1. Modern Design

When I say make the design modern, I don’t mean to make it very flashy with the Battlestar Galactica in the background. I am talking about making the site within the bounds of the clients brand but using today trends. A good example of this is Prudential’s new website. They have shifted from their older look that shows a 2002-2005 presentation to a 2008-2009 modern look.

Prudential’s Old Design

Visit Old Site

New Site Design

Visit New Site

2. Compromising usability costs potential revenue

One of the leading reasons people leave a site and don’t become a converted revenue source is because they can not find their way around or have such a problem using the site that they leave from frustration. Usability comes before everything else. Check out my blog post around these core fundamentals to discover more: “Awesome Usability is Like Driving a Car ”

3. Calls to action = Calls for your business services/products

A website that has left out “calls to action” on their pages is leaving behind a lot of conversion opportunities. A call to action is a way to capture your audience so that they either call or submit some sort of contact information on your site. I always recommend making the site in a way that engages the user in many areas on the page to submit their information. It can be a sign up for a free white paper, a monthly newsletter, or to use a free service. What every way you can pull in a qualified lead is important in the success of a website. But make sure it doesn’t come before usability. At the end of the day you want to have qualified leads going to your mailbox or phone line.

4. Great targeted content makes people stay and recommend it to others

When a user comes to your site from a search engine, social media recommendation or a banner ad off a website, they are expecting to see something very targeted to the message they clicked from. The internet is massive with content everywhere. Your content should be compelling or the user will drop off and go somewhere else among the billions of websites on the internet to find the information they want. When I come to a page that isn’t talking about the topic I was expecting to see, or isn’t compelling me to look further, I bounce off the site 80% of the time in the first 2 seconds. Good content makes people want to pass it along to their friends. The social media market is becoming more used then email and spreads much faster. Opportunities are endless in this medium.

5. A website that is not optimized for search engines is invisible

Unfortunately, many web developers and designers are not trained on the importance of making a site in a way that is search engine optimized. It’s important to learn more about this topic even if its just the basics of SEO to help your site in the indexing of search engines. Providing great content, doing keyword research for each page, optimizing page titles, and adding good anchor text are important additions to any website. Check out more on what google says about SEO here.

I hope this information provides you a good base to think about when designing a website. If you would like more information or this is just work that you would rather have a professional do, please call us directly or provide some quick information below and we will get back to you in less then 24 hours.

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At my old job working for Zeta Interactive Agency, a great guy made a solid point I will probably never forget. He stated that “designing a website is like building a car.” He then went on to basically explain the same point I am going to outline from my experience.

When designing a website, I think of the web users as if they were buying a car. I ask myself what parts of the car should be instinctive when they are driving it? The steering wheel, stick shift, brake, gas peddle. On a website, these parts are the navigation and site structure. The best designs are consistent and easy to navigate through. Where ever the customer goes throughout the site the navigation is the same everywhere with out confusion. They don’t get lost trying to find their way around.

Making the car design stand out from the rest is like adding leather seats, a sunroof, seat warmers, nice sound system. On the website, incorporating subtle programming features, quality images, clean typography, and some subtle flash can make all the difference against your competitors.

I have a German car. When I was shopping around comparing my car to others, some of the great selling points were the quality of my car and how well it drove. I felt like I was in a car that was build to last. The same goes for great web design. When a potential customer comes to your site, you want them to feel like this is the company I want to do business with.

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