Web Design is, you guessed it, the act of designing and developing a website for the Internet. Designing a website involves a range of skills, such as software coding and development, however, the main concept of web design is user interface and experience. This includes aspects like the website’s appearance, functionality, layout and content.
Designing a website involves a range of different disciplines, such as graphic design, user interface design and coding. Common coding languages used for website design are HTML, CSS and JavaScript, this creates the underlying structure of a website and makes it functional. This includes the creation of pages, adding interactive features and optimising the site for search engines (SEO). There is a whole list of different types of web design, but the one that usually proves the most popular (and is a service that we offer at SEO Flatrate), is Responsive Website Design.
Why is it Important to Have a Well-Designed Website as a Business?
A business website is extremely important for a company’s brand and image. The design of a website is often the first thing that a consumer will look at and it may affect their decision on choosing your business or another competitor. If a website’s load speeds are slow, visually unappealing and difficult to navigate, a visitor is unlikely to stay for long. A website that focuses on creating a positive user experience will encourage a user to explore more content and engage further with the site.
Having a website that is designed professionally can expand your customer base. Having well-written content on your web pages is a great opportunity to enhance your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), this will place you higher on the search engine ranking pages (SERPs) and will in turn increase traffic to your website and business.
What to Consider when Hiring Web Design Services
When contacting a professional website designer, it is a good idea to have some initial ideas of what you are looking for. This involves finding a service that offers the type of website you require and having an idea about the intentions and visual aesthetics of your website.
What type of website do you require?
There are many different types of websites and as a business owner, you will need to decide what is best for your consumer base and own business needs. Here is a summary of some of the most popular:
Single Page Design – This is where all of the information is located on one webpage, this can be as long as you wish. This creates one linear journey for a user but isn’t very interactive.
Static Websites – This type of website is built with the intention of very little user interaction; these sites are often used to relay information instead of selling goods and services. A static website is usually created with more basic code and has a set number of web pages.
Dynamic Sites – Dynamic websites allow for more user interaction and use more complex code. These websites usually have a slower loading speed due to their intricate model but have the benefit of being more engaging.
Fixed Page Websites – Fixed design pages have a strict resolution and don’t change depending on the size of a screen. This allows for consistency but can make information difficult to read.
Liquid Design - This website manipulates its layout by shrinking and stretching the entire page to fit the size of a screen. This can cause a site to have very small or misshapen text and information if a screen is too small or large.
Responsive Web Design – A responsive website will change the layout of content depending on the size of a user’s screen. The webpage will manipulate itself by wrapping text and changing image size to best fit a user’s screen. This is different to liquid design as the individual content changes size instead of the entire page. With there being over 7 billion mobile users worldwide, it would be detrimental to your business to not have a website that can adapt itself to smaller screens.
The Website’s Function and Visual Design
As a business, you will need to decide the main aims of your website and who you want to target. Do you want to use your website to advertise, inform, entertain or sell products and services? This will also help you to decide what type of website design you require. Furthermore, you will want to consider how you can give users the best experience possible, this involves making the webpages accessible and easy to navigate, as well as ensuring your site has a good loading speed. After all this, you can start to consider how you would like your site to look with colour schemes, strong imagery and typography. If you are using a responsive website design, it is important to ensure that all of your images are scalable for all devices so that they do not appear pixelated when being stretched to fit a larger screen.
Why Responsive Web Design could be for You
A responsive website will always change its layout and information display depending on the size of your device. This means whether a website is being viewed on a mobile phone or a desktop computer, the website will change and adapt to fit the user’s device. This can be great if you have a business that is targeted at a range of audiences as the website will appear concise and easy to use for all users.
Responsive website design is a crucial investment to help build awareness of a company’s brand and allow as many visitors to access your website as possible. Google will now even penalise websites that don’t use responsive design as more people are accessing the internet through their phones and require content that is scalable. Responsive web design can also save time and money; instead of hiring web design services to build multiple different websites for each device, a responsive website will mean you only need one site for every possible device. With technology always advancing and screen sizes always changing, responsive web design allows you to stay on top.
Responsive Website Design for all Devices
If you require professional Responsive Website Design or are considering our Rent-A-Website services, then contact us on +44 (0)1202 911141 or email support@seoflatrate.co.uk.
Exciting times for Dorset based Online Marketing & SEO Agency "SEO Flatrate" with the launch of their brand new Head Office in Poole Dorset, the offices themselves are situated within Discovery Court Business Centre in Poole at 551-553 Wallisdown Road. The award winning online marketing agency look now to expand their workforce in the coming months and are also planning on employing a full time apprentice for the role of online marketing consultant later in the year.
SEO Flatrate became known for winning the Scoot Headline Awards back in 2016 with the launch of their Bournemouth branch and the all inclusive "Rent A Website" services package that offered a risk free and non contractual rental alternative to an otherwise costly website design service available on the market.
Here is what Robbie at SEO Flatrate had to say:
"Here at SEO Flatrate we have tailored all our products and services around startups and small to medium sized business, in todays market just having a pretty website for example simply is not enough. Business owners throughout the UK are discovering the power of online marketing and the benefits of Search Engine Optimisation "SEO" and are questioning why their websites are not performing on the search engines.
The reality is that every business owner wants the top spot on Google for their website, but the truth is that there are only 10 spots available on page one and only the best online marketing agencies in the UK have the ability to get you there.
Some SEO agencies tend to make empty promises of a page one position on Google, but the facts are, that nobody can actually guarantee a first page result and we believe that business owners should stear clear of all those that make unethical promises that they can't keep!
That does not mean that Google page one is out of reach, SEO Flatrate are indeed ranking many client keywords on page one already but more to the point, we won't make unethical promises or give empty guarantees. Instead we choose to work closely together with our clients ever aiming for the top spot but with the main goal to promote and market our customers products & services on all the major search engines and not just the one. We can't be fairer than that can we?
Take Rent a Website as an example, this is a fantastic product for startups and small to medium sized businesses, it provides a 100% risk free alternative and massive savings compared to conventional website design services we otherwise see advertised. Such a service can cost anywhere between £300-£500 on average depending on the project it can be far more. With Rent a Website however, business owners can get professional web design, business email, web & email hosting, daily backups and updates all for one simple monthly charge. Rent a Website pricing starts from just £16.99 per month and the service can be cancelled at any time giving just 30 days notice, that's a lot of money saved for a business of any kind never mind a startup.
Rent a Website was designed specifically with startups and small businesses in mind, as most startups don't have a massive budget for marketing and web design. In fact the truth of the matter is, that a large propostion of new business startups are run from home by mums and dads still holding down a full time job whilst trying to find new customers."
Robbie went on to say:
"Our Support team have been based in Bournemouth down on Christchurch Road now for some 2 years, but with the traffic situation being so bad, at times it has proven difficult for our customers to meet us face to face. Now with the addition of our new head office in Poole we have the ability to reach out to far more local customers throughout Poole, Bournemouth, Wimborne, Christchurch, Dorchester, Blandford and Dorset whilst the Bournemouth office continues to concentrate on growing its UK wide SEO reseller opportunities aimed at supporting tech companies and tech startups UK wide. We currently have resellers based in Poole and Bournemouth but even as far as Derby, London & Edingburgh.
If you would like to find out more about our UK wide reseller opportunities you can call us on 01202 911141 or simply email the office monday to Friday from 9am -17:30pm and Saturdays from 9am - 13:30pm and a member of the team will be glad to help."
Announcing the latest addition to our professional client portfolio of specialist Start-up Businesses.
"Payless UK"
In July 2016 local start-up business "Payless UK" approached Bournemouth based "SEO Flatrate" looking for advice and support with a brand new "low cost food distribution business"
to be launched in October of 2016 in Bournemouth and Ferndown.
Payless UK were interested in a wide range of business startup packages & the SEO Flatrate
Domain Name Registration Service was at the top of that list along with further professional services from our SEO & Marketing portfolio including logo design.
Specifically tailored for business start-ups the SEO Flatrate Domain Name Registration Service provides advice with keyword choice and assists both new and well established businesses with reserving and securing those desired domain names for the use of future websites and company email. In addition to the above "Payless UK" asked SEO Flatrate to support them with Website Design & Hosting and as a result they will shortly be benefiting from the "SEO Flatrate" Rent a Website "Platinum plan" ensuring that the new website is Google ready and has the necessary ongoing Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) needed to increase visibility upon the search engines.
Read what the business owners had to say:
"Seoflatrate.co.uk provided us with a truly all inclusive service from the word go, no contracts no minimum term for any of the services we have purchased. We have a brand new logo and have now ordered the rent a website service too. Not only did seoflatrate offer the only risk free website service we could find that provided design, hosting, domain registration and ongoing monthly SEO on a contract free pay as you go basis, but they are local too. As a start up business we need to keep our risk and our cost to an absolute minimum especially for the fist few years to build up our liquidity, we could not have asked for more and we look forward to a long term business relationship with the team at Seoflatrate".
