Your website is the most important business asset you have.
That’s not an exaggeration.
Yes, your social media channels, CRM, and other digital business tools are important, but they should all revolve around the beating heart of your business — your website.
It’s the face you show to the world. Visitors make snap decisions on whether they can trust you, based solely on the quality of your website. If elements on a page don’t load correctly, if it’s outdated, or if there are obvious errors on your site, it leaves a bad impression. And once that visitor is gone, they’re not coming back.
Investing in your website is one of the smartest business decisions you can make. The DIY approach can only take you so far, and there comes a time when you need to delegate and outsource your website to developers who can see what you’re trying to do — and show you things that you never even knew were possible.
7 Signs You Need a Web Developer
Still, you may not be convinced you need a web developer. How do you know you really need it? Here are a few telltale signs to watch for. If you spot any of these, you’ll know it’s time.
1. You’re Always Short on Time
Despite your best intentions, you never seem to have time to sit and work on your website. There’s always something more urgent to do, and your to-do list gets longer and longer every day. The inability to spend the time you want to on your website is causing you stress, and you never seem to be able to make the site improvements you want to make. If that’s the case, hiring a web developer should be an easy decision.
2. You Know What You Want but Not How To Get It
In this scenario, you make the time to work on the website, but the results are unsatisfactory and frustrating. Chances are, you keep up with the evolving nature of the web, but it’s not your day job. So you’re spending too much time trying to get results that a “proper” web developer would achieve in a quarter of the time.
Doing it this way may save money in the short term, but it’s going to cost you. Ultimately, you’re missing out on the kind of features that only a professional can offer.
3. You’re Stuck With Out-of-the-Box Solutions
The web solution you’re currently using has some nice features, but it’s not perfect for your needs. Every business has something unique about it — a feature or two that you should be able to exploit to stand out from the crowd.
Those distinctions usually make all the difference, but they often need custom web-design solutions that are beyond the scope of most out-of-the-box solutions. If you find yourself trying to shoehorn your unique selling propositions into a prefabricated solution, it’s time to hire a web developer.
4. Your Website Isn’t Ranking on Google
This is a big problem — and probably the number one reason to seek professional help from a web developer. You don’t need us to tell you how important it is to have a good ranking on the world’s premier search engine. It can make all the difference for whether your business lives or dies.
If you’re not ranking, there’s something wrong with your search engine optimization (SEO). And SEO is always changing. Google refines the rules, tweaks the algorithm and updates what it’s looking for on a regular basis. If you’re not focused on SEO all the time, you can easily find yourself building for factors that are already obsolete.
Today’s web developers should know exactly how to build robust SEO architecture into your site so that potential customers can find you and use your services.
5. Your Business Is Growing Fast
Sometimes, success happens when you’re not ready for it. You need to adapt fast. The last thing you want is a website that buckles and breaks under the weight of the traffic you’ve been longing to see for so long. When you need to scale up fast, you need a web developer and a team that understands your business. A good development team can add new features and fix any bugs that might creep into the software without slowing down site performance.
6. Your Bounce Rate Is High
Have you noticed that you’re getting a lot of traffic to your site, but very few visitors are sticking around and using your services in the ways that you had hoped? That phenomenon of coming and going quickly is known as your bounce rate.
If you find that more than 60% of your visitors quickly bounce away from your web page, it likely indicates there is a problem with your site. Perhaps your site is not mobile-friendly or you’re ranking for the wrong keywords.
A good web developer should be able to get under the hood, diagnose the problems and design a better flow so that potential customers stick around long enough to get to know you better. A good web developer should be able to push your overalll bounce rate under 40%, but your target will vary depending on your industry and type of content on each page.
7. Your Site Isn’t Mobile Responsive
Today’s internet traffic is mobile. That means most of your visitors will arrive via their phones, and that’s only going to increase over the next few years. If your website is not optimized for mobile first and foremost, then your SEO will suffer.
Adapting from desktop to mobile is difficult work that requires a professional. Issues such as cross-browser compatibility and code optimization for slower connections are too important to try and do on your own. Security is also vital, and a good web developer can negate threats such as cross-site scripting and SQL injection attacks that are common on mobile.
Choose a Team That Can Bring Your Website to Life
After reading this list, have you come to the conclusion that you need a web developer? The fact that you’re still here probably means that’s a yes. If so, then you’re in luck. Orpheus has built a team of awesome developers who are flexible, experienced and brilliant collaborators. We work with companies and founders just like you to build the website of your dreams, not ours.
Get in touch today for a no-obligation chat, and discover what Orpheus can do for your website. A web developer could turn out to be the best investment you’ve ever made.
