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One of the most important things to remember during the process of website development is to create a clean, appealing design. A quality design is attractive and easy to read with intuitive navigation. Most importantly, a clean design helps viewers focus on the value of your brand and content instead of distracting graphics and large amounts of text. Often, customers associate website designs with the quality of a particular company or product. Hence, a clean design is vital to providing a positive user experience that encourages customers to return.

Branding is important to all businesses, both large and small. The design and placement of your brand’s logo contributes to a viewer’s overall opinion. Professionally designed logos successfully catch the customer’s eye and provide a clear picture of the brand’s unique voice. Choose a location on your site that is readily visible to visitors, such as the upper left corner, since this is where the eye naturally begins to scan a website. To further solidify your brand’s identity, consider using the same logo on packaging, print advertising, and branded apparel. When a business is consistent with branding, it provides customers with an integrated and memorable brand experience.

When thinking about functionality, there are a few matters to consider. Namely, is the website functional in the literal sense? Are there loading issues or broken links? Are the site’s security features adequate for your business’s needs? In addition to these operational issues, it’s crucial to view your website’s features from the user’s perspective. Are the contact forms, surveys, and customer feedback sections of your site working properly? One or all of these functional issues can prompt a customer to leave your site.

If a website is confusing and difficult to navigate, your customers may leave and never return. To increase the efficiency and appeal of your site’s navigation, conduct an in-depth site review as if you are a new visitor. Note the navigation streams that make sense and those that do not. One way to improve a visitor’s ability to navigate your site easily (and help search engines crawl your site) is to add a site map. Furthermore, streamlining navigation by eliminating unnecessary or underperforming pages may decrease load time while improving the quality of your brand’s online presence.

Integration with social media is no longer a novelty – it’s a requirement. As technology makes information sharing more convenient, businesses lacking social media integration fail to take advantage of what has been likened to modern day word-of-mouth advertising. Social media provides a venue in which customers can promote your brand, provide reviews, and stay in-the-know about your company’s latest news. Written and visual content, including product images and branded video, are easily distributed on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn with the addition of social sharing buttons on your website.

Websites that are easy to use are more likely to garner customer interest and encourage business. Usability can be increased by displaying product and service information in a clear, concise manner. Make sure your website has all the features a customer would need for the site to be easily accessible. If a viewer is reading your blog and wants to subscribe to an email newsletter, do they have to hunt for the opt-in form? Is your contact information clearly displayed? Does the layout of your website encourage social sharing and further interaction with your brand? These key elements are essential to review when optimizing the usability of your site.

Placing 'calls to action' on your website encourages customers to contact your business. A friendly suggestion, such as “Contact us today!” demonstrates that your business wants to develop a relationship with its customers. It’s important that calls to action are appropriate for a visitor’s level of engagement with your company. If they’re just discovering your brand, invite them to subscribe to your email newsletter. If they’re already a loyal customer, perhaps they’ll enjoy participating in your brand’s loyalty rewards program. Regardless of what you’re asking visitors to do at your site, always include a call to action at least once on each page.

When looking for information online, nothing aggravates visitors more than slow loading times. Customers can be turned away completely due to this issue. Testing your website ahead of time will help you pinpoint any loading time issues, and these can be fixed before your site’s official release. To increase customer retention and provide a positive user experience, periodically evaluate your website’s loading time once it has launched. Short load times give customers the information they want when they want it. If your site can’t deliver, a competitor’s site will.

Whether you’re developing new webpages or optimizing existing ones, it’s critical to have clean, SEO-friendly code. By taking the time to improve your site’s code, you can increase the overall return on investment. SEO-friendly code acts as a guide for search engine spiders by providing a clear picture of your site’s content. Certain CMS services, provide plug-ins designed to simplify the process of cleaning up code and increasing search engine rankings.

Statistics indicate that the use of mobile devices to conduct online searches has increased significantly in the past two years. In fact, approximately 95% of mobile device users count on their devices to search for local products and services. To effectively reach this growing population of mobile users, businesses need to be sure that their websites are available from any device. A business planning the develop a website would be better served by choosing a responsive design capable of adapting to any device.

As technology progresses, the number of internet browsers is steadily growing. From Internet Explorer and Chrome to Firefox and Safari, it can be frustrating to keep up with them all. When creating a website, it’s vital to ensure that your website is reachable from multiple browsers. Specifically, your site should load properly on all major browsers – including older versions. Failing to take this step may exclude a large section of your customer base, which can be a costly consequence for a growing business.

Spam, spam, and more spam. That’s what some businesses receive in their comment sections, contact forms, and site forums that don’t have captcha tests in place. These tests (you’ll recognize them as the random letters and numbers typed before submitting a web-based form) differentiate humans from robots. Adding these short tests to your contact forms will ensure that only humans are able to use your site’s resources – saving your business time and money.

With the evolution of technology, newer and more advanced security risks threaten to compromise your website’s integrity. From malware and viruses to malicious apps and the threat of hackers, websites must prevent security breaches on both the front ends and back ends. Websites built to conduct online transactions, such as ecommerce sites, need additional security measures to protect customer information. To reduce the potential for browser-based threats, businesses must add SSL certificates to their websites. During development, it’s critical to review the security features included in your site’s framework and design. Businesses also need to conduct regular security checks or work with a provider who offers this service.

Due to Google’s search algorithm changes, greater priority has been placed on local searches. Review services, such as Google and Yelp, can be instrumental in generating qualified leads for businesses. Now, when customers search for a local business or product, they’re often greeted with reviews about a company on the first page of search engine results. Obtaining reviews on third party websites adds to your brand’s credibility, while making it simple for viewers to gain insight into customer satisfaction associated with your brand. To guarantee customers are able to leave reviews about your company, make sure to claim your business profile on third party review sites like Google and Yelp. You can than create a call to action on your website that will prompt a client to write a review and lead them to that particular third party review service. Google offers a great way to connect your Google+ business page reviews with your website. As long as you have an address for your business that qualifies and a Google+ account, you can search for your business page and if one doesn’t exist already you can create one. Once Google verifies that you’re the owner you will see your Google+ business page linked to your website whenever it appears in the SERP’s.

Similar to offsite reviews, customer testimonials can be used to promote your business. By featuring customer testimonials on your site, you demonstrate your company’s skills, products, and commitment to customers. If you already have a loyal customer base, reach out to a few and solicit online reviews. If they’re willing to provide a recorded testimonial, take advantage of this opportunity to create a branded video. The more genuine, detailed testimonials your company receives, the greater your chances of gaining new customers.

Between Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools and bing Webmaster Tools, web developers have the mechanisms necessary to accurately and efficiently calculate return on investment. For both traditional and mobile websites, these instruments can be used together to monitor traffic, engagement, and conversion rates. After digging deep into the data, it’s possible to uncover which marketing campaigns work best and which are underperforming. These valuable insights into why customers come to, stay on, and leave your website help your team perfect marketing strategies and adjust engagement techniques to maximize results. Since your branded online presence acts as a 24/7 storefront, it’s essential to simplify the outcomes measurement process by using Google Analytics along with Google and bing’s Webmaster Tools.

When you sit down to read a book, what’s the most helpful section to review first? Typically, it’s the table of contents. Acting as a summary of the book’s details, the table of contents provides a snapshot of material found within. Similarly, a sitemap provides visitors and search engines with the information to easily navigate your website and discover its contents. To keep your site up to date, it’s necessary to revise the site map as new pages are added. Google Webmaster Tools simplifies this process for you.

When incorporating images into your site’s content, make sure to receive written permission for use and pay relevant fees, if applicable. There are also sites that offer access to copyright-free images. However, be sure to carefully review terms of use before posting them. For many businesses, the costs associated with the lawful use of images outweigh the immediate benefit of “getting something for nothing.”