It is a well known saying among entrepreneurs that “if you do not plan, you plan to fail”, but most business owners in South Africa do not plan ahead for their website or branding projects. Whether it’s a web designer or a brand designer, they’re all familiar with this push back response: “you’re an expert, I thought you would guide me”. People who have not done their homework often respond in this manner.
If so, what would be the most appropriate approach?
You should first list all the reasons that led you to decide that you should have a website. Include all the reasons that led you to decide that you needed a website, whether they were your competitors’ websites or any of the common goals of websites:
- Marketing – drive traffic, engage prospects, generate leads and re-engage existing customers
- Sales– help close sales by validating and supporting sales team communications
- Customer Support – improve customer satisfaction through better service
- Webmasters – simplify and optimize content updates and website management
- IT– integrate with other systems; meet security, performance and scalability requirements
- Operations – reduce costs by streamlining and automating workflows and tasks
- HR – attract and recruit talented employees and support current employees
- C-Suite – grow the company’s bottom line and increase profitability
What are the reasons for this? It will help you determine whether any of those reasons / goals were achieved or not and why. As a second benefit, you will be able to prepare goal-oriented questions rather than those about the technical and cost aspects of building a website, which, in my opinion, should not even be considered until you have a clear understanding of how your web design agency intends to assist you in reaching your goals.
During the discovery meeting, your web designer wants to listen and answer any questions you have. A few questions prepared in advance will help you to have a productive meeting. You will walk away knowing exactly if they are the right designer or if you should continue looking for another designer. Having said that, let’s take a closer look at how SEO contributes to the success of your website.
How SEO contributes to the success of your website?
Improve user experience
In recent years, SEO (search engine optimisation) has become increasingly concerned with UX (user experience design). In order to rank highly in organic search engine results, a website must provide a rich user experience and understand user intent. Google no longer evaluates websites solely based on keyword use.
Positive user experience is a key component of web design for many reasons. Firstly, it ensures that your website visitors have a smooth experience when they visit your site. Also, user experience improves the search engine optimisation of your website (SEO) as search engines consider user experience when ranking websites.
Additionally, a positive user experience contributes to your content marketing efforts leading to higher website conversion rates because customers are more likely to purchase from a site that is easy to navigate and use. Website conversions can be anything from purchasing a product to exchanging contacts for an ebook download or filling out a form for you to contact them.
Make your website discoverable
Having a website is an absolute must for any business, especially in a world where everything revolves around Google. But what’s the point if people don’t find it when they search online? This is where SEO comes in, to make your website discoverable. And most businesses fall short here because they want beautiful websites and web designers deliver because they are designers. They make things look beautiful, don’t they?
Building a website that works for a business extends beyond pretty fonts, cool animations and graphics. You need to understand business objectives and customer needs, research and then craft a content strategy that aligns business goals with customer needs. As a web designer, what do you do if your client sends you their company profile and asks you to take anything you can use or the most exciting one sends you a link to their competitor’s website and tells you they offer exactly the same services? Honestly, most designers will design a beautiful website without thinking twice about it because that’s clearly what the client wants.
Attracts qualified traffic
When your website attracts visitors, it is a clear indication that search engines find its content useful. In spite of this, driving traffic is one thing, and driving qualified traffic is quite another. Qualified traffic is defined as those users who are capable of making a purchasing decision at the time of entering your website. They are not just visiting the website, they are potential customers interested in buying what you’re offering.
This is another way SEO contributes to the success of your website by bringing in the right people. SEO experts are skilled at identifying and targeting profitable keywords that can attract the right people to your site. The conversion rate of your website is a crucial indicator of whether you are reaching the right people through your website. This metric provides you with information regarding your website’s effectiveness.
Constant lead generation
An effective marketing plan for growing your business must include lead generation and search engine optimisation. In order to generate leads, you must cultivate interest in your business so that qualified prospects may be attracted and nurtured to become customers.
Having a strong search engine optimisation strategy is crucial to your business, since it increases your visibility on the web, drives organic traffic to your website, and in turn promotes more leads and customers.
Your business can generate leads by increasing organic traffic to your website through an SEO campaign. Your target customers will be able to find you more easily and learn more about your business’ solutions and hopefully make contact.
You should keep in mind that SEO is an ongoing process that needs to be monitored and tweaked regularly. If you discontinue your SEO company once you have reached the top, you will lose most of your top ranking. Why? While you are at the top, other companies work tirelessly to outperform you, so once you cease performing SEO, they will overtake you.
