The Importance of Layout to the Success of an Online Business
The Importance of Layout to the Success of an Online Business
I wanted to find out why customers don’t enter these sites even after the search engines brought them to the websites. The answer was staring right at my face when I clicked on the websites. The home page layout was boring, dull, colorless and confusing. The links were cluttered and the whole structure of the home page was in one word, uninteresting. This was the reason why most of the customers didn’t want to enter the site. Subconsciously they got repulsed at the way the site looked and went searching for more attractive sites. I solved the problem by entirely restructuring the layouts of their websites by adding colors, and graphics to emphasize the areas we wanted the visitor to notice. I also placed the links in such a way that it was easy for the visitors to navigate and enter. The results were amazing. These online businesses made dramatic turnarounds and their conversion rates increased significantly.
My years of experience in the online marketing industry have made me understand one important aspect of website designing and that is; no matter how good a website is in luring visitors, without a good inviting homepage layout all the potential customers are going to simply walk away. A home page is the critical point where a potential customer can get an instant idea of what he or she can expect to get from the website. This is precisely why I always make it a point to spend some quality time just on the layout alone. Adding and mixing the right colors, graphics and easy navigational links are a top priority for me.
There are plenty of statistics that prove beyond a doubt that a proper layout contributes immensely to the success of an online business. Anyone with a thorough knowledge of how an online business works and has helped online businesses taste success by providing good web designs will endorse my views. My formula for developing layouts for websites is to keep the design simple yet attractive. My practice is not to provide everything on the home page itself but to place easily identifiable navigational links that are easy to use for the customer. The trick is in helping the customer find his way into the site and the more time he or she spends on the site, the more chances of the prospect converting to a sale. I select graphics that have a role to play and a message to convey rather than cluttering up the site with graphics that are added for effect and nothing else. Color schemes are chosen with a purpose. The purpose is to get the attention of the target customers and retain it.
Given the fact that visual appeal increases the chances of success and we humans process visuals around 60,000 times faster than other forms of communication and also the fact that most of what we learn is through our eyes, don’t you think it is necessary to have images, color and graphics on the website layout that are pleasing to the human eye?
Your website is far too important to leave to inexperienced designers, hiring a competent online marketing company can not only bring the right visitors to your website, but they can re-design the site to appeal to those visitors in ways that will vastly improve the performance of converting visitors to customers.
The Importance of Layout to the Success of an Online Business - To learn more about this author, visit John McEntyre's Website.
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Experienced online marketing companies and web design companies know how much a well designed layout is important to the success of an online business. Let us assume that your website is like a virtual office or a virtual showroom and the home page is your reception desk. Isn’t it important to have a well maintained and tastefully done reception with pleasant and courteous reception staff to greet your customers? First impression is the best impression and this is very true in the case of online business too. I have come across many onsite business owners complaining that their website is not delivering the expected results in spite of employing good Search Engine Optimization (SEO) methods. They complain that even though the traffic generated is satisfactory, the visitors to their websites don’t hang on, they just vanish. This is like so near and yet so far because on the internet you are only a click away from your competition.
I wanted to find out why customers don’t enter these sites even after the search engines brought them to the websites. The answer was staring right at my face when I clicked on the websites. The home page layout was boring, dull, colorless and confusing. The links were cluttered and the whole structure of the home page was in one word, uninteresting. This was the reason why most of the customers didn’t want to enter the site. Subconsciously they got repulsed at the way the site looked and went searching for more attractive sites. I solved the problem by entirely restructuring the layouts of their websites by adding colors, and graphics to emphasize the areas we wanted the visitor to notice. I also placed the links in such a way that it was easy for the visitors to navigate and enter. The results were amazing. These online businesses made dramatic turnarounds and their conversion rates increased significantly.
My years of experience in the online marketing industry have made me understand one important aspect of website designing and that is; no matter how good a website is in luring visitors, without a good inviting homepage layout all the potential customers are going to simply walk away. A home page is the critical point where a potential customer can get an instant idea of what he or she can expect to get from the website. This is precisely why I always make it a point to spend some quality time just on the layout alone. Adding and mixing the right colors, graphics and easy navigational links are a top priority for me.
There are plenty of statistics that prove beyond a doubt that a proper layout contributes immensely to the success of an online business. Anyone with a thorough knowledge of how an online business works and has helped online businesses taste success by providing good web designs will endorse my views. My formula for developing layouts for websites is to keep the design simple yet attractive. My practice is not to provide everything on the home page itself but to place easily identifiable navigational links that are easy to use for the customer. The trick is in helping the customer find his way into the site and the more time he or she spends on the site, the more chances of the prospect converting to a sale. I select graphics that have a role to play and a message to convey rather than cluttering up the site with graphics that are added for effect and nothing else. Color schemes are chosen with a purpose. The purpose is to get the attention of the target customers and retain it.
Given the fact that visual appeal increases the chances of success and we humans process visuals around 60,000 times faster than other forms of communication and also the fact that most of what we learn is through our eyes, don’t you think it is necessary to have images, color and graphics on the website layout that are pleasing to the human eye?
Your website is far too important to leave to inexperienced designers, hiring a competent online marketing company can not only bring the right visitors to your website, but they can re-design the site to appeal to those visitors in ways that will vastly improve the performance of converting visitors to customers.
The Importance of Layout to the Success of an Online Business - To learn more about this author, visit John McEntyre's Website.
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Cheryl MatthynssensCheryl is a life skills coach, licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor and a 20 year entrepreneur. Cheryl's dedication to achieving a life of balance led to her expanding her teaching from the simple managing of life's daily challenges to adding financial well being as well. A direct marketer with DrinkACT, she is gaining ground in the online community with her concepts of making sure business owners, entreprenuers and employees have well rounded life styles. She opened up a small affiliate site - The Balance Guide- to help others find resources for mental and emotional well being. Visit Cheryl's blog to see more of the diversity beyond business she has began offering online at www.thebalanceguide.blogspot.com - Visit Cheryl Matthynssens's Website |
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John AlexanderJohn has taught keyword research and SEO skills to small groups of business owners and Webmasters from over 80 different countries world wide since 2002. John is also the Director of Search Engine Academy ; Co-director of Training at Search Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his partner SEO educator Robin Nobles, author of the very first comprehensive online search engine marketing courses at SEO Training Online and the SEO Workshop Resource Center. I look forward to hearing from you! - Visit John Alexander's Website |
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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Jeff FosterWebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. We specialize in internet consulting & internet marketing. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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