A custom website is essentially a must-have today. The benefits it provides for businesses are profound when the website is properly designed/developed. So how does a custom website promote business success? Read on!

Unique brand presence

Arguably the most important advantage of a custom website is that it provides a unique brand presence for any company. You don’t have to worry about anyone else’s website looking exactly like yours. Custom websites allow you to leverage unique layouts, color schemes, and branding that can truly transform consumer perception.

Websites are the new brick and mortar storefront

Company websites are steadily becoming the first interaction consumers have with businesses. Long gone are the days that prospective customers had to travel to a shop to take a look at your wares. Nowadays all they need is an internet connection to decide to buy or not. That is why it is important to create a great first impression. Custom websites blow everything else out of the water when it comes to impressing customers online because of the endless design possibilities they offer.

Scalable solutions

Depending on the type of content management system you use, a custom website can offer a long term solution that is hard to match. A scalable solution brings a ton of benefits to businesses. For instance, you won’t need to invest in a new option as your website needs grow. Adding more features and pages is simple as long as the solution you pick has enough flexibility. By investing in a scalable custom website you free up more money in the long term to use in other areas.

Custom functionality

Another awesome benefit of a custom website is that you can add custom features and modules to support core business functions and your online presence. Having options like implementing custom e-commerce store fronts, blogs, forms etc, can catapult your online presence to a whole new level. Your chances of wowing a customer are much higher when you have a custom website that leverages the newest technologies and features.

Outsourcing web development or web management is great - as long as you’ve taken the time to understand the vendor. There are some horror stories out there, and a lot of those experiences begin with not enough research beforehand. As with any important business decision, doing your homework is critical to success. With the right company, outsourcing has the potential of being enormously profitable. Here’s how:

Outsourcing can be cheaper.

The average salary of a web developer in the U.S. is about $64k. The average salary in India is $9.2K, and even lower at $4.2K in the Philippines.  Partnering with domestic developers can really slim down your profit margins.

Why pay someone hundreds more per project when a developer from another country with comparable skills can save you some serious money? Even doing the work yourself can take a lot of time. And, everyone knows that time is money.

Let the professionals handle the development issues while you get valuable advice.

Web development can be bothersome for designers. Outsourced web development removes all these headaches. I’m not saying you don’t know your way around coding, but why not focus on what you love rather than what you potentially dislike? By using an expert, technical issues can be resolved quickly. And, your development team is usually willing to provide valuable project advice.

Outsourcing can also let you take on more projects.  We all know that more projects means more money.

You'll have access to a larger talent pool.

By not restricting yourself to talent that you can find locally, you open yourself up to more business. Believe it or not, some of the most technically proficient people live abroad and because the cost and standard of living in those areas are different than here, many are able to work for less.

Outsourcing also gives you access to expertise.

What do you do when you have a strict time constraints and there isn’t enough time to do all the work yourself? Well, outsource of course. 

Why?  Outsourcing can give you immediate access to industry best practices in very short order.

Site accessibility is all about making sure your website can be used by any user, regardless of what browser, device, or possible disabilities they may have. Compliance with W3C guidelines is critical in making your site accessible to different types of users. Here are three ways can improve your Site Evaluator’s accessibility score.

 Ensure your site navigation and structure is logical and intuitive

Making your site’s layout and overall navigation logical and intuitive is imperative for making your site accessible. Viewers need to be able to easily discern between main headings, subheadings, and content. An intuitive main navigation system is important so that users can easily move throughout your website without any confusion

Use contextual links for disabled users

Many users who are disabled use screen readers that read out loud links on a page. Text links within copy will be read out as the term that as the hyperlink attached to it, rather than the page/content it is linking to. Make any contextual links in copy as descriptive as possible so that disabled users may easily navigate throughout your site. Use a descriptive link like ‘click here to see a list of products’ versus just ‘click here.’

Provide Alternative Content

Make sure your content can be used by anyone regardless of special needs. Some easy ways of doing this are allowing users to choose different font sizes, levels of contrast for colors, and providing text for non-text content like images.

More business equals more profits. There are many ways to increase sales, but a lot of these can be quite troublesome. One of the easiest methods available is to increase your service offerings. By becoming a one stop shop, you can capture every single dimension of a client’s project, and not lose any revenue to other businesses.

Here are three ways to accomplish just that:

Add on-going service offerings to retain business

Cash flow is extremely important for business. Building consistent revenue is crucial to ensuring business survival. Adding ongoing service options such as SEO, content optimization or design alterations can go a long way to stabilizing cash flow. This is even more important if you see that your competitors are employing similar methods. Monthly subscription packages also allow you to maintain close relationships with companies. Eventually, they will have another large project to do and you’ll already be top of mind.

Become proficient in multiple web platforms

WordPress designers are a dime a dozen. The problem is that not every business wants a WordPress site.

And this doesn’t only apply to WordPress. There are quite a number of designers that specialize in only one platform.  They fail to realize that they are potentially limiting their business by doing this. Larger enterprises may want something based on .NET or another platform. Becoming proficient in multiple platforms will open up more doors, meaning more sales.

Outsource development to increase profits and secure more contracts

This ties in to the idea of becoming a one-stop shop for clients. While offering great design services can lead to business success, tying in good development services to the mix is essential. Offering to do both design and development for clients will streamline their processes and minimize costs, while creating more profit for you.

Outsourcing development is cheaper than it has ever been before. There are tons of companies both local and abroad that are looking for work and are willing to provide great deals.

Also, outsourcing development work goes both ways. As your business relationships grow, you development partners may approach you with potential design opportunities.

Definitely a win-win for all parties involved.

In order for you website to realize its full potential, it needs to have an optimal level of usability. This means making it easy for users to navigate, find, and use content. Site Evaluator looks at a bunch of factors when providing a usability score to your website, and here are 3 ways to improve your score.

Include a suitable site map for users and crawlers

Every website needs to have a well-structured site map that users and site crawlers can use to navigate to different pages. A site map most commonly refers to buttons or links at the header or footer of every page that connect to major areas of the website. If users find it hard to navigate your site they will leave. If search engine crawlers find it hard to navigate your site they will give you a lower search ranking. If you make life easy for users and search engines they will reward you with more traffic.

Make sure every link and file isn’t broken

One of the most annoying things on any website is when you see a link that connects you to something cool and it doesn’t work. Nothing makes a user more frustrated and more prone to leave a site than that. Every link and file needs to be working so that you don’t drive potential customers away. Take care of the little things and your website will perform much better.

Ensure content is fresh, ample in supply, and with no errors

You can have the greatest website design on Earth, but if you lack consistently fresh content no one is going to come back for more. The Internet is a ‘what have you done for me lately’ industry. Everything on your site needs to be fresh, and error free so that any user can take advantage of everything you have to offer. Search engines look at this too and will reward you with higher rankings for doing so. Keep up with developing trends, and throw out anything that isn’t fresh.