7 Best Websites Objectives Before Design Website (or Revamp Website)

Website objectives are inherently important for any website. Without any objective, you won't know how to move the needle and get closer to your business objectives.

Website Objective vs Website Goal

Objectives are specific and measurable, while the goal has a broader context. An example of an objective is "Get 1,000 website hits/ day". An example of a goal is "Be the best Website in the Industry."

To be honest, it doesn't really matter whether you call it goal or objective. It means about the same thing, semantics.

When we revamp websites for customers, before we do any design work, must be established what success looks like. Not knowing where to go can be a costly mistake that is difficult to manoeuvre.

Website objectives are relative to the organisation. It shouldn't be compared with other competitors. It should be straight about your business. For this insight, we split into two, SME and Big Corporation.

Website Objectives for SME

For SME, website objectives should be simple because you don't have the resources to monitor all aspects of the website. So keep it simple. Generally, I'm inclined to pick conversion.

1. Grow Traffic

Whether you do it organically through SEO, through paid media, get PR from News Media, it doesn't matter. Being small means you are almost invisible. You need to let your target market know you exist.

2. Conversion

Conversion is when your visitor changes state, from being an onlooker, window shopper to giving their contact details or make a purchase. They continue to become your leads or customer. Example: 5 leads/ day.

3. Ranking on Keywords

The last one is to identify where you are on Google. You must do SEO for your website because they give free traffic to your website. Without SEO, you're more likely to be stuck on page 3 or 4, which is a bad place to be.

Website Objective for Large Corporate

Large corporate: More than 50 staff. Being a large company you would need the website to integrate with every touchpoint of your department. Primarily, Sales Department, Human Resource, Customer Service and IT.

All of the above objectives still matter. Now we continue with the next 4.

4. Generate More Sales

For the sales department, commercial pages on the website are what they truly care about. The content on the page must be persuasive and convincing. This will reduce the sales-y work like more meeting, back and for emailing, endless calls.

Having a website that helps Product Managers and Salespeople can generate more sales.

The website is then designed to flow from General info about the company to the Product page then the Contact page.

Some of the items you can add to meet website objectives are

Product Calculators
Product brochure and catalogue downloads
Whitepapers and Industry Report
Product detail descriptions, dimensions, specs, logistics, weight etc.
Testimonials from past customers
Product Manuals
Purchasing process and Maintenance.

The general idea is to help prospects find their way to your materials without dealing with salespeople.

5. Increase Candidate Talent

When I was a fresh grad, I would stalk big companies and find any openings that can suit certificates. I would learn as much as I would before attending an interview. This helps me to form an idea about the company or decide not to pursue the job.

Website plays an important role to attract good talents.

For HR, good talents going competitors is a nightmare. Which means they get the bottom of the barrel and make their life more difficult.

Although most of the hiring comes from Job Portal websites, candidates would also like to learn more about the company. You guessed it, from your website.

What do candidates look for in a company? Stability and growth.

We tell our kids not to judge the book by its cover, but we do judge a company based on its website. It's a hard fact of life.

6. Increase Customer Happiness

Angry customers should be dealt with immediately. They shouldn't be waiting on the phone to get their lines fixed. The longer the wait, the more likely they'll get agitated and starts rambling online.

As a large corporate, you have a reputation to uphold.

Therefore you must serve your customers quickly and accurately.

I forgot my credit card on a travel trip which I may have left on the counter. I had to cancel the card before someone swipes it. I didn't have the bank phone number. The next best option was to go to the bank website and cancel it without recurring any international call.

Website objectives for large corporate, make customers happy ~~sing~~ your name.

7. Make it Fast and Secure

Finally, the one that puts so much pressure on the IT team, to make it fast and secure.

A faster website makes the customer happier and higher ranking on Google. It can be done through 2 means, closer to the target market (geographically) and better servers.

Get servers from Vultr for Singapore or ServerFreak for Malaysia.

To make it secure, you can do pentest and install TLS/SSL certificate. Pentest is short for penetration tests, the goal is to remove potential script injection and deface. TLS/SSL certificates can be installed on almost any server/ web application, you can buy the certificate.

Finally, avoid placing your website server in your current IT infrastructure. T1 data centre is designed to serve the public, whereas T4 (internal data centre) is intended for internal (employee) use.

Want to learn More about Revamp? Read the bigger topic: Revamp Website for Corporate

Summary - Website Objective

I'd like to end with a quote ...

What gets measured gets managed — even when it's pointless to measure and manage it, and even if it harms the purpose of the organization to do so.
Ridgway, 1956

Identify the metrics you want to grow. Some metrics are set and forget (like fast and secure), some require closer monitoring, like spending on ads. Some metrics, once a month. Every metric varies depending on the organisation goal.

With that, Good luck!

7 Steps: How to Revamp Website for Corporate that Generates Buzz

A corporate website is inherently complex because it targets multiple audiences with different sets of purposes. Investors, prospects and new talent makes up the bigger group for a corporate website. Revamp a website is harder.

For a huge corporate organisation, failure of design can lead to massive capital loss. For instance, losing the trust of investors, which results in withdrawal. But we're not here to talk about business. It's about the website.

What is Website Revamp?

English (verb) for revamp: To renovate, revise, improve or renew;

Revamp means rebuilding the website. This includes technical, design and content improvements.

The main goal of Revamp Website is to improve or change the perspective of the brand. Small companies look bigger, big companies look international, conglomerate looks inclusive.

Is revamp different from a redesign?

Common confusion: it’s different.
Fact: it’s about the same thing (if we don't really technically too deep about it)

7 Steps: How to Revamp Website for Corporate that Generates Buzz 1

Both focus on changing how the website works and serves the visitors. When you redesign, there are obviously going to be major changes in the codes that generate the page. Which leads to tech overhaul.

You can shuffle the content around, but that wouldn't give much impact on the overall usability of the website.

When to Revamp Website?

A website is not forever. There's a few tell to know when it's due to revamping the website.

1. Website is Slow

Slow website is often caused by old technology.

Old server and network
Older version of web server (application)
Legacy codes

Typical internet users can tolerate up to 7 seconds. Any later, they'd lose interest.

Check the speed of the website https://www.fastorslow.com/

2. It's Broken

Codes are not meant to last forever. As tech progresses, older codes become obsolete.

Functions that used to work, are no longer serving their purpose.

A quick test is there are many 404 errors.

3. Change of Branding (Direction)

A brand evolves.

When a brand takes on new adventures, new people and new targets. The brand needs changes to fit the market.

Ugly website makes the brand look inferior and weak.

4. Less Internal Sharing

The internal staff becomes reluctant to share the website because it has faded in time. The message is generic, the design is outdated, the tech used is old school.

Suffice to say, staffs are ashamed of how the website looks.

An internal survey can be done to verify.

5. Confused Visitors

The tell is when visitors call and asks how to find information on the website.

Another way is to look at the Bounce Rate. If it's above 80%, it could be a sign of confusion besides being genuinely disinterested in the company.

As a jury for Web Awards, I too, have a hard time understanding what some websites want to sell.

6 Target Market Change

The message and design have to be changed to fit the new target market.

The new target market has different sets of problems they want to solve. They could be B2B buyers, executives looking for new information or fresh grad that wants to apply for a job. They have different points of view and goals.

7. Growth Strategy

When a new business is started, everything doesn’t have to be perfect as long as it’s profitable.

As it takes more customers, visitors scrutinise every part of the business, including the website.

Investors would look at the website too.

Once we've understood and all the data points to revamping the website, we'll need to follow the basics of a website redesign. If you're unsure about website redesign, contact us. Let us take a look at your website.

Revamp Website Process

Before you start sending for RFP and shortlisting web designers, you'll need to understand these steps so that you don't get cheated or scammed by a charismatic speaker.

Design is all about the process.

The image here of the steps.

1. What's Currently Working?

Before we scrap everything, we need to know what's working. These could be like a brochure, a catalogue, contact forms, about us page.

The purpose is to spend less time optimising pages and features that are working.

What doesn't work, we either improve or remove from the revamp website process.

2. One Main Goal, Followed by Mini Goals.

One big goal for the website.

Get more qualified leads
Reduce call centre load
Get more signups etc.

You're definitely tempted to list as many goals as possible. Don't. Having too many goals will cloud your judgement. Instead, pick one major goal to help your designer, copywriter, and developer focus.

Learn more about website goals in this blog post.

3. Table Your Assets

Collect every piece of information that is worthy on the website. These are

Images & Photos
Videos
PDFs files
Framework
Product infos
Surveys and forms

Now it becomes easier to design when you have all the information. This avoids last minute and ad-hoc changes.

4. Learn Ideal Visitors

The best way to learn about ideal visitors is to ask them.

Guesswork is expensive
Claude C. Hopkins - Scientific Advertising 1930.

We want to do less guesswork as possible. Write and show things that are already in their mind. We can't create desires that aren't there.

5. Info Architect & Copywriting

How do you make it easier for ideal visitors to navigate and learn about your products and services?

Humans have limited attention. Keep it as simple as possible.

Business that wins are the ones that is fastest to understand.
Donald Miller - writer Story Brand

6. Design & Features

Find inspirations from other websites. Collect these ideas and mash them up. Without inspiration, we'll be designing blindly, which typically ends up with redoing the entire design. We'll go in further detail in next post.

As for features, collect and show a working sample. It's cheaper to reverse engineer than to come up with an original workflow.

Most importantly, avoid being too creative.

7. Soft Launch

Decide the launch date. Without a launch date, your redesign process may take longer than expected. (Charges may go up too).

Do a soft launch, tell close clients about the new website. Get their feedback. Plan ahead to launch your website.

Some ideas to launch your new website.

Do Press Release - Not about revamp website, but the renewed products
Submit to Google - New Sitemap.xml
Blast email to existing clients and prospects.

Summary

Revamp website, though sounds easy, it's actually more difficult than building a new one because you need to account for existing page structure, people's (or stakeholder's) expectation and finding a new angle to capture attention.

Careful planning must be considered to avoid ad-hoc decision which could risk the entire project.

With that, good luck!

7 Questions: Redesign Corporate Website to Delight Visitors

Great. Now that you've understood the importance of your corporate website, it's time to roll up your sleeve and work on the website redesign.

Careful planning can help you redesign corporate without taking up much time, brings higher ROI and help you generate leads.

Why Do You Need to Redesign Corporate Website?

There's a lot of reasons why you need to redesign the corporate website. Here are a few.

It's not talking to your audience.
Too much about yourself.
The user flow is confusing.
It just doesn't work anymore (technical reasons)
Poor traffic conversion.
It's not helping you get more leads.
It's not longer inline with the brand (it's also backwards-looking)

Whatever the intentions behind the decision to redesign the corporate website, it has to be a valid concern. It can't be because you don't like the layout, therefore we change the website entirely.

Revamp, refresh or redesign. Which is it?

Before we get lost in the jargon, let's try to understand the difference between the three verbs.

Revamp or redesign (kind of the same) usually implies that it goes through a major overhaul. Changing server, codes and design. This also includes the User Experience, before getting into the website and after leaving it.
A refresh implies only touch up (cosmetic changes) to make it look 'interesting' (which we don't recommend you to do). Adding a few contents, changing the main page look without interfering with the User Experience.

Refresh can be really quick, 1-2 weeks. While revamp or redesign, can take upwards of 2-6 months depending on the complexity of the website and your business and have a bigger impact on your traffic, marketing, sales automation and revenue. Of course, a website revamp is a lot costlier than a website refresh.

In this post, I'll be covering corporate website redesign. For a website refresh, you best spare a week or two or hire external help for a quick turnaround.

7 Questions (that needs answers) before you Redesign Corporate Website.

What are we trying to solve here? - What are the problems you are facing?
Where is the finishing line? - What's the definition of a successful website redesign?
Who is the audience and what do they want?
What motivates your audience to proceed or quit the website?
What are the most valuable pages (the one with the highest traffic besides the main page)?
Example of websites that you like and why?
Who are the project team members?

Let's start.

1. What will the new redesign corporate website solve?

Solution without a problem is like shooting a Ghost.

A website solves 3 main problems, communication, marketing and branding.

Communication — A website is 24/7, it runs all the time without taking a break. It may also be the second touchpoint after the first impression (word of mouth, ads, referrals, Google searches). The goal is to communicate as efficiently as possible to convince your audience to take the next step.

Marketing — the single source of truth and as a marketing channel. Which would you believe, a newspaper article about the company or the company website? If it's not on your company website, then it's a rumour. e.g. New iPhone is coming. Until Apple publishes on their website, it's only going be a hearsay.

Branding — to reinforce your positioning. It's 2020, competitors are on the rise. Everyone can Google how to deliver your solution. You need to tell exactly who you serve, why you do it better and why buy from you.

2. Where is the finishing line?

Unlike printed brochure, a website is a digital document. It has a life.

There are two things you need to consider, when will the website be launched and what are the success measurements?

Launching the Website — When will it be? If it's too short, then we'll probably rush into things. If it's too far, then we're taking it way too easy, dragging expensive man-hours to fix a single comma on the website. Expect your corporate website redesign to complete within 2-6 months.

Website success — it can be anything, but it has to be attainable (within your control) and measurable. I had people asking for 1 million visitors in 3 days and they never hit 100 per day. Be logical with your goal. Here are some inspirations for your goals.

Traffic — number of visitors coming to the website.
Dwell Time — duration of stay on the website.
Pages per visit — number of pages they visited until they quit.
Leads — visitors that submit through your contact form.

All of this can be measured easily with Google Analytics.

3. Who is the audience and what do they want?

Let's face it - Nobody cares about your product. .. Until you care about your customers.

Laman7 have worked with billion-dollar companies to small mom and pop shop, the same occurring problem is not knowing who the audiences are and what do they want?

For the Consumer market, it's straight-forward, appeal to their inner needs. For Corporate, it gets complicated because the one who browses the website is not the decision-maker. That's why most business to business or business to government sales cycle can go to months (if not years) for it to be materialized.

Start small. Who are they? Mid managers, young executive, Managing Director, CEO, CMO. How old are they? Age and experience will determine the tone of language, references to pop culture (if any) and use of time (the younger they are, the less they are interested in reading a long document).

What's bothering them? What's stopping them from greatness? Understand their disappointment, what are they going through and map their progress to achieving their goals. Big words huh?

Example:
David Lee, 29 Years old, Assistant Sales Manager, 6 years in sales. — We know he has some knowledge of sales. Therefore words like margin, profit, selling price, prospect, lead is normal to him.

Frustrated replying too much email, not much (real) sales activity. — We need to dig deeper into the problem before we can offer a solution. We understood that he spends 2-3 hours daily replying project email that's not related to sales. Hence, his sales number does not go up. He does not get a raise. He's frustrated.

The truth is, David Lee is not the only Assistant Sales Manager that faces this problem, the whole world is. His boss probably wants him to do more.

If we can demonstrate how an Automated email solution can solve David Lee's problem. Help the company save time and make more money, wouldn't the company be obligated to invest in such a solution? I know I would.

Repeat this step 3-4 times. Get at least 3 audiences (marketers call this personas).

The biggest wrong move is to promote your brand to another brand, like, we are the Number 1 Automation Tool in the World, therefore buy from us. It may work in the 80's but not in today's world. Brands need to appeal at an individual level.

In 2015, research from Google showed four main intent type that drives people to a website.

I want to know
I want to go
I want to do
I want to buy

What you can learn from this research is that people

know — are curious to learn about your solution
go — how to visit your office
do — use or learn how your solution works
buy — who to contact to purchase your solution

That's only the top of the funnel.

Note: Understanding the audience is the most difficult yet rewarding things to do. If you skip this question, you may not bother about redesigning your corporate website at all.

Website is only built for your customers. Not to stroke your ego.

Now that you've identified all your audience (persona), it's time to rank by priority. The simple question, which is the biggest group? — Great, target them. They may not have the buying power, this is where your Sales Kit and soft skills come to play.

Remember, B2B website is not about selling, it's about qualifying the right people for your solution.

4. What motivates your audience to proceed or quit the website?

One word. Copywriting — will get your audience to engage, stay on the page longer and navigate to other pages.

The biggest misconception about copywriting is to use big words to Wow the audience. Being impressive does not win the sale, in fact, it hinders understanding.

We trace back to our mantra, the true purpose of the website is to communicate. What good is a website if does not send the right message?

So drop the jargon, big words, long paragraphs, abbreviations, and anything that might cause confusion. Use simple, clearer words to convey the message.

Besides copywriting we can look at using Buyer Journey Map (or Customer Journey Map, or User Journey Map). What we do is get the audience to graduate from one point to another. Why? Because the business customer doesn't buy immediately after the first visit.

Here's an example.

You can also download the Buyer Journey template. Start working on it.

86% of visitors who land on a company’s website homepage say they want to see information about the company’s products and services

With proper documentation, you can experiment effectively (fail and learn) the User flow, by changing the content.

5. What are the most valuable pages?

We define value by the number of traffic and conversion.

Traffic — Number of visitors to the web page.
Conversion — % of action taken on page (generally clicks).

List down all pages, then find the traffic and conversion for every single page. You can do this easily with Google Analytics, import into Google Sheets.

Find top 10 valuable pages.

Try to understand why is the traffic so high?
How did you acquire traffic for these pages?
What makes it perform?
What was the tone (of language) used?
What is the content?
Were there any special features?
What is the Call to Action (CTA)?

We also need to note the Search Engine value of this page. Any wrong move would definitely destroy it's ranking on Google. You'll need to take note and do your best to avoid changing the link, content and features.

Sounds like a lot of work? It is and it's worth it. A new car is not built from scratch but from the market feedback. Data is the meat of any website redesign project.

(Web page is a singular page, whereas the website is the collective web pages)

6. Example of websites that you like and why?

Let's talk about the future looks.

Good artist copy, GREAT Artist Steal.

Steal inspirations from the best-looking websites in the world. This will drastically cut down the designing duration by 75% compared to designing from scratch.

The problem is, we (web designers) can't read your mind, preference and taste. You need to show it. It's easier to digest visually than auditory.

We can also look at top players in your industry. How are they doing it? They've done the homework, we could cut down the design work in half by copying the inspiration and User Experience.

List down at least 3 websites and explain why you like these websites.

Note: I don't suggest anything beyond 6 design, it would be too complicated to digest.

7. Who are the project team members to redesign corporate website?

There are usually two sides, one on the business side (you and the rest of the company) and design (usually outsider, web design, web developer, marketers etc). Both need to work together to ensure that you are heading towards the same goal (like no 1).

You should elect 4-7 people to oversee and advise on the redesign corporate website.

Project Sponsor — The one that makes the decision. Usually the highest-paid person in the room.
Experienced or Product Specialist — They will help with the product description and how it solves customers' problem.
Customer Service — They will help the FAQ (common questions about the website)
Marketers or Corporate Comm - They will help with the bigger picture of promotion the website and brand identity.
Sales — They will share common communication with prospects and customers.

Click here to learn more about web design team members.

Extra: What happens when the website is completed?

Website is like an engine, without fuel it will never run.

What are your plans when you completed the website? How will you be promoting it? There are three ways you can gain traffic.

Paid Ads Traffic — This is the fastest way to get traffic to your website but also costliest. That's ok. Because every budget spent on awareness must be converted to a customer. Serve them well, and they will bring their friends in the door too. Your options are Facebook, Google ads, Linkedin ads and Youtube ads.
Organic Traffic — You can do Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) for your website. SEO is a long term effort. Public Relation works too (if you know the reporters).
Owned Traffic — These are the traffic that you already have, like email database, social media fans, existing website traffic.

Without traffic, your redesign corporate website is as good as an empty mall. Decide what traffic to invest in and start experimenting.

It may be worrying to invest in traffic if this is your first time, but if you don't do anything, no one will ever find out about your website. Big outcome, demands big effort.

Another aspect you need to be aware is the maintenance of the website. Who will provision the website, care for it (technically) and additional content you might want to add on your website.

Summary Redesign Corporate Website

We have learned in detailed the steps before you redesign corporate website. I believe I have been detailed the before process. Now you've got an idea how to execute your new website.

Best of luck.

Next Read: Web Design Process > Get More than what you paid for.

Laman7 Redesign Corporate Mantra

A website solves communication problem, not only visual and technical.
Website is built for the customer.
B2B Website is not about telling, is getting them to the next step.
A corporate website is not to Wow audience but communicates value.
Nobody cares about your product until you care about your customers.
Without traffic, your website is useless.
Wrong man for the job, the wrong outcome.
Always design with Data, not gut instinct.

5D Web Design Process: Increase User Engagement and Profit

Looking to redesign or rebuild your website? Here's the web design process.

Why Use Web Design Process?

What happens if you build a website without process?

A website is not just about the aesthetics or the looks, the hero image, fancy background or good looking call-to-action button. It is more than that. it needs to be aligned to your marketing strategies and making it usable for real people.

One of the biggest setbacks in web design is not having a strategy or building a website without following the process.

Note: This is not a basic web design process, it’s as deep as it gets. But I’ll try my best to keep it simple.

Why Did I Develop the Web Design Process?

I want businesses to get good returns from their website investment (even if you don't build your website with me). As Alan Stein Jr (writer) said,

"Control the Controllable".

Why leave to chance when we can control every aspect of the outcome?

In this article, we're gonna look at how I design a website using 5 simple web design processes that I have used for the past 10 years in my web designing business.

The 5D web design process is the same as the web development process. There are also no web development process best practices

My process of building a website for a client is the same for government agencies, big corporations, small-medium businesses, and influencers.

The starting point of website design.

Any website development can be broken down into three phases which are ‘the before’, ‘the during’, and ‘the after’. Here’s how the website design process flow looks like:

Most web designers jump straight to ‘the during’ or web developers like to jump to building it without understanding the true scope of web development.

Why Follow the Web Design Process?

Without a process, there is bound to be chaos. You don’t have a fixed direction where to go. Sometimes there are overlapping jobs and tasks.

Most of the time, web developers have to re-do the coding when there’s a new ‘a-ha’ moment. You waste time and resources when you can do it once.

What You Avoid When You Follow the Web Design Process?

By following the web design process, you are able to improve the time to develop the website whilst ensuring that you cover all grounds before launching it.

This way, you do not launch a half-baked website that is .. ‘meh’.

Who Can Use this Website Design Process?

This article explores the web design process for clients. But can also be used by Web Designers, Project Managers, Corporate Communications. It can be applied to corporate websites, landing pages, eCommerce websites, digital products.
As long as there is design and coding involved, then you can use it.

Let’s begin.

Periodic Table of Web Design Process by New Design Group

How is this different from the Periodic Table of Web Design Process? It is about the same, however our 5D method covers the holistic approach, inclusive of the marketing and sales team.

5D Web Design Process Overview

The 5D is an acronym of Discovery, Design, Develop, Deploy, and Dedicate. Each signifies the stage of Web Design Process with different expertise working together. Marketing, Designer and Programmers.

(Click image to download the web design process) (No Email required.)

Step1 - Discovery Web Design Process

The discovery happens way before design. This is about understanding what you are trying to build and who it is for. Think of Discovery as part of Strategy.

Without Discovery, you will be running around like a headless chicken. Shooting everything in the sky, hoping to catch a bird.

We do not want that. We need a solid direction.

Discovery can happen through question-aires, physical sessions or through phone calls.

The Goal of the Website

What do you want to accomplish from this new website? Is to:

Generate more leads, drive more traffic, re-engage with existing customers
Help close sales by validating what salespeople sayImprove customer support
Simplify and optimize content updates and website management
Reduce costs by streamlining and automating workflows and task
Attract and recruit new employees
Grow the company branding image and bottom line.

Whatever the goal may be, it has to have some measurements (metrics). Example: Get 1,000 visitors daily. Reduce call center phone assistance by 25%.

This way we can design the website that has actual benefits and focus on realizing that goal.

You can also use the SMART Model. Specific, Measurable, Accountable, Realistic, and Time-based. Here’s an example:

“The new website will generate 1,000 daily visitors organically, by April.”

If the current website can only manage to attract 20 daily visitors, then it does not make sense (realistically) to multiply by 50 without any external factors (press release, billboards, etc).

The Business Challenge

What is stopping you from getting to your goal? What's the hurdle that we are trying to jump over?

Example: All my competitors are doing digital marketing. If I don't do it, they'll wipe me off the market.

The Current Website Challenge

What are the website challenges that you are currently experiencing?

There could be a multitude of challenges.

Poor, ugly or dated visual design
Slow upload and download speed
Lack of quality images
Content clutter
Poor or confusing customer journey
Poorly written content
Poor SEO method
Hidden Details about products
Poor integration with other marketing systems
No ability to track the incoming traffic
Functions that do not work anymore
Outdated coding

The Target Market (Audience)

I usually like to focus on 1 key focused group, but you can easily expand to multiple groups of people.

Demographic

Demographic - What do they write in Formal Forms? Age, Sex, Address, Office Address, Kids, etc.

Having the demographic will definitely help when doing targeting advertising platforms like Facebook ads.

Psychographic

What is going through the target demographic mind? What are they feeling?

By understanding the target audience psychographic, you will be able to draw them closer to your brand, business, or product.

For example, a mother of two has problems sleeping at night and wakes every morning feeling lethargic. You can address these challenges immediately in the copywriting like so:

“Are you tired of waking up in the morning? Try our mattress for 100 days. Full Refund if you do not help you sleep better.”

Pain - What the visitor is going through? What is their current condition?
Gain - What do the visitors get from solving the pain?
Plan - What can you do to help the visitors from pain to gain? (besides buying your products)

I like to put a single target market in a table like below, one page that summarizes the target market.

Awareness Level

Is the target market aware of the challenges they are facing?
If yes, how do they find information to address those challenges?
If no, what can you do to tell them that these challenges can be addressed?

By knowing exactly the awareness level, you can segment the market into different parts of the website.

For example, if they are not aware of the pain they are experiencing, you can create a video that explains their situation and post it on social media with a link to your website (blog) that explains how to address those challenges.

Search Terms

What keyword are the target market using in order to find the solution, challenges, or gain?

Example:

How to sleep better at night?
Medicine for sleeping
Natural way to sleep
Tips to sleep better
Wake up easier
How to wake up early
How to feel fresh in the morning
The keywords center around ‘sleep better’.

By knowing the search terms, you can effectively plan basic SEO for the website to rank.

You can also use Google Trend or check Google Search Console to find the keywords that you rank for.

The Brand

The brand is about who you are as a company.

People want to feel connected, not speaking to a robot. They want to feel secure and listened to.

Let’s go deeper into the brand

Brand Promise

What can people expect to get from you?
What is the experience when they engage with you?
What do you make your visitors feel?

Here a few examples of the brand promise.

Nike - Makes you feel like an athlete even when you are not.
Milo - Makes your kids feel like a champion
BMW - Makes you feel young, living on the edge and sportier
Apple - Wants you to think differently.

Brand Perception

How do you want your customers to look at you?

Are you upmarket and premium?
Are you offering cheap and low quality?

For example, Apple has a great ethos of innovation and design. When you buy a Macbook Pro, it’s going to look good, performs really well and it’s above the average price of laptops. But people see it as, ‘if you are serious about your creative jobs, you use an Apple laptop”.

Brand Value

Brand value is the core foundation of your business.
Brand value is not how much the brand cost, that is brand valuation.

Example: Honest, Clean and Organic.

These will be all the value that is preached throughout the entire chain of command.

If a staff member is being dishonest with a customer, then the possible outcome is to retrain or fire them.

The brand value does not have to be explicitly stated on the website, it could be in a form of subliminal message in your tagline, images, proposal, etc. However, every one of the staff members has to know and practice it.

Brand Voice

Brand voice is the tone and language used to address the customers or visitors.

Let’s consider a Government Official vs Hardware Shop owner. The language used to address people are different. Government officials are inclined to use professional expression and the later using casual daily conversational.

Brand voice is spread across multiple channels like website copywriting, content, articles, social media, infographic. It has to be consistent throughout the channels.

What you want to do is identify the right voice for your audience. At Laman7, we speak and address people as if we are addressing high-school friends, friendly but not too casual.

The Web Design Task Force

You need to assemble the team for the web design process. This would greatly increase the speed of decision making and entrust responsibility to the right person.

I like to breakdown based on the DARCI Matrix

DARCI	Key Role	Position in Company
Decision Maker	Makes the decision	CEO, Chairman, Marketing Manager
Accountable	The person in charge of the task	Marketing Manager, Product Manager, Corporate Communication Manager
Responsible	The one performing the task	Graphic Designer, Photographer, Web Designer
Consult	External (or internal) party to consult	Customer, Customer Support team, External Consultants, Sales team.
Informed	Get notified of the project, no contribution to the project	Finance Department

The Design Style

Design; the layout, the aesthetics of the website, the style or how it looks like. But we are not going to design yet, we want samples of websites we can relate to.

Next, is to find those websites that you like and explain in what way do you like the website?

Find the following:

3 x Websites that you Like and explain why you like it?
3 x Websites that you Dislike (optional step)

The Competitors

In order to build an outstanding website, you need to know who the competitors are and how to beat them.

The goal here is to be differentiated from them.

Pick Top 3 Competitors, do research on the following websites.
Keyword: ____

Competitor Name & URL	Keyword Ranking	Color they Use	Main Message	Main Traffic Source
Competitor 1
Competitor 2
Competitor 3

Requested Features

Features are functions on the website that will be helpful for the users and website owners.

Here are some samples of features that are recommended by Mashable.

Logical Navigation
Contact Form
Lead Capture Page, Product Page, Landing Page
Social Sharing Features
Google Analytics, Google Search Console tag
Security Plugin
Drag and Drop Page Builder
Mobile Responsive
Content Delivery Network (CDN)
Cache Content
Shopping Cart
Page and Post Management
Content Slider
Payment Gateway
Protected or Members Only Page
URL Redirection
Membership Points

The good news is that most Content Management Systems (CMS) already have this in place. Your only concern is to know the feasibility of the usage. I.e. Will people use it, and how much will it cost?

Plan the Test

The tests and benchmark are agreed prior to starting the project. This ensures that the designer and developer build a website that works. Planning the test also reduces the time to develop.

The test also requires you to sign off. However, additional tests may be added on a case to case basis.

Step2 - Design (The Work)

Once you have completed the Discovery phase, it’s time to get down to start doing actual work.

Without Discovery, you would not be able to build a website that is appreciated by the website owner. I can not further emphasize the importance of Discovery.

For Website Owner: You avoid frustration because the web designers understand your business context and objectives.

For Web Designers: You do not have to ‘test’ design by creating multiple full versions of the mockup.

The most difficult part about Design is translating the Discovery into Design, and that’s our job to figure out.

There are 3 parts of the Design Process

Technical - What feature would be beneficial to the target audience
Design (Noun) - The look and feel of the website, images, photography, videos, rendering of products, etc.
Marketing - The content, the copywriting, the messaging.

Once you have all this in place, you can start with User Experience (UX).

Information Architecture: User Flow vs Site Map

Information architecture is done before any design takes place because we need to identify the pages that need to be made before we design or sketch.

Content Before Design. Design without Content is Useless.

Think of Information architecture like the following.

User Flow: How do customers get in, where (page) do you want to lead them?

As opposed to the sitemap model, User Flow helps to create an engaging experience.

Sitemap model: A traditional method of displaying the hierarchy of the website.

I personally use both. Here’s an example

UX + Sitemap

User Experience for corporate websites is about the same as any website. It is not as custom as mobile apps or digital products.

Content Planning

Since we know the target audience (in Discovery) we can plan out the content for the website using these simple questions.

What does the user want to know?
What are they trying to solve?
What frustrates them?
How can your product solve the user's problems?
How do we take users from their current state to future state?
How can we help the customer makes a purchasing decision?
Product page arrangements
Standard pages, about us, location, address etc.

I personally like to use post it. We can rearrange to fit the user flow.

The key point is to write the Basic Headling (or Headings) before we jump into copywriting.

Copywriting

While the sketch is being done, you can start the copywriting and content planning. It does not have to be perfect. As long as you have some solid idea about the headline and direction, that is already good enough.

For Copywriting, I like to use the CPASO Model

C - Context
P - Problem
A - Action/ Plan
S - Solution
O - Outcome

Or use the brand story model.

You can never score the right copywriting the first time you write. The key is in the edit. Keep editing until you are satisfied with it.

Hand Sketch

Once you have the website sitemap, you can start scribbling the pages. I prefer hand sketches because there is no ctrl + z and you do not have to worry about being wrong.

Keynote:

Do not be critical of any new ideas
Allocate 1 hour per design session and do not stop.
For every page, create 2-3 ideas.

This helps you to give a basic idea of what you are trying to achieve. You can skip the hand sketch if it’s not for you.

Wireframe

The next step is to redraw your sketches using the software. No images are being used. Only a flat grey area for images (with x) and text placement.

Start incorporating the headlines into the design. Avoid using “Lorem ipsum”, because the website owner would not know the context of the space created.

Once you have the wireframe, be sure to run through with the website owner. Get approval now and reduce change requests (design) in the future.

Photos and Illustrations

Start finding the right photos for the final design (based on the wireframe.

Use as many possible internal photos (photos that you own) rather than stock photos.

If you do not have a photobank, you can start by hiring professional photographers.

For the eCommerce website design process, the best images are rendered from 3D models. You get to control every aspect of the lighting, packaging, placement, sizing, etc. It is not cheap, but definitely worth it.

Style Scape

In style scape, we showcase the theme (inline) with Corporate Image (CI) and the website preference. It should look something like this.

The elements that should be in considerations are

Font type
1. Headline Text
2. Body Text
Colors
1. Main Color
2. Accent Color
3. Link Color
Shapes
Photo style
Icon Types
Form Style
Logo Style
1. Full Color
2. Dark Background
3. Inverted Color (if any)

The goal is to ensure the web design (outcome) is similar or matches the owner’s preference and tastes.

And make sure to approve the style scape before proceeding.

Web likes, Web dislike, Style, Shapes, Text > Style Scape > Mockup

Mockup

Once you have completed the style scape, collected the photos, copywriting and content, it’s time for mockup.

As you have realized, the mockup is not something that can be produced out of nothing. There are several design processes that lead up to it.

Here is how it looks.

At this point, you can go through multiple rounds of changes until you are satisfied with the design but it has to stay true to the style scape.

There are many pages for mockup, but I like to group them in the following format:

Main - The first load of the website
Product/Service Page - The products or services
Landing Page - Your lead magnets, pdf downloads etc.
Info Page - About Page, Mission, Vision, Board of Directors etc.
Contact Page - Contact form, Map, Address goes here.
Article Page - Articles, blog posts, news.

Step3 - Develop (Design to Code)

The good news is that development can happen concurrently in the web design process (specifically for features).

Development can also start without waiting for the design process to be fully completed. You can start running the server, install WordPress and plugins, add pages before the new design and content is ready.

Development Server

The development server is typically viewable from any device and not usually found on Google or by outsiders.

Once the website is completed on Development Server, we migrate it to the Production Server which I will explain later in ‘Deploy’.

Coding the Features

You can refer to ‘Discovery’ about the features of the website.

In most Content Management Systems, some features are free, some paid, and some have to be custom coded.

Free - Free to use. Sometimes Freemium when you need basic features
Paid - Either subscription per year license or perpetual (one-time payment)
Custom Code - These codes are written for specific requested features.

Generally, we want to avoid Custom Coding because of code continuity. Codes may be obsolete in 3-5 years time. When that happens, you may need to hire web developers to recode the features to match current technology.

Incorporating the Styles

The styles are coded into CSS. This way you can recall the style like call to action (CTA) buttons without having to rebuild the same styles.

Most common styles in CSS are as follows:

Forms - Contact Form, Application Form, Subscription Form, Search Form.
Call to Action Button - Buy Now, Subscribe, Secondary CTA
Header - The top part of the page
Footer - The most bottom part of page
Links - Every link of the website, when hover, active or visited.

Building the Page

The web pages are predetermined in the Discovery process. Think of this process as data entry.

The pages are coded and uploaded based on the design in mockup, written content and copywriting.

There three ways to build the page
Using the default editor
Using Page builder
Using Custom code

Whichever way you use, as long as the web page matches the mockup then it’s good.
Browser Compatibility and Mobile Responsiveness
Perform browser test and mobile responsiveness. Here are some browser statistics in 2020 that you may want to prioritize.

Browser Statistics Usage in April 2020

Rank	Browser	Percentage
1	Google Chrome	48.88%
2	Safari	32.12%
3	Firefox	11.57%
4	Internet Explorer	3.73%

Most browser runs on WebKit or Blink as their rendering engine. The display should be about the same.

Mobile vs Desktop Statistics in April 2020.

Desktop	Mobile	Tablet
45.32%	52.03%	2.65%

From an SEO perspective, Google has prioritized mobile-first indexing. This means, if your website is not mobile-friendly, Google would not recommend your website as part of the search result.

Optimize Images

Every image loaded on the website must be optimized based on the screen size.

There are 3 ways to optimize the image

Resize - Based on the screen size
Compression - JPEG and PNG compression
Right Format (illustration use SVG or PNG)

The goal is to balance between aesthetics vs loading speed.

For photos, use JPG. Using PNG and GIF will make it a 50-100% bigger file size. For illustration and screenshots, use PNG. When possible, use SVG format for vectors because it is 10-20% of PNG size.

Code and Database Cleanup

Before you migrate to the production server, it’s best to take time to remove the files, codes, and database tables that are not longer in use.

Remove codes that are no longer in use, especially test scripts that do not work, commented out.

Perform database cleanup by removing orphan tables.

Internal Acceptance Test (IAT)

Internal Acceptance Test is usually performed by the internal team. The team may consist of (but not limited to) web designers, web developers, and project managers.

The IAT is performed before the final test by the owner users.

The scope of IAT covers the following:

Functional testing (as per requirements)
Design Coherence and Consistency
Browser compatibility
Image and Page size

This is done for every single page.

Be sure to test the loading speed using Chrome - Web Developer Mode - Network like below.

User Acceptance Test (UAT)

User Acceptance Test is the most rigorous test in the Web Design Process. This test is usually planned in the Discovery Stage and has to be agreed upon.

The test should cover three major areas

Functional

Features works are intended
Links work
Forms
Page Loads

Design

Navigation
Content Accuracy
Content Alignment
Font and Colors
Mobile Responsiveness

Security

Forms are using recaptcha
Directories can’t be accessed directly
Protected page can’t be accessed
Spam protection
Firewall

Step4 - Deploy (Going Live)

Once the development is completed (in the web design process), it is time to roll out the new web design.

Hosting*

Hosting will determine the loading speed of your website. Choose your hosting by anticipating the traffic.

You can check for hosting reviews at https://hosting.review/.

Criteria for Hosting

Speed - Check the responsive time (Ping Test)
Reliability - Downtime SLA
Location of Server - Serve content closer to visitors.
Social Proof - What people are saying about the hosting company
Environment - Shared or Dedicated
Operating System - Based on your CMS.

Migrating the Development*

There are many different ways to migrate the Website. I’m going to spare the details and share the known methods.

Migration Method

FTP - Classic way
WordPress Plugin - All in One WP Backup
Uget - Expert level (Linux), server to server transfer
Change of DNS A Record - Easiest.

HTTPS - SSL/TLS*

Install SSL/TLS certificates on the website. This can only be done on the production server.

Without SSL/TLS your website will look like this, and reduce your authority and credibility.

Google also prefers websites with HTTPS over HTTP. So if you want to rank well on Google, get HTTPS.

You can purchase SSL/TLS from providers or sign your own free certificate through Let’s Encrypt.

Marketing Tag*

Marketing tags are codes that are given by marketing software. These tags are very useful to track the performance of the website. Here is some marketing software that I normally use.

Marketing Softwares

Google Analytics - Monitor Traffic
Google Search Console - Monitor keyword ranking
Hubspot - Capture email into CRM
Google Ads - For Remarketing & Tracking
Facebook Pixels - For Retargeting in Facebook Ads
Hotjar - Test Design and Behavior of visitors
Google Tag Manager - One tool to manage all (of the above)

Email Send Out

In order to maximize the usage of the server, emails (sent from the website) are processed using 3rd Party Engine. These are commonly referred to as transactional email.

Recommendation

ElasticEmail (no longer free plan)
MailChimp (free plan available)
Amazon SES (cheapest, but very tricky to set up)
Mailgun
PostMark
Moosend

Firewall

You are bound to get DDOS or spam comments from bots. The only way to avoid getting SPAM is to add a firewall. Firewall will filter known bad IP addresses.

For WordPress, I normally use Ninja Firewall. There are other options like WordFence, Cerber and more. It depends on what features you want from the firewall.

You can also set up firewalls at the network level using enterprise-grade like Fortinet, Sophos, Cisco, etc. if you are running your website from your own data center.

Cache

In order for you to serve content quickly, you may need to cache the content. What it does is render the codes as HTML instead of processing PHP files with every request.

Cache can be done in 3 levels: application (your website), server level or network level (CDN - technically not cache).

For WordPress, you can use any of the following Cache solutions.

Swift Performance (paid, recommended)
WP Rocket (paid)
Super Cache (free)
W3 Total Cache (free)
WP Fastest Cache (free)

Anyone of these cache solution works fine (I have personally tested and used it in my projects)

There are compatibility issues especially with Windows Server, so you have to test each plugin separately.

Optimize Load Time

Not all pages require the same JS and CSS files. Examine every page and check the usage.

For example, the main page does not have any form, therefore we should not be loading JS and CSS files related to form because that will be wasteful.

Load scripts that you only need.

For WordPress, you can use the followings:

Asset Cleanup - Paid plugin
Perfmatters - Paid plugin
Dequeue Script using functions.php - very technical

You can check load time using Chrome - Web Developer - Network (like in #Optimize Image) or use Google Pagespeed Insight.

Website Load Test

We do this by creating false traffic to the website to ensure the server does not go down when the traffic spike.

You can use either of these tools

Windows Website Load test - Paessler
or Loader.io

*Be sure to scale max concurrent users based on your expectation. For small sites, 50. Large sites 1,000 above.

Final Acceptance Test (FAT)

We perform FAT for the last activity in the deploy stage before going into the warranty.

FAT is a lot simpler than UAT. You need to check the following.

DNS Propagation Test
Marketing Tag
Loading speed and response time
Basic Firewall Test
Cache
HTTPS Check
Email Send Test (Transactional Email)

FAT is a must for high-end web design project. Without following the proper web design process, the FAT usually end up in disaster.

Step5 - Dedication

‘Dedication’ is the phase that most Website Owners neglect. There are four key activities that have to be in place.
Warranty - Provided by Web Designers

Marketing - Feed the traffic to the website.
Maintenance - Updating the core, plugin, server and backup.
Metric - Measure the outcome and focus on improvement.
Monitor - Spot for errors in content, placement, possible hack

Warranty*

Warranty is usually provided by the Web Designers. This warranty usually covers minor changes, bugs and any issues pertaining to the website.

Warranty can be 30 days - 90 days and usually turns to Maintenance Contract after the warranty period is over.

Check with your web designers on the warranty.

Marketing - Get Traffic

Without marketing or traffic, your website is as good as a fax machine, waiting for transmission that rarely happens.

There are many options to get in more traffic into the website,

	Online	Offline
Free	SEO (partially) Guest Blogging Podcast Video (Youtube) Social Media Email existing customers	Word of Mouth Referrals
Paid	Facebook Ads Google Ads Full SEO service Digital PR News PR	Billboards Prints (brochure etc) TV & Radio

Traffic Ads are going to get more expensive as new players join the market. What you can do is determine the cost of obtaining customers and use it to spend on advertising.

Maintenance*

Like other assets, the completed website needs to be well maintained. Without proper maintenance, your website will be hacked, break or outdated.

The scope of maintenance varies depending on the size of the website.

Update the Core
Update the Plugins
Update the Theme
Perform Backup (and test restore)
Firewall and Security Checks
Code improvements
Traffic Monitoring.

Maintenance can be done quarterly, monthly or weekly, depending on the criticality of the website. With every maintenance, there should be a report supporting and explaining what has been done to the website.

Metric - Measure*

The website design process steps are incomplete without measuring the true outcome of the design. With every human design, there are bound to be improvements.

Thankfully web design can be easily measured. Here are the tools that I use.

Google Analytics - Measure most used page, incoming traffic (medium) and demographics.
Google Search Console - Search Query
Hotjar - Heatmap of website
Hubspot - CRM integration with the website (excellent for B2B)

With all this information, we can map it to Google Data Studio to see an overview of the website without login into each application.

Monitor

The last step in web design process is to monitor the website, visually (front end), and internally (after login, back end) for any possible threat, error and grammatical mistakes.

What good is a website if it's inaccurate?

Note: Those with * are required.

Conclusion of the Web Design Process

A website can be built overnight, but if it does not help you (website owners) achieve your business goals (link to top), then it is a useless marketing tool.

I hope I have covered the steps to design a website, from Discovery to Dedication.

Now you have a clear idea of what it takes to build a website and the amount of effort required in the web design process. They cover so much area from Design, Marketing, and Technical perspectives.

Final thoughts, Good outcome comes from Good Process. Use the best web design process, don't gamble on your first interaction.

Ready to build your new website? Let's talk about Web Design Process (or your project)

Website for New Business? 7 Questions You Need to Answer

Do I need a website for new business in 2020 and forth?

The short answer is, it depends.

As a web designer, I have the urge to tell you yes. But that goes against my personal rule, which is, to be honest (even if it hurts).

With the outbreak of Coronavirus Covid-19, it has become apparent, that businesses have to be online. Otherwise, you are on the losing end. Business needs a safety net. It needs to operate automatically without much interference from owners.

I can get sales from Social Media. Why website?

Great. But here's the reality.

Doing sales on Social Media is like passing brochures at a party. Only 3% will keep, the rest goes to the bin.

Whether you like it or not. No one likes to be sold on the social media platform. The only reason people go to these platforms is to connect with friends and be entertained.

When you have a website, it's like taking people to a private room to check out your product and services.

Right of the bat, almost all business needs a website. It's not a question do you need or not, it's a matter of when. If you are not them, then this post won't really help you.

For now, let’s explore the question of a website for new business a little deeper.

1. How many customers do you have?

Let's say it's less than 5 customers per year (big government contracts), you can get away without any website. Because it's super targeted, and most of the interaction is in person.

If you have more than 100 customers, then you can't clone yourself to entertain everyone. You need a solid medium to replicate your message.

Photo by Job Savelsberg on Unsplash

But if you haven't got any customers, then your focus shouldn't be on the website. It should be about building the business.

2. How do you get a new customer?

Meet in Person or phone calls? Do you go door to door to find new customers and always physical interaction. Common for insurance or direct sales. Or wait for referrals to come your way.

Promotion or paid advertisement. Do you print brochures or catalogs and send them to people? Do you run Facebook ads to attract new clients? If yes, you need a website.

By having a website, you can send them to one direction for anything related to the products or services you are selling. You can also retarget them and win mindshare.

Here's one of our 'Discovery Session' for Mesiniaga Berhad.

Basically, it would be really difficult (given our services) to sell without them knowing us through our website (first touchpoint). Most sales happen offline, through phone calls or meeting.

3. Have you made any sales?

When you start a business or have an idea about a business, sometimes, you might think about owning a professionally made website would be a great idea.

That’s a faulty idea.

When I started out, I didn’t have a website. I have the domain, but never a complete website. It was always on ‘Coming Soon’. I was busy chasing sales than making a website for myself. I had the sign for years and I’m a web designer!

People don’t find me through my website, I have my portfolios everywhere and get referrals. That's how I get customers. As I grew bigger, I delegate jobs and made the website.

You need to test the idea first. Get your first 10 customers. Then think about scaling up. Sales come first. Use as much as free tools you at your disposal. Like Linkedin Facebook etc. Get the customers going.

Or you can do what I do. Buy a domain and put a ‘Coming Soon’ sign.

When you’ve got a sizeable sales volume and have made enough to afford one, build a professional website. Hire the best web designer. It’s the best investment you will ever make.

4. Is there a validated demand?

Ever heard of the website Kickstarter? Well, that’s where innovative and creative people test the market. They create a product and test the idea. If there are enough backings & support, build a professional website.

Commodatize industries, like milk, rice, restaurant, the demand is validated. People desire good food, good cloth, good image & reputation and whatnot. If you’re servicing this demand, then build a unique website. Focus on positioning your business.

Do not be another 'me too' business.

While the demand for hand sanitizers, face mask and PPE is increasing due to Covid-19, do you think it will always go up? What happens when the cure is found?

You can analyze the demand by going to Google Trend.

5. How much is your product worth?

If you sell lemonade on the sidewalk with an average price of $1 per cup, and intend to stay that way, you don't need it. You do need a website if you intend to build a business through franchising your lemonade stand.

In B2B, if you're selling a Consultation service (which costs a lot of money), you definitely need one. You can't rely on Linkedin or Facebook to help sell for you. You need to show what you are worth and how have you helped others build the business.

6. Do you want to grow your business?

It would difficult to grow business if you are doing lobbying or middle man that serves anything your client wants. There’s no need for a website.

Some hardware stores owner I’ve met don’t want to grow their business. They don't intend to grow, which is alarming but that's their choice.

Growing a business means you need to reach more people. Besides social media, what better ways can you scale what you want to say to reach a bigger audience? TV Ads? Billboards? All this curiosity has to end somewhere. Where else if not a website?

Photo by Stanislav Kondratiev on Unsplash

7. Do you have a niche?

Do you sell anything and everything under the sun? If you do, you don't need a website. It will only hold you back if you have to update every single inventory you have. You can use ready malls like Lazada, Shoppee where people already have their wallets out, ready to pay for the next best thing.

The narrower the focus (niche) your business is, the more likely you will need a website. Being niche is good and people are constantly looking for niche business because they are experts at what they do.

For example, a katana maker (Japanese sword), only a handful of blacksmith makes it anymore (the sharp ones). Having a website can sharply increase the chance of getting found. I would recommend you use Google My Business too.

Conclusion - Do I Need a Website for New Business?

It depends. Follow through the question again. If any of your answers fall on left, then you are better off with not having a website. Wait until your business is ready and you get enough income coming in. That's when you know you need a website, to scale your business.

Here's a table for you to decide.

Question
1. Do you have more than 100 customers (for the consumer business, 10 for B2B)	Yes	No
2. Can you get sales without physically meeting to build trust?	Yes	No
3. Have you made any sales offline?	Yes	No
4. Is there a validated demand? Is this business trending?	Yes	No
5. Is your product expensive? (more than RM 200)	Yes	No
6. Is your business stable and growing?	Yes	No
7. Do you have a niche?	Yes	No

If any of your answers fall to 'No'. Then don't build a website. It's not your main focus right now. Focus on getting sales through other channels.

Insist on Creating Website for New Business?

Great. Here's how you can start.

Lean Website for New Business

By lean, I mean a really simple website, free if possible. Here's what you can do.

You Can Start With	Cost
1. Build a website on Blogspot.com	Free
2. Build a website on WordPress.com	Free
3. Build a website on Wix	Free, also paid version
4. Build a website on Squarespace (I love this tool)	Free, also paid version
5. Build a website on Google Sites	Free

Low Budget Website for New Business

If you've got some budget, then build a website good enough to collect the database. Convert them using other tools. But you have to pay for traffic, because single page websites do not rank well on Google.

Website Type	Price Range
Landing Page - A single page website to collect database or sales	RM 2,500 - RM 6,500
Corporate Website - About 5-8 Pages	RM 5,000 - RM 15,000
eCommerce - Integration with payment gateway, check out. (less than 5 products)	RM 4,500 - RM 9,000

Regardless of what you do, always remember, a website is a medium and it fits perfectly well in a marketing funnel.

Here's another way I can help you.

Want to Get More Leads from Your Website? - Read this Ebook.

11 Tips to Choose Web Designer Agency [Free Excel Template]

Choosing Web Designer Agency is critical to ensure the success of your website project.

In this post, I'll help you make the best decision to choose Web Designer Agency. You can also download or copy the Evaluation Template at the bottom of the page.

Let's get some fundamental right.

Web Design Objectives

"Start with End in Mind".

What do you want to achieve from the website? There are many things you can do and get from a website.

Here some sample objectives

Generate more leads
Drive more traffic to the website
Improve Customer Support

Company State

Secondly, you have to know exactly what stage are you in your business. There are 4 stages in total

Startup - Newly form. Have yet to sell any service
Growth - Sold product and services. Looking to scale
Mature - the Market knows you.
Rebirth/Die - Your market in sunsetting.

By knowing exactly where you are in business will help you determine the right website to build.

Three things you want from your Web Design project,

Completes on Time
Under Budget
Achieve Goal

What every business wants, is to get the best Return on Investment.

1. Know Your Budget for Web Design

Most business spends 5-10% of their annual revenue on marketing expenses.

Expect to take out 30-50% off that fund to your website. A simple calculation for a company with RM 1mil revenue is to spend around RM20k - 30k for the website (inclusive of strategy, design, photos, images, copywriting).

Setting the budget helps to narrow the right web designers.

Freelancers can build a website for as low as RM900. But they may be too busy to entertain your 'small' request.

Hiring a web design agency may set you back more than RM 10,000. But you have backups-people in case the main designer goes on holiday.

Cheapest may not be your best option, likewise the most expensive. What you want is the result, not cost-saving.

Pro Tips: Be upfront with your budget. Ask, what will I get with RM X.

2. Availability of Web Designers

Ask how many projects do they have at hand. Ask if they can handle more load. More projects at hand mean lesser time to focus on your project. (unless they are super good and you're willing to wait).

Like you, most business wants their website yesterday. But that's not going to happen.

You need to be realistic with the deadline. Large companies normally require top-level approval. Consider their approval too in the timeline.

Expect to pay a premium for a rush job (which requires the team to stay back).

Pro Tip: Ask how long will your project complete.

3. Communication with Web Designers

Brevity. Not too long, not too short.

This depends on you. Do you have a lot of time to speak to the web designers and want a lengthy explanation? Or you prefer a quick one-liner response from them? Do they speak accurately or takes a while to get to a point?

Tone. Strict or fun?

Do you want a web designer that speaks purely business (no kids stories) or side notes? Or pure fun with waves of laughter throughout the meeting?

What means of communication do you expect? Email, Whatsapp Group, and Telegram, or Only Phone call? This has to be established from the get-go.

Failing to get the message across may lead to a disastrous job. Avoid it at all costs by explaining head to tail what is it you want to achieve.

Pro Tip: Limit the communication channel to 2, email and WhatsApp group. Always, always have black and white communication. That includes Minutes of Meeting.

4. Web Designers Portfolio

Don't ask for a mockup, instead ask for their portfolio.

See whether the web designer's portfolio is aligned with your design taste. Does the 'looks and feel' pleases you?

Most web designers are good at copying. (At least that's how I learned.) Be sure to provide some website samples that you like.

Ask for their latest portfolio. Like most web designers, I am too busy dealing with projects, hence the portfolio page is a bit neglected. And normally, they would update the portfolio in other means, like a presentation slide.

A website is a process, not an outcome.

Pro Tip: Ask about the success of the website project they have developed. How many leads, sales & traffic generated? You want business results, not only design.

5. Web Design Experience & Processes

Years in business matters.

A 3 years experience website designer is never the same with 10 years.

More years, more expensive. They've done countless experiments, hit many walls, split brains, they know what works what doesn't.

This does not mean lesser experience can't get the job done, they are in fact more agile, flexible and hungry. If you pay them, you are willing to experiment with their method (may take a longer time but cheaper).

The experience ones would have established workflow, stable and proven system, checklists, dedicated teams, organized project management. If you hire them, you pay a premium to reduce the risk of hiccups.

Pro Tip: Assess the risks that you are willing to take and budget you have. Ask about their Detailed Web Design Process or Roadmap.

6. Business Acumen & Requirement

Definition from Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_acumen

"Business acumen ("Business savvy" and "business sense" are often used as synonyms) is keenness and quickness in understanding and dealing with a "business situation" (risks and opportunities) in a manner that is likely to lead to a good outcome."

Be open to answering business questions from web designers. They need to know how your business works.

Work with those who understand (or at least try to understand) how your business works. The more knowledge they have about your business, the closer they can take you to your goal.

Most established web designers & agencies I know have sharp business acumen. So eliminating the bad apples is very easy.

You also need to come up with project requirements, but we'll do that in a new blog post.

Pro Tip: Hire the ones that try hardest to understand your business.

7. Web Design Social Proof & Social Obligation

There are several ways to do this, but I like to limit this to two, Online Ratings and Recent Post on Social Media.

Laman7 rating on Facebook and Google.

For Online Ratings, you can check Google Reviews or Facebook Page. Read what other customers have written to them. Skip the short one's line, "Good" or "Excellent", we can agree those are not helpful comments. Read the replies if they are rated poorly. Sometimes Spammers would leave a comment for no good reason.

While most web designers don't have time to write a lengthy blog post (like this one) they often share on Social Media. Whether they curate content, shared a link, share quotes, or videos, as long as they are updated.

Think of it like a heartbeat. If there's no content, then the company is probably dead (or facing serious marketing issues).

what matters is not the frequency or number of likes, it's the consistency and quality.

Social Obligation is about giving back to the world. Do they volunteer, do CSR, host intellectual events, share knowledge, share ideas, sparks interest? If yes, that's a winner.

You want to work with these web designers because they have a bigger goal, "saving the world" and they are selfless. They pour their hearts back to society for free. Imagine if you paid them.. how far will they go for you?

Pro Tip: Look for the ones that sparks inspiration, educate consumers, creates value.

Bonus Round - What Not to Prioritize in Hiring Web Designers

8. Website Features

When it comes to the technical aspect of it, it's either CAN DO or CAN'T DO.

I wouldn't be too hung up on features. Because there are a thousand ways to get it done. It's all a matter of research. Features are not unique, someone, somewhere out there has probably created something similar. I will never need to reinvent the wheels.

Pro Tip: With every feature, ask yourself, will it help get you close to your goal?

9. Pricing Options

Web Design is a service business. It's not a product. Nothing like McDonald's where you can decide whether it's Chicken or Beef Burger. Whichever way you choose, it's ultimate does the same thing, it's food.

Picture this.

It's 4 PM and you need to get the airport by 5 PM. Does it matter how you get there? Do you need a limo, does it still matter?

While it may be good for you to have options, it's just going to add more clutter to your brain. Adding more parameters to evaluate.

10. Web Design Awards & TV Appearance

Yes, awards are cool. You can trust it. They deserved it.

Let me ask you this, do you like every single Oscar-Winning movie? I don't know about you, but I hated the movie "Moonlight". It took me 3 attempts (I slept midway) to complete the movie. The movie did not resonate with me.

The award-winning website is designed to do one thing, Win Awards and Look Good.

I'm not saying it's not good, it's just not your priority.

(Yes, I've appeared on TV, I was really nervous.)

11. Web Design Discounts and Cheapest

I'm not saying that you should avoid completely (sometimes I am cheapest to my competitors, haha). It's not your priority.

In order to be cheapest, something has to be trimmed. Whether it's a software license, stolen artwork, cheaper workstations, digital nomad (work from Starbucks), attentiveness, timeline, features, template. Basically there will be something lacking.

Ask why are they the cheapest and how did they do it.

Most of the time, there's a strategy. (Ahaa!) They might want to upsell you with other complementing services (which is compulsory), limited time only, limited features. etc. You will get the answers when you ask.

Bonus Round

Go to this Google Sheet, and make a copy of the evaluation criteria. Feel free to add more fields.

Want to Generate More Leads from Web Design in Malaysia? Make an appointment.

Summary - Choose Web Designer Agency

Choose the ones that will help you get to a higher state in your business. Choose a web designer agency that is aligned to your goal. Choose web designers that argue with you as if it's their own business because they have a genuine interest in seeing you grow.

Don't choose because they are the cheapest (unless it's necessary), promises you quick turnaround time (they use generic templates), the ones that sweet talks you (you know when you came across one)

30 Website Mistakes That SME & Corporate Makes

Before we dive deeper into website mistakes. Let's try to understand the components of a website.

A website is a combination of 3 major components. Design, Marketing/ Messaging & Technical. I call this the website trifecta (I design and develop websites for the last 13 years, I know a lot about web design and digital marketing.)

The three components must be in perfect harmony in order to build a good website. Look at the overlapped areas.

Your goal is to build a website that serves your business.

Otherwise, the website would be a ~~cost, not an investment~~ useless.

In this post, I am going to share with you the reasons why websites fail to help your business. Let's break down based on the three components.

You can build better websites by using our Free Web Design Strategy.

Technical Website Mistakes

"Speed is the name of the game, while not compromising the safety and functions."

While pursuing speed, you must also take into account the function. If you don't need it, remove it. Here are some technical website mistakes.

#1 No HTTPS

The website is insecure. The connection between your website and a visitor device may be intercepted. Search Engine (like Google) will not reward you on the top of the keyword search (even though you deserved it). Starting from July 2018, Google Chrome (the web browser) starts displaying signs like this. If you run an ecommerce website, you risk of losing 40% of the business.

Google announced in Feb '18, Chrome 68 and above will show "not secure" in the address bar.

#2 Not Mobile Responsive

In 2018, 54% of the websites are viewed from devices besides desktop. The number is expected to go up as humans prefer to visit websites on the go. While you can still pinch zoom to see the content, it will ultimately reduce the website experience and eventually leave the website.

Source: Google Developer

#3 Loads Slower than 3 Seconds

If your website loads more than 3 seconds, 40% of visitors will abandon the website and 80% of visitors will not return. Here's an infographic from Section.io.

#4 Lack of Image Compression

While most visitors use high-speed broadband, there are times they surf in a congested area with limited internet speed on their mobile device. Image compression can reduce the size by almost 90% of the file, making it quicker to download. Let’s face it, nobody likes to wait.

#5 No Browser Caching

Browser caching helps the website to load quickly for the returning visits. This will also reduce the load on the servers to serve the content.

#6 Not Minified Scripts

Minified scripts help the website to load faster. While this may be a fraction faster, this also helps search engines to rank you higher.

#7 Not Working as Designed

Your website should function just like how it is designed. Meaning if you have a contact form, it better work. If you have a search function, it better provides the right results and so forth. Remember, websites are often the first interaction with your prospects, make it a meaningful one.

#8 Cheap Server Hosting

By cheap, I mean a shared server. In a shared server environment, resources like RAM, Processor, Traffic are potentially shared with hundreds of other websites. Thus making your website load slower.

#9 No Security Plugin

Security plugin helps to do two things, block attacks and scan for potential threats. Without a security plugin, your website is open to attacks.

#10 Not Leveraging on CDN

CDN helps to drastically improve the speed of website by serving files that are closer to your location. For example, my server is in Singapore and you are from Ohio. Using CDN, the website will be served from a nearer location like Oklahoma, instead of sending packets from Singapore. Faster website impacts greatly on user experience.

Conclusion for Technical

Faster and functional websites are rewarded with more page views, more attention.

Marketing - Website Mistakes

Marketing is about communicating your values and sharing the benefits of using your product to your target audience. Let's get started with the marketing website mistakes.

#11 Lack of Content

Visitors do not know what the website is about because it lacks description and context. 46% of the visitor leaves the website without further exploration or interaction.

#12 No Lead Generation Mechanism

Capturing leads can be done using premium content, email newsletter, Facebook Pixel or Google Marketing. This would not allow you to remarket your product and services to the visitor.

#13 Not Measuring the Website

The website can be measured using Google Analytics. When you don’t measure you miss a thousand chances to make the website better through engaging content, improve placement of button and lead generation. Here are some free and paid tools to track your traffic.

#14 No Clear Call to Action

Every website should compel visitors to do something. Even if the purpose is to provide information, the call to action should encourage visitors to remember it and return for updates.

#15 Lack of USP, Story, Concept

Customers have an abundance of options for products and services. What separates you from your competitors? Does the visitor have to dig into the website to find it? Your USP should be upfront. Tell your visitors why they should choose you! If you're not doing this, your competitors are doing it.

#16 Lack of Contact Info

Without clear contact info, prospects struggle to find ways to get your product/services eventually gives up (to contact your company). Show location, general phone line, general email. Anything to help your visitors get to you.

#17 Not Answering Visitors Questions

Your visitors arrive at your website with sets of questions prior to their visit. Here are some questions you can ask yourself.

Why you?
How does this product help me?
How do I talk to a real person?
What do you actually do?
Who do you serve?

These questions have to be answered in order to create an engaging website.

#18 No Privacy Policy

20% of Internet users read the privacy policy. Privacy policy shows a plan for the website to protect the visitors, even though they do not understand what it means.

#19 No Return & Warranty Policy

Return & Warranty is important for the eCommerce website. It provides assurance that you will fulfill your promise if any goes wrong.

#20 No Shipping Rates & Option

Shipping details provide a clear understanding of how much it cost and who will fulfill the shipment. 30% of eCommerce is unlikely to make a purchase for an unknowing shipping cost and courier.

#21 Poor Copywriting

Copywriting is the content on your sales page. The common issue is trying to sell to the audience immediately. You start talking about yourself, your business, how good you are etc. In the old days, that may work. Today, there is a mountain of competition. Your message should be about the customer, what problem are you solving, how do you provide value for your services.

Conclusion for Marketing

Again, I would like to reiterate, it's about communication. Your headline should force the visitor to read the sub-headline and so forth. Provide as much information as possible in brevity.

UIUX Design - Website Mistakes

On the contrary to belief, UI (user interface) is not abstract. There are parameters to define "beauty" for websites. These are the balance of elements, color, alignment, proportion and so forth. There are 14 principles in Graphic Design, refer to Wikipedia. Meanwhile, UX (user experience) directs the user to perform the desired action on the website, for example, "download this content".

UIUX website mistakes can easily be seen and fixed, unlike the other two.

#22 Inconsistent Layout

Inconsistent layout, for instance, is a different menu navigation placement on every single page. Visitors and prospects will have to relearn the pages' navigation ultimately making them leave the website because it's too hard to digest.

#23 Using Banner Slides on the Main page

Sliding Banner (Carosell) will induce a “banner blindness”, where the visitors do not want to wait for the website to load all of the images. This will also slow down the website.

#24 Poor Use of White Space

White space is important to reduce clutter, encourage interaction, creates balance and act as separator on the website. Too many elements may induce eye fatigue and visitors leaving the website too early.

Remember Yahoo in 1998? I didn't have much choice then, but would you use it today? I know I wouldn't.

#25 Ugly/Irrelevant Image

While relevant images help to support the content, irrelevant images do the opposite, create more questions about the content. Visitors will struggle to find the meaning ultimately leave the website.

Image on the left showcase the KL Twin Tower, it has very little relevance to headline as compared to the image on the right.

#26 Hidden Navigation

Making the visitors work to find your content will have an adverse effect on usability. If visitors can’t connect with your message and content, they will leave.

#27 Mixed Typography

Three (3) is the maximum typography (or fonts) before visitors lose interest and get confused with the content. Adding more fonts will also increase the loading speed and create conflicting emphasis on content.

What do you feel about this website? Creative or a jungle mess? Do you know where to start reading?

#28 Content is Not Scannable

Websites are meant to be scannable. Does this mean lesser content? No. The content should be structured based on headings, point forms, quotes, bold, italicize and highlighted.

According to Backlinko (SEO agency), a website with scannable content has higher readability versus long lengthy paragraphs.

#29 Poor Search function

Your visitors, especially e-commerce wants to find your product/services quickly. The search function helps the visitor to master large and complex websites. Without the search function, your visitor will feel defeat and give up on your website

#30 Using Generic Images/ Stock Photos

Stock photos are good for one thing, mockup. Beyond that, the usage of stock photos should be limited to periodic content or blog posts. Using stock photos hinders the visitor to have a taste of what your company is about. It does very little to gain their trust.

The image on the right may not be as high quality (lighting, composition, etc) as on the left, but it provides mean to determine the experience with the company.

Conclusion for Design

Design is a matter of taste. People have different opinions about design (aesthetic) however, you can't argue with the technical aspects of design.

Choose the look that evokes the right emotion for your business. Use your Corporate Image (CI) as guidelines. If you don't have any, make one.

UIUX design website mistakes are often overlooked, but it is not as critical as marketing and technical website mistakes.

Biggest Conclusion

Your website needs to be snappy quick, functional and secure. At the same time appeal to the target market and encourage them to take the desired action. The goal is simple, do very little to piss your visitors off.

What does your website say about your company? Best websites start with Strategy. Go ahead, Download our Web Design Strategy and work on it.

Avoid these website mistakes and generate more leads.

Build the Right Website for Your Business

"I want a website for my business. But how much should I spend on Website? What is the right website for me?" - These are questions often asked by business.

No website is created equal. Every website will have a different focus, look, design, budget and so forth. Your website should be tailored to your needs and marketing strategy. Learn more about Web Design Strategy.

In my 13 years experience building websites, I have seen startups that crash and burn their digital marketing investment because it does not fit their business needs. And there's a big business that spends way too little for their website, which did not reflect their brand at all.

This post aims to share a suitable website based on your business stage.

Basically, there are 4 Business Stages, you can jump to the topic by clicking the link below.

Startup.
Growth.
Maturity
Rebirth.

Startup Stage

Characteristics of Startup

Less than 5 staff
Testing an idea to sell
Still figuring out who the customer is, what they want, what problem are you solving?
Bootstrap, using whatever you have at disposal
Less than 1 year

Prudent Spending. Think hard before spending.
Focused on building a team.
Not more than 100 customers (for B2C), or 3 accounts (for B2B)
A single staff may perform two or three roles.

Common Problem with Startup Website

1. Going Full Blown eCommerce.

A lot of startups we’ve worked with went for full fledge e-commerce and it failed to reap in ROI due to lack of marketing strategy and know-how. Winning customer on eCommerce is not as easy as building it. You need at least these three elements; authority, relevance, and trust. Since startup is newly born brand, it’s difficult to win these three elements.

2. Super Customized Website

From every aspect of it. Design, technical, how it functions, the flow etc. You'll burn a hole in your pocket. Instead, try focusing on your business. Super customize website is ideal if you have plenty of time (and money). Unless you are a tech startup and have major funding, this is the way to go.

3. A Website can Solve Your Sales Problem

A website is an automation tool. It does not perform magic. For example, if you're tired of explaining and closing sales through WhatsApp, a website can reduce your workload tremendously.

What You Should Do for Your Website

During this period, branding isn't everything. You do with whatever you have as lean as possible. As long as you get it working. That applies to the website as well. Ideally, you do not want to spend too much for your website, instead of focusing your energy on getting in the black, break even.

Your focus should be on Free Channel like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.

Go for a free website like Blogspot, WordPress.com, Wix, and Squarespace. Test the idea, gauge your audience, test your marketing campaign.

But if you’re a professional (lawyers, architects etc) and consider a professional one-page website. We have the perfect web design package for you which starts at RM 1,500.

Growth Stage

Characteristics of Growth

Start seeing profit
5-10 Staffs
100-10,000 customers (B2C), 3-20 accounts (B2B)

Have and execute a Marketing Plan
Staffs have a dedicated role.

During this stage, your business starts to see revenue rolling in. You know your customer, they know you. You are more optimistic.

At this stage, branding becomes important. You want to differentiate yourself from your competitors. You start polishing your USP and ramping up marketing expenses.

You invest in Digital Marketing like Facebook Ads, Google Adwords, influencers etc. You have an influx of people asking about your product and you worry about the conversion rate (sales per visitor).

It would be ok to entertain 2-3 prospect via WhatsApp per day, beyond that, you'd need an efficient solution. This is when you need a professional website.

By professional, I mean, you hire someone to do it for you. These are pro's who have been doing this for more than 3 years. Or if you insist to be cheap, you can hire a freelancer. But that comes with risks like an incomplete job, not organized work, slow response. Find a freelancer who is doing this permanently, not as a side gig.

Common Problem with Growth Website

1. Being too Cheap.

Want close to free is not going to end well. You'll have a hard time convincing prospects.

2. Zero Cost Marketing.

Still relying on Instagram and Facebook. What if a competitor flag your Facebook page for selling counterfeit items. It'll be down and you lose all your follower.

3. Generic Design.

Nothing wrong with using paid theme and template, but it needs to be customized. It should follow your Corporate Identity.

What You Should Do for Your Website

Your website should focus on

Sales page (products & services page)
Copywriting - About us, Sales etc.
Your own image stock.
Tracking bounce rate, dwell time
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Capturing Leads
Newsletter
Blog Post - Share your technical knowledge
e-Commerce (B2C)
Maintenance

Your budget should be within RM 3k to RM 12k for the website.

Your website should be personalized and tailored to what your prospects want to see & hear. Remember a website, is not about you, it's about how you can help your customer. So throw away your preference for design and maintain a strict Corporate Identity.

If you already have a website, you may want to perform a website audit before redesigning the website.

Maturity Stage

Characteristics of Maturity

Constant revenue stream
5 above Staffs
More than 10,000 customers (B2C), More than 30 accounts (B2B)
You have specialist staff

You have lots of certification & awards.
More than 10 years of operation
You have Corporate Communication or Dedicated Marketing team.

Business is excellent and established. Everyone knows your brand. Your customer trusts your brand. You became the target of all your competitors.

Your Brand positioning will be your key to winning more business. Why your customer should continue buying from you. Your story should be coherent throughout your marketing channels. Your website has to be super 'tight' and awesome. Because if people want to find you, they Google it. Most of your traffic will be direct (they search for your name).

Your most valuable tool will be your website. It's the digital storefront of your business to attract new business and talents.

You start scrutinize ways to optimize every click, track every visitor's behavior, try to understand the pattern. Basically, you want better ROI from your website.

Common Problem with Mature Business Website

1. Lack of Maintenance

Just like cars, website needs maintenance too. We had a large customer who did not maintain their site. It was outdated and eventually hacked. The worst part, they did not have the most recent back up. 2 years of updating content gone in minutes.

Either do it in-house or hire a third party to help maintain your website.

2. No Content Marketing Strategy

According to a survey by HubSpot, in 2017, 80% of marketers wants to focus on Content marketing.

If you're competitors are providing more value to you customer, do you think you can stand a chance?

Content Marketing is the cheapest way to attract prospects. Do write about your technical knowledge, success stories, White Papers, checklist, infographic.

2. Poor Copywriting

It's all about me!

"We are the best", "We have technical ability", "We have the right process".

Instead, write how you being the best can help your customer.

Example: Your success means everything to us. With the right and refined process, your product will increase by 200% and reducing 200 hours per week.

It has to be about your customer. All the time.

What You Should Do to Your Website

Your website should focus on

Case Studies and Portfolio
Success Stories
Share events going on. Workshop, Free class, Launching etc.
Sales page (products & services page)
Copywriting - About us, Sales etc.
Your own image stock.
Tracking bounce rate, dwell time
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Create tools to help your customer
Newsletter - Send EDM to previous and existing customers
Loading Speed of Website
Maintenance

Your budget should be within RM 15k to RM 150k per year, for maintenance and redesign (if required). Use a web agency that focuses on marketing and understands design philosophy. Please don't be cheap with your website marketing. Your competitors are tailing you closely, and you don't want to lose your customer to them.

Spend on Website Audit to get a better perspective on your website.

Rebirth Stage

Characteristics of Rebirth Stage

Inconsistent Monthly Revenue
Thinning Margin
Loyal and talented workforce is leaving

High staff turnover
Customer have options
Customer no longer advocate your brand

The signs are there, you start to worry about survival. This is the make or break situation.

Your revenue starts dipping, your ads are not working, and you don't get the same ROI as before. This is normally due to the new businesses competition that offers better value at a lower price.

Since you have been long in business, you have three things that none of your new competitors have, Customer Relationship, Technical Knowledge and Cashflow.

Common Problem with Rebirth Business Website

1. High Bounce Rate

By high, I mean 80% and above. These pages can be corrected by changing the Call-to-Action, copywriting

2. Design Based on Gut Instinct

This is a dangerous path, often leads to disaster.

A web designer takes years to understand design, a decade to master the art. They know what they're doing and how to help you.

Trust them but do provide feedback. Just don't limit the creativity.

3. Poor SEO Efforts

Rebirth business typically holds an aged domain. This is good news to Google but often under utilize the power of aged domain.

SEO can attract new customers through good content, like white papers, product details etc. They may not purchase straight away, but at least they know your existence.

4. Did Not Track Traffic

Tracking your traffic can help you understand what your visitor is looking for. How long are they on the page? Which page is the most popular (after main page). It gives you insight.

And yet, rebirth business do not track this data.

Traffic data is crucial to redesigning your website. If not data, how else would the designer help you?

What You Should Do to Your Website

You must perform a full marketing audit.

Marketing audit can help you

Understand your competitors
Understand the current market
Know other's price point
Perform survey to existing and previous customers
Identify problems with your marketing strategy

The fee is going to cost about RM 50k to millions per year (depending on the size of your business).

Once you have the audit, you'll know in detail how to fix it. For the website, you should focus on

Redesign the Website
Case Studies and Portfolio
Success Stories
Technical Sheets
Share Events. Workshop, Free class, Launching etc.
Sales page (products & services page)
Copywriting - About us, Sales etc.
Your own image stock.
Tracking bounce rate, dwell time
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Create tools to help your customer
Newsletter - Send EDM to previous and existing customers
Loading Speed of Website
Maintenance

Look forward to spending about RM 50k to 200k to revamp your website. Hire a Media Agency to have a consistent message across all channels.

Conclusion

Your Website is probably the first interaction with your prospect. First impression matters, (so do branding in the long run). Build a website that suits your business stage, according to your means. Being cheap today is going to be costly for you in the future.

I highly recommend you check out our One-Page Web Design Strategy.

Over to you and good luck!

Web Design Price Malaysia: RM 1,500 vs RM 200k!

The average price for website design service in Malaysia is between RM 1,500 to RM 200,000 (and more). Whoaa, that's a big jump!

Firstly, no website is created equal. Ultimately, the price of a website is derived from the business problem. The bigger the problem, the more expensive it's going to cost.

(This post is a live document. I will keep adding content as I deemed fit.)

You can skip to any content by clicking on the link below.
1. Who is the Customer - Web Design Price Malaysia
2. Ask Yourself the Requirements
3. Custom Web Design or Packaged Web Design?
4. Web Design Package Pricing
5. Why Difference in Price between Web Designers?
6. What to Look for When Hiring Web Designers
7. Should You Go for Cheap Website (Below RM 1k)?

Build Better Website with our Free Web Design Strategy .

Web Design Strategy

1. Who is the Customer - Web Design Price Malaysia

The bulk of price usually depends on who the customer is. We can split into three groups, government, corporate and small-medium business.

Government Web Design Price Malaysia

For Government agencies, expect the price to be in the hundreds of thousands. The amount is due to 3 main factors, Decision Makers, Size of Project and Slow Turnaround.

Usually, for Gov, the decision maker is not fixed, sometimes the head agrees, and staff doesn't, so back to the drawing board. For Size, typically gov websites have many pages, more pages = more service. And because of its slow turnaround in nature (longer than usual), other fees are incorporated into the pricing, i.e., interest on top of margin.

Corporate Web Design Price

The price for corporate ranges from RM 20k to 150k. The cost depends on three key factors, Content, Design and Features.

Content: Corporate likes to tell stories. These stories are not quick and cheap to make. It requires a different level of marketing maturity to write a good one.

Design: Some corporations have their CI (Corporate Identity), some doesn't but to be safe, the typical is 3-5 draft concepts before getting approved.

Features: They like to request advance which requires niche skills, i.e., API integrations, database restructure, fancy animation, etc.

Small-Medium Business (SMB) Web Design Price

The recommended selling price to these group is between RM 1.5k to RM 25k. Mostly depends on two factors, Quantity of Pages and Features

The number of pages is used as a guide to calculate the total sum for the website price. For one page website, it costs RM 1.5k. Adding more pages will add to the final price.

Adding more features to the CMS, the higher the cost will be. These features are due to software licensing and the services provided to customized this software.

It all comes down the requirements. Let's explore some basic requirements.

2. Ask Yourself the Requirements

Before you start any web design project, you must first understand what is it your honestly want from your website. By obeying the goal of the website, you can address the requirements with ease.

Below is some question you might want to ask:

Items	Description	Price Range
1. Domain	Depends whether you want local (.com.my) or international (.com, .net etc)	RM 50 - 200 per year
2. Hosting	Hosting will determine how fast your website loads. The nearer to users the quicker the website will be. There are two types (to make things simpler), shared hosting and private hosting. Shared hosting means you are sharing with other websites. Typically slower and vulnerable to attacks (the same platform hosted other websites.) Private hosting costs more, but you are alone in your platform. Lower risk to get attacks.	Shared Hosting: from RM 150 per yearPrivate Hosting: from RM 500 per year
3. Content Management System (CMS)	CMS is typically used to control the content of pages. The most popular CMS is WordPress, which runs nearly 33% of the entire internet! The price mainly depends on the plugins used. Premium plugins can cost up to RM 1,000 per year license.	Setup Fee: RM 150 - 3500.
4. How Many Pages	The best way to go about this is by following your Company Profile. Typically SMB websites have about six pages. Home, About, Contact (address), Product, Services, Past Projects. These pages are the bare minimum for a corporate website.	RM 150 - 900 per page.
5. Design Concepts	Design concept or mockup are usually made to ensure that the end users understand how the website will look, "prototype" is another name for it. Typically only 3-5 pages are made per concept. A concept can take from a day to 2 weeks to complete.	from RM 1,500 per concept
6. Themes	Themes are great to save the cost of production and reduce the time to develop the website. These themes can be bought doing a simple search. There is also configurations, and some degree of the technical know-how is required.	from USD 60
7. Custom Hierarchy Content (custom post type)	When you have a hierarchy of content, custom post types is used. for example: Product Category A > Subcategory 1 Product Category A > Subcategory 2 Product Category B > Subcategory 3 Product Category B > Subcategory 4 The best case is for a business that has many products, e.g., Nestle family. Also known as Custom Post Type.	Setup Fee: from RM 500 Data Entry: from RM 50 per page
8. Photography	"A picture is worth a thousand words." Custom photos can go a long way for your branding. It looks more personalized and professional.	from RM 1,500 per session
9. Copywriting	Writing content is easy, but 'sellable' content that's going to win the sales is not. Hiring professional writers will help your website look professional, market-centric and make your products feel closer to your audience.	from RM 500 per page
10. Online Payment	You'd like to receive payment from the customer? Whether it's for online booking, payment for a product or accepting donations, this is for you. Rigorous testing is required to ensure that money doesn't flow the wrong way.	Setup Fee: from RM 2,500
11. SEO Ready & Optimized	Do you want to be Search Engine Ready? Having this enabled will have your website ranked on Search Engine in about three months. SEO allows you to tap into "free traffic" to your website.	Setup Fee: from RM500 Retainer Fee: from RM 1k
12. Maintenance	A website without maintenance is like a car without a change of engine oil. It will run, but it'll also die quickly. Website Support is the most common problem businesses have when it comes to their website, lack of maintenance. Maintenance Usually covers the following WordPress & Plugin Update Check for Error, Attacks, Spam and remove/prevent it Adding more content to the website Troubleshoot for errors	from RM 150 per month
13. Backup Current Content	Typically when a project completes, a web designer will keep a copy of the website in case of any error. It's best to keep a copy of the website every single month so that when you restore, it's closest to the latest version.	from RM 20 per month

3. Custom Web Design or Packaged Web Design?

Web Design Package is standard practice for a web design agency. Web design jargons can be confusing, and there are many elements required to run a website. To make it simple, these elements are packaged.

Custom Web Designs are usually more expensive as more effort are pour into it. Whereas Packaged Web Design typically uses a pre-made theme and plugin so they (web designers) can build it quicker by changing the text and images.

Choose Custom Website - when your business is stable. Meaning, you have a good number of people working for you, revenue is consistent every month, and you want to edge out your competitors. Don't build a Custom Website if you're testing out a business idea. Startups often make this mistake when building a website (unless you're an online startup).

Use our Website Estimator Tool to know how much custom website costs.

Choose Packaged Web Design - when you want an MVP (minimum viable product) or to prove that you exist. Don't choose Packaged Web Design to save money (if you're a large corporation) or already own a website. Being cheap is going to bury your branding in the long run.

4. Web Design Package Pricing

Web design package differs from a web design agency to another. This difference mostly depends on what services are rendered and plugin/tools used. I can speak for everyone but here's our Web Design Package (as for 2018).

One Page Website Price - from RM 1598

Suitable for Startup. You want to test an idea or have a straightforward website to showcase your products and location.
Great for Restaurants - showcase your menu & location
Great for Small Printing - show your printing rate & location

What You Get:

1 Page Website
WordPress setup. Includes Premium Plugin
(optimized for marketing and speed)
Hosted on SSD Cloud servers (super fast)
Custom Web Design Mockup
SEO Ready & Google Analytics installed
Contact Form & Google Map Location
Mobile Responsive Design and more

Web design price malaysia one page package

Basic Website Package Price - from RM 2998

Suitable for Growing business. Stable revenue and wants to improve branding.
Great for B2B companies - share your past works, certifications, partnership, clientele, about, products, etc.
Great consumer-facing business - share the joy you bring, unique angle, food selection, price rate, etc.

What You Get:

From 5 Page Website
WordPress setup. Includes Premium Plugin
(optimized for marketing and speed)
Hosted on SSD Cloud servers (super fast)
Custom Web Design Mockup
SEO Ready & Google Analytics installed
Contact Form & Google Map Location
Mobile Responsive Design and more

Web design price malaysia - Multi page Package

eCommerce Website Package - from RM 4998

Suitable for Growing business. Tested and able to sell products on Facebook, Instagram.
eCommerce is the best to automate your sales process instead of using private messages to 'close' a sale.
Great for consumer-facing business. Convenience for your customer and builds trust.

What You Get:

From 5 pages and 5 products.
WordPress WooCommerce setup. Includes Premium Plugin
(optimized for marketing and speed)
Hosted on SSD Cloud servers (super fast)
Custom Web Design Mockup
Online Payment integration
SEO Ready & Google Analytics installed
Contact Form & Google Map Location
Mobile Responsive Design

Web design price malaysia - eCommerce Package

Want your website ASAP? Get the web design package from Laman7!

As mentioned before, packaged web design is for owners that don't want to deal with the technical hassle of pick-and-choose options. It's bundled with all the goodness of any website can give.

5. Why Difference in Price between Web Designers?

Web Designers is a service industry. The following is applied:

Experience - Mature web designers can build a high-quality website within a week (given the right content). They also know which is the best path to take to reduce risk in a project. They can communicate well, have a good command of project management, stable workflow, concise checklists and are generally passionate about the website technology. Beginner (below two years experience) are usually cheaper, but it comes at higher risks, like an incomplete job, unable to deliver on time, etc. These risks justify the low pricing.
Specialist Area - Every web designer would master a particular area. These areas include technical, marketing, design, User Experience, Copywriting, Animations and more. The more specialized they are, the more expensive it would be to hire them.
Tools used - Software and Hardware can run into thousands. Some are a one-time payment; some are monthly.
Demand - It will be expensive to hire a web designer that is busy with huge projects.
Size of Agency - The more significant the agency, the higher the cost. The cost is due to the number of overhead in the agency. You have a back up if the person in charge is on leave. Unlike hiring freelancer.

6. What to Look for When Hiring Web Designers

Finding a website design company is not hard these days, the question is, are they right for you?

Well, here are some pointers before hiring one

Pointers

Explanation

1. Assessing Your Risks

The risk associated are usually two, incomplete job and an extended deadline. The problem typically happens when you work with a small team or freelancer. If there's no deadline, then you can proceed with a cheaper alternative. Do ask;

Who is going to build the website?
How will you build it?
What's the timeline?
Whom to contact for any problem related to the website?

How is the support?
What's your server uptime?
How do I know the progress of the website?
Do you provide a staging server?

2. Communication Skills

Communication should be clear and concise. Meaning, if you say A, they understand A. Likewise for B and so forth. It doesn't matter if it's on Whatsapp Group, email or phone call. They have to know and similarly, you must try to understand what they mean. Drawing from my own experience, most of my failures in web design projects are typically due to miscommunication.

3. Meeting the Budget

Don't get offended if web designer asks for your budget. They are not trying to jack the price to rob your money but instead finding the best ways to spend it. Always be upfront with your budget and be willing to part with it.

Pro Tip: You can always haggle with Top Web Designers, as long as you are upfront with your budget. They will level with you and provide a leaner option.

4. Projects at Hand

Too many projects at hand are both good and bad. Good because they are in demand, they are good at what they do. Bad, means they have lesser time to spend on your project.

Low project count is good because these designers have time for your project but it may also signal a reputation.

5. Portfolio

By now you should realize that producing a mockup will cost you. Not many web designer wants to give this away for free (anymore). Web Design is an art form; no artist is willing to give for free.

Do request for the latest portfolio, because sometimes the projects listed on the website is not updated or signed NDA not to reveal any work related to the customer.

Assessing the portfolio is a great way to know whether the designer reflects your branding image, design style, and taste. If it doesn't resonate with you, find someone else.

Pro Tip: Any web designer can deliver a job, the difference is design style, technical ability, and marketing know-how

6. Workflow

At some point you do have to hand over some images and content that you have for the website, it's essential to establish a workflow between you and the web designer. Workflow can exist in many forms such as checklists, flowcharts, project management tracker, post-it notes, documentation and so forth.

Workflow can help manage tasks, inform of project updates, anticipate changes and due dates. In short, Workflow is a plan.

Pro Tip: Do ask for a workflow. You are running a business; you want your project to be in order.

7. Show Examples

Describing how your website to look like is hard if you don't understand the designer's lingo. The best way to go about this is present to them a few examples of how your dream website would look.

Do ask them if it's possible to build/design based on the budget you have. The examples would act as a gate that protects your interest.

8. Digital Marketing Know-How

Digital marketing is the hardest to assess as many web designers are aware of it. The first thing you might want to do is check their marketing plan. Do check their social media and blog post. When is the latest, how often do they share, what do they share.

Your website is your investment towards marketing; they have to get it right, else money down the drain.

Pro Tip: Ask where they learn digital marketing.

9. Online Reputation

Testimonials & Portfolios can be made up, but not online reputation.

Do check how many stars they get on Facebook Review and Google place. Given the ratings might have been by their family and friends, but that takes a lot more effort than crafting testimonials.

7. Should You Go for Cheap Website (Below RM 1k)?

Yes. You're just starting up a business, and you don't want to burn a hole in your pocket. You can start with a free medium like WordPress.com and Blogspot. Also, don't forget social media, the crowds are still there, but it can be a bit harder to navigate these days (gain more followers).

No. If you're in a growth stage, meaning you have stable revenue, you should be focusing on branding. Branding is your platform. It's what people know you for, and no one can take that away from you. To be successful, you have to be unique, fulfill customer's desire and break all the rules to win. You can't go to war with a kitchen knife.

How Much Should I Spend on Website?

There's no exact science to this, but I'd like to take Telcos for example (Maxis, Celcom, Digi, Umobile). They generally invest 17% of Revenue for Marketing.

You should be spending about 7-15% of your revenue on marketing. Take a portion (let's say 30% of that) to pay on your website. The rest should go to ads and overhead.

Sample Calculation: RM 1 Million Annual Revenue. 7% of RM 1 million = RM 70k. 30% (goes to website) of RM 70k = RM 21k. You should cap your budget at RM 21k and spend some to get more traffic into the website like Facebook Ads and Google Ads.

The conclusion of Web Design Price Malaysia

There are no straight answers when it comes to web design price. You have to know what you want and what you can achieve with your investment.

To recap, a startup should expect to pay around RM 3,000 - 5,000 and growing companies go around RM 4,000 - 25,000.

Best of luck to your business! Thank you for reading this.

Want to talk about your web design project? Hit me up!

Note: If you have any question, do leave in the comments below. I'll try my best to answer it.

8 Web Design Trend, You Need To Be Ready In 2019

Do web visitors care about web design? Yes, they do. See below...

Based on the statistics above, 75% of the people judge your business credibility from the website while 38% will stop browsing website if it is unattractive. This shows that keeping up with trending web design is essential in creating the first impression.

In business, first impression is very important apart from your elevator pitch. According to Forbes, it took only 0.05 seconds for a person to form an opinion about your website and business personality that makes you stand out.

Besides, the web currently is an impressive world where we can display information in almost any design we want. Hence, the choices are endless and it all depends on our design creativity. So, the end of the year is getting closer, are you ready for the web design trends of 2019?

8 Web Design Trends 2019 You Don’t Want to Miss

Forget about the superficial list, this is the 7 ultimate web design trend of 2019.

Trend 1: Move over, flat design. Make way for digital handwork.

Awwwards

Illustrations are still in, but it will no longer be the flat design. Illustrations are either more 3D or seem more hand-drawn. Lookout for brush strokes, wriggly lines, digitally colored ‘hand-drawn illustrations’.

Trend 2: Gradients & Dual Tone

Awwwards

Gradients and dual tone can be applied across a myriad of elements. From images, texts, buttons, lines, overlay -they can instantly add modern feeling to the design. However, too much can make the design seem cheap. Do it well and you will end up with some impressive results to an otherwise mundane color. You'll have to play a lot with color scheme. So, use it wisely.

Trend 3: Data Driven Design

This is a trend that is happening and will continue to stick. This method uses data from a website or survey to design a web that will truly be useful for the targeted audience. Designing web based on actual data to create a unique website that caters specifically for the website purpose. It also includes the planning for the user journey design to complete the experience.

Trend 4: Statistics Driven Design

In cases where data is not available, designers can look at statistics to determine the best web experience to offer to the audience. The statistics can be made as a point of reference for certain decisions regarding design and planning based on the website’s unique goal.

Trend 5: Authentic Heroic Images

8 Web Design Trend, You Need To Be Ready In 2019 28

Awwwards

With high competitions nowadays in business nowadays, one of the emerging trends is using authentic images to earn trust. Some may use images of the people behind the business, or real people using the products (or photo shoot into that setting) all depending on your nature of the business. The audience can tell right away if the pictures used are authentic or bought from stock photos library. When the images used are authentic, it is easier to gain trust towards the brand.

Trend 6: Get bored with Static Image? Hit of with Video Backgrounds

Nike

When your audience lands on your page and the video streams in the background, it somehow catches their attention. They’re likely to stick around your website to watch the video and this causes them to stay longer on your page leading to a higher conversion rate - better SEO, better rank.

Trend 7: Work-out with Integrated Animations

Storytrail

Speaking of effective communication with the audience, more and more website are shifting from static images into animations in order to create engagement (normally in .gif format). This can be applied to work with navigations, scrolling or as the main focus of the website. For example, the graphic can animate when audience hovers on the image or scrolling down the page. This will make them feel excited and triggered to find more exciting things on your website.

Trend 8: Go Fresh with Living Illustration

Awwwards

Putting real cut-out image with shadows on illustrations will enhance and drives attention to the image on your website. It makes your website looks creative, fresh and bold suitable for business that wants their audience to focus on their products. You can also place a hero-style image by using this concept with full-width of your website. I believe, this trend is going to make a hit in 2019.

Trend 9: Overlapping

Awwwards

Having elements off-grid, overlapping each other with shadows will make your element stand out. Overlapping elements shares the same space and likely to float without touching each other giving it the three-dimensional view. The design brings out aesthetic throughout your website while captures audience interest to the specific content.

7 Web Design Trends That Already Outdated

Have you ever looked at the pictures of the people from the 70s and wonder “How on earth did they find this disco suit so beautiful?” It seems ridiculous. Well, fashion trends are meant to come and go. Same goes to the web designs trend. As your website end up with outdated designs, you need to make way for the latest trend to stand appeal.

Now, let’s have a look at the trends - the old-fashioned trends that need a pull-out.

1. Meaningless Call To Action Slider

Several common mistakes people usually do in the slider section is too much happening and no clear call to action. Sometimes, they slide to fast causes audience miss the message. Millennials don’t watch this anymore.

Keep your message clear and simple. Highlight the problems and wants that match their needs. This is called a value proposition. You might actually get them to click on your button if you successfully tap their main desire.

2. Flat Boring Images

Flat design is a minimalistic design approach that emphasizes usability. Mainly, it focuses on open space, crisp edges, bright colors, and 2D illustrations. It used to be popular around 2012, but now flat design seems to be overloaded. Another problem with flat design is the audience is unable to differentiate which was the button since it is lack of signifiers on clickable elements.

3. Hamburger Menu For Desktop

Well, hamburger icons are still relevant for mobile view due to limited space to display your menu but not for desktop view. Hiding your navigation menu really doesn’t help your audience in finding your website usability. It is best to show what you want them to see on your website.

There are just many other ways for you to be a minimalist, but hamburger is just not the thing.

4. Sidebars and Widgets Overload

Some designers just get a little bit too happy that they’re having a widgets or sidebars party - especially WordPress where they’re a lot of interesting widgets to play with. Remember this, just because the widgets/sidebars are made available, that doesn’t mean you need to use it. It’ll jumble up everything on your pages and distract your audience attention. Just focus on the important elements.

5. The Carousels

While it is still a hot item on a shelf, the data has shown image carousels are bad for conversion. According to research from usability analyst, Craig Tomlin carousels don’t work because most users don’t stay longer than 10 seconds on a page. They might just miss the valuable information on the 6th slider. Besides, the average Click-Through Rate is below 1% which kills the conversion rate. (Source: Useful Usability )

The worst part is that even if they stay longer, they will be more confused by the multiple messages displayed in the sequence of carousels images.

6. Auto-Play Music

This is a big no! This is not an alter-ego blog that you’ve created when you were teenagers. Besides, not all your audience wearing headphones while browsing. This can irritate your audience when suddenly the music just start out so loud and unwelcome.

7. Unrealistic Stock Photos

We all agree that visual element captures the audience better than text and stock photos seem to be the savior - save cost on hiring a professional photographer. However, the awkward part is that your audience has seen them again and again that causes no differentiation between you and the competitors. Use real photos of your team, buildings, products as it creates trust and authenticity. I’ve mentioned this in Trend 5.

Principles of Web Design Trend To Boost Conversion

Although designs trends form the basis of a website to stand out, to gain ROI and revenues, you need to think beyond the basics to drive audience towards conversion. Now, let’s get a little bit closer at the principles to boost website conversion:

Aesthetics

Of course, it’s hard to satisfy everybody since different people have different taste. But you can follow these key rules.

- Use only 2-3 fonts for the entire website.
- Use max 4 colors
- Use high resolution and relevant images
- Structured and readable texts.

Value

Value is giving important information for free, like a blog post, articles, testimonials and the benefits of your products or services. According to Brian Tracy, the audience doesn’t buy products, they buy the results the products will give them. Thus, by highlighting this high-value piece of information, you can command your audience to listen about your products and services.

Sell the value, the price can become less and less important or otherwise they will keep talking about the price.

Speed

The rule of thumb is 2-3 seconds. Studies show that audience will start to lose their interest if a site doesn’t load within 3 seconds.

Flow of Website

There is so many information in your website that you need to cue the important points for the audience to avoid confusion. Plan the flow and make them naturally follow the information to make a decision that leads to your contact form or call-to-action (CTA).

Copywriting

Now you have all the above, here comes the most critical point of boosting your website conversion - the copywriting. For me, copywriting is all about telling a good story. That’s why the audience wants to read it as long as it doesn’t look like an ad.

Tips! Using the Value Proposition Canvas for your copywriting to define your audience pain, needs and wants easily. The key is to be in total control of the audience’s experience.

Are You Ready to Compete with Web Design Trend 2019?

2019 will be another year when we see rapid changes in online trends. You need to be aware of what is trending to stand out.

Whichever your designs are, there’s no right or wrong. The most important factor in web design is to be something meaningful for your targeted audience and be able to drive them towards your conversion. I hope you enjoy reading this post. If you need a web designer, you know who to ring up.