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Website Design For Beginners

As a business owner, you already know that in this day and age, great website design can make or break your company’s potential future success. So, no pressure there! Even if you’re brand new to website design, it’s far from impossible to create an awesome site that draws people in, keeps them clicking, and eventually leads to increased conversions. We’re here with some tips on website design for beginners to get you started and help you create something special. Enjoy!

It’s OK to Be Basic

For your first website, there’s nothing wrong with sticking to a clean, basic design. Try starting with a blog to get you comfortable with the mechanics of your content management system (CMS) and ease you into the more complex aspects of website design.

Need extra help? No worries- try using a blog template! These plug-and-play designs have already been created- now all they need is for you to add the elements and information that make them your own. Choose the design that best fits your branding and mission, and you’re on your way!

Get Some Inspo

There’s nothing like other people’s website designs to help you gain inspiration for your own. As someone who’s been surfing the Internet for a significant chunk of your life, you’ve undoubtedly come across website designs that have spoken to you for one reason or another. Try looking through some of your favorite sites to get a feel for what makes them stand out to you- is it the simplicity of the design? The user experience? The overall aesthetics? Whatever it is that you find appealing, try incorporating some of those elements into your own website design.

Think Outside the Web

Of course, not all inspiration is going to come from other websites. Since website design is an art form, it’s natural for designers to find their inspiration from a number of sources: nature, works of art such as paintings and sculptures, and even newspapers or magazines can serve as inspiration for a great website design. Take note of anything that appeals to you, from the shape of a vase to the font on your cereal box in the morning- if it jumps out at you, it just may hit other people the same way!

Know Your Content

Before you even design the first page of your website, it’s essential to know what you’re going to fill it with, in terms of content. What is the purpose of this website? What is it trying to accomplish? If you are selling a product or service, how are you going to present these offerings to entice and interest customers while informing them? Having the content nailed down first can help you make decisions with your website design, such as how much text needs to appear at certain intervals, which images should be juxtaposed with which text, and more.

Contact Echero Today

By following these website design tips, you will be on your way to creating your first website masterpiece! Still need help? The Echero team is happy to assist you. Contact us today to learn more about our website design services.

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7 Ways to Make Your Website Stand Out

Don’t let your business look like all the rest! From website content ideas to blogging pointers, we’ve got some website design tips to set your company’s site apart from the competition.

  1. Content is King – A website is nothing without excellent copy helping it to stand out. Good website content should be pithy and to the point, while delivering a message that is conversational and fun to read.
  2. An Excellent Design – It goes without saying that an eye-catching, cleverly designed website is going to stand out more than a boring, cookie-cutter one. That said, functionality is just as important as form, so make sure it’s as easy to read and navigate as it is visually stunning.
  3. Get Animated – Simple animation, like a subtle GIF or photos and text falling into place as you scroll down the page, can make your website memorable and add a layer of sophistication and a high-tech feel.
  4. Keep it Fresh – Would you trust an outdated website that looks like it’s straight out of 1998? If your site doesn’t match the awesomeness of your company’s products or services, it’s time for an upgrade. In addition to a modern-looking design, it’s important to keep the content fresh by adding new blog posts at least weekly and keeping your list of staff members current.
  5. Add Videos – People love watching videos and are more likely to retain the information they gathered from a video than from reading copy alone. Additionally, having videos embedded on your website can add an air of professionalism to your organization. It doesn’t have to cost a lot to produce videos about your company’s products or services- a video shot on your iPhone and edited with inexpensive or free video editing software can look just as highbrow as one put together by a professional videographer.
  6. Use High-Quality Images – Speaking of visual appeal, your website is going to be a lot more interesting if you use high-quality images rather than photos that are grainy, pixellated, or just plain tiny. Use photos that are unique and speak to your core brand values and identity to create a memorable user experience.
  7. Feature Your Fans – Having testimonials from real, satisfied customers is always a great way to generate interest in your organization as well as to build “street cred” for your brand. Hearing stories from real clients highlighting your company in a positive way can be a real draw for prospective customers. Positive Yelp reviews, social media shout-outs, and even videos featuring happy customers can all lend positive, authentic vibes to your website.

Contact Echero Today!

Still need some website design pointers? Echero is here to help! Contact us today to find out how we can take your website to the next level!

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10 Website Design Tips

Looking for website design tips that put you ahead of your competition? You’ve come to the right place. Here are our 10 best recommendations for making your website content stand out to all the right people.

  1. Think About Hick’s Law – Hick’s Law states that the more choices a person has, the longer they will take to make a decision. Keep this in mind as you’re designing your website by limiting menu options and form fields and focusing on a singular CTA instead of multiple calls to action.
  2. Keep it Simple! – Simplicity is key in website design. People are there looking for information, and your job is to provide it in a clear-cut, concise way. By eliminating confusing visual complexity and sticking with standard, familiar layouts, you’re increasing user experience and decreasing frustration.
  3. Nobody Likes Carousels – It can look impressive to display photos in a format that encourages users to keep clicking, but the truth is, research has shown that the first slide on a carousel or slideshow receives 90 percent of the clicks while the rest are basically ignored. Try to keep all images on a page that can be easily scanned and scrolled through, rather than something that requires an extra click.
  4. Scrolling, Yes. Clicking, No. – Which leads us directly to our next website design tip- people seem to prefer a single-page “endlessly scrolling” site format than one that makes them click to navigate to separate landing pages. Try to make sure all the most pertinent information about your business is in a single, scrollable page so that people can easily find what they need, and see what it does for your conversion rate!
  5. Speed is Key – Your users feel the need for speed, and who can blame them? Nobody likes a slow-loading site when you’re just trying to quickly look something up, and we’re likely to leave a website and find another that can serve our needs when it’s just taking too long.
  6. The Fold Matters – A cardinal rule of design, whether for a web page or a newspaper page, has been to keep the most important information “above the fold,” meaning the top half of the page. While there has been some debate about whether the fold even matters anymore, recent research has indicated that it absolutely still does. So, err on the side of caution and be sure to include a hero image, a descriptive headline and a clear call to action right off the bat.
  7. Use Visual Cues – Is there a section of your website that you really want users to pay attention to? Using an image with an arrow or a person looking or pointing may seem pretty basic, but it actually works! Whether you choose a more subtle approach or a blatant, “look at me” type graphic, be sure to put visual cues around the most important parts of your page.
  8. Make a List – As you can see, we’re huge fans of lists. Why? People enjoy seeing quick, concise bullet points detailing features of a product, service, or concept and are more likely to recall this information in a list form than if it was written as a paragraph of text. Be sure to put the most important points first and last, as these are the ones that are more likely to be recalled.
  9. Skip Stock Photos – Using images of real people in your website design is a wonderful idea, as it conveys the idea of community and human connection. However, the use of stock photos can cause skepticism among your audience, as it seems that people are hard-wired to spot phony, generic photos, and tune them out. Avoid this by using images of staff members, customers, and other “real people” who have a stake in your business.
  10. Share Social Proof – Word of mouth is still key when it comes to marketing, and thanks to social media, we now have more ways than ever to showcase positive customer reviews! By sharing social proof of your company’s stellar reputation and customer satisfaction, such as positive mentions, testimonials, and likes/shares, you’re lending credibility to your claims.

Contact Echero Today!

These website design tips are your starting point for building a site that genuinely makes people want to do business with you. For more great tips on website design, Contact Echero today!

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How to Get Your Website Ranked on Google

If you’ve been hearing a lot lately about the importance of SEO and improving your Google search rankings, you may be left with a lot of questions, including, “…How on Earth do I do that?” We’re here to give you the lowdown on Google rankings, SEO, and the best practices you can start using right now to increase your ranking power and drive organic traffic to your website.

What is Google Website Ranking?

Let’s start with the basics. If you’re familiar with using Google as a search engine, you know that it begins with a user entering searchable keywords and phrases into the field describing what he or she is trying to find. For example, a person in Atlanta in need of a dog sitter may conduct a Google search using the phrase “dog sitting services in Atlanta.” The Google algorithm will then search the entire Internet looking for websites that are the best possible match for those search terms. This is done by matching the keywords up to the number of times those same words or phrases occur in a given website. Google awards top ranking spots to websites that seem to meet the criteria best, meaning that using the appropriate keywords to drive interested customers to your website gives you better chances of coming out at or near the top of a search. That, in a nutshell, is SEO.

But good SEO goes beyond the mere concept of keyword ranking; after all, if it was that easy, all you’d have to do is type your relevant SEO keywords in, over and over again, with nothing else on your website. (By the way, don’t do that. It’s called keyword stuffing and it is neither cool nor beneficial to you.)

If you want to ensure your SEO game is solid enough to rank on Google, follow these pro tips:

    1. Write Great Content – We cannot stress this enough- good, engaging, organic website content, with the appropriate amount of keywords and phrases sprinkled in, is key when it comes to improving your Google website ranking.
    2. More Backlinks – A backlink, or a link from another website to yours, is an especially powerful addition, as it shows that your site is a reputable authority from a trustworthy source.
    3. User Experience – Don’t you just hate a clunky website that’s slow to load, hard to read, and impossible to navigate? Yeah, so does everyone else on the planet. User experience can make or break your Google website ranking, so make sure yours is optimized for performance.

Contact Echero Today!

Want more tips? Your friendly Echero reps live for this stuff! Contact us today and let us help you learn more about ranking in Google searches and increasing your organic traffic.

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What Is SEO (And How Can It Help Your Business)?

In the past couple of decades, the meteoric rise of the Internet is certainly one of the biggest changes to the business landscape. Companies both large and small have discovered the importance of creating engaging, thoughtful, and informative website content in an effort to attract their target audiences and build a strong brand identity. One of the key components in producing effective web content, SEO, has become one of the most talked-about concepts in business marketing. But what exactly is SEO, and is it really that necessary for your business? Here’s a quick look at SEO, how it works, and why your business should be using SEO best practices in all its website content, if it isn’t already.

What Does SEO Even Mean?

SEO stands for “search engine optimization,” which is a fancy way of saying that it helps your website get organic traffic from a search engine results page. For example, if a person is looking for a bicycle shop in Portland, he or she will likely type “Portland bicycle shops” in the search engine query field. The engine will then search all websites for the key-phrase “Portland bicycle shops” and return a list of results based on its findings. Depending on how many instances of the key-phrase it found, it will rank the results in order of relevance. SEO takes this principle and uses proven content and design strategies to increase a website’s chances of ranking high on a search engine’s results page.

SEO And Your Business

So why is SEO important to your business? For one thing, companies that use SEO to drive organic traffic from search results have a distinct edge over local competitors that don’t. When looking at SEO Google algorithms have gotten so sophisticated that they only rank sites with the utmost relevance. A recent study by Ahrefs showed that, in a database of over one billion web pages, over 90 percent of them received zero organic traffic from Google! That means that, on the Internet as a whole, fewer than ten percent of all web pages receive visitors as a result of a Google search. This huge disparity in numbers indicates that companies everywhere are in need of making significant improvements to their SEO in order to stand out in a Google search.

Contact Echero Today!

Interested in improving your company’s organic search result rankings? An SEO expert can help. Contact Echero today for some SEO tips and to find out what we can do for your business.

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Importance of Website Content

Business owners, here’s a question: how’s your website? And before you answer that, we’re not just talking about design here. These days, it’s increasingly easy to generate eye-catching, professional-quality websites that are as user-friendly as they are visually stunning. However, the design of your website is just half the battle when it comes to attracting new customers and boosting your company’s visibility and awareness among members of your core audience. When it comes to designing a website that will get your brand’s message to resonate with the people who need to hear it most, content is key. Here are some blogging tips to ensure that you’re not just creating website content: you’re creating GOOD website content.

Find Your Voice

It’s called content writing for a reason: your copywriter is not just throwing a bunch of SEO keywords onto a blog post and calling it a day. (At least, we hope not!) Good content writing comes from a place of truth that gives a distinctive voice to your brand. A good website content writer will take a brand’s mission, values, and overall personality into account when creating the copy for web pages, blogs, emails and more. Blog posts, especially, are a great place to bring out that voice and let it shine. By staying on-brand with both tone and intent when writing your blog posts, you can ensure that your audience has a good feel for who you are and what you stand for, which in turn will make them want to choose your products or services over that of the competition.

https://neilpatel.com/blog/10-most-important-seo-tips-you-need-to-know/

Tell a Story

These days, there’s so much noise coming at us from all four corners of the internet. It can be hard to find authenticity and meaning in much of the marketing that’s out there. For that reason, honesty, transparency, and truth are some of the most sought-after attributes among today’s consumer audience. Storytelling is an extremely popular marketing strategy, and the more compelling and inspiring a brand’s story is, the better. You can use your website content to craft a true identity for your brand by taking your readers on a journey with your words and helping them to see your company not just as another business, but as something more special and real. In addition to strong, engaging blog content, try telling your story through interesting videos, infographics, and social media posts to send a message that will truly resonate with members of your core market.

Optimize Responsibly

SEO, or search engine optimization, has become quite the buzzword in the business world in recent years. The basic idea is to use specific, highly-searched keywords in your website content so that your site ranks at or near the top of a Google search performed on those words or phrases. However, there is a difference between optimizing good website content with relevant SEO keywords and using underhanded, “black-hat” SEO practices like keyword stuffing, which is writing website copy using keywords and nothing else to create a jumble of unintelligible gibberish in the hopes of ranking higher for organic search results. A good content writer knows how to sprinkle in the important SEO keywords to boost rankings without diminishing the quality of the content.

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5 Ways to Optimize Your Website Today

SEO, or search engine optimization, is a hot topic these days. Surely you’ve heard about SEO and how it can completely transform your business by driving your organic website traffic, improving your search engine rankings, and reducing your bounce rate. But how do you get started with optimizing your website for enhanced visibility and amped-up conversion rates? Here are five simple things you can start doing today to make your website SEO-friendly and get your business noticed by more of your target audience.

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