At Oak Harbor Web Designs, we do things a little differently. Instead of using page builders or Wordpress, we hand write all the code for our sites from top to bottom. This allows us to make very custom designs, have absolutely ZERO bloat or wasted code to slow us down, they load instantly, score perfect marks on Google Page Speed Insights, are more secure and actually impossible to hack, and we don't need to constantly update plugins or WordPress versions to prevent hacking.
It's very competitive online, and you need every edge you can get to stand out and overtake your competition. When everyone else is using a page builder and getting poor load times, you could be getting something different - something custom coded and loading instantly. This is important because if your website takes more than 3 seconds to load, you could lose up to 50% of your traffic because they leave before the site can load. They just don't want to wait that long. Our sites load so fast they don't have any chance to leave, allowing us to capture more leads to the site than your old one did.
The faster your website loads, the better your conversions are for the ads to send them to. And Google prefers websites that load fast. Faster loading websites actually have a lower cost-per-click which can save you hundreds or more a month depending on how much you're spending on ads clicks.
WordPress and other builders have lots of vulnerabilities and points of entry into the site that can be compromised. Like with Wordpress, if you aren't constantly updating your plugins and WordPress version then you are increasing the chances of getting hacked every day you don't. Hackers target WordPress more than any other platform because they are easier to get into (especially if you aren't doing your updates!).
With our custom code, we don't have any databses or server side requests being made that hackers can intercept and hijack to insert their own code to redirect a site to a spam site. It's just static HTML and CSS files. There's nothing TO hack. We can leave our sites alone for 10 years and nothing will happen to them. They are as secure as you can get.
Better load times can improve your ranking on Google in a number of ways. The most common way is by just being faster. If there's two similar sites with similar content and domain authority, Google has stated that the one with the better Page Speed Scores and Core Vitals will win.
The other method is more indirect. When your site loads faster, more people reach it. And the more people you have going to your site can increase your ranking. And by focusing on Google's Core Vitals Metrics we can create a better user experience on the site to keep them on the site with higher session times and navigating the site with more clicks to other pages to learn more. With more traffic, higher session times, and better click through rates, we can improve our Google ranking by showing Google we are solving the users search queries and are experts in our field that visitors find valuable with our carefully written and helpful content.
A faster loading website can also add extra boost to your Google Business Profile and help increase your visibility in Maps searches. Couple that with LOTS of 5 star reviews, images, and a full 100% complete profile, you will start seeing more leads coming from that profile than you had before. The more visible we can make your profile there, the more people that reach your site, and that's more people that our site can convert into a lead.
Web design and SEO go hand in hand. A well built website will not always be enough to move the needle as much as you'd like, especially in more competitive markets. That's why we have an in-house SEO expert who knows how to rank a website and generate leads.
Forget the buzzwords like "optimize your user experience, submit a site map, optimize your meta tags and descriptions, blah blah blah". Those are all things that EVERY developer should be doing by default. Those aren't SEO services. SEO is an active and engaged process of content creation, backlinking, blogging, and monitoring. If you want to learn more about our small business SEO services, we're happy to set up a call and explain in detail every little thing we do and how this all works.