5 Alarming Web Design Statistics for Business

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The internet has revolutionized the way businesses attract customers. In the old days, to reach a large audience you needed a large amount to produce and air a television commercial, run an ad in a major newspaper or buy billboard space. Now you can reach a much larger and more targeted audience for a lot less. But it’s not just enough to have a website. Design plays an essential role in not just how people perceive your business, but even with how easily they can find it. Check out some of these incredible web design for business stats.

 

1) Mobile Design is the Way to Go

Between 2016-2018, the percentage of total web traffic served to mobile phones jumped from 43% to 52%. But that number doesn’t even tell the full story. If you remove enterprise computer usage, you can see the clear domination of mobile content. From streaming videos to ordering products to find a local business, it’s clear that for web design ideas, mobile is the way to go so your site needs to be optimized accordingly.

 

2) People Judge a Business Based on Website Design

Nearly 95% of people judge a website and thus a business based on web design. Clunky, badly edited sites see much lower conversion rates and session times. It doesn’t even matter if you are law practice that’s been operating for over one hundred with the best team in the world. If your website is a tangle of blocky texts and bad images, very few people are likely to contact you. So it’s essential you routinely update your website design.

 

3) Page Load Speed is Critical

We all know this. In these days of blisteringly fast Wi-Fi or LTE services, who wants to wait around for a page to load? If your page loads slowly, people will simply move on to one of your competitors. Google actually runs automatic speed tests of your website and this place a crucial factor in where your rank on its findings.

In web design for business, this becomes a tricky balance where you need large content like high-resolution images and videos that quickly which is why is essential to have a professional optimize the page accordingly.

 

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4) It’s All About Freshness

Think of Google and other search engines like a compilation of your entire audience. When determining page rankings, Google prioritizes sites with fresh content because this is the same thing that people want. In fact, websites the produce at least one blog per week have more than 30% more traffic than those with less than one per month. They also have a larger reach over targeted keywords that are essential to their business.

 

5) Mobile E-Commerce is the Way to Go

In 2017, Mobile E-commerce sales represented roughly 35% of the market. By the end of 2019, they will reach over 50% and that number is only slated to grow higher as smartphones increasingly replace desktops. If you are a retailer, a streamlined mobile-based e-commerce platform and payment system are vital.

People need to quickly and easily be able to choose an item and checkout in no time. Even if your company provides services, customers should be able to do everything from book appointments to even pay for services through your platform.

 

Getting the Best Web Design For Business

Every business is different so there isn’t one magic formula that will fit for all businesses. Each site needs to be designed to reflect not only its personal skills but what makes it stand out from competitors. And that’s where a good web design agency comes in. They can create the perfect experience that will drive traffic and increase your customer base to help push your business to the next level. Contact our team today to see how we can help you with everything from SEO to targeted search terms to create the best online platform for your company’s future.

WordPress.com and WordPress.org: Which is Better for Your Business?

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If you google “WordPress,” the first two selections that come up are links to WordPress.com and WordPress.org. This can be confusing. In general, we tend to think that “.com” is used by businesses like Amazon and Apple, whereas “.org” is used by non-profit organizations like NPR or Wikipedia. This is generally accurate, but when it comes to deciding which WordPress to use, it doesn’t mean that businesses should automatically use WordPress.com and nonprofits should use WordPress.org. Let’s try to understand the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org and look at the pros and cons of each.

 

WordPress.org

WordPress.org is also known as “the real WordPress.” One major highlight for this software is that it’s completely free. You only need a domain name and web hosting service to use it. Think of it as website-building software you put on your own self-hosted site.

Pros:

By using WordPress.org, you have complete control of your website. You can customize however you wish and design it to fit your needs. Some of its many benefits include:

  • Free
  • User-friendly
  • Adding WordPress plugins to your website
  • Using templates or build from the ground up
  • Own all the data and the website
  • Can make money from your site, run ads, etc.
  • Use Google Analytics and other SEO tools
  • Create an e-commerce store, accept payments, ships products directly from the site
  • Create memberships and premium vs. free content levels

 

Cons:

There’s a reason why WordPress.org is the world’s top website-building software, but there are a few cons to consider when trying to figure out if you should use it or not. They are as follow:

  • You need web hosting, which usually costs $3-10 a month, but grows as the website traffic increase. However, as website traffic increases, so does income, which would cover this increased cost.
  • You have to update the site yourself, but you typically can do it easily on the platform.
  • You have to back up the site frequently.

 

It can be a little hard to determine the exact yearly cost of WordPress.org. It can be as little as

$4 per month, but it will depend on the type of site you build and whether you have features like memberships or an e-commerce store. You may also elect to use premium templates and plug-ins over free ones.

For the vast majority of users, it’s usually better to use a WordPress.org site to begin with.

 

WordPress.com

WordPresss.com is a hosting service created by the same founders as WordPress.org. It consists of five different plans:

  • Free (limited features)
  • Personal – $36 annually
  • Premium – $99 annually
  • Business – $299 annually
  • VIP – starting price of $5,000 a month

 

Pros:

The free platform is an excellent choice for personal bloggers or those with very basic website needs. Pros include:

  • Up to 3 GB of free storage
  • High storage capacities (personal: 6GB, premium: 13GB, business: unlimited)
  • WordPress does your updates and backups for you

 

Cons:

There are many restrictions on WordPress.com. For example, you can customize your own themes, but you can’t run your own advertisements. When it comes to website design, it’s just not flexible enough. More cons include:

  • After you go over the 3GB of storage, you have to switch to a paid plan
  • WordPress places ads and banners on free sites
  • Cannot upload plugins
  • You can’t use tracking tools
  • No e-commerce features or payment portals
  • Cannot build memberships sites

 

AdobeStock_141874763

 

The Difference Between WordPress.com and WordPress.org

Whether you’re a nonprofit, small businesses, or a blogger, WordPress.org is hands-down the best option for website hosting. At the end of the day, it’s like comparing the differences between renting and owning a home. With one, you have very limited freedom to do what you want, but with the other, you’re free to do anything and everything you want.

No matter what you decide, you will need a professional website if you want to grow your audience and succeed, and Zen Den Web Design can help you do just that. Our experts are skilled in both non-profit web design in San Francisco and small business website design in San Francisco. So, connect with us to see how we can help your organization reach its full potential.

Wrong Ways to Report your Website’s Performance

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If you have a website, you are probably trying to promote something. To find out how your website is operating, you should use the right methods and reports to check your metrics. There are plenty of ways that may not be appropriate to what you’re trying to measure, and many more that will apply. Zenden Web Design is here to give you web design tips, and to help you use and understand proper website reporting tools to use in order to help grow your website. Read through this guide to identify some ways you may be checking metrics of your website incorrectly.

 

You’re Testing your Website Speed Multiple Times

If you have a diagnostic website reporting tool such as Pingdom Website Speed Test with the intent to see how quick (or slow) your website performance is, only use this test ONE time. A common mistake people make is retesting the page multiple times until they receive the results they expect to see. This is the wrong way to test your website’s performance as it produces false readings and almost tricks the tool into increasing your website’s speed. For the most accurate of measures, run this test only once and fix your website based on that standard.

 

You Think that Caching is Improving Your Website Speed

If you are trying to use caching to increase the speed of your website, this may not be working for you if your website is not set to standards. Caching WILL NOT work if caches are cleared regularly or if users enter the page through a series of other pages. These will not improve your website, they can hinder it. In order for caching to be effective, you need to make sure your site’s content is static, or mostly so, and your page must have a lot of users and traffic. Other criteria exist regarding web performance that you can find in the provided link, as well.

 

You’re Not Using KPIs

A KPI, otherwise known as a Key Performance Indicator, is used to identify the best aspects of your website. If you are not using any diagnostic tools, you’ll be unaware of any bugs or issues your users may be having when trying to access your website. This is the worst thing on this list, as it indicates little is being done to understand your website. In order to get started tracking your web analytics and progress, try using a program like Google Analytics Basics. This tool is able to measure various aspects of your site from its conversion rate to how long it takes a customer to complete a task on your page. No matter how large or small your site, you should be using KPIs.

 

Zenden Web Design

Whether you’re looking for a grand website or a minimalist design, Zenden Web Design is here to lend a hand. Developing a website is difficult, we understand that. You shouldn’t have to go through the learning process alone. Remember, there are many wrong ways of reporting your website’s performance, so be sure to follow this guide to use and identify the right methods.

5 Key Components Every Medical Website Design Needs

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Ten seconds is all the time it takes for someone to form an impression about your website. While every website’s design needs to impress its audience, flawless medical website design is absolutely crucial. You are dealing with people’s health and they want to be sure they are putting their trust in the right hands. Their logic is if a medical practice can’t create a credible website, what gives them the credibility deal with someone’s health? This article discusses the five key components of web design that will help ensure such credibility for your medical practice.

 

1) Make Sure Your Website is Error Free

Everything on your website must be error free. If your company has mistakes on its website, it makes it seem as though the little things easily slip past your notice. When it comes to someone’s health, such practices will not fly. A run-through of your website is vital. Look at images and videos on each page to make sure they are loading properly. Ensure that there are no typos or grammatical errors in your website’s text. Check links to make sure they take your patients to the right place. It’s also important to make sure that everything is loading quickly and efficiently. Nothing says negligence quite like a webpage that takes several minutes to load.

 

2) The Effectiveness of Minimalism in Medical Website Design

These days, the best websites across all fields embrace minimalist design. Everything should be catered to a streamlined approach. This might seem difficult, especially when you are trying to convey a lot of information about complex medical procedures and ideas. However, it can still be done. Be creative in your endeavors–use images and video to explain necessary information and use as little text as possible. What’s most important in minimalist design is making sure the most important information is readily available to your audience. Don’t waste your time with lengthy descriptions. Get right to the point of what they need to know and then they can come to you with questions they may have.

 

3) Convey the Right Message

For web design, it’s vital that you create the right balance of tone. You want to have a level of seriousness, but you also want to seem caring and warm. Accomplish this by saying what your company offers, but adding what makes your company unique. For example, instead of saying “we offer the best heart treatment options” tailor it more to your audience by saying “we’ve been solving heart problems in San Francisco since 1999.” This small change helps your audience feel a connection to who you are and it establishes exactly what you do. The use of solve heart problems is so much warmer than we provide treatments. It’s not a sales pitch, it’s not robotic. It’s more involved with helping your patients, rather than just treating their illnesses.

 

4) Have a Goal in Mind

Your goal with your website’s design should always be getting your audience to contact you, reserve an appointment, and ultimately get to your office. With that goal in mind, it’s important to have each page establish a call to action that encourages your audience to get in touch with you via a contact page or contact form that is easily accessible on each part of your website.

 

5) The Importance of Meaningful Content

The best way to ensure more traffic to your website is to have meaningful content. The general guideline is that the more time a person spends on your site, the more likely they are to take action and use your services. In medical website design, this is actually pretty easy because the average joe doesn’t know as much about medicine as you do. Use your knowledge to your advantage by writing it into a digestible, meaningful blog that anyone can read. With each piece, help people learn about their health and help them know about the resources and treatments you can provide to improve their health.

 

When planning medical website design, start by creating credibility and meaningful content on a well-functioning platform that informs an audience and encourages them to take action. The perfect web design company partners with you to do that and so much more to not only reach your company’s goals but to help it excel to the next level.

 

How Often Should You Update Your Website Design

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San Francisco is the tech capital of the world. For that reason, website developers take from Tokyo to New York to everywhere in between take their cues from the trends set from the world central hubs for all things related to technology and development. Unfortunately, a website is not exactly like a piece of art. Even if it is perfectly crafted, it’s essential for you to constantly be updating it. This doesn’t necessarily mean a lot of work, it just means putting in the right amount of upkeep in the right places.

 

Why Updates are Important

You might not ever notice, however, on apps like Facebook and Google, web developers behind the scene make constant updates that help improve the platform’s interface. There are also design cues that help guide the design of the website for the future. In larger websites which integrate these platforms, developers model their sites accordingly, to match any future updates, making things run smoother.

 

How Often?

When is a good time to update your design? Remember that your website needs SEO for search engines. Search engine optimization, or SEO, determines page ranking based on various factors like user relevancy and content, for major search engines like Google. Updating the layout of your designs helps Google determine how well it ranks. Updating your site every 2 to 3 months can really help you in terms of SEO and user-friendliness.

 

What about the Blog?

These days, every website must have a blog. It seems unusual because why would you as a carpet-cleaning company really need to have a blog. But once again, Google and other search engines base their rankings off of content. It automatically detects websites with a lot of activity. The top-ranked sites and social media platforms don’t have content that comes out daily or weekly, but sometimes even hourly. Of course, you don’t have to compete with them but you want to shoot for a minimum of at least one blog per week.

 

Additional Easy Updates

Besides blog content which can take a little bit of time per week, the easiest way for you to update your design is through current events and specials. Updating is as easy as creating a monthly special offering a discount for a particular month. Just be sure to remove it once the time has elapsed. Likewise, you can post current events your company may be hosting such as a local meet & greet or if you are going to present at an upcoming expo or public gathering.

 

Go With a Minimalist Approach

If you to any San Francisco website agency, this is the first thing they’ll advise you is to have a minimalist design. Modern web design is based around this principle and this is a great thing for you. This means you don’t have to worry about block chunks of text and other tricky issues, just shoot for powerful images and bold statements that show what makes your company special.

 

Getting the Right Web Design

When it comes to how often you should update your website design, the simple answer is the more the better. But you break this down into very manageable parts. Begin with, easy specials and other event pages that take only minutes to create. Then dedicate one hour per week to the blog. Finally, once every few months do a minor overhaul to make sure you are keeping in line with the latest design trends. We know that keeping up with all this can be difficult, so be sure to contact us to request a quote to see how we can help you improve your online platform to give your business the visibility it deserves!

Why Website Maintenance is Critical for Your SEO

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Unfortunately, your website updates are never over. It’s always a work in progress. Even if you have spent countless hours on website creation, for SEO purposes, you still need to do frequent website maintenance. This is because Google rewards a higher PageRank position to sites with fresh content, fast loading speeds, and no errors. Don’t worry; website maintenance doesn’t have to be a complicated task. All you need to do is spend a couple of hours a week, which will go a long way in ensuring that your site gets the visibility it deserves.

 

1. It’s All About Speed

Google’s most important concern is speed. The faster a website loads, the higher it will be in the PageRank standings. Speed has been and will continue to be one of the most critical determining characteristics of Google’s algorithm. It’s also something that users care a lot about as well, and slow loading times will have your customers looking elsewhere for a product or service. You need to stay on top of the system and network updates to ensure that your website is running as fast as possible. You can also check out Google’s Page Speed Insights which can give you clues as to where your site may be running slowly.

 

2. Preventing Hacks and Security Breaches

Each day thousands of websites are hacked. To avoid this, you’ll need a frequent plugin and CMS updates. If Google sees a security flaw on your website, it will not only lower your ranking; it will often actively prevent users from going to that site to protect users computers and sensitive information. PageRank is also based on popularity so you can see how this can become a vicious cycle that hurts your ranking.  

 

3. Crawl Errors and Broken Links

Websites quickly grow over time and become reasonably intricate networks. Google likes to see stable organization and interconnection in websites. When a crawl error occurs, it shows a flaw in site navigation which detracts from the user experience. So you need to do website maintenance to ensure that all your links are navigable. This even includes external links which may have changed addresses or be no longer accessible.

 
 

website maintenance

 

4. Creating a Responsive Design

At the end of the day, Google SEO metrics are examining how well a specific website functions for its user bases. For that purpose, it is scanning for other relevant information from things like images and Alt text along with a responsive website design that feels integrated and smooth. The best way to think of PageRank is like an agglomeration of all your users into one. If it is happy, you can guarantee that your userbase will be satisfied as well.  

 

The Importance of Routine Website Maintenance

Website maintenance takes many different forms. It begins with plug-in updates, addressing broken links and creating new, fresh content on your platform. Contact us today to see how we can help you with everything from WordPress design to website management services. Ultimately, our experts can help you create a streamlined and useful website to improve your PageRank listing and user experience so that you can reach a bigger audience and see the higher conversion rates you’ve been looking for.

 

Minimalist Design: Why Basic Might Be Best

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When it comes to design, there are many different philosophies. Some like to get complex with their designs, and layer in different details that the viewer might have to look closely at to be able to tell that they are there. Then there are those who choose to go about design in the simplest way possible, through minimalism. Minimalist design has been popular since the dawn of time, and people have been improving upon it ever since.

The definition of minimalist design is using the bare basics and necessities as best you can to create a space that is clean, functional and stylish, without shoving it in someone’s face. Using a minimalist design is for those who want their audience to know that they value order and functionality.

But while designing your living room with a minimalist concept in mind is a great way to show your guests what kind of style you favor, what if you were developing something more functional, like a website? As it turns out, there are a wide variety of reasons why using a minimalist design in this day and age is one of the best things you can do for your website.

To better understand why the minimalist design is so effective for websites all over, let’s take a more in-depth look at why using just the basics might be better.

 

Functionality

If you have something on your website that you’re trying to sell, like a product or a service, you need your potential customers to be as un-intimidated by the buying process as possible. You don’t want to have a million and one tabs to click on or hundreds of options to choose from when they are just trying to get to the store.

If you want to maximize the earning potential for your website, you need to make sure it’s basic, minimalist, and easy-to-navigate. Now that doesn’t mean it has to be bland or without a creative flair, but too many lists, tabs, and clickable items on your website could weed out potential customers who just wanted to buy your product and leave.

 
 

minimalist design

 

Short Attention Spans

When putting together your responsive web design plan, it’s best to take into account the ever-shortening attention spans of those around us. The internet and social media, in particular, have conditioned us to expect things right away.

If you’re selling a product or a service, you better give the customer a way to find it quickly and at all times. No matter how much selling and explaining you want to do about your product, make sure there is an option to buy it that is available for your visitors to click on at all times.

 

Simple Website Design is Key

Remember when you’re going through your next website planning process, less is more. The less you can have on your site while still selling and promoting your product as much as you need to, the better.

If the customer is on your page, they are halfway to buying your product anyway. Don’t make it hard for them by confusing them with too many options to choose from, just point them towards what they need and let them do the rest.

Web Design Tips – Keep Your Site Up-to-Date With the Latest Advancements

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Running a website is a constant evolution. The ability to gather new data and interact with your audience in new ways is always improving and evolving. Your website should change right along with it. Even if you create a perfect, smooth-running and beautifully designed site there is always something new to be added to it.

We’ve compiled a few web design tips for beginners. Tools which will help keep you on the cutting edge of UI/UX and keep your website relevant in the sea of apps and websites that are currently on the internet.

Designing a Website with the Latest and Greatest Technology

 

1) Consumer Barometer with Google

Understanding your consumers is incredibly important if you want to get the most out of them. Not only do you need to know what consumers are buying, but you also need to know why they buy it and how they heard about your products. With the new Consumer Barometer from Google, you gain valuable insights into how your consumers are using both offline and online information to make their purchases. You can also use this web design tip to turn around and use this information during your next website planning process.

2) Google Analytics

If you use a business catalyst site, you should consider switching to a third-party analytics setup like Google Analytics. By implementing this into your small business website design, you quickly view your analytics information at any time by simply logging into your account. Also, it provides you with the ability to quickly transfer your info to Excel in a few clicks.

Using Google Analytics makes it much easier to track your conversion goals and your ad campaign success in great detail, while also storing all this information on one easily accessible platform.

3) Plan for the Mobile-First index

The last web design tip we have is to always stay up to date to make sure your mobile web design is the best it can be. Google is now switching to a mobile-first index. This change means that the more mobile-friendly your site is, the better it will do in the rankings. Your site still can be crawled even if it’s not mobile friendly, but it will suffer in the rankings because of it. You’ll want to improve your site click-through-rate by keeping your website’s content up-to-date and using long-tailed keywords.

– Metadata

– Social Tags

– Structured Data

– Robots.txt

– Search Console Verification

If you want to optimize the amount of traffic that comes to your site organically, these are the key areas to focus on when planning for the new mobile-first search index about to be implemented by Google.

Keep in Mind

The way Google indexes your site and techniques for driving consumers to your products are always changing. New marketing strategies continuously popping up thanks to ever-improving technology. Keep these web design tips in mind, and you’ll be in good shape when it comes to traffic and conversion rates.

The Mobile First Design: Why Working Backwards is the Best Practice

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There’s a trend going on in web design, but a trend may not be the best way to describe it. Mobile first web design is starting to become the status quo for web designers and app engineers.

In the past, due to more processing power desktops had their very own interfaces. But now, as more and more people migrate towards smartphones and away from laptops/desktop PCs, mobile designs are naturally drawing more focus and attraction.

Let’s take a look at this new “backward” approach to web design, and why you should heavily consider using it when you build your next app or website.

 

1. Everyone is on Smartphones

If you take a look at the statistics, you’ll see that far more people are accessing the web through smartphones rather than actual PCs. 1.2 billion people, to be exact. And 25% of those people access the internet exclusively through a mobile device, meaning they will probably never see or access the PC version of your website or app.

The reasoning behind this is because smartphones are cheaper on average, and more convenient. Why bother using a laptop when you can do almost all the same activities on a piece of equipment that fits in your pocket? This is the number one reason why mobile website design is on the rise.

 

2. Prioritizing a Mobile Design First Means It’s All Uphill from There

Often, you and your team will have the most energy and initiative when first starting on a project. Thus, if you use all of that fresh motivation on tackling the hard part of web/app design first, it’s only going to get easier from there.

Designing your app or website to work correctly and beautifully on smaller devices with less processing power will be a challenge. But, once completed, you can brainstorm ways to make it more robust on a bigger device, rather than worrying about watering it down and cutting out features.

While this theory clashes with the more common trend of graceful degradation, it goes hand in hand with another web design trend gaining steam, responsive web design.

By combining mobile-first design and responsive web design, you can target specific viewport sizes and devices with media queries and search engine optimization to selectively offer new styling for your UI/UX as the size of the consumer’s viewport increases.

You can add a new mobile layout as you see fit, based on your query results. All you have to do is structure your media queries from small to large, rather than the other way around.

 

Stay Ahead of the Game

Graceful degradation is yesterday’s web design strategy. With so many people continuing to migrate to smartphones, it only makes sense to start from there and work your way up to larger viewports with a   strategy.

In this case, you can stay ahead of the game by following the herd. Give your most massive consumer base the brunt of your time and attention, and worry about scaling up after you’ve perfected your mobile design. You’ll be thanking yourself later.

 

Why Hiring Local Web Designers is Ideal for a Startup

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Every good startup needs a website, and they need that website to look good. With the prevalence of Internet-based marketing and services nowadays, it’s essential to have a functional, attractive site if you want to get your name out there and compete in your market. Whether you repair roofing or plan weddings, your customers want an online access point where they can learn about your services and pricing.

But should you go with a non-local web designer or a local one? After all, it is more convenient to hire over the web. Even so, there’s an argument to be made that hiring local will bring you much more benefit for a slight sacrifice in convenience. Let’s take a look at a few reasons hiring local web designers is your best move as a startup.

 

1. You’ll Save Money

Without having to sacrifice quality, for the most part. See, most local web designers are just starting out and don’t have the budget or credentials to try to compete with huge online companies. So they take out local ads and advertise their custom website design services at lower prices than other companies.

They may not have the experience under their belt, but they’re quite often very well educated in their craft and more than capable of producing satisfactory results for you.  You might even see the same web designer offering much higher prices just a few years down the line.

 

2. Better Communication

There’s often an artistic quality to web design that can be hard to communicate through technology. Not only that, but it can be hard in general for a web designer to fully understand your instructions unless you’re there to guide them before during and after. When it comes to why choosing a local designer is important, a key consideration is the accessibility of communication. Over email, you might get the mistaken impression that they understand what you want, but in person, you can better guess their level of understanding. With local web designers, the option to regularly meet in person to discuss any edits or concerns is fully available to your company.

 

3. You Can Weed Out Fakes

If someone doesn’t have as much experience as they pretend to, there are some warning signs you can look for in real life that won’t show up over email. For instance, if they don’t have any real feedback for you when it comes to the goals you have for your website, they might be too inexperienced to get the job done.

One of the benefits of hiring local web designers and organic SEO services is that these designers often have less experience, yet equal skill to more experienced designers. What you don’t want is somebody doesn’t even have enough experience to get the job done. In-person meetings are the best way to assess this.

 

Getting the Right Web Designer

Hiring local web designers is superior to hiring online for many reasons. You can better communicate your objectives, get a better price, and weed out any pretenders with in-person meetings. You might be tempted to go with the option that offers more convenience, but when it comes to pinching pennies and making the most of your limited startup budget, going with local talent is a smart move. Just be sure to think strategically about your business’ goals and know the process of hiring and not getting burned.