Mission Impossible: Quality Website Design
People who can design a website are everywhere you turn. Your neighbor’s grandson can do it; companies on the internet want to design your website for as little as $20 per month. Even you can design your own website with the right software and a course you purchased on Groupon. But just because the price is low, it doesn’t mean it’s a bargain.
When the price tag is low you should expect one of two things. First, you are going to be forced into pre-made templates or web modules that allow “customization” but within restricted parameters. You’re not going to get true customization if your needs or wants don’t fit into the box they have made. Think of it like a WordPress template: it gives you a bunch of options, but it’s not a true custom solution.
Secondly, the price tag is low because they have limited experience or the quality of work is not to a level where they can charge accordingly. You may get a poorly coded site that has constant issues or does not have good support after the site is completed. It may not be optimized correctly or the design could be lacking.
It is very rare to find one person who is exceptional at planning, designing, coding, and optimizing a website. That’s why you need a team of experts to create a solid website solution. Given a choice, most companies and professionals would rather invest one time upfront to have a website done correctly rather than pay again and again while dealing with constant issues and exorbitant fees involved in fixing a website. In most cases, it takes more time and money to fix a site than to build a new one with a team of experts.
We know that re-designing your website may feel like an impossible mission. We have assembled a team of experts who are ready to make your dream website into reality. We want you to know what you are paying for when you choose Riley & You.
The Consultant
This person knows all the parts involved to create a solid website and is dedicated to helping with every step of the process. They will ask you important questions in the beginning to make sure your site will have everything you desire and need. They will analyze your needs and identify potential obstacles, such as capabilities, budget or third parties that would need to be involved to make your dream site a reality.
Your consultant will create a plan and a site map that outlines design direction, developer requirements and search engine optimization data that will be utilized by all team members.
Throughout the process, the consultant monitors the site progress providing insights, making sure deadlines are met and keeping the client up-to-date of progress or any set backs that arise.
The Designer
You want your site to match your company branding and personality so that you stand out from your competitors. Template/module-based solutions don’t give you the flexibility and control you need to make this happen. With a professional designer involved, however, you get to control all the visual elements and layout of your site. You’ll work with designers who are focused on customizing your website from the first day.
Our designers listen to your vision and give guidance on how best to achieve your website goals so that your website is well-designed, easy-to-navigate, and gets more traffic with longer sessions per visit, a key component in Google analytics and rankings, not to mention customer satisfaction. All of these factors work together to create a cumulative profit for your business.
The Web Developer
Nothing is more frustrating to a web visitor or a site owner than a poorly coded site. We’ve all been on sites that had glitches, errors or were non-responsive. This can really hurt your business because people will not come back to your site.
With a professional and experienced developer plus a solid web platform to build on, you can avoid all this. Responsive sites have become mandatory in today’s mobile environment. At present, 40% of internet searches and web viewing is done on a mobile device, and this number is growing rapidly. With proper development, your site will function on any device and avoid glitches or errors that could turn people away.
Our developers also think ahead to future needs and make sure that the site foundation is built properly so it can be easily updated and modified without a lot of reconstruction or redesign saving you money in the long run.
The SEO (search engine optimization) Expert
A well-designed, well-developed site only matters if people can actually find your site online to visit it. Every company wants to be on the first page of searches, but with the amount of competition in today’s online world, that’s almost an impossibility unless you know how to target your audience. In order to do that, you need an SEO expert.
Many companies claim they can do SEO, but few can deliver. It takes several steps to properly optimize a site because search engines constantly change their algorithms on how sites are ranked. If you have poor SEO, your site can actually get penalized and not be included in searches at all. This is an important final step in any site design and one that is not included in many cheaper solutions. Of course, they will tell you they have SEO capabilities, but they don’t tell you that you are responsible for your own SEO. All they provide is a place to type it in.
Our SEO expert knows how to get the most out of your site, but do you? For example, every page needs a unique, keyword-rich title. You need keyword tags, but not so many you’ll get penalized. All your images need ALT tags, and your headers need proper H tags and keywords in them. Content must be relevant and not duplicated, and index codes must be correct so robots will index your site. We are just getting started, but you can see that doing the SEO is not something you want to do yourself.
