Whether you already have a website or you’re in the process of creating a new website design, avoiding making some common mistakes is crucial. Here’s a list of six common mistakes that many websites make.

1. Not planning your website

It may sound obvious, but many people don’t spend enough time planning their website; what should it look like, who is the target market, how will the website be launched and promoted, and how does the website evolve over time?

2. Longer isn’t always better

Don’t assume that the text on the pages of your website needs to be long to be effective. A long page with a lot of text can require too much concentration from a reader, and you simply won’t be able to hold their attention.

3. Not standing out from your competitors

If you’re promoting a product or service and that’s all your website focuses on, you won’t stand out from your competitors. It’s vital that your website contains something unique; put your personality into your website.

4. What do you want users to do?

It’s crucial that your website contains a clear call to action. It’s not just enough that a reader has found your website, you need to guide them in the direction of what you want them to do next; do you want them to call you, contact you for a brochure?

5. Not configuring your website for all devices

In a time when many people are permanently glued to their smartphones or tablets, it’s critical to make sure that your website is compatible with all devices; desktops, tablets, and smartphones.

6. Forgetting that SEO is king

Your website can look amazing, but if you haven’t allowed for SEO in your design, your website can become lost in the thousands of others just like yours on the internet. If you’re not an expert in SEO, leave it to a professional to help make sure your website is discoverable.

These common mistakes can be avoided by simply contacting an expert in web design that Canberra businesses can rely on.

Canberra Web is your local, specialised team of web designers who design, build and maintain premium quality websites. Their friendly, efficient staff will provide you with the highest level of service, with regular after-sales maintenance, and all at an affordable price. What more could you ask for?

5 things an online store needs

For many online retailers, ecommerce and online stores are the core of revenue and profit. People can spend countless hours and funds creating an amazing and visually appealing website but often neglect to focus on the most essential part of their online presence - their online store.

To ensure effectiveness, online stores should be built by a professional and external website developer. Investing in a professional service will ensure nothing gets missed. The best platforms to build online stores are Magento, Open Cart, Mojo Shop and Woo Commerce and these are the benefits they offer:

1. Mobile functionality
   
   The world is turning digital. The age of laptops being a necessity to conduct business is dying; many people purchase goods and services while in transit – from their phone. If an online store is not mobile compatible, a large percentage of potential customers will be lost.
   
   
2. Visual clarity
   
   People are busy, they don’t want to spend countless time scrolling through pages to find the goods or service that they require. A clearly defined list with images or a grid is the best way to have a consumer clicking through faster and securing a sale.
   
   
3. Branding
   
   A company logo and colour scheme should be the most prominent thing on an online store. The store should seem like an extension of the consumer-facing website. Having clear branding ensures consumer trust and confidence when processing payments.
   
   
4. Deal plugins
   
   What drives customers to purchase? Bargains! An online store should always have the option to run promotions, offer free shipping or even freebies. The latest deals should be advertised in a prominent position on the homepage of the online store in order to grab consumer attention and create a sense of urgency to purchase.
   
   
5. A cart, login and search bar
   
   These three things may seem like simple additions to an online store; however, they are often missed. A login portal will allow a consumer to save payment details, their address and to track orders faster. A search bar eases the shopping process for the consumer and a cart allows people to clearly identify what they are purchasing – and spending – which may encourage them to purchase more.

Online stores are vital to business success and should always be built by professionals. If you're looking for web design Canberra, get in touch with us at Canberra Web. We will ensure the design and functionality of your online shop perfectly match your brand and target your customer.

How to make your website more functional

While having a website design that is unique and contemporary is important to attract your online audiences attention, if your site is difficult to navigate it can cause visitors to leave early, otherwise known as a high bounce rate. Unfortunately, this may result in loss of sales, especially if you have an e-commerce website, because the longer your audience spends on your site often increases your chances for sales opportunities.

When you have a website built, it's important to incorporate features that make it functional and easy to navigate. To assist you in this process, we've highlighted some of the things to consider.

Timely loading speed

There's nothing worse than having to wait ages for a website to load. A vital factor in having a functional website is ensuring your site loads quickly. In fact, when surveyed, 40% of web users said they would leave a site that took more than 3 seconds to load. If your customer or user is left waiting, you'll often find they won't bother staying unless they desperately want the products or services you sell.

Page linking

By adding links between pages you can make your website more functional, so your online audience can navigate it with ease. Often online consumers will want to find out more about products or services, so linking these pages to your contact page means it's a simple and streamlined process for visitors to send an enquiry.

Make it easy for the user to go back

If users have ended up on the wrong page by accident, they will quickly want to go back immediately. An easy way for your customers to trace where their path went wrong or return quickly is with an ever-present drop-down navigation menu or with breadcrumbs, which show the pages a user accessed to get to where they are. Users can easily click on these to get to where they'd like to go, adding more fluency to your web design.

Another tip is to regularly review your links to check for any that aren't working and either fix those links or create page redirects. That will eliminate any instances of users landing on a 404 page, which can result in site abandonment.

These are some of the essential features that will increase your site's functionality. If you need help creating a functional website, our team at Canberra Web have the expertise to assist you. We specialise in building user-friendly, fully responsive websites on a broad range of platforms including WordPress, Joomla, Magento, Open Cart, Mojo Shop and Woo Commerce. Contact ustoday to get started!

9 reasons to skip a DIY site builder

Quite simply, if you have a great business, you need a great website. These days, the world is all about the internet, you only get one shot at making a first impression, and stats show that customers can write off your online presence - and therefore your business - within a few mere seconds of clicking in.

The good news for businesses is that getting online is not difficult or expensive. But that doesn't mean you should go for the easiest option.

What's the easy option?

Yes, we're talking about DIY site builders.

As the name suggests, a DIY site builder is a home job. Without knowing how to write code or go to a pro, you can get online. But we think that's a very bad idea. Let's tell you why:

1. Flash
   Many DIY sites prominently feature Flash technology - which Google doesn't like to list. And, let's face it, your customers are busily Googling.
   
   
2. Simple
   Simple is good, but too simple means there is less for Google to crawl and index. And that means less traffic and conversions.
   
   
3. Google
   Again with Google, but we can't over-emphasise its importance. Getting in those listings is not as easy as it seems, and a DIY site is just not maximising your chances.
   
   
4. Analytics
   Analytics give site admins a clear picture of how a website is performing, and the DIY options offer only limited technology in this area.
   
   
5. The look
   You might think your DIY site looks good, but be honest and compare it with some of the best in the business. Do you still think it's the best look for your business?
   
   
6. Mobile friendly
   As time goes on, more and more people are switching off their laptops and using only their mobiles. But most DIY site builders are based on desktop designs that do not necessarily look or work efficiently in the palm of your customers' hands.
   
   
7. Uniqueness
   Maybe you really have found a great look for your DIY site among the template options. But how many other dozens or hundreds of other sites look almost exactly the same?
   
   
8. Professionalism
   Most DIY site builders will want to show the world that they helped you get online. But do you really want to tell the world that you went for the cheapest and easiest option?
   
   
9. Support
   Once your DIY site is online, you will be alone in the world once all those day-to-day website running issues start to crop up. But getting a pro to build your site means you will have someone to turn to.

Canberra Web genuinely cares about providing the best web design Canberra can possibly put online for Australia and the world to see. Call us today.

Patience is a virtue. This old saying first appeared long before the digital age arrived and certainly doesn't apply to our modern world, especially if your website doesn't load swiftly after being clicked on during a search. One survey found that if, after just three seconds, a webpage wasn't in front of their eyes, just under half of potential visitors would simply click back to their search! So that's our first tip about website design Canberra businesses should consider. Here are four more...

Ensure it's optimised for all devices

A website designed for a laptop or desktop can fail to be user friendly if accessed from a mobile device or iPad. Needing to scroll excessively to read content or zoom in because the text is too small are a couple of examples of the frustrations that can soon build. The more difficult or time-consuming web browsing is, the more likely it is that potential customers will go elsewhere.

Provide clear navigation and calls-to-action

Browsers visit a website because they want to do something. This might be to buy from your online store or gain access to information about the services offered. It's vital that they can quickly find their way to where they want to be. Specific landing pages can help with this, but simple navigation is vital. When they reach their destination, a clear CTA encourages them onwards to make a purchase or contact your business.

Be careful when auto-playing multimedia presentations

You might have fallen victim to this yourself. You visit a website and start searching the content. Suddenly, as if from nowhere, there's disturbing music and annoying voices. You scrabble around the page to try and find the source and switch it off. Your concentration is affected, and the mental connection may be lost. This can even be embarrassing when it happens in public places, during meetings, or while sitting in a hushed office.

Take care when selecting photography and graphics

This is a real danger when using free website builders. Images on your site can appear on many others, even perhaps a competitor's. The limited choice that such programs offer might also mean that the options are not really pertinent to your company or organisation. The use of such graphics and images can easily diminish the uniqueness of your website in the eyes of your potential clients.

Delivering graphic design Canberra businesses appreciate

Our Canberra Web team is highly experienced in crafting effective and unique web presences; ones that really involve those viewing them, and then encourage such visitors to spend time within the site and take the action you wish them to. Find out more by contacting us now on 02 6223 2222.

The how and why, where and when, of your website

Our web design team here in Canberra like to talk to our clients about these four areas. Each has a degree of importance in how a web presence should be presented, and these may vary both for different businesses and organisations, or throughout the year. It's worth thinking about each for your own web design...

How?

Your potential customers are likely to use different hardware to access your site. Apart from the traditional laptop or desktop, you can now add smart TVs, tablets, and mobile phones. It's important that, for each option, your website looks and operates in a friendly and welcoming way. There are still too many around that are OK for computers but simply fail to function adequately across the more recent access options.

Why?

Each person who accesses your site is doing so for their own specific reason. It's important that they quickly realise that such reasons will be dealt with - whether these concern products or services, making purchases or receiving information. Effective web design should always pay attention to the range of needs or wants that the business will be meeting for customers, and constantly talk to these in both design and content.

Where?

Some web design projects we undertake are for businesses who operate solely in Canberra and nearby; others can range across the country and beyond. Knowing the area your customers are to be found allows you to talk to them in relevant terms. For example, providing garden maintenance services for Canberra can invite content about specific districts and suburbs; this would make little sense to most site visitors if you were selling furniture online to customers right across Australia.

When?

Your services might be appropriate only to specific times of any day or week, month or season. Your products might have clear seasonal sales peaks, or parts of your range could be appropriate at different times. It's important to make sure your web presence is up-to-date. It's still possible to find some sites offering season's greetings in February, or still talking about Valentine's Day in April!

Appreciating the how, why, where and when reasons for your web presence helps keep it of-its-time and fully responsive. If you'd like to talk to our Canberra Web team about any of these areas and its affect on your website responsiveness, please call us now on 02 6223 2222.

4 hot web design trends of 2018-19

No, trends are not just for the fashion world and catwalk - they're important in any industry. Put simply, keeping up with current trends is like surfing: stay on top of them, and you're riding a great wave with your customers. Lag behind, and business races ahead while you're bobbing aimlessly in the water.

Here at Canberra Web, we are right on the cutting edge of the hottest web design Canberra can offer - so let's tell you about four web development trends we've identified in 2018 that you can't afford to not know as we head towards the new year:

1. Responsive designs
   There was a time when a website was a website and you could get away with marking it as optimised for a certain platform. But those days are over; your customers are spread across a huge number of platforms, including desktop, phone, tablet and all the different iterations of them. This is what a responsive web design is all about: making your site work with what users are using today, and getting it ready for the platforms of the next generation.
   
   
2. Hamburger menus
   No, our stomachs are not grumbling: the hamburger menu is that now-familiar three-line symbol that allows you to simplify your pages by packing away the menu, avoid clutter in your navigation and clear screen space for your content. Particularly useful in the small-screen world of mobile browsing, the hamburger menu is also being seen in desktop versions as users become more familiar with how this sleek feature works - just make sure it's obvious enough to spot so that your users don't miss your site's all-important navigation.
   
   
3. Ghost buttons
   "Who you gonna call?" That's right: the ghost button is that transparent, normally rectangular button that, while subtle, really grabs the user's attention and looks great particularly when layered on a high-quality photo background.
   
   
4. Hero images
   Put simply, a beautiful and prominent HD hero image can make your site design look professional and really encapsulate the essence of your brand. It's basically a big header image or photo, but designers are also getting more creative by making those heroes vector backgrounds, illustrated artworks and even video. But it's important that the hero image does not come at a great cost to site loading time.

The onward march to a fully mobilised digital age continues, as 2018 finally sees mobile phones edge out in front of desktop systems, now responsible for 52.4% of website traffic according to statista.com. Whilst this upward trend has long been predicted, the rapid rise of mobile-geared e-commerce has left some businesses racing to catch up to their fully mobile optimised competitors.

Mobile responsive website or mobile app?

Today's market is saturated with apps, with over 5 million currently within the Google Play and App Store combined according to statista.com. Many small businesses are feeling the pressure to develop mobile apps in order to compete, however, in a lot of cases this may not be necessary. Statistics from Localytics (https://www.localytics.com/lp/cheat-sheet-overall-app-benchmarks-h2-2016/) suggest that 80% of apps are no longer being launched 3 months after installation, and small business may not be getting the return on investment they are hoping for.

On the other hand, developing a personalised app can offer some businesses the perfect solution for streamlining services and keeping customers happy. According to a survey by Clutch (https://clutch.co/app-developers/resources/small-business-apps-survey-2018) the most valuable features of mobile apps for small businesses are mobile payment, social media integration, enhanced customer communication and customer loyalty programs. Canberra Web can also help to create unique app designs with innovative functionality to ensure businesses stand out in this flooded app market.

The impact that website functionality can have on a company’s bottom line cannot be underestimated. Google recently reported that 61% of users who had an unsatisfactory experience on their first time trying to access a mobile website did not return to that website again. However, before investing time and energy in mobile app development it is worth reviewing your current desktop website and its performance on a mobile web platform.

In many cases, responsive web design can offer the mobile-friendly online experience that users are looking for, without the need to download new apps. Responsive web design optimises a desktop site by adapting it to suit the smaller screens and software capabilities of smartphones and tablets. Reduced text size and streamlined content help users to navigate sites more easily and without compromising on speed by trying to load a full desktop site on a portable device.

The Canberra Web experts can work with you to determine the best way to represent your business online. If you would like to get in touch to further chat about the services we offer, please feel free to contact the team.

Why is having a user-friendly website so important?

You are probably aware that having a company website is crucial to marketing your business online, so your target market can see the services or products you supply. But ensuring that it's responsive and user-friendly for your customers accessing your site from any device is also vital to keeping them happy and for you ranking higher in search results.

When referring to a site being user-friendly, it means that users can find the information they need quickly and easily. To ensure your site design is user-friendly, there are some important elements you need to take into consideration, such as being mobile optimised, easy to navigate and quick to load.

Mobile optimised

You may have opened up a website on your mobile phone or tablet to find it doesn't configure correctly on the screen of your device. If this occurs, it's an obvious indication that the website is not mobile optimised.

Responsive websites adjust to fit the screen of the portable device they are being viewed on, without having to scroll for content that is hanging off the edge of pages. This is important because mobile devices are now the preferred way to view websites, so much so that Google is soon set to rank their search results based on mobile-friendly websites.

Mobile optimised sites have been carefully designed and coded to deliver a seamless user experience when accessed on any mobile device, such as a notepad, smartphone, iPad or tablet. But it's also important to have a website design that does not degrade the desktop experience at the same time.

Ease of navigation

When you have a website designed, make sure that the navigation panel and pages can be navigated quickly and easily. As consumers have busy lifestyles, if they can't find the information they are after on your website simply and easily, they will go elsewhere, causing you to miss out on business.

Rapid loading speeds

If you have a website that takes a long time to load, it may result in your site having a high bounce rate, which means visitors leaving after only viewing one page. If a website doesn't load within a matter of seconds, many customers will go elsewhere, causing frustration to your online customer and impacting your visits and sales.

These are just some of the many elements that you need to be aware of when having a website built. If you're looking for superior web design in Canberra, contact the experts at Canberra Web today.