Learn about how to build a website for your business and grow your online presence in Ireland. In this article, we look at web design best practices including responsive design and platforms to design a website and promote your business online.
If you're in business in Ireland, you need a website. It's as simple as that. Your website is your digital storefront, and in today's world, it's absolutely essential to have an online presence. But if you're not a web designer, how do you go about creating a website? In this article, we'll give you the lowdown on website design for beginners in Ireland, including tips on layout, colour, typography, and responsive design. We'll also introduce you to some of the best no-code web design tools out there such as Editor X and look at other web design tools such as Webflow and WordPress. So, whether you're based in Cork, Dublin, or Waterford, this is everything you need to know about website design for your business in Ireland.
What is the best way to design your own website?
It’s 2022, if you don’t have a website for your business or your website isn’t working to grow your business then you are really missing out. No matter what product or service you offer, customers will expect to be able to find you online. To compete with other businesses in your industry, your website needs to be well-designed and user-friendly. Displaying the right information on your website allows you to answer your industry's most asked questions and showcase your expertise in the market but where do you get started?
Getting started doesn’t mean jumping straight into designing your website or picking the colours for your site. Start by looking at your existing customers or the potential customers you want to target online. What information may they be looking for? You should be crafting a story for your website that guides the users through and answers their questions. Keep it simple, especially if you have a lot of product or service offerings. Only display necessary information, making sure not to overwhelm your online audience.
What is the goal of your website design? Maybe it's to provide great information for your customers or display your products or services or maybe it's for customers to engage in your community through a blog or online forum. Whatever your website goals are, they will define the visual elements and user journeys for your website.
Best web design platforms to design your business website
Website design for beginners can be a daunting task, especially if you're not familiar with coding languages like HTML and CSS. However, there are a number of no-code website builder tools available that allow you to create a website without any prior coding knowledge.
One of our favourite (and free-to-use) tools is Editor X. Editor X is a custom website designer tool from WIX. Editor X is the next step up in responsive designing for websites and allows users to create the site they want without being limited to static template designs. Now, there are some great templates available on the Editor X platform but we find by creating a custom website allows you to stand above your competition.
Speaking of templates, other website design tools such as WordPress and Squarespace are some great alternatives for creating your first business website. They are easy to use and navigate through with a wide range of website templates to choose from but do you want to look the same as everyone else or design something that really stands out? In addition to the template-driven model, we find that the likes of WordPress require a lot of website maintenance and upgrading once launched.
Another alternative is Webflow. Webflow is an amazing tool for creating complex custom web designs. However, the learning curve is quite intensive and without prior knowledge of web design or development you may end up spending far more time than you need when creating your business website.
The benefits of using Editor X to design your website
Editor X is a completely fluid website builder that offers some amazing features to get you started when creating your business website. The Editor X dashboard and editor panel are quite visual and with easy-to-follow prompts, anyone can create their first website with a bit of practice. Your website should follow the same identity as your brand and setting up your design system on Editor X allows your website to have the same look at feel to match your brand identity. Offering drag-and-drop features, auto-layout and dynamic page set-up, Editor X is a real-time saver when creating your first website and allows your website to look great across all devices.
In 2022 over 60% of website visitors are using mobile devices to view your site, being able to design a responsive website across different breakpoints from desktop to tablet to mobile allows you to make sure your site is showing up and performing for your customers.
Now, it’s not as easy as dropping in a few images and some text and your website will look amazing. Editor X does take time to learn but you have the advantages of extensive learning tutorials on the Editor X YouTube channel and their amazing Editor X academy. Using great and free resources like these allows you the opportunity to build a great website for your business in Ireland.
Designing for SEO
SEO is also something that cannot be ignored when creating your website. SEO or search engine optimization is a set of practices that are developed for websites to improve the overall presence on the web. This includes optimizing existing content, and search settings and creating great content built around certain keywords to rank your website higher and organically show up when your ideal customer searches for your business product or service. A great SEO strategy helps your business to rank higher on search engines which in turn increases traffic to your website. Incorporating SEO best practices isn’t as hard as it seems when creating your website.
Always include headings on each page of your website. Your headings are what tell search engines like Google what is on each website page. The information on the page is then crawled by search engines where they look for valuable information. If your website features the right information for your market, search engines will rank you higher.
Editor X features some great tools to help increase your SEO, from Google My Business integration to Website indexing and SEO title tags on images, Editor X offers a great list of SEO tools for you to grow your website SER (search engine ranking).
Website maintenance and development build trust
Once you have a website designed and launched you are ready to start building trust for your audience by answering questions, creating great content and making sure your website stays up-to-date and looks great. Having a strong website maintenance plan in place is important. Think of it like this, a customer comes on your site and leaves a request but doesn’t get a reply. You have not only lost a customer, but that potential customer is now feeling ignored. Do you think they would recommend your business to someone? Probably not, right?! Your website carries as much importance as any of the rest of your customer communications. You should be proactive and follow up on all questions and requests on the site as soon as you can.
You know your business, right? And you probably know what questions are asked. Creating the right content based on customer questions and industry keywords will help your site rank higher on search engines. This will allow you to show up when your customers search for your product or service and bring more traffic to your website. Building content through blogs and news sections on your website takes time. Once you have posted a great website article make sure to tell everyone about it. Spread the word across as many good sources as you can and let others interact with your post by enabling comments and questions.
Maintaining your site can be time-consuming, especially for websites built on WordPress as they require a lot of plugins and updates to keep your site running smoothly. That’s why we encourage our readers to use platforms like Editor X as they do not require extensive plugins and upgrades. However, we do always recommend keeping an eye on your site to make sure that your website is still displaying your information correctly and is working great on all devices.
Web Design for businesses takes time,
but we're here to help!
If you have got this far, you now know what it takes to get started in creating a website for your business. Designing a great website takes planning, research, and time to design and maintain. We understand that some businesses just don’t have the time to invest in building their online presence. That’s ok because that’s where we come in.
At Full Circle Design, we offer competitive Web Design, SEO, and Website Maintenance solutions to help your business put its best foot forward online. We like to work with our clients to understand your website goals and create a website that performs for your business.
To hear more about how we help design a website for your business in Ireland, get in touch for a free website design consultation.
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