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What is landing page? Why do your business need one?

What is landing page? Why do your business need one?

You’re an airplane flying around the internet at breakneck speeds. Suddenly an ad catches your eye—it’s a free webinar for that new skill you’ve totally been meaning to learn for the past six months! You click it and immediately, you’ve landed. You’re scrolling down a new page, reading about everything the webinar covers and, finally, you’re at the bottom looking at a big bright button. Click it to reserve your spot in the webinar. You’re not on just any page; you’re on a landing page. But, what is a landing page?

Exactly what the name implies, it’s where internet traffic “lands.” If a website’s a city, its landing page is the airport where inbound flights meet the ground and let their passengers out. And just like people get their first impressions about a city as they walk toward the airport’s exit, so too do visitors get impressions about you, your brand and what you’re offering the moment they arrive on your landing page.

What is landing page?

A landing page is a web page that’s focused on marketing a specific product or service or otherwise getting the viewer to act on a “call to action”. Often, a person’s journey to a landing page starts when they see an attractive beacon like a social media ad or a link in an email. When they click it, they’re taken to a landing page.

Landing page

A landing page isn’t the same as a homepage or a splash page. A landing page is hyper-focused, optimized to get viewers to take one specific action—all the text, images and navigation are directly related to whatever outcome the page is driving. Every element is designed for the logical progression leading the visitor towards a button to click or a form field to fill in.

Landing pages exist to drive conversions. And they’re transparent about it. When you’re on a landing page, you know exactly what you’re being offered and what you’re being asked to do from the moment it finishes loading. 

In this contrast, and that’s why your landing page has to be on point. It’s where you grab readers’ attention and drive them to do what you want them to do. An effective landing page not only impresses, it also suggests, guiding visitors to a particular location, convincing them to “sign up”, “buy” or “subscribe”.

In this guide, we explain the ins and outs of landing pages: what they are, how they’re used and more importantly, how to make them effective.

Anatomy of a landing page

Every landing page is unique, but the successful ones usually contain the same key elements. Each of these elements plays a role in driving the reader to take a specific action.

Headline

Your headline is your attention-grabber. it piques the reader’s interest and makes the idea of scrolling down irresistible. here’ where visitors first meet your unique selling proposition (usp), or what you’re offering to them that they can’t get elsewhere. even if you’re offering a common service your usp could be your low price or some other perk/feature offered by only you.

Subhead

Underneath the headline, you’ve got your subhead. This is a follow-up to the headline that adds details and/or further persuades the reader to continue engaging with the text. The subhead is ideal for putting all the essential information about you that didn’t make the cut for the headline.

Supporting copy

The supporting copy follows up your subhead by explaining your offer in more detail. It discusses your company, why you’re great at what you do and how the reader benefits from taking the action you prescribe. Here, you explain exactly what the reader can expect to get by taking you up on your offer.

In the supporting copy, you also build urgency. Tell readers how long the offer’s going to last and what will happen if they don’t act now. Maybe they’ll have to pay full price, maybe they’ll miss the opportunity completely. The point is, give them a reason to click on that lead capture right now—not later, not tomorrow, now.

Images

Show your readers what they can have with some high quality images. Depending on your offer, you could use images of the items for sale or photos about how your company improves people’s lives.
Don’t cheap out on images. Your landing page isn’t the place for generic stock photos; make sure you have eye candy that underscores your offer’s value.

Benefits

Here’s where you really “sell” your offer. Often, benefits are in bullet lists for standability because that makes them really easy for readers to glance at and take in. The benefits may be part of your landing page’s supporting copy or they can be a section of their own. Their purpose is to quickly explain exactly why your offer is so great. 

The benefits may be part of your landing page’s supporting copy or they can be a section of their own. Their purpose is to quickly explain exactly why your offer is so great.

trust builder

Trust-builders are images and text you include on your landing page to get the reader to trust you. Often these entail testimonials from previous buyers or logos from famous clients (known as social proof), as well as stats about your success or your customers’ satisfaction. You can also include badges showing your credentials, like proof of a secure checkout system.

Lead capture

Finally, this is where your visitors convert—or don’t. Your lead capture is the action you want them to take, the culmination of all your landing page’s hard work. It could be a form right on the page where readers share information or it could be a button that brings them to another page where they give you the info you’re after. 

Whichever it is, it needs to be big, bold, obvious and visually appealing—the whole purpose of the landing page is to drive readers here. A common trick is to use a contrasting color to draw attention to your lead capture.
Lead captures should also have clear calls to action (i.e., “sign up now”) nearby to encourage people to engage the lead capture through the power of suggestion. You can improve conversions by telling your reader explicitly what you’d like them to do, just be careful about not sounding pushy.  

Keep in mind that a landing page doesn’t have to have all of these elements in this specific order to be effective. Some landing pages have the lead capture form at the bottom, others have it along the right-hand side of the page. Some landing pages have lots of text explaining the offer, while others explain it through a video.

It will probably take a few tries to find the arrangement that works best for you. Figure this out faster by split-testing two designs at once and taking a look at which performed better. Tools like Google Analytics can help with this.

Why is landing page matter?

According to truelist.co, readers spend about eight seconds on a landing page before they decide whether to keep reading or X out. Only about 50 percent of landing pages are optimized for mobile devices, and targeting a page correctly can increase conversions by 300 percent. A one-second loading delay can lower conversions by seven percent. 

If you’re not certain what those phrases mean, we’ll define them for you in a minute. But first, take a look at a few more landing page statistics:

The average landing page conversion rate across all industries is 2.35 percent
Of all the visitors who read a page’s headline, 90 percent also read its call to action
Videos on landing pages can improve conversions by 86 percent
Landing page conversion rates vary by industry, so be sure to research the average rate for yours to set realistic goals. 

as you can see, landing pages are a critical part of online marketing. they enable you to get valuable information about your prospects and often they’re key milestones in your scales funnel. let’s quickly define a few important concepts to understand when you’re developing an online marketing strategy: 

Sales funnel, a sales funnel is a series of steps designed to turn people who are interested in your product or service into people who actually buy your product or service. The term comes from pictorial representations of this process: imagine a wide pool, like all the people who see your brand’s posts on Instagram. That’s the top of the funnel, the people who are aware of your brand. Within this pool, a smaller group of people—your brand’s Instagram followers—are interested in your brand. They’re a step down the funnel, a step closer to buying from you. Within that group, there’s a smaller group who’ve decided to buy from you. And of those people, there’s an even smaller group of people who actually do buy from you—the narrowest segment of your funnel.

In this scenario, you might create a post offering the opportunity to get access to your next launch before it officially launches. Interested followers click the link in the post and reach a landing page where they can get access by giving you their email address. This landing page sits at the threshold between interested and dedicated, bringing visitors closer to becoming buyers.

Leads. Leads are the people who’ve shown interest in your brand and are likely to be converted. Using our sales funnel example, they’re the people who’ve shared their email addresses on the landing page. In other words, leads are the individuals who’ve chosen to engage with your brand and expressed that they’d like to continue a relationship with you.

Lead generation. Lead generation is all the effort you put into cultivating leads, like posting to social media, running ads, creating landing pages and building brand awareness in general. It’s the very top of your sales funnel, the widest part where you introduce your brand to the world.

Conversions. A user “converts” when they take the action you want them to take. On a landing page, a conversion would be clicking a button or sharing an email address. On a sales page, a conversion is a purchase. Depending on your goals, conversions could also be clicking an ad to reach a landing page or following your page on social media.

SEO. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a category of strategies to help your landing page (or any kind of page) rank higher on search engines. SEO strategies involve:

  • Using high-ranking keywords in your title, metadata
  • Including quality content on your page
  • adding images and videos to your page
  • ensuring your page loads quickly

Call to action. A call to action is a piece of copy that directly tells the reader to take a specific action. Call now, read more, click here—these are all phrases used as calls to action. Calls to action are a crucial part of any landing page and the best practice is to use them in multiple spots, like right below the benefits, immediately following the supporting copy and on the button readers click to submit their info. In fact, the landing page as a whole is a call to action.

What make a good landing page?

A good landing page doesn’t leave any room for readers’ questions. It tells them everything they need to know so they feel like clicking that lead capture button is a great choice. With this in mind, you need to carefully research exactly who your target audience is after and what they respond to. Refer to the ideal customer persona you’ve created and imagine you’re speaking directly to this person when you’re writing your landing page copy.

Regardless of your customer persona, certain design and copy choices are proven to work for landing pages. These include: 

  • Clear, catchy headlines (that include keywords)
  • Uncluttered page layouts
  • Short, simple forms
  • Clear, frequents calls to action

An effective landing page also makes clear what your company does for visitors who aren’t already familiar with your brand. again, a landing page is a confusion-eliminator_ if there’s any possible way a reader can reach the end of your landing page and still have questions about who you are, what you’re offering and why it’s an amazing offer, you need to rework the copy to make these points clear.

What make a bad landing page?

Just like eye-catching copy and direct calls to action make great landing pages, wishy-washy copy and passive suggestions make lousy landing pages. Here’s what else can ruin a landing page: 

 

  • Cluttered design
  • irrelevant images 
  • no images 
  • poor seo
  • unclear calls to action
  • slow loading speeds
  • not being optimized for mobile

As of 2020, about half of the world’s web traffic is via mobile devices. That means about half of your audience—possibly more, depending on your niche and your brand—is engaging with you on their phones. Make sure your designer optimizes the page for mobile as well as desktop screens. 

In the same conversation, make sure your images and videos are compressed small enough so they don’t slow your loading speed. Loading speed does impact SEO, as do images that aren’t tagged properly. 

Final thought

I have a landing page now what?

A landing page isn’t something you plop into a marketing strategy; it’s an integral  part of  your marketing campaign from drawing board. As you develop marketing strategies, think about where landing pages fit into them. If you think about these strategies like funnels, think about where in the funnel a landing page could help most.

If you’re looking to add subscribers to your email list, add a link to a landing page that tells readers to “subscribe for more great info” at the bottom of each of your blog posts. Similarly, if you’re offering something your followers want, like an E-book or valuable PDFs, you might create a social media post that links to the landing page where they can get the E-book or PDFs.

Drawing more traffic home with awesome an landing page

When you’re selling a product, building an audience, seeking clients or giving away great content, a well-designed landing page isn’t optional. The internet’s buzzing with thousands of people who’d love to engage with your brand, so you’ve got to give them a clear path to follow to reach you. A landing page is a direct route to you, and a direct route to conversions for you.

UX/UI design trends 2021

UX/UI design trends 2021

Design is no longer about the wow factor. It is about personalization, simplicity, convenience, minimalism, accessibility. Current and upcoming UI/UX design trends follow these principles. We have already written about why design is a worthy tool for your business as well as how to turn it into a powerful selling tool. Also, we have pointed out how to break a business message through overproduced content in a split-second with motion graphics, and have highlighted massive animation design trends.

Versatility and adaptability

Source: Dribbble

Creating an application for only one platform is a lost cause. Choosing device-neutral and cross-platform options for seamless app performance on a laptop, PC, smartphone, or tablet is a win-win option that allows ensuring a much better UI and UX,  and reaching a wider audience coverage.

Mobile phone flexible screen expansion can compete with devices people are used to. Foldable phones with flexible displays will bring a brand new user experience. An advanced multifunctional screen is about multitasking. It allows running a few apps alongside each other simultaneously as well as seamlessly switching between them. It can be used as both a phone and a tablet. A flexible display can make the back of the phone an additional interactive space.

Personalization

Source: Dribbble

The mass production trends have long passed into history. There are no solutions that would fit all cases. Users demand a personalized approach from you, niche services that are relevant to their interests as well as can solve personal needs. To retain users, design an app accurately by focusing on personal, cultural, situational requirements ensuring a unique and authentic user experience.

Spotify offers a personalized playlist based on a listener’s particular tastes. The Netflix app offers flexible recommendations and customizes film artworks to suit users’ viewing habits.

Voice interaction

Source: Dribbble

Apple’s voice-controlled personal assistant Siri, Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa, Samsung’s smart assistant Bixby, Google’s AI-powered virtual voice assistant Google Assistant dictate their terms to UX design trends for this year. Voice-enabled apps are continually integrating into our lives as they are more convenient, deliver quick and accurate query results, ensure personalized user experience.

AV/AR

Source: Dribbble

Implementing augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technology allows integrating the fictional digital elements into the real-world image by offering users an entirely fresh look at the daily routine.

Education, real estate, mHealth, science, entertainment, eCommerce, traveling, media. Here’s a partial list of niches where VR & AR trends can be adopted with own UI/UX.

Ikea, Disney, Zara, Toyota have already applied AR to their products. With the Gucci App AR feature, users can digitally try on sneakers, sunglasses, or decorate their spaces with new decor objects. The Ikea app offers customers to try on the chosen interior before purchasing it.

Material Design

UX/Ui Design

Source: Dribbble

Flat UI design, two-dimensional elements, simple shapes with no added effects have been replaced by user-centered design process, motion graphics, 3D icons, animated logos, custom color palettes, responsive interaction animation, shadows, and depth illusions, grid-based approach, ML- and AR-powered features, sound design. Material design will bring a much more engaging user experience via intricate patterns, textures, customization, advanced interactivity.

Design for content

UX/Ui Design

Source: Dribbble

The content-first approach helps to design meaningful and functional interfaces, ensure comfortable and convenient user experience rather than complex and artistic solutions.

When it comes to current UI/UX design trends, general readability reigns supreme. It is not only about slogans, taglines, brand names, or CTAs. It is about the style of content as a whole – a simple content menu, highly readable fonts, font combinations for various screen sizes to ensure effective responsive design.

Animation & micro interaction

UX/Ui Design

Source: Dribbble

Interface animation has not lost its position this year. Animation will remain trendy as it can easily grab and hold viewers’ attention, and is more memorable than just static elements. Adding life and motion to buttons, icons, tabs, charts, preloaders, menu bars, scroll animations, visual clues, onboarding screens, splash screens, activity indicators, pull-down-to-refresh animation makes user experience informative and engaging. Smooth microinteractions make user interface intuitive and natural.

Chatbot UI and UX design

Chatbot

Source: Dribbble

Chatbot interaction design should not only convey information to end-users. To process each specific query, chatbots should be easy to use, handle all kinds of natural language variations – various emotions, language semantics, text structures, phrases, slangs.

to enchance the user experience, you should consider a specific set of options such as avatars, a voice that matches your brand personality, welcome/failure message design, animation, response buttons, typing indicators. you should provide your app users with multiple interaction ways-free-text typing with autocomplete function or ready-made conversation flow.

Keep things simple

As you see, new trends in UI/UX design trends are about user-centered and effective problem-solving solutions. Keep things simple, and your users will rely on your app and follow your brand.

We at Zooms Design know how to personalize your brand to convert your business message into simple and functional visual solutions that are relevant to your users’ interests and can solve their personal needs. Have an idea? Feel free to contact us. We will be happy to help you find the perfect match.

What is web hosting? Is it important?

What is web hosting? Is it important?

one surprising benefit of starting your own website: your vocabulary grows! You start to see words like “web hosting” or “front-end interface” on a regular basis; you begin to pick apart specific acronyms like IP and SEO from random alphabet-soup amalgamations. Sure, you still don’t know what these words or acronyms actually mean, but you’re certainly familiar with them!

In this guide, we’ll help in answering at least one of your questions: What is web hosting? It’s really not as complicated or technical as you think—we won’t mention a single line of code, we promise. Instead, we’ll explain everything you need to know as someone starting a site: how it works, the different types, and what to look for.

What is web hosting?

In the nutshell, web hosting is where you store (or host) your site’s data: media, formatting, backups, etc. site date is stored on a server including cloud servers_ and your customers access those servers directly when they visit your site.

servers are pretty complex hardware, so most people rent server space from a web hosting provider. you can think of a web hosting company as a landlord, leasing out server space to various renters, but also maintaining that space like how landlords make sure their tenants have “hot water.”

On the bright side, a lot of the best website builders provide hosting as part of their packages, including Wix, Squarespace and Shopify. If you’re using one of them, you don’t need to worry about web hosting at all. If you’re still having trouble deciding, check out our guide to choosing the right website builder for you.

Even if your hosting is handled, that doesn’t mean your work is over. Hosting does not cover areas like your domain name (which is the same thing as your URL or web address). Although some hosting companies sell domain names as a side gig, buying an unused domain name is a separate service.

Likewise, web hosting doesn’t always include secondary features like email capabilities or website design, although they’re occasionally included in hosting packages. Don’t expect these kinds of services from your web hosting provider, any more than you’d expect your landlord to help you pick out throw pillows or other interior design choices.

5 main types of hosting

Unless you know how to build and maintain your servers your self, chances are you’ll need to work with a web hosting company. as mentioned above, some of the website builder platforms include hosting when you sign up, so in a sense they are your web hosting provider.

But some of them do require outside hosting (like wordpress), or maybe you just want to create your site without a template-style builder, in which case you’ll need to work with a hosting company. below, we discuss the five most common types of web hosting, so you have an idea of what to look for.

Shared hosting

One of the most common forms of web hosting, shared hosting is when different sites are hosted on the same server and share the same resources. This benefits the hosting provider because they can more efficiently use their servers, and the client gets a better price because they’re not paying for a whole server. The downside is that you don’t have a lot of space for yourself, so it only works for sites that don’t receive much traffic.

VPS hosting

Also known as Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS), a Virtual Private Server (VPS) is a step-up from shared hosting. Technically, you still share the same server with other clients, but everyone has a set amount of allocated resources—not quite the free-for-all of shared hosting. It costs more than shared hosting, but not as much as dedicated hosting.

Dedicated hosting

Dedicated hosting is when you have the entire server to yourself—no sharing. This gives you resources to handle lots of traffic and more involved media, but costs more. Dedicated hosting is more for established websites that can put the extra space to use.

Cloud hosting

Cloud storage isometric banner, digital technology

The newest type of hosting, cloud hosting stores your site’s data in the cloud instead of a server. this protects your data from local power shortages or equipment failures, not to mention you’re only charged for the resources you use, so the cost is both reasonable and scalable. What’s the downside? some critics protest that cloud hosting is less secure, but these myths have largely been disproven. In short, cloud hosting is just as safe as the others.

Managed hosting

Managed hosting isn’t a type of web hosting like shared, VPS, dedicated or cloud—it just refers to when your service provider manages your data for you, on top of security and maintenance. The idea is, for an extra fee, you can use their own expert staff to manage your account. This is the popular choice for people who don’t want to bother with the technical aspects; otherwise, you may need to hire an internal IT professional.

Advantages of web hosting

Cloud Server Data center Is a network service system on the Inte

After “what is web hosting,” the second most common question is, “do you need it?” Often you don’t—as we mentioned above, many website builders take care of it for you. But sometimes you do need it, and even if you’re tech-savvy, there are still advantages to using a web hosting service over doing it yourself.

some site require it

For starters, web hosting is essential if you’re building a site on certain platforms. The biggest is WordPress—sure, that’s just one platform, but that one platform powers almost half (39.5%) of all websites. So roughly 40% of websites will require an outside hosting service, including any e-commerce sites that plan to use WooCommerce.

Regular maintenance

Hosting providers, even if you opt out of managed hosting, provide the basics for server and data maintenance. For one thing, this ensures you never miss a scheduled upgrade or forget to back-up your data regularly. But moreover, you can rest easy knowing your data is in the hands of a professional.

Security

Perhaps the strongest advantage of hosting is security. cybercrime gets more sophisticated every day, but hosting providers stay on top of the latest preventions and protections. they have to_ one of their primary jobs is keeping clients data safe.

Better performance

Hosting affects all the significant areas of website performance, including loading speeds and bandwidth. If, for example, your small site suddenly goes viral overnight, the increase in traffic could overload a small DIY server. 

Not only do hosting providers ensure that your site stays live (or they should_ it’s called an “uptime guarantee,” explained below), but they can also incorporate content delivery networks (cdn) to your hosting. cdn is when your site data is stored geographically close to your user, so that the site loads faster. this can be too complicated to handle on your own, but some hosting providers have everything you need ready to go.

How to pick the right hosting service

If you need a web hosting provider, there’s plenty to choose from. Too many, in fact—competition is fierce, as you might expect by the number of people who want their own websites. So how do you determine which one is best for you? We offer some advice here.

List the features you want beforehand

Hosting providers come in many different sizes_ big and small, expensive and cheap. the trick is to find one with what you need and little extra: you only want to pay for the features you’ll use. 

Make a list of what you want beforehand, and then reference it when browsing service providers. not only does this ensure nothing slips through the cracks, it also makes it easier (and faster) to sift through all your different options.

bandwidth and traffic

More than anything else, bandwidth and traffic determine which hosting package you need. small sites can skirt by with minimal hosting, but as soon as you start getting lost of traffic, you’ll need to upgrade your hosting or else risk your site going down.

unfortunately, if this is your first site, you’ll have to estimate how much you’ll need. if you’re expecting a swift success, choose a hosting plan that allows for scalability in a pinch. otherwise, start small and expand only when necessary. 

Storage

Likewise, if you’re using large media files, like high-definition videos or advanced visual effects, you’ll need more expensive hosting packages to accommodate that storage space. If you’re using standard photography and/or only a few video clips, standard hosting storage should suffice.

Special features

Depending on your business model or managing styles, you might want to consider some optional features as well:

Uptime guarantee_ a clause in your contract guaranteeing 99% or 100% uptime means your site will almost always be live. 

SSL certificate_ a certified secure sockets layer is a security measure that provides an encrypted (safe) connection between your users and the server. since 2018, site without ssl are marked as “Not secure” on Chrome, so you’ll likely lose visitors without one. if your hosting provider doesn’t offer one, you’ have to get it yourself.

SEO tools_ a lot of seo happens behind the scenes, so if SEO is crucial to your business strategy, make sure your hosting provider takes care of it on their end.

renewal fees_ here’s a trick some hosting providers pull: they offer low cost startup packages, but raise the price for renewals after everything is already “moved in”. Check renewal fees before signing up, and watch out for pushback if you want to switch to a different hosting company. 

Aside from that, check out peer reviews and rating before signing up. There’s plenty of honest service providers out there, but still have to watch out for the bad apples.

Conclusion: hosting is just the beginning

Getting the web hosting you need is just the beginning—you will need to design the site according to your industry, branding, business model and style tastes, luckily, you can hire a “service provider” for that as well.

Are you In Search of a job for web development?

Are you In Search of a job for web development?

Zooms Design, a company that specialize in graphic design & marketing solutions and website design & development.

Summary: web Development will provide a high-level of customer service on facilities website and analysis to increase brand awareness, engage new followers and patients and maximize the value of current audiences. This role will monitor, update, and report on websites and assist with digital marketing platforms.

We are looking for a creative web developer to help us maintain and build website while also helping build creative solutions for future projects.

Requirement:

  • At least 1 year experience, challenging software magic
  • Basic understanding of java script, html, word press, css/sass
  • familiar with java script frameworks such as reach, nextjs, responsive design, version control, testing debugging. 
  • Comfort with the CLI, at minimum, must be able to use git and SSH. 
  • Driven to write developer-friendly, flexible, testable, reusable, and clean code.
  • Ability to manage multiple projects at a time. 
  • Good in English is advantage. 

Duties

  • Build easy-to-use and performance website serving. 
  • Understanding the technical constraints of a project, and make pragmatic tradeoffs.
  • Contribute to and maintain our interactive design system. 
  • Follow common web standard and development methodologies.
  • Review and respond to operational issues, escalating as necessary. 
  • Collaboration with other team member.

Benefits

  • Do what you love: share your creation and earn money doing what you love. 
  • Simplicity: the system that can help you perform well and easy to track your works. 
  • Time is just number: time is not what we worry about, your work are, keeping it simple. 
  • Rewarding the good: when you reward the good, it motivates others to do more good. 
  • Flexibility: you can work from anywhere, as long as you have access to the internet. 
  • Growth: cultivate your professional skills, unleash your potential.
Everything you need to know about outsourcing web design

Everything you need to know about outsourcing web design

Whether you’re already looking into outsourcing companies or simply considering of outsourcing web design, this guide is here to answer all your burning questions!

You can really outsource anything these days: from customer service and sales teams to marketing and design. However, It services (including web design) remain the most commonly outsourced business service. There are several reasons for this. While any small business owner can at least attempt to tackle graphic design or marketing (even without a basic knowledge), when it comes to web development there’s only so much you can do. Next, it’s quite clear that websites have become a necessary requirement for any business: 70-80% of potential customers could be lost to a business without a website.  

Of course, you might already know that this is something you can attempt to yourself. There are several website builders, including WordPress, Shopify and Wix, which allow you to create a useful website with sometimes quite extensive customization options. 

But if you’re looking create something from scratch. or perhaps design a mobile app, then you’ll have to hire a web design and development team.

In this guide you will learn: 

  • What is web design
  • Why outsource web design
  • Where can you outsource web design

What is web design

Web design incorporates two things: web design and web development.

Web design relates to the way a website or app looks. But getting it to actually work is the responsibility of web development teams. 

If you’re looking to outsource, you may want to consider outsourcing one or the other or both. If you’re a design company and have a skilled UI/UX designer on hand, you might just need a developer to help you bring your vision to life.

Web design

While creating the look of a website is essentially a graphic design task, it requires a particular set of skills (for example design software like Sketch or Adobe XD) and an understanding of what this type of design needs to achieve. 

A well-designed website or application includes a great user interface (the look of the app) and user experience (e.g. making it clear how a website or app should be used). 

Web development

If you’ve ever seen funny stock photos of people sitting in a dark room surrounded by mysterious lines of code: this is the representation of a web developer.

Web development refers to building the backend of the site: you must know how to use coding languages such as HTML or CSS. It’s not something you can easily pick up from a YouTube tutorial. Rather, you might have to take courses or acquire formal training in order to provide web development services. Still, since this is a more practical job. web developer are generally paid less than UI/UX designers who have to have the relevant technical design skills, but also a much broader knowledge and practical experience in designing for this type of use. 

Web development, programmer engineering website

Why outsource web design?

Outsourcing is not a sign of bad management or taking on more than you can handle. It’s a popular practice even with giants like Apple, that outsource the production of their hardware, which are then sold under that Apple brand (this is called white label outsourcing). This allows the company to focus on design, branding and marketing, which allows Apple to retain the full ownership of their brand without the “hassle” of simple production tasks. 

Deloitte’s 2020 outsourcing survey suggests that the key reasons for outsourcing remained the same, even in a year as unpredictable as that. Most companies outsource to: 

  • Reduce cost 70% 
  • Reach the market more quickly 20% 
  • Achieve more flexibility 40%

When it comes to website design, these benefit becomes even more apparent. Let’s take a closer look.  

Reducing cost

The average salary of a UX/UI designer is $85k annually, while web developers make around $75k per year.  On the other hand, UI/UX design services on freelancing platforms like Fiverr and Upwork stands at around $20-$75 per hour, while web developers make an average of $25 per hour, In the case of website design, however, clients usually pay on a per-project basis, and the average cost of a website setup is around $6k.

Of course, on top of that, you’ll need to add the expenses of hosting the website (which are usually quite small) and web maintenance (regularly updating the content), but we’re assuming you have a content or marketing team taking care of that. And naturally, the more complex the project, the higher the price tag will be.

More flexibility

Outsourcing web design means two things in terms of greater flexibility: you can focus on top-tier tasks (like Apple’s example) and you can diversify your service. 

This might mean creating a mobile application to reach more users or even adjusting features on your website to acquire more leads and ultimately more sales. Knowing that your ideas can actually be realized means that you scale better.

Reaching market quickly

A survey from Kinvey shows that an MVP (minimum viable product) for an iOS or Android application takes around 4.5 months to complete.

The time your in-house web design team might spend on creating an, for example, web application, has to be rationed between performing necessary daily tasks (e.g. maintaining your existing website). An outsourcing service has the benefit of tunnel vision, focusing only on the task at hand and producing results more quickly. 

Finally, one of the biggest advantages of outsourcing is access to a hug talent pool. You are able to choose the people with the absolute best qualifications for the job, which means the work often gets done faster.