More and more people in Zimbabwe are looking for products and services on the internet. This has led to many companies jumping on to the let’s have a website bandwagon. However, uninformed decision makers end up going for cheap website designers that use fancy language but produce terrible work. This results in websites that really don’t engage their customers.

So if you’re out there to get a website designers, what are the important things to look out for?

Almost everyone has a smartphone nowadays. In fact, according to Techcrunch mobile internet access passed desktop for the first time in 2016. It’s been several years already and there are no signs of going back. According to Business News Daily, Google more ranks your website higher if your website is mobile friendly. Clearly getting a website that is responsive i.e. that is readable on desktop and mobile devices is the number one thing to look out for.

With this age of far internet fast everything, people are becoming less and less patient hence having a slow website is a sure way to lose customers to your competition. Statistics from BusinessWire show that 73 percent of people would leave a website if it loads slowly. Although we haven’t come across Zimbabwean statistics,

you wouldn’t want to try your visitors patience.

A website without a defined purpose is like driving a car without a destination in mind. Having a clearly defined purpose for your website would help you direct your customers to the actions they need to make. On the other hand, having too many goals on the website would be confusing and frustrating for your visitors. It’s best to have 1 goal per page and reinforce that goal with clear calls to action i.e. buttons that persuade visitors to take the action you want them to, such as call you, fill in a form, make a booking or whatever, you wish your visitors to do.

The term social media has become synonymous with the internet these days. One must be living under a rock if they said they don’t have a social media account of some sort. In Zimbabwe, the leading social media platforms are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. It is possible to create a business account on any of these platforms, actually, it has become critical for businesses to engage their customers on these platforms. A website without links to social media pages basically tells visitors that the owner is not only interested in being heard (through their website) but not willing to listen to the visitors (through social media). That’s a risk no business would want to take.

In addition to having clearly defined goals, it is vital to have an easy to navigate website. Sometimes young designers are attracted to glittery graphics, that only they can navigate on their expensive laptop. This, however, leads to problems after a client’s website has been launched online. Most visitors don’t have expensive laptops or computer science degrees needed to navigate complex websites. So it’s best to keep things simple. Have a website that’s easy to navigate. That way your customers will use their time wisely (buying your products) instead of learning to navigate your website before they actually buy anything. That would lead them running to your competition.

Having a website nowadays is not that difficult, there are plenty of designers out there to fix one a cheap website. However, having a website that converts your visitors into buying customers requires a lot of forethought. Luckily you don’t have to have all those things worked out on your own. You could simply send us a message here, and our designers with decades of experience will help you get a website that does what you want, (get you customers!).