Your color scheme needs to be carefully considered since the wrong choice may have an adverse effect on your visitors, leading to lost traffic and lost sales. Take your time and choose wisely.
Whether you are a multinational corporation or a one-person home-based business, your brand says a lot about you and your company. It can help set you apart from the competition and form the groundwork for future growth. Your brand is more than just a logo on your letterhead and business cards. It is your identity, letting the world know who you are, what you do, and how you do it.
When creating your brand, there are several things to think about. Who is your target audience? What is important to them? What are your business's key features and competitive advantages? Why would somebody choose you over your competition?
In today's world, where the search engine is king, developing a business name, logo, and tagline that not only expresses your identity, but also optimizes on key search terms is extremely important. The colors and fonts you use should help to relay the mood or feeling that you are trying to get across.
It is important to remember that all pieces of your brand should be suitable for use on your letterhead, business cards, website, catalogs, menus, decor, and signage. When marketing across different platforms, such as direct mail, newspaper, Facebook, Twitter, email, and your website be sure that all of these mediums have the same look and feel. When directed to your website through other media, a tight integration of the branding experience will tell your customer they have come to the right place, encourage further investigation, and support their decision to return in the future.
The Rule of Seven says a prospective customer needs to see or hear your marketing message at least seven times before they take action. If everything in your brand is used consistently, over a short period of time, you will achieve instant recognition.
Ever heard the old adage, why mess with a good thing? Well, that’s certainly true when it comes to the layout of your website. Your customers don’t want to spend a lot of time trying to look for information on your site. There are certain things they expect, and if you want them to stick around, you really need to meet those expectations.
Size Matters
It is important to keep your pages short. The majority of web users will never scroll more than four pages down, and most prefer to have all of the information provided in two.
In order to make sure that web users with smaller monitors won’t have to scroll left and right to see the content on your site, it is best to limit the width of your page to 776 pixels. However, you can consider a page width of 960 pixels if you know your audience is made up of higher end users with the latest technology.
It’s important to keep the file size of your webpage small. This includes not only the text on your page, but also the size of the graphics and other files that have to load in order to support your page. The sum total of these files controls the speed at which your page loads. There are a lot of people still using a 56K modem, and if it takes them longer than 8 seconds to load the key information on the page, they are on their way to check out another site. It’s a good idea to test your pages for speed before turning it out to the real world.
Location, Location, Location
Web users are busy people, often having multiple things going on at one time, and for this reason, they will resize their browser windows to fit as much on their screen as possible. Be sure to place your content at the top of the page and either center it or place it all the way to the left so it’s not affected by these changes to the browser size.
Most websites will place the navigation at the top of the page or to the left. Since this is what your customers are used to, it’s really a good idea to stick with it. The occasional site will place the navigation on the right, but this is only successful if done right. The smart thing to do is stick with what you know works, and keep it up and to the left.
Short and Sweet
Visitors to your site really don’t like to read; they scan, and usually in the shape of an F. They start at the top scanning left to right, move down a bit and scan left to right, followed by a scan down the left side of the page.
This means that you need to keep your information short and sweet, make sure that the first two paragraphs on the page contain the important information that you want to get across quickly and follow these by bulleted or highlighted information with key data in the first two words of whatever is listed.
The Look
When designing your site, it’s a good idea to use web safe colors that will look the same on any computer with any browser. And while you’re at it, don’t forget to test your color combinations for color deficient eyesight. 8% of all men and ½% of all women have some form of colorblindness. That’s a good portion of your audience, so don’t forget about them.
Don’t flood your site with images or graphics that are popping and flashing all over the place. Your audience will lose sight of the important stuff, your message. Make sure it looks neat and clean by adding white space to break up and emphasize the information that you want to get across.
Finally, it’s important to be consistent with the look of your site as you go from page to page. Once your customers have arrived at your site and decided they are interested enough to move on to the next page, don’t take a chance of losing them by trying something new. Be sure to give them what they expect and they may stick around a little bit longer.
One of the biggest decisions you will have to make when developing your Website is deciding who will build it. You need a talented Web designer in order to effectively symbolize your business for the digital world. Though modern Web design tools have made it easy to throw a site together, a poorly developed Website can have a negative impact on your business.
To build a Website properly, one must understand visual appeal and how it affects your customer’s experience, know how to provide functionality that will make the site usable, and have the ability to craft messages that are interesting enough to hold your customer’s attention. In other words, you must be a designer, developer, and marketer all rolled into one.
Here are a couple of things to consider before deciding to handle your Website development internally:
Do you have the expertise required? Do you understand the technology and the tools?
If you answered No to either of these questions, then you must take into account significant delays to your project as you work to fix these issues.
Of course, there are some pros to developing you Website in-house. You will have complete control over your project, and the in-house knowledge will allow you to make future enhancements or modifications without incurring additional external expenses. But, on the other hand, professional Website designers build sites for a living and can drastically cut your implementation time and improve the quality of your site.
For your website to be effective, it must speak to your target market, the main audience that you want to have visit your website and benefit from your products and services. As a matter of fact, to be truly effective your website needs to speak to your ideal client. So, take a look at your current clients. Is there a particular group you prefer to work with? What qualities do they share? Do your best clients come from the same industry or profession? Do they own the same type of business? Do they share a particular personality trait or outlook on life, fall within a specific age range, live in a particular geographical location, or maintain a certain income level?
Take a look at the trends you find in your current client base for clues. There are details associated with your ideal client, such as:
Once you know who you are talking to you can design a website that speaks to him or her. For example:
Every industry or profession has common terms that have specific meanings to the members of that group. Using this language on your website shows that you understand them.
In addition to enhancing you local search engine rankings, referencing geographic information in your copy helps your visitors know they have come to the right place.
You will be able to determine your color palette, select your imagery, and organize the information on your site, as well as tailor your Internet marketing plan to your market and maximize your return on investment, giving you the most for your time and money.
It is important to know if your target market makes use of the Internet. Will they even be interested in purchasing your products or services online? Try talking to several people within your market and listening to what they have to say.
Jumping into your website creation without knowing your target market is like shooting a bow and arrow without ever taking aim. If you hit the target it was pure luck.
Whatever your purpose, this is the first step. Treat the definition of purpose as you would any other major business decision. Think about the return on investment and make yourself accountable. You need to know what you want to accomplish and what your visitors will want to gain.
Once you have it figured out, write it down. Make it your mission, a Website Mission Statement. Be clear and concise. Let this guide your actions, spell out your overall goal, provide a sense of direction, and guide your decision-making. This is the context within which your website design will be formulated. Think about your target market, moral / ethical image, key features, special considerations, and expectations of growth. Then break it down into small achievable goals and keep it visible at all times. Know how and when you plan to evaluate your progress.
This may sound a bit overwhelming, but taking the time to do it up front will help you develop a site that can grow and improve over time. Otherwise, you might as well be trying to hit a moving target, and you will never feel the satisfaction of even a small success.