About Beverly, MA
Beverly is home to some of the most interesting businesses, from its bustling nightlife to the entrepreneurial spirit of Cummings Center and other busy office parks, it also has some ongoing New England style manufacturing. At the heart of the North Shore, it is a great place to eat out, enjoy a private beach or park, and generally inhabits a healthy and vibrant youthful atmosphere. The Beverly, MA town website describes it as a “small town coupled with a city identity” and we would heartily agree. It is truly the best of both worlds just 20 miles north of Boston.
About Beverly, MA Web Design
There are over 6,000 businesses in Beverly, MA (according to Manta) and the average outdated website in the US is about 72%. This means that some aspect of the website, from the technology it sits upon, to the design, has fallen behind current standards. That means that over 4,000 websites in Beverly are outdated, statistically. But that also means that about 2,000 of those businesses are ahead of the game in the website department and are likely spending time and effort in keeping it up to date.
Lets take a look at some of the websites of popular businesses in Beverly, what they are doing right, and what they are doing wrong.
What Makes A Good Website Design?
We will be looking at some key aspects of what makes website design work. Depending on the type of website, most of these aspects will highly depend on whether or not a website actually converts visitors to users. We will explore the different design techniques, modern standards from the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) and also things we have learned along the way that helps someone convert from a visitor, to a potential lead or customer.
- Is it user friendly?
- Is it modern?
- Does it have a clear “purpose”? (An offer, or path forward)
- What is the offer?
- How does it help them?
- How does someone sign up?
- Is it fast?
- Is it mobile friendly?
- 65% of website visitors use mobile devices
- Google puts a lot of technical SEO weight on this factor
- Does it have the basic features of a modern site?
- SSL certificate (“https” for security and SEO – again Google is putting more weight on this as well)
- Favicon – the little icon that indicates your website, and bookmarks
- Is it easy to use, navigate and find what a user is looking for?
- CTA’s
- Basic SEO (Onsite Search Engine Optimization)
The websites that I am picking were found purely at random. For the purpose of being completely objective I am not using any of our websites as examples. To illustrate a point of comparison from one site design to the next, I will use examples from around the area.
Disclaimer: If you have an issue with your site being linked from mine, please let me know. I will do my best to describe your business properly so it will get the appropriate SEO credit. Your site is part of public domain and while I will attempt to be as neutral and fair as possible, I am always open to discussing these things further.
I have tried to pick from some common and popular business categories for the website designs that I have chosen to break down.
Why Should You Care About Your Website Design Or What Others Are Doing Badly?
Improving some of these things can have a positive impact on search engine rankings, like on Google, and Bing, but it can also play a major role in whether or not a prospective client bounces off of your site and onto a potential competitors.
Knowing that your website is better than your competition allows you to set yourself a part as an expert in your field. Your website is the face of your business, and if you put your best foot forward people will assume that they will get a higher quality from you, as opposed to your counterpart with a not so great website.
Website Design Breakdowns For Beverly, MA
I’m going to start with the city of Beverly website design. Since I link to this website, I can see that it is not a very attractive website.
City Of Beverly Website
https://beverlyma.gov
The first thing that I notice about this design is that it is very dated. It has clearly not been updated for the design in a decade.
The first thing that needs to be addressed is the old “page style” website, where there is a background color and the “page” sits on top of it. This went out of style almost 10 years ago and really dates a site.
A newer change that a lot of sites are struggling to catch up with, is the slider. Study after study shows that sliders, after the first slide (accept in slide shows that are art related, and should not be at the top of the website, unless it is something that is featured) is completely ignored by 98% of visitors. Thats right only 2% make it to the second slide, and even less to the third, fourth, etc.
Only 2% Make It To The Second Slide
So make sure to lose the slider!
As far as functionality, this site does it really well. Presumably people know what they are going to the town website for and this site seems to be able to get people their quickly. It also has some events that appear to be kept updated, as well as news and meetings.
This is a gripe more along the lines of city websites in general, but I would like to see more things about local businesses, maybe allow them to have their own pages, you have WordPress site, so it would be relatively easy to engage local businesses and let them post their own updates, etc. Just a thought. 😉
So while the site itself is really outdated. It is kept up to date really well by the people who work for the town, and that is the most important. You do not want the design of the website to overtake the purpose of it. We see a lot of that.
Accounting Websites
As an example, we can take some accounting websites. When you think about accounting, and what someone needs an accountant for, the first thing I think is “professional”, “safe” and “up to date” (modern). No one wants to have their accounting messed up. You also want someone that has kept up with the times, has the newest and best technology and will keep your information secure! So I am going to show some screenshots of Beverly Accounting websites and keep in mind which ones indicate:
- Professionalism
- Safety
- Modern
