The key to success online is all about how customers perceive your business. You have 8 seconds to build a connection with a prospective client.
A gorgeous website that implements all of the relevant data-points of human psychology to capture the highest conversion rates whilst showing elegance in how your brand is represented.
Clearly displaying your products or services, visible call-to-actions whilst displaying a high-quality web design isn't easy, we use heat mapping, reports, psychology, and real-world data to produce websites in Geelong at affordable prices.
There are around 190,000 residents living in Geelong with tens of thousands commuting daily to support the commercial market which means you have an enormous target market.
If you are thinking about what you can do to improve your online presence, the first thing to consider is working with a web design agency in Geelong.
“Statistics show that more than 50% of small businesses do not have a website. If you are like them, it is time to make a change.”
If you have a preexisting website older than 2-3 years, it is time to think about putting the right effort behind it to get an edge over your competition.
We have prepared a 4,000-word article, covering exactly what is needed to build a website, and what separates sitecentre and our specialists from the rest with complete transparency.
- Planning
- Timeframes
- Hosting and Domains
- Copywriting
- Branding
- Web Design
- Web Development
- Marketing
- Software Setup
- Customer Support
- Pricing
Plan your Website
The first step of creating the best website for your business is to draft up a general list of the essential aspects that you will need to cover. Let's be honest about it, there are tons of things that you need to consider that exceed the basic things such as general design, templates, and pages.
Website design also accounts for the goals that you have in mind, how to make your website different from that of the competition, what is your budget, is the site optimised for SEO, what target demographic is, the loading speed, the domains that you will use, the website performance, the navigation, making your website mobile-friendly and much more.
What you will need is to have a website that ranks high in targeted keyword searches so that the local customer base can find your business easily and access your services.
Making sure you have content or a plan for content, images, logos and branding guidelines can make this process easy. Our team will make sure we have everything in place to make this process easy, and stress-free.
We do this by holding a discovery planning session to gauge where you're at, and what the best steps forward are.
Expected timeframe
Before we get into the actual details, we need to discuss how long this whole process is going to take.
Here at sitecentre it can take our team just under two weeks to complete the whole process that takes us from the planning and discovery session stage to the design, the creative aspect, the development of the website, content proofing and last but not least the official launch.
If you are just starting out with your business and do not have a huge online platform that you need to be drafted and launched, this process can take up less time.
If you own a business and want us to create the perfect website, you need to be aware that this can take more time, sometimes close to two months.
Some factors can certainly drag this timeframe out, such as content preparation, as well as finding photos and assets such as logos. Delays in email or phone calls or approvals are also expected, but we endeavor to provide a hands-off, fast and effective delivery.
If you are interested in more details about the accurate timeframe for your website, feel free to contact us, we can give better estimates this way.
The importance of Hosting and Domains
There are multiple hosting and domain options out there. In order to narrow them down to what you will need, we will need to know your client base and where you operate.
The theory behind hosting and domains is quite simple. There are a large number or server hosting locations around the world. For Australian businesses, cheap hosting will get you a server across the globe.
The downfall of this is that it will take longer for your website to load since the data has to travel through that server and back to be accessed.
Since we are in Geelong, the logical option would be to choose a local server that is closer to you, primarily one in Melbourne or Sydney, It cost is only a fraction more, but it will pay off since you will have better loading speeds.
Domain wise, you will benefit from using a .com.au Australian domain name. In order to purchase that you will need an Australian Business Number (ABN) and your registered business name.
This domain name is essential since it shows a local client that you are based in Australia and global clients that you are not close to their specific location, this also helps with search engine optimisation.
Copywriters & Sales Copy
A website needs to have content that is written that is local, up to date and relevant to the clientele or prospects that it is directed at.
That being said, you'll need to get the attention creatively from that of your direct competition.
Copywriting is the backbone of a structured website. This is why professionals are used in order to draft content that fits your content pages and also your service pages, and, if needed, content can also be provided for your blog pages and for your social media platform posts.
Clear, in-depth and relative content is essential as one of, if not the most important on-page SEO factors that'll help your website rank when people search on Google or Bing.
The right way to go about this is to include content that is clear, easy to follow and up to the specific trends in your field.
This will ensure that users return to your website and that the chances for them to become clients skyrocket!
The website branding
Every business has a brand, In order to market your services successfully in a competitive market, you'll need to use psychology.
Creating links in neuroscience and the part of the brain that links colours and emotions and the feeling that we as humans evoke. We use the right combination to instill the right subconscious image of your branding.
Psychology is at the core of digital marketing and this is why we do not ignore it.
We can offer you branding services where we consult with you, find out your specific needs and expectations and then turn these into the right brand choices for your website and also for your business.
We do the work for you to give you the best results to ensure success in any marketplace.
The website design
Your website design goes beyond what meets the eye. Your website design includes not only how each page on your website is constructed, but also how the colour scheme operates in tandem with the logo that your brand has, and the funnel from the first visit right through to conversion.
When we work and integrate your branding and website correctly, we see how huge improvements in conversions and sales growth.
Imagery and video has a huge impact on how clients look at a business and this is why for your business we analyze the trends and the patterns, compare what other local businesses in the area are doing and come up with that competitive edge that you will need in order for your small business to flourish and become a local giant.
sitecentre analyses various industry websites to give us the best understanding of how users engage with a website and a brand. Because of this, we know what works, we design our websites using not what looks pretty, but what will drive revenue, sales and give you an actual ROI on your web design in Geelong.
UX/UI/Navigation
UI (User Interface) and UX (User Experience) are two terms used in web design. UI refers to anything that can be deemed cosmetic in web design such as the presentation of the website, the sense and also the reactions. UX design, on the other hand, is the technical side, which is more analytical and in-depth.
The navigation refers to how people look through your website. For example how easy it is for them to click on secondary pages, to access links and media and also how easy it is to scroll through the web page.
“Google released an update on 26 October 2015 called RankBrain which makes use of AI and Machine Learning to emulate how real-people engage with a website and rank a website based on these results.”
If you don't satisfy the needs of visitors, you will lose rankings, and if you satisfy, your website will continue to rank higher on search engines.
A good way to find out what parts of your website people use is to use a heat mapping and screen recording program which can allow you to see how users engage with your website.
If there are any problems, these tools will allow you to see what changes and improvements need to be made.
Call-To-Actions / Conversion Rate Optimisation
CTA (short for Call-to-action) are actions in which you would like a user to take such as clicking a button, making a phone call, filling out an online form or making a purchase.
They can be anywhere on the webpage but most often you will see them at the top of the page. These buttons are designed to get the user's attention and make them click so they can take them to a secondary page or the next part of the funnel.
CRO (short for conversion rate optimization) is optimising those call-to-actions to provide a higher conversion rate, from sizing, colour, and position right through to funnel design and A/B Testing, Conversion rate optimisation is important for maximising your ROI.
The reason why we mention these two aspects of web design is that they can be useful to your business, traffic is great, but traffic that doesn't convert is essentially what in the automotive industry are referred to as “tire-kickers”.
Building your design for conversions instead of traffic is key.
Web Development
After we have drafted out what type of web design would best suit your online business, it is time to move on to the next step, which is to create the code and actually start to build up your website.
When we do that we use the latest version PHP/HTML5 and CSS3 to provide the latest technologies to stay a step above the rest.
We build everything on a stable, flexible and powerful CMS designed in house, designed around SEO, performance and handling conversions.
Each line of code to build each page is checked, designed to perform and work with old, and modern browsers, mobiles, tablets, and TVs.
Wordpress
Geelong Web designers will typically choose to design your website on WordPress.
We don't, in fact, we like the platform at all.
WordPress powers over 30% of the internet, yet, it's insecure, unreliable and overpriced.
It's the choice platform for web designers because they make huge margins, it takes just 5 minutes to install, setup and configure a new website on the platform, yet charge like it took them 4 weeks.
We surveyed hundreds of businesses and found businesses update their website on average less than once per year, and when they do, they use less than 10% of the capabilities of the platform.
Due to its poor performance, and the fact most websites are not custom but themes, we do not recommend it.
In fact, if you don't choose to use us, and want a website on WordPress, we're so confident you won't be happy with it, we will do what other designers charge for, and we will do it for free.
Because sitecentre don't use templates, we don't cut corners and don't believe in large margins, you know with absolute certainty what we deliver is the absolute highest quality.
Website Performance
A website's performance is linked directly to your rankings in search engines, it also impacts how easily a visitor can access your content and service pages.
Performance is the most neglected optimisation, and that is why we take it so seriously, with our guarantee that your site loads faster than your competition, or we do it free.
Performance is more than speed. Performance includes your hosting, your domains, your web design, the content that you have and the relevance that it has for your business.
“Amazon estimates that a 1-second delay in loading cost them 1.6 billion in sales yearly.”
Performance has a direct connection to conversion, so much so Google themselves created a tool for testing potential revenue loss based on your website's performance.
Website speed is incredibly valuable for your website to work smoothly.
If your website is slow, people will most likely bounce and go to that of your competitors. If it is a short terms problem it can easily be fixed but if this keeps happening it leads to a loss in revenue and your website ranking lower in search engine results.
The best way to go about it is to continuously monitor your website's speed and, when the speed starts to decrease, immediately fix it.
We will monitor your website for you and make sure that it runs smoothly and as fast as possible.
E-commerce
E-commerce is on the rise. More and more businesses use it to let customers buy their products or their services online through online transactions. It is quick and convenient.
If you have an online business that operates primarily on e-commerce or you want to make the step and integrate e-commerce into your website our team will ensure that you have a great digital marketing strategy integrated into your platform.
We will write the code for you and use your targeted demographic, your location and your website's design to the fullest to create an e-commerce platform that works seamlessly.
Mobile-friendly
Having a website that is mobile responsive is key in getting it to rank higher.
Statistics show that almost half of all web traffic globally takes place on mobile devices. Using your mobile device to look up information is easy, quick and convenient. And more and more users look up a business online before purchasing a product or a service.
By being aware of that, what we realize is that having a website that is mobile and tablet friendly is needed if you want it to rank high in search engine results.
“Starting July 1, 2019, mobile-first indexing is enabled by default for all new websites (new to the web or previously unknown to Google Search).”
What we will do to ensure that is crafting mobile and tablet versions of your business website that works smoothly, load fast and are optimized.
The importance of marketing
Your website is up, it is optimized, it's mobile-friendly, and you're ready to go.
The next step after that is to learn how the Machine Learning technologies of search engines work in order to maximize your chances to get to the first page of search results.
This type of marketing is tailored differently from one local business to another. It can include ads, SEO, content marketing, social media marketing and also email marketing.
We offer a full-service solution to traffic generation, having the team in place, the system, and data analysts to find unique patterns in data to find low cost, high margin opportunities in any industry.
Online marketing takes into account a number of key factors, among which the demographic and the local areas are included.
Each business will benefit differently from these different types of online marketing.
SEO
SEO (short for Search Engine Optimisation) is the art of making your website optimised to rank the highest possible in search engines.
If you use the right keywords to target your local area, your demographic and your business field you will see increased chances of ranking higher over time, as the process does take a couple of months to give organic results it's advised to also run this alongside other advertising options.
It makes use of a keyword, On-page SEO and Hyper-Local SEO. If you are interested in these running search engine optimisation in Geelong we're second to none.
PPC (Google Ads)
PPC (Pay-per-click) are ads that you pay for in order to get advertising spots on search engines (a popular example being Google).
It is a great alternative to SEO when you want to see faster results.
While SEO is “free” it takes time to work properly whereas, PPC is an instant ROI, it will have immediate results that can help your business get more customers in a shorter time span.
Regardless of the option that you choose, our team can assist you with what works best and how fast you can see results from either SEO or PPC.
Integrate Social media
If you want to be more visible you will need to have business pages on a series of social media platforms.
“Only 66% of Australian businesses have a Facebook page and less manage it constantly.”
Social media management is a touch game, hours upon hours invested into producing content, with little to no engagement, yet the value it adds is more than meets the eye.
“Before making a purchase, 86% of women will check out a product on social media.”
Google also consider “social signals” as a ranking factor for both popularity and relevance, having regular content being published is important.
Not only do we offer Web Design services, but social media management as well, whether we're just creating the branding and templates for you, or giving publishing content on your behalf, having social media part of your marketing strategy is essential.
The Software Setup
If you have already gone through all of the previous steps then you will need to think about what comes next in your business' future and what you can do to prepare for that.
Managing your software setup is key to ensure a steady growth that will impact your revenue beneficially.
To do that, we have prepared an easy process for you. What we will do is take care of optimizing and integrating all the software tools you will need, set up your accounts, save passwords and more.
We will also help you understand what each tool does, and how to use it.
Google Ads
Google Ads is not just about paying to have your website marketed on the first page or getting rid of the process of implementing SEO.
Google Ads has been an industry leader in lead generation for decades and continues to grow in both efficiency and simplicity. Setting up ads yourself has never been easier, it's still important to maximise your ROI, however, anyone can create an account and start running ads.
From targetting clients in a certain age group, marital status, or gender, the platform allows you to target clients in Geelong to better reach locals when they're ready to purchase.
Ad Management can be done by nearly anyone, and industry of “experts” is ever-evolving, before signing with an agency for ads, consider checking their credibility.
Google My Business
Google My Business is the largest directory of businesses online.
It indexes all of these businesses and places them on Google Maps to allow users to find them easier and get their NAP (name, address, place).
If you do not have a GMB account it is time to create one.
“56% of local businesses have not yet claimed their listing for Google My Business”
Being verified and having your NAP there will let Geelong users locate your business and get in contact with you easily.
With a direct search, they will locate your business. You can also add your website to your Google My Business page which can significantly increase your client base.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is one of the best tools that Google offers in order to allow website owners to monitor their traffic.
Google Analytics won't just give you an average estimate of the people that check your website, it has tons of tools that you can implement in order to see how your business performs in your area, in your field and in your demographic.
You will be able to see when clients check out your website, how many of those searches are organic and mechanic and much more.
Email hosting
Having branded and personalised emails help build trust and report with customers, setting up relevant email addresses can aid in higher conversions. Regardless of how many emails addresses your business has and what each one is used for, you will need to have them optimized and secure to ensure that no one hacks them or that nothing bad happens.
What we can do is set up your email footer, tweak your security settings, set up a Firewall, create spam filters and do other forms of optimization based on what your exact needs are.
Google Search Console
The Google Search Console is a tool created for webmasters that is able to track the performance of your website.
If Google has any issues or detects any errors when it tries to communicate with your website, you will see them reported here.
Integrating the Google Search Console into your Geelong Web Design process is needed if you want to make the most out of the potential that this tool gives you. You will see an analysis made, take action and also fix an error that may appear.
Bing Search Console
The Bing Console is similar to that of Google. In a nutshell, if the Google console tells you how Google sees your website and what problems it has with it, the Bing Search Console does the same thing but tailored towards the Bing and Yahoo search engines.
With this help, you will be able to see insights into your online business. Since Google, Yahoo and Bing are search engine giants, it is best to use these two tools in order to see how your website performs and how these engines see you.
Merchant Centre
Google's Merchant Centre is perfect for your e-commerce business. The benefits of using the Merchant Centre are that you will have a well-organized list of products, detailed shipping information and the availability of your items all sent directly to Google.
You will be able to document what you have sold, to whom you have sold, how many you have sold and other key details needed when you set up an online business.
The support that goes well beyond support
Last but certainly not least, our customer support is like no other. We actually answer your calls, your emails and provide invaluable suggestions.
We aim to not only fix or help whatever your question was but that you leave feeling as if you have gained true value.
From free website updates, changes, and email support, but we help with your entire marketing planning. Whether you're going elsewhere for your print media, or elsewhere with services, we help provide them with what expectations are.
We will liaise with a third party (even direct competition to us) to help you get the absolute best value for money.
Prices
Pricing is a touch topic to cover without first having a discussion about your goals, pricing can range from $1,000 to $20,000. However, that isn't very helpful. So let me break it up a little more.
If you're a small business and have a couple of pages looking to show your product or services, the price will be between $1,000 - $2,000. If you have online products for sale the price is between $1,800 - $3,000.
Custom features, advanced programming, login portals and so forth are added to these.
“Our promise to you though, is that we're the best value for money digital marketing and web design agency in Australia.”
The results, the design and the time and attention focused on your project for the price is unmatched, you join our tight family of local businesses who trust and swear by sitecentre and our results.
