Web design can make or break your online business

SenseiSteve

HD Moderator
Staff member
Your thoughts?

Users spend most of their time on OTHER websites

Their experiences on other websites form their expectations for YOUR website. Take some time to research what others in your industry are posting. Your competitor may market inferior products and services, but still outsell you online. Why? The perceived value of their products and services may be enhanced because of the way they’re presented online.

I'm curious how many of you perform competitor analysis, at least to compare designs of your respective websites?
 
We recommend a competitor analysis every quarter, and a keyword audit every 4-6 months depending how fast an industry is changing.

Knowing what your competition is doing, or even competitors you aspire to be in the same league with, is a critical step many people overlook with design.

When we perform audits for people, we always ask for 3-5 places they believe are competitors, and then 2-3 places that they aspire to be. When it comes to SEO, we then have Google return an additional 2-3 ACTUAL competitors (who you think is your competitor may not be the same in rankings).

Design plays a critical role in conversion, and with the new algorithm change happening next year, it's going to play a role in web design too.

New algorithm? Yep, it's been announced and is coming - "The Google Page Experience Update" due in 2021.
 
I can speak for only ourselves, I think folowing competitors can be a dangerious thing espescailly in you live in a country like mine where SEO is still relatively new. It means guys will go all in on big keywords and similar designs, and yes they rank for it, but are those "purchase queries" many times and I refer again to search console you will see how people deviate from what we think they search and if there are enough impressions on a non google suggested keyword il go for it. This has served me well it also allows me to not have to compete with all the big guys with money.

As for the design part again for me location is key ive done seo here in south africa and some overseas and while overseas you can wow people with videos and fancy well written text in south africa people are data continuous ( internet is bloody expensive here ) and also they dont like to read at all. So here I find getting to the point is most important with headers and images and then you put ni the other text which most people would rather mail or phone and ask about.

I do look at competitors too il admit to see pricing and yes sometimes il see something in their design that I think hey this is siple and too the point and I might adopt it in some form.

I like whats been said above about this page experience algorithm, im always marking down when i make changes and using analytics to see where it takes our website, for a little while we were even using hotjar ( like a click tracking software and we are amazed at how much stuff WE thought looked great on our webpage users never bother with. Wasting space loading time and cluttering our message.

So how often do we do this twice a year for us, but if for 3 months i see a drop in user metrics or traffic it will cause me to investagate and this has more than once led to some design changes.
 
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As per my knowledge business establishment are easy but running the business at streamline is hard, you need to more focus marketing, each and every small / large business have its own websites and my Website represent the presence of online, website is idenentity of your product, and your visitor easy to understand about your product, so as per my opinion website alsywas make business
 
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