Attractive web site design is just the first step to a successful business venture. However, a professional web site design  that can’t attract and retain customers might as well not exsit on the world wide web.  Here are some important rules to keep in mind that  can help you improve the overall effectiveness of your web site design and turn it into a highly profitable business venture.

#1: Web Site Design Must Be Compatible With All Major Web Browsers

Your web site design should appeal to customers, irrespective of the web browser they use to access it. Make sure that your web site design works well in popular web browsers like Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer. To make it work consistently across multiple browsers the web designer may have to tweak your web site design.

#2. Search Engine Optimization

The objective of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is to get your web pages to appear higher in search engine rankings for relevant keywords or keyword phrases. The right keyword and phrase targeting are essential for creating a successful business web site design. Search Engine Optimization aligns a web sites design, content and code with relevant keyword phrase targeting assisting the search engines including Google in understanding a business web site’s focus. SEO can be simple for some website designs, while others may require intense web site design & development including content,  landing page optimization and internal link changes.

#3. Link Building

Search engines including Google, Bing and Yahoo favor trustworthy and authoritative websites. This trust is established based on the quality and volume of external  links that are pointing to your website called Link popularity.  Your Web site design features should attract other social media, corporate and  small business websites to link to your website. Website links from relevant authoritative sites can significantly improve your website’s search engine rankings resulting in users finding your website and ladning on it. We would argue that if you can’t get your website on the first or second page of Google, Bing and Yahoo then your investment in your web site design project has been wasted.

Furthermore, your website should get inbound links from websites that offer complimentary products. You can do this by adding website features and content that will attract partners and relevant website owners to link to you, driving potential customers that will convert into sales on your website. Link building is a time-consuming and continuous process, so do not lose your patience. You can accomplish this task by adding a blog to your web site design project and publish unique content relevant to your business once a week. This will keep search engines – Google, Bing and Yahoo coming back to your website to crawl the content frequently increasing your chances of appearing higher in organic search engine rankings. You can also create a facebook fan page and twitter account to create followers that will bookmark your web site resulting in additional SEO juice.

Other than SEO, there is no other single most important factor in the ranking of a website than Link Popularity.

#4. Permission Based Marketing with Double Opt-Ins

Capture your potential customer email addresses on your web site’s home page so you can include them in your future emails to close them into sales. Use double opt-ins, wherein potential customers select opt-in to your email offers by selecting a check box and then confirm their subscription by clicking on the submit button on your website. Provide them with a clearly defined privacy policy and inform them about how often - daily, weekly or monthly, you will be sending an email to them. Include ”tip of the week”, promotional offers, deals and coupons to give potential customers additional incentives to sign up.

#5. Email Marketing with Customizable HTML Templates

In order to retain your potential customers and convert them into future sales, you should implement an e-mail marketing solution or get the web designer to create customizable HTML templates to give your emails a professional look. You can reduce the amount of overhead required to send weekly or monthly email newsletters by implementing customizable web templates. Add a ‘tip of the week’ or coupon in your email sends to keep your potential customers engaged with your business resulting in custome retantion and repeat business. Do not forget to include opt-out messages in your email newsletters to ensure compliance with the CAN SPAM ACT 2003 legislation.

Find the right web site design service to help you implement these tips and tricks to increase the appeal of your website, its search engine rankings and visibilty, giving your business the online presence it needs.

Web designers have several interesting web design conferences to look forward to in 2010. Though web design conference costs can be stiff, they provide a website to network with professional web site design companies. Website designers get first-hand knowledge from the best web site design companies, who have not only contributed to the custom web design field but paved their own web site design path. By aligning with web 2.0 technologies and forecasting social networking trends, professional website designers become more competitive and primed for the future.

Web Design conferences that leading website design companies should attend are the following:

1. MIX10

Paul Stubbs, a leading authority on Microsoft’s SharePoint and Office will be discussing Microsoft’s broad web platform and tools for creating rich web applications. The conference will include discussions on Silverlight, Windows 7’s multi-touch capabilities, and the open source free implementation of .NET – Mono. It is aimed at enthusiastic web designers who hope to develop the world’s most innovative websites.

Date: 15–17 March 2010

Venue: Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas

2. Search Engine Strategies 2010

SES conferences are attended each year by thousands of web designers, search marketing companies, and professionals to network and learn about PPC advertisng, SEO, social media, keyword research, link building, duplicate content, video optimizations, site optimization, usability and related topics. SES includes more than 70 sessions, exhibitors, networking events and gatherings.

Date: 22-26 March 2010

Venue: New York

3. An Event Apart

Founded by the web visionaries Eric Meyer and Jeffrey Zeldman, An Event Apart, features 12 intensely educational sessions delivered by 12 great speakers over two days for web designers who care about content and usability as well as website design. Jeremy Keith and Dan Cederholm follow the Seattle conference with a unique one-day learning experience – A Day Apart – on HTML5 and CSS3.

Date: 5–7 April 2010

Venue: Bell Harbor Conference Center, Seattle

Date: 26-27 July 2010

Venue: Hilton Minneapolis, Minneapolis

Date: 16-17 September 2010

Venue: Hilton Washington, Washington DC

Date: 1-2 November 2010

Venue: Westin Gas Lamp Quarter, San Diego

4. WWW2010

The 19th international WWW conference includes workshops and discussions surrounding the evolution of the web, technology standardizations and its impact on society and culture. Key speakers include Vint Cerf – VP and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google, Danah Boyd – Microsoft Research, New England and research fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, and Carl Malamud – founder and director of Public.Resource.Org.

Date: 26-30 April, 2010

Venue: Raleigh, North Carolina

5. Future of Website Design

The Future of Web Design conference includes 33 sessions and 4 workshops spread over 3 days. The talks delivered by notable speakers such as Dan Cederholm, Molly Holzschlag, Jon Hicks and Elliot Jay Stocks will touch on HTML5, CSS3, jQuery, design, creativity and business strategies.

Date: 17-19 May 2010

Venue: London

6. WebVisions

WebVisions, celebrating its 10th year, explores the future of affordable web design, technology, user experiences and business strategies with fun workshops, parties and gatherings. Topics of discussion will include e-commerce website design, mobile apps, video and motion graphics, and much more.

Date: 19-21 May 2010

Venue: Oregon Convention Center, Portland

7. How Design

The How Design conference is geared towards web designers wanting to improve their graphic skills. “Why we brand” and “Why we sell” are some of the important questions that will be discussed by Debbie Millman, President of the design division at Sterling Brands and President of the AIGA. Workshops will boost practical competence with theory.

Date: 6-9 June 2010

Venue: Denver Convention Centre, Denver

8. Flashbelt

Flash web designers – amateurs or experts – will love this conference. Events include educational workshops, and exposure to tools and future apps in an informal environment.

Date: 13-16 June 2010

Venue: Holiday Inn Metrodome, Minneapolis

9. Adobe MAX 2010

Adobe MAX 2010 brings together decision makers, designers and developers to shape the future path of client and cloud computing, social computing and rich media across devices and screens.

Date: 24-27 October 2010

Venue: Los Angeles, California

10. Web 2.0 Summit 2010

Co-produced by O’Reilly Media and UBM TechWeb, this conference gathers leaders from the media and internet industry. With speakers like Al Gore and Lance Armstrong, Web 2.0 summit sounds promising. You also learn strategy from Evan Williams, Sergey Brin, and Brian Roberts. Topics of discussion include real-time search announcements from Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Microsoft, and reflections of the Web’s patriarch, Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

Date: 15-17 November 2010

Venue: Los Angeles, California

Did you know that there are millions of your potential customers that search the Internet every day? Do you want to attract them to your website and convert them into sales? Do you want to stand out from the crowd and become a successful small business story? Do you want to do accomplish all the above at a cheap price? If yes, use the following affordable web design and hosting tips to beat the competition and win over the customers:

Build Professonal Website Design

Build professional web site design features that focuses on your core business and is relevant to your products and services. Creating web design features that pleases your employees or you, but does not add value to your potential customers adds clutter and distracts them from taking the desired action. It also increases the cost of affordable web design and hosting services resulting in expensive web design.

Limit Use of Multimedia in Web Site Design

Be judicious in the use of bandwidth-consuming online videos and webcasts. Though the use of rich multimedia can enhance the customer experience and interaction with your website, it can considerably increase the time your web pages take to render on web browsers, irritating prospective customers and resulting in increased abandonment of your website. Limited usage of multimedia will also save your business considerable web hosting and bandwidth costs.

Steer Clear of Flashing Content in Web Design

Avoid using flashing icons, images and text as they take away from the customer experience and distract potential customers. Though some web design companies suggest that they add appeal to your web site design, always focus on impressing customers through the value of your products and services instead of “spammy” web design tactics.

Use Concise but Descriptive Web Page Design Titles

Use concise, clear and to-the-point titles for all your web page designs but make sure they are descriptive enough so that the visitors can easily navigate your website to access the relevant information quickly. Though some readers may appreciate clever and witty titles, most prefer relevancy and simplicity. Visitors see the web page title in search results; clear effective web page titles can significantly increase the relevant traffic coming to your website resulting in higher sales conversions.

Avoid Unethical Web Design and SEO Tactics At All Costs

Be wary of web design companies who promise top rankings on popular search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing within weeks. These types of web design and search engine optimization companies are often inclined to use black hat or unethical tactics to achieve these short term results. Though these black hat SEO tactics may get your website high rankings in search results within weeks, your website will be penalized by the search engines and your website can be banned from appearing in search results. This can have dire consequences on your business as it will immediately result in loss of all organic search traffic to your website.

Hire professional web site design and development companies to protect your business from falling prey to unethical web design techniques, saving you time and money.

Add a Free Blog with Affordable Web Design and Hosting Services

A Blog can be a great addition to your custom web design. However, if you include a blog on your website to connect with potential customers, then make sure you have a plan for it – publish regular and relevant posts related to your industry, business and products or services, and provide timely responses to potential customer inquiries. In the absence of a well thought out plan for your blog, your potential customers will be disappointed and will turn their attention to your competitors websites. Engaging customers in dialogues through daily or weekly posts is a cheap and affordable way to create a social networking web design where you can attract and nurture potential customer leads,  and close them into sales.

Announcing and Broadcasting Promotional Offers on Website

Advertising promotional offers on the home page can annoy prospective customers. Although some web design companies advocate that displaying the promotional offers in your existing customers face helps increase sales conversions, it can also turn off first time visitors and prospects who don’t know much about your business at all. Its best to have your home page convey your primary message and have the promotional offers embedded in the product and services web page design section of the website.

Easy Navigation and Search Features Are a Must on Every Web Page Design

One of the key objectives of any web design must be to provide your prospective customers with quick and easy access to the relevant information. If prospective customers have to click through several web pages before arriving at the information they are looking for, it will most definitely result in a high customer abandonment rate. The faster your prospective customers can find what they are looking for, the more likely they will convert into sales.

You can use these affordable website design and development strategies to turn your business website into an effective sales and marketing channel.

Professional web site design can help attract new customers and increase sales while affordable web design can conserve human and financial resources. One of the most important decisions you need to make is whether to use a custom web design or use web page design templates for your website – a wrong decision can prove costly for your business.

Both custom web design and web page design templates have their advantages and disadvantages. Here are some considerations that will help you with your decision making process, saving you time and money:  

Web Page Design Templates

The biggest advantage of web page design templates is that your business website can be online within two business days. It is also relatively in expensive as you don’t need a rocket scientist to customize the web page design templates. Web hosting companies give you basic web design templates for free when you subscribe to their web hosting services. However, the web design using templates will be very basic in nature. In addition, web page design templates allow for limited flexibility – you can change the graphics, colors and some of the web design elements within the template.

If your overall objective for the website is such that it appears high in search engines- Google, Bing, Yahoo so that you can attract new visitors, sell products and services on your website, or provide online self service capabilities so that your prospects and customers can review your web content before filling out custom forms, making reservations or contacting your business via email then you should seriously consider custom web design.

Custom Web Design

First impression is the last impression! Custom Web design can help your business stand out from the crowd. Design your website in a way that facilitates quick and easy navigation to relevant information. If users have to browse through several web pages before being able to access the relevant information, they will get pissed off and will turn their attention to your competitors. The faster your prospective customers can navigate through your website and find what they are looking for, the more likely they will become repeat customers.

Creating unique and relevant web page titles is very important for higher search engine rankings resulting in more prospective customers visiting your website. You can use a blog and rich media content such as images, videos etc. to promote your products and services online. An attractive website design peaks the interest of users and ensures repeat visits to your site. The more appealing the custom web design, the greater are your chances of converting prospects into customers. However, custom web design can take a few weeks before your business can go online, based on your website requirements.

Finally, we are under going a fundamental shift in how we communicate with our customers and prospects. With close to 25% of consumers having never known life without a computer, web site design has become the new front door to your business. Prospective customers associate the business’ web site design with its product and service quality. You should consider all these factors before deciding between custom web design and web page design templates for your business’ website.