Every business that wants to grow and expand its customer base is either planning to make a great website or already has one. The world wide web is a powerful media that has zillions of people linking to it every day. The possibilities for your business are endless. Not only can you reach out to an unbelievably large segment of potential customers, you can do it cost-effectively.  Building a great website helps you establish an online presence, spread brand awareness, and build customer relationships.

The extensive outreach of the internet works both for and against your business. If you can reach more prospects, they too have access to hundreds of businesses similar to yours – all competing for attention. You have to give customers a reason to choose you. This is where good website design comes in.

Web site design is not just about a set of web pages. It’s about creating a website that keeps your customers coming. Professional and experienced web design companies can help you attain this challenging goal. In this article, we try to explain what makes a website design great, selecting a web design service and some tips. Topics included in this guide are:

1. Elements of good website design.
2. Selecting a website design service.
3. Tips on optimizing web design efforts.

Elements of a great website design

However much technology and technique may evolve, some basics never change. The most important principle in website design is “Honor your audience”. Your website may include latest design elements but won’t win you customers if it’s complicated, unorganized, irrelevant or slow. Remember, the internet is teeming with competing websites. Customers can move from one websie to another in seconds.

Here is a run down on what customers expect from a great website:

Relevant, original, and clear content

Content is king. Customers will stay on your website only if they find what they’re looking for quickly. Whatever be the tone of content ­­– entertaining or serious based on your business or preference – the goal is to inform the customer simply and convincingly that you have what they want. Many websites copy a catchy phrase or line that sounds impressive and use it on their website. Apart from being a possible copyright breach, your website also loses credibility. Keep the content relevant, straightforward, and convincing.

Readability

Text and background colors should be chosen to enhance readability. Dark text and light background is best (for example, black text on white background). Text should also be well spaced.

Updated information

Website content should be current. Outdated information tells customers that your website is not a reliable source of information. Websites should be updated regularly so that customers see something different every time they visit. Include a date somewhere in the page so customers know when the page was last updated.

Accuracy

The text on the website should be rechecked and edited for spelling and grammar. Mistakes in content indicate carelessness and that’s not the impression you want your customers to have. Check outgoing links regularly and correct or remove broken links.

Annotated links

If you include a link to another website, let customers know why you think it’s worth clicking on it. Links should be relevant to the content the customer is already browsing.

Less is More

Customers do not like too much scrolling down to read a page through. Keep it to a minimum. Long sentences too dilute the impact of a message. It’s too much information in one go and difficult to follow. Page lengths should be set so that the more important information is conveyed within a screen size of 640×480 pixels. Use short and succinct sentences. Address multiple topics in separate web pages.

Site Maps

Including a navigation menu that gives customers a glimpse of what a webpage offers. They can click on what interests them to know more. A site map also helps customers navigate the website quickly.

Organized content

Customers should find the information they are seeking quickly. This means content should be well-organized and easily navigable. Include pages in a hierarchy to minimize scrolling and display time. Maintain a balance. Reaching a page should not involve clicking through 10 links. Use text and graphics on buttons to help users. Keep a consistent look throughout the website.

Website Search

Help your customers further by including a search box on the website. The time savings will be appreciated.

Website Performance

Images and multimedia are good but they should not slow down the website’s performanceand load times. Customers could be accessing your website via a dial up or a broadband connection. Keep images and multimedia small and use them sparingly. Use JPEG images whenever possible. Minimize the color palettes of GIF graphics. Use the ALT tag to provide text alternatives to low-bandwidth users, blind users, and for speed.

A large table takes time to display. Break content into smaller tables for faster rendering. Customers will not wait around for a website to load when they have so many other choices.

Optimize the HTML code to reduce the file size and hence download time. Remove extraneous comments, spaces, and tags.

Compatability across all major web browsers

A customer could be using any browser. Your custom website design should look as your designer intended it to look on most of them. A comment such as “This website is best viewed in Internet Explorer 7″ on your homepage really means “This website looks bad in most browsers except IE 7″. Avoid this situation by sticking to standard HTML (currently HTML 5) and using CSS to format text. This makes the look uniform across the website, across most browsers, and speeds up display.

Privacy and Security

Online privacy is a major concern. Even if a website does not engage in financial transactions, there are other basic security issues that are surprisingly not addressed by even larger commercial companies. Protect customer data by maintaining necessary security standards – SSL, encryption, server security, especially for e-commerce website design.

Customer involvement

Websites should include snippets of relevant news – maybe a feature on latest website additions or a newsletter to keep customers in the loop. By involving customers, you make them feel valued.

Customization to user preferences

Websites that allow customers to filter content to suit their preferences give a more targeted experience. Content, advertisements, and look – all get tailored to the customer’s needs. CNET is an excellent example of such a website. The website analyzes user demographics to deliver information and promos that are relevant to them.

Interactivity

The Web 2.0 generation expects interactivity in all websites. Blogs, forums – all help your business as you get fresh content every day and valuable feedback that helps you serve customers better. Include polls, trivia, lucky winners and other fun features to attract more customers and charge higher for ad space.

Selecting a website designer

The choice of a web designer involves the weighing of many factors – rates not being the most important. Your website will grow as your business expands. Your website designer should be able to support your long-term and short-term business needs. Here are a few guidelines for selecting a web design firm:

Know what you want

Before you start calling website designers, give some thought to what you would like your customers to see on your website. Check out the websites of local businesses and competition. Think from the customer’s perspective. Does this feature add to the readability? Does this help customers navigate the website faster? Does the website look good on your screen? Make notes and discuss the points with your designer.

Analyse professional website designs in your industry

Use the search terms you would expect customers to use on search engines for your products or services. Try this on Google, Yahoo! and Bing – the most popular search engines. Analyze the competition’s website designs. Study the content architecture, search engine optimization (SEO), interactivity, and user-friendly elements of their website. This will give you ideas on what you would like on your website.

Develop content that is SEO friendly

Writing for the web is not the same as writing for a magazine. You should hire a web content writer to develop your website’s content. You can do it yourself if you have the needed skills. Many website design packages include writing skills in their package. Make sure they have an expert to do it – outsourced or in-house. Large web design companies usually have teams managing different tasks.

Skilled content writers create copy for web readers – who have a very short attention span. They apply their copywriting skills to create compelling content that attracts customers.

Work with the writer. Help her get a sense of your business and goals. Make sure she and you are on the same page on search terms and keywords that your customers use. SEO content is critical to the natural page ranking of your website.

Get references

The best way to get an honest review of a web designer’s work is to talk to its clients. Most web design companies include portfolios on their website. Contact the website owners and ask about the quality of work, adherence to timelines, customer service, responsiveness, rates, and bad experiences if any.

The other way around is to get a web designer’s contact details from a website you like. Usually, websites have a “Web design by XYZ” link at the bottom. Clicking on it will take you to the designer’s website or display an email address to contact the company. Or you can call the numbers on the website and ask for the designer’s contact details. This way, you also get to hear the website owner’s opinion of the designer’s services.

Include a blog for interactivity

Many small business website designs include a blog. You can publish articles related to your products or services. A content writer can develop articles for you on a regular basis. All articles should be thoroughly edited before publishing as sloppy mistakes throw a bad light on your business’ professionalism.

Blogs work three ways – customers feel involved and care for your business more, sharing knowledge enhances your credibility and reliability as a business, and frequent updation makes your website more favorable to search engines.

Gauge the level of customer service

A website needs constant maintenance. Many web designers offer long-term services and work with you to keep your website in top form. Find out if the web design service will:

1. make changes as and when requested?
2. respond to requests quickly?
3. train your personnel if you want to maintain the website yourself?
4. charge you for website crashes that occur due to no fault of yours? If yes, how will you be charged?

Survey the market

Web design rates vary. Conduct a market survey to know what designers charge for various services. Have an average in mind before you discuss rates with your chosen web designer.

Study the contract

Read the contract thoroughly. Look at the charges for the actual web design and for associated services. Discuss the fees with the website designer and agree only if you are convinced. Read the fine print. Make sure there are no hidden charges or ambiguous statements. Have your business lawyer review the agreement before signing it.

Tips on optimizing website design

Though web design services will do all that is needed to develop and optimize your website, you can help them by doing some groundwork.

Collect website images

Collect high quality JPEG images for the designer to use on the website. Click your own or search on the internet. If you give the job to the designer, she will search for stock photographs. This will take time and money (to purchase the rights to the stock images). By doing this homework yourself, you can save both.

Secure domain name and web hosting account

Majority of website companies will offer hosting and domain services. However, you are not obligated to take them on. If the rates, services and past records are good, go for it. Else, you can get a better deal by buying domain name and hosting services from a large third party company. You’ll find web designers charge three to four times the rates charged by independent web hosting companies.

Analyze the website performance

Learn some tools to automate website maintenance and assess your website’s performance. There is a lot of freeware and shareware on the internet that can get you started. Some functions that tools can help you with include:

1. Assessing website popularity by measuring traffic, engagement, where users came from and where they went, what they browsed on your website, conversions and more…
2. Checking for broken links found by search engine crawlers
3. Managing website content yourself by using a CMS tool

The Internet is an interactive, dynamic, and rapidly changing medium that your website should reflect. Well-organized, and unique content set in an attractive, interactive, and consistent format are some traits of great Web sites.

Tags: Web Design

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