WEB DESIGN
Websites often work as the internet headquarters for your brand. Customers will, quite naturally, do most of their business with you through your website. That’s why its crucial to have a website that is engaging, easy to use, responsive and beautiful to look at.
BENEFITS OF A DIGITAL SHOP FRONT
Online shopping is exploding, and it has been for the last ten years. Nowadays, over 2.14 billion people shop online - that’s almost 28% of the entire world population - that’s more than one out of every four people you see around you. As mind-blowing as that statistic is, it also presents an incredible opportunity. Having a digital shop front allows your customers to deal directly with you, whenever they want, wherever they want and in a way that might be quicker for them than in person.
It gives you the opportunity to have direct, personalised communication with your potential customers and gives you the ability to track their shopping trends and previous orders so that you can offer the best, personally optimised, suggestions and recommendations. Online storefronts also work to maintain customer loyalty and retention. If the ordering process is easy and straightforward, the customer is more likely to return again and again. That’s why it’s so important to have a website that looks great and does the job seamlessly. At Stonefern, we have experience in creating dynamic, engaging and easy to use e-commerce storefronts and websites.
DIY VS PROFESSIONALLY MANAGED WEBSITES
There’s a power struggle going on, between those websites marketed as ‘do it yourself’ and those websites created, managed and maintained by professionals. Website platforms promote a ‘build it yourself’, ‘create a website in minutes’ process, but if the words ‘website’ and ‘minutes’ are in a sentence together, be very wary of the offer. The reality is, if you want a website that is fully responsive, optimised for SEO and looks amazing, it is not going to be built in a few minutes.
At Stonefern, we can create the most flexible, functional and beautiful websites that are loved by search engines and provide the best SEO results with the least complications. Our websites are optimised for the latest browsers, allowing the customer to use their preferred one, thereby enhancing the user experience. From an e-commerce site to a more general website with company information, we do it all. We can provide tailored web solutions that can accommodate any level of budget. We can build bespoke, structured, reliable, easy-to-use sites that work to get you more customers and sales, and you don’t have to do it yourself.
THE DOWNSIDE OF FREE WEBSITES
When Luther Vandross and Janet Jackson sang ‘the best things in life are free’, they were not talking about websites. The reality is that free websites can’t even compare with one that has been designed, optimised and built by a vastly experienced specialist designer. Most of the time, customers are looking for reliability and credibility. Your website has to give them both. Free websites cannot. The sites are not fully optimised for SEO, or the user experience. The free site’s data can potentially be withdrawn or corrupted at any time, and malware and viruses are particularly potent on websites that haven’t been optimised for security, as some free websites haven’t. All these immediately undermine the sense of trust a customer might have in your brand. Your website is a reflection of your brand, it is your internet headquarters, and if a customer doesn’t feel too comfortable using it, they’re not going to stick around. While ‘free websites’ might sound great, they usually don’t end too well.
At Stonefern, we can help you combat this. We can design beautiful, modern and engaging websites with stunning imagery and relevant content that will help your business grow. Our websites are very fast, secure and flexible, with low monthly hosting costs, and are able to be updated when required. All our websites are hosted on secure, UK-based ‘Green energy’ servers so you know your site and data will always be safe.
RESPONSIVE WEB DESIGN
Nowadays, customers are most likely to visit your website on their phone rather than their laptop. This makes it crucial that your website is fully responsive. Websites designed in this way will automatically respond to whatever device or screen size they are on. Instead of your website shrinking into unreadable text or an incoherent jumble of design elements every time it is pulled up on a mobile device, responsive design accurately resizes your design and instructs the browser on how to control the page's dimensions and scaling, to make your website look good at any size.
This immediately elevates your brand in the mind of the customer; a good website makes a good impression, and a good impression takes them that one step closer to employing your services or buying your product. At Stonefern, our web design process is always focused on working towards your commercial objectives whilst retaining a great user interface for your users. We help you to achieve the highest levels of return on investment. Whether it’s a web design refresh or creating, designing and developing a whole new website, we can help!
