4 Warning Signs That You Need To Redesign Your Website

redesign your website

Time for a website redesign!

At Agapi Marketing & Consulting Ltd., we want to make sure your business looks great online.

Our experts have compiled a list of 4 warning signs that your website might need a total redesign.

1. Your site takes more than 3 seconds to load

If your site takes longer than two seconds to load, you can not expect people to sit around and wait for the content to show up. According to a survey from Akamai, 49-percent of consumers expect a site to load in two seconds or less. Testing the speed of your website is easy. Open your website on multiple devices such as phones, tablets, and desktop computers to check the speed.

2. Some of the features or content do not display properly

Check your website regularly to make sure logos, photos, and outside links are working properly.

3. Your site is difficult to view and navigate on mobile

Check to make sure your website is usable on a wide range of mobile devices. The last thing you want is to lose a potential customer because your website is not responsive.

4. You’re Not Seeing Any Business Results.

Is your website bringing in leads and sales? If not, then it is definitely time to consider a redesign.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

If you like the information you are receiving, please share this post.

Boost Your Website’s Conversion Rate With These 15 Strategies

conversion rate

Is a low website conversion rate getting in the way of your business’s success?

Here are 15 of our tips to optimize your conversion rate:

1. Find your value proposition. What is it that makes you different from your competitors? Why are you the best choice? Whatever it is, make it central.

2. Have a clear headline. Your headline is the first thing your customers will see on your landing page. Make sure it’s easy to understand and gets your point across.

3. Feature your phone number prominently. Make it easy to find and use a big font to let them know you are accessible.

4. Add a video. A 2-3 min video that explains benefits and features or shows your product in action will capture the attention of your site visitors.

5. Get rid of those cheesy stock photos. Stock photos may be high quality, but they look fake, damaging your credibility.

6. Reduce required form fields. Don’t make your customers put in any more information than the bare minimum of what you need to know. The less work they have to do, the more likely they are to do it.

7. Put your Call-to-Action (CTA) above the fold. Your site visitors should be able to see it without scrolling down.

8. Use a CTA button instead of a link. Text links can be hard to spot. Using a button makes your CTA stand out.

9. Use a contrasting color for your CTA button. Make your CTA button even more visible by choosing a color that contrasts with the rest of your website’s color scheme.

10. Utilize your CTA button’s text. Instead of a plain old “submit,” use your button text to tell your visitors what to expect after they click that button with text like “get started!”

11. Create urgency. Limited-time incentives give your customers a reason to take action now.

12. Display “real” testimonials. Show that your testimonials aren’t fake by using full names and pictures.

13. Display your award badges. Show off any honors you’ve gotten to add wow factor.

14. Add trust badges. Boast about the great reviews you’ve gotten on sites like Yelp, Facebook, or the Better Business Bureau.

15. Add a live chat feature. Live chat support adds value.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

If you like the information you are receiving, please share this post.

Say Hello to the Future. Get a Virtual Storefront And Be Open 24/7.

website virtual storefront

What does it mean to have a virtual storefront?

The information age can be great. It gives customers nearly limitless information when trying to make a purchase decision, and it gives business owners like you new and exciting ways to reach those customers. It also makes it of the utmost importance to have a solidified and well-crafted website to make your case to potential customers.

Yes, your website is your virtual storefront. Open 24/7.

Not sure where to start? We can help.

Your website needs to sell you and these six things are proven to do that in the most efficient way.

1. The way that your product or service navigation is organized must be primarily based on your potential customer’s needs, and not based on, say, alphabetization.

2. With featured products or services, you can quickly direct your customer to what they are most likely to need. If the weather is heating up, make sure you don’t feature coats. Make educated guesses to showcase what’s hot for each season.

3. A product or service catalog makes sure your customers know exactly what you offer. It allows them to search through and identify what aspects of your product or service that fit your needs.

4. For each product listing, make sure you identify the benefits, features and product specifications. By ensuring you answer all the customer’s questions, you help them arrive at the “yes!” more quickly.

5. FAQs are found on almost every website. Whether they’re questions about shipping times or your return policy, you want to make sure anything a customer may wonder about is clearly spelled out.

6. Testimonials take advantage of the fact that customers trust their peers more than almost anything else when it comes to buying a good or service. If you have happy customers, make sure you utilize that to sell yourself or your products to new clientele.

Feeling overwhelmed? We’re here to help!

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

If you like the information you are receiving, please share this post.

How To Optimize Your Business Website for the Best User Experience

memorable user experience

You want to provide a memorable user experience, right?

If your company or business website hasn’t been updated, or there are no plans to update it, you should change that strategy.

User behavior is continuously evolving, and one of the most significant changes is that more people are using their smartphone devices every day.

If you have ever used your phone to browse websites online, you may have noticed that some websites are nearly impossible to read or navigate. The reason for this is because most websites are built from a perspective that someone on a computer will visit the site. The way users access a website has already changed drastically.

But design evolution isn’t only about having your website viewable on a mobile device. User optimization encompasses a lot of different factors. Some changes that have happened over the past couple of years include websites having fewer menu options, getting rid of the menu grid or ‘hamburger’ as it’s come to be known, getting rid of bad stock images, and moving the website to a more minimalistic design.

The majority of these changes came from designers and developers constantly redesigning and changing UX (user experience) elements to see how those new designs and changes worked. Big companies such as IKEA have moved to a more minimal design with fewer menu options making it easier for their visitors to quickly find what they need. But this optimization shouldn’t end there.

The future will likely bring more design trends making it easier for visitors to get what they are looking for quickly. After all, a good user experience drives conversions.

Want us to take a look at your website to see if it’s optimized for a great user experience no matter what device your visitors are using? Contact us now for an evaluation, and get your website fully optimized.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

If you like the information you are receiving, please share this post.

What You Need To Know About the Latest Design Trends for 2018

website design trends

Website design trends for 2018

If you own a website, or even several websites, it’s a good idea you know and understand the design changes that have been happening over the last couple of years.

We’re talking about how a change in technology, and change in how people use your website, are directly affecting shifts in design.

Website design as it was a few years ago, has changed to meet a whole new type of user, mostly the mobile device user. In fact, mobile devices have changed the way many big company websites are designed, such as Apple and Microsoft, who made it far easier for their customers to navigate and find what they are looking for.

Many design changes seem to have been driven by mobile devices. In other words, these changes had to take place for mobile users to be able to navigate websites on small screens. If you want to see what we mean, find an old online website that isn’t designed for mobile use, and try to navigate it. If it has lots of menu items, and even menu dropdowns, you will find it unfriendly as you try to see those tiny buttons and find what you are looking for.

The changes that do make it easier, and give a great experience are things like; better use of negative space, using bold and expressive typography instead of heavy loading images that eat up bandwidth for the user, using cinemagraphs instead of static images or full blown videos.

There are some other cutting-edge design tricks like scroll triggered animation such as the new Mac Pro on Apple’s website.

Another thing you can do is create a website application hybrid. A good example for this would be Pinterest. When going to the Pinterest website, users are asked if they want to download the application because ‘Pinterest is best viewed with our application’. And applications are amazing because they can learn and react to each user’s preferences and styles. And of course, Facebook is also another example of taking the desktop website and converting it to an interactive application.

Other things like Intelligent Conversation Bots who can answer questions like: what your store hours are, or what your prices are. You would simply type in the URL where you want to go, and then have a conversation with a virtual helper on that website. It’s fairly high tech stuff that you will likely see more of soon. You will want to take advantage of these new design changes because they will ultimately drive more conversions, and you will have happier customers.

Want us to take a look at your website to see if it’s optimized for a great user experience no matter what device your visitors are using?

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

If you like the information you are receiving, please share this post.

Optimize Your Business Website for the Best User Experience

optimize for best user experience

Regularly optimize your website for the best experience for your customers.

If your company or business website hasn’t been updated, or there are no plans to update it, you should change that strategy.

User behavior is continuously evolving, and one of the most significant changes is that more people are using their smartphone devices every day.

If you have ever used your phone to browse websites online, you may have noticed that some websites are nearly impossible to read or navigate. The reason for this is because most websites are built from a perspective that someone on a computer will visit the site. The way users access a website has already changed drastically.

But design evolution isn’t only about having your website viewable on a mobile device. User optimization encompasses a lot of different factors. Some changes that have happened over the past couple of years include websites having fewer menu options, getting rid of the menu grid or ‘hamburger’ as it’s come to be known, getting rid of bad stock images, and moving the website to a more minimalistic design.

The majority of these changes came from designers and developers constantly redesigning and changing UX (user experience) elements to see how those new designs and changes worked. Big companies such as IKEA have moved to a more minimal design with fewer menu options making it easier for their visitors to quickly find what they need. But this optimization shouldn’t end there.

The future will likely bring more design trends making it easier for visitors to get what they are looking for quickly. After all, a good user experience drives conversions.

Want us to take a look at your website to see if it’s optimized for a great user experience no matter what device your visitors are using?

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

If you like the information you are receiving, please share this post.

Things To Know About the Latest Website Design Trends for 2018

website trends for 2018

What are the website trends for 2018?

If you own a website, or several websites, it’s a good idea to know and understand the design changes that have been happening over the last couple of years.

We’re talking about how a change in technology, and change in how people use your website, are directly affecting shifts in design.

Website design as it was a few years ago, has changed to meet a whole new type of user, mostly the mobile device user. In fact, mobile devices have changed the way many big company websites are designed, such as Apple and Microsoft, who made it far easier for their customers to navigate and find what they are looking for.

Many design changes seem to have been driven by mobile devices. In other words, these changes had to take place for mobile users to be able to navigate websites on small screens. If you want to see what we mean, find an old online website that isn’t designed for mobile use, and try to navigate it. If it has lots of menu items, and even menu dropdowns, you will find it unfriendly as you try to see those tiny buttons and find what you are looking for.

The changes that do make it easier, and give a great experience are things like; better use of negative space, using bold and expressive typography instead of heavy loading images that eat up bandwidth for the user, using cinemagraphs instead of static images or full blown videos.

There are some other cutting-edge design tricks like scroll triggered animation such as the new Mac Pro on Apple’s website.

Another thing you can do is create a website application hybrid. A good example for this would be Pinterest. When going to the Pinterest website, users are asked if they want to download the application because ‘Pinterest is best viewed with our application’. And applications are amazing because they can learn and react to each user’s preferences and styles. And of course, Facebook is also another example of taking the desktop website and converting it to an interactive application.

Other things like Intelligent Conversation Bots who can answer questions like: what your store hours are, or what your prices are. You would simply type in the URL where you want to go, and then have a conversation with a virtual helper on that website. It’s fairly high tech stuff that you will likely see more of soon. You will want to take advantage of these new design changes because they will ultimately drive more conversions, and you will have happier customers.

Want us to take a look at your website to see if it’s optimized for a great user experience no matter what device your visitors are using?

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

If you like the information you are receiving, please share this post.

Your 5-Minute Website Workshop

website workshop

Take a 5 minute website workshop and improve your customer experience.

Your website is a vital piece of your business, and we want you to have the most traffic possible going through it every day. That is why we put together these “Must-Haves” that you need to be checking on a regular basis in order to ensure you are gaining the most customers possible.

While working through this list we suggest pulling your website up next to this window so that you can properly analyze your site.

First, we will take a look at whether or not the website is correctly designed.

Your website…

  • Must be user-friendly
  • Must set a clear path for customers to make a purchase
  • Must have trust signals
  • Name of the Business Owner
  • Address, Phone
  • Must have security
  • Use HTTPS or Secure Sockets Layer
  • Must have customer support contact information

Now let’s take a look at the answers that the customer is looking for when they get to your website. No matter what point the customer is in the buying process, they are going to have questions and concerns.

You need to have the answers to these questions readily available to them or they will quickly move on to another site that does.

  • Why should they buy from you?
  • What benefits your product/service will give to them?
  • What Features does it offer?
  • What are the technical details and specifications?
  • Where are the guides and tutorials?
  • Do you have any testimonials from real customers?

These are all things that you need to have on your website to ensure the steady flow of customers coming through your site. Even addressing one or two issues that you noticed while reviewing this list can have a major impact on the number of customers you see moving through your website.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

If you like the information you are receiving, please share this post.

Important Design Elements that Your Website Should Have

important design elements for your website

What are the important design elements for your website?

There has been a lot of testing and research done over the past couple of years, and it’s no surprise that more people are using mobile devices to find products or services. The one thing that may or may not come as a surprise is that many businesses haven’t adapted to these changes, or even tested their website. Prioritizing user experience should be the first thing you or your website designer should do.

Any website needs to have design elements that make the website easily seen, and also make it easy to navigate should be on the top of this list. Many websites are starting to get rid of images because they take too long for mobile devices to load, if too many are used. However, if you do use images, they should be scaled down, and the images should use text, such as a card menu seen on Microsoft homepage. This one easy design element shows people what they are looking for quickly, and describes it easily.

And if you’re doing to use video or animation, then fast-loading cinemagraphs are the way to go for mobile devices. These small half-photo, half-animated clips, are quite popular, and load quickly. Make sure that your copy is relevant to the visitor quickly depending on their query, and what got them to your website in the first place. Give a quick big picture of what your site is all about, and what you offer the minute the customer gets there. Realize they may be on a mobile device, and test it, or have your website designer continually test and improve the experience.

Make your site easy to navigate, create different designs for the different sections, but use a consistent theme. Use eye-catching transitions from section to section to keep the user interested. And make sure the font for your copy can be easily seen. Visitors still do the quick scan, so if they quickly scan, make sure you grab their attention quickly. Use custom visual and iconography, or images and symbols, that tells your brand story and shows some personality of who and what your business is about.

All of these design trends are based on statistics. And with the statistics comes the realization that effective website design that makes life easier for users when they visit your site, should be the main goal of you and your website designer. Your competitors are optimizing their websites, if you don’t optimize your site, then you will be left behind.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

If you like the information you are receiving, please share this post.

What Goes into Creating Optimal Content and Customer Experience

optimal content

Creating the optimal customer experience requires optimal content.

On the internet, standing out poses a daunting challenge, and at the same time, the best opportunity for creativity and bringing some attention to your site. Adding the extra “POW” to your content will pique a customer’s’ curiosity, build their interest, and over the course of a few transactions, earn their loyalty.

This is achieved through web content that goes far beyond ordinary but without all of the sensory overload. Each aspect of your site should have its own purpose—from the background to the logo to the informative blog. Every part is a solid brick in the foundation of your establishment’s site.

Here are some possible “add-ons” to consider to make your site stand out:

– Demo/explainer videos
– Client testimonials
– A page for reviews
– Informational text that actually informs—as opposed to simply luring the client
– Interactive questionnaire
– Easy-to-follow graphics
– A healthy combination and balance of “all-the-above”
– The compelling story of your business began and most importantly, where it’s going

And don’t forget a user-friendly “contact us” page or even an option for a live Chat with a knowledgeable representative from your company. You’re only limited by your own imagination.

So the time has come to set that staff meeting and do a plus/delta on your site’s current features. What’s working and drawing in an audience, and what’s not working? What is the purpose of each and every feature of your site? What are some viable changes that can be made? Who is your target audience? How can you make your site not only engaging but also user-friendly?

As you can tell, some guidance from an experienced marketing consultant should come in handy. You are the experts in your product or service; so allow some room for the marketing experts to help.

Essential Questions to ask about Customer Experience

User experience with your site can make or break your business. Think about it. A slow interface, a shopping cart that’s difficult to navigate, or even one small glitch can drive traffic away and steer potential customers toward the next result that showed up on the list of search results. So how do you keep this from happening?

Working with a knowledgeable and experienced team of designers and developers can make quite a difference in creating the best customer experience possible. When searching for such a team, you might need to keep a few ideas in mind such as

– Can they reduce my site’s loading time?
– Can they create engaging content that includes images?
– Can they strike a balance between SEO and treating my audience like “real people”?
– Can they build a user-friendly check-out?
– Can they build a user-friendly customer service Chat and/or Email page?

Thus, looking at these many aspects related to a customer’s experience is as vital to us as it is to you. Helping your business to thrive is our ultimate goal and mission. By joining forces with your team, we can assist you in improving the customer’s experience.

What if you’re just barely getting started? We can build on that foundation as well. Either way, we’ll explore several options, analyze data, and minimize as much trial-and-error as possible to get your site running as quickly and smoothly as possible.

So don’t worry about a design that’s full of bells and whistles as opposed to substantial, engaging content and usability. Your clients are the bosses, and we’ll consider both their needs and your expectations of what makes a great, user-friendly site. Therefore, there’ll be no more worries about dead links or useless features. Would you like to find out more about what we can design for you?

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

 

YouTube
YouTube
LinkedIn
LinkedIn