Posts Tagged ‘web design company’
Infographic: E-Commerce Platforms Usage Comparison
November 27th, 2017Is Your E-Commerce Store Ready for the Holiday Season?
November 15th, 2017The holiday season is upon us and for the e-commerce sector, it is the time of the year when they make their chunk of the annual sales. The two big days that are Black Friday and Cyber Monday are days when the profits of an online store can grow anywhere up to 20% as per a research by Deloitte. This time of the year, your websites need to be prepared to handle the excessive traffic that will be landing on it. There are many things that you must do to prepare your online store for these days. Everything from ensuring the site does not crash to optimizing its design. You cannot afford to miss this opportunity for making the most of this season.
Here are some steps you can take to ensure your website’s preparedness –
Spread the Cheer through Design
Your website may already have a very peppy design but you want it to look different on Black Friday. You want the visitors to feel like it is a special day and you know it. Adding some holiday-related stock images on the site and changing up the design of your homepage to make it look more holiday like can be an added advantage. Remember that design has a big impact on visitors and your homepage is like the cover of the book that most people judge your site by.
Ensure Proper Loading Speed
With so many websites to choose from, if prospective customer clicks on your link and the site take forever to load, that customer is never returning. A quick load speed is necessary to ensure a positive user experience and can lead to more returning visitors to the site. The loading on mobile devices is very important as a majority of shoppers use their smartphones for making online purchases these days. You do not want to miss out on sales simply because your site does not load fast enough on mobile devices.
Test for Malware
Malware can cause your website to slow down and also disrupt its many functionalities. Even though you may have a protocol in place for regular malware testing, you can do a few days before the big day to make sure there is no malware infecting the website and hampering its overall performance. If any malware is detected, you must work on removing it and recovering your site in time.
Online Promotion
Proper Internet marketing is needed to get the word out about the various discounts your online store is offering. Capitalize on social media to entice your followers to visit your site on Black Friday and Cyber Monday by strategically planning your posts for times when people are most likely online. Leave no platform behind. Update posts every way on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram to Pinterest, Snapchat and even Tumblr. Run paid promotions as well to gain a competitive edge.
Create A Sense of Urgency
This is something you can tie-up with your online promotions. Whenever there are any exclusive sales coming up, you must create a sense of urgency about it. Use words like “limited period offer” or “once in a lifetime deals” etc on social media or in your email campaigns. This creates a Psychological impact on the shopper’s mind. You can also use such terms on your website or landing page’s content.
So, these were some of the steps you can all take to make sure you have a profitable Black Friday weekend as well as a prosperous holiday season ahead with your e-commerce store. For any help with your online marketing, website maintenance, and web design, contact Clap Creative today.
How Web Design Has an Impact on Website Conversions
November 6th, 2017There are many factors that determine the conversion rate of any website. One factor that can sometimes go overlooked is website design. That’s right, the design of the website has a lot to do with the conversion rate of any website. In fact, there are many designers that do not think of this aspect when designing a website. Read on below to know exactly how your website’s design can impact its conversion rates.
Pick the Right Color
The colors that you choose for your website are important because they can be psychological triggers that can drive your visitors to perform certain actions on the site. That is why picking the right color scheme is critical. Use contrasting colors that bring out the designs beautifully against the background of the website.
When choosing the color of the call to action button, choose a color that is not already present on the page. This will make the button stand out and draw more attention towards itself. A case study performed by Hubspot confirmed that call to action buttons that are of non-dominant colors performed better than those of dominant colors. This same theory can be applied to the colors of the various hyperlinks on your pages.
Bring Focus to Call to Action
The ultimate goal of bringing a potential customer to your website is to get them to perform some action. That action can be filling a contact form, creating a new account, signing up for a newsletter etc. Your website’s design must be such that it draws attention to that particular call to action. In the above point, I already stated how the colors of the CTA can impact conversion. Apart from the colors, there are other elements to consider.
These elements include – graphics, borders, textures etc. Use these elements to create a design around your call to action button to draw interest towards it.
Test Various Different Styles
Before you settle for one particular layout for your website, don’t be afraid to try out various different styles, designs, themes, layouts etc. Perform A/B testing by creating two separate pages that have different themes, designs, layouts and compare their performance. You bring traffic to both these pages and then try to judge their response based on which pages they spend more time on and how they interact with you through those pages.
When using images on the page, it is better to use the image of real-life human beings rather than random graphics as real images evoke more emotions and improve conversion. There is an old saying – “two heads are better than one”, this is true in the case of determining your web design as well. Involve more people in the process to get an understanding of which overall style works best for you.
Attention Grabbing Content
Most people do not think about content when talking about web design. However, content can have a deep integration with the design of the website as well as with the conversion rate. The content of the headline of the site or the content on the banner image is the first thing your website’s visitors read when they land on your site. This content should contain the hook that engages customers.
Even the content of the call to actions that I have repeatedly mentioned in this post should have content that really speaks to your prospect customers. As human psychology goes, words like “free trial, free quote, free consultation” get more people to click the CTA buttons. Apart from the actual words, the font and color of the content of the page also matter. Make the font size large of the banner text and also make it bold to capture more attention and make more impact.
Conclusion:
Whether you hire a web design company or design your site yourself, these above pointers need to be kept in mind to ensure that your website’s conversion rate meets your expectations. Even if you have an old site but want improved conversion rates, hire a web development company like Clap Creative that has an understanding of the concept of conversion rate optimization to make the necessary changes.
Top Ways to Improve User Experience with your Web Design
November 3rd, 2017Think of all the effort you put into bringing visitors on to your website. You do all kinds of promotional activities to bring relevant traffic to your site. How would you feel if these visitors instead of taking the desired action, simply exit the site in less than a minute? If you take a good look at your website analytics, some of you may realize that it is already happening to you.
There can be many reasons why the traffic on your website bounces. However, one reason that cannot be ignored is your website’s design. That is why it is important to think of user experience while designing your new website. Even if you have an old website, it is never too late to update your design to make your site user-friendly.
Some of the top ways you can improve your website’s user experience are –
Make It Responsive
This is a tip you would have read before in many of our prior blog posts. However, I cannot emphasize enough on its importance. A responsive website performs perfectly on each and every device, no matter the screen size. Since a large number of website users today choose their smartphones to access websites, a responsive site will always have an edge over the alternative.
Simplicity Is Key
Overcomplicated designs and layouts are out. Visitors today respond more to simple designs. Try to make your site like clean and clutter free. If you are creating a new website, ask your web design company to focus on simple menu and navigation so that your visitors do not get overly confused. The information on your website should be grouped together for ease of access. These should be white spaces that give a clean appearance. Your website’s content strategy also has to be streamlined for the logical availability of information.
A/B Testing with Landing Pages
Sometimes you cannot experiment with your main website. That is where landing pages come in handy. You can create two variations of a landing page and then drive traffic to both of them. You can obtain concrete data on visitor response from these landing pages. You can study the analytics report to see which page has a higher bounce rate and on which page customers spend more time. Once you figure out which page your visitors are responding better to, and which elements of the page appeal to them more, it can be incorporated into the main website.
Usage of Long Form Content
Users always appreciate in-depth information about any subject. Whether they are informative articles, how-to guides, DIY tips, and resources etc. If we talk about Google’s search engine algorithm, it loves long content and ranks such content higher. So, it is clear that using long content on your website will not only help your visitors but you as well.
The Human Touch
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the next big thing in technology these days. One example of this technology is bots. Bots are being used by companies for automated responses to chat queries or social media queries. However, there are times when the human touch is needed by your visitors. Although this point is not part of the website design, a human being responding to the chat queries of visitors will have a better impact on the minds of the customers and provide better customer service.
These above methods once implemented properly with the help of a good web design company like Clap Creative will ensure more engagement by your visitors and reduced bounce rate. We create attractive and responsive web design services that help you make the most of your website. Get a free quote from us today.
Signs You Need to Hire a Web Development Company in Los Angeles
October 27th, 2017So, you have a website for your business and it been functional for some time now. However, you believe that it has run its course and now you either need a serious revamp or you need to start from scratch. How do you really determine whether it is time to hire a web development company in Los Angeles? In this post, I guide through the signs you need to identify in order to decide whether your site needs an overhauling or not.
These signs revolve around both the look and feel of the website and also the functionality of it. Here are some of them –
1) Not Responsive
One of the biggest demands that website owners have these days is that the site should be responsive. That means that your website should work properly on all devices, whether desktop, laptop, mobile or tablet. If your website does not function well on handheld devices, you would be losing out on almost 50% of your potential customers. Users today prefer using smartphones for browsing the internet more than desktops or laptops. A web development company can help you either make your website responsive or create a responsive site from scratch.
2) Not Aesthetically Appealing
The look and feel of your website are very important as an attractive design of the site engage your visitors better. It helps get repeat visitors and build loyalty to your brand. Take a good look at your website. See your fonts, background colors, website theme and compare it with that of your competitors to see the difference. If you come to the conclusion that your site’s design needs a do-over, it is time to approach a web design company for help.
3) Not Optimized for SEO
Today, search engine optimization is very important for websites to rank on Google. SEO leads to organic traffic and business. In order to rank well in Google, your website needs to be optimized as per SEO guidelines. There would be some serious changes needed to the content, design and overall structure of the website. Hiring a web development company that has good SEO knowledge would give you the assistance you need.
4) Lack of Security
Every website needs security. There are always people with malicious intent looking to hack websites. If your websites contain the financial information of your visitors like a banking website or an e-commerce website, leaving your site unprotected can be a costly mistake. There are so many types of viruses, malware and other harmful programs that are a threat to all websites. You need help from professionals in setting up security protocols for the existing website or develop a new site with upgraded security.
5) Takes Forever to Load
Users prefer websites that are fast and efficient. No one has the time to sit around waiting for your website to load slowly. Even in terms of a good SEO ranking, Google prefers a website that has a good page speed. A good page loading time is up to 5 seconds. If your website takes longer than that, then it is a matter of concern. In order to improve the speed, there are many changes that need to be made in the website like compressing images, optimizing media and many others that require professional help.
If your website ails from these above issues then it is a collective sign that you need to hire the services of a web development company that can help improve your website or better, create a brand new website that is attractive and responsive.
Clap Creative is a Los Angeles based web design and development company that offers web design and development services across various platforms like WordPress, Magento, Shopify, BigCommerce etc. Contact us today for a free quote.
MENU 
