These days, being online is pretty much a requirement for any business. Most people won’t even consider becoming a customer of your business if they can’t find it online. That makes it important to have a website, as well as presences on major social media channels. However, doing your online marketing poorly is almost as bad as not doing it at all. That’s why it’s important to have a professional help you with your website development if you don’t have the expertise and experience to do it yourself.

One of the major things you have to consider with your website development is the design. You can’t just consider how your website looks on a computer any more; you have to optimize it for other devices, such as tablets and smartphones. About half of all mobile phone owners use the phone as their primary Internet device, so if your website isn’t optimized for mobile devices, you could be turning off a big chunk of potential customers.

Another consideration is what kind of content you have on your website. Content creation and content marketing can be a struggle for many business owners, especially those without good writing skills. But content is an extremely important component of your website development. Research shows that good content marketing can increase revenue as much as 40%. A web design firm also should have people on staff who can do content for your website. It is important to have content that is current, so changing it up at least weekly is a good idea.

You can’t just have any content on your site, even if you change it up often; it needs to be search engine optimized. That means using the right keywords, especially keywords that indicate location. Since 2011, Google search interest in the words “near me” has increased 34-fold. Be sure to use keywords that relate both to the products and services you offer and your location.

If you are a small-business owner, it can be hard to justify the cost of hiring a website design firm, but you may have to look at it from the standpoint of what you will be losing if you have a bad website. The sales you gain from having a professionally designed website will more than outweigh what you spend on the service.