Tag: responsive design

How Responsive Website Design Can Take Your Business Forward

It is easy to understand this concept even if you don’t have special technical knowledge. The idea behind responsive design is to make the website usable across all connected devices. It responds to the environment created by the hardware to make viewing and interaction comfortable, pleasant and productive.
Simply put, the website is equally easy to view and to use on desktop computers, laptops, smartphones and tablets. What value can it bring to a business? Let me answer this question from the point of view of an experienced web development consultant.

Cost Efficiency
With global mobile web traffic already surpassing desktop traffic, it has become perfectly clear that there is no way back – mobile is here to stay. If businesses want to keep up with the trends and stay competitive, their website has to be optimised for mobile. It is possible to have a mobile website in addition to your existing one. This option typically requires a smaller initial investment. However, it is not cost-efficient as you will have to invest in the search engine optimisation, marketing, maintenance and future development of two different platforms. Furthermore, content duplication issues may occur and you can be severely penalised for this by Google.
With responsive website design, you will be able to focus your effort and investment on a single platform. You can expect higher return since the platform will continue to work effectively for all of your marketing and other business purposes in the long term.

Improved Visibility
Since April 2015, Google has been giving priority to websites which are optimised for mobile devices. This means that responsive website design has now become fundamental for SEO and digital marketing in general. If you want your optimisation efforts from content creation to link building to pay off, you will need to have a website which is equally functional on all mobile devices. With higher search engine rankings, your website will have more qualified leads and this will help for increasing the rate of conversion.

Higher Conversion
Eventually, it all boils down to sales and revenue and responsive design can help to improve both. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, mobile is becoming an ever more important channel for generating information and social sharing. With a website optimised for smartphones and tablets, you and your products and services will get found more easily and quickly not only via the search engines, but via the social networks too.
Around half of all online shoppers use multiple devices to make a transaction. For instance, they may find a cool product on their tablet and then buy it later on via their desktop computer. Additionally, one in four e-commerce sales is now made via a smartphone. These statistics come to prove that responsive design is necessary not only for gaining new customers, but for keeping existing ones.
As mentioned in the beginning, the core purpose of this design is to improve user experience. When the user enjoys satisfactory experience, the chance of sale increases by two thirds. You will not have to worry about missing to capture a prospect customer because your website is difficult to navigate with gestures or slow to load on mobile devices.

Become even more competitive with responsive design for your business website.

You already have a vision for your business’s responsive website? Share it with me.

3 E-commerce Website Fundamentals

The benefits of e-commerce are well-known – lower initial and fixed costs, exposure to a larger audience and plenty of affordable opportunities for marketing and promotion. At the same time, the competition for customers on the web is very high and continues to grow in practically all industries. The fast pace of technological development also poses a challenge for online retailers as they cannot afford to stay behind. How do you get competitive and achieve success in an environment like this? Let me take you through the main prerequisites for a successful e-commerce website.

Responsive Design
We live in a digital world in which consumers use multiple devices to browse the web and shop online. The list includes desktop computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones. Data from the third quarter of 2015 shows that 49% of e-commerce transactions in the UK were made with the use of multiple connected devices. With responsive design, your website will have equally influential presence and dependable functionalities on all gadgets.
The layout and navigation are modified to match the screen size, features and capabilities of each specific device while the content remains the same. The website will work equally well with mouse clicks and swipe gestures, for example. Responsive design will not only help you facilitate the making of purchases at your online store. It is also effective for lead generation as Google now gives higher ranking to websites optimised for mobile.

Well-Developed Purchase Funnel
The purchase funnel is the journey which the customer makes from the moment they land on your website to completing the payment. There are two questions that have to be answered here: how to make this journey smooth and pleasant and how to increase the chances of completing the transaction? You can achieve both with the right website design elements and functionalities related to marketing and performance.
Attractive product presentation is key. Card design and large digital images will increase the appeal of your products. Sleek menus offering more options when you click or tap on them will make the products stand out even more. Clutter-free pages with large CTA buttons will simplify the purchase process and help for higher sales. A convenient and well-organised shopping cart will make purchases even easier. It is now mandatory for all brands and retailers to offer secure shopping experience online and a comprehensive set of payment options.

Reliable Management System
The checklist of tools which you will require to run your online store is quite long. It includes inventory management, procurement and shipping, customer relationship management, marketing and analytics. It is neither productive nor cost-efficient to get a software program which lacks any of these functions.
The best solution is to have a web-based software integrated with your e-commerce website. This gives you a higher level of automation and increases productivity immensely. When the software is custom made, it will fit your needs precisely and develop and expand along with your online business.

Finally, for growing your e-commerce business, you will also need a complete digital marketing strategy. The goal is to increase the number of visitors to your website and the level of conversion and to keep them high in the long term. As an e-commerce development consultant, I can help you at every stage of the building of your online business.

For consultation and e-commerce website development, get in touch with me.

What Design Features Will Make Websites Successful

Just a decade ago, only big companies had websites and many of them were not particularly functional. Now even the smallest businesses are represented online. In this competitive environment, how do you grab and keep the attention of consumers and how can you achieve a higher conversion rate? There are a lot of factors for success, but I suggest that we start with the fundamental ones and namely website design.

As a web development consultant, I keep up with the latest trends in this dynamic field. This allows me and my team of talented designers and developers to give our clients effectively working modern platforms with long-term potential. Here, I will share the hottest trends.

Responsive Design
If you want your business website to be used from any type of device connected to the internet conveniently, you have to opt for responsive design. While it was viewed as highly desirable just a few years ago, now it has become mandatory. The primary reason for this is that more and more people now use their smartphones and tablets to browse the web, to shop and to share things with friends. In the group of adults aged 16 to 24, 96% access the web via their portable connected devices. Surprisingly or not, the share of mobile internet users in the group of adults aged over 65 is also considerable – 29%. Nearly half of ecommerce traffic comes from smartphones and tablets.
Source: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/rdit2/internet-access—households-and-individuals/2015/stb-ia-2015.html

Another reason why responsive design rules the scene and is here to stay is the change in the Google algorithms designed to give higher ranking to websites designed for mobile devices as well as for PCs and laptops. If you want to be found by prospects, you have to go mobile. Otherwise, all of your search engine optimisation efforts may be ruined.

Card Layout
This type of layout came into fashion with flat design and now it has evolved to meet the needs of internet users even better. The basic concept is quite simple. The web page contains clickable cards taking the user to other sections of the website. Each card has unique graphics and/or colour. It can also hold a short text presenting the section. This layout makes it really easy and convenient for visitors to find their way around and to reach the information or product that they are looking for. As the clutter is eliminated and the user enjoys flawless experience, the rate of conversion is bound to increase.

Custom Graphics
One of the main questions that I am asked as a digital consultant is how my team of web designers will make the website stand out among competitors. Unique images have been the norm for quite some time. Now the major focus is on custom graphics. Each feature from the logo to the enquiry button has to be visually impressive and aesthetically appealing. This is an effective way for building a strong brand image in the minds of users. It is possible for unique illustrations to be created for enhancing pages and sections. Infographics can be used for presenting information in a more interesting way.

Finally, no matter what the trends are, the business website has to be unique and to reflect the concept of the brand. Count on me and my team to give you this.

Get in touch via email, Facebook, Skype, WhatsApp or Viber or just call my office and ask for Philip Philipov.

Going Mobile for Better Marketing and Higher Sales

Just five years ago, a business website was perfectly sufficient for a company to carry out its marketing strategy over the internet and to generate more leads and boost its sales. Now, if you are not on mobile devices, you may not even get found by a large number of consumers, who are actually looking for your product or service. According to Deloitte, 76% of adults in Britain have a smartphone and these gadgets are used for much more than making calls. Now is the time for businesses to take advantage of the mobile revolution.
Source: http://www.deloitte.co.uk/mobileuk/#feature

Endless Opportunities
With responsive design, the website of your business can offer the same kind of user experience on smartphones, tablets, laptops and PCs. You will be able to sell products directly via mobile devices or have your brick-and-mortar business more easily found through integration with map applications. With just one tap on your phone number, the user will be able to call you via their phone. A mobile app, on the other hand, gives you constant presence on the mobile devices of your customers. You can exploit this for more effective marketing through push notifications. It is also possible for the app to collect valuable marketing data.
Going mobile will make it much easier for you to carry out promotional campaigns and to achieve better results with them, especially using the most popular channels at present – the social networks. According to the “Digital, Social and Mobile 2015 Report” of the We Are Social agency, 32 million people in the UK access their social media accounts via their mobile devices.
Source: http://wearesocial.sg/blog/2015/01/digital-social-mobile-2015/

Huge Market Potential
Consumers are actively using their mobile devices to find products and retailers and to make purchases. Statistical data from comScore shows that 31.7% of smartphone users in the United Kingdom rely on their devices to locate shops while 29.3% purchase goods and services via them. Over 23% of all users use their mobile to compare product prices and features. These factors establish mobile applications and websites as powerful marketing tools.
Mobile sales continue to grow. In Q4 of 2014, 40% of all online sales in the UK were completed via smartphones and tablets, according to research of IMRG and Capgemini. This is 3% higher compared to the same quarter of 2014.
Source: http://www.imrg.org/index.php?catalog=1769

By 2024, the annual spending via mobile devices will reach £53.6 billion, according to Barclays. The value of all sales influenced by a mobile channel is predicted to reach £112 billion. They will make up nearly half of all retail sales made in the country.
Source: https://www.barclayscorporate.com/content/dam/corppublic/corporate/Documents/research/Future-of-m-commerce.pdf

Staying Competitive
What is the competition doing? Businesses focus on solidifying and diversifying their presence on mobile devices. In a survey conducted by Econsultancy among 1,412 companies in the UK, 58% of respondents said that they had employed responsive website design as part of optimising for mobile devices. Another 49% shared that they have employed mobile applications. The competition for the minds and hearts of consumers is moving towards the mobile field and it is paramount for companies to act quickly.
Source: https://econsultancy.com/blog/66543-50-fascinating-stats-about-mobile-commerce-in-the-uk-2015/

If you want to gain larger exposure, to be more competitive and to get higher returns from your marketing efforts, mobile is the answer. My role as a digital consultant is to provide assistance with the development of a complete strategy for achieving top results.

If you are ready to go mobile, get in touch. You can send me an email or call my office at Whiz and seek Philip Philipov.