Things to consider For Developing a Custom Website
Custom web development goes beyond the aesthetics of a website and focuses on the core requirement of the business. Whether you want to use your business website as a lead generation tool or want your target audience to buy/subscribe from the digital medium, a custom website will include all the features and functionalities required for you to attain those goals.
In this regard, a web developer must have an in-depth understanding of your business challenges and try to solve them by addressing each issue on its merits.
Today, almost every business has an online presence in the form of a high-performance and dynamic website. A custom web development improves your existing website’s performance by increasing the functionalities. Thus, if you’re looking for custom web development services, it’s best to go for an experienced developer who has proficiency in the latest tools and technologies that can make a difference for your business.
But, custom web development projects can be complex. So here are a few tips to keep in mind for custom web developers.
1. Simplify Navigation
Navigation is another essential element of your website. Without proper navigation, you can’t expect users to stick around.
An experienced web developer knows that custom sites require engaging designs and an enriched user experience to reduce visitor bounce rates and keep the user hooked. Internal linking of pages, CTAs, and removal of broken links are some measures you can take to simplify your site navigation.
2. Use Unique Calls-to-action (CTA)
People access the internet to look for information and buy products and services they’re interested in. For the latter part, using simple CTAs will help your users to navigate your site freely and use its features.
As custom websites cater to the target audience’s specific needs, a clear and well-defined CTA is necessary to track conversions and increase your audience base.
3. Improve Page Speed
Page speed is a vital part of your web development project. If your web pages take a long time to load, your visitors won’t stick around for long. This also negatively impacts the user experience of your site. Research has proved that an average user would wait 4-5 seconds for a web page to load; beyond that, they’re likely to get frustrated and bounce off the site.
A web developer must ensure that page load speed doesn’t impact the site’s user experience. For a custom website, the developer must keep tabs on the page load speed of the important pages on the site. In order to check page load speed, you can use PageSpeed Insights, a tool from Google to keep your page load speed in check.
If one or more of your pages are taking too long to load, you may take measures such as compressing images, connecting sitemaps, and linking internal pages. A site with seamless navigation tends to have better page load speed.
4. Using Template Design v/s a Custom Site
Template designs have been made popular in recent years, thanks to WordPress. But templatized sites aren’t enough to fulfill all your website goals, whereas a custom design will specifically cater to them. WordPress has allowed us to go for instant templates rather than spending time on custom designs.
All the features are tailored to fulfill your unique needs when you go for a custom design. It’s also worth noting that while small websites with limited functionalities may use template designs, the same won’t hold for big or complex sites like e-commerce. So before you start your web development project, it’s best to hire developers who are fluent with custom designs.
5. Design and Content Structure
Content and design are two elemental aspects of any website. The content is the information that’s to be digested by the user, while the design ensures that the information is placed in such a way so as to help users consume content easily.
A good site design will make your content easy to read and understand, and high-quality content will ensure that the information contained therein is relevant to the user. Your content shouldn’t just be valuable and informative but should also engage the users while fulfilling all SEO requirements. On the other hand, the design should be such that it lures the audience into reading your content but at the same time shouldn’t get their focus out of the calls-to-action and conversion tactics.
6. Incorporate SEO-Friendly Features
Making your website SEO-friendly is immensely important in a hyper-competitive world like ours. You should go for website developers who clearly understand SEO guidelines and are competent enough to include them in the site.
No matter how good your design and content are, if it’s not able to reach your audience, it’s useless. Without adhering to SEO practices, your site won’t be visible to your target audience, leaving you helpless in attaining your business goals. An SEO-friendly site includes being compatible with universal devices and platforms, such as smartphones. Additionally, SEO guidelines keep on changing continuously, so you need to stay updated on the changes and incorporate them into your site without delay.
7. Make it Easy-to Update
Custom websites are preferred by developers as it offers flexibility in terms of functionalities. With ever-changing industry standards and market trends, one needs to keep evolving their site to keep it current and relevant for their users.
Thus, it’s important that your web developer also keeps an eye out to make your site as flexible as possible. You should be able to carry out changes in images and texts in the future without the need for experts.
Wrapping Up
Remember that when going for a custom web development company, you should choose your development team wisely. This is because custom-built sites take time, and in the event of a mistake, it’s that much harder to go back and rectify the mistake.
We hope these tips were helpful for web developers and businesses alike. Custom websites are the call of the day, and developers must keep on improving their skills and stay up-to-date with the latest development trends.
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