7 Elements of Web Design for Digital Marketing

A website built for internet marketing today should have some fundamental elements to attract and convert customers. At its heart, web design for digital marketing means building a website that targets content to your target audience or buyer personas. Answer their questions and provide the information they are looking for in a vehicle that is easy and pleasing to navigate. Google now ranks websites based on core web vitals that factor in user experience such as page loading speed.

Not knowing these important factors will cost your business money in lost opportunity. Your website is the most important online asset you have and it should reflect the professionalism and quality of service your business provides. A poorly built website will hurt your brand and business reputation. It’s also important to understand that a great website without proper optimization will simply be ineffective because no one will be able to find it in search results or they will leave without making a purchase or contacting your business.

7 Elements of Web Design for Digital Marketing

Here's a step-by-step explanation of the elements you need to build a business class website that is optimized for internet marketing.

1. Use a platform built for inbound marketing. Most small to medium-sized businesses choose WordPress because it offers a standalone website that you own without a subscription. If your marketing budget allows for it, use Hubspot for internet marketing automation.
2. Make sure your website design is responsive. A responsive website means that it will adapt to mobile devices to give a better user experience. With more than 60% of online searches performed on mobile devices, Google now penalizes websites that do not offer a good mobile experience.
3. Host on a preferred provider. Using cheap hosting is like building your brand-new house in a flood zone. It's just not a good idea and the cost difference is minimal. Softwired offers affordable hosting plans that provide complete support for WordPress websites.
4. Build on a framework that is built for SEO. Some WordPress design frameworks have easy to use SEO tools that help optimize the website pages for search engines. Ask your web designer about the framework they will use to design your website.
5. Analyze your business keywords and develop five to 10 top keyword phrases. These are usually your services and value propositions to your potential customers. It's also a good idea to use these keywords beyond the basic web pages in individual blog posts for more descriptive explanations.
6. Optimize your home page and service pages for your core services keywords. You should have individual pages created that highlight the most profitable services first, followed by pages with your secondary services.
7. Set up Google Analytics and Google webmaster tools so you can easily monitor your web traffic. Google analytics allows you to see many important details, including the journey that customers are making on your website. It is also very important to submit your sitemaps to Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed reading this list of web design must-dos and you are in the market for a new website, it is important to find the right developer who can build a website that is optimized for search engines. A website built for digital marketing will drive much more traffic to the website just in organic search results.

Seek the Help of a Digital Marketing Expert

Most small business owners do not know how to improve their search engine results rankings to drive traffic to their websites, let alone perform an SEO audit or fix Core Web Vitals issues. The best thing to do is find an SEO expert who can help your business achieve its goals to increase sales, brand loyalty and online traffic; starting with an SEO audit.