Many business owners have now discovered the importance of creating a compelling and professional website to engage visitors, build their trust, and turn them into customers. Website owners used to have to decide between form and function. This resulted in millions of flashy websites that intrigued visitors, but provided no value or reason for them to return. Alternatively, some websites provided significant value, but were amateurish and not visually pleasing. The fact that the search engines favored simple, sloppy websites at the time made matters even worse.

How the internet has changed! If you are a beginning web developer, you can learn to create a compelling and professional website that will captivate visitors and provide them with value that makes them want to return. For most business owners, that means repeat customer relationships and increased profit. The following paragraphs detail what a web developer does, including the basics of how to design an attractive website that will give a business a competitive edge.

The Problem Of A Web Developer

It used to be a "one or the other" choice when it came to designing websites: artistic form or valuable function. Today, a web developer can design a website that provides the best of both. Simple, easy to figure out navigation is seamlessly blended within an artistic framework. Choosing the right animations, fonts, and graphics can add personality to a website without sacrificing its functionality.

How To Build Trust

Today's sophisticated internet-savvy visitors have increasing expectations about how they think a website should look. People tend to associate the professionalism and reputability of a business with the visual appeal of their website. A well built, informative website that provides value to visitors in the form of compelling content, newsletters, articles, and other features works to encourage visitors to return.

For instance, a great feature for the website of a mortgage company is an online amortization calculator or a storage shed website may provide a construction calculator. By including quality compelling content, a web development company can work to leverage it to build trust in a website's visitors. Building trust is crucial for business owners.

Easy Scaling

A common mistake for a beginning web developer is designing a website that doesn't leave room for growth. For instance, if an existing website owner wants to add new products to his website, but the current design and framework of the website do not allow the space to do so. Business owners can also often be confused about how to track customer purchases, inventory levels, and create other types of tracking databases. A well constructed website should always provide the owner with a way to scale up easily. This is one of the huge advantages to working with a web developer.

Locating A Professional Web Developer

There are many web development software packages that can help a business owner create their own website. Unfortunately, most of this software has limitations. For instance, some content management systems make it easy to create a website, but require experience in programming to grow or scale the website. Other web development software applications can help you create a website in less than fifteen minutes, but you may have no customization options.

A professional web developer will meet with a website owner to discuss their needs. This is a valuable part of creating a website. During the meeting, they should discuss special programming required, ongoing content development, future functionality, visitor tracking, search engine optimization, and more. This gives website owners plenty of flexible options for a profitable website.