Local Government Website Design

WordPress started life as a blogging platform but has evolved to a full featured, fully customisable CMS. It is very common, driving a whopping 30% of all websites on the internet. Everything from complex websites, simple blogs and online shops can be powered by WordPress.

There are hundreds of thousands of web designers who use it as their primary tool of choice. Finding a web designer and developer to help with the ongoing support for your website is very easy. Apart from the fact that it is the most widely used platform around world, WordPress has a raft of features to rave about. In fact, here goes.

So simple, your Mum can use it!

It is very easy to use. With a little training and hand holding, anyone familiar with operating a web browser will feel confident in the driver’s seat. It doesn’t require any technical programming knowledge. Just point, click, type and publish. Voila – go Mumsie!

Super search engine friendly

Google absolutely loves WordPress – in fact they publicly recommend it. The head of Google’s webspam team, Matt Cutts, said “WordPress takes care of 80-90% of (the mechanics of) Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)”. Out of the box it comes standard with most things your website needs to get results. A few handy plugins will further extend your reach in Google.

Scalable

As your business grows, so can your website. From a simple five-page website right up to a 10,000-page site, WordPress doesn’t miss a beat. Companies such as CNN, General Electric and Time Magazine all have websites or blogs driven by WordPress.

You have been hurt before, will you ever be able to trust again?

Sounds like a cheesy dramatic love story but so many businesses have been burnt along the way by poor providers it is hard to have confidence again. The website design industry is rife with broken promises and misaligned expectations.

The biggest measure of a good website design agency is their portfolio of work. Is there a consistent creative flair across all their work? Or do all their samples look the same? Ideally each of the examples should be handcrafted, unique and bespoke to each client’s brand and they should not have a templated feel. You can view our work here.

The second most important factor is, are they practicing what they preach? Check their blog and to see how often they update their posts. Does their website rank well? This is a good indication of whether they are exercising market leadership within their industry and have the tech smarts to match.

Five by Five is a digital agency offering web design Gold Coast and Australia wide and has delivered thousands of websites in over 13 years of business. We have over 80 five star Google reviews and we have written a book on the topic. The founder Jon Hollenberg regularly presents at seminars and has been interviewed on many podcasts regarding web design and development strategies.

The future landscape will be interesting for the world of websites. But for now, they are just as relevant as ever. Nothing beats a website that is well designed, is jam packed full of content and is geared for conversion. If setup and configured correctly, it has the potential to drive a ton of search engine traffic delivering warm leads and enquiries. For some, a website will be a power lead generation platform. For others, it will be a validation piece that cements them as the leader in their chosen industry. Either way, if setup correctly, a great website has the power to turbo charge your business.

We offer regular web design training at our Gold Coast based headquarters located at Burleigh Heads. Our small intimate space means you can get up close and personal running through everything from web strategy, design, content creation, video and technical aspects such as Google Analytics and conversion rate optimisation.

Appointing a new web designer is a big commitment and should not be rushed into. Nothing beats a well formulated brief that clearly defines who you are, what you do and who you do it for. Most importantly, you as a client should be very clear on what success looks like.

You can never ask too many questions in life. Specific to the web design process this is a good measure of how forthcoming and helpful your new web designer will be. If someone takes the time and effort to answer each one of your questions thoroughly it is a good sign they have your best intentions at heart. They will invest the time to educate you on the web design process to ensure you feel confident. You don’t have to ask every one of these questions but pick and choose what is relevant to your business. They will also trigger further ideas.

Here is a checklist you can download and run through with your prospective web designer.

Best place is to submit a project enquiry here.

In the meantime, you might want to check out our book here.

Do some research and take a look at some of the websites we have put together here .

These will generate more ideas for you to get started.