It doesn’t matter if you are starting a small business or operating an enormous enterprise, you will find yourself wondering quite early on – Do you really need a website for your business in 2022?

Maybe you already have a website, but it is largely ignored and has not been updated for years. Is your website living up to its full potential?

Failing to launch a modern website is like saying that you don’t care whether customers can find you or not. Customers act differently now from how they did ten or twenty years ago. The number of contacts by phone call the average business received is dropping. Companies are increasingly expected to provide fully digital processes for their clients, regardless of their industry.

Why your business needs a website

Without a doubt, you need a website, but if you are unsure, here are 6 reasons why you should consider having a professional website designed for you.

1. Modern Customers Expect an Online Presence:

Even though virtually everyone now carries a convenient phone in their pocket, fewer people are willing to speak to another human being on it. Potential clients will look for you online, and if they do not find you, you can bet your bottom line that a competitor will be advertising in the niche the customer searched. Your client will go elsewhere.

2. Build Your Business Profile:

With the ever-increasing demand for digital options, having a website lends your business credibility that will not exist without a dedicated home page. Whether it is simply a website to introduce yourself to clients, educate them, or create an online sales presence, you need to be visible online. In addition, building a branded website will allow you to create a website-specific email address that shares the domain name, lending your business an air of authenticity that free email addresses, like Gmail or Hotmail, cannot offer.

3. Low-Cost Marketing Opportunity:

Web hosting is relatively inexpensive, making a website a great low-cost entry point for marketing. Rather than investing thousands of pounds in flyers, posters and other marketing material, a website and clever viral campaign can attract hordes of clients for little or no money.

4.  24-hour Accessibility:

A website, particularly one armed with a creative chatbot implementation, can provide information for clients. This reduces the demands upon your staffs time and allows customers to gain the information they seek straight away, rather than waiting until they can get an email reply from you. This helps you save costs and direct staff to where they are most needed while offering customers the level of immediateness that they seek.

5. Communication or Sales platform: 

We understand that not everyone wants to use their website for the same purpose. For some, the website is a place to cement their business as an entity, providing access to reports, policies, and more. For others, the internet is a sales tool, allowing the creation of sales funnels that encourage the customer to sign up or buy a product and then use that captured information to promote additional products to them.

6. Communication or Sales platform: 

One of the best ways to boost your business is to land on the front page of the biggest internet search engine, Google. The only way to do this is to have a website that appeals to visitors and contains appropriate Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to attract the search engine’s attention.

Design ‘Must Have’s for a modern website

There are several elements to consider when you do go ahead and create or update your website. If you struggle with website design and don’t yet have a dedicated team of designers at your beck and call, get in contact with us, we’ll be happy to discuss your needs and provide you with a no-obligation quote.

1. First Impressions: 

First impressions count. While we are generally in control of our decisions, how anyone or anything appears on first contact can influence the way we feel about them permanently. With this in mind, it is crucial to work on your website layout and functionality, ensuring you use tried and trusted methods such as split testing and user surveys to establish how visitors feel about your site. The aesthetics of your site will indirectly influence how users think about the likely usability of the site. User Experience (UX) has become a significant concern for modern design practice, and all competent website designers should have UX close to their hearts.

2. Responsive Design:

Once seen as a bonus feature for a website to have, but now seen almost ubiquitously across the internet, responsive websites adapt to the size and shape of the visitor’s device, ensuring that they get data served up to them in a sensible, readable manner. That is why visiting the same website URL on a desktop and a phone will get you two different versions of the website that share an address and similar styling but different experiences.

3. A need for speed:

Good design will ensure that your website is not bloated with features that slow down the
customers’ ability to access features they wish to interact with. Combining this with good web hosting helps to reduce loading times will help ensure that the user experience is maintained.

4. Landing Pages:

Landing pages can be a core part of your website or product specific and isolated from the
main image map of your site. Their purpose is to be an information-packed sales pitch that leads customers to purchase from you or provide you with their data to enable future sales pitches. It is normal for a company with multiple products to have several landing pages designed, all of which use the main website as a backbone while acting as independent sales pages.

Conclusion

People do judge a book by its cover and a company by its website. First impressions will affect user perception for an extended period after the first visit to your site. Therefore, it is essential that you have a high quality website designed that is specific to your needs but caters to providing the customer with an excellent user experience. Whether you need a refresh of your existing website or a design for your first-ever launch, we would love to discuss how to create a market-leading website for your company. We’ll be happy to help create a site that will supercharge your business. Contact us today.