Tip for Successful Web Design

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Launching a website is both exciting and potentially rewarding. A well planned site can have a positive effect on your business, with online sales bucking the trend in an otherwise downbeat economy. Creating a website can also be a daunting task, with so many options to choose from and jargon to sift through. This article aims to help you plan your new website quickly and easily.

1. Set your goals

The first stage in planning your website is so simple it is often overlooked: set clear goals of what you want your website to achieve.

This could be to generate sales leads, sell products, or anything else you can imagine. Whatever it is, boil it down to a single mission statement. Try to quantify your goals, too. How many enquiries will you receive? What will the turnover be in each of the first three years?

2. Establishing a budget

You can build a simple website or blog for free these days, meanwhile large companies pump millions into their online presence. So how much should you spend?

Let’s say you have a turnover of 100,000 and you want to invest 8% to give an annual marketing budget of 8000. If you’re an online business you may choose to invest all of this on the web, if not then choose a suitable proportion.

In the movie “Field of Dreams” you may have heard the quote “If you build it, he will come”. This may be true for baseball, but not for new websites which require significant effort and investment in marketing after launch to be successful. Consider allocating up to 50% of your web budget not on the website itself, but on marketing it once it’s live.

3. Requesting a quotation

Assuming that you want to hire a professionals to create your website, the next step is to obtain some quotes. Write a document setting out what you want the website to achieve, what it will do, who the target audience will be, and a time scale for completion. You may also include what you expect in terms of training, support, and hosting. This document is known as a ‘request for proposal’ or RFP.

Send the RFP document to web development companies and they should send you back a detailed proposal together with full costings. Remember, the more information you can give in the RFP, the more likely it is you will get an accurate quote for exactly what you want.

4. Creating Content

There’s an old saying on the web that “content is king”. No matter how pretty the design, the quality and usefulness of the copy, images and other media are critical to the success of your website.

If you struggle with writing, consider using a professional copywriter. Choosing photos is trickier than it sounds, and is best left to a professional designer.

It’s worth getting started on the website content as soon as possible so it’s ready to populate the website and make the whole project go as smoothly and as quickly as possible.

5. Going live

Once your website is live and has been submitted to search engines, don’t expect overnight success as it can take months to appear in results pages.

Your web developer can install Google Analytics or a similar statistics package so you can track information about your visitors and how they are finding your website. You can use ‘goals’ within Google Analytics to track exactly where purchases or sales leads are being generated from.

You will also need to market your new website, perhaps using social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter, search engine optimisation (SEO), pay-per-click adverts, or email marketing.

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Sep

Flash Web Design Bad For Business

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Have you heard yourself saying, “I don’t understand? I have a gorgeous site, a really cutting-edge splash page with a flash introduction, up-to-date technology, I paid a small fortune for this site, and I’m getting plenty of hits but no one is buying or staying in the site.”

Well, you may be one of a growing number of businesses, both large and small, who believed all the hype about the latest in new technology. Many business owners want their website to have that cutting-edge look, and so will ask for things such as animation, music, flash, and other “bells and whistles” that would be detrimental to their site. These extras are probably driving potential customers away because they increase download time and are not search engine optimized.

In the rush to join everyone else on the Internet, businesses have ignored vital steps in the process of getting their business on-line. They assumed that because everyone else had gimmicks such as a splash/intro page, this was the right way to go. The result: businesses chose design companies who readily took their money and who designed exactly what the client wanted without clearly focusing on marketing goals. To be fair, oftentimes the graphic design company has no idea that a site designed with all the latest technology doesn’t necessary translate into a site that has the functionality that an on-line business needs. This is because the graphic design firms specialize in graphic design, not in marketing. Many graphic design sites are full of splash pages, scrolling text, animation, etc. They use these tools because it allows the graphic designers to display their creativity and their knowledge of these “bells and whistles.” Creativity is good but all the latest cutting-edge technology translates into a lack of functionality to effectively market any on-line business including their on-line presence.

When having your site designed, remember that first and foremost, you are building your site to increase prospects and sales. Don’t look for a graphic design firm that believes all you need to do is get in the search engines and place banners to be successful. Don’t hire a designer that is new to the Internet–meaning they have years of print design experience but have just decided to expand their horizons to the Internet. Don’t hire a graphic designer that doesn’t have a professional copywriter or marketing person on staff and don’t hire a graphic designer just because they are the cheapest. Remember, cheap can cost you money–you get what you pay for. Hire a marketing/design firm that understands the difference between form and function and can apply it in a marketing perspective. Remember, many of these latest bells and whistles are very expensive and your site may not need them to be effective.

Every single design element affects your web sites functionality and marketability–from the decision about how the navigation will work to choosing the right colors, fonts, graphics, content, HTML code, and more. These will not only influence potential customers but search engine indexing as well.

If and when you’re ready to begin your on-line presence, start with a business plan and strategy. It is essential if you really want your business to succeed. Don’t be afraid to research marketing trends and investigate a marketing/design firm that will fit your needs.

If you are currently on-line but your business is not progressing as you think it should, don’t be afraid to request a web site analysis. There are firms that will analyze and help pinpoint areas of your on-line presence that need improvement for a successful Internet presence.

Last, but not least, keep an open mind to what the firm offers as suggestions for making your Internet experience a profitable one. Remember, this is their livelihood, this is what they do and they have the experience to back it up.

Are you ready to be successful?

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Jun