How does Web Development Help to Grow Your Business Profitably?

Of the 7.9 billion people on earth, over 5 billion use the internet daily. That’s a whopping 65% of the world’s population.

In 1995, only 1% of the population could access the internet. It would take us another ten years (2005) to hit the first billion. 

source

In 2010, internet users rose to 2 billion, hitting three billion in 2014. Today, nearly three-quarters of the world’s population can access the internet.

What does this show?

If you are not using the internet to market your business, then you’re missing out on the world’s biggest market.

We’ll not be exaggerating if we say your competitors are likely gaining an edge over you just by having a website; and they are probably stealing your customers.

Statistics that Show Why a Professionally Designed Website is Important for your business (in 2022)

The following stats show just how important it is to have a functional and appealing website for your business today:

1. It Only Takes Users 50 Milliseconds to form an Opinion About Your Business

Users only need 50 milliseconds to form an opinion about your website. That’s enough to make them decide if they like your website or not, and if they’ll stay or leave. 

Your site might attract thousands of visitors per day, but if your sales aren’t budging upwards, then your website is the problem. You’re still not getting quite a few things right. 

And that’s where the services of a professional web developer come in handy.

Your website’s goal should be to convert every visitor it attracts into a paying customer. Remember, you only have a five-millisecond window of opportunity to convince the visitor to stay. Otherwise, watch them hop onto one of your competitors’ sites.

2. According to Google, 61% of Internet Users Will Never Return to a Site if they Had Any Hardship Accessing It on Mobile

Of this number, 41% will instead check out your competitors’ sites, and if they find one with an outstanding mobile user experience, then that’s the site they’ll be visiting.

It’s simple: you should eliminate any difficulty users have while browsing your website. Fix any navigation or resolution problem they’re likely to experience, especially on mobile. It’s only by doing so that you can be sure they’ll return to your website. 

3. 88% of Consumers Who Hit Search Engines on Mobile Call or Visit a Physical Store within 24 Hours

Local businesses have everything to gain from having an online presence. As it turns out, consumers don’t just search the internet. They do it fully prepared to take action.

Local businesses generally get the maximum number of leads from their region. When a potential customer searches for them or a business related to them, they’re looking to learn more about the business. 

You can start by making sure you have a professionally looking website on the internet. You also want to register with Google my Business and make sure you have shared your contact details with every business directory on the internet. 

4. 57% of Internet Say They’ll Never Recommend a Poorly Designed Website to their Peers and Friends

Internet users have no problem recommending a website to their family and friends, but on the condition that the website isn’t poorly designed or difficult to access, especially on mobile.

Inappropriate website design will create a snag in your pathway to success. 

It’s simple. Focus on customer satisfaction. If customers are satisfied with your website and services, they will serve as your best marketing channel. But if unsatisfied or angry, their actions or what they do from there could prove devastating to your business.

5. 38% of Internet Users Say They’ll Stop Engaging with a Website if they Find Its Content and Layout Unattractive

That’s a large number of people who will opt out of your website in a blink. Whether related to the content, images, or overall design, they’ll hit the exit button and never return if they don’t like what they see.

Your site is the best and most effective medium to showcase and distribute your content, whether it’s for e-commerce or B2B. It also happens to be the best space for marketing, but that can only happen if users find it attractive – and it’s not just about aesthetics but a holistic look at their experiences and interactions with it.

6. 88% of Customers Say they Won’t Return to a Website if they Don’t Like the Experience

88% of your site visitors will never return to your website if they had a bad experience with it. 

By bad experience, we mean dissatisfaction and poor user experience. You want to focus on gaining their confidence and trust and ensuring they enjoy the whole experience. Otherwise, you won’t be seeing them again. 

In other words, there are no second chances with online customers. You either get them that first time (and within 0.05 seconds of landing on your website), or you forget about them altogether.

7. 39% of Users Will Stop Engaging with Your Website If Your Images Load Up Too Slow

Most online visitors don’t have the patience to wait for your images to load. If the images load too slow, they’ll simply try their luck elsewhere. 

The same goes for a site that lacks attractive images. Customers don’t like boring. So, it’s either you learn how to optimise your images for speed or watch as your bounce rate bulges. 

Remember, you only have 5 seconds to load everything up. And the longer your website takes to load up, the more customers you lose. 

8. 75% of Customers Formulate their Opinion On a Company’s Credibility Based on How their Website Looks

75% of customers judge a company’s credibility based on its looks. 

If the site looks good and has all the elements they want right before them, they’ll conclude it’s credible. 

A good website design builds trust and moves the customers further with the next step – purchasing your products or services. 

9. 70% of Small Businesses Don’t Have a Call to Action on the homepage

That’s synonymous with saying 70% of small businesses have poorly designed websites. 

It’s one thing to have a website, but quite another to have a website that converts. 

It’s simple, having a CTA on the homepage pushes customers further towards the next step. In the same tokens, lacking a CTA only serves to confuse them. It’s either they bounce off or struggle to find it on their own, none of which is good for business. 

10. 54.4% of Internet Use Comes from Mobile

Mobile accounts for about 53.98% of all internet traffic. That’s more than half of all the traffic that your website is likely to get.

Source

Worst, mobile-friendliness is one of the factors that Google uses to rank websites.

That leaves web owners with no other option. It’s either they make their website responsive and mobile-friendly, with a desktop-like browsing experience, or watch as their rankings tank and a majority of the users they attract bounce off. 

11. 94% of Negative Website Feedback is Design-related

Strange huh!

94% of the negative website feedback are design-related. 

Site visitors get vexed when they land on your website and get stuck or incur any form of hardship in accessing a page, feature, or product. 

So, what do they do? They look for a venting spot (read: a review site) and air their resentment. 

12. 80% of Customers Say they’ll Stop Engaging with Your Website’s Content if It Does Not Display Well on their Device

8 out of 10 customers will never engage with your content if they find it’s unreadable on their device. 

They don’t like zooming in and out to read online content. Instead, they expect the content to adjust accordingly to the size and resolution of whatever device they’re using. 

13. 64% of Customers Expect to See the Company’s Contact on the Homepage

64% of customers expect to find your contact details on your website’s homepage.

A customer may be convinced but still, have some doubts. 

In such a case, the next most logical thing for them to do will be to call, email, or skype you for more clarification. The point is to make sure that they can easily access your contact information, and what better way to do it than to include it on your homepage.

How Exactly Does Having a Website Increase Your Business Profitability?

What you do with your website will have a massive bearing on your business sales and revenue.

But first, how exactly does having a website increase your business profitability?

Let’s take a look:

Online is Where Your Customers Are

The internet has become a hotbed for product research and buying.

According to one survey, 81% of customers research a new product or service online before purchasing it online or offline. 

People are no longer interested in buying what they don’t know. They want to know what it looks like, how much it costs, and what others say about it before they put in their money. It is quite simply the most effective marketing tool you’ll ever employ.

As a business owner cum marketer, you want to be the source of this information. You want to establish yourself as an online authority and a credible source of information for anything related to your business. That’s where blogging and SEO come in – and it all starts with having a professionally designed website for your business. 

Important Note: Customers don’t just visit a website and decide to buy. Research shows that a modern consumer generates between 20 and 500 touchpoints before buying anything online. 

More Sales Opportunities

A physical store only has one selling point, the physical store itself. 

However, a website creates many contact points, starting with every page you have and the links you share on social media and other places.

In other words, your website isn’t there for a show but to bring in business, even better than tried-and-testing selling techniques like outbound marketing, cold-calling, etc. 

Here are some of the ways why having a website translates to more business or sales for you:

• • Reach More Potential Customers: Your business is as successful as the number of potential customers it can access. If your business only operates locally, its customer pool is somewhat restricted. 

However, a website connects you to almost anyone with an internet connection, regardless of where they are.

• • 24/7 Customer Support: Traditional selling and customer support is limited by operating hours. However, a website provides you with round-the-clock access to your customers. 

Your customers can access your site at any time of the day and place an order, whether it’s three o’clock in the morning or late in the night. 

Your website will also have FAQs and a knowledge base section responding to different customer queries, thus eliminating the need for calling customer support and being placed on hold. 

Even better, it can be integrated with a chatbot or a live chat service to provide real-time customer support through text messages.

• • A Chance to Create an Information Hub: Your website is the best source of information for your customers. 

It’s where your customers go to learn about your business, products, and services.

It’s also where you send your customers — whether through blog posts, social media posts, email marketing campaigns, etc.

If you don’t have a website, your customers won’t have a place to go if they want to learn more about your business or your products and services.

• • Boost in-store sales: Your website is not a replacement for your brick-and-mortar business but a complementary tool. It can help you boost in-store sales by getting more people to your physical store. 

In fact, according to Google, 80% of product sales start online, with customers hitting search engines for research. 

• • Expand Your Engagement Points Significantly: As mentioned earlier, a potential customer generates 20 – 500 “touchpoints” before they make a purchase. 

If you can get more people to visit your website (which, in turn, boosts the number of interested users who would purchase your product or opt into your mailing list), it will be much easier for you to reach them via other means.

SEO Is Key

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is the process of getting your website listed on search engines like Google and Bing. 

It’s not just about having a well-designed website but also making it visible on search engines so that customers can find you whenever they engage with search engines.

SEO ranks websites based on several criteria, key among them being relevancy. It’s simple: when a user queries any term on Google, the results that return have to reflect what the user is looking for or was hoping to find.  

The best way to imagine SEO is to think of it as signposting your services. What does your business do or sell? 

The first requirement to getting started with SEO is having a well-designed and optimised website for your business. This calls for thorough use of relevant keywords, content, links, among other things. 

Note that SEO isn’t something you begin to work on once your site is up and ready. Your SEO strategy has to start with the planning and be woven right into your architectural design. Otherwise, you’ll have a hard time ranking your site up, even for the simplest of terms.

Top Ways a website can Benefit Your Business

Here are the top ways why having a professionally designed website could benefit your business:

1. Look Professional

Rather than being just another random shop around the corner or down the street, having a website gives the impression that you’re more professional and open to doing business with all kinds of customers and any other interested business party.

It doesn’t matter how small your business is. Having a website gives the impression that you are serious about your business and ready to compete in this internet age.

2. Own Your Name

The first step to designing a website is buying a domain name. That’s akin to staking a claim to your business name before someone else does. 

It’s even more important for a local business. For example, if you were looking to open up a new ice cream shop in your neighborhood, having first dibs on the domain name gives you an advantage over your competitors.

3. Improve Your SEO Ranking

SEO is all about optimising your website for search engine visibility. In other words, you need a professionally designed and SEO-optimized site to appear in the organic search results of Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines.

The higher you rank, the more traffic you’ll get, which translates to more business or revenue for you.

4. Increase Leads

A good website design doesn’t just attract visitors. It converts them into paying customers. In other words, it will get your visitors to call, book appointments, place orders, sign up with your mailing list, and essentially bring more business to your door. 

In fact, studies reveal email marketing is 40 times more effective at generating leads than social media. And the best way to conduct email marketing is by integrating it into your website design in a non-intrusive way. 

5. Save Money on Printing Brochures and Flyers

How many times do you throw away paper brochures and business flyers?

A lot, I’d say. 

Having a website means you don’t have to spend money printing brochures, pamphlets, or even business cards.

Instead, you can use your website as a platform for sharing all your business information, including the necessary contact details.

6. Be Where Your Customers Are

The internet is now everywhere and not a preserve of a few people as some people think. 

Here’re are few study findings to back up this claim:

According to a Time report, 43% of the world’s population (3 billion people) accessed the internet regularly. 

• • Today, active internet users now account for 65% of the world’s population (over 5 billion people). 
  • In 2018, only 11% of Americans didn’t use the internet. The number is even lower today. 
  • In Singapore, 90.83% of the population uses the internet. And if the current trend is anything to go by, the number is projected to shoot to 93.48% by 2025. 

Source

From these stats, it’s safe to say that a big chunk of the customers you’re targeting can be found online. 

And having a website can be a helpful way to reach them. When customers search for your business online, you want to ensure you’re among the results they find. Failure of which, they’ll assume you don’t exist. 

Being on the web means you can be found. It means people can reach you, regardless of where they are, so long they’re connected to the internet. 

7. Collect Data for an Improved Customer Experience

A well-designed website allows you to collect data from your customers. That can include their contact information, browsing history, and even purchases. 

You can then use this data to provide a more customised experience by recommending new products, encouraging repeat purchases, and suggesting related products to customers based on their browsing history.

You can create online surveys or polls to get ideas on what products or services your customers are interested in.

8. Get Informed Customers

A well-designed website allows you to curate content that educates and informs customers. Just add a blog section to your site where you’ll be posting high-quality content on topics related to your industry.

Focus on educating your customers and updating them on the latest trends and industry news, and they’ll keep coming back for more. The goal is to try to grow an active community of loyal customers. 

9. Create an Online Portfolio: Reviews, Awards, and Testimonials

Has your company ever won an award? Well, make sure you’ve mentioned it on your site.

Having a website means you can publish every honour, award, accolade, and recognition your company has ever won. You’d be surprised at how many potential customers are willing to look up any business online before doing business with them.

The same goes for testimonials. If your customers love doing business with you, there’s no reason not to showcase some of the positive words they put out for your business.

How Web Development Can Help Your Business Be More Profitable

Just think about it from the perspective of your potential customers or even business partners. 

They’ll probably be searching online to learn more about your company, products, and services before doing business with you. So if they can’t find any trace of you online, they’ll assume you don’t exist. 

That can be detrimental to your business because it means they’ll go looking for another company, a competitor with a website. That spells lost business opportunities for you.

12 ways to Use a website to Increase Your Business Revenue/Profitability 

The ultimate goal of having a business website is to turn a profit. Forget about all the secondary goals you have, such as brand identity and online marketing. 

The bottom line is that you want to drive sales, increase revenue, and eliminate unnecessary expenses. 

Just a reminder: having a website is just one part of the business marketing equation. So, be sure to look at other aspects of digital marketing as well, such as social media marketing, search engine optimisation, email marketing, etc.

With that out of the way, let’s have a closer look at how web development can help your business be more profitable: 

1. Describe the Benefits of Using Your Products

A common mistake most marketers make is describing their products too literally. They focus on facts and hype instead of painting a picture of what it’s like to use the product.

So, forget about the features and focus more on the benefits of using your products or services instead. 

Here’s an example: “It only takes 60 seconds for our moisturiser to penetrate your skin and give you a gorgeous glow that will last all day!”

Example two: when describing a refrigerator, don’t say,” it cools faster.” Instead, spin it up to something like “cools faster to reduce bacterial growth.” 

The point is to focus on how your product can change your customers’ lives for the better, not just how superior the product is, compared to the other product on the market. 

2. Show Your Customers How to Use the Product

Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) isn’t just about optimising your web pages. It’s about optimising decisions. 

Don’t rely on your product features and functions to do the selling for you. Instead, show your customers how to use them. Be sure to tell your customers what they can do with your products and some of their features. 

For example, instead of talking about “alarm clock with multiple alarms,” you can describe how you can set up multiple alarms in a day and the benefits of doing so. You can also let your customers know what they can achieve with regular use of this feature. Don’t forget to mention it’s the only alarm clock that does that

3. Offer Reviews and Testimonials

88% of consumers say they trust online reviews the same way they trust a friend’s recommendation. 

Testimonials erase doubts and any concerns your customers might have. So, it should come as no surprise that testimonials are the third most influential factor in purchasing decisions, according to a report by Nielsen.

Collect testimonials and reviews any way you want, and display them throughout your website. You can also use social media to do this. 

4. Get Closer to Your Customers with More Targeted Messages

If you want your messages to be more powerful, relevant, and persuasive, then there are two things you have to do.

First, have a specific audience you’re targeting. 

Second, create targeted content for this audience.

It’s easier said than done, but the results will be totally worth it. You can’t afford to send a general message to everyone. Instead, try segmenting your audience into 3-5 groups and create tailored messages for each group based on their unique needs and lifestyle.

And for each group, write separate sales pages with targeted messages if possible. That will have a tremendous impact on your conversions.

5. Demonstrate Your Products Visually

People are visual creatures. We understand things faster and easier when we visualise them. That’s why presentation slides and infographics are widely used in business meetings. 

And it’s the same with your website too. Visuals boost conversions, especially for ecommerce websites.

Make sure your customers can see what your product looks like and operate. 

If it’s a physical product, you can display a short video of a person using it in real-time. If it’s a software solution, treat your customers to a demo. Let them try it out for free before investing their money in it. 

6. Offer Communication Options

KissMetrics conducted a study on this. They would start by creating twin landing pages. 

On one of the landing pages, they would include their phone number, while on the second one, they didn’t include any form of contact details. 

It turns out, just including a phone number on the landing page resulted in a 54% boost in conversion rate. Customers would call, and that’s how they ended up closing most of the sales. 

Now imagine how including multiple communication options could do for your business. 

First, you’ll win over your customers’ trust. You’ll also get a chance to talk to any visitor who’s unsure about their purchase decision.

7. Make It Fast and Easy to Do Business with You

When someone visits your website, they’re probably looking for something specific. They want to find the information they’re looking for, and they want it to be quick and easy.

So, make your website easy to use.

Remove anything that might distract your customers. 

Make it fast and free to request a quote or buy your products. 

If possible, offer live chat so customers can speak with you directly instead of waiting for you to get back to them via email or phone calls.

8. Write Awesome Content

Content is king. Period. But not just any content, high-quality, relevant content that’s in sync with your buyer persona’s needs. 

Why? Because if you write good copy, you’re setting yourself up to win the game. Plus, this is one of the things that Google loves too because it helps them provide better results for users.

So, make sure your web developer can help you write optimised content to convey your message in the best possible way. That’s how you’ll get more traffic and conversions for your business.

9. Optimise Your Website Design

Remember when everyone thought Flash websites were awesome? Well, times have changed. Now Google doesn’t treat Flash websites as favourably as it used to.

But even if you’re not a fan of the HTML5 vs Flash debate, there’s no denying that a good website design can have 8x more impact on your business than any other marketing strategy.

So, if you want to get better results with your business website, you have to optimise its design. You have to be sure it looks good on mobile devices and laptops. And for this, you need a web developer who can design clean, modern responsive websites that are easy to use.

10. Create an Amazing Website Navigation

People won’t stay on your website if they can’t find what they’re looking for. That’s why you need to optimise your website navigation. 

You can do this by using breadcrumbs which allow site visitors to see where they are in your website’s structure. It also helps them to navigate back to a higher level quickly.

Breadcrumbs can be tagged in the HTML code or dynamically generated in WordPress.

11. Catch Your Visitors’ Attention in 3 seconds or less

Yes, you read that right. It only takes 3 seconds or less for your visitors to start forming opinions about your website. So, if it doesn’t look good enough in the first 3 seconds, then they’re outta there! 

To increase your chances of holding visitors’ attention, make sure every page on your website is designed to load fast. 

Be sure to optimise images and minify HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files.

12. Host It on a Reliable Server

A website is only as good as its hosting. If you’re serious about getting better results with your business website, you have to host it on a reliable server. 

Now, I don’t have to tell you what happens when your web pages are loaded slowly. Your conversion rates go down the drain. 

But don’t worry. Even though you have to take this extra step, it’s not going to cost you a fortune. You can get reliable hosting for as low as $1 per month.