What to Look For in Michigan Website Design Services
If you are a business owner and are looking for ways to expand your marketing, or developing an online presence for your business, a website might be your best bet. A lot of sites aim nationally or globally, but when you’re starting out it’s best to try to capture a more local client base. A great way to do that is to engage the services of a local website design firm.
Aaron Howard Director of CU Innovative Marketing, a Michigan-based web, creative, and internet marketing agency suggests when you are looking for a designer to work on your online brand, “…check out potential designers by reviewing their portfolios to see what they’ve done in the past. You want your website to look aesthetically pleasing, be well organized and end user friendly. The designers’ portfolio will give you a look at what they’ve done and will be able to tell you from a visual stand point, how much thought and effort goes into their work.”
Whatever Michigan website design service you go through, you want to be sure there’s an open line of communication from the very beginning. Howard recommends that you bring the designers as much information as you can, like text, photos, graphics, color schemes, existing logos and any other hard-copy advertising materials, etc. They need to know what you want on your site, an idea of how you want it to look, and what is the purpose of the site. “All of this information plays a big role in how the site will be laid out and how the navigation will work. You want your potential customers to be able to maneuver on the site without difficulty”, says Howard.
You will also want a site that has a content management system (CMS) so you can update your site. You’re going to want your site to have up-to-date information so it stays relevant and useful to potential customers. A content management system will allow you to make changes to your site without involving your website development team. Adding content articles, updating specials or event calendars are a few examples of the types of information you may want to update yourself.
Howard also mentions that there are “invisible” behind the scenes work that’s done which you won’t be able to see just by looking at photos.
“The site’s underlying structure can play a significant role in how visible you are on the search engines. You are going to want someone working on your site that understands Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, and search engine marketing, or SEM. Together, these elements are what helps to drive your site to the top of the rankings.”
Proper keyword research, implementing metadata and other onsite page optimization factors, and developing an effective backlinking strategy, all work to improve your website’s rank in the search engine results pages, making it more visible to users.
Make sure that your designer uses ethical SEO practices. Unethical SEO practices, such as keyword stuffing, or other manipulation that is outside of the search engines terms of use, can get your website banned from search engines which eliminates much of the benefit of having an online presence.
