.

HOW DOES WEBSITE DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT SERVICES WORK?

While there is no single or industry-wide answer on how a web design company process works. We can at least tell you how ESTRAT Digital Marketing Agency approaches our customer’s questions. 

Based on our interaction with other agencies and clients, this is fairly how it works in the web design world, in general.

1. Project Intake

The client will inform us of their requirements and requests through the intake forms provided by our agency. We will then review the request and identify the solutions which are cost-effective and feasible with their current situation.

This will include a free consultation and meetings whether in person or virtually in order to set the right metrics, scope, timeline and budget in greater detail.

2. Website Development

Once ESTRAT has locked on the specifics of what the clients need and after assessing their situation. We will start to build your website with our team of developers who can create effective, functional, and convenient features from the metrics set by the project lead.

3. Client Revision and Content Integration

When the web designers have finished developing the web site according to the client’s specifications. We will be showcasing the results to them prior to launch. This is the stage where the client is free to voice out their revisions while also integrating the pre-made optimized content resulting into an attractive website with engaging content.

4. Pre-Launching Revisions and Quality Assurance

After viewing the changes (if any) and its content, we will take note of the revisions and suggestions and implement them. The website will also go through their own intensive quality assurance protocols.

5. Project Launch

After checking all the necessary elements, and when the revisions have been cleared. The team will then be launching your brand-new site.

6. Post-launch Quality Assurance and Support

Even after launching the website, ESTRAT will check its performance and ensure that it is up to par. We will also offer support services to maintain and improve the site after its launch, providing you with complete coverage.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION ABOUT WEBSITE DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT SERVICES

There are also a few common questions which are typically asked by people who are deciding on hiring a web design company. Here are a few questions along with their answers.

Q: Do you think a website can help us grow?

The short and precise answer is, yes! A good website makes a big difference. Just within seconds of landing on your online storefront. Visitors make a snap-judgment about who you are and what your company is capable of.

Their interests are potentially solidified and are akin to selling a home. You don’t directly sell the house but rather encourage the people to give the house a chance. And a great website will inspire visitors to imagine themselves using and partnering with your business and this will help you grow and thrive.

Q: Why does it matter if our website design is out of date?

You’d be surprised that there are plenty of people visiting your website. About half of them will stop by your website for the very first time, so it’s fair to assume that many of these visitors are actually interested in getting to know your business and organization.

You definitely cannot allow that first impression to be subpar. If you have the time, check out your Google Analytics data and find out more information on how many people are new versus returning visitors on your website.

Q: There are free website templates like Wix or in WordPress. Why should we pay to design a website?

While the templates can be free and others affordable, sometimes the template cannot effectively portray your brand’s image and vision. You need to remember that a website plays a big role in your communication and marketing strategy and choosing to risk something as critical as a website for a free template is not something we as a design agency would advise.

Q: How long does it take to build a new website?

On average, creating, building and designing a website takes about 8-12 weeks. While there are other variables involve that can influence the timeframe but this will depend on:

• The website’s size
• Complexity of the design
• Advanced features that you will need
• Creating your content 
• And client’s timely feedback and input on the work

After reading all these, we are confident that you are now more equipped in making your website design and development more intentional, tapping the right digital professional for the job.