Small Business Archives • Page 14 of 14 • HEROIC

Why Your Web Designer Sucks

99% of website designers suck because they sell website designs.

What? Just read that back again. What does that even mean? Let’s break it down.

Aflua used to be a design agency. What I mean by that is that we produced high-fidelity, impressive designs for our customers to drool over and buy into. We were polished graphic designers for the Internet.

This produced good short-term results for us: we wowed the client, built websites for them, took their money, and then mostly said goodbye. We pumped and dumped.

This is exactly what most web design agencies still do. They focus nearly all their efforts on ‘making the sale’, pushing appealing design as a vehicle to sell websites. And this is truer than ever in the small business sphere.

So why does this suck? After all, website designers sell website design, right?

Wrong. The Internet is much more complex than it was back in the 1990’s. It is no longer enough to expect that a graphic design, adapted for the Web, will cut the mustard.

A Website is a Customer Engagement Platform

What that grandiose phrase really means, is that your website needs to be much more than just your company brochure converted to HTML.

It needs to offer compelling, fresh content on a regular basis, managed through a simple yet flexible Content Management System (CMS).
It needs to react correctly to the device it’s being viewed on, restructuring page layouts to best suit smartphones and tablets, which are fast becoming the default way for your audience to visit you online.
You need to know and understand statistics about traffic sources, and why they are leaving certain pages more than others.
Depending on your industry, it may need to be able to accept credit cards or PayPal payments directly, so you can generate revenue.
That being the case, it may need to send information to your accounting software and produce and send an invoice to the buyer.
It may need to integrate with other systems to streamline and automate parts of your company workflow.
It needs to communicate with your social media pages, and allow your visitors to share across those social sites they frequently use.
It needs to answer your potential and existing customers’ questions, whether through an FAQ, help desk software or through a form you interact with.
It needs to ensure the quickest path to your visitor finding what they are looking for, and cater for that need better than your competitors.
You need to have a basic understanding of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) best practises, to ensure you keep Google (and Bing and Yahoo!) happy and your site stays in their search results pages.
And yes, it needs to look stunning and be branded correctly to your company identity.

Of all the points on the list, the last one is the least important. After all, would you rather be the owner of the most beautiful store on Nowhere Street, or own the average-looking store on busy Central Avenue.

Of course that’s a bit extreme – you can have a great looking website that generates fantastic results too – but you get the point.

If your website design firm is producing great design but not making a difference to your bottom line, maybe it’s time to take a step back, and think more strategically about where you would really like your online business to be.

I guess the bottom line is this: if your website is not generating leads or sales online, then it is useless.

So How do you Find a Good Designer?

So if you are looking for a designer, one of the most important things is to ask questions before you start. A good designer will have no problem in explaining things to you in common language. Take time to understand how they work, what their area of expertise is, and also who will have responsibility for which parts of the site during the build and once it goes live.

Secondly, never make cost your main criteria for choosing a designer. Everyone looks for a bargain, but ultimately you get what you pay for. So if you are being offered a fully-functioning e-commerce website design with all the bells and whistles for a one-off payment of $200, then alarm bells should be ringing: that designer will cut corners in the best case, and leave you high and dry half way through the project in the worst. A good designer will value their work.

That’s not to say that good quality website design needs to cost the earth either: at the other end of the scale, if you are being quoted $2,000 for a 3-page website with no functionality other than a simple contact form, you should be equally skeptical.

Most important of all is to ensure you have ongoing advice and support for your project, from someone who realises that your success will contribute to theirs.

Don’t get pumped and dumped. Good designers will stick around, and be active over time in the development of your online presence.

Web Design as a Service in NZ

It is no exaggeration to say that the internet runs the world and, that being the case, for any business that is looking to remain relevant, a website is an absolute necessity.

There are many people who claim to be professional website designers in New Zealand. The reality, however, is that quite a number of these so-called professionals are only interested in making money in the short term. Sadly, most business owners only come to this realization when it’s too late.

The Hit-and-run Model

Many web designers in New Zealand still subscribe to the traditional way of doing things where after being paid for work done they simply move on to the next project. If the client happens to face any problems with his or her website in the future, they will have to sort it out on their own, find someone else to do it, or pay the company an often inflated hourly rate to resolve their issues. Clearly this hit-and-run model is not a good one; it makes life difficult for business owners.

The traditional approach to website development mostly benefits the designer, and this should not be the case. The good news is that this is not the only option that business owners and anyone else in need of design services have.

For many clients, a much better alternative is the Website-as-a-Service approach where, after development, the developer will continue to provide support and maintenance services to the client so as to ensure that everything works perfectly in the long run, and that the client’s mid- or long-term business objectives are achieved.

Ongoing Support and Peace of Mind

At Aflua, we like to think that we offer some of the best web design in New Zealand. Our goal is to ensure that none of our clients ever has to worry about the performance of their websites once they are up and running.

Some of the most noteworthy aspects of our service include the fact that we use open source platforms which simply means that, in case of any problems, solutions can easily be found, thanks to the enormously supportive communities that tend to congregate around such solutions.

Our WaaS offering also covers a free domain name, email and web hosting as standard, in addition to providing hands-free management if needed. What the latter means is that our experts, if you so choose, can handle the updating of your website. Obviously this will take the bulk of the work from your hands, and as a result, you will be able to focus on your business.

Website as a Service guarantees peace of mind because a business owner does not have to worry about their website going down anytime in the future and with no one to provide assistance. Simply put, this particular form of website design in NZ is a continuing service and not a one-time engagement.

Aflua’s designs are top of the range and cater to each business’ unique requirements. All websites are fully compliant on multiple modern browsers including Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Safari amongst others.

Despite this being a monthly service, clients do not have to sign lengthy, complex contracts that will force them into a corner. In addition, our clients do not pay large upfront fees; instead they only pay for the features they use every month, because the system offers modules and add-on functionality which can be chosen in line with the customer’s needs.

This is an ideal arrangement because not all businesses have the financial capacity to make a significant one-time payment. Every website is designed to meet the client’s needs specifically.

If you would like to know more about our WaaS offering for Kiwi companies, please check out the plans we offer.

Is your Website mobile-ready?

Mobile technologies have changed everything. Smartphones and tablets are now so entrenched in our work and leisure time that we feel almost naked when we have left our devices at home.

Since 1990, we have gone from practically zero mobile phone adoption to over four billion in 2013, of which over a quarter are smartphones.

Mobility has affected our social interaction, as the images below highlight extremely well.

So I guess the major takeaway of this post could very well be to think twice when planning your new, mobile-ready website design: is it prepared for different device touchpoints? If you are not considering a responsive website layout, quite frankly you are leaving cash on the table. After all, it is projected that by 2014, over half of all Internet accesses will be made from a mobile device of some kind or another…

Need help with ensuring your new or existing website look great on all the different mobile devices? Aflua can help: just take a look at the link at the bottom of this page.

Welcome

Hi, and welcome to the all-new Aflua blog. This is just our drop in the ocean of blogs, to contribute some extra commentary, insight and thoughts about the digital landscape.

If all the references to oceans and landscapes sound very ecological to you, then that’s all good with us: after all, we are based in New Zealand, and get inspired by the views!

So without further ado, let’s talk about Web design in NZ and elsewhere, as well as a bit about branding, marketing and how to get the best out of digital in your organisation too.

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Here’s to your business. I truly hope you get some real value out of this corner of the website, and that we have the chance to help your business reach its goals soon.

Cheers, all the best!

Jake Burdess (Aflua Co-founder & Director)