Having a professional website built VS making your own

If you’re a start-up business, beginning life with minimal budget, limited time and basic resources, then the advantages of making your own website are obvious. Platforms like Squarespace, Weebly and Wix allow users to quickly and easily create a website through masses of set templates and ready-to-go features.

BUT – while this is a useful way for a new business to get themselves established quickly online, should you really rely on this type of platform as your company and reputation grows?

At Kraken, we believe that our websites should reflect the personality and brand of the business behind it – so if your website has clearly been cheaply made and looks like a hundred other sites made using the same templates, doesn’t that inevitably reflect on your business?

Of course we’re a little bias – but here’s 6 reason why we believe that a growing business should choose a professional site over self-made…

  • IT’S PERSONALISED – No two business are ever the same. They may share similar products or location or even target customers, but they will always differ in their brand, colours, personality and principals. Designing a professional website allows your businesses ‘uniqueness’ to be front and centre, for all the online world to see – designed in a way that reflects YOUR business.
  • FLEXIBLE DESIGN – Having fixed templates can be handy as a shortcut. It saves time and money. But when it comes to your business, saving time and money will only ever result in one thing – a lower quality product. With a professional website you can choose how you want your website to look and feel, how it’s navigated and how best to introduce your new customers to who you are. You can be inventive, inspiring and different! All the things that a fixed template will never quite allow you to be.
  • CONTROL OVER YOUR SEO – while it’s still possible to be deliberate in the keywords and content of a self-made site, you will never truly have control over all the elements that fully optimise the site’s search results. With a professional site, a developer will be able to ensure that your site is responsive, has a HTML structure that is easier for search engines to understand your content and catalog.
  • YOU CAN ANALYSE AND ADAPT – There is nothing more valuable for a business owner than the ability to constantly analyse the data behind their website and see how it’s performing. With a professional site you will be able to monitor how your site is navigated, how far your users go, identifying any weak spots or dead areas. This allows you to continually upgrade your website so it is as efficient as possible, maximising your conversion at every opportunity.
  • YOU CAN GROW – As your company continues to expand, your website will always have to evolve with it. If you started as two people working in a garage then that website will look very different by the time the business has grown into two offices with over 400 employees. Self-made websites are a great place to start, but give little opportunity to grow and evolve, at least not with the freedom and flexibility of a professional site. Give your business the space to GROW!
  • YOU OWN IT – Not only can you take control of your own site, but you can own it. Driving traffic back to Squarespace and Weebly does more for their business than it does for yours. So put that effort into your own site, and reap all the benefits for your business – all while ensuring that your website looks modern, bespoke and 100% professional.

Reasons Why Your Website Should Be Responsive

At Kraken, all of our sites are built to be responsive as default. And here’s why we believe it is so important…

Having a responsive website has never been so essential. Given the sheer amount of platforms that people have to navigate and search the internet, it’s essential for any business to ensure that their website is usable on mobile and tablet devices.

Responsive design allows the content on a webpage to adapt to the size of the device its being viewed on, without compromising on the detail or layout of the information.

Here’s 5 reasons why your website should be responsive:

1) MOBILE USAGE IS ROCKETING – When someone recommends a great company or service, what’s the first thing that most people do? Take out their smartphone and type into Google. With 55% of all web traffic now going through smartphones, you can almost guarantee that at least half of potential new customers will be viewing your website for the first time through their mobile or tablet device.

2) FIRST IMPRESSIONS ARE EVERYTHING – How often have you typed a search into Google using your smartphone, a number of selections come up and the first one you try is slow, or confusing or simply unresponsive. The average mobile user has a VERY short attention span and if your website doesn’t meet the fundamental criteria for their viewing needs, chances our that new customer will leave the site and move on to the next one. Don’t give your website users any excuse to leave by making sure that your website is making the best first impression possible.

3) BEING RESPONSIVE INCREASES SEO – When comes to the tricky world of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), there are a multitude of things that will help keep your site fighting at the top of the relevant Google rankings. And one of the most important things that Google ranks a website on, is whether or not that site is responsive. Don’t lose out on vital SEO points simply because your site isn’t up to scratch.

4) SOCIAL MEDIA PULLS IN THE USERS – With over a one billion people using Facebook and more than 100 million using Instagram every day, Social Media is a vital way for your business to interact and develop relationships with potential customers. With the majority of those users accessing their various social media platforms through their smartphones and tablets, it can be an incredibly effective way to drive traffic back to your website. But if that website isn’t responsive, then those Social Media users certainly won’t be back.

5) BE READY FOR THE FUTURE – As technology advances year upon on upon year, so do the devices, laptops and smartphones that company’s like Apple and Samsung produce. We have no way of knowing what is around the corner, or how the next generation will be viewing content on the internet – but by having responsive website you can make sure that you are at least ready for whatever exciting new technology is around the corner.

These are but a few reason you need to think about having a responsive site and hopefully now you have a greater understanding that your site needs to be responsive!

What is Conversion?

Most people have an understanding of what conversion is but don’t understand that it can go towards any goal. By this I mean it doesn’t have to be a money transaction. So how do you apply conversion to everything and keep your main goal focus on what you need to achieve?

Strategies and Goals

Most businesses have set strategies which they try to use; social media strategies, marketing strategies, networking strategies and so on. All of these have separate goals which we want from different areas. For instance social media goals are for users to interact with the content which is being posted. So you can count conversion as clicks, comments, views etc. These interactions will sometimes be the full conversion goal if you’re a media consumption company like YouTube. But for many other companies will be a part of a smaller set of goals for the overarching goal (people buying products).

Whys this Important

Now that you have a better idea of how conversion can abstracted to different areas, what is your main conversion goal?

There are many websites which are ‘brochure sites’. This means you browse their products online and contact them for the sale. On sites like this the main conversion will be the public getting in contact with you, the seller. Now this is why I’m writing this post today – Too many times recently I have come across people who have forgotten what their site is for, making it look stunning but not allowing for the goals of the site to be completed. If you want to sell online without eCommerce then your primary objective is getting contact from consumers. Yes, you need the supporting imagery and break down(s) of your product which show people why they should buy the product from you. But if you don’t make it easy to contact you then all your effort has gone to waste. It’s like having a high street shop with a brilliant window display but the door is locked so no one can get to the products.

Sum it up Then

Hopefully you now understand that there are many different conversion types/goals. These goals will change from area to area but you must always remember your overarching goal!