As technology evolves, new business opportunities show up every day. Even though technology simplifies many processes, it can be challenging for businesses to take advantage of opportunities if they lack expertise with the relevant technologies. This is the situation that businesses are in when they don't know much about web design or development. Website development services have changed how businesses work.
The establishment of a strong web presence is absolutely necessary to ensure the continued growth of a business. No matter how active you are on your business’ social media accounts, if people aren't drawn in by your website, all of your digital marketing efforts will be for nought. Future-minded businesses see these opportunities and are boosting their investment in web development to better serve their customers' needs.
We no longer need to ask if website development is necessary since we know it is. The question that needs to be answered is why is your company losing money just because you're not considering web development.
Unprofessional web design loses visitors' trust. People won't trust your site if it has an unprofessional design or appears to be out of date. People may form a negative impression of your business due to your outdated website design.
Consider a customer who wants to make a large purchase from a manufacturer. They're shelling out a lot of cash, so if they don't feel comfortable placing an order on your manufacturing website, they'll go elsewhere.
On the other hand, if your website looks professional, visitors will be more likely to trust you. They will have faith in your company and be willing to explore it further. If you want them to stick around on your site, you need to earn their trust. When people spend more time on your site, you increase your odds of converting them into leads.
A website that looks professional will bring in more customers. This, along with quick page loads and straightforward navigation, is what keeps people coming back. When visitors can access your site in a matter of seconds, you have a better chance of persuading them to give your goods and services a try.
However, if your website is of poor quality, badly designed, or takes too long to load, the visitor may leave before they even see your landing page.
If you need a big reason why web development is important, here's a big one: Your competitors are already utilising it. You need to implement web development if you want to keep up with the competition.
A chance to differentiate your company from the competition is in the design and how your website works. When competing with other businesses, you usually offer the same services and charge about the same prices. To succeed in business, you need to find a way to differentiate yourself from the competition.
Your website's goal should be to attract attention and be remembered. If your website is old, out of date, and of low quality, your competitors' sites will rank higher than yours. Their well-designed website will work better than yours. This implies you’ll lose leads to your competition because their page is more appealing. Therefore, it will bring in more leads.
Your website should be able to give you an advantage over your competitors.
You can highlight your company's strengths and attract new customers with a professionally designed website. Make it clear to your target market why choosing your business is the best option.
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is an important aspect of website development that should be considered. There are now millions of websites competing for the top spot on search engine results pages.
Search engine optimisation (SEO) increases traffic to your website and streamlines its usability for current visitors. You can do more as a business than just create a website. You can also keep visitors to your website. Your code should be optimised for search engines, which can sound complicated if you're not familiar with web development.
Working with a web design company that includes SEO services as part of their package is the best way to ensure that your website is constructed appropriately and can be found by search engines.
Web development and web design are two methods for moving a website up the results. If you want your website to be at the top of the search results, you'll need to adhere to the search engine's criteria. Load speed, ease of navigation, keywords, picture optimisation, and a variety of other factors are all considered.
As a result, your website will receive more organic traffic.
A well-designed, user-friendly, and mobile-friendly website is essential for any company looking to make an impression in the digital world. All of the material on the website should be simple to read and navigate.
A decent website provides a visitor with more options for simpler navigating. This includes a search box where customers can type in what they want and be taken to the section fast, as well as sticky features like a sticky header or a sticky menu to further simplify and optimise your website's navigation.
To do this, online pages should have lightning-fast loading rates set by the web development process. A website that loads quickly is more responsive and easier to use. This is accomplished through excellent web design and the website building process.
After the website developer has completed the website, it is recommended that they test the web pages on a regular basis to ensure that the ease of navigation is maintained at all times. This aids in the resolution or elimination of bugs that impede web page loading. Increased organic traffic is guaranteed for a website with easy navigation.
Website is one of the most important factors in the success of any online marketing campaign. Building a website that compels visitors to learn more about your company is a significant investment. If you want to see positive results for your business, we, the web development team at Net Fusion Technology, have extensive experience in the field.
Net Fusion Technology is the company to go to if you want to see real results.
If you're ready to get started on your ideal website, you can reach us at +61 2 9089 8875 or use our contact form.
We're excited to be a part of your company's future success!
A 301 redirect is simply a code of date telling website spiders where you have moved your old web pages permanently to or where they can find similar information. It may seem to be an irrelevant task for websites that have less than 10 pages, however, these lines of codes can make or break a site with thousands of pages migrating to a new design.
While information on the internet is movable and thus temporary, it is critical to make sure that information that you previously published is easily found by search engines especially if you have renamed the URL. Changing any url without proper redirection will render the current URL “dead” or 404 does not exist.
Losing old links to a 404 (not found page) code is like demolishing a well-established bridge to a town without giving commuters due notice or even alternative avenues to reach their destination.
While the main reasons why organisations often move to a new site are founded in the hope of creating growth in their market share, migration can instead be a reason for them to lose more traffic overnight. A brand’s following may not actually diminish but the number of visitors you get to your web pages through specific website signals can get disrupted as you change over to a new website.
Below are some technical tips on 301 redirections that can help you transition smoothly to a new website without losing relevant traffic:
Make sure to audit the structure of your site. Take note all your internal and external links before you move over. Use tools like screaming frog to get a comprehensive list of your existing pages, images and links as well as all the meta information of your pages.
Once you have a comprehensive record of how your site is crawled by search engines, you will have 2 methods of structuring your new site.
Option 1 - You can use the existing URIs as the basis of your current site structure and mirror the url structure on your new site.
This means that you need to keep your pages and URIs one is to one with no alterations to the way URLS are written. For example, if you have a “website.com/about-us”, your new page will be “website.com/about-us” not “website.com/about” or website.com/aboutus”.
Option 2 - Use the current structure as a guide to match your new pages.
Most of the time, there is a necessity to alter the current URLS. This often happens if you want to alter the way information is ordered on your site or if you happen to have a new domain altogether. In this scenario, you will need to match the current urls with your new set of urls by using 301 redirections.
For example, if you have a blog entry about “how to buy cars” using a URL carscars.com/how-to-buy-cars, you will need to 301 redirect this page to your new url “carscars.com/a-guide-on-buying-cars” or to your new domain “carbuyer.com/how-to-buy-cars” otherwise your visitors will not be able to find the page with the old link.
It can be tempting to shortcut this step by redirecting old links to the new home page. It seems like an easy fix to do but doing this will make your site both confusing to the web spiders and, most importantly, frustrating to your users.
If you do not have an apple to apples match of new pages with old pages, you can still 301 redirect pages to similar pages that may have the same kind of info as the previously existing page. However, accuracy in matching information is important. You do not want to send users and website spiders to page on shoes for men if your old was all about shoes for women.
Instead of just simply providing a generic notice use the opportunity to provide similar links or a search bar that they can use to find similar information on your site. Aim to create a 404 page that can turn a missing page into a user satisfaction opportunity.
Afterthoughts:
After you have implemented your 301 redirects on your new site, make sure to take note of 404 links through Google analytics and to re-crawl your site for 404 pages that may appear in the future. It will be guide practice to keep 404 pages to a minimum whether you are migrating to a new site or not.
More info on 301 redirects
More info on 404 pages
When you have a business website and require changes to content like text, images, and links, how do you go about implementing those changes? Do you email your web admin and detail the changes to be made, or do you directly make the change yourself? If you’re the latter, then you probably have a content management tool built into your system. If you’re the former, then you are probably spending more time (and dollars) to manage your content.
Because time spent is measured in dollars, you as a business owner must aim for efficiency, innovation, and ROI.
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Let me give you an example.
I used to write blogs for a client for their business website – four articles a month spread out to one article each week. The scenario is that I write one article a week and email the article to the client. He will then review, make comments for improvement, or directly approve it. Once the content is approved, this will be forwarded to the web developer for posting on the site’s blog page. Then, the same routine follows for the next week’s blog.
The going back and forth each week with email communications and article reviews took a lot of time and energy. In an effort to make the process less time-consuming, I suggested to write the four articles a month in advance so it would be one sweeping process of writing, review, and publishing.
On average, this process takes about 3 to 4 days from start of content writing to getting the content published on the website.
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I imagined being able to published directly on the website similar to a personal blog. In less than a day, an article can be written, reviewed, and published almost instantly, reducing time spent on processes, which can otherwise be spent on writing more content or other critical tasks.
That is what CMS is all about. Content Management System or CMS is a web application that you can install on your system to make it easy for you to add, edit, organize, and publish content on your website. If you are familiar with WordPress or other blogging platforms, you know you can log in, write content, add images, hit publish, and it is live on your website instantly.
In the earlier scenario, the alternative is that I have a login access to the client’s content management tool, I’ll input the content, upload images, and save it as draft. I can send quick email to the client that article is ready for review. He can then review the draft, even make edits, hit publish, and the article goes live. With CMS, it is also easy to schedule publication so you can set what date your article goes live, and it is queued in the system.
