The Secret to Site Success
With so many designers, agencies, templates, and tools for website design, you can’t help but ask yourself “what’s the difference?”. Is there a value to hiring someone to design your website instead of designing it yourself? Is there a difference in hiring a freelancer vs. an agency?
Yes, it’s true that there are many people out there who have the coding skills necessary to build a website. However, building a successful website takes more than simply coding a website that functions. Here are the important keys to website success that a diligent, experienced agency will offer.
1) Brand Strategy Planning
Your brand is not just your name, your product, or your website. It encompasses all your brand elements and the consumer’s perception and expectations of you. Brand strategy planning considers long-term marketing support for a brand, which communicates its brand identity based on the defined characteristics of the target consumer. It includes understanding their preferences, and expectations of the brand.
A website is only a part of your brand strategy. A website should consider the total brand strategy to ensure that consumers get a consistent brand experience in-person and online. From brand assets to imagery, and tone of voice, all elements of a website should align with brand standards and guidelines.
2) Web Standards
Good web developers must stay up-to-date with modern web standards and practices, and not simply rely on the techniques they are comfortable with. Using latest technologies and standards makes your site clean, fast-loading and search engine friendly. It also leads to a more unique and personalized experience for consumers, as automated and dynamic technologies improve.
3) Right Technology and Framework
There are many options for building a website: Do you want a static website or a CMS system? If you want a CMS system do you want it to be custom built or to use an open-source system? If you want an open source system, there are dozens of options to choose from, each with their own benefits and pitfalls. An expert web developer will first try to understand your requirements and then advise on the best approach for your website needs.
4) Content
Website content is what differentiates one brand from another. When written strategically it drives users to action, which leads to conversions. Professional copywriters will provide this strategy, and deliver marketable content that is on brand and engaging to consumers. Suitable images and videos provide a great way to engage audiences and drive important messages in a format that is skimmable, which requires less effort than reading large amounts of text.
5) Drive Traffic
Expand your visibility by using latest SEO methods. SEO is an important part of website content strategy; it is important that descriptions, tags and keywords are properly implemented onto your site. The site itself should be designed cleanly so that it is simple for search engine crawlers to find the information they are looking for.
6) Measurement
One of the key advantages to websites is their ability to provide measurable interactions with consumers. A good agency has the ability to analyze this data to measure site traffic, quantify conversions, track where visitors are coming from, and understand content effectiveness. These reports lead to future website improvements and, on occasion, can lead to improvements in the business model as a whole.
BTI approaches all of our projects with these high standards, and with utmost diligence, to ensure our clients’ websites are successful. Call BTI now for a free consultation and quote for your website project!
