Introduction
Building a high-quality website is essential for businesses nowadays, regardless of the industry. Whether your business is from the fashion, entertainment, or agriculture industry, you need to have a website that caters to your online audience.
When it comes to creating a website for your business, you will need to go through a process known as website design and development. Ever since the Internet came into existence, people have been following this method to craft their very own websites.
What exactly is website design and development?
First of all, you need to know that website design and website development are two different things. Website design in Singapore refers to the creation of a website’s overall feel and aesthetics. For the most part, it focuses on a site’s visual elements, such as layout, colour, font, and graphics.
On the other hand, website development is the technical aspect of building a website. This method revolves around a site’s functionality and structure, intending to enhance its performance and provide visitors with an exceptional user experience (UX).
In summary, you can distinguish the difference between website design and website development in Singapore based on their separate fields. Website design is all about visuals, while web development centres itself on performance and technicalities. In the end, both are equally important for developing a high-quality website.
Either way, you should probably invest in website design and development services to get the best of both worlds. Consider outsourcing your services to a website design agency in Singapore that houses experienced website designers and developers who could build a website for your business.
Also, many things have changed since the early days of website design and website development in Singapore. Some widely used website design templates and techniques back then are obsolete today. Because of this, you might want to hire expert website designers and developers for their knowledge of modern website design and development. Their expertise could be the key to the success of your website creation.
The website design and development landscape are constantly changing, so you always have to watch out for the latest trends and changes. Let’s take a deeper look at the importance and benefits of website design and development, starting with the former.
Part I: How Does Website Design Work?
What Is Website Design?
Website design in Singapore is the creation of a website based on its visual appearance and overall feel. Besides visual elements such as colour, font, and graphics, website design also involves a plethora of other factors, mainly:
- Content
- Usability
- Web visibility
- Navigation
- Interaction
These are fundamental elements which play a vital role in search engine optimisation (SEO). By designing an aesthetically pleasing and easy to navigate website, you can increase your search engine rankings, maximise your online presence, and eventually gain leads.
Most importantly, top website design in Singapore is integral for providing your customers with an excellent digital experience on your website. Once potential customers visit your website, they are interacting with your business on your website. For that reason, you must ensure your website boasts a high-quality visual design. Doing so will help you set a positive first impression for your audience.
Since website design takes time and an excellent skill-set, professional web designers should be someone who has extensive experience. You can trust them to provide you with reliable website design services.
Find out the types of website design services here.
The Different Types Of Website Design
1. Fixed Website Design
Fixed website design is one of the oldest types of website design on this list. This layout design uses a fixed width in pixels. That means regardless of the user’s device and screen size, the layout of a fixed website will remain the same, and all of the elements stay the same in proportion and shape.
For desktop users, fixed website design usually does not pose any technical issues. However, mobile users with different screen sizes could find the fixed layout design horrendous since the website elements stay the same across different devices and screen sizes. As a result, they could have a more frustrating time navigating through the website due to the contents that are out of proportions.
2. Responsive Website Design
Responsive web design aims to make websites run perfectly on different devices and screen sizes. With this type of website design for your agency in Singapore, your entire website, including various elements, should adjust accordingly. Each website element should shrink or stretch, depending on the size of the screen.
With responsive website design, your website should run at an optimal pace on any device. It is an excellent way to ensure visitors will have a good user experience exploring your website, no matter what type of device they use.
3. Fluid/Liquid Website Design
Fluid or liquid website design is a unique type of website design that allows a website to flow smoothly into the available space on a browser, depending on the size and shape of the device’s screen.
Even though it sounds similar to responsive website design, fluid or liquid website design is quite different. With fluid or liquid website design, a website’s layout should shrink or stretch in size, except for the proportion of the elements that will remain the same.
Compared to responsive design, fluid or liquid design is less flexible. Images and videos will stay at a fixed size, which could cause visibility issues for mobile users with small screen sizes. Many website design services in Singapore offer fluid website design to companies.
4. Adaptive Website Design
With adaptive website design, you will use different versions of your layout design based on the device’s screen size.
Think of it this way: you have five fixed website design layouts for your company website. Each website design layout is smaller than the other. The user’s device shall pick a version of your layout design depending on the appropriate sizes available.
ALSO READ: Responsive Vs Adaptive Web Design: What Is The Difference?
When it comes to adaptive website design, you need to create multiple website design layouts for your website, which might be costly. On the bright side, adaptive website design allows you to design website layouts specifically for different devices. Plus, adaptive websites usually load fast.
The Different Types Of Websites
1. E-Commerce Website
If your goal is to develop a customer-friendly online store, then an e-commerce website is what you need.
When planning an e-commerce website design strategy in Singapore, your goal is to create quality content for your customers. You have to make sure your entire e-commerce website is easily accessible and navigational. Showcase your products by writing in-depth product and service descriptions and using high-quality images and videos.
LEARN MORE: The Importance Of Web Design And Development For Your Ecommerce Business In Singapore
A successful e-commerce website design strategy boils down to four components:
- Easy navigation
- Well-structured layout
- Optimised product pages
- Convenient checkout system.
Once you have all of this put together, your online store can be ready to provide customers with a great shopping experience.
2. Landing Page
To truly capture your customer’s attention, try designing a quality landing page.
A landing page is a web page that shows up in response to a user clicking on paid ads, emails, or marketing promotions. The purpose of designing a landing page is to drive conversions.
That is why your landing page should include a captivating call to action (CTA), so you can encourage potential customers to contact you, submit enquiry or purchase your product.
Also, when it comes to landing pages, simplicity is king. A cluttered landing page could only distract and overwhelm your customers. Instead, try keeping it simple by using white space to emphasise your CTA, images, and get straight to the point. You can easily find a website developer in Singapore who creates outstanding landing pages for your business.
LEARN MORE: The 4 Biggest Landing Page Mistakes (And How To Avoid Them)
3. Blog
A typical blog usually presents updated articles every day, week, or month, depending on the writer’s choice. While you can create a website that exclusively delivers consistent blog posts, you can also add a blog page to any website. Doing so can help you provide fresh and engaging content to your website visitors.
ALSO READ: The Importance Of Blogging For An E-commerce Website
If you decide to ask a website developer in Singapore to create a blog, make sure you have content creators such as copywriters, designers to develop high quality blog content with optimised keywords for SEO, infographics, videos and many more.. Your blog needs to offer relevant and valuable information to readers to keep them engaged and interested. Prevent your blog from being outdated by creating quality content consistently.
You can also engage an agency experienced in content marketing to help with blog content creation for your website.
4. Educational Website
Educational institutions such as schools and tuition centres have a website that contains all of the necessary information you need to know about them. When exploring an educational website, you will notice how simple its website design is while reading through content that describes the institution’s history, curriculum, faculty members, and offered courses.
5. Portfolio
A portfolio website contains the past works of the artists, writers, website designers, fashion designers, architects, filmmakers and other creative professionals.
On top of giving someone a business card to reach out to them and show their work, having the link to their portfolio website can make things easier. By providing extracts from or samples of their work, they can inform the viewer of how skilled they are and what they can do.
Reviewing a portfolio website can help anyone weigh the pros and cons of why they should hire the artist, writer, or any profession of the said individual for a project.
The Benefits Of Having Good Website Design For Your Business
Excellent website design is a worthwhile investment that can influence your audience and increase your return on investment (ROI). Here are the reasons why you should invest in website design services.
1. Improve Rankings On SERPs
To improve the ranking of your e-commerce website, its website design is another factor that you need to consider besides a fast loading speed and optimisation for mobile use.
A few years ago, John Mueller from Google mentioned that changing the layout of your web pages can affect your search results, which is why you need to be careful updating the website design of your e-commerce website.
If your e-commerce website has a poor website design layout, expect it can be off-putting for your customers, thus causing them to leave in just a few seconds. The more they leave your e-commerce website, the higher your bounce rate will become, which indirectly influences your ranking on SERPs,
The good news is that, with professional website design services in Singapore, you can resolve all of these issues and offer a more presentable website to your customers. Good website design can help users flow from one page to another with relevant CTAs, thus increasing dwell time and reducing bounce rates.
2. Enhance Your Site’s UX
Five minutes of your customer’s time is all you need to convince them that your products are worth purchasing. Doing so requires you to understand the customer’s journey. Find out what makes the customer’s time on your website a worthwhile experience and implement them on your website.
For instance, you could reduce loading times so customers can navigate through your website freely without any delays. As a result, they could spend more time on your website, eventually increasing their chances of making a purchase.
3. Drive Conversion | Gain Leads And Boost Sales
Presentation is a factor that influences a customer’s decision to purchase. Attract more customers with excellent website design. Place your call-to-actions appropriately on your website to influence your website visitors to take actions, such as leaving their calling your business number, submitting an enquiry form or making a purchase.
4. Lower Costs
Another benefit of website design for businesses is that it can cut your operation cost. Even without a physical location, business owners do not need to worry about staff wages, rental fees, and utilities when running an online shop. After all, an e-commerce website runs on the internet 24/7.
One of the important factors is to build your e-commerce website on a proper e-commerce hosting platform from the beginning to optimise for SEO as well as incorporate essential e-commerce shop features such as secured payment gateway. Having a good website will raise your brand awareness and increase your online presence. You can achieve all of these with the help of a professional website design expert and website developer in Singapore.
Reaching out to a professional ahead of time prevents you from updating poor website design works by an amateur, which can save you a lot of time, and funds in the long run.
5. Establish Branding
An amateurish website with outdated website design might give a bad impression to your customers when engaging with your business. It is important to set a good impression of your brand when customers have their first interaction with your brand. It can be done by professionally designing your website to keep your designs up-to-date while incorporating your brand colours. Adopting the latest website design trends and techniques in Singapore will help to maintain your credibility.
ALSO READ: What’s Hot: Web Design Trends You Should Look Out For This 2023
Websites are like the storefronts of a physical establishment. Since the goal is to portray the right image for your brand, try to implement prominent branding elements for your business, including a striking colour scheme with attention-grabbing graphics.
6. Stand Out From Your Competitors
For online entrepreneurs, running an e-commerce website can be challenging. You have to give your customers an excellent shopping experience, starting with developing a customer-friendly e-commerce store to stand out from your competitors.
The good news is that professional e-commerce website design and development services can benefit your business in many ways, such as:
- Generate higher conversion rates
- Build trust
- Analyse your customer’s behaviour
- Stay open 24/7
- Offer customers valuable information about your business
Most importantly, with website design for your e-commerce website, you can attract more customers and provide them with a convenient shopping experience. The goal is to design your website specifically for e-commerce to let customers shop with ease. You could make it easier for them to purchase your products and explore your online store, thus earning their trust in the process and increasing the likelihood of boosting sales.
READ MORE: E-commerce Marketing: How To Build Customer Trust?
The easier the user experience for your customers to browse and navigate through your website, the more you will stand out from your competitors. Your customers will remember to check your shop because it makes their online shopping activity more convenient.
The Relationship Between User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX)
UI and UX are essential parts of website design. Both of these affect a customer’s experience when navigating your website, so design an excellent UI and UX to create a long-lasting connection between you and your customers.
Before that, you need to know the difference between UI and UX.
UI design refers to a website’s control, feel, and appearance. To incorporate excellent UI, you need to make sure your website is easily navigational and has responsive controls. Apart from that, your website must also look attractive, so focus on necessary visual elements, such as colours, themes, icons, and buttons.
ALSO READ: Web Design & Development: Tips, Tricks, And Mistakes
On the other hand, UX design is the customer’s experience with your product from start to finish. In the case of website design, UX is a customer’s purchase journey on a website. You can determine if your website has a successful UX design if customers have a pleasant experience.
Simply put, UI design is for creating excellent visuals and interactive controls, while UX design is about understanding the customer journey. When it comes to the latter, you could say that it focuses more on planning and research. Both work together as crucial elements of website design.
In conclusion, UI and UX play significant roles in your website design strategy, so consider hiring experienced designers to help you build the perfect customer-friendly website for your business.
LEARN MORE: UX vs UI: What Is The Difference?
Examples Of Good Website Design In 2023
Need inspiration for your website design and layout? Here are some of the best examples of website design in Singapore.
1. Clean Care
Clean Care is a top cleaning services provider in Singapore. You can count on them to ensure your home or establishment is 100% spotless. Thanks to their well-designed website, you can quickly notice Clean Care’s contact details on top of the homepage and the CTA button below, allowing you to get in touch with the business in any way you want.
2. Nature’s Spa
Sometimes, a beautiful combination of colours is all it takes to make your brand stand out. Such is the case for Nature’s Spa, where the company’s website uses a clever colour scheme of charcoal and cream that match the brand’s colours, thus helping with branding.
When choosing a colour scheme for a website design for your company, you need to highlight your brand colours on your website. Choosing the right brand colour is important. According to science, all colours have different interpretations that influence others and prompt them to take action, and that is where colour theory comes in.
LEARN MORE: The Importance Of Colour Theory For Digital Marketing
3. Danish Design
Another exceptional example of simplicity is Danish Design’s website design. Aside from the simple colour scheme that consists of light tones and shades, the homepage has almost everything you need to know about Danish Design.
The scrolling banner displays information that will benefit customers. They will be able to view some of the products or services that a company is offering. Also, customers can find the type of furniture they are looking for, thanks to the well-arranged furniture categories at the bottom of the homepage.
4. WeCAN Movers
WeCAN Movers is a moving company in Singapore.The prominent colour scheme of yellow and black, combined with prominent font that is easy to read, makes the website instantly eye-catching. Not to mention, you can conveniently click on various CTA buttons scattered throughout the website.
Part II: The Importance Of Website Development For Businesses
What Is Website Development?
Unlike website design, website development focuses on performance and functionality. Instead of aesthetics, the goal of website development is to ensure that a website performs perfectly. Besides improving your site’s loading times, you also have to make sure your website is user-friendly and well-secured against cyberattacks such as malware.
Every business needs a website, and the key to that is website development. Consider building a high-quality website through extensive web development that will cover all the necessary grounds to achieve your goals. Connect with your customers online without problem by getting website maintenance to provide cybersecurity services such as having regular scans and debugging.
Here are the different types of website development services a website design and development company can provide in Singapore.
The Different Types Of Website Development Services
1. Content Management System (CMS)
A Content Management System (CMS) is software for managing, creating, and editing content. With this software platform, you can build a website from scratch without needing to go through a complicated process.
Nonetheless, CMS services can be very complex for beginners. That is why most companies outsource CMS services to a website development company in Singapore.
With CMS services, you can do the following:
- Update your current systems
- Improve website speed
- Customise your website
- Simplify your website design
- Enhance your cybersecurity
- Store content
- Assign roles to users
In short, CMS has user-friendly features that let you manage your website conveniently. The best part is that it does not require you to be proficient in coding or website development.
If managing a CMS website is too technical for you and time-consuming, you can engage a website design and development agency in Singapore that can help you while you focus on your business development. With the expertise of a website developer in Singapore in CMS management, publish more content, manage your workflow, and handle on-page optimisation tasks.
2. Website Maintenance
Building a website is just the beginning. You also have to maintain your website and ensure it is running smoothly. Technical issues could arise anytime, so you have to be on the lookout from time to time.
To prevent any problems from harming your website, you can invest in maintenance services. A website development company in Singapore will monitor your website and keep it error-free.
3. E-commerce Website Development
Designing an online store is one thing, but it is another to develop an online store. The goal is to craft a fully operational online store with user-friendly features for your customers.
Website development is vital for your e-commerce website since you have to run your online business regularly. Primary tasks for this service include maintaining your site’s performance, optimising your product pages, and promoting your physical store. All of these are achievable with excellent e-commerce website development services.
The Benefits Of Website Development For Businesses
Both website design and website development are beneficial for your business. Here’s why you should invest in website development services in Singapore.
1. Boost Your Search Engine Rankings
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is one of the most relevant digital marketing strategies today. Without it, you will have a hard time trying to attract more customers online.
Fortunately, part of website development is creating an SEO-friendly website. You can improve your online presence and search engine rankings to reach your target audience online.
How exactly does website development help in boosting search engine rankings?
Search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing use bots or crawlers to analyse websites by crawling through them. The search engine bots will check for signs of crawl errors, duplicate content, and other technical issues. If these problems are present on your website, search engine bots could give your website a low ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs).
The good news is that a website development agency in Singapore that also offers experienced SEO solutions can ensure your website can overcome any technical issues. With their help, you can monitor and optimise your site’s performance regularly, thus improving your online presence and boosting your search engine rankings.
2. Reach More Customers
With an increase in search engine rankings, your website is now capable of reaching far more potential customers than ever before. As more traffic gets driven to your website, your search engine rankings increase, too. Eventually, your improved web visibility should result in more customers visiting your website and driving sales.
Increased web visibility allows your website to become more visible on search engines. As a result, more and more people could click on links to your website, thus in the process, it increases your click-through rate (CTR).
3. Speed Up Your Website
Did you know that 40% of consumers will wait around three seconds before they abandon a website? Try testing the speed of your website by pasting its URL to Page Speed Insight.
When it comes to browsing the Internet, almost everyone hates slow loading times. That is why you need to improve your website speed at all costs. Implement effective website maintenance to speed up your loading times. In doing so, your customers will have a more splendid experience browsing your website.
Part III: How To Choose The Right Website Design And Development Agency For Your Business
5 Tips For Choosing The Right Website Design Agency
What are the factors to consider when choosing a website design company? Since there are hundreds of companies to choose from, you need to take your time and hire one that can meet your needs.
1. Define Your Goals And Objectives
To find an agency that can help you reach your goals, you need to create a list of objectives. Define your goals first, then communicate them to a website design and website development company in Singapore. It will let the company know whether or not they can help you succeed.
2. Check The Agency’s Portfolio
Before hiring a website design and development agency, check the portfolio. You can view the agency’s previous works with other clients. Doing so should give you additional insight into the agency’s level of expertise.
3. Create A Budget Plan
How much money are you capable of spending on website design and development? Find out right away, then create a budget plan to help you pick an agency that offers website design services in Singapore for the right price.
4. Choose An SEO-Savvy Agency
Incorporate SEO with website design to grow an audience and improve your online presence. To do so, you should probably hire a website design company that also specialises in SEO. With an SEO-savvy agency’s expertise, you can improve your site’s web visibility on search engines like Google.
5. Engage An Agency With Digital Marketing Experience
Since an e-commerce website is also a digital marketing asset that helps promote your products and service, make sure to rely on an agency that also has digital marketing experience. Agencies with digital marketing experience can promote your e-commerce website by creating engaging SEO, SEM or Social Media campaigns to gain wider reach to your potential customers and promote your e-commerce business.
The Cost Of Website Design & Development Services
Outsourcing your website design and development services is a guaranteed way to succeed. You can rely on the skills of a website designer and website developer in Singapore to help you build a high-quality website.
The only downside is that hiring an agency is usually more expensive than building a website on your own. However, hiring a website design company is a much better choice, business-wise. It is a worthwhile investment in the long run since you build an SEO-friendly website, implement better website design strategies, and use the latest website development technologies, which leads to higher returns.
Here is how much it costs to invest in website design and website development in Singapore.
Ultimately, the amount of money you have to pay for website design and development services depends on a few crucial factors. Some of these factors include:
- The number of web pages you want to create
- Copywriting and content creation
- Use of software tools and platforms
- SEO
Lastly, you also have to consider the amount of time required for your hired website designers and website developers in Singapore to build and maintain your website. The more time and effort needed to reach your goals, the more costly it will be to invest in website design and development.
The Cost Of Website Design and
Development Service
Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Web Design And Development
Per Month (Shopify, Wix, etc.)
Freelancer
Per Month
Agencies
Per Month
Source: 
E-Commerce Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG)
Small-medium sized enterprises (SMEs) from various industries in Singapore can now implement technology solutions and equipment in their business through Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG) for e-commerce.
With PSG for e-commerce, businesses can claim up to 50% support, which they can use for e-commerce website design and development. To learn more about it, find a pre-approved PSG grant vendor that provides website design and development and digital marketing services.
Contact OOm Today!
Consider partnering with OOm today! As a top website design agency in Singapore, OOm specialises in various services, from digital marketing to website design and website development.
Contact OOm at +65 6690 4049 or leave a message on our website to learn more about digital marketing and website development in Singapore.
