#HotlineWebDesign

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The Most Important Features of a Good Website

Employing a company to assist with your web design in the Lloydminster area will benefit your business in so many ways, as they will have the knowledge and experience to include a multitude of features that will enhance your online presence and attract more customers to your website, ultimately increasing sales.

Aside from creating an appealing and informative website that looks professional, the most important features that a reputable web design company will use are effective navigational tools. Visitors to your website will be encouraged to search through products and services with the intention of making a purchase if it is quick and easy to find exactly what they are looking for. Your main landing page will need to have as little content as possible to avoid bombarding customers with information that they may not necessarily need, so using navigational tools to direct customers to the information they do need is a very good design feature.

With so many people using their smartphones or tablets to make purchases online, another important aspect of a good website is being compatible with mobile devices. A responsive website will fit to any screen and can switch easily between desktop and mobile interfaces.

Social Media links are also recommended by the best web design companies, as links to sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest are a critical part of marketing your business and increasing online awareness of the services you offer.

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Social Media and M-Commerce: Emerging Trends within Web Design

Even the best product in existence will never enjoy success if the masses are not aware of its existence. This marketing tenet is just as true within the modern world of digital website design. Any Lloydminster enterprise that wishes to enjoy substantial exposure must therefore take a handful of key factors into account. Two very important areas concern the implementation of social media and the ability to adapt to mobile devices.

The Social Media Edge

During 2015, nearly half of the global population accessed social media sites on a daily basis. It has also been shown that businesses which have presences within portals such as Facebook enjoy a larger customer base. These web pages are easy to maintain and they offer a unique ability to interact with visitors in a real-time scenario.

Remote Access

58 per cent of all businesses now consider responsive website design to be a major component of their overall success. Why is this the case? As the number of smartphone users continues to grow, all pages need to display correctly and within the shortest amount of time. Any site that is not optimised for mobile phones and tablets is losing a valuable portion of its market share.

Through the use of a professional website design team, these two variables are easy to address. We should fully expect that such trends will only gain pace in the coming months and years. Success could very well be only a click away.

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Local Web Designers Follow Design Trends for 2016

If you decide to hire a Lloydminster website designer in 2016, you will have hope that they are up to date with the latest trends. In this digital age trends come and go quicker than they can be implemented, but some do stick around. If they are being talked about, they will at least have mileage for some of the year. A good web designer will balance the latest fads and trends with tried and trusted approaches and be ready to change down the line to meet the customer’s needs.

In 2016, your web designer might talk to you about building your new website or updating your existing website to reflect the latest predicted hot trends:

- Natural photography to replace staged-looking stock images. More Tumblr and Instagram than Getty Images.

- Bold rather than muted colours and pastels. The trend towards brighter colours in websites and marketing begin in 2015 and is going to continue in 2016.

- More apps will utilise Material Design language.

- Websites will engage the visitor more through micro-interactions such as hidden functionality, funny images and smart personalized data.

- Card based design – multiple offerings and elements displayed on one page.

- More visuals – with a move to make websites more visually interactive there will be an increase in the inclusion of animations, videos and brightly – coloured infographics

- Personalised UX – website visitors are becoming more accustomed to personalised content and offers thanks to fast-learning artificial intelligence.

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Responsive Web Designs and their Purpose in Businesses

A new company in Lloydminster, Alberta Canada that is just starting out has a lot to do regarding web design. Owning a business website in this day and age is not something that is up for discussion; it is necessary. One of the aspects that a new enterprise has to consider is responsive web design. It is a feature that makes it possible for a site to adjust itself to it the capabilities and performance of a particular device. 

Increase in Mobile Device Use It has become necessary to incorporate a responsive web design because of the rise in the number of mobile devices. Today, people don’t just use their PCs and laptops when accessing sites since smartphones, tablets, iPods, and even gaming consoles with internet access have become avenues to the World Wide Web. Studies show that the traffic for mobile devices has seen an increase of about 30% from 2013-2014. Maximizing on Responsive Design Your business in Lloydminster can tap into the increasing consumer base on the mobile platform, and that is the first motivation to get a responsive layout. Mobile device users also present a massive potential for mobile marketing. Promoting your products using mobile sites can give your business the boost it needs. A responsive design will help achieve that objective. Mobile means that people are using their devices on the go. It means that all those potential consumers can access your company’s site from wherever they are. Structuring your site to the usability of a particular design facilitates that access further. There is also the use of mobile applications that make it possible for users to interact better than before. Optimising a site for organic and dynamic rankings is also useful with a responsive design.

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Why You Need Professional Web Design

In recent years, as the marketing end of business becomes more and more centred around the internet, having an attractive and functioning website is not only very beneficial, but can prove essential if you want your business to keep up with its competition. Here are some of the broader reasons why you need professional web design. 

First off, your website is the face of your business; the store front which people all over the world can see. This means that the overall look of your site will give all of your potential customers their first impressions, so making sure it’s both welcoming and working will make sure you're not driving away any business. Think about it: would you stick around on a website that looks like it’s from the nineties or where the links don't go anywhere? Next, the factor that draws a lot of business owners in; better search engine rankings. As a business owner, you've almost definitely heard the term "SEO" before. Although this a very big subject which we'll brush over here, applying good SEO means your company's site will be bumped up the list of search results for certain terms. Professional web design can help exceptionally in this area. Finally, having a professionally made website can extend your traffic by word of mouth. You may be surprised or doubtful about this, but if you think hard enough, you can remember times when you've told someone about a business for no reason other than they had a cool website!

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Benefits of Good Web Design

As a business owner, you know better than most people how much web presence can affect a company's ultimate performance. To reach as much of your target audience as possible, there needs to be a few systems in place ensuring that your website will be found by people who need your product or service. It's all very well drawing people to your website, but your efforts may be completely futile if your site isn't well-designed and engrossing. Here are a few benefits you can reap from excellent web design.

One of the great things about web design is that it gives your firm a consistent brand identity. No matter what kind of business you're running, professional web design firms will think in the long-term, and will strive to create an image of your brand which will stay consistently striking and potent over a range of different contexts. Another benefit you can get out of a professionally designed website is that it will be designed to draw customers in and keep them there. You don't want your target audience to simply skim through the first bit of text and leave. You want them to read on and get to know more about your firm, eventually being convinced to buy your products. Another good thing about professional web design is that it provides you with a completely objective point of view; namely the web designers’. You may be a complete expert in your business and its niche market, but likely don't know that much about web design, so leave it to the professionals! 

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Rolling with the Pandas

Google’s Panda updates have sent webmasters scrambling for questions on how it would affect their current page architecture. This is considering that the original purpose of the algorithm was to strip high rankings of certain websites that turned out to have plagiarized content. A web design specialist in Lloydminster may help turn things around.

Google emphasizes that the update is just a simple refresh and not an algorithm change. Sites that have been suffering from the current algorithm may soon find that they will be able to recover. Nevertheless, Panda will continue to emphasize the need for websites to frequently publish high-quality posts and content.

If you’ve been satisfied with posting low-quality content on your website without even providing fresh and added value for users, now is the time to rethink your website design approach. Read up and implement best practices, offer real long-term value to your users, and create what the industry calls “evergreen” content. On that note, now is also the time to use a website design that can help you achieve these goals.

Publishing content just to drive traffic and without paying much attention to quality is never a good idea from the start, and every Panda update reiterates this. You have to keep in mind that people want real, relevant, and quality content, and Google’s update is simply providing what people ultimately demand. Just as Google made its changes, it’s about time for you to make the necessary adjustments as well.

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Designing a Website and Reducing its Bounce Rate

If there’s one unfortunate thing that your website can have, it’s a high bounce rate. This means that most of your visitors took only a few moments to glance one page in your website and, unsatisfied with what they’ve seen, decided to go back to a results page and look for more satisfying results.

First impressions will definitely last, especially for a website, so you’ll need to ensure that yours will take its best foot forward and achieve not only lower bounce rates, but also improved visitor retention. Here are the ways you can combat high bounce rates for your website:

Ensure accessible navigation. Visitors hate perusing a website that they find difficult to navigate. To avoid this, make sure that your website’s navigation is clear, prominent, and easily accessible, with click targets for menus large enough to be used for smaller resolutions.

Implement a good design. More than nine in ten content viewers tend to view poor design as the main reason to distrust a website. Do away with the most elementary design mistakes and enlist help from professional web designers to help you with your designing needs. Have a responsive design. Despite the proliferation of different web viewing devices, many businesses still fail to realise the importance of having a responsive web design. With more people using mobile phones and tablets to browse the Internet, a responsive web design is the best way for you to reach and engage more people.

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Proper Web Design: More Than Meets the Eye

Anyone who is attempting to establish a business presence on the Internet is most likely aware that web design is very important. The visual aspects of any portal will have a direct impact upon the experience of the visitor. We should still note that small to medium enterprises may not be fully aware of what takes place "behind the scenes".

Building Trust

A study recently published by Forbes asked a selection of visitors to a specific site whether or not they had any trust issues. An overwhelming 94 per cent stated that web design elements impacted their confidence while only six per cent answered that content alone influenced their decision. So, it is clear that the proper design will have a dramatic impact upon the success or failure of any start-up business.

Coded Content

There are many aspects of a website that a customer will never see, but that are just as important as its visual appeal. Meta tags, meta descriptions and keyword density will all have a very real influence on how a website is ranked within a search engine. So, proper designs must also take these issues into account. If this is not considered, what may otherwise be an impressive platform may never even be seen.

Many Lloydminster companies are choosing to leave such concepts in the hands of the professional. Results can easily be measured and, in no time at all, a small start-up could evolve into a lucrative business.

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Simple Ways to Improve Your Web Design

Creating a design for your website can be difficult, since you’ll both need to make your website stand out from your competitors while being efficient in inspiring your visitors to take action. Web design experts might be able to give out technical tips to improve the appearance of your website, but ultimately these can be simplified into the following:

  Improve the typography. Websites using the standard WordPress templates merely offer the basic typefaces, but you can go beyond Helvetica, Calibri, and Times New Roman. Not only should you pick any big and bold font, you should also pick one that best represents your brand.

  Incorporate your brand’s colour scheme. This can be difficult to make if your brand has more than three main colours. Stick with two or three colours that embody your brand and utilise them consistently in your logo, graphics, and web design.

  Provide enough space for your visitors. A trademark of a great web design is that it allows users to easily traverse through the website and find the information they need. Your website should have enough space between the text and visuals, and the menu should be simple and easy to navigate.

  Choose high-quality photos. The photos you post on your website are among the things that can create a first impression among your visitors, and it wouldn’t do to provide them with low-quality images. Keep in mind the proper sizing of your images, and remember that these photos will most likely be shared on social media.

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Consider These When Using Images on your Website

It’s common for websites nowadays to have images selected and strategically placed on a page without text—to convey a message. However, the key word is strategically—you don’t include a photo in a website’s design without intent. When effective, it is as they say: a picture could be worth a thousand words.

The first thing to watch out for is copyright. Before including any images, check to see if they are copyrighted, whether they are for sale or free. Copyrighted images can be used only if the registered owner grants permission for it to be published. In general, web images must be sold with rights to have them published or be considered public domain. With some images, you will need permission from the owner for use of his or her images.

Images must always be used with a definite purpose. It’s easy to get tempted to use an image on a site just for the sake of having one; you need to be clear with your message and let your image project the message. For instance, placing a random photo of college students sitting and chatting on a page about post-graduate degree applications may not convey the directions for applying. Instead of looking at the photo, users will simply browse for the textual information that they need.

Using pictures on a website for the heck of it is a complete waste of time. An image is meant to convey a message, not merely take up empty space.

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The Link between Web Design and SEO

The synergy of web design and search engine optimization (SEO) can be likened to the relationship between an architect and an engineer. A web developer crafts the website’s blueprint and lays out its foundations, while an SEO expert ensures that the website is built in keeping with search engine algorithms to maximize its online visibility.

Good Design Begets Trust

According to a 2004 joint study by Northumbria and Sheffield Universities on health websites, about 94 of internet users mistrust websites with poor design, while only 6 percent pin their perceptions of a website on content quality. Even if a website is optimized for the Web and offers useful content, its design and structure need to be spot on.

Visual Impact

Before visitors even realize that a webpage contains valuable information, they will first notice its visual appeal, which depends on the placement of graphics, images, and other elements in strategic spots. The way content elements are presented and arranged in a webpage also tells a lot about the website and business or organization it’s promoting. Put simply, a well-designed website commands respect.

Responsiveness

A growing number of consumers use their mobile devices to browse the Web and even complete transactions. By making your website mobile responsive (i.e. viewable across multiple devices, screen sizes, and platforms), you can ensure a seamless user experience and elicit positive feedback, which should enhance your website’s search ranking.