Need A New Website? Why Should You Hire A Professional Designer?

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There are several companies aggressively pushing their way into the website design field that are targeting people and businesses in need of a new website. If you watch TV, you’ve seen ads for Wix and SquareSpace. These sites offer people affordable and easy to use ways of designing your own site and for some people that’s perfectly fine. However, I’m going to tell you why you should hire a professional website designer.

Top Ten Reasons You Should Hire A Professional Website Designer

1) A professional website designer is going to save you time

By hiring a professional, you get the benefit of hiring a web presence expert who knows successful, efficient ways to create an appealing website for your industry.

2) A professional website designer will make your website unique

It’s 2014 and there are more than a billion websites. Making your website stand out from the crowd is crucial. A professional designer has the ability to create a site that is unique to your business, user-friendly, loads efficiently, and is search engine optimized.

3) A professional website designer will make your site easy to use

Professional web designers design with your visitors in mind. This makes it easy for your visitors to seamlessly navigate the website without getting confused or giving up and leaving the site altogether.

4) A professional website designer will help boost your credibility

By having a professionally designed website it gives your visitor’s confidence in your services. Online competition is strong and first impressions are very important to attract and retain customer.

5) A professional website designer is a communications expert

Professional web designers are experienced in knowing how to communicate your business message. Through the use of colors, web fonts, graphics etc…, a professional website should convey a clear and consistent message that represents your business.

6) A professional website designer will build your site so that it is search engine optimized

Having a website is one thing, having a website that can be found is another. A professional designer and website developer will know how to design your site so that it is SEO friendly.

7) A professional website designer will build you a website that doesn’t look home-made

Do a quick search online and you will quickly be able to decipher between a home-made web site and a professionally designed website. Your customers and clients will know the difference too. By having a professionally designed website it conveys to your customers a sense of security about your services.

8) A professional website designer will make your business the online expert in your industry

A professional designer knows how to portray your business as the online industry expert in your field. A good professional web designer will suggest resources, online material, articles and web content that will make your company look stand out in your business niche.

9) A professional website designer will help you convey that your business is trustworthy

A good website designer knows ways to convey your trustworthiness through the use of images or text in the design. This lets your website visitors know there is a real human on the other side that is worthy of doing business with.

10) You have a business to run

Hiring a professional website designer to create, launch, and manage your website will allow you to focus on what matters most – growing your business. You’re probably already responsible for every aspect of your business, from sales and marketing to the everyday administrative duties like payroll, etc., especially if you are small. Do you really need to focus your time and energy on creating your website?  Let an expert handle that for you to ensure that your site is one that will give you the most competitive edge in the marketplace and which reflects the best image possible to potential customers.

How To Make Sure You’re Not Using A Shady WordPress Theme

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WordPress is fast becoming the most popular website content management system. It is popular because it is user-friendly and relatively inexpensive. In fact, there are many free WordPress themes. Unfortunately, some of these WordPress themes could have some very negative effects on your website and your web presence.

Top Three Shady WordPress Theme Practices

Static links pointing to suspicious websites

Not all static links (or embedded links) in WordPress themes are bad. Usually, embedded links are just links that acknowledge the developer of the theme. As long as the links are decent, and granted that the theme user is informed that the links will be displayed on their site, then they might be alright.

However, in some instances, the embedded links may be going to spammy websites. When links point to casino sites, online pharmacies or some shady biz-op products, all without the site owner’s knowledge, then unfortunately you have a WordPress theme you should not be using. Search engines will not reward your site and its links to the dark side of the internet, and you may actually be penalized for it even if you’re an unwitting participant.

Theme-locking

Some links and code blocks in shady WordPress themes are “locked” with JavaScript and/or PHP code. Removing these links or code blocks will make the entire WordPress site go blank, displacing your content with a message telling you that you need to put the links/code blocks back in place to be able to remove the message from your site.

Encrypted code

Encrypted code is a term in the WordPress community for code snippets that are purposely being hidden from the user of the theme. The intent of encrypted code is to hide portions of the theme’s source code and to make these portions difficult to remove. Encrypted code can do a variety of things, such as generating links to third-party sites and interfering with the user experience.

Why are these theme developers using these shady practices?

Some companies go out of their way to include harmful elements in their WordPress themes. Why would they do this? You might ask. Because WordPress themes are a great online marketing tool.

The market for themes keeps growing year over year. It’s been reported that nearly 20 percent of all sites are built with WordPress. And, at one point, all those site owners will go out looking for nice themes. The way some people capitalize on this opportunity is by creating a great-looking WordPress theme and then including hidden links and obfuscated code in the theme. Imagine what their reach could be like if they get even a few hundred domains installing their theme.

How to make sure you’re using a trustworthy theme

The best option is to use a theme obtained from a reputable source and created by a trustworthy theme developer, both of which can significantly reduce the potential of these shady practices being employed. If you are using a free theme, it’s also a very good idea to have a consultant review your site to make sure you’re using a trustworthy theme. Call Connect4 Consulting at 202-236-2968 for help.