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Website Design Components

Guest post by: MIchael Daley

Article Overview: A well designed website will attract your ideal customer and prompt dialogue with your business. The following highlights are key components that you might keep in mind as

Website Design Components

The internet can be a scary place for a small business entrepreneur, especially if you are accustomed to doing business face-to-face. A number of studies show a well-built website will generate better customer traffic, lengthier landing times, and a well designed user interface will increase conversion - generating new business at an exponential rate.

Designing a website should tie into brand recognition. This will allow your customers to recall your competitive advantage and any relationship they have built with your company. The same consistency that you designed into your business cards, brochures, labels, etc. should be incorporated into your website.

The design of your website therefore should be an extension of the corporate brand including colors, logo, and the overall look and feel. Don't forget to include your corporate slogan if you have one. Branding builds trust and recall among your customers, and it's not just for big businesses.

Effective website design can, in some cases, project to the customer the quality of your business. If it is user friendly, clear in its value proposition, consistent in its layout and visuals, and uses color to generate emotions then it is quite possible the customer can be subtly convinced that your company provides a quality service or product superior to competition.

Here are some ideas for you to consider when designing your website or freshening an existing one:

• Set up your website with white or very light backgrounds with black or other dark colored text.
• Use Verdana or Ariel fonts.
• Navigation bars should be horizontal; typically running across the top of the home page.
• Links should run down the left or right hand side of the page.
• If you do not have a specific color associated with your company, then do research on colors and the corresponding emotions they elicit. Colors have the ability to make one feel happy, sad, uncomfortable, nervous, trusting and a lot more. And if the color is not given enough thought, it may put across a wrong image about the company.
• Make all your pages consistent with the Home page. This should include layout, colors, logo, and font.
• Do not try to provide a lot of information and a call to action on one page. It is better to have an extra tab than to force a customer to read an overload of content before asking for the order.
• Make sure your site is designed to load quickly.
• Complete a spell check!
• Solicit feedback about your design.

These are basic ideas and by no means are they the opinions of a professional web designer. But one thing is certain; designing a website is not a one-time event but rather an extension of your corporate brand development. As your brand evolves so should the brand's website. The proper design of your website can communicate quality, professionalism, the benefits of doing business with you, and a call to action. The design of your website can have a stunning impact on how your customers view your company and make it easy for them to recall the message your brand is communicating.

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Article Tags: entrepreneur, internet marketing, small business, website design



Related Forum Posts
Re: what position to request? - Hi Michael, Great suggestion from David, or you could try something around a design consultancy, How about Website Design Consultant, Design and Development Manager, Website Support and Development Manager or maybe Internet Business Development Consultant. Ultimately whatever you are comfortable with and good luck for the future, Mal.
Re: Reduce Bounce Rate - Website bounce rate matters most today. You can decrease by providing 1. Good Web Layout And Design 2. Relevant and unique content 3. Content clear and proper navigation 4. Improve website loading speed 5. Add relevant images 6. Analysis of keywords 7. Minimize pages 8. optimize your target keywords 9. Good quality of links 10. Take People Where They Want to Go
Managing Your Website - Hi Beat I know what you are talking about when you say it could be a frustrating experience. I would recommend to every business owner to find a website partner who can handle the Website Design/SEO/Hosting by themselves while still at a reasonable cost to your business. This is the most economical way to operate the online side of your business if you are unsure about it. I actually do this for a few clients myself and all I do is send them a bill every year for hosting/seo but if there are any problems its up to me to call the hosting company to find out what's wrong as well as keep them high ranking for particular keywords. If anyone else has found it difficult with their website, hosting or the management of any online services please post your feedback here and I'll try to advise your best option.
Re: Top Banner Help - [quote:35xjo6uq]Good job on the banners BennyBoy![/quote:35xjo6uq] No probs:) I agree Online Marketing and Publicity Search Engine Optimization - Web Design and Programming Blogging also may be... Web Design Tutorials Looking to Hire - jobs section Interesting Articles / websites
Learn SEO and web design? or Outsource? or Partner? - [quote="TheAnonymousMan":fiwtvhid]I would recommend to every business owner to find a website partner who can handle the Website Design/SEO/Hosting by themselves while still at a reasonable cost to your business. This is the most economical way to operate the online side of your business if you are unsure about it[/quote:fiwtvhid] Hi TheAnonymousMan, Do you recommend this course of action because you feel that it's too much work for an entrepreneur to be the "jack of all trades"? What if the business a startup is trying to launch is completely an online venture? Wouldn't it be more practical (and cost efficient, especially in the long run) for that entrepreneur to learn how to create or at least update his/her own website? In fact, a lot of times, I hear how startups tend to give too many shares of the company to their partnering web designer, only to regret it later. How much should one give?


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