At Azuro Digital, we provide accessible web design services that support people with all sorts of disabilities. We focus on optimizing our websites for accessibility not only to comply with laws, rank higher on Google, and enhance conversion rates, but also because it’s simply the right thing to do as human beings.

Here’s how we make our websites accessible:

1. Use an accessible website builder

As a web creator, you have a myriad of options to choose from when it comes to the technology that you leverage to build the website. When making your decision, we recommend researching the tools to ensure that they include all of the critical features for web accessibility.

We use Elementor, which comes jam-packed with most of the important accessibility functions.

Here are the important technical features that Elementor offers to improve accessibility:

1. Image ALT Attributes
2. ARIA-Labels
3. Accessible Forms
4. HTML5 Semantic Elements

2. Add the advanced accessibility features

While Elementor offers most of the essential accessibility features, it’s still lacking some of the more advanced features to make the website as accessible as possible. This is the case for almost all website builders. You simply need to add an extra plugin.

We recommend integrating the One Click Accessibility plugin to add all of the extra bells-and-whistles for accessibility. This plugin is free and developed by the Elementor team, so it integrates seamlessly with Elementor.

This plugin allows users to resize fonts, change page to grayscale, change links to have underline, and much more.

3. Follow design best practices

While using the right technology will help to make your website accessible, there are certain things that rely on your own skillset as a designer.

For starters, you need to ensure that you have enough color contrast so that users can distinguish between different elements and/or read the content easily. For example, if your text is white, don’t place it on a light background, and if your text is black, don’t place it on a dark background. There needs to be sufficient color contrast between the text color and the background color.

Another factor is to ensure that your font family is easy to read. Avoid fancy fonts that are too curvy, crammed, or simply awkward and difficult to follow. Use simple, clean and modern fonts. You also need to make the default font size large enough for most people to read (even people with minor visual impairments). To achieve that result, for most font families we recommend a font size between 16-20 pixels for the body text.

For more information on web accessibility best practices or to get a comprehensive proposal for your project, get in touch with us here 

However, if you’re using Elementor correctly and implementing all of the other best practices in WordPress, you’ll end up with a blazing fast website that functions reliably.

Below, we’ve listed the most essential factors to keep in mind. We implement all of these tactics when performing our Elementor web design services.

1. Use a reliable, high-speed host like Cloudways

Your choice of web host plays a huge role in how fast your website loads and how many errors occur. For that reason, it’s important to do extensive research on which WordPress hosting companies produce the best results. You can find several research studies online or you can even do your own testing.

At Azuro Digital, we’ve tested numerous WordPress hosts and we’ve come to the conclusion that Cloudways offers the best loading speed along with great security and reliability. Another great option is WP Engine.

On Cloudways, you have multiple “server types” to choose from. We recommend using Digital Ocean Premium or Vultr High Frequency for optimal site speed.

2. Leverage a CDN like Cloudflare

Cloudflare allows your website to load quickly across the globe. CDN stands for “content delivery network”, meaning that Cloudflare has servers in various cities around the world to serve your website from the nearest server based on the visitor’s location.

If you don’t integrate a CDN, your website might load quickly in your local city or wherever your WordPress host has set as the primary location, but then it would load slower and slower based on how far the visitor is from that primary server. For that reason, it’s essential to use a CDN like Cloudflare so that your website loads quickly regardless of the visitor’s location.

In addition to site speed, Cloudflare also provides extra security benefits for your website!

3. Use Hello Elementor: the default, lightweight theme provided by Elementor

Hello Elementor is Elementor’s default theme. A common mistake that developers make when working with Elementor is they’ll choose a different theme.

Other themes are usually much heavier than Hello Elementor (which is a super-lightweight theme). Also, since other themes are built by different developers, they sometimes conflict with Elementor and cause technical issues which may harm site speed, break the site’s layout, prevent critical functionality from executing, etc.

To avoid any of those technical errors, we recommend using Hello Elementor because it’s built by the same team and works seamlessly with the Elementor website builder. On top of that, it happens to be the lightest theme on the market and is the best option for site speed.

4. Use Elementor’s flexbox containers feature

In the past, one of the criticisms that Elementor received was the fact that their website builder produced a large DOM size – slightly impacting the site speed.

However, in April 2022, Elementor released the “flexbox containers” feature which solved the DOM size issue.

So, when you’re building a website with Elementor, be sure to activate the flexbox containers feature to create a lightning-fast website.

To learn more about flexbox containers, check out Elementor’s explainer page.

5. Integrate a site speed plugin like WP Rocket

Using a site speed plugin that adds all of the extra bells-and-whistles is essential if you want to maximize your site speed on WordPress and Elementor.

We recommend WP Rocket – the most popular site speed plugin on WordPress. It contains the critical features for site speed – such as caching, JS/CSS minification, lazy loading, and more.

6. Compress and resize images with Imagify

Imagify is another site speed plugin owned by WP Rocket. It compresses and resizes your images so that your images don’t harm your loading speed. Use this plugin in combination with WP Rocket for the best results.

7. Don’t integrate too many plugins (or the wrong plugins) with Elementor/WordPress

It might be tempting to integrate other plugins with Elementor/WordPress in order to add extra features. However, in many cases, doing so will harm your website loading speed or cause glitches.

If you do some digging and get familiar with Elementor, you’ll find that you can achieve almost anything with Elementor’s native features instead of integrating extra plugins. Sticking to Elementor’s native features as much as possible is one of the most crucial ways to maximize site speed and enhance reliability.

If you need to integrate other plugins, it’s vital to research those plugins and ensure that they integrate smoothly with Elementor and won’t cause any site speed issues or technical errors. For advanced features, we find that Crocoblock is a safe bet that won’t harm your loading speed or functionality. They have tons of different plugins for various use-cases.

For a list of the plugins that we use on WordPress/Elementor, check out our recommended tech stack for WordPress websites.

8. Don’t overload the page with too many images, videos, sections, etc

Even if all of your media is compressed, resized and lazy-loaded, your website will still load slowly if you overload the page with too much media or too many sections.

If you’ve followed all of the prior steps in this article but your site is still loading slowly, try to reduce the amount of content on the page and see if that helps!

1. Cloudways Hosting (DO Premium or Vultr HF)

Your choice of web hosting will have a massive impact on site speed, security and reliability. We use Cloudways hosting for most projects as it allows our websites to thrive on all 3 of those fronts.

Cloudways offers several server types, but we most frequently use Digital Ocean Premium and Vultr High Frequency.

Vultr High Frequency tends to perform a bit faster, but Digital Ocean Premium is slightly more reliable (better uptime).

2. Cloudflare CDN

On Cloudways, you’ll need to select a location for your server, such as New York City. This means that your website will load fastest in New York City and slower in distant locations around the world. To make your website load fast across the globe, regardless of the visitor’s location, it’s imperative to integrate a CDN (content delivery network) such as Cloudflare.

Cloudflare is widely accepted as the best CDN option as they have the largest network of servers worldwide. They also have a ton of extra features to make your website even faster and more secure.

3. Elementor Website Builder

Elementor is the most popular website builder on WordPress for good reason – it’s incredibly flexible and easy to use. It has the largest suite of native features and widgets compared to other website builders, and it integrates with tons of other plugins on WordPress.

When you’re using Elementor, it’s important to make sure that you’re using it correctly. For more information on that, check out our comprehensive article that explains how to make a fast loading website with Elementor.

4. Hello Elementor Theme

There are tons of themes to choose from on WordPress, but we recommend using the Hello Elementor theme because it’s one of the most lightweight themes on the market, allowing your website to load quickly.

If you’re using Elementor, the Hello Elementor theme is a no-brainer because it’s Elementor’s default theme and integrates seamlessly with the Elementor website builder. This eliminates technical headache and makes ongoing maintenance very simple for your WordPress site. We don’t recommend using a different theme if you’re using the Elementor website builder.

5. JetEngine & Crocoblock Suite of Plugins

To manage dynamic content such as blog posts, team members, properties, etc, we use JetEngine. It’s the most flexible and user-friendly dynamic content plugin on the market. Using a dynamic content plugin will make it much easier to update content on an ongoing basis. We consider it to be absolutely necessary for any content that receives frequent edits and additions.

The JetEngine plugin is developed by Crocoblock, and they have a ton of other helpful plugins to achieve advanced functionality – such as JetWooBuilder for eCommerce, JetBooking for booking systems, and much more.

6. Rank Math

Having a website isn’t very useful if nobody sees it… and one of the best ways to get people to find it is through ranking highly on Google with SEO. It’s vital to use an advanced SEO plugin such as Rank Math to ensure that you have all of your bases covered from a technical perspective.

It’s also important to do keyword research, competitor analysis and website audits with a tool like Ahrefs or Semrush.

7. WP Rocket

Your website needs to load quickly if you want to provide a good user experience, achieve a great conversion rate, and rank highly on Google.

WP Rocket is a site speed plugin that integrates a variety of helpful features such as website caching, CSS & JS minification, lazy loading, and much more.

8. Imagify

Use Imagify in combination with WP Rocket to compress and resize your images. This allows your website to load even faster. Imagify is owned by WP Rocket, so they work together seamlessly.

9. Solid Security

As an open-source platform, WordPress is vulnerable to security risks. To prevent your website from getting hacked, you’ll want to use a security plugin such as Solid Security for a website firewall, malware scans, two-factor authentication, and more.

10. WP Armour

Hate spam? Well, when you’re on WordPress, you can expect a ton of spam (from robots) to come through your website’s contact forms.

To block the vast majority of that unwanted spam, we recommend WP Armour. The setup is quick and easy, and it blocks almost every single robot without slowing down your site and without having any false positives.

Common alternatives are reCaptcha and CleanTalk, but reCaptcha slows down your website and CleanTalk occasionally blocks real humans by mistake.

11. ManageWP

Your website host, such as Cloudways, should be taking daily backups of your site. However, we recommend having a 2nd source of backups in case something happens to the backups on your web hosting plan.

ManageWP is a great 2nd source of backups, and it has a bunch of other helpful features as well – such as uptime monitoring. It’s also very helpful for agencies who are managing several websites.

12. WooCommerce

If you’re creating an eCommerce website, you’ll want to use the standard eCommerce plugin that is natively offered in WordPress – called WooCommerce. We recommend using WooCommerce in combination with Crocoblock’s JetWooBuilder plugin to make your eCommerce website more flexible and easier to manage.

Looking to hire an agency to build your WordPress website? Our team of WordPress designers and developers are here to help! Get in touch with us here 

Many web agencies start by designing a website with a design tool like Figma, and then they develop the site afterwards (with custom code or a website builder like Elementor).

At Azuro Digital, our custom web design services take a different approach. This approach is rapidly gaining popularity in the web design and development industry.

Instead of starting with a design tool like Figma, we design and develop directly within the Elementor website builder for a couple of reasons:

1. Development tools like Elementor have become so advanced and user-friendly that it makes design tools like Figma unnecessary and redundant for most projects. Designing and developing with Elementor is almost as fast as designing with Figma, and it takes much less time overall because you don’t need to go through the process of converting your Figma design into a developed website. In the past, it made sense to start with Figma because development tools weren’t nearly as easy-to-use as they are today. Times have changed!

2. When you design something with Figma and then convert it into a real website with a development tool, sometimes it doesn’t get converted as you expected. It might look and behave a bit differently, and there are certain things that the development tool might not be able to achieve or that would be problematic for a real website. By eliminating Figma from the equation, you’re able to view exactly how the real website looks and behaves throughout the entire process, allowing you to mitigate issues and make better decisions.

Bonus tip: instead of developing your website with custom code, we always recommend using Elementor or a similar website builder that uses visual drag-and-drop functionality. This way, not only is it more effective for the agency to build the site, but it also allows your company’s employees to make simple adjustments to the website themselves instead of relying on the agency to make every small change. With a bit of training, your non-technical employees can be equipped to make minor updates to the site.

2. Make a rough content outline

Since your website’s design will revolve around the content, it’s vital to create a content outline from the onset of the project. Be sure to establish a sitemap to identify what pages you need and what types of sections you want to display on each page. You should also determine what order you want the sections to be displayed in (from top to bottom), and how long each section should be in terms of written content, number of images, number of subsections, etc.

3. Create a basic wireframe

Once you have a rough content outline established, some people like to create a basic wireframe to get a sense of the desired layout for each page (but this is totally optional in our books). You can use any design tool such as Figma to create the basic wireframe, but it shouldn’t be anything close to a completed design – its only purpose is to brainstorm the layout of the page in the form of a rough sketch. From there, you’d design/develop the site with Elementor. Alternatively, you can jump straight from the rough content outline to the design/development process in Elementor.

4. Design multiple concepts

In most cases, we recommend designing several concepts – at least for the homepage of the website which will set the tone for all pages. Comparing multiple design concepts is helpful as it allows your team to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each. It’s difficult to know what design concept is best for your company until you’re actually looking at some completed concepts. You might even end up combining some of the elements and merging the best parts of each concept.

5. Follow the company’s branding (and make tweaks if necessary)

Many companies will have some form of “brand guide”, and it’s important to follow those guidelines to ensure that the company’s website is consistent with all other marketing materials. In some cases, you might be able to make some minor branding alterations for the benefit of the website, and you might even decide that it’s time for a more comprehensive rebrand that would also affect the brand guidelines for other marketing materials. Brand guides typically outline the rules related to color scheme, font families, font sizes, spacing requirements, logo, messaging, etc.

6. Use proper color contrast

If you place bright text on a background that’s also bright, or dark text on a background that’s also dark, it’ll make your website look sloppy and unprofessional. It’s also an accessibility issue, making the content difficult to read especially for people with visual impairments. On top of being an issue for the user experience, it’ll also negatively impact your SEO performance as Google prefers to rank websites that are perfectly accessible.

7. Use the right font families & sizes

Some font families are simply way too fancy and hard to read for some people. For that reason, we recommend choosing font families that are clean, crisp and easy to read – such as Montserrat. You also need to make sure that your text is large enough. Having sufficiently large text is one of the important elements for creating a modern aesthetic in your design, but it’s also important for accessibility purposes. You need to ensure that your text is large enough for people who have visual impairments. For most font families, we recommend using a font size between 16-20 pixels for the body text.

8. Pay attention to spacing

One of the easiest ways to end up with a sloppy design is to not focus on sufficient and consistent spacing. This is one of the most common mistakes in web design. Many designers spend all of their time trying to create the most extravagant design elements imaginable, but then they forget to add enough spacing between sections or consistent spacing between sections. If all of your sections and design elements are squished together, it’ll start to look messy and overwhelming. It’ll also look messy if you have large gaps between some items and much smaller gaps between others. You need to create some “spacing rules” for each project so that all of the spacing is consistent.

9. Use premium icons and images

For starters, it’s crucial to ensure that all of your icons, graphics, images, videos, etc, have pixel perfect resolution and aren’t blurry whatsoever. From there, assuming that you’re using stock libraries to gather most of your media, we recommend investing in the top-tier libraries and avoiding the free or default libraries.

For example, the Elementor website builder natively integrates with Font Awesome for free icons. However, these icons are aesthetically very basic and are used by too many other websites. For better-looking and more unique icons, and to gain access to a much larger variety of icons, we recommend using premium libraries such as IconScout and Flaticon. IconScout also offers a large library of larger-scale stock graphics, illustrations, motion graphics and more.

When it comes to stock images, instead of using free websites like Unsplash, we recommend investing in libraries like DepositPhotos and Shutterstock which have a much wider selection – allowing you to find the best and most relevant images. Lastly, for stock video footage, try using iStock or Vimeo.

We recommend spending a substantial amount of time searching for the right stock media and making customizations when needed, as the media placed on the website will make a huge impact on the overall quality of the website. It’s also worth considering investing in your own original media to make the website as unique, targeted and relevant as possible.

10. Leverage SEO and conversion rate optimization strategies

Having a beautiful custom design simply isn’t enough to drive business through your website. During the design and development process, your designer/develop should be leveraging the best practices that allow your website to maximize the percentage of website visitors that take action. Once all of the best practices have been implemented, it’s also ideal to do ongoing A/B split testing to continuously make adjustments and enhance the conversion rate going forward. You should also consider investing in search engine optimization to drive more traffic to your website.

11. Give your client unlimited revisions

If you’re providing custom web design services, we recommend giving your client the ability to request unlimited revisions prior to the launch of the website and for a period of time after the site is launched. It might sound risky to you because some clients might be picky or might constantly change their mind, but think about it from the client’s perspective – if you fail to meet their expectations the first time around, why should the client be required to pay extra in order to request some revisions or see a new concept?

To mitigate and minimize the number of revisions requested by the client, we recommend having an in-depth discussion with the client to learn about their design preferences, required functionality, page count, content strategy, etc, before getting started.

From there, they might change their mind about a few things throughout the process – but that’s expected and designers/developers shouldn’t penalize their clients for that unless the requested revisions are beyond the scope of the agreement. For example, they might want to add a new functionality such as eCommerce or a booking system that was never discussed before – and you should definitely charge extra for that. But if the client is simply changing their mind about the layout, content, design concept, etc, we don’t recommend charging extra for that because it won’t feel fair from the client’s perspective (they might be requesting a revision as a result of being dissatisfied with your work). Treating every client relationship like a true partnership is the best way to thrive as a web designer/developer!

Your website is like your car. Just like your car needs regular oil changes and tire replacements, your website needs regular software updates, quality assurance, bug repairs, security monitoring, backups, etc.

Although many web design agencies won’t force you into subscribing to their maintenance plan, that doesn’t mean that website maintenance is optional. If you don’t want your website to break down over and over again, website maintenance is mandatory.

You can either do it yourself or you can hire a professional to do it for you!

2. Keep your technology up to date

In the backend of your website, there are multiple different types of software – the WordPress core, theme, and several plugins. All of these items need to be manually updated at least once a month.

If you don’t update all of the software regularly, your website will eventually break down or get hacked.

After updating something, it’s important to test the website right away to make sure that the update didn’t break anything.

3. Fix errors immediately (and prevent them from happening in the first place)

For large or sensitive software updates, it’s best to start by testing the update on a staging server. This means that you’ll be testing the update in a “test environment” instead of your live website, allowing you to fix any errors in the test environment before pushing it to the live website. This way, nobody should ever see a broken version of your website.

Once the software updates have been made on the live website, it’s still important to double check everything to make sure that the design and all of the functionality is still intact. There’s still a possibility that the updates won’t work correctly on the live website. In that case, your website maintenance expert should be able to fix the issue very quickly.

Most importantly: If you don’t have a maintenance plan, keep in mind that the cost of repairing something after it breaks is significantly higher than the cost of having a monthly maintenance plan to prevent these issues from happening in the first place (not to mention the headache and the loss of potential customers while it’s broken).

4. Prevent hackers from attacking your site (and take immediate action in the case of a breach)

As the first layer of defense, your maintenance expert should install a high-quality security plugin. This will automatically filter out a lot of security issues.

However, security plugins aren’t perfect and security breaches can still happen. This is why it’s important for your maintenance expert to provide 24/7 security monitoring and take immediate action when needed. If you take immediate action, you’ll be able to block security threats before they inflict any real damage on your website.

If you don’t take immediate action, here are 5 things that could happen to your website:

1. It could get deleted
2. The layout and functionality could break
3. It could get redirected to a different website (usually an inappropriate website)
4. It could get injected with spammy ads
5. Valuable or private information could get stolen from your website

5. Make sure that your site is always loading quickly and make speed optimizations when needed

When your maintenance expert does their monthly checkup, they should always check the loading speed. Sometimes, as the technology changes, they’ll need to change a few settings to bring the loading speed back to where it should be.

On top of that, since web technology is constantly improving, there will often be future opportunities to implement new settings, change plugins/code, etc, allowing your website to get faster and faster. If you don’t make these improvements over time, your website might eventually be considered “slow” compared to other websites that kept up with the technological advancements.

6. Store off-site backups for a rainy day

It’s important to have multiple sources of backups in case your website breaks down, gets hacked, etc.

Your server should always have a backlog of automated backups, but that’s not enough. If your entire server gets compromised, then you won’t be able to restore those backups anyway.

So, it’s vital to have a 2nd source of backups, also known as “off-site” backups. Your maintenance expert should be able to take regular off-site backups for additional safety.

7. Get access to ongoing edits, training & support

When you’re on a monthly maintenance plan, you should also have access to ongoing edits, training and support. In many cases, agencies give priority to their clients who are on maintenance plans. This means faster responses, quicker turnaround times, discounts on future work, etc.

If you’re not on a monthly maintenance plan, you might experience slower response times, longer turnaround times, and no discounts on future work.

Bonus tip: for optimal efficiency and effectiveness, have your website designed, developed, and hosted by the same company that’s maintaining it. This is because they’re already aware of all the specific nuances of your website, which might get overlooked by other agencies. It’s also easier and faster for the agency to make updates and troubleshoot any issues when the website is hosted on their own servers.

At Azuro Digital, we create award-winning websites that drive revenue. Get a proposal today 

Your website should be more than just a “beautiful design”.

To enhance your bottom line, your website needs to be built strategically.

Your web agency should be able to clearly explain how they intend to maximize your return on investment.

This topic deserves an article of its own. For actionable tips, check out our top 10 ways to get more results from your website.

2. Do we have a direct line of communication to the person who’s implementing the work?

Many web design agencies don’t provide you with direct access to the person who is actually implementing the work.

This is problematic for 4 reasons:

1. It causes miscommunication (a “broken telephone” effect). If you tell the project manager something on Zoom, they might accidentally tell the web designer something slightly different (or they’ll forget to mention something entirely).
2. It causes delays. Since you’re not in direct contact with the actual designer, there will be a lot of extra back-and-forth communication. This extends the timeline and causes unnecessary headache.
3. It increases the cost. When you have a “middle person” relaying information back and forth, you’re paying extra for another person’s time.
4. There’s a good chance that your agency is outsourcing the work to another agency. If they refuse to provide a direct line of communication, it usually means that the person implementing the work isn’t even a part of their agency. However, in some cases, it could also mean that the person implementing the work has poor communication skills and they want to keep that a secret.

3. Do you create multiple design concepts?

Design is highly subjective, so it’s important for your agency to start by producing multiple design concepts for the homepage.

We recommend designing 2 homepage drafts that have substantially different designs and layouts. That way, your team can compare the concepts and decide which one aligns better with your brand.

From there, you can pick a concept or merge the best elements of each concept, and then continue to make extra revisions until it’s perfect.

After the homepage is finalized and the overall design aesthetic is established, it’s okay for your agency to produce only 1 design concept for all interior pages, as long as they provide unlimited revisions…

4. How many rounds of revisions do you provide before launch?

The answer should be “unlimited”.

Imagine this:

You’re not fully satisfied by your agency’s work and you’d like to make a few changes.

But then your agency says “you’ve already made the maximum number of revisions so you’ll need to pay extra”.

Does that sound fair to you? Of course not! You hired them to make your website perfect, so why should you pay extra if they failed to meet your expectations?

Make sure that your agency provides unlimited revisions… or you might end up paying much more than you expected!

5. Which web development platform do you use?

We recommend using WordPress for 2 main reasons:

1. It’s the most flexible platform on the market, allowing you to achieve any design or functionality that you require. Even if your requirements are super simple right now, we recommend using WordPress in case you ever need to add something more complex in the future.

2. It’s by far the most popular platform and it’s what the vast majority of professionals use. So, if you ever needed to switch agencies halfway through a project or at any point in the future, it would be much easier to do so on WordPress compared to other platforms.

6. Do you offer hosting and maintenance plans?

WordPress websites come with two types of ongoing fees: hosting fees and maintenance fees.

Hosting is what allows your website to be “live” on the internet, and maintenance is what allows your website to run smoothly and free of any errors, glitches, hacks, etc.

It’s best (but not critical) to have your website maintained by the same agency that initially designed and developed it.

This is because they’re already aware of all the specific nuances of your website, which might get overlooked by other agencies.

If you’d like to learn more about maintenance plans, check out our Top 7 Reasons Why You Need a WordPress Maintenance Plan.

It’s also best to have your website hosted by the same agency. This is because it’s easier and faster for the agency to make updates and troubleshoot any issues when the website is hosted on their own servers.

7. Do we have full ownership of our website and the ability to easily make edits ourselves?

Too many agencies unethically “handcuff” their clients to their ongoing hosting/maintenance fees.

In these cases, if you’re not happy with their ongoing service, you won’t be able to leave and take your website with you… because it’s theirs.

The fine print should state that the website is yours and can be transferred to a different hosting/maintenance provider at any time.

On top of that, make sure that the website is relatively easy to edit yourself (or you’ll end up overspending on ongoing edits).

You should be able to easily add blog posts, edit text, swap images, etc, by yourself, regardless of how “technical” you are. You should only need a professional for extensive redesigns, complex functionality, etc.

8. Are you a solo freelancer or an agency?

If your budget is small, then choosing a solo freelancer is a great choice. Solo freelancers tend to have less overhead costs, allowing them to charge lower prices.

However, if your budget is reasonable (ie. above $10,000), then choosing an agency is typically the best option for 3 reasons:

1. They provide long-term stability. While solo freelancers come and go, agencies tend to stick around for the long haul and have more reliable systems and better response times, which is especially important for your ongoing hosting and maintenance plans.

2. They have more “eyes” on your project. During the initial design and development stage, although most of the work might be implemented by 1 or 2 people, an agency will typically have a few extra people reviewing the work and providing feedback, ideas, etc.

3. In many cases, they can provide complimentary services to enhance your bottom line, such as copywriting, video production, search engine optimization, and more.

9. Do you use templates?

Your website deserves to be 100% customizable and designed from scratch, allowing you (and your agency) to make your website perform at its absolute best.

Before moving forward with an agency, make sure that your website won’t be restricted by any templates!

10. Do you offer any complimentary services?

Web design and development services are heavily intertwined with other services such as branding, copywriting, and search engine optimization.

You could always hire separate agencies for each of those services, but keeping everything under one roof is usually more effective in terms of time, cost, and receiving a high-quality cohesive product with a unified strategy.

11. Can we call some of your clients to hear about their experience?

Start by checking the agency’s portfolio, reviews, awards, recognitions, etc.

Then, once you believe that the agency could be a good fit, ask them to send references for you to call.

Speaking directly to an agency’s clients and asking your own unique questions is the best way to find out whether the agency is the best possible fit!

Want to get a proposal and speak to our clients?

At Azuro Digital, we create award-winning websites that drive revenue. Get a proposal today 

If you want to generate more leads and sales, we have some tips:

1. Leverage several forms of social proof in the right places

The user will only reach out if your company seems credible and trustworthy.

The best way to portray credibility and trust is through various forms of “social proof”. This may include client testimonials, links to review platforms, logos of awards/certifications, impressive statistics about your company, etc.

It’s important to leverage as many different forms of social proof as possible, and it’s also important to display them in the right spots.

Display some form of social proof near the top of the page to create a positive first impression. Then, the visitor should continue to see additional forms of social proof throughout the page as they scroll (keeping credibility top of mind).

Toward the bottom of the page, you should have a prominent “call-to-action” whether it’s a contact form, appointment scheduler, product to purchase, etc. Be sure to include some form of social proof right next to that call-to-action to increase the odds of conversion.

Bonus tip: when displaying client testimonials, if possible, be sure to use the person’s full name and headshot so that it looks legitimate (people know that testimonials are easily faked).

Another bonus tip: Don’t display more than 4 testimonials at a time, and keep them under 30 words each. Focus on quality, not quantity. Display the most impactful statements and nothing else. Website users have short attention spans, and if you display too much, they’ll get overwhelmed and they might miss the most impactful statements.

2. Make your calls-to-action noticeable, frequent & enticing

Calls-to-action (CTAs) are at the core of conversion rate optimization – the process of maximizing the percentage of users who take action.

CTAs are usually buttons that lead to conversion events, such as contact forms, online purchases, phone numbers, newsletter signups, and more.

The choice of placement, styling, and messaging for your calls-to-action are critical.

Here are 5 tips for your CTAs:

1. Make them stand out by using a prominent color and sufficient font size.
2. Don’t use too many different CTAs. Focus the visitor’s attention on 1 or 2 primary CTAs.
3. Include a CTA in many sections throughout the website to keep it top-of-mind.
4. Keep a CTA in the header and keep the header “fixed” as the user scrolls down the page, so that a CTA is always in sight.
5. Avoid generic CTAs if possible. For example, instead of using “contact us” or “get in touch”, you’ll get more clicks and conversions by using specific and enticing CTAs like “get a quote” or “free consultation”.

3. Create a clean, cohesive and modern design

Crafting a professional design is achieved by paying attention to many small details.

Here are some of the most important tactics for creating a design that converts:

1. Use sufficient spacing throughout. Don’t be afraid to make your page “long” with a lot of scrolling. Users are already accustomed to scrolling through long pages, and it’s much better than cramming the information close together. Having adequate spacing between all elements makes it easier to digest the information and prevents the user from getting overwhelmed. To combat the “long page” perception, you can always make the header of your website stick to the top of the page so that the user can easily access the menu at any point. It’s also important to use consistent amounts of spacing. Everything should appear balanced and aligned, creating a sense of symmetry.
2. Use appropriate font sizes. Body text should be about 16-20px, secondary headings should be about 25-35px, and primary headings should be about 40-75px. These numbers aren’t strict rules and they might vary, but it’s vital to ensure that your text has a clear hierarchy and that it’s large enough for almost anyone to read without straining their eyes or getting overwhelmed by the density of the information.
3. Pick 1 primary color and 0-2 accent colors. Don’t use too many different colors, or else your design will look sloppy and unprofessional. Research the meaning of different colors to ensure that they align with your brand, and use complimentary colors that look good together. To learn more about color theory, pairings, etc, we recommend browsing Canva’s color hub.
4. Use images that have a consistent theme and that match or compliment your color palette. Also, avoid using cringy stock images. If you’re using stock images, be sure to spend a lot of time searching for ones that are relevant, on theme, engaging, and simply not cringe. Lastly, ensure that all of your images have great resolution quality. If any of your images are remotely blurry, we recommend finding a different image or using an AI image enhancement tool such as Cutout Pro.
5. Make all written content an appropriate length and structure in order to make the design balanced, aligned, and symmetrical. For example, if there are 3 testimonials or service descriptions side by side in 1 row, make all of them the same length to keep the design clean and professional. Also, don’t forget to keep all paragraphs short and split up the written content with design elements and sufficient spacing so that the user isn’t overwhelmed.
6. Pick a modern font that’s clean and easy to read, such as Montserrat or Plus Jakarta Sans. Avoid using overly complex or “fancy” fonts like Marck Script or Audiowide. If you want to use a serif font (which adds small lines or “decorative strokes” to each letter), be sure to only use them for headings (never use them for body text) and pick an easily readable serif font such as Playfair Display. Lastly, stay away from fonts that have been overused in Word Docs and Google Docs, such as Arial, Times New Roman, or Calibri. They’ll make your website appear too basic or outdated – find something more unique and modern, but still clean and easy to read!
7. Optimize your website to look perfect on all devices, browsers and screen sizes. You can double check this by using Responsive Test Tool or any similar tool.

4. Keep it simple, prioritize the user experience, and don’t go overboard with “unique” or “flashy” design concepts

Many businesses are tempted to turn their website into some type of artistic masterpiece.

Be careful.

There’s a reason why 99% of websites follow a similar structure. It’s because users are already accustomed to certain types of layouts and functionalities. If you deviate too far from the norm, you’ll overwhelm or confuse the user and they’ll leave your website.

Stay away from radically unique layouts, extravagant motion effects, sideways scrolling, intrusive popups, etc. There’s a way to make your website elegant and unique without going overboard. You can create a WOW factor while still keeping the user experience simple and intuitive.

5. Write compelling copy

Design is only half the battle. In order to optimize the conversion rate of your website, you need to write copy that motivates the user to take action.

Follow these copywriting principles to engage the reader and get better results from your website:

1. Write more about them and less about you
2. Focus on the bottom-line benefits that the user will receive. Don’t be generic. Get specific about how your company will improve their life.
3. Avoid jargon and simplify your copy. Write as if you were speaking to a friend. Be approachable and make your copy easy to understand.
4. Keep it short and to the point. Avoid long paragraphs and use spacing or design elements to break up the copy and make it more digestible.
5. Invest in a professional copywriter if your budget allows.

6. Use the power of “testimonial videos” and/or “explainer videos”

One of the best ways to boost credibility (and conversions) is to add a “testimonial video” to your website, where your customers talk about their positive experience.

Another great way to leverage video is to create an “explainer video”. In many cases, it’s more impactful to explain your company’s value in a video instead of written content. There are 3 different types of explainer videos:

1. Animated explainer videos (use graphics, motion effects, and a voiceover to help the person visualize how your company operates)
2. People-based explainer videos (interview one or several of your team members and have them talk about your company’s mission, benefits, processes, etc)
3. A mix of both!

You could also merge the “testimonial video” and the “explainer video” into the same video!

This video should be placed prominently on your homepage and any other conversion-focused pages. You can also use this video on social media, paid advertising campaigns (such as YouTube Ads), proposals, etc.

7. Research your competitors

While it’s important to be creative and to stand out from the crowd with a unique website, it’s also helpful to analyze your competitors to extract some of their best ideas and make improvements to them.

If you have 5 key competitors, analyze each of their websites and take some of the best ideas from each website. Then, repurpose and enhance those ideas while mixing them in with your own fresh ideas.

By the end of this process, you’ll have a unique website that is clearly a step ahead of the competition. After all, the only way to ensure that you’re better than the competition is to analyze them!

8. Optimize your website for Google (SEO)

In this article, we’ve talked a lot about converting website visitors into leads and sales, but we haven’t discussed how your website can get more traffic.

There are plenty of ways to boost traffic to your website, but in most industries, the method that produces the highest long-term return on investment is search engine optimization (SEO).

When you’re building a new website, it’s always best to consider the best practices of SEO from the very beginning. If you don’t optimize your website for Google during the initial design and development process, you might need to make drastic changes to your website later on, increasing the overall cost and headache.

The design of your website revolves around the written content, and the written content is based on the keyword research for SEO. Since everything is connected, it’s important to get it right from the very beginning (even if you don’t think that SEO is a big priority right now).

SEO is an enormous undertaking with tons of factors to consider, but it can be broken down into 8 primary tasks that need to be addressed and optimized:

1. Keyword research (relevance, user intent, traffic volume, competition levels)
2. Competitor analysis (establish key indicators and benchmarks)
3. On-page optimization (page types, content writing, keyword placement, keyword frequency, keyword synonyms, word count)
4. Search Engine Results Page Optimization (page titles, meta descriptions, schema markup)
5. Technical optimization (site speed, HTML tags, link optimization, redirects, ALT text, site architecture, mobile optimization, Google Search Console)
6. Google Business Profile optimization (local SEO and Google maps)
7. Ongoing content creation
8. Backlink generation

9. Maximize site speed

It goes without saying that having a slow website will significantly harm the conversion rate of your website. However, there is still a surprising amount of websites that load slowly today.

When a website loads slowly, the visitor gets frustrated and they leave. However, even once your website reaches an “acceptable” speed, don’t stop there!

If you truly maximize your site speed with lightning fast pages, it will subconsciously put your website visitors into a happier state of mind, and they’ll be even more likely to convert.

On top of that, site speed is an important ranking factor on Google. You’ll be more likely to rank higher on Google if your site loads quickly!

Assuming that your website is built on WordPress, here are 6 actionable tips that will allow your website to load as fast as possible:

1. Use a high-quality hosting provider like Cloudways
2. Use a CDN like Cloudflare
3. Use a caching plugin like WP Rocket
4. Use an image optimization plugin like Imagify
5. Use a lightweight theme like Hello Elementor
6. Keep your number of plugins to a minimum and do research on every plugin to make sure that it won’t have a negative impact on site speed.

10. Always be testing

Maximize your conversion rate and SEO rankings by continuously running split tests (also known as A/B tests). This allows you to collect data for different versions of the same page. From there, you can pivot and make changes based on the results.

Let’s start with the conversion rate. Before running split tests to maximize the conversion rate of a page, make sure that the page is already receiving over 1,000 unique visitors per month. If it isn’t, it’s better to invest your time and money into driving more traffic to that page – whether it’s through SEO, paid advertising, or other digital marketing channels.

Following the previous steps in this article should allow your page to have a sufficiently strong conversion rate. In most cases, split testing only slightly increases the conversion rate. So it’s only worth the investment if the page has significant traffic.

Here’s how to effectively optimize the conversion rate with split testing:

1. Create multiple versions of a page, isolating for only 1 variable. For example, you can change a headline, swap an image, move social proof to a different spot, change the call-to-action, adjust the color of a button, rearrange the order of the sections, etc. But only test 1 thing at a time so that you know what’s affecting the conversion rate.
2. Set these test pages to “no index” so that they don’t show up on Google and make these pages “hidden” by creating separate URLs that aren’t accessible from anywhere else on your website. The only way to access the page should be through the direct URL, which will only be linked to Google Ads for testing purposes. However, one of the test pages should be the existing page that’s already active and accessible on your website. You don’t need to duplicate and create a separate URL for the active page – Google Ads is able to isolate the test data for that.
3. We recommend testing with Google Ads because it allows you to test the different versions simultaneously, which prevents the data from being skewed by seasonal differences. It also allows you to target the exact same audience, as the pages will only show up when certain keywords are searched (and Google will equally rotate the page that gets displayed).
4. For sufficient data, you need to generate at least 1,000 unique visitors to each version through the Google Ads. This will incur a cost from Google Ads, which is why it’s not worth investing in split testing until the active page is already getting over 1,000 unique visitors on a regular basis.
5. Track the results in the Google Ads dashboard (be sure to set up conversion tracking). When you find a winning version, make it the active version that’s accessible on your website. Keep testing different variables until you’ve reached a point of diminishing returns for that page, and then focus on a different page. You can also test several pages simultaneously if your budget allows.

When testing SEO, you don’t have the luxury of testing simultaneously. It’s a matter of checking the SEO results through Google Search Console, making changes to the page, and then seeing if the results improve a few months after making the changes (it takes time for Google’s algorithm to catch up). Keep track of the adjustments you’re making and keep an eye on your rankings to see if you’re heading in the right direction.

Are you looking to partner with an agency that will handle everything for you?

At Azuro Digital, we create award-winning websites that drive revenue. Get a proposal today