Over a decade ago there were businesses in the conundrum of whether to start a website representing them. Healthcare practices too were among those organizations wondering whether the additional investment would be worth the time and effort. Well, professional medical website design services have been helping healthcare practices, physicians, and businesses in the healthcare field set up professional websites, and the same is true of web design services in other industries.
Has your company been growing and getting sales and conversions purely through word of mouth canvassing by your customers? Well, we commend you for that. It’s a great achievement indeed. Perhaps your business is the leader in your industry, and your competition has been uncompetitive in its reach or service. But that’s not to take anything away from your achievement. Most importantly you must be providing great service to your customers, which has worked for over 80 years. The goodwill and trust your company has built up over the decades has worked in growing and expanding its customer base.
Word of Mouth Has Made You Successful Till Now, but That Could Change
But the bad news is, things are changing and are way different now than how they’ve been for the past 80 years. The digital revolution has been making an impact for over a decade on the way people think, socialize and make purchasing decisions. Not having a digital presence is losing out on a big chunk of your audience. And you can’t rest on your laurels since you need to make your company ready for the future as well, when digital trends will be dictating marketing reach and consumer behavior.
You Don’t Want to Lose Out on Customers Coming from the Web
Even back in 2011, over 59% of American consumers were heading online to look for local businesses as per a Search Engine Land article. Your competitors are probably being tracked online and customers who could potentially have come to your business are perhaps heading to your competitors simply on account of the fact that they are more visible online.
You don’t want your competition to get the upper hand since they could be actively pursuing digital marketing that makes them extremely conspicuous online. And even if they don’t, you want to be prepared for it before it actually happens. It’s easier to have a digital presence now and gain from it rather than doing it after losing market share, since you’ll have some way to climb to the top.
The Website Puts You in the Online Marketplace
While maintaining social media profiles can give you a presence online, a website is essential as an online representation of your establishment where you can direct people to, and they can get all the information they need about you , ask questions, and even signup for your products or services. A website is always there 24/7 and people can get all the information they want without having to visit your physical location. If, while searching for related goods or services in Google or any other search engine, they don’t find your website but your competitors’ website, they sure will head there, get the information they need and probably sign up for their services. You may be getting customers through word of mouth, but you’re missing out on so many others who could have come through your website if you had one.
You Don’t Want to Be Perceived as Stuck in a Bygone Era
Remember, customers have long warmed up to the digital revolution, and they expect any business to have a website. Not having one gives an indication that you really haven’t progressed and are still stuck in the pre-digital revolution period. More seriously, it also conveys the feeling that you aren’t quite keen in finding new customers. That doesn’t do well for your image. Remember that most consumers carry out online research before actually making a purchase. They liberally use Google search for that. If your website isn’t there, it means your business doesn’t exist for them.
So we’ve seen how a website can improve your brand’s conspicuousness and credibility. A website also gives you a global presence. It serves as a means to build your brand. And with a conspicuous and professional website in place, you can also cut short on traditional advertising.
These factors show you absolutely need a website.But it isn’t just enough that you have a website. It needs to be professionally designed and optimized for the search engine.
Startwith an Efficient Web Hosting Company
First, you need the services of a web hosting company for selecting the domain and carrying out the hosting of your website. You need to choose a domain name, which will basically be the URL for your website. It would be better for your URL to be identical to your business name. If the name has already been taken, you can choose a variant of the name. Remember, the address of your website serves as a great marketing tool as well. So make it distinctive.
Choosing the right web hosting service makes the difference. It’s important to compare the service providers out there and the plans they offer, and check reviews or industry opinion before deciding on a hosting provider.
Designing the Website for User-friendliness and Efficiency
Selecting the website domain name is just the tip of the iceberg. Next comes designing the website. This needn’t necessarily be complex. The right tools are available for website creation. There are templates available and you can also get custom templates. Choose templates that are appropriate for your business. For greater performance though, you may want to get a custom website designed, securing the services of a web designer, if you’ve hired one.
Or you need to hand this over to an experienced and reliable website design company that offers professional, converting, user-friendly, and search engine worthy website designs. They also have responsive website designs. It is important for your website to be responsive so that it loads on just about any device the user chooses to browse on. Most importantly, it improves the way the website loads on a mobile phone. People are increasingly using the mobile phone to check out services and businesses online, and you want your website to load well on their mobile phones. Mobile-friendliness is also highly valued by Google.
Getting a custom website done can be more expensive, but it could bring in more user traffic and conversions which could justify the investment you make on it. If you want to get a website done quickly though, you can go for the cost-effective website templates. Experienced web design companies do have cost-effective plans on offer.
Why Search Engine Optimization is Super Important
You wouldn’t have a website just for maintaining an online presence. You need it to convert too, by attracting people and converting them to your customers by signing up for your products or services. For that, you need search engine optimization (SEO).
Businesses do have a digital marketing team that takes care of SEO. It is essential because that’s how you get your website to figure in the search results. However, many businesses outsource the task to professional search engine optimization companies. An experienced SEO company can offer great packages at competitive price points. To go deeper into search engine optimization is like dipping your foot in the ocean. There are a lot of aspects involved here such as:
- Content quality
- User-friendly website interface that is part of web design
- Social media optimizing
- Blogs, and
- White hat link building techniques
All these factors help get your website to the search ranking listings, right to the first page of the search results,which captures the attention of users better.
As you begin to get traffic to your website and the content in your pages and blogs exudes expertise and builds authority with other quality websites potentially linking to it, you begin to rise up the search engine rankings in page 1.
Traffic to your website can also be generated through efficient social media optimization. For this, you need to maintain active social media accounts in the social networks that your target audience is likely to frequent more. And you need to post insightful, relevant and engaging posts to get users hooked to your content. Content writers of an experienced digital marketing company will obviously put in all the effort needed here.
Outsource to a Website Design Company, Everything Is Taken Care Of
An efficient healthcare website design agency handles all these aspects for medical practices, physician clinics and healthcare businesses, starting right from the website to all aspects of search engine optimization. The same goes for website design and digital marketing companies in other industries. It all starts with a website and ends up with so much more conspicuousness among your target audience and globally as well, as your brand keeps building up and you get a significant inflow of customers and earnings through your website. It doesn’t hurt to get more, and it also keeps you in step with the digital age. Once you’ve got a professional website running, there is no looking back!
