Turn Your HubSpot Website into a Growth Engine

It depends on what you currently have in-house, the website project you are embarking on, and what agencies/contractors may be available at your disposal. Here are a few scenarios that we often see with our clients:

• Your HubSpot website needs a fresh look, and you don’t have a designer In this case, you can share your design guidelines (if available) with our team, as well as a few websites that you find appealing (could be competitors or any website that you feel may help you communicate your story well)
• You have strict brand guidelines and need to build a HubSpot theme This is when our HubSpot web design team collaborates with devs. The design team helps our developers translate your brand guidelines into enough HubSpot templates and modules so your marketing team can easily add new landing and product pages and publish blog content.
• You want to give your HubSpot website a fresh look & feel without investing too much If you do not have strict brand guidelines and want to modernize your website, you can work with our HubSpot developers to implement an existing HubSpot theme. In this situation, design support may not be necessary.
• You have Figma/Adobe XD mockups ready In this instance, you will only require the help of our HubSpot developers to translate mock-ups into HubSpot templates and modules.

Not at all. Any good web designer should be able to help out. When it comes to wiring the design mockups in HubSpot, you definitely want a dev team that is well versed in HubL (HubSpot’s programming language). That’s quite a specific skill any dev won’t do. For a deep dive into this, check out our article on hiring a HubSpot developer.

Both, hubspot designers and developer contribute to the process of optimizing user experience. Developers ensure that your HubSpot website supports fast load times and seamless functionality, directly impacting metrics like bounce rate and user engagement. HubSpot web designers, on the other hand, (hopefully) help you create intuitive and visually appealing designs that enhance user satisfaction and goal completion rates. For example, a table of contents and/or well-designed easy navigation, can enhance user experience, allowing readers to jump to sections of particular interest (just glance to the left of your screen).

• Accessibility-first design: Web designers integrate accessibility standards, such as those outlined in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), into the HubSpot web design process. This approach ensures all users, including those with disabilities, can navigate and interact with your website.
• SEO enhancement: Accessible websites rank higher in search results.
• Broader reach: Designing with accessibility in mind means you’ll include 26% of American adults with a disability. This inclusivity expands the site’s reach and increases the potential for engagement.
• Ethical and legal compliance: Prioritizing accessibility reflects a commitment to inclusivity and meets legal requirements. It shows your brand’s dedication to ethical practices. And that’s a good thing.

For more information about accessible web design, share our article, Website Accessibility: The Unseen Importance of ADA Compliance, with your web designer.

Aesthetics aside, a well-designed HubSpot website has to fulfill user requirements. This is a must-have not only for users but for the almighty Google as well. Guide your users toward their search goals with minimal effort.

So, when designing your HubSpot website, work with your designer to strategically guide users toward their objectives (i.e., how fast did they get an answer to what they searched for?). Focus on user behavior to create efficient pathways for goal completion. This could mean including into the mockup design for tools like custom forms and chatbots to streamline the user journey.

Ensure your content directly answers the search query signaling to Google that the user's search goal was fulfilled. Google likes that and will reward you with hire rankings for your keywords.

Goal completion aside, optimizing for important user metrics like time on site and bounce rate is important. For this, have an awesome HubSpot developer to collaborate with your design team, and the magic will happen.

With mobile searches dominating, HubSpot designers play an important role in mobile optimization. Developers work on the technical side to ensure the site is responsive and loads quickly on all devices (smaller devices = smaller space for physical hardware = slower processing power). While working their magic, web designers must focus on mobile UI/UX, ensuring content is easily navigable and visually engaging on smaller screens. Remember, although HubSpot CMS does a good job at making your website responsive, for more complex designs, it’s always a good idea to ask your web designer to create a mockup for mobile as well. Your web developers will thank you for that, too.

Website loading speed is a significant factor in user experience and SEO. HubSpot developers can optimize code, reduce server response times, and leverage HubSpot's built-in tools for speed enhancements. While working their magic, designers need to contribute by optimizing image sizes and considering layout changes that reduce load times, ensuring a fast, smooth user journey.

The faster your HubSpot website loads, the more chances you have to keep your visitors engaged, increasing time on site and decreasing the bounce rate. Check out our article on HubSpot website loading speed for more details.

Your UX designer can play a crucial role in determining which schema types are most relevant to your content and objectives. By planning for these in the design phase, you can ensure that the necessary data points are included in the content and that the layout accommodates the structured data effectively.

But why structured data, you ask? Great question. Incorporating structured data, such as FAQ schema for common questions, can help search engines understand and index the content more effectively. This can improve the article's visibility in search results, making it more likely to be seen by those interested in your products and services.And, of course, your well-rounded HubSpot developer, should understand the value of rich snippets like these:

So, although your hubspot developer will wire rich snippets in the CMS Hub, it's up to your web designer to create a beautiful UI that could incorporate design schema elements such as:

• Product & Offer Schema: Describes products or services offered, including price, availability, and reviews. This is crucial for e-commerce sites.
• Article Schema: Applied to news articles, blog posts, and editorial content. It helps display the article in a rich snippet, including the headline, author, and publication date.
• Event Schema: For events, it includes information like the date, location, and ticket details. It can enhance visibility for event pages.
• FAQ Schema: For FAQ pages or modules (like this one you’re reading!), it structures questions and answers in a way that they may appear directly in search results, potentially increasing click-through rates. Here’s an example of what it looks like in SERPs:

• Breadcrumb Schema: This helps define the page's position within the site hierarchy, helping users navigate and search engine understanding.

Let’s not forget the very important basics here – both web designers and web developers are essential in creating a seamless, engaging user experience for users that interact with your HubSpot website, but their contributions differ significantly:

• HubSpot Web Designers concentrate on the visual elements, user interface (UI), and user experience (UX) design.
• HubSpot Developers focus on technical implementation, custom functionality, and integration.

And, of course, unicorns do exist. Sometimes, you can find a talented HubSpot web designer who can also work their magic in Figma. But most of the time, you’re better off working with agencies like HubBase (yep, a shameless self-promo here ;).