Web Design Brisbane

As a business owner, you will no doubt have been exposed to, and most probably used, many of the marketing methods, and promotional tools which are available to you.

Marketing has moved on leaps and bounds in the past 30 or so years, and in particular the move from a purely offline world of business and commerce, to one which also operates online has transformed everything. The internet has obviously brought many benefits to all aspects of our lives, including in the way be we do business, but it is also true to say that with such a significant change, there have been challenges too.

However, we prefer to focus on the positive and how the internet can be used to benefit a business. For it to do so, that business must have certain foundations in place, and one of those is their website. Without a properly functioning and well-designed website, a business in Brisbane lowers their ability to attract customers, build loyalty with existing clients, and they forfeit a huge competitive advantage to their competition.

We should point out that it is not enough simply to ‘have’ a website, as the adage ‘better something than nothing’ does not apply when it comes to websites. A poorly designed website that looks awful and does not function will drive prospects and even existing customers away, and it can do so in lots of ways.

So, whether you are a Brisbane business owner or CEO responsible for a business with a website that you know is having a negative impact, a new business needing its first website built, or a company in a competitive market that would benefit from a new and highly effective website that will help to challenge your competition, then the time is now for Slinky Web Design to design and build you that new website.

Why Is Having An Effective Website So Important?

When any of Slinky Web Design’s professional team is speaking to prospective clients in Brisbane a question that often gets asked is ‘Why are websites so important these days?’. It is a valid question because websites have been around since the earliest days of the internet, so why would they be any more important to a business in Brisbane today, than they were then?

Whilst we will cover many of the benefits that a well-designed website can generate for your business, they do not speak to the way in which a website plays a much bigger role in the success or otherwise of a business, so let us examine that.

The first reason is obviously the expansion of the internet, not just in terms of geography but in terms of speed and most importantly, with the numbers of people who use it, which include a widening in the demographics of internet users. Whilst all that was happening at a reasonable pace anyway, the events that enveloped the world in 2020 accelerated that.

With the Covid-19 pandemic affecting just about every town and city across the world, including Brisbane, when people went into lockdowns they found themselves cut off from family and friends. The main way in which they were able to stay in touch was via the internet using platforms like Zoom and Skype.

This phenomenon meant that many people, including those such as the elderly found themselves using and relying on the internet like never before, or even for the first time. This reliance has not only meant a huge increase in internet use but now it is a habit, even when the world is finally back to normality, the use of the internet and the importance of websites will be higher than ever.

Another point we must mention is that over the past two or three decades, the use of mobile phones and handheld devices has moved from them being the expensive toy of rich businesspeople to something which virtually everyone uses. Such is our dependency on them that you will no doubt have witnessed someone have something akin to a panic attack when they realise they have forgotten theirs.

Today, mobile phones are used for a lot more than just calling and we are close to the point that anything which can be done on a PC or laptop can also be done on a mobile device. This includes searching for products and services, researching a company, filling in ‘Contact Us’ forms, and ultimately making purchases, any, or all of which, would benefit most Brisbane businesses, including yours.

To give you simple illustration of how far the shift from desktop to mobile has gone, statistics for the whole of 2020 shows that 53.5% of internet usage was done via a mobile device or tablet, with 46.5% of internet usage via a desktop computer.

Profession vs Amateur Website Design

There are many examples of where using a cheap amateur to do a job for you will be perfectly okay, and no doubt all of us have done so, whether that be getting someone to deliver a package, paint a ceiling, mow the lawn, or clean the car. When it comes to business, much more care is needed, and with respect to having a website built, there are huge risks trying to have it done cheaply.

Bear in mind this website is going to have a significant impact, positively, or negatively on your business, and if you want to be the former of those two, then there is only one answer, and that is to use a professional web design agency in Brisbane, such as Slinky Web Design.

As for considering other options which could include a freelancer, a one or two-person agency, or even a friend or relative that says they can build you a website, there are many potential pitfalls to using any one of them.

What we would say is that not everyone who tries to build you a website and fails is necessarily doing anything that might be classed as ‘dodgy’. It is simply that they do not have the same level of skill, experience, and resources that Slinky Web Design can offer you, including all the testing and guarantees that would be included in any website package you purchased from us.

We appreciate it is tempting to try to save money when it comes to having your website built but remember the massive impact it can ultimately have on the profit and success that your business enjoys. It is surely not something that you would want to cost your business tens or maybe even hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue because you wanted to save a few hundred dollars when having it designed and built.

The Risks Of Not Having Your Website Professionally Designed

The risk to your revenue might seem like the only one when you have a poorly designed website, but it can go a lot further than that. Apart from the hassle and the delays during the design and building process that many business owners experience when they outsource their new website to amateurs, there are many more long-term dangers to the business itself.

If we separate out the short-term problems and the long-term risks, it might help you to appreciate that not only will your frustration be high when you realise that the amateur with the low prices cannot actually deliver what they promised you, but more seriously the sub-standard website they have presented you with, places your business in jeopardy.

Short Term Issues

No Updates Or Progress Reports
Poor Communication
Constant Delays
Asking For Additional Fees For ‘Extras’

Design Is No More Than A Template
Doesn’t Finish The Work
Excuse After Excuse
No Guarantees Or Warranty

Long Term Issues

Website Does Not Function Properly
Pages Missing
Error Messages
Template/Design Is Copyrighted (Possible Legal Action)
Content Is Copyrighted (Possible Legal Action)
Slow To Load
Visitors Click Away Immediately

Google Lowers Your Ranking
Your Brand Is Diminished
No Calls To Action Followed By Visitors
Poor Reviews Left On Sites Like Trustpilot
Lower Customer Numbers
Lower Revenue
Lower Profits

All that, just to save a few dollars. Do you think that is worth all the grief, stress, and damage to your business, or would you rather pay an affordable fee (we even offer monthly payments) for Slinky Web Design to professionally design and build you a website that will attract new customers, increase profits, improve your Google ranking, and give you a competitive edge that your competition in Brisbane cannot match?

VIEW PORTFOLIO

By now you should hopefully be aware that if you want a new website for your business, there is a right way and a wrong way to go about that, and, assuming you choose the right way, ultimately, you will have a professionally designed website that looks amazing, and functions perfectly.

That begs the question, ‘So what’? In other words, now that Slinky web Design has delivered on all their promises and your awesome new website is live and can be visited by anyone on the internet, you will obviously want to know the difference is it going to make to your business.

The truth is, it is not going to make just one positive difference to your business, but several. No matter whether you are a new or established business, a large business with many locations around Brisbane, or a sole trader, whether you offer, products, services or both, there are multiple benefits to having a professionally designed website serving as your online home base. Read on to discover what they are.

Website Works As It Should

As with anything technical, unless it is constructed by people who know what they are doing, it will not work. This applies as much to hairdryers and television sets as it does websites. The only differences are that whilst a hairdryer not working means wet hair and a malfunctioning TV means you miss out on your favourite miniseries, a website that does not function can cost you your business.

When we use the word ‘work’ we are referring more to the functioning of your website and its technical performance rather than elements such as user experience and conversion, albeit these are no less important. In fact, those, and many of the other benefits that accrue from having an excellent website could not happen if your website has technical problems and does not function as it should.

Apart from the professional web designers and programmers at Slinky Web Design in Brisbane who would be responsible for building your website, we have a comprehensive testing process that ensures that every piece of code that underpins your website is working properly. Only when these tests have been completed and we have satisfied ourselves that your website is 100% operationally, will we sign it off as ready.

Greater Website Security

It would be amazing if everyone who ventured online was honest, but the sad truth is that they are not. The internet has its fair share of crooks, criminals, scammers, fraudsters, and malcontents, in the same way the offline world has, and that means that every website that exists online is a potential target.

The array of ways in which your website might become threatened by online crooks is vast. It could be something that might be considered annoying more than criminal such as someone leaving spammy comments on your blog with a link that goes to a dodgy website. On the other hand, it could be a full-scale hacking attack that attempts, or worse, succeeds in accessing the personal data you hold for your customers.

Of course, there is everything in between that can involve the use of malware to cause your website to malfunction, cause it to load really slowly, and even to the point where hackers can hold your website to ransom by infecting its code causing it to completely crash and the crooks then demanding money from you to ‘release’ it.

We are sure you do not wish to have to face dealing with any of these issues, and one way you can help achieve that is with a professional website designed by us that will have a number of security protocols built into the coding to prevent them.

Compatible With All Mobile Devices

We mentioned in a previous section about the growth, not only of the internet, but specifically with regards to how people access the internet with mobile devices. We must emphasise the fact that the use of mobile devices to access the internet now exceeds access which comes from desktop computers and laptops.

This present huge opportunities with respect to businesses and their website, but also some challenges too. The main challenge is that a website that has been built with desktop computer users in mind will not necessarily be compatible with being accessed or viewed on mobile devices.

This incompatibility occurs for many reasons, but the main ones are obviously the different screen size, different graphics software, and the different way in which mobile device software reproduces a website from the data that it is receiving, compared to desktop computers.

If your current website is not mobile compatible, or someone builds you a website that is not mobile compatible, then in effect, your business is being excluded from the majority of internet users given that at least 53% of them use mobile devices to access the internet versus via desktop.

The website that Slinky Web Design builds for your business will be compatible with all device types which includes desktops and laptops but also tablets and mobile phones, including both Android and iPhone operating systems. This means 100% of internet users in Brisbane should be able to visit your website.

Supports Your Entire Online Marketing Plan

We would expect that most businesses in Brisbane, in addition to their website, also utilise marketing to help them to attract new customers, and ultimately to grow. There are many ways this can be done offline through the use of TV, radio, newspaper, magazine, and billboard advertising, as well as leaflet drops, sponsorships, and good old fashioned face-to-face selling.

Whilst your website will complement and help with all of these in some way, it is with regards to your online marketing efforts that it will really make the most difference. To start with, it is your very own online billboard and whilst we do not suggest you blitzing visitors with a flurry of pop up adverts when they land on your website, it can be used to convey a number of important marketing messages.

Further to that, your website also helps with other online marketing with some of the most prominent being email marketing, social media, and paid advertising such as Google Ads. Your website can either be the catalyst for these such as having an opt-in box for collecting email addresses, or the destination, where someone clicks from a Google Ad through to your website.

Just as with offline marketing, the better your website design is, the more effective any of your online marketing is going to be. If it is poorly designed then any investment you make in online marketing such as paying for clicks from Google Ads will not a great, if any, return.

Greater Trust In Your Company

There is are many things that transcend both our personal and our business lives and which, in the absence of them, makes them more difficult. One of those is trust, which we hope you will agree is essential in any kind of relationship be it with a partner, spouse, family, friends, and obviously in business be that on business to business or a business to customer basis.

For a business to survive it must gain the trust not only of investors and its staff but most critically its customers, especially prospective ones. No person is ever going to wish to do business with, or spend money with, a company that it does not trust, and so the ability of your website to help build that trust is a huge benefit.

The ways a website can help build trust start from the second someone first lands on it. Just the appearance of a website, assuming it is professionally designed with every element on the page looking good and where it should be will already be giving that person some confidence that this is a professional company.

Being open about the business is also a great way to build trust, and thus an ‘About Us’ page which might include details about the owners, management, or the staff, is a way to build a relationship with a prospective customer. The inclusion of testimonials and reviews from existing clients, if you have them, is another way to generate trust.

Finally, highlighting the fact that your company is a member of a local trade organisation or professional body is will show visitors you are a trustworthy company. Slinky Web Design can incorporate this, and any of the other trust builders, into the design of your website.

Your Branding Is Enhanced

Branding is an aspect of a company’s operations that may not necessarily be applicable to yours. This will very much depend on the niche or business sector it is in, and how big a part that branding plays in the sales and marketing of your products or services. Nevertheless, even if it is not as crucial for your business as it might be for others, there is no harm in your company having a strong and recognisable brand.

This will obviously be even more so if indeed businesses in your niche do need to have a strong brand identity, and so that is why within the design of your website, Slinky Web Design will ensure that your branding is clear, identifiable, and effective.

We can achieve this in a myriad of ways which can include your company logo. Incidentally, if you do not yet have a company logo, or wish to have a new one, we offer logo design as an additional service so please ask about it when you are discussing your website design with us.

Other elements to promote your branding will be the colour scheme we adopt within the design, specific fonts that you might wish us to use, plus any marketing messages or slogans. Another element will be the consistency of this branding throughout the website so that each page which a visitor clicks to, they know it is your brand and your company.

Your Local, Brisbane Credentials Are Confirmed

Unless your business operates nationally, or internationally, then we must assume it is a local business, and that your marketplace exists within the wonderful city of Brisbane. Now, given Brisbane is large city, one of the great things that the internet allows you to do is to reach and to market your products and services to a greater proportion of the city’s population than when marketing could only be done offline.

It could be that you only wish to target certain areas within Brisbane and there is nothing wrong with that, but whether you operate citywide, beyond the city limits to surrounding towns, or to just a particular suburb, you want anyone landing on your website to know that.

The reason this is important is that local people love to use local businesses where they can, and that can be applied to just about any city or town across the planet. However, If you do not identify yourself as a local company from Brisbane on your website, you might as well be in New York or London.

When we are designing websites for businesses in Brisbane we will add as many ways to identify you as local as we can, whilst working with the view of making your website look as good as we possibly can.

One might be to have ‘Brisbane’ or the specific local areas within Brisbane that you are targeting in large or prominent text. We can also include a map plus your business address to further identify you as local. Including the testimonials and reviews of your local customers in Brisbane is a double win as it ticks the box for local and the box for trust.

User Experience Is Improved

If you were to ask us what we believed what the most important benefit that a well-designed website will give a business, it is the fact that the experience that any visitors to that website have will be greatly enhanced. The spectrum of other advantages to a company that stems from visitors to its website having a positive experience is wide and more than that, it has huge implications for the success of that business.

With a great website, the first impression that any visitor will have is going to be positive which is far more desirable than them having an immediate negative first impression and clicking away almost instantaneously. This can have implications for your Google ranking which we explain further in the next section.

With a website that works properly and functions and looks as it should, a visitor will not become frustrated trying to navigate around it and thus will be more inclined to click through to other pages and look at other elements of your website such as product videos or testimonials from existing customers.

The fact that someone has a good experience on your website obviously makes it more likely that they will take further action such as submit a request for a call back or make a purchase if your website is an e-commerce site. Even if they do not take any action on this list, they are far more likely to come back at a later time or date if they have had a positive experience.

One very important aspect of the experience that a visitor has on your website is that they, as we all do, will be telling others if that visit was remarkable. With a great website, it will have been positive, and they will recommend your website to others. With a poorly designed website, it will have been negative, and they will with as much vigour, if not more, tell others to avoid it.

Google Ranks You Higher

There are several ways in which people in Brisbane looking for the type of services or products you offer will try to find them online. They might click through from an ad, it could be they find you on are on social media, they might click a link which is on another website, but in the vast majority of cases, their first step will be to enter a search on one of the search engines.

There are numerous search engines such as Bing, Yahoo, and Yandex, for example, but the one which dominates, with over 70% of all searches that take place, is Google. If your website can rank on Google then it has a chance of ranking on the others simply because it is Google’s ranking system that is the most comprehensive and sophisticated in terms of search results.

How Google calculates what ranks where for specific search terms could be discussed over 50 volumes of text, and there still would not be a complete answer. However, there are plenty of experts such as those within SEO agencies who have studied and researched to find out those answers. In fairness, Google does publish some information and one thing is clear, their emphasis is on relevancy and user experience.

This means if someone types in ‘beauty salon Brisbane’ then it is safe to say that the websites that rank in the top position of that search will be those owned by beauty salons that Google has identified as being based in Brisbane. If the person searching clicks on one of those top results, Google tracks them and the information and data it records thereafter is important.

For example, if the searcher lands on a trashy website that looks horrible and has nothing to offer in terms of useful content, they click away immediately, and even if they stay on the site, it will not be for long. This tells Google that that website does not really deserve to be ranked highly, and as such lowers its ranking.

On the other hand, if that business has a professionally designed website from Slinky Web Design, anyone landing on it will be impressed by how it looks, would want to click through to other pages, and is likely to remain on the site for some time. Again, Google sees this, and its algorithm rewards that site with a higher ranking, which means even more visitors.

Higher Level Of Conversions

We hope and trust that you want your newly designed website to be more than just a place online that proves your business exists. Whilst that may well be one of its functions, there are many more that will play a greater role in helping your business to grow.

Obviously, each business will operate in a different way, even within the same sector, so when we discuss conversion this is not always going to be a sale that actually happens on your website. A sale will certainly be the objective on an e-commerce website if that is what you wish us to build for you, but for the vast majority of other businesses, what constitutes a conversion, will vary a great deal.

Other than an actual purchase, here are some of the many actions, or conversions, that a professionally designed website from Slinky Web Design can produce that will benefit your business.

Asking For A Free Sample
Requesting A Free Demonstration
Completing A Quotation Request Form
Filling In A Survey
Entering Their Details In A ‘Contact Us’ Page
Requesting A Telephone Call Back
Watching Videos About Your Company, Products, And Services

Listening To Audios About Your Company, Products, And Services
Reading Content About Your Company, Products, And Services
Submitting Their Name And Email Address
Downloading Information Documents
Adding A Review Or Testimonial To Your Website
Adding Comments To Your Blog Posts

It is well worth noting that although nothing on this list actually constitutes the purchase of a product or service, each one of them is something that takes that visitor one step closer to a sale or purchase happening.

Move Ahead Of Your Competitors

Unless you are the one and only company that sells the sort of product or service you offer (and if you are, we would love to know what it is), then you are bound to have competition, and most likely that competition is local to you here in Brisbane.

Even with those companies that have exclusive rights to sell a product, such as a McDonald’s franchise, or an Audi dealership, there are other burger restaurants and car dealers that compete with these businesses, respectively.

Given that no matter the market you are in or your location within Brisbane, other businesses are competing with you for what will be a finite number of customers, and anything which gives you an advantage over the companies that are competing with you has to be positive. With all the benefits we have already outlined with respect to what a professionally designed website can provide your business, this has to be another.

Imagine the comparison between a competitor’s website which is tired looking, has nothing to keep visitors there, makes no attempt at any kind of conversion, and on occasion even fails to load due to errors in its coding, and your website built by Slinky Web Design. That is a website that will look awesome, work perfectly, keeps visitors interested enough to remain for some time, and persuades them to take action.

Think about the difference in just the higher numbers of inquiries and requests for call backs, for example, your business will receive as a result, compared to any competitor with a sub-standard website, not to mention the longer terms benefits in increased profits, stronger branding, and customer loyalty.

Increased Revenue And Profits

When all is said and done, even if you have a great website that generated all the benefits we have already described, unless this final one comes to pass, then in truth they are all for nothing. The simple fact is that 99% of businesses do not survive without revenue, and they certainly cannot grow or be considered to be successful unless at some point they are generating profits.

It is the case that the website that Slinky Web Design creates for your Brisbane business will indeed produce all the benefits we have already spoken about, and each of them in their own right is desirable. However, these benefits are also all leading towards your company increasing visitors, prospects, leads, buyers, customers, repeat customers revenue, and ultimately profits.

Your website might do this directly if it is an eCommerce website we build for you, but otherwise, it will be that journey from someone who lives locally in Brisbane searching for the product or service you offer, to them becoming a paid customer that your professionally designed website will help to make something which happens more often than it does now.

More profits mean you can invest in your business, start to grow it, possibly expand to more than one location in Brisbane, or better, into other cities. There really is no limit, and it all starts by you deciding that you want that professionally designed website for your business and getting in touch with Slinky Web Design’s team here in Brisbane to get started.

Getting Started

Slinky Web Design in Brisbane is a team of professional, skilled, and experienced web designers and programmers who all have a passion for turning ideas into fully functioning spectacular-looking websites that provide users with the best possible experience.

That journey starts with us discussing with you what your hopes are and indeed what your ideas are too. After all this is your website, and as such, when it is completed we want you to feel you have had as much input into creating it as we did.

To get in touch with our dedicated team of web design professionals all you need do is send us your details via our ‘How Can We Help You?’ page which can be found here: https://www.slinkywebdesign.com.au/contacts. Everyone at Slinky Web Design is looking forward to serving you and delivering to you a website that helps your business to thrive.