Website aesthetics vs. Usefulness: What matters the most?

Design goes a long way in sending the right message across to your website visitors, but overdoing it might end up spelling disaster. Often, in the quest to create the most visually stunning masterpiece, the essence of the website is forgotten. In this article, we’ll explore how a few Web Design elements can create a negative impact instead of the desired effect. Remember, usefulness is more important than aesthetics, and we’re here to tell you why:

1) Elements should serve a function

Any form/shape/element should serve a function. However, these days, designers design the form and hope that the function will be served on its own. That’s not the case. While designing, identify the core functionality of the site and build your design around it instead of the other way around.

2) If it’s too beautiful, it’s also distractive

Beauty is distractive - and while it’s not wrong to make your website beautiful, if it’s too much it would end up distracting your customers from the real purpose of your site. Blend beauty and functionality and ensure that your site works as great as it looks.

3) Poor usefulness may result in high bounce rates

At the end of the day, you want to make users stay, read, or buy something from you - which might not happen if they’re unable to use your website properly in the first place. High bounce rates due to lack of a useful design might affect your SEO and lower your rankings

4) Fast is better

Incorporating too many visual elements might look great, but will slow down your site. With users’ patience waning thin, no one would hang around for more than 3 seconds on your site. Keep the flashiness to a minimum and focus more on optimizing the site’s performance.

5) Simple is elegant

Going overboard with the design and adding too much might end up confusing your visitors at the end of the day. Users like it simple and simplicity, in turn, makes your website more functional.

Getting these elements right and striking a balance between both might seem like a daunting task – but not to us! Hire skilled web developers and designers from Openwave Singapore today.

Why Do you Need a Business Website? Find out

Almost half the human population uses the internet in some form or the other. Many consumers prefer to research products and services - and even the company offering them - online before making a purchase decision. Despite this, many small and medium-sized business owners (SMBs) still don’t own a Website. So if you don’t have a website, do you truly need one?

Here are some of the significant benefits of building one:

Find more customers

Like mentioned before, a significant majority of customers search for products and services online. By having a web page up and running, you will be able to find more customers not only in your vicinity but also worldwide.

Improve reputation

According to research, customers think better of businesses that have a web-based (and mobile) presence. They are more likely to do buy from them and also recommend them to their family and friends. An online presence gives you a reputation boost.

Marketing made easy

It takes a lot of time and money to market in the real world, especially if you want to print ads in papers, magazines, or create brochures. On the other hand, marketing online is way cheaper, and you can drive traffic to your website quickly with social media, email marketing, and blog posts.

Do business 24/7

Unlike your real world office, your web pages don’t need to shut shop at night. If you sell products, you can create an eCommerce site that will be able to sell 24/7 without a break. If you run a consultation or services company, customers will be able to engage with you at night.

Customer care

It's possible to provide a range of remote services to clients with a web presence, including making instant payments, handling complaints, responding to inquiries, and acting on customer feedback. Keep up with the competition Finally, almost every business - big and small - owns a website these days. If you don’t own one, you risk falling far behind the competition. By owning one, though, you can even realistically compete against big corporations.

Thanks to CMS software and cheap hosting, setting up and maintaining a website is a breeze these days. If you need a professional website made at an affordable price, you can hire a web development team in Singapore for the task.

4 Secret Strategies to Increase Sales and Grow your Business

We live in a hyper-competitive world, and almost every industry out there - from electronics to health care to retail and food - is dominated by big brands with a loyal consumer base. It's very hard for businesses to gain a foothold in this environment, especially with limited marketing budgets. The number one problem many SMBs have is finding more customers for the firm. So how do you get to generate more leads without blowing a tonne of money?

Here are four secret strategies to help you grow your business and increase sales:

Work on your conversion rate

The conversion rate refers to the number of visitors to your website that successful transition into paying customers. How do you improve your conversions? By making a beautiful website with great content that is appealing to both desktop and mobile users.

Build long-term relationships with customers

Research tells us that recurring customers are the backbone of every business. Also, it costs almost six times as much to find a new customer than to engage with an existing one. By building a long-term relationship with existing customers - with an excellent customer service and loyalty programs – you will secure the future of your company.

Social promotions can work wonders

Don’t underestimate the power of word of mouth social advertising. If customers love your business, they won’t hesitate to recommend you to their friends and family. Leverage social media, use customer reviews, and testimonials to improve social advertising.

Search engine optimization is crucial 

 With good SEO, you will be able to generate a lot of incoming traffic – both in your locality and worldwide - to your pages. Keep up-to-date with latest trends and, if you aren’t tech savvy, consider hiring someone to do your SEO for you. 

It’s also important that you use analytics tools like Google Analytics to test how effective your current strategy is and make improvements to your campaign. The success of your business in the digital age depends on your online presence. It’s important that your website is top notch and effective at converting customers into visitors. You can hire an experienced team of web developers to make you a great website or upgrade your existing one.

Web Design Trends that are Changing the Internet Landscape in 2017

Last year, we saw a lot more businesses adopting the mobile-first approach and, consequently, implementing responsive design on their websites to make them mobile friendly. 2017 is shaping up to be another great year for Website Design, as we see many innovative trends are being adopted around the world. 

Here are some of the top web design trends that are transforming the Internet landscape in 2017: 

Layouts that bring the focus to the content

Content is still king, and more designers are waking up to the fact that people navigate to websites to read content and not just to view neat animation tricks. In 2017, we expect many sites to be redesigned to make the content more readable and clear, with elements promoting ease of readability. 

SVGs to improve loading times

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVGs) are relatively new technology. They are an alternative to traditional image formats like PNG, GIF, and JPG. They allow designers to produce images that can be scaled up and down to match any screen size without loss of fidelity (unlike other formats). What’s more, they don’t require HTTP requests, so pages with them load lightning-quick.

3D design elements

3D design isn’t new, but we saw the mainstream implementation of 3D elements on top websites via technology like Parallax scrolling. This year, we are going to see designers make websites that can be viewed on 3D wearable devices like Oculus Rift.

Colors helping the minimalist approach

There has been a trend in the market to build websites that have a minimalist interface and a clutter-free design. Bold and bright colors are being used to both emphasize the content as well as to promote a brand’s identity.

Constraint-based design tools

Developers usually have to create several versions of a site for different screen sizes. In 2017, the market is being flooded with tools like Figma that allow site makers to build a site only once and have it displayed correctly across multiple platforms.

Are you looking for to make a new website in 2017? Openwave’s leading Web Design & Development team can make you a custom website with leading-edge features at economical prices.

It’s Crucial for Your Business to Own an Official Website: Know why

So you don’t own a website yet, in 2016? We're in the midst of a digital revolution, with billions of people accessing the internet daily and using it as their primary information resource. People use the internet for shopping, to find local business services, and to compare products being offered by competing companies. By not having a website, it's almost as if your business doesn't exist!

Here are some undeniable reasons why you need an official website right now:

Make yourself more accessible to clients

You will be able to provide useful, relevant information in a single location. That will make it easy for customers to tell what you have to offer and make it more likely they'll work with you.

Find more customers than ever before

The internet has no boundaries. Organisations these days have a chance of doing business with clients from around the world. A website makes it easy to find customers globally that are interested in what you have to offer. 

Keep your business up-and-running 24/7

Unlike your real-world office, a website doesn’t need downtime. It can stay up-and-running 24/7. Consequently, you can sell your products or services all day, every day.

Credibility

Every entrepreneur knows that a business' reputation is as important as - if not more important than - the product they are selling. Having an official site tells your customers you are serious and you are running a successful business. 

Reduce marketing costs

It doesn’t cost a lot of money to market online. You can advertise for free by creating a blog or by offering newsletters to customers or clients. 

Save on upkeep

Customers will no longer have to visit you in the real world for some of your products or services (if you’re offering them online). Consequently, you will get less foot-traffic and can save on some operating expenses.  

There are over a billion websites on the internet at the moment. Your official site, if you decide to get one, will have to compete with them. To create a professional-looking website that can convert efficiently and stand the test of time, hire an experienced web development team.