Superior Web Design Kips Bay | ProStrategix

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Kips Bay: There’s More in Area than You’d Think

Kips Bay is not one of the “famous” neighborhoods in Manhattan. It’s not as edgy as its neighbor to the south, the East Village, nor as upper crust as its neighbor to the north, the Upper East Side. However, Kips Bay has more to it than most people think.

On the east, Kips Bay is dominated by the major teaching hospitals, so the area is normally full of healthcare professionals and those in training. On 2nd Avenue in the 30s, there is Kips Bay Plaza, a large retail and entertainment space. To the north, you hit the United Nations, so there is generally some degree of diplomats in the region.

One of the marketing challenges is that the neighborhood can be pretty transient with the United Nations, the medical schools, etc. so businesses often have to keep reintroducing themselves to new customers. 

Why Web Design Matters in Kips Bay?

In a crowded and changeable neighborhood, your challenge isn’t so much in targeting as it is in standing out.  A great web design can help you get your message out. 

  1. Web design in Kips Bay is about owning a small niche that’s novel and interesting. Then, expanding from it.
  2. It is important to raise awareness constantly because there will be new customers moving in and out on a fairly regular basis. A fast, intuitive site is perfect for this.
  3. Mobile lets your customers you are nearby, open, and accessible. No one likes to travel far if they can find something closer.

For a web design to be successful, it needs to be fast & responsive to do well on mobile, and intuitive so users find what they need quickly.

How Fast is Fast?

5-Second Rule Does NOT apply

I remember as a kid the five second rule. If food fell on the floor, it was still ok to eat it if was on the ground for less than five seconds.

Turns out that germs are more forgiving than mobile users. There is not broad agreement, but it seems they follow the under three second rule.

The 1 to 3-Second Rule

If a page takes over 3 seconds to load, mobile users bounce as the Pingdom chart below suggests.

Pingdom Page Speed Study

SEMRush gauges page speed using a 1 second rule. I would argue they are closer. My personal experience suggests that the widow has continued to narrow.

Search engines grade your speed as part of your ranking. Therefore, page speed is an important factor in search engine optimization.

Main Drag on Page Speed is Unnecessary Code

The root cause of most speed issues is the content management system (CMS) that you choose for your website. 

What is a CMS

In plain English, these are programs such as WordPress and Wix. These programs have three parts. 

  1. User Interface (UI): Place where you enter the content
  2. Theme: This is the general layout and design of the page with all the options
  3. Server: The place where the content and theme are stored as separate files.

The browser has to fetch the data and the full theme in order to render the page. After the browser parses the content, it has to sort through all of the themes features to see which to use. This causes delays in loading, which is typically called render blocking CCS.  

Digital Marketing Agencies Like the Convenience of CMS

With all these disadvantages, you might ask why someone would choose a CMS. A CMS is user friendly. They are faster to build, easier to maintain, and simpler to update. You do not need to understand coding or even basic HTML or CSS commands to get great looking results.

BUT, They Create Render Blocking CSS - Pagespeed Killer

The key issue with the theme. Every theme carries a set of instructions called cascading style sheets (CSS), which tell the browser how the page should look. It will load your content onto the screen following these instructions. 

Creativity Wins Points.

According to Best Designs, original graphics are the most successful. 

“Original graphics make up 40% of all successful visual content that accomplishes marketing goals, but 43% of marketers struggle with the consistent production of captivating visuals.”

Since we are communicating one message, the artwork that supports it must work very hard to support the message. This is where local market know-how can really help. Original photos and images of your business in Kipps Bay interacting with your neighborhood can add value.

It also helps with when your calls to action focus on local events in and around Kips Bay or at your business location.

email marketing for small business call to action

Call to Action

Every email, no matter how trivial, should have a call to action. This is where all the hard work above pays off. If we omit one, we just wasted resources that could have been spent more cost effectively.

We cover email list building in great detail in our post on small business email marketing. Again, we will just hit the highlights here as it pertains to Kips Bay. Every neighborhood has summer fairs. While these were severely impacted by COVID, in our post COVID world they should roar back with a vengeance. It would be smart to see if you could piggy-back off one or more of them.

Incentives, deals, free trials, and samples are all great options when developing your calls to action. See if you can partner with your neighbors to create a shared promotion. This way one shopper in Kips Bay has two or more places to visit while out in the neighborhood.

Why Local Digital Marketing Matters in Kips Bay?

In a crowded and changeable neighborhood, your challenge isn’t so much in targeting as it is in standing out.  Local digital marketing can help you get your message out. 

  1. Local digital marketing in Kips Bay is about owning a small niche that’s novel and interesting. Then, expanding from it.
  2. It is important to raise awareness constantly because there will be new customers moving in and out on a fairly regular basis.  
  3. Local digital marketing lets your customers you are nearby, open, and accessible. No one likes to travel far if they can find something closer.

Custom Build Site Will Yield Best Performance

If your developer helps you set up your tracking codes and other third party integrations, then you can minimize any issues those create.

The beauty of a custom build is there is no trade-off between speed and quality. When you factor in the lost revenue from bounces and poor conversion that a slower site creates, the investment generally pays for itself.

Any CMS Will Require “Fixing” 

It does not matter that much which theme you choose. All will need some modification to be to pull you out of the 20-40s on Google Page Speed Insights.

Main Options

There are three common options.

  1. Plug-ins: For most CMS systems, plug-in exist to help minimize excess CSS. However, they are not a true fix, but a band-aid. They can definitely help, but they will always be the slowest of all your options. Plus, most require a subscription to gain the most benefit.
  2. AMP: Accelerated mobile pages is a stripped down version of regular HTML. It has fewer options and features, so it is very fast. However, you will need to manage two sites. Plus, you will lose continuity between your desktop and mobile versions. 
  3. Theme Optimization: This requires a developer to strip out the unused code from your theme. This is not cheap, but it can get you close to if not equal to a custom built site.

No Web Design is Really Viable if it is Not Responsive

Users expect the same level of user experience (UX) regardless of device. This is simply the bare minimum of performance.

Custom Builds are Responsive by Design

Custom builds are generally designed for mobile first. They are first designed to work on mobile, then scaled for desktop, not the other way around.

Responsive CMS Themes Require Quality Control

There are several very good themes across CMS providers that can provide a seamless UX experience. However, they require some quality control. 

These are not generally built mobile first. Therefore the first issue is image sizing. If you let the theme do it, it can cost you on performance. Therefore, you will want to be mindful of these pitfalls if you go this route. 

Web Design Needs to be Intuitive

The key challenge with any design is that it is so easy to lost in the visual and aesthetics that we lose track of why people come to a site.

Users Expect to Find What They Need Quickly

Fundamentally, a website is a communication tool. If we lose sight of this purpose, the performance in terms of dwell time, bounce, or conversion will suffer.

In fact, when users were asked what they valued most in a website they chose finding information by a 7 to 1 margin.

A separate report showed 60% users left because they could find what they needed.

Summary

For a great web design, it should excel in three key areas.

  1. The site needs to be fast. Shoot for load speed of 1 second as an average, 3 as the maximum limit.
  2. A web design is only viable if it is responsive. When mobile is primary device for search, this should be a no-brainer
  3. Layout must be intuitive. Users want to find information quickly or they leave.

ProStraegix is a web design agency with offices in New York City. We also provide SEO and pay per click advertising support to our clients.

Things to Remember…

If you're thinking about finding help in Kips Bay for your small business, here are the things to keep in mind.

  1. Find a firm that knows your area. If your small business is marketing in Kips Bay, you'll want help from someone who understands the lay of the land, character of the neighborhood and the daily flow.
  2. Find a company you can trust. If you can't trust a business to have your best interests, you're already going to be left in the lurch. Make sure you have a guarantee that your business will be treated fairly by all parties.
  3. Get the size of help you need. A larger firm can provide more resources and can do more things. A smaller firm, on the other hand, can be less intimidating, with the added benefit of one-on-one help from the best the company can offer.

See more about Small Business Marketing in Kips Bay. If you are more interest in the borough, you can see our Small Business Marketing in Manhattan. If you want the full city, you can see our Small Business Marketing in NYC.