As a small business owner, you are faced with multiple challenges on a daily basis, 24/7, just to get your business to start generating cash. This especially true when you are just starting out and may also be working a day job. However, a professionally designed website for your business can yield many benefits that can help mitigate cash flow problems and free up your time to focus on big-picture items that will take your business to the next level.

Here are a few ways that a professionally designed website can help drive up traffic from visitors via SEO, promote your brand and add money to your bottom line.

Keeping Up With the Latest Trends

The internet is a fast-paced and unforgiving place, and a website that looks old and bland will quickly be dismissed by visitors. Some of the common trends in web design today include making sites look and feel alive with innovative designs, simple color mixes, and lengthier pages that contain pictures and video content. These features go beyond just providing users with information and evoke and convey emotion on the site’s visitors which, in turn, are more likely to link to the site, share among other users and even contribute content to it. All these factors have been shown to have a positive impact on SEO, boosting page views and increasing awareness.

Understanding the Data

A visually appealing and interesting website needs to have the proper structuring in place in order to be noticed by search engines. After all, search engines focus on content, not on what color or layout the website has. Improving search engine optimization has become an essential part of making a well-designed, modern website. A website with good, original and properly structured content is always preferred and most likely to generate traffic. In addition, by having links, making regular updates, including tags and simple form and functionality your site help draw search engine “spiders” that will have significant benefits for your SEO ranking.

Responsive and Mobile

According to a recent annual report released by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), 7.5 million Australians used their smartphones to access the internet during June 2013. That’s a 33% increase from the prior year. The report essentially highlights the importance of responsive website designs, that is, a website that is designed to have the same appearance regardless of what device you are using (i.e. smartphone, tablet, or computer). Online visitors have a notoriously short attention span and if they have any sort of difficulty navigating through your website via a mobile phone or tablet, they will quickly exit your site and move on.

However, a responsive website is not only about making sure your website look nice on each device, it needs to also provide an optimum experience according to the device you are using. For example website can focus more on promoting branding for users on a desktop, but on a mobile phone it may make more sense to focus on prices and product features for users who are on the road using a mobile device. Modern website designers no longer consider responsive designs as an option; it has become a necessity in order to be able to provide users with a fully optimized experience.

A Great Website Makes More Business

These are just some of the modern features that will help attract more traffic and turn your website into a revenue-generating machine. Unless you are an avid web designer, it may make sense to consider hiring the services of a professional web designer who can bring these numerous benefits, and many more, to your business.