Low Cost Web Site Design: Top 7 Design Trends for Web Sites

December 18th, 2006 by interdream

Posted in Web Site Design, Website Design Trends

The Web is constantly evolving as technology improves and web site design is evolving right along with it.

Online businesses are slowly realizing that the saying “If you build it, they will come” doesn’t always apply to their web sites.

A successful, high-traffic web site requires a lot of work in the areas of design, content and search engine optimization.

Web design has grown by leaps and bounds from the days of blue text on black backgrounds, type that goes all the way to the edge of your screen and beyond and sites that are packed with graphics.

Now, both web designers and online business owners are paying much more attention to how their web sites look and function. The following are 7 of the hottest trends currently in web design:

1. Design for Function

While the overall look of your web site is important, good looks will only go so far with visitors. Your design should be used to enhance your content as opposed to competing with it. The message you have for your visitors is what brings in sales, not how pretty your web pages are.

Most site owners and designers now recognize that the functionality of a web site is more important than how it looks because, if people can’t find their way around and purchases can’t be easily made, then the site has failed to do its job.

2. Colors

Back in the “old days” of the web it seemed as if the color palette people drew from consisted of eye-burning neons or black. Today the shift is more toward soft, neutral colors. Many designers are using gradients and reflections to make the site feel warmer and more inviting. Color palettes are leaning more towards earth tones, which don’t stand out or cause people to lose focus on your content.

3. Simplicity

While graphics and Flash animations continue to grow in complexity, the best web designs go for a simple approach. If you look at sites like Apple, Ebay and Amazon, you”ll see simple, easy to navigate designs that draw customers in and make their shopping experience as easy as possible.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about the remaining 4 design trends for web sites.

Low Cost Web Site Design: How to pick a web designer

December 12th, 2006 by interdream

Posted in How to pick a web designer, Low Cost Web Site Design Secrets, Web designer, Web Site Design

Practically nobody would build a store at the mall or downtown making the place uninviting and difficult. So it’s surprising that so many people skimp on their web sites with their online business.

Your web site is the first impression people get about your business and the products or services you provide. And regardless of how awesome those products and services are, people will pass you by if your web site isn’t professional looking and easy to navigate.

I understand how expensive it can be to start up any kind of business and the temptation to cut corners is great, but if you don’t know anything about web design, you might consider hiring a professional designer to put your site together.

So how do you find a competent web designer?

Word of mouth

The first thing to do is to ask for referrals. Just like asking around to find a good plumber, find some businesses with successful web sites and ask who their designer is. Compile a list of several top names, because web designers all have different areas of expertise. Some are great at making clean sites, some specialize in fancy graphics and animations while others only focus on the programming part.

A great designer should have a combination of design skills, technical skills and marketing skills as the web site needs to be clean, easy to use as well as promote your business.

And remember that, while it’s always best to meet someone face to face when doing business, don’t let the fact that someone who works out of town discourage you if they’re good. Many successful web sites have been created without the parties ever having met in person. That’s the beauty of the net.

Interview

Once you have a list of likely candidates, contact them and ask for a portfolio of web sites they’ve created. This is the best way to get a feel for how a designer works and to see if they’d be a good match for creating the site you have in mind.

Also, when looking through these web sites, there are several points you need to ask yourself:
– Is it easy to find your way around the site?
– Is the navigation system clear and easy to use?
– Can you easily access all of the pages and are there any broken links?
– Is the contact information easy to find?
– What about the content? Is there enough information about the company including location, what they provide and policies?
– How about the text? Is it easy to read? Are they using ‘artsy’ fonts or something more business appropriate?
– How fast do the pages load? This is especially crucial for your business. Even though many people are now using broadband connections, most don’t want to wait more than a few seconds for pages to come up.
– Pay attention to the colors the designer uses. Too many colors and too many different fonts are confusing, unprofessional and usually are the mark of an amateur.

Answering these questions, as well as taking some time to thoroughly investigate a web designer’s portfolio can help you narrow down your search. Also, when looking through a designer’s portfolio, pay attention to see if the sites all look the same. There’s no reason to hire someone if you’re simply going to get a web site that looks like someone else’s.

Are all web designers created equal?

One thing to watch out for is people whose primary design skills lie in print media and graphic design. Many of these folks, while talented, don’t understand what it takes to make a good web site. There’s a lot more involved than just knowing how to use programs like Dreamweaver, Front Page or Go Live. A good web designer will be able to assist you with every element of the creation of your web site. They should know the ins and outs of good web design, web hosting, creating optimized graphics for the web, database creation, Internet marketing and promotion and maintenance of your site.

Never be afraid to ask as many questions as you want and don’t ever be satisfied until you get the answers. Good designers are always willing to help a client get the best web site for the money spent and most are experienced in dealing with people who aren’t web experts. Also, ask about a guarantee. Professionals are concerned with their client’s satisfaction.

What about communication?

Another thing to consider when choosing a web designer is their response time. Get someone who is readily available and can be counted on to get back to you in a timely manner if there are questions or problems.

Once you’ve narrowed down your list to a few good candidates, ask each one for some references that you can contact. Ask these references about their experience working with the designer. This is probably the best way to gauge how well the designer will work for you.

I know this seems like an awful lot of work, but when you’re spending thousands of dollars to get your site up and running, you must make sure your money is being well spent. Follow these guidelines and there’s little room for failure in finding a competent, professional web designer who is easy to work with and will do a professional job.

Low Cost Web Site Design – 10 things you can do to improve your website immediately

November 25th, 2006 by interdream

Posted in Low Cost Web Site Design Secrets, Web Site Design, Website design tips

For many struggling website owners, the big question of the hour is how they can improve their website to increase sales. The answer really depends on what the goal of your site is and what your target audience is. Here are 10 things you can do to improve your website immediately.

1. A good page title:

It may seem like a no-brainer, but when people use a site like Google to find things, they only scan the results for a moment. Make sure your web page title is short, catchy and memorable. You want people to not only visit but also bookmark your site and come back on a regular basis.

2. A strong headline:

Okay, you’ve got people on your site, now, how do you make them stay? Depending on how good your overall design is the next thing people are going to notice is the text. Introduce your text with a bold headline. This is your opportunity to tell them the reason why they need to keep reading your copy. Make it strong, confident, easy to understand and to the point. ‘How To’ headlines and headlines that pose an interesting question work especially well, as do problem based headlines.

3. Improve the text above the fold:

This is an old newspaper term that referred to making the story that was above the fold of the front page as strong as possible to sell more papers. People aren’t going to scroll down your site and read the rest of it if what you have in the top half of the screen isn’t compelling.

4. Make the benefits of your website clear:

This is usually done in the first bit of text on the page or even with the headline. Tell people why your site will meet their needs and how you can solve their problem.

5. Include testimonials:

Testimonials from your clients are great to establish trust. Visitors will trust you because others tell you how wonderful you are, instead of you blowing your own horn. Testimonials with ‘before’ and ‘after’ stories are effective. Use a name on the testimonial so it is authentic. Include a picture of the person, if possible. It helps to add legitimacy.

6. Use contrast:

Is there a strong contrast between the background colour and text color on your web page? Contrast is what draws your visitor’s eyes to the content. Black text on a white background is best for optimal readability.

7. Make your website more focused:

If your site looks like a sprawling mess of content, you can sharpen it up by giving it focus. Does your website state clearly who you are, what you do and what you can offer your visitors? Get rid of any content that doesn’t speak directly to your target audience and delete any extra bells and whistles that your page doesn’t really need. Let content drive your site.

8. Have easily accessible contact info:

Nothing can be more frustrating for a customer who is visiting your website for the first time than hunting around for several minutes trying to find an email or phone number to call so they can reach you. Make sure the contact information on your website is easily accessible.

9. Make it easy for your visitor to scan:

Use subheads in your copy so it’s easier for your visitor to scan and know what your web page is about at a glance. Besides subheads, use bold text and bullet points and short paragraphs. If visitors cannot scan your web pages quickly, they will leave.

10. A call to action:

Remember, when a visitor lands on your website, you want them to take action. Tell them what to do. If it is to order a particular product or to click further into the site, you need to involve the reader in your site. Always have a call to action at the end of every page.

By following the above tips, you can make the most out of your little home on the web.

Low Cost Web Site Design: What’s in a title?

November 3rd, 2006 by interdream

Posted in Web Site Design

One of the easiest things you can do to optimize your web page is to write a relevant page title. The page title is the sentence that appears on the blue bar at the top of your browser. It goes within the html tag. Search engines use the page title as the heading to list your site. The length shouldn’t exceed 64 characters. Page titles are also used when a reader bookmarks your site.

Consider these tips for page titles:

– use short and pertinent titles
– use appropriate keywords to describe the page in the title.
– titles for each page should be unique
– don’t start the title with your site name.

The importance of a good title is crucial to the success of your web page. Good page titles make it easier for people to find you when using the search engines. By looking at the title, your readers will get an idea of what your page is about at a glance.

Take a look at your page title. Does it describe your web page with relevant keywords? If not, change the title.

Low Cost Web Site Design : Really In – Web 2.0

September 11th, 2006 by interdream

Posted in Web 2.0, Web designer, Web Site Design

As we’ve discussed, dynamic sites are in, and static sites are way, way out. To review, a static website is one that is much like a catalog, while a dynamic site ideally lends itself to much more updating and interaction.

Then, there’s a site that is compatible with the Web 2.0 style of marketing.

Before you start getting upset about yet another way in which you’ll have to overhaul your website 🙂 let me be the first to tell you that joining the Web 2.0 evolution is not nearly that complicated. First, let’s talk about what Web 2.0 actually is.

Wikipedia defines it as follows:

Web 2.0 is a term often applied to a perceived ongoing transition of the World Wide Web from a collection of websites to a full-fledged computing platform serving web applications to end users. Ultimately Web 2.0 services are expected to replace desktop computing applications for many purposes.

Don’t let this scare you though – it doesn’t mean your site has to have all the fixings of an office productivity suite in order for it to stay relevant. What it does mean, is that your site needs to catch up to the message that comes out of this movement. That message is that the Web isn’t just a place to passively look up things – it’s a place to participate, a place to BE.

Even if you have a site that is strictly corporate in nature, you can use many of the tools used in Web 2.0 Marketing in order to spread the message of your site deeply into niches that previously may have seemed hard to reach.

For example. you can start an RSS feed, a podcast, an internal or external blog, or use trackback and tagging in your online press releases. Doing so will help you reach a more web-savvy, affluent crowd of clients – important if you’re selling a product online, or to a crowd that does its research online, like people in the market for a home. Marketing your site with Web 2.0 methods doesn’t mean you need to change your site around.

It means you need to update your strategy.

Low Cost Web Site Design : Out – Static Sites

September 10th, 2006 by interdream

Posted in Web Site Design, Website Design Trends

What’s a static site? A static site is a web property that doesn’t change. It’s like a catalog or a billboard, it just sits there advertising the company. There was a time when it was appropriate to have a site that basically exiwted to proclaim your dominance over your competitor for being on the web… that time was oh… about 1997.

Today, what you want to have is a dynamic site. Not necessarily just a site that is a super-cool web app or a huge community site with forums and other communication tools, if they are outside the realm of your company. But even if your company doesn’t actually conduct its business online, your site should have the ability to tell someone how to reach people at your company, and offer some level of interactivity with your clients.

Maybe they can look up account information, or perhaps they will be able to see when their next appointment is. You could have video demos of your products, that clients can comment on. Or you could just have an area where you talk about industry news.

Even if it’s just a form to fill out in order to send an email, or customer service buttons that allow your staff to chat with interested parties wh are visitng the site, a little interactivity goes a long way. The more useful your site is, the more visitors will return. The more they return, the more they bond to your brand.

Nina

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Web Site Design : If Hit Counters are Out, What’s In?

July 14th, 2006 by interdream

Posted in Web Site Design, Website design tips, Website Design Trends

In vogue for web site design where statistics are concerned, are keeping your numbers relatively private, and putting the focus on the quality of your site. Learn more about common web statistics terms mean, and learn how to see what they mean for your site.

A hit, for example, is generated by each object that loads on your pages and registers with a web browser. That means if you have 5 graphics on a page, each one of them will register a hit. More important is a web page view, or page view for short. That measurement tells you that the page loaded successfully in your visitors browser. If you have an informational site, it may be important to have more page views – no one wants to have a resource site that people immediately click away from, for example. Conversely, if most of your blog readers follow you by your feed, you’ll only get a page view registered for each time they access your feed, no matter how many entries they read.

In these cases, it’s even more important to count the visitors. The visitors are counted by the number of times a unique address, computer or person visits your site. Sometimes, the address that would normally determine one visitor is shared, so when visitors go by unique IP address, as they are called, it isn’t always accurate.

It may under-estimate how many visitors, in the case where an Internet Service Provider such as AOL, may use the same IP address to represent all the visitors from one particular area. It may over-estimate how many visitors are coming to your site in the case of an auto-surf program or purchased visitors that aren’t generated by re-directed expired domains or manual surf exchanges. Your web visitor log or statistics program may register thousands of visitors from thousands of IP addresses, and yet none of them view your site.

A more reliable way to measure is by a program that places cookies on a remote user’s computer to track their visit, however some visitors don’t like them as much and may block them. The Google Web Analytics program uses cookies to track visitors, and is free.

If you have visitors that you think will have a problem with cookies, add the purpose of the cookie to your site’s privacy policy. Before you use a program that includes cookies, weigh the probability that more sophisticated users will block them, or not use your site, against how valuable having that data will be in helping you server your clients better.

Web Site Design : What’s Out and What’s In

July 13th, 2006 by interdream

Posted in Low Cost Web Site Design Secrets, Top website design trends, Web Site Design, Website design tips, Website Design Trends

Over the next few posts we’ll be talking about what’s sooo 1998, and what’s the next new thing in web site design.

Hit Counters

Any site created past 2002 should not have a hit counter that shows how many visitors have been to the site at the bottom of the page.

First of all, the number is not accurate. Hit counters count “hits”, not visitors, and not page views. We can go deeply into the differences another day, but suffice it to say that the number of “hits” says almost nothing about the success level of your site. Displaying it on your page screams “I’m a newbie!”

And your site, especially if it’s professional, should Never say that.

Web Site Design: Connecting to Your Visitors with Clarity

July 12th, 2006 by interdream

Posted in Web designer, Web Site Design, Website design tips

One great way to establish a connection with your website visitors is to tell them why you exist, up front. You should have at least one line that states your purpose, preferably on the home page of your site, like a tag line under your title, unless of course the name of your website implies its purpose. EzineArticles.com tells me why I’m there are soon as I arrive.

When you create this statement of purpose, remember that you’re supposed to be telling a story from your visitors point of view, not your own. You don’t want to say “We’re the sausage company. Our company was founded in 1980.” Aren’t your eyes glazing over right now.

How about this, though?

“Fat, juicy, ready-to-eat sausages. Delivered to your home overnight or available for pick-up, right now.”

Think about what the biggest and most immediate benefit a client would get from visiting your site. Then talk about it on your home page – it’s not often where visitors land, but it is where they go when they don’t understand where they are.

Web Site Design : Does the Function of Your Website Determine Its Design?

July 11th, 2006 by interdream

Posted in Functionality in websites, Web Site Design, Website design and function, Website design tips

Yesterday we concluded a 30 part series on low cost web site design secrets. You can always read the entire series by going to the low cost web site design category.

Today, we’re asking a different question – in web site design, does function influence design? The short answer is yes. The long answer is “yes, but” and we’ll get into that in a moment.

First, let’s look at why we’re asking the question in the first place.

Many times, when people come to me for a unique web site style, they aren’t in the right part of the process to be looking for a designer. Either the site is already built, and they should have found a real designer before deploying the site, or they are still at the stage of thinking where they know that starting a new business means that they need a website, but they don’t know why.

One of the questions you need to answer before you go to a web designer is, “what will this website do to increase profits for the company?” The answer may be an indirect correlation – better public relations. In that case, you may need a design that incorporates a forum or a weblog. Or you might realize that you can capture leads or make sales directly from the web.

A public relations site is going to have a different format from a leads capture site.

Now we get to the “yes, but”. You might find out that you need more than one site, or a site that is built with expansion in mind. For some businesses, it is smarter to have one site for capturing leads, and another for getting visitors from search engines. Or you may need to have one purely commercial site, and another that simply exists to inform, which drives traffic to the other website.

If you aren’t sure why you need a site in the first place, or what you want your site to do, one solution is to have a short consultation with your web site designer and your marketing department before moving forward. Between them, they can come up with a plan for executive review.