When looking for a web designer in Ireland there is plenty to think about.

1. Choosing your Domain and Hosting Company

Strong domain names (for example at Google and Uber) say so much while saying so little. In addition to being easy to remember, a good domain name needs to accurately reflect your business or sector and be almost impossible to misspell.

Researching the right domain name for your brand is crucial, because incorporating a combination of SEO, simple spelling, and brand identity into the domain name leads to a higher chance of being found in the SERP’s.

When comparing hosting packages, cost is not the only consideration – you must also consider the nature of your website and business. Will your website contain loads of pictures, videos, and presentations? Do you have technical support in-house, or do you need reliable, responsive support from your hosting provider?

Will have a maintenance contract with your web design agency? Does the hosting company offer scaleable solutions so that you can change your hosting plan as your business grows?

I can speak from my own experience that there is a huge difference in providers and we moved several times before deciding on our current provider. Don’t forget to research reviews about the company’s performance on social media and third party websites before making a final decision.

2. Content Management System

It’s impossible to develop a great website without a functional program taking care of the backend. One of the best “platforms” for ecommerce sites is Magento, while WordPress is a customisable option that is ideal for informational sites. Make sure to ask your web designer which platform they intend to use for your web design project and why.

3. Clean Web Design

One very important thing to remember during the process of web development is to create a clean, appealing  web design that will engage your site’s visitors. A quality design should also gain your customers trust with its professionalism and must be easy to navigate.

Most importantly, a clean design helps viewers focus on the value of your brand and content instead of distracting graphics and large amounts of text. Given that your website is often your first contact with customers they will associate website designs with the quality of a particular company or product.

Thus, a clean professional web design is vital to providing a positive user experience that encourages customers to return again and again.

4. Colour Scheme

Colour schemes are more important than customers realise. Different colours have the ability to evoke emotional responses. When it comes to using colours in your website design, it’s essential to consider your company’s niche, target audience, branding, and the elements of colour theory.

Who are your target audience? Is your colour scheme is similar to your company logo and branding? Regardless of your choice, taking the time to research the best colour options will give your visitors a good impression.

5. Company Branding

The placement of your brand’s logo contributes to a viewer’s overall opinion. Professionally designed logos successfully catch the customer’s attention – there is no point in having a great website and an average logo that detracts from it. Branding is crucial to the success of all businesses, both large and small.

Choose a location on your site that is readily visible to visitors, such as the upper left corner, since this is where the eye naturally begins to scan a website. To further solidify your brand’s identity, consider using the same logo across all aspects of the business be it stationery, uniforms or vans on the road. When a business is consistent with branding, it provides customers with a better overall brand experience.

6. Functionality

Is the website functional in the literal sense? Are there loading issues or broken links? For example will you be selling goods online and therefore are the site’s security features adequate for your business’s needs?

Additionally, it’s crucial to view your website’s features from the user’s perspective. Are the contact forms, surveys, and customer feedback sections of your site working properly? Are online shopping orders being fulfilled successfully?

One or all of these functional issues can prompt a customer to leave your site thus increasing your bounce rate.

7. Navigation

If a website is confusing and difficult to navigate, your customers will leave and likely never return. Prior to launch conduct an in-depth site review – seek honest feedback from others. Note the navigation streams that make sense and those that do not.

One way to improve a visitor’s ability to navigate your site easily (and help search engines crawl your site) is to add a site map or add breadcrumbs.

Once the web site is live analyse the information from your google analytics account and make improvements to unnecessary or any under performing pages on your website.

8. Usability

Websites that are easy to use are more likely to win over customer confidence. Usability can be increased by having product and service information displayed in a clear, concise manner. Are the CTA’s (call to action) in the right sections (see next section) – what action do you want the visitor to take? Is your contact information clearly displayed?

Does the site layout encourage social sharing and further interaction with your brand? Should you have a FAQ’s section? These key elements are essential to review when optimising the ux of your website.

9. Call to Action

Placing calls to action on your website encourages customers to make contact with your business. Don’t have them having to navigate several pages in order to complete a contact from or struggle to find your contact number.

It is important that calls to action are appropriate for a visitor’s level of engagement with your company. Always include a call to action at least once on each page regardless of what level of interaction you are striving to develop.

10. Fast Loading Times

When looking for information online, nothing annoys visitors more than slow loading times. Customers can be turned away for this reason. In addition Google now considers loading times in its algorithm for ranking.

Testing your website prior to launch will help you identify any loading time issues, and these can be fixed before your site’s official release. In order to provide a positive user experience and increase customer retention periodically test your website’s loading time after it has launched.

11. Active Blog

Keeping a blog regularly updated informs customers of your brand’s values and desire to promote communication. By regularly providing readers with fresh, helpful, engaging content, your brand becomes a trusted resource and an industry authority this can be very beneficial down the road when you consider social engagement.

A blog helps keep customers informed about the latest industry news, company events. Featuring a blog on your website is a great way to connect with them, especially if your posts encourage readers to interact with your brand.

12. SEO-Friendly Code

Whether you’re developing a new website or optimising an existing one, it is crucial to have clean, SEO-friendly code. By taking the time to improve your site’s code, you can increase the overall site performance.

Refining the HTML structure, improving title tags and descriptions, making your site load faster, checking the keyword usage and density, improving the internal linking structure (the way your pages are linked to each other), etc. Good code acts as a guide for search engine spiders by providing a clear picture of your site’s content.

Using WordPress plug-ins, like Yoast (free & paid) or Project Supremacy (paid) that designed to simplify the process of cleaning up code and help ensure your tags and headings are correctly labelled can increase search engine results.

13. Responsive Web Design

The use of mobile devices for online search has increased significantly in the recent years. Approximately 95% of mobile device users count on their devices to search for local products and services. To effectively reach this growing segment of mobile users, businesses and organisations need to ensure that their websites are visible on all devices.

It is best practice to develop a website that is responsive design thus performing across all devices – desktop, laptop, tablet and mobile.

14. Social Media

Integration with social media is a must. As technology makes information sharing more convenient, businesses lacking social media fail to take advantage of its huge reach. Social media provides a platform where people can promote your brand, provide reviews, share and review your product or services.

Written and visual content, in addition to images and videos, are easily distributed on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Googe+, Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram, Reddit and LinkedIn with the addition of social sharing buttons on your website.

15. Quality Images

First impressions are very important. When a visitors arrives on your website you have just a few moments to impress them – good quality imagery ca help achieve this aim. Choose images that reflect your service or products.

Try and avoid images that look too stock. Instead purchase good quality images from one of the many services available or take good quality images of your work place / premises – it’s worth the investment.

16. Security Considerations

In today’s world more advanced security risks threaten to compromise your website’s integrity. Websites with online transactions functionality, such as Ecommerce sites, need additional security to protect customer information. Customers will be inclined not to complete a transaction on your site if they have any doubts about the security of the transaction.

17. Testimonials from Customers

Customer testimonials can be used to promote your business. They are extremely powerful when it comes to strengthening your branding. All of the strategies that you have adopted to sell your product or service needs a little support from real-life examples, and testimonials provide that.

By featuring customer testimonials on your website, you demonstrate your company’s skills, products, and commitment to customers. Happy customers are generally more than willing to provide a testimonial.

18. Reviews

Greater emphases have been placed on local searches – Google recently split search results to separate mobile and non-mobile results. Obtaining reviews on third party websites adds to your brand’s credibility, while making it simple for viewers to gain insight into customer satisfaction associated with your brand review services, such as Google and Yelp, can be instrumental in generating leads for businesses.

To ensure customers are able to leave reviews about your company, make sure to claim your business profile on third party review sites like Google and Yelp. You can than create a call to action on your website that will prompt a client to write a review and lead them to that particular third party review service.

19. Quality Content

When designing a website, it is crucial to write high quality, original content that is relevant to your product or service. Keyword research is vital – who in your industry is ranking well? What are the important search terms you want to be found for?

To help engage with customers the content must be informative and relevant with each page ideally having 300 words and should include links to credible resources and other pages on your website. Longer sections of text should be broke up with imagery which is not as expensive as you might think.

20. Google+ Author Verification

Though Google stopped accepting page verification requests (not to be confused with Google+ business page verification, which is still active), it remains essential to complete Google+ author verification for your site.

Linking site content to specific authors using Google+ profiles allows the search engine to easily distinguish between content created by a human and content of a lesser quality. Completing the Google+ author verification steps also ensures that the author’s byline and photo appear in SERP’s.

When looking for relevant content, customers greeted with the promise of information provided by a real person are more likely to click on the link. As a bonus, claiming your brand’s byline in SERP’s makes it easier for customers and peers to connect with it.

Given these 20 aspects of website development and design, it’s clear that there are many factors to consider when creating a website.

In addition to growing traffic and generating leads, your site’s design, navigation, and content must impress customers sufficiently to engage customers and inspire further interaction with your business or organisation.

If you are looking for a web designer in Ireland and would like to learn more about how we can help your business grom please get in contact for a chat.