As a modern business owner, you probably know that you need a strong web presence to grow your business. Choosing the right Jacksonville website designer for your project is critical to your success. Unfortunately, finding the right team for your website can be a time-consuming process, especially if you don’t know where to start.
Avoid the Common Pitfalls
Everyone knows this story. A business owner spends thousands of dollars creating an elaborate website. The project ends up taking much longer and costing much more than previously planned. Eventually, the site is fully built and ready for clients.
Unfortunately, the website was built to look great but does little in the way of driving traffic to the platform. Now the business owner is furious with his developers because they feel as if they were duped by the developer.
Marketing vs Website Building
There are a couple of important points that can be taken away from the story above. For one, business owners must learn that, unless specifically paid for, most developing and marketing packages are separate. That means, you can spend thousands on your website, but unless it is built with organic traffic growth in mind, you will need to spend additional money on marketing and promotions
Empty Mall
This, empty mall syndrome is the norm for most website owners. They either build their own website using a free building tool, or have a development firm put something together for them, but fail to realize that without valuable content, nobody is going to find your website. Basically, you must consider how you are going to get your eCommerce in front of clients. An experienced web developer can help.
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Finding the Right Company
Finding the right Jacksonville website designer can seem challenging. There are a lot of options to choose from, and unless you have previous experience in web development, many of the terms used when speaking to these guys can seem foreign.
Stay Local
Finding a Florida web developer from your area can alleviate many of these concerns. For one, a local developer can meet with you in person. You can build an actual business relationship with this individual. More importantly, a local developer can help you tailor your website to be equally pleasing to the search engines and your visitors.
Jacksonville Website Designer – Preliminary Consultation
When you go with a Jacksonville website designer you get the best of both worlds. You get the ability to speak to someone face-to-face and work with an individual that can come to your business to capture the real essence of your strategy.
An experienced developer will always schedule a preliminary consultation. This is a critical component in determining exactly what type of website and features you need to consider. For example, a car dealership may need a product carousel for their cars, or a blog dedicated to automotive news relevant to their brands.
Each of these features helps drive traffic to your website. The carousel helps to bring traffic in two ways. First, it will help your google image results. Google image is one of the main ways in which a business can gain ranking online. Recent studies have found that around 30% of search result clicks are from Google Images.
Content is King
Additionally, a well-structured and informative blog is perhaps the most effective way to drive new traffic to your website. An experienced Jacksonville website builder can help you to choose your blog topics in a manner that ensures you cover your main keywords.
When it comes to ranking, your content is going to be the final factor used to determine your website’s relativity to the topic. Basically, if you type “new car” on Google, the search engine will first display who has the most content about new cars.
For example, if your website has only 2 pages of content about new cars, it’s going to be easy for your competition to knock you out of the rank listings. Google’s spider will notice that your competition provides more valuable content on the subject. Consequently, they will get a higher ranking for their efforts.
Content Creation Costs
Creating valuable content isn’t easy. If you don’t have the funding to hire a professional blogger, you can always create your content yourself. Depending on the type of feel your website has, personalized content can be an awesome way to help your visitors get to know you better.
If you are attempting to rank in a very competitive keyword field, you may want to up your game to a professional blogger. Professional bloggers can fill your webpage with SEO’d and thought-leading information. This information helps your online conversion rate in a number of ways.
For one, your visitors will consider you as a valuable source of industry-related news. If your content is consistently updated, you will train your customers to come back regularly to check for updates. Once your visitors know that you are in tune with the happenings of the industry, your messages will be more effective.
As a credible source of content on a topic, you gain the ability to refer your visitors to your products with confidence. Basically, if you are a person’s main source of info on a topic, they are going to take your advice when the time comes to make a purchase decision.
Determining Your eCommerce Strategy – Jacksonville Website Designer
Now that you have found a Jacksonville website design team to build your online platform, its time to consider what your overall eCommerce strategy will be focused on. There are many ways to monetize your website. Unfortunately, none of them are effective until you have valuable content creating a steady flow of new visitors.
Monetization is an important part of your online store. For most, monetization means offering some sort of product or service to visitors. For example, a landscaping company could offer its services to locals. These services could also include products geared towards your clients. In this case, a weed killer could be offered.
Other Ways to Monetize
While offering traditional products and services are the most obvious forms of monetization, there are many more ways to make money with your website worth thinking about. You could offer digital products. Take the landscaping firm discussed above. On top of offering lawn service, and products, the firm could offer clients an eBook or video on keeping your yard perfect.
Jacksonville Website Developer
The advantage of digital products shouldn’t be overlooked. For one, you can sell your digital products indefinitely. These products can extend your company’s reach globally. Best of all, you only have to create these products one time, and you can sell them forever.
In this manner, you can take your monetization to the next level. Depending on your business, you can even offer subscription services to access your digital products or content. In many instances, you may find that instead of competing against your competition, you actually turn them into your future clients. This is especially the case when you start selling products geared towards service providers rather than clients.
Jacksonville Website Designer – Layout
Your Jacksonville website design layout needs to be well-thought-out. Your layout will guide your visitors through your content before leading them to your call-to-action page. Here you close the sale.
When considering your website layout, you need to factor in some key components. For one, you need to evaluate exactly how your website will function. You want to make navigation as simplistic as possible. Basically, if someone comes to your site with the intention to buy, they need to be able to make that decision easier.
Easy Navigation
Visitors need to be able to find all the relevant pages your website contains without the need to poke around. You don’t want your visitors just free-floating in your website because if they don’t find what they are looking for in under a minute, there is a great chance that they will leave your platform. Instead, you need to make your main services and products immediately available.
Aside from making your website easy to navigate, you need to pre-sell with your content. This strategy is highly effective and easy to accomplish. One of the best ways to presell your products is to inter-link them within your blogs.
For example, a landscaping blog could discuss the best ways to raise your flower beds. This blog may discuss the best types of flowers to use and how to plant them. When listing the flowers, these words should become clickable links. This way, your visitors can just click the link to learn more.
Streamline Content – Jacksonville Website Designer
Since the links were presented in a way that was streamlined with your content, most visitors will not put up the boundaries of the usual sales objections encountered during the online shopping experience. This concept can be called the “teacher referral method.” Basically, if a visitor has come to your website to learn something in particular, the chances are better that any recommendations concerning their project will be taken seriously.
Mobile is Key
Recent studies show that mobile internet use is now the main way in which people surf the net. Since this is a relatively new trend, its important that you understand how this affects your website development. You need to understand that your website must be mobile compatible.
An experienced Jacksonville website developer will ensure that your mobile device platform is laid out perfectly. In order to do so, the developer will need to build your site in a manner that automatically adjusts for mobile formats.
Importantly, mobile formats don’t just mean your phone. Today, your website needs to be agile. It needs to be able to shift to look perfect on a PC, cellphone, or tablet. Most importantly, it needs to be able to do these changes automatically and quickly in order to not lose engagement with your visitors.
Avoid the Bells and Whistles – Jacksonville Website Designer
When you’re building an online store, it’s easy to get caught up in all of the cool bells and whistles now available. You may want auto-play videos or other data-heavy productions on your website. While these products are effective when used properly, it’s important to remember that a minimalistic website layout is best in most instances.
Keeping it simple can help you to get your overall point across. You don’t want to distract your visitors with a bunch of moving and flashing ads. Also, auto start videos are never a good idea mainly because you limit your visitors to only those with high-speed internet.
Websites such as Craigslist embody this strategy to the fullest. While craigslist may not look like an eCommerce powerhouse, it’s truly a modern marvel. The platform can function on nearly any device, regardless of the internet connectivity speed. This all-inclusive approach is part of the reason why Craigslist is so popular.
Interconnectivity is a Must – Keep it Social
Nowadays, it’s not enough to just have a website. You need to engage with your clients via social media. Social media continues to transform how eCommerce is conducted globally. As such, you need to familiarize yourself with the main social media networks.
Jacksonville Website Developer
Savvy developers will interconnect your blogs to your social media. This strategy is highly effective for a number of reasons. First, you can now automatically post all of your blogs to all of your social media platforms. In this manner, you grow both your website traffic and your social media marketing network.
Engagements are Important
Secondly, you can get more engagement from your clients. Creating open lines of communication with potential clients is important. Your clients are more likely to buy products from a company they see as active in the marketplace.
Best of all, you only need to build your social media up once to gain a permanent way to reach your clients. A huge social media following shows the world that you are a serious contender in your industry.
For example, who are you more likely to purchase a new car from, a company with 20,000 active social media followers or a company that doesn’t have a Facebook or Twitter at all? Basically, nowadays, your social media is your company’s credit check. If you don’t have any social media, your social credit score is hurting severely.
Local Support – Jacksonville Website Designer
A local Jacksonville website developer can help you to alleviate your concerns by guiding you through the entire web development process. Having someone on your side with the experience to help you avoid the most common pitfalls made by online businesses is the best way to see success.
Additionally, a local web developer can come to your business and provide you with more services than the competition. For example, a local web developer may offer you a custom video or photoshoot to better showcase your products. All of these features can help you to get the edge on your competition.
Localized Search Results
Another great reason to go with a Florida website designer is the fact that they can help you to localize your search results. Localization is one of the best ways to rank in highly competitive markets. For example, it may be impossible for a small dealership to rank for “car sales.”
There are already mega websites with thousands of words of content in this category. As such, you can’t just out content the competition as with many other industries. You need to be more clever. You need to localize your content.
Localized content places your region with the keyword you desire. Take the example listed above. Yes, a local dealership will never outrank say, Cars.com for the keyword “car sales.” However, a local firm can easily take over their area simply by focusing on the local region.
Localization should be at the forefront of your eCommerce strategy. Sprinkle in some local landmarks and events to let your visitors know that you can relate to their feelings because you too are a member of the community. For many people, the idea of working with someone across the globe sounds stressful. Many clients prefer the feel of a hometown hero over an international man of mystery.
Local Advertising
A local Florida web developer can also help you to configure an advertising strategy based on your region. In some instances, you may want to promote your website or products via the local marketing channels. Local billboards, radio, or TV ads can be a great way to accomplish this.
Just remember, you need to have your website fully functioning before you spend advertising dollars. This advertising strategy can add considerable costs to your plan. Therefore, be sure that your website is ready to capture your visitor’s attention and convert their excitement into clicks.
Local Photos – Jacksonville Website Designer
Another awesome way to advertise your locality is to use photos from local landmarks. Your clients will feel more comfortable with your services if they see you in areas that are familiar to them. This lets your clients know that you are easily accessible.
Keep it Local – Jacksonville Website Designer
Now that you have a better understanding of why a Jacksonville website designer may be the best option for your business, you are ready to start your consultation. Click here to schedule a visit today.
