The internet has become such an integral part of our lives that today it is impossible for any company to think about doing business without having a website. With websites now being developed by a wide assortment of website developers ranging from high-end professional agencies to designers working out of home, there is a lot of disparity in the depth of knowledge and technical expertise. It has unfortunately given birth to several misconceptions and myths that often prevent businesses from optimizing their website performance. Some of the more prevalent myths debunked:
You Only Need to Create a Website Once, and You Are Done
This is among the most misconception harbored by businesses that are considering having a website developed. The preferences of customers change, the technology gets upgraded, and competitor activities open up new challenges for the business that has to respond by transforming itself appropriately. Since the purpose of the website is to carry all relevant information accurately and in an appealing manner, the contents of the website also must keep changing. The impact of the changing aesthetic sense of consumers also needs to be considered, and the website design has to keep pace with the changing trends. Once in a while, the entire design of the website may also have to be changed to cater to the new preferences. Changing technologies also make it necessary for the web design to make changes to provide a better user experience and better search engine visibility. The truth is that once you have developed a website for your business, you need to keep on making changes as long as your business exists. The only variable is the rate of change, which is a function of the business environment.
A Website, Once Launched, Can Take Care of All Your Worries
Sadly, websites are not something that you develop, host, and forget about. Not only do you need to keep on monitoring its performance and tend to maintenance issues but also take care of security concerns that keep on emerging all the time. Just because your business has a website does not mean that your target audience will start flocking to it in droves. For a website to attract visitors, businesses have to promote them in various ways and channels, including mail, messaging, and social media. You will also need to implement SEO practices to ensure your website is search engine-friendly and it gets Page One ranks for the target keywords consistently. The website must be structured in a way that it presents a compelling sales funnel that efficiently converts visitor traffic to benefit the business, according to a leading website design Egypt.
A Minimalist Approach Works the Best
Largely as a reaction to the clutter of websites that tried to do everything for everybody by offering lots of content, many websites adopted a minimalist approach to appeal to users fed up with the noise. Typical examples of high-profile brands leveraging minimalism include Apple and Google, both sleek and completely distraction-free. The very attitude spells out that we know what you want very well so we don’t want to confuse you with too many options. Even though minimalism can be a welcome change with its flat design, next-to-nothing navigation, and lack of colors and text, it may not work well for all brands. Well-known brands can afford the luxury of a minimalist approach, however, if you are a business struggling to get recognition, you need enough content on the pages to ensure that you can attract and engage your target audience. While this does not mean that you have to stuff your web pages with content, it also goes without saying that a true-blue minimalist design may not be optimum.
Getting the Homepage Right Is All That Counts
Even though nobody can deny that the homepage of the website is visited the most, most of the organic traffic generated by a search engine comprises links to other pages. These pages contain the information that fulfills the search intent the best and not the homepage. The Google algorithm is geared to direct users to pages that contain the most relevant information that users are searching for and hence the homepages are generally ignored unless the users have employed a search term that is the name of the business or the brand. Even a product search would lead users to the product-specific page, not the homepage. Given this fact, businesses should avoid obsessing over the homepage of their website. While making the homepage attractive and functional, they should also try to ensure that the other pages are populated with accurate and concise information with user-experience as their main focus.
Making the Website Mobile-Friendly Resolves All Accessibility Concerns
Even though making your website mobile-friendly is very important given that over half of the world’s internet traffic is generated by mobile users, according to Statista, it does not mean that you have addressed all your accessibility issues. According to some experts, for a website to be truly accessible, it needs to comply with as many as 508 guidelines. To make your website accessible, some of the more important issues that you need to address include keyboard-friendly website navigation and colors with good contrast besides content that is easily readable across a variety of screens, and the addition of alt-text to all non-text content. Additionally, video content should not start playing automatically, all form fields should be clearly labeled and instructions provided, and the tables kept simple. The more accessible you make your website, the easier it is for people to browse it and interact with the contents. It is also important for businesses to recognize that it is necessary to make it easy for people with disabilities to use your site.
Conclusion
Website development is not the easiest of tasks, given that some innumerable issues and complexities have to be addressed. In this situation, it does not help matters if you are distracted by misconceptions and myths, they may limit your ability to attract sufficient traffic and engage them productively for the desired conversions. It is a good idea to allocate a budget that is sufficient for you to engage a professional web design and development company.
