Web Design

Traditional marketing techniques such as being listed in phone books and newspapers used to be really effective. Many people would read newspapers and refer to phone books for finding services and products. Since these information mediums were so dependent on and popular, their audience was large and perfect for marketing campaigns.

Today however, phone books and newspapers have a fraction of the audience they used to have. Bill Gates predicated last spring that Yellow Page usage among people below 50 will drop to zero, or near zero, over the next five years. Newspapers too are starting to dwindle in audience numbers.

According to a 2012 survey conducted by Yelp, 85% of consumers use the internet to find local businesses. That means that any business not using the internet to market their services and products, especially with a website and local online marketing strategy, is missing out on connecting with their audience. And if a business doesn’t have a website or online presence, you can rest assured that their competitor’s do.

Why Just Having a Website Isn’t Enough Today
There was a time when just having a website was enough to generate business. No marketing was necessary, no ranking, etc. Just like there was once a time when marketing was as easy as adding a business to the Yellow Pages. In 2013-2014 however, things have changed to the point where just having a site is as ineffective as trying to advertise on the Yellow Pages.

To make sure that your business is connecting with its target audience, it needs to have a website that is properly developed so that Google can index it in search results. It also needs to have a social media presence so that the business can stay in touch with their current customers and fans, as well as stay updated with what their customers are saying about them online. While social media marketing is another topic on its own, it does require matching experience on the developer’s side to be properly integrated into websites.

Business websites today also need striking design which distinguishes them from competitors, and holds the visitor’s interest long enough that they don’t leave the page in order to browse more search results. A poorly built website may have a bounce rate as high as 90%, or 9 out of 10 people leave after seeing the homepage and even most of the time within seconds of getting there. A properly built site with an elegant design can have bounce rates as low as 20%.

The whole principle behind marketing is numbers. The more people that see your ads on TV for example, the more people will convert. If you only get 5,000 visitors a month to your website, and it has a bounce rate of 90%, then only 500 people will visit your site. If it has a conversion rate of 1%, then only 5 people will become a lead per month. A site with a 20% bounce rate on the other hand will have 4,000 visitors that browse the site, and at 1% conversion the business will generate 40 leads in a month.

Many business owners scoff at design and development costs for professional web design services, often stating that “making it look good isn’t important.” What they all come to realize though, is that making it look good does matter. Every extra visitor a business can retain on their site is an extra possible customer. Over weeks, months, and years, even a 5% lower bounce-rate can play a big role in a business’s growth, brand awareness, lead generation, and lower marketing costs.