Archive for category Web Design and Development
Seattle Web Design Teams Now Focusing On UX for Marketing & Usability
Posted by Rory Martin in Web Design and Development on September 2, 2014
While UI or user interface has always been the most important part of a website, UX is becoming increasingly important for websites and more Seattle web design teams are focusing on user experience. Today’s service culture demands not only service, but good service. And while the web has always been an amalgam of various talents and services, it is maturing rapidly, and consumers are quickly coming to expect that maturity in the websites and their services. If you don’t know what UX is or what it can do for your business, then you might be missing out.
What is UX
UX is quite simply user experience, and in terms of web development, it means a carefully thought out and designed experience. While UI is the interface with which consumers interact with your website, UX is the ideas and thoughts behind it that ensure that the consumer has a good experience. But it goes deeper than that. UX also creates an easy to use and even interesting experience with minimal clutter to increase attention, guiding users down the page to a call to action. The result is that UX is also a branding and marketing tool as well as a website tool.
In fact, many businesses are already beginning to integrate UX into their digital marketing, through the use of customer feedback, consumer prompts, and actually listening to their customers. One example of a company using UX is Delta Airlines, who offer customer service through both their website and their mobile site by proactively fixing issues. For example, when a customer’s flight is cancelled, the website automatically sends an email with a list of next available flights that the customer can choose from. The result is not only a happier customer but also a lower cost for Delta, because that customer doesn’t have to call through to customer service. This sort of proactive user experience is what can and should be the future.
Working UX into Your Design
If you already have a website then you might have UX, especially if you hired the right design team. Some teams are even good enough that they can create a UX without doing so intentionally, but this is rare. However, that doesn’t mean it’s too late to work UX into your design, or to have a new website designed around user experience. In fact, because UX is mostly just a well thought out web design, you may only need a few tweaks to increase usability and improve your information architecture for maximum efficiency.
UX really is becoming a huge buzzword right now, but it is an important one because it encompasses something that greatly affects your website and your consumer perceptions. A great UX ensures that your customers have the best experience on your website, and if not, that they have easy solutions. Want to learn more about UX? Talk to some of our specialized Seattle web developers today to find out what we can do for you and your user web experience.
Five Questions to Ask Your Seattle Web Designer About Your Site
Posted by Rory Martin in Web Design and Development on August 26, 2014
If you’re having your site rebuilt, redesigned, or launched for the first time, you might want to stop and take a few minutes to stop and consider the website. While you might have a really good idea of what you want and need, especially if you have some design experience, it’s always a good idea to get advice and ask questions before you do so. And most importantly,
Am I Using the Right CMS For This Site?
This is especially important to ask if you’re launching a site for the first time, or aren’t sure what you have. CMS or Content Management Systems allow you to add information to your site, and some common ones include Joomla and Wordpress. You can also have a Seattle web designer build you a custom CMS if you need it. While different CMS are better for different types of websites and different functions. Unfortunately, unless you’re prepared to do a lot of research, you might not know which is best for your site. The best thing to do is ask. You can get a recommendation for the best CMS for your business, whether it be Joomla, or something custom.
Do I Really Need That?
If you have a list of items that you want for your website, it is always a good idea to go over them with your web designer to talk about which elements are most beneficial to your site, and which, if any, you should get rid of. This is especially important if you have a lot of features and pages that you want to integrate, because feature rich usually means slow to load, which is bad for your search marketing. Plus, too many features may actually be confusing for your site. Consider talking over the essentials with your web designer and then making decisions based on recommendations.
What Happens If I Want Feature Outside the Project Scope Later?
Another important thing to discuss is whether or not the web design team will be able to make adjustments or new features after the rest of the site is finished, and how much extra that will cost you. Depending on the web design team they will want to charge an hourly or a project rate, and the final rate should depend on that. While you might not need changes outside of the project scope, it is always a good idea to discuss them so that you can make an informed decision about changes later.
There are plenty of things that you should ask your Seattle web designer, but chances are you’ve already figured out that you should get credentials and consider why you should hire them. In addition to these basics, it’s always a good idea to ask them about your site plans, what you need, and which options are best for your site so that you make sure you get the best options for your needs. Want to know more or want a consult with professional web designers? Contact Rory Martin to discuss your option
Seattle Web Designers Discuss: What Mobile Website Do You Need?
Posted by Rory Martin in Web Design and Development on July 8, 2014
Talking to someone about what you need for your website might be confusing if don’t know an especially lot about web design. Especially with all of the choices and options available. Mobile website? Responsive design? What?
If you want to make your website mobile friendly (and you should since at least 40% of normal traffic is mobile based), then you have to choose one (or several) options. Unfortunately, that’s more than a little difficult if you don’t know the differences. So what are the different ways to go mobile? Keep reading to find out what Seattle web designers have to say on the matter.
A Mobile Website
A mobile website is a secondary website with a different URL (usually m.yourdomain.com) that automatically redirects when it detects that the visitor is not on a browser. This allows the website to automatically adjust to the mobile version. A couple of points to keep in mind are that the result is a completely different website, so you can control everything that mobile users see because you can create entirely different content for mobile. This is great if your main website is complex, or you want to narrow the mobile options down to the absolute basics. If you are familiar with SEO, you may guess that this is bad for SEO in that you have two entirely different websites, one of which is only available for mobile, and ranking does not carry through to the mobile version, however, they do rank extremely well for mobile search. Mobile websites are faster than responsive websites because
Mobile Responsive Design
Mobile Responsive design is completely different from a mobile website in that it uses the same URL, and is in fact, the same website. Responsive design detects the screen size of the user based on the dimensions of the browser and then re-adjusts to that screen size using a set of given parameters. Essentially, your responsive design looks different for each mobile device, because it has been designed separately for each device, and then told to adjust. This is better for users because they don’t have to worry about being redirected to another site, and better for SEO because you are only using one website. Sometimes responsive design is also more difficult for users to navigate because you are essentially just resizing everything for the device.
So which is the best option for you? Most people end up choosing between mobile and responsive design based on their budget, their customer needs, and customer volume. If you have to give customers the best experience possible then mobile web design is faster and more user friendly. On the other hand, if you’re looking for an affordable experience that allows you to easily change your website from one size to another, then responsive is the way to go.
Want to know more about different types of web design or discuss your options? Contact Rory Martin to talk with our professional Seattle web design team about your business on the web.
Seattle Web Design Talk – Free Websites vs. Custom Designs
Posted by Rory Martin in Web Design and Development on June 19, 2014
If you’re a business owner considering putting up a website for your business then chances are you’ve already done a fair amount of research into what it’s going to take. You might already realize that you have multiple options for both free and paid websites, and you may have already decided which CRM you want, if you want an open source one. That aside, you might not know whether or not you want to pay for a website or just use a theme. As a business owner, there are several things that greatly impact your decision, and you should consider them carefully before you go out and hire a Seattle web designer that you don’t really need.
Are You Going to Profit From Your Website?
First things first, the driving source behind any industry is money and no matter what your business is, it should be all about profit. Unless, of course, you’re running a non-profit. If you are not making anything off of the website, then it is a poor business decision to spend money on it. Consider what the website will be doing, try doing a little bit of keyword research, and consider the online market for your business. If the estimated ROI looks like it will at least cover the costs of a professional web designer then a professional custom website is the way to go. If you’re looking at $30 a month in revenue from it, you might want to stick with a low-cost theme until you figure out how to boost your revenue. While a custom site is more likely to engender trust in the user, you can’t justify spending money on something that isn’t ever going to make money
Do You Need Custom Web Design?
Another big thing to consider is whether or not you actually need a custom design for your website. The vast majority of websites are one or two page information pages that ask the customer to contact them without really providing any other information, or requiring any custom services. In this case, it would be a waste of your money to pay for a custom page. You don’t need it. On the other hand, if you want your website to have a custom menu that allows users to sort through dishes available at your restaurant, check pricing, and check ingredients, then you might want a pro designer. Essentially, if you want a basic website with no real features then web design is not necessary, but otherwise, a web designer gives you a great deal of flexibility, and allows you to offer real, unique value to your site.
There are a number of reasons that custom web design is more popular for businesses than templates, starting with uniqueness, Google search impact, and ensuring that the customer doesn’t immediately associate the site with another business they know who uses the theme. Having unique graphics and a unique web page tailored to meet your needs is invaluable, if you are going to be profiting from the site.
Seattle Web Development – Setting a Budget for Mobile
Posted by Rory Martin in Web Design and Development on May 2, 2014
Mobile friendly is the web trend of 2014, mainly because web visits from mobile devices have skyrocketed up to nearly 50 percent. With that in mind, half of your potential web traffic could be from a mobile device, meaning that if your website isn’t loading quickly for phone and tablet users, you are loosing viable sales and leads by the handful. Unfortunately, you might not have any real idea of what to spend on your website upgrades for making your site mobile friendly. If that sounds like you, keep reading these tips from your Seattle web development team to find out how you can settle on a budget.
Consider Your ROI
The first thing to consider is how much you can afford to spend for your mobile budget. Sure, you could say ‘nothing’, and that is the easiest answer, but try taking a look at your web analytics. Google Analytics is fine. How many of your visitors are from mobile? How many of them turn into sales? How high is your exit rate (people leaving within 3 seconds?), and how high is your conversion rate for computer users? If you have a 0.03% conversion rate with a low number like 1,000 browser visits a day, and 30% of your visits are from a mobile, but they’re all exiting fairly quickly, your looking at one extra sale a day from your mobile users. That’s not taking into account that mobile users are usually looking to make a purchase, or that most websites have an average conversion rate of 2-3%, and sometimes more like 10%. With those statistics in mind, you could be looking at an extra 9 sales per day, rather than 1. If you’re selling low budget items that earn you a median of $3 per, that’s still an extra $27 a day, and if you’re earning more like $10, that’s up to an additional $90 a day, or an extra $21,000 a year if you’re sales are consistent. You may be driving more or less traffic, but you can probably see how you can use your current data to estimate a basic ROI.
Use that ROI
Once you have your estimated ROI in hand, you can use it to set your budget. First, you can’t rely on your estimated ROI to be static. For example, you may or may not drive the same number of sales every day, your sales may go up, and you might change products. There are a lot of variables, so you cannot rely on earning that specific amount of money. Instead, use it as a generalization. Usually, it’s best to hedge your bets and go on the safe side by spending less than you would earn in a 6 month period. So, for example, if you were making an extra $300 a month with mobile sales, you could estimate that if you spend $1200 on making your website mobile friendly, you’re still around $600 under what you could potentially earn with your estimated ROI.
Want to know more? Contact us at Rory Martin to find out how our Seattle web development team can get you ready for mobile traffic.
The Five Elements that Every Seattle Web Design Project Should Include
Posted by Rory Martin in Web Design and Development on April 4, 2014
If you’re looking for a Seattle web design company then you have to decide what you want your website to include. While a good designer will be able to help you with the process, you might also want to already have a good idea of what you want and need to help with finding your own web designer. Here are a couple of elements that will help you with a local Seattle based business.
Easy Navigation
Navigation is one of the most important elements of any website because it will make or break your exit rate. If you have an overly complex menu and navigation, or no search bar, then your visitors might have no way of finding what they’re looking for. If you’re trying to sell them things, that means that you’ve lost the sale. Keep your navigation simple, avoid too many sub-folders on your menus, and try to include a search bar in the sidebar or header of your website where it’s easy for visitors to find and use.
Mobile Design
Mobile friendly is the web design trend of 2014 and for good reason. More and more people are foregoing computers altogether and using mobile devices including phones and tablets to do their shopping, searching, and research. If your website isn’t easy to use and access on those devices, you’ll probably loose 20-30% of your potential traffic and sales.
Contact Form
You might not think a contact form is very important, especially not if you have a phone number up on your site but the truth is that a lot of people won’t want to or cannot call. For example, many people do the majority of their online searching after normal business hours. By including a contact form for those hours, you’re allowing anyone to contact you. Just make sure you check the email the messages are sent to and that you respond to them. If you want to go for extra points and you have the time to monitor chat during business hours, you can also choose to include a chat function, although this sort of addition is better for shops and restaurants that require reservations.
Google Maps Integration
Integrating a Google (or Bing) map directly into your website is a great way to make it easy for consumers to find you. Google Maps provide directions to and from the users location right on your site, so all they have to do is click. In fact, they can even print out or email the maps to their phone, and then just travel right to you. It’s probably not hard for you to see how this might benefit you as a business.
Style
Seattle is known for it’s style. From sweeping streets and stately skylines to picturesque restaurants, Seattleites want to look good. If you want your local website to go over well, you have to make it stylish. Integrate same fonts, bold prints, large graphics, and most importantly, plenty of space into your web design and you’re setting yourself up for a beautiful and stylish website. Don’t hire a web designer who doesn’t have their own stylish site either.
Want to know more about what goes into a great website? Contact Seattle website design company Rory Martin to find out what we can do for you.
How an All Service Web Company Can Help Small Businesses Succeed
Posted by Rory Martin in Web Design and Development on March 21, 2014
It seems that everywhere you look companies are becoming more and more specialized. Social marketing is breaking down into Facebook specialists and internet marketing is breaking down into PPC, Keyword research, and conversion optimization. Unfortunately, as a small Seattle business owner, that means bad news. The more specialized the company, the less services they offer and the more people you have to hire. And that means spending more money.
While that’s great for big business, you might not be able to afford hiring all these different people for your marketing team. What you do need is a single all service web company with the right team already put together so that you can save money and hire just one company.
Let’s talk about some of the other benefits:
One Stop Shop
If you’re getting your Seattle web design, your SEO, and your social management all in one place then you won’t have to worry about talking to, dealing with, or paying multiple people. You talk to one person, they communicate your needs to the rest of the team, and that’s it. No spending hours and hours a week in meetings with different teams because you only have one team.
Everyone is On the Same Page
One of the hardest parts of working with multiple companies is that you will spend time in meetings telling different people what you want, and then spend time communicating what each team is doing across teams, or paying them to have internal meetings. When you go with a full service web company, you won’t have to deal with any of that because the entire team will already be on the same page. All you have to worry about is one type of meeting, and the team will create a strategy for your entire website.
Optimal Launch
If you don’t yet have a website then a full service company can perform what might seem like magic for your launch. How? They can co-ordinate SEO and social efforts to match up with your launch so that by the time your website is live, it’s already ready for traffic. A full service company can pull this off flawlessly, ensure that the website is SEO friendly, and make sure that your social pages and hype are ready to go, if you do that with different companies it could quite literally be a nightmare.
Cheaper
Let’s face it, when you pay different companies you’re not only paying for their services and skills, you’re also paying service costs, administration and management fees, and individual time. When you pay a single company you can cut costs because you’re only paying all of those fees to one person. What you’re paying to everyone else is just their service fees.
Want to know more about how a one-service company can benefit you? Whether you’re looking for Seattle based web development, design, SEO, or Social Media, Rory Martin can help you achieve your goals, and without the hassle of dealing with multiple companies. Contact us to learn more.
Seattle Website Design – How Fast Does Your Site Have to Be?
Posted by Rory Martin in Web Design and Development on February 18, 2014
In late 2013, Matt Cutts, head of webspam at Google, announced that Google was now using website speed as a ranking factor. That, plus increasing amounts of new data that visitors want your website and they want it NOW, means that speed is an incredibly important factor in any part of website design. Just how important? While that does depend on your website and what you’re doing with it, the following covers the basics. If you’re planning on making your website faster, try talking with your Seattle website designer about whether or not that’s possible and what changes have to be made.
How Fast?
Studies show that around 40% of people will click the back button in their browser if your website takes more than 3 seconds to load. That means that your site should be under that cutoff. An additional study showed that every second of load time decreases your conversion rate by around 7%. So essentially, the longer your website takes to load, the fewer sales you are making. Google recommends that your load time be no more than 1.5 seconds, although you could definitely benefit from having faster load time.
Speed is More Important on Mobile
While Matt Cutts has specifically said that Google does not use a faster speed ranking factor for mobile than computers, it is true that mobile users expect websites to load faster. The majority of mobile users are looking for something to purchase rather than research, which means that they are often impatient, and on the go. In addition, some 60% of consumers who are using mobile devices for research make purchases within an hour, which means that optimizing your website for mobile speed could very well increase your sales.
Google’s guidelines suggest that a page should load in 1 second or less, which is a far cry from the average 7 seconds or more found on most mobile web pages. Why is optimizing for mobile speed important? Mobile traffic grew by 124% in 2013, as opposed to just a 12% rise in desktop and laptop traffic. There are plenty of ways to speed up and make your mobile website more search friendly, and your Seattle web design company can help you with all of them.
Improving Load Time
Unfortunately, there are a number of very complex issues that affect load time and unless you are a web developer you may need help. The basics to increasing website speed include the following:
- Reduce HTTP Requests
- Use a Simple Layout
- Combine Scripts & Style Sheets
- Minimize or Don’t Use Flash or Video Content
- Use Caching & Content Delivery Networks
- Minimize the use of Rich Media & Plugins
Your website hosting, servers, location, and bandwidth all affect your website speed as well, so you do want to make sure that your hosting is up to the task. If all of your visitors are coming from Seattle, you also want to make sure that you are hosted locally to improve load times.
Want to know more about how your web speed affects traffic, SEO, and sales? Contact us at RoryMartin.com to find out what we can do for you.
Does Your Website Need a Makeover? Seattle Web Design Tips for Local Businesses
Posted by Rory Martin in Web Design and Development on January 21, 2014
A website might be one of the best forms of internet marketing you can have, but what if the one you have isn’t good enough? You probably know that there are millions of websites on the internet, and no matter what you’re selling or doing, you have competitors. While not all of them are local, some of them are, so your website has to serve the dual purpose of attracting interest, drawing traffic, and impressing your clients and customers. Does yours? We talked with local Seattle web design experts, as well as our own Rory Martin, to talk about just what a business website needs to succeed.
Easy Navigation
You’ve probably gone to website in the past and had so much trouble finding things that you left. If you go on your website now and try the same thing, how easy is it to navigate your pages? Poor navigation is one of the number one signs that your website needs a makeover, mainly because it will drive your customers away. While you don’t have to go overboard, the best navigation is simple, easy to find, and easy to use. Plus, your search should produce quality results, not a list of every page you have.
Graphics
A picture is worth a thousand words and unfortunately, consumers just don’t respond to your all-text website. If you don’t have large, bold, and beautiful images on your site then you have to work on it. Photographs, pictures, and graphics help communicate your brand, your products, and your business, plus they look good. Don’t go online without them.
Speed
How fast does your website load? Did you know that your website speed affects everything from your SEO to your bounce and exit rate? Consumers want sites to be fast, especially if they are on mobile, so you have to make sure that your framework is light enough to make it happen. How fast is fast? Think under 1 second load time for the best results. Because more than 60% of your traffic could be stemming from mobile, you should try for somewhere around half a second as your optimum load time.
Responsive Design
What is responsive web design? If you’ve been paying attention to Seattle web design news then you probably know that it’s any web design that automatically resizes based on the size of the screen used to view it. Because 60% of web users are on mobile at least part of the time, you have to make sure that your site looks good on different size screens. Sound complicated? Any quality web designer will offer this service, so don’t worry.
Clear Communication
What is the first thing that you see when you go on your website? Whether it’s a picture, some text, or an advertisement, it probably defines your website. Unfortunately, while many sites do most of the right things, they don’t have the right branding or marketing message on their site. You have to make sure that anyone who stumbles across your website immediately knows what you are about as a business and as a brand. Once again, any good Seattle web designer can design you a website that markets you as a brand rather than as a product.
Does your website need a makeover? If your site isn’t extremely fast, responsive to different screens, or branded, then that is probably a yes. Try talking it over with your Seattle web design team, or talk to us at Rory Martin for a quote.
The Mobile Craze Hits the Web & The Seattle Web Design Industry in 2014
Posted by Rory Martin in Web Design and Development on December 23, 2013
Most of us know that web design is about as static as SEO, meaning that it’s about as far from as it is possible to get. The industry is constantly changing and updating according to online trends, and anyone who wants to stay ahead in Seattle’s competitive e-commerce market knows that. Today, it isn’t hard to see where the newest trends are coming from, and that is mobile. At the moment, more people in the U.S. have smart phones than not, and considering that more than 20% of search is now mobile, it’s hard to ignore that the gadgets are taking over. In fact, with most of the new smart-watches now hitting the market early in 2014, and new tablets that are more affordable than laptops, mobile search is one of the fastest growing industries in marketing. But while this obviously affects your SEO, it also affects your web design in more ways than one. With that in mind, the following include a few of the important changes in the Seattle web design industry, and how they affect you now, and in 2014.
Flash Is Out
Flash based websites are popular and pretty on the web, although they do have trouble in some browsers, but the truth is that many of them simply do not work in mobile browsers. For that reason, anyone with a purely flash website is committing web-design suicide because mobile users might just see a fancy white page and nothing else. If you do want to go with flash, you have to work with your designer to cross test on multiple popular mobile web browsers in order to ensure that your site is fully functional across all platforms.
Responsive Web Design is No Longer an Option
Responsive web design first became popular a few years ago as a good way to boost your mobile popularity. The technique essentially utilizes adaptive code that changes size and shape to suit the browser and screen size it is displayed on. While in 2012, this was purely optional as the majority of search was still on the web, today, it can mean the difference between a potential sale and an unusually high mobile bounce rate. Make sure that your website resizes and looks good, no matter what sort of device your traffic is on. If you don’t feel like creating responsive theme variations for each and every device, you can take a look at your analytics (Google Analytics works) to see which devices are most common. For most, iOS including the iPhone, iPad, and iPad Mini) and Android are the two most common, but keep in mind that screen sizes vary across the most popular OS as well.
Speed
Did you know that the average web user will leave a page if it hasn’t loaded within 3 to 5 seconds? While mobile users are slightly more patient due to the restrictions of mobile Internet, their patience is also very finite. For this reason, you have to ensure that your web pages load as quickly as possible so that mobile users don’t leave before the page even finishes loading.
Depending on your website, you might need a lot of changed, you might need a new website, and you might already be good to go. Wherever you think you are, consider monitoring your mobile traffic and if you have a high exit rate, consider having a chat with your Seattle web design company to talk about responsive and mobile friendly design otpions.
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